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 Cromarty Firth, where old North Sea Oil platforms are dragged to rest until the price of oil rises again. | Photo by joiseyshowaa Cromarty Firth Oil Rigs By Jo Nova Finally, the UK conservative Party is offering fossil fuels with no apologyIt’s all good, but the UK Opposition left it so late to actually oppose The Blob, that Nigel Farage and Reform UK may wipe them out permanently. The latest polls have Reform romping ahead on 29-35%, leading the Labor government who can only get support from 18-24% of voters. The conservatives (who, let’s remember, were The Government a bit over a year ago) have slumped to 15-20%. Now that Nigel Farage has made it obvious what voters want, the Tories have finally been dragged into offering it too. But true leaders are the people that do it first. We hope Sussan Ley, Australia’s opposition leader, is paying attention. In March The Tories dumped the impossible NetZero plan. Now they say that if they are (ever) elected again, they will “maximize extraction” of North Sea oil and gas, which sounds like the British way of saying “Drill Baby Drill”. Tories pledge to get all oil and gas out of North SeaBBCKemi Badenoch has said her party will remove all net zero requirements on oil and gas companies drilling in the North Sea if elected. The Conservative leader is to formally announce the plan to focus solely on “maximising extraction” to get “all our oil and gas out of the North Sea” in a speech in Aberdeen on Tuesday, She will claim that net zero measures mean households end up “paying the price through higher energy bills”. Only a couple of years ago this would have caused apoplexy writ large: Kemi Badenoch pledges to make oil and gas ‘cornerstone’ of UK economyThe Independent A Tory government would make North Sea oil and gas the “cornerstone” of the economy, Kemi Badenoch will pledge, as she hit out at Labour for treating the sector as a “relic of the past”. The Conservative leader, who said she wants to see as much oil and gas extracted from the UK Continental Shelf as possible, will insist that it is only her party that is “backing Britain’s North Sea industry”. Her comments came as David Whitehouse, chief executive of the industry body Offshore Energies UK, said there was “an important message that the UK should produce its own oil and gas”. He said that estimates suggest the UK will need between 10 billion and 15 billion barrels of oil and gas between now and 2050 – the target date for the country to reach net zero. But Mr Whitehouse added the UK was currently on course to produce less than four billion barrels from the North Sea. Only a month ago, the New Zealand government finally voted to undo Jacinda Arderns rules and resume oil and gas exploration. New Zealand government votes to bring back fossil fuel exploration in major reversalThe Guardian New Zealand’s government has voted to resume oil and gas exploration despite an outcry from the opposition and environmental groups who argue the reversal will lay waste to the country’s climate credentials. The climate agenda is falling apart all over the world:““No doubt growing public scepticism is what has fuelled Kemi Badenoch’s plans to ‘drill, baby, drill’. The burden of Net Zero is now impossible to ignore. Households and industries have reached breaking point. A deep well of anger has effectively forced Badenoch’s hand,” says @FraserMyers. “For years, voters were treated as mere bystanders while stringent Net Zero policies were agreed on above their heads. That is now over. The revolt against the climate consensus is just getting started.”” — @NetZeroWatch
September 3rd, 2025 | Tags: Big-Oil, Gas | Category: Fossil Fuels, Global Warming, UK |  Print This Post | |
By Jo Nova Rich nations protect the EarthDespite the UN blaming the rich nations for destroying the planet, the data shows that wealthy nations have cleaner air and water and less deforestation. A team at Yale compile a score called the Environmental Performance Indicator. It tracks 58 factors like biodiversity, species protection, particulates in air, pollution in water, forest integrity and fish stocks. It also, sadly, considers “climate change mitigation” measures — which no doubt adds some pointless noise to the line. But the underlying trend is clear. The only countries in the highest ranks of Environmental Performance are the ones with a GDP per capita higher than $30,000 US. Possibly the best thing we could do for the environment is help poor nations grow their own economy. And the stupidest thing we could do is push unreliable energy onto the third world and deprive them of coal plants “for the sake of the environment”.
