John Abraham writes guest post on Skeptical Science: Monckton wrong on Arctic sea ice

Abraham shows Monckton wrong on Arctic sea ice

Guest post by John Abraham on Skeptical Science, June 2, 2010

Recently, our good friend Christopher Monckton has been giving public lectures showing the faults of climate science and scientists.  Fortunately, his work has shown that we really don’t have anything to fear.  Global warming isn’t happening and, if it is, the world will be better off.  At least that is the story I heard when listening to his latest lecture.  The problem for Monckton is that I am a scientist that knows a thing or two about energy and the environment.  Since Monckton’s position was opposite of everything I have researched, I thought I needed to do a bit of digging.  Let’s see what I discovered…

Chris Monckton showed the following graph, taken from the IARC-JAXA (International Arctic Research Center – Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency).  He claims that “arctic ice extent is just fine: steady for a decade.”  According to Monckton, there is no cause for concern.  In fact, this image is a screen shot of Monckton’s presentation.



This was really surprising, I thought the Arctic has experienced incredible ice losses over the past decades. I decided to ask the director of the IARC, Larry Hinzman.  Here is what I asked him…

“Dear Dr. Hinzman,

Pardon this question but I am a thermal sciences professor who frequently gives lectures on the dangers of climate change.   Recently, a climate change skeptic, Christopher Monckton, has used information from your organization to suggest that there is no decrease in arctic sea ice.  In fact, to quote Chris, Arctic sea-ice extent is just fine: steady for a decade.

I do not believe that your group’s work shows this.  In fact, I believe the research from your organization indicates a clear fingerprint of global warming on ice extent.

Can you clarify whose views are more correct, mine or Mr. Monckton?”

I thought that was a fair representation.  Here is Dr. Hinzman’s reply…



Maybe Larry isn’t really up to date on Arctic ice.  I had better get a second opinion from Dr. John Walsh, Chief Scientist at IARC.  Here is his reply.


Dr. Walsh referred me to NSIDC (National Snow and Ice Data Center).  Let’s see what they say about Arctic ice loss.  They have year-to-year graphs of ice coverage.  Here is their data showing year-to-year ice variations.  Notice the continual decline over the past 30 years?


Wow, this doesn’t agree with what Monckton told me.  Perhaps I am misinterpreting this graph.  I had better ask who is correct, Monckton or me?  Well, let’s see what Mark Serreze said…


Oh, by the way, Mark Serreze is the Director of NSIDC…. I think he might know.

You can check things out yourself.  There are links to three international organizations that provide information about Arctic sea ice.  As of this writing, June 1, 2010, all three organizations showed the ice extent at unprecedented lows.  Go see for yourself.

National Snow and Ice Data Center
Danmarks Meterologiske Institut, Centre for Ocean and Ice
IARC-JAXA

So, I guess Monckton got his facts wrong.  He referenced the IARC-JAXA and two of their employees disagree with his conclusion.  This is the first of Monckton’s errors that I’ll be exposing in a series of blogs.  You can watch a video of my rebuttal presentation.

I have also broken my rebuttal into shortened segments and placed them online through Youtube.  Please watch these and give feedback.

Link:  http://www.skepticalscience.com/Abraham-shows-Monckton-wrong-on-Arctic-sea-ice.html