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
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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
BTW the above is reply to RACook
Thanks Dr.Strangelove, loved the film of the same name. I didn’t think you were replying to Phillip he doesn’t go into maths, just English. LOL>
bushbunny said:
“Thanks Dr.Strangelove, loved the film of the same name. I didn’t think you were replying to Phillip he doesn’t go into maths, just English. LOL>”
Yet another cheap shot. You can’t even bring yourself to say “you’re right, that sentence didn’t make sense. What I meant was……”
I did rephrase it Phillip for you to get a better understanding. You started it Phillip, so don’t blame me for responding to insults. I think I will give you a ring and tell you what I really think of you.
“I did rephrase it Phillip for you to get a better understanding.”
That’s a load of crap. The original sentence made no sense whatsoever. You have refused to acknowledge this, and now you claim that you rephrased it for me to get better understanding, not because it was gibberish the first time round.
“Phillip, so don’t blame me for responding to insults. I think I will give you a ring and tell you what I really think of you.”
Lol, looney alert!! Meh, it’s ok. One more crazy woman in my life couldn’t make that much difference.
And, the very first thing you said to me in this thread was:
“Oh you are back Phillip, putting in your claim to fame, by posing silly objections.”
Actually Phillip I was going to be kind to you and have a good laugh with you. Maybe you are making woman you know crazy, LOL> Anyway goodnight, I want to feed me with trout and the dogs with kangaroo, and sit down and watch The Voice and Bargain Hunt. Nite folks.
Let me quote you RACook. You said:
“So, if the Arctic sea ice melts under today’s condition in the Arctic anytime between late August and early April (7 months of the year!~) more heat is lost from the Arctic ocean than can be absorbed into the newly exposed sea water from the sunlight.”
Wrong because sea ice melts on summer/spring and grows on autumn/winter. You must think the Arctic sea is in the southern hemisphere. See and learn.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/ssmi1_ice_ext1.png
Gawd, people actually watch those shows? Anyway, whatever you do, don’t ever acknowledge a mistake. Even one as obvious and simple as a sentence that made no sense.
lol, what on earth did I say in my post back a little ways that put it in moderation?
bushbunny says:
ren: it is coming into their winter Or nearly is. From what I know, ice growth or increases come and go depending on the season and daylight hours.
Not really.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/70hPa/orthographic=150.84,-70.34,365
Hiding uncomfortable facts by sinking the debate in a morass of intractable detail. A signature of political pseudoscience such as AGW. Start with the politically determined answer. Then sink ay real debate with a heap of technical detail with no underlying structure, going nowhere, answering nothing. Its what children do when they cover their ears and shout LALALALALALA.
Your summary “Wrong because sea ice melts on summer/spring and grows on autumn/winter.” = DEAD WRONG. Look at the plots again on the WUWT Sea Ice page.
Arctic sea ice is at its maximum sometime between mid-March (the equinox) and mid-April each year. Arctic sea ice is at its MAXIMUM in “spring”. Arctic sea ice reaches its minimum in mid-September each year – and is very consistent since records started in 1979 about this date. Hint: Skip the arbitrary and useless “spring” and “summer” and use actual dates. You will be less confused about Arctic and Antarctic as well.
Antarctic sea ice reaches its minimum slightly earlier (during mid-February normally) and reaches its maximum between mid-September to mid-October each year.) This is why the total global sea ice extents plots has more than two peaks each year.
But Arctic and Antarctic sea ice is constantly melting (retreating) and freezing (expanding) EVERY HOUR OF EVERY DAY OF EVERY YEAR. At any given day of year, more area may be added (frozen) than melted, or more area may be expanded and blown south or blown back north and compacted (Arctic). The anomaly is the difference between any given day-of-year’s average area and the satellite-measured actual area. The area is the surface (not volume) reflecting or absorbing sunlight on any given day-of-year.
Do you claim anything different? Do you have some other definition of “spring” and “summer”? There was a meaningless claim above that “the Arctic” receives 500 watts/m^2 “in the summer” …. But, in mid-September, the actual numbers show the edge of the actual Arctic sea ice at its minimum in 2012 received only 100 watts/m^2 for 2 hours per day. The rest of the day, that square meter of “arctic” was getting as little as 7 watts/meter^2. Overnight, that square meter received 0.0 watts from the sun.
My statement stands: If ANY region in the arctic melts (is changed from “covered by sea ice” into “open ocean water”) between early September each year through early April the next year, that square million (thousand, hundred, or tens) of kilometers of “open ocean” will lose more heat than can be gained from the sunlight hitting it.
Now, through the short midst of the five month Arctic “summer” between April and August each year, more heat energy IS GAINED when open water is struck by sunlight. But ONLY during those few days of summer. The rest of the year? The remaining seven months of the year? Less arctic sea ice means a cooler planet.
The Arctic sea ice anomaly IS negative all year, has been negative for many years now. Thus, 5 months of slightly higher heat gain (compared to “1970’s normal”), and seven months of increased heat loss (reflection) into space! To repeat what was clearly stated above: Increased sea ice loss ANYTIME between early-September through early April in the arctic means MORE heat lost by longwave radiation and convection and evaporation than can be gained by solar radiation.
Not so in the Antarctic. Every million square kilometers of “excess” Antarctic sea ice present ANYWHERE around the Antarctic ANYTIME of the year yields a cooler planet due to increased heat reflection because the edge (the ever-moving ever-melting and re-freezing part of the sea ice is that is measured by the antarctic sea ice anomaly) is many thousand kilometers closer to the equator than its arctic counterpart.
And the Antarctic sea ice anomaly has been POSITIVE every day since May 2011. Increasingly positive at that: Do you want to predict when the Cape Horn will blocked by sea ice? 8 years? 10? 12?
