From NASA Goddard, October 7, 2014:
![antarctic_seaice_sept19[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/antarctic_seaice_sept191.jpg?quality=83)
The new Antarctic sea ice record reflects the diversity and complexity of Earth’s environments, said NASA researchers. Claire Parkinson, a senior scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, has referred to changes in sea ice coverage as a microcosm of global climate change. Just as the temperatures in some regions of the planet are colder than average, even in our warming world, Antarctic sea ice has been increasing and bucking the overall trend of ice loss.
“The planet as a whole is doing what was expected in terms of warming. Sea ice as a whole is decreasing as expected, but just like with global warming, not every location with sea ice will have a downward trend in ice extent,” Parkinson said.
Since the late 1970s, the Arctic has lost an average of 20,800 square miles (53,900 square kilometers) of ice a year; the Antarctic has gained an average of 7,300 square miles (18,900 sq km). On Sept. 19 this year, for the first time ever since 1979, Antarctic sea ice extent exceeded 7.72 million square miles (20 million square kilometers), according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. The ice extent stayed above this benchmark extent for several days. The average maximum extent between 1981 and 2010 was 7.23 million square miles (18.72 million square kilometers).
The single-day maximum extent this year was reached on Sept. 20, according to NSIDC data, when the sea ice covered 7.78 million square miles (20.14 million square kilometers). This year’s five-day average maximum was reached on Sept. 22, when sea ice covered 7.76 million square miles (20.11 million square kilometers), according to NSIDC.
A warming climate changes weather patterns, said Walt Meier, a research scientist at Goddard. Sometimes those weather patterns will bring cooler air to some areas. And in the Antarctic, where sea ice circles the continent and covers such a large area, it doesn’t take that much additional ice extent to set a new record.
“Part of it is just the geography and geometry. With no northern barrier around the whole perimeter of the ice, the ice can easily expand if conditions are favorable,” he said.
Researchers are investigating a number of other possible explanations as well. One clue, Parkinson said, could be found around the Antarctic Peninsula – a finger of land stretching up toward South America. There, the temperatures are warming, and in the Bellingshausen Sea just to the west of the peninsula the sea ice is shrinking. Beyond the Bellingshausen Sea and past the Amundsen Sea, lies the Ross Sea – where much of the sea ice growth is occurring.
That suggests that a low-pressure system centered in the Amundsen Sea could be intensifying or becoming more frequent in the area, she said – changing the wind patterns and circulating warm air over the peninsula, while sweeping cold air from the Antarctic continent over the Ross Sea. This, and other wind and lower atmospheric pattern changes, could be influenced by the ozone hole higher up in the atmosphere – a possibility that has received scientific attention in the past several years, Parkinson said.“The winds really play a big role,” Meier said. They whip around the continent, constantly pushing the thin ice. And if they change direction or get stronger in a more northward direction, he said, they push the ice further and grow the extent. When researchers measure ice extent, they look for areas of ocean where at least 15 percent is covered by sea ice.
While scientists have observed some stronger-than-normal pressure systems – which increase winds – over the last month or so, that element alone is probably not the reason for this year’s record extent, Meier said. To better understand this year and the overall increase in Antarctic sea ice, scientists are looking at other possibilities as well.
Melting ice on the edges of the Antarctic continent could be leading to more fresh, just-above-freezing water, which makes refreezing into sea ice easier, Parkinson said. Or changes in water circulation patterns, bringing colder waters up to the surface around the landmass, could help grow more ice.
Snowfall could be a factor as well, Meier said. Snow landing on thin ice can actually push the thin ice below the water, which then allows cold ocean water to seep up through the ice and flood the snow – leading to a slushy mixture that freezes in the cold atmosphere and adds to the thickness of the ice. This new, thicker ice would be more resilient to melting.
“There hasn’t been one explanation yet that I’d say has become a consensus, where people say, ‘We’ve nailed it, this is why it’s happening,’” Parkinson said. “Our models are improving, but they’re far from perfect. One by one, scientists are figuring out that particular variables are more important than we thought years ago, and one by one those variables are getting incorporated into the models.”For Antarctica, key variables include the atmospheric and oceanic conditions, as well as the effects of an icy land surface, changing atmospheric chemistry, the ozone hole, months of darkness and more.
“Its really not surprising to people in the climate field that not every location on the face of Earth is acting as expected – it would be amazing if everything did,” Parkinson said. “The Antarctic sea ice is one of those areas where things have not gone entirely as expected. So it’s natural for scientists to ask, ‘OK, this isn’t what we expected, now how can we explain it?’”
