For those who think that the current state of the Arctic ice means anything about global warming or comate change, note that the Antarctic sea ice extent is at a record high.
7 thoughts on “Antarctic Sea Ice”
Comments are closed.
For those who think that the current state of the Arctic ice means anything about global warming or comate change, note that the Antarctic sea ice extent is at a record high.
Comments are closed.
I recall reading one of James Hansen’s papers on anthropogenic global warming from the 80s before it became a politicised cause du jour (I think it is this one, J. Geo Res. 93 (1988) 9341), where he explicitly states that the weather of the polar regions has historically been the most variable and that therefore they are *bad* places to use any trends over periods of time as short as a few decades as evidence one way or another.
Are you sure the “update, a few minutes later” is supposed to be on this Antarctic ice post, rather than the previous post about Dunning-Kruger?
D’oh!
Fixed, thanks.
Rand, your comment is at odds with the concluding remark from the article, I quote “Comparing winter and summer sea ice trends for the two poles is problematic since different processes are in effect. During summer, surface melt and ice-albedo feedbacks are in effect; winter processes include snowfall on the sea ice, and wind. Small changes in winter extent may be a more mixed signal than the loss of summer sea ice extent. An expansion of winter Antarctic ice could be due to cooling, winds, or snowfall, whereas Arctic summer sea ice decline is more closely linked to decadal climate warming.”
Well, Charles, we’ll see what happens in the Antarctic summer soon. I have to say that the concluding statement is scientifically nuts.
Not that it’s relevant.
Actually, I think NOAA attributed the decline in this year’s artic sea ice to a storm system that blew a lot of it south, where it melted.
Is Al Gore visiting Antarctica? Maybe on an expedition sponsored by Miskatonic University?