As you may know, I have been using Cryosphere’s Antarctic Sea Ice Area data to show the record levels of Antarctic Sea Ice.
But I just found another data set, NOAA’s Sea Ice Extent here. (thanks to commenter HaroldW at the Blackboard)
And it turns out day 265 set an all time record, and then day 266 (Sept 22nd) broke that record. Days 265 through 270 are now the 6 highest Antarctic Sea Ice Extent’s of all time (in the satellite record)!
11 of the top 15 extents are now in 2012.
Anyone wonder why NOAA isn’t making a fuss about this?
| Year | Day of Year | Ice Extent |
| 2012 | 266 | 19.45418 |
| 2012 | 268 | 19.4478 |
| 2012 | 267 | 19.44631 |
| 2012 | 270 | 19.4433 |
| 2012 | 269 | 19.41601 |
| 2012 | 265 | 19.36135 |
| 2006 | 264 | 19.35934 |
| 2012 | 257 | 19.35567 |
| 2012 | 271 | 19.35207 |
| 2006 | 267 | 19.34999 |
| 2012 | 264 | 19.34204 |
| 2012 | 259 | 19.33522 |
| 2006 | 265 | 19.3289 |
| 2006 | 268 | 19.32669 |
| 2012 | 258 | 19.31503 |
joanne says:
September 30, 2012 at 12:20 pm
Watts demonstrates a clear lack of understanding of climate science. Put down the perennial sea ice stats, which come and go every year, meaning very little for the Earths cooling mechanism. The true regulation is kept in the land ice, which is shrinking at an alarming rate.
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Especially on Kilimanjaro, just like all the models predicted.
Paddy says:
September 30, 2012 at 1:52 pm
Sigh…
I doubt the writer will be doing a side-by-side comparison with the Arctic sea ice any time soon, however. For that, I’ll see these six days and raise you 30 (it’s been well over 30 days since a new record minimum Arctic extent was set, and we’re still hundreds of square km below the minimum today – see here for more http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png). And if anyone can find any way in which the Antarctic sea ice maximum even comes close to the extent of change seen in the Arctic sea ice minimum, I’ll be pretty impressed at their data fu. Whether you look at duration of the record, total extent (or area) change, relative extent (or area) change, or year-on-year trend, the Arctic change is much larger than the Antarctic.
Before I explain again WHY you are dead wrong about this falsehood that percent Arctic can be compared to percent Antarctic, percent total ice extent can be compared to percent total ice extent, or even Anarctic to Antarctic, do you understand WHERE the edges of two sea ice boundaries are?
Do you understand that the southern boundary of the Arctic Sea ice is at 81 north latitude this year? Does that mean anything to you at all?
Do you understand that the sun is only 2 to 6 degrees above the horizon all day at the sea ice up there, and rises above 8 degrees for only a few hours per day?
Can you tell what the albedo of the exposed ocean water is at 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 degrees incidence angles on rough waters?
Can you tell me what the air mass is for today’s date at that location?
When you get those answers, stop telling false comparisons between Arctic minmums and Antarctic maximums.
Under today’s conditions, melting more arctic sea ice (seeing even lower sea ice minimums) will result in even more heat loss from the Arctic oceans.
Under today’s conditions in the Anarctic, increasing sea ice extents will result in MORE heat reflected from the Antarctic Ocean, and increase net loss from the earth. The difference is the LOCATION of the Antarctic sea ice edge at maximum, and the LOCATION of the Arctic sea ice edge at minimum.
Area is only a little part of teh equations. When you look up the albedo for the Arctic conditions at 81 north, tell me the albedo and air mass for the antarctic conditions at 62 south lattiude. Hint: See NOAA air mass calculator, see the reflectivity of water at low angles.
How are we supposed to know if this is a signal of an impending ice age or not?
I don’t think I’ve read about anything that says unstoppable ice growth MUST start from the north pole.
Are we all going to die? AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
😉
See what happens when you graph AMO vs Arctic vs Antarctic:
http://sunshinehours.wordpress.com/2012/09/30/amazing-graph-of-amo-vs-arctic-sea-ice-vs-antarctic-sea-ice/
Van Grungy (@VanGrungy) says:
September 30, 2012 at 8:03 pm
How are we supposed to know if this is a signal of an impending ice age or not?
I don’t think I’ve read about anything that says unstoppable ice growth MUST start from the north pole.
