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2023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #1
Posted on 7 January 2023 by John Hartz
Story of the Week
Scientists Report a Dramatic Drop in the Extent of Antarctic Sea Ice
Links between global warming and the decline of sea ice in the Southern Ocean are still unclear, but climate can’t be ruled out as a driver.
The new year started with the familiar refrain of climate extremes, as scientists with the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported Jan. 3 that the sea ice around Antarctica dropped to its lowest extent on record for early January.
“The current low sea ice extent … is extreme, and frankly we are working to understand it,” said Antarctica expert Ted Scambos, a senior research scientist with the Earth Science and Observation Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Scambos said the sea ice extent is about 270,000 square miles less than the previous low, set in 2018. That’s an area just a bit bigger than Texas, and the measurements reflect a persistent, strong trend toward lower-than-average Antarctic sea ice extent that started in 2016 and shows no signs of letting up, he added.
At this point, researchers don’t have a good explanation for the dramatic decline, and the links to global warming are still unclear. For now, he said, persistent wind patterns around Antarctica seem to be the main cause of this year’s rapid decline, while other scientists said climate warming can’t be ruled out as a contributing factor.
Click here to access the entire article as originally posted on the Inside Climate News website.
Scientists Report a Dramatic Drop in the Extent of Antarctic Sea Ice by Bob Berwyn, Climate, Inside Climate News, Jan 6, 2023
Links posted on Facebook
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- State, local governments increasingly turn to zoning reforms by Sarah Wesseler, Policy & Politics, Yale Climate Connections, Nov 29, 2022
- Privilege, agency, and the climate scientist’s role in the global warming debate by Andrew Weaver, Personal Blog, Jan 1, 2023
Tue, Jan 3, 2023
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- How our perception of time shapes our approach to climate change by Rebecca Hersher, Health Shots, NPR News, Jan 4, 2023
Thu, Jan 5, 2023
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- Analysis: The climate papers most featured in the media in 2022 by Robert McSweeney & Ayesha Tandon, In Focus, Carbon Brief, Jan 5, 2023
- Opinion: Why everyone is going to need a heat pump by Robert Gebelhoff, Opinions, Washington Post, Jan 4, 2023
Fri, Jan 6, 2023
- Are Home Insurers Abandoning Communities Vulnerable to Climate Change? by Thomas Frank, Environment, E&E News/Scientific American, Jan 4, 2023
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #1 2023 by Doug Bostrom & Marc Kodack, Skeptical Science, Jan 5, 2023
- How a ‘totally insane’ warm spell is upending winter around the world by Dino Grandoni, Climate, Washington Post, Jan 5, 2023
- Half of world’s glaciers to ‘disappear’ with 1.5C of global warming by Daisy Dunne, Science, Carbon Brief, Jan 5, 2023
Sat, Jan 7, 2023
- The world’s torrid future is etched in the crippled kidneys of Nepali workers by Gerry Shih, World, Washington Post, Jan 6, 2023
- Will Global Emissions Plateau in 2023? Four Trends to Watch by Benjamin Storrow, E&E News/Scientific American, Jan 6, 2023
- A new EPA proposal is reigniting a debate about what counts as ‘renewable’ by John McCracken, Climate, Grist, Jan 4, 2023
- Scientists Report a Dramatic Drop in the Extent of Antarctic Sea Ice by Bob Berwyn, Climate, Inside Climate News, Jan 6, 2023
Scientists Report a Dramatic Drop in Antarctic Sea Ice
Decades ago I became overconfident that at least the Antarctic remained safe from melting. Somewhere I had read that the Antarctic would take a couple more centuries before the effects of the new climate change would begin to melt the Antarctic, but I misplaced my confidence.
https://youtu.be/m-cyN_sREVc
[BL] The snipped link is the same as the link behind "Scientists Report..." It is not necessary to add it twice.
The Antarctic sea ice area has behaved in a very different way in the last 10 years or so. You can see that from the 2022 annual average sea ice area graph which you can see at
https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1759.msg355482.html#msg355482
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gerontocrat @2,
I have a couple of graphs of the Antarctic SIE anomaly I keep updated (graphs 3a & 3b here, unfortunately not available for 'hot' linking) based on the JAXA daily data. Antarctic SIE year-on-year was pretty static until 2013-16 when it had an icier period, this followed by 2017-20 when it had a meltier period. Then mid-2021, the meltier times returned with the end-2022 and start-2023 suggesting interesting times ahead.
One annual measure I keep tabs on is the number of days when all-time lows for time-of-year. Ranked by number of record days, it looks like this:-
2017 … 107
2022 ….. 78
2016 ….. 65
2019 ….. 59
1986 ….. 20
2018 ….. 11
2002 ….. 11
2023 ....... 7 (to 7th Jan)
2001 ……. 7