NSIDC Raises The Bar

Polar bears must be frightened. Sea extent almost normal, but its age, it age!
This I have found on CA: relation between AMO and ice extent. http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/8510/nhse72anomamo.png

On the Guardian’s comment section one of the most prominent defenders of alarmism said scientists know how much Arctic ice there was over the last 8000 years because of Arctic ice-core records going back that far (he means the polar cap, not Greenland or anywhere else in the Arctic circle).
Anyone who is registered there, please give that person the biggest cyberslapdown on the history of the internet for that major blooper.

I just posted this to the Catlin thread, but it’s more appropriate here
The reports that there’s only 10% old ice in the arctic ice strikes me as very odd mathematically. Even with higher melt the last 2 seasons, ice area was around 30% of it’s peak winter area. Unless your melting “old” ice at least as fast as the new ice rate, how do you get down to 10% old ice? Theoretically, if you did, you could get to about 10%, but that would go against the AGW supposition.
I’d be curious about the methodology of the study that defines what is new and old ice. If anyone has a link to the NASA report and/or data, I’d be interested. Comments from anyone who has looked into this would be appreciated. I’ll do some research and report if I find anything.

Conveniently enough: no blues or light blues but oranges, reds and maroons. Well prepared for laymen eyes.

It’s also interesting that the ice extent increased for a time in March and hasn’t declined much in April. I’m below 30 degrees latitude near Houston and I’m going to need my heat again tonight April… At least the gulf is staying cooler longer which should help during hurricane season.

Voodoo:
You’ve probably scene the “Cryosphere Today” site graphs. They have excellent graphs on 365-day data and a “Global Sea Ice Area” graph that, incidentally, is showing well above the 1979-2000 trend at the moment.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
Also, check out the above normal Southern Hemisphere sea ice chart…

@voodoo
This one?
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
it is at cryosphere today

Voodoo, the graphic you looking for is on this page: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/

It appears the Cryosphere guys did a major change to their sea ice graphic for the Arctic, it wasn’t too long ago the graphic was showing very close to 100 percent ice from Canada to Russia and I think that was the April 3rd graphic, apparently they went back a day and ‘corrected’ the data.
I wonder what they will do about the Antarctic ice though, its area is going up at a pretty good clip right now.
If you’re looking at temperatures UAH shows a 2 month trend of temperatures spiking up and falling in the lowest levels, a small declining 2 month trend in the middle levels, and at 56 and 68 thousand feet a very significant 2 month warming trend, and they got rid of the near surface layer data (the lowest is now 3000 feet)

I don’t know if any of you has watched CNN today.
There was an extensive report about the collapse of the ice bridge followed by Hillary Clinton stating the effects of Global Warming in the Antarctic region were so obvious now that we had to act immediately.
NSIDC feeding from the same trough keeps the hoax about the melting arctic alive.
This is all part of the latest offensive to get us all in “Green Shackles”.
Therefore, give them hell if you can.
Who wants to be represented by a Government of liars, frauds and cheats.

OOps, bad link, meant this one.
REPLY: That’s a temporary file too, so I saved it here:
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/files/2009/04/graph_10year_temperature_trend.gif
– Anthony

I respect Dr. Meier as a Cryosphere Scientist. What I have difficulty with is his “correlation” with facts not in evidence, such as man-made global warming and the greenhouse “effect.” If such an “effect” does indeed exist, it is an atmospheric effect. The analogy is closer to the Earth being in a vacuum rather than in a greenhouse.
The clincher is in his admitting that he cannot prove the correlative link.
————————————————————-
Scientist Links Melting Polar Ice to Greenhouse Effect but His Group’s Own Research Shows Otherwise
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=46203
A scientist who tracks levels of ice and snow in the Arctic Ocean told CNSNews.com Monday that there is a “correlation” between the receding ice in the Arctic Sea and man-made global warming caused by the greenhouse effect.
But Dr. Walter Meier, a cryosphere scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colo., admits he can’t prove that the link is cause-and-effect.

