Sea Ice Melt and Snow Defy Climate Alarmists

Melting of sea ice and snow has been a major data point in justification of restrictive energy policies by many countries. This has long been a poster scare for climate Armageddon.

Some examples:

1. Al Gore, speaking at the Copenhagen climate change conference in 2009, stated the latest research showed the Arctic could be completely ice-free in five years. ⁽¹⁾
2. CBS news claimed the Arctic Ocean could be ice free within the next ten years but CBS said the exact same thing 16 years ago. ⁽²⁾

Regardless of these unfounded claims and many others from alarmists, the Arctic, Antarctic and Greenland continue to play havoc with alarmist theories. Alarmist predictions have yet to even come anywhere close to happening.

Arctic

The melting of sea ice in the Arctic has slowed dramatically in the past 20 years, with no statistically significant decline in its extent since 2005. ⁽³⁾

Increased ocean primary productivity in the Arctic generated by reduced summer sea ice continued into 2025. This means Arctic seals and whales, walrus, and polar bears will continue to flourish.

Susan Crockford says, “Don’t look for that take-home in the legacy media, since they will all focus on any information that feeds a doom-mongering narrative.” September 2025 sea ice extent continued to stall, rather than plummet as predicted: eleventh lowest average September extent since 1979, although they don’t come out and say so. ⁽⁴⁾

Arctic sea ice melting in the summer of 2023 was remarkably less than expected when considering the strong heat waves in the atmosphere and ocean, with record temperatures set around the world. ⁽⁵⁾

An interesting twist is a recent study. Evidence of algae growth and climate simulations reveal the Arctic had seasonal ice, not a permanent ice shelf, for much of the past 750,000 years. These insights challenge long-standing theories. This discovery provides important clues about how the Arctic has previously responded to climate change and offers valuable context for anticipating future changes in the region. ⁽⁶⁾

Antarctic

The Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) has done something that genuinely shocked climate scientists around the world. Between 2021 and 2023, the AIS experienced a record-breaking increase in overall mass, marking the first time in decades that Antarctica gained mass, reversing previous loss trends. This wasn’t just a minor fluctuation, the ice sheet gained approximately 108 gigatons per year during this period, completely reversing what scientists had observed for the previous two decades. The turnaround has left researchers scrambling to understand what’s happening. The growth was enough to temporarily offset global sea level rise by about 0.3 millimeters per year during the same period. ⁽⁷⁾

What matters most in this story is that the climate models didn’t see this change coming and therefore are missing at least one big crucial factor, or maybe ten. Who knows asks Jo Nova. ⁽⁸⁾

Antarctica experienced record low temperatures in late 2023. ⁽⁹⁾ Then in 2025 Antarctic Amundsen-Scott station saw the coldest October in 44 years another time the mainstream media was silent. This is not supposed to happen, according to the climate models. ⁽¹⁰⁾ As mentioned above, a key take-away from all this is that climate models are missing something.

Greenland--Climate models are overestimating ice sheet runoff by 21%-58% in Greenland during peak summer melt conditions

Surface of Greenland ice sheet gained 399 billion tons of new ice since 2024. This is 29 billion tons above the 1981-2010 average. Five of the last eight years have been above average. ⁽¹¹⁾

Greenland temperature stations indicate there was an abrupt 2.9 C warming trend from 1922-1932 (ten years) that was almost identical to the 3.1 C warming trend from 1993-2007 (14 years). Between the two warming periods was an overall ~3 C cooling from 1993-1992. Thus, there has been almost zero net warming across Greenland in the last century. ⁽¹²⁾

This temperature trajectory is consistent with another analysis that said “the annual whole ice sheet 1919-32 warming trend was 33% greater in magnitude than the 1994-2007 warming.” Interestingly, the authors estimate the Greenland ice sheet melt has added just 1.08 cm to global sea levels since 1900. This is too small to justify alarmist narratives about dramatic warming and ice melt contributions to sea level rise. ⁽¹³⁾

The Greenland Petermann Glacier has grown by more than 30 kilometers since 2012, back when the media hysterically announced the glacier’s imminent disappearance. These days the media doesn’t talk about this anymore. ⁽¹⁴⁾

The guardians of ‘settled science’ have found themselves in another awkward bind. New research has discovered that Greenland’s ice sheet has been quietly defying the rules written for it by climate modelers. Instead of every drop of meltwater rushing downhill to flood the coastlines as we’ve been warned for decades, large portions soak into the porous bare ice, freeze again at night, and never reach the sea. ⁽¹⁵⁾

Climate models are overestimating ice sheet runoff by 21%-58% in Greenland during peak summer melt conditions, leading in inaccurate predictions of sea level rise. ⁽¹⁶⁾

Final Words

All the above information obviously plays havoc with the alarmist climate narrative. One additional bit of information adding to defy alarmists is that there has been a marked cooling trend across the North Atlantic in recent decades. ⁽¹⁷⁾

Another item not caught by climate models.

References

1. Frank James, “Al Gore slips on Arctic ice; misstates scientist’s forecast,” npr.org, December 15, 2009
2. Marc Morano, “CBS news claimed the Arctic Ocean could be ice free within the next ten years—but CBS said the exact same thing 16 years ago,” climatedepot.com, November 4, 2025
3. Toby Young, “Arctic sea ice melt’s dramatic slowing since 2005 surprises scientists, but not skeptics,” principia-scientific.com, August 24, 2025
4. Susan Crockford, “New NOAA data show Arctic sea life is flourishing,” principia-scientific.com, December 23, 2025
5. Ola M. Johannessen, “Arctic sea ice extent: no record minimum in 2023 or recent years,” Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters, Volume 18, January 2025
6. “Ancient Arctic mud just shattered climate ice myth,” principia-scientific.com, July 19, 2025
7. Marco Kopinke, “Antarctic Ice Sheet growth continues to puzzle climate scientists, a record-breaking increase in overall mass,” climatedepot.com, July 13, 2025
8. Jo Nova, “Baffled again” The Antarctic ice sheet has started gaining ice lately and no one knows why,” joannenova.com.au, September 4, 2025
9. Gosselin, “Antarctica experienced record low temperatures in late 2023,” principia-scientific.com, May 6, 202510.
10. Gosselin, “Antarctic Amundsen-Scott station sees coldest October in 44 years, mainstream media silent,” wattsupwiththat.com, October 25, 202511.
11. Marc Morano, climatedepot.com, September 2, 202512.
12. Florina Roana Schalamon et al., “The role of large-scale atmospheric patterns for recent warming periods in Greenland from 1900-2015,’ Weather Clim. Dynam., 6, 1075-1088, 202513.
13. Jason E. Box et al., “Greenland ice sheet surface air temperature variability: 1840-2007,” journals.ametsoc.org, July 15, 200914.
14. Gosselin, “Greenland Petermann Glacier has grown 30 kilometers since 2012,” notrickszone.com, December 6, 202515.
15. Matthew G. Cooper et al., “Greenland ice sheet runoff reduced by meltwater freezing in bare ice,” Nature Communications, September 12, 2016.
16. Mandy Carr, “Scientists discover serious flaw in predictions for major global crisis: overestimated,” climatedepot.com, September 27, 202517.
17. Jung-Hee Ryu and Song-Lak Kang, “Decadal swing in NAO variability and summertime heat extremes in South Korea over recent decades,” -Weather and Climate Extremes, Volume 49, September 2025, 100795

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