Sea Ice News #36 – Arctic maximum ice extent reached – NANSEN data disagrees with NSIDC's on the claim of a tie with 2006-2007

[snip – rant]

I see no mention of multi year ice or ice thickness which was deemed to be so important previously when the ice extent wasn’t following the script. From the 2007 v 2011 images that our host has shown above, the ice this year looks pretty solid.
In fact, if the Catlin expedition is going to be repeated again this year then I think they might have a straight run to the pole like BBCs Top Gear team had when they drove. The only thing likely to slow them down is the time it is going to take to drill through all that ice.

“[snip – rant]”
The “rant” was a link to the to the wikipedia entry which defines the Arctic Ocean which is of course what the NSIDC tracks, not the Arctic Circle.
REPLY: Well then you are welcome to submit that again, minus the ranting that surrounded it, but I must point out that this map included in that article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Arctic_Ocean_-_en.png
Does not show the coast of Newfoundland down to St. Johns as being part of it. That’s my point. And clearly, the Sea of Okhotsk is not part of the Arctic Ocean, yet NSIDC tracks “Arctic sea ice” there. Take these non-Arctic areas out, and let’s see how the true Arctic has fared over the last 30 years. – Anthony
– Anthony

“Start your record keeping at a time when predictions were that we were going into another ice age and glaciers would soon cover us all….
……because there was too much ice”
Hm, never heard that one before, that there was “too much ice” in 1979!
This looks back to 1950, and for NS, to 1810.
http://www.socc.ca/cms/en/socc/seaIce/pastSeaIce.aspx

and so it begins….

Hm..I are we sure that maximum has been reached yet. 2010 peaked at the very end of March/early April, and Norsex seems to be ticking up.

‘Ice-a, ice-a, baby…’
Sorry, folks – just having a senior moment…..!

See I no longer have to go to Stonehenge to find out if it is Spring; izzat the First Point of Aries or some such Salem Witch monicker. I just have to come to WUWT to see if the great ice vanish has started. Here we all go again Anthony; must be a year since we last did this !

@ Tim Clark says: March 24, 2011 at 1:45 pm “Well, the temperature in the Arctic is about 21 K below freezing. Not a lot of thawing within the Circle.”
I am not sure, but I think some of the melting is from warmer ocean water below.

“”””” CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
March 24, 2011 at 1:23 pm
I really don’t see how sea ice off the north coast of Newfoundland can be considered “Arctic” when it doesn’t even come close to being within the Arctic Circle.
Thanks for bringing this up, Anthony, I’ve also wondered about that. Hudson’s Bay fits into the same category. “””””
Well I may be an old fuddy duddy; but “The Arctic” and the “Arctic Circle” are not one an the same; synonyms for each other.
When I went to shool, , “The Arctic” was anything North of +60 deg Latitude. The “Arctic circle” is a menagery lion that runs around the earth right where the sun never rises (gometrically) in winter, and it wanders around in Latitude as the earth’s polar axis shifts. The “Arctic” however always stays put at +60 deg Latitude.
If you would like to dispute that, then stop calling the “Antarctic Peninsula” the “Antarctic”.

Anthony writes,
“What I find curious is the fact that NSDIC’s opening statement (below) in the press release has these words: “Arctic sea ice extent” but if you look at the NSIDC provided plot above, you’ll note that they include normal lines (in orange) for areas that are outside of the Arctic circle. ”
I’m surprised that you find this curious. I don’t know of any Arctic ice researchers who define “Arctic” as “north of Arctic Circle.” Do you? Perhaps WUWT could lead the way by creating the first dataset of sea ice extent exclusively within the Arctic Circle, and see what that tells us.
“In fact, NSIDC claims the maximum was reached on March 7th, but as we see in the NANSEN plot above, the ice continues to grow as late as 3/23 when that plot was produced.”
(Nansen was a man, not an acronym.) I tend to view NSIDC data as most definitive, and credit their “claim” of a May 7 max. That roughly agrees with the peaks not only for IJIS but also Uni Bremen and Cryosphere Today. But each research group uses different algorithms, so there are bound to be some differences in the results. Do you have a reason for preferring Arctic ROOS when they disagree? Will that preference be followed through the rest of the season?
REPLY: Walt Meier from NSIDC has agreed to provide a plot, let’s see what it says, isn’t that what science is all about, exploring new ideas? As for your objection to my use of NANSEN, I made no claims of it being an acronym, I only capitalized it to make sure readers knew clearly what it was. I’m well aware of the history of his travels.
You also seemed to have conveniently missed the sentence I made about JAXA AMSRE (which IS an acronym). But, since your purpose here is (and always has been) to denigrate from the comfort of anonymity, you go “Gneiss”.
– Anthony

Sharperoo,
Don’t get caught in Anthony’s school boy argument about the definition of the “Arctic”. The point is all the measures, yet again, point to very low ice extent for this time of year. Anthony is raising a red herring to divert our attention from this fact.
MJK
REPLY: well whether you think it is “schoolboy” or not, in an email exchange just now, Walt Meir of NSIDC thought it an interesting enough question to take me up on my suggestion and offer a plot, he’s going to be traveling so it me be a couple weeks. I’ll present it here when he does. – Anthony

Latitude writes,
“….Winter max and summer min are always weather
May and Dec it all comes back together”
It’s true that weather, winds and such, play a notable role in determining the exact summer minimum. But May is actually the *least* predictable month, and December the most predictable, in terms of their downwards trends.

