Antarctic Sea Ice Extent

[PhillipS]

How is Will cherry picking? We're not talking about the entire Southern Hemisphere, just the Antarctic and the surrounding waters.

Reading comprehension not your strong suit, hmmm? I did not say he was cherrypicking, I said I was concerned that he might be cherrypicking.

[dabize]

It appears I misspoke - Masters actually charted the temperature rise of the Southern Ocean Surface Air Temperature, not SST.s

http://www.wundergro...l?entrynum=2237

He did have a few words for "contrarians" trying to distract from the Arctic

"This analysis is highly misleading, as it ignores the fact that Antarctica has actually been warming in recent years. In fact, the oceans surrounding Antarctica have warmed faster than the global trend, and there has been accelerated melting of ocean-terminating Antarctic glaciers in recent years as a result of warmer waters eating away the glaciers. There is great concern among scientists about the stability of two glaciers in West Antarctica (the Pine Island and Thwaites Glaciers) due the increase in ocean temperatures. These glaciers may suffer rapid retreats that will contribute significantly to global sea level rise."

ORH understands AGW, and how it raises temperatures globally, so he's aware that the Antarctic ice sheets must eventually add to the SLR we're now experiencing. I'm just not sure I understand why he thinks it's of immediate importance.

Terry

There's always the possibility of an Ewing-Donn style glacial age caused by increased snowfall at the ice margin due to increased heat capacity and cloudy summer weather. Today: Tierra del Fuego, Tomorrow the World!

[ORH_wxman]

Dr. Jeff Masters is using an old outdated paper by Zhang et al that argued about increasing sea ice with warming Antarctic temperatures (forky actually posted this paper earlier this summer). O'Donnell et al 2011 analysis and satellite-based analysis disagrees with the idea that Antarctica is warming on the peripheries uniformly...and confine significant warming to only the Antarctic Peninsula.

On the whole, the analysis shows that large areas both in the interior and periphery of Antarctica have been cooling for the past 30+ years. The warming in Antarctica was more widespread during the 1960s/1970s.

You can see the thread where we discussed the Zhang et al paper (and subsequent papers) in this thread:

http://www.americanw...arctic-sea-ice/

The Zhang paper used mostly NCEP reanalysis data for their temperature trends in Antarctica, which does not agree with O'Donnell et al or satellite based measurements.

[The_Global_Warmer]

You can't be serious.

There is water (albedo 0.15) under a large area of Arctic ice, which has never melted out completely in the past few thousand years. The Arctic sea ice is showing every sign of doing this within the next few years - all that is needed is significant melting to occur in the Arctic basin 3 weeks earlier than it is occurring today. This will definitely happen - the Arctic sea ice is clearly on the proverbial banana peel after this years melt season.

This WILL cause a massive increase in absorbed energy that can be calculated and WILL: 1) accelerate GIS melting, 2) cause heating of the Arctic atmosphere and shallow seabed areas and 3) probably alter the weather of most of the NH. This is global enough for me. Notice that I didn't even get to CH4 and the ESAS.

BTW, this is not true of the Antarctic, which can never (well not soon) lose most of its highly reflective surface during high insolation season, since this consists of Antarctic ice sheets and ice shelves. Antarctic sea ice melts every year and is clearly not a significant factor .

The uncertainty is mainly in the precise form that the "severe consequences" of ASI loss will come - will it be:

drought?

SLR?

heat waves?

disease?

all of the above?

Yes, it might take a couple of decades for the nasty stuff to kick in, but I'm in my 50's (older than many here) and I'm fully expecting to be around in 20 years. So this is of more than academic interest to me.....let alone my kids.

Not a big deal but the albedo is closer to 0.07 or 0.08.

And you're dead on about the 3 week's thing. I think to many are taking the idea that this huge blow coming would coincide with sea ice levels getting near zero by September.

