The NSIDC announced Antarctica‘s sea ice loss was the greatest it’s been since 1978 (when tracking began) despite a long-term trend showing the continent gaining in size.
The sea ice, which shrinks every summer, contracted 883,015 square miles. The previous low was 884,173 square miles in 1997.
That’s a difference of 0.1 percent or 1,158 square miles.
And predictably, the head of NSIDC (U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center), Mark Serreze, used the 0.1 percent change and asserted less summer sea ice is Antarctica’s reaction to a warming world, despite having grown in size by 33 percent since 1978 and covered almost entirely by snow.
And Serreze said this record-breaking sea ice loss was making it “harder to deny” the “impact of #Climate Change on planet Earth.”
Antarctic Sea Ice Claims Don’t Stand Up To Scrutiny https://t.co/nShqZCFZmA
— Craig M 450 PPM ? (@CraigM350) February 23, 2017
Antarctica’s weather
So, what’s happening in Antarctica? According to Paul Homewood, the simple answer was weather. Changing wind patterns, Homewood wrote on his site, caused by the Southern Annular Mode flipping negative allowed winds to penetrate from the north.
That elevated temperatures while “pushing sea ice towards the coast.” Another issue was the accuracy of the satellites, also called the margin of error.
