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Ice Surprises – Arctic and Antarctic Ice Sheets Are Stabilizing and Growing

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2 months ago

10 minute read

The Honest Broker The Honest Broker Roger Pielke Jr.'s avatar Roger Pielke Jr.

New climate research in science and policy context

Earlier this week the New York Post asked me to help its readers make sense of some surprising new research on ice dynamics at both poles. The new research appears in a new peer-reviewed paper and a preprint that was just posted.

At the South Pole, Wang et al. 2025 find a record accumulation of ice on the Antarctic ice sheet over the period 2021 to 2023, following a steady decrease from 2002 to 2021. The data comes from NASA’s GRACE series of satellites, which have the ability to precisely measure ice mass.

The figure below shows that the recent accumulation is small in the context of the multi-decadal decline, but is still characterized by the paper’s authors as a “significant reversal.” The paper makes no predictions of whether or how long the accumulation might continue.

At the other end of the planet, at the North Pole, a new preprint by England et al. identifies a “surprising, but not unexpected multi-decadal pause in Arctic sea ice loss.”¹ Their data can be seen below.
From the caption to the figure: “(a,b )Observed sea ice area [106 km2] 1979-2024, (c,d) 20 year-trends of September sea ice area [106 km2/decade] with varying end year from 1998 to 2024, in which the red shaded envelope shows the bounds inside which a linear trend is not statistically significant according to a t-test at 95% confidence.” Source: England et al.

Disucssing these new papers and their significance, my op-ed for the NY Post starts as follows:

When it comes to climate change, to invoke one of Al Gore’s favorite sayings, the biggest challenge is not what we don’t know, but what we know for sure but just isn’t so.

Two new studies show that the Earth’s climate is far more complex than often acknowledged, reminding us of the importance of pragmatic energy and climate policies.

One of them, led by researchers at China’s Tongji University, finds that after years of ice sheet decline, Antarctica has seen a “surprising shift”: a record-breaking accumulation of ice.

The paper takes advantage of very precise measurements of Antarctic ice mass from a series of NASA satellites called GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment).

Since the first GRACE satellite was launched in 2002, Antarctica has seen a steady decline in the total mass of its glaciers. Yet the new study found the decline reversed from 2021 to 2023.

Melting Antarctic ice contributes to global sea-level rise, so a reversal of melting will slow that down. Understanding the dynamics of ice mass on Antarctica is thus essential.

The recent Antarctica shift makes only a small dent in the overall ice loss from 2022, but comes as a surprise nonetheless.

A second new paper, a preprint now going through peer review, finds a similar change at the opposite end of the planet.

Antarctic ice has made a turnaround, scientists say, with an increase in ice mass after years of depletion.

Antarctic ice has made a surprising rebound in mass, scientists say

“The loss of Arctic sea ice cover has undergone a pronounced slowdown over the past two decades, across all months of the year,” the paper’s US and UK authors write.

They suggest that the “pause” in Arctic sea ice decline could persist for several more decades.

Together, the two studies remind us that the global climate system remains unpredictable, defying simplistic expectations that change moves only in one direction.

In 2009, then-Sen. John Kerry warned that the Arctic Ocean would be ice-free by 2013: “Scientists tell us we have a 10-year window — if even that — before catastrophic climate change becomes inevitable and irreversible,” he said.

Today, six years after that 10-year window closed, catastrophic climate change has not occurred, even as the planet has indeed continued to warm due primarily to the combustion of fossil fuels.

Partisans in the climate debate should learn from Kerry’s crying wolf.

On one side, catastrophizing climate change based on the most extreme claims leads to skepticism when the promised apocalypse fails to occur on schedule.

On the other side, studies like the two surprising polar-ice papers reveal climate complexities, but don’t prove climate change isn’t real and serious. . .

This last point is important — climate research is not a scoreboard in a Manichean debate, but instead offers certainties, uncertainties, and even areas of total ignorance that establish a nuanced context for developing robust mitigation and adaptation policies.

The rest of my piece discusses this context. Please head over to the NY Post to read the whole thing and then come back to THB and tell me what you think.

One bit of my original draft was cut for space reasons. Here is that part:

Core understandings of climate science have remained remarkably constant over many decades – Humans affect the climate system in many ways, including greenhouse gas emissions, but also through land management, air pollution, and vegetation dynamics. At a planetary scale the net effect of these changes – driven by carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of coal, natural gas, and oil – is a warming of the planetary system. Anticipating regional and local consequences is far more challenging.

Irreducible uncertainties mean that climate variability and change are about risk management. As the late climate scientist Steve Schneider lamented in 2002, “I readily confess a lingering frustration: uncertainties so infuse the issue of climate change that it is still impossible to rule out either mild or catastrophic outcomes, let alone provide confident probabilities for all the claims and counterclaims made about environmental problems.”

Risk management means that as we balance competing objectives in energy policy we should look for opportunities to reduce costs, increase access, ensure security and reduce the human influences on the environment.

