The sea ice surrounding Antarctica, which, as I reported in my book, has been steadily increasing throughout the period of satellite measurement that began in 1979, has hit a new all-time record high for areal coverage.
The new record anomaly for Southern Hemisphere sea ice, the ice encircling the southernmost continent, is 2.074 million square kilometers and was posted for the first time by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s The Cryosphere Today early Sunday morning.
The previous record anomaly for Southern Hemisphere sea ice area was 1.840 million square kilometers and occurred on December 20, 2007.
Global sea ice area, as of Sunday morning, stood at 1.005 million square kilometers above average.
More here: http://talkingabouttheweather.wordpress.com/2014/06/29/antarctica-sets-new-record-for-sea-ice/
And also at the WUWT Sea ice page: http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/
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2004: ‘Antarctica is likely to be the world’s only habitable continent by the end of this century if global warming remains unchecked, the Government’s chief scientist, Professor Sir David King, said last week.’ (http://www.rense.com/general52/ahbi.htm)
2014: the story so far. It is going to be harder and harder for poor folks to reach this promised land by sailboat and on foot, what with all this new ice in the way and all. All that green pastureland waiting for them will be taken by wealthy folks like King arriving in their private jets. (http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/8/11/king-of-carbon-emissions.html).
Just a brief reminder about the polarizing lens on the orbiting satellite. Before 2008 the Arctic ice extent charts showed an upwards bump on 1 July when the polarizing lenses were switched from Antarctic to Arctic mode — this was so that Arctic melt ponds would not be interpreted as open water. The reverse switch was on 1 January so was not evident on the charts because it was at the edge. Anyway, people complained about the bump so they decided to “improve” the chart by gradually turning the polarizing lens. This rapidly became carte blanche for turning the lens any way they wanted, and accounts for much of the symmetry seen nowadays — when the Arctic ice anomaly rises, the Antarctic anomaly falls, and so on. Today we see the Antarctic ice anomaly rising to record levels even as the Arctic ice anomaly is oddly dropping even as the ice edge is strong — this is because the Arctic ice concentration has dropped to about 75% – 80% all across the ice cap — because the melt ponds are all being interpreted as open water (see the washed out orange color on the ice concentration map). It’s just that they’ve (presumably) turned that polarizing lens all the way into Antarctic mode to report as low an Arctic ice area as possible– which thus causes the reported Antarctic ice extent to skyrocket.
This account is my interpretation of what is happening, as it is consistent with the past few years of sea ice data. What’s needed is someone in the satellite data area to come forth and tell the reality.
Ice ages have always been associated with slight wobbles in the earth’s axis relative to the sun. They are caused by the earth and the moon orbiting a point between them. The moon doesn’t really orbit the earth as much as it does this point (called the barycentre). Also there are the slight variations of the sun’s output and the distance the earth is from the sun. These changes have been mostly moderate, though there have been periods when ice covered a substantial area of the earth. The global warmists might be right, but I doubt it. They have not followed the scientific method and thus have not done science.
The “Global Warming” scam is one of the biggest hoaxes ever perpetrated. There have many climate changes in the few billion years the earth has been around, and most of them occurred well before man arrived on the scene. So even if the present “Global Warming” fraud were true, which is unlikely, it’s a real stretch of the imagination to blame it on man. Plus the hustlers’ “solution” for this non-event is to undermine the American economy and to transfer sovereignty from individual nations and surrender power to the UN. Should we take better care of our planet? Of course! But the “Global Warming” scam should be thrown out with the garbage, not to be recycled.
During the summer we prefer to focus on the Arctic ice extent. We don’t look at the southern hemisphere until around January. Please get with the program.
How about some of you smart folks here poke holes in this for me?
For a couple of years now I have spent a good deal of time scanning various climate sites as I strive to gain an understanding. I have read several books on the subject also. I am not going to pretend that I have even come close to have really scratched the surface of this very complex subject. But the one central thing I have tried to decide is what I should really look at to determine if and how much significant global cooling or global warming is going on. I think I have finally decided the best way to keep track of it using strictly objective data that is easy to interpret for the average person even with no science aptitude or back ground .
So here it is.
Now the freezing point of water does vary slightly. Fresh water freezes at a slightly higher temperature than sea water for example. But this variability is miniscule in almost all conditions found on the earths surface. So when it comes to determining if our earth is cooling or warming in the general sense the amount of sea ice is a very good measurement over the long term. In the short term the amount of sea ice is not nearly as reliable a measurement for determining cooling or warming because storms, currents, and volcanic activity can significantly effect it’s volume and coverage.
