Researchers have measured a new record for sea-ice extent in the Antarctic. Why the white splendour is extending there while it is rapidly disappearing in the Arctic is a mystery.
Antarctica: The extent of sea ice (white) reached a record on 22 September. The yellow line shows the median of 1981 to 2000. Ice shelf is shown in gray.
Whenever the ice at the North and South Pole is mentioned, it is mostly in the context of melting ice triggered by global warming. However, the sea ice in Antarctica – in contrast to that in the Arctic – has proved to be remarkably robust. New measurements have now confirmed that. As the U.S. space agency NASA announced, the sea ice in the Antarctic has extended over an area of 19.47 million square meters at the end of September. That is the highest since measurements began in 1979.
The result is based on data from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) on board of the Japanese satellite “GCOM-W1″. “The winter maximum has been a record for on the second consecutive year” said Walt Meier, a meteorologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. However, he stressed that it is by no means a rapid growth: The now measured maximum extent is only 3.6 percent above the average maximum extent of 1981 to 2010. “This year, the ice edge extends therefore only 35 kilometres further out to sea than in an average year,” Meier said.
Moreover, the mere extent of sea ice does not necessarily say something about the volume of the ice, because that also depends on the thickness of the frozen layer. And the vast majority of the Antarctic ice mass is located on the Antarctic continent – and there the ice has decreased in recent years as a whole, particularly in West Antarctica.
But why the sea ice is increasing is a mystery. Scientists suspect that a change in the air currents could explain to a great extent the increase in Antarctic sea ice in recent decades. Other speculations are that ocean currents carry cooler surface water to the Antarctic or that the melting water, which flows through massive channels in the ice, decreases the temperature of the surface sea water.
Translation by Philipp Mueller
See full article at Spiegel Online, 21 October 2013
Press Release: Arctic sea ice avoids last year’s record low; Antarctic sea ice edges out last year’s high
The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) is part of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. NSIDC scientists provide Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis content, with partial support from NASA.
This September, sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean fell to the sixth lowest extent in the satellite record, which began in 1979. All of the seven lowest extents have occurred in the last seven years, since 2007. Satellite data analyzed by NSIDC scientists showed that the sea ice cover reached its lowest extent on September 13. Sea ice extent averaged for the month of September was also the sixth lowest in the satellite record.
“A relatively cool and stormy summer helped slow ice loss compared to the last few summers,” said NSIDC scientist Julienne Stroeve. In contrast to 2012, when sea ice reached a new record low in the satellite record, cooler conditions in the Arctic this summer helped to retain more sea ice. “This summer’s extent highlights the complex interaction between natural climate variability and long-term thinning of the ice cover,” Stroeve said.
“For Earth’s ice and snow cover taken as a whole, this year has been a bit of a bright spot within a long-term sobering trend,” said NSIDC director and senior scientist Mark Serreze.
Arctic sea ice, however, continues to be thinner than in past years, as confirmed by direct satellite observations and estimates of ice age, and therefore more vulnerable to breakup by storms, circulating currents, and melt. “While Earth’s cryosphere, that is, its snow and ice cover, got a shot of hope this year, it’s likely to be only a short-term boost,” Serreze said. While most of the ice cover now consists of young, thin ice, a pack of multiyear ice remains in the central Arctic. Multiyear ice is ice that has survived more than one melt season and is thicker than first-year ice.
Arctic sea ice extent reached its lowest point this year on September 13, 2013 when sea ice extent dropped to 5.10 million square kilometers (1.97 million square miles). Averaged over the month of September, ice extent was 5.35 million square kilometers (2.07 million square miles). This places 2013 as the sixth lowest ice extent, both for the daily minimum extent and the monthly average. September ice extent was 1.17 million square kilometers (452,000 square miles) below the 1981 to 2010 average.
The Arctic ice cap grows each winter as the sun sets for several months and shrinks each summer as the sun rises higher in the northern sky. Each year the Arctic sea ice reaches its annual minimum extent in September. It hit a new record low in 2012. This summer’s low ice extent continued the downward trend seen over the last thirty-four years. Scientists attribute this trend in large part to warming temperatures caused by climate change. Since 1979, September Arctic sea ice extent has declined by 13.7 percent per decade. Summer sea ice extent is important because, among other things, it reflects sunlight, keeping the Arctic region cool and moderating global climate.
In addition to the decline in sea ice extent, a two-dimensional measure of the ice cover, the ice cover has grown thinner and less resistant to summer melt. Recent data on the age of sea ice, which scientists use to estimate the thickness of the ice cover, shows that the youngest, thinnest ice, which has survived only one or two melt seasons, now makes up the majority of the ice cover.
As the Arctic was reaching its minimum extent for the year, Antarctic sea ice was reaching record high levels, culminating in a Southern Hemisphere winter maximum extent of 19.47 million square kilometers (7.52 million square miles) on September 22. The September 2013 monthly average was also a record high, at 19.77 million square kilometers (7.63 million square miles) slightly higher than the previous record in 2012. Scientists largely attribute the increase in Antarctic sea ice extent to stronger circumpolar winds, which blow the sea ice outward, increasing extent.
In contrast to the sharp downward trend in September Arctic sea ice, Antarctic September sea ice has been increasing at 1.1 percent per decade relative to the 1981 to 2010 average. “The tiny gain in Antarctica’s ice is an interesting puzzle for scientists,” said NSIDC lead scientist Ted Scambos. “The rapid loss of ice in the Arctic should be ringing alarm bells for everyone.”
================================
more at the WUWT sea ice page
Says who? When did this happen? That’s not even remotely a correct OR possibly correct statement!
When they say “This places 2013 as the sixth lowest ice extent, both for the daily minimum extent and the monthly average,” I think they mean “annual minimum extent.” And the NSIDC graph at the top of the WUWT sea ice page shows this year’s minimum well with 2 standard deviations of observations since 1981. But I suppose saying “well with 2 standard deviations” would have conveyed a different (read “wrong”) story vs. “sixth lowest ice extent.”
Considering hysteresis the 2013 recovery in Arctic ice to just 6th lowest is remarkable. So too is the spin the so called scientists put on all this.
Oh dear. Never satisfied, are they? The figures are interesting enough but their conclusion of “alarm bells” seems strained and tragic. I wouldn’t really care but these guys are the ones getting the media attention.
Melting water decreases the temp of the seawater………….
Hmm something a bit weird about this statement,
Typo, should be sq km, not sq m
“As the U.S. space agency NASA announced, the sea ice in the Antarctic has extended over an area of 19.47 million square meters at the end of September. That is the highest since measurements began in 1979.”
“And the vast majority of the Antarctic ice mass is located on the Antarctic continent – and there the ice has decreased in recent years as a whole, particularly in West Antarctica.”
As average Antarctic temperatures have not increased since 1979 either something else must be causing this (Less precipitation? volcanic activity in West Antarctica?) or they are telling porkies.
Propoganda is when one forgets to mention that “tiny gain” is of roughly equal proportions to “rapid loss” of ice.
“Other speculations are that ocean currents carry cooler surface water to the Antarctic or that the melting water, which flows through massive channels in the ice, decreases the temperature of the surface sea water.”