 https://epi.yale.edu/ Obviously, anyone can raze a forest, and throw rubbish in the river, but it costs money to protect trees and plants, clean up waste, and filter factory chimneys. People who are hungry understandably, don’t care much about setting up national parks. The Yale dataset itself, is updated every year. This article, discussed below, came out in 2021: Study Finds Economic Prosperity is Associated With a Cleaner EnvironmentBy Ethan Yang, Human Progress The study finds that higher levels of income per capita are associated with lower levels of air pollution and deforestation. The Environmental Performance Index The Environmental Performance Index (EPI) is a joint project of the Yale Center for Environmental Policy and Law and the Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University. The index has been a leading resource on accessing environmental protection in individual countries for over 20 years. The latest 2020 edition ranks 180 countries based on metrics, such as air quality, ecosystem vitality, environmental health, drinking water, CO2 emissions, etc. However, what stands out about the 2020 edition is its conclusion: Good policy results are associated with wealth (GDP per capita), meaning that economic prosperity makes it possible for nations to invest in policies and programs that lead to desirable outcomes. This trend is especially true for issue categories under the umbrella of environmental health, as building the necessary infrastructure to provide clean drinking water and sanitation, reduce ambient air pollution, control hazardous waste, and respond to public health crises yields large returns for human well-being. For some reason Yale researchers even admit free speech and private property rights help the environment. Perhaps priorities become clear when people look closely at environmental stewardship in Zimbabwe? Furthermore, the report notes that although urbanization and industrialization can lead to increased pollution (especially in developing countries), tradeoffs between environmental protection and economic growth can be greatly mitigated by sound policy. For example, “commitment to the rule of law, a vibrant press, and even-handed enforcement of regulations – have strong relationships with top-tier EPI scores.” That’s because open governments allow for greater public scrutiny, whereas dictatorial governments, like the former Soviet Union, can silence their critics and continue destroying the environment unimpeded. Undermining of private property rights, for example, can incentivize poor ecological stewardship – as it did most recently in Zimbabwe and Venezuela. Economic growth is painted as a bad, bad bogeyman. Growth is supposedly synonymous with greed, and yet wealth saves the day. Giving up wealth to protect the environment is not the trade-off they want us to think it is. But it might be the excuse for keeping people poorer. REFERENCESBlock, S., Emerson, J. W., Esty, D. C., de Sherbinin, A., Wendling, Z. A., et al. (2024). 2024 Environmental Performance Index. New Haven, CT: Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy. epi.yale.edu Graph by the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy – CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=154237043 Thanks to Peter Ridd for asking the right question.
September 2nd, 2025 | Tags: Biodiversity, Economics, Extinction, GDP | Category: Economics | Print This Post | | For those who wonder if there is any point in protesting against mass immigration or who’ve heard rumors there will be racist attacks. Ponder that is exactly what The Blob want you to think. Read the comment thread on Facebook in response to this –– it’s all good: “My Malaysian friends are coming.””..ALL Proud Aussies Welcome Renèe Meggs “We want politicians to see that every Australian, no matter their culture or skin colour, stands together and wants a better Australia than what we have now. We are calling for a pause in immigration until families are no longer forced to live on the streets or in cars, and until safety is restored to our communities. If you love this country as much as we do, come march with us. Stand with us. Together, we are stronger — and together, we will be heard.” According to Mike Benz, who used to work at the US State Department, The Blob thinks protests are such a useful part of Political Statecraft, they have teams dedicated to feeding the protests that suit them. Then they leverage that to change policies and even tip weak governments over the edge. Meanwhile the hardworking majority sit at home and talk about how the country is going to pieces — because they don’t realize how important it is to stand up and be counted. Don’t let The Blob set the agenda. If all voters took a few hours a year to get involved, it would suddenly be obvious to everyone what issues matter. As a bonus, you meet great people. And when there is enough people, it’s electric. That’s what the Blob is most afraid of. Check the March for Australia site and Facebook to find out your local details. UPDATED: From the Perth protest today. Look how deep that crowd is and how big those flags are. The Perth March was hugeThe ABC estimate of “more than a thousand people” with “dozens of flags” is ridiculous. Everyone was friendly and well behaved, ordinary Australians and quite a few Vets, or children of veterans. These were the brave people who knew the Nazi racist propaganda message was just the empty name-calling of The Blob. A lot of the flags were 3m giants, so they look small in the distance, but that’s because they are a long way away.
