All Posts Tagged With: "Arctic Ice"

When nature doesn’t behave as the political agenda would prefer.

In the testament to Junk Science the Washington Post headlines “Scientists Report Further Shrinking of Arctic Ice,” then notes that NOAA has mapped over 400,000 square miles more Arctic ice today than a year ago. By the way that is about the combined land area of Texas, 268601 square miles and California, 163707.

So, obviously some spinning is in order, and WaPo is up to the task. They couch this the same way the press have been treating the recent, ongoing cooling trend: compare things today to a historical average, and then our temperatures are no longer dropping but “above the long-term average.”

So even though Arctic ice is gaining mass over last year, the fact that it is below the long-term average means that it is on the verge of disappearing. Funny how one year, five years, and so on are very, very meaningful when warm, dry, or not so icy, but long-term averages are the only useful metric when nature doesn’t behave as the political agenda would prefer.