And thus as far as I’m concerned the best single way for a layman to get a handle on if the earth is warming or cooling is to monitor the sea ice extent at both poles. It seems very clear that in the past when global cooling has occurred the most obvious sign has been markedly decreased melting of the ice during the summer months at both poles. That is a prime sign of when an ice age is begining. It is not so much the amount of accumulation of snow and ice at the poles during their winter months that is a sign of cooling as it is the lack of dissipation of ice during the summer months. The opposite applies for general global warming. In short it is the amount of melting that occurs during the summer months at both poles that is the simplest measurment to understand that accurately reflects cooling or warming of the globe.
This layman is tired of models though I understand the need to strive to prefect them in order to try to develop long term forecasts and understand our climate. But for now when it comes to determining global cooling or warming it seems to me the best course for the average guy who doesn’t have training as a statistician is to watch the poles.
Why are temperatures not a good gauge of global warming or cooling for the layman? The fact is that almost all of the temperature data our government agencies and various other agencies around the world publish are statistically “adjusted” for various reasons. Often such “adjustments” are made to fill in blank spots in the data when measuring stations go down or when the measurements from stations are not reported in a timely manner. Other such adjustments are made to account for the fact that large urban areas are heat islands that remain warmer than surrounding rural areas. Even satellite temperature data is adjusted for various reasons. No matter the reason for the adjustments the fact is that they are made using statistical methods and the particular statistical method(s) selected to be applied is based solely on the judgment of people. IOW what your getting when you look at historical temperature data is to some extent colored by AN OPINION!
So the third year the sea ice extents remain significantly above the mean during the summer months at both poles then I will start being concerned about cooling. The opposite goes for warming. No corruption or “adjustment” of temperature data can change these signs. So it seems to me that the satellite measurements of the sea ice extents at BOTH POLES, while not always perfect by any means, as has been proven in the past, are still far more reliable and less susceptible to tampering or error than temperature data at any level from any source and thus make the best and most easily understandable and reliable gauge for the layman to make his/her own judgment on what the worlds temperature is doing.
Anthony, WUWT made the Drudge Report.
Sweet.
In central Wisconsin USA, where the southern edge of the last Ice Age stopped. No ice here today except in our freezer.
Josh Payne, you don’t need liquid meltwater that then bizarrely refreezes when it moves from the cold interior to the saltwater sea, since ice itself is plastic enough to flow but that also spells grow. A bit of ocean induced melting merely helps lubricate ice particles to flow faster so a random warm spike can briefly accelerate ice flow.
In other words, you are being lied to by propagandists and hacks who are smoke screening away Antarctic ice growth with mere soundbites. The same people point to ice breaking off as if that’s due to melting ice instead of ice growth. Since Antarctica is so terribly cold throughout the year, in a warming world with resulting higher humidity, overall Antarctica becomes a sea level sink as it freezes out all that extra humidity and only let’s it go through ice flow. The hockey stick team was so troubled by Antarctic mainland cooling that they were willing to suffer scientific shame by illegally smearing the highly volcanic Peninsula warm trend out over the whole continent with blatantly bad math. News cycle complete, after winning the cover of top journal Nature, the peer reviewed skeptical debunking of it only appeared many months later:
http://climateaudit.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/nature_cover.jpg
The following site has the Antarctic anomaly very cold lately.
http://cci-reanalyzer.org/DailySummary/index_ds.php
Today, it is -4.02 while the Arctic is -0.32.
Three of the last six months were the warmest on record.
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2014/06/23/May-2014-was-Earths-warmest-May-on-record-NOAA-says/5331403569273/
http://www.weather.com/news/science/environment/april-2014-global-temperature-ties-warmest-record-noaa-20140520
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2013/12/17/warm-november-global-climate-report/4052839/
OUOTE: “the outward distribution of fresh water from the rapidly melting ice masses” That’s like saying if I put an ice cube on a plate and it melts the melting water will flow out and refreeze on the plate. Really? How is the climate hot enough to melt the ice yet at the same time cold enough to refreeze the melting water?
drink the kool-aid
A reference to the 1978 cult mass-suicide in Jonestown, Guyana. Jim Jones, the leader of the group, convinced his followers to move to Jonestown. Late in the year he then ordered his flock to commit suicide by drinking grape-flavored Kool-Aid laced with potassium cyanide. In what is now commonly called “the Jonestown Massacre”, 913 of the 1100 Jonestown residents drank the Kool-Aid and died.
