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.
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Net Zero Winters Will Kill – latest leaflet to print at home and deliver to neighbours or forward to politicians, your new MP, your local vicar, online media and friends online. Start a local campaign. We have over 200 leaflet ideas on the link on the leaflet.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3290562/china-russia-ties-xi-jinping-tells-medvedev-beijing-seeks-political-solution-ukraine
Dmitri Medvedev stated that “sober minds in the West are ready for dialogue with “United Russia
So it is now clear that there will be an outbreak of peace shortly in Europe and that the first ever invasion of a nuclear power by its neighbour may not result in a cataclysmic global self immolation by the bunch of monkeys that calls itself ‘mankind’
That is just as well for the particular simians in Westminster who have managed to contrive it, at this most dangerous juncture, that only two of the only six British air defence assets that have some remote chance of destroying incoming ballistic missiles are presently operational.
Well done Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, Clegg, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak, Starmer…a more complete bunch of baboons would be hard to imagine….
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/two-of-six-type-45-destroyers-currently-operational/
That notwithstanding, in response to the Russian anthropoid sub species visiting their related Asian simian sub species, the Asian great apes mumbled the following:
‘China will continue to work to create “favourable conditions for a political solution” to the Ukraine crisis, President Xi Jinping said while vowing to strengthen “strategic synergy” with Russia, according to state broadcaster CCTV.
Meeting former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev in Beijing on Thursday, Xi repeated Beijing’s position on the Ukraine war, saying China “repeatedly stressed” the need to adhere to three principles – “no expansion of the battlefields, no escalation of hostilities and no fanning flames” – to strive for a swift de-escalation.
Medvedev said Russia took China’s position on the Ukraine issue “positively”, noted the “Friends of Peace” group initiative proposed by China, Brazil and other countries, and was willing to “actively push for a political solution” to the Ukrainian crisis, according to CCTV.
According to Russia’s Tass news agency, Medvedev said Russia was ready for peace talks with Ukraine, but only if Kyiv understood the realities on the ground.’
Peace in our time, then?
Best cut a deal now before oil slips to $40/barrel…….
“Simplicius” pointed out how Russia should learn from the downfall of Syria:
… the unexpected upheaval of this event could act towards re-centering Russian priorities in Ukraine by giving a dose of reality to not only how quickly situations can change, but how dangerously ‘loaded’ unattended frozen conflicts can turn out to be. Russia must win the Ukraine war decisively, because the Empire is clearly not done yet and is going out swinging on all fronts.
But RussiansWithAttitude said it well enough so that I don’t have to:
False Peace is Death. A bad faith ceasefire is a recipe for disaster and after Minsk and Astana should never be repeated. False peace is worse than war, because false peace means you still have to fight the war later, but at a disadvantage. No green busses or green corridors for the enemy, no deescalation zones, no freezing of any lines. The enemy has to be defeated completely: victory is a prerequisite for mercy. Until that is achieved, no ceasefires, only death under FABs.
Collapse is always sudden. The Assad regime resisted NATO-Israeli aggression for 13 years. And then it fell in a week. Mistakes, systemic errors and structural attrition accumulate until a critical mass is reached, and at that point the smallest impact will bring down the entire house of cards. Likewise, our current enemy in the main theater will resist stubbornly, until he will not be able to anymore, and then we will see Big Arrows. All our efforts should be focused on damaging the enemy’s war-waging capabilities to reach that critical point.
Infantry is King. A single full-sized, dependable Russian infantry brigade (or a Ukrainian one, for that matter) would have been able to defeat the Jihadi advance for good. They were completely overstretched and to a large degree their offensive was a bluff that only worked because the SAA didn’t even try to resist, they just ran. We had our own experience with a lack of infantry in the SMO — it led to the Kharkov oblast debacle in fall ’22. No matter what anyone says, no matter what technological advances there are, the infantry unit was and remains the central actor of history, upon which all else depends.
The foregoing circumstances could act as a catalyst to remind Russia of the existentiality of the current global conflict. The stakes are everything and Russian leadership may now see just how critical it is to make sure that the West is decisively defeated in Ukraine.
Very pertinent. Simplicius is an outstanding commentator. Thank you for posting.
The outstanding success of the U.S. strategy to weaken Russia, coupled with pressure from China, is now having demonstrable effect.
Orbán had a phone conversation with Putin in the middle of the week, lasting over an hour. Minister of FA Szijjártó then asked Zelensky to speak with Orbán.
The Ukrainian president, declined the request.
“Streeting vows to root out NHS antisemitism”
With considerably more vigour than he is rooting out sloth and waste, I presume..?
They also have a thing about rooting out Christians, and another thing about rooting out ‘Islamaphobia’, Transphoia, and a bunch of other phobias and -isms. The point I was trying to make was that so far, other than providing death to already terminally ill patients, our ‘Broken NHS’ (Streetings words) appears not to have taken any of his time up in formulating ways of improving the provision of healthcare in the UK.