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http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2014/10/2014-melt-season-in-review/
Did anyone notice this?
Scroll down to the final paragraph. Regular readers should have some fun with the recommendations!
Kurt in Switzerland
This should make it easier:
“A related note
Last year, a vessel became trapped in ice south of Australia in an incident that highlighted the need for better local ice forecasts. The International Ice Charting Working Group will meet later this month in Punta Arenas, Chile. Members will work on improving the collective capability of ice services to provide ice information in the interests of marine safety.”
…and icebreaker rescue proficiency operations…
If that’s Chris Turney’s boat no increase in ice information services is going to overcome human stupidity.
Hilarious 🙂
“Part of it is just the geography and geometry. With no northern barrier around the whole perimeter of the ice, the ice can easily expand if conditions are favorable”
————
Conditions such as – NO GLOBAL WARMING!!!
If this were an Arctic story on the ice losses, what are the odds that the Antarctic ice gains would have been mentioned in that story?? Seems to even a casual observer that the establishment is slanting most stories these days to fit the perceived need to limit the damage from ‘negative’ news and promote the ‘positive’ news. Strange that ‘negative’ helps humans and ‘positive’ hurts humans. I thought the Alarmists were trying to save us?? Thank goodness this looks nothing like cultism.
” So it’s natural for scientists to ask, ‘OK, this isn’t what we expected, now how can we explain it?’””
It may be natural but making excuses for a falsified hypothesis is not science.
Scientists would say: “Our hypothesis led to a forecast outcome that did NOT occur. Therefore, our hypothesis has been falsified and is wrong. We need to go back to the drawing board and generate a new falsifiable hypothesis as the current one must be discarded.”
Claire Parkinson, a senior scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center,
So, the ONLY reason she can write the headline (that the always-so-much-ignored Antarctic Sea Ice increase is only 1/3 as much as the ever-so-much propagandized Arctic Sea Ice reduction is that she (NASA/GISS/Mieir/NSIDC etc) is comparing a rate of decrease in the Arctic to a rate of increase in the Antarctic.
Then they go on to the usual suspects of greater winds from the continent, meltwater from the continent diluting the 20 million sq kilometers under the Antarctic sea ice, etc. but then go ahead and they do demolish each of these straw men! Surprising, isn’t it?
Regardless of their excuses for the very-threatening Antarctic sea ice increase, look at what they are doing.
The Arctic sea ice reduction is a long linear trend since 1979. The Antarctic sea ice increases have been steadily occurring since 1992. The Antarctic sea ice increases have been very, very fast since 2011. Which “rate” should be used?
NONE of them.
See, until 2007, the Arctic sea ice loss rarely, if ever, was greater than 2 std deviations from the normal.
In other words, since measurements started in 1979, only very recently has Arctic sea ice loss been greater than what should be considered natural variations. And, this entire year, the Arctic sea ice has remained every day right within the 2 standard deviation band. Low in that band, but it has remained within the band. Further, since the very low 2007 and 2012 summers, the Arctic sea ice has refrozen real nicely. Thus proving that there is NO lasting effect from year-to-year of Arctic sea ice areas.
Through the past two years, the Antarctic sea ice area has been steadily ABOVE the two standard deviation band. The rates of increase of one region cannot be compared to the rates in the other.
But, she is also even more fundamentally dead wrong in even attempting to simple comparing Arctic sea ice areas against Antarctic sea ice areas.
Why?
1. The Antarctic sea ice reflects 5 TIMES more solar energy this time of year than the Arctic absorbs! Those losses in the Arctic needs to be FIVE TIMES the gain in the Antarctic just to keep the world’s heat balance even. (In early March, when the Antarctic sea ice is near its yearly minimum (at its highest latitude) and when the Arctic sea ice is at its yearly maximum (at its absolutely lowest latitude) the two “almost” get exposed to the same amount of sunlight.) Every other month between late August and mid-April – the seven months of the year the Antarctic is receiving ever higher and higher amounts of solar energy. Only during a short five month (mid-April to mid-August) is the Arctic receiving more solar energy. And, then, the Arctic sea ice is melting and has a very, very low albedo. There just isn’t much energy difference between sea ice and open Arctic ocean under today’s conditions.
