From the Daily Skeptic
Chris Morrison
Sea ice around Antarctica has “slowly increased” since continuous satellite records began in 1979, with any changes caused by natural climate variability. In a paper published earlier this year, four environmental scientists went further and argued that any indication that humans were responsible for any changes was “uncertain.” Of course, that’s not the case for the mainstream media, which has been ranting about Antarctica’s sea ice and promoting the fantasy of “net zero” for decades. Sea ice decreased last winter, resulting in financial times Science editor Clive Cookson exclaimed that the entire region “faces a series of catastrophic extreme environmental events… that will affect climate around the world”.
Using satellite records, scientists noted a “long-term and gradual” expansion of sea ice until around 2014, followed by a brief, sudden decline from 2014-19. Although there was a temporary recession around 2022, growth has since resumed. Of course, all of this is well known, and EU weather service Copernicus recently admitted that the entire sea ice extent “shows large year-to-year variability, with no clear long-term trend since 1979”. On the other side of the world, Copernicus correctly noted that the cyclical decline in Arctic sea ice “has leveled off since 2007.”
For journalists following the narrative, this must have been extremely confusing. There was no doubt confusion among their ranks when they overheard comments last year from Dr. Walter Meyer of the National Snow and Ice Data Center. He was in entirely positive mode when he claimed that winter sea ice melt in 2023 was “far beyond anything we've ever seen, almost shocking.” But perhaps not as confused as Dr. Meier himself, who a decade ago was part of a scientific team that cracked the secrets of early rain cloud photographic data. The data reveal significant changes in Antarctic sea ice during the 1960s, including a high in 1964 that did not occur again until 2014, and a low in 1966 that was similar to recent declines. At the time, Dr. Meyer commented that extreme heights and lows in the ice were “not unusual.”
The BBC says the 2023 Antarctic ice scare has set a worrying new benchmark for the region, which “once appeared to be resistant to global warming”. Those seeking accuracy may note that this remains the case. Antarctica has experienced little warming over the past 70 years.
Net-zero fanatics are promoting mass climate psychosis in humanity using all sorts of alarming scares, which are each exposed as wishful rubbish. Over the past few decades, alarmists have taken a cue from the ozone hole scare that began in 1974. Subsequently, annual ozone holes appeared over Antarctica, and international agreement banned the use of CFCs in 1995. Achievements achieved. The Nobel Prize was accepted, and activists turned to other fears and proposed a ban. What happened to the ozone hole, you ask? Well, the hole continues to grow and shrink as it always does, and the hole is as big this year as it has been for the last 30 years. Whisper – natural variation seems to be at work here.
Readers will no doubt be aware of the growing excitement over the prospect of another “hottest year” in 2024. for some extra warmth.
The hottest year claim is based on extremely incomplete temperature records dating back less than 100 years. For ocean temperatures, accurate and complete global records go back less than 20 years. As we've seen in many Daily Skeptic articles, temperature data itself is almost constantly being homogenized/reanalyzed/invented/tweaked. While most personal temperature records around the world have been ruined by urban heat, the Met Office seemed immensely proud of the nation's highest temperature ever recorded in 2022, when three Typhoon jets landed at an RAF airbase. If we consider proxy records, it seems likely that temperatures were just as high during the Roman and Medieval periods, and 8,000 years ago, when the great northern ice caps began to melt, temperatures were at least 3°C higher than today. Likewise, it's hard not to conclude that natural variations play a dominant role in controlling climate thermostats.
For those who take the loss of coral very seriously, thoughts and prayers are also the order of the day. Three years of record growth for the massive Great Barrier Reef capped the headlines. Polar bears are just as bad, constantly breeding to reach new heights in the Arctic. Satellites continue to spot large colonies of penguins in Antarctica, while the mainstream media, seemingly stunned into silence, reports that eyes in the sky have spotted Earth's recent massive greening of vegetation. There is a growing trend to debunk any claims of “extreme” weather – the great citizen journalist Paul Homewood even wrote a book about the BBC's more severe climate calls, and every year there are quite a few, such is the volume to deal with.
Net-zero plans are starting to crumble around the world as citizens express their feelings through voting (and sometimes even stones). No one can or wants to live in a world without hydrocarbons. Key to this trend is the growing recognition that the scientific process involving climate has been abandoned for decades, replaced by increasingly ridiculous garbage “fixed” scientific narratives.
Chris Morrison is daily skepticenvironment editor.
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