I was mildly surprised when a somewhat “skeptical” interlocutor of my Arctic alter ego linked to “Climate at a Glance” in the course of our alleged “debate”. I was even more surprised to discover that the far end of the suggested link was not NOAA’s familiar overview of the Arctic temperature trend:

but instead a similarly named web site proudly sponsored by the Heartland Institute:

The “Climate at a Glance” home page currently features the Arctic at the top, and it probably won’t surprise you to learn that the linked article is full of half truths and untruths about “Snow White’s” favourite topic? Here are the Heartland Institute’s key Arctic takeaways:
- Arctic sea ice melts and refreezes every year, typically peaking in March, while the summer minimum typically occurs in September.
- Many scientists, politicians, and media sources wrongly predicted Arctic sea ice would disappear in the summer.
- Satellite data show the summer minimum sea ice has not decreased at all since 2007, and instead has formed a stable level after a temporary low in 2012.
Snow cannot argue with number one, but the evidence provided for number 2 includes a blatant untruth. Allegedly:
In 2008 NSIDC scientist Mark Serreze told ABC News that the Arctic could be “ice free” that summer.
However the linked ABC News article actually states that Mark said:
There is this thin first-year ice even at the North Pole at the moment. This raises the spectre – the possibility that you could become ice free at the North Pole this year.
It even goes on to clarify that:
Despite its news value in the media, the North Pole being ice free is not in itself significant. To scientists, Serreze points out, “this is just another point on the globe”.
However evidently for the Heartland Institute’s learned author the “North Pole” is synonymous with “the Arctic”! Equally evidently the Heartland Institute haven’t actually spoken to Mark Serreze about their scurrilous assertion. When I interviewed him in 2014 concerning the matter:
Mark confirmed to me that he still stood by his 2030 estimate for the onset of a seasonally ice free Arctic, although “most models say more like 2050”.
To be continued…