Ed Scott (13:54:19) :
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is responsible for providing the hobgoblin of global warming.
Well, what can you expect from an organization that is ‘not functioning properly’ ….
IPCC ‘not functioning properly’, claims new report
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/31/ipcc-police-complaints-investigation

From the Catlin site:
“In Washington, where NASA held its media briefing, scientists who track Arctic sea ice cover from space announced that this winter had the fifth-lowest maximum ice extent on record. The six lowest maximum events since satellite monitoring began in 1979 have all occurred in the past six years.”
To my simplistic mind, if the ice melt was accelerating each year, then each new year would deliver a measurement of the “lowest maximum ice extent”. If this is the fifth lowest, and the six lowest were in the last six years, then the implication is that the ice extent is INCREASING over the last six years.

NSIDC: “How vulnerable is the ice cover as we go into the summer melt season? To answer this question, scientists also need information about ice thickness. Indications of winter ice thickness, commonly derived from ice age estimates, reveal that the ice is thinner than average”
In short:
Indications derived from estimates.
Meaning:
We have no information about the true ice thickness and no measured data.
I start to appreciate the Catlin crew and their work. I will be keen to see their measured data. (If they can make the same trip every year, in the same position and at the same time of the year for the next 10 or so).

What was that TV show where one of the hotel staff characters announced “De-ice, de-ice” every time a jet landed? Oh, never mind.

Thanks for this post. I read in The Times yesterday that there was great concern that Arctic sea ice was the 5th lowest on record. Since the record began in 1979, I assumed that being 5th lowest out of 30 wasn’t really worth becomming to agitated about. Surely if sea ice were decreasing year on year as they claim, it should be claiming the record every year?

Joesph: And the current ice area is 28% over the 1979-2000 average for this date.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.south.jpg
Odd that this does not make the news. Very odd.

Ron de Haan (14:28:02) :
“Who wants to be represented by a Government of liars, frauds and cheats.”
Maybe we always have, Ron, but in times past, the newspapers weren’t part of the government cabal. Now we have even more persuasive media formats, and a more ignorant electorate. No checks-and-balances, no pursuit of truth, and most of all, no more statesmen, just political hacks from any party.
I miss Everett Dirksen.

Reality check: Isn’t this what you would expect for the end of the sun’s modern maxima? Since it ended in late 2005, the Arctic now has about 30 years to rebuild multi-year ice. I wonder when the multi year ice will cross back over the mid point. For the very first time, we have the instruments in space, and we should be able to measure that time point, I would guess probably within the next 20 years.
Do they have any satellite data for the last 1000 years? ^_^ I would assume that it would show how the volume of multi-year ice came and went, and clarify where we are in that cycle.
30 years seems like a real short period to try and make observation conclusions from. Note the record keeping started in 1979. And note that the media only uses the part ‘on record’. Context is everything with dealing with alarmism.

At this site:
http://ocean.dmi.dk/satellite/index.uk.php
Choose “Arctic Ocean” on the pull down menu under “Geographical Domain”
Then compare the Sea Ice to the picture at CT here:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
Now, why is there such a discrepancy?

Arn,
The Arctic always loses a lot of ice to wind blowing towards the North Atlantic – that is why there is never much ice more than five years old.

Alex (14:01:10) :
The only change I could see is that they slid the SC-24 maximum back a month (from Jan to Feb 2013), and lowered it by two-tenths of a spot. The thing that jumps out though is a change in the 95% and 5% confidence lines, from this:
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e7/niteowl496/ssn_predict_2009_03.png
to this:
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e7/niteowl496/ssn_predict_2009_03.png
The Marshall website does say that “As the cycle progresses, the prediction process switches over to giving more weight to the fitting of the monthly values to the cycle shape function. At this phase of cycle 24 we now give little weight to the curve-fitting technique of Hathaway, Wilson, and Reichmann Solar Physics 151, 177 (1994). That technique currently gives highly uncertain (but small) values.”
I don’t pretend to understand the details of how the “cycle shape function” differs from the “curve-fitting technique”, but they appear pretty confident that Cycle 24 is far enough along to make the change now. That is, if the minimum was indeed in 11/2008 like they’ve predicted.

Sorry, second graph should have been this:
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e7/niteowl496/ssn_predict_2009_04.png

Adam from Kansas (14:14:26) :
Look at the maximum extent graph for the various suppliers in this post. Notice how CT “goes off the reservation” in 2006. Even though they come up with different amounts the deltas are consistent except for CT. I don’t trust their extent data anymore.

