The archipelago of Svalbard in the Barents Sea has a distinct Arctic micro-climate. Located off the east coast of Greenland, and also known as Spitsbergen, it is fed by the warm, salty West Spitsbergen Current. As a result of this recent natural warming from the sea, Svalbard has increased its summer sea ice-free days by up to four times more than all other areas in the Arctic. Just the place for Sir David Attenborough and his team to turn up with their cameras as they seek to persuade us that polar bears are facing an existential threat to their existence. Less summer sea ice means less opportunity to hunt for seal food.
The distinguished polar bear scientist Dr. Susan Crockford notes that Svalbard is not representative of the Arctic in general. A 2016 paper by the ecologist Eric Regehr showed that the area around Svalbard was unusually warm compared to other locations. He produced the three graphs below to show this, and noted that the Barents Sea ice decline measured in increased ice-free days lost per year was six times higher than Hudson Bay, home of the most southerly sub-population of polar bears.
In 2020, two Polish oceanographers published the results of an investigation into recent increases in the temperature and salinity of the West Spitsbergen Current from 1997 to 2016. They found that over the two decades studied, the increase in the water temperature was associated with considerable changes in the salinity of the various water layers. The warmer waters and increased salt content are certain to have played a part in at least some of the higher levels of summer sea ice loss seen around the Barents Sea in recent years. Ocean currents are complex and are subject to a large number of influences. A long cycle of 70-80 years appears to be caused by the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation which pulses warm waters into the Arctic. Observations and measurements going back to the early 1800s suggest extensive waxing and waning of Arctic ice over a similar period.
The first episode of Frozen Planet II filmed the polar bears in Svalbard and warned that less summer sea ice is threatening their existence. This Sunday the programme returns to the area. The message from Attenborough is clear. As the Daily Sceptic noted in a recent article, he claimed that Arctic summer sea ice could all be gone by 2035. This improbable guess arose from a 2020 computer model, and it seems increasingly out of date. During the last decade, Arctic sea ice has started to make a small recovery. According to the latest data from the U.S.-based National Snow and Data Center, the sea ice extent at the end of August “is likely to remain higher than in recent years”. The EU Copernicus weather service has reported that coverage of sea ice is now very close to the 1991-2020 average.
Dr. Crockford reports that despite the recent loss of summer sea ice, Svalbard bears are thriving. The reason is clear. The ice in April and May, when the bears do most of their feeding, is “abundant”, and has not changed in recent years. She provides a recent sea ice area chart below to substantiate her claim.
According to Dr Crockford, the BBC/Attenborough agenda demands a certain message be told about climate change, and the people involved are “not about to let scientific facts get in their way”. She believes that the programme is calculated climate change propaganda marketed as entertainment.
Crockford notes the recent comments of Frozen Planet II Executive Producer Mark Brownlow: “Environmental storytelling is much more engrained in this series. We get the audience invested in our characters, which we then use to communicate the message,” he helpfully explained. Brownlow then stated that a sequence of young seal pups being blown off small ice floes in episode 1, “reveals the ‘difficult truth’ that storms are more frequent and the ice is thinning due to climate change”.
“You are emotionally engaged,” said Brownlow. Common reports that children are going to bed in tears and adults are flocking to climate change therapy sessions would seem to indicate Brownlow is onto something here. Is there any point in telling all the distressed folk what Dr Crockford thinks?
“Never mind that harp seal abundance across the Arctic is at an all-time high because numbers in the north west Atlantic are booming, or that a storm or low ice coverage at the wrong time of any year can cause high pup mortality,” she says.
The second episode of Frozen Planet II airs this Sunday on BBC at 8pm. Dr. Crockford has some viewing advice: “Buyer beware.”
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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Clean energy
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Oxymoron if ever you saw one
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All thinking, free people are constantly having to navigate between the Lilliputians on one side (the sheep, tying you down) and on the other side the Brobdingnagians, arbitrarily bashing you on the head (governments).
