Remember all that alarmist guff about Antarctica sea ice recording lower levels in winter a couple of years ago? Georgina Rannard of the BBC wrote a story headed ‘Antarctic sea ice at “mind-blowing” low alarms experts‘, while Clive Cookson at the Financial Times gave us his suggestion that the area “faces a catastrophic cascade of extreme environmental events… that will affect the climate around the world”. The scare story caravan has moved on to pastures new these days, not unrelated to the fact that at the end of 2024 the extent of sea ice in Antarctica was roughly the same as the 1981 to 2010 average. According to the U.S.-based National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC), “this provides a sharp illustration of the high variability of Antarctica sea ice extent”. It does indeed, and it also provides us with a classic case study of how a short-term natural variation, well understood by many scientists, is weaponised by activists in science, politics and journalism to induce mass climate psychosis with the aim of promoting the political Net Zero lunacy.
The less hysterical NSIDC would appear to be the same NSIDC that published a paper updated as recently as last July asking, “has Antarctic sea ice hit a breaking point?”. As the Daily Sceptic has reported in the past, Antarctica has been a bit of a disappointment to the climate cry-baby crowd since it has shown little warming for at least 70 years. “Now scientists are eager to know if climate change has finally caught up with Antarctica sea ice,” notes the NSIDC paper. Helpful as ever in the mission of preaching climate Armageddon, Rannard of the BBC provides us with an “experts say” quote: “Without its ice cooling the planet, Antarctica could transform from Earth’s refrigerator to a radiator.”
Interestingly, the second author on the Rannard story was ‘data’ specialist Becky Dale who subsequently enrolled for the six-month sabbatical run by the Green Blob-funded Oxford Climate Journalism Network. This is a crash course in climate catastrophisation reporting. Previous participants have been asked to write about how fruits such as mangos are less tasty than in the past due to climate change. A recent speaker has called for “fines and imprisonment” for those expressing scepticism about “well supported” science.
The ’mind-blowing’ quote that made headlines around the world has been attributed to Dr. Walter Meier of the NSIDC. Dr Meier, reported Rannard and Dale, “is not optimistic that the sea ice will recover to a significant degree”. At the height of the scare, Meier claimed the 2023 winter dip was far outside anything we’ve seen. Again as we have reported in the Daily Sceptic, Dr. Meier seems a tad forgetful of the past work he has done on the obvious cyclical nature of Antarctica sea ice. Ten years earlier, Meier was part of a science team that unlocked the secrets of early Nimbus satellite photographs. These revealed significant Antarctica sea ice variability in the 1960s including a high in 1964, not seen again until 2014, and a low in 1966, similar to the recent dip. At the time, Meier commented that extreme ice highs and lows “are not that unusual”.
During November and December 2024, mid to late spring in the Southern Hemisphere, the daily Antarctica sea ice loss was 140,000 square kilometres compared to 165,000 sq kms for the 1981-2010 average. By the end of December the sea ice extent was roughly around the average recorded in the 30 years to 2010. Now it seems the NSIDC is a re-convert to stressing long-term trends, noting that the 2016-2024 timeline “is too short to definitely determine that a regime shift has occurred”.
Perhaps the NSIDC ought to mark the card of the British Antarctica Survey (BAS) team, who as late as May last year issued a press release claiming that the 2023 lows would be a one in 2,000 year event without climate change. Needless to say, this scaremongering twaddle was the product of a computer model. The model told the BAS that such “evidence” adds to existing observational evidence “that the last few years’ low sea ice could signal a lasting regime shift in the Southern Ocean”. More BS than BAS, the uncharitable might conclude.
Needless to say, the recent cyclical recovery in Antarctica sea ice has been ignored by mainstream media. It’s been a bad period for alarmists, coming so soon after years of record growth of coral on the Great Barrier Reef put an end to yet another profitable supply of constant alarums. Thankfully the BBC finds ever more obscure ways to keep the fast-fading Net Zero fantasy alive. Perhaps not as headline-grabbing as ice and coral, but it appears that a bumble bee has been sighted recently in Scotland. It was claimed that critters were “nest building” and this was due to climate change. Britannica does not find such a sighting very surprising, noting that in winter when the temperature outside rises above 10°C, bees will leave the hive momentarily to relieve themselves of waste. Possibly with a cheery wave and a “back in three, going for a wee”.