OFF TOPIC
I dunno about arctic ice, but there is fresh snow tonight on my lawn in Montreal, QC, Canada… 🙂
The French have a saying:
“in April, you will not uncover yourself by one thread;
in May, do as you please;
in June, dress with almost nothing”
“En avril, ne te découvre pas d’un fil ; en mai, fais ce qu’il te plaît ; en juin, tu te vêtiras d’un rien”
For the most part of my adult life, I considered this some sort silly saying, because it rhymes in the French saying. April never required too warm clothes, winter was over. But for the two last years, the saying seems to be holding again.
I wonder when that expression was first coined.

Apparently ice retreat was so extensive during the MWP that it caused an entire race of highly cold-adapted people to disappear. Read up sometime on the Dorset people and their demise. These people hunted seals with spears and did not have boats or bow and arrow technology. The Inuit and Thule entered the territory as the ice retreated and the Dorset disappeared. It was probably all a result of Viking SUVs driving around Greenland.

crosspatch (16:47:05) : “. . . Or put another way, it appears that for the past 2000 years we don’t quite recover as much from each cooling period.”
Don Easterbrook claims “The climatic fluctuations over the past few hundred years suggest ~30 year climatic cycles of global warming and cooling, on a general rising trend from the Little Ice Age cool period. ”
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~dbunny/research/global/geoev.pdf [ p. 23 ]
Note the “on a general rising trend”. He is working on a different time scale than your statement. Interesting!

This is perhaps a naive question, but…
…how exactly do you determine whether ice is 1 year old or 2 years old and what is the range of measurement error on that?
I love the psychological sleight-of-hand with the bright red and yellow colors. Its the equivalent of publishing a map of the Sahara in dark blue or purple.

Any reversal of previous trends are what, supposed to turn around overnight? Go back to normal within the blink of an eye, a white-gloved finger lightly tapped against of Ol’ St’ Nick’s nose? A jennie’s crossed arm head nod? Samantha’s magic (and charming) facial grimace? The wave of a wand? The media is clueless. And those scientists who blab to the media prematurely in order to get the next grant are to blame. May they all lose fingers and toes to frostbite. It will be a good and proper reminder of your job and how you screwed up.

Walter Meir has his own website which posts his full 18 years fo experience, mostly as an aerospace engineer, now turned climate scientist.
I was disturbed in AGAIN opening my daily paper and seeing another alarmist headline from Reuters: “Arctic Sea Ice continues to shrink”.
So I wrote Walter Meir with a fairly respectful letter about how to present data as an optimist versus a pessimist as follows:
Mr. Meir,
I am sure you are a well meaning scientist. But just like the old saying about perception: one man will see a glass half empty, and another will see it half full.
I am an engineer who works with data and numbers. I have done so for 33 years professionally, and 40 years if you count the fact that I have been designing since I was 14 years old. So I know how to present data and skew results to present results with optimism or pessimism with simple “steering” of my presentation during peer review.
Last year, the NSIDC was claiming that Arctic ice was “very fragile” because of the summer of 2007 melt down and there was such a loss of “multi-year ice”. It surprised you all at the NSIDC, when in the following winter, the ice actually recovered, despite not much “multi-year” ice in many areas from the previous summer. This recent story from April 6th says the same thing, again, in sort of an alarmist fashion.
To me, an old ice cube in my freezer, if frozen completely, is pretty much the same as a new one. And indeed, in the winter of 2007/2008, there was a surprising recovery of sorts. And this winter (2008/2009) there was even more of a recovery than last year in the Arctic. The decline was listed as -11% per decade last year, and now MAGICALLY, it is now only -2.7% per decade on your trend charts. On the other side of the Earth, the Antarctic is now trending up at +4.7% according to your monthly charts, and just a month ago it was only +2.8%.
So what did we get from you in my newspaper today, Mr. Meir ? Headline: “Arctic Ice Continues to Shrink” (Reuters). If it were me, I would have foregone the few minutes of media attention you got and you might have said: “Trend Data Shows the Arctic is Making a Fragile Recovery the Past Couple Years”. Or perhaps “Global Ice Loss Lessens”.
Conclusion Equation: Walter Meir = “Half Empty” = Supporter of the IPCC conclusions = Not an unbiased scientist.
A few days ago, I used the published NSIDC data (despite some flawed and missing numbers), to calculate the GLOBAL sea ice trend. As of last week, global ice is above the 1979-2000 “average”. Global sea ice area for the past 30 years of satellite data is trending down by only -1.1% per decade based upon the NSIDC data tables. And who knows if the trend will reverse due to the low solar activity these past years as well as ocean current circulation patterns. But there are only 30 years of 350 satellite data points out of the thousands of years the past centuries of true history of the Arctic.
We have no real long term data about ice area…and we only have sketchy records of the USS Skeet coming up in 10 places near the Arctic pole starting in the late spring in the 1950s.
And, there is my constant gripe that you folks think 1979-2000 is some holy grail of average ice area and extent. What if “average” throughout the recent centuries is more like, um say, 1999-2009? Data is the data, but the NSIDC cherry-picked the “average” as 1979-2000, as if it was the holy grail of ice averages. If I may be so bold: that is very assumption-based science = bad reporting of data. The Arctic ROOS site does not throw away nearly 30% of the data as does the NSIDC.
So, can Walter Meir put on some optimist glasses for a while and say, maybe, just maybe, the Arctic is slowly recovering from a normal melt cycle ?
Mike Strong

