ScareWatch“Arctic icecap is melting

even in winter”

October 29, 2008

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“Arctic icecap is melting even in winter”

The scare: Jonathan Leake, in The Times of London on 26 October 2008, says:

1. The Arctic icecap is “shrinking at record rates” even in the winter;2. “The period in which the ice renews itself has become much shorter”;3. The “even more alarming” cause of the thinner ice is warmer seas rather than warmer air;4. “The Arctic is likely to melt much faster than had been thought”;5. “The summer icecap could vanish within a decade”, according to unnamed “experts”;6. The Northwest Passage was open in the summer of 2008 for the first time in 30 years;7. Arctic sea ice is half of its 1976 thickness;8. “Now the ice is just collapsing”. as shown by “satellite-based observations”;9. In September 2007 the Arctic icecap had “lost an extra 1.1 million square miles;10. The icecap was “43% smaller than it was in 1979, when satellite observations began”;11. Less ice means less sunlight reflected harmlessly back to space and so more warming;12. “The process accelerates until there is no more ice to melt”; and13. A scientist has said: “This is one of the most serious problems the world has ever faced”.

The truth: This article, like so many on “global warming”, is rooted in the naïve fallacy thatthe fact of warming tells us that the cause is anthropogenic rather than natural. We begin thisScarewatch, therefore, with a few truths about how much warmer the climate was beforehumankind could possibly have affected it significantly (or at all).

Today’s temperatures are below normal

In the Cambrian era, 550 million years ago, global temperatures were usually 7 degrees C (12.5F) warmer than the present. The natural state of the planet for most of past half billion years hasbeen entirely ice-free. Humankind cannot have been to blame. We were not there.

In each of the past half dozen ice ages over the past half million years, Antarctic (and byimplication global) surface temperatures were up to 5 degrees C (9 F) warmer than the present.We were still not there. In the interglacial period about 850,000 years ago, the entire Greenlandice sheet melted away. It is inconceivable that there could have been any Arctic icecap then. Wewere not to blame. There were very, very few SUVs or coal-fired power stations at that time.

What about more recent history? For 6,500 of the 10,000 years since the end of the last ice age,temperatures have been warmer than the present. Today’s temperatures, therefore, are notunprecedentedly high. They are below normal.

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In the Bronze Age, Roman, and mediaeval warm periods, temperatures were warmer than thepresent. The largest mediaeval Viking settlement in Greenland, at Hvalsey in the south-west,prospered in the warm weather that allowed Eric the Red to dub Greenland Greenland.

Today, the Viking graveyard at Hvalsey is under permafrost. The Vikings could not bury theirdead in permafrost. So the permafrost was not there during the mediaeval warm period.

What about more recent history still? As recently as the 1930s to early 1940s, the Arctic waswarmer than the present. Yet humankind at that date was less numerous and less industriallyactive than today.

Now that we have established that today’s temperatures are not exceptional, it follows that wecannot attribute any temperature changes in the Arctic exclusively or even primarily tohumankind. What, then, are the natural influences on the Arctic climate?

Natural influences on the Arctic climate

The Sun: The first and most important of the natural influences on climate is the Sun.Soon (2004) has demonstrated a remarkably close correlation between solar activity andArctic temperature changes. Scafetta and West (2008) say that the influence of the Sunon the climate is far greater than the IPCC finds it expedient to imagine: they calculatethat more than two-thirds of the warming that ceased in 1998 worldwide was caused bysolar activity, and they conclude that the influence of increasing carbon dioxideconcentrations on temperature is many times less than the IPCC would like us to think.

The sea: Next, the great ocean currents sometimes direct vast bodies of tropical warmwater up towards the Arctic, causing a considerable warming of the Arctic ocean and aconsequent melting of ice. A paper by NASA in 2007 found that anthropogenic “globalwarming” had very little impact on the Arctic in comparison with the effect of globalchanges in patterns of currents such as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, which hasrecently been moving unusually large volumes of tropical water into the Arctic, assistedby the wind.

Seabed volcanoes: Finally, researchers have recently discovered that subsea volcanicactivity in the Arctic region has increased. Early in 2008 a paper was publishedexplaining that in the Greenland-Iceland Gap the ocean bottom had reached temperaturesas high as 573 degrees F.

Taking factors such as these into account, it is simply not scientifically credible to attribute thecurrent temperatures in the Arctic to anthropogenic “global warming”. Interestingly, the SundayTimes article is noteworthy for not mentioning humankind as a culprit at all.

