By Steve Goddard
Over the last three years, Arctic Ice has gained significantly in thickness. The graph above was generated by image processing and analysis of PIPS maps, and shows the thickness histogram for June 1 of each year since 2007.
The blue line represents 2008, and the most abundant ice that year was less than 1.5 metres thick. That thin ice was famously described by NSIDC as “rotten ice.” In 2009 (red) the most common ice had increased to more than 2.0 metres, and by 2010 (orange) the most common ice had increased to in excess of 2.75 metres thick.
We have seen a steady year over year thickening of the ice since the 2007 melt season. Thinner ice is more likely to melt during the summer, so the prognosis for a big melt looks much less likely than either of the previous two summers. More than 70% of the ice this year is thicker than 2.25 metres thick. By contrast, more than half of the ice was thinner than 2.0 metres in 2008.
So why did 2008 start out with so little thick ice? Because during the summer of 2007 much of the ice melted or was compressed by the wind. During the winter of 2007-2008, much of the remaining thick ice blew out into the North Atlantic and melted. So by the time that summer 2008 arrived, there was very little ice left besides rotten, thin ice. Which led to Mark Serreze’ famous “ice free North Pole bet.”
Can we find another year with similar ice distribution as 2010? I can see Russian ice in my Windows. Note in the graph below that 2010 is very similar to 2006.
2006 on the left. 2010 on the right.
2006 had the highest minimum (and smallest maximum) in the DMI record. Like 2010, the ice was compressed and thick in 2006.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/icecover/icecover_2010.png
Conclusion : Should we expect a nice recovery this summer due to the thicker ice? You bet ya. Even if all the ice less than 2.5 metres thick melted this summer, we would still see a record high minimum in the DMI charts.
Mark Serreze has a different take for 2010:
“Could we break another record this year? I think it’s quite possible,” said Mark Serreze of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo.
Bookmark this post for reference in September.
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“The report of my death was an exaggeration”
– Mark Twain
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Addendum By Steve Goddard 6/3/10:
Anyone betting on the minimum extent needs to recognize that summer weather can dramatically effect the behaviour of the ice. The fact that the ice is thicker now is no guarantee that it won’t shrink substantially if the summer turns out to be very warm, windy or sunny. Joe Bastardi believes that it will be a warm summer in the Arctic. I’m not a weather forecaster and won’t make any weather predictions.
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What size perturbation in summer albedo causes runaway glaciation? Maybe we should be up there spraying carbon black!!
Bookmarked. I’m still with you, Steve, and have been since late March.
It looks like a new ice age is fast approaching. We should have a geoengineering brainstorming session on how to mitigate the approaching catastrophe.
I guess aerial burst 100-Meg hydrogen bombs over the Arctic? Cheap and efficient, and probably the only way to do it. Anyone who has seen dirty snow knows that the particles melt their way through the ice, and the top refreezes. Not to mention a fresh snow layer that covers it up. So carbon soot would be too short lived.
had a quick look at the Serreze post. They don’t like you very much do they? One of the comments accuses you of only useing data sets that show the least warming/mostice extent. As distinct, presumably from the reverse which seems to be what they do!! Ah well time will tell>
Did anyone run these numbers past the Catlin Arctic Survey Team? They’ll be shocked, I’m sure.
(Sorry. Couldn’t resist.)
I’m all for an ice free Arctic, but from the looks of things above we won’t be getting one any time soon. Thanks, Steve.
I think we can rule out an Arctic ice cover tipping point.
Is the area under the curves (the volume of ice) a conserved quantity? It looks a bit like that.
I’d like to see continued recovery, and your points are well taken. It would be nice to shut down some of the clamor. But I’m not hanging my hat on any outcome. I don’t think it (extent) means anything beyond some combination of regional parameters.
Great pioneering work steve. You gonna integrate the thickness curves to get volume?
This article is an independent data point reaching the same conclusion as my own expectation that this will be a 2006-ish year.
Lets see how it goes.
I agree with Buffon–I see nothing to rejoice about runaway freezing. Sure, some of that ice will melt again this summer but come next winter, if this trend continues, lower temperatures will make life more difficult as the cold spreads south (and no, I don’t believe the “But this month is the HOTTEST on record” meme, seeing how they’re throwing away all the thermometers that give the real picture until they’re left with just one, which just happens to be in somebody’s shirt pocket).
Steve Goddard writes,
“Conclusion : Should we expect a nice recovery this summer due to the thicker ice? You bet ya. Even if all the ice less than 2.5 metres thick melted this summer, we would still see a record high minimum in the DMI charts.”
