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Extent of Antarctic Sea Ice Reaches Record Levels

schwit1 writes Scientists have declared a new record has been set for the extent of Antarctic sea ice since records began. Satellite imagery reveals an area of about 20 million square kilometers covered by sea ice around the Antarctic continent. Jan Lieser from the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) said the discovery was made two days ago. "Thirty-five years ago the first satellites went up which were reliably telling us what area, two dimensional area, of sea ice was covered and we've never seen that before, that much area."

19 of 635 comments (clear)

  1. Re:It's getting hotter still! by Pino+Grigio · · Score: 3, Informative

    Well given that 5 years ago Al Gore said in 5 years time the Arctic will be completely ice free and it's completely covered in ice still, I would say they have a point. Back to the drawing board with the models at least. If there is one. Which I doubt.

  2. Re: It's getting hotter still! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    The arctic and the Antarctic are two completely different places.

  3. Re:It's getting hotter still! by Etcetera · · Score: 4, Informative

    Citation please!

    Here, let me Google that for you

    Also, from 2008 Davos:

    Just how crazy is Al Gore? That was the question that popped, once again, into my brain as I read a January 24 Agence France Press news story out of the Davos meeting of business and political elite. Gore asserted that, “the North Pole ice caps may disappear entirely during summer months within five years”

    I was instantly reminded of the story that ran in The New York Times in August 2000 claiming that the Pole was free of ice for the first time in 50 million years. It wasn’t, of course, because people who have actually been to the Arctic quickly noted that, in the summer, some ice actually does melt there. The Times retracted it three weeks later.

    This kind of apocalyptic nonsense has been ratcheting upward ever since the new century began and my theory is that lunatics like Al Gore know that they are running out of time when it comes to imposing draconian restrictions on the use of every form of energy known to mankind. This is the purpose of the global warming hoax.

  4. ozone layer by globaljustin · · Score: 4, Informative

    IIRC, back in the 80s, we used to see satellite pics of Antarctica and the effects of ozone depletion

    there was a *huge* evironmentalist movement to ban CFC's from aerosol cans...and of course the conservative/big biz backlash saying that "there is no ozone hole" or "it's a natural cycle" or [insert anti-science argument]....**just like the global warming debate**

    well...the laws passed and the ozone layer recovered...

    i can't help but think this might be a factor in the new ice...and a useful guide as to how to handle our current problems with idiot conservatives/big biz types who irrationally deny that pollution harms the environment

    that's the final analysis of the situation **pollution is harmful & should be regulated**

    --
    Thank you Dave Raggett
  5. Please See: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://skepticalscience.com/antarctica-gaining-ice.htm

    Antarctica gaining SEA ice is neither new, nor contradictory to global warming.

  6. This means ice is melting by MobyDisk · · Score: 5, Informative

    I waited to post this to see if the usual "this means global warming is a lie" posts began, and indeed they have. So let me cut this off: Increased arctic sea ice is caused by global warming. This is a CONFIRMATION of warming, not a CONTRADICTION.

    Short version:
    1. Summer: Arctic land ice melts
    2. Melt spreads over water
    3. Winter: Old ice freezes. Newly melted ice freezes.
    4. Repeat steps 1 - 3 forever
    At step 3, there is more frozen ice on the surface than there was last year because more ice melted. A separate measure, the arctic ice "volume" decreases every year while the arctic ice "extent" which is the surface area of the ice increases.

    Previous discussions on this:
    http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
    http://news.slashdot.org/comme...
    http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

    1. Re:This means ice is melting by itzly · · Score: 3, Informative

      You should have read the article before rushing to hit the Submit button. It's about Antarctic ice.

  7. Re:It's getting hotter still! by Megol · · Score: 5, Informative

    Let me count the ways you are wrong:
    . Wrong pole
    . He didn't say that
    . Even if he did (which he didn't) it wouldn't mean shit
    . Most climate scientists didn't agree with what he actually said (which isn't what you claimed)
    . Again even if the statement he said would be falsified it changes nothing in the science and models
    . You doubt something that is proven to exist which is frankly a very stupid thing to do

  8. Fresh water freezes faster than salt by mdsolar · · Score: 5, Informative

    "Here we show that accelerated basal melting of Antarctic ice shelves is likely to have contributed significantly to sea-ice expansion. Specifically, we present observations indicating that melt water from Antarctica’s ice shelves accumulates in a cool and fresh surface layer that shields the surface ocean from the warmer deeper waters that are melting the ice shelves. Simulating these processes in a coupled climate model we find that cool and fresh surface water from ice-shelf melt indeed leads to expanding sea ice in austral autumn and winter." http://www.nature.com/ngeo/jou...

  9. Re:What is the point of these articles? by PvtVoid · · Score: 5, Informative
    From TFA:

    As the area covered in sea ice expands scientists have said the ice on the continent of Antarctica which is not over the ocean continues to deplete. CEO of the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems CRC, Tony Worby, said the warming atmosphere is leading to greater sea ice coverage by changing wind patterns.

    This isn't dissenting data.

  10. '60s NIMBUS taken into account? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Quite recently a team from CIRES recovered imagery from the NIMBUS satellites, a series of spacecraft launched in the '60s. From the press release:

    “By extending the satellite record back to the 1960s, we can understand more about the history and natural variability in things like sea ice extent in the Arctic, and the Antarctic,” said David Gallaher, technical services manager at NSIDC. The modern satellite record of sea ice goes back only to 1979.