The alarmism on which newspapers thrive is present: but it is clear that a very much morecautious approach to “global warming” has been taken. To this extent, and to this extent only, theSunday Times article begins to reflect the truth.

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With this background, we turn to the individual scares itemized in our summary of Mr. Leake’srather hysterical article –

1: The Actic icecap is “shrinking at record rates” even in the winter

At the Science and Public Policy Institute we do not proselytize. We make the scientific factsand data available and allow readers to draw their own conclusions. The image below shows theextent of Arctic sea-ice cover on 25 October 1979, the first year of the satellite record (no imagefor the 26th is available), compared with 26 October 2008, the date of the Sunday Times article –

Arctic sea ice extent on 25 October 1979 (left: no image for 26 October that year is available) compared with 26October 2008 (right). There is remarkably little difference between the two images.

2: “The period in which the ice renews itself has become much shorter”

Once again, we shall provide real data rather than hollow debating points. The graph belowshows the past year’s sea-ice area compared with the mean for 1979-2000 –

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Sea ice area in the Arctic for 2008 (red) compared with 2007 (blue) and with the 1979-2000 mean (black line) with1 standard deviation each side (gray areas). Though summer sea ice extent has been well below the 1979-2000mean, it was greater in 2008 than in 2007. Sea-ice extent is now within the range that has been normal over theperiod of satellite record, and, at October 22, was almost 30% greater than in 2007.

It is self-evident from this graph that the “period in which the ice renews itself” will beconsiderably longer this year than it was last year, when the anomalous natural conditionsdescribed in NASA’s paper about the influence of ocean currents had occurred.

3. The “even more alarming” cause of the thinner ice is warmer seas, not warmer air

Here, Mr. Leake confirms what NASA had found: that ocean currents and winds taking warmerwater from the tropics to the Arctic have made the Arctic Ocean warmer. So has the subseavolcanic activity in the Greenland-Iceland Gap. There is nothing “alarming” about this. It is anentirely natural phenomenon, over which humankind has no influence and no control.

We know that, overall, the oceans have not in fact been warming. See, for instance, Lyman et al.,2006, whose study of ocean temperatures is one of the most detailed of its kind; or Gouretski andKoltermann (2007). Just as the air temperatures have shown no appreciable increase in the pastdecade, worldwide sea temperatures have shown no increase either. In short, there has been no“global warming” going on. That is a very powerful reason why it is imprudent to attribute the

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recent warming of the Arctic waters to anthropogenic “global warming”. It is instead attributableto natural, local warming against a background of prolonged and intense global cooling.

4. “The Arctic is likely to melt much faster than had been thought”

In April 2007, the UK Met Office issued its long-range forecast for the British summer. It saidthe summer would be the hottest, driest, most drought-prone summer on record because of“global warming” (and, if we’ve scared you enough, please can we have a smart new computerat taxpayers’ expense?). Just six weeks later, in June 2007, the coldest, wettest, most flood-pronesummer since records began came in – and was of course blamed on “global warming”.

If our forecasters cannot get a general forecast correct six weeks in advance, on what rationalscientific basis can they claim that “The Arctic is likely to melt faster than had been thought”?We were told earlier this summer that it might be possible to reach the North Pole by kayak forthe first time since recent records began: but a lavishly-funded expedition had travelled only twodays northward from its starting-point in Svalbard before being halted by impenetrable ice andintense cold.

The launching of the expedition was heavily reported in The Times and other news media,especially because the organizers fatuously said they were kayaking to the North Pole “to raiseawareness of global warming” (presumably this was the only way to do it in the absence of anyactual warming compared with 28 years ago). Gordon Brown, the UK Prime Minister, bizarrelytelephoned the kayakers after they had become ice-bound, to congratulate them on theirachievement. What achievement? They claimed they had kayaked further north than anyone hadever done before. Like most claims to do with “global warming”, this was false: an expeditionhalf a century previously had done considerably better.

In short, there is no scientific basis for the article’s declaration that “the Arctic is likely to meltmuch faster than had been thought”. Currently the Arctic is freezing much faster than had beenthought – which is why the kayakers and their stunt became icebound after just two miserablycold days.

5. “The summer icecap could vanish within a decade”, according to “experts”

There is no more scientific basis for this assertion than for the previous assertion. It would bevery much more scientifically credible to say, “the summer icecap could increase by 30% withina year” – which is exactly what it had done by late October 2008 compared with late October2007.

