More on Arctic sea ice

One of those burnt out by their work, Neven, has come out to file this item.

Global sea ice records broken (again)

Arctic Sea Ice Blog,
13 January, 2017



Sabbatical or not, records must be reported (like I did last year, here and here, albeit a month later).

According to NSIDC data, the Global sea ice area record for lowest minimum has just been broken, as shown on this Wipneus graph (world famous now because of what happened after September last year; see the dark red line on the right side of the graph which should be fairly easily to spot):


The extent version is about to break the record as well:


For those who still think that man-made global warming poses no risk whatsoever, that it is a hoax, I'm just going to repeat what I wrote last year:

This measure doesn't tell us all that much about the health of either Arctic or Antarctic regions, if only because the seasons move in opposite directions (nevertheless, the Global sea ice trend is down). It's just an interesting statistical factoid.

However, climate risk deniers often use the Global sea ice metric as an argument that nothing is wrong and AGW is a hoax. In other words, the recent growth in Antarctic sea ice offsets the loss of Arctic sea ice (it doesn't), even though the poles are literally worlds apart and are pretty much incomparable (except for the sea ice bit).

Using this logic, it would seem that this new record minimum means there is something wrong with sea ice and AGW isn't a hoax. I wonder how they will spin this one. If they report it to their loyal readers, that is.

Of course, they didn't report it to their readers. And they won't report this second record in a row either. They will remain quiet about this, as they always are, as if sea ice is not an integral part of this planet and its functioning.

Ask yourself why that is, what that means and whether you can trust anything they say. Be skeptical and do the right thing. Don't get swindled and then swindle others.
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Addendum:
It looks like a big storm is about to hit the Arctic (ECMWF forecast for day 4-7, as provided by Tropical Tidbits):


959 hPa is very low, lower than the summer GACs we saw in 2012 and 2016. If this forecast comes about, the ice pack is going to get hit hard, with a lot of ice being pushed towards the Atlantic. For updates go to the 2016/2017 freezing season thread on the Arctic Sea Ice Forum.