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:
https://youtu.be/Z_YPE7vy_wQ?t=27
As we surmised at the time of the recent G7 Summit in Cornwall:
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:
The summer 2012 voyage of The Snow Dragon, courtesy of the Arctic Portal
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):
Cross-Arctic Sea Routes. Past, present and future.
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:
Mark’s message is missing!
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:
Mark’s missing message is miraculously restored!
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?
We’ve already come across Glen Owen and Harry Cole, broadcasting batty bunkum about the novel coronavirus pandemic from the platform of the Mail on Sunday. Glen and Harry are now turning their searchlight away from science, and submitting business and economics to its cold, hard glare. In an article under one of the Mail’s trademark lengthy headlines they tell to us today the tall tale of the:
“‘Suited svengalis’ who help the Chinese government decide which British businesses to buy will be investigated by MPs amid fears Beijing is using coronavirus pandemic to advance its commercial interests”
Political figures and advisers who profit by helping the Chinese regime to target British businesses are to be investigated by MPs amid growing fears that Beijing is using the cover of Covid-19 to advance its commercial interests.
The move comes after a China backed company mounted an attempted coup at Imagination Technologies, a UK firm which designs graphic chips for apple.
The company was sold to private equity business Canyon Bridge Capital Partners in 2017 for £550million in a deal approved by Theresa May’s Government on the basis that the company would remain subject to US laws.
However, the organisation later moved its head office to the Cayman Islands – outside US jurisdiction. Last week, senior MPs sounded the alarm after China Reform Holdings, the Beijing-backed lead investor in Canyon Bridge, tried to take control of the firm – amid fears it planned to transfer the ownership of intellectual property to China.
I’m afraid I’m a bear of very little brain, and it’s unclear to me what Covid-19 has got to do with the alleged “attempted coup”. Perhaps the terrible twins can elucidate?
Tom Tugendhat, the Tory chairman of the Foreign affairs Committee, warns ‘suited svengalis’ who profit from the skills they’ve acquired over years of training would face scrutiny.
Writing in the Mail on Sunday, he says: ‘too frequently, we’ve seen those who once wrote the rules and negotiated agreements to protect us, and some who still sit in our Parliament, selling the tricks they learned in Government.’
This newspaper has seen correspondence linking Global Counsel, the public affairs company chaired by Peter Mandelson, to Canyon Bridge. Global Counsel’s staff includes Alex Dawson, who was working for Mrs May in Downing street when the 2017 deal was agreed.
In the correspondence, Ben Wegg-Prosser, the company’s managing director, advises Canyon Bridge over how to respond to MPs demanding reassurances over the British company’s future.
Or perhaps not. Please excuse my French, but WTF has any of that got to do with Covid-19 pandemic? Please feel free scan the rest of the article if you have a well developed sense of the ridiculous. Then you’ll no doubt be able to point out to me the Covid-19 reference(s) that I must have inadvertently blinked and missed.
I still haven’t received any answer from anyone at the Mail on Sunday following my last such enquiry, but I’m a glutton for punishment, so here we go again:
The celebrated web site of our old friend Anthony Watts published an article yesterday entitled “The polar ice melt myth“. As a self styled expert on that particular topic I popped over there expectantly, only to discover that it is an actual fact a cut ‘n’ paste of an April 30th article by Dr. Jay Lehr at CFACT. Part of that article reads as follows:
Al Gore predicted in 2007 that by 2013 the Arctic Ocean would be completely ice free. In the summer of 2012 ice levels did reach all time lows in the Arctic. Emboldened by this report Australian Professor Chris Turney launched an expedition in December of 2013 to prove that the Antarctic Sea Ice was also undergoing catastrophic melting only to have his ship trapped in sea ice such that it could not even be rescued by modern ice-breakers.
