And we are really at the beginning, this is 10% less sea ice than the median. What about the next 10% decline? And then the next 10% decline?
As this ice melts and the ocean continues to warm, what will be all of the extreme weather effects?
I don’t think there will be many places spared, every location can have its own version or variety of extreme weather. Mother Nature is heating up and she is spreading her love around.
In the face of these kinds of data, I don’t see how people choose not to want to address all of the impacts humans are having on the planet, including warming.
Dr Mallet says there are “very, very good reasons to be worried”.
“It’s potentially a really alarming sign of Antarctic climate change that hasn’t been there for the last 40 years. And it’s only just emerging now.”
“The ice that floats on the Antarctic Ocean’s surface now measures less than 17 million sq km - that is 1.5 million sq km of sea-ice less than the September average, and well below previous winter record lows.”
Maybe not. The data can be quite variable, and there is a paper by Gallaher about Antarctic sea ice extent in the 1960s where we learn that “in August 1966 the maximum sea ice extent fell to 15.9 × 10 6 km2”
DB2
A couple of points,
First, you mention August data, but the article is citing September. These months are adjacent to each other in time, but they are not directly comparable in a scientific way because sea ice maxes out in September - and is thus typically less extensive in August - so month of year is a confounding variable in your comparison.
Edit: Actually, looking at the graph, Aug 2023 sea ice looks lower than the 15.9m sq km you mention from Aug 1966 - see below. How did you and I miss this?
Second, Meier is quoted in the BBC article (Antarctic sea-ice at 'mind-blowing' low alarms experts) and he is an author on the 2014 paper that you cite (https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20140017193/downloads/20140017193.pdf).
Here’s what he has to say:
“It’s so far outside anything we’ve seen, it’s almost mind-blowing,” says Walter Meier, who monitors sea-ice with the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
…
Dr Meier is not optimistic that the sea-ice will recover to a significant degree.
I don’t think Meier means mind-blowing in a good, 1960s kind of way.