The Antarctic has much, much more sea ice than the Arctic, that sea ice is in different areas and latitudes than the Arctic, and the Antarctic sea ice maximum extents is during a time of the year when the solar radiation is near its maximum. In the Arctic summer, the sun’s light is only 1315/1410 at top-of-atmosphere (93%) as much as it is during the Antarctic summer. Worse, that Arctic sea ice lies between 78 north and 82 north latitude at minimum: The sun in mid-September is only 8-12 degrees above the horizon! The Antarctic sea ice at maximum is at latitude 58 – 59 south. About the latitude of the middle of Hudson Bay.
Comparing the change in “rates” when those rates changed DRASTICALLY at different year intervals is wrong. Good propaganda. But bad “science”
2. Because at minimum, the Arctic sea ice was less than 3.0 in 2012. It CANNOT ever get lower than 0.0, right? So, even if Arctic sea ice loss was 1.0 million sq kilometers per year, and so ALL arctic sea ice vanished in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 (as predicted!) or 2016, it could NOT get lower. regardless of “rate” since 1979, rate since 1990 (when Antarctic sea ice began continually increasing), or since 2011 (when Antarctic sea ice anomaly began increasing at ever accelerating rates).
But, Antarctic sea ice INCREASE is unlimited. Except by the Australia, South American, South Africa and the Tahiti coastlines. The Antarctic sea ice “excess” alone this summer in June was greater than 2.05 million sq kilometers – practically the SAME AREA as Greenland’s 2.16 Mkm^2 !
And at that “excess” Antarctic sea ice is at the same latitude as Greenland.
Would Parkinson “notice” if the entire ice area of Greenland suddenly doubled in size one year?
But she claims that the Antarctic is meaningless because the Antarctic is only increasing at 1/3 the rate of the Arctic. Meaning: We’re drowning (getting deadly colder!) slower than we are (not) getting warmer.
Worse, for NASA’s salaries and future funding based on CAGW hysteria, the Arctic sea ice from today’s extents CANNOT create any “Arctic feedback” of increased Arctic air temperatures increasing sea ice loss increasing solar absorption into the darker Arctic waters which then creates even higher Arctic temperatures.
Nice, simplified theory. But it is proven wrong by the facts. In those Arctic summer months, the DMI daily temperatures are DECREASING. The “Arctic” annual air temperature land-based averages from 60 to 70 degrees (where the sea ice is NOT located) have gone up recently. Most likely because the entire Arctic tundra and forests are growing faster due to more CO2 in the atmosphere, and thus are darker. BUT! 60 – 70 latitude on land across Canada and Siberia is NOT where the sea ice is.
RACook,
Very good analysis.
Just a few days ago I found and saved a few posts from Paul Homewood on albedo and Antarctica. Here they are. They go more in depth than the headlines suggest.
Do you disagree with Tamino’s calculations (http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/10/01/sea-ice-insolation/) which claim that the decline in Arctic sea ice insolation has been greater than the increase in Antarctic sea ice insolation (directly opposite to your point 1)? Although your argument seems plausible, he claims to have done the math and shown otherwise.
Yes. He (Tamino) is wrong. His “calculation” and his assumptions and his “spreading” those wrong values across the whole earth is wrong.
Here is what the IPCC has said recently on Antarctica. My bolding. No particular order.
Low confidence, medium confidence and high confidence. What a load of utter garbage. This is not science. I want my predictions which I can compare to observations. That is what I want and nothing else will do. Projections replaced ‘predictions’ when they knew their ‘predictions’ were crap. See AR1.
Tamino supposedly countered this sea ice reflection comparisons:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/10/01/sea-ice-insolation/
His calculation can be easily debunked, however.
http://www.fao.org/3/a-x6541e/X6541E03.htm
At fig 8 witness that 80 degree latitude daily solar radiation maximum in June is perhaps 10% higher that the one at 60 degree, but notice how wider the 60 degree latitude graph is.
I don’t see how the article from the UN Food and Agricultural Organization even applies to Tamino’s calculation, yet alone ‘debunks’ it. Could you please explain? On the contrary, assuming his calculations are correct, Tamino does debunk RACookPE1978 October 8, 2014 at 1:52 pm .
Tamino put up a graph with and claimed it was right with no supporting evidence. Why anyone would accept something like that is beyond me.
Mozman, see this.
I have often been informed that as the Arctic sea ice extent is reduced the ocean absorbs more heat. This means less sea ice in subsequent years. What happened to sea ice extent after 2012? What happened to Arctic ice volume since 2012?