Oh wow, that’s a good one! When faced with the facts of ongoing northern hemisphere sea ice decline, I did not expect that people would start quibbling over the definition of Arctic. That is a new level of pettiness and irrelevance. Nebulous indeed. Ha!
REPLY: Well Dr. Walt Meier of NSIDC didn’t think it was “petty and irrelevant”, and has agreed to provide a plot for me in a couple of weeks. The question really stems from my curiosity about the orange boundary lines on the NSIDC extent map, which look much like gerrymandered political districts. Even Walt agrees that the boundary definitions are “somewhat arbitrary” – Anthony

Gneiss says: March 24, 2011 at 4:57 pm
“Yes, melting from below is a major force and will become more so. ”
Actually, in a week or so “You’ll wonder where the yellow went!”
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.gif
Cooling, for a while now, all oceans, not just the equtoral eastern pacific.
As for the air….
Monthly deviation from 30 year global average temperature (Measured by the AMSU flying on the NOAA-15 satellite)
Year Month Degrees C
2010 Jan +0.54
2010 Feb +0.51
2010 Mar +0.55
2010 Apr +0.40
2010 May +0.45
2010 Jun +0.39
2010 Jul +0.42
2010 Aug +0.44
2010 Sep +0.48
2010 Oct +0.31
2010 Nov +0.27
2010 Dev +0.18
2011 Jan -0.01
2011 Feb -0.02
Again, cooling, expect this month to be -0.25

I find it fascinating following this year’s trend in arctic ice and the La Nina effect appearing to be pushing all that warm ocean up towards the arctic. I wonder if Bob Tisdale has any thoughts on this?

There are always lots of hyperthermalist trolls who show up every time Arctic ice gets a mention.
Perhaps one of them could enlighten me as to why I should care what the ice extent is?
Interested, OK.
Bothered? I don’t think so.

Of course the real issue is why is the Arctic region losing ice. Is it mostly from warmer than normal ocean water that was warmed elsewhere because of AGW? Or is the water warmer because of local AGW during the summer? I have read that part of the cause is an increase in black carbon, aka soot, from industrial sites in Russia and Asia. This is human caused but is distinct from GHG warming. And there may well be natural cycles in ocean circulation or wind patterns that are playing some role. Are there good review articles, readable by non-specialists, that quantify these or other factors?
Related issues are concerns about permafrost loss and methyl hydrates.

@Martin brumby
The loss of ice decreases Earth albedo. Even without AGW if something, natural or human, caused a loss of sea ice cover that would cause global warming. The related loss of Greenland ice is causing sea level rice. There are also national security issues:
Climate Change Poses Arctic Challenge for U.S. Navy |
The U.S. National Academy of Sciences exposes new national security challenges for the Navy as a result of climate change
So, whatever the cause is, yes you should be concerned. (Note: I did not say alarmed, I said concerned.)

Glad to see others are curious about the difference in “Arctic” ice. I too noticed that according to the NSIDC orange line, most of the difference in ice area was at lattitudes that no one would consider Arctic. In fact, the bulk of the differnce was at a lattitude similar to Calgary, Alberta which no Canadian considers to be “north” at all!
Why must a simple question born of curiosity be considered so political by some?
I share your curiosity Anthony and I’m interested in Walt’s thoughts.

In my 6:44 post – still in moderation – I should have said methane hydrates or more correctly methane clathrates, and not methyl hydrates.

That’s all what’s left. A few orange lines on a map to underline a religion.
Even the Baltic gets a quick mark.
Yes, we’re short of ice in the Baltic all right.
Must be caused by the nuke that came to the rescue:
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2011/03/nuke-to-rescue.html
And there is the Catlin Team who are forced to swim the entire route.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/03/24/catlin-team-faces-42c-and-five-metre-thick-ice/
They should have watched the orange lines.

I’m not liking what I’m seeing so far. I think there’s a chance we go below the 2007 minimum, and I don’t see much chance we exceed the 2010 minimum. Wind and tide will play their as yet unpredictable role, of course.
Having said that, I don’t see any reason to think that Mr. Wilson, who predicted a 1M summer extent minimum last year for ARCUS yearly summer prediction roundup will be in the ballpark this year either. . . and Mark Serreze still won’t find his autumnal equinox stocking stuffed with his hoped-for “ice free north pole” this year either (for the 4th year in a row).

Oh, yes, I forgot. Those escalating food prices leading to social unrest? They were caused by misguided greenies who thought using food crops to power our cars would be a more sensible thing than eating them.
They really deserve the title ‘ecotards’ I’m afraid.

It is a small and inflexible mind that cannot find at least two ways to look at a question. I vote with Anthony on this Arctic issue.
Next. It is possible to write “X Celsius degrees” and “X degrees Celsius” as the former is proper for a temperature change, while the latter is proper for a temperature measurement. Using kelvins may simplify the writing but not the meaning for most folks.

Is there any further information of the effect of undersea volcanoes on recent the Arctic sea ice decrease ?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/06/25/surprise-explosive-volcanic-eruption-under-the-arctic-ice-found/

jakers says:
March 24, 2011 at 1:40 pm
‘Start your record keeping at a time when predictions were that we were going into another ice age and glaciers would soon cover us all….
……because there was too much ice’
Hm, never heard that one before, that there was ‘too much ice’ in 1979!
This looks back to 1950, and for NS, to 1810.

Two questions;
What might these charts look like if this work is extended to the present (ie 2011)?
Where is the ACCELERATION of ice sheet disappearance that the IPCC supporters keep telling us is occuring?

@Mike 6:55pm, @gaya hap 7:01pm
OK, OK. Yaawn.
I’ve heard all this before.
And lets bear in mind the fact that it has all happened before. Many times.
Remember that the net (Arctic + Antarctic) sea ice extent has not changed statistically.
Don’t forget the fact that all the supposed awful consequences are unproven at best and has otherwise been shown to be asolute piffle.
But you still expect me to jump up and down & bounce off the walls and urge the politicians to throw another trillion into “saving the planet”?
Really?
And if “Ad Hominems are a sign of weakness” perhaps you might nip over to RC or Climate Progress and wag your finger at them.
I may not “like” what R.Gates says on here. More often than not I disagree with what he says. But he doesn’t hide behind anonymity and he frequently makes thought provoking, sensible points. (OK, frequently not so much).
But I think he deserves some respect.
Anonymous trolls waving the same tired old shrouds around?
Sorry!I don’t think so.

