The usual comment section ruckus swept through The Register’s forum today as Steven Goddard published a quite entertaining article about the Arctic ice "refusing to melt as ordered".

Steve Goddard collected satellite images from NASA and used them to build a case against a National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) report. He used the "very convincing method" of counting the number of pixels in the images representing ice cover.

Immediately tens of comments appeared saying that Al Gore’s movie “An inconvenient truth” is inconvenient only to himself since nobody else believes in global warming or global climate change. The whole global warming scam is just a plan for the greedy government to raise taxes. Yes, this is the opinion of a lot of voters in our democracies and it is a problem.

Not only does Steve Goddard use entirely unscientific pseudo science to prove his case, but the supporting crowds cheer at his article as they go about their daily life destroying the planet, the climate and everything I hold dear.

Several times in the comment section Steve Goddard’s article was proved to be a scam, a charade not worthy of being published anywhere, but did he ever change the article?

Fortunately NSIDC contacted The Register and later on Steve admitted that the NSIDC report was "solid". Unfortunately the article remains, the comment is just added to the end of the article which is still quite bad, it would have been better to put the NSIDC and Steve's later comment at the top of the article so that noone would read the flawed article.

Steve is not special in any way, there are so many climate change deniers out there who raise their voice. It's a natural reaction. The number of people involved in trying to convince the public that nothing bad is going on at all is staggering. It's a vicious cycle. The media tries to report a "balanced view" but often the climate change deniers get way too much attention if you compare the time they get to the amount of peer reviewed articles published.

It takes just a single quote from the comment thread to make Steve's entire case moot.

There is no mention of what data the NSIDC used. But I would presume they did a more in depth analysis than to count the number of pixels like Steve did.

First of all pixels are two dimensional.

If the ice depth in areas that has been white all along shrunk obviously the total volume of ice could actually be lower even though the ice field is wider.

You can't count pixels and take that as a proof that global climate change is a scam. What an absurd idea.

Reports indeed tell us new grown ice is thinner, and as such the volume must be considered.

It's always useful to put things in perspective. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that is very stable in the atmosphere and does not break down on it's own like methane does. We add more and more CO₂ to the atmosphere every year. Without greenhouse gasses the average temperature on Earth would be a chilly 33 C (91 F) lower than it currently is. No one disputes this.

Can someone please tell me how the gasses can raise the temperature by 33 C so we get a nice and comfy climate but do nothing if we keep adding more of the same gasses? It just doesn't make any sense. Is carbon dioxide perhaps an intelligent gas?

Let me say this again, I’m really concerned about self proclaimed pseudo scientists who try to convince the public that global climate change is not happening and that everything will turn out all right. “Carry on, nothing to see here, you’re not responsible, carbon dioxide is good for the planet in any amount, keep on driving, do nothing.” It can and does delay the effort we need to put in by a considerable amount of time. And time is something we do not have much of regarding this issue of global climate change.

So climate change scammers, you who once whispered what I wanted to hear, in my defenceless ear - you will face resistance in many forms and everywhere - for I will not yield. Nor will my fellow green friends who are not dumb, nor blind to the mechanics of global climate change.

The article “Arctic ice refuses to melt as ordered” is a testament to the current trend of ignoring the elephant in the room.