What they are missing is what the Beaufort showed this summer as a sample. Things are accelerating to the Arctic ice sheet melting early enough to open a lot of water between 60-75N that will be at the mercy of weather as it gets 1-2 months of ice free max solar insolation to warm up into the 10-20C range over wide area's altering weather patterns and dumping ginormous amounts of heat into the atmosphere. which will exp at first mostly get burned by cyclogenisis and out to space.

Here is a good swan song for the arctic sea ice:

For more dramatic theatrical approach this one works, around 3:30 is 2007. It just spirals out of control from there. Armageddon might not be very factually accurate but it sure has some epic scenes with amazing orchestra music.

[TerryM]

As I said earlier - I don't follow the southern hemisphere. If Dr Masters is wrong, have you attempted to point this out to him? I certainly have no compunctions questioning Neven, Dr Muenchow or others if I think the data they're using is wrong or out of date.

The fact remains that since CO2 levels are rising, global temperatures must rise also. Since the Antarctic temperatures will rise, it will melt. The question is whether it adds substantially to SLR in 10 yrs, 50 yrs or a hundred.

I probably won't be around in 10, so I'm not terribly concerned. The Arctic however is being destroyed as we watch.

Terry

[The_Global_Warmer]

As I said earlier - I don't follow the southern hemisphere. If Dr Masters is wrong, have you attempted to point this out to him? I certainly have no compunctions questioning Neven, Dr Muenchow or others if I think the data they're using is wrong or out of date.

The fact remains that since CO2 levels are rising, global temperatures must rise also. Since the Antarctic temperatures will rise, it will melt. The question is whether it adds substantially to SLR in 10 yrs, 50 yrs or a hundred.

I probably won't be around in 10, so I'm not terribly concerned. The Arctic however is being destroyed as we watch.

Terry

I turned 30 on the 21st. I can't believe how fast life goes by. My family has no history of cancer and even with a past of drinking both sides of my family typically lives to 80-95 yrs old, reaching their mid 70s incredibly active and vital. So right now I figure 80 is a good mark to shoot for that would give me till 2062 before my existence ends.

But my son is 6. If he lives to 80 his existence will end in 2086. If he has a child at age 25 their existence will end in 2111.

Most of the folks on this board are 20-40. Many who are not with our view on this Terry say things like 1-2M SLR is by 2100, or 2C global temp rise is by 2100.

I might spend time with children or young Men who I will love just as much as I love my son. who will be here in 2100 and 2120(hopefully).

I am not concerned either Terry I will die far before the worst of this happens.

Humans have been around for 220,000K years but I feel like so many can not see past 2012. When are we going to ascend to a level where we can enjoy the present but truly take care of our species and planet like we will need it forever?

[turtlehurricane]

The paper clearly has data and points that counter the amount of ice grace says Antarctica lost. It will be interesting to see how that plays out.

as far the heat transport into the Southern Pole region isn't stopped by the ocean but the ocean is going to absorb so much more of the solar radiation and heat from higher latitudes. Unlike in Canada or Russia where heat is pooled over land that shares much more with the atmosphere at large.

There is so little disruption of the cold air pool and regime that keeps it in place. The Northern Hemisphere is so much warmer because of the land. The colder air shoots outward over the North Atlantic and Pacific but around the land regions it quickly warms up. There are so many jump points for heat over land to be thrusted into the arctic ice area. In the Southern Hemisphere the closest land is at 50 South, then 32-40 South in Africa and Australia. I don't think there are very many feedback's down there like there is up here where so many factors contribute to the large positive swing we have seen that are physically impossible there.

The northern hemisphere is so much warmer from the water, the southern hemisphere is colder due to the polar regions being covered by land. Oceanic heat transport is what keeps the Arctic relatively warm. The southern hemisphere mid-latitude westerlies are much less disrupted due to the lack of meridional land boundaries.

[turtlehurricane]

Dr. Jeff Masters is using an old outdated paper by Zhang et al that argued about increasing sea ice with warming Antarctic temperatures (forky actually posted this paper earlier this summer). O'Donnell et al 2011 analysis and satellite-based analysis disagrees with the idea that Antarctica is warming on the peripheries uniformly...and confine significant warming to only the Antarctic Peninsula.