“It would nice to know the salinity values for sea ice by year to fully understand the implications of this subject. ”
That varies with year. The amount of salt that works out of the ice is pretty much a function of the amount of sunlight it gets. If you have an unusually cloudy summer, you get less salt worked out of the ice. Now there would be a general range of what is typical, but that will change depending on where the ice was when it aged and the conditions at that location. There is no set “2 year old ice contains X% salt” chart. It will also depend on the salinity of the water when the ice formed. The salinity of the Arctic Ocean itself varies from year to year.

NBC was hyping the latest reduction in polar sea ice Monday evening. Imagine for a moment that they are miraculously right and the Arctic ocean completely cleared of ice this summer (or sometime soon).
What do you get?
Well, at such a small at such a sun angle (<23.5deg), there is not that much solar heating, but all that new open water (and a little solar heat) adds up to an increase in water vapor feeding into the atmosphere.
More moisture in the atmosphere means there will be more clouds which reflect sunlight and shade the surface. If that moisture is precipitated in the cooler northern parts of the Eurasian and North American land masses, it will likely be in the form of snow, which increases surface reflectivity. In both cases, the result is a cooling.
I think that is called a negative feedback.
If there is a danger from an ice-free Arctic Ocean, it is that this negative feedback is a precursor to our next (overdue) Ice Age…

The IPCC not functioning properly article refers to a police organization in England as far as I can tell and has nothing to do with the IPCC climate organization. I noticed this on Icecap yesterday. I assume the automatic retrieval system for that blog simply picked up the IPCC acronym.

Well if they are going to use age as measure of anything, then I’m more worried about the age and maturity of the President of the United States of America, than the age of the sea ice 😉

Mike Bryant (16:38:41) I’m not sure about the discrepancy. The DMI pic is SST, the CT is ice. The white on the DMI pic is probably water or ice at or below 0 C. The projection of the two are different. Here is a picture with the outline of the DMI picture’s white area with a constant aspect ratio, scaled as best as possible to the CT picture. It does not fit well, however, I am surprised at how well the fit is in the northern Atlantic, assuming that was your area of concern.
On second thought, assuming these are highly accurate projections of measured areas by satellites that measure sub-millimeters, which, if either, is correct? http://i40.tinypic.com/29e4ye1.jpg

Thanks Steve,
Your projection answers my question about the North Atlantic.
Mike

Sorry, meant ‘warming REVERSED’ not halted.

Harold Ambler (19:14:34) Canada temps
http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/canada_e.html
I’ve been using this site to keep track of the cold across Canads.

Justin,
Winds in the Gulf of Okhotsk have compressed the ice, causing a slight dip in extent. That is what is meant by “the start of the melt season” – while ice in the Arctic basin is of course getting thicker at -30C.

“Isn’t it great living in an insane asylum?”
I wouldn’t quite call it insane. More like an “idiocracy”. We have reached a point where “the truth” is whatever validates your own opinion or the opinion of the social group you wish to identify with. Now if some of the really major music and film celebrities came out and said it was all a load of hooey, you would suddenly find the masses changing their opinions too because they want to be like the “cool kids”. Reality doesn’t matter to these people.

Steven Goddard wrote:
“The Arctic always loses a lot of ice to wind blowing towards the North Atlantic – that is why there is never much ice more than five years old.”
Younger, thinner ice is more susceptible to being pushed around by winds than older, thicker ice.

