While everyone seems to be watching the Arctic extent with intense interest, it’s bipolar twin continues to make enough ice to keep the global sea ice balance near normal. These images from Cryosphere today provide the details. You won’t see any mention of this in the media. Google News returns no stories about Antarctic Sea Ice Extent.
Here’s the graph, see for yourself.
Here’s global sea ice:
click image to enlarge
AndyW says:
July 4, 2010 at 9:15 am
[…]
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2010/010510.html
“Average air temperatures over the Arctic Ocean were much higher than normal for the month, reflecting unusual atmospheric conditions”
—————————
In what way is a persistent negative Arctic Oscillation unusual?
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/month.ao.gif
Gail Combs says:
July 4, 2010 at 8:01 am
Gail, to expand on your ideas on why we must be interested in sea-ice extent may be wandering off-topic, but it seems to me that the question you responded to leads to the need to identify the fundamental problem causes of AGW-alarmism and not merely to an objective examination of scientific facts.
You correctly point to the UN’s socialist agenda as the driver for AGW-alarmism. Thereby AGW-alarmism, employing many useful idiots, becomes an effective tool for accelerating what Igor Shafarevich (a friend of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who wrote the foreword to Shafarevich’s book ‘The Socialist Phenomenon’) described as follows.
–quote–
It would seem that socialist ideology has the ability to stamp widely separated or even historically unlinked socialist currents with indelible and stereotyped markings.
It seems to us quite legitimate to conclude that socialism does exist as a unified historical phenomenon. Its basic principles have been indicated above. They are:
* Abolition of private property.
* Abolition of the family.
* Abolition of religion.
* Equality, abolition of hierarchies in society.
The manifold embodiments of these principles are linked organically by a common spirit, by an identity of specific details and, frequently, by a clearly discernible overall thrust.
Our perspective on socialism takes into account only one of the dimensions in which this phenomenon unfolds. Socialism is not only an abstract ideological system but also the embodiment of that system in time and space. Therefore, having sketched in its outlines as an ideology, we now ought to be able to explain in what periods and within what civilization socialism arises, whether in the form of doctrine, popular movement or state structure. But here the answer turns out to be far less clear. While the ideology of socialism is sharply defined, the occurrence of socialism can hardly be linked to any definite time or civilization. If we consider the period in the history of mankind which followed the rise of the state as an institution, we find the manifestations of socialism, practically speaking, in all epochs and in all civilizations. It is possible, however, to identify epochs when socialist ideology manifests itself with particular intensity. This is usually at a turning point in history, a crisis such as the period of the Reformation or our own age. We could simply note that socialist states arise only in definite historical situations, or we could attempt to explain why it was that the socialist ideology appeared in virtually finished and complete form in Plato’s time. We shall return to these questions later. But in European history, we cannot point to a single period when socialist teachings were not extant in one form or another. It seems that socialism is a constant factor in human history, at least in the period following the rise of the state. Without attempting to evaluate it for the time being, we must recognize socialism as one of the most powerful and universal forces active in a field where history is played out.
Igor Shafarevich
The Socialist Phenomenon, p. 200
http://robertlstephens.com/essays/shafarevich/001SocialistPhenomenon.html#pagestart_200
–end quote–
‘The Socialist Phenomenon’ is an examination of the predominance of socialism throughout history, invariably involving various forms of totalitarian control in all civilizations throughout history.
Of course, Igor Shafarevich points to the socialist principle of abolishing private property, of which land ownership is only a small part.
“Communists are socialists in a hurry.” I don’t know who coined that, but let’s consider what Maurice Strong, the original creator of the UN-driven environmentalism, had to say about his own views in that regard:
–quote–
Actually, Strong’s three sources of evil are really just one source — Western civilization. Although he has reaped enormous personal profits from the Western ways of business and life, Strong has been a lifelong biter of the hands that feed him so well. In 1990, he even mused about a possible revolution against “industrialized civilizations.”
What if it were concluded, Strong romanticized, “that the principal risk to the earth comes from the actions of the rich countries? … Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring this about?”
Strong wasn’t exactly speaking for himself in this daydream. His nightmarish scenario involved a “small group of … world leaders,” gathered together at a semi-private conference, who decide to overthrow the established political and financial orders “in order to save the planet.”