On the whole, the analysis shows that large areas both in the interior and periphery of Antarctica have been cooling for the past 30+ years. The warming in Antarctica was more widespread during the 1960s/1970s.

You can see the thread where we discussed the Zhang et al paper (and subsequent papers) in this thread:

http://www.americanw...arctic-sea-ice/

The Zhang paper used mostly NCEP reanalysis data for their temperature trends in Antarctica, which does not agree with O'Donnell et al or satellite based measurements.

That paper is disproved even more by the southern ocean having record high sea ice, you can't have warmer than normal waters and record high sea ice simultaneously.

[dabize]

Friv, there's a pretty good chance my father (87) will see a summer with essentially zero ice in September. I figure the weather will hit the fan pretty soon after that - after all, the "unknown unknowns" have been causing AGW to anticipate predictions, not the other way around. In five years, these conversations we have now will seem either quaint or criminal.

This is a problem for today, not the indefinite future. The science that tells us we are in trouble is not the part that is sensitive to pettifogging details, it is the robust kind - the kind that only cranks doubt.

[The_Global_Warmer]

That paper is disproved even more by the southern ocean having record high sea ice, you can't have warmer than normal waters and record high sea ice simultaneously.

It is about air temperatures not water.

The difference in water temperatures and the added ice say 500-800Km2 which is mostly 10CM-50CM thick, 50CM is probably to thick but to avoid further disagreement why not throw it in their during the peak melt season can form from differences in the top cold water layer by 0.005 to 0.05C throughout that layer. Most of the new ice is probably from winds blowing it over regions that are very close to ice forming but not capable of it. But not warm enough to melt it out heading into the end of the refreeze part of the year.

Air temps can rise over antarctica and over large portions of the sea ice sheet and have no noticeable effect on sea ice or land ice as long as it's cold enough to sustain them.

[turtlehurricane]

It is about air temperatures not water.

The difference in water temperatures and the added ice say 500-800Km2 which is mostly 10CM-50CM thick, 50CM is probably to thick but to avoid further disagreement why not throw it in their during the peak melt season can form from differences in the top cold water layer by 0.005 to 0.05C throughout that layer. Most of the new ice is probably from winds blowing it over regions that are very close to ice forming but not capable of it. But not warm enough to melt it out heading into the end of the refreeze part of the year.

Air temps can rise over antarctica and over large portions of the sea ice sheet and have no noticeable effect on sea ice or land ice as long as it's cold enough to sustain them.

Air temperatures are directly correlated to water temperatures in the southern ocean so there's no way to have increased air temps and increased sea ice. You can't just assume the bolded, it's unlikely that's the cause since sea ice distribution is more based on the steady state than short term processes like that. Evidence suggests that the southern hemisphere tropospheric polar vortex is intensifying and spreading leading to colder conditions at lower latitudes, for whatever reason.

[ORH_wxman]

As I said earlier - I don't follow the southern hemisphere. If Dr Masters is wrong, have you attempted to point this out to him? I certainly have no compunctions questioning Neven, Dr Muenchow or others if I think the data they're using is wrong or out of date.

The fact remains that since CO2 levels are rising, global temperatures must rise also. Since the Antarctic temperatures will rise, it will melt. The question is whether it adds substantially to SLR in 10 yrs, 50 yrs or a hundred.

I probably won't be around in 10, so I'm not terribly concerned. The Arctic however is being destroyed as we watch.

Terry

No I haven't. I don't post on other climate change blogs of any kind. Not enough hours in the day...I spend most of my posting on the weather as opposed to climate change.

Antarctica is expected to gain mass from ice as we warm throughout the 21st century...at least according to the IPCC AR4. This is why their sea level predictions aren't through the roof. Eventually if we warm enough, then they would start to lose mass beyond that time frame.

