Antarctica sea ice is at a “mind-blowing” record low winter area of 17 million square kilometres, reports a three-person BBC “News Climate & Science and Data Journalism Team”, as lower levels than those recorded in the recent past provide the cue for yet more media climate hysteria. Of course, the BBC headline is clickbait nonsense, not least because it has been generally known in scientific circles that early NASA Nimbus satellites showed even lower winter levels around 15 million sq. kms in 1966. But the BBC story does provide an excellent example of how science is twisted to fit the political narrative supporting the collectivist Net Zero agenda. Any unusual variation in weather and natural events is treated as evidence of a climate collapse requiring urgent human intervention.
The BBC reports that according to satellite data, sea ice surrounding Antarctica is well below any previous recorded winter level. It is said to show a worrying new benchmark for a region “that once seemed resistant to global warming” — that last phrase of course is a reference to the fact that Antarctica has shown little or no warming over the last 70 years. Dr. Walter Meier, who monitors sea ice with the Colorado-based National Snow and Ice Data Centre, helpfully added: “It’s so far outside anything we’ve seen, it almost mind-blowing.”
This would appear to be the same Dr. Walter Meier who was part of the science team that cracked open the secrets of the early Nimbus data that revealed significant Antarctica sea ice variability in the 1960s, including a high in 1964, not seen again until 2014, and the low for 1966. This is what he told NASA Earth Data in 2016:
Even in the passive microwave record [available since 1979] for the Antarctic you see these seesaws where the ice concentrations go up and down, so extreme high or extreme low are not that unusual. What the Nimbus data tell us is there’s variability in the Antarctica sea ice that’s larger than any we had seen from the passive microwave data. Nimbus helps put this in a longer term context and extends the record.
At the time, the Nimbus Data Rescue Project won awards and was highly praised for re-examining data that had been kept in store for 40 years. Meier noted that the longer term context that the Nimbus data provides is really valuable and useful for the science community. These days, Meier tells the BBC he is “not optimistic that the sea ice will recover to a significant degree”. Another member of the Nimbus recovery team has noted that the data would improve the accuracy of climate models, since predicting the past successfully can help projections going forward. Whether any of this has been taken on board is a moot point. Certainly Dr. Meier doesn’t seem to have shared his previous enthusiasm for the Nimbus data when he recently spoke to the BBC.
What a difference just seven years makes in the climate alarm business.
As the Daily Sceptic has often noted in the past, Antarctica is a difficult place to create climate panic. Over the last seven decades there has been little or no warming over large areas of the continent. What warming there has been on the west side is directly on top of large numbers of volcanoes. According to a recent paper (by Singh and Polvani), Antarctica sea ice has “modestly expanded” and warming has been ‘”nearly non-existent” in this period. According to NASA figures, the ice loss is 0.0005% a year. Another recent paper found that ice shelves surrounding the continent grew in overall size in the years 2009-2019. As an example of how humans cause the climate to warm by burning fossil fuel, Antarctica leaves a lot to be desired.
The BBC article, co-written by the increasingly prominent green activist Georgina Rannard, is a classic mainstream media cherry-pick of one year of natural variation to support the view that the climate is somehow heading for collapse. As can be seen in this case, evidence that challenges the wild ‘scientists say’ predictions is ignored, and seemingly not considered suitable for inquiry. Dr. Caroline Holmes of the British Antarctica Survey is reported to note that when summer comes, “there’s potential for an unstoppable feedback loop of ice melting”.
“Are we awakening this giant of Antarctica?” asks Professor Martin Siegert of Exeter University. “It would be an absolute disaster for the world,” he adds in response to his meaningless first utterance. Professor Anna Hogg, who is reported to be an “Earth scientist” at the University of Leeds, opines that there are signs that what is happening to Antarctica ice sheets is in the worst case scenario range of what was predicted. Predicted by what? Almost certainly computer models using a ‘pathway’ assuming 5°C global warming in less than 80 years. That pathway, regular readers will recall, infects about half the headline-grabbing predictions now made by climate science papers, despite the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change deeming it of “low likelihood”.
