There is nothing much going on in the world these days, nothing that really matters anyway*, so I am going to talk about the weather …and, trust me, it is only weather. Day by day pundits may refer to it all as ‘climate’ but that is incorrect. So, whenever you hear a climate story, have a good think about “Is this really climate or is it just weather they are talking about?”.
[* Yes, there is non-stop talk about other, mainly geopolitical matters – coming mostly from western sources – but it never amounts to anything (recall the old saying – ‘Empty vessels make most noise”). And from the other side, representing the largest, most honorable, and arguably now the most powerful part of the world, very little emerges, other than mild protestations at the wild excesses of their opponents and oppressors. It is all a little disconcerting, but until something real and decisive occurs – which will not be at any previously advertised time – it behooves observers to remain calm and watchful.]
The normal definition for climate is that it is weather patterns over the long term – and that is a good way of looking at it. So that if the weather person who gives out the daily weather forecast starts talking about climate, you know that is not part of their business – and you can generally disregard what they say.
“…over the long term.” means it happens, if anything noticeable happens at all, happens very slowly. And ‘slowly’ means it happens potentially over a great many human lifetimes. So, no-one alive now can remember what climate (we won’t even mention weather) conditions were like even 100 years ago. And that is why we keep records. But the most comprehensive details (open to us today due to technological advances – and never before in fine detail) only go back some 40+ years. Of course we do have records going back much further in time, mostly gleaned at great cost by Earth scientists from ground or ocean bed investigations. Those records, though with decreasing clarity the further we go back in history, cover up to some 500,000.000 (half billion) years. Even so, all of this data permits us (our scientists that is) to form a picture of the planet’s climate movements across that time.
The thing about all this, is that that picture, formed at great expense and presumably with great diligence (there was actually a time when ‘great diligence’ could be relied upon among those who were carrying out such research), cannot be revoked, belittled or ignored. It is the only record we have on which to base the actual value, or otherwise, of conclusions drawn today on anything we now see happening. Conclusions, it has to be said, based solely on perceived changes in weather patterns over recent years or decades (and certainly on not much beyond a century into the past). That is, today’s climate philosophy is drawn purely on ‘Weather Patterns’ or weather changes. It is certainly not formed on the basis of ‘Climate Patterns’ or climate changes. No way!!
Today, of course, that ‘great diligence’ of which I spoke, sadly is more often being replaced by other influences. Mainly of a financial nature, threats and coercion (buying false interpretations) of newer data. That is not necessarily to say that the data is being corrupted – though I make allowance for such possibility – but that incorrect conclusions and inferences are bought and paid for. For what purpose, you may ask? Take a little time to ponder that. It is not difficult to think of avenues for such exploitations. ‘Green Energy’, ‘recycled waste’, even ‘Electric Vehicles (EVs)’, are very exploitable areas, yielding great fortunes for some, while being – if the correct picture were allowed to be broadcast – entirely unnecessary in reality. In fact these things are all very ‘Bad’ for the world, but very ‘Good’ for the global economy. At least that is the way the thinking goes, among the participants.
I came up with the idea for this post after looking at the NSIDC Arctic Sea Ice Charts for this year so far. And this has to be viewed on the basis of the appraisal I did at the beginning of the year on the sea ice results for 2024, which was a year of ups and downs, swings and roundabouts, weather wise. Continued now, it seems, into 2025.
The fact is, that over the past half-billion years the planet has generally been cooling, always within bounds of course (for which we should be grateful and reassured that nothing bad is likely to happen to our home planet in the foreseeable future). Over the past 50 million years or so, the planet has been gradually moving toward the ‘How Low Can You Go’ end of that cooling spectrum, now hovering just above the point which I like to term our ‘basement settings’. Read back, if you are sufficiently interested, over my posts for the last 18 months or so to get a broader picture – scattered among other topics.
Soon, like in the next few million years, these cooler settings of Earth’s temperature spectrum will begin to rise again – it is to be hoped – or the planet will be iced over. But nothing will drastically change any more quickly that that. Unless we, due to our solar system having shifted to a different position in the universe on the basis of the general drift of such bodies, collide with or pass in close proximity to, some other large cosmic body at some stage of our journey. Permit me the personal indulgence here that this potential body (if such exists) may also be the home planet – operating already within our solar system – of our creator gods who are said to have left us to our own devices (having passed on enough civilising knowledge to us as considered necessary) some 2560 years ago, during their planet’s most recent visit to our inner solar neighbourhood. Take or leave that as you may – it is not important to the current subject.
All that to say that I am not much bemused or alarmed by the variety of patterns our planetary weather tends to weave in the short term.
This is the picture as at approximately one week into february. And I am pleased to be able to say that the temporary dip of the weather temperatures (and therefore of sea ice formation) appears now to be over and will begin to climb closer to the average line for the previous decade by the end of the month. It will not reach that average build this month but I am hopeful for another 0.5 to 0.75 million Km2 to be added before month-end. Remember it is not the results of weather which are important, but the long-term averages of those results. Patience, dear readers, patience.
Not Something Else 
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