“Keir Starmer’s ‘surrender squad’ to undo Brexit:
So we can enjoy the same economic benefits as the rest of Europe..? This obsession with the EU as some kind of Utopia and the desire of which is the mark of moral and intellectual superiority makes me vomit.
Just another example of Kneel’s traitorous behaviour.
We need to keep repeating this – the Prime Minister is a traitor.
“Where Ed Miliband is plotting to build one billion solar panels across Britain”
Breath-taking folly.
“Heat pumps and solar panels may be forced on listed buildings”
This ‘thing’ Ed Milibrain has no care for the preservation of history or humanity
All he cares about is his future legacy of being remembered as the green god who saved the world!
Reality is he’ll be remembered as the biggest fool in politics and his legacy will be taught in schools as a text book case of what piety and arrogance can destroy
The people had better make sure there’s a Reform government next if they want to undo the damage being done.
There is no such thing as “impossible to undo.” Anybody pushing that crap is as dishonest as those pushing the idea in the first place.
Correct, parliament makes the laws parliament can disolve the laws
This Ba$tardised government does not set our children’s futures in stone just because they got in for 5 years!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/12/14/number-civilians-killed-gaza-inflated-to-vilify-israel/
Finally, evidence to back up what has long been suspected.
‘An independent, volunteer-based group of researchers spanning from Australia to California, operating without organizational or private sponsorship, has investigated Gaza casualty figures.’
‘Systematic omission of combatant casualty information has led to a misleading narrative suggesting that Israel has killed “40,000 civilians” in Gaza. This narrative receives widespread media coverage. For instance, prominent television host Fareed Zakaria stated on CNN in April that “35,000 civilians died” during an interview with Bennett, who notably did not challenge this characterization’
‘….frequently citing numbers from the ‘Gaza Ministry of Health’ as though it was a fully independent, unbiased source. In reality, the Ministry of Health (MoH) is under the full control of Hamas.
Serious errors have been discovered on the Ministry’s lists of fatalities. These errors include a 22-year-old registered as a four-year-old, a 31-year-old registered as a one-year-old and several men with male first names registered as female – artificially increasing the numbers of women and children reported killed. The lists also include people who died before the war and people who died from attacks by Hamas rather than the Israel Defence Forces.’
‘…include around 5,000 natural deaths per year, including cancer patients who were listed by the Ministry for hospital treatment after they had already appeared on fatality lists. Hamas also claimed hundreds of fatalities from attacks which turned out to be misfired rocket launches by Gaza factions.’
So a bunch of Bonobos wearing silly hats, making weird noises, have been causing traffic chaos in London, claiming millions of pounds of expenses from their various trade unions to demonstrate based on a load of old confected nonsense……well done…….not……how fecking stupid……..
Completely bananas……
Key Findings
Men listed as women to inflate female fatalities. Analysis of Gaza Ministry of Health (MoH)
Fatality data reveals repeated instances of men being misclassified as women. Examples include individuals with male first names (e.g. Mohammed) being recorded as female. This misclassification contributes to the narrative that civilian populations, particularly women and children, bear the brunt of the conflict, potentially influencing international sentiment and
media coverage.
Adults registered as children. Significant discrepancies have been uncovered where adult fatalities are reclassified as children. For instance, an individual aged 22 was listed as a fouryear-old and a 31-year-old was listed as an infant. Such distortions inflate the number of child casualties, which is emotionally impactful and heavily emphasised in global reporting.
These misrepresentations suggest a deliberate attempt to frame the conflict as disproportionately affecting children, undermining the credibility of the fatality data.
Disproportionate deaths of fighting-age men. Data analysis indicates that most fatalities are men aged 15–45, contradicting claims that civilian populations are being disproportionately
targeted.
This age demographic aligns closely with the expected profile of combatants, further supported by spikes in deaths of men reported by family sources rather than hospitals.
This evidence suggests that many fatalities classified as civilian may be combatants, a distinction
omitted from official reporting.
Inclusion of natural deaths in reporting.
Despite the typical annual rate of 5,000 natural deaths in Gaza, the fatality data provides no accounting for such figures. This omission raises concerns that natural deaths, as well as deaths caused by internal violence or misfired rockets,
are being included in war-related fatality counts. Instances of cancer patients, previously registered for treatment, appearing on war fatality lists further support this assertion.
Such practices inflate the reported civilian death toll, complicating accurate assessments of the conflict’s impact.
Media underreporting of combatant deaths. Analysis of media coverage reveals that only 3% of news stories reference combatant deaths, with outlets like the BBC, CNN, Reuters and The New York Times primarily relying on Gaza Ministry of Health figures. These figures often lack verification and fail to distinguish between combatants and civilians.
The omission creates a skewed narrative that portrays all casualties as civilian, thus shaping public opinion and
international policy based on incomplete or manipulated data.
How many weeks ago was it that USA ‘celebrated’ their 500th cargo aircraft delivery of weapons to Israel? How many bombs does that make? How many 2,000lb bombs has Israel dropped on Gaza? How much assistance has Israel had in its murderous and destructive bombing campaigns from UK?
