Surely a sufficiently unambiguous title for someone of Tony Heller’s intellectual capacity to comprehend?
[Edit – October 11th]
Tony is still very quiet about Arctic matters on Twitter, so here’s a few more episodes of my ongoing critique:
[Edit – October 13th]
Shock News! Tony Heller has accidentally made a testable prediction on Twitter!!
Let’s bookmark it for posterity shall we?
Needless to say Tony has yet to answer my final question.
[Edit – October 16th]
Needless to say Tony Heller has yet to answer any of my recent questions. What’s more despite the exhortations of one of his band of merry (mostly) men he has declined to engage in a public debate with me:
[Edit – October 22nd]
With my alter ego blocked I’ve been debating with some of Tony’s band of merry (mostly) men whilst wearing my normal attire. One of them requested the opinion of Judah Cohen and Big Joe on Tony’s cherry pick du jour:
Here’s what happened next:
Here’s what Judah’s suggestion looks like, up until October 18th at least:
The NSIDC’s data feed seems to be suffering from a “brief hiatus”:
A few days ago we posted an article about the recent surge in the amount of disinformation being published about Arctic sea ice. Eventually one of our long list of usual suspects, Anthony Watts, published a copy of an erroneous Arctic article by Paul Homewood.
Now the Watts Up With That Arctic porky pie production line is going into overdrive, so here’s an already long list of its output in the run up to the COP26 conference in Glasgow in a month or so. First up is the aforementioned clone from NALOPKT. Allegedly:
It is very easy to show that Arctic sea ice has stabilised. As their graph itself shows, there have only been three years since 2007 with lower ice extent than that year, and eleven have had higher extents. Also the average of the last ten years is higher than 2007’s extent.
In itself, this is too short a period to make any meaningful judgements. But that is no excuse for the Met Office to publish such a manifest falsehood.
This comment of mine on that article remains invisible at WUWT:
This morning (UTC) I added another comment to Anthony’s moderation queue:
It will probably not come as a shock to discover that my original comment is still invisible at @wattsupwiththat.
By way of a change we start this month’s look at all things Arctic with some sea ice statistical analysis. Anthony Watts’ Arctic porky pie production line has been speeding up recently, and I am not the only one who has noticed. As part of his takedown of the latest “skeptical” allegations against the United Kingdom Met Office Tamino has been looking at trends in Arctic sea ice extent over at his “Open Mind” blog:
First and foremost, the yearly minimum is only one day out of the year. We have sea ice extent data throughout the year, and what happens during the rest of the year counts. Instead of using the annual minimum, let’s use the annual average. To avoid losing the most recent data, I’ll compute the yearly average for October through the following September rather than the usual (but arbitrary) January through December. I’ll also omit October 1978 through September 1979 because that year is incomplete. I get this:
The annual averages show much less fluctuation than the annual minima, so we can estimate things like rates of change with greater precision. I find that there is statistical evidence that the rate changed over time. One model of such changes uses three straight-line segments with their changes chosen to best-fit the data, like this:
We reported on the first ICESat-2 sea ice thickness data to be released back in May. We are now very pleased to be able to reveal that the data up to April 2021 is now available for download from the NSIDC web site. Here’s a visualisation of April’s data:
For comparison purposes here’s the CryoSat-2/SMOS equivalent:
ICESat-2 looks to have captured the arm of thicker ice extending across the Beaufort Sea suggested by sea ice age data better than CryoSat-2:
However thickness data is totally absent where leads are absent, in land-fast ice for example. It seems that near real time ICESat-2 processing isn’t available as yet, but we await the release of the data for October with barely bated breath!
During the 4 years of the Donald Trump presidency the cryodenialosphere has been relatively quiet. However now that Joe Biden is in charge of the land of the free that happy state of affairs is changing.
