File this under short term trends matter when we say they matter.
From The Montreal Gazette
BY RANDY BOSWELL, CANWEST NEWS SERVICE
Arctic Ocean ice cover retreated faster last month than in any previous May since satellite monitoring began more than 30 years ago, the latest sign that the polar region could be headed for another record-setting meltdown by summer’s end.
The U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center had already warned earlier this spring that low ice volume — the result of repeated losses of thick, multi-year ice over the past decade — meant this past winter’s ice-extent recovery was superficial, due mainly to a fragile fringe of new ice that would be vulnerable to rapid deterioration once warmer temperatures set in.
And, driven by unusually hot weather in recent weeks above the Arctic Circle, the polar ice is disappearing at an unprecedented rate, reducing overall ice extent to less than that recorded in May 2007 — the year when a record-setting retreat by mid-September alarmed climatologists and northern governments.
The centre reported that across much of the Arctic, temperatures were two to five degrees Celsius above average last month.
“In May, Arctic air temperatures remained above average, and sea ice extent declined at a rapid pace,” the Colorado-based centre said in its June 8 report.
The centre pegged the retreat at an average of 68,000 square kilometres a day, noting that “this rate of loss is the highest for the month of May during the satellite record.”
Ice loss was greatest in the Bering Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk, “indicating that the ice in these areas was thin and susceptible to melt,” the centre added.
“Many polynyas, areas of open water in the ice pack, opened up in the regions north of Alaska, in the Canadian Arctic Islands, and in the Kara and Barents and Laptev seas.”
Read the rest of the story here
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“And, driven by unusually hot weather in recent weeks above the Arctic Circle, the polar ice is disappearing at an unprecedented rate”
Where do they get this stuff? I can’t believe they can just make up the news like that.
The claims that the current rate of ice loss is historically unprecendented an unmatched in the last
several millenia (at least), and that such changes could not possibly be attributable to natural causes are all completely bogus claims (of course), and yet many people will fall for them anyway.
Short term trends in February and March were much more significant.
From the article…
“This ice loss appears to be unmatched over at least the last few thousand years and (is) unexplainable by any of the known natural variabilities.”
So the time span is a bit more than 30 years.
Ah yes, hyperbole. You can’t write a global warming story without it.
Well it was nice of them to “warn” us. I mean, Arctic sea ice is SO important to everyone’s day to day life. And hey, since we were warned I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. I guess we’ll all stop driving now and turn down the heat in winter. I’ll get right on that “carbon footprint” thing.
I also enjoyed the use of the word “HOT” when describing Arctic temperatures. Note that by this benchmark my freezer must actually be BURNING the food inside that gets “freezer burn”.
I also note the use of the word “unprecedented”, especially useful when your goal is to spread alarm rather than to inform. In fact, this article even uses the word “alarmed”.
OMG, the poor Polar Bears! I just remembered those cute, fuzzy little guys, up there struggling with icky water instead of cool, refreshing ice. Why, just looking at how pathetic and pointy those little icebergs look makes me want to send food to the starving bears.
Dmi shows temps now to be a bit below normal I with Jaxa showing a leveling off.
Bastardi predicted this. July will be not so ah, hot. Personally maybe below 2008,
but 2007 won’t be broken. All that cold appears to south-at least in NE Oregon..
*yawn*
All in keeping with the maxim — “If it bleeds, it leads.”
Come September, unless it matches or exceeds the 2007 “melt”, the stories will still fall back on the 2007 event as though it still matters. If it comes close to the higher level of 2006, it will be treated as an exception — a fluke — and the “melt” of 2007 is still a warning of pending catastrophe.
And if, in a couple years, the September ice extent reaches record high levels the spin will be that we’ve gotten a temporary reprieve from the “death spiral.”
Just some more of this science by press release.
How can they get away with bold faced lies like this?
