After all of the news about a minimum record ice extent last month, this is interesting. As we know when water loses its ice cover, it allows a lot of heat to radiate into space as LWIR. many predictied that as a result of the extra open ocean surface, we see a very fast refreeze in the Arctic. It appears they were right. In fact, this is the fastest monthly scale refreeze rate in the NSIDC satellite record going back to 1979.
Here’s JAXA data plotted to show what has happened:
From the blog sunshine hours, here’s an analysis using NSIDC data:
=============================================================
Today is day 291 in the Arctic. The minimum in 2012 was on day 260 – 31 days ago.
If you calculate the percentage of ice gained (the refreeze) 31 days after minimum, then 2012 is the fastest refreeze ever!
Arctic Sea Ice Extent has increased by 43.8% since the minimum was reached.
Extents are in millions of sq km.
(And note I am using NSIDC data here and their algorithm is making the refreeze appear slow compared to NORSEX)
| Year | Minimum_Extent | Extent Day | Extent_Change | Extent_Change_Pct |
| 1979 | 6.89236 | 295 | 2.55691 | 27.1 |
| 1980 | 7.52476 | 280 | 0.95144 | 11.2 |
| 1981 | 6.88784 | 284 | 1.71672 | 20 |
| 1982 | 7.15423 | 287 | 2.41499 | 25.2 |
| 1983 | 7.19145 | 282 | 1.70096 | 19.1 |
| 1984 | 6.39916 | 291 | 2.08442 | 24.6 |
| 1985 | 6.4799 | 281 | 1.50769 | 18.9 |
| 1986 | 7.12351 | 280 | 1.8491 | 20.6 |
| 1987 | 6.89159 | 276 | 1.37713 | 16.7 |
| 1988 | 7.04905 | 286 | 1.76783 | 20.1 |
| 1989 | 6.88931 | 296 | 2.70935 | 28.2 |
| 1990 | 6.0191 | 295 | 3.46791 | 36.6 |
| 1991 | 6.26027 | 290 | 2.69726 | 30.1 |
| 1992 | 7.16324 | 282 | 1.67903 | 19 |
| 1993 | 6.15699 | 280 | 1.85199 | 23.1 |
| 1994 | 6.92645 | 279 | 1.1014 | 13.7 |
| 1995 | 5.98945 | 283 | 0.5189 | 8 |
| 1996 | 7.15283 | 285 | 1.77882 | 19.9 |
| 1997 | 6.61353 | 277 | 0.65032 | 9 |
| 1998 | 6.29922 | 291 | 2.35169 | 27.2 |
| 1999 | 5.68009 | 286 | 2.68723 | 32.1 |
| 2000 | 5.9442 | 286 | 2.32372 | 28.1 |
| 2001 | 6.56774 | 293 | 1.95252 | 22.9 |
| 2002 | 5.62456 | 287 | 2.41992 | 30.1 |
| 2003 | 5.97198 | 291 | 2.10126 | 26 |
| 2004 | 5.77608 | 294 | 2.37329 | 29.1 |
| 2005 | 5.31832 | 296 | 3.09221 | 36.8 |
| 2006 | 5.74877 | 288 | 1.72446 | 23.1 |
| 2007 | 4.1607 | 288 | 1.39556 | 25.1 |
| 2008 | 4.55469 | 293 | 3.33615 | 42.3 |
| 2009 | 5.05488 | 286 | 1.45951 | 22.4 |
| 2010 | 4.59918 | 293 | 2.88065 | 38.5 |
| 2011 | 4.30207 | 282 | 1.35023 | 23.9 |
| 2012 | 3.36855 | 291 | 2.62409 | 43.8 |
Source: sunshine hours
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Here’s the NORSEX plot and NSIDC plot compared:
See all the data on the WUWT Sea Ice Reference Page
In other news. I’ve been in touch with Bill Chapman at UUIC/Crysophere Today to point out this bug:
It turns out to be an accidental issue, and he says:
“I was using the script to generate a plot for a publication that wanted a U.S.-centric view and it looks like I forgot to put things back to the way they were originally.
