Sea Ice News #31

I commented on this a bit a while back too! Odd how the NSIDC graph has caught up since some folk started talking about it, or rather, odd how the ice has caught up! Spooky!
I’d still like to know why the Southern Hemisphere anomaly is so out of synch with the sea ice extent. Or is that just another mathematical quirk?

Here’s one from the peanut gallery. The downtrend in Arctic sea ice extent is caused by soot from China’s coal burning. Specifically, the soot falls on the ice and increases its albedo, making it melt a little faster. That’s why the downtrend in sea ice coincides with the uptrend in Chinese coal usage. The Antarctic is unaffected because the soot never makes it further south than about where the ICTZ is.

And hungry for tree huggers, I have to add.
[d]

Joe Romm is courting multiple strokes in his overblown, libelous attack on Bastardi and WUWT over this mistake. Cancun must not be living up to his expectations.

Anonymous commenter guy says: December 5, 2010 at 6:59 pm
“…….the downtrend in sea ice coincides with the uptrend in Chinese coal usage.”
That has not come expressly to my mind so far (my bad….), but I’m now sure you’re spot on. Thanks.

I’m probably committing the same error of eyeballing, but the NSIDC Antarctic Sea Ice Extent graph appears to show that the current extent is around 1 million sq km above the long-term average. So why is the “Southern Hemisphere Sea Ice Anomaly” only +0.268 (in the same units)?
Is it because the anomaly chart (from Cryosphere Today) uses a baseline of 1979-2008 while the NSIDC average is 1979-2000?

Over the last century and a half there has been many ideas to prevent ice melt and to help ice melt:
In 1912 Carroll Livingston Riker, an engineer, inventor, and industrialist, proposed a scheme to change the climate of polar regions by tinkering with the ocean currents of the Atlantic. This was to be accomplished by preventing the cold Labrador Current from colliding with the Gulf Stream.
In 1957 Soviet academician Borisov, alluding to the centuries-old quest of the Russian people to overcome the Northland cold, proposed building a dam across the Bering Strait to melt the Arctic sea ice. In numerous articles and then again in his book Can Man Change the Climate? (1973), Borisov detailed his vision of a dam 50 miles long and almost 200 feet high with shipping locks and pumping stations. To liquidate Arctic sea ice, Borisov wanted to pump cold seawater out of the Arctic Ocean, across the dam, and into the Bering Sea and the North Pacific. This displacement would allow the inflow of warmer water from the North Atlantic, eliminate fresh water in the surface layer in several years, and thus prevent the formation of ice in the Arctic Basin, creating warmer climate conditions. His goal was to remove a 200-foot layer of cold surface water, which would be replaced by warmer, saltier water that would not freeze.
Other ocean-engineering schemes included installing giant turbines in the Strait of Florida to generate electricity and adding a thin film of alcohol to the northern branch of the Gulf Stream to decrease surface water evaporation and warm the water by several degrees, although the cod might become rather tipsy.
Russian scientists warned of possible climate disruption from such mega-projects.
No kidding! Even the phase climate disruption is not new
http://m.gizmodo.com/5680669/thawing-the-arctic-+-soviet-russias-cold-war-war-on-cold

Oh…thanks the article….

Melt the Arctic! Year round open transit would be great. The PBs will survive just like they always have.

From LazyTeenager on December 5, 2010 at 7:51 pm:

I am going to guess that you read an article somewhere and decided to claim that all of the melting is due to black carbon, just to make consideration of CO2 go away.

Good job, peanut. That is not what he said, and you expressly quoted what it was:

Anonymous commenter guy says:
December 5, 2010 at 6:59 pm
Here’s one from the peanut gallery. The downtrend in Arctic sea ice extent is caused by soot from China’s coal burning.