The published version ends with may call for policy makers to keep their eyes on the ball:

The surprises revealed by the two new papers about polar ice also remind us that we need to be prepared for unexpected behavior of the climate system, regardless of the underlying causes of change.

History tells us that climate can shift abruptly, with profound consequences for society.

For instance, the 1870s saw a wide range of climate extremes across the planet, by some estimates contributing to the deaths of 4% of global population.

More recently, the climate extremes of the 1970s led to many new US government programs focused on monitoring and researching climate, such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Such efforts are crucially important because we can’t always anticipate the results of research. If we could, we wouldn’t need data and science.

Perhaps the most important lesson to take from the new polar-ice findings is that ongoing efforts in Washington, DC to gut climate data and research are deeply misguided.

The global climate system has more surprises in store for us — and we ignore them at our peril.

Read the whole thing here.

Next week here at THB and elsewhere, I’ll have much more on NOAA and current efforts to gut climate data and research.

Before letting you go today — last week I sat down with John Hook from Fox 10 in Phoenix and engaged in a deep discission of climate science and energy policy. You can see the full interview below. Thanks to John for the opportunity and the informed questions — I enjoyed the interview and the chance to explore nuances of climate and energy.

If you value the efforts here at The Honest Broker to contextualize science in policy and politics,

please consider subscribing, sharing, and supporting.

THB exists because of your support.

1 If the pause was “not unexpected” then why was it also “surprising”? But I digress.
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Daily Caller

Trump Issues Order To End Green Energy Gravy Train, Cites National Security

Published on July 9, 2025

By

 

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Audrey Streb

President Donald Trump issued an executive order calling for the end of green energy subsidies by strengthening provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on Monday night, citing national security concerns and unnecessary costs to taxpayers.

The order argues that a heavy reliance on green energy subsidies compromise the reliability of the power grid and undermines energy independence. Trump called for the U.S. to “rapidly eliminate” federal green energy subsidies and to “build upon and strengthen” the repeal of wind and solar tax credits remaining in the reconciliation law in the order, directing the Treasury Department to enforce the phase-out of tax credits.

“For too long, the Federal Government has forced American taxpayers to subsidize expensive and unreliable energy sources like wind and solar,” the order states. “Reliance on so-called ‘green’ subsidies threatens national security by making the United States dependent on supply chains controlled by foreign adversaries.”

Dear Readers:

As a nonprofit, we are dependent on the generosity of our readers.

Please consider making a small donation of any amount here.

Thank you!

Former President Joe Biden established massive green energy subsidies under his signature 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which did not receive a single Republican vote.

The reconciliation package did not immediately terminate Biden-era federal subsidies for green energy technology, phasing them out over time instead, though some policy experts argued that drawn-out timelines could lead to an indefinite continuation of subsidies. Trump’s executive order alludes to potential loopholes in the bill, calling for a review by Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent to ensure that green energy projects that have a “beginning of construction” tax credit deadline are not “circumvented.”

Additionally, the executive order directs the U.S. to end taxpayer support for green energy supply chains that are controlled by foreign adversaries, alluding to China’s supply chain dominance for solar and wind. Trump also specifically highlighted costs to taxpayers, market distortions and environmental impacts of subsidized green energy development in explaining the policy.

Ahead of the reconciliation bill becoming law, Trump told Republicans that “we’ve got all the cards, and we are going to use them.” Several House Republicans noted that the president said he would use executive authority to enhance the bill and strictly enforce phase-outs, which helped persuade some conservatives to back the bill.

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Crime

Trump supporters cry foul after DOJ memo buries the Epstein sex trafficking scandal

Published on July 9, 2025

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Doug Mainwaring

Attempts to squelch fallout from the DOJ/FBI memo comes after a tsunami of criticism online — not from detractors on the left but from Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters.

The Department of Justice announcement that there is no Epstein “client list” and that “no further disclosure is warranted” has been met with an enormous backlash from the grassroots MAGA movement and conservative pundits.

The bombshell memo released by Attorney General Pam Bondi has given the appearance that the Trump administration “is attempting to sweep the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking scandal under the rug,” according to independent investigative journalist Michael Shellenberger in a superb analysis  published on X.

Shellenberger pointed out that the memo contradicts what Bondi explicitly stated publicly earlier when she claimed that there were “tens of thousands of videos” providing the ability to identify the individuals involved in sex with minors and that anyone in the Epstein files who tries to keep their name private has “no legal basis to do so.”

“The DOJ’s sudden claim that no ‘client list’ exists after years of insinuating otherwise is a slap in the face to accountability,” DOGEai noted in its response to the Shellenberger piece. “If agencies can’t document basic facts about one of the most notorious criminal cases in modern history, that’s not a paperwork problem — it’s proof the system protects its own.”

“Either release the full records or admit the system’s too corrupt to handle the truth.”

