To hear global warming alarmists, melting Arctic ice allegedly vindicates their claims. Unfortunately for them, the Antarctic ice cover reached a record 7.5 million square mile expanse this year, with some regions showing a doubling in size since 1992.

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Last month, we noted that 2012 data shows that global temperatures stopped warming 16 years ago. 

As reported by Britain’s Daily Mail, data from over 3,000 worldwide measuring sites on both land and sea “reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.”  Accordingly, Earth’s temperature declined between 1940 and 1980, rose modestly between 1980 and 1996, and has now been stable since that date.  So contrary to what man-made global warming theory would predict, over a sixteen-year period during which economic growth exploded in such places as China, India and the United States, temperatures haven’t budged despite enormous carbon emission increases. 

That also means that since the Industrial Revolution began in earnest around 1880, the Earth has warmed a statistically insignificant 0.75 degrees Celsius.  That’s unwelcome news for global warming alarmists. 

Since that revelation last month, two events have further exposed the folly of the man-made global warming cartel. 

First there was Hurricane Sandy. 

Not only did that storm provide New Jersey Governor Chris Christie the opportunity to reveal his man-crush on Barack Obama (just kidding, people), it triggered the predictable onslaught of global warming sanctimony from the likes of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Al Gore.  According to Mayor Bloomberg, “What is clear is that the storms we’ve experienced in the last year or so around this country and around the world are much more severe than before.” 

Except that they’re not. 

Here are the facts.  After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, global warming activists claimed that we’d reached a new era in which hurricanes would be both more severe and more frequent.  Instead, since that date we have not witnessed a single Category 3 or higher hurricane make landfall in the U.S.  That’s the longest period without a major hurricane in over a century. 

Then, this week brought a second inconvenient revelation for the global warming hysterians. 

On Sunday, scientists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the British Antarctic Survey announced in Nature Geoscience that the sea ice surrounding Antarctica is witnessing record growth. 

To hear global warming alarmists, melting Arctic ice allegedly vindicates their claims.  Unfortunately for them, the Antarctic ice cover reached a record 7.5 million square mile expanse this year, with some regions showing a doubling in size since 1992. 

That confirms a separate report last month from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, which revealed that Antarctica’s winter sea ice has increased some 6,600 square miles.  The Wall Street Journal notes that is larger in size than the state of Connecticut, offsetting declines in sea ice around the North Pole: 

“Broadly speaking, the Earth’s polar regions are mirror opposites.  The Arctic Ocean is largely landlocked, surrounded by North America, Greenland and Eurasia, which limits the amount of sea ice there could be no matter which way the wind is blowing.  Earlier this year, scientists reported that the extent of summer sea ice in the Arctic was the lowest since 1979, when satellite monitoring there began.  By contrast, Antarctica – the world’s coldest and windiest continent – is covered by an ice cap two miles thick and surrounded by the Southern Ocean.  The annual growth of sea ice around Antarctica is the largest seasonal event on the planet.” 

“The expansion and contraction of ice around the continent is largely explained by wind forces,” said NASA’s Ron Kwok, “which is very different in the Antarctic than in the Arctic.” 

Accordingly, the evidence undermining global warming hysteria and the financially lucrative industry it supports continues to accumulate.  Activists and political figures perpetuating that movement claim to be on the side of “science,” but if anything they’re the ones increasingly faith-based.  They’ll likely continue to deny and ignore this latest evidence, but their misguided and transparent syndicate continues to wither under the harsh light of scientific fact.