Walking on the bridge over the freeway the cars below were honking in support.
This Sunday at lunchtime Australians will March in every capital city for AustraliaIt’s just another unmentionable topic. Most people don’t know that despite a moat filled with crocodiles, Australia has the highest rate of immigration in the Western World. Fully 31% of people living here today were born overseas. (And 28% in New Zealand). This is higher than the US (15%), the UK (17%), Canada (22%) and Europe (13%). Who will we invite into our house to live?It seems like a fundamental question of any civilization. Yet we’ve never voted for mass immigration, and never discussed it. No one in charge, it seems, has even asked “do we have enough rooms” before they gave out the house keys. But the Blob got more jobs, more voters, and the price of their houses goes up as more people compete to buy the same number of homes. The Workers though, their wages stay low, rents increase, taxes grow, and their children can’t afford to buy a granny flat, or get married and have their own kids. Maybe that matters? For some reason, even though we are the global Multicultural Star, and everyone is happy, The Blob doesn’t want Australians to talk about this. Indeed they are so afraid Australians might find out the real numbers, the Australian Bureau of Statistics has even written to people to say they are misleading the public by quoting their own ABS monthly net permanent migration figures. (Thus, I feel I really have to share them.) “Last week, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reported the strongest net permanent and long-term arrivals over the first six months of any year on record. In the first half of 2025, a record 279,460 net permanent and long-term arrivals landed in Australia, up 13,080 (5%) from the 266,380 net arrivals that landed last year and 108,890 (64%) higher than the same period in 2019, before the pandemic.” For some reason the ABS helpfully points out that other countries have higher foreign born factions — like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan and Kuwait. They don’t mention that the Gulf States have temporary laborers who cannot settle or bring families, get citizenship, or in the case of Jordan that they are wartime refugees. Australia has been quietly at the top of this game for a long time:If you want to help raise awareness to start that discussion and find out what Australians want, you can email friends, share on Facebook or print flyers to drop in letterboxes. The ABC probably won’t be promoting this. Check the March for Australia site to find out your local details.
 Top row: In a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease, lithium deficiency (right) dramatically increased amyloid beta deposits in the brain compared with mice that had normal physiological levels of lithium (left). Bottom row: The same was true for the Alzheimer’s neurofibrillary tangle protein tau. Images: Yankner Lab By Jo Nova A bit of a blockbuster…Wow. A major new study this month suggests for the first time, finally, what might be a causal link between a deficiency in lithium and Alzheimer’s. The team at Harvard asks: Could Lithium Explain — and Treat — Alzheimer’s Disease?A few weeks ago, they released a big paper in Nature. They had analyzed brain tissue from people who had died, and found that lithium levels declined dramatically in people with mild cognitive decline, in other words, in the earliest stages, before Alzheimer’s was diagnosed. When they deprived mice of lithium, the mice showed accelerated brain pathology and their memory declined. But when they fed deprived mice lithium, they were able to restore their memory. It’s quite remarkable. There is hope. We’ve known for years lithium might be essentialFor a century or more there have been hints that lithium is an essential element for our health, and especially for our brains. In 1949 an Australian, John Cade, discovered he could treat people with bipolar disorder with lithium. By 1990 researchers knew that low levels of lithium in drinking water were associated with higher levels of suicide suggesting that lithium might be essential for a healthy brain. Studies in the 1970s and 1980s showed rats and goats had higher mortality rates if they were deprived of lithium. In 2011, researchers showed that in area of Japan with