Arctic ice recovers from the great melt

Oh no! Another Alarmist talking point bites the dust. Goodbye Carbon Trading Scheme. Warmists will remember this one fondly.

Chilly winds across the Bering Sea have caused thousands of square miles of ocean to freeze

IF you thought it was cold in Britain for the time of year, you should see what is happening around the North Pole. Scientists have discovered that the size of the Arctic ice cap has increased sharply to levels not seen since 2001.

A shift in the chilly winds across the Bering Sea over the past few months has caused thousands of square miles of ocean to freeze.

The same phenomenon, known as the Arctic Oscillation, is also partly responsible for the cold winter experienced in northern Europe and eastern America.

It allowed icy blasts of air to escape from the Arctic and make their way southwards. Provisional Met Office figures for December to February suggest the UK had its coldest winter since 1979, with an average temperature of 1.6C — a full 2.1C below normal. Last week a teenager was killed in Scotland when a school bus crashed in the snow — just days into British Summer Time.

The Arctic Oscillation usually acts like a ring of strong winds circulating anti-clockwise around the North Pole to dam up cold Arctic air. This year it has turned “negative”, meaning the ring has broken down, allowing blasts of cold air to escape to lower latitudes.

Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Colorado, is surprised by the Arctic’s recovery from the great melt of 2007 when summer ice shrank to its smallest recorded extent.
“It has been a crazy winter with Arctic ice cover growing and very cold weather in northern Europe and eastern America all linked to this strongly negative Arctic Oscillation,” Serreze said. Read more.