This is totally expected because the warmer seawater knows to hide in the deep oceans in order to avoid monitoring.
“The rapid loss of ice in the Arctic should be ringing alarm bells for everyone.”
They can’t just regard it as an interesting observation – we’re told that we need to be fearful of what we’re seeing. These people seem unable to report soberly and objectively on anything, such is the MO of climate alarmism. Instead, all measured changes in the climate need to be seen as a sign of something ominous.
“For Earth’s ice and snow cover taken as a whole, this year has been a bit of a bright spot within a long-term sobering trend,” So more snow and ice cover is a good thing is it? Give me less snow and ice please.
Yes Peter Jones –>
C’est vrai! The very cold freshwater melting from Antarctica lies over the warm denser sea water preventing it from radiating its heat into space and thus inducing “Global Warming”. This is very special melt water from below the surface (as the surface never gets above 0 C even in the summer, average annual interior surface temperature -57 C). This is water produced from high pressures from under the glacial ice and as everyone knows, the experts (old has beens and drips under pressure) have told us that when pressure increases, temperatures go up, and even solids can flow like rivers, so rather than an “Atmospheric River”, we have “Sub-Glacial Rivers” pouring into the Antarctic, creating the Antarctic Current, cooling the surface waters and causing Catastrophic Global Warming. Voila!! C’est simplement, n’est pa?
/sarc off
“Why the white splendour is extending there while it is rapidly disappearing in the Arctic is a mystery.”
Hmm?
People suffering from the cold northern hemisphere winters we’ve had for the last 5 years or so don’t call it a “white slpendour”.
The ice is not “rapidly disappearing” in the Arctic – it is rapidly recovering.
The question could equally be asked thus: “Why the white splendour is ‘disappearing’ there (from the Arctic) while it is rapidly expanding in the Antarctic is a mystery.”
Until we have seen a 20 year phase of cooling akin to the 1977 – 1998 phase of warming, it’s really quite hard to see how arctic sea ice waxes and wanes, with what lag time etc etc.
Too much attempts at science without enough long-term, real-time experimental data right now.
Just like Peter Jones says, it is clear the heat has been somehow spirited downwards and away to the deep ocean abysses, where it cannot be measured.
So, this is the obvious reason for the exceptional extent of the Antarctic ice sheet. C’mon alarmists, you are the ones who suggested this.
Also, when I look at the Arctic ice anomaly, I cannot help but feel that a ‘bottom’ has been forming – at least, that is what a stock market technical analyst might conclude.
“The tiny gain in Antarctica’s ice is an interesting puzzle for scientists,” … “The rapid loss of ice in the Arctic should be ringing alarm bells for everyone.”
Let’s just rephrase that, shall we:
“The … gain in Antarctica’s ice” means scientists will have a difficult time fitting this fact into their Anthropogenic Thermageddon paradigm. Whereas, “The … loss of ice in the Arctic” is just the kind of decontexualized ‘fact’ we need to scare everybody witless so we can pick their wallets without them noticing.
And Charlie Brown said…
Arctic sea ice extent is low , we should be worried,
let us send many many warm student there to see it before it goes, let us send warm researchers there quickly with energy using instruments,
let us drill holes in it to check it, let us fly over it with warm engines continuously to measure and photograph
let us smash our way through it with big warm icebreaker ships and be proud we have done it
and gues what…
sea ice extent is low, we should be worried
(but only about our species stupidity to think we can affect it)
The last time I looked at Anthony’s splendid Sea Ice Page – which was yesterday, as I am used to look at it on a daily basis for the past three years already – the actual extend of antarctic sea ice not only offsets, but EXCEEDS the actual “loss” of arctic sea ice by a good margin.
So, when speaking about a dangerous melting of ice at the poles due to “global” warming, it’s high time to reassure the World that, according to this easily measurable and comprehensible scale, AGW has been pronounced dead.
I volunteer to write the respective press release.
“The rapid loss of ice in the Arctic should be ringing alarm bells for everyone.”“The rapid re-growth of ice in the Arctic should be ringing alarm bells for everyone.”
There, better, especially ringing a bell for those living further up north. This winter may not be a doozy but the ones ten years off will be, and that is nearly guaranteed unless the sixty year cycle seen in the temperature records is but a fleeting past curiosity. Upward adjustments made to the temperature records are not energy! They have no power to warm! Warning!
Some years ago, one Chick Keller explained to John Daly that the reason for the lack of warming in Antarctica wasn’t due to climate, it was due to the “unusual weather” that one gets there.
Any so called ‘scientific’ report that includes such emotional terms as ‘alarm bells’ should be withdrawn and the authors removed from post. This NASA report shows how deep the proselytizing has penetrated into government science, and it is not only in climate science that this has happened. In other news the similarly emotional ‘government advice on low fat diets demonizing fatty fast food is now having to reverse too; as it has been shown that high fat is good for you – but the scientists forgot to be scientists and became campaigners, as that is the way academia trains people in science these days. Dispassionate facts do not earn good grades or tenure whereas cherry-picking confirmation biased alarmism gets far better press and grants.
wayne said @ October 23, 2013 at 12:33 am
Speak for yourself! I’m more worried about Antarctica; it’s a lot closer to Tasmania than the North pole.
It’s called asymmetric cooling! Or you could say the cooling is poles apart!
Record sea ice in the Antarctic. Rapid sea ice recovery, in the Arctic. The warmist scientists should start looking for a way out. The proxy records shows there is cyclic warming and cooling of both hemispheres and which matches the pattern of warming that was observed in the last 100 years. The past warming and cooling cycles were not caused by CO2 changes. The past cyclic warming and cooling phases of both hemispheres and the entire recent warming period all correlate with changes in C14. C14 changes are caused by changes to the solar heliosphere which in turn are caused by different changes to the solar magnetic cycle. It is interesting that Svensmark has estimated that 75% of the warming in the last 100 years was due to solar magnetic cycle modulation of planetary cloud cover. Svensmark’s assertion that 75% of the warming in the last 100 years was caused by solar magnetic cycle changes is support by Shiva in this peer reviewed paper.
http://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/uploads/media/Shaviv.pdf “On climate response to changes in the cosmic ray flux and radiative budget”
The past cyclic warming phases were all followed by a cooling phase. The past cooling phases correlate with Maunder like minimums and record cloud forming cosmic ray flux. The solar magnetic cycle has abruptly slowed down which has resulted in record high cosmic ray flux which causes cloud forming ions. The past solar magnetic cycle minimums have lasted from 50 to 100 years. http://www.solen.info/solar/images/comparison_recent_cycles.png
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/davis-and-taylor-wuwt-submission.pdf
Davis and Taylor: “Does the current global warming signal reflect a natural cycle” …We found 342 natural warming events (NWEs) corresponding to this definition, distributed over the past 250,000 years …. …. The 342 NWEs contained in the Vostok ice core record are divided into low-rate warming events (LRWEs; < 0.74oC/century) and high rate warming events (HRWEs; ≥ 0.74oC /century) (Figure). … ….The current global warming signal is therefore the slowest and among the smallest in comparison with all HRWEs in the Vostok record, although the current warming signal could in the coming decades yet reach the level of past HRWEs for some parameters. The figure shows the most recent 16 HRWEs in the Vostok ice core data during the Holocene, interspersed with a number of LRWEs. …. ….We were delighted to see the paper published in Nature magazine online (August 22, 2012 issue) reporting past climate warming events in the Antarctic similar in amplitude and warming rate to the present global warming signal. The paper, entitled "Recent Antarctic Peninsula warming relative to Holocene climate and ice – shelf history" and authored by Robert Mulvaney and colleagues of the British Antarctic Survey ( Nature , 2012, doi:10.1038/nature11391),reports two recent natural warming cycles, one around 1500 AD and another around 400 AD, measured from isotope (deuterium) concentrations in ice cores bored adjacent to recent breaks in the ice shelf in northeast Antarctica. ….
