The catastrophisation of natural events and weather is relentless across the mainstream media as populations continue to be nudged towards an elitist command-and-control Net Zero future. The BBC recently copied a headline from the U.S.-based National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) claiming Antarctica sea ice had hit a “new record low”. Inexplicably missing from the story was the later observation from the NSIDC that since accurate satellite records began in 1979, the trend in the minimum ice extent is “near zero”. Any loss was said to be “not statistically significant”.
To be fair to the writer, BBC science correspondent Jonathan Amos, he did report later in the story that scientists consider the behaviour of Antarctica sea ice to be a “complicated phenomenon which cannot simply be ascribed to climate change”. Of course, as regular Daily Sceptic readers are aware, the Antarctic is a difficult hunting ground for climate catastrophists since over the last seven decades there has been little or no warming over large areas of the continent.
According to a recent paper (Singh and Polvani), the Antarctica sea ice has “modestly expanded”, and warming has been “nearly non-existent” over much of the ice sheet. According to NASA figures, the ice loss is 0.0005% per year. Down at the South Pole, even the most inventive climate alarmists are defeated. In 2021 it recorded its coldest six-month winter since records began, and last year the temperature was 0.4°C colder than the average over the last 30 years. In addition, the Pole recorded no less than seven new daily temperature lows.
The map above shows some warming in the western part of Antarctica, and it is to this area that climate warriors return – again and again. The day before his sea ice story was published, Amos ran with a routine BBC house scare about the Thwaites glacier, often known in green circles as the ‘Doomsday Glacier’. Amos states that glaciers such as Thwaites located in the west may be more sensitive to changes in sea temperature than was thought. “Its susceptibility to climate change is a major concern to scientists because if it melted completely, it would raise global sea levels by half a metre,” he said.
Many of the problems surrounding the unproven hypothesis of human-caused global warming is that it often fails to correlate with observable reality. Why would well-mixed atmospheric carbon dioxide produce a relative warm spot in Antarctica, but leave the rest of the vast continent in a static deep freeze? In 2017, scientists discovered 91 volcanoes in the West Antarctica Rift System. It brought the number of volcanoes discovered in the area to 138. Their heights ranged from 300 to 12,600 feet, with the tallest as high as Mount Fuji in Japan. The scientists noted that even dormant volcanoes can melt ice because of the high temperature they generate. “Volcanic activity may increase and this, in turn, may lead to enhanced water production and contribute to further potential ice-dynamical instability,” the scientists stated.
Again, to be fair to Amos, he does consider other causes of Antarctica ice stability, although the article is headlined “climate change”. His reporting is mercifully free of the emotional gushings produced by the BBC’s green activist-in-residence Justin Rowlatt. When Rowlatt flew to the area, he witnessed “an epic vision of shattered ice”. To him, the Antarctic is the “frontline of climate change”. Amos does note that Thwaites, a glacier the size of Florida, has retreated in some places by 14 km since the late 1990s. But such movement does not seem unusual. Recently a group of oceanographers discovered that parts of Thwaites had retreated at twice the rate in the past, when human-caused CO2 could not have been a factor. The retreat could have occurred centuries ago, and is said to have been “exceptionally fast”.
Meanwhile, research has just been published that indicates Antarctica could have been warmer in the recent past from 7,000 to 500 years ago. This type of research is always interesting since it helps debunks a common claim made by alarmists that current temperatures are the highest over the last three million years. But numerous scientific studies have shown that temperatures across the planet have been much warmer for recent periods in the Holocene. This latest study in Antarctica found remains of elephant seals along the Victoria Land Coast of the Ross Embayment, which borders both the West and East Antarctic ice sheets. These days, the area is largely free of elephant seals because of shelves of permanent sea ice frozen to the beaches. It is suggested that seals were able to occupy the beaches in a period of warmth before extensive sea ice pushed them off the present day coast.
“Our work shows that for much of the Holocene, the Ross Sea was less icy and presumably warmer than it is today, and this warmth may have driven retreat of the West Antarctica ice sheet from the Ross Sea during the last 8,000 years, and future warming could continue to push ice retreat,” conclude the researchers.
For climate alarmists, the ice is the gift that keeps on giving – every day is a “new record low”.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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I’ve just read a article on rueters about Italy, the alps and Venice apparently there’s not enough water in the sea causing drought and empty canals in Venice but sea level rise is a disaster at the same time! and theres not enough snowfall in the alps causing drought in Italy, oh and at this time, antarctic ice is at an all time low but not changing! This is all getting bloody stupid!
And climate change is increasing due to continuing global warming despite there having been no increase in the rate of warming since just after 1996 (and the end of El Niño) and a slight net decline.
The temperature increase for the last 100 years is between 0.65C and 1.12C depending where your dart lands.