But he was not speaking for himself, either. Strong revels in telling fawning audiences that he is “a socialist in ideology,” but “a capitalist in methodology.” His socialist core would explain his attraction to revolutions against rich, industrialized civilizations.
Source: EDMONTON JOURNAL, Maurice Strong & Paul Martin, Part 2, “Champagne socialist full of bubbles: Maurice Strong profits from pushing leftist ideas,” by Lorne Gunter, Friday 18 July 2003, p. A18
–end quote–
If anyone wishes to “make the personal political” and make it count, then there is no better tool for him than to fan the flames of AGW-alarmism. A biased perspective in looking only at declining trends of arctic sea-ice extent during a time frame that is too short is just the thing for that. It would not serve the objectives of the socialist ideologists to expand the focus of their attention to longer, more objective intervals.
rbateman says:
but it sure tells the story.
It tells *A* story. I think what it says is that we are dealing with a complex system that I don’t understand. If you can get it to explain Antarctic ice and global temperatures and a few other details, I want to read it.
Jack Simmons says:
“This is boring. Look at the long term chart for the world’s ice. It looks like the electrocardiogram of an NFL wide receiver. It’s healthy. It’s normal. Get on with your life.”
_____________
Let’s take a look at Jack’s contention. Here’s the long term chart of Global Sea Ice:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
Now, I’m not sure how you want to define “healthy”, but for arguements sake in terms of sea ice extent, let’s say that it means spending equal time above and below the normal line, so that anomalies balance out and the hence, the “patient” stays normal. If you’re honest and look at the chart, you’ll pretty much see that from 1979 to around 2001 or so, this is exactly what happens…a nice “healthy” sea ice line, spending equal amounts of time above and below normal– a good pulse if you would. Then beginning in about 2001, you’ll see that the line starts to waiver a bit more toward the negative side, and this really picks up around 2004 through 2010. A good way to quickly see this is to imaginge the area between the peaks under or over the line, and the line itself. For those who know calculus, this is called the definite integral. If you took the integral of global sea ice up to about 2001, you’d expect to find that it was 0–meaning no change. If you took the intergral of global sea ice since 2001, the anomaly has gone to the negative side. So, back the analogy of a healthy wide receiver– the patient’s looking a bit sick.
rbateman says: July 3, 2010 at 10:45 pm
“It’s been updated
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/seaice.anomaly.Ant_arctic.jpg”
I think you are definitely onto something. In this animation;
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/intraseasonal/z200anim.shtml
note how the Arctic starts out as almost average pressure, and then as the pressure drops (becomes darker blue) over the Antarctic, the pressure increases (becomes dark red) over the Arctic. My understanding of this effect, which is currently speculative at best, is that the Antarctic Vortex becomes very powerful (like a giant ice cold hurricane), creating very low pressure over Antarctica and increasing the pressure around the rest of the globe. If you watch the animation again, between June 10th and 20th it looks like a high pressure pocket of more temperate air over the Atlantic gets pushed into Arctic. So when the Antarctic Vortex is strong/large, the pressure drops within it and increases around it (a positive Antarctic Oscillation) and the increased pressure forces warmer air towards the other pole.
Can anyone elaborate on or refute this hypothesis?
South America Kicks Off Ski Season With Powder Conditions; Strong Bookings
“Ski and snowboard conditions in Chile and Argentina are reportedly good with up to 218cm of snow at this point, and the majority of lifts already in operation. All ski resorts were open by early-to-mid June.”
http://www.onthesnow.com/news/204/a/12453/south-america-kicks-off-ski-season-with-powder-conditions-strong-bookings
Add to previous post;
“Sergio Begue, founder and trip leader for Andes Ski Tours, says, “The South America ski season is looking great after lots of early snow. Our sales are up about 35 percent compared to last year and we have seen an increase in skiers from the United Kingdom, Canada, and South Africa.””
I’m looking forward to an early start to the snow season in the Northern Hemisphere again this year. Snow on the pumpkin again this year maybe? I hope the states budgets are up the the task of removing the snow this coming winter. Better stock up on extra salt.
Curious Yellow says: July 4, 2010 at 3:42 am
“R.Gates and villabolo provided all the information you need.”
If the information I needed was desperate spin and obfuscation;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obfuscation
then R.Gates and villabolo would be spot on, I, however, am seeking the facts.
