Sea Ice 101 – Beware the Ideas of March! (Was the Arctic Maximum “Early” on March 8-9?)

Watts Up With That?

Guest essay by Robert A. Cook, PE

Last week, in my previous article, several critics noted an apparent decline in their Arctic Sea Ice Extents when it dipped back down from a high point over the March 7-8-9 period.

Was this an “early” Arctic Sea Ice Extent maximum? Was today’s Arctic Sea Ice in a truly irreversible decline towards a future catastrophic sea ice level, or was this (yet another!) example of the beginning of the long-postulated Arctic Sea Ice Decline?

Well, the honest answer is –as it always is with “climate” questions and challenges – “We don’t know. Yet. “

First, look at a few plots from the WUWT Sea Ice Page that illustrate this concern.

NSIDC Arctic Sea Ice Extents dipped, then remained “flat” for several days.

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png

DMI (Denmark) Arctic Sea Ice Extents: Dipped down, then bounced back up – but only a little bit.

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/icecover/icecover_current_new.png

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