NASA finally admits it Arctic cyclone in August ‘broke up’ and ‘wreaked havoc’ on sea ice — Reuters reports Arctic storm played ‘key role’ in this season’s sea ice reduction.
‘The cyclone remained stalled over the arctic for several days…pushing [sea ice] south to warmer waters where it melted’
Monday, September 24, 2012 – By Marc Morano – Climate Depot
In a September 18 video posted by NASA on its website, they admit that the Arctic cyclone, which began on August 1, “wreaked havoc on the Arctic sea ice cover” by “breaking up sea ice.” (NASA story here)
Global warming activists have been giddy in their hyping of the satellite era record low Arctic sea ice extent while ignoring the satellite record sea ice expansion in the Antarctic.
Many climate activists have sought to downplay the significance that the Arctic cyclone played on this year’s summer sea ice in the Arctic. But this new inconvenient video report from NASA now makes the warmists’ attempt to deny the cyclones role in 2012’s Arctic sea ice conditions — impossible.
The September 18 NASA video notes: “A powerful storm wreaked havoc on the Arctic sea ice cover in August 2012. This visualization shows the strength and direction of the winds and their impact on the ice: the red vectors represent the fastest winds, while blue vectors stand for slower winds.”
Reuters news service filed a September 21 report based on NASA’s video admission titled: “NASA says Arctic cyclone played ‘key role’ in record ice melt.” The news segment details how the Arctic sea ice was reduced due to “a powerful cyclone that scientists say ‘wreaked havoc’ on ice cover during the month of August.” (Reuters on “Arctic Cyclone” — 0:47 second long segment — Rob Muir reporting.)
Reuters – Sept. 21 – “NASA says a powerful cyclone formed off the coast of Alaska in early August and moved toward the center of the Arctic ocean, weakening the already thin sea ice as it went.
A large section North of the Chukchi Sea was cut off by the churning storm and pushed south to warmer waters where it melted.
The cyclone remained stalled over the arctic for several days…Scientists say a similar storm decades ago would have had much less impact on the sea ice because they say the ice was not as vulnerable then as it is now.”
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End Reuters news segment.
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“Scientists say a similar storm decades ago would have had much less impact on the sea ice because they say the ice was not as vulnerable then as it is now.’
But of course…
”
it would be interesting to see a similar model of 2007….. and then compare to other years….
“Scientists say a similar storm decades ago would have had much less impact on the sea ice because they say the ice was not as vulnerable then as it is now.”
“would have” Not “did” The climate shill at Reuters can’t cite such a storm having less affect or they would have.
How does the AMO impact ice levels in the Arctic? Unless I am reading the graphs wrong we had the peek in AMO a few years back and are now heading to the bottom of the dip and have give or take another 12 years. Are we expecting to once again have an increase in ice as we move to the bottom?
@RobRoy –
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/arctic-storm.html
8 out of 34 years had similar storms.
May I suggest that a Reference Page on the tropical troposphere, with a comparison of measured temperatures and “greenhouse” predicted temperatures, would better inform the CAGW debate? The bipolar nature of the cryosphere and the influence of megaprojects on the arctic portion encourage a selective and biased discussion.
It’s clearly the “it’s not as bad as it looks” case and it’s good that NASA admits it openly. The animation is great, too. In next few years we may expect higher summer minima than this year – but I’m afraid they’ll by mostly below 2007 anyway. It won’t just look that bad with the new minimum set now.
Would any one like to bet a 6-pack of Butte Creek Brewing’s finest IPA that this will never see the light of day on Andy Revkin’s DotEarth, the science pages of the NYTimes or any other MSM outlet? And certainly not on NPR’s Science Friday or the News Hour with Jim Lehrer!
It should also be noted that the weather pattern over the last 10+ years in the arctic has consistently pushed much of the perimeter “loose” ice into warmer water, hence adding to the vulnerability to such a storm. There have been several papers and posts on said subject that provide insight to a very complex system.
But 97% of the world’s scientists know that Arctic cyclones are caused by global warming, so therefore it’s worse than we thought.
/sarc
But we all know storms are caused by AGW. We’ll have more storms, more bigger storms, more costly storms, more unpredictable storms, storms in weird locations and at weird times. So I’d think that a storm breaking up the ice in-and-of itself is further proof of AGW…
Speaking of storms, we are at the peak of the hurricane season on the east coast. Where have all the hurricanes been? Did AGW take the season off (again)?
” the ice was not as vulnerable then as it is now.””