higher levels of lithium in the water, people actually lived longer. In 2017 a group in Texas found that in counties with higher lithium levels, people died less often of Alzheimer’s. In 2018 lithium was shown to enhance the clearance of amyloid-β (Aβ) which is commonly found in people with Alzheimer’s. And yet, there is no RDA for lithium. Like so many things that can’t be patented and sold for profit, our government agencies are slow to get interested in cheap treatments. Imagine if the cure was cents a day instead of $56,000 a year? (Big Pharma will hate it). But long ago, in the 1860s there was a health craze to bathe and drink bottled water from lithium enriched springs, which maybe wasn’t so crazy. Lithium deficiency looks like a cause of the build-up of the infamous amyloid plaques?Their research fills a big gap — we know amyloid plaques are associated with Alzheimer’s, but they are not definitive. There are people with high levels of amyloid who don’t suffer memory loss, and people who do have cognitive decline who don’t seem to have much in the way of plaques. And we’ve spent twenty years, and billions of dollars, trying to treat dementia by reducing the plaques, yet been unable to show any improvement in cognitive abilities. This study is the first to show that amyloid plaques seem to sequester lithium. In effect, the lithium concentrates in the plaques, but this starves the rest of the brain, and we now know lithium protects brains in several ways. So the real issue appears to be the lack of lithium, not so much the plaques. The researchers looked at brain tissue from people who were cognitively healthy when they died and compared it to people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and people with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). They compared levels of 20 different micronutrients and minerals across the three types of tissue and the one that stood out was lithium. Levels fell in the cortex of people with mild cognitive impairment before they developed Alzheimer’s, See the graph below, by crikey. It’s rare the medical world to see such a stark difference. The graphs show that lithium, and only lithium is declining in brain tissue compared to blood in people with some form of cognitive impairment. (NCI means no cognitive impairment).  Figure 1: a,b, Volcano plots showing changes in metal cortex-to-serum ratios in the PFC of MCI versus NCI (a) and AD versus NCI (b) cases, along with their statistical significance, determined by one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with Tukey’s post-hoc test, followed by the Benjamini–Hochberg correction for the number of metals assessed. (Aron et al 2025: ) Lithium stands alone. No other mineral showed such a dramatic decline in the cortex in association with cognitive impairment. They looked at half the periodic table (nearly) including sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, iron, copper, zinc, manganese, cobalt, nickel, chromium, molybdenum, lead, aluminum, cadmium, arsenic, mercury, lithium, strontium, barium, rubidium, boron, and selenium. There is talk of lithium being used as an early indicator now, used as a way to diagnose (and hopefully prevent) dementia. Though blood levels of lithium are not that useful — it’s the amount in the brain that matters — which is hard to test. (Who wants a brain biopsy?) If lithium really is the key to Alzheimer’s, or even just one of the main causes, it could explain why some people with no plaques could still suffer memory loss if they were deprived of lithium some other way. Likewise, people with plaques who had a high intake of lithium, could perhaps keep their abilities intact. More studies need to be done to find out. The paradox is that lithium is concentrated in amyloid plaques, and yet getting more lithium into the brain might be the solution, both to overcome the deficiency, and prevent more plaques forming. The irony is that a lithium deficiency may increase the rate of the plaque formation, but the plaques then hoard the lithium. It’s a nasty spiral.  