By Jim Steele

Abnormal warming over the Arctic Ocean and Arctic sea ice loss has been falsely blamed on rising CO2 and evidence of the climate crisis. Such alarmist graphic propaganda is common, like Yale 360’s emphasizing the Arctic Ocean’s warming of several degrees in November 2022, while ignoring the cooling over North America and Eurasia. But any critical thinking person can see warm Arctic temperatures are due to inflows of warm Atlantic water, NOT rising CO2.

Earth’s surface temperatures are determined by the balance between incoming solar radiation and the earth’s net outgoing infrared radiation. Net outgoing infrared radiation is determined by the difference between outgoing infrared and the recycled infrared from the greenhouse effect.

Comparing summer July 2023 to winter January 2024, Arctic summers (illustration B) receive enough solar heating to counter net outgoing infrared and slightly raise temperatures above freezing. At the North Pole, summer temperatures reach +0.5C. However, without solar radiation during the North Pole winter (illustration A), net outgoing infrared dominates the energy balance, and North Pole temperatures plummet by 33 C degrees and cooling the earth. Similarly, just inside the Arctic Circle at 70 degrees north latitude over the Gulf of Boothia, summer temperatures of 1.4 C plummet by 30.8 degrees to winter temperatures of -29.4 C.

However, that seasonal temperature dynamic is grossly different where warm salty Atlantic waters enter the Arctic. Where Atlantic waters enter the Arctic at 70 degrees north latitude, summer temperatures reach +8.1 C, and despite Arctic winter cooling, temperatures don’t drop below freezing, only averaging +2.5 C. The inflow of warm Atlantic waters normally transports so much stored tropical heat to that region it raises temperatures by around 30 C higher than what would be expected from the Arctics normal greenhouse effect over insulating sea ice.

Thus, claims by alarmists attributing rising CO2 to any loss of Arctic Sea sea ice is not supported by the evidence. As graphic Cfrom the US National Snow and Ice Data Center shows the loss of insulating Arctic sea ice is primarily restricted to the regions where warm Atlantic currents normally enter the Arctic (graphic D). Furthermore, the 1990s shift in wind directions caused by the natural Arctic Oscillation, drove out much of the Arctic’s thick multi-year sea ice which resulted in thinner annual sea ice which allowed more heat to ventilate and warm the Arctic (see peer-reviewed Rigor (2002) & (2004)).

As the natural Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation shifts to more northern hemisphere cooling, a decrease in the flow of warming tropical Atlantic water entering the Arctic, a rebound in insulating Arctic sea ice will occur that will simultaneously decrease Arctic temperatures.

People who understand these natural climate dynamics that affect the Arctic, always and quickly understand the bogus global warming crisis is driven by natural Arctic warming oscillations.