He’re’s a twist; while the north pole ice dwindles to record lows, the south pole ice reaches the maximum extent ever recorded.
A fellow who likes variable star research and AAVSO calling himself Tamino (not his real name – another phantom blogger) who runs a blog called “Open Mind“. He used to be about explaining science, and did a pretty good job, but now has succumbed to the dark side of discourse and posted an opinion “…that it’s time to stop even listening to denialists, let alone arguing with them.” and then further says “…it is the republican party in the U.S. that is the problem.“.
Then right after that post, he puts up a graph of Northern Hemisphere Sea ice showing its drop with the challenge “Explain this”
It’s just too funny to announce he’s not going to discuss the matter further, then puts up a challenge on record northern hemisphere sea ice minimum, then the next day we get a new maximum ice record in the southern hemisphere. Perhaps the dichotomy was just too much for him. A hint for those in need of pressure valves – it’s all about cycles.
In the same spirt then, explain this 😉
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
Monday, October 1, 2007 – Record SH sea ice maximum and NH sea ice minimum
Just when you thought this season’s cryosphere couldn’t be more strange …. The Southern Hemisphere sea ice area narrowly surpassed the previous historic maximum of 16.03 million sq. km to 16.17 million sq. km. The observed sea ice record in the Southern Hemisphere (1979-present) is not as long as the Northern Hemisphere. Prior to the satellite era, direct observations of the SH sea ice edge were sporadic.
The NH sea ice area reached an historic minimum on September 16, 2007 (2.92 million sq. km), representing a 27% drop in sea ice coverage compared to the previous (2005) record NH ice minimum.
We have updated our high resolution animation of this year’s sea ice retreat (01/01/2007 – 09/23/2007). WARNING – This quicktime animation is very large at 200Mb, but it illustrates nicely the temporal evolution of this year’s sea ice. Animation: 2007 sea ice minimum animation
In an related story, how ’bout those 2007 hurricanes? It’s such a disappointly quiet year for many.
UPDATE Commenter Aaron Wells writes:
According to Cryosphere Today, normal North Pole ice area at this time is about 5 million km^2, with current amounts amounting to a negative anomaly of about 2 million km^2, for a current total of about 3 million km^2. On the other hand, the South Pole normal area is about 15 million km^2, with current amounts amounting to a positive anomaly of 1 million km^2, for a current total of about 16 million km^2.
Now, it is easy to get alarmed about the North Pole numbers, because they have gotten so close to zero. But the truth is about 2/3rd of total North Pole ice always melts by the end of the northern summer. This summer it got down to about 1/4 of the winter amount.
It is much less alarming if you consider the total between the 2 poles. Using the Cryosphere Today normals and current ice areas, there is normally about 20 million km^2, and currently there is only 19 million km^2. When realize that the total taken together only represents about a 5% reduction from normal, then it does not seem nearly as alarming.
Sorry. The above entry was for Tamino and his assertaion the Antarctic showed no trend in ice coverage. It seems I have not mastered the blockquote function on this site yet….