However, the proprietor of the Sunday Times – not noted for his scientific expertise – hasdeclared that henceforth all his newspapers shall act as though “global warming” were the worstproblem faced by humankind, when in fact it is not a problem at all. How could it be a problem,when global temperatures are no greater than they were 28 years ago?

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6. The Northwest Passage was open in the summer of 2008 for the first time in 30 years

Here again Mr. Leake allows a small nugget of truth to escape into the page. He admits that theNorthwest Passage was free of ice a third of a century ago. He might also have added that it wasfree of ice in 1903, when a sailing vessel under Amundsen sailed right through it. It had beenfree of ice on many previous occasions.

A letter from a Nuncio to the Pope in the late middle ages implies that the Northwest Passagemay have been free of ice during the mediaeval warm period too. In short, it is open from time totime, and there is nothing new or unprecedented about it: certainly it should not be prayed in aid,as here, in an attempt to panic people into thinking that “global warming” will destroy the Arcticforever.

7. Arctic sea ice is half of its 1976 thickness

Since the 1950s nuclear submarines have been reporting a progressive thinning of the sea ice inthe Arctic. Before then, no one had any idea how thick the sea ice of the Arctic was. However,temperatures in the Arctic were 1 or 2 degrees C (2-3 F) warmer than the present as recently asthe 1930s and 1940s: but no one was worried about “global warming” then. Nor should anyonebe worried now. Even if the Arctic icecap were to disappear altogether, it has disappeared before,as a recent scientific paper has reported. This, too, is nothing new and nothing to worry about.

8. “Now the ice is just collapsing”, as shown by “satellite-based observations”

We have already seen the satellite images of sea ice extent in 2008 compared with 1979. Therewas remarkably little difference between the two, just as one would expect given that there wasvery little difference between the global mean surface temperatures in those two years.

Let us now compare the sea ice extent for 26 October 2008 with that for 26 October 2007, to seewhether it is right to say that, right now, “the ice is just collapsing” –

Arctic sea-ice extent on 26 October 2008 (right) compared with 26 October 2007 (left). Compared with the previousOctober, the sea-ice extent was not “collapsing” – it was some 30% greater.

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9. In September 2007 the Arctic icecap had “lost an extra 1.1 million square miles

So it had. Fluctuations of this sort happen from time to time in any mathematically-chaotic objectsuch as the climate, and there is nothing unusual or frightening in the fact. These sudden andoften temporary departures from apparent linearity are known to mathematicians as “phasetransitions”. It is an essential characteristic of phase transitions in a chaotic object that theironset, magnitude, duration and even sign cannot be predicted unless the initial state of the objectbe known to a precision that, with the climate, is long proven to be unattainable.

The presence of phase transitions such as the sudden reduction in Arctic sea-ice extent in the latesummer of 2007 cannot be predicted. Nor can it be credibly used to predict any longer-termtrend. No true scientist would attempt to make a prediction on the basis of a single summer’sshort-run ice-melt, particularly when the following summer’s sea-ice extent had returned closerto the long-run mean (though, unaccountably, the Sunday Times article somehow failed to makemuch of that fact).

10. The icecap was “43% smaller than in 1979, when satellite observations began”

And, though the Sunday Times somehow failed to say so, the pre-existing sea-ice extent had beenrestored by the late summer of 2008.

11. Less ice means less sunlight reflected back to space and so more warming

If there were sea-ice in the tropics, there might be something in this point. However, the angle atwhich sunlight reaches the Poles is so small that remarkably little additional warming wouldoccur even if the entire Arctic icecap were to disappear, as it has done before and will do again.

12. “The process accelerates until there is no more ice to melt”

Once again, a cold, hard look at the cold, hard data shows what nonsense this contention is.Since the extent of sea ice in 2008 is near-identical to the extent of sea-ice in 1979, there is nocredible scientific basis for it. For just as much sunlight is reflected back into space now as in1979. In fact, rather more sunlight is reflected today than in 1979, because it is not just ice coverthat efficiently reflects sunlight back into space. Snow cover does exactly the same, and withidentical efficiency (for nearly all icy surfaces are covered with snow).

