Global warmers glad to see the back of 2013

It was the perfect Goon Show script. Scientists denying that ice in Antarctica was expanding got stuck in expanding ice. Global warmer researchers along with fanatical tourists, forever lecturing the world to reduce their carbon footprints, commissioned a Russian-owned icebreaker, the MV Akademik Shokalskiy and on 28 November sailed south from NZ determined to prove to the world that southern ice was disappearing.

Within 3 weeks the ship got stuck in ice 5 metres thick, which is nearly the internal height of a two-story house. Diesel generators whirred to keep systems going, adding polluting carbon to the pristine Antarctic environment. Sheepishly the group of greenies waited to be rescued, expressing no concern, regret or shame. French-flagged L'Astrolabe came to their rescue, also with chugging diesels, but could not get through.

Unaware of the irony, help was requested from the Xue Long (Snow Dragon), a Chinese icebreaker, owned by the nation environmentalists hate the most. Hooray - the Chinese ship has a helicopter. Then the Chinese ship itself became stuck. When conditions cleared last week the helicopter had rescued 52 and placed them aboard Australia’s Aurora Australis which had stayed clear of the ice. A fifth ship, the US Coast Guard’s Polar Star icebreaker is now on its way and will give the region’s clean air more carbon to think about. The Antarctic sea is beginning to look like a diesel regatta.

As it was dubbed a global warming research mission, one wonders what they will all report back. Presumably by going down in summertime when they were advised ice would be most minimal, they imagined scoring more propaganda points publishing pictures of an ice-less southern ocean. Most readers would not know that a bunch of ice disappears every summer and returns in winter, just like other places in the world.

Antarctic ice has been steadily increasing since 1987, when iceberg “B09B” broke off, becoming jammed up against main ice for more than 20 years before starting a slow-motion battering movement against the mouth of the Mertz Glacier Tongue. In mid-February 2010, repeated collisions snapped off a huge chunk the size of a small country like Hong Kong or Luxembourg. So the secret is out (New Paper: Antarctica Has Been Gaining Surface Ice Mass Over Past 150 Years). It has never been so cold before and the ice never thicker (New Record for Coldest Place on Earth, in Antarctica). And at last the world knows the truth, thanks to 52 fumbling eco-fools.

Meanwhile at the other end of the planet a million more square miles of ice covered the Arctic in 2013 than in 2012 (Arctic sea ice up 60 percent in 2013). Polar bears have been doing well. Scientists have been withholding critical data on sea ice, condition of bears, and population size in Western Hudson Bay yet continuing to insist that polar bears are in trouble (Global population of polar bears has increased by 2,650-5,700 since 2001). Canada’s ice breakers have been overwhelmed working the heavier-than-usual east coast ice, with fewer vessels to spare for rescue missions.

So it has been a bad year for global warmers. In 2007 the IPCC predicted the 21st century would see an increase in numbers and intensities of hurricanes. But, written toward the end of the 2013 hurricane season, on page 71 of the IPCC WGI 5th Assessment Report (TS.5.8.4) it says: "Projections for the 21st century indicate that it is likely that the global frequency of tropical cyclones will either decrease or remain essentially unchanged". The long term record has showed no trend of increase in number or severity of U.S. hurricanes since 1990, which predates 2007 (2013: Slowest Hurricane Season in 30 Years, Anthony Watts, November 25, 2013).

In 2013 Al Gore said " The hurricane scale used to be 1-5 and now they’re adding a 6 (interview with Ezra Klein). Typhoon Haiyan was the Category-4 storm that finally struck the Philippines in early November 2013. It was the highlight of a dismal hurricane season that is normally active. But the Atlantic Basin has been abnormally tranquil with the fewest number of hurricanes in 30 years. Of thirteen named storms, only two became hurricanes and only one made landfall in the U.S. And Mexico saw the development of eight storms, but only three made landfall as hurricanes. .

Australia’s new Prime Minister Tony Abbott ran a campaign entitled "climate change is absolute crap". Opponent Kevin Rudd’s electoral campaign was to witch-hunt sceptics. Australia is now set on a course of ridding itself of what Maurice Newman, recently appointed as Chairman of the Prime Minister's Business Advisory Council has called "fundamentalists" who had "collected hundreds of billions of dollars from naive governments that adopted their faith".

Faced with growing scepticism of climate change, Green-wooing governments are stepping up propaganda, attacking like animals do when cornered. You will read about NZ having the warmest year ever in 2013, but every year will be the warmest ever if you are chasing funding. And the IPCC have said the globe will heat up by 4C unless we pay more taxes. Go figure.

Let’s hope we learn from others. In Japan, where the Kyoto Protocol was signed, carbon emissions pledges were dramatically scaled back its 2009 in a fruitless attempt to stave off what economists believe will be Japan’s imminent bankruptcy. Poland (which fired its environmental minister just days into the COP-19/Conference of Parties climate change forum) sent a clear message that they would not be bound to any economically destructive international agreements based on fraudulent science.

In NZ it remains to be seen whether John Key who was once a sceptic leans more towards Tony Abbott or Barrack Obama this Election Year. I recall a question this country asked in 2009. How many Acts of Parliament did it take to change a light-bulb? Answer: one, then the country changed Helen Clark.

Ken Ring of www.predictweather.com is the author of Weather Almanac for NZ for 2014