It remains to be seen if that pans out, but we'll have to see the warming down there first to test that theory (at least as it pertains to 21st century warming). The current body of evidence says that Antarctica and the surrounding Southern Ocean as a whole have been cooling for roughly the past 30 years....however, that does not mean everywhere down there. The peninsula has seen singificant warming. Its just been offset by the rest of the region.

[The_Global_Warmer]

Air temperatures are directly correlated to water temperatures in the southern ocean so there's no way to have increased air temps and increased sea ice. You can't just assume the bolded, it's unlikely that's the cause since sea ice distribution is more based on the steady state than short term processes like that. Evidence suggests that the southern hemisphere tropospheric polar vortex is intensifying and spreading leading to colder conditions at lower latitudes, for whatever reason.

Antarctica is a huge place. One area may not be typical of the entire area. Most of Antarctica is WAY BELOW FREEZING. I don't know what the average temperature of Antarctica during it's 6 months freeze up season but it's so far below freezing, it could warm while other regions like between 55-50S where Sea ice that is razor thin is being pushed or forming. But more likely was blown there and is sustained by tiny decreases in top layer water temperature. The ice sheet there is so much different than up North, it's always full of cracks, large Pollyanna, not like the dense, well used to be very dense congealed arctic ice pack.

http://www.rtcc.org/...tarcticas-gain/

Yes, the Antarctic sea ice has seen an increase he said. According to NASA, it has increased by about 1% per decade since satellite records begun.

But Turner and NASA both say that the areas of sea ice increases in the Antarctic vary significantly.

“Across the Southern Ocean the greatest increase in sea ice extent has been in the Ross Sea, with smaller increases around the coast of East Antarctica and in the North East Weddell Sea,” Turner said. “There has been a marked decrease in ice extent just to the west of the Antarctic Peninsula.”

For its part, NASA says: “In short, Antarctic sea ice shows a small positive trend, but large scale variation make the trend very noisy.”

But is does seem odd that in what we understand is a warming world, ice anywhere can be increasing. But again, scientists say we should not be surprised.

“Antarctic sea ice hasn’t seen these big reductions we’ve seen in the Arctic,” Mark Serreze, director of the US-based National Snow and Ice Data Center told the LiveScience website, adding that they had expected the Antarctic to be more robust to the changing climate.

These increases are far out from the land. In the Eastern side they are between 55-60S. On the Weddell side to the North East. they are way out there and also SUPER SUPER THIN around 55-50S. On the Ross Sea Side new ice is 65-62S and land there reaches into 80S with the Ross Ice sheet out to 78S. These gains are on the far exteriors of the ice sheet. Only a small percentage of the region would have to cool for this to happen. And cool very very slightly.

This means conditions for the ice formation are very weak. this is over the majority of the floating sea ice. Which is because of how low the latitudes are where it forms. It can be thousands of miles removed from most of the mainland ice. Where air temperatures could easily be 5c above where they used to be while air temp changes need for this razor thin ice might be 0.2C different overtime or even less. Which could easily and which most of the literature says Antarctica is warming. We will see how this plays out as more data becomes available.

Why?

Turner explains that there are a number of reasons why this might be.

“One possibility is that it is a result of the ozone hole, which is believed to have caused a small cooling at the coastal stations around East Antarctica,” he said. “But it could also be a result of natural variability of the climate system.

“We don’t have the data to allow us to determine how sea ice extent would vary if forcing factors such as stratospheric ozone, greenhouse gases and aerosols were all kept fixed.”

Some explain the difference in melt levels by observing that the Arctic is ocean surrounded by land, while the Antarctic is land surrounded by ocean.

Serreze says the Arctic responds much more directly to changes in air and sea-surface temperatures than the Antarctic – which in turn is governed more by wind and ocean currents.

Another theory, published in a 2010 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences‘ journal argued that ocean warming in the 20th Century has boosted precipitation over the Antarctic region – which has fallen as snow.

This snow made the top layers of the ocean less salty and less dense, preventing warm currents in the deep ocean rising and melting ice.

