Arctic sea ice extent has increased over the last decade.  Satellite data confirms opposite of what global warming alarmists claim. 

Listening to the latest “climate doom” you’d think that the Arctic must just about be squeaky clean, not a drink-sized ice cube in sight anymore.  Well, I’ve some news that must be disconcerting to the warmists: The sea-ice extent is actually quite stable, perhaps even growing and the polar bears are just fine as well.

Sea-Ice in the Arctic

The sea-ice in the Arctic waxes and wanes in a regular fashion, sort of like the phases of the Moon.

At the height of the seasonal minimum (around mid-September) the Arctic sea-ice extent is in the order of 4-5 million square kilometers (SKM). That’s quite different from the maximum extent in the Arctic winter that is typically in the 14-15 million SKM range; in other words, its common seasonal range is approximately threefold or more.

Sea-Ice in the Arctic

The sea-ice in the Arctic waxes and wanes in a regular fashion, sort of like the phases of the Moon.

At the height of the seasonal minimum (around mid-September) the Arctic sea-ice extent is in the order of 4-5 million square kilometers (SKM). That’s quite different from the maximum extent in the Arctic winter that is typically in the 14-15 million SKM range; in other words, its common seasonal range is approximately threefold or more.

For example, the number of days with air temperature above freezing (0 C) at latitude 80 N and higher have been recorded for 55 years now.  These data are readily available from theDanish Meteorological Institute (DMI). On the basis of such observations, they have also calculated a 50-year mean of temperatures above freezing. It has not changed in that time and you can follow it daily as well as all daily records over the past, year by year. What’s important in these data is the number of days above freezing each year. Except for 2013, where that number was one half of the long-term mean of 90 days, it hardly changed from year to year. 

These data not only show a very stable climate up north, they also indicate that the claims of a “thinning” ice-cover must be false. You cannot possibly have the ice thinning and the air warming and the ice-cover being unaffected decade after decade. If the ice were getting thinner, it would melt earlier, the number of days above freezing would increase and the re-freezing would happen later in the season; none of which is happening. Now let’s look at the ice cover itself.

Minimum Sea-Ice Extent

What everyone is watching with beady eyes is the seasonal MINIMUM sea-ice extent. That occurs around mid-September and, obviously, varies more strongly as it’s influenced by a variety of natural and man-made effects than at the time of maximum extent when there isn’t much activity. For example, the brief Arctic summer is the time when submarines tend to surface near the Pole, when research vessels try to explore the Arctic, when commercial vessels may attempt to cross the Northwest or Northeast Passages, when companies are exploring for natural resources, whenbuccaneers try to reach the North Pole by foot, when cruise ships go on Arctic voyages, when you can go hot-air-ballooning there, and more.

Much of that brief seasonal activity still requires the accompaniment (and, frequently, rescue) by ice-breakers from the Arctic riparian countries. For example, Russia alone has about 50 of such vessels, including nuclear-powered Class-4 or higher ice-breakers. The U.S. Coast Guard Icebreaker Healy made it to the North Pole just earlier this month (see photo from Sep. 7, 2015).

Although that photo shows the North Pole covered with solid ice, there have been other times when open water was seen right there. For example, the USS Skate surfaced there in 1958 and had repeatedly observed open water in the high Arctic.

Maximum Sea-Ice Extent

To begin with, hardly a soul ever mentions the MAXIMUM seasonal sea-ice extent in the Arctic. In truth, it hasn’t changed much for many decades. The reasons are easy to understand. With most of the year (see Air Temperatures, above) being well below freezing, the annual ice build-up is affected more by wind and currents than anything else. Therefore, it reaches a maximum at around mid-March that barely varies between years. In that context, it should also be noted that, by most accounts, the “Arctic” sea-ice count extends south to latitude 45 N, or even further towards the equator. Still, the maximum ice extent barely changes, so, no need to mention it further. 

Also, there are few visitors to the high Arctic in winter. Not only is it dark for many days then, the temperatures aren’t exactly suited for frolicking either. At MINUS 40 C, even the (male) polar bears that are not hibernating are beginning to shiver.  In my humble opinion, it’s a pity that the many famous climate modellers from PIK and other institutions don’t want to visit then. The local government may even provide free accommodation then (with a minimum stay of four-weeks) in tents or igloos, visitors’ choice. What could be more relaxing than a few weeks in an igloo when a blizzard rages on the outside? If need be, they can bring along a portable windmill to charge their i-thing or laptop.

As you can imagine, any daily measurement of that is only possible with sophisticated instrumentation and associated software from a long distance away. Satellite recognisance is what is deployed for that purpose. 