The Professor should have known that a more accurate estimate of sea ice can be had from satellite images taken every day at the Poles since 1981. These images show that between summer and winter, regardless of the degree of summer melting, the sea ice completely recovers to its original size the winter before for almost every year since the pictures were taken. The sea ice has been stubbornly resistant to Al Gore’s predictions. In fact the average annual coverage of sea ice has been essentially the same since satellite observations began in 1981. However that has not stopped global warming advocates and even government agencies from cherry picking the data to mislead the public.
I also like to think that I’m something of an expert on the way “skeptical” folks cherry pick the data to mislead the public. For example I once wrote a post about David Rose‘s Mail on Sunday article concerning Al Gore’s interpretation of Prof. Wieslaw Maslowski’s research into Arctic sea ice decline. Hence I felt compelled to comment on this most recent of misleadling WUWT articles about polar ice!
As luck would have it Guy McPherson recently interviewed Wieslaw about events back in 2007 and his more recent research on Arctic sea ice melt. Here is a video recording of their conversation:
I endeavoured to bring this most relevant piece of information to the attention of Anthony’s loyal readership last night (UTC) as follows:
This morning my pertinent comment is still “awaiting moderation”.
Way back in February Bob Ward of the Grantham Institute complained to the Great British Independent Press Standards Organisation about a Matt Ridley article in the no longer Great or British Times newspaper. According to Mr. Ward:
In a characteristically error-filled article (‘Politics and science are a toxic combination’, 6 February 2017), Viscount Ridley made a number of inaccurate and misleading statements.
He claimed that a blog by Dr John Bates “alleges that scientists themselves have been indulging in alternative facts, fake news and policy-based evidence”. This is hyperbolic nonsense. In fact, the blog does not contain such allegations. Instead, it primarily accuses a former colleague, Dr Thomas Karl, at the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of failing to archive his data for a research paper (PDF) in accordance with strict new rules governing ‘operational data’.
IPSO have now published the findings of their investigation into the matter:
Findings of the Committee
22. The newspaper was entitled to report on the views of Dr Bates, a leading former climate scientist at the NOAA, about the ‘Pausebuster’ paper and the circumstances surrounding its publication. While acknowledging the newspaper’s position that Dr Bates had reviewed the article before publication, the primary question for the Committee was whether Dr Bates’ concerns had been presented in a significantly inaccurate or misleading way.
23. The columnist’s characterisation of the substance of Dr Bates’ claims was very strong: he had asserted that Dr Bates has alleged that scientists were indulging in “alternative facts, fake news and policy-based evidence”. The Committee noted that this appeared on its face to conflict with Dr Bates’ subsequent public statement that there had been “no data tampering, no data changing, nothing malicious”. However, Dr Bates had claimed in the blog that a “thumb on the scale” pushed for decisions that would create a desired outcome, and described the process as a “flagrant manipulation of scientific integrity guidelines”. “Fake news” and “alternative facts” are currently ill-defined terms, and the Committee concluded on balance that the nature of these allegations was such that the columnist was entitled to characterise them in this way. There was no breach of the Code on that point.
24. Dr Bates had made clear in his blog that he considered that the paper had been rushed, and deliberately timed to influence the Paris Climate Conference; he had said that the NOAA had breached its own rules on scientific integrity; he had said that the data had been faulty, because he believed that both datasets had been flawed. These concerns were clearly distinguished as Dr Bates’ claims based on his professional experience, which was explained, and had been accurately reported in the column, as claims. The columnist also acknowledged, albeit critically, that defenders of the paper had responded that other data sets had come to similar conclusions. While the Committee noted the grounds for the complainant’s disagreement with the columnist (and with Dr Bates) in relation to these matters, the columnist had not failed to take care over the accuracy of these claims, and it did not establish any significant inaccuracies in the column’s discussion of these issues.
25. The columnist had been further entitled to express his opinion on the significance of these claims; to draw comparisons between previous “scandals” within the scientific community; and to comment on the wider implications of Dr Bates’ concerns in that community, as well as on policy decisions on climate change. These were statements of the columnist’s opinion. His views, however controversial, did not raise a breach of Clause 1. There was no breach of the Code in relation to his discussion of these issues.
