Canadian Arctic sea-ice levels for the first week of January 2015 are higher than during the early 1980s, according to data from the Canadian Ice Service (CIS). Official data shows that Arctic sea ice coverage in Canadian waters so far in 2015 is well over 90 percent.
For years, scientists and environmentalists have been predicting the Arctic would be ice free by now, but the North Pole continues to defy such predictions and has stabilized in recent years. Though some scientists are still predicting the Arctic could be ice-free in coming decades.
Canadian Arctic sea ice levels have fared well despite global temperature fluctuation. Canadian Arctic ice levels between Jan. 1 and Jan. 8 are well above ice coverage during the beginning of the year during early 1980s.
Canadian Arctic sea ice-coverage for the first week of January 2015 was well over 90 percent, but it was below 90 percent in 1980– but still hovering above 85 percent. Sea ice coverage for 1981 was above 90 percent, but still slightly less than 2015, according to CIS, but 1982 sea ice coverage dropped below 90 percent to near 1981 levels.
Since 1980, however, the lowest Canadian Arctic sea ice coverage level for the first week of January was in 2011, when less than 85 percent of polar waters were covered with ice. Sea ice levels have recovered since then, hitting above 90 percent for early January every year since 2012.
Climate scientists have already declared 2014 the hottest year on record, globally. The Japan Meteorological Agency found that 2014 was the warmest year on record by 0.05 degrees Celsius, beating out 1998 for hottest year.
But the so-called hottest year on record has seen another anomaly– record levels of global sea ice-coverage. Antarctic sea ice hit record levels last year, reaching more than nine million square kilometers by Dec. 31– the highest level since records began in 1978. The only year to come even close to seeing the same level of South Pole ice coverage for that time was 2007.
December is the middle of the summer in the South Pole. During the southern hemisphere’s winter, Antarctica also shattered records, reaching more than 20 million square kilometers in September 2014, according to government data.
Arctic sea ice levels have also been much more stable than scientists previously predicted. Europe’s CryoSat-2 satellite found that sea-ice volumes during fall 2014 were above the average extent for the last five years, and only slightly lower than 2013 levels. But 2013 Arctic sea-ice levels were some 50 percent higher than 2012 levels by the end of the melting season.
“The Antarctic is actually growing and all the evidence in the last few months suggests many assumptions about the poles was wrong,” Dr. Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Forum, told the U.K. Express.
“Global sea ice is at a record high, another key indicator that something is working in the opposite direction of what was predicted,” Peiser said. “Most people think the poles are melting… they’re not. This is a huge inconvenience that reality is now catching up with climate alarmists, who were predicting that the poles would be melting fairly soon.”
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