The headline is a quote by Dr. Judith Curry from a David Rose article in the Sunday Mail: Stunning satellite images show summer ice cap is thicker and covers 1.7million square kilometres MORE than 2 years ago…despite Al Gore’s prediction it would be ICE-FREE by now.
![1409435267461_Image_galleryImage_polar1_JPG[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/1409435267461_image_galleryimage_polar1_jpg1.jpg)
The speech by former US Vice-President Al Gore was apocalyptic. ‘The North Polar ice cap is falling off a cliff,’ he said. ‘It could be completely gone in summer in as little as seven years. Seven years from now.’
Those comments came in 2007 as Mr Gore accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for his campaigning on climate change.
But seven years after his warning, The Mail on Sunday can reveal that, far from vanishing, the Arctic ice cap has expanded for the second year in succession – with a surge, depending on how you measure it, of between 43 and 63 per cent since 2012.
To put it another way, an area the size of Alaska, America’s biggest state, was open water two years ago, but is again now covered by ice.
The most widely used measurements of Arctic ice extent are the daily satellite readings issued by the US National Snow and Ice Data Center, which is co-funded by Nasa. These reveal that – while the long-term trend still shows a decline – last Monday, August 25, the area of the Arctic Ocean with at least 15 per cent ice cover was 5.62 million square kilometres.
This was the highest level recorded on that date since 2006 (see graph, right), and represents an increase of 1.71 million square kilometres over the past two years – an impressive 43 per cent.
Other figures from the Danish Meteorological Institute suggest that the growth has been even more dramatic. Using a different measure, the area with at least 30 per cent ice cover, these reveal a 63 per cent rise – from 2.7 million to 4.4 million square kilometres.
The satellite images published here are taken from a further authoritative source, the University of Illinois’s Cryosphere project.
They show that as well as becoming more extensive, the ice has grown more concentrated, with the purple areas – denoting regions where the ice pack is most dense – increasing markedly.
Crucially, the ice is also thicker, and therefore more resilient to future melting. Professor Andrew Shepherd, of Leeds University, an expert in climate satellite monitoring, said yesterday: ‘It is clear from the measurements we have collected that the Arctic sea ice has experienced a significant recovery in thickness over the past year.
Indeed, and the way things are going, it looks like WUWT (and Wang) will be closer to the final September Average for Sea Ice than any of the other forecast players in the ARCUS Sea Ice prediction Network:
Click to magnify the image
Figure 1: Distribution of individual Pan-Arctic Outlook values (August Report) for September 2014 sea ice extent. Labels on the bar graph are rounded to the tenths for readability. Refer to the Individual Outlooks at the bottom of this report for the full details of individual submissions.
NSIDC shows sea ice within the +/- 2 standard deviations range, far above the year 2012:
![N_stddev_timeseries[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/n_stddev_timeseries1.png)
The WUWT Sea Ice Page has complete details and all sorts of plots and images.
There you go, Al.
Now you know what an inconvenient truth really looks like.
Well said, well said indeed!
These guys just ignore past wrong predictions and keep on going.
The logical spin on this is that Antroproghenic Global Warming is destroying our oceans and fisheries by covering it with Ice?
So far, this simply seems to be a reversion to the mean from 1981. This should not be surprising.
When will Al be hauled before a court to explain making a public mischief? This guy needs daily hounding in the same way he accosted the public with his rants. At the very least, if he has any decency at all, he could hand back his ludicrous “Peace Prize” and start profusely apologising. I won’t be holding my breath, though; he doesn’t show any sign of being a gentleman.
Don’t hold your breath.It does not matter how wrong they are!They’ll turn around and say that with all the reg’s that were put in place & volcanoes going on that’s why the earth is now cooling. Better get your jacket & mann up!Facts mean nothing to liars.
Al did a bit of genetic engineering, cross-breeding politics with sales, birthing a freightening hybrid. In the end, Al made millions off of this clever marketing/Political hybrid.
At any rate, he sees the end of this cash cow, for him anyways, and is re-aligning his marketing and investment strategies. The snake oil salesman has to change his product when he has no new towns to plunder.
There is WAY too much money to lose in admitting what you knew to be a lie the entire time you told it.
Hello again Anything! We’ll have to stop meeting like this, or people will start to talk.
In actual fact this is what an inconvenient truth really looks like. There you go:
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2014/09/david-roses-apocalyptic-vision-of-al-gores-nobel-lecture/
This is far more inconvenient Jim:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/ice-free-arctic-forecasts/
That seems to be largely about Wieslaw Maslowski, in which case I strongly suggest you read (and listen to) this as well:
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2013/09/shock-news-why-isnt-the-arctic-ice-free/
Hello there Jim, or would prefer to be called Snow White?
Surely CAGW worriers must be very relieved that the Arctic ice cap is recovering. What …… they’re NOT and are mad as hell!
Bingo!
Today the LA times had an article on arctic sea ice and the fact that it was expanding sooner and greater than usual. Even though in the article sub headline they said “scientists aren’t sure how” it went on to blame it on AGW. More theories about increased winds as a result of warming being the culprit. What will it take for people to understand the scam?
The real scam is caused by Progressive Enlightenment Liberalism, I mean Progressive Socialism Policy Based Propaganda.
Yes indeed , what will it take. Even after two of the coolest northern summers on record. However the biggest change is likely ocean currents.
Goodness, Arctic ice recovering rapidly, Antarctic hitting a new record every other year. Much more of this global warming and we’ll be in an ice age.
I know. Makes me think of that old “Oh Susanna” song.
“It rain’d all night de day I left, de wedder it was dry;
The sun so hot I froze to def—Al gore,please don’t cry
(apologies to Steven Foster)
They’ll just dust off their early 1970’s warnings of the coming ice age, and win a couple more Nobel prizes.
I fully expect to see that we caused the warming that upset the balance and now we are causing a new ice age. After all they can use ego.history as a model….cold follows heat in the record . It’s mans turn to once again have caused it. I don’t understand the “self loathers”
The ice is not melting because, as you know, the heat that would be melting it has gone to the deep ocean where we can’t measure it.
Tricksey that heat, idn’t it?
LOL
What’s even more amusing is that there may be a grain of truth in that. Negative PDO/ENSO.
Well, since global warming is allegedly responsible for the Antarctic sea ice continual increase over the last 40 years (har, har), it is only logical that since the Arctic sea ice is now increasing, global warming is responsible for that too … and it was responsible for its decrease in the last few decades too … don’t ask, don’t think, just put your mind into neutral and don’t pay attention to the man behind the curtain.
17 years and 11 months.
OH the pain.
That last front through Florida speaks volumes for August.
That doesn’t happen till October.
Just sayin, Brurr is in many futures in the CONUS.
Don’t get too hooked on RSS. But the Big Four average as flat as a pancake from 2001.
Ha! Ha! David Appel is back.
Peter, it seems that David and Al are birds of a feather, then? Perhaps Al will be able to say David reported irresponsibly seven years from now?
Just what is your version of the trend?
It sure looks like Arctic ice is well within two deviations and rapidly closing in on one standard deviation. Older thicker ice is also on the increase.
Are there some ice sheets you believe are missing?
Let’s be real. This is good news. But it remains a fact that Arctic ice is still below the 1980 – 2010 average and even moreso below the that start-point.
One must account for soot, however, and China’s economic expansion after 2000 saw a dropoff in Arctic ice. But that is only tangentially related to CO2, and China is beginning the inevitable process of affixing scrubbers. Won’t do thing one about CO2, but it could trigger a large ice recovery in and of itself.
Let’s see….. CAGW got: polar ice projections wrong, global temp projections wrong, ocean “acidification” wrong, water vapor projections wrong, severe weather projections wrong, sea level rise projections wrong, world crop projections wrong, ocean temp projections wrong, global precipitation projections wrong and they openly admit they can’t predict cloud cover and their beloved Hockey Stick is busted,
And yet political hacks and CAGW grant swindlers still expect us to take this joke seriously….
You are very succinct, Samurai.
Tell us what you really, really think Samurai. Just for the record I agree with everything you wrote. What climate science needs is a real samurai to slash through their lies. Wouldn’t hurt if he slashed a few people too.
According to the progressive Enlightenment liberalism and their “The Plan” this is just the things they payed for. Political based propaganda that can create a public feeling that we are close to the end of history.
You mean a sort of mental Cloward-Pivon point of fear, depression and despair where everyone gives up due to exhaustion?
In chad we trust.
The increase in ice seems to follow the antics of the AMO and PDO. The AMO, which is in a long-term “warm” phase for another 5-10 years, pulled off a short-term “cold” spike last spring, and even though that spike is now over you can still see the build-up of ice on the east coast of Svalbard. It is above-normal and is more than has been seen in recent tears. It gives us a clear idea of what we can expect when the AMO goes into its cold phase for keeps. What strikes me is how swiftly the arctic responds.