“Antarctic sea ice is seasonal ice, e.i. 1 year ice that accumulates in winter melts in summer. Can we always determine the the actual melt potential for Antarctic sea ice? No. There will be seasons when all the sea ice has melted before the melt season ends, so it could have melted more.”
It seems that you also hail from the R.Gates and villabolo school of spin and obfuscation…
“The land-locked arctic ice is different because unlike Antarctica it can build multi-year ice.”
Apparently you didn’t watch the animation I posted above;
as there appears to be multi-year ice in the Antarctic in every year on record. Did you watch the video? Can you confirm that your statement above is erroneous?
“As to your question which is a more accurate proxy for the earth’s temperature, I’ll answer that it is the Northern hemisphere arctic region. ”
Great, at least you have an answer, now let’s see if you can support this assertion with logic and facts.
“That is in the short to medium term; for as long as the winter vortex of Antarctica blows. In short, the Arctic responds fast, as you can witness, and Antarctica will follow more slowly. In the neantime the Arctic sea ice will have become seasonal.”
The support of your assertion appears to be incoherent blather. The components of it seem oddly unrelated to one another. Since building coherent arguments does not appear to be your strong suit, perhaps I’ll present an argument and you can attempt to disprove it:
I think that Antarctic Sea Ice offers a more accurate proxy of Earth’s current temperature and temperature trend since a large portion of Antarctic Sea Ice melts each year, as is illustrated in the animation linked above. Thus in a way Antarctic Sea Ice resets/recalibrates each year, offering more accurate readings as compared to the Arctic sea ice, which suffers from the impact and memory of major wind/natural sea ice loss events such as occurred in 2007. Can you explain to us why you think that this hypothesis is false?
The Arctic is sea surrounded by land. The Antarctic is land surrounded by sea.
When the mid latitude jets move poleward more solar shortwave energy gets into the oceans and in due course more energy from warming seas eventually penetrates into the Arctic ocean to reduce ice cover. That cannot happen in the Antarctic so the continental Antarctic just gets more isolated by the faster tighter run of jets around it and it cools whilst the Arctic warms.
When the mid latitude jets move equatorward the seas receive less solar shortwave and so cool down and in due course the Arctic cools because it receives less energy from the waters entering the Arctic ocean. However the Antarctic warms because the slacker jets around the poles allow more north/south air flows and more warm air gets into the Antarctic continent.
Thus the apparent short term stability of global ice cover. Arctic and Antarctic ice cover always moves in opposite directions but of course longer term variability does nevertheless affect global ice quantities for other reasons.
Anthony: Just one friendly suggestion to the headline of this post– it really ought to say:
“Antarctic sea ice ANOMALY peaks at the 3rd highest in satellite record.”
For of course, we haven’t yet seen the peak for the actual Antarctic sea ice yet this season.
Just The Facts says:
July 4, 2010 at 10:47 am
Curious Yellow says: July 4, 2010 at 3:42 am
“R.Gates and villabolo provided all the information you need.”
If the information I needed was desperate spin and obfuscation;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obfuscation
then R.Gates and villabolo would be spot on, I, however, am seeking the facts
_____________
You must therefore consider the information coming from the NSIDC to be desperate spin and obfuscation since it formed the bulk of my answer. This would explain your general perspective, such that nothing we gave you that didn’t support your perspective would satisfy you, and you would think even the NSIDC is up no good. I would think Dr. Stroeve, who comes here occasionally might be a bit insulted by that.
AndyW says:
July 4, 2010 at 9:15 am
rbateman said:
July 3, 2010 at 11:24 pm
“For those not paying attention to the increasingly cold winters hopscotching from one hemisphere to the next, that’s what to expect. Cold train. ”
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2010/010510.html
“Average air temperatures over the Arctic Ocean were much higher than normal for the month, reflecting unusual atmospheric conditions”
Below normal for both May and June according to DMI:
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
R. Gates says:
If you took the intergral of global sea ice since 2001, the anomaly has gone to the negative side. So, back the analogy of a healthy wide receiver– the patient’s looking a bit sick.
I would have taken the derivative and been of the opinion that the anomaly bottomed in late 2008. Let’s wait a decade or so and see.
R. Gates says:
If you took the intergral of global sea ice since 2001, the anomaly has gone to the negative side. So, back the analogy of a healthy wide receiver– the patient’s looking a bit sick.
