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/
What catches my eye, and it is only Mark I eyeballs, is the complete lack of a double notch, in this years movement so far. It just keeps going up. Is there a data pool of when the turns historically have happened in the recorded record?
I would love to see those yearly movements layered on top of each other, and played like a move, so scale per year is in tack.
Here is what I was looking for yesterday but could not find, until today. The following study finds that Antarctic sea ice increases when it gets colder.
H/t
“Study Finds Antarctic Sea Ice Increases When It Gets Colder”
August 17, 2013
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/08/17/study-finds-antarctic-sea-ice-increases-when-it-gets-colder/
Jimbo
Growth of ice over Antarctica depends on the polar vortex and temperature in the stratosphere. Strong vortex – ice grows, weak vortex (braking) inhibits ice.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/10hPa/orthographic=-351.44,-87.64,319
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat-trop/gif_files/time_pres_TEMP_ANOM_AMJ_SH_2014.gif
When solar activity significantly decreases the polar vortex begins to brake. Now, in the south polar vortex is strong.
With perfect timing today’s printed Daily Telegraph has a report on how the emperor penguins are threatened by melting ice. It’s a perfect example of how other sciences, particularly biology, have been tainted by the corruption of climate science.
The headline is: “Melting ice threatens emperor penguins”. And this at a time when Antarctic ice is at a record high. It almost defies belief. You couldn’t make it up.
Chris
I must be missing something but I see the years 2007 to 2013, but not 2014. The graph also says “Updated on 2013.08.18”. Maybe that’s why it’s not on the WUWT sea ice page?
Jimbo says:
June 30, 2014 at 3:01 am
Teapartygeezer did show me an updated version. Just sayin, it should be on the sea ice page:
teapartygeezer says:
June 29, 2014 at 7:53 pm
J. Philip Peterson @ur momisugly Jun 29 8:29am Is this what you’re looking for?
http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr2/extent_s_running_mean_amsr2_previous.png
Thanks tea…
Oops Note: I stated earlier that maximum antarctic sea ice was from Sept 22 – Aug 1st – I meant Sept 22 – Oct 1st
Well, if the “consensus” reverts back to the “facts” of Global Cooling, then we can just pump out more greenhouse gases than ever to artificially warm the planet (even if it didn’t work the first time).
I’m sort of curious if anyone knows if more fog is forming at the expanding Antarctic ice edges (where it is 32F with the ice cooling the air down to its dew point), and the fog reflects sunlight, which keeps the air and water cool, which causes more ice, which pushes the fog northward, etc.
We are having lots of dense fog on the Great Lakes this year as the water temperatures are 5F less than average, and it seems to me the fog is preventing the lakes from warming up as fast as they normally do. If the water temperature was just a couple degrees warmer there would be much less fog. Its pretty amazing how just a couple degrees can make such a big difference with fog formation.
Can someone provide data regarding any point in the 4.5+ billion year history of the Earth when the temperature remained constant for an meaningful period of time, like 100 years? Actually, 100 years is a completely irrelevant amount of time when compared to 4.5+ billion years (4,5000,000,000), so how about we agree that 10,000 years would be a more appropriate measure for anything even approaching relevancy on any real global scale. I would like to put forth the theory that no one alive can state with any certainty whatsoever what the climate should be at any point in human or Earth history. Oh, and where is the data that ice, glacial or otherwise, was never supposed to melt on the surface of the Earth?
The statistics and terminology for AGW are ripe for abuse by those who employ propaganda. Humans have a very difficult time understanding the scale of things, and I think scale analogies are great for making our brains understand them better. So let me try with the fact that “May was was the warmest on record.”
If we include a reasonable time scale, you could also say this, for the same data:
“The temperature that was just recorded is the warmest since since 78 seconds ago.”
Here’s how I came up with it:
Let’s use a “calendar year” as our timescale. Assume the last dinosaur walked the Earth 65 million years ago, and we want to use this as “January 1” on our scale. The date of the temperature measurement is December 31 at 11:59:59 pm. This helps put the woefully inadequate temperature record of 160 years in proper perspective.