The area graph from cryosphere shows 2010/11 below 2006/7
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.area.arctic.png
so Nanson looks dubious especially with JAXA also be figured in.
In regards to Arctic sea ice, as long as they are consistent it does not really matter. Perhaps they should call it Northern Hemisphere sea ice to stop people having their own definition of what Arctic means in this case?
Andy

Jer0me says:
March 24, 2011 at 8:01 pm
What matters is the word “below”, which makes it a temperatur DIFFERENCE (delta-T) instead of a temperature (T). Some people use tau or t for Celsius-temperature. You are correct to say that a delta-tau of 1°C is equal to a delta-T of 1 K, but it would be wrong of course to say tau=1°C is the same as T=1K.

sharper00 says:
March 24, 2011 at 4:09 pm
quote
“The definition is nebulous, and that’s part of the problem. “
No it isn’t, all that matters is that the area under examination is consistent. That’s it. Precisely what defines “The Arctic Ocean” is no doubt an interesting aside but ultimately it’s irrelevant just as if you were to try and bring in various border disputes with regard to regional temperature trends.
unquote
While I have a certain sympathy for this point of view, it may be that as you move further from the Pole different warming mechanisms may be involved. To treat the entire ice area as an entity will, in those circumstances, cause error.
Anyway, it’s the Kriegesmarine Effect: oil spills from the North Slope and the Okhotsk rigs smooth the water. This lowers the albedo and emissivity so the water warms quicker when the sun shines and cools more slowly at night. The edges of the ice sheet are slower to freeze in winter and quicker to melt in summer.
However*, note that a survey of the Okhotsk sea found minimal oil pollution from the rigs. No definition of ‘minimal’ was given. 5ml of light oil will smooth a hectare. It is a simple calculation to work out how much is needed to smooth the Okhotsk.
The image at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/4979953/Polar-bears-will-not-survive-without-urgent-action.html
shows the smoothing around melting ice. One wonders if ice entrains the pollution as it freezes, preserving it in a concentrated form to cause enhanced melting in the spring.
JF
*Thank you, Professor Feynman.

Sea ice. Who needs it? A summer of unrestricted shipping thru the Arctic ocean would be a fine economic stimulus.

Mike says:
March 24, 2011 at 6:44 pm
Of course the real issue is why is the Arctic region losing ice. Is it mostly from warmer than normal ocean water that was warmed elsewhere because of AGW? Or is the water warmer because of local AGW during the summer?
++++++++++
I am interested to know Mike, what you think the mechanism is for AGW to heat the oceans. I thought they were heated almost exclusively by the sun. Perhaps you can relate the present ocean cooling (since at least 2005) to the reduction in Arctic ice cover. Well…..not really reduction… let’s say ‘approximately stable area within a narrow range’.
I ask now because it was pointed out in 2007 on this channel that much warmer water entering the Bering Strait cause some melting in the Arctic and a great deal of the loss (not melting) was ice blowing east past Greenland as was well documented in the NASA photo times series.
If the ice area is about the same as it was in 2007, is warm water still the cause? Will the continuing drop in sea temperatures around the world affect the Arctic ice extent? Will the concomittant and continuing decline in air temperatures change the picture at all?

For the ice coverage in various sections of the NH check http://www.socc.ca/cms/en/socc/seaIce/pastSeaIce.aspx
“Regional Variability of Sea Ice Extent” and hover your mouse over the region of interest. The Arctic Ocean is one of the regions.

@ Mike Lorrey says: March 24, 2011 at 9:49 pm “Here’s an idea: get the raw sensor data from the satellite and do our own analysis…”
You might be interested in this:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Primer-Tropospheric-temperature-measurement-Satellite.html

The ice extent is completely within a reasonable explanation that centers on ENSO-warmed waters that were sent there, as well as AO parameters that moved ice and especially ice edges around. I see no reason to add CO2 affects to ice area or extent. Natural variability, both from oceanic and atmospheric sources, explains it well enough.
Until we get oceanic and atmospheric conditions that historically lead to more ice building in depth beyond its current edge, and staying through the melt season, yet ice is melting, the discussion of CO2 effects are entirely academic. Unless the warmists here are postulating that oceanic and atmospheric conditions are being driven by the CO2 in the air.

Humans have a silly grandiose perspective on themselves because they reduce gargantuan things in nature down to size and then think themselves now much bigger.
Ants don’t care whether or not a blade of grass is an inch taller or an inch shorter. And they thrive just the same.
We see the orange line around the Arctic and get our knickers in a twist because the ice isn’t snuggled up to, or even better, beyond that orange line.
Hubris. Plain and simple hubris.

Arctic sea ice volume and extent appear to be closely related to Arctic ocean heat content. From Bob Tisdale:
http://i51.tinypic.com/2eb5t39.jpg
From the above graph we observe that sattelite monitoring of sea ice extent began in 1979 when the arctic ocean heat content was at a low. Note that since 2007 heat content has rapidly dropped as sea ice volume has grown based on pips2 modeling.
This is expected from the development of negative NAO over the last two years. Climate modelers expected the NAO to remain positive and the ice cap to continue to shrink. Furthermore it is now understood that ice free waters around the perimeter of the sea ice in the winter allow heat to escape and thus provide a negative feedback to arctic sea ice melting.
While knowledge of sea ice extent before 1979 is limited, sea ice volume has been modeled and we see from the following graph that the thirty year decline in sea ice was due to positive NAO that is no longer with us.
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/zhang/IDAO/retro.html#NAO
I suspect that most arctic experts are quietly telling each other that we have begun a thirty year recovery of arctic sea ice volume. The Cryosat 2 sattelite launched last April will likely document the recovery to the embarassment of alarmists.

I suspect that most arctic experts are quietly telling each other that we have begun a thirty year recovery of arctic sea ice volume. The Cryosat 2 sattelite launched last April will likely document the recovery to the embarassment of alarmists.
____
Your suspicion would be dead wrong. Quite the contrary is what the experts in sea ice are saying. The experts in the cryosphere (sorry, Joe Bastardi is not an expert in this area) are all in agreement that arctic sea ice is in a long-term decline which will likely lead to an ice-free summer arctic sometime this century (and most likely sooner than later this century). Not only are they in agreement that it is in a long-term state of year-to-year decline, but they are in agreement that the cause in most likely the 40% increase in CO2 and it’s related positive feedback effects, with polar amplification of warming being key to the decline of sea ice.

