An electromagnetic “bird” dispatched to the Arctic for the most detailed look yet at the thickness of the ice has turned up a reassuring picture.
The meltdown has not been as dire as some would suggest, said geophysicist Christian Haas of the University of Alberta. His international team flew across the top of the planet last year for the 2,412-kilometre survey.
They found large expanses of ice four to five metres thick, despite the record retreat in 2007.
“This is a nice demonstration that there is still hope for the ice,” said Haas.
The survey, which demonstrated that the “bird” probe tethered to a plane can measure ice thickness over large areas, uncovered plenty of resilient “old” ice from Norway to the North Pole to Alaska in April 2009.
There is already speculation about how the ice will fare this summer, with some scientists predicting a record melt. Haas said he doesn’t buy it.
He said the ice is in some ways in better shape going into the melt season than it has been for a couple of years. “We have more thick ice going into the summer than we did in 2009 and 2008,” he said.
Much will depend on the intensity of the winds, and how the ice fractures and is blown around, he said. “But any talk about tipping points, a sudden drop and no recovery . . . I don’t think it is going to happen.”
The more likely scenario is that the ice will continue a decline that has been underway for at least 30 years, he said. There is likely to be plenty of variability in that decline, he added, with “extreme” melts in some years, followed by “significant recoveries like we saw last year.”
Part of the problem with ice forecasting is that it based largely on data from satellites. They are good at measuring how large an area is covered by ice, but tell little about its thickness — which can measure in mere centimetres in the case of new ice, or metres in the case of ice several years old.
The thickness had “changed little since 2007, and remained within the expected range of natural variability,” the team reports in the Geophysical Research Letters.
“Well, its worse than we thought….”
Al Gor.
😉
“The meltdown has not been as dire as some would suggest, said geophysicist Christian Haas of the University of Alberta.”
As a graduate of this fine institution back a few decades, I know that the U of A receives considerable funding from the Provincial Government, which in turn receives considerable revenue streams from royalties on oil/gas sales and leasing of Crown land to tar sands and gas projects. Big Oil also directly funds the University with ‘dirty’ industry money.
Logically, it is clear that these researchers must be partially funded by ‘big tar sands’ and ‘big gas’, and therefore cannot be trusted. 🙂
Go Bears!
I guess the paper was published in May 2010 in Geophysical Research Letters with no fan-fare or reporting (given it does not follow the party line and shows increasing sea ice thickness in the last few years).
Here is an on-line version.
http://epic.awi.de/Publications/Haa2010b.pdf
I think some of the data is here.
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/sea_ice_cdr/Sources/airborne_em.html
Now that would be cool, flying in a DC-3 over the artic at 60 meters, where can I buy a ride! The procedure seems simple and robust, the maps would be fun to see and the contorsions to discredit the data equally entertaining. Climate gate and the daily “studies” have been a huge eye opener for this lay person. I put very little stock in any of these studies touted in the media. I have become a full blown skeptic. I think these days you are a fool if you are not.
That has been my guess all along.
My forecast for the next couple days is a lot of ice movement (the vortex winds are wicked strong at low and high levels right now) with some movement of ice out of Fram Strait at higher speeds than we have seen in the past. However, there will also be some centralized ice compaction that can slow melt down later. By the end of this week, the winds will have died down again and we will be back to watching grass grow. The melting along the edges up through Kara Sea is simply a confluence of solar and warm Atlantic current action.
It is also likely that cloud cover and lack of cloud cover has added or diminished that confluence. Depending on the cloud type, you can get blocked shortwave and no retention of longwave (ice doesn’t melt much), you can get strong shortwave and no retention of longwave (ice melts a little more), or you can get some blocked shortwave and retention of longwave (ice melts a little more). Cloud conditions over ice and snow is damned hard to determine up there because unlike others, I can’t see Russia from my house.
Nice Basler DC-3 conversion. A resilient old Airplane too…
Love this….
This survey was reported last year in WUWT, IIRC. Since I also have an interest in aviation, this story also led to a description of the many changes made to a venerable DC-3 to update it.
IanM
So they are set up for ridicule. This doesn’t fit the models.
I’m guessing that the author meant to write that the survey took place in April, 2010 rather than April, 2009.
Nice rig. Do they only do a single pass or are they constantly doing spot checks on ice thickness?
There was a discussion on a thread yesterday about how PIOMASS thickness algorithm is susceptible to “soot” contamination of ice. Does the bird probe they use have the same vulnerability?
At 53°30′ N, the University of Alberta is in the most northerly major city in North America (Edmonton). They know snow. Without a local ocean moderating temperatures like European cities have, Edmonton is cold, even setting an extreme cold record last December of -46.1C
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/technology/Edmonton+coldest+place+North+America/2336460/story.html
Just pointing that out… and I’ll certainly give more credence to an Arctic researcher who actually goes to the Arctic and does an ice survey than a computer modeler sitting in an air conditioned office somewhere.
