{"id":294479,"date":"2024-01-11T09:22:18","date_gmt":"2024-01-11T08:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=294479"},"modified":"2024-01-11T09:22:21","modified_gmt":"2024-01-11T08:22:21","slug":"false-washington-post-low-great-lakes-ice-levels-are-not-proof-of-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=294479","title":{"rendered":"False, Washington Post, Low Great Lakes Ice Levels Are Not Proof of Climate Change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By H. Sterling Burnett<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The Washington Post <\/em>published a story claiming the current low levels of ice coverage across the U.S. Great Lakes are a result of climate change. This is false. Data show that Great Lakes ice levels vary widely from year to year, and although this year\u2019s current levels are low, that can change quickly, with the annual peak ice coverage not until March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Washington Post<\/em> story, \u201cGreat Lakes start 2024 with smallest amount of ice in at least 50 years<\/a>,\u201d reporter Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff writes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Great Lakes had the smallest amount of ice cover this New Year\u2019s Day in at least the past 50 years and are on track to see less than the seasonal average this winter, according to government data. The decline comes during a five-decade drop in ice cover that experts say is due in part to human-caused climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rosenzweig-Ziff misses the ironic fact that the last time the Great Lakes ice coverage was this low in January was in the early 1970s, a time when global average temperatures were cooling, which many scientists<\/a> claimed at the time could be a sign of a coming ice age. Warnings of the pending ice age were common in headlines<\/a> at the time among mainstream media outlets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\u2019s\u00a0Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory<\/a>\u00a0reveal that Great Lakes ice extent levels vary widely from year to year, forming and dissipating at different times throughout the years. (see the figure, below)<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The same data also show that the Great Lakes exceeded 90 percent ice coverage five years between 2003 and 2023, during a period which mainstream media has claimed are the hottest decades on records. By comparison, from 1973 to 1993, when global average temperatures were cooler, the Great Lakes only exceeded 90 percent coverage in four years. (See the figure, below)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In short, Rosenzweig-Ziff and the Washington Post<\/em> are playing chicken little to hype the \u201chuman climate change causes everything bad\u201d narrative that they\u2019ve been pushing for more than a decade; trying to link a single year\u2019s slow start to ice coverage extent on the Great Lakes to climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What the data show, however, is that there is no clear, sustained trend in declining ice coverage extent, which might be an indication of climate change. Instead, this year\u2019s slow start to the Great Lakes ice season is an anomaly, not a unique event, experienced previously 50 years ago, despite the fact that temperatures then were modestly cooler on average than they are now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The post\u00a0False, Washington Post, Low Great Lakes Ice Levels Are Not Proof of Climate Change<\/a>\u00a0appeared first on\u00a0ClimateRealism<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0Washington Post\u00a0published a story claiming the current low levels of ice coverage across the U.S. Great Lakes are a result of climate change. This is false. Data show that Great Lakes ice levels vary widely from year to year, and although this year\u2019s current levels are low, that can change quickly, with the annual peak ice coverage not until March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":294487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The\u00a0Washington Post\u00a0published a story claiming the current low levels of ice coverage across the U.S. Great Lakes are a result of climate change. This is false. Data show that Great Lakes ice levels vary widely from year to year, and although this year\u2019s ","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818056,691825460,691826147,691821016,691821729],"class_list":{"0":"post-294479","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-climate-change","9":"tag-great-lakes","10":"tag-ice-levels","11":"tag-national-oceanic-and-atmospheric-administration-noaa","12":"tag-washington-post","14":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/0635609655201573828-AP-Winter-Weather-Illinois.webp?fit=3200%2C1680&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1eBF","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":425965,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=425965","url_meta":{"origin":294479,"position":0},"title":"Lake Erie is Nearly 100% Ice-Covered After Great Lakes Region Slammed by Cold Stretch","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"02\/13\/2026","format":false,"excerpt":"The Midwest is so cold that even the \u201cGlobal Warming\u201d jokes froze over.","rel":"","context":"In \"\u201cNew Ice Age\u201d theory\"","block_context":{"text":"\u201cNew Ice Age\u201d theory","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=new-ice-age-theory"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/0Screenshot-2026-02-13-100410.png?fit=1200%2C617&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/0Screenshot-2026-02-13-100410.png?fit=1200%2C617&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/0Screenshot-2026-02-13-100410.png?fit=1200%2C617&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/0Screenshot-2026-02-13-100410.png?fit=1200%2C617&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/0Screenshot-2026-02-13-100410.png?fit=1200%2C617&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":305998,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=305998","url_meta":{"origin":294479,"position":1},"title":"The Guardian Should Know That One Mild Winter Is Not Climate Change, Nor Is It Alarming","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"03\/05\/2024","format":false,"excerpt":"A recent article in\u00a0The Guardian, \u201cVanishing ice and snow: record warm winter wreaks havoc across US Midwest,\u201d\u00a0describes the very mild winter much of the American Midwest has experienced this year, claiming that it is due to climate change. 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