Antarctic sea-ice at 'mind-blowing' low alarms experts

[weinzierl]

If you want to show a trend, give us a diagram that shows a trend. A scatter plot with a trend line would be a start, maybe.

One can equally interpret the diagram from the article as showing a fairly constant level - somewhat varying within a limited range - with 2023 being an outlier. All it tells about is the variance and without at least more year labels there is no way to read anything about the trend from it.

[I'm not saying the article is wrong or right, just that it does a very bad job supporting its thesis.]

[jncfhnb]

I strongly disagree. Some people have come to understand “outlier” as “temporary noise in the data”. That is very bad.

This chart shows that 2023 is clearly multiple standard deviations lower than the historical mean, and much lower than any point in the last few decades.

If your latest datapoint is a huge outlier and you have nothing to explain it you should consider feeling alarm that this is significant and perhaps a step change from historical norms.

[gmuslera]

The one in https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/seaice/ (make sure you are watching the right hemisphere) is more interactive and you can see clearly year by year how for 40 years things were not so different, except this one, of course.

[q1w2]

I think the diagram given is pretty telling, but I agree that the words "mind-blowing" tell me that the article is not suitable for the HN crowd.

[GeoAtreides]

The article isn't about showing a trend, but that's my interpretation, of course. It seems to be about why antarctic ice is important and why would be worrying if this becomes a trend.

That being said, the antarctic ice coverage was remarkably steady this past years:

https://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/s_plot_hires.png

compared with arctic ice:

https://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/n_plot_hires.png

[uoaei]

That's a pretty damn high-sigma deviation, and considering deviations in similar graphs out there (surface temperature, ocean temperature, etc.) it paints a pretty devestating picture. Though if you're not familiar with the other studies and graphs it may just seem to a layperson as "so what that could be anything".

[bequanna]

They did give a chart showing monthly sea ice levels for each year, but I think they didn’t want to highlight that the data is only from 1979-present.

Saying this is an “all time low” over only 44 years of measurements isn’t quite as impressive.

[osigurdson]

Is there no way for scientists to estimate these levels over the past ~500 million years in order to get a broader context?

[leeoniya]

> worrying new benchmark for a region that once seemed resistant to global warming.

"once" is doing some heavy lifting here. its susceptibility has been known for a good while.

[suckitsam]

> "When I started studying the Antarctic 30 years ago, we never thought extreme weather events could happen there," says Prof Siegert.

When I was a child 30 years ago, I thought Antarctica only experienced extreme weather events, like our own Great Red (White?) Spot.

[sneak]

This seems like a radical departure from previous years. Am I reading that chart correctly?

[lsllc]

If you look at this summer's average sea surface temps (SSTs) for the mid latitudes, you'll see a similar departure in terms of increased temps:

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-66387537

[ChatGTP]

Seems like a complete outlier.

[BasedAnon]

BOE by 2025 here we come!

[ChatGTP]

What is BOE?

[af3d]

No doubt this is an issue that should be taken seriously. But certainly much more concrete proof of declining trends would be needed before declaring such a forgone conclusion. While the extent of sea ice does indeed shift around quite a bit from year to year, actual sea temperatures have more or less remained fairly consistent.

[bobbylarrybobby]

No, they haven't?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_surface_temperature#/med...

[ben30]

It’s essential to consider the multifaceted effects of our environmental interventions. For instance, the commendable move in 2020 to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions in shipping lanes had an unintended side effect. The decreased emissions meant fewer sulfur dioxide-based clouds in the atmosphere, which previously reflected a significant amount of sunlight and contributed to rain cloud formation. While reducing emissions is a positive change, the absence of these ‘reflective clouds’ might be inadvertently amplifying the heat, especially when combined with the current El Niño. This could partially explain the accelerated ice melt in Antarctica we’re observing just three years after the regulation change. It serves as a reminder that the Earth’s climate system is intricately interconnected, and actions in one area can have cascading effects.

[bequanna]

This seems like the classic trick that weather plays on people.

A few years to us seems like a long time and enough to develop a trend and make conclusions, however, it is nothing when looking at weather patterns and climate changes. Those unfold over decades, a lifetime, or longer.