Antarctic sea ice increase not linked to ozone hole

I’ll try to relate this to my New Climate Model.
According to my hypothesis an active sun cools the stratosphere and reduces ozone (contrary to established climatology but in accordance with observations if anthropogenic CO2 and CFCs are ignored).
As a result of the cooler stratosphere the strength of the temperature inversion at the tropopause weakens and the polar high pressure cells shrink (popsitive polar oscillations) with the other components of the air circulation including the various jet streams moving poleward. It is clear that just such a poleward shift occurred when the sun was more active and has now reversed (negative polar oscillations) with the less active sun, the reasons currently being unknown.
More energy enters the tropical oceans during a period of warming with poleward jets because the subtropical high pressure systems expand as the clouds move poleward and there is reduced global albedo due to the cloud bands moving poleward so that the angle of incidence of solar energy onto the clouds declines with less cloud over the oceans.
Wamer water from the tropics spreads poleward over time to both the Arctic and Antarctic.
The Arctic being oceanic allows an ingress of that warmer water under the ice so more ice melts despite the fact that a tighter run of jet streams around the Arctic during a warming period with poleward jets should theoretically cool the Arctic by isolating it from southerly air flows. So when the troposphere is warming Arctic ice reduces but when the troposphere is cooling Arctic ice recovers.
Note that poleward jets means a tighter run of winds around the poles with less air flowing in and out whilst equatorward jets means a less tight such run around the poles with more air flowing in and out.
The Antarctic being continental only allows the warmer water to circulate around it which leads to more precipitation in the form of snow with an overall increase in sea ice extent and due to the intensity of the cold within Antarctica the warmer water never makes significant ingress except on the West Antarctic Peninsula which decreases in size even though the area of the Antarctic cold enough to create sea ice expands.
The West Antarctic Peninsula would normally grow when the sun is weak with more frequent air flows into and out of the continental interior (a cooling period) but shrink when the jets are more poleward and more tightly directed around the continent (a warming period). The position of the West Antarctic Peninsula is a by product of the land distribution around it. The air flow around Antarctica is disturbed by the land mass of South America so when during a cooling period with equatorward jets
there are more frequent flows of air into and out of the interior the favoured route for cold outflows is across the West Antarctic Peninsula which then grows.
So during a tropospheric warming period the main part of Antarctica cools and expands because there is less in the way of northerlies entering the interior but the West Antarctic Peninsula is skimmed away by the tighter run of winds around the Antarctic from the more poleward jets.
During a tropospheric cooling period the interior of Antarctic will be a little less cold due to more air flowing in and out from more equatorward jets but the West Antarctic Peninsula will grow back again because that is the favoured route for outflow of cold air.
Thus:
i) During a warming period Arctic ice and the West Antarctic Peninsula will decline whilst ice around Antarctica will increase.
ii) During a cooling period Arctic ice and the West Antarctic Peninsula will grow whilst ice around Antarctica will decline.
It’s just a matter of simple fluid dynamics, both the oceans and the air above displaying fluid characteristics.

An addendum to my previous comment.
It can happen that an extreme warming phase with both oceans and sun combining to warm the troposphere could result in both Arctic and Antarctic shrinking together. Likewise an extreme cooling phase could see them expanding together.
In that context note that currently there is an Arctic ice recovery in progress but as yet the Antarctic is not showing a persistent fall back from the recent ice quantity highs. Interesting times.

This discussion reminds me of when I was browsing through a general science textbook written for high school students at a used book sale. As I recall, the book was written in 1970s and had a curious reference to the arctic and antarctic heating and cooling being out of phase (warm arctic, cool antarctic and vice versa). Not needing another elementary science textbook on my bookshelf, I passed (even for a buck :)), but it’s always been in the back of my mind. So on seeing this post, I googled, and found this more extensive treatment.
http://books.google.com/books?id=EAcAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA40&dq=arctic+antarctic+ice+coupled+historically&hl=en&ei=ramrTIyVIML98Aaw6pmsCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCcQ6AEwADgU#v=onepage&q=arctic%20antarctic%20ice%20coupled%20historically&f=false
Interesting historical perspective. The author even ends up in a “modern day” AGW frame of mind!
But I digress. What I found most interesting was his numerous references to opposite behaviors of the two poles.
“Warming of the arctic coincides with a period of increasing vigor of global atmospheric circulation while the cooling of recent decades [note: published in 1970] has been accompanied by weakening global circulation.”
“These trends demonstrate the unity of the global system and also show the expected opposite phase between the antarctic ice region and the northern hemisphere. Global atmospheric circulation was greatest when iciness [of the antarctic region] was greatest and vice versa. Northern Hemisphere temperature trends follow global circulation intensity.” (Emphasis mine)
Although it takes a while to sink in, Fig. 2 makes his case. Note the correlation coefficients in the inset are greatest for about a 5-6 year lag between antarctic ice in one location and northern hemisphere temperatures.
I wonder how this reasoning has stood the test of time.
btw, I also found it quaint how often he referred to the complexities and uncertainties in understanding climate. I guess they don’t make ’em like they used to.