I’ll have it fixed by tomorrows update.”
Stuff happens, no worries.
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2012: slow to freeze, then slow to melt, then fast to melt, now fast to freeze again.
Or: a completely typical sea ice season, of the sort happening for millions of years, given star status by satellites and a nervous world.
For comparison, the NIC ice charts showed that the “Record Arctic Melt” lasted exactly 1 month, from Sept. 16 to Oct. 16. The rest of 2012 ice extent was above 2007, at times by a great amount, as the NORSEX graph shows.
Comment by Ron C. — October 18, 2012 @ur momisugly 1:08 PM | Reply
It’s the fastest on a percentage basis because you have the lowest value ever in the denominator. In terms of actual ice added, 2005, 2008, & 2010 all added more ice.
Not gonna be on the BBC anytime soon, southern sea ice doing nicely still, as well – cripes the world is cold!
Well I hope the bug fix puts Cryosphere today back on the Greenwich Meridian.
On a different topic, why is NSIDC the most pessimistic for Arctic sea ice content of all the agencies?
And why do they use different graph scales for the Arctic and Antarctic which would make the casual observer think that Arctic sea ice loss is many times greater than Antarctic sea ice gain?
What did you expect after the biggest melt?
Mjk
Take a close look at the Cyrosphere Today image for this year and you will notice a perfect circular region of uniform color around the North Pole. It’s been that way for at least the last month and was that way last year too. I submit there is something wrong with either the sensor used to collect the data or the algorithm used to analyze the data since such geometric uniformity is very unlikely.
OT:
What the @ur momisugly#$% is going on in Canada??
CONTROVERSIAL GEOENGINEERING EXPERIMENT TO STOP GLOBAL WARMING DISCOVERED OFF CANADIAN COAST
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/controversial-geoengineering-experiment-to-stop-global-warming-discovered-off-canadian-coast/
This is no surprise. The energy loss with the open water will only lead to cooling.
I mentioned this a few years ago but not many picked it up.
This is a part of the negative feedback loop. The albedo argument for warming is and was crap.
This may go on for a decade until the Arctic ice re-stabilises to ’79 levels.
DaveE.
alan says:
October 18, 2012 at 4:47 pm
Do keep up, this has already been covered. It’s off the current links so I can’t easily find it.
DaveE.
mjk says:
October 18, 2012 at 4:22 pm
‘What did you expect after the biggest melt?”
Not what you were hoping for eh?
Anthony,
What say you to the Yale boys on their comments on Arctic vs. antarctic ice?
http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2012/10/slightly-increased-2012-antarctic-sea-ice-levels-no-match-for-arctic-declines/
“While there is a modest upward trend in Antarctic sea ice, that increase makes up for only a fraction of the decline in the Arctic, and global sea ice as a whole has been decreasing.
The actual data makes it hard to conclude that those wanting to point to the Antarctic as a counterpoint to what is happening in the Arctic may simply be trying to change the subject from the recent unprecedented global sea ice declines.”
It almost looks like there was a mistake in the calculation on how much Arctic ice melted this year. However, I doubt anyone would/could make a mistake on the numbers.
The decline in the arctic included area loss to wind-driven ice. It should not be assumed all that ice melted. Review the arctic storms from August on. There was two weeks worth of ice movement in a matter of hours. And it happened at a time when the albedo was not much of a factor relative to LWIR radiation from the exposed ocean to space. That was, IMO, a net loss of energy to space.
2012 (to day 291) already has a higher average sea ice extent (NSIDC) than 2011 (which may change).
And is closing in on 2007.
http://sunshinehours.wordpress.com/2012/10/18/2012-average-arctic-sea-ice-extent-so-far/
I suspect the NORSEX data (if I could find it) would show 2012 higher than both.
