But just for once not sea ice, at least not to start with.
RMG provides a nice link to some of the Wordie “collapse” stuff. Although I find that a touch confusing, as the Wordie had essentially gone by 1992 – see [[Wordie Ice Shelf]] for example. Reuters is also noting it as news. Odd. Perhaps they are confusing it with that other well-known ice shelf that begins with a W, the Wilkins. That hasn’t collapsed (warning: link to BAS PR, and BAS has a terrible habit of re-writing its website and breaking all the old links. If it still works for you, be grateful). It has however lost a bit of pinning, making it moderately likely to fall to bits soonish (this subtle distinction appears to be lost on the desmoggers). Cue wild overexcitement from the Times. They win “null points” for The collapse of ice shelves does not raise sea level significantly, because the ice contracts as it melts (see RMG again for the complicated truth). The Times also gets no points for What is most alarming about the events in the Antarctic is their speed, which has taken scientists by surprise. These ice shelves are collapsing far more rapidly than most scientists had predicted only 15 years ago. As RMG points out, this was all predicted (see-also RC) – but in the usual way of things, without a timescale. When will the Wilkins collapse? We don’t know; BAS at least is careful not to make any predictions, even now. Notice also that despite the careless talk of caused-by-GW, BAS is careful to say There is little doubt that these changes are the result of atmospheric warming on the Antarctic Peninsula, which has been the most rapid in the Southern Hemisphere. Can you spot the difference? RC has a discussion thread on that, but it has 500+ entries. If anyone said anything interesting there, do let me know :-).
Bottom line must be that ice shelves are falling apart, but we knew that, and it is hardly surprising as it has been getting warmer there recently. More exciting would be a clear link to SLR, but that is currently absent.
Meanwhile, up North, the current anomaly is fairly small but people detect hints of enhanced variability this year. The cryosphere today pics aren’t that easy to track, so I like looking at IJIS. But it is clear from that, that the winter anomaly doesn’t correlate too closely with the summer minimum (someone with time on their hands should scatter plot something like March anomaly against September anomaly). If you’re feeling lucky, bets are still on.