Meanwhile the PDO, which has entered a long term “cold” phase, has pulled off a short-term “warm” spike.
Right on cue the sea-ice, which had been increasing in the Bering Straits, began decreasing. (Interestingly Joseph D’Aleo over at Weatherbell showed a similar, brief, “warm” spike during the last cold PDO, in the late 1970’s) As soon as the PDO kicks back to its “cold” phase, we can expect to see the ice again build up in the Bering Straits.
I think it was that Bering Strait build-up that allowed the ice to get thicker north of Alaska and arctic Canada. When the PDO gets cold then the Pacific can’t flow north and take such large bites out of the ice north of Bering Strait.
In any case, the ice responds quite swiftly to the PDO and AMO, and seemingly could care less about CO2. The “Death Spiral” has been debunked. All you need to do is use your eyes and watch, and you see lots of evidence for cycles based on the oceans cycles, and very little proof that all the worry about “albedo” has much basis in fact.
One interesting thing to watch over the past year has been a cross-polar transport of lots of ice from the Laptev Sea in central Siberia to the Canadian Side. This built huge pressure ridges on the coast of the Canadian Archipelago, but left the Laptev Sea with very thin ice that swiftly melted last spring. There is now a sort of notch of open water north of the Laptev Sea towards the Pole, which creates a sea-ice deficit, which makes it all the more amazing that ice extents over-all are higher.
I wouldn’t have noticed that detail about the Laptev Sea if I had trusted the media to do truly investigative reporting. They don’t. They simply take the word of guys like Mark Serreze as being gospel, and when he says there is a “Death Spiral,” they behave like parrots. Things look very different if you trust your own lying eyes, and take advantage of the very hard work done by more honest arctic researchers, and the opportunity they give us with polar cameras, satellite views, and other fascinating information.
Just because most of us are laymen is no reason we can’t make a hobby of watching the arctic freeze up and then thaw. I think it is a worthwhile hobby. Not only does it make you smarter than most “investigative reporters,” but watching ice melt in a landscape or turquoise and silver lowers your blood pressure, after guys like Mark Serreze have made it be too high.
My notebook of arctic observations can be found at http://sunriseswansong.wordpress.com/2014/08/22/arctic-sea-ice-melt-the-thaws-end/
That’s a very interesting and informative site you have there, Caleb. Thanks.
Well deserving of a wider audience.
Thanks. Hipefully readers have as much fun as I do writing.
I mean “hopefully.”
Ice is not the only thing responding to the AMO Take a gander at N.H. temperatures…
Great graph! What is also interesting is to look up the pre-1979 Danish Ice-extent records, (which Alarmists try to discredit,) and to see how swiftly the sea-ice responds to even the briefest blips and spikes in the AMO.
The AMO isn’t as regular as clockwork, and holds mysteries all its own.
I wonder if there is any history behind that up-spike around 1875. It is before Krakatoa. I’ll bet if someone did some digging they could find some interesting weather occurred at that time.
“It is above-normal and is more than has been seen in recent tears.”
Brilliant slip of the finger on that last word,I just imagined “of” at the end and a long list of names.
LOL. I was insomnia-writing before dawn, and I myself am not too brilliant at that time.
ARCticNADO! The Spiral of Death. With POLARbearVORTEX!
more bad fiction.
You call freezing the right direction?! Ice ages have been worse for humanity than climate optima. There’s nothing wrong with having trees in the Arctic region, where they used to grow.
Not to mention the mass extinctions when the Millies go south. And the mass speciation when the interglacials click in.
Right on Katherine.
What is this obsession with cold being good.
Are we so desperate for man made global warming to be disproved we are advocating cold weather.
Warm is good cold is bad.
However I must agree getting colder which it will the socialists will be proven wrong.
Hope it is not to late.
Obama is pushing the final tax on humanity.
Our air.
How does that compare to the old trick of starting the Arctic ice extents record at a cherry picked 1979. anybody who has perused AR1 knows that the satellite record began in 1973 and Arctic ice extent rose substantially to a peak in 1979 before the allegedly precipitous and apocalyptic decrease to modern extents. Trend limes depend on starting points, don’t you know?
The fundermental “problem” here appears to be the use of “trend lines” on things which are obviously cyclic. Where fourier analysis may make a lot more sense.
I’m not certain a Fourier analysis would tell us much about climate trends over such a short record for arctic ice extrent.
Robert, I’m with you.
I have asked many times for someone to explain why the northern ice cap disappearing in its entirety would be a bad thing. No one has even attempted to answer the question.
We do know the Arctic ice cap had to be smaller during the era in which there were Viking settlements in Greenland. We now have archaeological evidence showing farms with cows, wheat, barley, etc. on the western coast of Greenland. For starters http://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/ers_facpub/275/?utm_source=digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu%2Fers_facpub%2F275&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages. See also http://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=0&q=viking+settlements+greenland&hl=en&as_sdt=1,6.
At the same time the Norsemen were thriving at a time the ice pack was smaller, all of the arctic animals obviously survived this period of warmth. This includes all the seals, polar bears, arctic fox, etc.
If the Arctic ice cap were to disappear, even year round, what would be the problem?
I can see it opening up shipping short cuts, oil and gas exploration, movements of fishes to the north, etc. Indirectly, warmer climate would expand wheat belt to the north.
It’s win win for everyone.
Jack
Arctic sea ice is acting just like natural cycles would predict!!!
http://www.adn.com/article/20140802/luxury-cruise-line-plans-northwest-passage-voyage
ya gotta give us some narrative, ya can’t just be throwing links up.
Some notes from that link-
“Cost for the trip ranges from $22,755 to $120,000.”
“Crystal Serenity’s passenger capacity is 1,070 + 655 crew. The 68,000-ton ship has 13 decks, multiple pools, two tennis courts, a sushi bar, movie theater, shopping area and concert stage, among numerous other amenities.”
“An escort vessel will be traveling with the cruise ship, equipped with a helicopter”
What’s the ‘carbon footprint’ of that lot ???
“This ship has the ability to treat waste water a bit. However, it goes over the side and is perfectly legal outside of the 3 mile limit. Solid waste is legal beyond the 12 mile limit.”
How ‘green is that’ ???
Since a luxury cruise ship is essentially a hotel on a raft what could possibly go wrong. With its large superstructure relative to the hull size a cruise ship is inherently unstable. The high superstructure also provides a large wind sail. The misbegotten things would roll violently except for the stabilizers. If one of those was knocked out, say by a collision with ice, we could have another Titanic disaster.
“another Titanic disaster”
Maybe that’s what it will take to reverse the CAGW train….although they would probably spin it as ‘more proof of climate disaster’.
Looks like a recovery because it is a recovery. If it continues then it will be back to trend or even above trend. Ten more years of global cooling should cover that pretty well.
Yes, in the seven years since 2007 only one year was below that year.
Al is but a straw man for Obama who is preparing to act on climate change as if he had the vaguest of clues as to what was really happening. In all he is trying to act in concert with the UN and other countries to continue the climate hoax. Tax monies are at stake in the perpetration of this misuse of government power.
“…The Mail on Sunday can reveal that, far from vanishing, the Arctic ice cap has expanded for the second year in succession…”
Too bad. A reliable summer northwest passage could be quite useful. Also lots of oil & gas supposedly recoverable from the Arctic Ocean, if not for that danged ice. 🙁
Reblogged this on Norah4you's Weblog and commented:
Read ingress: The headline is a quote by Dr. Judith Curry from a David Rose article in the Sunday Mail: Stunning satellite images show summer ice cap is thicker and covers 1.7million square kilometres MORE than 2 years ago…despite Al Gore’s prediction it would be ICE-FREE by now.
Good Night CO2-believer. Facts from emperic observation always wins over computer models. Believe me, I have 44 years experience writing Systemprogram for computers….. as we said in the old days nothing comes out better than the input allow….. 🙂
🙂
It’s progressive enlightenment liberalism that is behind it with their Plan. One of the things they aim for is that the public to belive that current state of the World means the “end of history”. I am not so shure of that happening if we just adapt to what might come. However letting progressive Enlightenment liberalism control the World would be?
1/4″ of ice in a pond moves rocks.
It makes me wonder what those 6 foot thick slabs of ice in the Arctic are capable of when put in motion.
It seems that the stories told come from the survivors, oddly enough.
“It makes me wonder what those 6 foot thick slabs of ice in the Arctic are capable of when put in motion.”
Putting in motion lips mouthing baseless claims about global warming causing an increase in Arctic Sea Ice cover.
