money Fact check: Arctic sea ice declining despite false claims it's reached a 30-year high
The claim: Arctic sea ice reached a 30-year high in May 2022
Arctic sea ice – frozen seawater that floats on the ocean – is disappearing because of climate change.
The area sea ice covers at the end of the summer melt – called the minimum extent – has declined 13% per decade since the late 1970s, according to NASA.
Nevertheless, some social media users are sharing a May 25 article from right-wing website WND that claims Arctic sea ice extents reached record highs in May of this year.
"Inconvenient truth for globalists: Arctic ice at 30-year high," reads the headline of the article, which was shared in a May 29 Facebook post.
The article was shared on Facebook more than 2,500 times, according Crowdtangle, a social media analytics tool. It was also shared on Twitter and Reddit.
But the claim is wrong. Arctic sea ice extent in May 2022 was not the highest in 30 years, according to climate agency data.
USA TODAY reached out to the author of the article and Facebook and Reddit users who shared it for comment. The Twitter user could not be reached.
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Arctic sea ice in decline, has not reached 30-year high
The May 2022 Arctic sea ice extent was not the highest in 30 years, Walt Meier, a research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, told USA TODAY in an email.
Overall, May 2022 had the highest May sea ice extent in the last nine years, not the last 30 years, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center website. And that level was still on the low end historically: The agency ranked May 2022 as the 14th-lowest May extent on record.
Sea ice extents fluctuate throughout the month, but even when individual days were measured in May 2022, none set 30-year records, Bonnie Light, the chair and senior principal physicist at the University of Washington Polar Science Center, told USA TODAY.
The article linked in the social media post wrongly claims that data from the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites – an agency that operates meteorological satellites – shows sea ice at a 30-year high.
The article includes an authentic Arctic sea ice extent graph from the agency, but that graph does not show May 2022 at a 30-year high, according to Martin Stendel, a climate scientist at Danish Meteorological Institute.
In fact, the graph is missing data that would be necessary to support such a claim. For instance, the years 2011-2016 are omitted.
However, data displayed on the European satellite agency's website clearly shows that many of the last 30 years had higher May extent values than 2022. While sea ice extents fluctuate from year to year, the data shows a clear downward trend in May sea ice extents since the late 1970s.
USA TODAY has previously debunked other inaccurate social media claims about Arctic ice.
For instance, in December 2021, some social media users wrongly claimed that Arctic ice reached its "highest point in 20 years" and that the Greenland ice sheet was growing instead of shrinking.
Our rating: False
Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim that Arctic sea ice reached a 30-year high in May 2022. Overall, May 2022 Arctic sea ice extent was the highest May extent in nine years, not 30. It was still the 14th-lowest May on record, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. There were also no individual days in May 2022 that set a 30-year record. Overall, Arctic sea ice has steadily declined since the late 1970s.
Our fact-check sources:
Martin Stendel, June 7 - 9, Email exchange with USA TODAY
Walt Meier, June 9, Email exchange with USA TODAY
Bonnie Light, June 9, Email exchange with USA TODAY
USA TODAY, Dec. 21, 2021, Fact check: False claim that Arctic, Antarctic ice reached record highs
USA TODAY, Dec. 30, 2021, Fact check: Greenland is still losing ice; no reversal in trend
NASA Vital Signs of the Planet, accessed June 7, Ice sheets
NASA Vital Signs of the Planet, accessed June, Arctic sea ice extent
NASA Earth Observatory, April 8, Northern Glaciers are Retreating from the Water
NOAA, Dec. 14, 2021, Arctic Report Card: Climate change transforming Arctic into ‘dramatically different state’
AFP, June 3, Article misinterprets satellite data to claim sea ice at 30-year high
National Snow & Ice Data Center, June 6, On the high side of low
EUMETSAT, accessed June 7, Home page
EUMETSAT OSI SAF, accessed June 8, Arctic sea ice extent May
Crowdtangle, accessed June 8, Home page
National Snow & Ice Data Center, accessed June 9, Charctic interactive sea ice graph
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Arctic sea ice losing area, not at 30-year high