Mr Gates,
As you know Steve Goddard is documenting the ice buildup from pip2s:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/huge-increase-in-thick-ice-over-the-last-three-years/
The buildup correlates with the negative NAO:
http://ioc3.unesco.org/oopc/state_of_the_ocean/atm/nao.php
I think it is interesting that the negative NAO and estimate sea ice volume buildup in the 1960’s was also associated with a decline in solar sunspot number. It is looking more and more like arctic sea ice volume and arctic ocean heat content are controlled by a top down solar forcing that determines the NAM phase.

Operation ice bridge has started up again.
http://www.iewy.com/20083-wheels-up-for-nasa-missions-most-extensive-arctic-ice-survey-2.html
It should be documenting the sea ice volume buildup since the missions began in 2009. The silence is deafening. If the volume was shrinking I think we would hear about it.

R. Gates, mind posting a link to the clam stick graph? Do you suppose they applied a well-known statistical maneuver to link both clams and observed temperatures together? If you use a proxy, you must show overlapping temperature correlations (or not) across the entire proxy. I would like to see that graph.
But as to your contention regarding warm water invasion, look no further than the AO which has slipped into negative and now somewhat neutral positive territory. That pressure system does a fine job of keeping warm air out or inviting it in (that includes changes in the Atlantic incoming current), depending on the pressure gradient, something you are well aware of.
You attribute changes in the AO to CO2 (but correct me if I’m wrong). At first AGW scientists were convinced that CO2 caused the AO to go positive and but then had to back peddle and say it the other way around. What are your thoughts on the AO now, since I assume you convict the CO2 driven AO for allowing warm water in?
Or are you saying that long wave radiation warmed the water elsewhere and it then traveled to the Arctic Circle where it was let in or not by the AO, whichever condition it is in? If you believe it to be CO2-warmed water, you will have to determine where that water was as it warmed, and how long it took to get to the Arctic.
Your theory is full of holes me thinks.

In response to the posting below:
As you know Steve Goddard is documenting the ice buildup from pip2s:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/huge-increase-in-thick-ice-over-the-last-three-years/
The buildup correlates with the negative NAO:
http://ioc3.unesco.org/oopc/state_of_the_ocean/atm/nao.php
I think it is interesting that the negative NAO and estimate sea ice volume buildup in the 1960′s was also associated with a decline in solar sunspot number. It is looking more and more like arctic sea ice volume and arctic ocean heat content are controlled by a top down solar forcing that determines the NAM phase.
We have a recent paper published in GRL (Stroeve et al., 2011) that details the impact the extreme negative AO phase from winter 2009/2010 had on the ice cover (the simple statistics that Goddard is using doesn’t quite work).
For those who cannot access the paper I give our conclusions:
Typically, the negative phase of the winter AO is associated with a strong Beaufort Gyre that sequesters sea ice in the Canada Basin where it can thicken and survive summer melt [e.g. Proshutinsky and Johnson, 1997]. The winter of 2009/2010 had the most extreme negative phase of the AO since at least 1951. Nevertheless, the September 2010 sea ice extent minimum ended up only 40,000 km2 above the minimum observed in 2008. Part of the explanation lies in pronounced differences in atmospheric circulation during winter 2009/2010 compared to the mean anomaly pattern based on past negative AO events. In particular, the wind field drove older ice directly across the Beaufort into the Chukchi Sea as opposed to curving northward in the western Beaufort While lending credence to arguments that the character of the AO may be changing [e.g., Wang et al., 2008; Overland et al., 2008], one must also recognize that the AO only explains roughly 50% of the SLP variability [Rigor et al., 2002]. Furthermore, ice conditions can be sensitive to slight shifts in the position of high and low pressure centers [e.g., Maslanik et al., 2006] that are not captured by EOF loading patterns.
The character of the sea ice is also changing. The spring ice cover is thinner than it was in the 1980s, with less old, thick MYI and a greater fraction of thinner first-year ice that is vulnerable to melting out in summer [Lindsay and Zhang, 2005; Maslanik et al., 2007]. Given that PIOMAS suggests a record low ice volume starting the 2010 melt season, it is perhaps not surprising that September 2010 ice extent was third lowest on record, despite atmospheric circulation less favorable to summer ice loss than observed in 2007 (record low September ice extent) and more MYI than seen in 2008 (second lowest) and 2009 (fourth lowest).
In the 1980s, winds associated with the strong Beaufort Gyre during negative AO winters would carry older, thicker sea ice from the Canadian Arctic towards the Eurasian Arctic, and older, thicker ice in the Eurasian Arctic towards the Canadian/central Arctic. However, during the last several years, most of this ice has melted out in summer before being able to re-circulate back to the Canadian Arctic [Maslanik et al., 2007]. Indeed, while the winter of 2009/2010 saw a substantial transport of the Arctic’s remaining store of old, thick ice into the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, the majority of this ice did not survive the summer melt season. This suggests that in the present warmer climate state, the tendency for a negative winter AO pattern to promote increased transport of ice into the western Beaufort/Chukchi Sea actually enhances summer ice loss. In our view, events of 2009/2010 did little to delay the Arctic Ocean’s ongoing transition to a seasonally ice-free state.

@george E. Smith says:
March 24, 2011 at 3:22 pm

Well I may be an old fuddy duddy; but “The Arctic” and the “Arctic Circle” are not one an the same; synonyms for each other.
When I went to school, , “The Arctic” was anything North of +60 deg Latitude. The “Arctic circle” is a menagery lion that runs around the earth right where the sun never rises (gometrically) in winter, and it wanders around in Latitude as the earth’s polar axis shifts.