So it continues – ‘settled’ science corrupting much of the scientific process while inconvenient facts and data are ignored in the interest of persuading populations that time is running out to save the boiling planet.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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Wonderful fun on the comments section of the DT feature on the “mind-blowing” ice loss. I wish I had had that quote from the same guy to hand. Cheers Chris.
The corruption of science. Instead of science we now have “Official Science” or Government approved science based on models full of assumptions. Everything we hear is a smidgeon of the truth elevated into a climate emergency for which no evidence exists. We hear “all scientists agree”——Nope they don’t. There is a 97% consensus of scientists that agree. ——But agree on what? What questions were they asked and what were their answers? This is the imposition of dogma for political purposes and now here in the UK we are going to lock people up for not getting a smart meter or a heat pump. How long before we are jailed for not scrapping our diesel? How long before the supermarket keeps a track of our carbon footprint and won’t sell us anymore mince? How long before you are arrested at the airport for trying to board a flight to Tenerife because you have already been in an aeroplane twice this year? ——–To anyone who thinks “what does it matter if reports about melting ice are accurate or not” you need to wake up. It matters because melting ice and every other phony scare story about the climate is being used as the excuse to impoverish you.
Polarization of the commentariat continues, there is only black and white, all other shades of grey are verboten.
The DT comments on this subject was very heavily sided with the “climate change is not catastrophic” view. It was interesting how the sensible comments were backed up with reports, links and physics. The same could not be said of the people labelling us as “deniers”.
I am truly impressed by the scientific phrase “almost mind-blowing”.
However as with sea ice everywhere its extent more due to wind direction than temperature, otherwise known as ice packing (hence pack ice).
It is also worth reflecting that the algorithms use to work out ice concentration assume that any area covered more than a third by ice (ie mostly open water) should be included in the extent.
The 97% consensus argument on climate change goes back to the James Cook study of 2013, which shortly after publication had been thoroughly debunked by another peer-reviewed study:
Cooks ‘97% consensus’ disproven by a new peer reviewed paper showing major math errors • Watts Up With That?
Here’s the link to the actual study (The main body is behind a paywall, but you can read the abstract):
Climate Consensus and ‘Misinformation’: A Rejoinder to Agnotology, Scientific Consensus, and the Teaching and Learning of Climate Change | SpringerLink
Please share widely!
Year. Real number was a low single digit percentage.
“Any unusual variation in weather and natural events is treated as evidence of a climate collapse requiring urgent human intervention.”
I have always been baffled by the term “climate collapse.” Can anybody enlighten me as to its meaning?
Presumably then, once we understand “climate collapse” we are still screwed because given the thousands of variables effecting the weather any supposed interventions by mankind will surely only lead to bigger problems.
Climate collapse eh
Excellent point as usual. More language designed to confuse, deceive and corrupt.
Thanks tof
It means that it’s dangerous and irreversible and will happen without advance warning. How this precisely applies to average temperatures over the course of 30 years is anybody’s guess. Maybe something like an Y2K-problem hidden in the software of the measurement devices which will cause them all to stop functioning in the not to distant future: Climate has just collapsed! We aren’t getting temperature readings anymore! Apocalypse must be imminent and we won’t even know about it! loosely patterned on the fearmongering when taxpayer-paid COVID tests (wrongly referred to as free COVID tests) stopped being availabe.
This is, of course, to good to be true. In reality, in order to cope with this emergency, all temperatures will be modelled instead of measured in future. That’s when global warming will really take off. In the begining, people will still claim that the emergency is only temporary and that the defective measuring devices will eventually be replaced. But the real eventual outcome will be that thermometers will be banned as only climate deniers could want to measure temperatures instead of trusting in the accurate and reliable temperatures models (accurate and reliable temperature model becoming the climate change equivalent of safe and effective vaccine).
