The BBC recently ran a story claiming that the Antarctic ocean currents were heading for collapse, and to drive home the scare there was even a reference to the 2004 climate disaster film, The Day After Tomorrow. Rapidly melting Antarctic ice was reported to be causing a dramatic slowdown in deep ocean currents, “and could have a disastrous effect on the climate”. Like most of these fanciful scare stories, “could” is doing a lot of the heavy lifting work. But alas, missing from this Net Zero-promoting, model-inventing Armageddon tall tale was a note that the Antarctica ice cap appears to be in balance, and is not actually melting.
According to a paper written by NASA satellite ice-mapping scientists in 2021, Antarctica is “close to balance” in the period 2012-16 at -12 +/- 64 Gt a-1. Gt are gigatonnes and the formula is a scientific way of saying that as near as damn it, well within a margin of error, the Antarctica ice sheet loss is, more or less, zero. Back to 1992, the scientists found large total gains for the sheet.
According to the story in the BBC, reported faithfully in numerous media, as fresh water from the ice cap melts, sea water becomes less salty and dense and a downwards movement of water towards the sea bottom is interrupted. This in turn can affect world oceanic currents. The activist science blog the Conversation reported that “torrents of Antarctic meltwater are slowing the currents that drive our vital ocean ‘overturning’ – and threaten its collapse”. The BBC noted that a similar collapse in the North Atlantic was depicted in The Day After Tomorrow.
As regular readers will recall, the Daily Sceptic has observed that Antarctica is a difficult neighbourhood for activists to get a good scare story going. Over the last seven decades, there has been little or no warming over large parts 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.
The latest scare arises from a paper published in Nature. It is the product of climate models – the BBC noting that the scientists spent 35 million computer hours over two years collecting their results. However, this story is also of considerable interest since it shows that the BBC and most mainstream media are seemingly incapable of questioning any statement that promotes human-caused climate change and the proposed command-and-control Net Zero political solution. This endemic lack of curiosity means that vast areas of science, including atmospheric physics and chemistry, together with weather, geology and geography, are simply off limits in case any doubt should be cast on the suggestion that humans control the CO2 climate thermostat.
The study lead author, Professor Matthew England from Sydney’s University of New South Wales, is able to state, without any inquiring question or contradiction, that “our modelling shows that if global carbon emissions continue at the current rate, then the Antarctica overturning will slow by more than 40% in the next 30 years”. The BBC repeats emissions continuing at the current rate, but England’s paper states that his model has been loaded with a “high emissions” scenario. The paper is behind a paywall, but the abstract in which this admission occurs is freely available.
These “high emission” scenarios are almost certainly RCP8.5 and SSP5-8.5 that forecast global rises in temperatures of 4-5°C within less than 80 years. As Dr. Judith Curry has recently pointed out, these have been dropped in many science circles on the grounds they are recognised as implausible. Global warming of barely 0.1°C over the last 20 years is almost certainly a factor in this reassessment. Nevertheless, Curry notes that many of the extreme events based on the scenarios are still quoted in IPCC documents. “Rejecting these extreme scenarios has rendered obsolete much of the climate literature and assessments of the last decade,” she states.
Not at the BBC, of course. Settled science – the Science – cannot move on because it suffers from the anti-science proposition that it is somehow settled. Model results suggest deep water circulation in the Antarctic could slow at twice the rate of decline in the North Atlantic, reports the BBC. “It’s stunning to see that happen so quickly,” said climatologist Alan Mix from Oregon State University, a co-author of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment. “It appears to be kicking into gear right now. That’s headline news,” he told Reuters. No, Dr. Mix, it’s a model based on assumptions that are regularly contradicted by the data. Some climatologists it appears have trouble distinguishing fact from their own fevered predictions.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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Well said.
The UK as a ginormous Heritage Park.
But only a strange sort of “Heritage” bearing as little resemblance to the past reality as a wind turbine does to Drax (before its conversion to a forest burner).
All very much up His Royal Highness’ street. He must laugh himself to sleep every night.
I doubt if he laughs. I suspect he looks in the mirror and tells himself what a genius and wonderful gift to the world he is.
And his subjects love him dearly too. He knows all this because the acolytes he’s gathered around him tell him so. Jug Ears is the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ made life.
..in the early 80’s I read Julian Barnes book….England,England…I can recommend it…….the protagonist builds an England theme park on the Isle of Wight..and as the fortunes of the actual England fall…the theme park grows in success…..its very funny, and now in these weird times it seems very sad and prescient….
I won’t be watching the hoopla……Charles has very definitely set himself up as the enemy of the people in my opinion….pro-WEF, pro-green nonsense..he’s pampered, entitled, and has no empathy with real ordinary people….
…he does not represent anything that I believe or understand in relation to the UK.
You have nailed it ebg.
I have met Charles on a number of occasions both publicly and privately and my view is that he is a decent man who has been brought up for one job and I am pretty sure that he would have preferred not to have been. He is kind, intelligent and thoughtful with a strong Christian faith but he is also weak, too open to the likes of Attenborough and a poor judge of character in some of those around him.
he will make a decent fist of being King and his saving grace is Camilla who is very down to earth and a good counter influence. My worry is Prince William – he has all the makings of a prize prat but I will be long gone as Charles is one year younger than me.
I still think it a great pity that we couldn’t have had Anne II rather than Charles III.
Anne reflects the best of both her parents and has always worked hard. She might well have been a unifying Monarch. The opposite of Charles who will no doubt be spouting GangGreen nonsense even as they box him up and carry him off.
She is an adult
I see nothing to celebrate in the coronation of this left-wing, virtue-signalling, WEF acolyte.
I won’t be watching. I hope his reign is very, very short.
