Did Al Gore say that the North Pole will be ice-free in the summer by 2013 because of global warming?
Does it mean that global warming isn’t real because the North Pole is still very cold in 2021?
Find out what climate change deniers keep sharing, and what the FACTS really are!
Did Al Gore Say North Pole Will Be Ice-Free By 2013?
Climate change deniers keep sharing this meme, updating it every year so it would stay current.
The North Pole will be ice-free in the summer by 2013 because of man-made global warming.
– Al Gore, 2009
You may have seen your friends and even favourite celebrities sharing it, laughing at Al Gore’s stupidity.
He’s such a dolt! How can global warming be real if the North Pole is still so freaking cold?!
Note : We placed the Misleading overlay to prevent them from being further abused.
No, Al Gore Did NOT Say North Pole Will Be Ice-Free By 2013
This meme would be somewhat funny, if anti-climate change deniers did not keep updating it and reusing it to push their false beliefs.
Whether people who shared them are actual climate change deniers, or just useful idiots, is hard to know.
But what we know is that this meme is FALSE. Al Gore did not say that the North Pole will be ice-free by 2013.
Here are the facts…
Fact #1 : Al Gore Misstated Forecast In 2009
This false meme is based on a flub Al Gore made in 2009, when he spoke at the Copenhagen climate change summit.
He misstated a forecast one scientist provided his office earlier, stating that “some of the models suggest to Dr Maslowski that there is a 75% chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within 5 to 7 years“.
The truth is – Dr Maslowski, who worked at the US Naval Postgraduate School in California, stated that his results (at that time) gave a 6-year projection for the melting of 80% of the sea ice, but he expects some ice to remain beyond 2020.
Fact #2 : They Were Referring To Sea Ice
A very important point that climate change deniers don’t tell you is that both Al Gore and Dr. Maslowski were not talking about the entire North Pole being ice-free.
They were both talking about SEA ICE at the North Pole disappearing during the warmest months of the year.
Historically, sea ice drops by 50~56% every year, so an 80% reduction in sea ice during the warmest months would be a possibility in a warming world, albeit an unprecedented one.
These two NASA maps show the change in sea ice in 2016. As you can see, the amount of sea ice present at the North Pole greatly fluctuates throughout the year.
Fact #3 : 2009 + 5~7 Years ≠ 2013
What really perplexes us is how bad climate change deniers are at basic mathematics.
Even if you take Al Gore’s flub at full face value, the North Pole would be ice-free by 2014 to 2016, not 2013.
Yet, every year, they use the same false meme on the North Pole becoming ice-free by 2013.
They should have stayed in school…
Fact #4 : That Was An Extreme Projection
The projection by Dr. Wieslav Maslowski was considered an extreme projection, with most climate scientists agreeing that a 20-30 year timescale is more likely for the disappearance of sea ice.
Even so, he did not say the North Pole would be completely ice-free, only that 80% of the Arctic sea ice would disappear during the warmest months.
Fact #5 : Sea Ice Continues To Shrink
Al Gore may have been wrong in saying that the North Pole would be ice-free by 2014 to 2016, but it is a fact that the Arctic sea ice have been steadily shrinking over years.
Forget about projections. Here are the actual satellite measurements of Arctic sea ice from 1979 until 2015.
The minimum area of Arctic sea ice halved from about 7.5 million km² in 1980 to 3.4 million km² in September 2012.
With maximum Arctic sea ice between 14-16 million km² in the coolest months, a drop to 3.4 million km² represents a 75.7% drop in sea ice – not very far off from what Dr. Maslowski modelled in 2009…
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