“It doesn't matter” – Watt agrees?

In July 2017, CNN and other media published reports about the calving of the A-68 iceberg from Antarctica's Larsen C ice shelf, which CNN said we should be “alarmed” about because of climate change. CNN was wrong. It is based on an incomplete understanding of iceberg formation and calving, and results from a rush to judgment that furthers the false climate catastrophe narrative.

For example, CNN's John D. Sutter wrote in this article: That giant iceberg should scare you. that's why:

This doesn’t look like climate change.

There is no disagreement among climate scientists over whether humans are warming the planet by burning fossil fuels and polluting the atmosphere with greenhouse gases. we are. We see the consequences.

At the time, climate chicks in the media blamed it on climate change, but today, it looks like an Emily Litra moment just happened, because a new peer-reviewed scientific study shows that it's not an anomaly, and we too Shouldn't worry. The new study was published in Geophysical Research Letters Throwing a bucket of ice water on those over-exaggerated media claims. The study by McKee et al. (2024) analyzed 47 years of Antarctic observation satellite data and found that there was no trend in the annual maximum disintegration size of Antarctica between 1976 and 2023.

The main findings of the study are:

• According to satellite measurements, there has been no significant upward trend in Antarctica's annual largest iceberg area since 1973.
• The detachment of Iceberg A-68 from the Larsen C ice shelf was not statistically significant.
• Calving events several times larger than anything observed in modern records may occur, but this is not necessarily due to climate change.

To be clear, the calving of the A-68 iceberg is “not statistically exceptional” in historical satellite records. Let us understand this.

This finding suggests that extreme ice calving events like the recent 2017 Larsen C Iceberg A68 are not statistically exceptional, and that extreme ice calving events are not necessarily the result of climate change.

The authors also emphasize that the calving of ice sheets and glaciers shows a healthy cycle of advancing and retreating glaciers, rather than indicating glacier or ice sheet instability, noting,

Our results therefore suggest that extreme calving events should not automatically be interpreted as signs of ice shelf instability but should instead represent natural cycles of advancing and retreating calving fronts.

What's more, based on results from the generalized extreme value (GEV) distribution model used in the study, the scientists concluded that the calving event was likely to be statistically larger than any event observed to date in satellite data sets. Several times larger. For example, the authors say, “a once-in-a-century iceberg calving event would create an iceberg surface area approximately the size of Switzerland.”

This is supported by other historical paleoclimate data and studies, such as Bentley et al., 2005, which suggest that such extreme calving events had occurred before throughout the Holocene, something the authors also note in the Discussion.

In other words, the media makes a lot of trouble out of nothing.

Will this new study by MacKie et al. Refuting the climate alarm noise of 2017 that got a lot of media attention? Probably not. This does not fit with the sensational narrative of impending climate catastrophe promoted by the media. They would rather sweep this inconvenient fact under the rug than admit that they were not only wrong, but terribly wrong.

Note: Hats off to Chris Martz on Twitter for bringing this new study to my attention.

Anthony Watts

Anthony Watts is a senior fellow in environment and climate at the Heartland Institute. Since 1978, Watts has been in the weather business both in front of and behind the camera as a live television meteorologist and currently oversees daily broadcast forecasts. He created television weather graphics presentation systems, professional weather instruments, and co-authored peer-reviewed papers on climate issues. He runs the world's most viewed climate website, the award-winning wattsupwiththat.com.

Originally published in Climaterealism

Relevant