Like watching the number of days that a major hurricane has not made landfall on the United States (now over 3000 days), we can now watch the number of days that Antarctica’s sea ice continues to be above the 30 year baseline. The constant growth is remarkable.
As shown in the plot below, data from University of Illinois Cryosphere Today shows that Antarctic Sea Ice Extent Anomaly has been positive since July 5th, 2011.
We are now on day 1001 of positive anomaly based on the 1979-2008 baseline.
Here is all the data plotted:
Source of the data: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/timeseries.south.anom.1979-2008
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In other words…. You can write a ‘science’ article now describing why the earth is not as cold as you would expect….. Because you found this missing cold!!!!!! It was lost in the north and south poles! It’s been hiding there all summer. And its going to unleash freezing hell in the near future.
AndrewHarding, The EU have banned vacuum cleaners of over 1600 watts from 1st September
I thought that Cryosphere Today published sea ice area, rather than sea ice extent…
It’s caused by the cold apparently.
But it’s caused by an error I hear you say. Nay.
A. Smith says (ironically)
“In other words…. You can write a ‘science’ article now describing why the earth is not as cold as you would expect….. Because you found this missing cold!!!!!! It was lost in the north and south poles! It’s been hiding there all summer. And its going to unleash freezing hell in the near future.”
Thats not so far. Freezing sea water to ice produce heat. More than freezing fresh water. This heat is pumped to space in the antarctic winter. Its lost for the global energy balance. In the opposite of missing heat you have cold. Thats also the point, why not only the max of the antarctic sea ice is higher, but also the min.
Hans
We’ve monitored both poles for about a century at most and with satellites for less than half that.
It’s not possible to say if this is special or not. So I stand by “it’s weather not climate”.
But I still say it’s funny.
Edward Richardson says:
August 22, 2014 at 9:56 am
Thanks for the link. The abstract states that Antarctica is losing ice at an estimated rate about 125 km^3/year (Greenland accounts for the remaining amount of their total). The total volume of the ice sheet is about 25,000,000 km^3. Question: How long will it take to melt 1% of the total Antarctic ice sheet?
(Meanwhile, the Antarctic sea ice extent grows bigger, and bigger, and bigger…)
🙂
Antarctic sea ice has been above average for 1000 straight days
————
No warming for ~17 years and a kDay of >avg Antarctic ice, but it aint gonna matter a whit to the warmunists – they will continue preaching doom.
Or worse, they will say it’s all proof of global warming.
Hans,
Yes, entropy causes “heat” release during freezing if you want to look at it that way. I guess all that heat went to the Atlantic Ocean though right? Or right to space. However… persistent loss of heat is required to induce the heat release… quite a physical phenomenon eh? What do you suppose is sucking the heat out of the antarctic sea water so significantly?
Nothing. that is the answer: nothing is sucking it out. i say that because there is a lack of energy that once prevented the orderly crystallization of the sea water. There is nothing where there used to be something. Water is very conductive – especially sea water…. Ice is not. The loss of energy flowing through the water molecules induces freezing more rapidly. Its a downward spiral…. the more ice forms… the less the energy can flow…then more ice builds. this will continue until the “sunthing” returns.
The lows in antarctic summer are getting lower. the trend is there. As for the Arctic… I believe a storm just blew through and busted up the ice. I think its blowing it right to Britain http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/bank-holiday-weekend-weather-coldest-4069846 the ice will be back and back with a vengeance.
The EU have banned vacuum cleaners of over 1200 watts from 1st September and from 2017 any vacuum cleaner over 900 watts is also being banne
1600 watts. 900 later and wood burners after that.
An issue of importance: we need good operational(!) definitions of “climate” and “weather”. These definitions should be usable as references do decide whether a particular issue under discussion is one of “climate” or “weather”.
For example, one Category 3 storm is clearly “weather”, but does 3224 days (almost 9 years) of Category 3 storms entirely *avoiding* the continent constitute a statistical fluke in the weather, or a short-term trend in climate?
Where should we draw the line?
steveta_uk Thanks, You’re right, but it is still an unnecessary ban!
As far as AGW goes, logic doesn’t get a look in. As somebody else has pointed out,if it takes twice as long to vacuum your carpet with a 1200 watt cleaner as it does with a 2400 watt cleaner,the amount of electrical energy consumed is the same. I would like to add though, that the amount of CO2 entering the atmosphere is higher, because the person doing the cleaning is expending more energy and therefore exhales more CO2.
That the AGW supporters can claim that the Arctic icecap is shrinking due to AGW and the Antarctic icecap is expanding due to AGW draws me to the only logical conclusion possible. AGW supporters are at best neurotic, at worst psychotic!
On the WUWT sea ice page, the “Global Sea Ice Cover” map has Antarctic ice in two shades of blue, dark blue for solid ice, light blue for broken ice. However, day by day the light-blue dark-blue boundaries have no consistency, they can be anywhere. It shows there’s really no difference between them, and dial-turning to find the “right” answer accounts for each day’s map. So my view is that day-to-day variations are imaginary and weekly samplings are the shortest useful ones, if that. I think dial-turning played a significant role in the 2007 and 2012 NH ice minima. And now I’ve beaten this drum enough, cheers.
Otter (ClimateOtter on Twitter) on August 22, 2014 at 9:43 am
What’s your point, phil? Spit it out!