One lasting legacy of the Jonestown tragedy is the saying, “Don’t drink the Kool-Aid.” This has come to mean, “Don’t trust any group you find to be a little on the kooky side.” or “Whatever they tell you, don’t believe it too strongly”.
And they want us to believe theres global warming or i mean climate change
I guess Al Gore better get down there with his backpack blow torch and get busy. This will take money out of his pockets…
I notice that on the WUWT sea ice page there are no graphs such as this for Antarctic sea ice:
http://antarcticsun.usap.gov/science/images4/nsidc-antarctic-sea-ice-extent-max.jpg
I was looking for when the antarctic sea ice is at it’s maximum – looks like late September.
I wonder why there are a plethora of graphs for arctic sea ice available, but “none” for antarctic sea ice?
Bias maybe?
Jeff Christie says:
June 29, 2014 at 8:12 am
Three of the last six months were the warmest on record.
_________________
Oh, by record, did you mean the instrumental record of the past 160 years or so, since the use of thermometers began and since the end of the Little Ice Age? Did you also mean the “adjusted” temp record?
How about during the summer of 2013, when 2899 Record cold temps vs 667 record warm temps were recorded?
“Three of the last six months were the warmest on record.”
Okay, what does this mean, exactly? What “record?” Kept by whom and for how long?
This is one of the things that bothers me about this whole Climate Change flap: the implication that when we say “warmest in record” e.g. that we’re talking about a significant body of data.
And yes, I understand the concept of Statistics of Extreme Events. I have to use it in my work. But we’re taking less than 200 years of data, and trying to make it stand for MILLENNIA-LONG events!
We’re doing trend-line analysis that is dramatically affected by where your start-point is.
And to top it all off, people like you will say “look at these record temps” but if it’s pointed out that there are record temps the other way as well, the response is “climate is not temperature.”
It’s the slipperiness of the arguments, the unwillingness to consider ALL the data rather than cherry-pick that which seems (at least disingenuously) to support the AGW thesis, that makes me so skeptical.
R. Shearer says:
June 29, 2014 at 6:58 am
Satellite measurements began in 1973. The period beginning in 1979 corresponds with the maximum extent in the Arctic. Cherry picking?
———————————————
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measurement_of_sea_ice
“so the practical record begins in late 1978 with the launch of NASA’s Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer (SMMR) satellite.”
Oops, forgot link: http://iceagenow.info/2013/08/2899-record-cold-temps-667-record-warm-temps/
There is a lot of ocean around Antarctica and the sea surface temperatures in the Southern Annular Area – 60 South to 70 South are running “cool” and have been since an apparent step change circa 2006
Reynolds monthly SSTa – 2000 through May 2014
http://nomad1.ncep.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/pdisp_sst.sh?ctlfile=monoiv2.ctl&ptype=ts&var=ssta&level=1&op1=none&op2=none&month=jan&year=2000&fmonth=may&fyear=2014&lat0=-70&lat1=-60&lon0=-180&lon1=180&plotsize=800×600&title=&dir=
Also SSTa’s from yesterday – Earth Wind map:-
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp_anomaly/orthographic=-89.39,-87.18,819
consider that heat accumulates at the equator and radiates to at the poles. ice extent shows how much heat is being lost to space at the poles, but it doesnt mean the earth is warming or cooling. the water in your cars cooling system stays about the same temperature regardless of how much fuel you are burning. likely water-ice serves the same function on earth. it is like the louvers on the front of a modern car. they open as the engine needs more cooling, and close when it needs less. all the while the engine remains within a narrow temperature range.
RAH says:
June 29, 2014 at 7:59 am
How about some of you smart folks here poke holes in this for me?
————-
I’d be interested in someone commenting on RAH’s thoughts.
Please check the temperature of the surface. Click on the map. Click to Earth.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=temp/orthographic=48.99,-84.10,365
since the end of the Little Ice Age
=============
how do we know it ended. we don`t know what caused it, so how can anyone know it ended.
With all of the scientists promoting fear… The Planet poles move approximately one foot per year…
Therefore, the human coefficient, albeit somewhat manageable. provisions a small effect to the dynamics of a planet in Space. When we learn more we may actually predict simpler methods to avert extinction. We all know the dinosaurs were just unaware of their demise.
Good day….