Over the satellite record, the scientists note there was a "prolonged and gradual" expansion of sea ice to around 2014 followed by a short period of sudden decline from 2014-19. Growth was then resumed, although there was a temporary downturn around 2022. These variations, which can also be observed before 1979, were caused by a number of natural atmospheric and oceanic factors. All of this is known of course, with the EU weather service Copernicus admitting recently that sea ice extent as a whole "shows large year-to-year variability and no clear long-term trend since 1979". At the other end of the Earth, Copernicus correctly states that the cyclical decline in Arctic sea ice "has levelled off since 2007".
It must all be very bewildering for narrative-following journalists. Confusion no doubt reigned supreme in their unquestioning ranks when they chanced upon the comments last year of Dr. Walter Meier of the U.S.-based National Snow and Ice Data Centre. He was in full activist mode when he claimed the 2023 winter sea ice dip was "so far outside anything we've seen, it's almost mind blowing". But not perhaps as confused as Dr. Meier himself who 10 years earlier was part of a scientific team that cracked open the secrets of early Nimbus photographic data. 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, Dr. Meier commented that extreme ice highs and lows "are not that unusual".
During the Great 2023 Antarctica Ice Scare, the BBC said that it showed a worrying new benchmark for the region "that once seemed resistant to global warming". Still does, those striving for accuracy might note. Antarctica has hardly warmed in the last 70 years.
One by one the appalling scares that have been used by Net Zero fanatics to promote mass climate psychosis in human populations are being exposed as wishful junk thinking. Over the last few decades, alarmists have taken their cue from the ozone hole scare that started in 1974. At this time, two scientists claimed that the widespread industrial use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) was destroying the protective ozone layer in the atmosphere. Subsequently, an annual appearance of an ozone hole was discovered over Antarctica and CFCs were banned by international agreement in 1995. The two scientists received the Nobel prize for their work, and activists claimed it was all a great triumph showing what could be achieved when humans acted in concert to protect the planet. The Nobels were accepted and the activists moved onto other scares and proposed bans. What happened to the ozone hole, you ask? Well that kept on expanding and contracting as it has always done, and this year the hole is as large as it has been for the last 30 years. Whisper it quietly - natural variation seems to be at work here.
As readers will no doubt be aware, there is gathering excitement about the prospect of another 'hottest year evah' for 2024. There has been a little extra warmth recently following a near nine-year temperature pause with scientists looking at a number of natural variations seen often in the past.
Hottest year claims are produced from woefully incomplete temperature records that are barely 100 years old. In the case of sea temperatures, accurate and complete global records stretch back less than 20 years. The temperature data itself, as we have seen in many Daily Sceptic articles, have been homogenised/reanalysed/invented/adjusted on an almost constant basis. Most individual temperature recordings around the world have been corrupted by urban heat, while in the U.K. the Met Office seems inordinately proud of a national high set in 2022 as three Typhoon jets were landing at a RAF airbase. If we consider the proxy record, it seems likely that temperatures were as high in Roman and medieval times, while 8,000 years ago the great northern ice sheets started to melt helped by temperatures at least 3°C higher than those experienced today. Again it is difficult not to conclude that natural variation plays the dominant role in controlling the climate thermostat.
Thoughts and prayers are also the order of the day for those who set great store in all the coral disappearing. Three years of record growth on the huge Great Barrier Reef put an end to that headliner. Polar bears are just as bad and keep breeding to top up new Arctic highs. Satellites keep discovering vast colonies of penguins in Antarctica, and mainstream media seem shocked into complete silence to report that the eyes in the sky have detected a vast recent plant greening of the Earth. There is a growing trend to debunk any 'extreme' weather claim - the great citizen journalist Paul Homewood even writes a book about the BBC's more egregious climate howlers, every year no less, such is the volume to process.
The Net Zero project is starting to crumble around the world as citizens make their feelings known with votes, and sometimes with rocks. Nobody can or wants to live in a world without hydrocarbons. Crucial to this trend is an emerging understanding that the scientific process when it comes to climate has been trashed for decades and replaced with an increasingly laughable junk 'settled' science narrative.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic's Environment Editor.
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