2015 Antarctic Maximum Sea Ice Extent Breaks Streak of Record Highs

From NASA Goddard:

The sea ice cover of the Southern Ocean reached its yearly maximum extent on Oct. 6. At 7.27 million square miles (18.83 million square kilometers), the new maximum extent falls roughly in the middle of the record of Antarctic maximum extents compiled during the 37 years of satellite measurements – this year’s maximum extent is both the 22nd lowest and the 16th highest. More remarkably, this year’s maximum is quite a bit smaller than the previous three years, which correspond to the three highest maximum extents in the satellite era, and is also the lowest since 2008.

Antarctic sea ice likely reached its annual maximum extent on Oct. 6, barring a late season surge. This video shows the evolution of the sea ice cover of the Southern Ocean from its minimum yearly extent to its peak extent. Credits: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

The growth of Antarctic sea ice was erratic this year: sea ice was at much higher than normal levels throughout much of the first half of 2015 until, in mid-July, it flattened out and even went below normal levels in mid-August. The sea ice cover recovered partially in September, but still this year’s maximum extent is [513,000] square miles (1.33 million square kilometers) below the record maximum extent, which was set in 2014. Scientists believe this year’s strong El Niño event, a natural phenomenon that warms the surface waters of the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, had an impact on the behavior of the sea ice cover around Antarctica. El Niño causes higher sea level pressure, warmer air temperature and warmer sea surface temperature in the Amundsen, Bellingshausen and Weddell seas in west Antarctica that affect the sea ice distribution.

“After three record high extent years, this year marks a return toward normalcy for Antarctic sea ice,” said Walt Meier, a sea ice scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “There may be more high years in the future because of the large year-to-year variation in Antarctic extent, but such extremes are not near as substantial as in the Arctic, where the declining trend towards a new normal is continuing.”

This year’s maximum extent occurred fairly late: the mean date of the Antarctic maximum is Sept. 23 for 1981-2010.

More at the WUWT Sea Ice Page

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October 16, 2015 1:13 pm

Wait…You mean something that increases can also…Decrease? It’s almost as though there’s some sort of…Variability or something. Who would have thought such a thing? Here I thought that once something increases, it’s supposed to continue increasing unabated like temperatu…Wait, maybe house price…No, stock marke…No. I’m so confused.
/Heavy sarcasm

noaaprogrammer
Reply to  David (@Graybeard52)
October 16, 2015 9:17 pm

The hockey stick will help your confusion.

601nan
October 16, 2015 1:29 pm

Ater July 5 the daily numbers (bootstrap and nasateam) like like someone screwed up the shell script or revised a directory so the shell script reads the wrong file.

William Astley
October 16, 2015 1:30 pm

The Antarctic sea ice will soon be settling new historic records.
The recent high latitude warming was caused by solar wind bursts which in turn are caused by solar coronal holes. Very recently there has been an observational change in the coronal holes, the occurrence of patches which indicates the mechanism that is creating the coronal holes (something deep within the sun is changing).
The solar wind bursts create a space charge differential in the ionosphere which causes a current to flow from high latitude regions to the equator. The current flow causes cloud property changes at both high latitude regions and the equator that causes warming at both locations. The effect lasts for 3 to 5 days so a string in time of solar wind bursts are required to cause warming.
Coronal holes persist for months and occur at all times during the solar cycle. Coronal holes can if the occur late in the solar cycle make is paper that high GCR (galactic cosmic rays, silly term for mostly high speed cosmic protons that are modulated by the solar heliosphere. The solar heliosphere is the name for the tenuous gas and piecemof magnetic flux that is pushed by the solar wind to well past the orbit of Pluto. The solar heliosphere is blocks GCR. The solar heliosphere extent and strength is greatest when the solar cycle is at its peak and during strong solar cycles.) The solar wind bursts are the reason for the current El Niño conditions.
The solar wind bursts cause a sudden change in the geomagnetic field which is measured by the parameter Ap. (See this link which provides a graph of Ap and also shows picture of the sun which shows the occurrence of patches in the coronal hole. There has also bee papers written concerning the changes to coronal holes and the appearance of coronal holes late in the solar cycle.)
http://www.solen.info/solar/
As I have stated a number of times, it appears the solar cycle has been interrupted which is different than a slowdown in the solar cycle.
The sun is more complicated than a simple fusion furnace.
The coronal holes are high speed protons streams that ejected from something deep within the sun. An observation to support that assertion is the fact that the rotational speed of the coronal holes is not reduced with increasing solar latitude indicates the high speed proton wind which we call coronal holes is created deep within the sun.
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0004-637X/763/2/137/pdf