It’s bad news for everyone, really. The climate is turning on us and it appears to be doing on its own (as far as we can tell)… which is a lot worse if anyone cares to consider it.
And, while we could argue that this will at least stop the insane spending of the political train-wreck that is “climate change”, these facts will not deter “climate change” activists in any way. Those guys lost the plot many years ago. My “green” acquaintances, for instance, would by now prefer to believe that the “missing heat” is being stolen by aliens than to concede the brutal error (and brutal ways) of their behavior.
Again, it’s bad news for everyone. Despite a “pause” in temperatures, it’s getting sufficiently colder for sea ice to increase.
Thats the horror of this particular fantasy – the way it snares its delusional victims.
What crime, what evil, couldn’t be justified if the future of the world was in the balance?
But if you ever have to admit that you were wrong, then you have to admit that what you did was just bad, that you are a criminal, that you are a bad person – not a world saver as you previously thought you were.
You are so correct. I asked my warmist green correspondents awhile back at what point they would consider AGW falsified. Summer ice on Lake Superior? Boston or New York harbor frozen in winter? AGW is falsified already, as Samurai pointed out; but none of these folks would give any potential conditions under which they would concede it a failed theory. Facts that highlight their errors are opposition propaganda, to be overcome by whatever means. AGW proponents act like members of a militant religion and many would like to see us (greedy,,sinful, heretical, deniers of thermagheddon) “put to the question”!
wonder if Mukherjee has read Rose’s article!
31 Aug: Times of India: Arup Chaterjee: Kolkata wildlife photographer off to ‘shoot’ polar bears
City-based wildlife photographer Amartya Mukherjee, who has been in the forests of India and many other countries to capture breathtaking moments from animal and bird life, is set to break new ground for himself.
On Wednesday, the 36-year-old chartered accountant will be off to the Arctic to open a new album. And, as on most occasions, to click on a message.
“My main focus will be on polar bears. The reason why I’m making this trip is similar to those that had me climb Kilimanjaro,” he told TOI. “Global warming and the accompanying climate changes have had glaciers retreat in most parts of the world. I saw far less than what Hemingway would have seen when he wrote ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro’ and, by the time my three-year-old son grows up, there will be very little snow left on Africa’s highest peak. In polar regions, depletion of ice cover means lesser space for polar bears. As the frozen land disintegrates, they will have to swim unimaginable distances through cold oceanic water to go from one place to another and experts feel the polar bears may disappear in as little as 40 years time…”…
“We will be in the Arctic Sea for 11 nights with 10 other passengers on an ‘ice-strengthened’ ship called ‘Stockholm’. I’ve chosen a small ship because the deck, from where most of the photographs will be clicked, is relatively low and will help me get closer to eye-level. We will also land on an island or two in a rubber dingy to get close without being intrusive,” added Mukherjee, who says he is braving a colder climate to get the right light conditions in a place where half the year is in daylight and the other in darkness.
“Most people go on polar expeditions in July-August when temperatures are kinder. But the sun is overhead and harsh and it’s not good for photography…
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/Kolkata-wildlife-photographer-off-to-shoot-polar-bears/articleshow/41292207.cms?
“But the sun is overhead…”
Overhead?
Is he aware of the latitude to which he is journeying?
He should be careful when traversing ‘disintegrating lands’. Polar bears can out-run, out-swim and out-climb a man ascending ice floes. Also please respect Canadian recycling rules: use carbon zinc-batteries in the cameras. The others are toxic and makes the bears burp.
this time of year, the MAXIMUM solar elevation of the sun at noon at the edge of the Arctic sea ice will be 10 – 12 degrees above the horizon. He will “see” sunlight between 6:00 AM and 10:00 am, and between 14:00 PM and 16:00 pm, at less than 5 degrees above the horizon; and the rest of the time it will be even lower.
“That bear is really active today, looks all riled up.”
“Accidentally ate a tourist’s camera, now it’s galvanized into action.”
Good one, ‘galvanized’.
========
He goes onto say “In September, the sun is there for almost 20 hours but it’s lower in the sky and the light softer,”
He maybe be misguided on some things but overhead light, as in August, is not what is required. So he has decided to go in September. From photographic POV he seems to have the right idea. Softer light, more akin to a longer ‘golden hour’.
“Also please respect Canadian recycling rules: use carbon zinc-batteries in the cameras. The others are toxic and makes the bears burp ”
now that made me laugh 🙂
Well, the ice-reinforced bow of the SS Stockholm sank the Italian passenger liner Andrea Dori many years ago, so I guess turnabout is fair play.
Only those who forgotten Archimedes principle could believe ice on Greenland and Antarctica to be of importance if and when it melt….. guess they never heard of landrise due to Archimedes principle’s
All objects reduced, pressed or held down in liquid [push] away the [equivalent] size of the object’s mass.
Oh never heard of that? Please take a look at The Baltic Sea in older Ages Land start to rise when ice melts. After all ice melted(if it ever does) the landrisespeed peaks and the melted ice seeks it’s way down to the ocean. That’s correct, but the Oceans depressed water by land pressed down in water is the same amount (but with an other density that makes the water cubic meters less than the frozen form of water ) as before.
Only fools or so called scholars may have forgotten that.
Only those who don’t understand Archimedes Principle could believe that melting ice on Greenland or Antarctica is of no importance.
Melting sea ice makes no difference to sea levels. Melting ice on land masses increases sea levels. Sea levels have risen by ~120 metres since the last ice age. It is true that, due to Post-glacial Rebound, land areas which were covered by ice during the LGM have risen slightly since (e.g. northern Europe, Canada etc) but this in no way compensates for the rise in sea levels and isn’t much help anyway for lower latitude countries.
You prove your incompetense. You don’t understand Archimedes Principle nor have you studied the correct consequences of same Principle on landrise around the Northern Hemisphere from Stone Age to year 1000 AS, year 1400 AD or up to today. That’s shines!’
Mind you. I took my Systemprogrammer exam 1971 had computerprograming up to date even today, When I needed to have the landrise/ice melting for a part of the coastline of the Baltic Sea for my D-essay back in 93 I had to establish the impact in and out of the Öresund and the Danish Belts on the Baltic Sea. thus I had to go over the sealevels especially in the Atlantic / Arctic region.
There are 43 necessary variables to take into account for any kind of reliability for a computer model.
Don’t try stupid things with me. Best for you to read : Julie Megan Ross, .4 Paleoethnobotanical Investigation of Garden Under Sandet,
a Waterlogged Norse Farm Site. Western Settlement. Greenland (Kaiaallit Nunaata), thesis Alberta 1977 quote from the thesis:
Most of the Viking expansion took place during what scientist refer to as the dimatic optimum of the Medieval Warm Period dated ca, A.D. 800 to 1200 (Jones 1986: McGovern 1991); a general term for warm periods that reached chere optimum at different times across the North Atlantic (Groves and Switsur 1991). During this time the niean annual temperature for southem Greenland was 1 to 3°C higher than today.”
Not to mention the fact that you seem to have forgotten or never learnt the water cycle.
Your problem. Not mine
John Finn doesn’t seem to realize the Greenland is like a bowl. Even if the ice in the interior were to melt, the water would remain there.
http://static.ddmcdn.com/gif/greenland-canyon-full-map-670.jpg
But when the melting ice water reach the Ocean, land rises. Landrise is a retarding movement- quickest inititially and then slower and slower. That I can confirm was the effect after the last Ice Age peak up to now. the graf for landrise rised quicker than the water at any period leaked out in the ocean. that’s due to Archimedes Principle as well as that water always tries in any form water exist to reach the lowest point due to gravidity……
One example here in Sweden. Had the “worst scenario” been true – which it isn’t but still had it been true, than the landrise north a line from Halmstad over to Gamleby and over the Baltic Ocean to Riga been larger than any possible sealevel-rise in any of the stupid computer models.
Katherine,
Here is a neat geology study that suggests a reason for mountains rising up around the borders of icecaps, both in Greenland, and around the icecap-that-is-no-more in Scandinavia.
http://folk.uio.no/yuripo/papers/medvedev_geology_2008.pdf
Thanks.
NH ice has never melted or increased out of natural variability since 75 anyway check out SG site http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/08/30/more-evidence-that-time-began-in-1979/
Are you saying that the US National Snow and Ice Data Center and the Danish Meteorological Institute are lying?
Also, please explain how the University of Illinois’s Cryosphere project has faked the satellite images.
Thank you so much for your efforts.
Brute,
See my comment above.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/30/the-arctic-sea-ice-spiral-of-death-seems-to-have-reversed/#comment-1723787
Thank you, Jimbo, but I found no answer to my questions.
