The dramatic, if largely unpublicised, recovery in Arctic sea ice is continuing into the New Year. Despite the contestable claims of the ‘hottest year ever’ (and even hotter in 2024), Arctic sea ice on January 8th stood at its highest level in 21 years. Last December, the U.S.-based National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) revealed that sea ice recorded its third highest monthly gain in the modern 45-year record. According to the science blog No Tricks Zone, the reading up to January 8th has now far exceeded the average for the years 2011-2020. It also exceeds the average for the years 2001-2010, and points directly upwards with regard to the average for the years 1991-2000.
The graph below shows the scale of the recovery compared to all the years tracked in the modern satellite record.
Of course this is only about half a winter’s worth of data, and we must be careful not to follow alarmists down their chosen political path of cherry picking and warning of climate collapse on the basis of individual events. But as we have seen in recent Daily Sceptic articles, the current recovery in Arctic sea ice is a climate trend that can be taken back to around 2007. In a recent paper, the Danish scientist Allan Astrup Jensen provided data showing a fall in the sea ice between 1997 and 2007 but minimal losses in the 45-year record both before and after this period. The investigative journalist Tony Heller draws a four-year moving average to show a small recovery in the lowest ice extent in September from around 2012. He also notes that 1979 was a recent high point, with lower ice levels in the 1970s going back to the 1950s.
Where does all this leave the alarmists promoting their insane collectivist Net Zero project? Stuck up a frozen creek without an ice pick, it might be suggested. In 2022, Sir David Attenborough told BBC viewers that the summer sea ice could all be gone within 12 years. Climate models fed with opinions and wishful thinking seem to have guided him in his lamentations rather than the actual data. But if the ice continues to roar back, it is likely that the sea ice scare will have to be retired, along with all the disappearing coral popping up in record amounts on the Great Barrier Reef.
Cyclical natural climate variations, observed in the past record going back to the early 1800s, appear to offer a better explanation of trends in the polar sea ice extent. Little understood effects of ocean currents and atmospheric heat exchanges are obvious drivers of the climate in the far north. Taking the view that humans, and only humans, control the climate temperature would appear to be a dead end in understanding Arctic glaciology.
Ditto Antarctica, where the cherry pickings for catastrophists seemed to offer good prospects of late. Last year the BBC reported on lower levels of winter sea ice than those recorded in the recent past. The BBC said it showed a new benchmark for a region “that once seemed resistant to global warming”. This inconvenient resistance of course refers to the fact that Antarctica has shown “nearly non-existent” warming over the last 70 years. Dr. Walter Meier from the NSIDC helpfully added: “It’s so far outside anything we’re seen, it’s almost mind-blowing.” The “mind-blowing” quote made headlines around mainstream media. Alas, Dr. Meier seemed to forget that barely a decade ago he was part of a science team that cracked the secrets of early Nimbus satellite data that showed even lower winter levels of sea ice in 1966
At the time, the Nimbus team won awards and the Daily Sceptic has been able to jog Dr. Meier’s memory on what he said at the time.
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 tells us is that 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.
Three cheers for the longer record. It doesn’t seem to get much of a look-in these days as the Earth starts to boil. Below, Professor Ole Humlum maps the sea ice extent in Antarctica going back to 1979.
Allan Jensen looks at the same data and notes that any downward trend in the period was very small. The only discernible trend is a rise from around July 2013 followed by a small fall. Jensen points to a recent decline in 2022 and 2023. But, of late, any decline has been slowed with the NSIDC-recorded extent at the end of the last month only the sixth lowest in the record.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Definitely worth reading in full. Great article.
To add to the summary, if you don’t live life to the full, you’re a long time dead.
Mind you, that is a catch-22 situation – even if you live life to the full, you are a long (very, very long) time dead. Still, c’est la vie!
we ‘ve already spent around 14,000,000 millenia dead and we never even noticed!
We’re going back to the pre-Copernican era
I would love to see these idiots be given 90% of the planet and sceptics the other 10% and see who comes out on top in a few decades
If you start thinking that science is a matter of opinion, your aeroplanes fall out of the sky
Why do I keep going back to that other great
Scientific scam, the man mad global warming fraud? Thank God for the few brave realists in our time of need.
Man mad global warming: so true!
Read the latest from Dr. Malcolm Kendrick on the death of scientific research, particularly in the medical field.
As long as the 10% have the weapons everything should be fine.
