David Rose is mercifully quiet this weekend, but there’s no rest for the wicked! Christopher Booker in the Sunday Telegraph leads a bunch of the usual Alt-facts suspects in a barrage of fake news about our dearly beloved Arctic sea ice. According to Mr. Booker in the “Arctic Myths” section of his column today:
As the fake science of global warming continues to crumble, one scare story the zealots are determined to hold on to at all costs is their claim that ice in the Arctic is dangerously vanishing. Yet again lately we have been treated to a barrage of such headlines as “Hottest Arctic on record triggers massive ice melt”.
The nearest we got to such a headline here at the Great White Con was “Arctic Sea Ice News from AGU” in which article we showed images which said things like:
That’s because last year was the *hottest year on record in the Arctic! Undeterred by mere facts Mr. Booker continues:
But that ever-diligent blogger Paul Homewood has drawn on official sources such as the US National Snow and Ice Data Center to uncover what is actually happening. Under “Arctic Fake News”, on NotALotOfPeopleKnowThat, he posted a graph showing that last week the extent of sea ice was much the same as it has been at this date ever since 2001. Indeed, according to the Danish Meteorological Institute, there is even more of it today than in February 2006, and it is also significantly thicker. Back in 2008 much of the ice was only a metre thick. Today that has risen to two metres, and in some places four.
Mr. Booker appears to be more than somewhat confused, since this is what the DMI Arctic sea ice extent graph he links to reveals:
In addition the DMI thickness maps he refers to aren’t available at any of the places he mentions! Not a lot of people know that he was probably thinking of another recent article by Paul Homewood entitled “Arctic Ice Fake News“, which includes these two DMI thickness maps:
Even without considering other sources of Arctic thickness and/or volume data it is quite clear from the two volume graphs that according to the Danish Meteorological Institue Arctic sea ice volume is significantly lower this year than it was in 2008. If Arctic sea ice extent is greater this year and the volume is lower then the laws of physics (which not even the combined talents of Messrs Homewood and Booker can change) dictate that its average thickness must be LESS this year than in 2008!
Mr Booker blunders on:
The DMI data also show that the Greenland ice sheet, which we are told is melting at horrendous speed, is actually growing this year at a record rate, to a size way above its average for the past 26 years. And the most authoritative record of Northern Hemisphere snow cover shows this year’s ranking as one of the six highest since 1967.
He seems blissfully unaware that the “DMI data” to which he refers is the output of a DMI climate model that attempts to determine the “surface mass balance” of the Greenland ice sheet. He seems to think it’s a measurement of the mass of the Greenland ice sheet, which it isn’t. However this is, courtesy of NASA:
In his bubble of astounding Arctic ignorance Mr. Booker continues:
The Deplorable Climate Science blog, run by US expert Tony Heller, gleefully reproduces a 2007 headline: “Scientists: ‘Arctic is screaming’, global warming may have passed tipping point”. As Heller comments: “The Arctic is indeed screaming at climate scientists – to shut up.”
Now as luck would have it I have been (vainly!) attempting to persuade Mr. Heller “to shut up” on the very article Mr. Booker references! Let’s take a quick look at a couple of highlights shall we?
At the risk of repeating myself, need I say more?
It seems safe to assume that Mr. Booker wasn’t reading Mr Heller’s blog on or after February 22nd does it not? Otherwise he would surely have had second thoughts about writing such a ludicrous phrase as “there is even more of it today than in February 2006”?
Then of course there’s the burning question of the “Hottest Arctic on record”
At the risk of (repeating myself)² AZ, here’s some “higher atmospheric air temperatures” for you:
If Mr. Booker had browsed Mr. Heller’s blog slightly more diligently he might even have seen this from the much maligned NOAA:
You seem to have forgotten about spring Gail? Here’s April:
Here’s the May graph from “the most authoritative record of Northern Hemisphere snow cover” for good measure:
To summarise, Messrs Booker and Homewood could have confined their due diligence on their assorted Arctic articles to reading my comments on Mr. Heller’s blog. Having done so it would quickly have become apparent to them that every single point they made was in actual fact a “fake fact”.
The inevitable conclusion is that they have no interest whatsoever in establishing the actual facts about the Arctic. All they are interested in is propagating “fake news” about the Arctic as far and as wide as possible in pursuit of a common “agenda”. As is David Rose.
* Since satellite records began.
Thank you for your excellent debunking of those nutters.
You are very kind John,
The next problem is, of course, how to “persuade” The Telegraph to correct all the egregious errors in Christopher Booker’s fantasy fiction article.
You provide no links to graphs – this graph paints a slightly different picture – than the anomalies graph for NH snow cover. http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_anom.php?ui_set=0&ui_region=nhland&ui_month=1
Hi Warren,
Did you notice that Mr. Booker’s article provided no links to Rutgers Snow Lab data either?
What’s the relevance of a 12 month average when the high Arctic is dark for much of that time? Snow and/or ice albedo feedback becomes relevant in late spring and then summer.
He didn’t supply links so I don’t either. That’s your stance? Which makes your data….as reliable as his….
Ryan – There’s lots of links sprinkled through the article above, so no, that’s not my stance. Here’s lots more:
https://greatWhiteCon.info/resources/
DMI scientists responded to this nonsense: