I’ve been remiss at posting regular entries of this feature, and there hasn’t been much happening on the way to peak Arctic Ice this year. The action seems mostly down south, and there’s a lot of news from NSIDC that you haven’t heard about.
Per the National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC), the Southern Hemisphere Sea Ice Extent Anomaly for November was a record high for their data set:
Source: ftp://sidads.colorado.edu//DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/Nov/S_11_plot.png
November’s record high Antarctic Sea Ice Area of 16.90 Million Sq Km, exceeded the prior record of 16.76 Million Sq Km (Set in November 2005), by 140,000 Square Kilometers. See here:
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/Nov/S_11_area.txt
Oddly, they have a plot for extent, and a data file for area, but no plot for area or data for extent. I meant to say: Oddly, they have a plot for extent, and a data file for area, but no plot for area or data file for extent. They do have both data included in the file named “area.txt”. Seems backwards, doesn’t it?
The NSIDC plot certainly shows a lot of growth in November around the periphery of the sea ice pack in November:
Source: ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/Nov/S_11_trnd.png
I find it interesting that the (NSIDC) National Snow & Ice Data Center doesn’t find it newsworthy to mention this record high Southern Hemisphere Sea Ice Extent Anomaly in their December 6th press release:
They certainly could have included this information, since their FTP folder had NH data posted three days prior to the December 6th press release:
And the SH data also, with the same time stamp:
But this comes as no surprise considering that they glossed over the other record highs that occurred this year in,
June:
Source: ftp://sidads.colorado.edu//DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/Jun/S_06_plot.png
Data: ftp://sidads.colorado.edu//DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/Jun/S_06_area.txt
July:
Source: ftp://sidads.colorado.edu//DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/Jul/S_07_plot.png
Data: ftp://sidads.colorado.edu//DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/Jul/S_07_area.txt
August:
Source: ftp://sidads.colorado.edu//DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/Aug/S_08_plot.png
Data: ftp://sidads.colorado.edu//DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/Aug/S_08_area.txt
It is apparent that Antarctic Sea Ice Extent is currently maintaining above average;
But, with such good news, I wonder why NSIDC and others aren’t providing more information to the public on this interesting phenomenon. I know these new record highs aren’t as interesting or as likely to generate news stories as “death spiral watch”, but perhaps in their next press NSIDC release they will at least recognize the Southern Hemisphere Sea Ice for the simple fact that it has hit record highs?
We are constantly told that NSIDC is all about the science, and we are just “breathtakingly ignorant” (to quote NSIDC’s Dr. Mark Serreze), so I’m sure this press release reporting on only one half of the planet’s icecap’s is just an oversight on their part. I’m sure NSIDC will want to show that their mission truly is “global” and talk about the gains in Antarctica when they write up their year end review which will be seen by hundreds of journalists.
They seem to have interest in the minuscule (compared to the whole continent) Antarctic Peninsula ice loss, but not so much the main continent gains.
Antarctica is by far the largest mass of ice on Earth, containing approximately 90% of the world’s supply. By contrast, the Arctic and glaciers make up the remainder, yet they get all the facetime.
The fact that Sea Ice Extent around Antarctica is trending up and has been regularly hitting record highs in 2010 should give any rational person a moment’s pause. It might even provide the basis for some healthy skepticism of the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming Narrative.
Oh, and for the few worrywarts who frequent here, who will howl mercilessly that I didn’t show the Arctic Sea Ice trend, here’s your North and South trends together:
Cryosphere Today – extent 15% or greater – click to enlarge
Cryosphere Today – Antarctic Sea Ice anomaly – click to enlarge
Of course all the graphs and imagery that I didn’t cover here is available 24/7/365 on the WUWT sea ice page, which I recommend you visit.
h/t to WUWT reader “Just the facts” for pointing out the ftp data which has remained buried and out of view of NSIDC’s main public relations page.
November's record high Sea Ice Extent of 16.90 Million Sq Km, exceeded the prior record of 16.76 Million Sq Km (Set in November 2005), by 140,000 Square Kilometers:
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We should be nice to the NSIDC. I remember being shocked to find out there was an entire other hemisphere, too!………..When I was about 5 years old. What’s more interesting in the “ice watch”, in regards to albedo, Antarctic ice is much more important than Arctic.
It seems to have gone past everyone’s notice, but NASAs new Chief Scientist is Waleed “The Ice is Melting” Abdalati, a CAGW propagandist specializing in distorted research regarding Polar Ice and Glaciers. He hails from the University of Colorado, Boulder, which gives an indication of his politics.
Not wishing to troll, but isn’t the typical response that sea (water) temperatures are still getting warmer around the antarctic, which tells a tale of incipient iceocalypse. What’s the data on that?
For the Melbournites out there…
How is the weather looking for Boxing Day? What we really need at the MCG is a hemispheric reversal and some good dreary English seamer’s delight weather. We had enough of the catastrophically hot Mitch in Perth!
Malcolm (not an Aussie…)
Greg Holmes December 21, 2010 at 4:21 am re:BBC
I agree – I used to respect the BBC. Maybe I was naive. Re: climate change I now regard them as a joke at best and complicit at worst. They clearly don’t mind rocking the boat on some issues (Panorama and FIFA for example) yet “global warming/climate change/climate disruption” and the associated shenanigans of climategate and the inquiries it spawned, gets a free pass.
They should put some people of the calibre of Andrew Jennings and Clare Sambrook on the issue and see what they turn up.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2010/11_november/29/panorama.shtml
http://www.private-eye.co.uk/paul_foot.php?detail=7
The very moment when Arctic will grow and Antarctic ice will decline, the Antarctic will suddenly matter. At the end, Arctic ice just flows on the sea and Antarctic contains, well, 90% of the world ice.
Does the seemingly inverse relationship between the north and south poles’ ice extent have anything to do with the current celestial mechanics of which hemisphere is tilted toward the sun during the apsides of Earth’s orbit? -i.e. where are we positioned in the Milankovitch cycle?
Seems that the Antarctic is not getting on the AGW-trend bandwaggon. Never go against the trend if you want attention. That is my PR-agent advise to the whole Antarctic region. Get with the program or GTFO!
Luis Dias says:
“The expansion of sea ice on the southern hemisphere is consistent with AGW.”
Didn’t you get the memo, Luis? Everything is consistent with AGW. Just ask any fool.
All kidding aside, your post is hopelessly inept. But if you remove the “A” from every reference to AGW, then you will be on the right track.
Yes, the planet has been warming since the LIA. But since that was before the rise in CO2 or the invention of SUVs, CO2 can’t be the cause of the warming, can it?
Well, maybe a fraction of one percent of the warming, but that’s no reason for the red-faced, spittle flecked, wild-eyed arm waving of the alarmist contingent, who are becoming increasingly irrelevant due to their cognitive dissonance regarding the baseless “carbon” scare.
Luis Dias says:
December 21, 2010 at 5:06 am
“The expansion of sea ice on the southern hemisphere is consistent with AGW. […]”
So I guess you could walk across the ice to Antarctica during the Roman Optimum, even though those higher temperatures weren’t caused by, the ‘A’ in AGW? Maybe we’ll find an ‘Otzi the Ice Man’ in Antarctica one of these days.
Anthony,
I think Grant Foster has an obsession with you http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/12/21/its-the-trend-stupid-2/#more-3237.
Please avoid the possibility of being at the same physical location with Tamino I fear he grows more mad each day. Whatever his problem, it is neither normal nor healthy.
REPLY: Yeah he’s quite WUWT OCD sometimes. But I can see how he might get confused about what I wrote about the NCDC data files, when I read it again this morning, I made it clear what I meant. The oddity is that they have one data file the has both area and extent in it, but is labeled area. That’s what I get for writing stuff at midnight. The amazing thing about these people is that on one hand they demand perfection here, while on the other hand, hide their own imperfections and outright delete comments pointing them out.
The Ian Joliffe affair for Grant was a good example, Root units was another.
I get quite the laugh from this one from him.
– Anthony
I think the magnitudes of the changes in the arctic and antarctic (see figures posted by Anthony) might explain why NSIDC isn’t saying too much about the antarctic. Plus, we have the net melting of land ice in antartica which is far greater than any gains in sea ice.
What’d going on with the arctic sea ice in the past few days – dropping on its way up to the winter freeze? Both NSIDC and JAXA show this effect. Is it loose, slushy ice coalescing? Satellite malfunction?
@Luis:
“But I believe such feedback to be irrelevant, numerically speaking, I’ve not confirmed this.”
There are a few unconfirmed things in your post, Luis. Snow cannot create sea ice hundreds of km from shore by pushing out. It is frozen because it is colder, not warmer. The AGW arguments have become bizarre. Cold is caused by warming. Ice is caused by heat. These claims are against basic, even neolithic physics! The 15 degree below normal temperatures in Europe are not caused by heat. neither is sea ice.
Jon P,
You’re right about the obsession. Tamino is a blog stalker. He has less than one-seventh the number of comments on the same subject at this point, so he’s probably becoming unhinged due to his lame traffic. It’s tough being a third rate wannabe.
And looking at his graphs with the knowledge that the Antarctic contains 90% of the planet’s ice puts them in perspective. There is nothing worth getting alarmed about.
Not that it really matters. The fact that Antarctic ice is growing shows the foolishness of believing that CO2 could be the cause of the entirely natural Arctic ice cycle.
Re: Luis Dias says December 21, 2010 at 5:06 am
Do you have any numbers to back your opinion up? How much has the ocean around Antarctica warmed? What is the spatial and temporal evolution of this warming? How much extra moisture will have “evaporated” due to your proposed temperature rise? How much extra volume will this occupy as snow instead of liquid? How much of this snow will have settled on land/Antarctica? What time constant is involved in the transport of snow from Antarctica into sea ice? What effect does the temp. increase that you propose for the ocean have on the persistence of floating sea ice? How does this effect compare to the seasonal persistence of sea ice? How do you explain the spatial distribuition of sea ice trends in the second figure of the post? Thank you.
Models of the climate response to CO2 show much larger temperature increases in the Arctic than in the Antarctic. This is for a simple reason: there is very strong upwelling of cold water all around Antarctica. So that area’s temperatures will lag the global trend for a long time, until the ocean’s deep water warms up over a few centuries. You can see this in Fig. 6 of the IPCC AR4 summary for policy makers. There’s no such analogous upwelling in the Arctic, so temperatures there are predicted to warm rapidly. This is borne out in the observations: temperature have increased substantially over the Arctic, but temperatures around Antarctica show patches of warming and cooling. The small trend in sea ice over the Antarctic hasn’t been explained- it’s been accompanied by a positive trend in the Southern Annular Mode index (http://www.nerc-bas.ac.uk/icd/gjma/sam.html ), but its not clear what’s been driving this (one idea was ozone depletion, but a recent modeling study found such a connection unlikely: Sigmond and Fyfe, GRL, 2010). It is possible that the trend in the SAM is in fact linked to the response to CO2 forcing, but if so, it’s not something that’s been captured consistently by the models.
In short: climate models predict strong warming and strong reductions in sea ice extent in the Arctic Ocean, and a much weaker warming and a weaker reduction in sea ice in the Antarctic. The observed response is consistent with predictions in the Arctic, and with natural variability, also consistent in the Antarctic.
Luis Dias says: December 21, 2010 at 5:06 am
“The expansion of sea ice on the southern hemisphere is consistent with AGW.”
Ahh…… another warmist apologist making it up after the event!
The only predictions these people make that ever match reality are only ever past posted ones.
So Mr Crystal Ball what do you have to say about what the IPCC (the font of all bollocks) said about Antarctic ice.
This is what the IPCC said about Antarctic sea ice in 2001.
“16.2.4.2. Sea Ice in the Southern Ocean
Antarctic sea ice is not confined by land margins but is open to the Southern Ocean. Sea-ice extent contracts and expands on an annual cycle in a roughly concentric zone around Antarctica. The ultimate extent is controlled by a balance of air temperature, leads, wind direction, upper ocean structure, and pycnocline depth. Some of these parameters are controlled in the atmosphere by the relative position of the subpolar trough with respect to the sea ice. In the ocean, variations in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current are important. The extent and thickness of Antarctic sea ice are sensitive to the depth and thermal properties of overlying snow, about which relatively little is known.
A reduction in Antarctic sea ice volume of about 25-45% is predicted for a doubling of CO2, with sea ice retreating fairly evenly around the continent (Gordon and O’Farrell, 1997). This CSIRO model assumes a 1% yr-1 compounding increase of CO2, corresponding to global warming of 2.1°C. Using a similar but modified model that has a higher albedo feedback and predicted global warming of 2.8°C, Wu et al. (1999) calculate a reduction in mean sea-ice extent of nearly two degrees of latitude, corresponding to 45% of sea-ice volume. These estimates do not represent the equilibrium state, and sea ice can be expected to shrink further, even if GHGs are stabilized.”
Here is what was said by the IPCC in 2007…………
” Highlights from the IPCC Working Group I Summary for Policymakers of “Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis”
“What can we expect to happen?”…………..“Sea ice is projected to shrink in both the Arctic and Antarctic.”
You see Luis, you cannot wipe all these dire predictions from the public record.
So as a true believer please explain what is going on in this ‘settled’ science. Do you accept now that the IPCC were indeed were talking bollocks after all, or is it you, or both?
Alan
Re: Owen says December 21, 2010 at 9:10 am
“Plus, we have the net melting of land ice in antartica which is far greater than any gains in sea ice. ”
Please can you give us the numbers to support this statement? Thank you.
