One of the common misconceptions pushed in the media is that Arctic sea ice simply “melts in place”. Much of this is due to the constant hammering of the AGW meme that the “warming in the Arctic” is the primary cause. Here is one of my favorite misconception lines from this WIRED Science article:
With arctic sea ice melting like ice cubes in soda, scientists want to protect a region they say will someday be the sole remaining frozen bastion of a disappearing world.
It is not difficult to imagine how many would think that Arctic ice is “melting like ice cubes in soda” when you see temperature anomaly maps like this one from GISS:
GISTEMP 11-12-08 – Click for larger image
The public (and sometime the media too) often mistakes these for “absolute” temperature and the colors give the impression of a “toasty” area around the arctic, when in fact the temperatures there are mostly below the freezing point. In contrast to that what looks like a heat wave in the Arctic, we have this NASA JPL study that suggests winds may play a key role in pushing Arctic sea ice into lower latitudes where it melts. The author suggests winds may be the dominant factor in the 2007 record low ice extent:
Nghiem said the rapid decline in winter perennial ice the past two years was caused by unusual winds. “Unusual atmospheric conditions set up wind patterns that compressed the sea ice, loaded it into the Transpolar Drift Stream and then sped its flow out of the Arctic,” he said. When that sea ice reached lower latitudes, it rapidly melted in the warmer waters.
Interestingly we can now watch this actually happen thanks to an animation of AMSER-E satellite 89Ghz sounder images. Koji Shimada of JAMSTEC (Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology ). See the animation below (note- size is 7.1 MB, this may take awhile to fully load):
If you want more detail, a full sized Video animation is available here as a flash video or here as an AVI file (highest quality 7.3 MB) A hat tip to WUWT commenter Bill and to Thomas Homer-Dixon for this video.
What is interesting about this video is that you can watch sea ice being flushed out of the Arctic sea and pushed along Greenland’s east coast, where it then finds its way into warmer waters and melts. Also note how in the lower right, in the Beaufort sea, older multiyear ice gets fractured and broken up as winds and currents stress it.
While indeed we can watch some of the Arctic sea “melt in place” during this animation in the fall of 2007, we can also see that winds and currents are a signifcant contributor to breaking up the sea ice and transporting it to warmer latitudes.
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One of the common misconceptions pushed by skeptics is that the 2007 minimum was just a load of wind.
What doesn’t quite make sense is how this minimum hadn’t been reached in the preceding decade.
Wind is not the whole picture and yes the thickness of the ice is relevant too.
REPLY: Did you even read the NASA JPL article? Show me how “skeptics” made that one happen at JPL and you might have a point. I don’t think you read much of it at all, because in no place did the article state that wind was “the whole picture”. But add a wind pattern like seen in the animation with other factors and you can get a greater minimum. But your quickness to bash skeptics is telling that you really don’t see what can be clearly seen in the animation. Old multiyear ice (translation – thicker) was busted up by winds and currents.
“What doesn’t quite make sense is how this minimum hadn’t been reached in the preceding decade. ” What doesn’t quite make sense is your expectation that it would, can you cite a previous condition of arctic wind patterns that changed in that previous decade?
– Anthony
That is why the titanic sunk it hit ice from Greenland or the arctic it’s self .
CO2 sunk the titanic!!!!! lol
JPL announced in the fall of 2007 that this was the reason for the unusual lack of arctic ice that year.
At the same time Al Gore and other “believers” hammered home their gospel on drowning polar bears.
The vast majority of people only heard one story. It has only been the cold winters of the past two years that have helped the folks to begin to see that they are being bamboozled.
“Cool” post. *
Thanks for posting that gem of an animated picture.
It certainly demonstrates the dynamic climate system that the arctic is part of.
It also shows how, despite daily “progress,” the Catlin Arctic Survey can be losing “ground” at times.
* pun intended 😉
It is well known that unusual wind currents were the primary reason for the loss of Arctic ice in 2007. In fact, Arctic temperatures in 2007 were significantly below preceding years. And don’t go by the GISS anomaly map because the arctic temperatures on GISS are not actual readings. Hansen plugs in the temperatures his models say SHOULD be present in the polar regions for GISSTemp maps. So he uses the output of the models themselves to validate the models. It is like a climatic echo chamber.