For those warmists, do try and remember that 2012 was well above 2007 for a long stretch this year.
http://sunshinehours.wordpress.com/2012/10/17/agw-arctic-sea-ice-propganda-ignores-area/
Even rotten ice needs to start somewhere.
sarc/
Gee, maybe the Arctic Ocean needs to do this every so often to purge excess heat….!
Oh no! The travesty meter has blown a fuse!
I call Bogus! How do you write what Click & Clack say? “Bo-whoo-whoo-gus?”
If even more arctic ice had melted, each new sq km of ice would be an even greater precentage!
And if all the ice had melted, the regrowth would be infinitely greater.
Typo – predictied -> predicted.
teslaoxo;
…those wanting to point to the Antarctic as a counterpoint to what is happening in the Arctic may simply be trying to change the subject from the recent unprecedented global sea ice declines.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It could just as easily be said that those pointing to the Arctic and global sea ice declines are tryong to avoid talking about the system as a whole. The fact is that the Antarctic ice is increasing, in opposition to cagw theory. More importantly, there are many other factors to consider. The arctic is an ocean surrounded by land, and hence should be expected to show much larger variation than the antarctic which is land surrounded by ocean. So a larger decline in the arctic may actually not be as significant as a record (but smaller) increase in the antarctic. Further, much of the decline in the arctic was clearly from unusual storm activity, and this is shown by the rapid reformation of the ice which will leave the average for the year much higher than 2007. Which says more about long term temps? The minimum extent for a 60 day period or the average for the year? Not to mention that the historical records make it clear that current ice conditions in the arctic are higher to this day than they were in the days of the Vikings.
Why not discuss ALL of these factors teslaoxo? Why try focus the conversation on a tiny subset of them?
The negative feedback that David A. Evans mentions makes much sense. With open water there is no ice insulation; such sea water loses a lot of energy; this continues as long as the wind blows. When the wind stops blowing the water may start freezing fast.
The albedo difference between ice and open water is indeed small this time of the year at the arctic. See the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Water_reflectivity.jpg
In principle the negative feedback could be big enough to create a record size ice extent this winter.
alan says:
October 18, 2012 at 4:47 pm
1) It’s really rude to post OT stuff within an hour of a new post.
2) OT stuff like this is what Tips and Notes is for.
3) THERE’S NO NEED TO SHOUT.
4) Nothing escapes WUWT. Why didn’t you read http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/16/climate-craziness-of-the-week-environmentalist-ignores-international-moratoriums-dumps-in-the-ocean/
5) Next time check my two week summary at my Guide to WUWT. That list provides a handy way to see what you’ve missed.
David A. Evans says: “This is no surprise. The energy loss with the open water will only lead to cooling.
If that were the case, then wouldn’t we expect that the ocean and air temperatures should be below normal by now from all that cooling? In fact, the temperatures are continuing to run above average.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/sst/ophi/color_anomaly_NPS_ophi0.png
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/data/timeseries/timeseries.pl?ntype=1&var=Air+Temperature&level=2000&lat1=90&lat2=70&lon1=0&lon2=360&iseas=0&mon1=0&mon2=0&iarea=1&typeout=1&Submit=Create+Timeseries
While I agree that open water will lead to more cooling than an equivalent amount of cooler, icier surface, the simple fact is that it first must cool to the “normal levels”. But by the time it cools to normal levels, then there is not impetus to continue to cool rapidly.
Oh dear, the climate hypochondriacs will not be happy !!!!! 😉
An interesting point will be when it peaks in Feb/March.
Any estimates ?? I’m speculating, nearer 15 than 14.5
Another myth we have been subjected to is that snow cover is declining in the Northern Hemisphere.
That is not what the actual data shows (so some must have been using extreme data selection on the anomaly method to show this – but it is not true).
http://s19.postimage.org/bvov92idv/Snow_Cover_Week_39_2012.png