Arctic Sea Ice Death Spiral - Lord Monckton revealed as bad joke

Peter Sinclair has put together another educative video gem on the decline of Arctic Sea Ice, and indeed global sea ice. The video mixes together video footage of Lord Monckton from 2009, 2011, and 2013 to show his inconsistency, with the facts and observations from climate scientists on sea ice decline.

Climate scientists interviewed include Dr Walt Meier from the National Snow and Ice Data center, Dr Ken Dunton from University of Texas, Dr Jennifer Francis from Rutgers University, Dr Jeff Masters from the WeatherUnderground, Dr Claire Parkinson from the Goddard Space Flight Center NASA,

The video covers the recent and unusually extensive ice fractures seen in the Beaufort Sea from the beginning of February through March. This highlights that most of this sea ice is seasonal or first year ice. Sea ice extent continues to track well below model predictions for the disintegration of summer sea ice. Sea Ice volume trend is even more stark with a projection of a possible ice free summer as early as 2016.


Over the years, Lord Monckton has changed his patter to now acknowledge the decline in Arctic sea ice. But he now says this has been largely offset by growth in Antarctic sea ice. Lord Monckton told radio 4BC listeners on 13 March this year "that there has been a long run decline in Arctic sea ice, but it has been largely offset though not entirely by a growth in Antarctic Sea Ice."

This clear distortion is put to rest adamantly by Dr Claire Parkinson and Dr Walt Meier.

"The decreases that we've seen in the Arctic far outweigh the increases we have seen in the Antarctic. It is pretty clear that the volume changes in the Antarctic have been almost negligible: very small." said Dr Walt Meier.

You can read more on the Antarctic Paradox: ocean warming melting ice shelves causing sea ice expansion and the record Antarctic sea ice growth.

No, Monckton is a poor joke. But no one is laughing as the delay and confusion he has helped cause has delayed climate mitigation action, while extreme weather events continue to grow in frequency and intensity; as sea level continues to rise due to ocean thermal expansion, glacier melt and Ice sheet melt.

It is time the media stopped giving Monckton a media platform as a serious commentator and treated him as the clown and crank he clearly is.