Climate Change Weekly #127
Antarctic polar ice extent has set another new record, defying alarmist global warming claims. Surpassing the greatest month-of-April ice extent in recorded history, the new record throws cold water on alarmist claims that the Antarctic ice cap has crossed a melting point of no return.
The most recent Antarctic ice sheet alarm began with a paper examining a particular glacier in West Antarctica that “has long been considered prone to instability.” The paper speculates that a collapse of this particular glacier is unavoidable, though it will not actually collapse for at least a couple centuries and possibly not until 2900 AD.
Notably, while the majority of Antarctica is getting colder and the Southern Hemisphere polar ice cap is expanding, West Antarctica is a smaller portion of the continent that is experiencing modest warming. Taking advantage of this outlier trend in a smaller portion of the continent, the media has a history of highlighting modest warming in West Antarctica or a small retraction of West Antarctic sea ice and claiming this is caused by global warming and representative of Antarctica as a whole.
Global warming alarmists and their media allies are at it again. The Los Angeles Times published a story titled, “Irreversible collapse of Antarctic glaciers has begun, studies say.” The Seattle Post-Intelligencer weighed in with, “How Washington coastal cities will look when the Antarctic Ice Sheet melts.” The Christian Science Monitor published a story titled, “Catastrophic collapse of Antarctic ice sheet now underway, say scientists.”
The good news, beyond the less-than-alarming truth about the paper’s findings, is observations show Antarctic ice extent is undergoing a long-term expansion. Alarmists try to scare people into believing a “catastrophic collapse of Antarctic ice sheet [is] now underway” at the very time that the Antarctic ice extent is setting record after record.
It’s not just the Antarctic, either. Precise satellite measurements of both polar ice caps show no decline in polar ice since the satellite instruments were launched in 1979. Not only is total polar ice extent currently greater than the long-term average; polar ice extent has been greater than the long-term average for nearly all of the past 16 months.
MORE INFORMATION: Forbes.com
IN THIS ISSUE
Rubio right, PolitiFact wrong on climate … Hypocrisy alert: greens have large carbon footprint … ‘Climate McCarthyism’ forces skeptical scientist to resign position … Flashback: Polar Bear Specialist Group expels skeptical scientist … Lake Superior sets ice record, refuses to melt
RUBIO RIGHT, POLITIFACT WRONG ON CLIMATE
PolitiFact embarrassed itself with a claim that U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) made a false statement on climate when Rubio did no such thing. Rubio said he does not believe humans are causing the dramatic negative climate change as claimed in the Obama administration’s National Climate Assessment. PolitiFact justified its ruling by claiming 97 percent of scientists believe humans are causing dramatic negative climate change. To make this claim, PolitiFact cited and grossly misrepresented a study that made no such finding.
MORE INFORMATION: Media Trackers Florida
HYPOCRISY ALERT: GREENS HAVE LARGE CARBON FOOTPRINT
People who consider themselves environmentalists have a larger-than-average carbon footprint, a new study reports. The CEO of a company that produces an app to track people’s carbon dioxide emissions reports environmentalists “like to think of themselves as multicultural” and therefore take frequent long-distance flights to foreign nations. These long-distance flights emit more carbon dioxide “than a conservative guy who drives an SUV in the suburbs of Atlanta but doesn’t fly anywhere.”
MORE INFORMATION: Washington Free Beacon
‘CLIMATE MCCARTHYISM’ FORCES SKEPTICAL SCIENTIST TO RESIGN POSITION
Distinguished climate scientist Lennart Bengtsson resigned his position on the Global Warming Policy Foundation advisory council as a result of bullying from alarmist colleagues. “I have been put under such an enormous group pressure in recent days from all over the world that has become virtually unbearable to me,” Bengtsson wrote in his resignation letter. “We have also seen a disgraceful display of Climate McCarthyism by climate scientists, which has the potential to do as much harm to climate science as did the Climategate emails,” observed climate scientist Judith Curry.
MORE INFORMATION: Climate Etc.
FLASHBACK: POLAR BEAR SPECIALIST GROUP EXPELS SKEPTICAL SCIENTIST
Lennart Bengtsson’s resignation from a Global Warming Policy Foundation position due to alarmist bullying reminded many of the Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) expelling polar bear scientist Mitch Taylor due to Taylor’s skeptical views on alarmist global warming claims. “Nothing I heard [from the rest of the Group] had to do with your science on harvesting or your research on polar bears – it was the positions you’ve taken on global warming that brought opposition [to his inclusion as a core member of the PBSG, as of 2009],” the outgoing chair of the PBSG wrote in an email letter to Taylor.
MORE INFORMATION: Polar Bear Science
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| Cartoon by Steve Hunter. Access the full weather vs. climate report here. |
LAKE SUPERIOR ICE SETS RECORD, REFUSES TO MELT
Satellite data show the May 9 Lake Superior ice cover was more than 50 percent greater than the previous record, set in the frigid winter and spring of 1978–1979. “In the 1970s, cold winters were a sign of a cold climate. Of course, now we know that cold winters are a sign of a hot climate,” noted climate scientist Roy Spencer.
SOURCE: Roy Spencer
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