I don’t know of anything that happened then except for the aftermath of the 1998 El Nino. There would have been a very large slug of hot air sent to the Arctic, so that might be the cause. Can you suggest something else?
R. Gates says:
“The patient’s looking a bit sick,” paraphrasing Al Gore’s “The Earth has a fever,” and just as plainly ridiculous.
The Earth is acting completely normally. Nothing is out of the ordinary, except for the deluded ravings of Al Gore’s acolytes. Dr Spencer puts things in perspective with his hypothesis:
No one has falsified the hypothesis that the observed temperature changes are a consequence of natural variability.
That hypothesis is testable. As soon as the planet’s temperature goes above or below its historical parameters the hypothesis will be falsified. But that has not happened, and in fact the current temperature is just about in the center of its range.
On the other hand, the CO2=CAGW
hypothesisconjecture, based upon always-inaccurate computer models rather than on raw data, has been repeatedly falsified. The planet itself refuses to conform to the alarmist climate models. Which one should we believe? The Earth, or the models?If the alarmist crowd followed the scientific method they would have already admitted that their conjecture has failed miserably. But being true believers, rational thought isn’t important to them. They are ruled by their emotions, not by logic.
They are still trying to convince the rest of us that what is being observed is out of the ordinary. It is not; the climate fluctuates, the temperature fluctuates, and sea ice fluctuates. Everything goes in natural cycles, and all these cycles are well within the historical norm.
As Prof Lindzen observes:
When listening to the petrified ravings of the alarmist contingent, it is also wise to keep Marcus Aurelius’ dictum in mind:
The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.
This graph:
http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/2009/stroeve.png
By the way, pretty much says everything you need to know about both the AGW models and the reality of Arctic Sea ice. We’ll all watch this years final September low with much rather trivial interest… will it be 4.4, 4.5, 4.7, 5.5, or even 6.0 million sq. km. Any of those would still be well BELOW AGW models, and hence, why the models are still not getting the positive feedback elements completely correct, however, as the models can begin to include feedbacks such as the ArcticDipole Anomaly, spoken about so eloquently by Julienne here a few weeks back, then the models may begin to be closer to reality of the Arctic Sea ice diappearing in the summer far sooner than 2100. The DA was one of the chaotic elements, not predictable, but still deterministic.
Smokey says:
July 4, 2010 at 11:21 am
R. Gates says:
“The Earth is acting completely normally.”
______________
Me and Smokey are buddies. But if this graph:
http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/2009/stroeve.png
Tell you that Artic Sea ice is acting normally, (note: declining even faster than those “pessimistic” AGW models), then I suppose that your definition of normal is far different than mine.
R Shearer says:
The mainstream media just rubs me the wrong way.
Maybe you need professional help in the rubbing department, I understand AlGore knows some folks…
Spartacus says:
The short term variation of ice from both poles seem to be linked in opposite directions. When the anomaly of one goes up the other one goes down. There’s some mechanism here that it’s not fully understood. For me it’s some astronomical effect related with short term tilt and precession variations of earth’s axis.
Don’t know what causes it, might just be where the oceans slop the warm bits, but I’ve noticed the same thing in the global temperature data. When I was doing my marathon dT/dt graphing session (still recovering from that one 😉 I was “up close and personal” with the data from each country and Antarctica. Tables of temperatures, tables of anomalies, and graphs. I repeatedly noticed that there was a N.H. / S.H. oscillation. For example the warm 1934 record in N. America was a cold time in parts of the S.Hemisphere ( I think it was Antarctica and some where like Argentina and Chile, but I’d have to look it up again and check).
My conclusion is that any talk about any SINGLE pole is just asking to be fooled by a regular swapping of hot ends of the planet (which also answers the question of which pole to look at for GAT trend: only BOTH together).
This also means that the temperature series (such as GHCN) is fatally flawed as they are woefully deficient in Southern Hemisphere data in the early years. Not enough places to know the global trend. All you really get is a Northern biased wobble of very long duration… Or, put more directly, a Hot Europe or N. America could be offset by a cold mid south Pacific or Indian Ocean and nobody would have noticed. Same thing for cold but with the signs reversed.
Spartacus says:
Nutation is a very complex mechanism if conjugated with earth’s internal mass distribution. Surely even slight variations of earths nutation can make some influence, among dozens of other factors, in polar sea ice.