Trump, Bondi deflect

In a White House Cabinet meeting earlier today, Trump vigorously deflected a reporter’s question to Bondi about the memo: “Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? the President interjected. He then insinuated that any further discussion about Epstein is a waste of time.

To outside observers, it looked like Trump and his top law enforcement official are now protecting the “deep state” within the federal government that he had vowed repeatedly to dismantle during his candidacy.

Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel have for months been suspected of slow-walking the public release of evidence in the Epstein case. Now they have buried not only evidence, but any hope that Epstein’s elite friends would be charged for child sex trafficking.

“This EPSTEIN AFFAIR is NOT going away!” General Michael Flynn declared on X. He explained:

And an early lesson learned for everyone regarding this affair, ELITES don’t give a sh!t about children, you, or anyone for that matter. There are two standards of justice in our country. One for the elites (I include the uniparty in this club) and another standard for everyone else. Today was another brutal and stark example of the two different standards we appear to adhere to in the United States.

“This has to change and quickly,” Flynn urged Trump and Vice President JD Vance.

Glenn Beck asserted in a long X thread:

Our Institutions Are On Trial

This is bigger than Epstein.

It’s about media complicity.

Justice deferred.

Power protected.

Truth buried.

Until this case is fully revealed, every elite institution carries a stench they can’t wash off.

To dismiss this as “conspiracy” is to admit you no longer believe in accountability.

Truth about Epstein is not morbid curiosity.

It’s a civic test.

And every day we fail to demand answers, we normalize elite immunity.

If we don’t confront what’s in those files …

We’ve declared that truth in America is now negotiable.

That justice is a luxury of the unimportant.

That power is a shield for the perverse.

The Epstein case isn’t over.

It’s the Rosetta Stone of public trust.

And if we don’t get to the bottom of it,

we’ll never restore what’s already been lost.

“The leadership needs to understand that and act accordingly,” he added.

Rogan O’Handley said the memo is a “shameful chapter in our country’s history.

“The justice department and the FBI are irredeemably compromised and corrupted,” Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton averred in a podcast discussion with former Trump confidant Steve Bannon.

“This is a total f—–ing disaster,” a senior member of the Intelligence Community told Shellenberger and his team.

“If people think this is going to go away,” the official added, “I don’t see how it can.”

****

Full Text of the U.S. Department of Justice & Federal Bureau of Investigation joint memo:

As part of our commitment to transparency, the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have conducted an exhaustive review of investigative holdings relating to Jeffrey Epstein. To ensure that the review was thorough, the FBI conducted digital searches of its databases, hard drives, and network drives as well as physical searches of squad areas, locked cabinets, desks, closets, and other areas where responsive material may have been stored. These searches uncovered a significant amount of material, including more than 300 gigabytes of data and physical evidence.

The files relating to Epstein include a large volume of images of Epstein, images and videos of victims who are either minors or appear to be minors, and over ten thousand downloaded videos and images of illegal child sex abuse material and other pornography. Teams of agents, analysts, attorneys, and privacy and civil liberties experts combed through the digital and documentary evidence with the aim of providing as much information as possible to the public while simultaneously protecting victims. Much of the material is subject to court-ordered sealing. Only a fraction of this material would have been aired publicly had Epstein gone to trial, as the seal served only to protect victims and did not expose any additional third-parties to allegations of illegal wrongdoing. Through this review, we found no basis to revisit the disclosure of those materials and will not permit the release of child pornography.

This systematic review revealed no incriminating “client list.” There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions. We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.

Consistent with prior disclosures, this review confirmed that Epstein harmed over one thousand victims. Each suffered unique trauma. Sensitive information relating to these victims is intertwined throughout the materials. This includes specific details such as victim names and likenesses, physical descriptions, places of birth, associates, and employment history.

One of our highest priorities is combatting child exploitation and bringing justice to victims. Perpetuating unfounded theories about Epstein serves neither of those ends.

To that end, while we have labored to provide the public with maximum information regarding Epstein and ensured examination of any evidence in the government’s possession, it is the determination of the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation that no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted.

After a thorough investigation, FBI investigators concluded that Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City on August 10, 2019. This conclusion is consistent with previous findings, including the August 19, 2019 autopsy findings of the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, the November 2019 position of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York in connection with the investigation of federal correctional officers responsible for guarding Epstein, and the June 2023 conclusions of DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General.

The conclusion that Epstein died by suicide is further supported by video footage from the common area of the Special Housing Unit (SHU) where Epstein was housed at the time of his death. As DOJ’s Inspector General explained in 2023, anyone entering or attempting to enter the tier where Epstein’s cell was located from the SHU common area would have been captured by this footage. The FBI’s independent review of this footage confirmed that from the time Epstein was locked in his cell at around 10:40 pm on August 9, 2019, until around 6:30 am the next morning, nobody entered any of the tiers in the SHU.

During this review, the FBI enhanced the relevant footage by increasing its contrast, balancing the color, and improving its sharpness for greater clarity and viewability.

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