| Click for larger image – Polarstern am Eisrand vor Nordost-Grönland |
| Photo: Martin Graeve, Alfred-Wegener-Institut |
August 7-08 press release on work done from MV Polarstern in the northern Greenland Sea (between Svalbard and NE Greenland):
from Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI): http://idw-online.de/pages/de/news273425
a few excerpts, my abbreviated translation:
“this year, there was an exceptional amount of ice – according to expedition leader Prof. Gerhard Kattner. The extent reached from the high North southward to 74 degrees latitude. The main objective of the research cruise was to check 17 moorings with instruments that monitor temperature, salinity and currents of the water masses. AWI has been carrying out these unique high-latitude investigations since 1999. Observed 2008 temperatures are slightly lower than 2006 measurements, and there are preliminary indications of a return of the pacific water mass signature, which has been absent since 2004″
h/t to: Ulrich Lobsiger for the link and translation
No way, the media reported the ice was all melting and the world is doomed.
Well, the ice is melting, the models show it and that’s all that should matter to anyone. Just because some guy says that there is increased ice, that doesn’t mean that its actually there, he’s probably suffering from brain fever or something. Observation does not trump modelling. Why if you were to believe this more ice hogwash, you might be tempted to drive a few more miles in your SUV.
NSIDC has now updated their daily graphic display of sea ice extent.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
They’re now showing that the rate of increase of open water is now lessening so that now, instead of this year’s line approaching last year’s record rate, it’s now running parallel to it. Just a bit more than a month to go for the melt season.
Now let’s see how the rate and extent of refreeze looks over the winter.
HAA!! And this ice proves AGW…
With albedo increasing we could see a colder winter this year.
Caught the WWF ad about the end of polar bears and arctic ice last night.
Some people will do anything for a dollar.
This April, the Polarstern’s scientists were in the Antarctic and reporting that the deep ocean was getting colder there. This is what I like to hear about – people going out and making measurements and observations, then reporting what they find with a refreshing absence of any doom-laden postscript.
Indeed, the press has more fun with emotions than logic.
Please translate “exceptional” … last 4 ou 5 years ?
In this excerpt he placed “credit” where its due – on ocean circulation patterns, the source of most of the earth’s warming and cooling. Unless we learn something new about the sun.
Sooner or later the world will catch on.
I am still waiting for Manhattan to flood.
Anthony,
Can we have the link to that translation, if it would be any good for laymen? I’d like to read more if possible, but I am not fluent in Danish.
Oh, nevermind, I guess. I see you wrote the link (which is in Danish) and the translation, which I assume was done personally by Mr. Lobsiger.
Perhaps doubt is creeping in now. Here is an article from ‘The Australian’; a newspaper not known for not going with the flow.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24148862-28737,00.html
Do my eyes deceive me or is that an upturn on the arctic ice melting graph for today?
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
It seems that Mother Nature and the Sun God are coming in above in terms of ice and below in terms of sunspots. The LOW prediction for sunspots for July was 5.something. The actual was 1.something. The arctic was predicted to melt away like a summer popsicle. That ain’t happening either. It seems there are an exceptional amount of bad predictions floating about.
The exerpt would profit, if the the breaks in the translation were indicated by “[…]”. The excerpts were done sentence by sentence. Some key passages are missing from the translation:
Secondly:
1997 is the year the ship started expeditions into that straight. As for the pacific water contribution, they are waiting for future years to see, whether this is variability or trend.
@Bobby Lane
The link is in German, you can try this automated translation by google. Be warned, there are some quirks in that program. “besonders viel Eis” is not translated as “exceptional/more than usual ice” as it should, but as “very little ice” instead. A bit of a howler. So if there is a paragraph that catches your attention, better have the translation verified.
blue:
thank you for adding more context to this.
I posted this quick and subjective translation to an older thread on Arctic sea ice extent, not expecting that it would be elevated to a current topic.
However, I welcome Anthony’s decision for doing just that. Apart from the content, this is an example of language bias still possible in our fully interconnected cyber world. A lot of valuable information is not immediately accessible to English-speaking audiences and some of it gets lost.
Back to this specific case: blue’s points are valid but don’t describe the full story either. In case AWI won’t post a complete official translation, I promise do it myself by Monday. My qualifications include eight field seasons in the high Arctic starting in 1974, studying carbon fluxes with various methods.
An interesting near-term issue is the question if MS Polarstern will be able to navigate the NW Passage during the next few weeks, as per planned cruise schedule.
ulrich lobsiger
Sorry, I’m confused. The ice is all melting but there is more ice???
How can this be??
Juts a note off topic real climate is down for a couple of hours now. wonder what is going on there.
Bill Derryberry
I am still waiting for Manhattan to flood.
Don’t hold you breath. The SL could rise twenty feet and we wouldn’t lose one square inch of The City. (We’d just build a sea wall if it became necessary.)
In fact over the years we’ve grown via landfill.
The actual was 1.something.
And a cycle 23 job, at that.
Sorry, I’m confused. The ice is all melting but there is more ice???
How can this be??
It is summer in the Northern hemisphere. therefore ice is melting (c. 2/3 or more melts every year).
The “more ice” comment is in regard to the anomaly, i.e., whether there is more or less ice for the average August.
If slower than average melting occurs, the area of ice decreases, but at the same time the “ice anomaly” increases.
There is also the case of it’s being winter in the Antarctic (5/6 of Antarctic sea ice melts every year), so it is quite possible that overall ice is increasing even though the North is in its annual melt phase.
I wonder what happened to this guy who was going to kayak to the north pole?
BBC hasn’t told us; wonder why?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7507619.stm