As I noted the other day it takes a special kind of logic to think that a rise from -57c to -55c will cause the ice to melt…
Since there are only a handful of weather stations on the West (warmer) coast and none in the interior, temperatures are ‘estimated’ thanks to triangulation, algorithms and everyone’s favourite… computer modelling.
By curious coincidence, most global warming is ‘happening’ in Polar regions.
My “Contingency Theory of Climate Change”
Everywhere on the planet is very slightly different. So:
Climate change is the net result of all local, regional and global climate change variables, and CO2 is NOT the planet’s temperature control knob.
CO2 is just one of many climate change variables, including:
1) Earth’s orbital and orientation variations towards the Sun (aka planetary geometry)
2) Changes in ocean circulation. Including ENSO and others
3) Solar energy and irradiance, including clouds, albedo, volcanic and manmade aerosols, plus possible effects of cosmic rays and extra terrestrial dust
4) Greenhouse gas emissions (of which CO2 is one, and water vapour the most abundant)
5) Land use changes (cities growing, logging, crop irrigation, etc.)
6) Unknown causes of variations of a complex, non-linear system
7) Unpredictable natural and manmade catastrophes
8) Climate measurement errors (unintentional errors or deliberate science fraud)
9) Interactions and feedbacks, involving two or more variables.
——
So it is a soup of pretty much whatever flavour you like somewhere.
I think you can apply that very sound logic to pretty much any social phenomena. There is enough of everything going on somewhere that you can create any impression you like by taking the subset of events that supports your story and report those.
I have no doubt that is exactly what happens.
Yes, I started years ago with the contingency theory of management on an MBA course – sometime in the last century.
—
Anyway.
There has been a generation or more taught or rather indoctrinated that the climate doom is all caused by the trickster devil/god carbon dioxide. This is so patently not the case that I look at adults who spout it as if they were saying they still believe in Father Christmas, or God.
The current cooling in The Antarctic (and other places) whilst there is warming elsewhere at the same time seems to show how versatile the magic carbon dioxide molecule is. So I feel rather generous in crediting it with any role.
Every bit of extreme weather from anywhere in the world gets beamed straight to our living rooms. This might give the impression that everything is getting worse. But actually, that is all it is.——-An impression. Because in reality there is no increase in floods, droughts, storms, wild fires, or any other type of weather related events. So where you have a reason for getting masses of people to believe something and to come onboard with an idea then it is easy to cherry pick a bunch of data or facts the seem to support that agenda or idea. And that is exactly what is happening with climate. So then you need to ask yourself WHY. My brother once said to me “Why would they say there is global warming if there isn’t any”? ——–A good question, and to understand why you need to know something about the politics involved. If you let yourself think it is all just about science, then you are missing most of it. Climate Change is a highly politicised issue, and a moral economic and social one as well. It is not purely about science. Infact the science is very weak and often the facts do not fit the theory, and in any case it mostly emanates from climate models, which to this point have all been totally wrong. —–Real science rejects it’s theory when the facts do not fit the hypothesis. In politics you seek “consensus”, which as someone once pointed out is “the last refuge of scoundrels”.
“It recorded its coldest six-month winter since records began in 2021…”
I think the year is a typo.
Just not clearly written methinks – should read ‘ In 2021 it recorded its coldest six month winter since records began’ or something similar.
Excellent article, just a small chip out of the climate change/net-zero wall but we must keep chipping away. Covid and climate change have seen a reversal in the normal way things work, usually we have technological innovations and scientific findings and then society subsequently adapts and develops to make best use of the technology and the science. With climate change and with covid we seem to have started with a diabolical and sinister narrative and then insisted that science and technology come up with answers and developments to fit the desired narrative.
Increasingly with climate change the evidence is lacking, whether it is high level scientific measurement or just looking out the window and noticing that over my three score years and ten, the climate has not noticeably changed very much and the sea has not risen very much. However the global tyrants and megalomaniacs have now got so much political, power, money and capital tied up in this net-zero scam that is going to be very hard to get them to climb down at all.
Many ordinary people who are busy with work and family life switch on their 6 o’clock news expecting that the TV News channel has done it’s homework and knows something about the issue they are reporting on. Nope. What they do is repeat what officialdom like the IPCC WEF and politicians and bureaucrats PRONOUNCE. ——-But pronouncements are not science. And computer models that do not reflect what the real world is doing are evidence of NOTHING. ——What we are all presented with is reporting on “official science” in support of a political agenda by a bought and paid for media. Most people do not have time to investigate every issue and they rely on NEWS programs to inform them without bias. ——–In that regard mainstream media have failed, and they fail deliberately in support of the political agenda called “Sustainable Development”
Meanwhile the BBC reports that there is a shortage of fruit and vegetables in the UK and Ireland “largely the result of extreme weather in Spain and north Africa, where floods, snow and hail have affected harvests.”
