The latest post showed:
1980's 24,033,325
2010's 23,331...
3%.
Of course this varies from day to day. Other stats show 2-3% decline.
My question simply follows the stats released on this forum.
Roger, When we look at the trend we generally consider the decline in the maxima and minima for the year rather than day to day values. As you can see in the table below based on these figures the decline in Global Maxima and Minima are both 7%. However you can also see that the Arctic decline is much greater than this at 41% for the minima and the Antarctic trend is actually an increase.
What a reasonable person who knew nothing about AGW would say to this is "Why is it so?".
The answer for the NH is seems obvious once you check the temperature records and discover that both the Arctic and the Globe are warming rapidly. Obviously the more heat the less ice.
However in the Antarctic the picture is quite different Although the trend in temperatures is up there was a period from 1988 to about 2010 where the trend was flat or even in decline. A reasonable person will then ask why does this contradict expectations. As our temperature measures are consistently measured it is unlikely inaccurate measures are the reason.
The two explanations I have heard are that:
a. ice melt water off the land is decreasing the salinity of the water causing more freezing because fresh water freezes at a higher temperature than salt water.
b. the ozone hole that was created in the 20Cent has changed the wind patterns so that stronger winds are blowing the ice further of the coast causing a greater extent.
Both these explanations are supported by relevant measurements. But they may not be the complete answer.
What we have seen since the 2015/6 El Nino is that Antarctic extent has dropped to extremely low levels, where only one day since Sept 9th 2016 has been ranked at 11 or above in the 31 year record. Prior to 2017 every year had at least 25 days ranked 20 or above. So we appear to be seeing a significant change.
PS. While you might not like being called a denier suggesting the Global warming is anything but a well documented fact is a clear sign of denial or ignorance. You can check out the temperature record here:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/ if you actually are unaware of global temperature trends but don't try and dispute them here as Neven sensibly doesn't allow the forum to be corrupted by people arguing nonsense.