Greenland ice temperature, last 11,000 years determined from ice core analysis, Richard Alley’s paper. William: As this paper shows the Greenland Ice data shows that have been 9 warming and cooling periods in the last 11,000 years.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif
in the first IPCC report they had a graph showing low arctic sea ice area in the early seventies…this was missing from subsequent reports as it did not fit the alarmist narrative…there are anecdotal reports of low arctic sea ice area in the 1920’s and 1930’s…antarctic sea ice area was lower in the early eighties…all just normal fluctuations.
To the best of my knowledge there has been no decrease in the ice on the continental land mass of Antarctica. To the contrary, every study I have seen recently shows an Antarctic ice mass increasing.
You either have “global” ice melting or not at all – you can’t have it both ways. The Arctic ice is recovering and the Antarctic is growing – it says so directly in this article. Where’s the “global” warming if the Antarctic ice is growing? There is no escape from both these statements. They ask “why” because they are claiming “global” warming. The Antarctic is calling them a liar as is the Arctic. Nature speaks – she ain’t following the IPCC scrip, or the MSM scrip, or Obama’s scrip.
Typo – should be script each time.
In answer to why the Arctic is not expanding as rapidly as the Antarctica a Dr Johnson in a non-peer writing about the affects of the Med Sea on the warming and cooling of the Earth pointed out the Antarctica is the feeder to the Arctic in terms of colder water.
Thus we must watch the Antarctica to know what will happen to the Arctic via the Atlantic Ocean Conveyor Belt of warm a cold waters
Sincerely
Paul Pierett
I guess it was fairly obvious from the text, but you could have warned us up front that the first excerpt was from Der Spiegel!
In all excerpts, the spin is ferocious, making them hard to read over the noise of the BS-Buzzer.
As at the 18th October, extent is still running at 998,000 sq km above normal.
With the Arctic ice running at 728,000sq km below normal, this means that global sea ice is 270,000 sq km above the 1981-2010 norm.
Walt Meier and Mark Serreze. Hmm. It seems to me those two stepped from the plane without a parachute long ago. I’m surprised they haven’t come down to earth yet. However the bigger they are the harder they fall. (Splat.)
Serreze’s way of describing cold as a good thing shows he has no idea where our food comes from. The farmers of South Dakota might beg to differ with his outlook, with as many as 100,000 of their cows killed by the freak blizzard in early October.
I think that blizzard deserves another post, now that we know how huge the loss of cattle was. What strikes me as strange is that the cold air that caused the early snows seemingly developed south of the Pole. It was “home grown” cold, in a manner of speaking. I find it a little unnerving that such cold can develop in early October, without an arctic outbreak providing direct transport from the north. It does not suggest “our planet has a fever” at all.
As average Antarctic temperatures have not increased since 1979 either something else must be causing this (Less precipitation? volcanic activity in West Antarctica?) or they are telling porkies
Or there’s been an increase in sunlight sublimation and a decrease in snowfall.
Arctic sea ice extent reached its lowest point this year on September 13, 2013 when sea ice extent dropped to 5.10 million square kilometers (1.97 million square miles).This places 2013 as the sixth lowest ice extent, both for the daily minimum extent and the monthly average.
This statement is incorrect.
This year’s minimum was 5.079 million sq km, and was the highest since 2006, making it the 7th lowest, not 6th.
2009 was the next highest at 5.054.
For some reason, NSIDC seem reluctant to mention that this fact.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/arctic-ice-minimum-highest-since-2006/
Looks as if the Arctic is heading in the same direction.
Press release typo:
Sept Antarctic ice average area 10.77 million sq km, peak extent 19.47 million.
Does anyone read these before they go out?
Typo; 19.77 million sq km average area. Guess I don’t read comments either 😉
Walt Meier used to be a valuable and respected contributor to this blog, both in comments and with an occasional blog post. Since he has been designated the official spokesperson on sea ice matters and now has to give the official company line with it’s attendant dichotomy of explanations in respect of North and South polar ice, it seems that he too has sold his soul.
…But why the sea ice is increasing is a mystery. …
No it’s not a mystery at all. It’s GLOBAL WARMING! Everything unusual that happens in the climate is global warming. That science was settled long ago.
Of course, the precise mechanism is a mystery, for which we require large funds to research the problem. It may be that carbon dioxide has driven lots of steam up into the stratosphere and interfered with the ozone layer, letting all the heat escape through the hole. A few trillion should let us start examining this possibility. But whatever is causing the extra ice, it must be driven by GLOBAL WARMING….
Presumably when they talk about records, they are only talking about ‘since records began in 1979’ In which case, they should always stste this when talking records. I’m sure the ‘records’ are of little significants in the longer time scale.
Interesting press release. Many numbers, but no mention of 2012 Arctic minimum number or the difference between the 2012 and 2013 numbers. I wonder why.
I think Walt Meier just took a new position at Nasa Goddard Space Flight Centre (Cryospheric Sciences Laboratory) and this release was probably Walt’s last task at the NSIDC.
Walt Meier has been a very positive influence for this website, answering questions many times and even submitting some articles. I’m also assuming he has been working behind the scenes to improve processes for the release of data from the NSIDC which has improved by an order of magnitude in the last few years. Thanks Walt.
“…Southern Hemisphere winter maximum extent of 19.47 million square kilometers (7.52 million square miles) on September 22. The September 2013 monthly average was also a record high, at 19.77 million square kilometers (7.63 million square miles)…”
Is this some kind of new death spiral where the average is higher than the maximum?
Weird science…
Regarding the record Antarctic sea ice area, there are only three possible explanations for the increase:
– the ocean surface temperature has fallen [simple enough and I think we can chalk this up as 100% true since that is what the data shows – air temps, however were well-below normal from May to July this year but have gone up in the last few months so probably more of an ocean temp influence than an air/troposphere one];
– the ocean has developed less salinity as more fresh water (precip, or ice-melt) has entered the ocean surface and less salty water freezes at higher temperature [100% wrong, the ocean around Antarctica is more than salty enough to keep the ocean-freeze temperature at -1.9C to -2.0C; it would need to decline by quite a bit to raise the ocean-freeze temperature; precip data shows there is no change or even a slight decline in precip in the Antarctic sea ice area – ice-melt in Antarctic winter? come on];
– weather synoptics has spread the ice around and out, allowing more open water to freeze and the extent to expand [potentially true and this is a very important process in the Arctic basin for example – but we need to see better evidence for this and not just hand-waving – it needs to have changed from its normal very stormy, very windy conditions to something even stronger].
