Antarctic Sea Ice Continues To Blow Away Records

By Paul Homewood

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/index.html

Antarctic sea ice has set a new record for May, with extent at the highest level since measurements began in 1979. At the end of the month, it expanded to 12.965 million sq km, beating the previous record of 12.722 million sq km set in 2010. This year’s figure is 10.3% above the 1981-2010 climatological average of 11.749 million sq km.

The lowest extent on record was 10.208 million sq km in 1986.

It is a similar story for the average monthly extent, below.

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/index.html

Ice extent has been consistently and continuously well above climatological norms for the last 12 months.

ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/south/daily/data/

HH Lamb

It is worth noting what Hubert Lamb had to say about Antarctic sea ice in the 19thC, in his book “Climate, History and The Modern World”, (page 257):

Expanding sea ice coincided with a colder climate, and not a warmer one.

Global Sea Ice

Finally, let’s take a look at global sea ice area, which has been running above average for most of this year.

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