Antarctic scare story from the ABC

Under the doom-laden headline "Antarctic ice shelf set to collapse" the ABC breathlessly attributes the possible loss of the Wilkins Ice Shelf to "climate change caused by heat-trapping gases from burning fossil fuels." It reports that 25,000 sq km of ice has been lost "in total" - since when, we are not told.



Wow, 25,000 sq km sounds like a hell of a lot of ice...! But, as always, the reality is different. The total Antarctic sea ice area varies from about 2.5 million sq km to nearly 15 million sq km, meaning the total loss claimed is only 1% of the minimum and about 0.15% of the maximum sea ice extent. Furthermore, in April 2008, the sea ice anomaly compared to the 1979-2000 average was up nearly 2 million sq km! Even now, it is up on the average. So even though ice is being lost here, it is being made up even more over there...

Read it here.