They NSIDC are not lying they started in 1979. If they started in 1974 no one would panic. It’s all about the start date.
What panic? I don’t understand.
And what do you make of Eliza’s claim that “NH ice has never melted or increased out of natural variability since 75 anyway”. She proves no evidence whatsoever of any alternative to the null hypothesis.
So you’re comparing this year’s result to two years ago which happened to be the modern record for the least arctic sea ice, and because there’s more ice this year you’re claiming a win? As opposed to comparing it against say some long term average which shows it to be reduced? You really are stupid aren’t you?
That’s why nobody who matters takes you seriously.
Well, no, we do not take you seriously.
Now, please tell us why we should be worried about Arctic sea ice loss: from the levels of the last few years, continued sea ice loss between late August and early April will only [increase] heat loss from the open Arctic waters into the air and thus into space.
On the other hand, the continued record-breaking Antarctic sea ice increases are all at latitudes where the new ice DOES reflect more solar energy into space all the time through the entire year, and thus ALSO serves to cool the planet dangerously.
I thought that increased Arctic sea ice loss was to create some sort of “death spiral” of increasing heat and increased melting the next year. The many past years of sea ice recovery from low points in 2007 and 2012 prove that propaganda wrong.
“So you’re comparing this year’s result to two years ago which happened to be the modern record for the least arctic sea ice”.
NSIDC do the same thing:
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png
“comparing it against say some long term average which shows it to be reduced”
But “some long term average” is arbitrary in two ways: (1) the duration to be classed as “long term” and (2) which start date is supposed to be meaningful.
A recent record is not so arbitrary and it is a more relevant data point to test whether or not there is an ongoing trend.
If the record is broken in a given year, it can serve as some evidence of an ongoing trend and one side of the debate will use its bragging rights when this happens (as we saw in 2007 and 2012). Shorter the period between records is better “quality” of evidence.
Similarly, if the record is not broken in any year, it is useful evidence against an ongoing trend. The “quality” of the evidence will increase for increasing number of years since the record. Naturally, the other side of the debate will reach for the bragging rights when this happens so why complain?
The ultimate test of ideas would be if the Arctic ice cap is totally free of ice as predicted. By that, I mean TOTALLY FREE – no ambiguity. However, I suspect any reasonably large region of open water at 90degN in the next few years would be declared as an outright win by the climacatastrophologers.
Siberian_husky it was never supposed to be like this. Repeatedly we were told about darker Arctic ocean absorbing more heat leading to even less sea ice the following year and so on. This has so far not happened regarding Arctic sea ice.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/icecover/icecover_current_new.png
Two years ago the CBC told their viewers that climate scientists told them that the arctic would be ice free right now, as I type this. Instead Arctic ice is 43% greater, not all gone as we were told it would be.
since 2007 the trend is up. since 1973 the trend is likely flat, or will be soon.
Two years ago the CBC told BOTH their viewers?
Oh wait… I’ve just been informed that many people in Ontario and other neglected areas of the country that for whatever reason are unable to afford cable or satellite often have CBC on in the background while doing other things,
This was apparent about 12 years ago. It is not so much about the ice volume as the changes in wind and currents. That had less to with CO 2 , more to do with sun radiation and orbital factors.
Orbital factors have changed since 2 years ago, or even since 12 years ago??
SR
I am very happy to see that the Arctic ice crap is melting. Which algoreitm will be next?
It probably wouldn’t hurt to remember that we are still emerging from the last Ice Age (and the dip of the Little Ice Age) and the long-term trend is warming. However, as there is no definite knowledge of the cause of the trend it is conceivable that it has peaked and we are about to start cooling again.
About the only thing of which we can be sure is that the science of climatology is so imprecise that an authentic anthropogenic signal cannot be distinguished from the ‘noise’. This observation is unlikely to impress anyone who has ego, professional prestige and/or money invested in alarmism. But then, has it ever REALLY been about the science?
IMHO permanent loss of the Arctic ice would signal an approaching end to the geological ice age, and that would be good for humanity. That does not appear to be happening. Short term loss of Arctic ice happens even during major glaciation periods due to ocean heat transport and storms. Average Arctic ice is a climatic indicator if one could consider a period longer than the AMO/PDO cycles but currently we can’t.
We are in a medium term warm period (since ~1850) which indeed may have just peaked, but the longer term trend is colder. The warm periods since the Holocene climactic optimum have trended weaker and shorter while the cold periods are trending stronger and longer. So we may be well on our way toward the next glaciation, despite the current warm period.
I agree with you about the difficulty of discerning human effect on climate with current knowledge. It is even more difficult with the current reliability of data. As long as data is politically adjusted such small effects will remain invisible. The politics is much louder than the noise.
David Rose:: ” the size of Alaska, America’s biggest state”
Last time I looked Canada was America’s biggest area state, closely follow by Brazil.
Heh, but wrong. The US is the biggest state in America.
===========
Wrong, kim. Canada first, US second, Brazil third. Learn something new every day.
===============
Canadians are Canadians, Brazilians are Brazilian, United States of Americans are Americans, for short.
There is North, South & Central America. But no “America”, except for The United States of America.
When people say America, They mean United States of America.
Canadians, Brazilians et al, do not call themselves Americans.
Got that all you Old Worlders?
When people say Canada, They mean United Provinces of America.
Greg, The US including Alaska and Hawaii is bigger than Canada.
Rose said “America,” NOT, “North America”. There are two continents containing the word America, so you must add the North or South to designate which you are referring to (if both is intended, the plural Americas makes that clear). However, when talking about countries, reference to America is a unique designation; only one country has America in its formal name.
So simply saying America cannot be a reference to a continent, but can identify a single country. Beyond that, America is accepted worldwide as referring only to the USA. Those who take issue with it are displaying a false sense intelligence.
To repeat, “So what?”
Please tell us why a reduction in arctic sea ice levels from recent minimum extents in September is a ‘bad thing” .
Please tell us why you are ignoring the steady increase in Antarctic sea ice extents since 2003.
Please tell us why the recent record-breaking HIGH Antarctic sea ice extents in June was ignored.
In an article that got discussed on Judith’s site last year, I showed decadal trend was slowing.
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/2013/09/16/on-identifying-inter-decadal-variation-in-nh-sea-ice/
I also proposed a speculative model having a rapid turning point in 2011
http://climategrog.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/arctic_abscos_2014-5.png
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=972
Greg, your chart does not appear to have captured the early 1970s arctic ice lows…
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/far/wg_I/ipcc_far_wg_I_full_report.pdf
Al Gore — American Bloviator
Forever, forever, its all Al Gore
Now, in the future and always before
Spinning himself with the words he can whirl
The earth is his oyster, he is its pearl
Carbon dioxide is filling the air
And there’s no escaping, its everywhere!
It up in the sky, its under your bed
Its deep in your lungs, comes out of your head!
The polar caps melt from CO2’s heat
The seas will be rising twenty-five feet
The ocean conveyor ceasing to flow
Where water goes stagnant algae will grow
A growth in plant life that carbon promotes
Green seas where sargasso seamlessly floats
If acid rain scared you think about this
Oceans acidic and warmer than piss!
The teddy bears — wait! — the polar bears drown
As carbon goes up survival goes down!
Whatever Al says he fully believes
First before others himself he deceives
Then sure of the truth his dictums are hurled
Like God by The Word creating the world!
The sky it is falling upon your head!
Sharknados increasing with thousands dead!
(That’s in a movie — I make movies too
Seeing’s believing so all of it’s true)
Weather is weirding and its everyplace
Our footprint of carbon on Gaia’s face
No refugee, no sanctum, none can escape
Gaia’s revenge for Capitalist rape!
Science is settled we know all the facts
These super storms need a new super tax!
The UN mandates the models are right!
Peer reviewed models! Mankind is a blight!
So go buy a bike and pedal to work
2000 was mine and Bush is a jerk!
Al’s actions say more than bluster explains
An angel with wings! He boards private planes
Mansions and autos, a party time yacht
Al owns such but preaches others must not!
Note: Al named his yacht the Bio-Solar One and
at the docks it’s referred to by all as the BS One.
Eugene WR Gallun
More Arctic ice is the surest sign it is disappearing just as cooler temperatures are the surest sign of warming. Come on people get with the program!!!!
Eugene,
You’ve outdone yourself this time.
XLNT!
Death spiral turns out to be a spring. Boing !
From the Mail article
“The apparent recovery in Arctic ice looks like good news for polar bears. If there is more ice at the end of the summer, they can hunt seals more easily.”