Where’s Global Warming when we need it?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64718823
Ah, but they’ve got you every which way. Whatever the weather, whether hot or cold, dry or wet, extremely sunny or extremely cloudy, its all down to ‘climate change’. Many people seem so brainwashed by, principally, the msm, especially the BBC, they can no longer just accept weather as weather, but as some portent of forthcoming doom. It seems a shame when many people can no longer enjoy a crisp winter’s day or a warm summer’s evening without niggling fear that the end is nigh. Their loss though.
The earth’s climate has been changing naturally for at least the last few hundreds of millions of years.
It would be abnormal for the earth’s climate not to be changing.
There is no evidence that the current climate change is caused in any significant degree by humanity.
Computer models are not evidence.
Grantham, Mayo, van Otterloo &Co. As well you know.
Ask – Who gains by the constant state of ‘crisis’, not just for climate but other areas too?
Who gains?
What do they gain?
Why?
Greta Thumberg RIP
Government is apparently less trusted than ever before. On every issue no-one believes a word they say. On the economy, on immigration, on education, foreign policy etc etc etc. Yet when they speak of the “climate emergency” most people do believe it. Maybe on sites like this they don’t, but if each person who visits this site thinks for a second about all their family and friends, how many of them simply believe most if not all of the “climate crisis” stuff. They think Polar Bears are in serious trouble, they think the planet is warming dangerously. They think weather is getting more extreme by the week. They will mostly believe all of that stuff because they see it on TV news and because they think it is all about “science” and people by and large will tend not to want to question anything that they consider to be “science” because they think they cannot possibly know more than a scientist.———- So if you have ever told them that Polar Bear numbers have increased 5 fold in the last 60 years, or that there has not been much in the way of warming of the planet for about 20 years, despite CO2 increasing all the time. Or that there is no increase in the frequency or intensity of any type of weather event, many of you will have noticed that those family members or friends will suddenly become like a rabbit in the headlights. They will look at you like you are from Mars.Most of the time when people get new information their reaction would be “Oh, is that right. I never knew that”, but on politicised issues where there has been powerful PR (propaganda) they cannot accept any new information. Propaganda works, and government knows it. The bought and paid for media know it as well. Despite almost everything we hear about the climate being a smidgeon of the truth elevated into a planetary emergency with zero evidence to back it up, the people still mostly accept it as ultimate truth and that reveals only one thing. —–The power of propaganda.
I’ve just read an item in the Times (01/07/23) – headline: ‘Antarctic ice melts to “shocking” low.’ Of course it looks authoritative, but I’d be grateful if anyone out there could help me see why it might be bullshit. If I can’t find that evidence, I’ll have to read Chris Morrison’s articles with more circumspection, despite my general feeling that he hits the nail on the head over and over again. Direct contact with me on this would be very welcome; my email is illman.clive@gmail.com. Many thanks. The Times article reads:
Antarctic sea ice has fallen to a “shock ing” record low for the end of June, with the missing mass equivalent to an area about five times the size of Britain. The loss comes as scientists warn that the Greenland melt has been “off the chart” as the area faces a heatwave.
“Despite the South Pole heading into winter, the Met Office said that the extent of Antarctic sea ice was at 11.8 million sq km on June 29, 1.3 million sq km below the previous record low. It is more than 2.5 million sq km below the average for this time of year.
Ed Blockley, of the Met Office Polar Climate Group, described the levels as “extraordinarily” low. The figures come after record sea ice lows in the Antarctic summer earlier in the year and a slow start to growth heading into winter in the southern hemisphere. Ice growth in May was 2.87 million sq km, far below the usual 3.25 million sq km for the month.
Blockley said it was too early to say if records would be broken when Antarctic sea ice reaches its maximum extent, usually in September, but he added: “We are concerned.”
The loss of such huge expanses of sea ice matters for the wildlife of the region and because it speeds up climate change. Ice reflects more of the sun’s energy into space than dark sea water.
One reason why Antarctic sea ice bas vanished this year appears to be that the region is up to 4C warmer than usual in some places.
The records this year come after about seven years of low sea ice extent in Antarctica. Previously the sea ice had been expanding for decades, but that appeared to flip in 2016 losses occurred linked with a weather cycle called the El Nino-Southern Oscillation.
Blockley said such natural weather cycles could be enhanced by global warming. “As we get this climate warming, the extremes are becoming more extreme,” he said. The world ha already warmed by about 1.2C since the Industrial Revolution.
This month science agencies in the United States the world had entered an El Nino phase, typically linked with years that are hotter than average. Blockley said that was likely to exacerbate Antarctic sea ice losses.
The losses in the Antarctic come as Greenland records temperatures 10C above average. Jason Box, a glaciology expert, said the melt rates were “punching off the charts”.