Environment Sea Ice Ends Year at Same Level as 1979

[The Helper]

Rapid growth spurt leaves amount of ice at levels seen 29 years ago.

Thanks to a rapid rebound in recent months, global sea ice levels now equal those seen 29 years ago, when the year 1979 also drew to a close.

Ice levels had been tracking lower throughout much of 2008, but rapidly recovered in the last quarter. In fact, the rate of increase from September onward is the fastest rate of change on record, either upwards or downwards.

The data is being reported by the University of Illinois's Arctic Climate Research Center, and is derived from satellite observations of the Northern and Southern hemisphere polar regions.

Each year, millions of square kilometers of sea ice melt and refreeze. However, the mean ice anomaly -- defined as the seasonally-adjusted difference between the current value and the average from 1979-2000, varies much more slowly. That anomaly now stands at just under zero, a value identical to one recorded at the end of 1979, the year satellite record-keeping began.

More about it here.

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Somebody call Al Gore and tell him, oh sorry, I forgot, he does not care.

 

[Prometheus]

The world is like a living thing, you f*ck with it enough and it'll do what it needs to do to become stable again.

 

[phyrex1an]

Some numbers:

Year/Month/Day/Average ice coverage (land excluded)
1979  1 15   14.39
1979  2 15   14.70
1979  3 15   14.66
1979  4 15   14.39
1979  5 15   13.89
1979  6 15   12.72
1979  7 15   10.82
1979  8 15    9.49
1979  9 15    9.05
1979 10 15   10.26
1979 11 15   12.39
1979 12 15   13.53

Year/Month/Day/Average ice coverage (land excluded)
2008  1 15   13.48
2008  2 15   13.72
2008  3 15   14.04
2008  4 15   13.81
2008  5 15   12.84
2008  6 15   11.16
2008  7 15    9.00
2008  8 15    7.00
2008  9 15    6.50
2008 10 15    8.57

Their cited source didn't have any (web published) numbers for the two last months of 2008. The article lacks all relevant information so I can't really tell if it's wrong or not.
You can find the raw data here: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/SEAICE/

 

[Effane]

The more we look at the climate system, the more we prove we dont know.

I don't know if Climate change via man made effects exist or not. I do know one thing though, no one but God really knows the truth as of yet. Global Warming may not be a myth yet, but its definetly still a theory.

 

[H34DhUnT3r]

soooo.. F*ck Al Gore?

 

[Tuanset]

Al Gore, right or wrong, was telling us to do good things. I would prefer the planet be healthy. But Id rather we learn from this and keep it that way than let it slip into a state of disrepair.

 

[Wiseman_2]

Al Gore was a bit of a blinded idiot. Good intentions, I think, if perhaps a little misguided. My main problem was only ever with the fat-arsed politicians that used it as an excuse to tax the people into oblivion with their so-called "green" taxes.