Just think about those poor seals, they will stand no chance against the blood thirsty Polar bears. We clearly need more warming to save the poor little things ;>)
“Look closely, the Polar Bears world is melting. Climate Change is causing their arctic sea ice hunting grounds to disappear right from under their feet, putting their very survival at risk. At this rate, two thirds of the worlds wild polar bears could be gone by the end of this century. We need your help before its too late for the polar bear. Using the latest science, World Wildlife Fund works to help conserve amazing wildlife like the polar bear and its arctic home, but we can’t do it without you…”
Just now on my TV, and several times throughout my evening of TV watching. Ugh.
I’m reminded of their White Rhino ads years ago (I have a copy of such an ad in my archives), especially reminded by a recent viewing of a Star Trek Next Gen episode where kids are shown a model of a white Rhino, that became extinct in the 22nd century.
“We need your help before its too late….”
Too late as in everyone realises it’s reversing and the fund-raiser is over.
Too late as in 16 years of no warming, the death spiral is dead and the UNFCC attempt to set up a $100 billion PER YEAR unaccountable slush fund is hitting the rocks.
We must act now !!
Due to the weak Gulf Stream ice in the Arctic will increase rapidly. Due to the low over Greenland will also be more snow on the glaciers.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_a_f/gif_files/gfs_z100_nh_f240.gif
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/850hPa/overlay=mean_sea_level_pressure/orthographic=-65.00,73.83,365
It is a fair point to observe that the comparison is with earlier years where the ice extent was lower than ‘usual.’ I am sure all sceptics are aware of this, and the manner in which the data is presented.
But the thrust of the article is valid. The prediction was that there would be less and less ice and that by now (Al Gore was suggesting 5 to 7 years) the Arctic would be ice free. Clearly no matter how the data is presented, it is clear that that prediction was off target.
Again, no matter how the data is presented, it is clear that there has been some recovery these past two years. Will this continue, who knows? No one can predict the future, and I am confident that that applies to the IPCC and the Team.
Thank you Richard for your clarity.
As long as the Arctic is not ice free (1million sq. km or less) over the ensuing years you will see more and more articles like this from the Mail. Here is PROFESSOR PETER WADHAMS.
The surface temperature in the Arctic.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=temp/orthographic=-71.25,85.50,964
Odd to call it a ‘recovery’. It would suggest that there is an optimum or healthy size for the ice cap. I hope that by recovery he does not mean that the polar ice cap will be taking an ice age holiday in the Algarve at any time in the near future….
Change creates uncertainty , uncertainty creates fear.
Changing back to what is was before is nice. Recovery from fear.
Many of the comments, and the article itself, are not very sensible. If you check out the long term charts on this site you’ll see that Arctic ice is in long term decline. It is not going as fast as alarmists predicted. It is not going to make new lows this year, and in fact this year is a recovery from previous lows of the last couple of years. But the inescapable fact is that its in long term decline.
Now, whether it will reverse, whether its simply cyclical, whether its alarming, all that is an open question. But the fact is that it is in long term decline, and this year’s observations do not change that. The article is rather misleading to anyone who doesn’t know the detail, because the implication is that we are seeing a significant reversal of trend, and we are not.
This is unfortunately the same kind of nonsense and spin that Dana and Co indulge in, and its neither sensible nor effective.
Yes and no.
There was a clear prediction that the Arctic would be ice free by 2014. That was made 7 years ago by Al Gore when he received his Nobel Prize. That prediction was wrong.
Now, the other issue of the decline in Arctic Ice is correct.
But it is also irrelevant. I is merely cherry-picking. The Arctic is the only “canary” still keeling over. All the other signs of AGW have stopped signing already.
Wouldn’t it be strange if there were no signs consistent with AGW at all? We’d be well into an ice age by then.
Anticipating the possibility of further decline was not unreasonable in 2007.
1997-2007 did fit quite well of a quadratic model : “acceleratiing melting”. It was reasonable cause for concern.
The problem is that all those who jumped on this with a head full of bias confirmation, now refuse to look at the data and accept that it is no longer a credibile diagnosis of what is happening.
http://climategrog.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/arctic_abscos_2014-5.png
Micheal: “Now, whether it will reverse, whether its simply cyclical, whether its alarming, all that is an open question. ”
Well it may be an open question here, but most of the world has not been told yet. The alarmists are still weeping about dead polar bears but have decided to divert our attention to the Thwaite’s glacier in the Antarctic instead of be honest and report the changes in the Arctic.
The idea of “accelerating” melting , tipping points and death spirals are now dead. You can’t reach a tipping point then slow down a bit half way through the fall.
Apparently the feedbacks and drivers of the Arctic are poorly understood. Ice modellers, like the global modellers, completely failed to see the last two years’ changes and at are a loss to explain it.
Compare yourself how quickly may increase up ice in the Arctic.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/static_maps/min_seaice_extent1979_2013nsidc.png
The trouble is that you, and people like you, consider 30 years to be long term. The reality is that it is nothing in comparison to the time spans of, say, the Milankovitch cycles.
michel. Inescapable in the polar region ice decline is the desirability only.
And that’s not only my opinion. The green dominated Helsinki Council agrees. They have spent tax-payers funds to obliterate any new glaciers on their territory. And with what? The brute force of fossil-fuel powered machinery. http://yle.fi/uutiset/helsinki_still_copes_with_last_winters_snow/5429556.
Perhaps they are also wondering why would anyone purposefully wish our tiny nation back to the chilly temperatures of the pre-industrialized age. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_famine_of_1866%E2%80%9368. Would you care to reveal?
Michel,
Many here are aware of the ‘long-term’ decline (since 1979). The article is about sea ice and volume up on 2012. It also points out that Gore failed. It’s very simple.
OK Michel, here you go. What many here argue is that it’s mostly natural with some contributions from soot. Even Dr. Hansen once argued that in a paper. I have it if you want.
Jimbo,
Your archives and retrieval skills are AWESOME!
I think I speak for many here at WUWT, when I say “Thanks!” for doing what you do so well,
Mac
Jimbo never fails with history and links.
Ditto what MtK says.
Michel, Your assertion of long term decline makes sense only if you cherry pick your definition of “long term.” Arctic ice did not start in 1979 — but that is the start year for alarmists. Of course, we did not have satellites in the 1920s, but there are observations from back then the ice extent was lower 90 years ago than it is now. Even if you go to the era of satellites, indications from the early 1970s is that ice extent was lower then that it is now. And for a honest examination, in the era of Viking exploration 600 to 700 years ago, ice extent was less then that it is now.
Yeah, so what?
You need to define long term better. TonyB posted exhaustive evidence previously that there was significant decline in Arctic ice from about 1920 to about 1940. That is why Larson was able to complete a Northwest Passage transit in just 86 days. Third ever, and first ever in just one season. So the qualitative evidence (whichnis all there is) makes the recent ‘long term decline’ look a lot like the previous ‘long term decline’.
IT IS IN ANY CASE MEASURED AGAINST A MUCH TOO SHORT MEAN
Who decides that 35 years (1979 to present) is “long term” with respect to Arctic ice extents? 35 years is two dog lives, less than half a human lifespan and paleologically or geologically infinitesimal. 35 years being approximately a half cycle of the AMO or PDO, “long term” is nonsense. So don’t try to lay that “long term” BS on us.
“The speech by former US Vice-President Al Gore was apocalyptic. ‘The North Polar ice cap is falling off a cliff,’ he said.”
Al, seriously. The only thing apocalyptic is your PR management. There are no cliffs on the Earth seas/oceans. And even if the Flat-Earth Society would escape Obama’s taunting (which it doesn’t), your metaphors suçk.
What a information of un-ambiguity and preserveness of precious
experience regarding unexpected feelings.
Michel
Unfortunately you are indulging in short termism and not looking at the historic context.
Here is my article from a week ago demonstrating with hundreds of references that there was remarkable arctic ice melt in the period 1920-1950.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/22/historic-variations-in-arctic-sea-ice-part-two/
Unusually the Antarctic was also melting at the same time, unlike today.
In total the global sea ice area during the 1920-1950 period was probably not that dissimilar to today
tonyb
Ps I also wrote about the arctic warming in the 1820 to 1850 period. Did you see that? Freeze and Melt Freeze and melt all through the ages, with the largest melt we can see from observational records being during the Viking period
Tony B
No, this is not my point. And yes I have read your stuff and find it interesting and persuasive. My point is that Rose is playing a typical Nuccitelli trick, take a year, show movement from it, a proclaim triumpantly that its the end of a trend. When actually, the trend is in still place even with the movement in question.
I don’t hold any brief for Gore either. He is repeatedly wrong about almost everything important. A certain restricted interest attaches to showing up his mistakes but its rather restricted. Too easy!
I don’t think there is any cause for alarm. But, I also do not think you can take this year and compare it with the lows of a couple years ago and proclaim that the trend has reversed. It has not. It may. Or it may not. But it has not done it yet and Rose should know better. What is worse is that its so easy to point out what he has done.