Other problems with the GISS maps include spotty and incorrect data. For some reason the data he gets from NOAA is full of “holes” where the data from the same stations are available elsewhere without the “missing” readings.
What I would be interested in seeing is an overlay of the GISS anomaly with the RSS (GISS – RSS) where the more positive differences are shaded in red and negative differences shaded in blue. Any obviously incorrect GISS data (such as carrying over one month’s data to the next as we have seen in the past) would then show up as an extremely deep color difference centered around the area of incorrect data.
A month carried over in Spring would show a large negative anomaly between the two data sets and a month carried over in Autumn would should a large positive and (hopefully) very easy to spot positive anomaly.
Chad, can you help me, the low ice in the Arctic of 2007 is quoted by alarmists as the lowest on record, but as far as I’m aware the records began in 1979. I don’t think you can say anything about climate over such a short period of time, perhaps you could tell me why you do. The second issue is that over any period there will be a minimum and a maximum so it’s no big deal that there is a minimum in 2007, perhaps, again you can explain why you would find a minimum significant. Thirdly there is evidence that the Chinese sailed through the Arctic, as did the Danes and on this post there is a story that the US Navy got ships to where there is ice today, what are your views on that.
This is a question:
What about the tides? I never hear a discussion of the role of the tides in the oceans.
Are there no tides in the arctic sea? As there are so many inlets and straights, I would expect them to be high there and to help in the break up: if the wind and tides are in the same direction then a maximum break up would occur, the 10% of ice out of the water acting as a sail. Is the break up direction in the Beaufort sea in the same sense as the tides? I am disoriented in this map.
The clockwise circulation pattern is interesting. Maybe this hasn’t been mentioned before:
http://news.mongabay.com/2007/1113-nasa.html
“While some 1990s climate trends, such as declines in Arctic sea ice extent, have continued, these results suggest at least for the ‘wet’ part of the Arctic — the Arctic Ocean — circulation reverted to conditions like those prevalent before the 1990s,” he added.”
2007 was certainly due to this bizarre wind pattern. But 2 remarks are to be done here:
1- Even though 2007 was exceptional, the declining trend goes on with a quite regular slope – and you can hardly pretend the winds are behind this one.
2- This year, a similar flux from the central Arctic Basin towards southern latitudes is also observed, which already pushed a lot of 2-years old ice in regions which should be melting during the summer.
So, what will happen?
anna v (00:06:42) :
What about the tides? I never hear a discussion of the role of the tides in the oceans. Are there no tides in the arctic sea? As there are so many inlets and straights, I would expect them to be high there and to help in the break up: if the wind and tides are in the same direction then a maximum break up would occur, the 10% of ice out of the water acting as a sail. Is the break up direction in the Beaufort sea in the same sense as the tides? I am disoriented in this map.
The map is upside down from what we usually see here, with Siberia/Alaska at the bottom and Greenland up top. The Beaufort Sea next to Alaska has a deep basin, and as the Transpolar drift current runs past it, from Bering Straights at the bottom toward the pole, the Basin waters rotate in a big clockwise vortex or gyre, which would help break up the older ice blown in from Asia.
Darn, I almost sound like I know what I’m talking about (so I won’t ruin the moment by tackling the lack of tides question). Even with the winds blowing the ice against Canada, it looks like the Northwest Passage is protected, so it wouldn’t be out of the question for it to open up briefly.
Given the scale of the map, it’s surprising to see the ice moving so rapidly.
Chad. What is the reason that you are posting on this site? Is it to provide us with edification? You have not provided anything so far except critique.
@anna v (00:06:42)
The tide can be up to 16 meters (+/- 8 meters) in the Arctic area (spring-tide)
Remember the satellites only measure ice mass above 30%, but all below 30 %it’s still there and not vissible on the maps.
If AGW contributed significantly to Arctic ice melt then we should see a correlation between temperatures and melt extent.*
No such correlation has been shown to exist. And as Crosspatch points out 2007 temps were actually cooler than normal. Hence there is no evidence AGW (in the sense of GHGs or CO2) had or has any role in Arctic ice melt.
BTW, The reason the Warming Believers go on about Arctic ice melt despite the fact there is no evidence AGW plays any significant role, is that other predicted effects of AGW, particularly warmer temps, simply haven’t materialized. The Arctic ice is all they have. A phenomena Climate Audit labelled the ‘retreat to the ice’.