Why pick on the BBC? Pretty much the same story is in every major news channel. For example:
The Telegraph: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/09/17/sea-ice-levels-in-antarctica-at-mind-blowing-historic-low/
The Mail on-line: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12530929/Antarcticas-sea-ice-levels-mind-blowing-historic-low-area-five-time-size-British-Isles-missing-ice-study-finds.html
Because the BBC never offers any other narrative other than the “CO2 Will Kill Us All” crapola. Because the BBC is taxpayer funded. Because the BBC hardly ever allows reader comments on rubbish articles like the one cited in the OP. That’s why we pick on them, after all, they’re trying to destroy our lives with their Net Zero nonsense.
The BBC is also telling lies to children.
When I was a kid, I was taught that plants need 3 things to grow. Water, light and C02.
BBC bitesize is now reporting that plants need water, oxygen and warmth to grow.
They are an absolutely despicable organisation and they should be disbanded.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zprxsbk/revision/1#:~:text=1%20of%203-,Plant%20growth,is%20called%20the%20optimum%20temperature.
They forgot that the O2 molecule must be combined with C for plants to grow. They only need O2 on its own when it is too dark for effective photosynthesis
Whatever happened to “free fair and impartial”? ——–It vanished long ago in a sea of eco activism where the whole planet will be “saved” if UK citizens get rid of their car and gas central heating. If we cycle to work in the sleet and leave our vehicle in the drive. If we fill Cornwall up instead of flying to Tenerife. BBC tactics include “exaggeration” whereby a climate apocalypse is engulfing us and we must act before it is too late and “ommision” whereby uncertainty in climate science is never discussed but there is actually huge uncertainty in every claim made.
I don’t think many BTL here have much time for any of the legacy media. TY et al have connections (and TY still works for The Spectator) so they understandably probably want to hold back a bit.
The BBC are the enemy – they despise people like me and seem to want to mess up my life, my family’s life, my childrens’ lives. I am a live and let live kind of guy but they pushing me into a corner. So I am happy for the BBC to be picked on.
The BBC is a fake news and science organisation.
Their “educational” Bitesize website page is telling children that the 3 most important things that plants need to grow are water, oxygen and warmth.
I’d like to know when plants evolved from needing water, CO2 and light as the 3 most important elements for growth.
I’d also like the BBC to explain why commercial greenhouses have CO2 pumped into them to a level that is 3 times what is naturally occurring in our atmosphere if oxygen is the gas that really makes plants grow.
For the offendind article, search “bbc bitesize Growth and development of different organisms”
““Are we awakening this giant of Antarctica?” asks Professor Martin Siegert of Exeter University.”
Soon to be renamed “The University of Climate Hysteria”. They have previous on this sort of garbage. As a taxpayer, I am honoured to be funding so many frauds in Academia, there as they are completely incapable of productive work.
The Daily Telegraph article stated (seemingly indirectly quoting from Dr Meier): “warm water will not freeze”. This was underlined by the journalist as if to emphasise that this was some sort of major scientific discovery.
A commentor below the article states: “What a meaningless comment and if that’s a scientific statement of merit worthy of repeating in the article then I question the whole premise of the article.” Hear! Hear!
I’m waiting for Hell to freeze over before these goons think we’ll be safe from this Global Warming fantasy.
Okay, we all know this is wrong. How do we stop it?
Whilst it is great that the Daily Sceptic is able to publish information like this just writing and talking about it does not change it. One of the problems of writing and talking about it is this gives the impression someone might be doing something about it. It lulls everyone into a false sense of security.
The people who fund and support this misinformation and disinformation, whilst claiming it is not, have the money and resources.
Who has the money and resources to stop it?
By what mechanisms can we stop it?
Elected representatives are completely useless as we have seen from MPs and government ministers. They will keep their mouth shut and do nothing, supporting by inaction, all of this dangerous nonsense.