There are the widely used daily satellite surveys of Arctic sea-ice published by the Nansen Environmental & Remote Sensing Center at Bergen, Norway. These satellite observations have changed repeatedly in terms of instrumentation and computer algorithms used. Therefore earlier measurement series (i.e. before 2000 or so) are not fully compatible with later ones.

Another widely used series of measurements is that of sea-ice in the northern hemisphere by theNational Snow & Ice Data Center at Boulder, CO.  In addition, the DMI also provides daily graphs on the Arctic sea-ice extent.

As the graphs produced by each institute have their own spatial resolution and/or definition of what constitutes “sea-ice” versus water, they give different absolute numbers; by and large though the graphs show similar trends.

There is one ice measurement that has yet to see widespread use, namely the annual sea-ice average as computed from all daily data (from one source). Such an analysis is available from theScience Matters website. It has just published that for the last ten years. That graph actually shows a slightly increasing trend of the Arctic ice extent in that period (see graph).

Dr. Klaus L.E. Kaiser — Bio and Archives

In an open letter to G20 governments at upcoming summit critics of the multi-trillion dollar ‘green’ energy boondoggle urge energy ministers to heed calls of “astronomical” waste made by philanthropist and entrepreneur, Bill Gates, among others. 

Mark Duchamp (World Council for Nature) and other campaign groups have released the following open letter plea:

The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (pictured), commonly known as “PIK” has been among Germany’s foremost climate doomsayers, oops, I mean prognosticators. 

Hardly a day goes by without one or the other PIK press releases telling the world that “we’ll all die if we do not … [decarbonize, or whatever]”. Some of their pronunciations even want you to think “we’ll all die, even if we do… [decarbonize, or whatever]” and that has nothing to do with the coming “Blood Moon” of Sep. 27/28, 2015, supposedly portending that the end of the world is nigh.

What are the poor schmucks like you and me to do in such a no-win situation?

PIK

The PIK is led by its founder and current president, Prof. Dr. HJ Schellnhuber, recently nominated member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, etc. Another outspoken doomsayer of the PIK is Prof. Dr. S. Rahmstorf. Actually, I think he’s running much of the daily doom-and-gloom show. From the (not exactly) melting Arctic sea-ice and the (not exactly) drowning polar bears, to the (not exactly) disappearing Antarctic ice shield and the (not exactly) dieing penguins, Rahmstorf and/or Schellnhuber have a finger-wagging answer for everything.

The fact that they are more wrong than right is immaterial, at least in their view – spare me with details. Actually, you can count yourself lucky to even get an answer to any question you may have about their numerous proclamations of climate doom and related items; presumably they are too busy to crack the whip over their new supercomputer to spit out the “correctly” prognosticated scenarios for 10,000 years from now or so. Just too bad that none of them will be around by then to be held accountable for their wrong predictions.

As of late, PIK’s messages of doom appear to be getting bolder and more deceptive than ever before.

Gifted scientist quits post at Duke University in “disgust” over unprecedented scale of corruption among academics. The Canadian-American brain researcher, Jean-François Gariépy posted a heartfelt condemnation on his Facebook page, shown below. 

Dr Gariépy (pictured) is a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University. He is interested in how the brain generates social behaviors. Gariépy, who received the Next Generation Award from the Society for Neuroscience for his efforts in communicating science to the general public, says he was so disgusted with the poor standards of “research” in the social sciences that he resigned my tenured university teaching job at age 39.

He writes:

This week, I resigned from my position at Duke University with no intent to solicit employment in state-funded academic research positions in any foreseeable future. Many reasons have motivated this choice, starting with personal ones: I will soon be a father and want to be spending time with my son at home.

Other reasons have to do with research academia itself. Throughout the years, I have been discovering more and more of the inner workings of academia and how modern scientific research is done and I have acquired a certain degree of discouragement in face of what appears to be an abandonment by my research community of the search for knowledge. I found scientists to be more preoccupied by their own survival in a very competitive research environment than by the development of a true understanding of the world.

By creating a highly-competitive environment that relies on the selection of researchers based on their “scientific productivity,” as it is referred to, we have populated the scientific community with what I like to call “chickens with no head,” that is, researchers who can produce multiple scientific articles per year, none of which with any particularly important impact on our understanding of the world. Because of this, science is moving forward similarly to how a headless chicken walks, with no perceivable goal.

RICO: For years, some advocates of the position that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing unprecedented and dangerous global warming have also falsely claimed that the science is settled. 

