Hamster wheels and sea ice explained

“From the University of Calgary Utoday:”
I am not when “Utoday” is …

Uhm, increased storms? I remember after Katrina hit that the predictions were that the following year would be the worst and strongest hurricane season we had ever seen.
If I am not mistaken, the following year we had ZERO hurricanes make land fall in the US. And again, if I am not mistaken, the reason was the ocean was too cool to make a powerful storm.
So, if we have a lot of ice melt-off, might the oceans be cooler and we will end up with less violent storms? And with the cooler oceans the climate might cool and then we will have less melt-off next year?
Then again I am guessing. And then again, I think a lot of climatologists are too. ( Blog owner exempt from that comment )

“In the last million years.” A comment that is so wrong it removes all credibility. One million years includes three previous interglacials and the last 5,000 years of the Holocene Optimum all of which were markedly warmer than today.

From the UToday website;
“Yackel, a sea ice geophysicist and climatologist.”
Is that the climate equivalent of an “Astrologist.” i.e. One who studies Astrology?

“When there’s no longer that sea ice below the air mass and it’s just open ocean, that’s when more moisture off the ocean’s surface gets into the atmosphere and the water vapor in the atmosphere makes for more violent storms,” says Yackel.
As the Earth’s surface is 70% water (around 361 sq Km), why is it so dramatic that the Arctic being ice free will make so much difference? The Arctic ice changes around 9M sq km so seems pretty small compared to the persistent, always evaporating, 350M sq Km remaining.

“This is the smallest minimum ice extent we’ve ever had, and not just in the satellite record, but probably in the last million years,”
Why not make it a couple hundred million while he’s at it? More than 33 years ago is a bit of a crap shoot anywho.

Think of a poor hamster on a spinning wheel, caught up by momentum and unable to stop until it’s overwhelmed, sent tumbling, crashing out of control inside.

A good descripton of the AGW hysteria …

Again and again and again – the same scare, the same story: Further warming (“runaway, per chance?) because less ice around the north-pole ice reflects less sunlight. Has the good professor ever heard of the reflecting properties of water, particularly in respect of the angle at which the sunlight hits the north pole? Has he ever considered the insulating capabilities of ice, perhaps thought of designing one of these wonderful and ever so accurate climate models which includes the reduced insulation? I am really tired of this never ending doomesday propaganda.
“We can also expect this doomesday cult to linger on until the funding countries are finally bancrupt. There is a high probability that this event, bancrupcy, will occur before the “great global warming catastrophy” happens.
A very nice day to all of you. Autumn has begun in the northern hemisphere, temperatures are falling accordingly.

He is not joking? A real McCoy?

Tiny Tim’s Global Sea Ice prediction circa 1960’s.

Think of a healthy hamster on a spinning wheel, caught up by momentum but using negative feedback to slow it down and regain his balance, then positive feedbacks to speed up again.
That is a stable system, with feedbacks , that runs in a cycle.

@Graphite: Brilliant!!!!
“And maybe effort should be put into producing better wheels . . . some sort of braking system and paw rails would be a start.”
You are absolutely right. Yackel’s article really highlights the fundamental importance of a properly designed hamster wheel. Like yourself, I too am deeply concerned about the safety and well being of hamsters.

“This is the smallest minimum ice extent we’ve ever had, and not just in the satellite record, but probably in the last million years,” says Yackel, a sea ice geophysicist and climatologist.
Uh-huh. Yeah, right. That tells me how much credence to give his statements, which is none at all.

Do you think someone should tell him that the antarctic sea ice is currently over 1 000 000km2 greater than the last 30 year average. And probably at its greatest extent for at least a thousand years, no I mean a million years. This could mark the start of a terrifying trend.
Its a Doctor Yakel and Mr Hyde phenomenon.

We raise hamsters for local pet shops. And Yes, some of them do run in the wheels until they crash. And sometimes, while they are running, others jump in and hold for dear life, going around and around and around… we’ve even seen one or two running, and another one or two just tumbling head over tail, on the same wheel.
They do it constantly enough that we’re pretty sure they are just having fun.
Now, she can figure they would cheerfully destroy the planet to keep on running, or she can find a more intelligent analogy.

This is not science – any scientist who writes a paper that includes the term ‘frightening’ is not a scientist. Then to cap it by being carried away with excitement saying perhaps that this was the smallest in a million years when the northern ice melt in Greenland is only just showing the remains of arable farms on Greenland from the medieval warm period.
The next question is why the lack of ice should be so disconcerting for them.We are at the cooler end of the Holocene. It would appear that when the Arctic was last melted the Sahara was a lush pasture with domesticated animals being kept. See http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/09/18/low-no-ice-arctic-5000-bc/ . Would the greening of the Sahara be seen as a bad thing?
These ‘scientists’ have seen an extremely brief snapshot of a process made up of multiple cycles and start panicking without even bothering to check history.

Are you sure it shouldn’t be Professor Yaffle? As UK readers are more likely to know Professor Yaffle was a wooden woodpecker in the children’s programme “Bagpuss” given to unlikely explanations for events; need I say more?

Otter says: They do it constantly enough that we’re pretty sure they are just having fun.
SasjaL says: A good descripton of the AGW hysteria …
evidence is mounting that AGW alarmists display the same behavioural patterns as hamsters.

“Giant ‘hamster wheel’ Irish Sea challenge”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-19543541
“A Wiltshire engineer is planning to walk non-stop across the Irish Sea in a giant hamster wheel.”

