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Antarctic winter sea ice has once again broken the record for maximum extent. On September 12, the coverage measured 19.619 million square kilometres, the highest since satellite records began.

The ice has broken daily records on about 150 days this year, indicating consistently greater coverage than in previous years. With several weeks of growth still to go, more records could fall.

2014 is the third year in a row that the ice has broken the maximum extent record. In 2013 the sea ice reached 19.47 million square km, 3.6% above the average for 1981-2010. The records continue a weak trend towards greater sea ice cover, which evidence suggests is linked to increasing greenhouse gases and climate change.

Dr Guy Williams, a sea ice specialist at University of Tasmania who has previously written on The Conversation, said the new records add to an “exciting” puzzle for climate scientists. Each record-breaking year is different due to variations in seasonal weather and ocean conditions — “it’s those differences that will tell us something.”

Total sea ice extent is not the full story either. The weak positive trend masks declines in some regions, and increases in others. Parts of the Antarctic — particularly to the west of the Antarctic Peninsula — show a very large decline in sea ice. In other regions, such as the Ross Sea, sea ice is increasing.

There are also as yet no published data on sea ice volume — a much better measure of whether sea ice is increasing or decreasing.

UndercoverElephant wrote:Oh dear, here we go again. Didn't the fact the article was written by "social affairs correspondent" instead of a science correspondent ring any alarm bells? No, because you aren't interested in anything that doesn't fit your anti-scientific preconceptions. Did you do any research into alternative interpretations? Nope, because you are only interested in stuff which supports what you already believe.

Here is the truth:

http://theconversation.com/new-antarcti ... nded-31676

Antarctic winter sea ice has once again broken the record for maximum extent. On September 12, the coverage measured 19.619 million square kilometres, the highest since satellite records began.

The ice has broken daily records on about 150 days this year, indicating consistently greater coverage than in previous years. With several weeks of growth still to go, more records could fall.

2014 is the third year in a row that the ice has broken the maximum extent record. In 2013 the sea ice reached 19.47 million square km, 3.6% above the average for 1981-2010. The records continue a weak trend towards greater sea ice cover, which evidence suggests is linked to increasing greenhouse gases and climate change.

Dr Guy Williams, a sea ice specialist at University of Tasmania who has previously written on The Conversation, said the new records add to an “exciting” puzzle for climate scientists. Each record-breaking year is different due to variations in seasonal weather and ocean conditions — “it’s those differences that will tell us something.”

Total sea ice extent is not the full story either. The weak positive trend masks declines in some regions, and increases in others. Parts of the Antarctic — particularly to the west of the Antarctic Peninsula — show a very large decline in sea ice. In other regions, such as the Ross Sea, sea ice is increasing.

There are also as yet no published data on sea ice volume — a much better measure of whether sea ice is increasing or decreasing.

Article continues.

You've read the title of this article, and maybe some of its contents, and come to the conclusion the denial-leaders want you to come to: that this is casting doubt on the overall scientific consensus that climate change is real. It isn't. It's just the same as saying "The last three winters have been very cold in the UK" (if they had) and claiming that this means climate change isn't real.

PS_RalphW wrote:2014 Global ice cover has not reached a record since records began.

The Antarctic Ice Sheet contains 25,400,000 km3 of ice, which, if it melted, would be equivalent to a sea level rise of 58 m. The ice sheet is over 4000 m thick in places, and in places, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is grounded more than 1500 m below sea level.

Glaciers in the northern Antarctic Peninsula are melting faster than ever before. Scientists have found that even increased snowfall won't prevent the continued melting, and that these glaciers are highly vulnerable to even slight changes in air temperatures.

As temperatures continue to rise, ice in both the Arctic and Antarctic is melting at an unprecedented rate. Yet in the Antarctic Peninsula, these rising temperatures are causing more havoc than normal. Because warmer air holds more moisture, the amount of snowfall has also increased. While some scientists have suggested that this increased snowfall may actually offset the melting glaciers, new research shows that this isn't the case.

snow hope wrote:Seems 2014 has hit a record maximum for ice cover since records began...

snow hope wrote:Just shows you can justify anything if you search hard enough....

a whole 0.13% - that is 1.3 thousandths of an increase in a three decades - wow!!! roflol - this has to be a joke right?

In the Antarctic, today, what we see is a cold surface layer and a heating bottom layer. The cold surface layer is fed by an expanding pulse of chill, fresh water issuing from the melting glaciers of Antarctica. Over the years it has become more uniform, sequestering cold near the surface as warmth builds up in the depths below. The deeper hot layer is fed by warmer water issuing in from the tropics and heated to temperatures not seen for tens of thousands of years. This hot water bears a heavy burden of salt. So it is denser and it dives beneath the expanding fresh water layer.

latest study argues the water is much hotter than previously thought. Our only way of avoiding the rolling boil is to come up with a plan to turn the gas off and then take the steps necessary to implement that strategy. But, as individuals we cannot claw our way to a solution.

The total amount of loss averaged 83 gigatons per year (91.5 billion U.S. tons). By comparison, Mt. Everest weighs about 161 gigatons, meaning the Antarctic glaciers lost an amount of water weight equivalent to Mt. Everest every two years over the last 21 years.

The rate of loss accelerated an average of 6.1 gigatons (6.7 billion U.S. tons) per year since 1992.