From The Australian, 12 May 2014
Graham Lloyd
Antarctic sea ice has expanded to record levels for April, increasing by more than 110,000sq km a day last month to nine million square kilometres.
The National Snow and Ice Data Centre said the rapid expansion had continued into May and the seasonal cover was now bigger than the record “by a significant margin’’.
“This exceeds the past record for the satellite era by about 320,000sq km, which was set in April 2008,’’ the centre said.
Increased ice cover in Antarctic continues to be at odds with falling Arctic ice levels, where the summer melt has again pushed levels well below the average extent for 1981-2010. The centre said while the rate of Arctic-wide retreat was rapid through the first half of April, it had slowed.
The April Arctic minimum was 270,000sq km higher than the record April low, which occurred in 2007. The Antarctic sea ice extent anomalies were greatest in the eastern Weddell and along a long stretch of coastline south of Australia and the southeastern Indian Ocean. The centre said the increased ice extent in the Weddell Sea region appeared to be associated with a broad area of persistent easterly winds in March and April, and lower-than-average temperatures.
Full story at the Australian, here. h/t to The GWPF
================================================================
Here are some current plots of Antarctic Sea Ice from the WUWT Sea Ice Page
Antarctic Sea Ice Extent – 15% or Greater
National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC) – Click the pic to view at source
Southern Hemisphere Sea Ice Extent With Anomaly
National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC) – Click the pic to view at source
Southern Hemisphere Sea Ice Area Anomaly
Cryosphere Today – Arctic Climate Research at the University of Illinois – Click the pic to view at source
AmosP said:
May 12, 2014 at 11:36 am
But how many Manhattans is that?
————
Or how many gin-and-tonics?
Just curious, but has anyone published a study which claims increasing Antarctic ice will be a disaster? I think it would make a nice bookend to go with all the disaster scenarios claimed for decreasing Arctic ice.
An iconic chart of Antarctic sea ice extent in April from the NSIDC which should be spread around. Your pro-AGW friends will have a momentary seizure over this one.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/s_plot.png
Don’t let the ice extent fool you… polar bears are extinct in Antarctica!!!
Clima-catastrophe!!!
Village Idiot says:
May 12, 2014 at 11:42 am
Does this mean that the forecast Great Cooling has started?
I forgot to add my comment.
Weren’t global sea ice levels considered a proxy for global warming? By that score, what are they now – a proxy for the fabrication of the temperature record?
TheMIghtyQuinn says:
May 12, 2014 at 11:25 am
The 1,344,000 sq. km anomaly is nearly twice the size of Texas. Nothing to see here…move along.
That’s ‘mosey’, partner….
Alarmists play their climate cards like Paul Daniels in his Bunco Booth. “Heads I win, tails you lose”
Oh, I get it now, the thing that fell on Chicken Little’s head that started him flapping about “the sky is falling,” was a chunk of ice.
The when and where cracks in the msm lie foundation will appear seems to be a more important thing to watch. Will they all go down with the the Ship of Lies or will some jump into a life raft of truth given the real facts to use.
Right on cue; A quick visit to the Guardian and despite a record April Antarctic ice extent, their take is somewhat different….
“Western Antarctic ice sheet collapse has already begun, scientists warn.
Two separate studies confirm loss is inevitable and will cause up to four metres of additional sea-level rise”
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/12/western-antarctic-ice-sheet-collapse-has-already-begun-scientists-warn
*Sigh*.
Antarctic Sea Ice At Record Levels……
Now that is an inconvenient truth!
In related news, James Delingpole highlights another WUWT expose, on Breitbart London: Study: Himalayan Glaciers not Disappearing After All
Himalayan glaciers – for years one of the poster children of the “man-made global warming is real and we’re all doomed” movement – are in no imminent danger whatsoever, a new study has found. (h/t GWPF and Watts Up With That?)
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/05/12/Study-Himalayan-glaciers-not-disappearing-after-all
Perhaps NSIDC did not get the memo. I presume they will need to adjust their ice data from previous years to reveal that the Antarctic ice has actually been decreasing for the past 30 years.
Well, it is 22,800 Manhattans. Would take ten million Hiroshima bombs to melt it.