I believe John Fairclough has elided CJD with the Foot and Mouth fiasco but some very good points. I doubt whether Hancock was up to asking challenging questions of his advisers and though Javid probably is he doesn’t have the inclination, and both are allied to the Davos gang. The political class has been emptied of people of any real metal – the Labour ranks are pitiful and looking only for global patronage.
Sadly it is not incorrect he made silly claims with dire consequences fir cattle in BSE and Foot and Mouth
He is a menace to man amd beast!
Ferguson was behind the disputed research that sparked the mass culling of eleven million sheep and cattle during the 2001 outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. He also predicted that up to 150,000 people could die. There were fewer than 200 deaths. . . .
In 2002, Ferguson predicted that up to 50,000 people would likely die from exposure to BSE (mad cow disease) in beef. Over four million head of cattle were slaughtered in an effort to contain the outbreak, and 177 people died after contracting vCJD through eating infected beef. In the U.K., there were only 177 deaths from BSE.
Molecular and neuropathological data from these transmissions show that kuru prions are distinct from variant CJD and have transmission properties equivalent to those of classical (sporadic) CJD prions.
Yet he was the person this government sought to consult over Covid. That was for me the moment I decided it was a Plandemic not a Pandemic!
He should have had to kill each poor animal… he is a bloody menace with no qualifications in bugger all !..
Ferguson has got things wrong time and time again. He long ago lost all credibility. You would think he would be embarrassed at the gross failure of his predictions and do everyone a favour by quitting. He’s a dangerous idiot.
He’s far worse than an idiot….
I’m pretty much convinced he has something on the tousle-haired shagwit and maybe many other politicians.
How else does he get so much influence?
It’s deliberate. He’s not an idiot, and it’s not an accident.
David King takes chief responsibility for the tragedy and huge expense of foot and mouth slaughter policy. Yes, that David King.
And, ironically, they should have vaccinated.
A very good article from an intelligent, experienced and well-qualified person.
One point he makes that has not been emphasised nearly enough is the amount of money that has gone into establishing lockdown-dependent livelihoods. This disposes those people to prolong this ridiculous situation. It is not sustainable and can only have a bad outcome.
All so true. I keep seeing talk about UFOs on the air-waves – well, if there is anyone out there, now would be a pretty good time to strike!
True, and the writer is obviously intelligent, but that article contains some of the worst English I have ever read. In dire need of an editor.
This criticism seems too harsh. I found the article chillingly compelling. Aside from a type (‘sill’ instead of ‘still’) and some missing commas or semi-colons, the only problem I found with the writing was that it seemed a little rushed. However, considering the extreme frustration that the writer understandably has experienced, perhaps any apparent haste was not only justified but made the article more readable. The errors did not spoil the article for me at all.
I do agree that editing should be used for all published articles. But the MSM don’t care, so there is even less incentive for other sites to be more professional. No excuse though.
Would you like to give a couple of examples of the more egregious errors of expression that marred the article’s effectiveness for you?
And I missed my own typo, of course! I wrote ‘type’ instead of ‘typo’. Sorry. I wish we could edit our comments, but perhaps it will teach me to proofread better.
An excellent article from someone eminently well qualified to comment on the mendacious takeover of science and medicine by the lockdown zealots.
We here all realized that this was very different and that something was going horribly wrong, when the censorship started.
For me, it was the refusal of the FAZ in Germany to publish an ad by 4 critical, renowned professors that opened my eyes.
WHO only, Wieler’s infamous incarnation and new definition of unscientificness: ‘Hands, Face, Space may never be questioned!’ and then Gupta, Streeck, Bhakdi&co all being villified instead of invited on TV or at least their arguments being discussed.
It culminated initially in and with the totally unscientific, and illegal, mask mandates, to which Michael Levitt responded by endorsing the ‘after 300 years of enlightenment we are back to superstition and witchcraft’ sketch reported on here at LS, but it all went even further downhill ever since, with the therefore to be expected horrible results.
To me, and many others, this refusal to act scientifically and thereby objectively search for the best solution, coupled with the in many instances obvious conclusion that as they are neither stupid nor not being made aware of the differing scientific viewpoints, means that they can often only be deliberately lying, and that then led me to be convinced that they are just evil and do really follow a very different and most sinister agenda.
Special places in hell are most definetely reserved for them and their more conscious helpers, but I’d very much prefer them all being brought to justice during my lifetime too.