Arn Riewe wrote:
“AGW implies the loss of ice is higher arctic temps. What I have seen recently would say that no – it’s more wind and/or currents that are affecting ice levels.”
Or maybe a combination of both? First year ice is thinner and therefore more easily moved around by winds than is old ice.

” Robert Bateman (21:06:25) : ”
My understanding is that it isn’t all that unusual for the North Pole itself to be ice-fee in the summer. It depends on which way the winds blow what remains of the sea ice. It isn’t just going to sit there at the pole, it is going to drift with the wind. I believe someone posted pictures here (or maybe it was at CA) of submarines surfacing at an ice-free pole many years ago.

Multi-year ice has increased from 2008, up to nearly 25%.
1985 was 50% ,,,, 2009 looks good for 25% ,,,,2008 looks good for 20%
Arn Riewe (13:48:03) : where you see 30% ????
At current recovery of 5% per year
20% at 2007 that means in 6 years there will be 50% Multi-year old ice, 2013-2014.
WE shall see.

“Sea ice thickness has been hard to measure directly, so scientists have typically used estimates of ice age to approximate its thickness. But last year a team of researchers led by Ron Kwok of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., produced the first map of sea ice thickness over the entire Arctic basin.
Using two years of data from NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat), Kwok’s team estimated thickness and volume of the Arctic Ocean ice cover for 2005 and 2006.”
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2009-062
So its an “estimate” of thickness a not direct measurement. wonder how accurate it is.

I can hardly see how being just halfway between the average and the lowest bound (record low) is “very close to normal”.

Multi-year ice has increased from 2008, up to nearly 25%.
1985 was 50% ,,,, 2009 looks good for 25% ,,,,2008 looks good for 20%
Arn Riewe (13:48:03) : where you see 30% ????
At current recovery of 5% per year
20% at 2007 that means in 6 years there will be 50% Multi-year old ice, 2013-2014.
WE shall see.
i am pretty shocked by this sort of calculations.
old sea ice will NOT grow back to former percentages, while sea ice extent remains significantly below the long term average. 2009 so far was NOT a year with much ice, neither was 2008.
it is just years with slightly more ice than 2007.
as long as the temperatures stay above the long term average, and extent stays below it, there will NOT be a regrowth of the old sea ice. that should be obvious!

There IS still a greater risk of further decline, as compared to the long-term average risk of decline. But the risk now is less than it was 2 years ago.
I think it’s reasonable to still see things cautiously, since another perfect melting season like 2007 could do real damage.
But a more balanced report would say: ‘The position now is more healthy than in 2007, but it will be a few years before a return to long-term norms is possible. Our long-term predictions on arctic ice will to a significant extent be impacted upon the next three annual cycles of freeze/melt. If recovery continues, we will see normal conditions returning. But a return to rapid thaw conditions may see our predictions of ice-free summer come significantly closer.’
Now how hard was that to say?
If an unqualified lay person can write it, either it’s nonsense or a professional could have written it too.
Why didn’t they?

I notice that the nsidc have this statement in their latest analysis.
Overall, it was a fairly warm winter in the Arctic. Air temperatures over the Arctic Ocean were an average of 1 to 2 degrees Celsius (1.8 to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal, with notable regional variations.
I’m not surprised, given that it has been so cold in the US and Europe this winter. The winds must have been pushing the cold air mass from the Arctic southwards, and I assume this must have been replaced by warmer air from the South. This makes me wonder how much ice we would have had in the Arctic if these weather patterns had been different. If these winds have now stopped then I guess you might expect the sudden drop in Arctic temps that we now have, and that Catlin are enjoying. If so what’s the chance that the ice will now catch up with the ‘long term’ average?

