Cryosphere at the Air Vent
Posted by Jeff Id on March 23, 2013
All data provided by NSIDC gridded satellite. Compilation by me so errors are mine. All Y axis units Km^2.
The Antarctic had the second highest sea ice area minimum summer level in 35 years while the Arctic set a record lowest sea ice area minimum this year.
| Arctic Minimum | Arctic Maximium | Antarctic Minimum | Antarctic Maximum | |
| 1978 | 13,859,180 | |||
| 1979 | 5,535,313 | 15,090,913 | 1,944,465 | 14,959,135 |
| 1980 | 5,638,653 | 14,736,253 | 1,683,265 | 15,614,950 |
| 1981 | 5,199,235 | 14,307,640 | 1,612,400 | 15,610,100 |
| 1982 | 5,302,310 | 14,784,505 | 1,717,890 | 15,487,945 |
| 1983 | 5,521,378 | 14,788,088 | 1,757,610 | 15,510,463 |
| 1984 | 4,906,858 | 14,290,615 | 1,521,158 | 14,936,875 |
| 1985 | 5,160,045 | 14,624,308 | 1,639,843 | 15,456,518 |
| 1986 | 5,572,648 | 14,506,830 | 1,777,783 | 14,592,673 |
| 1987 | 5,342,760 | 14,734,223 | 1,803,770 | 15,035,815 |
| 1988 | 5,229,655 | 14,970,653 | 1,708,298 | 15,335,913 |
| 1989 | 4,985,450 | 14,141,373 | 1,863,225 | 15,326,225 |
| 1990 | 4,765,080 | 14,683,668 | 2,032,795 | 15,141,320 |
| 1991 | 4,714,105 | 14,196,430 | 1,821,995 | 15,324,690 |
| 1992 | 5,224,788 | 14,365,038 | 1,661,878 | 15,044,633 |
| 1993 | 4,601,510 | 14,710,050 | 1,268,038 | 15,357,570 |
| 1994 | 4,942,008 | 14,495,313 | 2,109,375 | 15,921,018 |
| 1995 | 4,556,625 | 14,233,280 | 2,029,630 | 15,306,030 |
| 1996 | 5,414,640 | 13,814,070 | 1,561,150 | 15,373,340 |
| 1997 | 5,037,873 | 14,294,258 | 1,606,578 | 15,264,198 |
| 1998 | 4,431,950 | 14,511,963 | 1,679,563 | 15,707,548 |
| 1999 | 4,319,640 | 14,256,390 | 1,598,193 | 15,479,228 |
| 2000 | 4,345,148 | 13,900,533 | 1,577,743 | 16,014,598 |
| 2001 | 4,707,715 | 14,492,430 | 2,314,315 | 15,395,013 |
| 2002 | 4,114,613 | 14,322,525 | 1,663,930 | 14,975,850 |
| 2003 | 4,285,620 | 14,314,423 | 2,455,993 | 15,104,155 |
| 2004 | 4,421,475 | 13,744,193 | 2,173,170 | 15,518,725 |
| 2005 | 4,147,473 | 13,418,945 | 1,817,808 | 15,916,253 |
| 2006 | 4,198,750 | 13,328,453 | 1,578,923 | 15,974,533 |
| 2007 | 3,208,025 | 13,356,400 | 1,833,275 | 16,304,230 |
| 2008 | 3,255,690 | 14,018,395 | 2,223,958 | 15,089,818 |
| 2009 | 3,591,088 | 13,948,610 | 1,804,590 | 16,025,355 |
| 2010 | 3,365,648 | 13,882,928 | 1,952,520 | 16,128,925 |
| 2011 | 2,629,338 | 13,122,670 | 1,675,888 | 15,270,930 |
| 2012 | 2,536,248 | 13,688,078 | 1,945,950 | 16,209,193 |
| 2013 | 13,780,013 | 2,404,045 | ||
| maximum | 5.64E+06 | 1.51E+07 | 2.46E+06 | 1.63E+07 |
| Minimum | 2.54E+06 | 1.31E+07 | 1.27E+06 | 1.39E+07 |
the Air Vent 
Matthew W said
So, there is a slight downward global trend (Offset by Average Area) based on a starting point that was at the end of a known cold period.
I’m not going to panic yet !!!
Funny how the Arctic and Antarctic can balance the planet.
Duke C. said
+1 Matthew W.
Wonder if it’s possible to tack on some ice core proxies prior to 1978, and plot the entire Holocene? /Mannian sarc off
sunshinehours1 said
The AMO is still warm Apr – Oct and not too far above 0 for Nov – Mar
That would (IMHO) explain Arctic maximums not too far from the mean and record minimums.
Month / 3 year mean / 5 year mean
Winter
11 0.15 0.11
12 0.13 0.11
1 0.1 0.07
2 0.1 0.08
3 0.15 0.1
Summer
4 0.23 0.13
5 0.29 0.2
6 0.34 0.29
7 0.34 0.31
8 0.41 0.32
9 0.38 0.3
10 0.28 0.23
Derek said
Jeff wrote –
“All data provided by NSIDC gridded satellite. Compilation by me so errors are mine.”
To be fair to you Jeff I have little doubt most of the errors will be down to instrument drift / software “issues” of the measurements themselves.
Paul Linsay said
And the error bars on the measurements are (drum roll here)…?
Robert Austin said
If your faith is strong and you squint your eyes just so, you can almost see the death spiral manifest in the first graph 🙂
KevinM said
I’ve been wondering for a long time, and never got an answer I trust. How high would sea levels rise if all of it, both poles and the peaks of the Himalayas, melted to water?
Al Gores movie said IIRC it would be 17 feet if just Greenland melted, but I’ve never believed it because Venice Italy existed at a time when Greenland was much greener.
If there were a good estimate of total ice I could get it by dividing that by the ice/ water volume ratio then dividing by the two-thirds the surface area of the globe. Has anyone here done the work and saved the numbers?
HaroldW said
According to NSIDC, the answer is 70 meters. The Bedmap2 project reports Antarctic ice alone accounts for 58 meters. A paper by Bamber et al. estimated Greenland ice volume at 2.9 million cubic kilometers, equivalent to a sea level rise of about 7.7 m if I’ve done the math right.
Jeff Condon said
I have never studied the answer to that question. The poles are just too cold to melt any time in the foreseeable future. If you believe the models are accurate, which they do not appear to be, the worst case warming won’t melt the Antarctic ice in the next hundred years.
Kevin macKay said
Thanks Harold. By that account Gore’s claim was about right. I understand the scenario is fantastically improbable, but I wanted an upper limit on the proposition.
DeWitt Payne said
Late to the game, but it looks to me like the seasonal correction for the Arctic anomaly shifted starting in 2007. That’s why you see higher variability for 2007 and on. It’s much smoother if you calculate seasonal correction from the average of 2007-201x where x is 0,1 or 2. Of course you can’t use that seasonal curve pre-2007.
Jeff Condon said
It is interesting because the recent temperature anomaly has changed quite a bit as well. I wonder how common these pattern changes really are.