In Alzheimers, lithium was concentrated in the amyloid plaques. Lithium acts in several ways that protect the brainWhat impresses me is that there are now so many mechanisms. This is not just another study of some loose correlation or association. Lithium inhibits an enzyme called GSK3β — which is normally elevated in Alzheimer’s. GSK3β is involved in building both plaques and tau tangles, so it’s a good thing that lithium puts a brake on this process. When lithium is low, genes involved in synaptic signaling and structure were broadly down-regulated, and lithium-deficient mice had thinner myelin sheaths around neuronal axons, which can’t be good. (Myelin is like insulation for our nerves). Many of the genes that were up-regulated were risky genes that are also up-regulated in Alzheimer’s. How much lithium do we need?Dr Bruce Yanker (the lead researcher at Harvard) obviously tells people we need more studies before he could recommend anyone take lithium. For those who don’t want to wait another ten years, or who are at risk now, it might be prudent to look up the lithium levels in your water and food (which is easy in the US where most wells have been assayed, but harder in Australia, though I found one map). People who are concerned can take a small over-the-counter supplement to make sure they are not deprived. It seems safe to take doses of lithium that are at the same low level that some people naturally get from food and water. Lithium is found in leafy greens, legumes, eggs, potatoes and milk but at very low levels, especially in areas where the soil doesn’t have much lithium. Some forms of mineral water have higher levels of lithium too. Or you could move to Portugal or Argentina. The natural intake of lithium is between 0.5mg to 1mg per day, but in some parts of the world it reaches up to 5mg a day. Doses used to treat bipolar disorder are vastly higher — as much as 100 to 200mg a day of elemental lithium for years on end. This is via a prescription for something like 1,000mg of lithium carbonate. There are sometimes side effects at these high doses that need monitoring (talk to your doctor, etc). The form of lithium that seemed most useful in this study was Lithium Orotate which is available over the counter in many countries, or at least by mail order from Australia. Lithium is a favourite of mine, and I’ll be writing more soon. I might start a campaign. h/t to Michael Rae (20 years ago) and hello to Maurice and Charles who share an interest. Related posts: One in six dementia cases might be avoided with Vitamin D ABBREVIATIONS
REFERENCESAron, L., Ngian, Z.K., Qiu, C. et al. Lithium deficiency and the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Nature (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09335-x Ohgami, H, Terao, T, Shiotsuki, I, Ishii, N, Iwata, N. Lithium levels in drinking water and risk of suicide. Br J Psychiatry 2009; 194: 464–5. Schrauzer, GN, Shrestha, KP. Lithium in drinking water and the incidences of crimes, suicides, and arrests related to drug addictions. Biol Trace El Res 1990; 25: 105–13. August 28th, 2025 | Tags: Alzheimers, Cognition, Dementia, Health, Lithium, Mental Health | Category: Diet, Health, Vitamins | Print This Post | |
By Jo Nova Another propaganda poll asks loaded cost-free fantasy-questions to maximize fake “support” for higher emissions targets.The Resolve Political Monitor always lets the hapless pollee know what they are supposed to say. Look at the way they frame it — the pollsters are supposed to be trying to figure out what kind of Net Zero targets Australians want, but they’re not framing it in terms of science, or what other countries are doing, or whether it worth spending $1.5 trillion to cool the world by 0.0 degrees. They frame the question by telling the voter that “both parties support a net zero target” but some in the Nationals would like to “ditch” it. Then they ask the crowd “what’s best for Australia”. Presumably they’re hoping to fool Australians into thinking that most people support Net Zero targets (“Both major parties support it”.) Yet, despite this effort to plant the consensus opinion in people’s minds, only 28% of Australians say the current target is the right one. Some 55% of Australia reject this or don’t know what to think. And only 17% of Australians want the Santa Claus option — the free, uncosted, “more ambitious” 2030 target. And we know when the IPA asked Australians how much they wanted to spend, only 7% were willing to even pay $10 a week or more. So the 17% figure would halve in an instant if the Resolve Political Monitor team asked an honest question about the cost.