Not sure his son would be much better sadly.
Sadly no. But there’s a hope Catherine will stop him becoming quite as loopy as Charlie-Boy.
I know very little about her. I’m not aware she’s made any ridiculous pronouncements though, so hopefully you are right.
Hear hear
It appears that the primacy of Christianity over other religions might be controversial, if you look at the GBN stories about KC3’s dispute with the church about what can take place in the Abbey of Westminster during the service! https://www.gbnews.com/royal/king-charles-coronation-order-of-service-row-diverse
Whilst declaring an interest in one of the contractors involved in the HS2 project, I have to say that it’s not true that “modern Britain” refuses to build….., but there is no shortage of negative campaigns – as there always was, in the past. They often have a big influence on the detail in one way or another – not necessarily in the public interest overall. Anyway, it hasn’t refused to build a new line from London (alright, Old Oak Common) to Birmingham, or Hinkley Point C power station, and perhaps a few more large projects.
As far as I’m concerned, Majesty died with the Queen!
…yes, I agree…I think that is true for many of us…
I am surprised that the Ukrainian flag has not been worked into the design of the invitation.
I’m surprised he won’t be crowned by Schwab.
…or the gay pride flag…I’m sure they will have been discussed though!…
Ha! I certainly hope to see Zelensky twerking to Zadok the Priest or something equally fitting.
Jimmy Savile’s mate.
King Sausage fingers and Queen Camila, no thanks.
Big ears – alleged Defender of the Faith – issuing pagan-like invitations to the Coronation. Sheesh. Gawd preserve us.
“alleged Defender of the Faith”
Which is to become ‘defender of faith.’
How very inclusive but given the Indian continent’s refusal to allow women in temples I don’t suppose there will be many saris on display. That would be just too inclusive.
It might even spark a backlash Charlie.
So an anachronistic jug eared over privileged WEF eugenicist (that no one voted into power) is going to waste millions on a MSM theme park side show for Americans and other fully “vaccine” damaged NPC “normies”.
Sorry but I will not be watching, I have better things to do with my time.
I hope to be out of the country.
Brian’ was forever in the sights of Private Eye for his association with the inveterate liar, fantasist and child rapist Sir Laurens Van der Post.
“A man is known by the company he keeps.” Aesop.
I seem to recall Brian viewing VdP as a substitute father as his real one was otherwise engaged
Easter Greetings folks
, The Queen was a stoic link to the past & I preferred the Royalty to Blair’s vision for us all ! Charles I’m afraid is a human non entity confirmed when I saw his eldest at the WEF CONvention welcoming Shergars toothy lookalike to his own Climate jamboree ! God help us ! Nothing makes sense anyway since 3 weeks to flatten the curve ! My days of respect for any governing apparatus are over I’m afraid !
The Green Man is King Charles’ unsubtle projection of his eco credentials, plus an attempt to elevate himself into the pagan pantheon, to pitch his coronation / origin story into the realm of the Gaia-Druidical-Babylonian Maw Gaping idols via a Sweetcorn logo.
Rather pitiful really – an attempt to DC-ify or Marvel-ify himself into a superhero on a twee Liberty print produced by an AI graphics program. Too late.
Feed me, Jane Seymour.
Don’t know what he’s talking about, no building being done. My whole sodding county in the South West is turning into a massive housing estate with mile upon mile of cookie cutter housing destroying once productive farmland, plus surveillance cameras on every lamppost, traffic light and street corner. That’s KC3’s England for you – Wimpey Homes as far as the eye can see and the security state to go with it.
You’ll never walk alone.
Wouldn’t it be marvellous gesture if KCIII gave away at least one Royal palace and estate/grounds for the perpetual use of his subjects?
In this somewhat crowded isle what a great gesture of solidarity that would be?
Or at least a Duchy Original Cricket Protein Water Biscuit per pleb?
C’mon: we had Silver Jubilee mugs for free at school. What are the freebies for a coronation?
£0.50 off ground source heat pumps for the prole.
For a coronation to be about the future, it’s necessary that the monarch-to-be-crowned still has one. Charles can hardly celebrate his own headstone, hence, he’s obviously looking backwards. That’s what people of his age who don’t have much – if anything – to worry about usually do.
Two historical remarks.
the high tragedy of Suez a few years later. The high tragedy of Britain in the early 20th century was that it was ruled by someone who was so obsessed with destroying the German empire at any cost that he refused all offers for a negotiated peace to end the so-called Great War and instead piled up a mountain of war debt in the USA, (and proximately caused the second world war in the process). Suez was just someone tucking on the leash he had been holding quietly for quite a while already.
Harold Macmillan’s remark that post-war Britain was now a Greece to America’s Rome
Ahistorical self-glorification (Greece came to an end when the Macedons conquered it) of the guy whose real thinking was very likely much more along the lines of This empire is really not worth the money we have to put into it. Let the ‘muricans build ships instead while we manage our inherited fortunes. This combined with the recognition that really nobody needs a functioning adminstration anywhere in Africa. It’s sufficient to arm some local gang of thugs with assault rifles and machine guns to ensure that they keep enough of a public order that resource extraction can continue.
I see people – including Jordan Peterson – beginning to suggest that the monarchy may not survive KC3.
That’s good news
“Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?”
The green man says it all, absolutely epitomises why I can never look on C3 with respect (though I will try, as commanded by the Bible, to pray for him). William would be more of the same.
The best thing Charles can do is to educate himself about real climate science and thus stop spouting endless rubbish about net-zero and Climate catastrophe. While he continues to support that inaccurate aim, he is contributing to his citizen’s poverty and our industrial failure. From what I’ve heard from him recently, our country would be far better off without him.