"Butbutbut Antarctic Sea Ice!!!" 'Argument' Crumbles With New Record Low

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https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=&w=1484

In recent years, one of climate change doubters’ favorite arguments has involved the floating sea ice around Antarctica. It’s growing, they contended — and that raises doubts about our understanding of human-induced climate change. To this, climate scientists always responded: Not so fast. Floating sea ice in another cold place, the Arctic, is clearly shrinking, as are Arctic and Antarctic glaciers, and we don’t fully understand all the drivers behind the vast and complex Antarctic sea ice system. So don’t leap to the conclusion that odd behavior in floating Antarctic ice, which indeed has been growing slightly in recent years, undermines climate concerns.

Now, though, the argument for doubters just got even more complicated. After seeing a record high for total extent in the year 2014, Antarctic sea ice had been running very low in late 2016 and early 2017. And now, as of data recorded on Monday and Tuesday by the National Snow and Ice Data Center, the extent of Antarctic sea ice now appears to have hit a record low (although scientists still have to confirm this and have not made an official announcement yet).

It’s summer in Antarctica right now, and floating sea ice on Monday only covered 2.287 million square kilometers, according to “near-real-time data” from the National Snow and Ice Data Center. If that’s correct, that would barely edge out the previous record low of 2.290 million square kilometers on Feb. 27, 1997. The records go back to 1979.

On Tuesday, meanwhile, the ice extent shrank further down to 2.259 million square kilometers — underscoring the likelihood of a record, once the data is confirmed. Here’s an image, created using the center’s handy “Charctic” tool, showing this month’s ice (in light blue, below the others) compared with all other years in which we have data for Antarctic sea ice:

https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=&w=1484

EDIT

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/02/16/antarctic-sea-ice-used-to-be-the-darling-of-climate-doubters-not-anymore/?utm_term=.f0d1f2af396f