It might have something to do with the thermal bipolar seesaw and AMO, but I haven’t had a close look.
What a pathetic press release. Antarctic sea ice sets a record high and it’s mentioned only in the last two paragraphs of a nine-paragraph press release?! It isn’t even mentioned in the lead!? What scaremongers! Their bias couldn’t be more obvious.
“A relatively cool and stormy summer helped slow ice loss compared to the last few summers,” said NSIDC scientist Julienne Stroeve. In contrast to 2012, when sea ice reached a new record low in the satellite record, cooler conditions in the Arctic this summer helped to retain more sea ice.
Right. “Relatively cool” my ass. Wasn’t below average all summer? No mention of the storm that broke up Arctic ice and sped up ice loss in 2012, either. Stroeve drank the Kool-Aid or her snout is deep in the global warming trough.
“The tiny gain in Antarctica’s ice is an interesting puzzle for scientists,” said NSIDC lead scientist Ted Scambos. “The rapid loss of ice in the Arctic should be ringing alarm bells for everyone.”
Isn’t this the purest manifestation of confirmation bias you have ever read?
I think for the moment the total result of the circulation systems on Earth ventilates more energy to the Arctic than to the Antarctic?
Melting ice absorbs CO2, freezing water expels it – deal with it.
“Arctic sea ice avoids last year’s record low; Antarctic sea ice edges out last year’s high”
Hmm…
almost 80% or so of the press release discussed 1/2 of the title (Arctic sea ice), while only about 10% of the press release discusses the other half (Antartic sea ice).
Even though they are reluctant to make an issue out of it, even the title somewhat implies that overall there has been increased ice.
That, along with many of the items mentioned by other poster’s above, makes me wonder if this is a scientific press release or an activist press release. I’m going with the latter.
Who writes this stuff? Who taught them to contort the language this (almost without deviation, negative) way? Are there special courses now available for research scientists and for PR flacks who write for them to teach this art? Are those who receive federal grants required to take these courses and to demonstrate competence to write this way before the checks are mailed?
This type of posting feeds into the AGW propaganda. The facts are that Arctic sea ice extent for the WHOLE of this year is within normal range 2SD its not “melting less” as NSDC like to emphize and of course avoid putting up and ice graph on their main page.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php.
Antarctica ice extent has now been above anomaly consistently for 3 years. This is becoming highly significant.( P,< 0.001) LOL I really have no time for these so called "scientists"
only 3.6 percent above the average …………….. only 35 kilometres further out to sea
===
File this away for later…..and while you’re reminding him, no one predicted this
use his own words against him when it goes the other way……rub his face in it
“but Walt, it’s only………….”
Huge increase in five year old ice…….that they now call four year old ice
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/10/23/what-nsidc-is-hiding/
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/10/23/nsidcs-nature-trick-hiding-the-massive-incline/
“The tiny gain in Antarctica’s ice is an interesting puzzle for scientists,” … “The rapid loss of ice in the Arctic should be ringing alarm bells for everyone.”
Translation:
Ice goes up, we have no clue why or how that would happen. Ice goes down and we are 100% certain and know exactly why and no one should even think about questioning us about it.
I crunched some numbers to see if glacial melt could influence the Antarctic sea ice area (increased freshwater from ice-melt lowering the freeze temperature). The answer is “nope”.
IPCC AR5 is pretty scant on Antarctica in this go-around.
They cite as Shepard 2012 as the best estimate of Antarctic ice-sheet melt/loss. [This study was more of a consensus of many different researchers and methods – and used a new model for glacial isostatic rebound which is key to improving the estimates from the GRACE satellite – this new more accurate model using GPS receivers resulted in a lowering of the ice mass loss on Antarctica. This hasn’t been done for Greenland yet so improved numbers are probably being worked on by someone for Greenland.]
Shepard 2012 has the ice mass loss on Antarctica at -71 GTs/year +/- 61 GTs/yr (-48 GTs/yr 1993-2000, -87 GTs/yr 2000-2011). 1.0 GT is 1.0 cubic km (1.0 km^3). These numbers are about 0.0003% of Antarctica’s glacial volume.
http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~lenae101/pubs/Shepherd2012.pdf
If 71 km3 were spread out across the ocean around Antarctica 0.5 metres high, (or lets say to raise the freezing rate from -2.0C to -0.5C or so and it didn’t mix with all those million of tons of salty water below very quickly, as in it took 6 months since it melted in Antarctic summer not in the winter, which is completely impossible), it would cover 142,000 km^2 or 0.95% of the current Antarctic sea ice area.
Therefore, glacial melt has no real influence whatsoever.
The heading of the press release says everything we need to know about the policy and politics of NASA:
“Arctic sea ice avoids last year’s record low;
Antarctic sea ice edges out last year’s high”
The only record clearly mentioned is last year’s record in Arctic extent. And no mention of quite a dramatic 60% increase over last year. No, 2013 “avoids” last years record, as if it was by a slight margin.
Instead of mentioning this years all-time record in Antarctica directly, they bend it to “edging out” last year’s high!?
It seems the only records they want to talk about is record loss of ice, not record growth.
techgm says:
October 23, 2013 at 5:01 am
“Who writes this stuff?”
I totally agree. The press release is warmist garbage…
“Press Release: Arctic sea ice avoids last year’s record low; Antarctic sea ice edges out last year’s high”
“Arctic sea ice avoids…” ??? This title is supposed to convey the impression that the sea ice extent in September SHOULD have been another record low but somehow that crafty sea ice AVOIDED it! [LMFAO]
“…Antarctic sea ice edges out last year’s high”
What?? And not mention that it’s a RECORD HIGH??? [again LMFAO]
These people are using the very same tactics that our left-wing press in the U.S. uses to shade the news and mislead the lay public.
In looking at NSIDC’s sea ice charts I notice that since it bottomed out the Arctic has gone from approx 5 m KM to 8 m KM while Anarctica has gone from approx 19.5 m KM to 19 m KM since it reached it’s peak. That’s 60% gain for the Arctic and a 2.5% loss for Anarctica.
That’s a huge difference. A rapid recovery vs and very slow loss. I suppose they don’t dare say anything like that.
The tortured wording of these announcements that turn “huge one-year Arctic rebound” into “seventh lowest reading since….” is both transparent and shameless. Could their disappointment in not seeing what they WISHED to see be any more on display?
wayne says: October 23, 2013 at 12:33 am
“The rapid loss of ice in the Arctic should be ringing alarm bells for everyone.”
“The rapid re-growth of ice in the Arctic should be ringing alarm bells for everyone.”
*******
Agreed Wayne.
I wrote this to a friend in the UK yesterday:
der Spiegel is wrong in the following sentence:
“That is the highest since measurements began in 1979. Why the white splendour is extending there while it is rapidly disappearing in the Arctic is a mystery.”
Not true re Arctic ice this year. Compare Year 2013 in blue vs 2012 in dashed black (Figure below).