ROTATION RATES OF CORONAL HOLES AND THEIR PROBABLE ANCHORING DEPTHS
For different latitude zones between 40◦ north and 40◦ south, we compute rotation rates and find that, irrespective of their area, the number of days observed on the solar disk, and their latitudes, CHs rotate rigidly. Combined for all the latitude zones, we also find that CHs rotate rigidly during their evolution history. In addition, for all latitude zones, CHs follow a rigid body rotation law during their first appearance. Interestingly, the average first rotation rate (∼438 nHz) of CHs, computed from their first appearance on the solar disk, matches the rotation rate of the solar interior only below the tachocline.

xyzzy11
Reply to  William Astley
October 16, 2015 5:11 pm

Coronal holes can if the occur late in the solar cycle make is paper that high GCR (galactic cosmic rays, silly term for mostly high speed cosmic protons that are modulated by the solar heliosphere.

Not sure what you’re saying here 😉

William Astley
Reply to  xyzzy11
October 17, 2015 8:48 am

The solar wind bursts from coronal holes remove cloud forming ions in high latitude regions and cause warming in the tropics due to a change in cloud properties and cloud duration in the tropics by a mechanism that is called electroscavening. Less ions, less clouds colder planet.
Galactic cosmic rays (GCR, the name for mostly high speed cosmic protons) create cloud forming ions in the atmosphere which is called ion mediated nucleation. More ions more clouds colder planet.
The solar heliosphere blocks and deflects GCR, so when the solar cycle is strong there is less GCR.
Normally when the solar cycle is weak and at the end of the solar cycle when the cycle the higher GCR would cause more cloud cover and would cause cooling. What inhibits the cooling is solar wind bursts which remove ions.
http://www.utdallas.edu/physics/pdf/Atmos_060302.pdf

Atmospheric Ionization and Clouds as Links Between Solar Activity and Climate

Observations of changes in cloud properties that correlate with the 11-year cycles in space particle fluxes are reviewed. The correlations can be understood in terms of one or both of two microphysical processes; ion mediated nucleation (IMN) and electroscavenging. IMN relies on the presence of ions to provide the condensation sites for sulfuric acid and water vapors to produce new aerosol particles, which, under certain conditions, might grow into sizes that can be activated as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). Electroscavenging depends on the buildup of space charge at the tops and bottoms of clouds as the vertical current density (Jz) in the global electric circuit encounters the increased electrical resistivity of the clouds.
Space charge is electrostatic charge density due to a difference between the concentrations of positive and negative ions. Calculations indicate that this electrostatic charge on aerosol particles can enhance the rate at which they are scavenged by cloud droplets. The aerosol particles for which scavenging is important are those that act as insitu ice forming nuclei (IFN) and CCN. Both IMN and electroscavenging depend on the presence of atmospheric ions that are generated, in regions of the atmosphere relevant for effects on clouds, by galactic cosmic rays (GCR). The space charge depends, in addition, on the magnitude of Jz. The magnitude of Jz depends not only on the GCR flux, but also on the fluxes of MeV electrons from the radiation belts, and the ionospheric potentials generated by the solar wind, that can vary independently of the GCR flux. The roles of GCR and Jz in cloud processes are the speculative links in a series connecting solar activity, the solar wind, GCR, clouds and climate. This article reviews the correlated cloud variations and the two mechanisms proposed as possible explanations for these links.
http://sait.oat.ts.astro.it/MmSAI/76/PDF/969.pdf

