German News Weekly ‘Der Spiegel’ Caught Making Up Another Story, Claimed Bering Strait “Almost Ice Free”

Schneefan at German skeptic site wobleibtdieerderwaermung here writes how renowned German news weekly DER SPIEGEL appears to have made up another story, this time involving a nonsensical climate alarm.

The embattled SPIEGEL this time selected a small area at the edge of the Arctic (Bering Sea/Bering Strait), which is usually not covered by more than half the ice anyway, and “drew completely absurd and inaccurate conclusions from it”.

Faked story about rural America

We will recall how not long ago SPIEGEL sent out award-winning journalist Claas Relotius to do a story about rural America, who in turn made up everything so that it would fit a grotesque caricature of conservative America that snobby euro elites harbor.

Latest: fake story about disappeared sea ice

Now it appears SPIEGEL has once ignored the real facts about the Arctic and instead made up a story to fit the alarmist global warming narrative. SPIEGEL wrote:

The Bering Strait is a narrow strait that separates Russia from Alaska. Normally it is covered with ice in spring – not so this spring, as images from the European Earth observation satellite “Sentinel 1” on 7 March show. The approximately 80 kilometres connecting the Pacific and Arctic Oceans are almost ice-free
Indeed the spread of sea ice has reached a new record low this March, according to ESA.”

Reality: Bering Strait “completely covered with sea ice”

Yet, a review of the March 7, 2019, date that is cited in the SPIEGEL article shows that the Bering Strait was in fact completely covered with sea ice:

On March 7, 2019, the Bering Strait was completely covered with sea ice that was between 0.5 and 1.5 m thick. The SPIEGEL falsehood of an “almost ice-free Bering Strait” at the beginning of March 2019 has been exposed. Source: DMI Arctic Sea Ice Thickness and Volume

The “almost ice-free Bering Strait” is once again an invention of a SPIEGEL editor. The ice was also there back in February, too:

The NSIDC chart above shows the average extent of the sea ice areas (white) in the Arctic in February 2019. The pink lines show the extent of the sea ice areas in the globally accepted WMO climate average 1981-2010 since 2015. The Arctic “Bering Sea” (top left) was covered with ice in February 2019 about half of the average area. The assertion in the SPIEGEL article “The approximately 80 kilometers connecting the Pacific and the Arctic Oceans are almost ice-free” is false, as the Bering Strait (strait between Russia and Alaska) is completely covered with ice. Source: NSIDC Sea Ice Index

And nothing has changed as of March, 2019, as a look at sea ice thickness shows:

As in February 2019, the chart above shows that the Bering Strait is completely covered with sea ice between 0.5 and 1.5 m thick on March 20, 2019.  SPIEGEL lie of an “almost ice-free” Bering Strait at the beginning of March, 2019, has been exposed. Source: DMI Arctic Sea Ice Thickness and Volume

When it comes to weather and climate, it is not the sea ice cover of a small marginal region that is of importance, but rather the entire sea ice area and the sea ice volume of the Arctic – and Antarctica – as a whole. The sea ice areas of the Arctic (extent) are currently at the highest level of the last five years:

Chart: NSIDC

The Arctic sea ice VOLUME, i.e. the mass of sea ice, is also larger than in recent years and remains within the multi-year average (grey area):

Source: DMI Arctic Sea Ice Thickness and Volume

Schneefan concludes: “That is the measured reality, everything else is FAKE-NEWS (‘…false reports spread with manipulative intent’).”

Entire original German article here.

28 responses to “German News Weekly ‘Der Spiegel’ Caught Making Up Another Story, Claimed Bering Strait “Almost Ice Free””

  1. rah

    The real lackeys never know that they are being controlled. But fortunately there are more and more waking up all the time. That is why despite their best efforts they have failed to sell their scam in time. Check out the arrogance of the head of the BBC: https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/03/24/bbc-term-msm-abuse-freedom/

    Highly suggest you take a look at Joe Bastardi’s current Saturday Summary video. Here is the link. https://www.weatherbell.com/
    Just scroll down to the videos. He convinced the AMO is heading towards negative territory and that means not only more Arctic ice but fewer hurricanes are in our future in the coming years.

  2. Ron Clutz

    Yes, Bering Sea lost ice early, but surprisingly much of it has grown back, and Bering continues to add ice even after the overall NH ice extent has peaked for the year.

    https://rclutz.files.wordpress.com/2019/03/ber2019068-to-082.gif?w=1000&h=563

    https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2019/03/24/bering-ice-march-madness/

    1. tom0mason

      Thank-you Ron for yet another sane post on what is really happening.