First of all it is my solemn, if belated, duty to award the 2020 grand prize of the loan of another polar bear suit kindly donated by the Daily Telegraph plus a battered big board from Cotty‘s quiver to Tommy Barlow, occasional visitor to the Arctic Sea Ice Forum, with the following bon mots:
Fuck off, clique hobbit, shit-for-brains.
Getting back to 2021, several candidates have thrown their hat into the ring over the past few days. In order of appearance:
1) Sami Ilvonen on Twitter with the (partially now deleted):
2) Jeff Tonna on Twitter who insulted two alleged “climate nutters” whilst simultaneously invoking the spirit of Albert Einstein:
3) Matt Sissons on Twitter who assures me that “I don’t believe I’ve being rude to you”. Amongst other misdemeanours Matt was certainly on a roll on October 13th:
4) David Appel at Judith Curry’s “Climate Etc.” blog. According to his baby bio on Twitter David is a “Freelance science writer. PhD, physics”. I can only assume that amongst his other shortcomings David has never seen my Twitter C.V.:
With the COP26 conference starting in Glasgow in just over a month, and fresh from watching Boris Johnson invoking the spirit of Kermit the Frog in The Muppet Christmas Carol, it was an unanticipated pleasure to watch this speech by Mia Mottley, the Prime Minister of Barbados, to the United Nations’ General Assembly:
I highly recommend that you watch the entire speech. Whilst making numerous compelling points, especially regarding climate change, Mia also invoked the spirit of one Robert Nesta Marley:
Get up, stand up! Stand up for your rights! Get up, stand up! Don’t give up the fight!
There isn’t a million more square kilometers of ocean covered with ice than at the same time last year. Or is there?
For our younger readers perhaps I should point out that is a reference to the genesis of the Great White Con blog way back in the mists of time in September 2013, when a Daily Mail headline proudly, but erroneously, declared that:
And now it’s global COOLING! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% in a year.
With the COP26 conference due to start in Glasgow on October 31st UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson had this to say to the United Nations General Assembly yesterday, amongst other things:
In the words of the Oxford philosopher Toby Ord “we are just old enough to get ourselves into serious trouble”…
It is time for humanity to grow up.
It is time for us to listen to the warnings of the scientists – and look at Covid, if you want an example of gloomy scientists being proved right – and to understand who we are and what we are doing.
The world – this precious blue sphere with its eggshell crust and wisp of an atmosphere – is not some indestructible toy, some bouncy plastic romper room against which we can hurl ourselves to our heart’s content.
Daily, weekly, we are doing such irreversible damage that long before a million years are up, we will have made this beautiful planet effectively uninhabitable – not just for us but for many other species.
And that is why the Glasgow COP26 summit is the turning point for humanity.
If all that sounds unlikely, then take a look:
As we surmised at the time of the recent G7 Summit in Cornwall:
Back in 2013 I sat around a table with the Chinese delegation during lunch at the Economist’s Arctic Summitin Oslo. In the evening there was a reception with the British Ambassador to Norway, where amongst other people I met Kevin Vallely.
Fast forwarding to July 2021, the Chinese icebreaker Xue Long 2 (which translates to Snow Dragon 2) set sail from Shanghai to do some research in the Central Arctic Basin:
According to a report by the China Global Television Network (CGTN):
The expedition plans to monitor sea, marine ice, atmosphere, microplastics and ocean acidification in the high seas of the Arctic through navigation observation, cross-sectional survey and satellite remote sensing to obtain hydrological, meteorological and biological data of the region.
It will also conduct scientific surveys in the Gakkel Ridge in the Arctic Ocean to learn about the formation of rocks and magma and the geomorphic features there to further enhance knowledge of the natural environment in the North Pole.
The U.S. Coast Guard demonstrated its commitment to the Bering Sea and Arctic region with deployments of national security cutters Bertholf and Kimball, and a U.S. Arctic patrol by icebreaker Healy.