What was said is a good possible scenario. Heck, even Wikipedia provides supporting evidence. From the Black carbon entry:

(…) In addition, black carbon forcing is two to three times as effective in raising temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere and the Arctic than equivalent forcing values of CO2.[35]

Also:

According to Dr. Charles Zender of the University of California, Irvine, black carbon is a significant contributor to Arctic ice-melt, and reducing such emissions may be “the most efficient way to mitigate Arctic warming that we know of”.[45] The “climate forcing due to snow/ice albedo change is of the order of 1.0 W/m2 at middle- and high-latitude land areas in the Northern Hemisphere and over the Arctic Ocean.”[46] The “soot effect on snow albedo may be responsible for a quarter of observed global warming.”[47] “Soot deposition increases surface melt on ice masses, and the meltwater spurs multiple radiative and dynamical feedback processes that accelerate ice disintegration,” according to NASA scientists Dr. James Hansen and Dr. Larissa Nazarenko.[48] As a result of this feedback process, “BC on snow warms the planet about three times more than an equal forcing of CO2.”[49] When black carbon concentrations in the Arctic increase during the winter and spring due to Arctic Haze, surface temperatures increase by 0.5 °C.[50] Black carbon emissions also significantly contribute to Arctic ice-melt, which is critical because “nothing in climate is more aptly described as a ‘tipping point’ than the 0 °C boundary that separates frozen from liquid water—the bright, reflective snow and ice from the dark, heat-absorbing ocean.”[51]

Got that? On the worldwide front, with the forcing from CO2… Well, the esteemed Dr. Phil Jones of UEA-CRU agreed in February 2010 that there had been no statistically-significant global warming from 1995 to the present. So the CO2 ain’t doing much. Meanwhile black carbon (soot) is implicated in dramatically increasing Arctic sea ice melt.
And China is building many new coal plants and burning lots of coal.

China and India together account for 25-35% of global black carbon emissions[66] Black carbon emissions from China doubled from 2000 to 2006.[67]

Now, when you examine the Arctic “tipping point,” while considering global temperature trends, you should be able to figure out that it is highly possible that soot is responsible for the downward trend in Arctic sea ice extent. Indeed, it is at least more likely than not. And China is generating a lot of soot, and will generate lots more.
It becomes an argument as to whether it was specifically China’s soot emissions, and specifically from their coal burning, that lead to the downward trend, and the sea ice would be growing or holding in extent without them. After about five years or more of complex computer modeling, dueling papers, maybe some real field research, and a few billion or so dollars, Climate Science™ may have a definitive answer. Until they do that and it disproves Anonymous commenter guy’s statement, it seems very plausible.
You know, the esteemed Dr. James Hansen of NASA-GISS has done impressive work highlighting the disastrous warming contributions of soot. Read that Wikipedia entry, work through the references, study his research. Maybe you’ll understand why the esteemed Hansen so loudly protests against those “death trains” hauling coal!
😉

Anthony,
Thanks for the NANSEN link, that’s a new dataset/source of monthly values for me to look into. 🙂
As to your Bremen link, AFAIK that link does not post a daily/monthly time series, but than again I may have missed it, but I’ve looked throughout that link several times before. Maybe you or someone else can be more specific as to the location of their time series tabulation?
Finally, you have a small typo in your post, UUIC should be UIUC.
As to NSIDC, I’ve consistantly agreed with you about NSIDC publishing digital/tabulated daily values.
I’ve been digitizing their daily sea ice extent graphs for the past 3 month, and am just waiting for them to publish their December monthly update (hopefully on Monday), to see what their November monthly mean sea ice extent numerical value is, my September monthly agreed with there’s (-0.03E6 km^2), but my October monthly was way off for some reason (-0.75E6 km^2), if November’s mean monthly extent is reported by NSIDC as way above my digitized mean, than I’ll be emailing NSIDC, with tabulated numbers and a PDF graph, to try to understand where I’m misunderstanding what’s plotted versus what’s reported by NSIDC, they say “Sea ice extent averaged over was …” and that’s what I’m calculating AFAIK.

In the end it wont matter, because as long as all the involved parties use the same method, we will be able to see what is right and what is wrong. Its when there are
“readjustments” made to methodology that problems occur ( ie with the temperatures). In the end, so long as we can watch OBJECTIVE satellite data on the temps the next 20-30 years, and the way each of the sites measures ice remains consistent, we will have our answer, which is what I am all about. Some of my fears though are that policies are being set on conclusions that are not yet in, or put it this way, still up for debate. And of course I would be in favor of continuing this debate on ice and global temp until these big natural drivers have reversed and we see what 15-30 years of the OPPOSITE natural signal to warm does.
I have always advocated, and have gone out of my way, to ask the rational person to not trust me, but look at all the data, and as such I present the data and comment on it.
That NSIDC took the time out to make sure I understood what they were up too impressed me to no end and made sure this was cleared up. For the record, I work 7 days a week, as those that read my blog know ( along with my private clients) but was out of town over the weekend. I got into the office to make sure this was corrected as soon as I got into town, even at the expense of missing a large part of the PSU open wrestling tournament. Talk about commitment! ( some of you may think I should be committed) Be of good cheer and keep an eye on the ice.. right here on wuwt!

