I like to throw in a lesson to my physics students about how climate scientist get even basic atmospheric and ground-based physics, such as sea ice melting, wrong. Here in an easy-to-read lecture note fashion, because this is what I have taken are my thoughts on the shonky science behind climate change alarmism. This science trip is relevant since the future of Western industrial civilisation is in the balance because of the fanatical climate change religion.
1. Misunderstanding Sea Ice and Sea Level Rise
Claim
Climate alarmists, such as in the Sky News report by Victoria Seabrook, assert that Arctic Sea ice melt is causing significant sea level rise, exacerbating coastal flooding around regions like Britain. The report cites a 12% per decade decline in Arctic Sea ice since 1979, implying a direct link to rising sea levels.
Physics Failure
The claim that melting Arctic sea ice significantly contributes to sea level rise violates basic physics. Arctic sea ice is floating ice, and according to Archimedes' principle, the volume of water displaced by floating ice equals the volume of water produced when it melts. Thus, melting sea ice does not raise sea levels, a phenomenon easily observed in a glass of water with ice cubes (e.g., "check out ice in a gin and tonic glass"). This fundamental error is compounded by the selective use of data starting from 1979, a cyclical high point for Arctic Sea ice, which ignores longer-term trends showing lower ice extents in the 1950s and stability since 2007. Research by Dr. Mark England and Allan Astrup Jensen confirms that Arctic Sea ice has been stable across all months since 2007, contradicting the alarmist narrative of relentless decline.
Implications
By misrepresenting the physics of floating ice, alarmists create a false sense of urgency about sea level rise. Most sea level rise is driven by thermal expansion of seawater and land-based ice melt (e.g., from Greenland or Antarctica), not Arctic Sea ice. Exaggerating the role of sea ice distorts public perception and policy priorities.
2. Jet Stream Disruption Claims
Claim
Seabrook's report suggests that melting Arctic sea ice will "shift the jet stream" and disrupt UK weather systems "in ways not fully understood," implying a causal link between ice loss and extreme weather.
Physics Failure
The jet stream, a fast-moving band of air in the upper troposphere driven by temperature gradients between polar and equatorial regions, is complex and poorly understood due to limited long-term observations. The claim lacks empirical evidence, as no peer-reviewed studies directly link stable Arctic Sea ice (since 2007) to jet stream shifts. The atmosphere is a chaotic system, and attributing specific weather disruptions to sea ice melt oversimplifies the interplay of multiple factors, including solar variability, atmospheric pressure systems, and natural oscillations like the North Atlantic Oscillation. The report's vague "not fully understood" admission undermines its own assertion, revealing a reliance on speculation rather than physics-based causality.
Implications
Such claims exploit the complexity of atmospheric dynamics to push alarmist narratives without grounding in observable data or physical mechanisms, eroding scientific credibility.
3. Temperature Data Manipulation
Claim
Alarmist reports, including those from the UK Met Office cited by Seabrook, rely on global temperature datasets that project rapid warming (e.g., a 1°C rise in five years) to support claims of a climate emergency.
Physics Failure
Temperature datasets used by alarmists are often corrupted by methodological flaws:
Urban Heat Island Effect: The Met Office's weather stations, many located in urban areas, record artificially high temperatures due to heat absorption by asphalt and concrete, violating the principle of representative sampling for global climate trends.
Data Homogenisation: Retrospective adjustments to temperature records, such as those by state-funded meteorological agencies, introduce biases that amplify warming trends. For example, the Met Office has been criticised for using data from 103 non-existent sites, undermining the reliability of its global temperature estimates.
Thermodynamic Misinterpretation: The concept of a "global average temperature" is thermodynamically questionable, as it averages intensive properties (temperature) across diverse systems, ignoring local variations and heat transfer dynamics. This metric lacks physical meaning in complex systems like Earth's climate.
A Nature paper found no evidence of a warming surge beyond the 1970s, challenging claims of accelerated warming in 2023. This suggests that alarmist temperature projections often rely on statistical manipulation rather than physical reality.
Implications
Manipulated datasets exaggerate warming trends, misleading policymakers and the public about the urgency of climate interventions, while ignoring natural variability like El Niño events, which drove much of the 2016 temperature spike.