“Security in the Bering Sea and the Arctic is homeland security,” said Vice Adm. Michael McAllister, commander Coast Guard Pacific Area. “The U.S. Coast Guard is continuously present in this important region to uphold American interests and protect U.S. economic prosperity.”
Crews interacted with local, national and international vessels throughout the Arctic. During the deployment, Bertholf and Kimball observed four ships from the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) operating as close as 46 miles off the Aleutian Island coast. While the ships were within the U.S. exclusive economic zone, they followed international laws and norms and at no point entered U.S. territorial waters.
The PLAN task force included a guided missile cruiser, a guided missile destroyer, a general intelligence vessel, and an auxiliary vessel. The Chinese vessels conducted military and surveillance operations during their deployment to the Bering Sea and North Pacific Ocean.
All interactions between the U.S. Coast Guard and PLAN were in accordance with international standards set forth in the Western Pacific Naval Symposium’s Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea and Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea.
Now comes more news via CGTN, which according to YouTube “is funded in whole or in part by the Chinese government”, that:
Chinese captain Zhai Mo’s sailing boat is currently on the Northwest Passage of the Arctic Ocean.
According to the CGTN video it was “streamed live on Sep 15, 2021” from “Ilulissat, Denmark”. Then on September 16th CGTN reported that:
Canada has illegally stopped Chinese captain Zhai Mo and his crew while circumnavigating their sailboat in the Arctic Ocean near Lancaster Sound, a part of the northwest passage.
The United Nations defines the “right of innocent passage” as a vessel’s right to enter and pass through another’s territory as long as it is not prejudicial to the peace, good order or security of the other state.
Ilulissat is of course a long way from Denmark, and also a considerable distance from Lancaster Sound. Which perhaps explains why CBC reported on September 17th that:
Canadian officials are disputing reports in Chinese media that a famous sailor from that country attempting to circumnavigate the Arctic was turned back in the Northwest Passage…
Transport Canada told CBC News in an email on Friday that it was aware of Zhai’s vessel, but said “at this point, it has not entered Canada’s Arctic Waters.” The Northwest Passage has been off limits to foreign pleasure craft since March 2020 due to an interim order from the Canadian government intended to limit the risk of introducing COVID-19 in remote Arctic communities.
Transport Canada said it was in touch with Zhai via email to inform him of the rule.
“Transport Canada has since seen public reports that Captain Zhai Mo no longer plans to pass through Canadian Arctic waters and the department continues to monitor the situation,” the department said in a second statement to CBC News on Friday evening.
It seems to me that no longer planning to pass through Canadian Arctic waters is very prudent on Zhai Mo‘s part, since navigating the Northwest Passage without support from Xue Long 2 or a Canadian icebreaker is currently fraught with difficulty:
[Edit – September 21st]
By way of some additional background information, on January 26th 2018 China published a “white paper” on China’s Arctic Policy:
China is an important stakeholder in Arctic affairs. Geographically, China is a “Near-Arctic State”, one of the continental States that are closest to the Arctic Circle. The natural conditions of the Arctic and their changes have a direct impact on China’s climate system and ecological environment, and, in turn, on its economic interests in agriculture, forestry, fishery, marine industry and other sectors.
China is also closely involved in the trans-regional and global issues in the Arctic, especially in such areas as climate change, environment, scientific research, utilization of shipping routes, resource exploration and exploitation, security, and global governance. These issues are vital to the existence and development of all countries and humanity, and directly affect the interests of non-Arctic States including China. China enjoys the freedom or rights of scientific research, navigation, overflight, fishing, laying of submarine cables and pipelines, and resource exploration and exploitation in the high seas, the Area and other relevant sea areas, and certain special areas in the Arctic Ocean, as stipulated in treaties such as the UNCLOS and the Spitsbergen Treaty, and general international law. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China shoulders the important mission of jointly promoting peace and security in the Arctic. The utilization of sea routes and exploration and development of the resources in the Arctic may have a huge impact on the energy strategy and economic development of China, which is a major trading nation and energy consumer in the world. China’s capital, technology, market, knowledge and experience is expected to play a major role in expanding the network of shipping routes in the Arctic and facilitating the economic and social progress of the coastal States along the routes. China has shared interests with Arctic States and a shared future with the rest of the world in the Arctic.