While Arctic ice has been more or less in place for millions of years, it is generally accepted that episodes of considerably reduced sea ice or even seasonally ice-free conditions occurred during warmer periods linked to orbital variations. The last low-ice event related to orbital forcing (high insolation) was in the early Holocene. For a detailed review on the history of Arctic ice this paper which is not paywalled is well worth reading
http://bprc.osu.edu/geo/publications/polyak_etal_seaice_QSR_10.pdf

The old seadog. says:
September 26, 2012 at 12:49 am
Almost 200 years ago , the UK Admiralty was saying much the same thing…..
Yes, but with one important difference. Although they seem to have thought that the warming trend they had observed would continue (it didn’t) they did not try to extrapolate too far into the future or the remote past. The people in the Royal Navy who speculated about trends in ice coverage of the Arctic Ocean did not overestimate their knowledge in the way that some climate scientists do today.

Roy, you are aware aren’t you that Arctic sea ice extent has been shrinking much *faster* than in the model projections, see e.g. http://www.realclimate.org/images/seaice10.jpg, in fact the current sea ice extent is below the lower limit of the credible interval of the ensemble. Sea ice extent is an example where the models (and climatologists) are obviously unduly optimistic.

Why is the trend always frightening??? Even if the Arctic is getting warmer that in itself is a good thing. The UK gets warmer, Russian and Canadian wheat fields become more productive. Sadfly I suspect Summer 2013 will bring lots of sea ice, because its clear that the year to year variation in sea-ice extent is far greater than any underlying trend. Furthermore, the tipping point clearly is nowhere near being reached, because that winter sea-ice keeps on coming back.

““This is the smallest minimum ice extent we’ve ever had, and not just in the satellite record, but probably in the last million years,” says Yackel, a sea ice geophysicist and climatologist.”
And probably not with equal odds. The principle of insufficient reason rules here.
“From the patterns he has observed, this year’s extreme melt could be the beginning of a frightening trend.”
And it could be the beginning of nothing and/or something awesome with equal odds. Same reason as before.
““In the last 20 years we’ve almost gotten to the point where we’ve reversed that ratio,” Yackel says, predicting the ice extent that covers the Arctic Ocean “is likely to be gone in the summers within the next 20 to 25 years, if not sooner.””
“And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their streets together, and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual board of aldermen. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.” — Mark Twain
“The depleting ice cover would have serious ramifications for the planet. Arctic ice acts as a reflector of sunlight, helping regulate the Earth’s temperature, cooling the climate.”
At high angles of incidence the reflectivity of water exceeds the albedo of sea ice.
““When there’s no longer that sea ice below the air mass and it’s just open ocean, that’s when more moisture off the ocean’s surface gets into the atmosphere and the water vapor in the atmosphere makes for more violent storms,” says Yackel.”
Which increases cooling of arctic waters. But increases the abundance of the notorious greenhouse gas H2O.
““We can also expect to see an increase in storm frequency and storm intensity for most of the world’s populated places as the Arctic and Earth continues to warm.””
Which can only happen if the temperature differential increases between the poles and elsewhere. Which does not occur under his own scenario.
Despite all the clip-art phrases and common wisdom that gets bandied about: This subject is so unstudied that we are not even able to speak credibly about what differences can occur with and without sea ice in the arctic. And then there’s the Antarctic.

Roy, you do know that Arctic sea ice extent is shrinking *faster* than the climatologists models predicted, don’t you?
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/01/2010-updates-to-model-data-comparisons/
(repost as initial post didn’t appear)

Garethman, thirty years ago we had similar rainfall yet with more ice cover so there is no logical correlation…
It’s called weather, sometimes at this time of year it dumps the heavy rain on Ireland, sometimes in the Irish Sea, sometimes in the North Sea. This time it just happened to dump it on the land in between the latter two. It only takes a shift of a few hundred miles in the path of a low pressure system, something well within the natural boundaries of normal weather patterns.
Why does everything have to be down to some doomist climate theory?

“Garethman says:
September 26, 2012 at 2:10 am
IN the UK we have just had the heaviest 24 hours of rainfall for 30 years. This is in addition to a
wet cold summer and cold winters, the 4th year in a row. It may be all coincidental, but it’s looking suspicious that the ice has dramatically declined in the same period.”
=========
“The beginning of the 14th Century is marked by one of
the great disasters of human history. The rain started in 1315, and
continued particularly in the summers for 7 years.”
Above quote from http://geochemistry.usask.ca/bill/Courses/Climate/The%20Great%20Famine_prt.pdf
Just to put things in perspective!

But surely Arctic sea ice is self regulating?
Won’t all that recently formed almost fresh melt water due to the August storm driving the ice south be floating on the surface of the North Atlantic and be carried back into the Arctic to quickly re-freeze?
And won’t the sinking of cold briney water South of Greenland now slow down and in turn slow down the drift north of warm water?

Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth – where are you?
26 Sept: Bishop Hill: Wood insanity be the reason?
Insanity is a possibility, but more likely this is just the great law of unintended consequences – so often a feature of well-meaning politicians. Drax, a major UK energy generator is about to convert one of its major power stations to burn wood. Since wood is categorised as a renewable energy source this plan will enable them to escape the EU’s strictures against fossil fuels…
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2012/9/26/wood-insanity-be-the-reason.html

Could someone send me a package of global warming. I am down at Bryce Canyon Utah with a couple of horses doing an endurance ride. I had to get up in the middle of the night two nights ago and drill holes in the floor of my living quarters horse trailer cause a pipe burst and I had 25 gallons of water pumped onto the floor. Hay, maybe that is where the missing arctic ice has gone. Got the furnace cranked up now and the door to the water pump open to keep it from freezing.. Just where is that Global Warming when you need it?/sarc off

“It may be all coincidental, but it’s looking suspicious that the ice has dramatically declined in the same period.”
Doubly suspicious as the temperature in the Arctic has been below or at average over the whole of the summer.
What we have here are wannabe witch-doctors, unfortunately they’re practising in the wrong era, there is too much information to hand for their outpourings to have any effect on those that don’t want to be affected.