2013 Arctic Ice Extent is much greater than 2012, and 2013 Ice is well within the +/- 2 std. deviations of the 1981-2010 Average, and is close to +/- 1 std. deviation thereof.
Ice Extent is growing rapidly in both the Arctic and Antarctic.
Bundle up!
Best, Allan
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/
George Lawson says:
October 23, 2013 at 2:56 am
“Presumably when they talk about records, they are only talking about ‘since records began in 1979′ In which case, they should always stste this when talking records. I’m sure the ‘records’ are of little significants in the longer time scale.”
Agreed. If we are going to bitch and moan about the supposed “all time” record high temps since 1979 we have to be consistent and apply the same caveat to other records.. No one knows what the ice extent at either pole was 2000 years ago. Today’s ice coverage should be noted but no one should get too excited as conditions can and do change all the time.
Record ice afloat in hogwash. Speaking for all planet protectors everywhere, it’s a good thing all this ice is at the South Pole. Otherwise, Earth would tip over.
“Arctic sea ice, however, continues to be thinner than in past years, as confirmed by direct satellite observations”
A satellite is a direct observation of ice thickness! How would they describe someone actually measuring the thickness with an auger and a tape measure?
***
Caleb says:
October 23, 2013 at 2:07 am
What strikes me as strange is that the cold air that caused the early snows seemingly developed south of the Pole. It was “home grown” cold, in a manner of speaking.
***
Couple yrs ago (2007?) in autumn when there was still open water to the north of Alaska, -20F to -30F air was forming in NW Canada and blowing NW into northern Alaska, giving Barrow -20F temps while open water was still right there. After a day or two of that, the immediate coast at Barrow was quickly frozen over. The frigid air there was coming from the land to the southeast!
GRACE…isn’t that the satellite experiment that also showed areas of massive mass loss in the middle of some oceans, as if there were big holes developing in the water? It seems a stretch to confidently claim that Antarctica is losing ice mass when we are talking about 0.0003% of the total as measured with highly unreliable methods.
It is also very amusing to watch the spin dance in these press releases. In kilometers, the Antarctic ice gain is close to Arctic ice loss, but as a percentage of total ice in each area, the Arctic loss looks huge compared to the Antarctic gain, so that is how it is presented, to give the illusion of a global warming crisis. It is similar to predicting starvation when a small farm has a 50% reduction in yield, and a farm 10 times bigger has only a 5% increase in yield. The total amount of food is the same, but one can try and spin it as a disaster by using percentages.
I’m shocked that on the most well read science and climate change website in the world not one commenter has been able to figure out what’s going on with this growth in Arctic ice extent.
I mean, it should be easy and obvious to see. C’mon, clearly the planet Earth is top heavy and the ice extent is growing at the bottom of the planet, the Arctic, to prevent it from tipping over.
Of course one would have to wonder what caused the Earth to be top heavy in the first place. I suspect it’s a secret US naval base. For clarification, assuming of course that the current US government still sees fit to respond to FOIA inquiries, we could ask a certain US congressional rep:
http://m.cbsnews.com/blogsstorysynopsis.rbml?feed_id=71&catid=20001567&videofeed=null
‘Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) is raising some eyebrows with a comment he made about the U.S. territory of Guam during a House Armed Services Committee hearing…
‘…regarding a planned military buildup on the Pacific island, Johnson expressed some concerns about the plans to Adm. Robert Willard, head of the U.S. Pacific fleet.
‘”My fear is that the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize,” Johnson said. Willard paused and replied, “We don’t anticipate that.”‘
Now, let us not forget that this level of intellectualism sets US policy.
Bravo, environmental science!
Re: “…Southern Hemisphere winter maximum extent of 19.47 million square kilometers (7.52 million square miles) on September 22. The September 2013 monthly average was also a record high, at 19.77 million square kilometers (7.63 million square miles)…”
It’s possible if the ice continued to grow in the Spring, which started Sept 23rd or so.
It’s a disaster–penguins are going to have a lot farther to go.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_of_the_Penguins
Sorry, I keep screwing up Arctic and Antarctic. Well, at least I’m not a congressional rep.
I guess I must be the only person on this earth that views increasing polar ice as “bad news”. Warming should be regarded as the failsafe direction for climate change. Cooling should be regarded as the dangerous direction. I suppose… I am just too confused to know what is up with that. GK
As global warming accelerates to the level predicted by the IPCC we are in real danger that in 5-10 thousand years there will be no ice. We need to start stockpiling now. A Strategic Ice Reserve (SIR), deep underground in abandoned salt mines to guard against the day when we will surely run out.
Combined with Carbon Capture technology, SIR could be infused with high pressure CO2, so that cubes would preserve the fizz in drinks after a hard day on the beach fighting global warming.
“Other speculations are that ocean currents carry cooler surface water to the Antarctic or that the melting water, which flows through massive channels in the ice, decreases the temperature of the surface sea water.”
A good part of the Antarctica coast extends out to the Antarctic Circle while 75% of the Greenland coast is within the Arctic Circle. So with all the recent hyped increases of cold melt water flowing from Greenland into the sea shouldn’t at least Baffin Bay also see increases in winter ice cover and ice volume, or does northern melt water react differently?
climatebeagle says:
October 23, 2013 at 6:25 am
“Arctic sea ice, however, continues to be thinner than in past years, as confirmed by direct satellite observations”
A satellite is a direct observation of ice thickness! How would they describe someone actually measuring the thickness with an auger and a tape measure?
(Bold mine)
Well, perhaps what the satellites observed was a guy with an auger and a tape measure.
Dunno
🙂
el gordo says:
October 23, 2013 at 4:11 am
It might have something to do with the thermal bipolar seesaw
==============
The Polar Seesaw is natural.
Any naturally caused climate change is not a change in climate, because it has been happening naturally for years, so nothing has changed. Only human caused climate change is a real change, because humans have changed the change that nature would have otherwise made.
The NSIDC press release is wrong about a few things.
“As the Arctic was reaching its minimum extent for the year, Antarctic sea ice was reaching record high levels, culminating in a Southern Hemisphere winter maximum extent of 19.47 million square kilometers (7.52 million square miles) on September 22. “
Wrong. The 2012 record was 19.47 million sq km on September 22, 2012. The 2013 record was 19.51234 million and was set on September 14th. Then the record was broken again with 19.51394 million sq km on September 21, 2013. Then the record was broken again on October 2nd with 19.57088 million sq km.
“The September 2013 monthly average was also a record high, at 19.77 million square kilometers (7.63 million square miles) slightly higher than the previous record in 2012.“
Wrong. The September 2013 monthly average was 19.35 million sq km which was 100,000 sq km higher than the September 2012 average of 19.25 million sq km. “
http://sunshinehours.wordpress.com/2013/10/17/nsidc-and-antarctica/
I beg to differ about an Arctic ice cap keeping the Arctic cooler. Not true. A large ice cap insulates Arctic waters, preventing normal and important oceanic cooling of equatorial waters carried there from lower latitudes. Our polar ends are THE place for rapid oceanic cooling. Were they to be permanently capped year round with large expanses of ice, we would be in real trouble.
