When I was young I had vague notions of where the equator was. I half knew it ran through Brazil and the Congo, half knew it ran through the Sahara - burning hot desert, right? Has to be on the equator.

Later I learned about the importance of the latent heat of condensation. The rain forests on the equator are hot and steamy places. Water vapor rises and cools. The heat given off as clouds form keeps the temperature up and it rises more. Then it spreads North and South.

It really moves, going over the Sahara, without falling as rain. That is why the desert is there, North of the Equator. Eventually the rain falls on Ireland and other places. The details of the exact latitude are tricky. The circulation takes the heat away from the equator, sending it North and South.

The Earth isn't radiating much heat from the poles; they are too cold. If the heat from the equator really gets to the poles, the Earth will radiate more heat from the poles, helping with the heat balance and mitigating gobal warming.

Notice what we actually worry about. Maybe the hot places on the equator , such as Congo and Brazil, will get too hot for life, reducing the available land area of the Earth. If the heat goes up and spreads out, it is much less of a problem. If Canada gets warmer, that increases the available land area.

The melting ice caps story is rather ambiguous. Is it telling simple telling us that global warming is real and we need to panic? Is it telling us a more complicated story: global warming is real, but the heat is spreading away from the equator and not creating a hot spot too hot for life?

It has always been a bit odd to emphasize the warming of parts of the world that are too cold for human habitation. We care most about temperatures on the equator and they don't get talked about.

The whole narrative is a bit weird. We are encouraged to worry about the bit that doesn't matter, which then fails to happen.