So if we spread 65,000,000 across an imaginary 365 days, that makes each “scaled day” 178,082 “real years.” That means the temperature record of 160 days would be 0.00089846 “days” on our scale, of 099989846 * 24 * 60 * 60 = 77.6 seconds. So 77.6 seconds = 160 years on our scale. To continue the analogy, imagine you’re looking at an actual calendar, and the little legend is at the bottom that says “1 day = 178,082 years” with a picture of a dinosaur tombstone on January 1. Skip all the way to December 31 and look for the entry at 10:20 pm to see some glaciers encroaching the United States from Canada (representing the last ice age 12,000 years ago).
Given that calendar analogy, we measure the temperature on December 31 at midnight. Our recorded data only goes back to December 31 at 11:58:43 PM, so that means our temperature at midnight is the warmest since then, just 77 seconds earlier. And just a little bit more than an hour and a half earlier, it was a major glacier time. Given this perspective, how can anyone trust records from a 160-year data record (that itself is suspect?)
“…does it seem logical that as industry release millions of chemicals into the air to keep up with the demands of a growing human population that left unchecked, it would be foolish to think this could in any way impact the weather or our lives on any tangible level?”
Check your assumptions.
For instance: “millions of chemicals released into the air.” Where does that notion come from? Nearly every industrialized country has strict controls on environmental contaminants – and this was true long before the AGW flap arose. And not because of “global effects” but rather because of local. People essentially like clean air and water.
The ASSUMPTION that things are bad and getting worse is just false. It’s the opposite: they’re good and getting better. At least in the west.
Ironically, the countries being asked (or forced by their politicians) to foot the bill for these “millions of chemicals” you’re alleging are the countries that have long monitored and regulated pollutants. The heaviest polluters like China and India do nothing and pay nothing.
This is but one data point that leads me to conclude this is a political scam and nothing more.
And I’ll leave aside the fact that “millions of chemicals” aren’t greenhouse gases, and that the biggest sources of such gases are natural processes. And that taxing them doesn’t necessarily reduce them. And that taxation is for raising revenue and politicians always see it that way.
There are too many political issues involved, and I don’t trust politicians at all,
China and India are the biggest polluters of all. Unless they improve their technology the world will get dirtier even in the west the pollution spans the globe. Taxation is not about solving the problems but about increasing government revenues and control if the citizens. Renewable energy sources should be developed to the point that they can compete with fossil fuels. Until that us a reality this problem will nit be solved. And I don’t refer to global warming or whatever the currenrt buzz word is as the problem but to having enough energy for the world to give all its people a good standard of life. Reliance on fossil fuels leads to many of the ills in the world, wars, hunger, etc. Arguing about how many angels can dance on the head if a pin gets us nowhere
Heat capacity is proportional to mass, thus volume. Area is not directly related to heat capacity.
Salt water freezes at lower temperatures than pure.
The reason this matters is that the enhanced solar energy trapping at the surface due to increased greenhouse gases can do one of two things. First it can increase what is called sensible heat. Sensible heat is manifest is temperature. Second, it can increase latent heat. Latent heat does not increase temperature but is promote phase changes. One important phase change is melting ice. Ice, at 32 F or 0 C melts to form water, also at 32 F/0 C. The energy needed to melt the ice is latent heat. Important here is that the temperature does not increase. The problem as far as humanity is concerned is this. Once the ice melts, there is nothing to convert the excess energy into phase change due to latent heat. The decrease in total ice volume is well established, not just at the poles, but also glaciers and sea ice. The melting ice is currently suppressing the temperature increase, planet wide, because it uses energy that would go into sensible heat to melt the ice (latent heat). As the volume of ice cover is diminished, the heat capacity decreases.
On the other hand, the rate of heat flow increases with surface area. So a large area thin section will absorb heat more rapid than a small area thick section. Based on this, one might predict that spring time temperatures will be cooler for thin ice, but once this thin ice melts, summer time temperature will be higher because no ice is left to absorb the excess energy.
And the latter is the era we are in. Ice is not held over year to year but is extending over larger area. Spring temperatures cooler, summer and fall, warmer.
taxed says:
That’s interesting about what’s happening to the Gulf stream.