What did Joe Bastardi do wrong exactly? I’m missing an explanation, both here and in his new vid.

The reason for the Arctic melt and ice build up being different from the Antarctic is easily and readily explained by SST and associated drivers, and these drivers are easily and readily explained by ENSO parameters. Basically, large scale weather pattern variations. The climate in either location has not changed one iota. They are still considered to be arctic climate zones and nothing scary or unprecedented has happened. Historic and archeological evidence strongly suggests this has happened before. The hysteria over such tiny, insignificant wriggles being this or that, or slightly different from each other, is much ado about nothing.

Well done Joe,at least you can make apologie[s]
Did Joe apologize? I must have missed that. I don’t believe he said he apologized and he didn’t say he had made a (very silly) mistake. He just said that NSIDC contacted him, explained things and that he now believed NSIDC was ‘above board’. Judge Bastardi has ruled.
But I have to hand it to him, he did repeat many times over that NSIDC didn’t cook the books. I think that at least was very good of him.

One possibility I see regarding the dirty ice in the arctic is the fact that there are actively erupting volcanoes on the Kamchatka peninsula and the Aleutian islands. This is also true for the antarctic peninsula. These volcanoes are closer to the arctic and antarctic ice than China. As far as China’s pollution is concerned, how many times have we seen satellite shots showing its pollution blowing across the Pacific to California, Oregon, and Washington?
Kudo’s to Joe Bastardi for demonstrating true professionalism. When I was a resident of the Houston, TX area, you and Dr. Niel Frank were my “go to” men for hurricane forecasts.

I am reading a book called Frozen Oceans. It says, “When ice is formed in coastal regions and shallow waters it is possible for large concentrations of sediments from the sea floor to become incorporated into the new ice. This is especially true of the Arctic coasts where in a year large rivers transport thousands of tonnes of particles from the land to the ocean. A whole range of particle types and sizes, from clay to larger soil pieces, can be incorporated into the ice and even tree trunks have been found in Arctic sea ice.
The most obvious effect of sediment in the ice is to discolour the ice. Where lots of sediment is trapped in the ice it can look black rather than white. Albedo is significantly reduced and rates of ice melt increased.
“Sediment-laden ice is a feature of sea ice in many regions of the Arctic Ocean, but it is seldom encountered in the Southern Ocean. This is because there are very few shallow coastal waters where sediments from the sea floor can be suspended into new ice and, of course, there are no rivers of significance on the Antarctic continent to introduce sediment to the surface.”

I’m glad to see that some commenters identified the possibility of volcanic responsibility for the “dirty” ice. Too often, in our hubris, we assume that there has to be a human role in anything that we are examining. This is a natural outcome of our egocentric natures.
China’s coal plants will end up doing a whole lot more harm to their immediate environment than they will to the global system. Check out a breakdown of the emissions from a volcanic eruption and compare it to human sources: It will be a good lesson in humility.
Kudos to Joe for his obvious integrity. If only we could all follow his example…

Look at the arctic long term graph. 2007, it shifted into a different behavior. Larger seasonal swing than in the 10 years before. Did the method of observation change, or is this change real? (No, i don’t think it shifted into the death spiral mode; since 2007, it does these large swings but the average over a year doesn’t go up or down much.)

Arctic Death Spiral 2010: Navy’s oceanographer tells Congress, “the volume of ice as of last September has never been lower…in the last several thousand years”
Romm blasts WUWT….again.
Disinformers get it very wrong and Inaccuweather’s Bastardi absurdly asserts sea ice trend is “leveling off and will turn the other way”
http://climateprogress.org/2010/12/06/arctic-death-spiral-2010-navys-oceanographer-volume-of-ice-never-been-lower/

OT (a little) I notice that the open water between Iceland and Greenland continues to narrow steadily. What are the chances the ice will actually close that gap and one could, if one so desired, walk from Iceland to Greenland? Also, when/if has such a closure occurred in the past? Just wondering.