Garethman says:
September 26, 2012 at 2:10 am
>>
IN the UK we have just had the heaviest 24 hours of rainfall for 30 years. This is in addition to a wet cold summer and cold winters, the 4th year in a row. It may be all coincidental, but it’s looking suspicious that the ice has dramatically declined in the same period.
>>
The ice extent has NOT declined in that period it has increased! What is suspicious is why we are told to look just at the minimum. Swings have been increasing in both directions, maxima have gone up as well , they just don’t put that in headlines (in fact they don’t even mention it).
Look at the anomaly data, note the increased swings:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png
now if we plot ALL the data with a 6m or 12m filter we get to see that ice extent is recovering. The big melt ended in 2007:
http://i48.tinypic.com/dzj70k.png

We just need more hamsters??

Where’s all this water hiding, because it isn’t in the atmosphere:
http://www.climate4you.com/GreenhouseGasses.htm#Atmospheric%20water%20vapor
Maybe it’s hanging out with all that missing heat!

Soup: “Sea ice extent is an example where the models (and climatologists) are obviously unduly opt’imistic.”
Optimistic’, just a kind word for ‘wrong again’.

I understand Anthony published this without comment, as yet another display of climate “science”…
Lord save me – momentum of hamsters, frightening trends, increased storms.
Interesting that no CO2 is mentioned, or drowning polar bears.

Graphite says:
September 25, 2012 at 11:33 pm
Do hamsters on spinning wheels get caught up by momentum, become unable to stop until they’re overwhelmed and are sent tumbling, crashing out of control inside?
I’d have thought they’d just run out of puff, slow down until they regain their breath then kick on again.
http://www.achgut.tv/20110623674/
If climate alarmism ever tires of pandas & penguins as heralid animals…

Somebody’s gotta say it: ‘Mr. Yackel and Mr. McCoy’s wheels are turning but their hamsters are dead’. Or maybe: ‘It’s life Jim, but not as we know it’.
Somebody should start a collection of the worst climate catastrophe analogies, metaphors and such — a kind of Climate Hall of Dumb.

It the Arctic ice pack effectively disappears in summers, so what?
The historical illiteracy (out right deception?) demonstrated by Yackel is interesting.
This is almost as good as the hysterical prediction of Arctic sea ice disappearing even in winter this century made by some putz recorded over at Tom Nelson’s site.

Here is an e-mail I sent to Dr. Yackel. I’ll let everyone know if he responds.
Dear Dr. Yackel: I read your article on Arctic sea ice and am troubled by your assertion that:
“This is the smallest minimum ice extent we’ve ever had, and not just in the satellite record, but probably in the last million years,”
Please provide documentation of this claim, specifically, the assertion that the ice extent is probably the smallest in the last million years. The following links are to studies suggesting that the during the Holocene, the Arctic Ocean was likely ice-free for periods during the Arctic summer.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379110003185
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007AGUFMPP11A0203F
If you are unable to provide documentation of your assertion, then you bring opprobrium and embarrassment upon yourself and the University of Calgary by making scientifically undocumented, outlandish, and unsubstantiated claims.
Sincerely,

“Arctic ice acts as a reflector of sunlight, helping regulate the Earth’s temperature, cooling the climate.”
For someone who claims to be an expert on the Arctic, he sure doesn’t know much about the Arctic.

I’ve read several papers recently that have found that the arctic has been ice free several times in the last million years.
Surely, even in Canada, 4M sq. mi. is greater than 0 sq. mi.

Hamster wheels are passe. Now they run around in clear plastic balls, going wherever they want in a random walk (run) until they bang into something. Which btw is a better metaphor for the arctic climate system — a more complex behavior with limits — than the cartoonish one presented by McCoy

Otter says: “They do it constantly enough that we’re pretty sure they are just having fun.”
SasjaL says: “A good descripton of the AGW hysteria …”
P. Solar says: “evidence is mounting that AGW alarmists display the same behavioural patterns as hamsters.”
prjindigo says: “Hamsters with lofty aspiration towards lemminghood, it seems.”
More like aspirations toward Disney “science”:
http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/lemmings.asp
As with the lemming hoax, CAGW “scientists” put the story line above the truth.

Tim Ball said:

“In the last million years.” A comment that is so wrong it removes all credibility. One million years includes three previous interglacials and the last 5,000 years of the Holocene Optimum all of which were markedly warmer than today.

It doesn’t matter for their PR though. They can just say anything they want laced with “alarmist speak”, and the ultra-liberal knowledge-hostile academic environment sops it up like a dry mop.

“This is the smallest minimum ice extent we’ve ever had, and not just in the satellite record, but probably since the MWP” says Yackel, a sea ice geophysicist and climatologist.
There, fixed it.

