No, the Arctic is not melting

The Arctic Circle is the most extreme place on our planet where seasonal changes can range from +35.0°C in July and -65.0°C in February; […] on average 75% of the year is spent below the melting point of water [and] on average the Arctic will be covered by ice/snow for the same proportion of time, i.e., 75% or 9 months of the year.

The same seasonal extreme variations in air temperatures are also observed in ice cover variations observed in the Arctic where the winter‘s ice cover can be between 14- 16 million km2, while during summer the area covered can vary between 4 and 8 million km2.  Based on observations, dating back to 1900, it can be concluded that it is physically impossible for the Arctic to be ice/snow free in the foreseeable future since the air temperatures were as cold in 2013 as they were in 1900.

Since ice cannot melt below 0.0°C, all these observations point towards the Arctic remaining ice-covered for the next 100 years. It must also follow that any theory predicting imminent melting of the Arctic ice cap cannot be based on thermometer-recorded data and, therefore, must be wrong and will merely be an artefact of using the term temperature where there is no true association with the calibrated thermometer, the instrument used to measure temperature in all physical, medical and engineering sciences.

Conclusion

So, what are the hard facts about Arctic that are based on the observations made by calibrated thermometers at 20 stations across the Arctic Circle and which conclusions can be made based on those observations?

1. Temperatures in the Arctic between 1900 and the present day are a long distance below 0.0°C for at least 9 months per year and can be as low as -64.0°C

2. It is impossible to separate the youngest from the oldest years using thermometerbased daily or monthly Tmax/Tmin data

3. The total ranges observed in daily Tmax/Tmin data can be as high as 100.0°C and as low as 75.0°C making the Arctic Circle the most variable and extreme area on our planet therefore making any accurate forecasting of future temperature patterns and trends impossible

4. The switches between the extreme hot to extreme cold temperatures are very frequent and very unpredictable and can occur within the same month, same year or between two consecutive years

5. The large observed ice gain/loss variations are pre-determined by the large observed variations in air temperatures

6. Since the air temperatures are chaotic in nature it must follow that the extent of the ice cover has to be chaotic as well and, since we cannot predict future events of a chaotic system, we cannot predict future trends of either air temperatures or ice cover patterns

Based on the facts above only one conclusion can be made in reference to the putative melting of the Arctic: historical thermometer-based data tells us that between 1900 and 2014 arctic temperatures were for 75% of the time consistently long distance below 0.0°C; the ice cover in the winter months is still consistently more than 14,000,000km2 and, therefore, it is physically impossible for the Arctic to be already melting since nothing has changed since 1900 till present day. The only sensible forecast for the future would be to expect the same extreme events to continue until thermometer-based evidence tell us otherwise.

Let me conclude this paper by answering the question asked in the first part of the title by a categorical No, the Arctic is not melting. As long as temperatures remain the same as they have been for the last 100 years the Arctic will remain frozen in the long winter months and partly melt during very short summer months.

The answer to the second question is that the theory of global warming is completely disconnected from the observations since their definition of temperature is based on some theoretical number that has nothing to do with the temperature that is measured by calibrated thermometer and, most importantly, used as an international standard by the scientific community. Since the theory is clearly wrong about forecasting the temperature patterns in the Arctic, all other predictions made by the theory must be wrong too.

Kenneth Richard on 16. November 2017

Global Warming Theory ‘Completely  Disconnected From the Observations’