[The_Global_Warmer]

For the record on my name. Two things.

1. I have spent the last 2 hours reading abstract after abstract on Google scholar for this Antarctica 30 year cooling trend and subsequent ice mass gains and it's almost universally saying it's warming and it's losing land ice based on many different measures out of many different decades. So I don't know where this body of evidence is. I am not trying to start a flaming war but I just can't endorse a statement that imply a majority of data says something that just a quick Google look doesn't show up in the literature or the many forms of data that were used.

2. I guess this will end up more personal. I have been shown the abstract for a new singular paper using some ice sat data and maybe some regional gps locator data to show ice is growing on Antarctica.

If this was about the arctic and was reversed. The same people so eager to buy into the idea that grace, envisat, most noaa satellites, multiple ground obs campaigns have crapped the bed completely on Antarctica it would not fly at all. For one it hinges on Ice-Sat data which was always just ripped apart here by skeptics of the rapid arctic sea ice changes. Which is interesting on so many levels.

So apparently from 2003-2008 about 300GT was gained from snowfall even with whatever other ice was lost.

So buying the basic data from ice-sat then using assumption data from model projections based on CLIMATE WARMING NOT COOLING. More snowfall because it' warmer off-sets any land ice lost.

SCAR ISMASS Workshop, July 14, 2012

Mass Gains of the Antarctic Ice Sheet Exceed Losses

H. Jay Zwally'. Jun Li', John Robbins2, Jack 1. Saba2, Donghui Yi', Anita Brenner', and David

Bromwich4

Abstract

During 2003 to 2008, the mass gain of the Antarctic ice sheet from snow accumulation exceeded

the mass loss from ice discharge by 49 Gtlyr (2.5% of input), as derived from ICESat laser

measurements of elevation change. The net gain (86 Gtlyr) over the West Antarctic (WA) and

East Antarctic ice sheets (W A and EA) is essentially unchanged from revised results for 1992 to

2001 from ERS radar altimetry. Imbalances in individual drainage systems (DS) are large

(-68% to +103% of input), as are temporal changes (-39% to +44%). The recent 90 Gtlyr loss

from three DS (Pine Island, Thwaites-Smith, and Marie-Bryd Coast) of WA exceeds the earlier

61 Gtlyr loss, consistent with reports of accelerating ice flow and dynamic thinning. Similarly,

the recent 24 Gtlyr loss from three DS in the Antarctic Peninsula (AP) is consistent with glacier

accelerations following breakup of the Larsen B and other ice shelves. In contrast, net increases

in the five other DS ofWA and AP and three of the 16 DS in East Antarctica (EA) exceed the

increased losses. Alternate interpretations of the mass changes driven by accumulation variations

are given using results from atmospheric-model re-analysis and a parameterization based on 5%

change in accumulation per degree of observed surface temperature change. A slow increase in

snowfall with climate wanning, consistent with model predictions, may be offsetting increased

dynamic losses.

And for the record the grace data isn't one data set. Their are many methods to use the data with different models, obs, algorithms. From US scientists, Euro scientists, Chinese scientists I didn't find one paper saying grace wasn't showing large ice mass losses from 2002-present

[ORH_wxman]

For the record on my name. Two things.

1. I have spent the last 2 hours reading abstract after abstract on Google scholar for this Antarctica 30 year cooling trend and subsequent ice mass gains and it's almost universally saying it's warming and it's losing land ice based on many different measures out of many different decades. So I don't know where this body of evidence is. I am not trying to start a flaming war but I just can't endorse a statement that imply a majority of data says something that just a quick Google look doesn't show up in the literature or the many forms of data that were used.

2. I guess this will end up more personal. I have been shown the abstract for a new singular paper using some ice sat data and maybe some regional gps locator data to show ice is growing on Antarctica.

If this was about the arctic and was reversed. The same people so eager to buy into the idea that grace, envisat, most noaa satellites, multiple ground obs campaigns have crapped the bed completely on Antarctica it would not fly at all. For one it hinges on Ice-Sat data which was always just ripped apart here by skeptics of the rapid arctic sea ice changes. Which is interesting on so many levels.