Re: Jimbo 3:01 am
RE: Yackel’s: but probably in the last million years
Your two abstracts give an explaination to the “last million years”. The second abstract talks about probably for a millenium or more,
million years == millenium
Simple mistake. Anyone could do it. Either Yackel has to work on his handwriting, or learn to insist on reviewing PR pieces where he is quoted incorrectly.
Either way, Yackel probably has learned a lesson here.
And so have we. Yackel == Cackle

Looking at the charts, I see that there wasn’t anything particularly special about the 2012 sea ice extent until mid August this year. Is that really what we would expect from global warming? A sudden step-change in the level of ice over a matter of days? I think not. The storm on 1st August seems much more likely to be the culprit. I love the way Team AGW gets all excited about this kind of thing though – it clearly shows how vacuous their argument is or they’d have the wit to realise what utter tosh they are talking.

He needs to weight that evaporation against the sublimation that was happening and less sublimation that will happen due to the area of glaciers supposedly being reduced. Also it would depend on wind speeds. It’s certainly more complex problem than the article makes out.

dikranmarsupial says:
September 26, 2012 at 3:02 am
Roy, you do know that Arctic sea ice extent is shrinking *faster* than the climatologists models predicted, don’t you?

Thanks for the great information. Can you now tell me what the cause[s] are for the shrinkage over the last 33 years odd years?

Maybe someone can explain the following apparent discrepancy to me? I recently watched the latest season (2012) of the brilliant TV series ‘Deadliest Catch’ where the fishermen were fishing for opelio crab. The fishermen could not fish for a portion of the season due to the amount of ice in the Bering sea, some describing it as the worst in living memory. But if I look at the sea ice graph (http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg), the 2012 sea ice peak is much lower than for previous years. Am I missing something?

OT
Total oil company selling greenhouse equipment. But why???
http://www.totalenergygroup.com/Greenhouse_Equipment.html

My hamster died at the wheel!

This is the smallest minimum ice extent we’ve ever had, and not just in the satellite record, but probably in the last million years,” says Yackel, a sea ice geophysicist and climatologist.

Isn’t it about now that someone stands up and says, “Now you’re just making shit up!”
DaveE.

dikranmarsupial says:
September 26, 2012 at 2:53 am
Roy, you are aware aren’t you that Arctic sea ice extent has been shrinking much *faster* than in the model projections, see e.g. http://www.realclimate.org/images/seaice10.jpg, in fact the current sea ice extent is below the lower limit of the credible interval of the ensemble. Sea ice extent is an example where the models (and climatologists) are obviously unduly optimistic.
———————————
Silly me.
Here I was thinking this is just one more prediction where the models are unduly wrong.
I’m not a scientist but, I am a thinker. How do you ignore the logic?
Earth warms, ice melts, we get more water, more open land for food and expansion. Life will survive and even thrive. IMO this is the natural cycle. IMO this is good. How about you? Null hypothesis first, please.

Tim Folkerts says:
September 26, 2012 at 6:34 am
I see many comments to the effect that ‘the winter ice is normal’. It is not.
In a system with random variations chaotic swings, one would expect “normal” to sometimes swing above average and sometimes swing below average. The truth is that the winter maximum has been “below average” for 9 straight years.
————————-
The fact the ice is below some abstract average for some very short period of time is not even worrying. Maybe your average is wrong. My understanding is that they farmed Greenland. Ring the alarm again when your average includes chaotic swings around farming in Greenland.
cn

What is “frightening” about a warmer planet? What is scary about an atmosphere with more CO2 plant food? Humanity would benefit if both scenarios occurred.
The professor’s comment about the lowest ice extent in “probably the last million years” is just plain silly. There is plenty of ice core data indicating the planet was much warmer in the geologic past. Does the professor use a crystal ball in his research?

Thomas U said: Further warming (“runaway, per chance?) because less ice around the north-pole ice reflects less sunlight. Has the good professor ever heard of the reflecting properties of water, particularly in respect of the angle at which the sunlight hits the north pole? Has he ever considered the insulating capabilities of ice, perhaps thought of designing one of these wonderful and ever so accurate climate models which includes the reduced insulation?
While water is reflective at low angles of incidence, the albedo is still lower than that of ice. See http://alaska.usgs.gov/geography/conference/presentations/Seward%20talk_tschudi.pdf which shows a clear decline in Arctic albedo over the last 25 years.
With regards to the insulating properties of ice, um, no, ice is not a good insulator. That’s why it feels cold when you touch it. Put a piece of cardboard in your freezer, then take it out – it will not feel nearly as cold as an ice cube because ice is not a good insulator, unlike cardboard. The U value for ice is just over 2 W/m2K, about the same as marble or rock – which aren’t exactly considered to be insulators: http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/thermal-conductivity-d_429.html

Yackov is either totally incompetent, completely delusional, a liar, or more probably all of the above. He most certainly has no bushiness being around kids.

kirkmyers says:
September 26, 2012 at 10:18 am
“What is “frightening” about a warmer planet?”
Oh, simple. above 37 deg C at 100 % rel. humidity the human body is no more able to cool itself. At 42 deg C humans die.
(That’s what I read from an alarmist, I THINK at Michael tobin (but don’t beat me to it) as the major concern.)
As according to CO2AGW theory from a certain “tipping” point temperatures will grow exponentially the believers in CO2AGW theory really do fear certain death.
That’s why they’re constantly thinking about ripping out our throats.

DirkH says:
September 26, 2012 at 11:13 am
“Oh, simple. above 37 deg C at 100 % rel. humidity the human body is no more able to cool itself. At 42 deg C humans die.”
…which make me think of
S. Matthew Liao, NYU professor, ETHICIST, (wants to genetically engineer people to become shorter, torture them to induce vegetarian lifestyle, and give them drugs to make them easier to handle)
at
http://ethics-etc.com/category/environmental-ethics/
Somebody should suggest to him that we could also genetically engineer humans to withstand higher temperatures. He’ll like that.

