In the late summer and early fall of 2007, there were a number of alarming media reports about the arctic sea ice melting. Additionally, there were predictions that it would not recover to its previous levels.
But, we have this graph charting the rise and fall of arctic sea ice for the last 365 days, notice that the arctic sea ice is right back where it started at in February 2007.
From the University of Illinois Cryosphere Today:
Image above was edited to fit. Click for a full sized image. A long time series is also available.
And here is the satellite sounder derived image showing sea ice extent as of Saturday, Feb 2nd 2008 (right) compared to Feb 2nd, 1980 (left). The color key shows the concentration of sea ice, with deep purple being the most solid ice and reds, yellows. blues showing areas of thinning ice or seawater/ice mix:
Click for a full sized image. Note that the 1980 photo does not show snow cover (in white) as the technology then wasn’t able to resolve it as it does today.
While there has been a slight reduction in sea ice, NASA indicates in a press release in October 2007 that the main component of change is wind driven flow patterns, not air temperature changes.
I’m wondering; are the polar bears out having fun on the new 2008 ice?
And while we are on the subject of melting sea ice, polar bears, and pictures, I’d like to point out that our Nobelic hero, Al Gore, has been caught not only propagandizing, but also using a copyrighted work without permission.
Astute readers may recall seeing a photo flashed around the world earlier this year of polar bears “stranded” on an ice cube at sea. I won’t show it here but rather please follow this link to the original photographer. See the bottom right photo.
A Canadian blogger, Carole Williams, tells the story behind this picture, which was taken in 2004 just off Alaska by a marine biologist on a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute project, Amanda Byrd. As the marine biologist (Byrd) points out, the bears were in no danger so close to the coast (they can swim 30 miles).
She just wanted a photograph more of the “wind-sculpted ice” than of the bears. Byrd writes:
“[You] have to keep in mind that the bears aren’t in danger at all. It was, if you will, their playground for 15 minutes. You know what I mean? This is a perfect picture for climate change, in a way, because you have the impression they are in the middle of the ocean and they are going to die with a coke in their hands. But they were not that far from the coast, and it was possible for them to swim.”
The image was copied from the ships computer (where Byrd had downloaded the camera flash memory stick to) by another member of the shipboard research crew and passed on to Environment Canada. Then it was eagerly adopted by many as an example of the fate that awaits the polar bears – including Al Gore, who used the picture as huge projected backdrop in one of his highly lucrative lectures.
Gore said:
“Their habitat is melting,” “beautiful animals, literally being forced off the planet.”
Audience: [gasp!]
Yes, it melts every summer.
Read all the details of the story behind the photo, here and here. It seems that a lawsuit is brewing and Canada has some pretty hefty copyright laws.
In the meantime, there’s a big push in the US to “save the polar bears”. The LA Times writes today:
“The Bush administration is nearing a decision that would officially acknowledge the environmental damage of global warming, and name its first potential victim: the polar bear.”
Sure I want to protect wildlife just as much as the next person, but this is just getting to be all about spin and little about facts. Write your congressman and senator and let them know the true story. Let’s give the folks in Alaska (who should know) some credit for injecting some reason into the issue.
UPDATE – The “spike” has a well written story about the Polar Bear issue, along with some statistics.
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“Global warming will go down as the biggest, most costliest scam perpetrated on the smuggest, most informed, and sophisticated and educated populaion in the history of man.”
I do not regard it as a scam. That implies active motive.
I believe the AGW community is in error and that there has probably been only some modest warming.
I don’t predict egg on any faces, though, because the egg hasn’t yet stuck to any of the of the false prophets of doom over the last four decades. If it won’t stick to Paul Ehrlich or Dennis Meadows, it would seem that they are creatures of teflon.
“As far as I know, there is no evidence that the ice is down further now, than it was when the Vikings were there, but it would be interesting to see any research on this topic.
Supposedly, the little Ice Age has come and gone in the meantime.”
The Rev ran something on this very subject fairly recently.
