Antarctic sea ice area is at an all-time record high for the date, and is increasing since 1979 at a rate of 52,000 Manhattans per century.
The NSIDC web site has links to articles citing the threat to penguins from declining sea ice in Antarctica.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/timeseries.south.anom.1979-2008
Satellites measuring Antarctica record that it is gaining sea ice but losing land ice at an accelerating rate. These are two different measures. We have to stick to hard facts if we are ti win against the greentards.
It is completely nonsensical to believe that the warmer exterior is gaining ice, while the much colder interior is losing ice. Measuring ice volume is very difficult, and far beyond the pay grade of climate scientists.
But the warmer exterior ice changes radically especially during winter and summer. It’s the land ice that matters. We can’t let a single error into our theories or they will be disproven or written off.
As recently discovered and reported, any Antarctic melting is from widespread buried volcanoes. The surface NEVER melts.
The MYI in Antarctica has also been growing since 2011, when the present period of (increasing) positive anomalies started.
Now. if you add the fact that the lowest temperature ever recorded on Earth (of course, the recent records) was in 2010 and the 2nd lowest (just a few tenths of degree above) was last year, it’s hard to believe that Antarctica is warming in any way.
As Steve said, their estimates of volume ice is based in models, and … their models are based in CO2 forcing.
IMO the ice in Antarctica is growing *because* the S. Pole is cooling, due to solar radiations and ahead of the rest of the planet.
In fact, the N. Pole is cooling too, as attested by the stabilization of the ice extent since 2008 and recovery since last year.
Note also that the present increase in the Antarctic ice (anomalies) is already reaching the same levels (with opposite sign) as the decrease of the Arctic ice up to 2012 (around 2 million km2, absolute value).
In addition, the *rate of increase* in the recent phase of the Antarctic ice is *steeper* than it was during the decrease of the Arctic ice.
It’s easy to see solar forcing as the driver behind all these phenomena.
here is the article of The Guardian, with data from NASA
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/10/coldest-temperature-recorded-earth-antarctica-guinness-book
The penguins are reading the wrong papers!
I think its important to ready our readers against the left wing arguments. It’s obvious that sea ice will increase and that land ice will decrease given various factors. If we pretend it isn’t happening they’ll hammer us with the evidence to the contrary.
You have no idea what you are talking about.
Please elaborate? Is land ice decreasing and sea ice increasing? Where have I gone wrong? If I’m wrong I want to be informed.
Land ice volume is very difficult to measure, because you can’t see what the land is doing underneath the ice sheet. People who claim they have accurate measurements from gravity data, simply don’t understand what they are doing.
Where have you gone wrong? Steven is most assuredly correct in his skepticism of the gravitational measurement of the mass of the Antarctic ice cap, or should I say the change in mass of the ice cap. Think about it. The hypothetical change in mass is a miniscule fraction of the total mass and it has been “measured” over an extremely short time period geologically speaking. The error envelope must be huge compared to the allegedly measured shrinkage signal. In other words, they are wishfully seeing the “correct” answer in the noise.
But do we have hard evidence that it is wrong?
http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2010/09/09/climate-change-a-slowdown-on-polar-melt/
West Antarctica has a ridge of volcanoes under the ice, melting it. In East Antarctica where there are no volcanoes, land ice is increasing. The south pole has not gotten any warmer.
The southern oceans surrounding Antarctica are warming?
Yeah, the increase in sea ice is a sign that the oceans are getting warmer. Not.
Sorry I don’t understand your question Morgan. Warm water will obviously rise up to the surface, this warms air temperatures. As air temperatures warm, this increases the amount of rain and snowfall. Leading to a surface layer or thin ice (sea ice).
Nice try. The sea ice is 10 feet think. You need 10 feet of rain to make sea ice 10 feet thick from rain. Sea ice is frozen sea water, not rain. Try again, to invent another BS explanation
Sea ice increases because land ice is increasing and being driven outward.
The Antarctic basin is getting colder, especially in the region of the Weddel Sea.
The negative SST anomalies are moving “up” (to lower latitudes) since approx. the time the positive anomalies in Antarctica began, in 2011.
This is probably one of the direct causes of the decreased (“unexpected”) intensity of the El Nino of 2012, and the warming in the NINO region this year seems to be evolving the same way.
It’s happening as Brian said,
“Sea ice increases because land ice is increasing and being driven outward.”
That’s what the data is showing.
But they are also saying in their paper that it’s tough to make accurate predictions on this. If their ONE paper turns out to be wrong we’ll have no where to go. We need more research to back it up. One isn’t enough,
I see a hockey stick in that graph. 😉
Current temp at SP is -57.
http://www.timeanddate.com/weather/antarctica/south-pole
Why do alarmists call themselves ‘Skeptic’? If the Antarctic is losing ice mass at ‘an accelerating rate’ then sea level would be rising at ‘an accelerating rate’. It isn’t.
Someone was pulling a scam to disrupt the blog. They are spam now.
I tried to find out the area of the Antarctic continent + ice shelves. Very difficult but I did come across this presentation for schools from the British Antarctic Survey:
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/about_antarctica/teacher_resources/resources/schoolspack/01nature_pr.pdf
See if you can spot the schoolboy howler on page 1 which has been there unnoticed since 1999.