” it’s steadily shrunk in the wake of Arctic and global warming.”
Umm, global warming?
So this is evidence of global, as in the planet is warming?
So if the globe is warming why is the Antarctic not melting? It is on the same planet. What ever your answer the idea of the globe warming is not happening with the SH being so cold. It’s a NH effect only.
Maybe all that CO2 piles up at the North Pole.

Hey, y’all quit complaining. My son is a student at the U of C so when I pay his tuition I am in part funding this lunatic.

tjfolkerts says: I am not the one who chose to look at winter maxima. If you want to object to those, then talk to P. Solar.
I did not suggest we look at winter maxima rather than any other part of the year. What I am pointing out is that we should be looking at all available data, not pretending the annual minimum defines ice extent.

Chris says:
September 26, 2012 at 10:39 am

Thomas U said: Further warming (“runaway, per chance?) because less ice around the north-pole ice reflects less sunlight. Has the good professor ever heard of the reflecting properties of water, particularly in respect of the angle at which the sunlight hits the north pole? Has he ever considered the insulating capabilities of ice, perhaps thought of designing one of these wonderful and ever so accurate climate models which includes the reduced insulation?

While water is reflective at low angles of incidence, the albedo is still lower than that of ice. See http://alaska.usgs.gov/geography/conference/presentations/Seward%20talk_tschudi.pdf which shows a clear decline in Arctic albedo over the last 25 years.

Depends how you measure it of course, I see the paper measures the albedo not in terms of insolation incidence but at normal, (90°). Yes, we can agree there.

With regards to the insulating properties of ice, um, no, ice is not a good insulator. That’s why it feels cold when you touch it. Put a piece of cardboard in your freezer, then take it out – it will not feel nearly as cold as an ice cube because ice is not a good insulator, unlike cardboard. The U value for ice is just over 2 W/m2K, about the same as marble or rock – which aren’t exactly considered to be insulators: http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/thermal-conductivity-d_429.html

Where do you get the idea that because ice feels cold it is not a good insulator? It feels cold because it’s cold and has a high thermal mass, if it was not a good insulator it would feel as warm as the underlying water. Incidentally, the reason dry cardboard doesn’t feel as cold as ice is because its thermal mass is minute in comparison. (A bit like air really which is one reason why the whole AGW thing is a scam.) Strangely, the water under the ice is warmer and not exposed to allow either radiative or conductive energy loss. Do you want to revise that now?
Are you an arts major?
DaveE.

Earlier I sent a couple of questions to Prof. Yackel and I got a prompt response
Here’s my email:
Dear Professor,
I read your comments reported in the Utoday article.
“In the last 20 years we’ve almost gotten to the point where we’ve reversed that ratio,” Yackel says, predicting the ice extent that covers the Arctic Ocean “is likely to be gone in the summers within the next 20 to 25 years, if not sooner.”
You would seem to base this opinion on study of the ice coverage minima. While this is interesting , it may be deceptive if taken to be representative of Arctic climate.
There has been a notable change in the behaviour of ice coverage since 2007 as can be seen in the anomaly graph provided by Cryosphere Today:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png
Note that the maxima are near to the 30y average, the key feature of this period is the notably increased swing of the annual cycle. This is very likely a consequence of the prevalence of thin ice that you comment on. In such a context, considering only the minima will give a very misleading impression of the state of ice cover, no more representative than only considering the maxima and concluding ice coverage was back to “normal”.
I would draw your attention to the other 364 days of each year. Considering the daily ice extent and applying a 6m or 12m gaussian filter we see a better indication of what is happening:
data sourse:
http://nsidc.org/data/nsidc-0051.html
filtered daily ice extent:
http://i50.tinypic.com/24enw2c.png
It would appear that there has been a regime change since 2007. The alarming plunge, far from continuing “worse than we thought” , stopped in 2007.
The article states ” he considers the annual summer ice melt in the Arctic, which he’s been closely monitoring for the past 15 years – documenting the ice cover as it’s steadily shrunk in the wake of Arctic and global warming.”
Do you think your prediction that ice extent “is likely to be gone in the summers within the next 20 to 25 years, if not sooner” is consistent with the change in behaviour since 2007?
That would seem more consistent with the pre-2007 drop which you are suggesting will continue unabated. That would seem contrary to the evidence of the last 5 years.
Have you ever looked at the whole years data as presented here?
Here’s the reply from Prof. Yackel
>>
Thanks for your comments.
Yup, scientists really don’t expect any changes to be seen in the winter maxima … since the positive sea ice albedo feedback doesn’t operate in the winter when there is no daylight. This feedback is now accentuated in the summers because of the ratio flip of old to new ice we’ve observed in the last 20 years. So, ice will further melt at an accelerated rate in the summertimes. The ice that can grow back in the winter … is thin stuff that can easily be melted in the subsequent summers. We are not growing anywhere near as much old ice as we did 5, 10 or 20 years. To summarize, its about the feedback processes in the summer … that most people really don’t fully understand.
Cheers … John
>>
ie total evasion of the questions I asked him. I then pressed him to reply to my questions and got the following:
>>
Please come see me in my office hours … I love to explain it to you as I cannot express the context of the situation quickly in words or in a few sentenses.
Many thanks,
John
>>
LOL.
” Have you ever looked at the whole years data as presented here?”
Yes or no would do. I don’t need to come round for coffee.
“Do you think your prediction that ice extent “is likely to be gone in the summers within the next 20 to 25 years, if not sooner” is consistent with the change in behaviour since 2007?”
Likewise, it’s a yes or no question. The good professor is happy to go on record as an expert on the subject making such untenable statements but is unable back it up or answer a yes or no to a clear question.
If “scientists really don’t expect any changes to be seen in the winter maxima” well then they should try looking at ALL the data. Science is based on observation NOT expectation.

dikranmarsupial says:
September 26, 2012 at 3:02 am
Roy, you do know that Arctic sea ice extent is shrinking *faster* than the climatologists models predicted, don’t you?