Ah Swift.
And I read that this week’s Energy Secretary has rolled over to the Renewable Unreliables by upping the contract price as demanded ( which they may not pay if “markets” go against them or has that loophole been shut definitely?)
“the stupidity is so mindbogglingly obvious”
It isn’t stupidity, it’s malice, and part of the deliberate destruction of this country.
(That’s not to say that there aren’t plenty of imbeciles who support this.)
For how much longer must we watch as our industries are dismantled, our society reined in, and our travel restricted etc all because of the massive lies about climate change and the fanatical Net Zero targets that must be met? It’s the slowest car crash in history. Jobs being thrown onto the altar of Net Zero and all this “…This proposal will secure a sustainable future for Welsh steel and is expected to save thousands of jobs in the long term.” bollocks from politicians who only know how to parrot what they’ve been told and have absolutely no effing idea about ordinary life of the citizens they are meant to represent let alone the science behind climate change but keep on offering these useless meaningless platitudes as if they do actually mean something – and to whom are they speaking to? What idiots actually believe this garbage? How much longer? Until we sit in the ruins of our beautiful country? People might want to march for this or that but I’ll tell you we need to march for ourselves and our futures before it’s too late because these effing useless politicians, these evil, corrupt see-you-next-tuesdays will bring it all down…just to ‘build back better’! I’m a bit miffed as you can tell.
A perfect summary Aethelred.
Thing is, those who support this madness think that their jobs are green. So they don’t care about working class people who do things (that make eveything else possible) that they know nothing about. However, laptops, smartphones, and the whole knowledge area of our economy, is hugely energy hungry. But these laptop midwits imagine it all happens by magic.
What?
The people that completely lost their minds over covid got abused more than any other country except perhaps China and then proceded to vote back in the tyrants that abused them?
Those down-to-earth, say-it-as-it-is Aussies?
In any case, message to DS: the governments of the UK and Australia aren’t making any decisions. This has all been decided for them. Wakey wakey.
All the governments do is sell the policies to the population. They don’t make them. They don’t even get to decide on the marketing slogans.
Clean energy superpower.
Build back better.
Safe and effextive
Even the slogans are handed down to them.
How more obvious does it need to be?
It is not about pushing back might be risky, it’s their pho#kin’ job.
Churchill faced the same issues and realised that fight back meant having the people on side and duly mobilised the media of the day. The treasonous grifter cowards we are lumbered with are just that – abject cowards.
As an Australian, I agree with your assessment 100%. That whole, laid back, anti authoritarian, smart ass larrikin persona is a complete myth. Something docile, ignorant, scared Australians conjure up to make themselves feel better as they wait for the government to tell them exactly how to think and feel. Covid was eye opening for me
As evidence, one of my cousin’s got 4 covid vaccines in a 3 month period because he was travelling between Australia and New Zealand and it was just easier to get a vaccine passport in each country if he had proof of vaccination locally.
I hope he hasn’t died yet. The jabs are lethal, and each one makes the risk of death higher.
Back in the day though, I’m talking about 1980, there seemed to be a different breed of Australian, especially out in the bush where I spent a lot of time working in old mining areas. These were what I would call ‘Ockers’, true blues, a decent type always out on the fringes of society. The urban Aussie though was a different kettle of fish.
They still exist, but unfortunately a tiny minority and their numbers are dwindling.
Bush Christmas (1947) – IMDb
One of my favourite films from the Children’s Film Foundation stable – will resist the temptation to seek comparisons….How far have “we” fallen?
Much appreciate the Aussie input. Thanks.
I “hear ” what you say but “Outback Truckers” suggests the canker not yet reached all parts of Oz….yet?
Yep – Ben Pile’s paper for Climate Debate and Together lays it all out.
https://togetherdeclaration.org/report/
-A number of strategic grant-making organisations have been established, with greater focus on particular political objectives than philanthropic foundations typically achieve.