Luis Dias is 100% correct because everything and anything can and will and was and might and should be consistent with the AGW theory. Because it has to be because it is right to be.
It is a very inclusive and adaptable theory, very malleable and has a morphing ability that reaches new heights of scientific achievement.
Go Luis go . . you are on the right track.
I’ve been remiss at posting regular entries of this feature, and there hasn’t been much happening on the way to peak Arctic Ice this year.
Really, I guess you missed the publication of the first Cryosat data?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12025283
Not to mention the very strong transpolar drift at present, ~60km/day.
Current arctic sea ice at the ‘record low’ for the time of year according to JAXA and uni bremen.
Instead you focus on changes in the Antarctic which don’t rise above the level of noise!
I find it interesting that the (NSIDC) National Snow & Ice Data Center doesn’t find it newsworthy to mention this record high Southern Hemisphere Sea Ice Extent Anomaly in their December 6th press release:
That ‘record’ you mentioned has been wiped out already, as you showed with the current anomaly plot it’s negative! As in the last three years the Antarctic sea ice has followed the average curve very closely during the melt season, there’s really nothing interesting happening there.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.antarctic.png
REPLY: Phil. Unlike some blogs like icecap and climate depot, which have multi-columns, I have a single one. So while you might think “Really, I guess you missed the publication of the first Cryosat data?” The reality is far more linear. I tend to post a new story about every 3-5 hours (depending on que and my own availability) because that is the best format for this blog.
As you’ll note in tips and notes, that has been mentioned several times, and I’m well aware of it. It’s in the que, along with some other posts. coming up. I”d really like to see you start blaming NYT and other newspapers for not covering stories that we think are important, I’m sure in the interest of fairness, you’ll jump right on that, won’t you?. I note climateprogress.org hasn’t carried it either. Will you be posting a comment there (assuming he allows it) blaming Joe like you have me? Go ahead, make my day.
– Anthony
We should sing about melting ice caps like Tiny Tim:
This is from the late sixties, when they were worrying about another ice age. The song is much better on his “God Bless Tiny Tim” album which features an Irving Berlin song on another track. With regard to this video, the poster had the comment “I can only imagine what the kids were thinking.” Which I think is about right.
Antony, if you are going to critisise NSIDC for not showing the whole story, it looks a bit silly if you then don’t show the whole story.
After hooting about the “good news” in Antarctica you fail to draw attention to the fact that the record SH growth is only about 1/20 of the Arctic loss. Often in the past you have shown the global plot which puts things in perspective. It’s on your sea ice page but you don’t put it here.
global sea ice
What I see is, over the last ten years, a global decline of about 1 million sq km. Less good.
No axe to grind about what that means , just trying to be objective.
The good news would seem to be a net increase since the 2007 low when it was hovering around -1.5 m .
Perhaps it would make more sense to berate them for not pointing that out than ignoring a SH growth that is so small. It would be less easy for them to justify.
regards.
REPLY: I could put every graph and image from the sea ice page in a post, and someone would complain about some aspect or comparison I didn’t do. At least get my name and the spelling of “criticize” right if you want to criticize.There, see how easy it is to nitpick? 😉 – Anthony
Smokey,
«Didn’t you get the memo, Luis? Everything is consistent with AGW. Just ask any fool.
All kidding aside, your post is hopelessly inept. But if you remove the “A” from every reference to AGW, then you will be on the right track.»
It is logically consistent even with the A clued in. And the joke about “everything” being consistent with AGW is well taken and supported, but in all seriousness it is not true. For instance, the recent paper by O’Donnell showing that Antarctica isn’t warming up in a satistically significant way is slightly inconsistent with AGW. I say slightly because they still show Antarctica warming up…
«Yes, the planet has been warming since the LIA. But since that was before the rise in CO2 or the invention of SUVs, CO2 can’t be the cause of the warming, can it?»
This is a separate issue. I did not say that this was “evidence” of AGW, I said it was “consistent”. Surely you do understand the difference.
HR,
«So I guess you could walk across the ice to Antarctica during the Roman Optimum, even though those higher temperatures weren’t caused by, the ‘A’ in AGW? Maybe we’ll find an ‘Otzi the Ice Man’ in Antarctica one of these days.»
ar ar ar.
“…hasn’t been much happening on the way to peak Arctic Ice this year”.
I believe you, but the charts say there has been a reversal in the Arctic over the last couple days. I don’t believe there really is melting at these temps, but that’s what the charts say. I’m assuming data glitch, can someone in the know confirm?
And more interesting is the current state of Antarctica sea ice
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/NEWIMAGES/antarctic.seaice.color.000.png