Should we conclude from this that the models provide an upper bound to future ice extent or that they just don’t work?

Question from Climatology 101 Final Exam, Physics section:
13. What is the force holding a hamster to the side of the hamster wheel?
A. Centrifugal
B. Centripetal
C. Both A and B
From the grading instructions for the teaching assistant:

If the options are scratched out and replaced with write-in answers like “gravity” and/or “gripping force of their toes” then the student flunks the entire test, as they clearly did not study the hamster wheel computer model which used neither of those thus they are obviously incompetent.

David A. Evans says:
September 26, 2012 at 12:35 pm
>>
P. Solar says:
September 26, 2012 at 12:19 pm
I see the good Dr brings in the old albedo canard. As I replied earlier to Chris, albedo is measured at the normal, ie 90° incidence, not the much lower angle of insolation at the poles.
DaveE.
>>
Doctor? Professor no less.
He also starts waffling about positive feedback but clearly all this physics stuff if outside his field of understanding, it’s just a ploy to avoid answering the direct questions I asked him about what is supposed to be his area of expertise.
BTW here is the graph I intended to post (the one where I managed spell Arctic correctly 😉 ).
http://i48.tinypic.com/dzj70k.png

Oh wait, where have we seen a solution to these “frightening” trend.
U of Calgary Professor TED talk from 2007:
http://www.ted.com/talks/david_keith_s_surprising_ideas_on_climate_change.html

tjfolkerts says:
September 26, 2012 at 11:17 am
Still refusing to understand, despite admissions that completely undermine your own position. Weird.

tjfolkerts says:
September 26, 2012 at 11:17 am
“But if you DO choose to to look at those, then the inescapable conclusion is that the last few years are NOT “normal”. Considering the minima does NOT give a “misleading impression” that the ice is declining, since looking at the maxima ALSO leads to the conclusion that the ice is declining. (And looking at the age and/or thickness of the ice strengthens the conclusion even more).”
This statement is based on the satellite data. No? Then you follow with bullet point statements that reveals your limited understanding of any other known quanta and admit the satellite era is too short.
“FWIW, I agree that ….
* 35 years is a relatively short time to study any climate phenomenon.
* using the last 35 years to define “normal” is definitely a bit arbitrary.
* Ice has most likely been lower “in the last million years” (quite possibly sometime 6-10,000 years ago).”
“Inescapable conclusion”, followed by “35 years to define normal is a ‘bit’ arbitrary”
Then the clincher light bulb going on, albeit dimly; “most likely been lower in the last million years”
Now do you see?

Caleb says:
September 26, 2012 at 5:57 pm
>.>
I think you could have been both more patient and more polite. The guy did respond to your email, which I think is good-hearted. You didn’t have to pry stuff out of him with FOI requests, did you? When you get a response from a fellow like you did, you might try to be good-hearted yourself. Cultivate a relationship. Maybe it will take some time, but often both parties learn a lot.
>>
More patient? I asked two direct questions twice. Asking a third time would badgering. He clearly does not wish to answer them.
He would not have looked too good if he just ignored my email. I did thank him for taking time to reply. FOI? Well I can’t FOI him for an admission he was making untenable claims can I ? I certainly did not get ANY reply to my two simple, direct questions after two attempts. That is clear evasion and refusal to address the issue. It is clear that I will not learn anything from someone like that.
He may have learnt something from the graph I sent him, though I doubt it.

Does anyone know if the Antarctic sea ice has hit the yearly maximum yet? Looks like the anomaly is currently +1.145 million square kilometers, and it looks like we just hit a new maximum as of 9/26 and it still may be increasing. When is the “average” date of maximum for Southern Hemisphere sea ice, and what are the details of what is going on down there? Maybe Anthony could write something up on this (or someone else could contribute an article on this). I think we need to draw more attention to what is going on in the SH and give some real detailed analysis of it. I am especially concerned because I recently saw a paper stating that the LIA may have started in the Southern Hemisphere, and if that is indeed the case, we may see history repeating itself.