Hell is too good for them…
That was a refreshing read, loved it. Common sense.
I so needed that after reading so much twaddle on FB today. I don’t know why I put myself through it, it’s not good for my physical or mental health.
I group I’m on that I very infrequently visit, was discussing whether it was a good idea to drop the masks on the 19th. Lots of professional people on the group. Most of them have willingly fallen in line, adopted the Covid religion and been injected! The stench of assumed superiority is overwhelming.
About two thirds on the post will continue wearing the mask. They don’t trust those people who say masks are useless. Full of praise for the government and SAGE who have done everything to protect people. Many asserted that despite the fact they’ve been ‘fully, doubly injected’ they will continue to wear the mask and social distancing when amongst people they don’t know, out shopping, on public transport etc as they wouldn’t feel safe otherwise!
There was much berating of the irresponsible, uninjected whose fault it was that restrictions had been imposed, to be suffered by everyone. They were fed up of it all. The irony. If – if – the current restrictions are removed / modified on the 19th, they have already declared they are choosing to continue to restrict themselves!
They live and walk amongst us…I don’t think there’s any hope for them. They are lost souls.
Thank goodness there is still evidence of sanity and rational thinking that keeps me going in this alien world. Existing – not living – is becoming hard work.
Village gardens open day today. Some idiot suggested that wearing masks was a good idea! I suggested letting folk use their common sense, reply was that would mean not wearing a mask…. Outside on a windy day… Ye gods!
Some garden owners said that they did not expect anyone to wear a mask in their garden but keep your distance was to be strictly enforced… I truly despair.
Well, when it comes to public transport they are going to have to get used to no physical distancing because many people have now had enough and will not be pandering to it, and they cannot expect to have a pair of seats or a table to themselves on the triain at busier times.
I have no doubt that in the next few weeks the maskivist agenda will be pushed hard, and there will be a ramping up of hostility towards those who do not want the vaccine.
Was on the tube the other day, lots of people not wearing masks. Was good to see.
Good to know. Thanks.
Drip, drip, drip as professionals and fence sitters finally smell the coffee, and try to manoeuvre themselves onto the right side of history. Such a pity LDS didn’t apply such sceptical rigour on the question of vaccines and coercion. Instead it published article after government friendly article on the vaxx roll out, with LDS proclaiming itself as being neither pro nor anti vaxx, despite mounting MHRA and VAERS evidence of deaths and life changing adverse reactions. LDS seemed to want to deny the symbiotic policy connection between lockdown and experimental vaccines, which had driven the fiasco of the last 16 months despite it having been openly admitted by the PM back in March 2020
Instead of leading an ethical editorial counter charge against murderous government policy and mandatory vaccinations, LDS left it to a few BTL voices to shout out about the inevitable upcoming carnage once young people and schoolchildren are jabbed (arrived at simply by applying available MHRA and ONS statistics, and not conspiratorial hysteria).
This despite LDS publishing recent articles showing that UK vaxx deaths alone were running at 1 in 24,000, and subject to up to 95% under reporting which would take that figure to 1 in 1200. In other words, applying the published logic of LDS articles, out of 9m UK schoolchildren some 375 (up to 7,500) will likely die from the upcoming vaccine roll out (as opposed to less than 10 unvaccinated healthy schoolchildren who might die of Covid 19).
And how many of those children, I wonder, will go on to develope dreadful problems due to being stabbed?
By applying the latest MHRA Yellow card figures out of almost 300,000 reported reactions there have been 1403 reported deaths. So out of the minimum of 375 likely deaths in school children there will (by extrapolation ) be around 80,000 reported short term reactions of varying severity (as reported by Yellow Card, ie under 7 days). Please note:
Refreshing!
I, along with my wife, will no longer wear a mask.
Well done – I’ve not worn a mask since day one – weighed up the evidence of their effectiveness and come to the conclusion that they were next to useless and probably do more harm than good so I refused to wear one and I’ve not had so much as a sniffle since. I was to meet a few people who wore masks and didn’t like them but they didn’t have the courage not to wear one and claim exemption or even wear an exemption badge instead – if you read the government exemption rules pretty much everyone could be exempt if they wanted to – you even don’t have to wear a mask if it causes you any discomfort – I’ve seen mask-wearers hyperventilating due to the pressure of wearing a mask for long periods of time but the thought of walking into a store full of masked shoppers without a mask they just couldnt do so they put up with the discomfort and were relieved that they would’nt be reproached by the covid gestapo out there – so the social pressure to wear a mask was incredibly enormous and then you had the likes of Johnson, Gore and Hancock and the rest of parliament wearing masks like political props to not only spread the fear abut reinforce that social pressure to wear a mask – which only confirmed in my mind what i have long suspected from the start – that we are being governed by complete and utter morons.