The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
April ice was the highest on record. DOH.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
“In May, Arctic air temperatures remained above average”
Must be nice to just make stuff completely up and not worry if anyone will call you on it…
It might be instructive to look at previous articles by Andy Boswell.
http://labs.daylife.com/journalist/randy_boswell
I think he produces a lot of this stuff. I have no idea where he gets his information. Maybe it is the same as the authors here — he just interprets a little more liberally perhaps.
stevengoddard says:
June 15, 2010 at 9:45 am
The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
April ice was the highest on record. DOH.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
Huh? You mean, for the last few years? I’m darn sure that graph does not contain the entire “record” DOH, indeed…
These guys are too funny.
“”This ice loss appears to be unmatched over at least the last few thousand years and (is) unexplainable by any of the known natural variabilities.””
They say it’s unexplainable by any known natural variabilities, right after they have explained it as weather, not climate:
““It is too soon,” it stated, “to say whether Arctic ice extent will reach another record low this summer — that will depend on the weather and wind conditions over the next few months.””
They get their numbers from Hansen. See article below ↓↓↓↓↓↓
Steve —
Your source only shows that April was the highest since 2005. Don’t these records go back 30 years?
Of course, this chart also shows that late May and June so far were running the lowest since 2005. This makes the 2 month loss the highest in the last 5 years, but partly only because that change starts from a relatively high value.
Do we have a northwest passage open for shipping yet? Anyone? Anyone? Bueler?
This is what happens when Maple syrup is replaced by Kool-Aid.
I am just an armchair spectator but I can take my favorite websites related to weather factors and oceanic SST parameters, and without looking at the sea ice graphs (I always and only look at the individual sea ice graphs, not the single graph of the entire thing), I can predict the general outline of ice with more than passing accuracy. In other words, contrary to the expert’s opinion, I can say that in my opinion, natural conditions explains it quite well.
Well when I look at the JAXA graph on the side icon; that Red line looks rather dramatically low compared to 2007. Can’t say I fully understand just exactly what they are measuring. And the DMI icon says that the Temperature is back to zero.
I’m just watching now; because I certainly don’t have any idea what is going on; and certainly wouldn’t guess where we will be in September.
Surely it must be time for NSIDC to dust off their 14 expert predictors and ask them for their summer minimum extent predictions. Let’s get ’em on the record!
How do they believe anyone will take them seriously when dmi shows its been slightly cooler than average for the past month or so. In fact the average temperature in the arctic has never varied from the mean by more than 2 degrees for more than 2 weeks during the melt season since they started keeping records.The arctic is a very boring place in the summer, temperature wise anyway!
Hu McCulloch
Good point. NSIDC shows April as 18 out of 32
And, driven by unusually hot weather in recent weeks above the Arctic Circle
“Unusually hot” was 2-5 degrees above average for a few weeks.
We read a record amount of hype.
What is their excuse for global ice being above “normal”? This is data cherry picking at it’s finest.
Mods you can snip this if you feel it’ll hijack the thread.
Seeing as we’re on a topic which at least indirectly touches on the subject of open water in the Arctic Ocean I’m hoping someone can she some light on something which has been bothering me for a number of months now.
Casting my mind back 40 years I seem to remember that the critical angle for a water-air or air-water interface is about 48 degrees. At angles of incidence less than this you’ll get total internal (external in this case?) reflection. Hence why on still days you get perfect reflections of mountains on lakes etc.
In the Arctic Circle I suspect that the sun doesn’t get much above that elevation even at mid-summer. So most energy from the sun will be reflected off the surface of the water. I know that an agitated sea surface will complicate things as will different refractive indexes for different wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation and a myriad (phase change on reflection?) of other things I haven’t thought about.
So my question is just how much of the energy from the sun makes it into the Arctic Ocean?
See Critical Angle, Snell’s Law and total internal reflection here
http://www.bing.com/reference/semhtml/?title=Total_internal_reflection&src=abop&qpvt=total+internal+reflection&fwd=1&q=total+internal+reflection