David A. Evans says:
September 26, 2012 at 12:13 pm
Where do you get the idea that because ice feels cold it is not a good insulator? It feels cold because it’s cold and has a high thermal mass, if it was not a good insulator it would feel as warm as the underlying water. Incidentally, the reason dry cardboard doesn’t feel as cold as ice is because its thermal mass is minute in comparison. (A bit like air really which is one reason why the whole AGW thing is a scam.) Strangely, the water under the ice is warmer and not exposed to allow either radiative or conductive energy loss. Do you want to revise that now?
Are you an arts major?
Dave E.
I agree it has a relatively high thermal mass (about ½ that of water), but it is also a poor insulator. In fact, your point about high thermal mass undermines your assertion about why it doesn’t feel warm even though there is warm water underneath. Materials with high thermal mass are rarely good insulators (such as concrete, cement, marble). Ice’s high thermal mass prevents the warmer water underneath from heating the ice to the same temperature because its thermal mass resists rapid temperature change, not because of insulation qualities. The specific heat of ice is 2, its U value is 2.18 W/mK, and so its R value is .4. Compare that to glass fiber with a specific heat of 1.4, U value of .04, R value of 25. Ice is a very poor insulator – it conducts 2.18/.04, or 50 times the heat of glass fiber.
Air’s thermal mass has little to nothing to do with AGW, it is not the thermal mass of the atmosphere that traps heat, it is the presence of greenhouse gases, without which the earth’s surface temperature would be -18C rather than the current 14C average.
Yes, water under the ice is warmer; I’m not sure why that is strange, it’s the air temperature that causes the water to freeze, not the water temperature. Radiative heat loss is of course still possible with ice as with water since both have nearly identical emissivity. Conductive or convective water to air heat losses have no bearing on global temperatures, since that involves heat just moving from one place to another – not out into space, as is the case with radiative heat flow. And in any case, you seem to be implying that open water conducting/convecting heat into the air near the surface is a good thing. In fact, it is not – it’s the temperature differential between Arctic air and lower latitude air that drives the jet stream. A smaller differential means a weaker jet stream, which in turn means more erratic weather.
While I do enjoy art, I have a bachelors and masters in electrical engineering, with 3 published, peer reviewed papers in IEEE journals.
Did you go to university?
Chris

Cool, we’re talking the same language at last.
I did plot all the data but the gaussian being a better filter needs a broader window. One reason I prefer this filter is that it has a clean frequency response with no stopband leakage. This is the opposite to runny means which let huge amounts of what you think you filtered out get through. This can have quite perverse effects at times and is hard to predict.
Most people who use runny means don’t even understand what all this means and are quite unaware of the problem or its effects.
In simple terms it can mean the filtered result can get bent left and right and peaks can even get inverted. This is generally unhelpful and can be quite misleading.
You will notice that the last graph I linked here, I also put in the shorted 180d gaussian. This is too short a period to remove most of the annual variation I did this precisely to get some idea where the data was headed since I am aware the last couple of years are downwards.
I think the longer filter (when there’s more data) will then be down to the bottom of the cycle as it was in 1995. IF that pattern holds, I would expect to see an upturn for about 3 years.
Thanks for the link to the ice area data , I was wanting some area data to compare to. I’ll run it through similar gaussian filter and see if there is any notable difference. I don’t like relying on just one data source with this stuff.

Here is a comparison of the Cryosphere Today ice area data you used and the NOAA ice extent.
http://i49.tinypic.com/xn9jqv.png
Since everyone is taking about climate _change_ I continue to concentrate on looking directly at change rather then trying to infer it by eye from the time series data.
The two series are not measuring the same quantity so the differences are not too surprising , the similarity is notable.
I was doubtful of the early down swing in ice extent until I found I matches a similar swing in UAH lower tropo. That boosted my confidence in both. That air temp bears more relation to the thinner and more dispersed ice in the >15% cover category is unsurprising.
The ice area data shows a recent cycle that appears to have a mean around -0.08e6 km2/year, whereas around 1985 was pretty neutral over a cycle. In contrast, the current ice extent cycle is a little lower than ice area but is on a par with it’s 1990s cycle.
Both series show an end to the continual and accelerating melting and a return to earlier cyclic behaviour, though a small, long term underlying decline is still present in ice area data.
The recovery period was short lived in both series but was there. I never hear that reported. The last 5 year cycle has been notably better then 2000-2005 when the average was nearer 0.15e6 km2/year.
That seems to be firm indication from both datasets that the rate melting is easing off rather than getting worse. That is quite different from conclusions that are drawn by focalising in the annual minima. Hence my initial point that we should be using all the available data not just one day per year.
For anyone intending to stick around on Earth for a while, that has to be rather better news than what we usually get fed.
Thanks to TJ for productive debate and providing the link to ice area data. Having the two different metric provides more confidence in the result and provided some interesting differences.

Billy Liar says:
September 27, 2012 at 1:53 pm
Your whole argument about the insulating properties of ice is, therefore, somewhat irrelevant. It only applies when the ice is not covered by snow which I believe to be a very small proportion of the time in the polar regions.
Actually, I was replying to another person’s post. Thomas U stated:
Has he ever considered the insulating capabilities of ice, perhaps thought of designing one of these wonderful and ever so accurate climate models which includes the reduced insulation?
Thus, I commented about ice and not ice+snow. I agree that snow has good insulative properties compared to ice. It is not as good as construction materials – snow at .18 is about 1/3 fibreglass batts at .55-.76 (for 1 inch of material), but still of course much better than ice. But since there is much less multiyear ice, by definition there will be a smaller portion of the Arctic that has insulative cover during the year, which in turn means more convective heating of the air, which in turn means a weaker driver of the jet stream, not to mention reduced cooling capacity to cool down the latitudes during the summer months.