It is not unusual to have low levels of 1+ year ice in the arctic and recent proportions of old ice are high … look at this graph for Baffin Bay:
http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/IceGraph/CwtClimChtSrvlt?region=cea12_00&nrmlsta=1971&nrmlend=2000&sizex=1230&sizey=780&lang=en&showwarn=false&plotnormal=true&plotmedian=false&plottrend=false&plothilite=false&plotwarn=false&plotscaled=false&cachelife=60&errorpage=/IceGraphDisplay-GraphdesGlacesDisplay.jsf&charttype=stac&ssnsta=1968&ssnend=2008&histdtsta=0514&histdtend=1015&format=csod

“A liar is a liar and any liar who holds a public office should be confronted without any exception. Especially if the subject they are lying about could result in such dire consequences like losing a countries economic future and the way of life of her inhabitants.
It sounds to me that you can’t afford to do nothing!”
When the liars have taken over Washington, when they control the arms, when they bail out the institutions that hold “their” retirement accounts with our money, when they now want to control and tax our means of livelihood and then tax even the air we breathe, what are we supposed to do?
Maybe there should be a referendum on shutting down D. C.
The only honest politician is Ron Paul.

sod,
There is no calculation involved. The NSIDC graph shows 25% multiyear ice.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
No need to be shocked.

http://www.accuweather.com/ukie/bastardi-europe-blog.asp?partner=rss
ARCTIC SEA ICE TO MELT LESS THIS YEAR THAN LAST (HIGHER STARTING POINT NEXT YEAR).
The development of the strong positive AO the next 3-5 weeks combined with a solar constant that refuses to come up from its sunspot minimum means the arctic sea ice will undergo a summer of less melting than last year. An interesting article showing how the cold is making a comeback can be found here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/04/bad-news-for-catlin-expedition-satellite- data-shows-arctic-cooling-in-feb-march/
There was an article on our global warming website declaring the melting season had begun. Part of that is because the sea ice is at more extensive levels than it has been, so it can melt quicker, but part of that is because of what you see going on now across the states. The blocking that has occurred to force this issue means it is warmer in the arctic, as the cold air is underneath. However, UNLIKE LAST YEAR, WHEN MAY TURNED VERY WARM IN THE ARCTIC, we are going the opposite direction now. In fact the UKMET April-Jun forecast still shows over 60% of the Earth is colder than normal and more significantly the Arctic. My take is the long, cold, arctic winter next year will start with more ice than it started with this past year.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/world/seasonal/
The reporting on arctic sea ice is getting to be like the reporting on the ozone hole. Ever notice every now and then there are reports that the ozone is opening up? Well how does it open up if it doesn’t close? But you never hear about it closing. The AGW crowd is getting to be like an episode of the Simpsons when Homer was running around getting a law passed against anything he thought might cause a problem anywhere. So now we have a report on how scientists are worried about rapid melt of Arctic sea ice this season because 20 PERCENT OF THE ICE SHELF IS NEW ICE (AND CAN MELT FASTER). Well how the heck did it increase 20% in the first place to get there? And what if only 75% of the new ice melts this summer, doesn’t that leave you ahead to start next winter?
So stupidly, the reporter doesn’t even ask the question, well why is so much new in the first place?
The Arctic will be turning colder relative to normal by the end of the month, and when that happens we can get out of this pattern in the US (after the 15th) and into some relatively tranquil and much warmer weather nationwide than what we have now, and even for the next week or so. Of course as soon as it gets hot here, you will hear about it, but what they wont tell you is how cold it will be in the arctic at that time.
In any case its interesting to look at how much cold the model is seeing. Anyone here anyone in the UKMET office talking about how cold their model looks. When it looks warm, we certainly hear about it.
thanks for reading, ciao for now *****

Leave it to the Propheteers (or profiteers) of global warming to find some way to spin an increase in polar ice.
Well since the record low in 2007 (since satellites), there has been a net seasonally adjusted increase of about 2.5 million sq km.
To find the glass half empty instead of half full, the new criticism is that the majority of ice is only 1 or 2 years old. DUH. The polar ice has increased significantly the past 2 winters, so indeed , so they have to find some negative spin on the whole thing.

@Steven Goddard
Thanks for the great posting. I went to sleep last night thinking about one sentence and realized that I had no clear perspective about it. “Due to the record minimum in 2007, it goes without saying that there isn’t a lot of three year old ice in 2009.” The ice extent minimum in 2007 was similar to the area of the Central and Pacific Time Zones of the continental USA added together, if my numbers aren’t wrong. Or put another way, about two-and-a-half times the size of Alaska. Granted, my math may be approximate, but that sounds like a lot of Slurpees to me. Any polar bear who can’t stand up on that is just singing Darwin’s lullaby.