So apparently from 2003-2008 about 300GT was gained from snowfall even with whatever other ice was lost.

So buying the basic data from ice-sat then using assumption data from model projections based on CLIMATE WARMING NOT COOLING. More snowfall because it' warmer off-sets any land ice lost.

What are the time frame for the papers you are referencing? What are their publish dates?

A paper like Zhang et al didn't do their own analysis on Antarctic temperatures...they used NCEP reanalysis, so if several other papers use the same dataset, then its all the same thing.

O'Donnell et al was pretty recent. Satellite temps are always there for support even if they are not perfect. They agree with the premise that a slight overall cooling has occurred in the past 30+ years. The Reynolds SST data has the Southern Ocean cooling.

I've seen a lot of papers on Antarctica too and most of them concentrate on the wamring region of the peninsula and the Western ice sheet which is adjacent. You can choose to believe whatever papers you want, but there is certainly no unequivocal evidence that Antarctica is warming recently.

There is usually literature out there that will support conflicting viewpoints. Its usually up to the scientific community to determine which ones are more trustworthy.

[The_Global_Warmer]

What are the time frame for the papers you are referencing? What are their publish dates?

A paper like Zhang et al didn't do their own analysis on Antarctic temperatures...they used NCEP reanalysis, so if several other papers use the same dataset, then its all the same thing.

O'Donnell et al was pretty recent. Satellite temps are always there for support even if they are not perfect. They agree with the premise that a slight overall cooling has occurred in the past 30+ years. The Reynolds SST data has the Southern Ocean cooling.

I've seen a lot of papers on Antarctica too and most of them concentrate on the wamring region of the peninsula and the Western ice sheet which is adjacent. You can choose to believe whatever papers you want, but there is certainly no unequivocal evidence that Antarctica is warming recently.

There is usually literature out there that will support conflicting viewpoints. Its usually up to the scientific community to determine which ones are more trustworthy.

Most of the Grace papers are from 2009-April of 2012.

I agree with the rest of what your saying about Antarctica. Because of the lack of physical land based obs it's tough.

Map showing Antarctic Skin Temperature Trends between 1981 and 2007. Skin temperature is roughly the top one millimeter of land, sea, snow, or ice. Across most of the Antarctic the temperature increased, in some areas warming approaching 2 degrees Celsius during the period. The map is based on thermal infrared (heat) observations made by a series of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite sensors. None of the sensors were in orbit at the same time, so scientists could not compare simultaneous observations from different sensors to make sure each was recording temperatures exactly the same. Instead, the team checked the satellite records against ground-based weather station data to inter-calibrate them and make the 26-year satellite record. The level of uncertainty is between 2 and 3 degrees Celsius. The most dramatic changes are the red areas associated with iceberg calving and the collapse of the Larsen B ice shelf. In these cases, the satellites saw a change from cold ice to relatively warm open water.

If anything I can buy a warming Antarctica overall with increased precip and increased melt. Southern Ocean cooling doesn't conflict with this but more evidence will be needed I think to overturn the idea that Antarctica from 2002-2011 lost ice mass.

[TerryM]

If Antarctic temperatures and ice mass are so close to unchanged that no consensus even exists as to whether these are positive or negative values - can somebody tell me why I should give a damn.

Terry

[dabize]

If Antarctic temperatures and ice mass are so close to unchanged that no consensus even exists as to whether these are positive or negative values - can somebody tell me why I should give a damn.

Terry

Easy It diverts attention from the car crash in the Arctic

You should give a damn if you don't like that kind of gamesmanship

[CoastalWx]

Easy It diverts attention from the car crash in the Arctic

You should give a damn if you don't like that kind of gamesmanship

Well that's where you are wrong. You should care. Why is one area melting so quickly, while the other area is gaining ice? I think that is a pretty important question for the scientific community.