*Although if a correlation, were to exist, it doesn’t mean warmer temperatures are the cause of the Arctic ice melt.
The Bering Straights, Alaska, and Siberia are at the bottom of the map, Greenland upper right, upside down from what we normally see. The Transpolar Drift current runs from the Bering Straights straight up to the pole and on past the east coast of Greenland. The Beaufort Sea, next to Alaska, has a deep basin, and as the Transpolar Drift runs past, it rotates the Beaufort in a clockwise vortex or gyre, which helps break up the ice. Don’t think tides play any part.
The northwest passage seems protected from the windblown ocean ice, so it might be possible to get a ship through there one of these days. Given the continental scale of the map, it’s surprising to see how rapidly the ice is moving.
Sorry for the double post, gang. Thought I’d lost it in the mail.
Some folks seem to be quite sensitive to the prospect of low ice in the late summer in the Arctic Ocean. I found this surprising until recently when one of the top spokesmen for AGW said he didn’t know much about the history of the Arctic but he was sure this low ice level was unprecedented.
So, I no longer find these remarks anything but ridiculous.
Consider that in 1817 the President of the Royal Society, London, to the Admiralty, 20th November reported:
“It will without doubt have come to your Lordship’s knowledge that a considerable change of climate, inexplicable at present to us, must have taken place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of the cold that has for centuries past enclosed the seas in the high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice has been during the last two years, greatly abated.
(This) affords ample proof that new sources of warmth have been opened and give us leave to hope that the Arctic Seas may at this time be more accessible than they have been for centuries past, and that discoveries may now be made in them not only interesting to the advancement of science but also to the future intercourse of mankind and the commerce of distant nations.”
Three points are relevant:
1. The writer seems to think the warming is unprecedented by using the words “. . .cold that has for centuries past . . .” He didn’t know that!
2. He affirms in the second paragraph that this is a welcome situation;
3. The year of the report was 1817, about 190 years before 2007.
I found this statement here:
http://www.john-daly.com/polar/arctic.htm
. . . where there are pictures of submarines visiting the North Pole during several different years. The USS Skate found open water both in the summer and following winter (1958-59), surfacing in winter at the North Pole through thin ice less than 2 feet thick.
The next year Earth became so hot it fried people’s brains and all the polar bears died. Oh, wait . . . Sorry, that must have been a movie!
This location still shows up on google. Unfortunately the link is dead. BUT the AVIs there were truly amazing (but big)
http://polynya.gsfc.nasa.gov/seaice_mp2000.html
Google results:
Sea Ice Remote SensingFull Size 1280×720 **; AVI Hi-Res 1280×720 (77 MB) … Developed by: Alvaro Ivanoff Responsible NASA Official: Dr. Don Cavalieri Last Updated: May 15, 2008 …
polynya.gsfc.nasa.gov/seaice_mp2000.html – 22k – Cached – Similar pages –
Sea Ice Remote SensingAVI Hi-Res 1280×720 (250 MB) **. 89 GHz Polarization Ratio 6.25 km [640 x 700] … Responsible NASA Official: Dr. Don Cavalieri Last Updated: May 15, 2008 …
polynya.gsfc.nasa.gov/seaice_amsr.html – 10k – Cached – Similar pages –
More results from polynya.gsfc.nasa.gov »
It would be good to trace these AVIs down. If they cannot be found perhaps I could upload them somewhere if people are interested (and it is legal!)
Sorry about the italics in my previous post — there must be a leprechaun twisting and untwisting my letters.
Anyway, I can’t imagine going onto that ice after seeing it move around.
The main point I want to make is that ice is quite fragile and would likely crack as an “ice tide” during lift: a tide is the result of being gravitationally attracted to the Moon, and secondarily the Sun. When the two are aligned and the attraction combined we get Spring Tides (nothing to do with the season, Spring) which pull the water up, away from Earth which is pulling down. Earth spins under the raised water. Or ice, as the case may be.
Being high latitude, this should put an interesting spin on things in contrast to say, the tidal bore on the Amazon River.
[Reply: WordPress seems to have a bug that sometimes arbitrarily inserts an italics tag right after you close with an italics tag. I try to fix the post if it looks too confusing. ~dbstealey, mod.]
“predicted effects of AGW, particularly warmer temps, simply haven’t materialized.”