Phil was making the point that the bipolar seesaw is now active – he just didn’t spell it out considering it too obvious. The bipolar seesaw is a marker of both the start and end of interglacials – e.g. see Tzedakis papers. So Phil is warning us to expect global cooling and a slide toward glaciation.
Thanks for the heads-up Phil.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/ writes on their web page,
“This has occurred despite the fact that air temperatures at the 925 hPa level in the Ross and western Amundsen Sea have been much higher than average, by up to 8 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit), for the past two weeks. Longer term, the preceding three months (mid-May to mid-August) have been slightly warmer than average over most of the Antarctic sea ice areas. This supports the idea that the record or near record high Antarctic ice extents of 2014 have been driven by wind patterns and ocean conditions as discussed in our July post.
========================================
Some one needs to remind the NSIDC of the physics of freezing water. Latent heat is released, lots of it. That heat goes to the atmosphere, the only place it can go. Very simple thermodynamic concepts seem to elude them. And since the air temps are typically below zero in the Southern Ocean winters as the Sun does not come up at all mid-May to mid-August, this latent heat release can explain the “slightly warmer than average over most of the Antarctic sea ice areas.”
the number 1000 is interesting,only a few minutes ago jim hunt and i agreed on a $1000 dollar bet on arctic sea ice. it must remain above 1 million square kilometres between now and 2022 for me to win, and drop below for jim to win. loser pays money to charity of winners choice . nice to find an alarmist willing to put his money where his mouth is.
YES! Continued loss of Arctic sea ice IS a tremendous problem!
Future arctic sea ice losses from today’s levels in Arctic sea ice extents between Sept 1 and May 1 will only serve to increase global cooling.
Let us begin a calculating analysis of the Arctic sea ice extents (since it is, after all, the only remaining “evidence” of the former CAGW theory). But, I do not want to address generic previous statements or (false) claims. Therefore, what specifically do YOU believe are the connections between recent increases in CO2 levels, the so-called catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, and Arctic sea ice extents?
I know the ‘theory” of arctic amplification, but do not want to make any assumptions about what YOU believe, nor why YOU believe potential future increases or decreases in arctic sea ice extents are either a symptom of CAGW or a problem to be addressed at all.
Thus, justify (with calculations) why you believe future Arctic sea ice decreases from today’s levels are a problem at all.
Reblogged this on Public Secrets and commented:
Yet another inconvenient truth for climate alarmists.
CryoSat: Launched on April 8, 2010. Measuring the thickness of polar sea ice and monitoring changes in the ice sheets that blanket Greenland and Antarctica.
Satellite records show a constant downward trend in the area covered by Arctic sea ice during all seasons, in particular in summer, with the minimum recorded occurring in the autumn of 2012. In October 2013, however, CryoSat measured about 9,000 cubic km of sea ice – a notable increase compared to 6,000 cubic km in October 2012.
See http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/CryoSat/Arctic_sea_ice_up_from_record_low
See also:
Autumn sea-ice thickness from CryoSat 2010–2013, at
http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2013/12/Autumn_sea-ice_thickness_from_CryoSat_2010_2013
And this year, the 2014 ice season, Arctic sea ice extents (area! Which is the ONLY thing we can actually measure.) has been even HIGHER than in the 2013 season: it has been within two std deviations from the accepted “normal” daily average the entire year. Thus, it has been within normal natural variations. Previous highs and lows are meaningless: this year is the only season that matters.
Yes, that is what CryoSat is paid to produce. And your point is?
Interesting that Cryosat II is recording higher ice volume over the last couple of years.
Ah, but the importance of this claim – proved wrong as you point out – is even LESS IMPORTANT than you might think. The “Error” in Antarctic sea ice extents that these papers attempt to analyze – actually a “difference” between two analysis methods – is less than 1/10 of one percent of reported Antarctic sea ice values.
Antarctic sea ice “excesses” the past three years are consistently gotten LARGER through all seasons of the year at ALL Antarctic sea cie levels: from a low of 2-1/2 Mkm^2 to a higher of greater than 16.0 Mkm^2. The Antarctic sea ice anomaly the past three years has been steadily and rapidly growing during every month of the year – reaching a record high in June 2014 at 2.05 million km^2, averaging over 1.35 million sq kilometers, and being above 1.0 Mkm^2 the entire time. Thus, a one-time “correction” of 0.010 million square kilometers is meaningless is discussing Antarctic sea ice trends – the change is less than the random difference between four successive daily sea ice extents!
In fact, the Antarctic sea ice anomaly has been getting larger since the late 19080’s – Antarctic sea ice has been getting larger – covering more area at latitudes far closer to the equator – for a longer period of time than Arctic sea ice has been decreasing.
I have a strong feeling that there is a distinct mindset about the greenhouse effect on global warming and sea ice, even with those scientists who travel down to Antarctica and see the exact opposite outcome with their own eyes.
Not only have they come up with almost a dozen explanations as to why Antarctic sea ice is increasing, they keep re-assuring us this will be short lived and have oddly conducted research purporting to show why sea ice retreat will accelerate.
When is something going to click?
I note however that in the Request For Tender criteria for a new Antarctic re-supply ship for the Australian Antarctic Division one of the requirements is the ability to break 1.65m thick ice while maintaining a speed of three knots.
Isn’t this specification a bit of an overkill against expectations? (The present icebreaker Aurora Australis can break ice at 1.23 metres at 2.5 knots)