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Arctic Scare Stories Melt Away

Arctic summer sea ice should have melted away years ago, according to the 'experts' who foretold its demise by 2007, 2012, 2016... But with the ice going nowhere, those experts are very quiet now, says Paul Homewood.

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The Arctic sea ice should have melted away years ago, according to the ‘experts’.

In 2007, for instance, Professor Wieslaw Maslowski told us that northern polar waters could be ice-free in summers within just five to six years. In December that year, Jay Zwally of NASA agreed, giving the ice till 2012.

A year later, Professor David Barber went one step further, saying the ice would all be gone that very summer. Then we had Al Gore confidently predicting it would all disappear by 2016.

For sheer persistence in getting it wrong, however, first prize must go to Professor Peter Wadhams, Professor of Ocean Physics and Head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge:

  • In 2012, he predicted that the Arctic would be ice free by 2015-16
  • In 2014, he thought it might last till 2020
  • In 2016, he confidently predicted the Arctic would be ice free that summer (though curiously he now defined “ice free” as less than one million square kilometres!)

Strangely, all these ‘experts’ have been pretty quiet lately. Little wonder, because Arctic sea ice extent is just as large now as it was when all of those fatuous claims were made.

To be fair, they were only talking about summer sea ice. Even they were not daft enough to think that there would be no ice in winter either.

As is always the case in mid-September, the sea ice has

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10 Comments
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
varmint
varmint
28 minutes ago

No matter if all of the projections and predictions fail. The scaremongering Climate Change Industry keeps moving on with new scary stories and the previous ones are all forgotten, because it isn’t about accuracy. It is about authority and Narrative Management.

For a fist full of roubles
For a fist full of roubles
43 minutes ago

Sea ice extent is the total area of ocean containing at least 15% sea ice cover.
Just to clarify that is 85% open water and 15% ice.
Winds from the south will cause the ice to pack together, reducing the extent. Nothing to do with ambient temperature.

Rob Day
Rob Day
1 hour ago

Run the article through AI.

FerdIII
FerdIII
31 minutes ago
Reply to  Rob Day

AI will reject it. Part of the matrix. AI depends on data sources. If the ‘authoritative’ sources say the Arctic has disapppeared that is what AI will tell you. You could be standing at the Arctic with a measuring rod and tell AI, ‘wrong, it is growing not shrinking’ but it sources will inform the code to reply that your lying eyes are wrong and you are just a whackjob conspiracy nut.

Rob Day
Rob Day
5 minutes ago
Reply to  FerdIII

Run the article through AI !

OlaffFelts
OlaffFelts
1 hour ago

Experts! Expect stupidity.

JohnK
JohnK
56 minutes ago
Reply to  OlaffFelts

The more expert they are, the narrower their field of understanding.

Boomer Bloke
Boomer Bloke
38 minutes ago
Reply to  OlaffFelts

They know so much about so little that eventually they know everything about phuque all.

Dinger64
Dinger64
14 minutes ago
Reply to  OlaffFelts

Ex: something that has been
Spurt: a drip under pressure !

WillP
WillP
1 hour ago

According to geologists the poles have been ice free on earth for 70-80% of the time there has been life on earth, which means we are currently in an ice age in geological terms.

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