As I mentioned earlier, I held the WUWT Sea Ice News feature a day so that I could including an expected press release from NSDIC. I’m glad I did. Here it is, including yet another zinger from NSIDC director Mark Serreze. – Anthony
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Oct 4 2010 Arctic sea ice extent falls to third-lowest extent; downward trend persists
This is a press release from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), which is part of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
This September, Arctic sea ice extent was the third-lowest in the satellite record, falling below the extent reached last summer. The lowest- and second-lowest extents occurred in 2007 and 2008. Satellite data indicate that Arctic sea ice is continuing a long-term decline, and remains younger and thinner than it was in previous decades.
“All indications are that sea ice will continue to decline over the next several decades,” said NSIDC Director Mark Serreze. “We are still looking at a seasonally ice-free Arctic in twenty to thirty years.”
Over the summer of 2010, weather and ocean conditions in the Arctic ranged from warm and calm to stormy and cool. Overall, weather conditions were not extremely favorable to melt, but ice loss proceeded at a rapid pace. NSIDC Scientist Julienne Stroeve said, “Sea surface temperatures were warmer than normal this summer, but not as warm as the last three years. Even so, the 2010 minimum rivaled that in 2008—this suggests that other factors played a more dominant role.”
—Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center
The amount of old, thick ice in the Arctic continues to decline, making the ice pack increasingly vulnerable to melt in future summers. While there was an increase this year in second and third year ice, which could potentially thicken over the next few years, the oldest and generally thickest ice (five years or older) has now disappeared almost entirely from the Arctic. This September, less than 60,000 square kilometers (23,000 square miles) of five-year-old or older ice remained in the Arctic Basin. In the 1980s an average of 2 million square kilometers (722,000 square miles) of old ice remained at the end of summer. “While the total coverage of multiyear ice is the third lowest on record, the amount of younger multiyear ice has rebounded somewhat over the last two years. A key question is whether this ice will continue to survive over the next couple of summers, perhaps slowing the overall decline in multiyear ice area,” said James Maslanik, a research professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado, who provided the ice age data.
—Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center
Arctic sea ice extent on September 19, the lowest point this year, was 4.60 million square kilometers (1.78 million square miles). Averaged over the month of September, ice extent was 4.90 million square kilometers (1.89 million square miles) (Figure 1). This places 2010 as the third lowest ice extent both for the daily minimum extent and the monthly average. Ice extent fell below 2009 and was only slightly above 2008 (Figure 2).
After September 10, ice extent started to climb, apparently signaling the end of the melt season. However, uncharacteristically, it then declined again, until September 19. “The late-season turnaround indicates that the ice cover is thin and loosely packed—which makes the ice more vulnerable both to winds and to melting,” said Walt Meier, NSIDC research scientist.
Arctic sea ice follows an annual cycle of melting and refreezing, melting through the warm summer months and refreezing through autumn and winter. Sea ice reflects sunlight, keeping the Arctic region cool and moderating global climate. While Arctic sea ice extent varies from year to year because of changeable atmospheric and ocean conditions, ice extent at the end of the melt season has shown a significant overall decline over the past thirty years. During this time, September ice extent has declined at a rate of 11.5 percent per decade during September (relative to the 1979 to 2000 average) (Figure 3), and about 3 percent per decade in the winter months.
—Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Cente
More Information
For further analysis and images, please see the related October post on Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis Web site (http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/)
For a full listing of press resources concerning Arctic sea ice, including previous press releases and quick facts about why and how scientists study sea ice, please see “Press Resources” on the NSIDC Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis Web page.
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Source: http://nsidc.org/news/press/20101004_minimumpr.html
Well I hope I’m around in 30 years to look up Dr. Serreze.
Arctic Sea Ice is making a quick turnaround, the DMI 30% graph shows we are now at 2005 levels for 30% extent.
Have a look at this interesting animation showing the quick turnaround in ice extent in September…
Steve Goddard writes:
Blink comparator showing ice growth over the past week. More than 5,000 Manhattans of new ice have formed – one new Manhattan of ice every two minutes.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/CT/animate.arctic.color.0.html
The JAXA 15% extent graph shows a similar sharp turnaround.
…and a close up view shows that we are now slightly ahead of this date last year:
And 80N+ temperature remains close to climatology:
The Northwest passage appears to be fully closed:
So, in a nutshell, things are icing up quickly. 2011 looks to be interesting!
Don’t forget to check status at the WUWT Sea Ice Page.
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The article said:
For those interested, on Oct 3:
2009 = 5740000 km^2
2010 = 5797031 km^2
Thought I’d brag a bit, here’s what I guessed early on Sept 27 in the Sea Ice News #24 thread:
“…I suspect we’ll be within 100000 km^2 of 2009 on Sept 30 and will surpass it in the first week of Oct (heck, I’ll lay down an ambitious guess of passing it on Oct 3)…”
Link: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/26/sea-ice-news-24/#comment-492696
I’ll also admit my correct guess had a fair amount of luck in it. Oct 4, 2009 was a poor gain day, so we’ve already surpassed it too.
