Within just a few days in September, Arctic sea ice extent reached the lowest minimum ever recorded by satellites since 1979, while at the same time, Antarctic sea ice reached the greatest extent ever recorded.

In my post “The Arctic-Antarctic seesaw” I explained how natural forces work to produce these phenomena.  In my post “Challenge to the Arizona Daily Star – get the facts” I accused the Arizona Daily Star of content bias because they prominently reported the Arctic minimum, but until now, did not report the Antarctic maximum.

Now, 21 days after the Antarctic maximum, the Arizona Daily Star has reprinted an AP article which attempts to spin observations to fit AGW global warming theory: “Experts: Global warming means more Antarctic ice.”   The article author is Seth Borenstein, long known for bad reporting on climate change.     With global warming media bias, it’s “heads I win; tails you lose.”

The AP/Star story says, “It sounds counterintuitive, but the Antarctic is part of the warming as well.”  Really? Was this a surprise to some climate scientists and their models? Let’s see what the climate models said according to a study in the Journal of Climate:

“We examine the annual cycle and trends in Antarctic sea ice extent (SIE) for 18 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5 models that were run with historical forcing for the 1850s to 2005. Many of the models have an annual SIE cycle that differs markedly from that observed over the last 30 years. The majority of models have too small a SIE at the minimum in February, while several of the models have less than two thirds of the observed SIE at the September maximum.”

A study from Ohio State University titled “Antarctic temperatures disagree with climate model predictions” says “temperatures during the late 20th century did not climb as had been predicted by many global climate models.”  Also, there has been “no increase in precipitation over Antarctica in the last 50 years. Most models predict that both precipitation and temperature will increase over Antarctica with a warming of the planet.”

In other words, the climate models predicted less sea ice in the Antarctic as well as in the Arctic.

The AP/Star story says: “Shifts in wind patterns and the giant ozone hole over the Antarctic this time of year – both related to human activity – are probably behind the increase in ice, experts say.”

The shifting winds affect mainly the West Antarctic peninsula and these winds have the effect of breaking up the ice, not increasing it.

From the Ohio State study:

“The westerlies have intensified over the last four decades or so, increasing in strength by as much as perhaps 10 to 20 percent.  There is a huge amount of ocean north of Antarctica and we’re only now understanding just how important the winds are for things like mixing in the Southern Ocean. The ocean mixing both dissipates heat and absorbs carbon dioxide….The peninsula is the most northern point of Antarctica and it sticks out into the westerlies. If there is an increase in the westerly winds, it will have a warming impact on that part of the continent, thus helping to break up the ice shelves…Farther south, the impact would be modest, or even non-existent.”

That Antarctic sea ice increase is due to global warming is without proof, only desperate speculation.

Even the Arctic sea ice minimum has little to do with global warming.  As I reported in “Arctic sea ice reached record low extent in 2012 – or maybe not” the National Snow & Ice Data Center said Arctic sea ice extent dropped rapidly between August 4 and August 8 during what they called “The Great Arctic Cyclone of 2012.”  That storm caused “mechanical break up of the ice and increased melting by strong winds and wave action during the storm.” So wind tends to melt and dissipate ice, not increase it.

In this era of alleged human-caused global warming, both continental and sea ice are increasing in Antarctica. “Satellite radar altimetry measurements indicate that the East Antarctic ice sheet interior north of 81.6-S increased in mass by 45±7 billion metric tons per year from 1992 to 2003.” (Source) And a new paper says in part: “Antarctic Peninsula ice core records indicate significant accumulation increase since 1855…” (Source). According to NASA’s Earth Observatory, total Antarctic sea ice has increased by about 1% per decade since the start of the satellite record..

It seems that the AP/Star story is mainly science fiction, agenda-driven spin,  and once again the Arizona Daily Star is doing disservice to its readers by not getting the facts.

And there is this other inconvenient fact: there has been no net global warming since 1997 in the lower atmosphere according to UAH satellite data nor any net warming of surface temperatures on land or sea according to the British Met Office.

Shouldn’t global warming be global? Much has been made in the media about the “record” sea ice melt in the Arctic this summer. Typical is the headline in the Arizona Daily Star: “Arctic ice shrinks to all-time low; global warming cited as the cause.” There are two problems with that headline, which I will get to below. Meanwhile, it is little mentioned in the press that Antarctic continental ice is growing and sea ice has reached record or near record maximums extent. If global warming is the cause of “record” Arctic sea ice melt, why is the Antarctic sea ice reaching record or near record maximums? Should not global warming temper Antarctic sea ice formation? The graphs below show the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice extent as of September 20, 2012.

As for the headline “Arctic ice shrinks to all time low….”, it’s an all time low if you start counting in 1979, the modern satellite era. But, as I’ve shown in another post, Ice Follies and Hiding the Decline, a 1990 report from the IPCC records earlier  data which show that in 1974 Arctic sea ice melt was as great or greater than it is this year.

As for the headline “Global warming cited as cause” we see that when the Arctic reaches a minimum sea ice extent, the Antarctic reaches a maximum extent. There is a seesaw effect. That is shown most dramatically this year and in 2007 when the Arctic reached the previous “record” low, and the Antarctic sea ice reached a “record” maximum high extent.