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It does not.. It can start in either hemisphere. The funny thing about ice ages is they can be triggered by very minuet things.. The common thread so to speak is the development of huge polar vortexes which bring super cooled air in contact with the polar surface. Once these form it will be a long time before they are disrupted again.. Antarctica’s has been much bigger than in previous recorded years and if it continues to grow in size the indication will be clearly obvious.
Now its the northern hemispheres turn as its vortex has already began to form a month or so early. indicators seem to play well into this one also being bigger than previous recorded years. if it plays out as the southern hemisphere has we will see major ICE rebuilding this winter with cold phases of the ADO and PDO.
How many cold records were set this year in Antarctica? better still would be the average temperature for the region. how did it fall?
How are we supposed to know if this is a signal of an impending ice age or not?
It’s expected to start in the NH, because there will be a land snow accumulation positive (cooling) feedback. There’s hardly any land at the right latitudes in the SH.
But as we have never seen the start of a glacial phase, we don’t know.
David Ball says some mean things, and then asks (again) if I think its ok that Jo Nova’s site was hacked. Well, I don’t recall you asking the first time, David. But anyhow, its not ok. Just like it wasn’t ok to hack the UEA server to get those emails.
I might support hacking in a “war” scenario, but the climate hasn’t reached that point yet. For now its a case of supporting free speech (no matter how delusional it is).
@ur momisugly john brookes..no real proof that UEA’s were hacked..just yet more supposition and lack of facts as per warminsta’s wailing
http://i49.tinypic.com/35a9et4.png
Jeff D says:
September 30, 2012 at 2:29 pm
>>
I was kinda thinking there may be an interaction of the AMO perturbing the cycle but I have not a clue on how one would incorporate the possible interlink of the two cycles. Being a chaotic system we might not ever be able to tell.
>>
Here’s AMO’s effect on Arctic.
http://i46.tinypic.com/r7uets.png
It does not seem to correlate much to the cycles in NH , so probably less so in SH.
What is interesting in that graph is that AMO does seem to have been a major player in the 1997-2007 slide but despite AMO still being in the warm phase (note inverse plot) , rate of change in Arctic ice has settles back to the pattern it had in 80s and the big melt has ended.
That suggests that a new equilibrium has been reached. Which in turn suggests that the exposed sea area is having a net negative feedback, not the positive feedback suggested by models and all the talk of “tipping points”.
Here is the Tzedakis paper about the polar see-saw:
Determining the natural length of the current interglacial
P. C. Tzedakis, J. E. T. Channell, D. A. Hodell, H. F. Kleiven & L. C. Skinner
Nature Geoscience 5, 138–141 (2012) doi:10.1038/ngeo1358
Received 23 May 2011 Accepted 28 November 2011 Published online 09 January 2012 Corrected online 10 January 2012 Corrected again 29 February 2012
The timing of the hypothetical next glaciation remains unclear. Past interglacials can be used to draw analogies with the present, provided their duration is known. Here we propose that the minimum age of a glacial inception is constrained by the onset of bipolar-seesaw climate variability, which requires ice-sheets large enough to produce iceberg discharges that disrupt the ocean circulation. We identify the bipolar seesaw in ice-core and North Atlantic marine records by the appearance of a distinct phasing of interhemispheric climate and hydrographic changes and ice-rafted debris. The glacial inception during Marine Isotope sub-Stage 19c, a close analogue for the present interglacial, occurred near the summer insolation minimum, suggesting that the interglacial was not prolonged by subdued radiative forcing. Assuming that ice growth mainly responds to insolation forcing, this analogy suggests that the end of the current interglacial will occur within the next 1500 years.
Interesting to read the replies to the request for help from Curious September 29, 2012 at 6:06 pm.
As a layman wandering through the internet sites without a guide led me to a conclusion I am unable to verify. I found myself looking into the structure of the carbon dioxide molecule and marvelling at how the electrons shared the orbits between the three atoms and how the ‘internal energy’ of the molecule was changed when the electrons ‘jumped’ to higher orbital shells when specific photons were absorbed and how other specific frequency photons could be emitted when electrons ‘fell back’ to lower energy orbital shells. All this electron activity causing the three atoms in the molecule to exhibit bending, stretching and twisting motions, all part of the molecules ‘internal excitation’ state. This behaviour within the molecule seems to define very precisely which IR frequencies the molecule can absorb or emit. These frequencies are 2.7, 4.3 and 15 microns. There is much discussion on these precise frequencies but do not move far from these numbers. Wein’s Law defines the peak temperature when a ‘black body’ has a peak emission centered on these IR bands. These are 800C, 400C and -80C respectively (these numbers are rounded).
