I always find it interesting as to why some stories get traction in the mainstream media and why some don't. In online science discussions, the fate of this years summer sea ice has been the focus of a significant betting pool, a test of expert prediction skills, and a week-by-week (almost) running commentary. However, none of these efforts made it on to the Today program. Instead, a rather casual article in the Independent showed the latest thickness data and that quoted Mark Serreze as saying that the area around the North Pole had 50/50 odds of being completely ice free this summer, has taken off across the media.

The headline on the piece "Exclusive: no ice at the North Pole" got the implied tense wrong, and I'm not sure that you can talk about a forecast as evidence (second heading), but still, the basis of the story is sound (Update: the headline was subsequently changed to the more accurate "Scientists warn that there may be no ice at North Pole this summer"). The key issue is that since last year's dramatic summer ice anomaly, the winter ice that formed in that newly opened water is relatively thin (around 1 meter), compared to multi-year ice (3 meters or so). This new ice formed quite close to the Pole, and with the prevailing winds and currents (which push ice from Siberia towards Greenland) is now over the Pole itself. Given that only 30% of first year ice survives the summer, the chances that there will be significant open water at the pole itself is high.

The actuality will depend on the winds and the vagaries of Arctic weather - but it certainly bears watching. Ironically, you will be able to see what happens only if it doesn't happen (from these web cams near the North Pole station).

This is very different from the notoriously over-excited story in the New York Times back in August 2000. In that case, the report was of the presence of some open water at the pole - which as the correction stated, is not that uncommon as ice floes and leads interact. What is being discussed here is large expanses of almost completely ice-free water. That would indeed be unprecedented since we've been tracking it.

So why do stories about an geographically special, but climatically unimportant, single point traditionally associated with a christianized pagan gift-giving festival garner more attention than long term statistics concerning ill-defined regions of the planet where very few people live?

I don't really need to answer that, do I?

Share This

Whilst we enjoy a weekly dose of Kevin McCloud’s dulcet tones gushing about the latest eco-friendly house design, it seems just as important, if not quite as sexy, to take a look a little closer to home and work out what to do with our existing inefficient housing stock.  Homes account for almost a third of UK carbon emissions, and whilst a lot is going on in terms of designing energy efficient and even “zero-carbon” homes, what some people may not realise is that as many as 70% of the housing stock in 2050 (our target date for 80% reduction of CO2) will be made up of houses that are already standing today!

On Friday, the guys at Project Dirt were invited along to the Existing Homes seminar at LSE where we mingled with politicians, academics and housing experts. The chat was engaging and we came out fired up to contribute. Some excellent stuff is going on out there - most of it at a pretty reasonable cost - one great example is Russell Smith’s renovation of his semi- in Sutton.  Perhaps one thing to encourage should be to develop a network of ‘open houses’ with local examples of energy-efficient renovations. This network should be accessible to anyone and promoted to everyone, to encourage people who are doing their renovations, extensions and general building improvements to give it a go.

We think Project Dirt can help to contribute to this agenda - and look forward to seeing your project ideas in this area coming forward!

Nick