Uhhhh…when did you go to school, when they taught that a celestial lion from the zodiac menagerie runs around the earth? Did you study under Archimedes, Plato or……? It must have been earlier, I don’t think they bought into that myth either.

Pamela Gray,
Don’t know which “theory” of mine you are referring to, since I have exactly 0 theories to my credit. The warmest water in the Arctic in 2,000 years is simply data, and not a theory, and my question to you was which natural cycle were you ascribing this warmth too, since you seem to take no credence in the notion that CO2 can warm much of anything.

Julienne,
Nice to see the PhD credentialed experts returning to this site for another exciting Arctic Ice melt season. It speaks well of Anthony and WUWT that he could bring both you and Walt to post here, and we are all better off for it.
In regard to the negative AO. While not directly related, I’m wondering what relationship there might be between the negative AO and the dipole anomaly, especially in light of the notion that the character of the AO may be changing. What I noticed just as a casual observer this winter was there seem to be some higher than chance correlation between the times the AO was extremely negative and presence of the arctic dipole. I ask this because it seems I often read that the “freezer door is open” so to speak when we are seeing an extreme negative AO, but at the same time, it seems we’re also seeing the existence of the DA, which tends to force the cold air across and out of the Arctic. Your expert comment of a connection between the potential changing nature of the negative AO and the DA would be most interesting to me…

R. Gates, I recently received an update of the DA index from Jim Overland (the index used in his 2010 Tellus paper).
Here are the last few years of the DJF DA Index and the AO index
Year DA AO
2011: -0.360 -0.913
2010: -0.340 -3.419
2009: -0.5196 0.259
2008: 0.1664 0.859
2007: 0.1890 1.003
2006: -2.700 -0.81
2005: -1.8171 0.105
Nothing much jumps out here in terms of a relationship between the two. And if I look at the entire record (1951-2011), there is little relationship between the two (r=-0.15). But there are times when they were more strongly linked (inversely), such as from 1990 to 2000 of r=-0.4. This last decade though there is been a weak positive relationship between the two indices, which may be a reflection of how the character of the AO is changing.
However, the DA isn’t a perfect index either. For example, it looks like a negative DA is one where there’s low pressure over Canada (for example, as in 2006, and/or high pressure over Siberia). In general though, when I look at the pressure fields I’m not finding that this DA index is doing a particularly good job at finding a clear DA pattern. For example, 2004 has a value of 1.84 so should show a pretty strong positive DA, but the SLPs look more like a pattern with strong high pressure over the Canada Basin rather than over Canadian Archipelago. 2005 (-1.82) looks a bit more like a negative DA pattern, but not particularly clear cut.

Julienne,
The folllowing link to the Polar Ice Center Rhetro page used PIOMAS to hindcast the arctic sea ice volume back to 1950.
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/zhang/IDAO/retro.html
Note the plot of NAO vs sea ice volume thickness. The model predicted that from 1962 until 1977 when negative NAO dominated the northern Hemisphere, sea ice volume was estimated to grow by almost 20×10^12 cubic meters. The decline since 1979 has been dominated by positive NAO. AGW models have predicted that positive NAO will persist. It has now changed to negative and will likely in my opinion be predominantly negative for the next twenty to thirty years which I believe the model should then predict sea ice volume growth.
At the top of the rhetro page are maps of multi age ice thickness distribution for 1979 and 2003 based on the model. Goddards pip2s map looks a lot closer to 1979 than 2003.
The real test will be the thickness map we expect to see from cryosat 2.
Incidently it has also been observed the the Labador/Bermuda transport index (gulf stream) declines during negative NAO.
The appearence of the strong NAO and declining arctic ocean heat content should severly test GCM models in the future.

Richar, like I said previously, just because you have a negative NAO phase that doesn’t necessarily mean you will have thicker sea ice. It depends on the location of the SLP anomalies. You can have a negative NAO phase and still see a decline in ice volume such as we observed last year. Remember, these indices only explain at most 50% of the SLP variations so other processes are going on. And you are also neglecting other changes such as ocean temperatures, background warming signal in the air temperatures, changes in the ice age, etc.
I would like to know why you believe the NAO will now stay in a negative phase for the next 20-30 years.
Just so you know, not every GCM predicts a positive NAO state in the future. In fact SLP is one of the least robust signals in the climate models (unlike air temperatures or Arctic sea ice decline) – there is a paper being published on that subject, and I’ll post the reference once its published. Many models predict a negative phase of the winter NAO as the Arctic Ocean becomes more ice free during summer.

@Smokey says:
March 25, 2011 at 12:23 pm
” @Mike:
Your Skeptical Pseudo-Science link claims that the official land temperatures are accurate, and that satellite temperatures are showing too much cooling. Doesn’t the fact that the official temperature record is always “adjusted” to show greater warming tell you what the record keepers are doing?? ”
Read: “The problems with Stratospheric cool biasing were recognised early and in 1992, Spencer & Christy at UAH introduced a new temperature product to remove the Stratospheric bias and focus more on the lower Troposphere. This removed most of the bias by mathematically combining readings from multiple view angles on the same scan to produce a reading weighted more strongly to the lower Troposphere.”
So now you think Spencer & Christy are in on the “lie”? How bizarre.

gaya hap says:
March 24, 2011 at 5:39 pm
Whose predictions? Time and Newsweek?
No. Not just the press. Apparently the CIA was fooled as well (along with all the “western world’s leading climatologists”).
A Study of Climatological Research as it Pertains to Intelligence Problems
United States. Central Intelligence Agency. Office of Research and Development
Washington, 1974
Library of Congress: QC981.8.C5 U513 1974
Open Library: OL5015750M
LC Control Number: 76603473
“The western world’s leading climatologists have confirmed recent reports of a detrimental global climatic change. The stability of most nations is based upon a dependable source of food, but this stability will not be possible under the new climatic era. A forecast by the University of Wisconsin projects that the earth’s climate is returning to that of the neo-boreal era (1600-1850) – an era of drought, famine, and political unrest in the western world.”