All of the confusion – designed to constantly promote Net Zero – arises because narrative-driven commentators assign most weather and climate changes to humans adding trace amounts of a trace gas into the atmosphere. It leaves little room for explaining the role of natural variation in the changing climate. Antarctica has not warmed for at least 70 years and a recent paper found that the summer temperature had shown a dramatic 1°C fall from 1977-1999, followed by a pause since the turn of the century. Another paper found that Antarctica sea ice extent had slowly increased since the start of continuous satellite recordings in 1979.
This case study of the recent hyped sea ice alarm in Antarctica shows how the scientific process is torn up and ridiculous claims, often produced by computer models, are made on the flimsiest of short-term evidence and observation. Lectures on disregarding short-term variations only resume when normal, and often cyclical, trends reappear and follow inconvenient directions.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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Thanks Chris, for keeping us sane!
Planet savers will be offended by facts again. Keep the hate speech coming against fallacy, fantasy and folly, Mr Morrison!
Reality will prevail over the madness of the crowd in the long run, as it generally does.
Informative retrospective going back 30 years from ex-Reuters journalist who’s seen the light:..
https://www.wintonsblog.com/climate-change-denial-is-an-oxymoron/
“…I’m getting bored being called a climate-change denier on LinkedIn, even though the charge instantly reveals the accuser as a science ignoramus who hates free speech.”
I’ve left LinkedIn for the same reason
Surprised they haven’t seized on this as “evidence” that Net Zero measures are “working”.
But then I guess they’d have to admit that doing anything more would be pointless.
Maybe that’s because, on a global scale, essentially there are no Net Zero measures!
I bet this will happen eventually. It’ll be ‘well, it would have been much worse if nothing had been done’. Wish I could be around in 50 years to see what future generations are saying…
It’s frustrating that your work (and others) isn’t given a chance on MSM Chris. However, I take every opportunity to spread the message. If enough of us do likewise, then a groundswell of scepticism will eventually breakthrough.
I’m not convinced, judging by the massive ignorance on display in BBC HYS about the cold weather snap. It’s like Covid, they want to believe that the sky is falling
The sky can fall on them mate, just as long as it remains up there for thee and me.
And I turned on Channel 4 news last night just in time to hear the reporter on the California wild fires say ‘Now that climate change is bringing more of these extreme events…’ I switched off.
Any evidence that the climate alarmists don’t have a clue of anything and their predictions are all wrong is music to my ears.
That said I would make the following observation.
Is more antarctic ice a good thing? Maybe it is but maybe it isn’t. If it keeps advancing and we get a new ice age, that would be pretty scary and catastrophic.
Maybe it isn’t such a great thing that Antarctic ice has “recovered”.
It seems to be a racing cert that sooner or later, ice will expand. Interglacial periods typically last 12-15000 years and we’ve had most of our time. What will the ecoloons do then?
Die from the cold while wearing Speedos?
Quick, get the fossil fuels going again!
Top destination and investment for the super rich. Isolated and given the unevenness of the climate some of it may be trutly inhabitable in a couple of decades. Same is happening in the north. Major collaboration between Russia and China to open an Arctic sea route thereby bypassing the Suez Canal etc. This is the future but you wouldn’t know it in England. You get more of a sense of canniness by sitting by a couple of African businessmen in a hotel. They are completely clued up on a continental shift level. You would be amazed at how naive the discourse in this country is. Truly a goldfish bowl mentality and not long ago we used to take the piss out of the Yanks for being so naive.
The BBC has been leading it’s radio news bulletins with the idiot Rowlatt and the 1.6°C above pre-industrial temperatures all day, bleating about how all 10 hottest recorded years are in the last 20 sort of thing.
Could Chris please educate them on what proper measurements show and how the Class 4 and 5 measurement stations have been knitted out of melted chocolate fireguards?
It’s infuriating being scammed; to know you’re being scammed …. and also that you can do nothing about it.
I’m just resisting the nonsense as much as possible and refuse to “go along” with the narrative. It’s all I can do.
Excellent article, as always, Mr Morrison. What a valuable contribution you make in resisting the net zero madness.