Peter Sinclair reels off one piece of misinformation after another in his monotone voice. Here are a couple of them.

Around time 4:40 he compares ice loss in the Arctic vs. ice gain in the Antarctic using percentages rather than absolute numbers. Perhaps he doesn’t realize that there is a lot more sea ice in the Antarctic, so the percentages are of course lower? When we measure the absolute extent of Arctic loss (red below) vs Antarctic gain (blue below) we see that they are currently about equal.

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If a 100 pound person loses 10% of their weight, and a 500 pound person gains 2% of their weight, what is the net change in total weight? Zero. That is why people don’t report weight in percentages.

Then around 5:15 he goes completely clueless when he claims that northern sea ice anomalies occur in summer when the sun is high in the sky, but southern sea ice anomalies occur in winter when the sun is low. Perhaps he doesn’t understand that seasons are reversed in the southern hemisphere?

The Antarctic is three standard deviations above normal, and solar energy is at its peak – as seen in the green circle below. By contrast, the Arctic peak ice loss occurs in September when there is very little solar energy being received (red circle below.)

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/EnergyBalance/page3.php

2010 ice took its dip starting in early September, when the Sun was very low in the sky (red circle above) so it actually acts as a negative feedback. The open water allows LW radiation to escape from the ocean, with minimal SW warming the water that time of year.

Another very important consideration is that excess Antarctic  ice occurs at low latitudes where the sun shines directly on the ice, while Arctic deficiencies occur at high latitudes where the sun is oblique. The Antarctic positive anomalies have much more effect on the Earth’s SW radiative balance than do the Arctic negative anomalies.

At another point he claims that the Arctic is in a “death spiral” in spite of the fact that the minimum has increased by 20% over the last three years.

The amount of multi-year ice increased from 2008 to 2009, 2009 to 2010, and will undoubtedly increase again from 2010 to 2011. Some death spiral.