The map shows Antarctic ice concentration on September 22, 2014, the date of the record high. Areas where the surface was less than 15% ice covered are deep blue; areas that were up to 100% ice covered are shades of light blue to white. The orange line shows the 1981-2010 median extent for September 22.
From the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:
Antarctic winter sea ice sets new record in 2014. OMG. Global warming must be a hoax!
When Arctic sea ice extent dips to its yearly low, Antarctic sea ice extent climbs to its yearly high. Recent years have brought record low summer sea ice extents to the Arctic and record high winter extents to the Antarctic. In September 2014, Arctic sea ice reached its sixth-lowest extent in the satellite era. But on October 7, 2014, the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) reported that Antarctic sea ice extent set a new record high for daily extent: 20.11 million square kilometers (7.76 million square miles).
It's not unreasonable to wonder how, if the planet is warming, Antarctic winter sea ice can set record highs. As the NSIDC release explains, Antarctica's sea ice growth spurt may be down to stronger winds and slightly fresher sea surface water around the margins of the continent’s melting ice shelves. […]
How does the melting of land ice matter to sea ice formation? The resulting meltwater is fresher than the seawater. As it mixes with the seawater, the meltwater makes the nearby seawater slightly less dense, and slightly closer to the freezing point than the ocean water below. This less dense seawater spreads out across the ocean surface surrounding the continent, forming a stable pool of surface water that is close to the freezing point, and close to the ice onto which it could freeze.
So as counterintuitive as expanding winter Antarctic sea ice may appear on a warming planet, it may actually be a manifestation of recent warming.
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2003—Rice: Iraq never disarmed:
Apparently, the administration's new "defend the war" strategy is employing the administration's favorite tactic. The lie.
Condoleezza Rice told a foreign policy forum in Chicago that the team led by chief U.S. weapons hunter David Kay "is finding proof that Iraq never disarmed and never complied with U.N. inspectors."
In fact, she suggested, if the U.N. Security Council knew last winter what Kay's group has uncovered now, it never would have rejected the U.S. call for war [...]
"Right up until the end, Saddam lied to the Security Council. And let there be no mistake, right up to the end, Saddam Hussein continued to harbor ambitions to threaten the world with weapons of mass destruction and to hide his illegal weapons activity," she told the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations.
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So there they go again, just making shit up. Literally.
Kay found a single vial of botox a bacteria so common you could find it in your backyard, and not a single chemical, nuclear or biological weapon. So would the UNSC have authorized war on behalf of a vial of botox?
And what exactly where Saddam's lies? His assertions that Iraq was WMD-free bore out. The only lies I'm seeing are those the administration used to justify the war, and those they continue to spew to this day to rationalize their failures.
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today's Kagro in the Morning show: An open carrier robbed of his gun!
Greg Dworkin updates polling, notes the fretting that Joe Biden told the truth, and the lack of fretting that Tom Cotton is blowing it out his ass. Are some polls underestimating blueness? Top Ebola freakouts! In terrible policing news: a black teen is pepper sprayed by cops as an "burglar," while a rich white lady gets away with an intervention. An FBI report calls certain gun myths into question. What are these "beacons" found in NYC phone booth ads, now apparently being removed? Justice Kennedy stays ID marriage equality. Another look at our upside-down recovery.
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