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Comment by anonymousiam | Hacker News Reader

This is an El Niño year. https://www.weather.gov/news/230706-ElNino

El Niño can cause these effects. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/ninonina.html

The study looked at almost 40 years worth of observational data from multiple correlated sources. That is one of its contributions relative to similar studies that looked at fewer sources of measurements, or used different methods.

Given that polar sea ice peaked in 1979, but decades before had minimums below anything recorded since, and this study begins with 1982 data, I don't see how they can claim such certainty.

> "but decades before had minimums below anything recorded since"

I am skeptical of your claim.

Skepticism is good!

15.9 million square kilometers was the recorded antarctic sea ice coverage in August 1966. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20140017193/downloads/20...

That link is a paper about Antarctic winter sea ice extent maxima, when your claim was about polar sea ice minima, but I did not follow your argument in any case.

You seem to imply that short term year on year variations in Antarctic sea ice (between 1964 and 1966) is a reason to doubt the multi-decade measurement of gulf stream weakening discussed in the article, but you have provided no reasoning to support your opinion.

Please read the paper again. The reason I linked it was to demonstrate that sea ice minimums were lower in 1966 than any other recorded time.

1979 was the maximum, and nobody disputes that.

? The paper is about winter (august/september) Antarctic sea ice extent, not minima, and you still provide no reasoning. I am done with this.

Okay... Winter minima is an important metric cited by "climate scientists" (and reporters) far and wide. Summer minima is less interesting for a whole bunch of technical reasons that I'm probably not qualified to explain.

El Niño has nothing to do with ocean currents in the Atlantic?

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