And the extent of northern-hemisphere snow cover has shown no trend – no upward ordownward long-run movement at all – since satellite records began in 1979. However, a newmaximum for northern-hemisphere snow cover was recorded in 2001, and that maximum waseasily surpassed in the winter of 2007. If, therefore, we were to use the same half-baked,scientifically-illiterate analysis as poor Mr. Leake, but having some regard to the data, we shouldbe entitled to claim that the snow cover might grow and grow in extent, with more and moresunlight reflected off into space, until the entire planet was frozen over. And that is exactly whatwill happen when the next Ice Age comes along. But, unlike Mr. Leake, we do not claim to beable to predict the future behavior of the mathematically-chaotic object that is the climate.

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13. A scientist has said, “This is one of the worst problems the world has ever faced”

It would be, if it were a problem at all, and if it were a bad one, and if a little extra warm weather– even if it were to happen – were at all likely to cause even a minuscule fraction of the damageimagined by Mr. Leake and other extremists with no scientific knowledge and not even the mostbasic acquaintance with readily-available data.

However, “global warming” cannot be said to be a problem in the face of well over a quarter of acentury in which there has been no net warming, in which sea-ice extent is much as it was at theoutset, in which sea level continues to rise at one-fifth the mean centennial rate over the past10,000 years, in which record cold temperatures are currently being recorded in many US cities(but not reported in The Times). The polar bears survived the last interglacial period, duringwhich Arctic temperatures were probably at least 5 degrees C (9 F) higher than today and theArctic icecap probably did not exist. They will survive, quite comfortably, if the Arctic icecapdisappears in a few years’ time (which it may or, more likely, may not do). End of scare.

Postscript

“Global warming” propaganda is now failing to convince Outright propaganda of the character exemplified in Mr. Leake’s article, in which no attempt at a mature,

balanced presentation of the facts is made, is now proving effective only in children’s classrooms. Adultsare no longer willing to believe anything they hear that is prefaced by the words “Scientists/Experts say”.As proof, here are the first few comments on the online version of Mr. Leake’s Sunday Times story.

Oct 28, 2008: in Vostok, Antartica, the temperature is –72 degrees F (by the way, it is springtime there),and in Umiat, Alaska, it is 12 degrees F (on the Arctic coast: by the way it is Fall there). If this is globalwarming you're crazy. A polar bear was shot 250 miles inland! They’re just fine. – Orsone, Lacey, USA

I have read that there are an ever growing number of experts in the study of global warming saying thereis no such thing today. Nothing that differs from the cyclic patterns studied and recorded over millions ofyears. Take the time to look at the lack of evidence to support global warming. It once again makes thisstory hogwash. – Fred, Vail.

This type of propaganda is why the NY Times is losing readers and going under. I live up here and workin the Arctic. Almost every story about environmental damage and wildlife decline that I read in theliberal media is untrue. Moose and bear still roam our city. Hey NY, how many still roam yours? – M.Denton, Anchorage.

We've been hearing about rising sea levels for ages now. Odd then that when I look at photos of UKcoastal towns from decades ago, and compare recent ones of exactly the same place, there's no discernibledifference in sea level between then and now. Just when does the sea level actually begin to rise? –Hillary Shaw, Newport, Shropshire.

The US mainland temperature is currently falling to record levels. Scientists also said the bumble beecannot fly. We should ignore this so called expert opinion just like the bumble bee. – Roger, Epping,

The area of arctic sea ice is increasing this year more rapidly than normal, indeed it may be back to the1979-2000 average shortly after the end of this month and greater thereafter. Surely in the long termincreased area will lead to increased volume. – Paul Dover, Nottingham.

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“Arctic ice is melting even in winter”. The temperature is –21 C in Alert, Nunavut, today. Doublethink isthe act of simultaneously accepting as correct two mutually contradictory beliefs. 1984 was meant to be awarning, not a manual. – Ken, Canada.

Funny too, because a well-circulated report last spring revealed the oceans have been cooling for the last3 years. Seems like the odd one out is this study. – Greg, Toronto, Canada.

No wonder we are all being flushed down the toilet of history! With 'scientists' like this and 'economists'like Darling we may as well just give up! – Stephanie King, Larnaca, Cyprus.

Remember why Greenland is named Greenland. It is because it was once green. England at one time hadvineyards all over. It was once warmer. Also they have found proof of palm trees in the far north.Everything is cyclical and has been for millions of years. We cannot control Mother Nature. – Lyndie,Winnipeg,

According to NASA, it's the wind. But what does science have to do with anything? – Stan, Saskatoon,Canada.

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