4. Carbon Dioxide and the Greenhouse Effect
Claim
Alarmists assert that human CO2 emissions are the primary driver of global warming, often citing carbon isotope ratios to claim that fossil fuel burning dominates atmospheric CO2 increases.
Physics Failure
Several physical principles are misrepresented:
CO2 Saturation: CO2's warming effect diminishes logarithmically at higher concentrations due to saturation in its infrared absorption bands. Professor William Happer argues that current CO2 levels (around 420 ppm) are near saturation, meaning additional emissions have minimal warming impact, a fact supported by 600 million years of geological records showing CO2 levels up to 20 times higher without catastrophic warming.
Back-Radiation Misconception: Alarmists claim CO2's back-radiation significantly warms Earth's surface. However, the second law of thermodynamics dictates that a cooler atmosphere cannot transfer net heat to a warmer surface. CO2 can slow radiative cooling, but its effect is overstated in models that ignore this constraint.
Isotope Misinterpretation: While a decrease in 13C isotopes is attributed to fossil fuel burning, Professor Demetris Koutsoyiannis argues that increased CO2 is primarily due to a more productive biosphere driven by natural warming, not human emissions. His analysis of 40 years of Scripps Institute data and 500 years of proxy data shows no discernible human isotopic signature, challenging the alarmist narrative.
Implications
By overemphasising CO2's role and ignoring natural factors like solar cycles, volcanic activity, and biospheric feedback, alarmists misrepresent the physics of radiative forcing and atmospheric dynamics, leading to flawed climate models.
5. Flawed Climate Models
Claim
Climate models, central to alarmist predictions, are said to be grounded in basic physics and accurately forecast future warming scenarios.
Physics Failure
Climate models, such as NASA's Model E, fail to accurately represent fundamental physical processes:
Polynya Freezing: Models incorrectly allow open water (polynyas) to remain unfrozen at subzero temperatures, defying the physics of phase transitions. Programmers insert ad hoc code to force freezing, revealing a reliance on fudges rather than physical laws.
Negative Cloud Cover: Models sometimes predict negative cloud cover, an impossibility that violates basic atmospheric physics, indicating errors in radiative transfer calculations.
Overestimated Sensitivity: Models assume high Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) values (2.6–8.5°C per CO2 doubling), but observed temperature trends and satellite data show no tropical tropospheric hotspot, a key model prediction. This suggests models overestimate CO2's impact and fail to account for water vapour and cloud feedbacks, which dominate the greenhouse effect (85% vs. 10% for CO2).
Willis Eschenbach's analysis of NASA's Model E reveals these models are "not based on physics so much as on fudge," undermining their reliability for long-term predictions.
Implications
Flawed models drive alarmist policies like Net Zero, which assume catastrophic warming without robust physical justification, leading to economically and socially costly interventions.
6. Broader Context: Natural Variability Ignored
Alarmist narratives often downplay natural climate drivers, such as:
Solar Cycles: Variations in solar radiation, as emphasized by sceptics like Tim Patterson, influence climate more than acknowledged.
Oceanic Cycles: Natural oscillations like El Niño and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation drive significant temperature variations, as seen in Greenland ice trends.
Biospheric Feedback: Increased CO2 has led to global greening, with a 12–14% increase in vegetation since 1980, enhancing CO2 absorption and mitigating warming, a benefit alarmists rarely acknowledge.
By focusing solely on anthropogenic CO2, alarmists ignore these complex, physics-based interactions, oversimplifying the climate system.
7. Conclusion
Climate change alarmism often relies on misrepresentations of basic physics, from misunderstanding floating ice's effect on sea levels to exaggerating CO2's warming potential and relying on flawed models. These errors, exemplified in Seabrook's Sky News report, are perpetuated by cherry-picked data, manipulated temperature records, and speculative claims about phenomena like jet stream shifts. While human activity contributes to climate change, the alarmist narrative overstates its impact by ignoring natural variability and fundamental physical constraints. A return to rigorous, physics-based science is essential to address climate challenges without succumbing to fear-driven policies like Net Zero, which risk economic and societal harm without proportionate benefits.