Wrong. Tamino begins by making several incorrect assumptions about Arctic and Antarctic sea ice areas, compounds them by making deadly wrong assumptions and approximations about solar radiation levels at top of atmosphere each day-of-year.
He then “averages” these incorrect solar radiation level assumptions out over the whole earth and the whole year.
He then expands those errors by neglecting air attenuation differences at different seasons of the year and different latitudes.
He continues by making errors in calculating air mass at each of the latitudes that he is assuming is correct, which is also not correct.
He then tries to use annual radiation levels at these approximate (but incorrect) latitudes rather than hour-by-hour reflection and absorption rates.
Further, he uses 1.0 and 0.0 for albedoes of sea ice and open ocean at all solar elevation angles.
Then he plots those incorrect absorption and reflection values in a year-by-year graph since 1979, which is meaningless, even if they were the correct values of anything correct.
Solar radiation levels at top of atmosphere MUST first be accurately predicted for evry day of year. Then the solar radiation penetrating the atmosphere MUST be calculated for each hour of the day, for every day of the year, and at the specific average latitude of the edge of the sea ice in the Antarctic and Arctic for that hour of the day and day of the year.
You MUST then use the actual measured Arctic and Antarctic sea ice albedo as it changes over the year. (See Judith Curry, 2001) . Fortunately, sea ice albedo does not change appreciably with solar elevation angle.
You MUST then use the actual measured open ocean albedo at the SPECIFIC solar elevation angle of the sun at that specific hour of the day at that specific latitude of the edge of of sea ice to compare what happens if that specific square meter of surface is covered by sea ice, or is open ocean at some ocean temperature, air temperature, wind speed (which also affects open ocean albedo!), humidity, air pressure, and cloud cover.
And THAT comparison is the easy one for direct sunlight on a clear day at normal arctic clarity!
So don’t EVEN get me off into the differences made by direct and diffuse solar radiation on albedo. Or the differences in evaporation rates at various wind speeds under different relative humidity conditions. etc.
Have You had a look at Tamino’s “simplified model” for the average latitude of the sea ice? It is grossly inaccurate. Oddly enough in opposite directions for the Arctic and Antarctic.
I disagree with Tanino calculating energy at summer peak only (again in June 80 degree it is only 10% higher than the one at 60 degree). I think we should calculate cumulative over the year. According to
http://www.powerfromthesun.net/Book/chapter02/chapter02.html
“the yearly total solar radiation on a surface maintained normal to the sun’s rays is essentially the same regardless of the latitude”. Next, “the cosine effect reduces solar radiation on a horizontal surface by 39 percent at the equator, whereas the solar radiation is reduced by 52 percent at 40 degrees latitude and by 74 percent at 80 degrees latitude.”
This crude calculation, of course because at the poles the radiation is not 0 (multiple of cos(0)).
So at the peak of summer, poles may receive slightly more sunlight, but effect quickly fades. They receive 0 in spring and autumn, and disregarding 3 seasons out of 4 is wrong.
No. No part of that approximation is correct past the temperate latitudes (between 48 south up to 48 north)…
For example, did you notice that little slip “for a surface held perpendicular to the sun’s rays” ? The ocean’s surface is NOT perpendicular to the sun’s rays at ANY hour of ANY day save local solar noon between the tropics of Capricorn and Cancer on two days of the year. (-23.5 to +23.5) … Their correction for a flat surface does not follow basic math and spherical geometry, and fails again to account for the hourly movement of the sun and the yearly swing of the polar axis as the earth rotates around the sun.
Also, their simplified latitude correction fails close to the poles because of the height of the earth’s atmosphere.
They are using the wrong atmospheric transmission coefficient for polar latitudes and its usual humidities and dust/pollen/particulate concentrations.
Etc.
You worry when a so called senior scientist still thinks that a planet that has shown no warming in the warmist fiddled data for nearly 20 years is still warming. It’s like if you put a kettle on the stove and came back 20 years later and it was no warmer – let alone boiling – than when you put it on, would you be impressed? And bar the freak storm derived low of 2012, arctic ice has been slowly increasing at the minimum summer point since 2007 and with 4 of the coldest arctic summers having been in the last 6 years I would suggest that is not a surprise.
“The planet as a whole is doing what was expected in terms of warming. ”
Laughable. 18 years and no warming at all. Did they expect that?
Don’t forget, the OCEANS are now the true measure of global warming.