I suspect it also will cause some variation in ocean currents. The bathtub is going to slop a little as it gets rocked…
ThousandsOfMilesAway says:
So, let me get this straight… you’re saying that all the media hype about global warming is wrong?
That pretty much sums it up. Yup.
Best I can peg it down, with the “unadjusted” GHCN data and a very clean ‘self to self’ thermometer anomaly process, it is a result of mixing two things.
1) Putting the baseline at the bottom of a cold half of the PDO (so it would take 60 years to get back to NORMAL and you could never get a cold anomaly unless a non-cyclical cold wave hit). Good for warming all the way to 1995 or so (take the baseline of 1951-1980, divide in half, subtract from 1980 gives 1965 mid point, add 30 years gives 1995). The baseline does sit rather nicely centered over the cold half cycle.
2) Instrument and process artifacts. Starting in 1990 (plus or minus about 3 years) there is a ‘kink’ in the data. A ‘hockey blade’ forms to the upside. This is not the result of CO2, as CO2 has been around and growing since the industrial revolution, not just since 1990. There was The Great Dying of thermometers then, and those with the best potential to give low going excursions were dropped, while those located at airports and especially near bodies of water were kept. You don’t get much low going temperature excursions at those places. Compare SFO to Lake Tahoe for record lows compared to AVERAGE lows. The deltaT at Tahoe is much greater to the downside. There are other aspects of this process error, such as a very suspect QA process on the USHCN data that lets airports be the Procrustian Bed for all other thermometers and chops them to fit, then if it can’t make a fit, replaces the data with an average of nearby ASOS stations (ie airports). Just averaging like that will induce a clipping of the low going excursions. And the low going excursions ARE clipped and with a very defined start point of about 1990. That’s not CO2, that’s process change.
When you look at real world events for confirmation / negation, what you find is a warming planet to 1998, but NOT warmer than in 1934 during the last hot phase, followed since then by a run to the cold side. (There is a very cold start to this winter in the southern hemisphere with iced coffee in Brazil, South African snow for the World Cup, and a very cold Australia as noted in a WUWT article.)
For those of us under the “cold blob” side of the jet stream in California, we’ve had a cold spring and it’s even cool today. July 4 th is often about 100 here. (Usually about 90 F) . It’s presently 82 F on the patio. Probably hit 86 F at the peak in 3 hours or so, though I’m sure the airport will report higher… All that tarmac in the sun.
So instead of running around doing things to control heat gain in the house (shutting windows and blinds, etc.) I’m enjoying a pleasantly cool morning. But my tomatoes are not ripening nearly as fast as in prior years. All hard and green. I usually get my first red ripe tomato about the 4th of July. Not now.
(If you are on the “hot blob” of the jet stream where tropical heat is headed to the poles to be vented, like the East Coast, you are feeling the heat. It will stay that way for a few years until the oceans cool. Figure about 5 ? or so. But the temperatures don’t tell the whole story, it’s the heat flow that matters. And what we have is a very large increase of heat flow out of the ocean, to the poles, off planet. Then the cold air lands on my head… I imaging Pamela is getting it worse…)
So my expectation is for a net normal world for about 5 years. After that, IMHO, it will all depend on if we are really entering a Grand Solar Minimum or not. Yeah, I know the sun causality thesis rests on correlations and not mechanisms, but the grain production history matches it nicely. And frankly, I trust plants not to lie or make an error more than I trust people. Plants don’t have an agenda and don’t fool themselves.
BTW, there are already starting to be reports of crop failures and losses due to “unexpectedly cold and wet weather”…
“Use the Barley, Luke!” 😉
Tom Jones says:
July 4, 2010 at 11:12 am
R. Gates says:
If you took the intergral of global sea ice since 2001, the anomaly has gone to the negative side. So, back the analogy of a healthy wide receiver– the patient’s looking a bit sick.
I don’t know of anything that happened then except for the aftermath of the 1998 El Nino. There would have been a very large slug of hot air sent to the Arctic, so that might be the cause. Can you suggest something else?
___________
I can’t, but many others have suggested an idea… it’s called anthropogenic global warming, and since the climate is a chaotic system, the smallest of factors, so I’m told, could take the system out of equalibrium and create unforseen and unpredictable effects. These are NOT random, but are deterministic. Many would suggest that the downward trend in Arctic Sea ice extent is one of those effects, and the fact that even the bulk of GCM’s didn’t forsee the more rapid downturn in Arctic Sea ice that we’ve had the past 10 years, shows the chaotic nature of the effects–unpredictable but quite deterministic.