"Possibly one of the dumbest and most scientifically illiterate climate scare stories ever written has been published by the fast-fading UK Sky News. Climate reporter Victoria Seabrook notes that the sea ice on the Arctic "continent" is melting at 12% every decade but she backs it up by publishing a graph clearly showing it has been stable since 2007. She goes on to claim that the Arctic melt will push up sea levels around Britain and fuel worse coastal flooding, seemingly unaware that melting ice in liquid does not raise its level (suggested educational tip, check out ice in a gin and tonic glass). Just for good measure, her silly story throws in the wobbling jet stream and a "shocking" prediction that global temperature could rise by nearly 1°C in just five years.
This story is a classic of its kind – late climate psychosis folderol to back up the collapsing Net Zero fantasy. After decades of relentless mainstream gaslighting, mass audiences are still vaguely concerned that the climate is in some kind of 'emergency'. Net Zero is retreating around the world, partly because it is increasingly understood that human civilisation cannot abolish the use of hydrocarbons without returning to the dark ages, and partly because nobody is prepared to pay for it when given a choice. But the great climate science con that is the foundation of the collectivist Net Zero lunacy continues, and, if Seabrook's latest work is an example, it is getting more desperate by the day.
So she publishes the graph below with the misleading 12% decline every decade heading.
There is no attribution but the graph is broadly similar to others showing the September minimum sea ice extent plotted back to 1979 and the start of continuous satellite data. It clearly shows that a short-term decline from the middle of the 1990s was stopped in its tracks from around 2007. Seabrook is not alone in running a linear line down from 1979 and ignoring the individual trends over nearly 40 years of the five decade time period. Countless scare stories feature the declining sea ice and countless accounts fail to note that 1979 was also a cyclical ice high point. There is plenty of evidence to show the combined extent across the seas of the Arctic region was much lower back to the 1950s.
These cherry-picking stories are ubiquitous despite recent work from Dr Mark England of the University of Exeter which noted that the ice had been stable over every month in the year since 2007. In addition, the illustration below from Arctic scientist Allan Astrup Jensen displays the progression of the September sea ice since 1979.
The actual data clearly show a different story to that relayed to the general public by a mainstream media struggling to retain credibility in an information world they no longer control. As Jensen observes, the summer ice plateaued from 1979-97 and then fell for 10 years. Either side of the drop there have been minimal losses, while the last near decade has seen some possible gains.
As well as all this melting sea ice pushing up imaginary sea levels, Seabrook also states it will "shift the jet stream" and disrupt the UK weather system "in ways not fully understood". Alas, no 'scientists say' evidence is provided for this claim, which may not even be relevant given the ice has been on pause for nearly 20 years. A working knowledge of the jet stream high in the northern hemisphere atmosphere is not yet available due to limited observations over relevant time periods. Not yet "fully understood" sums it all up, even though Seabrook claims the UK weather will be disrupted. Of course it will.
Temperature data are always good for a laugh in climate alarmist circles, particularly when they arise from the UK Met Office. When it is not making up temperatures from 103 non-existent sites, the Met Office is promoting figures taken from its largely unnatural heat-ravaged nationwide weather network. Other state-funded meteorological operations, packed full of climate activists, produce similarly corrupted figures and when they are combined to give a global temperature, extreme scepticism is the order of the day. Further homogenisation and convenient retrospective adjustments mean that these datasets have more fiddles in them than the music cupboard at the Royal Philharmonic.
Seabrook picks up on a recent report from the World Meteorological Organisation that is said to forecast a rise in warming from around 1.2°C to 2°C within the next five years. Or, as Seabrook noted in a later X post, "finds" a rise in the warming.
The chance of this rise is said to be "exceptionally unlikely" says Professor Adam Scaife of the Met Office Hadley Centre who worked on the report. But that's the way you do it – invent a ridiculous clickbait figure to attract attention but then go on to note the "forecast" would have been "effectively impossible" just a few years ago. This is then said in Seabrook's report to be a sign of how quickly the climate is changing. In the bizarre world of 'settled' climate science, an opinion, however improbable, is promoted as a sign of physical change. Professor Scaife is reported to add: "It is shocking in that sense that two degrees is possible. However, it's not shocking [because] … we thought it might be plausible at this stage, and indeed it is".
Confected word salad, indicative perhaps of how most climate science has long departed from the traditional scientific process.