To the editor,
IPI Resident Scholar Dr. Merrill Matthews is right on with his criticism of Greenpeace’s ridiculous Santa Claus video.
It is ironic that Greenpeace would release a video of Santa bemoaning the loss of Arctic sea ice in a year when it recovered about 60% from its minimum last year *. Santa should be celebrating the return of the ice!
Santa must have put out messages like this often in the past, most recently in the 1930s when the ice was probably less than today since the Arctic is believed to have been warmer then. He must have issued even more frightening warnings around 1,000 AD when it was a good deal warmer in the Arctic and the Vikings were sailing in waters than are now covered with pack ice. And he must have really freaked out 6,000 years ago when we were at the warmest period since the end of the last ice age and trees grew hundreds of miles further north than today.
If Santa does not like these normal variations in Arctic sea ice cover, then he should move to the South Pole where sea ice has been increasing since measurements began in 1979 **.
Sincerely,
Tom Harris, B. Eng., M. Eng. (thermofluids)
Executive Director
International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC)
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada
* PS: See http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg orhttp://climate4you.com/images/RecentAMSR-E%20SeaIceExtent.gif
** PPS: See http://climate4you.com/images/SeaIceBothHemisphereDailyUpdateGRAPH.gif which shows both poles and http://noconsensus.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/south-ice-anomaly1.jpg which just shows the South Pole.