-These foundations can be found working in close proximity to policymakers, and in drafting, lobbying and campaigning for policies.
-The grants made to and from these organisations are opaque, despite their clearly political objectives and influence in policymaking….
-Green campaigning organisations have immense resources compared to independent CSOs and vastly outspend any counterparts, including national political parties.
-Civil society is now owned by, rather than merely supported by, philanthropy.
-The influence of aligned CSOs and other public institutions is undemocratic and
-undermines democratic control of policymaking.
The Peoples’ Republic of Ardernia got a dose of being abused – and it is still going when “The White Witch” has quit Ardernia to escape “due process”…?
The Down to earth say it as it is Aussie is a myth. When it comes down to it they are mostly a weak people ruled by tyrants which they not only accept, but which the majority crave, just like the majority of people in the U.K and likewise the western world. The entire Covid dark times evidenced this fact frankly the sheep will do as they are instructed, they will hate any individuals who refuce to go along with it, and will march gratefully and thankfully to their enforced impoversihed end.
It always seems to be Britain that wants to be “world leaders” in every green absurdity going. I thought the Aussies had a little bit more sense, but they too are maybe now affected with the pretend to save the planet Liberal Progressive virus sweeping the western world that seeks to impoverish citizens by denying them the reliable and affordable energy they need to live a comfortable life. The most important commodity is energy and using renewables means that consumers pay through the nose for it’s intermittency. This seriously affects standard of living.There is no escape from the truth that fossil fuels are by far the cheapest way to produce energy but the eco socialist politicians now running virtually every wealthy western country are determined that we cannot have it, with climate change pseudo science as the excuse. You find everywhere that it is political and economic decisions that are being made and pretending to the populace that these things are being done to protect climate. ———In all of this politicians are lying to their own citizens by pretending that we can be rid of fossil fuels and replace them with wind and sun and everything will tick along just fine. —–No it won’t and No it isn’t. ————–All people in countries with the most wind turbines like Germany Denmark and the UK need to do is look at their electricity bills over that last 15 years to see how renewables have affected their wallets. The countries with the most wind have the highest bills ——-Oh dear so much for all the FREE WIND.—- Australians beware. ——–Pretending to save the planet does not come cheap.
Your comment about the UK always wanting to be world leaders has an echo of a spent force still trying to have a voice. The only world leadership they seem to be able to achieve at the moment is the lead Lemming dashing toward the cliff of socioeconomic oblivion.
I feel that things are starting to change. The window is shifting. A lot of people who I thought were climate change religionists have started saying sceptical things lately. I am hopeful. However, it took 30 plus years to create the Climate Change stupidity, it make take 30 to unravel it.
Oops. Some idiots might conclude they are laying the ground work necessary to bring about the Great Reset. Careful!
Interesting idea this reusing scrap, and producing no new steel. I wonder how many actual Materials Scientists and metallurgists have been consulted? It is probably zero, or maybe one lunatic leftie. Britain needs millions of tons of steel per year, but does not have this much scrap. Slight problem there then. Scrap does not make very good steel, without a lot of other things to remove the contaminants. These are imported, and expensive, and the processing produces a lot of nasty gases, and slag. The result, we import steel from China and India, at high prices and probably including a “carbon” tax. What have we gained? The steel is still made using coal, the same emissions plus the extra ones from the shipping, and the world is unchanged. Someone gets the carbon tax to make them richer, and our costs have increased. That doesn’t sound the least bit “Green” or even sensible to me, it sounds lunatic! And we paid £500 million to start this process? Just who are these people?
We have driven past the massive recycling Saar Stahl plant at Volklingen for ~25 years off and on – and the clone of the Appleby Frodingham plant – they seem to thrive even with German energy prices for the last couple of years….or is that not the whole story I wonder..
The Aussies are being fooled by the climatists just as they were the covidists. Shame on a once great nation.