Earth to NSIDC, Antarctica and the Arctic ocean are a world apart; separated by an impenetrable thermal guard ring, called the equator, which is ALWAYS much hotter than both of those places. So heat can’t propagate from the Arctic to the Antarctic, or verse vicea. It’s a very common trick in precice Temperature control, to stop heat from flowing in unwanted directions. (also works for electricity as well).
So Antarctica and Arctica, are blissfully unaware of each other. The polar bears, aren’t going to show up down south, and start lunching on Emperor penguins, nor are the penguins going to swim in the Arctic ocean, after it all melts.
And this simple fact will be reported on Canada’s Constantly Biases Corporation’s media outlets…
When the expanding Ice seals off naval passages south of Africa and Latin America.
Then it will be the coming ice age or subtitle;We have always been at war with Pacifica.
The Artic ice is shrinking. Well la-dee-effin-dah.We are 5 weeks from summer,and the longest day of the year. Guess these idjits don’t about 24 hr sunlight. Oh wait. Real science is hard.
Obviously wrong. The CBC reports the Antarctic ice sheet is collapsing.
And the CBC is never wrong about Global Warming, is always fair in its reporting, and believes real data is more trustworthy that output from some computer models.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/huge-antarctic-ice-sheet-collapsing-1.2639989
Science Daily: “Ice loss moves the earth 250 miles down”.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140511214811.htm
Apparently, the “lightening load” of all that ice is causing really, really rapid rebound.
In fact, yes, greater amounts of ice will accelerate global cooling, as more light will be deflected away from earth.
However, in addition, and more importantly, as the temperature differential between the poles and equator grows larger due to the cooling from the top, very likely something will also change on earth. Predictably, there would be a small (?) shift of cloud formation and precipitation, more towards the equator, on average. At the equator insolation is 684 W/m2 whereas on average it is 342 W/m2. So, if there are more clouds in and around the equator, this will further amplify the cooling effect due to less direct natural insolation of earth (clouds deflect a lot of radiation). Furthermore, in a cooling world there is more likely less moisture in the air, but even assuming equal amounts of water vapor available in the air, a lesser amount of clouds and precipitation will be available for spreading to higher latitudes. So, a natural consequence of global cooling is that at the higher latitudes it will become cooler and/or drier.
Hence my prediction of the return of droughts to the Great Plains of America from the beginning of the next decade, similar to the dust bowl drought that started in 1932.
“””””……Russ R. says:
May 12, 2014 at 11:46 am
Serious question….
Conventional wisdom on ice-albedo feedback would be that:
A) as the planet warms (especially in high-latitudes), polar ice extent should shrink
B) reduced ice extent would lower the surface albedo.
C) more absorbed sunlight (increased forcing) would increase temperatures.
D) Go to A. (i.e. positive feedback).
One assumes that this conventional wisdom would be the basis for feedback in climate models……”””””
I remember reading some time ago; don’t quite remember where, but there’s a theory been put forward, that the main reason, that there is all that ice and snow at both ends of the earth; and why it is so cold in both those places, is that there is very little solar energy reaching there, because the sun never gets very high above the horizon, so it is always passing through a much thicker oblique layer of air.
Also, ice and snow aren’t all that reflective at solar wavelengths because the snow is porous, and forms TIR trapping structures on the surface, very readily.
Yes open water, may absorb more solar energy, but remember that the ocean circulation transports Arctic water back to the tropics, to replace the warmer waters flowing from the gulf stream and the like.
More importantly, the open ocean water is more efficient at radiatively cooling, as well as evaporatively, so a warmer Arctic ocean can do a better job at cooling, the earth, than a colder ice field can.
R. de Haan.
From the article “Is climate change making Earth ‘EXPAND’? Melting ice sheets could be altering the shape of our planet”
“But what we found when we compared the ice loss to the uplift was that they didn’t tally – something else had to be happening to be pushing the solid Earth up at such a phenomenal rate”
Interesting how that one statement/comment assigns, potentially a completely different significance to the results of this study as implied elsewhere.
But it’s the wrong kind of ice.
And how do we know this? Because there’s more of it, and that just can’t be!
Meanwhile:-
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/13/science/earth/collapse-of-parts-of-west-antarctica-ice-sheet-has-begun-scientists-say.html?src=twr&_r=1
“Scientists said the ice sheet was not melting because of warmer air temperatures, but rather because of the relatively warm water, which is naturally occurring, from the ocean depths.”
At last the hidden heat . . .