I’m impressed by how unequivocally and often WUWT has committed to the proposition that Arctic sea ice is recovering, in disagreement with most Arctic researchers. As you say, these will be pages to bookmark.
i’m a fan of the site guys. keep it up.
i do have a slight issue – and excuse me for being a layman – but how can climate progress and WUWT be looking at ‘real’ data and come with equal and opposite views for the current state of ice in the arctic, let alone future predictions ??
Rob
Excellent analysis. Simple yet effective comparisons.
However, if we’re back at a 2006 area distribution, I guess that allows doomsayers to say we could still go back to 2007 levels next year.
Static analyses deriving from seasonal snapshots have little historical interest or validity. Arctic winds and currents form a complex dynamic system subject to many variables such as seafloor depth, coastline configurations, global weather patterns up to several years’ duration. Projecting climate/weather components requires depicting cyclically varying oscillations super-posed on long-term trend-neutral baselines. Even then, necessarily chaotic fluctuations in amplitude and frequency, regardless of linear slope, will tend to render annual extrapolations a casino game. “Climate science” PhDs purporting to resolve Nature’s ineluctable uncertainties might better study random-walks in equally arcane financial sectors.
Steve,
Another intersting and well done analysis, based on that wonderfully erroneous PIPS 2.0 data. GIGO…and so I must once again, very humbly disagree with your conclusions, despite how convincing they appear, the fact that they are based on garbage data is cause for concern. In response, I would ask readers to go through the following very excellent presentation, given just this past March of 2010, at the State of the Arctic Meeting held in Miami Fl.:
http://soa.arcus.org/sites/soa.arcus.org/files/sessions/1-1-advances-understanding-arctic-system-components/pdf/1-1-7-maslowski-wieslaw.pdf
Now, I have fairly cautioned you that the PIPS 2.0 data is erroneous at best, and that much better models exist, such as PIPS 3.0 and PIOMAS, both based on CICE modeling.
But you have made your case in an excellent manner, and you’ve stated quite plainly what you expect (a summer low that is higher than 2008 or 2009) and why you expect it. I take the opposite view, and base my case on what I consider to be more accurate models than PIPS 2.0, meaning that I think that PIOMAS model, and the summary given in the link I’ve given above are reasons why 2010’s summer minimum will be less than 2008 or 2009. One of the things that is clearly stated in the report I’ve given in the link above to is the ocean heat content. There is a lot of warmer water coming in at depths below the surface into the Arctic from both the Pacific and the Atlantic. (i.e. you can’t just rely on SST’s!!!) The report states:
“Oceanic heat has contributed critical preconditioning to sea ice melt in the western Arctic since the mid-1990s”
So we await September. Everyone should bookmark this discussion, as suggested…and as always, if your analysis proves the more thorough and your data more valid than…mea maxima culpa!
The ice “Melt” each summer isn’t caused by the ice melting do to local temperatures. It is caused by wind and currents pushing the ice out of the artic. With thicker ice and everything else equal there will be a much higher minimum in the artic ice area this year. But everything else is never equal.
It’s the back-to-life spiral.
Makes perfect sense.
Except:
Isn’t it true that a prediction of summer ice extend is incomplete without a prediction of what the wind is going to do.
What happened in 2007 might happen this year too.
Can arctic wind patterns be predicted for this summer?
What image processing program are you using, Steve?
Plenty of ice without a drop of whiskey!
WOW! The arctic ice thickness trend is turning up like a hockey stick chart! Could this inconvenient truth have real consequences also? Apparently, Al Gore and wife have reached (ahem..) a Tipper point in their 40 year relationship, with many icy years predicted to follow! I’ll refrain from references to gorebal cooling….
A bit more seriously, a big THANK YOU to Anthony Watts, contributors like Steve Goddard, and the long suffering Moderators, for providing this venue for publishing, perusing, and pontificating on our planets many climatic influences! The open forum and open access to data and analyses presented are delightfully refreshing! You are my daily “must read” and my first reference to others seeking current topical knowledge.
WUWT is really hanging it’s hat on the Arctic ice recovery. Will be interesting in August.
Mercator Ice-thickness etc.
http://bulletin.mercator-ocean.fr/html/produits/psy3v2/ocean/regions/bull_ocean_arc_en.jsp?nom=psy3v2_20100526_22060
Anthony et al – OT. Maybe something for a new thread.
I am very concerned about this year’s snow melt as a result of the record snow pack. And now, two “Pineapple Express” systems are hitting this week. This could be a real disaster.
REPLY: Yeah, could be. Me thinks right now there may not be as much precip as models predict. – A