2024 Arctic sea ice maximum a whopping 14th below average following hottest year since 1850
Posted on March 25, 2024 | Comments Offon 2024 Arctic sea ice maximum a whopping 14th below average following hottest year since 1850
Officially, the maximum winter sea ice extent for 2024 was 15.01 mkm2, reached on 14 March. At an unimpressive “14th lowest” on record, this is astounding news for the winter following the “hottest year on record.” Undeterred, the US government headline writers at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) today went for “Arctic sea ice reaches a below-average maximum.” Note the long-term average (1981-2010) is only 15.65 mkm2 and 15.01 is within 2 standard deviations (see below, screencapped 14 March 2024).
This is what the sea ice maximum extent of 15.01 mkm2 looked like on 14 March this year:
From NOAA’s 17 January 2024 report on the “hottest year on record” [my bold] on global temperatures:
The year 2023 was the warmest year since global records began in 1850 at 1.18°C (2.12°F) above the 20th-century average of 13.9°C (57.0°F). This value is 0.15°C (0.27°F) more than the previous record set in 2016. The 10 warmest years in the 174-year record have all occurred during the last decade (2014–2023). Of note, the year 2005, which was the first year to set a new global temperature record in the 21st century, is now the 12th-warmest year on record. The year 2010, which had surpassed 2005 at the time, now ranks as the 11th-warmest year on record.
https://polarbearscience.com/2024/03/25/2024-arctic-sea-ice-maximum-a-whopping-14th-below-average-following-hottest-year-since-1850/