Are you sure?
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/IPCC%201995%20Verification.png
More on tides in the Arctic:
http://www.ims.uaf.edu/tide/
First paragraph, below:
Data analysis of recent measurements obtained at various locations in the Arctic Ocean indicates a strong energy peak in the tidal frequency band, both in the water and in ice movement. The tide motion, through periodic divergence and convergence of the pack ice, generates mesoscale ice openings. The resulting residual motion sustains polynyas along the Eurasian Shelf. These periodic openings of the pack ice influence heat exchange and enhance the rate of ice production. The ice-tide interaction is also a primary source of the mixing in both the shallow water and the deep Arctic Ocean, where circulation appears to be sluggish.
Note also that when there’s much open water because of unusual winds or currents, the temperature will be higher, so the temperature-ice relationship can work both ways. Nearly all meteorological stations in the high arctic are at the coast and open water nearby will make the usual winter inversion less common.
For goodness sake, those ill-informed among you who maintain (head firmly in sand) that there is no clear trend should try looking at a continuous series of summer ice minimum satellite photos starting in 1979 (the year they became available) and running up to today. Try maintaining then that the summer ice is not in decline. ~snip~
If I see this, the only reason I can think of for the Catlin guys&gals to be out there is to collect calibration data – for which the (Navy?) buoys do a much better job IMHO.
Predicted effects of AGW – this is worth a read
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/001319verification_of_ipcc.html
crosspatch (00:03:48) : And don’t go by the GISS anomaly map because the arctic temperatures on GISS are not actual readings. Hansen plugs in the temperatures his models say SHOULD be present in the polar regions for GISSTemp maps. So he uses the output of the models themselves to validate the models. It is like a climatic echo chamber.
It’s a bit worse than that… From:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/03/05/illudium/
A quote about where GIStemp gets its arctic “temperatures” that it then molests via the ‘reference station method’ by changing anomalies based on “temperatures” (that don’t exist, being a simulation) up to 10 degrees of latitude / longitude away:
http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/research/cmb/sst_analysis/
Analysis Description and Recent Reanalysis
The optimum interpolation (OI) sea surface temperature (SST) analysis is produced weekly on a one-degree grid. The analysis uses in situ and satellite SSTs plus SSTs simulated by sea ice cover.
So GIStemp gets it’s arctic “temperatures” from simulations based on estimates of sea ice. I’m still wondering if these estimates used the satellite that was going flakey and underreporting ice… If so, we have a nice self referential prophesy (where satellite gets ice wrong, leading GIStemp to say arctic is warm, “validating” wrong ice report, which “validates” GIStemp …)
This (from the same NOAA paper) shows ships & buoys not doing much at extreme latitude so that kind of leaves satellites for ice…
http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/research/cmb/sst_analysis/images/inscol.png
Other problems with the GISS maps include spotty and incorrect data. For some reason the data he gets from NOAA is full of “holes” where the data from the same stations are available elsewhere without the “missing” readings.
I’m not so sure it’s NOAA that is the issue… At several points the GIStemp code simply throws out data. (The GIStemp link below includes directions for getting the NOAA data directly. It would be enlightening to compare NOAA raw temperatures with GISS maps…) GIStemp truncates data in the past. It hybridizes USHCN and GHCN data, but only after “making up numbers” by adjusting one set over it’s entire history based on changes in the recent history of the other dataset. There are a couple of other ‘throwing data out’ steps, but then it uses “the reference station method” to make up numbers for the ‘missing data’ based on other stations data (that may itself, by this point, be interpolated data) up to 1500 km away.
IMHO, this is why GIStemp is not a temperture data set, but rather a computer fantasy; and why inspection of the actual data series from any location (such as Pisa under the Italy thread a few months back) compared to GISS gives such bizarre variations.
For more, see: http://chiefio.wordpress.com/gistemp/
John F. Hultquist (02:01:21) : Consider that in 1817 the President of the Royal Society, London, to the Admiralty, 20th November reported:
Hmmm… Just about “1800 and Froze To Death”, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer
So we have some volcanos blowing off in a kick up of recent activity and a similar change in sea ice due to changed arctic circulation… I sure hope whatever changes the ocean circulation does not impact on the magma ‘circulation’ leading to more volcanos… I don’t need “2000 and Froze To Death”…