Its good to see all the traffic that Arctic Sea ice is getting.
Its only March and already the ‘alarmists’ are out in full force,
doing their spin on the sea ice subject.
I spend a great deal more time now visiting the ‘other’ side and tackling
the true denialists.
Everyone should try and get out a bit and see the ugliness, which is the Pro-AGW movement.
It makes it refreshing to come back to the most professional blog site on the internet.
If I have anything to add, it would only be my distrust of those that are employed by NASA and work at the NSIDC that support AGW. If Hansen can manipulate global temperatures with erroneous, fill in the blank type science, what is to stop the guys at NSIDC from attempting the same.
While I’m at it, I think the joint venture office in Fairbanks, between NASA and JAXA has also become suspect, though I wish I was wrong.
The data from JAXA was quite different from the NSIDC up until about this time last year. After that time, the progression to Arctic minimum looked quite different than previous years. Almost as if the graph was done with a human touch. There is something wrong with the loss of sea ice between March and September of 2010. It just doesn’t look natural.
What I mean is, is this, looking at the previous annual anomalies from JAXA and comparing them with 2010, the decline of sea ice seems different than the others. The March-September ’10 sea ice is almost a straight line, with a few step progressions. Not at all familiar with the previous annual anomalies, which showed some gradient curve towards arctic minimum. It just doesn’t look natural like the previous years.
Make me wonder if JAXA got some huge grant that gave them to opportunity to add a human touch to their data.

Looking at the plots whether it is NANSEN or NSIDC, one sees that the sea ice extent anomaly has pretty much remained below the mean -2sigma since 2005, especially in the summer time. Whether 2011 is a tie or close to 2007 is not important.
Some posters have said that they would like to see longer term data, and not just what we have on the satellite record. The best that we have is the study by Chapman et. al. which used ship log data to reconstruct the long term sea ice extent, based on the way ship logs correlated with the satellite data.
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/images/ice_extent.gif
It is seen that the seasonal averages have all declined since 1970, especially in spring and summer.
The question of whether the maximum value for 2011 is slightly higher or equal to
2007 is not really relevant, when looked at on that scale. The decline is clear, despite the year to year noise fluctuations.
Of course if one looks at the Arctic circle, it is probable that the percentage decline would be less. After all, one would expect that loss of ice would occur first at lower latitudes. If one desires to claim that the loss of sea ice is small, and not a problem,
it may help relieve the cognitive dissonance by redefinition of the Arctic region from what the experts in the Arctic have chosen.

Pamela Gray says:
March 25, 2011 at 9:20 am
We see the orange line around the Arctic and get our knickers in a twist because the ice isn’t snuggled up to, or even better, beyond that orange line.
Hubris. Plain and simple hubris.
=======================
Beyond hubris, Pamela.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

R. Gates says:
March 25, 2011 at 2:00 pm
Pamela Gray,
Don’t know which “theory” of mine you are referring to, since I have exactly 0 theories to my credit. The warmest water in the Arctic in 2,000 years is simply data, and not a theory, and my question to you was which natural cycle were you ascribing this warmth too, since you seem to take no credence in the notion that CO2 can warm much of anything.
========================
None to your credit MOST DEFINITELY and less than none that are actually believable…..regardless, your de facto implied “theory” is that of CO2.
And my question to you, R Gates, is to which “unnatural cycle” are you ascribing this warmth? Wow….let me guess….
Here is a nice classic circular reasoning quote from your “study.”
“Higher temperatures ‘are presumably linked to the Arctic amplification of global warming’, the study concluded, adding that global warming ‘is most likely another key element in the transition to a future ice-free Arctic Ocean’.”
Ya…yeah right….and monkeys will fly out of my _____.
‘Presumably linked’…lol.
That’s not good enough. You have to establish a link….not presume one!
Meanwhile actual scientific research that could benefit humanity….like tsunami hazard study….is sidelined…to the peril of millions…by a supposedly evil [according to the EPA] poison, horrible trace gas that kills us all, CO2.
This is reprehensible, complete and utter, unevolved, unscientific, backwards, stupid, criminal nonsense.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

Anthony, I would be very careful about the pedantic use of “arctic” and what if senarios.
What if using an arbitrary (from a climatic point of view), geographical cut-off shows more dramatic ice loss in recent years. How will this be used?
If you want to critisise the use of the *word* fine. Maybe they should call it N. hemisphere sea-ice extent (area …).
What matters in terms of the physics and heat capacity is clearly the total amount of ice , not whether is creeps over some magic circle draw by man.

Smokey says:
March 25, 2011 at 6:46 pm
Mike,
You keep linking to the same old debunked Skeptical Pseudo-Science post. You’re starting to sound just like Winston Smith, Orwell’s protagonist, who wonders if the State might declare “two plus two equals five” as a fact; he ponders whether, if everybody believes in it, does that make it true?
The models confidently predicted the tropospheric hot spot: the “Fingerprint of Anthropogenic Global Warming.” Even though the models have since been debunked in Prof McKittrick’s peer reviewed paper… maybe they’re really true anyway, because everybody believes in them. Right, Winston?☺
How bizarre.
What is bizarre is that you claim that the following Skeptical Science piece on the tropospheric hot spot has been debunked, and that the graphs you present shows that. However you don’t deal with the main point made by NASA and quoted in the piece.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/tropospheric-hot-spot-advanced.htm

Although on seasonal and annual scales, some radiosonde records are in relatively good agreement with theoretical and modeling expectations, on decadal timescales, they show less warming or even cooling of the upper troposphere. However, the tropics, especially at higher altitudes, are a notorious problem area for most if not all of the older radiosonde networks. And attempts to stitch together longer records from multiple networks (and integrate them with newer satellite records) have introduced problems as well. There have been many attempts to quantify and remove these biases (e.g. Randel 2006, Sherwood 2008). Although these attempts have managed to reconcile the observational data with theoretical and model expectations within overlapping uncertainty intervals, the real world behavior of the troposphere is still unclear (Bengtsson 2009, Thorne 2010).
http://www.skepticalscience.com/tropospheric-hot-spot-intermediate.htm