R Gates
I am continually surprised as to why you firmly believe the very limited 30 year Satellite record should be seen as clear evidence of a substantially changing climate. By so doing you ignore the plethora of records we have stretching back into the far distance that illustrates that what we are seeing now is merely the latest manifestation of Arctic warming.
Article: The Great Arctic warming in the 19th Century. Author: Tony Brown
This long article -with many links- examines the little known period 1815-60 when the Arctic ice melted and the Royal Society mounted an expedition to investigate the causes.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/20/historic-variation-in-arctic-ice/#more-8688
Article: Arctic warming 1919-1939. Author: Dr Arnd Bernaerts
This free online book by Dr Arnd Bernaerts examines the last great warming -prior to the modern one- in great detail.
http://www.arctic-heats-up.com/chapter_1.html
I have often written short pieces on the frequent episodes of Arctic warming back to the Ipiatuk some 3000 years ago, and one day will work them up into a longer piece. In the meantime please state your evidence demonstrating that the current episode is unique.
To stay on topic, Hubert Lamb clearly believed that in general the pole at one hemisphere had a great deal of ice, whilst the other warmed.
tonyb
R. Gates says:
July 4, 2010 at 10:29 am
….If you’re honest and look at the chart, you’ll pretty much see that from 1979 to around 2001 or so, this is exactly what happens…a nice “healthy” sea ice line, spending equal amounts of time above and below normal– a good pulse if you would. Then beginning in about 2001, you’ll see that the line starts to waiver a bit more toward the negative side, and this really picks up around 2004 through 2010…..
I am sorry if this seems a bit picky, and I am entertained by your posts, however I have seen on numerous threads recently (Arctic sea ice ones) where you have been explicit in the assertion that if someone sees a recent “trend” they should look over a longer period. You have also argued that short term trends mean nothing. Why do you look at the short term trend in the Antarctic but do not allow others to look at short term trends with regard to the Arctic?
There’s letters seal’d, and my two schoolfellows,
Whom I will trust as I will adders fang’d—
They bear the mandate, they must sweep my way
And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;
For ’tis the sport to have the enginer
Hoist with his own petard, an’t shall go hard
But I will delve one yard below their mines
And blow them at the moon.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/04/climatechange-hacked-emails-muir-russell
A tentative step in the right direction.
Even finishes with:
“But greater openness and engagement with their critics will not ensure that climate scientists have an easier time in future, warns Hulme. Back in the lab, a new generation of more sophisticated computer models is failing to reduce the uncertainties in predicting future climate, he says – rather, the reverse. “This is not what the public and politicians expect, so handling and explaining this will be difficult.””
R. Gates says:
July 4, 2010 at 11:37 am
“[…] effects. These are NOT random, but are deterministic.[…]”
Can you name me one nondeterministic effect in the macroscopic world?
wikipedia:
“Determinism is the philosophical view that every event, including human cognition, behaviour, decision, and action, is causally determined by previous events.”
That sounds correct. Good work, wikipedia.
Ken Hall says:
July 4, 2010 at 3:26 am
There will be plenty of coverage of the Antarctic next March when the Wilkins sheet crack photographs will be recycled again. Ice freezing is not fashionable. Ice melting fits the alarmist narrative.
************************************************************************
Peter Miller says:
July 4, 2010 at 3:32 am
The difference in ‘performance’ of the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice could well be due to volcanic activity. None in the Antarctic right now – the last one was a couple of years ago beneath the West Antarctic ice sheet.
The volcano in Iceland which shut down most of Europe’s air traffic – another good one from the UK’s Met Office – spewed huge amounts of ash over the Arctic sea ice making it more susceptible to melting. The effect of this must have just about run its course.
************************************************************************
VILLABOLO in eternal exasperation says:
Remember that midget in Fantasy Island who used to announce “the plane, the plane”?
Well, listen carefully, “THE TREND, THE TREND!”
artwest says:
July 4, 2010 at 11:53 am
“[…]Back in the lab, a new generation of more sophisticated computer models is failing to reduce the uncertainties in predicting future climate, he says – rather, the reverse. […]”
Interesting. It means different groups try different approaches, seeing that the state-of-the-art models don’t cut it. Cracks in the orthodoxy.