So here is a better read:
The extensive oceanic equatorial short wave infrared heating that took place during long periods of La Nina conditions in the recent past has thankfully been dissipated out to space at our polar ends, particularly through the Arctic polar end. The warmer temperature has kept the insulating ice at bay while the warm waters release their heat. We appear to be rising out of that important oscillatory step in due course, and will be returning to colder global land temperatures. So button up folks.
George Lawson says:
October 23, 2013 at 2:56 am
I’m sure the ‘records’ are of little significants in the longer time scale.
==========
Sit on the beach and watch the waves. Record their height. The longer you watch, the greater the wave height you will eventually see. Thus, the waves are getting higher over time. They are changing. You are witnessing global climate change in action, causing the waves to get higher.
Repeat this same study with any time series. You will see records being broken the longer you watch. Temperatures, rainfall, ice, land-speed records, stock markets, prices, you name it. The longer you watch, the more likely you are to see new records. This is proof positive that humans are changing the climate.
The beauty of time series is that it doesn’t matter what you study. The longer you watch, the more records you will see, proving that change is happening. But, to make sure folks don’t catch on, best to only study things that are connected with nature, so you can claim that this is proof that humans are causing climate change.
I too have noticed that gray papers have been replaced with “consensus” in AR5 (…and guess who made that an acceptable thing to do? The ENSO prediction panel of scientists.) So what did happen to the issue related to gray papers not being included in AR5? Nothing. It just changed its shape.
Why the switch to a linear measurement: “only 35 kilometres further out to sea”?
That’s just because the Antarctic is huge, a coast line of 17,968km, and with the gain I calculate the 35km has to be across 19,330km. It does appear to be an attempt to minimize the gain.
I get it now, melting causes freezing.
Much like warming causes cooling.
Or how worry causes grants.
Just look now at the Antarctic sea-ice extent, it goes to 55° south. Now just imagine if the Arctic ice extent were the same, then you could have solid ice from Labrador, Canada to Scotland!
So in the spirit of Soviet misinformation tactics and airbrushing, it it not just a matter of hiding the ocean warmth out of sight in a poorly monitored location like deep ocean depths but also hide the ice as in a depth issue in place of commonly monitored aerial extent measurements. Thus more is less for ice and less monitored is good for oceans and lack of transparency overall is good for UHI surface temps. Someone needs to anticipate this with a list of other poorly monitored systems such as speed of the Gulf Stream at various locations or ocean acidity in the deep trenches.
Why is only the Antarctic ice an “an interesting puzzle for scientists”?
Given their predictions(*) for the minimum, they are clearly also puzzled by the Arctic ice.
NSDIC predicted 4.2km² (3.4-5.0) (± 20%)
Met Office predicted 3.4km² ± 1.5 (± 44% and still nowhere near)
(*) http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/11/sea-ice-news-volume-4-3-2013-sea-ice-forecast-contest/
Klaas de Waal says:
October 23, 2013 at 2:07 am
I think that blizzard deserves another post, now that we know how huge the loss of cattle was.
I agree, particularly since it got so little mainstream coverage in the first place. I guess “Thousands of cattle die in unexpected early blizzard” wasn’t a headline that fit the narrative, nor was any followup warranted by mainstream “reporters.”
(I could be being inaccurate here, however, as I’ve chosen to omit CBS/NBC/ABC/MSNBC/CNN “news reports” from my day.) Perhaps they were on it like fleas on a dog?
Sooooo after the record minimum of September 2012 what happened? Growth! You see, the open ocean sucks up the sun’s heat making the following years ice extent less and more. These people really are the master of spin doctorism.
Apparently, stronger winds cause by global warming are causing the increase in Antarctic sea ice increasing in extent. This is what the warmists are accepting as the solution to the puzzle:
http://www.washington.edu/news/2013/09/17/stronger-winds-explain-puzzling-growth-of-sea-ice-in-antarctica/
There are no cute polar bears in the Antarctic so it can safely be ignored by the green eco loonies. Nothing exists unless cute animals can be used as a sign that a landscape is in distress.
G. Karst says: October 23, 2013 at 6:48 am
I guess I must be the only person on this earth that views increasing polar ice as “bad news”. Warming should be regarded as the failsafe direction for climate change. Cooling should be regarded as the dangerous direction. I suppose… I am just too confused to know what is up with that. GK
**********
You are not the only one GK. Several informed parties have pointed out that cold kills many more people than warmth. I wrote this to some friends early this morning:
[excerpt]
Excess winter mortality is still a significant problem in the UK, in that it is reportedly significantly higher than some other Northern countries. The data is kept separately for England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Excess Winter Mortality in the UK now typically totals about 30,000 souls per year, of which 2000-3000 are in Scotland. This tragic statistic has dropped from about 60,000 per year in the UK in the 1950’s, so there has definitely been some progress. I want to understand why.
My concern is humanitarian, but extends beyond the attached information.
The UK has severely damaged its energy systems through the foolish adoption of grid-connected wind and solar power, in an ill-advised over-reaction to global warming hysteria. We warned against this foolishness in articles published in 2002*.
It now appears that Earth is heading into a global cooling period in the next few years, and winters will be getting more severe. I (we) predicted this imminent global cooling cycle in an article I wrote in the Calgary Herald in 2002**. I hope I am wrong, but natural global cooling by 2020 or sooner is looking more and more probable. There has been no net global warming since about 1997 and slight cooling in recent years.
Meanwhile, most UK politicians are still obsessing over global warming and still promoting ineffective green energy schemes, placing their populations, particularly the elderly, at greater and greater risk.
[end of excerpt – the original document contains references, etc and notes the increase in Sea Ice Extent in both the Arctic and the Antarctic.]
Regards, Allan
“While Earth’s cryosphere, that is, its snow and ice cover, got a shot of hope this year, it’s likely to be only a short-term boost,” Serreze said.
For ice-melt enthusiasts like “arctic death spiral” Serreze of course, this years’ increase is depressing, not hopeful. They are two-faced with regard to melting, needing declining ice to help their Alarmist careers.
Well it ain’t ‘decreasing’ due to warm air temperature. Now, are these people making stuff up or are they making stuff up? It’s all so confusing I’m going to need therapy.
Almost a year ago we had this story on WUWT:
Is snowfall a thing of the past in East Antarctica? Is it a bad sign?
It’s worse than we thought!
Maybe we should all take a break and leave Antarctica alone until something worth reporting happens. Calamastrologists are running round in circles, screaming in high pitch that the sky is falling.
I think they are trying the same thing with Greenland. What a pack of jokers.
Antarctic sea ice is better climate indicator. Arctic sea has too many confounding factors http://landscapesandcycles.net/antarctic-sea-ice–climate-change-indicator.html
JimS says: “Apparently, stronger winds cause by global warming are causing the increase in Antarctic sea ice increasing in extent.”
