CLIMATE ALARMISTS INVENT ANOTHER FACT: THE "ARCTIC FENCE"

NTIMES: "Topsy-Turvy Weather Tied to Weaker Arctic ‘Fence’:"

For two winters running, an Arctic chill has descended on Europe, burying that continent in snow and ice. Last year in the United States, historic blizzards afflicted the mid-Atlantic region. This winter the deep South has endured unusual snowstorms and severe cold, and a frigid Northeast is bracing for what could shape into another major snowstorm this week.

Yet while people in Atlanta learn to shovel snow, the weather 2,000 miles to the north has been freakishly warm the past two winters. Throughout northeastern Canada and Greenland, temperatures in December ran as much as 15 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit above normal. Bays and lakes have been slow to freeze; ice fishing, hunting and trade routes have been disrupted.

Iqaluit, the capital of the remote Canadian territory of Nunavut, had to cancel its New Year’s snowmobile parade. David Ell, the deputy mayor, said that people in the region had been looking with envy at snowbound American and European cities. “People are saying, ‘That’s where all our snow is going!’ ” he said.

The immediate cause of the topsy-turvy weather is clear enough. A pattern of atmospheric circulation that tends to keep frigid air penned in the Arctic has weakened during the last two winters, allowing big tongues of cold air to descend far to the south, while masses of warmer air have moved north.

The deeper issue is whether this pattern is linked to the rapid changes that global warming is causing in the Arctic, particularly the drastic loss of sea ice. At least two prominent climate scientists have offered theories suggesting that it is. But many others are doubtful, saying the recent events are unexceptional, or that more evidence over a longer period would be needed to establish a link.

.... A handful of scientists point to that extra heat as a possible culprit in the recent harsh winters in Europe and the United States.

Their theories involve a fast-moving river of air called the jet stream that circles the Northern Hemisphere. Many winters, a strong pressure difference between the polar region and the middle latitudes channels the jet stream into a tight circle, or vortex, around the North Pole, effectively containing the frigid air at the top of the world.

“It’s like a fence,” said Michelle L’Heureux, a researcher in Camp Springs, Md., with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

A Google of this term, "arctic fence", finds NO MENTION of it before this news-item leading me to believe that it's a post facto rationalization in an attempt to maintain the fiction that despite the enormous cooling we have experienced of late the earth is still cooling.

ARGUMENTS LIKE THE ONE THE NYTIMES AND L'HEUREUX ARE MAKING - THE "ARCTIC FENCE" - ARE WHY THE AGW/CLIMATE CHANGE AGENDA IS NOT REALLY SCIENTIFIC: THEIR CLAIMS ARE UN-FALSIFIABLE:

THE CLIMATE CHANGE ADHERENTS ALWAYS HAVE SOME EXCUSE OR NEW WRINKLE AND INVENT A NEW MEME WHENEVER THE EVIDENCE SHOWS THEIR ARGUMENTS TO BE WEAK.

IT WON'T WORK!

AGW = TFBS.

BTW: SINCE NOBODY WAS IN THE ARCTIC TAKING ICE-EXPANSE MEASUREMENTS DURING WITHER THE MEDIEVAL WARM PERIOD OR THE LITTLE ICE AGE, WE HAVE NO WAY OF KNOWING WHAT THE ICE EXPANSE WAS THEN.

(ICE EXPANSE - OF ICE ON WATER - CANNOT BE MEASURED BY ICE CORES BECAUSE THE ICE CAN DISAPPEAR LEAVING NO RECORD.)