From THE DAILY SCEPTIC

by Chris Morrison

Sensational new discoveries arising from long-forgotten early aerial photographs indicate that ice has remained stable and even grown slightly since the 1930s over a 2,000 km stretch of East Antarctica. In a recent paper published in Nature Communications, researchers from the University of Copenhagen came to their conclusions by tracking glacial movement in an area with as much ice as the Greenland ice sheet. The findings are unlikely to feature in narrative-driven mainstream media. The silence will probably replicate the response to another recent paper that found the ice shelves surrounding Antarctica grew in overall size from 2009-2019.

The Copenhagen scientists examined hundreds of old aerial photographs taken for mapping work in 1937. The images were supplemented with a number of photographs taken in the 1950s and 1974 of the same area and a 3D computer reconstruction was produced. This allowed the researchers to examine the evolution of glaciers over a significant time period. In order to determine if recent trends exceed the scale of natural variability, long-term observations are said to be vital.

“Compared to modern data, the ice flow speeds are unchanged. While some glaciers have thinned over shorter intermediate periods of 10-20 years, they have remained stable or grown slightly in the long term, indicating a system in balance,” it was noted.

Actual long-term scientific observations will always beat media-friendly computer-modelled pseudoscientific opinions and alarm drummed up by short-term outliers. The authors note that using data from historical sources such as early photographs provides extensive coverage across large areas with detailed temporal and three-dimensional information. Geological evidence covers longer time scales with temporal uncertainties of thousands of years, while estimates from ice cores are generally very local and spatially confined. In Antarctica, it is pointed out, the scarcity of historical climate data makes climate reanalysis estimates before 1970 “largely uncertain”, while “observed trends cannot clearly be distinguished from natural variability”. Not that this stops mainstream activists such as Clive Cookson at the Financial Times who reacted to a recent two-year downward spike in Antarctica sea ice with the suggestion that the area faced a “catastrophic cascade of extreme environmental events… that will affect the climate around the world”.

Of course a “system in balance” is the last thing a Net Zero-obsessed mainstream wants to hear about. The Antarctica Circumpolar Current is the strongest flow of water on the planet and on March 4th the BBC brought news that it was “at risk of failing”. New research is said to suggest that the current will be 20% slower within 25 years “as the world warms, with far reaching consequences for life on Earth”.

Fresh ice melt water  is said to cause major changes in the density structure of the ocean, leading to a projected slowdown of the current. Inexplicably, the BBC report failed to note that the prediction was generated by a computer model which had been loaded with a ‘pathway’ that assumed global temperatures would rise up to 4°C within less than 80 years. The clickbait-searching scientists behind the findings observed the recent rapidly declining sea ice in Antarctica, but failed to report a more recent recovery. At the end of 2024, the extent of sea ice was roughly the same as the 1981 to 2010 average. According to the US-based National Snow and Ice Data Centre, “this provides a sharp illustration of the high variability of Antarctica sea ice extent”. And recent examination of earlier photographic evidence provides more insights, with early Nimbus weather satellite images revealing that the 2023 decline was similar to that seen in 1966.

Regular readers of the Daily Sceptic will of course be aware that Antarctica is a difficult place to whip up climate panic, although it must be conceded that mainstream science and media have spared little effort in attempting to do so. Over the last seven decades there has been little or no warming over large areas of the continent. What warming there has been, on the west side, is directly on top of a large number of volcanoes. A recent paper from Singh and Polvani found that Antarctica sea ice “has modestly expanded, a finding that seems to confirm the work on the ice shelf increases between 2009-2019. Warming has been “nearly non-existent” over 70 years, state Singh and Polvani. According to NASA figures, the ice loss is 0.0005% a year. As an example of how humans cause the climate to warm by burning hydrocarbons and eating meat, Antarctica leaves a lot to be desired.

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.

By Heartland Institute

By Anthony Watts and Sterling Burnett

Axios Atlanta recently published an article titled “Pollen season in Atlanta is getting worse, thanks to climate change,” claiming that rising temperatures caused by climate change are making allergy season more severe. Axios’ article is misleading at best, and misses a larger point. Data and historical trends indicate that while pollen levels fluctuate, factors like urbanization and land use changes—particularly the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect—are far more significant contributors to Atlanta’s pollen patterns than their so-called local climate change.