Indeed we should expect a rash of ” climate epicycles” to explain away contradictions and preserve their theory. As the Antarctic Oscillation went positive the strength of the westerlies increased, but the southern oscillation usually parallels the PDO with some lag time, so we can expect those westerly winds to wane
The paper blaming the winds for growing ice is simply modeled results where the modelers’ bias can determine reality, but when compared to observations the winds created more interesting effects. That paper suggested “The polar vortex that swirls around the South Pole is not just stronger than it was when satellite records began in the 1970s, it has more convergence, meaning it shoves the sea ice together to cause ridging. Stronger winds also drive ice faster, which leads to still more deformation and ridging. This creates thicker, longer-lasting ice, while exposing surrounding water and thin ice to the blistering cold winds that cause more ice growth”
The continental winds blow ice equator ward and without the constraints of surrounding continents thick ice from ridging does not develop as it does in the Arctic. Due to the coriolis effect the ice swirls from east to west around the continent and only on the eastern side if the peninsula is that motion blocked. Ice remains thick on that side and that’s why it is 10 degrees cooler on the east side of the peninsula relative to the west side. The increased westerlies actually opposed that motion and the ridging in the Weddell Sea but there sea ice is now increasing.
Increased ridging from those westerlies was almost completely limited to the seas on western peninsula. There the westerlies opposed the continental winds that push the ice equatorward. The result was sea ice along the peninsula was inhibited from expanding in the fall and retreated more quickly n the spring. Strong westerly events compressed the ice against the shore and explains why only in the region Adelie penguins were declining. Unlike the Emperors, the Adelie Penguins avoid thick ice, and the compressed ice caused the largest Adelie breeding failure ever observed. By compressing the ice, it also made the western peninsula region appear to be the lone exception where sea ice was retreating. So Al Gore has posted that global warming is killing Adelie Penguins and shrinking ice.
Those increased westerlies also cause the winds to flow up and over the peninsula instead of around. That has caused more foehn storms such as happened when the Larsen Ice Shelf collapsed. The adiabatically heated air caused those melt ponds and have also been causing rapidly melting glaciers at the peninsula’s tip.
The alarmist have portrayed the effect of the winds completely backwards in order to preserve the primacy of global warming. Its Orwellian double speak. It was a change in the direction of subfreezing winds that pushed Arctic ice out into the Atlantic and caused the loss of Arctic ice, yet they try to suggest the winds are causing more Antarctic ice.
This is the 3rd record high extent since 2007, correct?
Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets both reflect large amounts of solar radiation back into space and regulate the flow of ocean currents http://climal.com/climate-change-facts.php
Like several other commenters, I question the absolutist statement that Antarctic ice mass is decreasing overall. I think this statement is a gross error or an outright lie by the Der Spiegel author. It appears that there IS some warming in the West Antarctic penisula, but that’s a long narrow land mass surrounded by relatively warm ocean, and so is makes for a much more volatile store for land-based ice and core for growing sea ice. Furthermore, the mass of ice in the West Antarctic penisula is insignificant when compared to the masses of the East and West Antarctic ice sheets, which constitute ~90% of the world’s cyrosphere.
Recently, a large calving event on the floating tail of the Pine Island glacier has amped up alarmism over Antarctic ice melt. But ice loss from the floating calving edge of the glacier does NOT constitute evidence of long-term land-based ice loss. If it happens more often, it may even indicate the opposite, that land based ice is growing, speeding the outflow. Calving is also subject to many other variables, some climate related, some weather related, and some geological. In the case of the Pine Island glacier, underwater volcanic events might fully explain the calving event in question, which probably isn’t even extraofdinary for that glacier. So, no need to run for your lives, just yet.
Sunshine1 posted some figures which directly contradict those
in the press release … Can these be verified in some way ?
( Or did I miss the reference )
Oh these pesky glaciers. When will they stop their dreadful behaviour? They have been at this nonsense since the mid 19th century. It’s still our fault no matter how you swing this cat. We must act then! Oh, we must act now!
We were well below the ‘safe’ level of co2 of 350ppm. Tell me how reducing our co2 levels to 350ppm will stop this process?
Does sea ice form with the temperature at minus 20 C when there is little wind and wave? When sea ice concentration drops below 15% or 30% concentration has the ice really melted? When the sea ice piles up 5 meters thick because of the wind and causes the sea ice numbers to drop, has it really melted ? When it rains on sea ice, how deep does the rain water have to be before the algorithms tell us it is ice free?
We should be concerned about the increase in Antarctic sea ice as it represents the increase in the Antarctic circumpolar current of the Southern Ocean and associated westerly wind. This current is by far the strongest in the world and the only one that connects to all ocean basins. The increase speed of the current brings cold water to the surface through a mechanism called ekman pumping. It is sending cold water up the west coast of South America and West Africa and will eventually effect the AMOC which will then result in a decline in the AMO index and then the little ice age will return.
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom_new.gif
**This summer’s low ice extent continued the downward trend seen over the last thirty-four years. Scientists attribute this trend in large part to warming temperatures caused by climate change.**
This is an outright lie. How can a downward trend be continuing if the increase was 60 percent from 2012 to 2013? How do you get warming temperatures when the temperatures were below average for at least 100 consecutive days north of 80 deg N as shown by Denmark. Can Mark and Julienne answer this?
To Crispin in Waterloo
Melting ice absorbs CO2, freezing water expels it – deal with it.
If that is the case, then how can we trust the CO2 measurements from ice cores in Greenland? Why bother?
I have been trying to find information on the land ice in Antarctic and can’t seem to find anything. Any suggestions from the experts here?
Too bad we can’t find a bunch of econuts, show them the data of record-breaking ice in Antarctica and the rapid increase in Arctic ice, then show them the ‘tipping point’ for snowball earth. Once they are true believers of an imminent ice age, we could watch them duke it out with the AGW crowd.
Both groups would blame Man, of course, but their remedies would be opposite each other. All we would need do is watch them fight and go on beer runs.
It is not such a big mystery to me….
Recovery of ozone is much more spectacular on the SH
eventually of course the global cooing caused by the recovery of ozone will also end up on the arctic.
the recovery of ozone is caused by the changes on the sun
If you read the paper Schneider, D., and Steig, E., (2008) Ice cores record significant 1940s Antarctic warmth that has yet to be surpassed. Based on ice core data the peninsula was warmer in the 30s, See their Graph A here http://landscapesandcycles.net/image/76499251_scaled_489x638.png.
Also the Southern Annular Mode (Antarctic Osciilation ) index is a measure of the westerly winds. The dramatic increasing trend is driven by stronger summer winds, not winter winds when ice maximum is reached. The summer index peaked around the 1998 El Nino and will likely follow Pacific Decadal Oscillation in a negative trend.
Summer trend http://www.nerc-bas.ac.uk/public/icd/gjma/newsam.sum.pdf
and Winter trend http://www.nerc-bas.ac.uk/public/icd/gjma/newsam.win.pdf
The modelers didn’t really address these details when blaming the wind for more ice
My view is that it’s a 60 year cycle borne out by observational evidence over the last hundred or so years and we have 30-some years of satelite data and we think we know what’s going on? Alarm bells should be ringing? Aye, the ones on the white vans with the men in the white coats coming to put straightjackets on these guys and take them to a padded communal cell somewhere. One can dream.
Seriously, the spin and weasel words and sheer attempted manipulation of opinion in the above piece is classic. So many comments above concurred with my own thoughts but I’d never heard this one: “found it hard to read over the noise of the BS-Buzzer”. Really good that – say’s exactly what I felt too, just didn’t know how to put it into words so succinctly.
