An article at the Live Science website says that we sceptics are putting far too much emphasis on the current high levels of Antarctic sea ice. The title is a bit of a straw man:
Record-High Antarctic Sea Ice Levels Don't Disprove Global Warming
I don't think anyone has actually said this - certainly the article doesn't give any examples, although it does stoop to putting words into Steven Goddard's mouth:
He reasons that the Southern Hemisphere must be balancing the warming of the Northern Hemisphere by becoming colder (and thus, net global warming is zero).
The Goddard article is here - so you can judge for yourself whether the bit is actually something Goddard said or not.
More interestingly, the article quotes Mark Serreze of NSIDC as follows:
Projections made from climate models all predict that global warming should impact Arctic sea ice first and most intensely, Serreze said. "We have known for many years that as the Earth started to warm up, the effects would be seen first in the Arctic and not the Antarctic. The physical geography of the two hemispheres is very different. Largely as a result of that, they behave very differently."
This is very interesting, because I was discussing this very issue with Ed Hawkins and Doug McNeall on Twittter last month. Ed pointed me to AR4 on the subject;
In 20th- and 21st-century simulations, antarctic sea ice cover is projected to decrease more slowly than in the Arctic (Figures 10.13c,d and 10.14), particularly in the vicinity of the Ross Sea where most models predict a local minimum in surface warming. This is commensurate with the region with the greatest reduction in ocean heat loss, which results from reduced vertical mixing in the ocean (Gregory, 2000).
This seems to support Serreze on "more intense in the Arctic" but not on "first in the Arctic". Ed also pointed me to this article, which is cited by AR4. It says this in its abstract:
The climate change projections over the 21st century reveal that the annual mean sea ice extent decreases at similar rates in both hemispheres...
Here's the relevant graph
;)
Changes in Arctic and Antarctic annual mean sea ice extent (a) and volume (b) at the end of the 21st century. For each model the left (right) bar represents Arctic (Antarctic). The model FGOALS-g1.0 was excluded from the model average.The extent projections, which is what Live Science are discussing, doesn't seem to make the case.