Included in these claims are highly questionable claims that 97{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the scientists concur with this view. Now, twenty climate scientists have written to the President and the US Attorney General requesting legal prosecution of those who publically disagree with their views.

The legal actions they are proposing fall under Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO. The act was designed to combat organized crime and makes a person who instructs criminal action taken by others guilty of the crime. In short, the individuals who wrote the letter are stating that anyone who does not agree with their views is guilty of a crime – racketeering.

This action is a clear display of the illogical thinking by some of those in the largely, publically-financed Climate Establishment whose vanity exceeds the rigor of their work. Rather than producing compelling physical evidence that human emissions of CO2 are causing dangerous global warming, they will compel others to publically think as they do by legal action. In effect, they are undermining their own position and their action illustrates that simply because some people trained as scientists believe X that does not make belief in X scientific.

New study by respected German scientists discredits alarmist global warming claims. Carbon dioxide levels are not linked to temperatures and climate cooling, not warming more likely for the rest of this century. 

The Die kalte Sonne site here features a worrisome essay by German climate scientists Horst-Joachim Lüdecke, Dr. Alexander Hempelmann and Carl Otto Weiss. They carefully examined climate changes of the past and have found that the recent changes (of the last 40 years are nothing out of the ordinary and that we need to worry about a global cooling that will persist until 2080.

They published 2 papers on the subject in the journal European Geophysical Union (EGU) [2], [3]. According to the 2 scientists, climate is often cyclic. The first study appeared in February 2013 and it examined six of the longest existing thermometer data series recorded in Europe, as well as one dataset from an Antarctic ice core and another from a data series extracted from stalagmites. The datasets were covered the period of 1757 – 2010.

The second publication appeared in February 2015 and it examines the past 2500 years.

The last 2500 years

The analysis of the past 2500 years involved data from tree rings, sediment cores, stalagmites, etc. A plot of the data yields a climate operating with cyclic behavior.

Current conditions in the Arctic are completely within normal climatic variability, according to peer-reviewed studies. Any ‘meltdown’ linked to climate change is not shown in the scientific evidence. 

 Western mainstream media has been giving prominence to the claims of a team of global warming alarmist researchers who have alleged the Arctic is showing the first signs of dangerous anthropogenic climate change. Articles have been written outlining “tipping points” in the region that together form a chain reaction leading to apocalyptic consequences.  

    These alarmists have stated that “Global heating and climate disruption has already forced Arctic sea ice into a new state of ‘death spiral’ meltdown and it is anticipated to disappear in Summer months within a decade, or even a few short years, many decades ahead of previous estimates.” 

   They then go on to push an end of the world scenario of “The ALREADY accelerated escape of massive amounts of the powerful, heat trapping greenhouse gas, methane, buried in the frozen permafrost of northern Canada, Siberia and underwater ocean shelves, is of EMERGENCY, ‘LIFE OR EXTINCTION’-SCALE CONCERN. (Yes, really!)” http://ecosanity.org/blogsanity/compilation-arctic-meltdown-methane-time-bomb-emergency

    This is the state of the hysteria that is based on global warming starting a chain reaction of positive feedback loops.  Peer-reviewed scientific research highlighted below shows that the main drivers of these predictions all fail.

There are slightly more than three trillion trees in the world, a figure that dwarfs previous estimates, according to the most comprehensive census yet of global forestation. 

Using satellite imagery as well as ground-based measurements from around the world, a team led by researchers at Yale University created the first globally comprehensive map of tree density. Their findings were published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.

A previous study that drew on satellite imagery estimated that the total number of trees was about 400 billion. The new estimate of 3.04 trillion is multiple times that number, bringing the ratio of trees per person to 422 to 1.

While the density of foliage was surprisingly high overall, the researchers cautioned that global vegetation is still in decline. The number of trees on Earth has fallen by 46{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} since the beginning of human civilization, according to the report. The researchers said they believed the findings would provide a valuable baseline for future research on environment and ecosystems.

“The previous information that we had about the global forest system all came from satellite images…we’re using all this information to provide more detailed understanding of what’s going on below the surface [of the canopy],” saidThomas Crowther, a postdoctoral fellow at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and the lead author of the study. “The numbers that we’ve generated are going to be useful for a wide variety of applications.”

Michael Shermer is a self-proclaimed sceptic and an Adjunct Professor of Economics. His scepticism is however somewhat selective since he is evidently sceptical only of those who are sceptical of the Authorities of whom he is not himself sceptical.

It seems that he is only sceptical of sceptics. The question arises as to whether or not a self-proclaimed sceptic is actually a sceptic when he is only sceptical of sceptics of Authorities that he is not sceptical of. Perhaps that is one for linguists to answer, or maybe a sceptic of a persuasion different to that of Shermer.