In the most loaded push-polling question, The Resolve Political Monitor tells people that most experts think the target will be a 65 -75% reduction, and then asks people if they support or oppose this (do you, fool, know better than the experts?) Even under the weight of the “experts”, most Australians are not buying what they’re selling anymore and 56% were opposed or unsure. Australians have their say on new climate targets as Coalition prepares for another brawl on net zeroBy James Massola and Paul Sakkal, The Sydney Morning Herald The latest Resolve Political Monitor survey showed 44 per cent of voters supported the goal of reducing the nation’s carbon emissions by between 65 and 75 per cent by 2035…
The Sydney Morning Herald put their best spin on the story and said 44% support the new higher target, even when the other question the pollsters asked in the same survey directly contradicted this, suggesting only 17% actually wanted a higher target. What’s the mark of a junk survey — contradictory answers. The point of most political polls is not to find out what the voters want, it’s to tell the voters what to thinkThis loaded poll is there to set up Australians to think the Labor Government are raising the target because voters want them to do that. But even the Labor party knows this isn’t true. If they believed Australians wanted higher targets, they would have taken it to the election. Photo by Leo_Visions on Unsplash
August 27th, 2025 | Tags: Polls, Survey | Category: Australia, Global Warming, polls, Psy-Ops | Print This Post | |
By Jo Nova Beyond Meat may be beyond saving — it turned $4b into “a dumpster fire”Like a microcosm of the climate change debate, a group of investors thought they could make a profit while also saving animals, making people healthier, and changing the global climate all at the same time in a nifty 4 for 1. The UN recognised it as a Champion of the Earth for “science and innovation”. Bill Gates tossed money at it. But it turns out it was hard to recreate a steak without having a cow or 100 million years to evolve something competitive, economical and tasty. Cows are very efficient factories, in that they come with their own chemical plants, filters, thermostats, and barriers to stop infection, they can transport themselves and they make more cows too. So the factory imitation was never going to be cheaper, at least not for years. Like everything in the climate debate — everyone says they believe, but no one believes enough to spend $19.95 on fake burger meat. So it was a wildly ambitious product, not-yet-invented, not-safety-tested, and without much appeal to 99% of the population. Financial teardown: How Beyond Meat burned $4 billion (and its reputation)By Jason Andrew, SmartCompany What started as Silicon Valley’s next big thing is now an absolute dumpster fire. After raising money from Bill Gates, going public for >$4 billion, and even partnering with Kim Kardashian, Beyond Meat is now the laughing stock of the NASDAQ. The business has lost 96% of its equity value since IPO, is burning ~$20-$30 million in cash every quarter, and has over $1 billion in debt due in 2027. As Jason Andrew points out it was doomed from the start. Since 2009 it has never had a single year in profit, and in 2019 at the peak, it was IPO’d at a glorious 40X revenue multiple, eclipsing even Facebook which launched at 28 X. These ratios might have worked for a silicon chip company or a tech giant, but was “ridiculous” for a food company competing on high costs and thin margins. As it happens, not only were customers not impressed with the the climate control feature on the burgers, but they weren’t too sure it was really healthier than meat. These are ultraprocessed foods, may contain seed oils, or who knows what additives? So even the super health conscious vegan climate activist might have had a dilemma. It’s just another reminder of how a fantasy fashion swept the modern distracted world off its feet and burned up another $4 billion dollars. It was all too easy when people could borrow up big on near 0% interest. It’s another bubble fed with a fiat currency. There are very strong rumours Beyond Meat will have to file for bankruptcy, given that it has a billion dollars in debt. But the company seems to be trying to transition into a high protein health niche. They are even dropping the word “meat”. Perhaps it’s not a word that appeals to the core market of vegan eco-worriers? h/t ClimateDepot Pascal Shirley | Beyond Meat burger
Apologies. Local server issue here tonight. I’ll be back soon. – Jo
By Jo Nova One third of all human emissions has had no effect on the ArcticSince 2005, humans have emitted one third of all the emissions we’ve ever put out — some 600 billion tons of CO2. Yet the Arctic sea ice is the same as it was twenty years ago. And even though the modelers cling to the excuse that this is “consistent with simulated internal variability” there was not one model that forecast this would happen. For twenty years arctic sea ice was the Posterchild of Panic, and on the verge of disappearing forever, while Antarctic sea ice was invisible. Now the sea ice at the South Pole is at “a climate tipping point”, and the northern sea-ice is just a surprise. Even when sea ice does nothing, it’s dramatic:As long as the buzzwords are there in the headlines, The Guardian readers may not even realize the scientists were completely, utterly wrong, and all the hand-wringing and tears about the polar bears was just a fundraising publicity stunt.
Remember, bad news is due to man-made climate change, but good news is a natural variation, and it’s only temporary. The Prophets of Climate say disaster is just around the corner still. The melting of sea ice in the Arctic has slowed dramatically in the past 20 years, scientists have reported, with no statistically significant decline in its extent since 2005. …they said this was only a temporary reprieve and melting was highly likely to start again at about double the long-term rate at some point in the next five to 10 years. It’s just how rampant Blob-media bias works, and the Blob-academics are fine with that. This is what a dramatic surprise looks like:It’s bad when the trend creeps up on you after doing the same thing for twenty years in a row.