We are informed that carbon dioxide is evenly distributed in the earth’s atmosphere. This means that when the sun is shining, photons at those frequencies are being absorbed by the CO2 molecules and warming the air. This also means those absorbed photons never reach the surface to warm it by that fraction. So what difference does this make? This specific heat energy entered the atmosphere at some altitude, not from the surface. To me this seems an improvement of the cooling function of the atmosphere as a whole. Also carbon dioxide has a lower heat capacity than the air and by adding more simply lowers the heat capacity some more.
Now on the night side of the planet all IR radiation is essentially from the surface and if the surface is said to have a radiating temperature at 15C then photons in the 2.7 band are most unlikely to be emitted (800C), and photons in the 4.3 micron band (400C) are extremely limited. This leaves the 15 micron band radiating from all the earths surfaces unless they happen to be below -80C. But let us look at the CO2 molecules in the air just above the surface. At around 15C those air molecules (and CO2) are whizzing around and colliding with each other at some 400 metres per second, that is around 900 miles per hour. All these collisions, some two billion per second, are keeping the CO2 molecules in an excited state such they are EMITTING photons in the 15 micron band and are mostly unable to absorb any photons from the surface in that band.
This situation applies quite a long way up the air column such one air temperature and density are low enough for the CO2 to absorb 15 micron photons most of the photons pass straight through to space.
So my conclusion is carbon dioxide makes no difference to the normal cooling effect of the atmosphere. But the carbon dioxide, on the night side of the planet, is indeed radiating photons in the 15 micron band, cooling the air, and about half those photons will reach the surface, but those photons will not and cannot warm the surface or all the science of radiation is wrong. I don’t think so. I think the CAGW crowd are doing bad science.
Richard111 says:
October 1, 2012 at 7:12 am
Interesting to read the replies to the request for help from Curious September 29, 2012 at 6:06 pm.
As a layman wandering through the internet sites without a guide led me to a conclusion I am unable to verify. I found myself looking into the structure of the carbon dioxide molecule and marvelling at how the electrons shared the orbits between the three atoms and how the ‘internal energy’ of the molecule was changed when the electrons ‘jumped’ to higher orbital shells when specific photons were absorbed and how other specific frequency photons could be emitted when electrons ‘fell back’ to lower energy orbital shells. All this electron activity causing the three atoms in the molecule to exhibit bending, stretching and twisting motions, all part of the molecules ‘internal excitation’ state.
The different energy states are the result of different atomic motions, vibrational and rotational.
This behaviour within the molecule seems to define very precisely which IR frequencies the molecule can absorb or emit. These frequencies are 2.7, 4.3 and 15 microns. There is much discussion on these precise frequencies but do not move far from these numbers.
That’s where the three bands are centered.
Wein’s Law defines the peak temperature when a ‘black body’ has a peak emission centered on these IR bands. These are 800C, 400C and -80C respectively (these numbers are rounded).
Irrelevant, what counts is the blackbody spectra of the sun and earth respectively, very little of the solar spectrum overlaps with the 2.7 and 4.3 micron bands so their absorption is a minor contribution to atmospheric heating. The Earth’s spectrum has a high contribution at 15 microns so CO2 is a strong absorber.
We are informed that carbon dioxide is evenly distributed in the earth’s atmosphere. This means that when the sun is shining, photons at those frequencies are being absorbed by the CO2 molecules and warming the air. This also means those absorbed photons never reach the surface to warm it by that fraction. So what difference does this make? This specific heat energy entered the atmosphere at some altitude, not from the surface. To me this seems an improvement of the cooling function of the atmosphere as a whole. Also carbon dioxide has a lower heat capacity than the air and by adding more simply lowers the heat capacity some more.
Not true the molar heat capacity of CO2 is greater than N2 or O2, adding CO2 increases the heat capacity of the air.
Now on the night side of the planet all IR radiation is essentially from the surface and if the surface is said to have a radiating temperature at 15C then photons in the 2.7 band are most unlikely to be emitted (800C), and photons in the 4.3 micron band (400C) are extremely limited. This leaves the 15 micron band radiating from all the earths surfaces unless they happen to be below -80C. But let us look at the CO2 molecules in the air just above the surface. At around 15C those air molecules (and CO2) are whizzing around and colliding with each other at some 400 metres per second, that is around 900 miles per hour. All these collisions, some two billion per second, are keeping the CO2 molecules in an excited state such they are EMITTING photons in the 15 micron band and are mostly unable to absorb any photons from the surface in that band.