The warm water from anthropogenic climate change forms from the warm atmosphere around Antarctica and melts the sea ice into a slush, then the anthropogenically amplified winds and currents push all this slush together where it freezes, this in-turn increases the sea ice extent and traps ice breakers during the summer melt season.
As the anthropogenically induced warming of the atmosphere overpowers and warms the earths oceans and melts the entire continent of Antarctica, melting ice on the edges of the continent will produce more fresh water, just-above-freezing, which in below freezing temperatures the anthropogenically induced warming makes refreezing into sea ice easier.
Besides look at the Arctic, it has melted more than the Antarctic since it’s highest sea ice extent during the coldest period of the late 1970’s, before that it was even colder and there are no records of sea ice before the late 1970’s but extensive research conclusively shows fresh water mixed with salty water forms sea ice which freezes much easier under a warming world causing a runaway freshwater death spiral of ice increase this will make walruses very tired due to the runaway salty water death spiral of sea ice.
Really! you guys need to brush up on your science.
Arctic sea ice grew from early 70’s to late 70’s – IPCC wg1 full report 1995.
Thanks… Missing “/sarc” tag. see comment below.
The following graph is from the IPCC’s First Assessment Report [pdf about 22Mb]
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/far/wg_I/ipcc_far_wg_I_full_report.pdf
http://stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/screenhunter_170-jun-15-11-10.jpg
Jimbo –
You should post both a) and b) from Fig. 7.20 of the IPCC’s FAR (regarding the NOAA figures from 1970-1990). Sea Ice extent anomalies in the N. and S. Poles are likely to be 180 deg. out of phase with each other.
No. You are wrong.
Really ya think? I know.. I would have gotten away with it, if it wasn’t for you pesky kids.. I forgot the “sarc” but surly it was obvious! “tired walruses” and “runaway freshwater death spiral of ice increase” should have gave it away.
I suppose it shows that these alarmist claims are becoming a parody in of themselves.
Bingo.
Nothing shows the corruption of climate science more than the defensiveness of scientists announcing findings which are contrary to their theory. I mean, contrast that to the faster than light neutrino controversy – the scientists involved knew that they were probably wrong, that their measurements of FTL neutrinos were wrong somehow, but they weren’t defensive, they sent out a call for help from other scientists to help them solve their riddle.
What if the UN existed during the1920s to 1940s Arctic Warm Period? We must act now because it must be our fault. Reams of publications from trees would be produced for nothing.
I’m done and good night. Enjoy the record Antarctica sea ice extent caused by some kind of warming which we can’t find in the deep, the shallows or in the air.
I like that – with a little dressing up it could be made to sound almost Churchillian (From “we will fight them” to “we can’t find it” – in only 7 decades).
Antarctic Sea Ice Reaches New Record Maximum, as further proof of global warming
Arctic Sea Ice Reaches New Record Minimum , as further proof of global warming
Rain of Frogs reported over China , as further proof of global warming
And so on and so for , its long past the time when anything will affect the situation that ‘proof ‘ of global warming can come from anywhere and be anything . Its not science true , but long since this was about science.
I think it’s a good thing for these clowns at NASA GSFC that I’m not the owner/controller of President Obama’s pen and phone (because there would be unemployment involved for many of these liars).
This is a pathetic press release and I’m ashamed that my tax dollars support this tripe (which may be an unnecessarily harsh and insulting comparison for perfectly good tripe).
Claire Parkinson STOP LYING WITH MY TAX DOLLARS!
PS: I work with GSFC personnel, so I have some personal knowledge here.
Boulder skeptic:
Do you actually believe that Parkinson is lying rather than mistaken? I would love to hear what you have on our dear NASA Claire.
“Since the late 1970s, the Arctic has lost an average of 20,800 square miles (53,900 square kilometers) of ice a year”
It is amazing how you see what you want to see;
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_images/ssmi_range_ice-ext.png
If you look at this image you can see a gradual improvement in end of winter ice extent since about 2006/2007 with end of summer melt fluctuating in extent. This improvement is now running to 6/7 years but is rarely mentioned by the general scientific community. I hope my link works- Thanks, Bruce.
How many evidences of global cooling will be required before the Team is forced to accept that not global warming but global cooling causes global cooling? The oceans are cooling, the land surface & lower troposphere are cooling (in unadjusted, ie real, data), sea & lake ice, glaciers & the massive East Antarctic ice sheet are growing.