[bluewave]

Scientists generally predicted that we wouldn't see a decline in Antarctic sea ice until later in this century.

What we are seeing there now is pretty consistent with the processes described in this article.

http://blog.chron.co...global-warming/

[CoastalWx]

Scientists generally predicted that we wouldn't see a decline in Antarctic sea ice until later in this century.

What we are seeing there now is pretty consistent with the processes described in this article.

http://blog.chron.co...global-warming/

Another question to ask then, is why is the ocean around there cooling? It's not a skeptic or denier question...it's trying to understand what is going on...man made or not.

[GaWx]

Another question to ask then, is why is the ocean around there cooling? It's not a skeptic or denier question...it's trying to understand what is going on...man made or not.

I wonder if the quiet sun has been a sig. factor down there while, in the N Hem., perhaps its cooling effects have been largely hidden by other factors. Food for thought. Just an idea to consider.

[The_Global_Warmer]

I wonder if the quiet sun has been a sig. factor down there while, in the N Hem., perhaps its cooling effects have been largely hidden by other factors. Food for thought. Just an idea to consider.

I have proposed this before.

There seems to be decent correlation in the sst record.

The NH has so many power positive feedback's, it could be masked.

[PhillipS]

Scientists generally predicted that we wouldn't see a decline in Antarctic sea ice until later in this century.

What we are seeing there now is pretty consistent with the processes described in this article.

http://blog.chron.co...global-warming/

You are correct - and a simple reality check on all of the claims circulating about the Antarctic sea ice is to look at the record of annual SIA minimums. If there really were significant changes in progress in antarctic SIA, whether Southern Ocean cooling or whatever, we would expect to see an increase in the area of sea ice remaining at the end of the annual melt seasons. Well, here is the current CT plot of antarctic SIA:

In 1979 the minimum was about 2 M km2 and 33 years later in 2012 the minimum was also about 2 M km2. Do you see a trend there? Me neither. The minimum values have varied above and below 2 M km2, but never by more than roughly 700 K km2. The maximum minimum (if that's not an oxymoron) was about 2.6 M km2 in 2003, and the minimums since then haven't approached that record.

True, the annual maximum SIA values have gone up over the observational period (by roughly 1 M km2). But an increase in maximum SIA and a stable minimum SIA means the annual sea ice melt has actually increased. What would cause that? AGW, you suppose? Funny how the pseudo-skeptics don't mention that facet of the changes in antarctic SIA.

[ORH_wxman]

Another question to ask then, is why is the ocean around there cooling? It's not a skeptic or denier question...it's trying to understand what is going on...man made or not.

I've read some stuff in the past that suggested there are some oscillations in the southern ocean that affect how much heat transport occurs to the sfc from the north. I'll have to see if I can find it, but they talked about several abrupt warming and cooling episodes in the past 8,000 years, some on very short scales of just a decade or two.

[dabize]

Well that's where you are wrong. You should care. Why is one area melting so quickly, while the other area is gaining ice? I think that is a pretty important question for the scientific community.

Read my earlier post on the topic.

The Arctic melt out causes a large scale increase in energy absorbed, the Antarctic changes do not (and can not because Antarctica is cold, shiny land).

That's enough, seems to me.

[Vergent]

I've read some stuff in the past that suggested there are some oscillations in the southern ocean that affect how much heat transport occurs to the sfc from the north. I'll have to see if I can find it, but they talked about several abrupt warming and cooling episodes in the past 8,000 years, some on very short scales of just a decade or two.

OHR

Do you remember the dates? Do you have a reference? I think there was one about 5030 BP (C14 dates).

Verg

[turtlehurricane]

Instead of trying to pretend Antarctic sea ice isn't increasing in recent decades, which is just as bad as people who say Arctic sea ice isn't decreasing, perhaps we should discuss the possibility that the two are related. Historical records show that there's a climate see-saw between the Arctic and Antarctic, when the Arctic warms the Antarctic cools and vice versa.

