You need to look at both separately: The screaming hysteria about Arctic Sea Ice was ESSENTIAL to creating the “Polar Bear Panic!” attacks begun by Al Gore in his first 2000 - 2010 Global Warming propaganda campaigns.
Melting Sea Ice Panic Headlines feeds the “MELTING ARCTIC CRISIS by ignorant public and even more ignorant politicians and news propagandists - which can then be blended into the CATASTROPHIC SEA LEVEL RISE! (not affected by Sea Ice at all - but who can let a (nearby) crisis go to waste?
So, the 1980 to 2007 CONTINUOUS Arctic Sea Ice CRISIS (as it was actually decreasing) caused the now-infamous “Arctic Sea Ice will disappear by 2013!” headlines, right?
Yet, since 2007, Arctic Sea stopped decreasing! Has not decreased since 2007. So, Arctic Sea Ice was “phased out” . We stopped hearing about it. The NSIDC and their labs and scientists kept getting funded, but they were publicized much since 2016 to 2017.
During this period, remember Antarctic Sea Ice had been rising.
Year after year, the Sea Ice around Antarctica was increasing so much that the daily Sea Ice Area Anomaly around Antarctica several times in 2013 and 2014 exceeded the ENTIRE AREA of Greenland. Yes, there was more “excess sea ice” around Antarctica than the entire area of Greenland. (Kind of makes their frequent “iceberg the size of Manhattan rather puny, doesn’t it?)
This positive trend of ever-increasing Antarctic Sea Ice was so great and so long-lasting than, in 2014 and 2013, we predicted (not too humorously) that the Straits of Magellan and tanker route around Cape Horn would be blocked by Antarctic Sea Ice sometime in the 2025 to 2028 timeframe. Thus, of course, the potential Northwest Passage become vital, doesn’t it?
So, back to today’s (upcoming) headlines of fear and dismay about “Vanishing Antarctic Sea ice”. They ignore the Antarctic when it was inconveniently increasing in recent years, they publicize its loss when convenient. They publicize Arctic Sea Loss trends when they decrease, but ignore the same trend when it is steady for now 16 years.
Yes - It may seem like we jump from pole to pole. So what? That is where the data is. Do not ignore what is convenient to ignore.
Ref your “CATASTROPHIC SEA LEVEL RISE! (not affected by Sea Ice at all - but who can let a (nearby) crisis go to waste?”
Well said. When an AGW nut goes on about this, I say, you mean like when you make a glass of ice water and then get distracted before you can drink it? And you come back to find the ice has all melted? And the water has over spilled the glass and made a big puddle? The look on their faces! “But, but, the ice age!” they sputter. Well, yeah, look at at the humongous glaciers covering land. If you try to add a bunch of ice to a full glass of water, you will get a puddle. So, how many glaciers do we have now? What’s their mass?
Not that I buy into AGW or that, *if* it’s real we can stop it with electric vehicles and windmills. But the seas inundating huge areas? Nah. Crazy talk.
A lot of what appears to be caused by “rising sea levels” in many coastal areas is actually beach erosion caused by damming of rivers/draining of rivers for use by humans. Far less sand and silt to deposit — this is why barrier islands are shrinking and beaches eroding in many places. Dredging channels for shipping also affects currents and can cause scouring.
So yes, humans are causing coastal erosion, but not so much (if any) because “Global Warming!”.
I’m sure you already know all this. I guess I’m just yammering because these AGW nuts are so ... obtuse sometimes.