By P.J. Gladnick, Newsbusters

Good news! Despite the recent global warming alarmism in the media that Arctic ice might melt away completely from the North Pole this summer, the latest scientific observations show that Arctic ice has actually increased by nearly a half million square miles over this time last year. This is in stark contrast to the Chicken Little hysteria that was being promoted less than a month ago on the CBS Early Show as reported by Kyle Drennen on June 27 here in NewsBusters: On Friday’s CBS “Early Show,” co-host Maggie Rodriguez teased an upcoming interview with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair about global warming: “Also ahead this morning, we’ll talk about a disturbing new report from some scientists in Colorado who say that there is the very real possibility that for the first time we will see the ice in the North Pole melt away completely during the summer.”

Well, the latest information on Arctic ice conditions is just in from the National Snow and Ice Data Center and Maggie Rodriguez can breath easy: Arctic sea ice extent on July 16 stood at 8.91 million square kilometers (3.44 square miles). While extent was below the 1979 to 2000 average of 9.91 square kilometers (3.83 million square miles), it was 1.05 million square kilometers (0.41 million square miles) above the value for July 16, 2007. So why the increase in the ice shelf over last year despite the MSM hysteria on this topic? An explanation is given:  How is this different from what we saw in the record-breaking year 2007? In early July 2007, an atmospheric pattern developed that featured high pressure over the Beaufort Sea. This pattern promoted especially strong sea ice loss. The pattern that has dominated the summer of 2008, so far, seems less favorable for ice loss.

See larger graph here

So won’t Maggie Rodriquez and other global warming alarmists be excited over this news about increased ice in the Arctic this summer? Don’t hold your breath. Rodriguez and others in the MSM will probably just let their original dire global warming predictions stand without any later corrections when the scientific facts prove them wrong. Read more here.