The Arctic ice that Al Gore said would be gone by 2014 is still there. From Tom Knighton at tomknighton.substack.com:
Photo by Juan Cruz Mountford on Unsplash
I’ve said before that I’m an optimist. It’s just my nature. I don’t think I can become cynical, even though my optimistic nature keeps leading me toward disappointment. If I could, I’m pretty sure I would have before now.
But it seems that I’m getting at least some cynicism into my blood.
I say that because this didn’t really make me feel anything other than the need to chuckle about the lies.
Dramatic confirmation that the sea ice in the Arctic has been stable for nearly two decades is contained in a recently published science paper from a team led by Dr Mark England from the University of Exeter. The finding is of course obvious to anyone who studies the data but it will inconvenience the activist cranks who continue to promote supposed reductions in Arctic sea ice as an important sign of their imaginary ‘tipping points’ and their fake climate crisis. Despite the data showing the ice has been stable over every month in the year since around 2007, Sir David Attenborough told BBC viewers in 2022 that the region could be summer ice-free by 2035. The climate hysteric Al Gore never quite recovered his authority when he said all the ice could be gone by 2014.
There is still an occasional sighting in mainstream media but the ice vanishing act is having to be retired. In fact the smarter scientists seem to be rushing to accept the ice data while moving the climate trenches back to more defendable lines. The England paper notes a “surprising, but not unexpected pause” simulated by climate models, “relatively frequently”. Old school to the end, the Guardian reported last March that “scientists say” that ice-free summers were possible in the Arctic within the next decade.
…
Last year, the Daily Sceptic noted that Arctic sea ice had soared to its highest level for 21 years. The article noted this interesting and correct fact but made our usual point that ice trends can only be understood over a long, preferably very long term context. The BBC More or Less statistical radio programme referred to the article without putting the high in context. Rather it provided a case study in how alarmists counter the obvious lengthy pause. Professor Julienne Stroeve from UCL suggested the ice extent was thinner, although the presenter Tom Colls had to admit, “the data is not available yet”. What you see, claimed Stroeve, is that the trend is downwards for four decades. The overall decline in long-term Arctic ice is very easy to see, added Colls. A more statistically objective view, something the programme constantly tells listeners it aims to provide, might have noted the lower levels of the 1950s and the recent obvious lengthy pause.
In other words, they said sea ice was declining and we were doomed—DOOMED, I SAY!—if we didn’t bend over and take the climate agenda up the kiester.