This may have been covered elsewhere, but I can’t help but laugh when Warmists say that glacier ice melt in Antarctica explains the increased sea ice anomaly for that continent–as runoff. The last time I checked (today) the positive anomaly for ice extent in Antarctica is not where the JPL describes dire glacial ice melt. Any thoughts?
The sea level rise is terrible. We can already see it here in Arizona. The gulf of California is now visible…just a few miles south of Tucson. Grab your life rafts and pray to whatever deity is on your mind.
Serious question. “They” say that “Antarctica is losing land ice as a whole, and these losses are accelerating quickly.” http://www.skepticalscience.com/antarctica-gaining-ice.htm.
So, which is it? Is it melting or freezing as a whole?
NotaWARMonger says:
May 17, 2014 at 5:25 pm — do note this ‘skeptical science’ – which is listed on the sidebar of this site. Go and see what it says. North Korea calls itself the the Democratic People’s Republic. Is it democratic or belonging to the people, or even a republic? Ask the same type question about the title of that site. What is interesting about the post you quote is the weasel errors and omissions – as an example of the first that the antarctic sea Ice is not important ‘because it melts in summer.’ – in actual fact it reaches its maximum extent (a lot further north than Norther Hemisphere ice – and therefore much more relevant as far as reflection of solar input is concerned) in September (southern hemisphere spring) and then shrinks across the summer – reaching its minimum in March- autumn. So in fact for the period maximum sun it is quite present and effective, and as RACookPE1978 points out, a lot further North than the arctic ever gets South. Secondly omissions such as what is meant by ‘accelerating quickly’ — the only (relatively small) evidence of ice sheet ‘loss’ or movement are ‘quick’ on the geological scale only.
Helpful answer. No weaselly intent meant. But more to my specific question. Western Ant. Has that one popular melting glacier that will be gone supposedly in a few hundred years. (It bugs me that they never assume any change…. It’s a wonder they expect the sub to come up the next day… I digress). What about ice on the rest of the continent. You’re saying it’s all doing a post-ice-age shrink. But I’ve also heard (sorry, can’t remember where) that it’s gaining ice.
notaWARMonger – It’s covered at a great deal of length here – http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/05/17/pseudoscientists-eight-climate-claims-debunked/#more-109448 – not just the article but the comments. Part – a small part of W. Ant – further south than parts which are not showing the same, may in the course of the the next 500 – few thousand years slip seawards. Antarictica is cooling, and away from the coast does not experience positive temperatures. So: I’d be curious to know just where the continental ice loss occurs and if so, how.
What I don’t get is this: Since the early days of the climate debate I understood (or so I thought) that melting ice is largely responsible for rising sea levels (that back then would wipe out whole cities). But if, on the other hand, the ice caps seem to grow – why is no one talking about the oceans receding from these “threatened” shorelines?
Last I read in elementary school, volume is a function of area x depth. This article tells only part of the story and all the commentators I read above seem to overlook that not so insignificant equation. So, until this or another article compares the depth, as well as the area, over time, the truth will remain obscured, and any comments premature.
No, not true. This canard was brought up several days ago. See druphil’s complaint, and my response – repeated below. The SOLE concern about Arctic sea ice is the “polar amplification” of darker open ocean water absorbing more solar energy – a premise that requires only area, NOT volume. Sea ice “volume” is brought in by the CAGW religion as a hedge by claiming that multi-year ice is thicker, and therefore less likely to melt each year. Virtually ALL Antarctic sea ice melts every year, so multi-year ice does not exist as a reflective surface around the Antarctic.
drumphil says:
May 12, 2014 at 8:04 pm (asking about Arctic sea ice volume)
(RACook)
“Irrelevent. Why do you ask?”
How is the volume of the ice irrelevant to how much ice there is? How is how much ice there is irrelevant?
The amount of solar energy reflected by sea ice or by open water at sea level is independent of ice volume. Reflection only depends on area, [albedo at that solar elevation angle), and solar elevation angle. (In the arctic, sea ice albedo also depends of day-of-year, varying between 0.93 in early April down to 0.45 in mid-July.) The elevation of the central Antarctic ice cap is NOT changing over time.
The total area of the Antarctic continental ice cap stays at 14.0 Mkm^2.
The area of the ice shelves around Antarctica are NOT changing with time, they are steady at 3.5 Mkm^2. By the way, these ice shelves are NOT included in the NSIDC’s antarctic sea ice totals.
Almost all of the record-breaking high 19.0+ Mkm^2 Antarctic sea ice we’ve had recently melts every year. (Unlike the Arctic sea ice which is only 50% first-year ice.) You can play games with claims of multi-year ice in the arctic, but NOT around the Antarctic.
It seems we are talking about two separate phenomena. Albedo is, of course, related to surface area; but the contribution of Antarctic melting to sea level rise is related to volume lost. My ultimate point is that single data or single year can’t be rationally used as arguments for any trend.
But the other facts remain, glaciers receding on most continents, permafrost melting; then there’s the mechanism: steadily rising atmospheric CO2 that is transmits visual light but is opaque to heat. Deniers suggest CO2 change is irrelevant because of it’ relatively low concentration in the air, but in complex systems, the absolute value is less important than the % CHANGE of a system constituent. Atmospheric and water temperatures aren’t rising linearly due to the various other phenomena such as the pacific and atlantic cycles that are 10-20 and 7-10 year cycles respectively, (one of them is in the “cool phase” at present which could explain the lack of temperature rise in the last 7-10 years).
In the end, the predominance of facts and the understanding of mechanisms supports man made climate change.