Antarctic Ice Is Increasing…Climate Models “No Longer Reflect Reality”

By Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt

If you look at the climate website of the Helmholtz Association with the ambitious name “Climate Facts” under Antarctica, you will read the following: “The important mainland ice of Antarctica is disappearing, and at an increasing rate”. According to the Helmholtz Association, this is of great significance for rising sea levels. And indeed, the rising sea level caused by the melting Antarctic ice is one of the central arguments of climate policy that has worried people.

This makes the result of a recently published study, according to which the picture has changed since 2021, all the more surprising: Antarctica’s continental ice is increasing again.

Chinese researchers from Tongji University led by Prof. Shen and Dr. Wang found that Antarctic ice masses have increased significantly since 2021. The data evaluated by NASA’s GRACE satellite showed an annual loss of 74 billion tons per year from 2002 to 2010. From 2011 to 2020, the amount even doubled. Now the ice has increased by around 108 billion tons year on year.

Source: Science China Press)

As the melting of the Antarctic glaciers contributed around 20% to sea level rise, a slowdown in the rise has been observed since 2021. Wouldn’t this good news be worth reporting on the news? Not so far.

A second piece of good news is also not being reported by the German Tagesschau news or political Berlin: Arctic sea ice has not decreased for over 10 years. A recent publication by Mark England from the University of Exeter and Lorenzo Polvani from Columbia University in New York has drawn attention to this. The researchers report that the decline in Arctic sea ice is expected to pause for decades. They expect it to continue for at least the next 5-10 years.

As recently as 2009, John Kerry, US climate envoy, sounded the alarm that the Arctic would be ice-free in 2013. The reality turned out differently:

Source NASA

The decline in Arctic sea ice up to 2012 is well documented by satellite measurements, as is the subsequent stabilization and slight recovery. The annual September minimum is used for comparison. Following the strong warming of recent years, a renewed decline was expected. But the sea ice remains stable.

Yet, this clear measurement data does not prevent the German Tagesschau news from reporting on March 28, 2025 that the decline in sea ice is continuing, with serious consequences for the climate system. And we are still paying broadcasting fees for such false information, which obviously serves political purposes.

Climate science in crisis?

Climate model forecasts are increasingly deviating from reality. Axel Bojanowski spoke to two scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg. Prof. Bjorn Stevens and Prof. Jochem Marotzke speak of a crisis in climate science. Marotzke: “The current class of climate models is running into too many contradictions with reality”. Marotzke is concerned about the great uncertainty of the models. He cites the following examples: “In large parts of the world, the models contradict each other on the question of whether it will rain more or less in the future. The warming of the Earth’s surface between 1998 and 2012 was significantly slower than predicted by the models (“hiatus”).
Since 1979, the tropical eastern Pacific has cooled, contrary to the expectations of all models that simulate warming there.”

With regard to climate science, Marotzke speaks of “the other climate crisis”. “This is the moment for a paradigm shift”

My impression is that some clever scientists are now realizing that by pointing to the unshakable statements of the climate models, they have led politicians to bring much misfortune upon their peoples because they wanted to avoid the impending catastrophe too quickly with completely inappropriate measures. We will remember the statements of the UN: “Only renewable energies are the exit from the highway to climate hell” (Guterres). Or “Greenhouse gas emissions have clearly caused global warming, with the global surface temperature in 2011-2020 1.1°C above the 1850-1900 level” (IPCC 2023, Synthesis report A1).

Climate models “no longer reflect reality”

These statements are based on climate models for which, according to Marotzke, we now need a paradigm shift because they no longer reflect reality with sufficient accuracy after just a few years.
When will there be a paradigm shift in climate policy in this country?

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