The key changes are in the stratosphere as a result of a weak magnetic field of the sun and changes in UV radiation.
Chris Wright says:
June 30, 2014 at 2:53 am
With perfect timing today’s printed Daily Telegraph has a report on how the emperor penguins are threatened by melting ice. It’s a perfect example of how other sciences, particularly biology, have been tainted by the corruption of climate science.
The headline is: “Melting ice threatens emperor penguins”. And this at a time when Antarctic ice is at a record high. It almost defies belief. You couldn’t make it up.
Chris
The BBC have just dutifully posted the same story:
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-28089988
It makes you wonder whether somewhere in London is a climate “war room” where they saw the WUWT discussion on record Antarctic ice and felt the need to gate-crash the discussion in their own mendacious, obnoxious way.
In what other science would they be able to get away with saying – “O yes Antarctic ice extent is at record high levels just now, but its predicted to decline in future”. What theory or equation or model can they produce with a track record giving them confidence to predict future development of Antarctic or Arctic ice? None – its only a confidence trick.
The fiction-writing authors gush on idiotically about a “Goldilocks point” implying the ice must not too much or too little but just right for the poor fragile penguins to survive. This means they are making the totally nonsensical assumption that – before evil humans arrived – climate persisted in a constant, unchanging Edenic perfection. Climate has never changed before. Animals cant adapt.
The layers of stupid in this article just wash over you one after the other. It does indeed defy belief. One day there will be an accounting for these deliberate criminal lies.
Jim James says:
June 30, 2014 at 7:31 am
Heat capacity is proportional to mass, thus volume. Area is not directly related to heat capacity.
Salt water freezes at lower temperatures than pure.
The reason this matters is that the enhanced solar energy trapping at the surface due to increased greenhouse gases can do one of two things. First it can increase what is called sensible heat. Sensible heat is manifest is temperature. Second, it can increase latent heat. Latent heat does not increase temperature but is promote phase changes. One important phase change is melting ice.
So .. what you are telling us is that all that heat trapped by CO2 – instead of instantaneously teleporting to the bottom of the ocean as Trenberth suggests – is instead being consumed in latent heat causing ice to melt.
And the result of this is – record HIGH Antarctic ice extent today? And normal / unexceptional global sea ice?
Global warming from CO2 trapping heat is just not happening. It never has.
taxed says:
That’s interesting about what’s happening to the Gulf stream.
The key changes are in the stratosphere as a result of a weak magnetic field of the sun and changes in UV radiation.
For proof, look at the distribution of ozone in the north.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_a_f/gif_files/gfs_t100_nh_f00.gif
The first sentence of this article is wrong where it says The sea ice surrounding Antarctica… has hit a new all-time record high for areal coverage. It is the anomaly that has set a record, not the areal coverage.
[i]Josh Payne says: CAGW novice here. I have heard the claim from the alarmist camp that this surprising sea ice record is a result of the outward distribution of fresh water from the rapidly melting ice masses. How much merit does this claim have?[/i]
*****
They are just making stuff as they go long
1) If melting land ice is causing the record sea ice, then how come they same isn’t happening in the Arctic? We are always hearing about how Greenland & Alaska Glaciers are melting aren’t we? So shouldn’t there be record sea ice around them and the Arctic as a whole?
But I guess to the Fraudsters Physics work differently depending on which Hemisphere you are in, remember the Fraudsters are the same people who think Heat from Global Warming can sink below cold and “hide” in the deep ocean
2) From 2000 – 2007 Antarctica was losing sea ice. This prompted the IPCC in their 2007 report to predict that Antarctic sea ice would continue to decline and maybe soon accelerate to match the Arctic.
So if Global Warming is causing increase in sea ice now, what caused the decrease in 2000 – 2007? There were similar multi year up & down trends seen before 2000 also
3) Looking where the record ice in the Antarctic is, the largest areas of sea ice are no where near the Antarctic Peninsula where pretty much all the melting on the Continent is taking place. Actually there doesn’t look like any increase of sea ice around the Antarctic Peninsula at all. There’s even a large area there that is below normal. Not surprising since the area is volcanically active.