He is writing for the Daily Mail however….
You play the same ‘trick’ when you state, “But the inescapable fact is that its in long term decline.” You declare a trend based on a timeframe far too short to capture the nonlinearities of the Arctic ice.
Jtom, one of the unfortunate things about this is that people are always trying to class remarks and stances into ‘us and them’. It is tiresome tribalism. I take each thing on its merits and am not playing any trick.
I am rather thoroughly skeptical about AGW, but I also, inconveniently, think there is evidence of a decline in Polar ice long enough to be called long term. I have approved of many of Rose’s articles, while deploring the paper he publishes them in, but think this one is pretty awful. As bad as Nuccitelli in fact. I do not take the view that Rose is one of ‘us’ and therefore that his occasional truly awful articles have to be defended. If they are bad they are bad, and yes, it does reflect badly on him.
Yes, there is evidence of long term fluctuation. Its not at all clear that the present downward trend is any reason for alarm or out of kilter with that. TonyB has written some very interesting pieces suggesting that fluctuations on this scale have occurred before in modern history. All the same, to proclaim a reversal of trend on the grounds that this year is higher than the readings of two years ago is nonsense, and Rose knows better.
What the field needs more than anything else is for people to recognise truths especially when they are inconvenient for the view of the matter they take.
Michel, I think the evidence is quite persuasive that fluctuations in Arctic Ice have occurred throughout history. Satellite information suggest that Arctic ice was lower in the early 1970s. Submarine records indicate that it was lower in the 1950s. Eye-witness accounts reveal lower levels in the 1920s. Viking exploration and settlements attest to lower levels 600 years ago. Finally, scientific analysis of sediments verify the fluctuations throughout history.
Wonder why Russia is building a new fleet of monster ice-breakers?
Nukes too so good for CO2 stats.
http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=11&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CFAQFjAK&url=http%3A%2F%2Frt.com%2Fnews%2Fworld-biggest-icebreaker-russia-275%2F&ei=adwCVLSICcbnuQTyuYLYAQ&usg=AFQjCNF9jlQ7i0QkbgbfMSQN1lEoDcPQig&bvm=bv.74115972,d.dGc
The Skeptics revenge. IPPC panel locked in a room with Vanilla Ice’s hit song “Ice Ice Baby” on a loop and loud!
Wrong direction? I’d say a warming planet is the right direction. Most mammals and plants benefit far more from from warmth than cold. I never feared a warming planet but I definitely fear a cooling planet.
You and others use 1979 high in extent as a starting point rather than the first satellite data in 1974 which was low as today.
We could all be a little more circumspect if we had reliable data for the last 1000 years. Perhaps some meaningful conclusions could be made then.
What a bunch of whiners
I see by the first half of the thread that some of the usual suspects are whining that a comparison is being made to a low point in ice extent. OMG! It was the low point that was used to shout over and over that we were doomed. Doomed. Doomed as Doomed could be!
From the low point till now we see a recovery in spite of the fact that CO2 has been skyrocketing. This is news and the poster of the article did a fine job explaining it; even if the resident alarmists don’t like their religion to be challenged.
My friends, mankind does indeed effect climate to some degree. Building cities and cutting down trees will effect things to a tiny, tiny degree. But then climate is also effected to some tiny degree by other life forms. It is raw, stupid arrogance to claim that mankind is effecting the climate to any great degree. Natural causes are driving the climate. Only religious zealots, the deluded, and the propagandized fail to understand that.
No. No it isn’t. It really isn’t.
It may be affected, in fact, it certainly is, but it’s wise to learn the difference between effected and affected. Tragically, too many people do not.
Effected means executed, produced, or brought about. I meant that various life forms do, in fact, bring about climate change to a tiny degree. They effect the climate. Climate is also affected by other life forms to boot, also to some tiny degree.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Heh, this one has always bothered me. The meanings are close enough in many situations. So I sit and ponder, pull petals off of flowers, is it ‘e’ or is it ‘a’. Eventually I put one or the other down, and worry that the flowers have betrayed me.
The nouns are not so difficult.
================
You can effect a change–that’s true. But you (almost certainly) can’t effect (bring about) a climate.
Here’s Fowler (Modern English Usage) with a couple of examples that bring out the difference:
Mankind does not bring about climate to some degree–or anyway, if it does, that’s not what you meant to say. You meant to say that it changes climate to some degree. So you should have used “affect,” which is the word that implies “changes”:
NSIDC’s September average is tracking toward 5.40M km2 in 2014, versus 5.25M in 2013 and 3.63M in 2012. NSIDC does some post-processing to these numbers which can change them by +/- 0.1M km2.
Jaxa’s daily sea ice extent number declined by only 2,000 km2 on August 30, 2014 signalling that the melt season is coming to a low-melt end.
September 12 is the usual minimum Arctic sea ice extent/area day which is also the peak of the hurricane season and the peak of sea surface temperatures in most of the northern oceans. 83 days after the summer solstice.
The last hurricane to hit here (Florida) was Wilma in October 2005, and as we near 9 years without a hurricane it is the longest streak in recorded history. The alarmists are always going on about how their magic molecule CO2 is going to make hurricanes plentiful and super strong.
So how many predictions do they have to get wrong before they hang their heads in shame?
In the military service, we noted that when you got one “atta boy” it was worth ten “aw shits” so I suspect this is similar:
One right prediction (or even close) balances out ten wrong ones.
Con artists have no shame.
Excepting any massive storms I’d say it will be 9th +/- 1 , this year. Wiggles are out of phase with last year and lag a little from 2009/2010.
Nothing to worry about:
And:
The ice pack is far more solid in 2014 than last year’s “recovery” ice.
2014.
http://s1.postimg.org/iuto5ou73/Arctic_Ice_Aug30_2014.jpg
versus 2013.
http://s12.postimg.org/y603m69a5/Arctic_Ice_Aug30_2013.jpg
Thanks for those pictures. They explain something I have a hard time explaining with 1000 words: The Ice-pack is more packed, this year.
Temperature trends from Greenland, Iceland, Norway and Russis all show massive warming up to around 1940, massive cooling in the 1960’s and 70’s, and recent warming back to 1940 levels.
And the trends all closely follow the AMO.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/08/31/arctic-ice-and-the-amo/
We fail to learn the lessons of history at our peril.
Let’s hear it for Mother Nature – still the biggest, baddest, Big-Oil-funded, head-in-the-sand D****er on the planet!
Mom Nature Rocks!
haha now that was funny!
But one day all the doomists may die out, it’s no joke, it’s gonna be a crisis! We must do something to help conserve them! Got a good conserve recipe?
What is the trend since 2007? Oh my, flat to slightly upward.
If you can cherry pick the high extent when the AMO was at its minimum then you should have no problem with anyone using a low extent at the AMO peak.
Gulf Stream is inhibited by warmer North Atlantic.
http://www.opc.ncep.noaa.gov/Loops/GRTOFS/currents/GRtofs_Curr_Atl_03_Day_flash.shtml
http://www.opc.ncep.noaa.gov/Loops/GRTOFS/sst/GRtofs_sst_Atl_03_Day_flash.shtml
“Gulf Stream is inhibited by warmer North Atlantic.”
Not to worry. It’s always been a little bit shy.
Compare the coverage of ice from the side of Scandinavia.
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=08&fd=29&fy=2013&sm=08&sd=29&sy=2014
You ignore at least three things: 1. The low 1974 ice extent shown to you above. 2. The failed projections of “ice free” Arctic. 3. The last 17 years of no warming.
You and others also seem not to understand that the global temperature has yet to exceed the highs of the Holocene Optimum thousands of years ago. Until we pass those highs all this is just natural.
In my opinion the key (corporately controlled) free market indicator of global cooling and the subsequent increases in arctic sea ice, was the purchase of the (Canadian) Tim Horton’s (Tim’s) coffee franchise by the (U.S.A.) Burger King. Knowing/predicting the consequent migration of 30+ million Canadians to the U.S.A.s southern latitudes, and Canadians particular copious consumption of coffee with an ever increasing market share palate preference for Tim’s (no offence to Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks intended), Burger King strategists have invested 9 billion dollars in this climate change mitigation endeavour. I suppose the risky marginal aspect of this corporate merger will be the stock market indicators of Burger Kings AGW denial.
Jimbo, I was about to post that although Al Gore is something of a comical figure in the minds of some, he did not make his prediction on his own. He would have relied on information from “top men”. Thanks for posting the log of similar predictions from other worthies in the field.
