How does rising atmospheric CO2 affect marine organisms?

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Trends in Southern Ocean Sea-Ice Season
Reference
Parkinson, C.L.  2002.  Trends in the length of the southern Ocean sea-ice season, 1979-99.  Annals of Glaciology 34: 435-440.

What was done
Satellite passive-microwave data were used to calculate and map the length of the sea-ice season throughout the Southern Ocean for each year of the period 1979-99.

What was learned
Over the 21 years of the study, most of the Ross Sea has, in the words of the author, "undergone a lengthening of the sea-ice season, whereas most of the Amundsen Sea ice cover and almost the entire Bellingshausen Sea ice cover have undergone a shortening of the sea-ice season," while "results for the Weddell Sea are mixed."  Overall, Parkinson reports that "the area of the Southern Ocean experiencing a lengthening of the sea-ice season by at least 1 day per year over the period 1979-99 is 5.6 x 106 km2, whereas the area experiencing a shortening of the sea-ice season by at least 1 day per year is 46% less than that, at 3.0 x 106 km2."

What it means
Although different sea-ice trends are clearly occurring in different sectors of the Southern Ocean, there is no question that "a much larger area of the Southern Ocean experienced an overall lengthening of the sea-ice season over the 21 years 1979-99 than experienced a shortening," according to the author, which, according to simple logic, is absolutely contrary to what would be expected in a world that climate alarmists claim was concurrently experiencing a warming they describe as unprecedented over the past thousand years.


Reviewed 23 October 2002