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Antarctica is Missing an Argentina-Sized Amount of Sea Ice This Year (cnn.com) 124

The world just broke "another terrifying climate record," reports CNN: Antarctic sea ice has fallen to unprecedented lows for this time of year. Every year, Antarctic sea ice shrinks to its lowest levels towards the end of February, during the continent's summer. The sea ice then builds back up over the winter.

But this year scientists have observed something different.

The sea ice has not returned to anywhere near expected levels. In fact it is at the lowest levels for this time of year since records began 45 years ago. The ice is around 1.6 million square kilometers (0.6 million square miles) below the previous winter record low set in 2022, according to data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). In mid-July, Antarctica's sea ice was 2.6 million square kilometers (1 million square miles) below the 1981 to 2010 average. That is an area nearly as large as Argentina or the combined areas of Texas, California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado.

The phenomenon has been described by some scientists as off-the-charts exceptional — something that is so rare, the odds are that it only happens once in millions of years. But Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the University of Colorado Boulder, said that speaking in these terms may not be that helpful. "The game has changed," he told CNN. "There's no sense talking about the odds of it happening the way the system used to be, it's clearly telling us that the system has changed...."

This winter's unprecedented occurrence may indicate a long-term change for the isolated continent, Scambos said. "It is more likely than not that we won't see the Antarctic system recover the way it did, say, 15 years ago, for a very long period into the future, and possibly 'ever.'" Others are more cautious. "It's a large departure from average but we know that Antarctic sea ice exhibits large year to year variability," Julienne Stroeve, a senior scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center told CNN, adding "it's too early to say if this is the new normal or not."

The glaciologist describes the change as "so extreme that something radical has changed in the past two years, but especially this year, relative to all previous years going back at least 45 years." And CNN adds that meanwhile in the Arctic, "sea ice has been on a consistently downwards trajectory as the climate crisis accelerates."

Other possible consequences of the missing sea ice:
  • Sea ice reflects sunlight back into space, CNN notes, so when it melts, it "exposes the darker ocean waters beneath which absorb the sun's energy."
  • Sea ice floats on the water, so its loss doesn't directly affect rising sea levels, CNN points out. But the disappearance of sea ice does leave coastal ice sheets and glaciers "exposed to waves and warm ocean waters, making them more vulnerable to melting and breaking off."

    In February NASA reported that global sea levels "are rising as a result of human-caused global warming, with recent rates being unprecedented over the past 2,500-plus years." Seawater expands when it warms, but NASA also blames the added water from melting ice sheets and glaciers, resulting in a 3.89-inch rise since 1993, and 7.97 inches (200 mm) since 1900.

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Antarctica is Missing an Argentina-Sized Amount of Sea Ice This Year

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  • by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Sunday July 30, 2023 @05:50PM (#63726238)

    Excuse me? You lost an Argentina-sized something? Please speak to me in lost Libraries of Congress by megabyte please. I'm a statistically abused product of the 80s for fucks sake.

    How the hell am I supposed to know how many horsepower my EV needs on Mars with that kind of climate change dick-tax measuring. Fake it better already.

    • You lost an Argentina-sized something? Please speak to me in lost Libraries of Congress ...

      Or, at the very least, in National Libraries of Argentina [wikipedia.org] ...

    • [Slashdot lame filters reflect sophistication of the programmers, or their decision-makers?]

    • Excuse me? You lost an Argentina-sized something? Please speak to me in lost Libraries of Congress by megabyte please. I'm a statistically abused product of the 80s for fucks sake.

      How the hell am I supposed to know how many horsepower my EV needs on Mars with that kind of climate change dick-tax measuring. Fake it better already.

      Is this diversion or something? Says right in the summary that the ice is about 1.6 million square Kilometers less than 2022, and 2.6 million square Kilometers below the 1981 to 2010 average.

      They even have it in imperial for those who might like it that way. So I'm inclined to forgive the size comparison transgression that appears to upset you.

      • Speaking of diversions, let me know when we're going to start evacuating Florida. Or start charging an ice cube tax, because something something million below the national clickbait trigger threshold for profit via climate change "rage" about an uninhabited wasteland. Humans barely give a shit about the places they're forced to live.

        I'm still not sure what amount of imperial fucks I should truly give, if any. Perhaps it's the obvious size disparity between feelings and facts that drives policy these days,

        • Speaking of diversions, let me know when we're going to start evacuating Florida. Or start charging an ice cube tax, because something something million below the national clickbait trigger threshold for profit via climate change "rage" about an uninhabited wasteland. Humans barely give a shit about the places they're forced to live.

          I'm still not sure what amount of imperial fucks I should truly give, if any. Perhaps it's the obvious size disparity between feelings and facts that drives policy these days, at the expense of the rest of us.

          Dunno if you saw this - but off of Florida, Ocean temps on July 21st hit 38.3 C or 101 degrees F, or 311.5 K for crazy folks like me.

          I always make jokes about "scientists are stunned" This time it's for real. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/f... [cbsnews.com] A friend lives in Phoenix Arizona, and it's been up to 48.3 C 119 F several times in July. apparently the short rainy season hasn't happened either

          Even here in PA, it's been hot, but also rainy. That is definitely anomalous.

