Doctor Mark England, who led the study while at the University of Exeter said: “It is surprising, when there is a current debate about whether global warming was accelerating, that we are taking about a slowdown. The good news is that 10-15 years ago when sea ice loss was accelerating, some people were talking about an ice free Arctic before 2020, but now the natural has switched to largely cancelling out sea ice loss. IPCC’s surging seas may not be coming for us at all..

Sea Ice is Decreasing

Guardian graphic, Source: England et al, Geophysical Research Letters, 2005. Note: NASA data from the National Snow and Ice Data Centre; EUMESTAT data from the Ocean Sea and Ice Satellite Application Facility, Final data point is 2024.

Ben Pile of Climate Sceptic wrote: A mainstay of the climate alarmist movement is that the melting of the frozen Arctic Sea is a bellwether of anthropogenic climate change. It is a ‘canary in the coalmine’, warning of us of the peril of the impending catastrophe of our own creation. A few years into the new century, satellite measurements of the Arctic’s sea ice extent began to show what appeared to be a precipitous decline. If these trends continued, warned scientists, the Arctic would soon be free of sea ice in the summer. And that, warned population biologists, was a death warrant for the humble polar bear, whose hunting ground would disappear beneath her paws. Children across the planet wept as David Attenborough described the plight of these poor creatures on BBC natural history documentaries. But this week, it turns out to be that mainstay which is melting at a much faster rate than the ice. The climate debate is changing, and it is the unhumble climate scientists and activists that are in danger of extinction through embarrassment.