If Freshwater was causing the sea ice to expand, it should expand the most nearest to the source of the freshwater because the further you get away the more dilute it gets but that’s clearly not happening.
Why is everyone getting so wrapped up in what’s happening in one tiny part of the globe? It’s called global warming for a reason.
REPLY: Thanks. We’ll remember that next time there is some wailing about the Arctic – Anthony
I expect that this will be the headline news on the BBC tonight
Oh, wait a minute……
The point really is all the data is really insignificant in size to say or mean anything beyond “oh that is interesting”. We are in the hypothesis phase. I tend to look at the middle of that graph rather then the “record”. What is phenomenal is the see saw dipping on to what some are calling “extremes”. Seems to me that wild swings are the norm and not the indication of an extinction event. If we had ancient data that led up to an actual “ice age” or “flood” then we would have one set of data to based a conclusion on. I am thinking that the same climate scientists that give their students F’s for crappier sets of sample data are banking on much worse.
ren
Thank’s for your reply.
The reason why l think what happens in and over the North Atlantic is important is because its the Gulf Stream stops the Arctic ice sheets expanding to a much greater extent. Should the Gulf Stream become much weaker or at least move to a more southern flow across the Atlantic.
Then this would risk leading to a large expanding of the Arctic ice sheets.
Now what would cause such a change in the Gulf Stream ?.
The jet stream turning more zonal and tracking more southward over the North Atlantic is what. Due to a number of reasons.
1 The trade winds in the Atlantic are what drives the Gulf Stream, and any change in the jet will also change them.
2There will be less ridging of the Azores high up towards NW europe which will reduce the amount of warmer air flowing up from the mid Atlantic across the Atlantic towards NW europe and bring cooler air coming from the North Atlantic instead.
3 There will be a greater risk of high pressure blocks forming around the Arctic circle over the Atlantic bringing down cold air from the pole.
4 A more southern tracking jet would make the Atlantic lows also track further to the south.
Taking there cloud cover further to the south with them. This increase in cloud cover would likely to reduce sea temps in the mid Atlantic, so there will be less warm water to flow in the Gulf Stream.
These are just some of the reasons why l think the North Atlantic is important.
phlogiston says: ” The fiction-writing authors gush on idiotically about a “Goldilocks point” implying the ice must not too much or too little but just right for the poor fragile penguins to survive. This means they are making the totally nonsensical assumption that – before evil humans arrived – climate persisted in a constant, unchanging Edenic perfection. Climate has never changed before. Animals cant adapt.”
Exactly. Their story starts in the Garden of Eden, before corrupted Man spoils everything.
Their story also ends in a cataclysmic apocalypse.
We need to listen, with unquestioning faith, to the High Priests, repent and stop sinning.
In other words: this is all very unoriginal. They are copying the actual Master of the Universe.
taxed says:
That’s interesting about what’s happening to the Gulf stream.
The key changes are in the stratosphere as a result of a weak magnetic field of the sun and changes in UV radiation.
For proof, look at the distribution of ozone in the north.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_a_f/gif_files/gfs_t100_nh_f00.gif
Compare the pressure distribution at an altitude of 15 km and decomposition of ozone.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_a_f/gif_files/gfs_z100_nh_f00.gif
taxed on June 30, 2014 at 10:22 am
ren
Thank’s for your reply.
The reason why l think what happens in and over the North Atlantic is important is because its the Gulf Stream stops the Arctic ice sheets expanding to a much greater extent. Should the Gulf Stream become much weaker or at least move to a more southern flow across the Atlantic.
Then this would risk leading to a large expanding of the Arctic ice sheets.
There is good evidence from Levitus (sorry no link) that the strength of the Gulf stream rises and falls with the AMO – warm and cool phases respectively.
Is there an inhibition of the southern polar vortex in the lower stratosphere?
Well, let’s see:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_a_f/gif_files/gfs_t100_sh_f00.gif
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_a_f/gif_files/gfs_z100_sh_f00.gif
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/blocking/real_time_sh/500gz_anomalies_sh.gif
The oceans are getting ready to punch us hard.