Followed by:
The Arctic shipping routes comprise the Northeast Passage, Northwest Passage, and the Central Passage. As a result of global warming, the Arctic shipping routes are likely to become important transport routes for international trade. China respects the legislative, enforcement and adjudicatory powers of the Arctic States in the waters subject to their jurisdiction. China maintains that the management of the Arctic shipping routes should be conducted in accordance with treaties including the UNCLOS and general international law and that the freedom of navigation enjoyed by all countries in accordance with the law and their rights to use the Arctic shipping routes should be ensured. China maintains that disputes over the Arctic shipping routes should be properly settled in accordance with international law.
China hopes to work with all parties to build a “Polar Silk Road” through developing the Arctic shipping routes. It encourages its enterprises to participate in the infrastructure construction for these routes and conduct commercial trial voyages in accordance with the law to pave the way for their commercial and regularized operation.
This article is reposted from econnexus.org.uk, originally published on March 18th 2013, as historical background to a new article on the so called Polar Silk Road.
As I’ve recently been reporting over on the Arctic Sea Ice Forum, I inadvertently found myself having lunch with the Chinese delegation to the Economist’s Arctic Summit in Norway last week. Amongst other things I learned about the voyage of the Chinese research vessel Xue Long (Snow Dragon in English) right across the Arctic Basin last summer:
Then over the weekend The Daily Mail published (again?!) an article by David Rose under the strident headline:
The Great Green Con no. 1: The hard proof that finally shows global warming forecasts that are costing you billions were WRONG all along!
Needless to say the following article shows nothing of the sort. Fondly imagining that David and his loyal readership would be interested in learning about some of things I discovered on my recent trip to Oslo I posted a comment on David’s article, which included this link to the following image (courtesy of The Arctic Portal once again):
After a couple of hours I noticed that my learned comments seemed to have fallen foul of the Mail’s moderator(s). So too had the most popular comment on the whole story from Mark in Warwickshire, who was complaining by then that:
My message was missing too, so I carefully read the Mail Online’s “House Rules“, which state (amongst other things) that:
We welcome your opinions. We want our readers to see and understand different points of view. Try to contribute to the thread, rather than just stating if you agree or disagree.
I figured that was exactly what I was endeavouring to do, so still somewhat baffled I read on:
You must not insert links to websites (URLs) or submit content which would be an infringement of copyright.
Figuring that I must have crossed on to the wrong side of this particular line I tried again, using the following carefully crafted form of words:
My previous comment seems to have fallen foul of the “house rules” so I’ll try again. To discover what I was on about try Googling my username along with “Arctic Summit”.
I attended the aforementioned event in Norway last week. If there was a Daily Mail reporter there they kept very quiet about it! Amongst the other matters under discussion the Russians and Chinese were obviously extremely keen on the idea of saving many billions (and hence making many billions!) of dollars by shipping many billions of tonnes of stuff across the Arctic Ocean in the very near future.
[link omitted to avoid offending the house rules]
Whatever the likes of Myles Allen and David Bellamy may have said in various locations at various times the message from the real world in Oslo last week is abundantly clear. Statements such as “No, the world ISN’T getting warmer” are extremely “economical with the truth”.
That was over 24 hours ago, but still my wisdom from the East has failed to materialise at its intended destination. Perhaps someone from the Mail Online would be good enough to explain to me where I’m going wrong? Hopefully Mark is now a happy bunny at least, because today his missing message has been miraculously restored to the top spot amongst the currently 709 comments on the Mail’s Message:
Do you suppose one or both of my messages will benefit from a similar miracle in the near future, and who is “conning” who here?
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.