“A warming climate means that allergy season is starting earlier and lasting longer,” write Kristal Dixon and Alex Fitzpatrick for Axios. “Longer, warmer growing seasons are leading to earlier pollen releases and higher overall pollen levels.”

Dixon and Fitzpatrick ignore several key facts in their attempt to connect long-term climate change to longer allergy seasons. For example, Atlanta’s well-documented Urban Heat Island effect—caused by dense infrastructure, concrete, and asphalt trapping heat—plays a much larger role in local temperature trends than any global warming influence. The city has expanded significantly over the last few decades, increasing localized temperatures and extending the growing season for plants.

According to a NASA analysis of Atlanta’s UHI effect, the city consistently experiences significantly higher temperatures than surrounding rural areas due to human-made structures retaining heat. This localized warming—not global climate change—is a key driver of temperature-related shifts in pollen cycles.

Second, pollen levels are heavily influenced by regional vegetation patterns and CO₂ fertilization effects, which lead to healthier plant growth.

As pointed out in a Climate Realism article, pollen season is largely dependent on precipitation levels and natural climate variability, not just temperature. When there’s more rain, plants produce more pollen. Conversely, droughts can suppress pollen levels. Climate models do not reliably account for these local and regional factors, yet Axios presents the issue as if it is solely driven by global temperature changes.

Additionally, previous claims about worsening allergy seasons have not held up to scrutiny. For example, a 2022 Climate Realism analysis debunked similar assertions by showing that pollen trends vary by region and that some areas are actually experiencing less pollen, not more. Furthermore, studies cited in mainstream media often rely on cherry-picked data from limited time frames rather than examining long-term historical trends.

Axios embraced Climate Central’s use of “consecutive freeze-free days” as a proxy for pollen season noting that between 1970 and 2024 the number of consecutive freeze free days increased it cities like Reno, Myrtle Beach, and Toledo. Interestingly, it didn’t provide any data addressing whether incidences of treatment for allergies or sales of allergy medicine increased in those cities corresponding to the increase in days between and without freezing temperatures. And, despite climate change being a supposedly global phenomenon, it turns out the number of cities experienced a decline in the number of consecutive freeze free days, so the logical question to ask, did reported incidences of allergy attacks, or sales of allergy medicine, as a proxy, also decline. If Axios asked those questions it certainly provided no answer to them in the article, yet that is a reasonable connection to make if one is asking whether climate change is impacting allergies.

Even if climate change, as opposed to other factors, is causing longer allergy seasons, this misses a larger point, the positive benefits of a decline in freezing temperatures. The Axios story mentioned one in passing but failed to expand on it writing, “[a]bove-freezing temperatures allow for better plant growth.” While the suffering of allergy sufferers should not be ignored, as Axios notes, allergies are treatable, but fewer below freezing days and nights benefit plants, pollinating insects, and humans alike.

Climate Realism has made this point in repeated posts, here, here, and here, for example. Global greening has contributed to the largest decline in global hunger in history. Greater plant growth not only removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but the allergy causing pollen it emits is great for pollinating insects like bees, and birds.

More directly, copious peer reviewed reports confirm that cold temperatures are responsible for 10 times more deaths than hot temperatures. As a result, as the number of freezing days has declined, the number of deaths attributable to non-optimum temperatures has also fallen sharply, preventing hundreds of thousands of deaths each year. (See the table, below)

Instead of taking a broad, evidence-based approach, Axios in its attempt to connect worsening allergies to climate change it has once again resorted to alarmist claims without addressing all relevant factors. Atlanta’s allergy season is influenced by many variables, including land use changes, dense urban landscaping with pollen producing plants, increased green space, and urbanization. Blaming climate change without considering these other influences misleads the public and fosters unnecessary panic. If the media is truly interested in informing the public, they should focus on all contributing factors that might be causing a longer allergy season. They could also discuss the tremendous global net benefits of fewer freezing days.

Heartland Institute

The Heartland Institute is one of the world’s leading free-market think tanks. It is a national nonprofit research and education organization based in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems.

Originally posted at ClimateREALISM