I’ve been watching this NSIDC graph for a few days, figuring it was just noise. Now, it looks like “something worth blogging about“. The Arctic sea ice extent is continuing to grow past the normal historical peak which occurs typically in late February/early March. [Note: I added the following sentences since at least one commenter was confused by "peak point" in the headline above, which I've now changed to "peak date" to clarify what I was referring to. -A] Of course it has not exceeded the “normal” sea ice extent magnitude line, but is within – 2 STD. The point being made is that growth continues past the time when sea ice magnitude normally peaks, and historically (by the satellite record) is headed downward, as indicated by the dashed line.
Source: National Snow and Ice Data Center – link
To be fair though, the Earth seems to be suffering from “bipolar disorder” as we have a similar but opposite trend in the Antarctic:
Source: National Snow and Ice Data Center – link
If we look at Cryosphere Today’s dandy sea ice comparator tool, and choose a standard 30 year climatology period span, it looks like we may actually be ahead this year, compared to 30 years ago. Certainly the arctic sea ice today looks a lot more solid than in 1980. I wish CT offered comparisons without the snow cover added (which was added in 2008) so as to not be visually distracting.
click for a larger image
We live in interesting times.
No comments:
Post a Comment