Would you like to read the report “Our Job Is to Flatten Gaza. No One Will Stop Us”: Inside One Israeli Battalion’s Yearlong Mission Of Destruction on https://www.dropsitenews.com/?
Or would you like to read this report extolling the work of an Israeli sniper team in Gaza: https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/us-nonprofit-raising-money-israeli-sniper-unit? You may even donate to their cause!
You can also add up the death count that https://antiwar.com/ provides on a daily basis or simply admire the multitude of photographs showing the widespread destruction and suffering caused by the Israelis.
Professional reporters (I think it was last week that Israel celebrated killing its 192nd reporter in Gaza) estimate the number of deaths in Gaza to be over 300,000. How many do you think there are? 10? 20?
Would you like to go there and count yourself? Good luck!
And you could get the impression Israel does not like reporters. Now, why is that?
Bit hard for the jew haters to understand
.
I am baffled as to why there have not been any “covid deaths” recorded in gaza.
A definitive figure of fatalities is impossible, due to the lack of transparency from the MoH, a general lack of access to the Palestinian Population Registry and the challenges of counting militants killed in combat. However, this report finds numerous errors that cannot be explained by a lack of access to the Ministry of Health computer network that went offline in November 2023.
Our investigation found numerous statistical anomalies in the MoH’s fatality lists, including significant daily increases in the reported deaths of women and children that are mathematically impossible.
Furthermore, the inclusion of natural deaths in war-related fatality counts, the erroneous categorisation of men as women and children, and the failure to account for deaths caused by internal Palestinian violence or misfired rockets from Gaza have all contributed to
inflated and misleading numbers.
This report highlights the broader implications of such data distortion. International Humanitarian Law requires that warring parties take measures to minimise civilian harm, but the distortion of fatality data undermines efforts to assess compliance with these
laws.
The absence of credible data also hampers international responses, humanitarian aid efforts and peace negotiations. Without accurate and reliable figures, it becomes nearly
impossible to understand the full scope of the conflict’s impact or to hold parties accountable for their actions.
While it is crucial to acknowledge the suffering and loss of life in Gaza, the uncritical repetition of unverified fatality figures serves to obscure the truth rather than illuminate it. The MoH’s
fatality reports, in their current form, should not be treated as definitive, nor should they be used as the primary basis for international discourse on the conflict.
This situation calls for a more measured approach in reporting and analysis, one that critically examines sources of
information and distinguishes between legitimate and manipulated data.
Responsible reporting requires more than simply relaying numbers. It demands a critical assessment of the data, an understanding of the context and a commitment to accuracy.
The international media plays a crucial role in shaping global perceptions of the conflict. Only by approaching these figures with a critical eye can the media help uncover the truth behind the war’s human cost, ensuring that the true nature of the conflict is represented in the reporting of it.
Just where are you copying this nonsense from and what is your purpose in doing so? You seem to be mocking the countless deaths that Israel has incurred on the Palestinian population.
I have been unable to access the PCBS (Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics) website for some time now which hardly surprises me: I assume some Israeli tank or bomb just blew their office to smithereens.
They openly admitted their 45,000 deaths were only ‘Martyrs’, i.e. people killed directly by Israeli fire. Their only source of information were the hospitals, which remain(ed) prime targets of Israel’s onslaught. Thus those people were never counted who died of hunger, cold, lack of medical support, or who were/are buried under the ubiquitous rubble of destroyed houses and villages.
Anyone who has been following the reporting made by such sites as https://antiwar.com/, https://electronicintifada.net/, https://thegrayzone.com/, https://www.ukcolumn.org/, etc., will be well aware of the obviously very high number of casualties, as well as being equally aware of the impossibility of an exact count while the conflict continues.
That Israel is guilty of massive extirpation of human life is, however, clear and cannot to be denied. Any attempt to ridicule or downplay the hundreds or several tens of thousands of deaths is severely reprehensible.
This report raises serious concerns that the Gaza MoH figures have been overstated.
The data behind their figures contains natural deaths, deaths from before this conflict began and deaths of those killed by Hamas itself; it contains no mention of Hamas combatant fatalities; and it overstates the number of women and children killed.
Serious errors have been discovered on the Ministry’s lists of fatalities. These errors include a 22-year-old registered as a four-year-old, a 31-year-old registered as a one-year-old and several men with male first names registered as female – artificially increasing the numbers of women and children reported killed.
The lists also include people who died before the war and people who died from attacks by Hamas rather than the Israel Defence Forces.
Incredible: European Committee gives green light to use self-replicating mRNA vaccines on citizens of EU countries: https://expose-news.com/2024/12/15/green-light-to-use-self-replicating-vaccines-in-eu/.
It is becoming clear that the real purpose of any injection is to stuff bodies with self-replicating mRNA and any “disease” will do.
Yes, these people are truly determined to wipe out mankind.