Antarctica Sea Ice Extent set an all-time record of 19.51234 million sq km on September 14 2013 (Day 257).
The old record was 19.47713 million sq km set in 2012.
Click graph for bigger. Data is here. This post is a day late because NSIDC was closed due to flooding in Boulder.
sunshine hours 
Reblogged this on CraigM350.
seems like it could even go higher over the next 10 days.
Several times it looked it had started down … and then it surprised me and headed up again. It may do it again.
Do you have any information about the “true” Antarctic land area + Antarctic ice shelves total?
Many, many “internet” references quote the Antarctic land area as an (obviously rounded off) estimate of 14,000,000 sq km’s. Fine. Let us assume that no body (nobody ?) can measure land area accurately when the area hasn’t been completely mapped or overflew yet. Further, it is admittedly difficult to determine actual land area when the “edge” of that land area is not a nice, well-defined “beach front property” worth millions per acre to a landowner or government, but is underneath hundreds of feet of ice and glaciers and cannot be taxed by any government.
But no site (NSIDC, National Geographic, US Geodetic, etc. ) has been able to specify whether that 14,000,000 sq km’s includes or excludes the 3.3 million sq km’s of Antarctic “permanent” ice shelves. The NSIDC has specifically confirmed to me in other emails that they do NOT include the “permanent Antarctic ice shelved in their “sea ice extents” plots or totals.
Thus my question: How much total area down south is covered by ice and snow each month? Each year? The “edge” of the Antarctic sea ice is, after all, at the edge of the Antarctic land mass + permanent ice shelves + Antarctic sea ice, and only the Antarctic sea ice varies over the year.
Correction: 1.561 million sq km’s for Antarctic ice shelves. And the minimum average Antarctic sea ice minimum extents are?
Interesting how sea ice Extent and Area are measured differently. Extent is true amount of ice covering the open water and is best way to judge it during winter months.
No media coverage of the record breaking event.