-Scott
If they had said, We are still looking at a seasonally ice-free Arctic in fifty to sixty years I might buy it but this is likely to be a thorn in their side for the next 40+ years.
But next year is meltdown:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/view.php?id=22250
Arctic Meltdown
February 27, 2001
The Arctic ice cap is melting at a rate that could allow routine commercial shipping through the far north in a decade and open up new fisheries. But a report for the US Navy seen by New Scientist reveals that naval vessels will be unable to police these areas.
It was in 1906, after centuries of attempts, that Roald Amundsen finally navigated the North-West Passage through the sea ice north of Canada. Even today, only specially strengthened ships can make the trip.
But in 10 years’ time, if melting patterns change as predicted, the North-West Passage could be open to ordinary shipping for a month each summer. And the Northern Sea Route across the top of Russia could allow shipping for at least two months a year in as little as five years.
Peter Wadhams of the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge agrees that the Arctic could soon open up. “Within a decade we can expect regular summer trade there,”he predicts.
Remember, this was in 2001.
Okay, so I’ve brought up a question a few times before, but it wasn’t really pressing then. Now now the discrepancy has become a lot more apparent, so I’ll bring it up again:
Just watts up with the DMI plot? DMI 30% extent has topped both 2005 and 2009 now. But JAXA 15% extent has 2010 being 57k above 2009 and 106k below 2005. CT area has 2010 about 40k below 2009 right now and a whopping 696k below 2005, which is absolutely huge.
I expect 30% extent to behave somewhere between area and 15% extent, so the 2009 comparison numbers are reasonable, but the 2005 numbers seem way out there. I know there’s a good deal of uncertainty in area measurements, but can that really explain this discrepancy? I don’t think so…
Does anyone have a good explanation?
-Scott
Never have I heard such a massively negative spin applied to a reasonably promising situation. We did speculate how long they would be able to use the 2007 minimum as a scary figure to keep up alarm. Now it’s the “generally thickest ice (five years or older)” that they are harping on about. How long before it is “generally thickest ice (ten years or older)”? Another five years, perhaps? Sheesh!
The only trouble is that the media will lap it up, and the message of the recovering ice will be entirely hidden. I hope WUWT can dispel at least some of the impending doom messages.
Scott says:
October 4, 2010 at 3:18 pm
Does anyone have a good explanation?
====
Mine would be, its all garbled carpl; fubar.
The others have a huge agenda…. NH cannot be allowed to recover, especially this crucial funding year. Unfortunately you will have to Follow D’Aleo at ICECAP who has got it right and the recovery will be a whopping one this time round, enough to scuttle AGW. The scandinavians (DMI) are a bit more honest.
“Two steps forward,One step back”-Joe Bastardi.
he and Piers Corbyn are to be listened to.
Got Coal?
If not for only a short 2-3 week period in september, 2010 would have been virtually identical to 2009, despite an El Nino year! Alarmism is not backed by facts…
With sea ice extent being affected by prevailing winds at any particular time in the year does not the area under each annual graph give a more useful measure of annual sea ice extent year on year. What story does that tell?
If I’m not mistaken, this year’s first-year (aka: new) ice, you know the stuff that’s so easy to travel on so that you can messure it along the way and conclude that all the ice is first-year ice, is in fact next year’s two-year ice. When the icecap expands starting at a low extent, each year you will have a lot of first-year ice.
I’ll bet you that this will be spun and come out of the mangler as: there has been ever more first year ice (bad, bad, bad!) over the past few years. Hence, we’re in the big melt, when in fact the opposite will be the case.
By far the most important AGW news methinks
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/virginiapolitics/New%20Mann%20CID.PDF
Figure 3 on September ice extent from 1979 to 2009 looks as if one could draw a relatively horizontal line through the data from 1979 to around 1996 and steeper decline from then until present. Instead of always seeing 1979-2000 as the baseline norm, it would be interesting to see means for all three decades. Interestingly mean global temperature shows the opposite trend: steep increase until 1998 and modest to negligible increase until present. Did something unusual begin to happen to sea ice in the late 1990s? Did more multi-year ice get moved into regions where it was more susceptible to summer melt?
Since there is only 30 years or so of satellite data, and since there are reports in the I believe the early 1930s and 1950s of very low polar ice, it sure seems like the minimums may follow some cycle. If the minimum arctic ice is like a sine wave (which might follow, um, maybe SOLAR CYCLES, like other climate cycles appear to be following . . . ! ) , and if in the late 1970s, we were at the top of the crest of the sine wave, and 30 years later, we are at the bottom of the sine wave (and beginning to rise again), a ‘linear’ fit would still show a ‘downtrend’ as reported. Even though the minimum is past.