Chris says:
September 27, 2012 at 10:52 am
David A. Evans says:
September 26, 2012 at 12:13 pm
Where do you get the idea that because ice feels cold it is not a good insulator? It feels cold because it’s cold and has a high thermal mass, if it was not a good insulator it would feel as warm as the underlying water. Incidentally, the reason dry cardboard doesn’t feel as cold as ice is because its thermal mass is minute in comparison. (A bit like air really which is one reason why the whole AGW thing is a scam.) Strangely, the water under the ice is warmer and not exposed to allow either radiative or conductive energy loss. Do you want to revise that now?
Are you an arts major?
Dave E

I agree it has a relatively high thermal mass (about ½ that of water), but it is also a poor insulator. In fact, your point about high thermal mass undermines your assertion about why it doesn’t feel warm even though there is warm water underneath. Materials with high thermal mass are rarely good insulators (such as concrete, cement, marble). Ice’s high thermal mass prevents the warmer water underneath from heating the ice to the same temperature because its thermal mass resists rapid temperature change, not because of insulation qualities. The specific heat of ice is 2, its U value is 2.18 W/mK, and so its R value is .4. Compare that to glass fiber with a specific heat of 1.4, U value of .04, R value of 25. Ice is a very poor insulator – it conducts 2.18/.04, or 50 times the heat of glass fiber.

This is an attempt to baffle with bullshit. Does the surface radiate at the same level as the underlying Arctic water?

Air’s thermal mass has little to nothing to do with AGW, it is not the thermal mass of the atmosphere that traps heat, it is the presence of greenhouse gases, without which the earth’s surface temperature would be -18C rather than the current 14C average.

Fine except that the main band is… 15µm what sub zero temperature is that?

Yes, water under the ice is warmer; I’m not sure why that is strange,

It’s not at all strange, never said it was, happy you admit that as you’ll find out.

it’s the air temperature that causes the water to freeze, not the water temperature.

No argument there

Radiative heat loss is of course still possible with ice as with water since both have nearly identical emissivity.

Except of course, they aren’t at the same temperature. Has the Kelvin scale escaped your notice?

Conductive or convective water to air heat losses have no bearing on global temperatures, since that involves heat just moving from one place to another – not out into space, as is the case with radiative heat flow.

WOW! I would say moving energy from the lower troposphere to the upper troposphere and possibly beyond may make a difference.

And in any case, you seem to be implying that open water conducting/convecting heat into the air near the surface is a good thing. In fact, it is not – it’s the temperature differential between Arctic air and lower latitude air that drives the jet stream. A smaller differential means a weaker jet stream, which in turn means more erratic weather

Now you’re just making shit up.

While I do enjoy art, I have a bachelors and masters in electrical engineering, with 3 published, peer reviewed papers in IEEE journals.
Did you go to university?

No I didn’t, but I did get royally pissed off with people who did, then got promoted above me after I taught them everything they knew.
One job I had, I interviewed several people with BScs, only one came up to scratch.
Hope I got it right this time. 😉
DaveE.

David A. Evans says:
September 29, 2012 at 7:43 am
This is an attempt to baffle with bullshit. – in response to my information about ice being a poor insulator. Gee, I didn’t know that providing the U value of ice compared to insulators was baffling with bullshit. Is that your standard way of dealing with data-based comments that refute your position? Since Tim Folkerts commented at length on this, I won’t comment further.
You said: It’s not at all strange, never said it was, happy you admit that as you’ll find out.
Actually, you did say that, on September 26, 2012 at 12:13 pm: Strangely, the water under the ice is warmer and not exposed to allow either radiative or conductive energy loss.
You said: Except of course, they aren’t at the same temperature. Has the Kelvin scale escaped your notice? No, I’m fully aware of the Kelvin scale and agree that the slightly warmer water will radiate more skyward than ice. But that is mitigated by the fact that water has lower reflectance than sea ice, per the paper I cited earlier.
I said: …you seem to be implying that open water conducting/convecting heat into the air near the surface is a good thing. In fact, it is not – it’s the temperature differential between Arctic air and lower latitude air that drives the jet stream. A smaller differential means a weaker jet stream, which in turn means more erratic weather. To which you replied: Now you’re just making shit up.
Once again, you reply with another rigorous scientific refutation of my statement * sarcasm*. How do you think our weather happens? Magic? Happenstance? I’m sure you’ve watched the weather news before and heard of summer heat waves finally breaking due to Arctic air coming down, so clearly the Arctic climate has some influence on the weather we experience in the US. Here is one paper on the impact of increased Arctic temperatures: http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2012GL051000.shtml
From the abstract: “These effects are particularly evident in autumn and winter consistent with sea-ice loss, but are also apparent in summer, possibly related to earlier snow melt on high-latitude land. Slower progression of upper-level waves would cause associated weather patterns in mid-latitudes to be more persistent, which may lead to an increased probability of extreme weather events that result from prolonged conditions, such as drought, flooding, cold spells, and heat waves.”
Feel free to post papers or studies that support a counter position – otherwise you are the one that’s just making shit up.
As to the university degree point, it sucks that your employer doesn’t value actual experience and skills over a piece of paper.

To Anthony Watts,
Thanks for running this piece. I happen the think that most remarkable and most damaging change about to occur in the next decade or two will be the loss of our Arctic Sea Ice in the NH summertime. Measurements suggest that this change is about to occur by the time my young grandchilden graduate from college.
This change will cause enormous additional warming on top of that which is already occurring due to GHG-based changes. Imaging changing the Arctic from an ice-covered place to an open ocean. Ice reflects about 90% of incoming sunlight back out into outer space while an open, ice-free ocean reflects only about 10%. In the NH summertime when the NH is tilted towards the Sun so that the entire Arctic region is exposed to sunlight all day long for several months, there will be a lot more solar radiation being deposed onto our planet.
The only positive aspect of this looming problem is that it’s occurrence and easier-to-understand scientific basis just might finally cause our leaders to admit that planet Earth has a big problem – and thereby not be so easily fooled and misled by the enormous forces behind our continued use and even continued development of fossil-fuel sources of energy.