Funkthulhu

I'm pretty much copying this post verbatim from one I just made in another forum. The reason that few media outlets are posting about the trapped research vessel is because they don't have enough air-time to explain to John Q Public why the increased ice is a result of global warming:

"Regardless of the total summer melt from global warming the poles are very cold. In the case of Antarctica, the melt that happens in the southern summer is greater due to that warming. However, most of that melt can only occur because of solar radiation being absorbed by darker surfaces, as the ambient air temperature in those areas can still stay below freezing much of the year. Soot and other atmospheric fallout onto the ice creates duller ice/snow, and eventually forms small surface-melt pools with dark material at the bottom absorbing solar heat. (we have photos from the last couple years of the north pole still frozen underneath, but submerged in a small pond of melt-water) The combination of increased temperature and the reduced albedo of the ice results in accelerated melting of both land and sea-ice during each hemisphere's summer.

Salt inhibits ice crystal formation, this is why you sprinkle it on your sidewalk to get rid of ice. As a result, ice will only form in the ocean under special circumstances of extreme cold, or reduced levels of salinity. The increased volume of melt water coming off of Antarctica is yearly lowering the local salinity of surface water (fresh water floats on salt water). The result is that ice formation is much easier and faster during the southern hemisphere winter because of the increased melting during the summer. The same effect can be seen to a lesser extent around northern Greenland in the northern hemisphere winter, but the effects are lessened due to the relative lack of continental glacier ice. The ice over and around the north pole that covers the north polar sea takes longer to form because there is not a lot of fresh melt water to dilute the local salinity. This is why we are having record melting of the north arctic sea-ice over the summers in the last couple decades.

So, yes, in a roundabout way, the increase in global warming both increases southern hemisphere winter sea-ice AND makes it more difficult to for northern hemisphere sea-ice to return to its full extent every year. And in both the Arctic and Antarctic the land supported glacial ice (Antarctica/Greenland) is melting at a record pace every summer in that hemisphere."

Ta-Da!

__________________
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