Just thinking how sad it is that a small common sense article has made me feel like a woman dying of thirst being given a glass of water! How god-awful life has become.
Excellent article.
But covid was preceeded by ‘climate change’ for 30+ years , this is when the ‘scientific method’ was abandoned quite deliberately. 30+ years of computer models, completely incapable of producing one year of accuracy. And now the IPCC are about to inflict even more outrageous forecasts on us.
Unfortunately, the medical field has a long history of quackery derived from unscientific correlations barely above the level of side-bar click bait. The Food Pyramid – which caused the obesity epidemic – would have to have been one of the worst. Cholesterol, fat scares – all based on click bait quackery. Same goes for Climate Doomsterism.
What a bizarre article; Hancock’s responsibilities were restricted to England only and he had no authority in Wales so why a Welsh academic should attack him for actions that have nothing to do with anyone in Wales is a mystery.
Bizmare response William Guff, unless you consider that opinion is determined by geographical location.
What a bizarre comment. Hancock, Witty et al are national figures who were heard every day on the government’s propaganda channel and whose every utterance was reported in the government-supported daily press. Their influence on Johnson is probably immense.
The usual question applies: Did Professor Emeritus Fairclough raise any of these questions with the GMC or Royal Colleges? Did he send his criticisms of the IPSOS poll to IPSOS’s CEO? Did he contact the authorities at ICL and ask why they were still taking Ferguson seriously when they should have sacked him long ago? If not why not?
A lot of the past 18 months (!) could have been avoided if people like Professor Fairclough had raised an absolute stink in the right places.
I also emailed Toby directly a week or so ago pointing out that if LS had used the criminal (prosecution for misfeasance in public office) rather than the civil law (judicial review) against Hancock et al we might all have been better off. I am still waiting for a response.
You would need to ask him but the presence of this web site,planet normal and spiked represents some of the few outlets whee dissemination I able to be voiced
Cancel culture prevails sadly
If he did, he would have been ignored. Look what happened to the Oxford Professor of Evidence Based Medicine.
He has spoken up here for children, and he is to be applauded.
Also Mad Cow Disease … “which I had already seen amongst cannibals in Papua New Guinea” is the coolest sentence ever.
Great article can we get him into number 10 and ministry of health! He’d put SAGE to flight! Go get um Mr Fairclough!!
Unfortunately science has been politicised and if you want funding science has to toe the political orthodoxy line. Science was about questioning and discussion, it actively sort out opposition to any hypothesis and if there was 1 negative result to a theory then that theory wasn’t resilient. When Einstein published his work on relativity there was a counter paper called “100 scientists against Einstein”, Einstein quickly dismissed them by saying they only need one scientist to prove him wrong.
Politicians have taken something that was beautiful and have made it ugly. Unforgivable.
see all so https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3lx6Scwfhg ,by John Campbell, for an example of a scientifically illiterate MP, in charge of the vaccination roll-out, refusing to consider a possible problem with the actual vaccination procedure which could inject AstraZeneca into a blood vessel rather than muscle resulting in fatal blood clots.
Very good article. See also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3lx6Scwfhg
Why does the government listen to the incompetent, inexperienced scientists and guesswork modellers on the SAGE committee rather than people with a lifetime of clinical and scientific experience like this guy? Why do we have no politicians with scientific knowledge or entry to the scientific or current clinical community? Surely some medical knowledge or lifetime interest should be an absolute requirement for the health secretary. If that isn’t possible because people with those skills and abilities are too busy doing important work, it should be a necessary requirement to have e seriously competent person with those skills and currently using them to be advising the health secretary. It seems there are few members of the SAGE committee who have donned gown and gloves recently, if ever, and some of those who have, had advised against many of the government restrictions. Many of the people on the Sage Committee are like Whitty and Vallance whose chief skill seems to be distorting data to justify extremes of unnecessary restrictions are lacking balance in considering the deaths cased by these restrictions, which over time could easily exceed the number caused by the virus itself and have done untold destruction to many organisations which could have survived with a more honest and reasonable approach to dealing with Covid-19.