If geophysicist Christian Haas of the University of Alberta says no tipping point is likely, you should pay attention.
“The more likely scenario is that the ice will continue a decline that has been underway for at least 30 years, he said. There is likely to be plenty of variability in that decline, he added, with “extreme” melts in some years, followed by “significant recoveries like we saw last year.””
So, the “death spiral” is still there, it’s just that it may take a while longer. Their belief in the GCMs remains steadfast. And yet, “there is still hope for the ice,” said Haas. How can this be? Could the GCMs maybe, possibly be wrong? Doubt seems to be creeping in little by little.
What – you mean they FLY a plane across swathes of the Arctic towing a device which can work out the thickness …. by sending and receiving EM waves ???
But that can’t be as efficient (or as much fun) as trying to walk to the north pole drilling holes every km. ?????? Bring back the Caitlin survey !
Wait. Just yesterday you posted that Arctic Ocean ice is retreating at 30-year record pace! I’m so confused. How can this be?
Dan Ariely may have some insight. In his book, Predictably Irrational, in the chapter on the effect of expectations and elsewhere int he book, he touches on how people can be irrational in the face of good evidence.
Geophysicist != Climate Scientologist
Actual measurements conflict with the models?
Actual measurements do not support the forecasts?
How can this be?
I expect that the plane, the gas, the time, the ‘bird’ and data recorder cost significantly less than a Climate SuperConfuser running an interpretation model.
Actully measuring something, what a novel idea!
“If I asked this House how long this cummerbund is, you might telephone around all the manufacturers and ask them how many cummerbunds they made, and how long each type of cummerbund was, and put the data into a computer model run by a zitty teenager eating too many doughnuts, and the computer would make an expensive guess. Or you could take a tape-measure and” – glaring at the opposition across the despatch-box – “measure it!”: Lord Monkton
A little or a lot of ice, the fact is THEY have already decided it: You´ll pay for your carbon sins.
Need to begin practicing how to kneel down before the holy chosen ones, who so wisely observed that the world was warming up due to your sinful exhalations of CO2 gas.
Map of the “soundings” they took.
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/sea_ice_cdr/figures/air-em/map.jpg
Ah, but the data has not been adjusted yet. I’m sure that once the Team gets ahold of it they will robustly homogenized it to remove data that is ‘obviously wrong’ and show that, in fact, the ice volume is now at its lowest level in 1000 years.
chris y says: “…the U of A receives considerable funding from the Provincial Government, which in turn receives considerable revenue streams from royalties on oil/gas sales and leasing of Crown land to tar sands and gas projects. Big Oil also directly funds the University with ‘dirty’ industry money….”
Argument ad hominem, the Warmist’s phony logic of choice, the very best they can do. Ho, hum. Get a life.
Grant Hillemeyer says: “…I have become a full blown skeptic. I think these days you are a fool if you are not.”
Well, maybe not a fool, but certainly foolish or easily fooled.
stevengoddard wrote (June 16, 2010 at 8:06 am):
I’m guessing that the author meant to write that the survey took place in April, 2010 rather than April, 2009.
Steven-
See: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/28/inconvenient-eisdicken/
IanM
So. here we are. Another set of people who, ” measured stuff”, finding it is, ” as you were”, mataku!.
Q: Will they ever run out of BS artists telling lies?
The authors of the study are well-respected scientists in their field, regardless of who funds their research.
Note that in the abstract, the survey took place in April 2009 over the key regions of old ice in the Arctic Ocean between Svalbard and Alaska. Previous work by Haas showed that the thickness of old ice at the North Pole decreased by 0.9m between 1991 and 2007, and that the modal thickness at the North Pole declined from 2.2m in 2004 to 0.9m in summer of 2007 as first-year ice replaced multiyear ice.
This recent study focused on the multiyear ice. Figure 1 of their paper nicely shows the regions surveyed. Their main conclusions are that the old ice surveyed in April 2009 was slightly thicker than in 2007, but within the expected range of natural variability. They also caution that they focused on one small area in the Arctic so that their analysis may not be valid to “arctic-wide” conclusions.
It’s always a good idea to actually read the study rather than just the press release.
No, the paper linked says April, 2009. Publishing results from April 2010 in May 2010 would be record-breaking speed for a scientific journal.
Let’s hope they continue to run their survey every year at the same time in order to get a consistent time series of outcomes. I’m not convinced an iceless Arctic would be a disaster for any but the Clauses, but it would be good to know if it does change suddenly.
The survey was taken in April, 2009.
Then they say “We have more thick ice going into the summer than we did in 2009 and 2008,”
Doesn’t make any sense.