In any event, Shermer’s scepticism is short on facts and long on unsubstantiated allegations, as his recent article in the October 2015 issue of Scientific American attests. Shermer reports there on his attendance at the Electric Universe Conference in Phoenix, Arizona, in June 2015, and in his fashion is sceptical of people he heard speak there. Shermer presented an invited talk at that conference, in the morning session on Monday 29^th June.

I too presented an invited talk on the same day as Shermer, in the afternoon session. In his article in Scientific American Shermer singles me out for particular mention. He also ‘sceptically’ reported on conversations he said he had with Wallace Thornhill and David Talbot, two other speakers at the conference. However, in my case, he reports without evidence.

Nearly every single climate model prediction, projection or whatever else they want to call them has been wrong. Weather forecasts beyond 72 hours typically deteriorate into their error bands. The UK Met Office summer forecast was wrong again. 

I have lost track of the number of times they were wrong. Apparently, the British Broadcasting Corporation had enough as they stopped using their services. They are not just marginally wrong. Invariably, the weather is the inverse of their forecast.Short, medium, and long-term climate forecasts are wrong more than 50 percent of the time so that a correct one is a no better than a random event.

Global and or regional forecasts are often equally incorrect. If there were a climate model that made even 60 percent accurate forecasts, everybody would use it. Since there is no single accurate climate model forecast, the IPCC resorts to averaging out their model forecasts as if, somehow, the errors would cancel each other out and the average of forecasts would be representative.

Short term climate forecasts no better than the Old Farmers Almanac

Climate models and their forecasts have been unmitigated failures that would cause an automatic cessation in any other enterprise. Unless, of course, it was another government funded, fiasco. Daily weather forecasts are improved from when modern forecasting began in World War I. However, even short term climate forecasts appear no better than the Old Farmers Almanac, which appeared in 1792, using moon, sun, and other astronomical and terrestrial indicators.

I have written and often spoken about the key role of the models in creating and perpetuating the catastrophic AGW mythology. People were shocked by the leaked emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU), but most don’t know that the actual instructions to “hide the decline” in the tree ring portion of the hockey stick graph were in the computer code. It is one reason that people translate the Garbage In, Garbage Out (GIGO) acronym as Gospel in, Gospel Out when speaking of climate models.

As reported here last week, we exposed how 20 scientists sent a letter to President Obama and U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, which urged them to jail climate skeptics using provisions in the RICO Act. Today, three more climate scientists have chimed in on the affair at the popular climate site, NoTricksZone, and their responses to the now-infamous global warming RICO letter are both shocking and revealing. 

The letter, dated Sept. 1, argued that the “systemic efforts to prevent the public from understanding climate change resembles the investigation undertaken against tobacco” and called for jailing individuals and organizations involved in providing more balanced coverage in the climate change arena. After the letter was outed by both Politico and Climate Depot, a firestorm on both sides of the climate debate quickly erupted. Here is what three climate experts had to say about the silencing of the scientists:

Professor Judith Curry, a climate scientist at Georgia Tech who once argued for the disbandment of the IPCC, shared what she thought of the letter at the websiteNoTricksZone: “I am astonished by the naiveté of these scientists, who are damaging their reputation by their naive meddling in a complex policy debate.” Noting that the U.S. would be picking a new president in 2016 and who could very well be Republican, she seemed amazed they didn’t “realize that the tables could easily be turned on them if the political winds change.”

Not only that, but those political winds would affect the “green advocacy groups and the scientists that engage with them.” As a climate scientist, Curry also writes that the “science is sufficiently uncertain to allow several rational narratives for what has caused 20th century warming and how the 21st century climate will evolve.” Aside from the damage they are inflicting on their own reputations, they are also damaging the public’s “perception of scientists as trustworthy sources of information.”

Her biggest concern, though, is that the “coercion of scientists implied by this letter will discourage objectivity in scientific research and will discourage scientists from entering/staying in the field of climate research.” She also writes on her blog that what these scientists did with this letter is the “worst kind of irresponsible advocacy, which is to attempt to silence scientists that disagree with you by invoking RICO. It is bad enough that politicians such as Whitehouse and Grijalvi are playing this sort of political game with science and scientists,” she says, “but I regard it as highly unethical for scientists to support defeating scientists with whom you disagree by such methods.”

Another climate expert, Dr. Sebastian Lüning, considers the whole affair to be unprofessional. He writes that, “Rather than criminal lawsuits, we urgently need an objective ‘scientific court’ where arguments of both IPCC and skeptic sides are technically and open-mindedly discussed.” Dr. Lüning thinks it is “undemocratic and unprofessional to silence scientists by legally threatening them if they do not subscribe to the official interpretation / party line.”