They just have to be sensationalists[bold mine]:
The fact of the matter is in the satellite era baseline (1979-2000) the average year has an extent max at 16.1 million km2 and an average min of 7.6 million km2 which implies that EVERY year should be a year where over ½ the ice is young thin ice.
What if over the next decade Arctic sea ice is visibly seen to have increased its extent from 2007 (2 step forwards, 1 step back fashion – Joe Bastardi mentioned this)? They will remind us that the extent is still in long term decline when we look back to the end of the Little Ice Age. They will take a quick peak at volume too to see if there’s anything there. All the while forgetting what they told us about “death spiral” and “ice free Arctic” and other Alarmist speak.
1920s to 1940s Arctic Warm Period
Here is an increase in 4 or 5 year old ice in the Arctic. See Goddard’s animation, quite a change in the Arctic this Summer and Autumn.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/10/23/what-nsidc-is-hiding/
Andrew Shepherd et al. 2012 “A Reconciled Estimate of Ice-Sheet Mass Balance” estimated that the net loss of Antarctic ice in 2000-2011 was –87 +/- 43 Gt per year. That is equivalent to around 0.8mm shaved off the ice mass each year. Over 12 years, this is equivalent to adding one million square kilometres of sea ice 1 metre thick. The average 2013 maximum was 0.7 million square kilometres above the 1981 to 2010 average. Given that we have no reliable estimates of the changing thickness of the ice, this gives most likely give no net loss of ice from Antarctica this century, though it does add 2-3mm to sea levels. Such a sea level rise is well below 10% of the recorded rise.
A negative feedback, apparently.
We take our orbit around our life giving fusion ball for granted. All it takes is one cosmic speck of dust to throw us off kilter.
@sadbutmadlad
Aren’t penguins cute?
Is the Antarctic sea ice increasing because of increased precipitation in the southern oceans? Just a thought? I read somewhere the Antarctic is a ‘desert’ because of low rainfall.
Thanx Ferd @ 4.11 very dry.
But I was wondering if the bipolar seesaw could been operating over the past 100 years. What was happening in Antarctica during the 1930s?
Wow,
since 1979….
Makes me think of one of my kid’s statements that ends in “….my whole life.”
He’s seven.
This was not reported on the Biased Broadcasting Corporation, so I have made a complaint asking why.
BBC complaints form:
https://ssl.bbc.co.uk/complaints/forms/?reset=#anchor
What they should have said was, “This summer’s low ice extent is not inconsistent with the downward trend seen over the last thirty-four years.” They would have, if they were scientists.
In my absolute non-science way the whole warming/cooling is simple.
I fill my bath up, oops too hot, run the cold water, darn too cold, takes me a few turns of the tap to get it just right,
scale this up, churn of the oceans etc and I find it a miracle that the planet stays on such an even keel, unlike me the self correcting mechanism of our planet happens on massive time scales and is never the perfect temp, though hang on, wait a minute ……… bumper crops!!!
What a keel it is, this year has seen bumper crops worldwide, in my eyes agriculture is the definitive sign of how the climate is doing.
I always heard Africa was first in line to be affected by climate change, well, it is doing rather well.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/innovation/africa-continent-of-plenty
My parents fig tree in boston grew like crazy this year. Still picking figs. Love that co2!
@dodgy geezer –
Let us not forget that water freezes when you heat it, Therefore, the more warming, the greater the extent of the ice. /sarc
Unfortunately, I was born before the world began in 1979. I guess there was no history before then? Therefore, I must not be here. Makes as much sense as any theory of global warming based on the last 34 years ( since satellites).
So many ignorant comments…bumber crops? Are you aware tens of millions of acres of grasslands went back into production here in the US? Not to mention genetically enhanced varieties of corn and beans along with obscene levels of nitrogen fertilizer.
PRH says:
November 6, 2013 at 4:32 pm
And this is a problem?
And “bumper crops” is relevant to the growing ice extent around Antarctica?
By the way, at today’s rates of growth, MUCH more than 35 km per year, the Strait of Magellan and Cape Horn could be blocked by sea ice from Antarctica in as few as 8-10 years.
The NSIDC’s premise, their life’s work in supporting CAGW religion is false.
ALL of the exaggerated CAGW hype about sea ice melting is based on the supposed “extra heat absorbed” by open ocean water compared to that solar energy reflected by pristine sea ice. Supposedly, if the sea ice goes away, more energy is absorbed, the water heat more, more ice is melted, more open ocean is exposed, and more sea is melted.
But that doesn’t happen. After 2007’s very low sea ice extents up north, sea ice in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 increased. NO season-to-season effect.
After the record low 2012 sea ice extents, sea ice in 2013 expanded more than it had been since 2006! The myth of any arctic sea ice death spiral is a lie used to take your money and justify policies that kill people by increasing energy prices and reducing worldwide health, food, and security: food, fuel, fodder, fruit, fiber, and farms.
On the other hand, reduced ice area in the arctic occurs in mid-September between 75 and 83 degrees north latitude. At these latitudes at this time of year, the sun is NEVER higher than 15 degrees above the horizon, and most of the time that it is above the horizon, it is between 4 and 10 degrees up. At these low solar elevation angles, the albedo of open ocean is 0.30 – 0.40, very close to that of the melting sea ice (0.65 to 0.60), and so little difference in heat absorption actually happens during the few hours each day when the sun is actually above the horizon. Worse, heat LOSS from the exposed open ocean (evaporation, convection, conduction, radiation) are ALL greater compared to what is lost when sea ice blankets the water, AND those increased heat losses when the sea ice is lost are continuous, 24-hours-per-day events.
Thus, loss of additional arctic sea ice in September from the normal COOLS the planet.
But Antarctic sea ice is expanding between 60 degrees and 58 degrees south latitude – NOT at 78, 80, or 82 degrees north latitude: At 60 south latitude, the sun is much higher in the sky, penetrating much less atmosphere, and IS reflecting much more solar energy!
Thus, exactly contrary to their statements of the CAGW religion, more energy is reflected from the planet by increased antarctic sea ice, more energy is lost from the planet by decreased arctic sea ice … and the planet faces even more cooling.
But it is even worse than they want!
There is “only” 3.5 million sq km’s of arctic sea ice left to melt from 2012’s record low. Once that melts – IF it ever melts, there simply is no more that could be lost. Thus, a plausible loss of 1,000,000 sq km’s next year (loss of 30% of the sea ice!) would be preceded by the screaming headlines and might even be followed by another 1,000,000 the next year. And perhaps another. But each loss of Arctic sea ice from today’s levels in September merely increases the LOSS of net energy from the planet. You could never “melt’ more than that 3.5 million sq km’s that was the record last year.
But, in the Antarctic, the 19.5 million sq km’s of sea ice surrounds a land area of 14 millions sq km’s of 97% ice, and has 1.5 million more permanent shelf ice. Net? Antarctic “total ice” this year is 35 million sq km’s … AND THERE IS NO MAXIMUM LIMIT.
So, a “minor gain” of 1.0 million sq km’s is less than a 3% increase, right?