Nuclear subs managed to punch holes in it with no problem. Indeed, the USS Skate was the first sub to surface through the arctic winter ice in 1958,
So, CO2 has increased it’s arsenal when it decides to attach the precious Arctic Ice? Now it can zap it with heat, or use kinetic energy./sarc.
With all the excitement over ice coverage minima, I decided to look at the length of the melting period. Both NH and SH.
http://i49.tinypic.com/200ady8.png
I chose to plot Antarctic freezing period (ie one year less the melting) so that each point represents the same calendar period. Melting = 1 – freezing , so it’s the same information.
A few point stand out:
1. antarctic freezing has been generally increasing since the record begain in 1979.
2. arctic melting season got shorter in ’80s; longer in late 80’s, early 90’s and has been getting shorter since 1995.
3. Three longer melting outliers in the Arctic seem unrelated to shorter melting outliers.
4. Shorter term variations at each pole seem to correlate negatively, ie. longer melting matches longer freezing: polar see-saw.
Ignoring the odd outlier events, arctic melting season was longest in 1995. Yet another index that demonstrates a change of direction at the time.
UAH lower tropo rate of change also dropping since that year.
http://i45.tinypic.com/2lt1r4l.png
For all we know there might have been similar or worse storms in the arctic in the past decades and now the situation is what it is – record low and will probably be with a pretty big margin before the winter sets in again. I was expecting the ice sheet to “recover” from the low point in 2007.
I am waiting for ” … as predicted. According to the models, these cyclones will become more common and intense in the future as CO2 levels … “
So what happened to “da bears” ?
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_c7S0Y3wBP9g/TUsOBSEe5EI/AAAAAAAAC40/k_Hv_GzTHaw/s400/polar-bear-on-ice.jpg
The storm pushed “da rowers” into safe harbor:
http://signalnews.com/arctic-row-storm-1046
I bet the bears are even smarter…
Watch the animation carefully and, you can spot the NorthWest Passage open up for 3 days around the 8th of September.
I wonder how many rowboats, kayaks, and other conveyances made it through…
From http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/arctic-storm.html – “…there have only been about eight storms of similar strength during the month of August in the last 34 years of satellite records.”
And those previous storms had much less effect, due to considerably thicker ice in the past: http://psc.apl.washington.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/schweiger/ice_volume/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrentV2.png?%3C?php%20echo%20time%28%29%20?
This doesn’t bode well for the effects of future storms, given the downward trends in Arctic ice volume, area, and extent.
CO2 is just insidious. It can infect brain behavior and skew statements of vast numbers of interest groups and science agencies.
Interestingly the news media in South Africa are saying it has been the coldest winter there in 100 years. Coupled with the Antarctic ice expansion this does seem to challenge some of the more hysterical estimates being bandied about.
Incidently, I note that the ‘hundreds of emails’ and ‘petition’ demanding Anthony’s removal from the PBS debate, seem to have been orchestrated by one specific AGW promoter. Surely evidence they are scared of losing their massive ‘research’ gravy train?
Jo Nova still suspended
http://joannenova.com.au/cgi-sys/suspendedpage.cgi
Soooooo.Just how did the RCMP vessel the Roch get through in the 30’s? Rode a storm?
One good thing about all of this is that it has made some of the warmists come out into the open with even crazier alarmist pedictions of doom. The likes of Neven et al are going to look pretty dumb when the loss of energy caused by the storms’ churning over of the Arctic halocline results in an increase in ice and possibly a start in the recovery of sea ice. Next year is going to be really interesting as it looks likely that the Warmists have only been given a short respite by that summer cyclone…
dvunkannon says:
September 24, 2012 at 12:07 pm
@RobRoy –
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/arctic-storm.html
8 out of 34 years had similar storms.
===========
Which 8 years? Did they correspond to the outliers in Arctic melting season:
http://i49.tinypic.com/200ady8.png
2007 and this year would be two matches.
Looking at the anomaly plot on WUWT ice page, the post 2007 period is notable for its much larger swings in ice extent. This is probably because ice is thinner, quick to melt and quicker to reform:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png
What the media does not harp on about is that the summer max ice extent has been close to the 30 average since 2007. They just get all excited about a new minumum and ignore the rest of the year’s data.
Cherry picking at its best.
The overall trend since 2007 seems to be more ice More open water , more evaporation, negative feedback ?
If there’s supposed to be a “tipping point” is seems to be tipping the wrong way.