It decided not to uphold my complaint on the grounds that its Complaints Committee considered Viscount Ridley’s column to be wholly opinion.
This is consistent with IPSO’s previous rulings about the systematic misreporting of climate change issues by some newspapers, in which it confines itself to assessing whether opinions are accurately represented, rather than whether the opinions are based on facts or falsehoods.
We now eagerly await IPSO’s Complaints Committee’s verdict on a similar complaint by Bob Ward about a similar article by David Rose in the Mail on Sunday
In our latest astonishing disclosure concerning David Rose’s optimistically named “Climategate 2” campaign in the Mail on Sunday in February we can now reveal the Mail’s botched attempt to cover up another “inadvertent” error in Mr. Rose’s February 19th article entitled “US Congress launches a probe into climate data that duped world leaders over global warming“.
In actual fact it’s the US Congress that’s being duped. Perhaps Lamar Smith, Chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, would like to play “spot the difference” with us? Here’s an extract from the original article:
and here’s the same section of the allegedly “corrected” article.
One of Mr. Rose’s “porky pies” concerning a statement supposedly made last month by Peter Stott from the UK Met Office has gone missing. There’s no apology or explanation in either the online or print version of the apology for a “correction” issued by the Mail on Sunday at the weekend.
Not only that, but an entire paragraph concerning the alleged “pause” has evaporated into thin air.
Not only that, but the alleged “correction” included below the offending article is different to the “official” version published in print at the weekend. Take another look:
Something is rotten in the state of MayBeLand. And in the state of TrumpLand too.
Regular readers will be aware that the alleged “Global Warming Policy Forum” recently published what they describe with tongue in cheek as a “correction” to one of the many egregious inaccuracies published on their web site recently.
Last night the Mail Online web site followed suit by publishing an excuse for a “correction” to the self same egregious inaccuracy published on February 19th 2017 as part of David Rose’s self christened “Climategate 2” campaign in the Mail on Sunday. Here’s how I announced that momentous event to the waiting World:
and here’s how that version looked in virtual print last night:
Now in actual fact I reported this particular inaccuracy to David Rose’s managing editor at the Mail on Sunday weeks ago. This morning I rushed down to the local paper shop to discover how the Mail’s apology for a “correction” looked in actual print. I searched in vain for a “climate change” story or even a “science” story with which it might have been associated, but I failed miserably.
They are an elite fighting force with proud history and a fearsome reputation for being among the toughest soldiers in the British Army.
But now, in an extraordinary military first, a battalion of the crack Parachute Regiment are to receive key aspects of their training from Barclays Bank.
The astonishing scheme has echoes of the classic sitcom Dad’s Army, in which hapless bank manager Captain Mainwaring attempted to whip his platoon into shape.
What a picture of Arthur Lowe has to do with that story, or “Climategate 2” for that matter, escapes me but nonetheless beneath that load of “investigative” churnalism the printed version of the Mail’s alleged “correction” looks like this:
One of the numerous problems with the Mail and the GWPF’s version of these recent events is that none of the UK Met Office insiders I have contacted have any idea what the Mail might be blathering on about:
Although positive feedbacks between sea ice and the Arctic circulation exist, we find that these are small during summer. Instead, circulation variations over the Arctic have been a significant factor in driving sea-ice variability since 1979, and have had a non-trivial contribution to the total surface temperature trend over Greenland and northeastern Canada39 . The potentially large contribution of internal variability to sea-ice loss over the next 40 years reinforces the importance of natural contributions to sea-ice trends over the past several decades. The similarity of high-latitude circulation variability associated with sea-ice loss to the teleconnections with the tropical Pacific suggests a contribution of sea-ice losses from SST trends across the tropical Pacific Ocean. Decadal trends in the hemispheric circulation are an important driver of Arctic climate change, and therefore a significant source of uncertainty in projections of sea ice. Better understanding of these teleconnections and their representation in global models under increasing greenhouse gases may help increase predictability on seasonal to decadal timescales.