  3. sasquatch

    Joseph Goebbels would lecture the idiots at der Spiegel for hours on how not to disseminate bad propaganda.

    “Our topic this evening is hotly disputed. I realize that my viewpoint is subjective. There is really little point to discussing propaganda. It is a matter of practice, not of theory. One cannot determine theoretically whether one propaganda is better than another. Rather, that propaganda is good that has the desired results, and that propaganda is bad that does not lead to the desired results. It does not matter how clever it is, for the task of propaganda is not to be clever, its task is to lead to success. I therefore avoid theoretical discussions about propaganda, for there is no point to it. Propaganda shows that it is good if over a certain period it can win over and fire up people for an idea. If it fails to do so, it is bad propaganda. If propaganda wins the people it wanted to win, it was presumably good, and if not, it was presumably bad. No one can say that your propaganda is too crude or low or brutal, or that it is not decent enough, for those are not the relevant criteria. Its purpose is not to be decent, or gentle, or weak, or modest; it is to be successful. That is why I have intentionally chosen to discuss propaganda along with a second theme, knowledge. Otherwise, our discussion this evening would be of little value. We have not gathered to discuss lovely theories, but rather to find ways of practically working together to deal with our everyday challenges.”

    Good propaganda works much better.

    Dr. Joseph Goebbels was awarded a PHD from Heidelberg University. He had honed his craft.

    Disseminating bad propaganda is misinforming people that there will be children who won’t know what snow is, the Arctic Ocean will be ice-free.

    People like Owl Gore are bad propagandists.

    They don’t do their homework, the do as I say, not as I do crowd are extremely poor a catastrophic global warming climate change doom.

    They need to get their act together.

    Dr. Goebbels would send them down the road.

  4. Cees

    And that is why I call him: Se BasH.

  5. BoyfromTottenham

    “False reports spread with manipulative intent” is the definition of “disinformation”, widely used by the USSR in the Cold War to defend and disseminate Marxism in the West. Calling such manipulative lies about climate change (or anything else) “Fake News” therefore does not do justice to the real intent of those who create and promulgate “fake news”. They are subversives. Wake up America!

    1. SebastianH

      What happens if it turns out that those who call something a lie were the liars? Would that change anything in your behaviour? I mean you are obviously getting your news from somewhere. A place you don’t call fake news, but what if it turns out it is? Would you wake up or would you continue on your path because a change would make you look kind of silly?

  6. RickWill

    This is from the text above:

    When it comes to weather and climate, it is not the sea ice cover of a small marginal region that is of importance, but rather the entire sea ice area and the sea ice volume of the Arctic – and Antarctica – as a whole.

    The Bering Strait is a very important feature of the global climate system. It is responsible for about 25% of the heat that makes it into the Arctic Ocean. If it was closed completely it would influence circulation in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans:
    https://phys.org/news/2010-01-bering-strait-ice-age-climate.html
    The sea ice cover reduces the flow through the strait so is important in that regard.

    The opening of Drakes Passage had a huge influence on global climate as it enabled the circulation of the Southern Ocean, the crankshaft of global climate that distributes heat across the three pistons; Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Bering Strait is not as significant globally but is vitally important for the highly populated areas of north east America and Western Europe.

  7. rah

    I wonder how many Germans still believe President Trump or his family colluded with the Russians to win the 2016 election? A lot I expect since this is the kind of crap anyone that watches and puts their faith in the idiots on the “news” have been seeing for over two years now!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=139&v=0pezDM174TQ

  8. German News Weekly ‘Der Spiegel’ Caught Making Up Another Story, Claimed Bering Strait “Almost Ice Free”
  9. tom0mason

    On the other side of the Arctic, on Greenland, the Jakobshavn Glacier has been advancing at an astonishing rate. Not good news for many of us who think that as the we move away from the LIA then the Polar ice (especially Greenland’s) should diminish.

    Here is the alarming Jakobshavn map (updated through 2014) that shows the disastrous effects of some global cooling, the Jakobshavn Glacier advancing:
    https://sealevel.info/jakobshavn_calving_front_map_with_dates_updated_by_Espen_Olsen_2014_3000x1744_v2.jpg

    Or I suppose it’s down to that natural variation, certainly CO2 has yet to assert its mythical warming on the Jakobshavn Glacier (or just about anywhere).

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