Internal Variability is just the multifunctional excuseThere’s no climate force called “internal variability” — it is not hiding in a submarine trench, or riding a jet stream, it’s just the band-aid excuse modelers use when they should say “we don’t know” and “we were wrong”. From the paper — They say the trend will definitely end soon, unless it doesn’t. The Experts are so under-confident now, they are buying another five or ten years of time, just in case the arctic doesn’t start melting soon: Analysis of ensemble members that simulate analogs of the observed pause indicates that the current slowdown could plausibly persist another five to 10 years, although the chances of a faster‐than‐average decline are increased in the near‐future. These people don’t even know what evidence is. The think simulations are evidence: The modeling evidence suggests that internal variability has substantially offset anthropogenically forced sea ice loss in recent decades. Overall, this observed pause in Arctic sea ice decline is consistent with simulated internal variability superimposed on the long‐term trend according to the bulk of the climate modeling evidence What they don’t say is that if the world is warming and the ice isn’t melting, then some other mysterious force they don’t understand must be keeping the sea-ice cooler. It could be solar magnetic forces, changing UV, shifting geothermal heat, cycles in ocean currents, or algal blooms that pump out cloud seeding aerosols. But if the modelers add these in, there might not be any room left to blame CO2. If we had climate models that knew what those forces were – they might have seen this coming in 2005 instead of being surprised in 2025.
h/t Kenneth Richards at NoTricksZone, WattsUp, and Tallbloke. POST NOTE: Another paper by other modelers who also have no clue…Kenneth Richards at Notrickszone talks about different paper (Stern et al) who found a flat line in the minimum ice each year from 2007. The fact that September Arctic SIE shows no trend during 2007–2024 may at first seem hard to explain. The Earth continues to warm, and the Arctic is warming faster than the global average (IPCC, 2021). One possibility is that the recent period of no trend is just interdecadal variability. Baxter et al. (2019) found that “observational and model evidence shows that the changes in summer sea ice since the 2000s reflect a continuous anthropogenically forced melting masked by interdecadal variability of Arctic atmospheric circulation…resulting in the appearance of a slowdown over the past 11 years.” They spend many paragraphs reviewing all the suggestions that might explain why, but essentially no one knows. It might have something to do with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the Arctic Oscillation, the Arctic Dipole, freshwater flushing, positive ice albedo feedback, pre-conditioned sea-ice, old ice, triggering by the early spring snow melt, and the persistence of a cyclonic mode in the Arctic ocean. It’s a keyword mash of all the permitted variables and none of the solar, geothermal or space weather ones. (Don’t mention the sun). Stern finish with the required liturgy: Whatever the reason for the near‐zero trend during 2007–2024, Arctic SIE is predicted to continue declining due to increasing global average air temperature caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Based on global climate models, there is “high confidence that the Arctic Ocean will likely become practically sea ice free in the September mean for the first time…before the year 2050” in all emissions scenarios (Fox‐Kemper et al., 2021). Whatever is causing this, based on climate models that don’t work, the Arctic sea ice is finished, so there. REFERENCEEngland, M.R., Polvani, L. M., Screen, J., & Chan, A. C. (2025). Minimal Arctic sea ice loss in the last 20 years, consistent with internal climate variability. Geophysical Research Letters, 52, e2025GL116175. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025GL116175 Stern, H. L. (2025). Regime shift in Arctic Ocean sea‐ice extent. Geophysical Research Letters, 52, e2024GL114546. 600 billion tons of carbon – OWID cumulative human emissions of CO2 NASA — NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio – Trent L. Schindler, Jefferson Beck — Wiki Polar Bear photo: Image by Maximilian from Pixabay
August 23rd, 2025 | Tags: Arctic, Climate Models, Sea ice | Category: Cryosphere, Global Warming | Print This Post | |
Great news: Lucy Connolley walks free! She is no longer Kier Starmers political prisoner for a tweet. The terrible news is that she was kept away from her baby daughter and husband for a year, and that there are still others in prison like her.
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