Mr. Watts:
Why should any importance be attributed to the estimate of temperature above latitude 80 degrees north made by the DMI model in assesing Arctic ice extent at this time of year since this area appears to have been ice covered at the end of October and the temperature appears to be below the freezing point of sea ice even when it is above the average?
According to the NSIDC report, local weather and higher temperatures in areas south of 80 degrees north caused the average ice extent in November 2010 to be lower than prior years.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2010/120610.html
P.S. There is no basis for why Günther Kirschbaum, whoever he is, would think that you would not cover the December NSIDC report when you have posted such information in the past. You are, of course, going to put your interpretation on the events they report.

Good for Joe. The thing I like best about the leaders of the skeptic community is that they are about an order of magnitude more willing to hear an adverse critique and adjust accordingly when there is merit. The other side, alas, has to be dragged kicking and screaming to the most milque-toast corrections.
It used to be that science was about dialogue, and getting it right in the end. It still is that way in the skeptic community even when a few black crow feathers have to be wiped off the chin.

See – owe to Rich says:
December 6, 2010 at 9:48 am
Re John-in-CA on Eastern Greenland ice, and the overall Arctic ice picture.
It would be fun to see an ice bridge, wouldn’t it? I suspect though that closure of such is difficult with strong currents through the gap (until blocked by a massive iceberg?).
The point I really wanted to make, though, is that cold Eastern Greenland, Norway, UK, etc. is largely due to an anticyclone roughly centred on Greenland. The consequence is that Western Greenland is warm, relatively, and the ice anomaly in that region is quite negative.
Rich.
========
I’ve been watching the SW Greenland coast which is one of the few locations running behind on ice formation this year. Wind direction appears to be causing the coastal ice anomaly; http://sailwx.info/wxobs/winddirection.phtml?lat=69.338926923605&lon=-20.750857274738&radius=500
The overall Arctic sea ice trend fails to account for normal or accelerated regional ice formation. Cryosphere Today and Environment Canada are better sources for regional patterns unless I’m missing the section on NSIDC.
“It would be fun to see an ice bridge, wouldn’t it? I suspect though that closure of such is difficult with strong currents through the gap (until blocked by a massive iceberg?).”
: ) yes, it would be fun and, as far as I can tell so far, unusual. Arctic Ice migrates down the Eastern coast so its possible but, as you point out, subject to currents and wind.

According to the Cryosphere Today picture from the U of Illinois, there is no ice on southern half of Hudson Bay. However, the residents of Churchill tell us that the polar bears have been out on the ice for weeks. There is no thought in my mind that anybody is playing games with the images, but I do wonder: if the satellites cannot pick up miles of ice, can I rely on them to measure the height of the ocean — with waves, wind, tides, . . . — to the width of a human hair?

Brian H, I am not finding the original passage that I read about the polar bears already being out on the ice from Churchill — I think it was in the comments on a WUWT post. However, here is this quote from Churchill’s Steve Seldon on November 24: “the ice platform extended into the bay as far as the eye could see.” He discusses in his blog how the polar bears have left land and have gone onto the ice in Hudson Bear.
http://churchillpolarbears.org/2010/11/report-from-churchill-november-24-2010/

Phil,
I understand this to be the latest U of I Cryosphere Today image: http://home.comcast.net/~ewerme/wuwt/cryo_latest.jpg
Images are directly available from http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
NSIDC does show ice along the southern edge of Hudson Bay. To be accurate, Cryosphere states that the images referenced above does not include areas where ice is less than 30%, so a difference between NSIDC & Crysophere can be understandable. But the reports from Churchill are more than 30% ice.

P.S. I forgot the URL: http://nsidc.org/data/google_earth

Phil, do you look at the image in my post? I do look at yours. Yes, I see the ice reported on your image which matches the ice on the image from NSIDC. But the image in my post is the U of I Cryosphere image which is the 14th (and repeated in the 15th) image in the WUWT sea ice reference page. In the last couple of days, the ice in this image has gotten close to Churchill, but this image had the Hudson Bay ice free long after the polar bears had left Churchill for the ice.
Again, I see where your Cryosphere image matches the NSIDC image for ice, but I do not know why there is not that level of ice on the Cryosphere image on the Sea Ice reference page.

to Phil,
Thank you.