What does the full body of evidence tell us? We have satellite data plus weather balloon measurements of temperature and wind strength. The three satellite records from UAH, RSS and UWA give varied results. UAH show tropospheric trends less than surface warming, RSS are roughly the same and UWA show a hot spot. The difference between the three is how they adjust for effects like decaying satellite orbits. The conclusion from the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (co-authored by UAH’s John Christy) is the most likely explanation for the discrepancy between model and satellite observations is measurement uncertainty.
http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap1-1/finalreport/sap1-1-final-execsum.pdf

Phil
The point I was trying to make is that the sea ice concentration in the polar sea is far higher this year than in 2007. I am not making any claims about increased ice volume (I had enough of the PIOMASS v PIPS arguments last year) I am simply observing that, to put it simply, there is a greater ice to open water ratio this year despite a reduced overall extent.
When you consider the ice extent, it is calculated using 15% coverage or greater of ice. Looking closely at the two pictures at the top you will see that the vast mass of ice within the current boundary is considerably more concentrated now. The areas where there is low concentration are where the ice meets the north Atlantic. So I would suggest we will see a rapid drop in ice extent initially as this marginal low concentration ice melts, but this will be followed by a much slower decline when the melt edge reaches the more concentrated ice.
I consider the arguments of ice extent to be misleading because of the 15% figure. Let’s face it, if I saw a patch of ocean with 15% ice cover I would think of it as open water with some bits of ice floating on it. Ice in this concentration is far more susceptible to wind and currents, and of course has water all around it so will melt quicker (the smaller the chunks of ice, the quicker they will disappear).
Think of it another way. Assume the central area of polar ice is around 90%. Split it up into chunks and spread them out so that the concentration is 15% – six times the extent of the original but the same quantity of ice. Which version is likely to melt quicker, even without consideration of varying SST?

@george E. Smith says:
March 25, 2011 at 4:32 pm
George, we are talking about sea ice in this blog, not land ice. I realize it’s a confusion that many have; icebergs are often thought of as sea ice when in fact, they are not. It doesn’t help of course that the media sometimes shows pictures of icebergs when they are doing a sea ice story. But just to be clear, sea ice forms when the ocean freezes.

Richar, I suggest doing a correlation between the DJF NAO and the September ice extent.
For the NAO data go here: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/norm.nao.monthly.b5001.current.ascii.table
For the sea ice data go here: ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/
FYI…the correlation is 0.03 from 1979 to 2010.
The AO has a slightly better correlation of -0.1, which may be expected since the AO is a better representation for the Arctic than the NAO is, but it’s still not much.
But…we can go back a little further in time using the Had1SST data that tries to incorporate previous observations from ships, aircraft and earlier satellites. From this data set we can go back to about 1953 with some reliability.
If we do that, we see a stronger correlation emerge of -0.37 from 1953-2010 between
the DJF NAO index and the September ice extent. That’s still only a small % of the variability explained.

Smokey says:
March 26, 2011 at 10:20 am
savethesharks is right: R Gates’ constant refrain is that CO2 is the cause of declining Arctic ice. Gates recently stated that the ≈40% rise in CO2 is the cause of Arctic ice decline. Not a partial cause; the cause.
_____
I have no problem with the general tenet that the 40% increase in CO2 since the 1700’s plays a significant role in the current multi-decadal decline in Arctic Sea ice. I’ve never said that there might not be other natural factors involved, both currently and certainly during past fluctuations. It gets very difficult to start to dissect out positive-feedback or arctic warming amplification related causes from such as dynamical system. The only way to know for certain what the effects of the 40% rise in CO2 has had on Arctic sea ice is to have a second “control” earth, identical in every way except where CO2 was held in the 280 ppm range since the 1700’s. You’d then have to compare that control with the earth we have now, with CO2 approaching 400 ppm. If they were identical in every way, except for the CO2 change, and the control earth saw no major changes in the sea ice (or only natural variations) and we have the decline we see now, then we’d know it was CO2 that was the initial cause (and we could also see follow-on positive feedback related effects).
Now then, we don’t happen to have such a “control earth” but we do have several virtual ones, commonly known as Global Climate Models. These are far from perfect of course, and can’t really get at the deterministic chaos involved in the real earth systems, but they can indicate general trends. They show, nearly universally, that the 40% increase in CO2 since the 1700’s along with related positive feedback effects will lead to a decrease in arctic sea ice with the an eventual seasonally ice-free arctic sometime this century. To show how off these models can be, none of them predicted the sharp decline in arctic sea ice of 2007, as the curve downward to an ice-free arctic is far more steep than any models. To me, this miss shows that the models can spot trends, but not necessarily the slope or degree of those trends. This goes back to the deterministic chaos of the complex climate system. The sharp downward decline beginning in 2007 had many proximate “weather related” causes, but again, you’d need a control earth to see if the 40% rise in CO2 since the 1700’s was the actual root cause.
So yes, I do put at least a 75% probability that the 40% increase in CO2 since the 1700’s is the root cause of the current decline in Arctic sea ice. I would suspect the majority of experts in the field would agree with this general statement, though they might even put their own probability higher than my modest 75%. If some don’t agree with this general statement, I would welcome their perspectives and reasons why and take it as an opportunity to learn.

