Antarctica Sea Ice Has “Slowly Increased” Since 1979, Science Paper Finds
by Chris Morrison 16 November 2024 9:00 AM
Sea ice around Antarctica has “slowly increased” since the start of continuous satellite recordings in 1979 with any changes caused by natural climate variation. In a paper published earlier this year, four environmental scientists further state that any sign that humans are responsible for any change is “inconclusive”. Not of course for mainstream media that have been crying wolf about the sea ice in Antarctica for decades to promote the Net Zero fantasy. Last year there was a reduced level of winter sea ice and this caused the Financial Times Science Editor Clive Cookson to exclaim that the entire area “faces a catastrophic cascade of extreme environmental events… that will affect climate around the world”.
Over the satellite record, the scientists note there was a “prolonged and gradual” expansion of sea ice to around 2014 followed by a short period of sudden decline from 2014-19. Growth was then resumed, although there was a temporary downturn around 2022. These variations, which can also be observed before 1979, were caused by a number of natural atmospheric and oceanic factors. All of this is known of course, with the EU weather service Copernicus admitting recently that sea ice extent as a whole “shows large year-to-year variability and no clear long-term trend since 1979”. At the other end of the Earth, Copernicus correctly states that the cyclical decline in Arctic sea ice “has levelled off since 2007”.
It must all be very bewildering for narrative-following journalists. Confusion no doubt reigned supreme in their unquestioning ranks when they chanced upon the comments last year of Dr. Walter Meier of the U.S.-based National Snow and Ice Data Centre. He was in full activist mode when he claimed the 2023 winter sea ice dip was “so far outside anything we’ve seen, it’s almost mind blowing”. But not perhaps as confused as Dr. Meier himself who 10 years earlier was part of a scientific team that cracked open the secrets of early Nimbus photographic data. These revealed significant Antarctica sea ice variability in the 1960s, including a high in 1964, not seen again until 2014, and a low in 1966, similar to the recent dip. At the time, Dr. Meier commented that extreme ice highs and lows “are not that unusual”.
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/11/16/antarctica-sea-ice-has-slowly-increased-since-1979-science-paper-finds/