Flanagan (23:12:56) :
I can hardly see how being just halfway between the average and the lowest bound (record low) is “very close to normal”.
Recovering half-way from the record low to the mean in one year is kind of significant…Particularly when the Arctic has only just recently begun to participate in the cooling trend that began between 2003 and 2005.
From 1998 through 2007 NSIDC shows about an 8% decline in Northern Hemisphere sea ice extent (below the 1979-2000 mean) and then a recovery to about 4% below the mean in about one year…Nine years to lose 8%; one year to regain 4%…Even Hans Blix could find the significance in that recovery rate.

The correlation of CO2 and Arctic ice is really quite funny. The problem with correlations (eg cross-correlation) is causality. In a closed system, this become trivial. a measure of input must measure an output.
I do know the NSIDC is fully aware AND capable of performing statisical analysis, but it seems to vaporize once they put out a press release.
The most interesting feature of the 30 year sea ice extent record is October of 2007. The change in sea ice extent (happened to be an increase) was the largest of the recorded period. Yet this is dismissed as due to wind changes. So wind changes can increase sea ice but only AGW can reduce sea ice? Now that is truely an amazing finding.

crosspatch (18:47:26) wrote (editted):
“It would nice to know the salinity values for sea ice by year to fully understand the implications of this subject.
“The amount of salt that works out of the ice is pretty much a function of the amount of sunlight it gets. If you have an unusually cloudy summer, you get less salt worked out of the ice. Now there would be a general range of what is typical, but that will change depending on where the ice was when it aged and the conditions at that location…..”
It is my understanding that sea water does not freeze and entrap salt in place. The water crystallizes as almost-pure ice and the salt is concentrated in the remaining liquid phase. (The same process of repeated melting and freezing is used to purify silicon for electronic applications.) If the freezing face remains open, the salty water will “escape” into the bulk of the sea. Only if the water is freezing around (on all sides of) a blob of sea water will any salt become entrapped within the ice. So I do not see salt “working its way” out of the ice.
Comments invited.

Squidly (03:17:51) :
I’m sorry, but I don’t get it. Do they mean to tell me that if I keep ice-cubes in my freezer for 2 or 3 years before I use them, that they will last longer in my drinks?
Could someone please explain to me just how newer ice melts faster than older ice? I honestly don’t see where the age of the ice can make any difference at all.

It is mostly a question of surface area to volume. A thin sheet of ice the same volume as a cube of ice has much more surface area and will melt faster when exposed to warmer air, warmer ocean currents and solar radiation.
The Multiyear ice is thicker, so it has less exposed surface for its volume.
This is really important when the ice gets quite thin late in the summer, but at some 3 to 3.5 meters thick I am not sure it all that significant. If we have a summer that is even slightly cooler than the recent past, or slightly cooler ocean currents all that will not matter. The other side of the coin is that thin first year ice is more prone to being pushed up into pressure ridges by the wind as it is not as strong as thicker ice. Once it gets compacted into pressure ridges that extend above and below the water surface you now have a very thick area of ice which would be very resistant to melting as its volume to surface area would be much higher than the parent thin ice sheet.
The current ice extent plots look like the melt is progressing slower than in the past as the current ice extent plot is still converging with the 1979-2000 mean and diverging from the low extent plot. In short for this time of the year the ice is increasing compared to low ice years.
I personally am expecting to see the ice extent plot merge with and perhaps exceed the 1979-2000 mean line in a few weeks if it maintains its current converging trend.
Larry

Phil. (09:42:33) :
Thanks for the link about the formation of sea ice. I’m feeling less frazil-ed already.
Every now and then, when I turn my head just right, a tiny amount of blood squirts through my carotid arteries, and my brain lurches into action. Today is not one of those days, however. Here is what I can remember:
1. Three year ice is not everybody over the age of three, just three year olds.
2. The structural part of ice is fresh water. This is the good part.
3. All kinds of stuff can be caught in the structure of ice, including salt, Chinese black carbon, plankton, and chunks of polar bear poop. Don’t eat the ice.
4. Young ice is thin, physically unsound, and drifts around with the breeze. It’s quite willing to melt if the conditions are right, and everybody else is doing it.
5. Old ice is fat, lumpy, rigid, and sedentary. It is uncooperative with melting or most other forms of weight-loss. Naturally.
6. The best way to make sure your tax-supported research says what you want it to is to change the data recording parameters. Then change the definitions. Then change the subject.
This climate stuff is starting to look easy. I think I need a nap.