I suggest that no amount of evidence will prevail against dogma, but only a change in findings rewarded by public funding.
Vote for a REAL change!! …someone has to wake up eventually to this, I would hope.
Ted Cruz, or failing that, Rand Paul.
Otherwise, more of the same hopelessness.
Ditto snow cover.
I’m testing my new time machine — it’s retrieved this NASA press release from 2045:
“The sudden new Ice Age with its 10C temperature drops world-wide reflects the diversity and complexity of Earth’s environments”, said NASA researchers who added “Its really not surprising to people in the climate field that not every location on the face of Earth is acting as expected – it would be amazing if everything did”.
Joe Romm, one of the leading climate change propagandists, has put up an article about this over at his Think Progress blog explaining that there’s more ice because it’s warmer.
I give his column a D+ in truthiness, which is consistent with the rankings of other blog entries at that site.
Thank heavens for Joe Romm. All this time I figured the extra sea ice down there was due to it being colder. Now that I’m set straight that it’s really just all the Antarcticans shoveling their snow off the land in order to bask more comfortably in the tropical heat, I can sleep well now.
The thing about Joe Romm and “Think Progress” is that he doesn’t seem to make a lot of progress at thinking.
From a report in 2006 called “Antarctic Temperature and Sea Ice Trends Over the Last Century”
“Conclusion: Whereas climate models suggest that temperatures in Antarctica should have
been warming in recent decades in response to increases in greenhouse gases, measurements
show otherwise. Although some regions do show increases, the majority of the continent
shows no significant trend or an actual decrease. There is evidence that atmospheric and
ocean circulation patterns have much stronger impacts on Antarctic climate than do
greenhouse gas increases.”
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/antarctica_white_paper_final.pdf
This statement mystifies me. Maybe someone can explain the logical significance:
“And in the Antarctic, where sea ice circles the continent and covers such a large area, it doesn’t take that much additional ice extent to set a new record.”
The statement is nonsense.
It’s fair to say that as Antarctic sea ice extends a lot closer to the equator than Arctic sea ice, then the same equatorward increase in sea ice will result in a greater increase in extent in the Antarctic.
After further consideration of the context of of Meier’s statements as a whole and reassurance by the responses here that I wasn’t missing something, I’m considering the possibility that the statement was not intended to make sense. Perhaps it’s a code, like the hostage in a movie sends over the phone with a gun at their head as a clue they’re under duress, in effect saying, “I have to say these things to save my government career; so don’t take them too seriously” ;).
The Arctic winter ice extent is contained with the space between continents. Its the area occupied by >15% ice so it can become more compacted rather than spread over a larger area. She ignores what ocean currents would do to the Antarctic areas of about 15% sea ice which gets protected by coves in the Arctic.
It’s called GobbledyGook. She basically said; If ice increases, instead of decreases, there will be more ice and if there is continually more ice, there will be a record, but so what? She wants say, new record sea ice in the Antarctic is a distraction and should not be viewed as evidence against CAGW. You need to look over here, at the smaller ice mass up at the North pole that got smaller a while ago before it started to recover. That is all the proof of CAGW.
He might mean that the Antarctic sea-ice is less variable between years, so an increase of c. 10 % is enough to set a record. On the other hand such a large increase in something that doesn’t vary much between years is actually quite remarkable.
As a Swedish proverb says: “whichever way you turn, your backside will still be behind you”.
Walt Meier says,”it doesn’t take that much additional ice extent to set a new record.”
What a tool.
No it doesn’t take that much, other than the fact its happening now, with all that evil Co2 continuing to rise,
Makes me want to shove pumpkin sized piece of glacier in his piehole! 😀
No Claire, this is not what you had expected, and no, the globe has not been a warming trend [except in the models] for half of the satellite record. Overall sea ice trend is rising as [and before] you speak, not declining as you are saying.
Once again, Marcel Leroux has explained all this in his books: the increased frequency of deeper depressions associated with more powerful anticyclones, the dynamical warming of the peninsula, etc… Meier is just trying to reconcile these unavoidable weather observations with the increasingly untenable global warming narrative. However the same events make perfect sense in Leroux’s rapid mode of general circulation.
His seminal paper on circulation: http://ddata.over-blog.com/xxxyyy/2/32/25/79/Leroux-Global-and-Planetary-Change-1993.pdf
And his 2010 book Dynamic Analysis of Weather and Climate, Springer-Praxis, 2 English ed.