Increasingly respected climate theory that cosmic rays impact global temperatures due to influence on cloud formation is given a real boost thanks to new evidence. 

Swedish climate researcher, Magnus Cederlöf has performed a detailed analysis of climate data relating to cloud formation and found that there is strong correlation in favour of the theory of Henrik Svensmark (pictured). Svensmark is a physicist and professor in the Division of Solar System Physics at the Danish National Space Institute (DTU Space) in Copenhagen.

UK scientists are seeking permission to genetically modify human embryos for the first time. Researchers at The Francis Crick Institute in London want to use a controversial genetic technique to carry out research into infertility. 

The embryos would be destroyed after the research and not implanted into the womb.The government’s fertility watchdog said it had received the application, which would be looked at in due course.

In the UK, it is illegal to use gene editing of embryos in IVF treatment, but it is permissible for research purposes, under a licence.

“We have recently received an application to use Crispr/Cas9 (gene editing) in one of our licensed research projects, and it will be considered in due course,” said a spokesperson for the Human Fertilisation & Embryology Authority (HFEA)

When scientists in China announced they had genetically modified human embryos in a world first earlier this year, there was an outcry.

The embryos were never destined for use in IVF, but there were concerns the work could be a slippery slope towards designer babies.

The technique – known as gene editing – can make precise changes to DNA. But any alterations would be passed on to future generations if the embryos were ever to be used in human reproduction.

How do you get an average global temperature when there are only eight thermometers in Antarctica? 

This is an extremely important video. When the American Physical Society, of which he was a long-time member, announced that the evidence for global warming was “incontrovertible,” Nobel Laureate  Ivar Giaever resigned.

“The only answer to that,” says Giaever, was that “I resigned.”

“Global warming has really become a new religion, because you can’t discuss it, ” says Giaever “It’s like the Catholic Church. There are a lot of incontrovertible truths in the Catholic Church, I’m sure.”

How do you get an average temperature when there are only eight thermometers at the South Pole?

Look at where the temperatures are measured, says Giaever. The United States is practically covered. But there are only eight thermometers at the South Pole according to NASA.

“That’s all they have!…. Eight thermometers! …. And it has never been as cold at the South Pole as it is now. There’s more ice than there ever has been.” 

Some scientists claim that anthropogenic (human-produced) CO2 (carbon dioxide) lasts in the atmosphere for hundreds or even thousands of years.  Of course, they also think that CO2 is the mother of all evils and, therefore, argue that the world needs to decarbonize, forget about using fossil resources (coal, oil, gas), and reduce the population from seven billion to one billion humans.

Well, if that’s so, the world must be suffering from CO2 exhalations by the ancient Sumerians, Egyptians, Romans, and everyone else who lived since that time.

How much CO2 is in the Air?

On a percentage basis, there is approximately 0.04{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} (or 400 ppm [parts per million]) CO2 in the air; (all numbers here are rounded to the nearest integer, just to keep things simple and not to get lost in small numerical details). Well, 0.04{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} does not sound like much, but when you consider the entire atmosphere, it’s a lot of tiny carbon dioxide molecules. Just to give you an idea as to how many there are, we need to count all gas molecules in the air first.

Gas Molecules in the Air

The air consists to 99{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of nitrogen and oxygen. On a volume basis, each Mole (a unit of measurement) of all these gases (nitrogen, oxygen, CO2, etc.) occupies the same space, as was learned a couple of hundred years ago. One Mole of gas occupies 23 [L], (L= liters) or roughly 5 gallons of space (at common air pressure). Further, there are 6×10^23 molecules in that space of 23 L of gas. That number is known as the Avogadro Constant (AC), named after Italian chemist Amedeo Avogadro (1776-1856).

Tipping is fine but “climate tipping points” are nonsense. I’m talking about climate models that have predicted such “points of no return.” You could view them as the terminal (maximum) speed in a free fall, only to come to a sudden stop when you hit the solid ground.

For example, the disgraced chairman of the IPCC (UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), R. Pachauri, declared in 2007 that the world had only about four years to save itself. The perceived danger: a runaway (tipping point exceedance) global warming that he claimed to result from carbon dioxide released by burning fossil fuels. The following year, 2008, one of Germany’s high priests of climate doom, Prof. S. Rahmstorf, Head of Earth System Analysis at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) produced a graph showing the then observed decline of sea-ice in the Arctic’s summer (Fig. 1).