On another note, thanks for reminding us that the criterion for an ice-free Arctic is ice of less than a million sq km in extent. That makes sense to me. I could get that much ice in my bathtub. But if I were a climate scientist I would consider revising “ice free” to maybe five million.
“Al Gore … did not make his prediction on his own. He would have relied on information from “top men”.”
Uh, would these be the same “top men” that told him the Earth’s interior was millions of degrees hot?
Al Gore relied on Professor Wieslaw Maslowski of the US Naval Postgraduate School for his statement.
Al Gore is still an idiot.
Also covered here:
http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2014/243/b/1/_the_arctic_is_screaming__it_will_never_recover___by_kajm-d7xdnq0.png
After all the knee jerk reactions, increasing polar ice is not a good thing. Yeah it’s nice to show the charlatans are wrong but colder is not what the world needs. What the world needs now is, continued warmth. By the way, Florida is full, stay out.
Yeah, but humanity needs the dose of reality too, so we all get and can not fail to that we all got lied to for decades, so we can clean the green slurry out of every nook and cranny they have polluted … and degraded … and endangered … and stolen from … and perverted … and …
Tom in Florida, the freezing recent winters in the UK damaged their case in the eyes of many. Whether rightly or wrongly. Oh wait, they did tell us to expect warmer, snowless winters and earlier springs.
I agree with Peter. We have seen two years of ice extent “recovery” before and these were followed by new measured lows. Let’s wait for at least a third year of recovery.
Okay, so now what? Now that climate change/global warming is being corrected, or maybe self-corrected, where do all these environmentalists with Climate change of the brain go? If you know, then lets us know here
http://www.frontlineofdefense.com/trending
South Georgia?
It should shame Polar climate panicky scientists that simple minded armchair observers can calmly and clearly tag melt patterns with known polar oceanic/atmospheric circulation patterns, thus CO2 need not apply for part of the scare job. It should also shame polar pollution scientists that simple minded armchair observers of ice core data can clearly see that soot has been both greater and lesser in times past compared to now, thus China’s soot need not apply for part of the scare job. Our polar regions have large, very powerful weather pattern variation processes that require a tremendous amount of naturally driven re-directed energy to force a switch to a different variation or oscillation. The tiny addition of industrial soot, and/or the tiny addition of anthropogenic CO2, and/or the tiny addition of anthropogenic chlorofluorocarbons, just don’t have the cojones to move such powerful systems into a different pattern, even when combined.
Weather pattern variations do not trip over something so trivially small. They blow right through that stuff, paying it no mind whatsoever. The only things humankind have control over in terms of temperature are windbreaks, shade, and reflected heat from the things we build, and even then these things affect tiny heat island areas on the globe close to temperature sensors, compared to the strength of natural variations. Think of us as an ant hill colony. The structures that ants build affect the temperature of their colony. Step away from that colony and ants are at the mercy of weather just like we are.
Ph.D.’d scientists involved in perpetuating this watermelon fad may be book smart, yet remain amazingly stupid, becoming more so the longer they stay at the climate gravy train feed trough. In a very real sense, they look just like pigs lined up jostling for position with their snouts deep in slop, growing more stupid by the minute as they engorge on the emptying contents of our wallets.
Pamela, either that or incompetent.
Pamela Gray,
You said it better than I could have.
The basic argument has always been about “carbon” [by which they mean CO2, a tiny trace gas].
The scare has always been that rising CO2 will lead to runaway global warming and climate catastrophe. But that has not happened. In fact, global warming has stopped. In any other field of science, such a falsification of a basic prediction would mean the end of the conjecture. Climate ‘science’ is the exception.
Your last paragraph says it all. This is about money, not science.
[BTW, I found this photo of several alarmist scientists on the job.]
The following article was written May 31, 1947, in the There are many examples of similar ones from earlier periods in the 20’s and 30’s. All have very similar Alarmist tones to today’s climate bedwetting period. Note the call then for an “international agency to study the conditions on a global basis”. So, not only do we have cyclical icemelt periods in the arctic causing the usual climate fearmongering, but, wonder of wonders, there has never been an “arctic death spiral”. The ice always recovers. But, I suppose for the True Believers and those still suckling from the teat of government “science”, this time is different. Sure it is.
In my opinion, what it means to be “within two standard deviations” is not emphasized enough.
This is exactly what NSIDC says about standard deviation and how that relates to sea ice extent:
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/faq/#standard_deviation
“Measurements that fall far outside of the two standard deviation range or consistently fall outside that range suggest that something unusual is occurring that can’t be explained by normal processes.” [my bold]
[In other words, if it is INSIDE two standard deviations, it is not unusual]
However, they then make this misleading statement:
“In recent years, ice extent has declined and in the summer especially, it has regularly fallen outside of two standard deviations. This suggests that the recent decline in sea ice extent represents a significant change in conditions from 1981 to 2010 time period.”
Not true. In fact, the September minimum has fallen outside two standard deviations exactly three times during the entire record: 2007, 2011, 2012.
Those dates may be “recent” but they hardly represent the “routine” state of the ice over the last 20 years or so.
Check it out yourself.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/
Dr. Susan Crockford, PolarBearScience
Nice blog Dr. Crockford.
I would not be surprised to see that your blog about the great white bear is blacklisted by CAGW believers.
Your post here seems to suggest applying common sense to the data we have. I suspect that won’t go over well with the CAGW believers either.
FWIW – I’d say that makes you 2 for 2.
Dr. Crockford, the other problem is the period over which they computed the standard deviation. Starting in 1979 or 1981, as the two charts posted in comments above do, does not even use the full satellite record going back to 1974 that was published in AR1, FAR. So the 2 sigma band is too tight.
Since NSIDC doesn’t know the “normal processes” enough to predict anything about sea ice, I’d say their statement is fairly meaningless.
Thank yiou!
Good identification of the long-term trend of arctic sea ice compared to the “two standard deviations from normal” definition that NSIDC declares is correct.
I will never understand how mostly intelligent people can fall for 1 million sq km …..is ice free
…that’s the size of Egypt
Latitutude, I am only taking their definition without argument, just like I take the 30 year period of data as climate. I agree it’s not ice-free but we need an accepted definition otherwise we would all be going round in circles. Is the Arctic ice free yet? Yes it is, not it’s not, yes it is, no it’s not…….. 😉
Note the pronounced current cold anomaly over the whole arctic, and the warm pool in the northern Pacific. Does this look like the prerequisite setup to re-run the polar-vortex style winter pattern?
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp_anomaly/orthographic=-116.12,74.31,536
See the temperature of ocean currents in the Atlantic.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp_anomaly/orthographic=-10.69,1.08,406
This too:
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp_anomaly/orthographic=-165.27,-15.62,406
Indian seem cool too:
And look at the bright heat anomaly along the mid ocean ridge in the southern ocean.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp_anomaly/orthographic=75.62,-23.45,406
Reblogged this on Public Secrets and commented:
Yet another “inconvenient truth” for climate alarmists, in which Nature refuses to play along with their beloved computer models. In Warmist theology, the polar ice cap was supposed to vanish (ignore the fact that’s happened several times before). Yet here it is, growing. I wonder if this is related to the discovery of newborn glaciers in Scotland?
Arctic sea ice is already increasing on the North American half of arctic, in one instance as early as August 1st. In areas where it is still declining, it is still higher than 2013 areas:
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02186/plots/r11_Central_Arctic_ts.png
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02186/plots/r06_Barents_Sea_ts.png
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02186/plots/r01_Beaufort_Sea_ts.png
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02186/plots/r09_Canadian_Archipelago_ts.png
For all the warmist comments on this thread talking about “still declining long term”, the next data point – 2014 will show the decline to not be so inexorable. Also, I know logic is a discredited subject in our schools for the last 40 yrs or so, replaced by post normal nonsense, but let me try to communicate: if the CO2 central theory were robust, then one should expect an oscillating decline in the ice which could not be stopped. There is no way after decaying so far below the datum level chosen (even if chosen badly) that the ice could ever get back into a positive anomaly. CO2 has increased ~30% since the decline began. Surely with the arctic ice extent on the ropes in 2007 and 2012, there would only be no place to go but down. What could cause it to rebound? Well, natural cycles or variations. If these can overwhelm the control knob, then we have the proof that the CO2 is a much lesser driver, than advertised. I ask. If the arctic ice extent ever becomes positive again, will you guys agree that, yes, the theory is basically wrong. Can I have the answer now?
‘The North Polar ice cap is falling off a cliff,’ he said….
No. Not only demonstrably false, but a pathetic metaphorical non sequitur also.
But failed predictions do not prevent the AGW lemmings from continuing to run headlong over the failed climate models cliff that is now 30 years of heaped bull$hit high. With 30 years of failed climate models/predictions and nearly 18 years of no warming staring them straight in the face, we can only conclude they are real ‘sloooooooooooooooooow learners’.
