“far outside the range of observed variability”

Less than three months ago, NOAA published this :

“NSIDC reported that the 2024 Antarctic maximum was 77,000 square miles (200,000 square kilometers) above the 2023 record-low extent, but it was 598,000 square miles (1.55 million square kilometers) below the average maximum extent from 1981-2010. In that sense, it’s continuing a pattern that began around 2016, with most winters from 2016-2022 having below-average ice extents. In another sense, however, it’s nothing like those years; like 2023, the 2024 winter maximum was so far outside the range of observed variability that some scientists speculate that the Southern Ocean sea ice may have entered a wholly new state.”

2024 Antarctic sea ice winter maximum second lowest on record | NOAA Climate.gov

December 30 Antarctic sea ice extent has increased 36% over the past two years, and is higher than 1979, 1980, 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2005, and all of the past eight years.