Guest contribution by Willis Eschenbach
I keep reading that one of the terribly terrible predicted consequences of the ~ 300 year gradual warming since the depths of the Little Ice in 1700 is the retreat of the Arctic sea ice. Here are a few interesting points about that claim.
Before the current decline in ice and glaciers in the arctic and sub-arctic regions, there was initially an increase in ice and glaciers in these regions. For example:
Villagers from the deeply Roman Catholic southern Switzerland have for centuries made a holy vow to God to protect them from the advancing ice mass of the Great Aletsch Glacier.
Since the vows in 1678, the deal has been simple: the citizens of the remote mountain villages of Fiesch and Fieschertal committed themselves to a virtuous life. In return, God would save their homes and livelihoods from being swallowed up by Europe’s largest glacier, which expanded towards the valley with heavy winter snow.
Global warming is causing them to reverse their prayers and believers in the Alps are seeking permission from the Pope.
Now, you might be fond of believing that the reason the temperatures warmed by around 1700 was the Pope’s intercession … but if you want a more scientific explanation, you will be disappointed. Nobody knows why temperatures around 1700 didn’t just drop to a true ice age. And no one knows why the temperatures didn’t just stay cold but began to warm around 1700, although one thing is very clear:
It wasn’t CO2 …
Figure 1. Ljungqvist et al. Northern Hemisphere Temperature Anomaly, AD 1 – 1999
The statement from Figure 1 is that increases and decreases in polar ice are not a sign of an impending apocalyptic Thermageddon ™. Instead, they are an expected part of the natural fluctuations in global temperature.
Second, it’s important to remember that the Arctic isn’t the only part of the planet with year-round sea ice. Antarctica is generally overlooked by the failed serial climate doomcasters for one simple reason – while Arctic sea ice has been generally decreasing since 1978, Antarctic sea ice has been generally increasing since 1978, since satellite measurements of global sea ice area began.
So what does all of the global sea ice look like? Glad you asked. Figure 2 shows the global and hemispherical sea ice areas since 1978. The data comes from NSIDC, NOAA’s National Snow and Ice Data Center.
Figure 2. Total and hemispherical sea ice areas.
Well, there are a few odd things about this record. First, the average global sea ice over the period was 18.06 million square kilometers … and the youngest total sea ice area in May 2021 was … wait a minute … 18.13 million square kilometers. Here’s what climate alarmists wouldn’t want to notice – there was no statistically significant overall trend in the global ice surface since we started keeping accurate records.
Next, no one knows, like with the Little Ice Age warming, why the Antarctic ice increased until 2014 … or why both the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice sheets plummeted for a few years from 2014 to 2018 or so … or why the entire since then Ice area has fully recovered to its long-term average. Here is a quote from a 2019 paper on the subject (emphasis mine):
The situation in Antarctica was very different, with sea ice extent increasing for much of the period since 1978. Far more puzzling than the decrease in Arctic sea ice, these increases have led to a variety of explanations, ranging from connections to the Ozono Hole; to tie in with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation and / or the Amundsen Sea Low; to bind to basal meltwater from the ice shelf. None of these has yet resulted in consensus on why the long-term increase in Antarctic sea ice occurred.
Meanwhile, while the unexpected decade-long total increases in Antarctic sea ice extent are still confused, sea ice extent has taken a dramatic turn from a relatively gradual increase to a rapid decline. The annual average was the highest sea ice extent since 1978 in 2014. Since then, the decreases have been so great that the annual averages for 2017 and 2018 are the lowest in the entire record from 1979-2018 and the 35 y of total ice extent increases in just a few years. This dramatic reversal of changes in Antarctic sea ice will provide valuable additional information to test previous explanations for the long-term rise in Antarctic sea ice.
And remember … although you cannot explain these mysterious increases and decreases in sea ice, although you cannot explain why the world was from about 950 n 1700, even though we couldn’t explain why the current warming period one hundred and fifty years before the modern rise of the CO2 began …
Despite all this and much more that is unknown about historical and modern climatic fluctuations, alarmist scientists like to assure us that they know what the global average surface temperature will be in 80 years and warn us endlessly that the Arctic will soon be ice-free be. Yes … that’s perfectly legitimate.
The good news is that people are starting to notice that every fifty years of dire predictions have cratered, and that Dr. Richard Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1983 to his retirement in 2003 and author of over 200 peer-reviewed scientific studies on climate, was 100% right when he said:
Future generations will be stunned that the developed world of the early 21st Conclusion, contemplated rolling back the industrial age.
Switzerland recently held a referendum to sign more taxes to meet the insane commitments of the Paris Climate Agreement … and guess what? They resolutely refused. People wake up to the truth.
My suggestion? Don’t be the last to get the memo. There is no climate emergency.
Greetings to you all,
w.
My usual quixotic quest: Please, please, QUOTE THE EXACT WORDS YOU ARE DISCUSSING so we can all know what you are referring to.
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