R. Gates says:
March 25, 2011 at 10:31 pm
ClimateForAll says:
March 25, 2011 at 5:38 pm
“Make me wonder if JAXA got some huge grant that gave them to opportunity to add a human touch to their data.”
___
This statement is nonsense.
From a powerpoint regarding JAXA mission statement here :

Concept of the Global Change Observation Mission-
For monitoring global environmental change and prediction.
Goal of GCOM-
long term monitoring and climate change models
Role of JAXA with GCOM –
Attributing environmental change to particular cause for effective measure of adaptation and reduction.
Result
Decision Making –
Data distribution to operational users; fishery, ocean route, weather forecast, agriculture, etc. .
Data –
Operational Use for Global environmental change monitoring and contribution to elucidation of change mechanism.
Result
Knowledge

Looking at this one update report from JAXA, lays a pretty good foundation for my assumption.
JAXA has an agenda. In their mission to supply data products, one of their aims is to make predictions, in regards to climate change. To quote once again a part of what I read, was this: ‘Attributing environmental change to particular cause for effective measure of adaptation and reduction.’
I am skeptical of any scientific service that proclaims to acknowledge that part of its service is to attribute cause to environmental change using climate models. Especially if that service is using models to suggest that carbon as a trigger for rise in temperature or wator vapor or any other atmospheric attribute.
It has been a well known fact that some scientists have a better chance at receiving grants, if their mission is ‘green’.
I don’t think that the grants that JAXA is receiving now would be as much or as with such proliferation, during a time with such economical depression, if their mission statement didn’t include climate change.
Mind you that this is just my opinion.
My main concern is that the data from AMSRE might somehow be altered, with some certain preconceived understanding of causative effects.
I would place more trust in a service that didn’t choose a side in debate that isn’t settled.
Thats all I am saying.
If thats nonsense…..
So be it.

Werner Brozek says:
March 26, 2011 at 7:32 pm
If a 40% increase in CO2 has such a huge effect in the north, then why does it not have the same effect in the south?
____
If you’re as smart as I think you are, I’m sure you really know the answer to this, but in the off chance that you’re not, and for others education I would suggest you read:
http://nsidc.org/seaice/characteristics/difference.html
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/SeaIce/page4.php
http://www.discoveringantarctica.org.uk/alevel_2_1.html
The short of it is- the arctic and antarctic, other then being at the extremes of the earth, are about as different as they could be in terms of their weather and climate dynamics. The Arctic has always been shown to warm earliest and more severely than the Antarctic in all GCM’s, and for very good reasons (as discussed in the links above).

@Pamela Gray says:
March 26, 2011 at 5:19 pm
Julienne, I was referring to your solar comment. You seemed to suggest that a top-down solar driver is at work. How so? If you think there is a connection there, it would make sense to see if this sea ice volume observation stands up to other solar historical sunspot number decline. A one time observation is a very fragile case indeed.
You said:
“I think it is interesting that the negative NAO and estimate sea ice volume buildup in the 1960′s was also associated with a decline in solar sunspot number. It is looking more and more like arctic sea ice volume and arctic ocean heat content are controlled by a top down solar forcing that determines the NAM phase.”
Pamela, that was not my comment. That was from Richar that 1225.

“R. Gates says:
March 26, 2011 at 9:37 pm
The short of it is- the arctic and antarctic, other then being at the extremes of the earth, are about as different as they could be in terms of their weather and climate dynamics.”
I have no problem with everything that it says in those three articles. Virtually everything in there could have been written 200 years ago if scientists had studied it then. The basic topography is one thing. But I do not see a unique CO2 signature in it. CO2 has increased in both places, yet only one shows much warming. That leads me to believe something else is going on that has nothing to do with CO2. See: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/warming_aerosols.html
“Though greenhouse gases are invariably at the center of discussions about global climate change, new NASA research suggests that much of the atmospheric warming observed in the Arctic since 1976 may be due to changes in tiny airborne particles called aerosols….(B)lack carbon emissions have steadily risen, largely because of increasing emissions from Asia….The Arctic region has seen its surface air temperatures increase by 1.5 C (2.7 F) since the mid-1970s. In the Antarctic, where aerosols play less of a role, the surface air temperature has increased about 0.35 C (0.6 F). That makes sense, Shindell explained, because of the Arctic’s proximity to North America and Europe.”

Sorry, I just can’t help myself.
Forgive me now for this minor rant.
Co2 statistical figures that I’m seeing atm here in the comments is
making me laugh.
70% of 40% of this and that from here or there doin this or that.
It’s freaking hilarious.
Let me inject this.
Some statistical analysis suggests that 3% of current Co2 levels comprises mans contribution to current Co2 levels. That would put man made Co2 at 11.71 ppm.
Thats less than 12 parts per million. 12 of 1,000,000 parts.
And supposedly, over the next 100 years, with some rise, maybe, in Co2 levels will rise global temperatures by a half of a degree….+/- .5
Another scientific analysis also suggests that Co2 rises or falls, some 80-230 years, following temperature.
If there is any validity to this, one could hypothesize that if global temperatures were high in the 30’s, then given a 80 year window, Co2 could just be rising from that theory and have absolutely nothing to do with current man-made Co2 at all.
Now regarding ‘black’ carbon, either man-made or from forest fires or vulcanized, has been attributed to decreasing temperatures, through blanketing the atmosphere with aerosols, that trap vapor and block ultra violet rays from entering the atmosphere.
Now, if I dare, other factors may, may, play a key role in lowering temperatures.
Increased CGR’s, reduction in helio-illuminosity and noctilucent clouds may play a key part in global temperatures.
What I am saying is this…
The science isn’t settled. And the more someone entrenches themselves in figures that are vague and/or misleading only drives and even larger wedge in the debate.
If we are truly here to uncover the facts of climate, I suggest we unshackle ourselves from acting as if we know anything at all and look at all the possibilities.
Otherwise, whats the point of it all.
Vanity?
Pride?
Political?
Hubris?
Take your pick.

Arctic sea ice extent appeared to reach its maximum extent for the year on March 7, marking the beginning of the melt season. This year’s maximum tied for the lowest in the satellite record.
Mean while in the real world
More than 120 vessels have become stranded in ice in the Gulf of Finland, with their number growing by 20 ships every day, the St. Petersburg seaport administration said on Monday.
The Gulf of Finland has been iced over for more than a month, with dozens of ships waiting for assistance because they are unable to ply their way through the heavy one-meter-thick ice floes. The situation in the gulf deteriorated last week after a cyclone from the Norwegian Sea hit the region.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20110328/163243727.html