Doug Hoffman discusses this seesaw effect at Resilient Earth. This oscillation seems to be related to natural, solar driven variations.

The basic difference between the Arctic and Antarctic is that the Arctic is mainly ocean surrounded by land, and the Antarctic is land surrounded by ocean. The Arctic is therefore more subject to solar-driven oscillations such as the Arctic Oscillation and Pacific Decadal Oscillation which are responsible for changes in ocean currents that can drive ice south toward warmer water or create warmer currents in the Arctic ocean. That, coupled with storms, have a significant effect on Arctic sea ice. As I reported in the post referenced below: the National Snow & Ice Data Center said of this year’s Arctic melt: “Sea ice extent dropped rapidly between August 4 and August 8. While this drop coincided with an intense storm over the central Arctic Ocean, it is unclear if the storm prompted the rapid ice loss.” NSIDC called the storm “The Great Arctic Cyclone of 2012″ and noted the storm caused “mechanical break up of the ice and increased melting by strong winds and wave action during the storm.” Nothing to do with global warming.

Meanwhile, both continental and sea ice are increasing in Antarctica. “Satellite radar altimetry measurements indicate that the East Antarctic ice sheet interior north of 81.6-S increased in mass by 45±7 billion metric tons per year from 1992 to 2003.” (Source) And a new paper says in part: “Antarctic Peninsula ice core records indicate significant accumulation increase since 1855…” (Source). According to NASA’s Earth Observatory, total Antarctic sea ice has increased by about 1% per decade since the start of the satellite record..

It seems that Arctic and Antarctic sea ice extent can be explained by natural cycles.  Those invoking “global warming” must explain why warming causes Antarctic ice to increase and Arctic ice to decrease.

As for the low sea ice in the Arctic this year, it has happened before:

And before:
Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, …, all point to a radical change in climatic conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm. -Washington Post, November 2, 1922.

And before:
“A considerable change of climate inexplicable at present to us must have taken place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of the cold that has for centuries past enclosed the seas in the high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice has been, during the last two years, greatly abated.”

“2000 square leagues of ice with which the Greenland Seas between the latitudes of 74̊ and 80̊N have been hitherto covered, has in the last two years entirely disappeared.” -Royal Society, London. Nov. 20, 1817. Minutes of Council, Vol. 8. pp.149-153.

Perhaps Mark Twain was right when he said: “If you don’t read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.”

UPDATE: NASA now admits that the storm caused most of the melt: “This year, a powerful cyclone formed off the coast of Alaska and moved on Aug. 5 to the center of the Arctic Ocean, where it churned the weakened ice cover for several days. The storm cut off a large section of sea ice north of the Chukchi Sea and pushed it south to warmer waters that made it melt entirely. It also broke vast extensions of ice into smaller pieces more likely to melt.” See statement and video animation here.

See also:
Arctic ice reached record low extent in 2012 – or maybe not

Paul Homewood’s article on Arctic vs Antarctic temperatures

Researchers have discovered the rare mineral Ikaite in sediment cores from Antarctica.  Ikaite is a hexahydrate of calcium carbonate, CaCO₃·6H₂O, that exists in nature only at temperatures cooler than about 44° F.  At warmer temperatures is decomposes or recrystallizes into a form of calcite called glendonite (see photo).

The significance of the discovery is that the water within the ikaite crystal lattice contains oxygen-18 (d18O) isotopes which are a proxy for temperature.  Therefore, analysis of the ikaite can give a record of the ambient temperature at the time the mineral formed.

According to a press release from Syracuse University:

Ikaite crystals incorporate ocean bottom water into their structure as they form. During cooling periods, when ice sheets are expanding, ocean bottom water accumulates heavy oxygen isotopes (oxygen 18). When glaciers melt, fresh water, enriched in light oxygen isotopes (oxygen 16), mixes with the bottom water. The scientists analyzed the ratio of the oxygen isotopes in the hydration water and in the calcium carbonate. They compared the results with climate conditions established in Northern Europe across a 2,000-year time frame. They found a direct correlation between the rise and fall of oxygen 18 in the crystals and the documented warming and cooling periods.

The abstract from the research paper reads:

Calcium carbonate can crystallize in a hydrated form as ikaite at low temperatures. The hydration water in ikaite grown in laboratory experiments records the d18O of ambient water, a feature potentially useful for reconstructing d18O of local seawater. We report the first downcore d18O record of natural ikaite hydration waters and crystals collected from the Antarctic Peninsula (AP), a region sensitive to climate fluctuations. We are able to establish the zone of ikaite formation within shallow sediments, based on porewater chemical and isotopic data. Having constrained the depth of ikaite formation and d18O of ikaite crystals and hydration waters, we are able to infer local changes in fjord d18O versus time during the late Holocene. This ikaite record qualitatively supports that both the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age extended to the Antarctic Peninsula.

Note that the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age disappeared in Michael Mann’s infamous hockey stick graph and from IPCC reports.  This discovery is another piece of physical evidence that the Medieval Warm Period, a time when global temperatures were as warm or warmer than today, was indeed a worldwide phenomena.  It is also another piece of evidence that recent warming is nothing unusual.

See also:

Norwegian research shows that current warming is not unusual

More evidence that current warming is not unusual