    In the Arctic, sea ice extent was larger in the 1960s than it is these days, on average. “It was colder, so we expected that,” Gallaher said. What the researchers didn’t expect were “enormous holes” in the sea ice, currently under investigation. “We can’t explain them yet,” Gallaher said.

    “And the Antarctic blew us away,” he said. In 1964, sea ice extent in the Antarctic was the largest ever recorded, according to Nimbus image analysis. Two years later, there was a record low for sea ice in the Antarctic, and in 1969 Nimbus imagery, sea ice appears to have reached its maximum extent earliest on record.

    http://cires.colorado.edu/news/press/2014/nimbus.html

  11. Re:It's getting hotter still! by Stephan+Schulz · · Score: 1, Informative

    Somehow a quite conservatively formulated claim (subjunctive mode, "some models, 75% chance, 5-7 years, during some month of the summer") magically morphed into the strong claim "Al Gore said in 5 years time the Arctic will be completely ice free". How much did you pay for that perceptional filter? And can you get a refund?

    --

    Stephan

  12. Re:Some thoughts by quantaman · · Score: 5, Informative

    The point is that less ice in Antarctica was bad because it would contribute to sea levels rising. If global warming is helping reduce sea levels, then this is a good thing, right? (Yes, I know thermal expansion probably is the main driver, so it's still probably going to be a net "bad.")

    Sea ice is irrelevant to sea levels.

    Land ice matters for sea levels, and the land ice is shrinking.

    --
    I stole this Sig
  13. Re: It's getting hotter still! by geekoid · · Score: 5, Informative

    What record accumulation? You missed the important bit:
    "two dimensional area,"
    It's still loosing MASS.
    Please fucking learn.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  14. Re:It's getting hotter still! by mi · · Score: 4, Informative

    slashdot today!? ... difference between North and South

    There is a distinction between the two, of course, but it is without difference to the topic of this thread. Both ice-caps were supposed to shrink (with dire consequences for the rest of the world, of course).

    One expedition set out to measure the loss of the ice, found itself stuck in it — not that it changed the leading professor's opinion about the global warming...

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  15. Re:Lets not forget by truavatar · · Score: 4, Informative

    A "Carbon Tax" is not the way to solve the problems, and this is the solution that has been peddled by Al Gore and countless others trying to implement Agenda 21.

    The first Cap-and-Trade program in the US was under Ronald Reagan and came out of his administration.

    The Clean Air Act of 1990 includeds GHWB's cap-and-trade proposal for sulfur pollution.

    GWB included a cap-and-trade proposal in his "clear skys" bill.

    While running for president in 2008 McCain proposed to reduce global warming pollution via a cap-and-trade program.

    I'm sorry. Tell me again how taxation (which is what cap-and-trade does) is a "Al Gore" idea.

    Cap and Trade is not the same thing as a Carbon Tax. They're two distinct approaches to the same problem. Under a Carbon Tax, a company could emit unlimited carbon as long as they paid the tax. Under Cap and Trade, their carbon emissions would be limited to their "cap". They could then buy rights to emit more carbon from other companies, reduce the amount that they're emitting sell their rights to emission, or offset their emissions in some way (planting trees, etc.).

    Cap and Trade: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...

    Carbon Tax: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

    I think a Carbon Tax is the wrong approach because it does not explicitly limit emissions in any way; as long as its still profitable, emissions will occur. Cap and Trade, on the other hand, explicitly limits industry-wide emissions and requires individual companies to set a value on their limited emissions in the free market.

    That said, UN Agenda 21, as mentioned by a previous poster, has nothing to do with which of these approaches is better.

  16. Re: It's getting hotter still! by Anguirel · · Score: 5, Informative

    It is proof of increased temperature if you understand the scientific principles involved. The sea ice extent is increasing because the Antarctic land ice is melting. That adds a lot of fresh water to the ocean around Antarctica, so it freezes at a higher temperature. Temperature is up a little, but the freezing point is up much higher, so the sea ice is forming more easily and further out in the winter. Look up Freezing Point Depression to understand the science behind this.

    --
    ~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
    QA: The art of telling someone that their baby is ugly without getting punched.
  17. Re:Time for new terminology by haruchai · · Score: 3, Informative

    "The raw, unadjusted temperature records always have said 1937" ??? That's a hell of a lot of adjustment, given that no year from the 1930s makes it into the top TWENTY warmest years globally. Are you sure 1937 was ever really a contender?

    The raw data sources AND the code for the GISTEMP rankings have been available for years. Surely the acute minds of the warming skeptics would have long since ferreted out the deliberate falseness in their work.

    There is someone who has taken the time to analyze data independently as objections have been raised. It's been a few years since he did the bulk of the work but it should still be valid - http://tamino.wordpress.com/20...

    More recently, there are the findings of the BEST project - http://berkeleyearth.org/summa...

    --
    Pain is merely failure leaving the body
  18. Re:It's getting hotter still! by Xyrus · · Score: 4, Informative

    slashdot today!? ... difference between North and South

    There is a distinction between the two, of course, but it is without difference to the topic of this thread. Both ice-caps were supposed to shrink (with dire consequences for the rest of the world, of course).

    One expedition set out to measure the loss of the ice, found itself stuck in it — not that it changed the leading professor's opinion about the global warming...

    The Antarctic sea ice extent was not and is not projected to shrink in the near term. It was expected to expand as a result of the influx of fresh water from increasing land ice melt. As the planet continues to warm it will reach a point where the ice extent will start shrinking again (as the 0C starts pushing further south), but that isn't projected to happen until later this century.

    --
    ~X~