          The weather is unstable, as it "searc

          • The weather is unstable, as it "searches" for a new normal. And people might not like that new normal.

            Yup. Weather changes. That instability often falls in the same vein as Shit Happens.

            Regarding what people are going to do...hold your breath if you think people from Florida or Arizona are going to move because it's now slightly hotter than it has been for the last three decades they've lived in high temp climates. People live where they want to live. Often for no other reason than Mom/Dad raised them there.

            If climate actually had an impact on human behavior, "Arizona" would simply be known as yet anot

            • The weather is unstable, as it "searches" for a new normal. And people might not like that new normal.

              Yup. Weather changes. That instability often falls in the same vein as Shit Happens.

              What is more, a lot of people actually like it being warmer.

              While that is a pretty solipsistic outlook on their part, it ties in with your post here.

              I have some relatives/friends that live in Florida. They spend most of the year living inside their house or apartment. Take away their air conditioning, they's probably be dead in a short time. Same with Phoenix.

              As for the shit happens stuff - yes, in any given year/season/month there can be anomalous weather. But anomalous can become a trend, and event

  • In an Argentina?
  • Show it like a process in Statistical Process Control. It would from what they are saying, look like a process steadily drifting out of control.

  • by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Sunday July 30, 2023 @07:06PM (#63726372) Homepage Journal

    Here's a measured climate.gov article:

    https://www.climate.gov/news-f... [climate.gov]

    for those who don't enjoy the 'thrill' of triggered outrage.

    You should also compare the land ice measurements for extra credit. No peeking.

    • by HiThere ( 15173 )

      Thanks for the link. It's a bit technical for me, but it seems to agree with the summary, in a broad way. The 1-year change LOOKS less dramatic, but it *is* at the end of 7-years of increasingly low ice.

    • Some key points, antarctic summer ice is less variable than winter minimums. So the departure from the typical ranges gives a stronger signal. One could hypothesize the loss of land ice was ice pushing into the ocean and maintaining the sea ice levels over the past several decades.
    • by amorsen ( 7485 )

      That article was written March 14th, which is before things got really weird.

  • OK, I am not an expert on this stuff .. but to fix this can we trade some states .. like say ship Florida and some other states to Antarctica?

  • by PPH ( 736903 ) on Sunday July 30, 2023 @07:39PM (#63726438)

    ... trees will begin to grow in Antarctica. Again [smithsonianmag.com].

  • Can we build more nuclear power plants now? No? Okay then, we will just keep burning coal for our electricity until global warming is determined to be a greater threat to civilization than nuclear power.

  • News services with shocking headlines get ratings. They will sensationalise someone tearing a calf muscle.
    However the underlying message is important, we're messing with the weather and fossil fuels are to blame.
    If we don't change our ways the life for the people on the planet will become very difficult for some. Oceans will rise and parts of the planet will become too hot for habitation.
    This will also take a significant amount of time, but we're very slowly getting closer and closer to a cliff.
    The antarcti

  • Back in the 90's, when all of the "global warming" panic started, up in the Greenland or upper Scandinavia area, the melting ice uncovered an abandoned settlement that was dated to around 12-1300 AD. Oh everyone was all excited by it, what they found and what not. But not once did anyone stop and ask, HEY! how was it so warm back then, to support a sustainable community, without all of the man made burning of fossil fuels, the industrial revolution etc. Heck, at least in the USA, in the 1930's the "heat
    • The earth gets hot, the earth cools down...look at that "little" star about 90 million miles away. It changes our global weather more than humans can.

      If the solar output changed it would change the climate, but we measure solar output constantly and it hasn't varied enough to explain the current warming trend of climate.

      It's also worth pointing out that changes in solar output would warm both the upper atmosphere and the troposphere. The signature of greenhouse effect is that the troposphere warms but the upper atmosphere cools. We measure these, and the signature of the greenhouse effect is clearly visible. It's not the sun getting hotter.

      The diffic

  • Or swimming pools, or football fields, or petabytes?

    I have no idea how much ice is an "Argentina" unit.

    • Should not matter if you have no idea.
      However if you do not know that Argentina is one of the biggest countries on the planet, you seriously should question the level/quality of your education.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday July 30, 2023 @10:04PM (#63726712)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Minimal ice in 2022 was half a million sqkm less than ever before and set a new starting point. 2023 started at the same point as 2022 but is building ice even less slowly than 2022. Sqkm numbers instead of stddev numbers here: https://nsidc.org/arcticseaice... [nsidc.org] .

    These scientists note that we are seeing things happen in decades that they believe in the past happened over thousands of years wrt Antarctica and are predicting radical changes by 2050: https://www.theguardian.com/wo... [theguardian.com]

    On the plus side,
    • by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

      Hard to find the data a day after such a broadly spread article as this one, but I also recall seeing that this past winter in Antartica saw record highs of ice level, too. Gotta look at more than just cherry picked alarmist data.

  • But a LOT of people are buying it.
    Ask them if the feel Safe laying down $15 Million on their Beach Front Estates.

  • Let's hear it from someone with an ounce of credibility left before we start panicking.
  • I have no sense of how big Argentina is. But this ice sheet is 484,000,000 football fields.

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