FLASHBACK: In 2009, John Kerry incorrectly predicted the Arctic would have ‘ice-free summer’ by 2014

 

https://thepostmillennial.com/flashback-in-2009-john-kerry-claimed-the-arctic-would-melt-by-2014

By James Anthony
The Post Millennial

John Kerry has recently been named Special Presidential Envoy for Climate by the Biden Administration. However, his track record on climate predictions might not be what critics would expect for someone with that position.

“In 2009, John Kerry (Special Presidential Envoy for Climate) said the Arctic would have its first ice-free summer in 2014.”
Kerry said the following back in 2009 when referring to Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK):

“I wish he were really up to state of the art with respect to the science on global climate change. You have sea ice which is melting at a rate that the Arctic Ocean now increasingly is exposed.”

“In five years, scientists predict we will have the first ice-free Arctic summer, that exposes more ocean to sunlight. Ocean is dark, it consumes more of the heat from the sunlight, which then accelerates the rate of the melting and warming rather than the ice sheet and the snow that used to reflect it back up into the atmosphere.”

Kerry at the time was serving as a senator (D-MA) and was not appointed to any special position at the time, according to the Daily Caller.
Kerry’s predictions have not aged well. In 2021, we have yet to see our first ice-free summer in the Arctic, which is good news as far as climate change goes, although the amount of summer ice continues to decline slightly every year.

The last Arctic summer saw 2.8 million square miles of ice, down from a high of 3.8 million in July of 1980.

 

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