Don’t forget ozone depletion caused by big solar flare events:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/ProtonOzone
http://www.physorg.com/news93781896.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11456-solar-superflare-shredded-earths-ozone.html
However …

The protons ionised nitrogen and oxygen molecules in the atmosphere, which then formed nitrogen oxides. The nitrogen oxides in turn reacted with ozone – a molecule made up of three oxygen atoms, breaking it into oxygen molecules and atomic oxygen.
This breakdown caused global atmospheric ozone levels to drop by 5%. In comparison, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other chemicals have depleted the levels by about 3% in recent years, says team member Adrian Melott, a physicist at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, US.
However, unlike CFCs and other ozone-depleting chemicals, which can persist in the atmosphere for some time, the flare-induced ozone thinning probably lasted for just four years, the researchers report. That is because the nitrogen oxides that cause the depletion eventually rain down with water or ice. Indeed, it was this acid rain that was eventually recorded in the ice cores.

“Don’t forget ozone depletion caused by big solar flare events:”
If ozone depletion can be caused by solar flare events then does it not follow that ozone is more likely to decline when the sun is generally more active thus leading to a cooling stratosphere ?
That is just what was observed during cycles 19 through to 23 and they were all historically very active cycles even if cycle 20 was a bit less active than the others.
So why is it assumed that a more active sun results in a warmer stratosphere when it clearly did not do so at that time ?
And now with a less active sun the stratosphere is no longer cooling and shows signs of warming.
All this is the exact opposite of established climatology yet critical to the air circulation in the troposphere because that circulation is affected by the strength of the temperature inversion at the tropopause.

“By observing the Bastille Day solar event, Jackman and his colleagues found that the short-term effects of hydrogen oxides destroyed up to 70 percent of the ozone in the middle mesosphere. “The mesosphere was really shaken,” Jackman says. At the same time, ozone loss caused by longer-term nitrogen oxides cut out close to nine percent of the ozone in the upper stratosphere. But, Jackman says, only a few percent of total ozone resides in the mesosphere and upper stratosphere.
“If you look at the total atmospheric column, from your head on up to the top of the atmosphere, this solar proton event depleted less than one percent of the total ozone in the Northern Hemisphere,” Jackman said. While that doesn’t sound like a lot, scientifically speaking the numbers for the specific atmospheric regions are quite significant.
“This is an instance where we have a huge natural variance,” Jackman says. “The ultimate goal of a lot of our work is to understand the human impacts on ozone. In order to do that, you have to first be able to separate the natural effects on ozone.”
And I recently posted a link that showed cooling of the mesosphere as well as the stratosphere when the sun was more active.
Yet at the same time as the stratosphere and mesosphere cooled the troposphere and thermosphere warmed. Clearly there is differential warming and cooling of the different layers in response to changes in solar activity.
Leif always asserts that a change in solar activity warms or cools all the layers in tandem !!
My New Climate Model accommodates just such events.

Sorry for stating the obvious but if we didn’t have the ozone hole would the increase in the extent be even greater? Seesaws are in order.

F. Ross says:
October 5, 2010 at 9:02 pm
Models, models, models!
…I’ve always thought the best models were those in Victoria’s Secret.
Quote of the Week!

Two ways to create more ice in the ocean:
It’s getting slightly colder . . .
The salt balance is getting unbalanced like when there’s somewhat more fresh water dumped into the oceans this makes the water “somehow” turn to ice and more ice reflect sun light and chilling the wind as it goes by making it colder still freezing more water.
But of course, the fancy stuff is more intriguing.