Why is there so much disinformation about sea ice?

Question

Northern Extent

January 1998: 14.8 million sq km

January 1999: 14.5 million sq km

January 2000: 14.4 million sq km

January 2001: 14.3 million sq km

January 2002: 14.4 million sq km

January 2003: 14.5 million sq km

January 2004: 14 million sq km

January 2005: 13.7 million sq km

January 2006: 13.6 million sq km

January 2007: 13.8 million sq km

January 2008: 14 million sq km (just like Jan 2004, but less than at least Jan 1989 through Jan 2003)

Southern Extent

Sep-1998: 19.1 million sq miles

Sep-1999: 19.0 million sq miles

Sep-2000: 19.1 million sq miles

Sep-2001: 18.4 million sq miles

Sep-2002: 18.2 million sq miles

Sep-2003: 18.6 million sq miles

Sep-2004: 19.1 million sq miles

Sep-2005: 19.2 million sq miles

Sep-2006: 19.3 million sq miles

Sep-2007: 19.2 million sq miles

I showed the different months because they are yearly peaks for their respective hemispere.

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/archives/image_select.html

Answer 1

You really expect things to be constant in nature?

Answer 2

Richard, I think a little payback is in order here. I seem to remember quite a few alarmists questions and other assorted hoopla about the record low levels of summer sea ice and how it was directly related to AGW, and the ridiculous predictions made about how the ice will melt at an even faster rate. I think the people that made those statements should be eating a little crow pie about right know.

Answer 3

Seeing how the headlines last summer were that the ice cap would be gone in just 5 years to going to near normal (and the ice is thicker, not noted in your data) is significant.  No one who claims AGW foresaw this.  Also the winter season (Jan-Mar) still has 2 months to go.

The Earth was warming, and the ice was melting.  Now its stopped and the cycle is starting to reverse.  The trend is now upward.  This trend is following the cycles of the sun, not trending co2.

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/...

It's also clear that the ice is gaining significantly in the south.  Last winter there was 2 million sqkm more ice than the 1979-2000 mean.

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/...

globally, the amount of ice world wide has been relatively constant.

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/...

Nice try though.

Answer 4

How much of it melts each season, and how thick is it year to year?

How deep is a 600 square foot swimming pool?

Answer 5

There isn't any more disinformation concerning sea ice than there is about anything regarding global warming/climate change.  Because all the data sets are so complicated, any of them can be used to demonstrate that any metric you might create to show that there has been a change over the last 50 years shows instead there has been no change.