As you may already be able to imagine, this paper (PDF as submitted) is already the source of considerable controversy! Firstly let’s take a look at an overview of the paper from the University of Washington, entitled “Rapid decline of Arctic sea ice a combination of climate change and natural variability”:
“The idea that natural or internal variability has contributed substantially to the Arctic sea ice loss is not entirely new,” said second author Axel Schweiger, a University of Washington polar scientist who tracks Arctic sea ice. “This study provides the mechanism, and uses a new approach to illuminate the processes that are responsible for these changes.”
[First author Qinghua] Ding designed a new sea ice model experiment that combines forcing due to climate change with observed weather in recent decades. The model shows that a shift in wind patterns is responsible for about 60 percent of sea ice loss in the Arctic Ocean since 1979. Some of this shift is related to climate change, but the study finds that 30-50 percent of the observed sea ice loss since 1979 is due to natural variations in this large-scale atmospheric pattern.
Now let’s take a look at another overview of the paper, this time from Roz Pidcock at Carbon Brief and entitled “Humans causing up to two-thirds of Arctic summer sea ice loss, study confirms”:
Rising greenhouse gas emissions are responsible for at least half, possibly up to two-thirds, of the drop in summer sea ice in the Arctic since the late 1970s, according to new research. The remaining contribution is the result of natural fluctuations, say the authors.
The paper, published today in Nature Climate Change, confirms previous studies which show how random variations in the climate have acted to enhance ice loss caused by rising CO2.
Importantly, the authors state clearly in the paper that their work does not absolve human activity as a driver of Arctic sea ice loss. A News and Views article that accompanies the paper, by Dr Neil Swart from Environment and Climate Change Canada, adds:
“The results of Ding et al. do not call into question whether human-induced warming has led to Arctic sea-ice decline — a wide range of evidence shows that it has.”
There has already been much debate about the paper on Twitter! Here’s the “scientific” edition:
FILE PHOTO: An undated NASA illustration shows Arctic sea ice at a record low wintertime maximum extent for the second straight year, according to scientists at the NASA-supported National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and NASA. NASA/Goddard’s Scientific Visualization Studio/C. Starr/Handout via Reuters/File Photo
Natural swings in the Arctic climate have caused up to half the precipitous losses of sea ice around the North Pole in recent decades, with the rest driven by man-made global warming, scientists said on Monday.
The study indicates that an ice-free Arctic Ocean, often feared to be just years away, in one of the starkest signs of man-made global warming, could be delayed if nature swings back to a cooler mode.
Natural variations in the Arctic climate “may be responsible for about 30–50 percent of the overall decline in September sea ice since 1979,” the U.S.-based team of scientists wrote in the journal Nature Climate Change.
David embellished his article with some “humorous” asides such as:
“This is the worst of the worst catastrophes in the world! Oh, it’s crashing … Oh, the humanity! Honest, I can hardly breathe. I’m going to step inside where I cannot see it.”
Please say it ain’t so!!!
“The melt of the Arctic is disrupting the livelihoods of indigenous peoples and damaging wildlife such as polar bears and seals while opening the region to more oil and gas and shipping.”
Eskimos, seals and polar bears!!! Oh My!!! And more oil and gas shipping!!! Aiiieeee!!!!
which some of us took exception to:
David – An Arctic indigenous person of my acquaintance asks me to tell you to “go f(r)@ck yourself”!
What should I reply on your behalf?
No answer has yet been received to that (im)pertinent question!
All this excitement in the Twittosphere and elsewhere leads one to wonder whether Ding, Schweiger et al. saw (or should have seen?) all this coming, and if so what might have been done differently? In any event this story is set to run and run and run and……
38,000 results. We’re number 4. If you repeat the exercise please feel free to experiment with the search phrase(s) you employ. Make sure to only click on the link that leads you back here!