It is hypothesized that this relation occurs via the thermohaline circulation. Increased melting of glaciers in the Arctic leads to more freshwater and less deepwater formation, slowing the overall thermohaline circulation and therefore slowing the rate at which heat is transported away from Antarctica in the Atlantic meridonal overturning circulation. Heat would start accumulating in the Antarctic while the Arctic would get very cold due to lack of deepwater formation. Decreased melting of glaciers in the Arctic leads to more deepwater formation and increases the rate at which heat is transported away from Antarctica, so Antarctica cools and the Arctic warms.

Since the thermohaline circulations lags by hundreds to thousands of years behind the atmosphere, perhaps we're seeing the response to increased deepwater formation in the Arctic many years ago. Makes sense since the Arctic is warming and the Antarctic is cooling (referring to oceanic areas, the inland ice sheets don't matter for this) at the moment... eventually that very same warming in the Arctic will flip things again. Deepwater formation has decreased significantly in recent years so that will make the Arctic colder eventually.

[Snow_Miser]

Instead of trying to pretend Antarctic sea ice isn't increasing in recent decades, which is just as bad as people who say Arctic sea ice isn't decreasing, perhaps we should discuss the possibility that the two are related. Historical records show that there's a climate see-saw between the Arctic and Antarctic, when the Arctic warms the Antarctic cools and vice versa.

It is hypothesized that this relation occurs via the thermohaline circulation. Increased melting of glaciers in the Arctic leads to more freshwater and less deepwater formation, slowing the overall thermohaline circulation and therefore slowing the rate at which heat is transported away from Antarctica in the Atlantic meridonal overturning circulation. Heat would start accumulating in the Antarctic while the Arctic would get very cold due to lack of deepwater formation. Decreased melting of glaciers in the Arctic leads to more deepwater formation and increases the rate at which heat is transported away from Antarctica, so Antarctica cools and the Arctic warms.

Since the thermohaline circulations lags by hundreds to thousands of years behind the atmosphere, perhaps we're seeing the response to increased deepwater formation in the Arctic many years ago. Makes sense since the Arctic is warming and the Antarctic is cooling (referring to oceanic areas, the inland ice sheets don't matter for this) at the moment... eventually that very same warming in the Arctic will flip things again. Deepwater formation has decreased significantly in recent years so that will make the Arctic colder eventually.

There definitely appears to be a correlation, and a moderate correlation as well. I discussed about this in a previous post.

NEVER have I praised Steve Goddard on this forum, I think he is deceptive, and is a bit of a conspiracy theorist. However, he had a very interesting post, suggesting that the Arctic and the Antarctic Sea Ice Extents were somehow related to each other. There definitely appears to be some sort of a inverse correlation between the two.

From the first IPCC report, we can notice a decrease in Southern Hemispheric Sea Ice around 1975, corresponding to an increase in Northern Hemispheric Sea Ice, and later, when the Northern Hemispheric Sea Ice begins to decline, the Southern Hemispheric Sea Ice increases.

Steven Goddard then calculated the correlation coefficient (r^2) between the Antarctic and Arctic Sea Ice Extents to be 0.51. This indicates that there is some sort of a moderate relationship between the two. Generally with a r^2 value of less than 0.3 in statistics, it indicates that they are more likely correlated by chance. This is not the case here.

For those of you skeptical of Goddard's calculations, he provided the raw data from Cryosphere today for the Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice anomalies.

The correlation coefficient is 0.51, implying that one variable can explain 51% of the variance in the other variable. Since it is impossible for Arctic Sea Ice to be the "cause" of increasing Antarctic Sea Ice, they must both have a common cause. I think oceanic currents are a good explaination for this divergence.

[The_Global_Warmer]

They r no where near the same.

Instead of ignoring the obvious.

Run SD correlations of extent, area, and volume the last 30 years.

There will be none.

On top of that there is far less of an anomolous pattern.

With addition to the ice is super thin. 10-30Meters, its staying power and albedo capabilities are very limited and weak.