OK, so tell me why you ARE then deliberating the ever-increasing Antarctic sea ice extents, the ever-colder Antarctic average air temperatures, and the steadily increasing total Antarctic ice area of continental land ice area + Antarctic shelf ice + Antarctic sea ice. Here you are pretending to draw attention to what is actually the cause of increased heat loss from the Arctic between late August and early April, all the while ignoring actual increased solar energy refleting from the Antarctic continent.
You claim upcoming catastrophic heating because of a potential future loss of 3.0 million sq kilometers of sea ice from an area who highest solar exposure is 8 – 10 degrees above the horizon, while claiming that ever-higher Antarctic reflection from 37 million kilometers one the same day is due to “melted water” diluting salty ocean water that has diffused from a continent land mass 1100 kilometers away.
Has anyone plotted the arctic sea ice using 1975-2010 instead of 1980-2010? How much different would it look. I think that would be “vedddddddy interesting”. (h/t to Artie Johnson)
“But this is what we do know. The earth’s surface and oceans are warming..”
Peter, This is a well known, undisputed empirical fact. This warming starts around 1850 and is commonly referred to as “recovery from the Little Ice Age. This warming has not accelerated due to CO2. There is NO tropospheric warm zone. Satellite temperature measurements have not shown an increase since 1998. Antarctica has more ice.
CO2 based Global Warming is a falsified theory.
Rejoice.
Did Professor Peter Wadhams make a prediction for the ARCUS Sea Ice prediction Network? Can’t see any entry obviously linked to him. I look forward to his entry next year of 1M sq km.
Also interesting is the range of entries, given the science is settled, all based upon “simple physics”.
The warming is still there, just gonna hide were the least data exists, and not hiding in the Arctic ice.
So, looking at the graph (the one from the Sunday Wail), Arctic sea ice has gone down from 6M sq km in 2004 to 5.5M sq km in 2014. Every decade the ice goes down by 0.5M sq km. So the Arctic will be ice free in another 110 years, give or take a decade or two.. Nice to know that. I shall have to remember this in 2024.
It’s only temporary, there will be several summers through the next decade with strongly negative North Atlantic Oscillation episodes, and it will be 2007 and 2012 all over again, and worse probably.
Each satellite which measures ice area performs a global orbit which covers both Arctic and Antarctic regions. An ongoing issue with these satellite operations is calibration of the polarizing filters — if the calibration isn’t right, then surface ponds are mistaken for open sea, or the ice edge is wrongly placed, etc. Having watched these charts for some years, I see now that the method of calibration is to take whichever setting yields the *smallest* global sea ice area. It’s quite a good method, actually, as it’s globally consistent and avoids runaways. The downside is that you get these silly-looking swings in ice area in which the Arctic area swings are opposite to the Antarctic area swings, a sort of hemispheric tango which is entirely created by the dial-turning.
Prior to 2007 they simply had two setting for the satellite polarizer filter, N and S, which they would switch over twice a year on 1 January and 1 July, causing the well-known bump in the middle of the ice charts. People complained about the bumps so they decided to try something else, and in 2007 they didn’t switch the filter at all. The result was a new record low Arctic sea ice extent in September 2007 followed immediately by a new record high Antarctic anomaly (near +2 million) in November 2007. How the satellite operators must have scurried in search of a solution!
So the undocumented part of the sea ice record is that the methodology since 2008 has been daily minimization of global sea ice, whereas before July 2007 it was the N/S setting switch twice a year. I write this without personal knowledge of operations, but from watching this over 8 years using statistical techniques which have served me in my works.
It appears suspending this in early 2013 has helped the Arctic ice recover http://rt.com/business/russia-arctic-reserves-kept-idle-142/
What is the optimum amount of Arctic ice?
“The Arctic is still losing ice sheets and sea ice.” Love it when the faithful say stuff like this. If true, it absolutely proves nothing as to cause of such ice loss, which is the whole idea, right? So it never lost ice before?
Yes. A parallel might be, when the fall begins,
“The trees are still losing leaves and twigs. Not only that, it is occurring throughout the entire Northern Hemisphere! What will happen to the trees when all the leaves are gone?”
Polar cycles are just longer than the annual cycles. We really won’t know what polar cycles are until we have gone through a couple of them. Another sixty years?
While 2 years is not a trend except in the most minimalist of stats imaginable it is returning closer to the trend line. The trend line itself was measured accurately by satellite during the positive (warm) phase of the PDO so now we will get 2-3 decades of measurements during the negative (cold) phase of the PDO. We will then have a real trend line.
If/When it crosses the trend line how long would you consider significant?
Yeah, but wait until you see the corrected data. It will show there is less than zero ice at the north pole.
I think folks can be misled by an accurate description of a 2-year snippet of a 35-year accelerating downward trend. Let me show you how one can be duped by a UK tabloid. In a nutshell, you’re losing more Alaska’s then you are gaining.
In any one year, like a pond, the arctic freezes over in the winter with a maximum extent in March and thaws again in the summer having a minimum extent in September. So for 7 months EACH year an area the size of 5.2 Alaskas melts and reveals open ocean (~9 sq Km) as depicted below. Then most of it freezes over during the winter.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/Sea_Ice_Extent_v2_L.png
Now to determine the trend of ice coverage, it is customary to yearly track the extent in September, when the ice coverage is at the minimum.
Below is the trend of September arctic ice extents from 1980-2012 revealing an accelerating downward trend that is equivalent to a loss of ice the area of 2.5 Alaskas (4.2 million sq Km).
http://static.skepticalscience.com/pics/Tamino2013SeaIce
If you have Excel, go ahead and plot the raw data yourself:
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/Sep/N_09_area.txt
So in 2007, for the first time in recorded history, there was a sea ice extent (4.3 million sq Km) that was low enough to allow ships to traverse the Northwest Passage without icebreakers. But the loss of ice from 2006 to 2007 alone was about the size of, you guessed it, one Alaska (1.6 million sq Km)!
Now for two years since the 2007 record low, climate contrarians were having an nice little ice recovery party, proclaiming an ice gain of 1.1 sq Km (almost two Texases) in 2009 (5.4 million sq Km).
And contrarian hopes were AGAIN DASHED just 3 years later when in 2012, for the 2nd time in recorded history, there was a new ALL TIME low (3.6 sq Km)!
What’s that? You guessed it, we lost more than another of Alaska (1.8 million sq Km) in just 2 years and that brings us to 2012 (the lowest extent in all of recorded history).
So it’s been another 2 years later (2014) and here we go again. We gain back an Alaska’s worth of ice coverage while still continuing the obvious downward trend, and the recovery party begins anew, while ignoring the fact that we are losing more and more ice MASS AND EXTENT.
And then we bash Al Gore, of course, for making a prediction he didn’t himself make. Let’s recall the salient passage in his Nobel acceptance speech:
cut to 4:30 min
“Last September 21st, as the Northern Hemisphere tilted away from the sun, scientists reported with unprecedented alarm that the North Polar ice cap is, in their words, “falling off a cliff.” One study estimated that it could be completely gone during summer in less than 22 years. Another new study, to be presented by U.S. Navy researchers later this week, warns it could happen in as little as seven years. Seven years from now.”
Albert Gore
Nobel Ceremony
10-December 2007
From the transcript, it seems to me that the summer estimate of an ice-free summer was actually projected to occur sometime between 2014 and 2029, (7 and 22 years) as suggested by a couple of studies quoted by Gore.
I hope I’ve convinced folks that, with some variabilty, there is progressively less arctic sea ice.
There was water available during the summer of 1980 when the ice coverage was 7.2 million sq km
…and again more water in 1996 (ice=6.6 million sq km)
….and some more water in 2005 (ice=5.6 million sq km)
…and even more water in 2007 (ice=4.3 million sq km)
….and even yet more water revealed in 2012 (ice=3.6 million sq Km).
See the downward trend yet and variability? You lose more Alaskas than you gain.
And all that increased open ocean is absorbing solar radiation, getting warmer.
Hanzo
Peter – See for example: http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,578.msg35760.html#msg35760
Frankly Peter, I think the lesson is that “a clearly written synopsis” that doesn’t toe the “party line” has great difficulty in escaping the eagle eyes of the WUWT “moderators”!
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/tag/anthony-watts/
I wish I could say the same Peter!
Great! It’s nice to see the ice growing nice and thickkkk.
Reblogged this on The GOLDEN RULE and commented:
“Sorting the sheep from the goats”
Or “the truth from the propaganda”.
Or the “science from the agenda”.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/09/01/global_warming_denial_claims_of_arctic_ice_recovering_are_exaggerated.html