But because the data isn’t long enough, that isn’t recognized ( . . at least by some . . . ! );
And to be fair, we don’t for certainty. Though it still has to be asked, is that where we are with the arctic ice?
Let’s we what the next few years bring. My bet is on the ice.
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20101004_Figure6.png
It should be pointed out that the nsidc chart comparing the age of ice (see link) between March and September 2010 is somewhat disingenous, to put it mildly.
On October 1st every year, the Canadian Ice Service re-categorises all the surviving ice to be a year older. Kind of like the ice celebrating its’ birthday. (:-
Since almost all the ice on the September 2010 chart will still be there next March, it needs to be aged by 1 year if a valid comparison is to be made with the March 2010 chart. Only ice that forms between now and March 2011 will be designed “first-year ice” on the March 2011 chart.
I will leave you all to form your own opinions as to whether the NSIDC is presenting the charts in a deliberately misleading manner to make the situation appear worse than it actually is.
oops, last line should have said ‘Let’s SEE what the next few years bring . . . ( . . bad fingers . . )
I wish these “scientists” were not so much advocates as they are impartial observers of the data. He says “Satellite data indicate that Arctic sea ice is continuing a long-term decline”. We have 9 years of satellite data, and for one month during the year, ice extent was the highest of the 9 years. We also have a period where it was the 3rd lowest–out of 9. The alarmism doesn’t bear out.
Let’s see if I have this right.
2010 will be the 3rd lowest with 2007 and 2008 being the lowest and second lowest respectively.
If I may rephrase….
2007 was a minimum with ice extent increasing in 2008 and 2009 respectively. 2010 is forecast to be a slight decrease from 2009, but as it is only October, that is just a forecast. May I observe that neither weather nor climate forecasting being an exact science, I for one will wait and see. In the meantime, the recent trend seems to be increasing ice extent, quite contrary to the hockey stick air temperature increases and predictions of polar amplification, and more in tune with falling ocean heat content.
Ocean mass being orders of magnitude higher than that of the atmosphere, seems to me ice extent is being tugged along like a small child by a parent. The somewhat larger child (atmosphere) will be soon spoken to sharply and told in no uncertain terms:
We’re going THIS way.
“All indications are that sea ice will continue to decline over the next several decades”
“All indications”? “Continue”? Fallacy of arbitrary starting point. If you use the 70’s as a starting point, everything will appear to be in a decline even when it is rising.
“the third-lowest in the satellite record”
Where the four lowest were in the past three years plus this year. So third lowest out of 4 years is what they’re saying (or trying to hide). Aside from divine intervention, I don’t see how recovery could be any faster. On a side-topic, is recovery really important? Seems like ice free north pole isn’t really that special.
Based upon the straight line from Fig 3, I calculate ice-free around 2075, yet Mr Serreze says “We are still looking at a seasonally ice-free Arctic in twenty to thirty years.”. I understand that he probably thinks there will be some acceleration of ice loss, but is the model he proposes ever stated? If he believes ice-free in twenty or thirty years then he must have a model and that model must have intermediate values, so where are the NSIDC predictions for 5, 10, 15 and 20 years from now?
The amount of old, thick ice in the Arctic continues to decline, making the ice pack increasingly vulnerable to melt in future summers.
First, I’m not worried in the least by the “vulnerability” of the Arctic to melt, Period. For example, I’d much rather see melting than a propensity for the Arctic to increasingly freeze. Tropical living just doesn’t seem all that bad to me. Plus, “Hundreds of thousands of migrants to Florida can’t be wrong.”
NSIDC says 2010 3rd lowest for Arctic sea ice
Not even close, because according to Climate Science “tenets”, this is impossible. A continued downward spiral in Arctic ice extent should have already ensued at least two times ago.
Frankly, I say the Commie Warmista’s should go FTS’s, because , quite simply, I am not their bitch.
climatebeagle says October 4, 2010 at 4:47 pm
Hmmm, so it no longer going to disappear in the next five years.
There’s a good chance that I will still be around in fifteen years, so I guess I will be able to check whether it is still on track.
Satellite data indicate that Arctic sea ice is continuing a long-term decline
Satellite data goes back only 31 years. 31 years in not a long term time period. So long term forecasting cannot be made from it.
Satellite data indicate that Arctic sea ice is continuing a long-term decline
Natural variability show Arctic ice will increase over the next 2 decades.
“All indications are that sea ice will continue to decline over the next several decades,” said NSIDC Director Mark Serreze.
I don’t know how someone can look at all indicators and come to that conclusion.