Without being able to pick any obvious holes I feel somewhat uncomfortable with that; the idea that September ice depends just on JJA circulation doesn’t feel at all right. Having decided that, though, they then run a variety of model experiments, for example “nudging” the circulation back to re-analysis, with and without an ocean-ice model underneath. And the result seems to be that it is mostly the circulation forcing the sea ice, rather than the sea ice changes forcing the atmosphere. This kinda-fits the “information flow” meme from way back so I should be prepared to accept that mostly. Having done that they then convince themselves that most of the circulation changes that matter to the ice are not GW forced, and so must be natural variability; and hence the conclusion. If you took all of this at face value then they’d have solved one of the puzzles, that on the whole models show much less ice decline that reality. But of course if the decline is substantially a freak of variation, not forced, that would fit.
The flaw in this overall, without looking at the details, is that it’s hard to see a near-40-year trend and being so much natural variability. That seems to be asking for an awful lot of one-way variation.
Prof. Andrew Shepherd, Director of the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling at the University of Leeds, said:
“According to this new research, the dramatic decline in Arctic sea ice that we have witnessed over recent decades is primarily due to anthropogenic (man-made) climate warming.
“Although this finding may not come as a surprise, being able to separate this from the effects of natural climate variability is an important step forwards, and paves the way for an improved understanding of what we should expect in future decades.”
Dr Ed Hawkins, Climate research scientist at the University of Reading, said:
“Recent summer Arctic sea ice extents have all been amongst the lowest on record but this is not necessarily all due to warming global temperatures – part of the sea ice decline is also because of changes in the atmospheric circulation.
“It is challenging to determine how much of the change in the circulation is itself due to warming temperatures, but this study suggests that a substantial fraction is due to natural fluctuations.
“Looking ahead, it is still a matter of when, rather than if, the Arctic will become ice-free in summer, but we expect to see periods where the ice melts rapidly and other times where it retreats less fast.”
The Arctic icecap is shrinking – but it’s not all our fault, a major study of the polar region has found. At least half of the disappearance is down to natural processes, and not the fault of man made warming.
Part of the decline in ice cover is due to ‘random’ and ‘chaotic’ natural changes in air currents, researchers said.
The rest has been driven by man-made global warming, scientists said.
The research means that although it is widely feared that the Arctic could soon be free of ice, this could be delayed if nature swings back to a cooler cycle.
Colin Fernandez’ Daily Mail article reproduced at Mark Morano’s “Climate Depot”
Study in journal Nature: HALF of Arctic ice loss driven by natural swings — not ‘global warming’
The five earliest years of data plot near +2 standard deviations. The five most recent full years of data plot near or just outside of -2 standard deviations. Ding et al., 2017 conclude that up to half of the difference is due to the NAO and other natural climate fluctuations.
Astonishingly though, the study makes no mention of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, which also has a significant effect on Arctic sea ice extent.
Since the late 1970s, the AMO has moved from the coldest point of its cycle to its highest, coinciding with a decline in Arctic sea ice coverage.
Considering that the climate models are already performing poorly as it is, the new finding means that they are actually faring even worse than has been generally realized. And accounting for this strengthens the case for a lukewarming future from greenhouse gas emissions.
Ring up another strike against the climate models, and another reason why basing government policy on their output is a bad idea.
The article itself is of course straight off the GWPF’s porky pie production line, but in the small print at the bottom there is this “Shock News!”:
Finally, we must correct a mistake. In February a scientist involved in the production of the HadCRUT4 global surface temperature data set told us what January’s figure was before its official publication. It turns out they were wrong, and we have corrected the graphs accordingly. Here is HadCRUT4, with its pause and recent El Nino peak.
When the HadCRUT4 data for 2016 was complete the MET Office estimated that 0.2°C was due to the El Nino. So here is that difference.
A scientist involved in the production of the HadCRUT4 global surface temperature data set told us that once again David Whitehouse is mistaken:
Can we now expect David Rose to issue an even more abject apology in next weekend’s Mail on Sunday?
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