Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Ice watch
News that has not made headlines in the popular press:
We have news from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). They say: The melt is over. And we’ve added 9.4% ice coverage from this time last year. Though it appears NSIDC is attempting to downplay this in their web page announcement today, one can safely say that despite irrational predictions seen earlier this year, we didn’t reach an “ice free north pole” nor a new record low for sea ice extent.
Scientific American describes the 9.4% increase as having "just missed" a record low, and argues that the climate is "shifting fast towards a total loss of sea ice in the Arctic in summer, something that hasn't happened during the extent of human civilization."
Friendly reminder that the global sea ice area actually exceeded the pre-"warming" baseline level as recently as the first quarter of 2008. I have never understood why sea ice anomalies in the northern hemisphere that signal warming are given so much more weight than anomalies in the southern hemisphere that signal cooling. Never mind the global result, which strikes most of us rubes as the relevant figure. If I did not know that climate activists were principally concerned with intellectual honesty, I'd think they were cherry-picking their data.
6 Comments:
By 
, at
Thu Sep 18, 01:57:00 AM:
Increased sea ice levels in the Antarctic don't signal cooling. Circumpolar seas minimize warming, so increased warming in the far north with minimal changes in the far south matches the models.
More info here:
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/11/7/192721/175
By 
Steve, at
Thu Sep 18, 02:32:00 AM:
TH, I thought I read that the reforming ice is thinner, and the total volume of ice each year is therefore still in a worrying decline.
Also, it's surely relevant that the North Pole ice is surrounded by land full of permafrost and buried carbons. (I have also read recently of some evidence for methane coming out of the seabed.) If it gets significantly warmer up there, all of that comes into play to help accelerate the growth of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It's my hunch that you would have to have a hell of a big increase of light-reflecting Antarctic sea ice to compensate for that.
Your AGW skepticism seems somewhat to be on the rise lately, for some reason.
By Kinuachdrach, at
Thu Sep 18, 11:10:00 AM:
Increased sea ice levels in the Antarctic don't signal cooling. Circumpolar seas minimize warming
So let's see -- minimizing warming results in increased sea ice. But surely minimized warming at "best" would result in stable sea ice. Increased sea ice might require -- Gasp! -- cooling!
Good thing we have Anthropogenic Global Warming theory to tell us when not to trust our lying eyes.
By magnus, at
Thu Sep 18, 11:30:00 AM:
Kinuachdrach: "Good thing we have Anthropogenic Global Warming theory to tell us when not to trust our lying eyes."
Sums it up very well!
By Brian, at
Thu Sep 18, 02:50:00 PM:
Sorry, I should've clarified for Kin. Increased Antarctic sea ice doesn't signal GLOBAL cooling, for all the discussed reasons.
In addition to the above, climate models indicate increased precipitation in the Antarctic. I'm not sure about this, but the increased snow on the ice shelves, and glacier output, might affect sea ice extent (my speculation).
By , at
Sat Sep 20, 09:55:00 AM:
Al gore is a liar and so are the various left-wing journalists politicians and those who are using this lie of global warming in their ads