No, those molecules are exchanging energy via collisions with surrounding molecules, mostly N2 and O2, the mean time between collisions is order of magnitudes smaller than the lifetime of the radiational state. It is only when the CO2 molecules are much higher in the atmosphere where the collisional frequency is lower that emission of radiation becomes a major factor. Both the day and night sides of the planet are emitting in the IR. The CO2 molecules absorb very effectively in the 15 micron band.
This situation applies quite a long way up the air column such one air temperature and density are low enough for the CO2 to absorb 15 micron photons most of the photons pass straight through to space.
So my conclusion is carbon dioxide makes no difference to the normal cooling effect of the atmosphere. But the carbon dioxide, on the night side of the planet, is indeed radiating photons in the 15 micron band, cooling the air, and about half those photons will reach the surface, but those photons will not and cannot warm the surface or all the science of radiation is wrong. I don’t think so. I think the CAGW crowd are doing bad science.
No you are doing bad science, read a Phys Chem textbook.
Even Newsmax has published a story on Antarctica’s ice extent.
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Antartica-ice-global-warming/2012/09/30/id/458115?s=al&promo_code=1035A-1
John Christy has been known to point out that the poles do opposite “things.” (My word (; )
Interviewers loved hearing it so much, that they asked him the same question twice, as Gavin Schmidt waxed on freely.
“but those photons will not and cannot warm the surface or all the science of radiation is wrong.”
This sounds like Doug Cotton’s (?) persistent misunderstanding of the thermodynamics.
_Heat_ can not flow from cold to hot. IR is E-M radiation not _heat_.
What part of ” the science of radiation” do you think prevents a body from absorbing the 15um radiation?
BTW, that’s a rhetorical qu., this thread is about Antarctic sea ice extent .
>>
Assuming that ice growth mainly responds to insolation forcing, this analogy suggests that the end of the current interglacial will occur within the next 1500 years.
>>
That’s worrying close as an outer limit. At that point Gaia will burst the ugly pimple on her otherwise beautiful buttocks that is humanity and the Earth will return to being a pristine paradise.
😉
Phil. says:
October 1, 2012 at 10:12 am
Not true the molar heat capacity of CO2 is greater than N2 or O2, adding CO2 increases the heat capacity of the air.
Gases – Specific Heats and Individual Gas Constants can be found at
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/spesific-heat-capacity-gases-d_159.html
CO2 = 0.844
N2 = 1.04
O2 = 0.919
And yes, CO2 does absorb very effectively in the 15 micron band IF IT IS COLD ENOUGH.
I refer to Perry’s Chemical Engineering Handbook for my Phys Chem textbook.
Richard111 says:
October 1, 2012 at 1:44 pm
Phil. says:
October 1, 2012 at 10:12 am
“Not true the molar heat capacity of CO2 is greater than N2 or O2, adding CO2 increases the heat capacity of the air.”
Gases – Specific Heats and Individual Gas Constants can be found at
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/spesific-heat-capacity-gases-d_159.html
CO2 = 0.844
N2 = 1.04
O2 = 0.919
Check out the units, you’re quoting the values per unit mass, however per molecule you have to multiply the values by the molecular mass, 44 for CO2, 28 for N2 and 32 for O2.
And yes, CO2 does absorb very effectively in the 15 micron band IF IT IS COLD ENOUGH.
And the atmosphere is plenty cold enough to absorb all the 15 micron IR emitted from the Earth’s surface in a few meters.
I refer to Perry’s Chemical Engineering Handbook for my Phys Chem textbook.
A good source, you still need to understand what you’re looking at.
the onset of bipolar-seesaw climate variability
I believe that view derives from flawed Antarctic ice core dating. The Taylor dome cores show synchronous warming/cooling with NH cores, at least for the Holocene.
Is there enough weight in the ice to cause any change to the earths wobble and precession?
Thanks Phil and P. Solar. You are right. This thread is about ice.
Tim at 8:46 pm, I have read that mass movement during ice ages can effect the length of day (LOD).
Can’t remember where I read it.
some of you guys/girls might be interested in these results
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
any comments?
[how many times do you intend posting this Henry? . . mod]
Henry@mod
where in this blog did I post this before? It seems to me you cut my my first attempt trying to post this here, perhaps because you saw I also posted it elsewhere….?
(seeing that I did make comments on this blog, I feel entitled to inform those interested of my latest findings)
Very funny, John West. Unfortunately too true.
Reblogged this on Standard Climate.