It’s been another grand week for climate scare hysteria in large parts of the media: massive heatwaves at both poles – what a coincidence – and another mass coral bleaching at the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). Where, we might ask, were the equally prominent reports on the recent news that the South Pole had its coldest six-month winter since records began, and coral at the GBR has been growing furiously in recent years, and could be at a near-100 year high?
Largely missing from the latest reports, however, are the important facts that the nearest weather station to the North Pole is 800 kilometres away, the suggested heatwave across eastern Antarctica was the product of a weather forecasting computer model, and the coral ‘mass bleaching’ was spotted from an aircraft.
The polar heatwave story sems to have originated from an Associated Press press report, and was spread by the Microsoft Network, the Washington Post and the Guardian, among many others. The Guardian went all in, stating: “Startling heatwaves at both of Earth’s poles are causing alarm among climate scientists who have warned the ‘unprecedented’ events could signal faster and abrupt climate breakdown.” The Guardian story noted that the weather stations were “near the North Pole”, leading the meteorologist Anthony Watts to comment that the nearest weather station was in northern Canada, 817 kms from the pole. Watts noted that floating ice in the Arctic makes it almost impossible to keep a station in one place.
Read More: No, There Weren’t “Unprecedented Heatwaves” at Both of Earth’s Poles Last Week