Once again about global warming and solar activity
Solar activity, together with human activity, is considered a possible factor for the global warming observed in the last century. However, in the last decades solar activity has remained more or less constant while surface air temperature has continued to increase, which is interpreted as an evidence that in this period human activity is the main factor for global warming. We show that the index commonly used for quantifying long-term changes in solar activity, the sunspot number, accounts for only one part of solar activity
(William: Closed magnetic field) and using this index leads to the underestimation of the role of solar activity in the global warming in the recent decades. A more suitable index is the geomagnetic activity which reflects all solar activity, and it is highly correlated to global temperature variations in the whole period for which we have data. ….
Comment:
(William: Short term abrupt changes to the geomagnetic field caused by solar wind bursts, which are measured by the short term geomagnetic field change parameter Ak. Note the parameter is Ak rather than the month average with Leif provides a graph for. The effect is determined by the number of short term wind bursts. A single very large event has less affect than a number of events. As Coronal holes can persist for months and years and as the solar wind burst affect lasts for roughly week, a coronal hole has a significant effect on planetary temperature)
…The geomagnetic activity reflects the impact of solar activity originating from both closed and open magnetic field regions, so it is a better indicator of solar activity than the sunspot number which is related to only closed magnetic field regions. It has been noted that in the last century the correlation between sunspot number and geomagnetic activity has been steadily decreasing from – 0.76 in the period 1868- 1890, to 0.35 in the period 1960-1982, while the lag has increased from 0 to 3 years (Vieira
et al. 2001).
…In Figure 6 the long-term variations in global temperature are compared to the long-term variations in geomagnetic activity as expressed by the ak-index (Nevanlinna and Kataja 2003). The correlation between the two quantities is 0.85 with p<0.01 for the whole period studied. It could therefore be concluded that both the decreasing correlation between sunspot number and geomagnetic activity, and the deviation of the global temperature long-term trend from solar activity as expressed by sunspot index are due to the increased number of high-speed streams of solar wind on the declining phase and in the minimum of sunspot cycle in the last decades.

flea
October 16, 2015 2:12 pm

theres been 2 massive blips over the last month .. my guess there fiddling the numbers ..
with Paris coming up ..it has to be seen as melting ..

John Robertson
October 16, 2015 2:39 pm

Really cracks me up to see a govt “expert” applauding the lack of linearity in nature.
Who but the govt would insist nature does not ebb and flow?

601nan
October 16, 2015 2:44 pm

DMSP F17 loosing data. Which could mean an @satellite transmission problem or an @groundstation data transmission problem.
Which means that the daily (am or pm or both) Antarctic sea ice area extent is bogus.
Subject: Product Outage/Anomaly, DMSP SSMI/S F17 data lost, Issued:
This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
–Boundary_(ID_NdLtm7FDnQ38SGV5Ma704A)
Content-type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
*Topic: *DMSP**SSMI/S (Special Sensor Microwave Image/Sounder) F-17
rev. 45478 was lost*. *
*
**Date/Time Issued**:*August 29, 2015 0145Z*
*
*Product(s) or Data Impacted:* F17 rev. 45478
*Date/Time of Initial Impact:* August 28, 2015 2119Z**
*Date/Time of Expected End:***August 29, 2015 0125Z
*Length of Event:*Approximately 4 hours
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/SATS/SPBULL/MSG2410144.01.txt
Ha ha

Mordan
October 16, 2015 2:44 pm

If the south warms the north cools I thought this was settled science?

Brett Keane
October 16, 2015 4:04 pm

Various observers have noticed that there is a curious ‘double system’ working at the present time. The South is still very cold indeed, but the allied meridional instability has been temporarily overcome by an early and strong vortex-strengthening. Circum-polar winds have been fierce, along with more northerly flows from sub-antarctic systems (reaching up into our southern home nations still).
The ‘Blob’, allied to El Nino, has lifted the equatorial tropopause for a while. The increased gradient, I suspect a somewhat odd one, is what has caused the above fierce winds. They chopped the top off the sea ice growth, but it is now above the multi-decadal average used, and nowhere near significantly low. In spite of warmist pathos, it is just interesting scientifically, not disastrous. Post the Blob, that will be interesting too. Possibly not happy for warmistas, nor for we who have trouble affording heating.

ren
Reply to  Brett Keane
October 17, 2015 12:50 pm
October 16, 2015 5:10 pm

From 2000 – 2007 the Antarctic sea ice was declining because Global Warming was melting the sea ice
2007 – 2014 the Antarctic sea reached record levels because Global Warming was melting land ice which was reducing the salinity of water around Antarctic.
2015 – ?? Antarctic sea ices are normal because Global warming is causing…….

Brett Keane
October 16, 2015 5:14 pm

William Astley
October 16, 2015 at 1:30 pm: Oops. Forgot to mention the vigourous space weather.

RoHa
October 16, 2015 5:27 pm

All this Antarctic ice is caused by Global Warming, of course.

Mark T
October 16, 2015 6:45 pm

For what it’s worth we are having a cold spring here in Chile. The resorts in Santiago just extended the ski season until November, which is highly ‘unusual’. So, yeah, weird weather down here. The locals all say it’s El Niño but there was also talk that the last earthquake was because Chile legalised abortion so go figure.

Eugene WR Gallun
October 16, 2015 7:41 pm

ANTARCTIC SEA EXTENT FALLS AT RECORD RATE AS CO2 INCREASES!!!!!!!!! MOST DRAMATIC DECLINE SINCE RECORDS KEPT!!!!!!!!!!!!
Something like the above will appear somewhere.
Eugene WR Gallun

Eugene WR Gallun
Reply to  Eugene WR Gallun
October 16, 2015 7:43 pm

Oh, yes, should have added something like — OCEANS IN DANGER!!!!!!
Eugene WR Gallun

H.R.
Reply to  Eugene WR Gallun
October 17, 2015 6:25 am

And you also left out the obligatory, “WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!” as well as the bottom line, “Unless you give us all of your money and do what we tell you to do. (And get rid of those #&% cows!!!!)”
I’m sure you won’t make that misteak again, Eugene ;o)

October 16, 2015 8:46 pm

Reblogged this on Norah4you's Weblog and commented:
It had been better for everyone had the alarmists been listning in on teachers trying to teach them Archimedes principle as well as Photosynthesis and Erosion
and of course basic knowledge of Natural Forces…..

Owen
October 17, 2015 2:29 am

Isn’t land ice disappearing quite rapidly and that is the most concerning factor? Sea ice may have held in area but it is land ice melting that will contribute to sea level rise.

RACookPE1978
Editor
Reply to  Owen
October 17, 2015 7:14 am

Owen

Isn’t land ice disappearing quite rapidly and that is the most concerning factor? Sea ice may have held in area but it is land ice melting that will contribute to sea level rise.

A very little bit of land ice (compared to the total volume of continental ice + Greenland + Antarctica) is melting out each year, compared to what is added each winter. We are, after all, still warming up from the lowest point of the Little Ice Age in 1650, and still likely have one more 66 year short cycle to go before cooling down into the Modern Ice Age 500 years from now. The items and bodies now being uncovered by retreating mountain glaciers only proves that “the glaciers were as far retreated (back then) as they are now!
But the “incredibly high ice volumes” that the headlines scream out – like this one, emphasizing that “2015 was millions of square kilometers lower than previous record-setting years” is misleading. Deliberately misleading, in fact.

October 17, 2015 8:55 am

Here’s how they make Arctic ice decline seem scary when it isn’t:
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2015/10/06/arctic-ice-made-simple-2/

ren
October 18, 2015 12:50 am

Magnetic activity of the sun was high and the polar vortex was strong.
http://oi59.tinypic.com/23kdwl2.jpg
Therefore, the temperature in the stratosphere over the polar circle very low.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/temperature/70mb6590.png
The low temperature also in the lower latitudes.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/temperature/70mb2565.png
Antarctic ozone today: Ozone depletion is now extensive and the ozone hole covers Antarctica. The ozone hole grew rapidly from mid August onwards and is near its largest at some 25 million square kilometres. This is a larger hole than the average of those over the last decade.
http://theozonehole.com/images/sep272015ozone_hole_plot.jpg
http://theozonehole.com/2015.htm

tango
October 18, 2015 3:01 am
wu
October 19, 2015 5:48 am

Wait, so a little temp variance in the arctic means nothing but in the south it means everything?
I call shenanigans. Go home, skeptic eejit, you’re drunk.

October 19, 2015 6:04 am
James at 48
October 19, 2015 10:45 am

I propose a yet-to-be characterized oscillation between Arctic and Antarctic sea ice (or more properly, a large scale oscillation impacting multiple ocean basins).