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2007/12/18/greenland-is-as-warm-as-today-as-in-prior-eras/#comments
He was “scientifically correct” enough to link to the abstract:
http://www.agu.org/cgi-bin/SFgate/SFgate?&listenv=table&multiple=1&range=1&directget=1&application=fm07&database=%2Fdata%2Fepubs%2Fwais%2Findexes%2Ffm07%2Ffm07&maxhits=200&=%22C13A-04%22
Note well that we’re talking right above the 70th parallel, here!
Shouldn’t we use the following two charts from the same source, than the one your provided? These graphs show a reduction in ice coverage area. True?
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.area.jpg
and
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.jpg
REPLY: They are fine to use, but the premise of the original post remains, the arctic ice rebounded to Feb 2007 levels. Yes there’s been a reduction in coverage, attributable to the mechanism that NASA discovered, and also likely due to PDO shift that occurred in 1977.
[…] slight decline in Arctic sea ice coverage, this winter, Arctic ice is back to normal levels. (Via Anthony Watts, who links to the useful University of Illinois Cryosphere Today site. It also has a cute story […]
[…] Watts at Watt’s Up With That? has the scoop: A Canadian blogger, Carole Williams, tells the story behind this picture, which was […]
[…] the way I have to wonder if any of these computer models predicted the fact that the Arctic ice pack has returned to its previous levels. Share This Popularity: 1% Share […]
damartriadi finally asks the good questions:
I’d put it a little differently:
Is there global warming?
Did we cause it?
Can we do anything about it?
I’d say: 1. Yes, just as there has always been global warming and cooling (remember the Maunder Minimum?).
2. Possibly, though that cedes mere Man with a lot more power than he has (all our atomic bomb tests have had almost no effect on global climate (or even weather, for that matter), compared with minor natural events like Mt Pinatubo, Mt St Helens, Mt Krakatoa.
3. Maybe, maybe not. If “maybe not”, let’s just go back to the usual course: cut back on the nasty stuff like coal (and somehow get the Chinese to follow suit). If “maybe”, then at least do a good economic tradeoff study and see where the effort is best put.
I think Lomborg’s new book “Cool It” is a step in that direction.
evan said:
You’re more charitable than I am. I think that the aim of the AGW crowd is little more than a global “income redistribution” scheme, that will end up bankrupting 1st world countries and benefiting a few people. (I’m new here, so I don’t know how many know about the global firm nicknamed “Blood and Gore” (David Blood and Al Gore), whose business is buying and selling “carbon offsets”).)
When the Cold War ended, the Left was left without a Cause, so they picked up on Global Warming as the agenda that gives their life meaning.
Lots of folks felt orphaned when the CW ended. Both sides were sort of stunned.
But I will never forget that joyful night when Freedom danced on the Wall . . . I never really thought it would happen in my lifetime.
The ecology movement was in full swing before that, though. The Population Bomb came out in ’68. Earth Day was 1970. The Club of Rome was Early ’80s. I will grant you that GW took off right after the wall went down, but I think it was more of a mindset than a other-motive conspiracy. Though I do admit there’s an anti-growth-as-solution thread commonality. I think it’s more of a guilt/self-righteouness trip than a plot.
I think there’s always a panic over something. GW just happens to be this flavor-of-the-decade. We’ll come up with something else when and if this one goes away. (We’ll get getting very powerful tech by then. Neo-Luddites, maybe? Robo-smashers.)
REPLY: We’ll never get Robo-smashers, I’m still waiting for my Flying Car Popular Science promised me in the 50’s, and 60’s, and 70’s, and 80’s, and 90’s, and why, there was just one a couple months ago.
“We’ll never get Robo-smashers, ”
I hope not. But it’s still too soon to tell.
When they start walking and talking and cheating at cards (and marrying? Ack.) there might be a change of mind. The Japanese are planning on having a “sexy model” on the market “Real Soon Now”.
I think I might have found it within myself to have taken a sledge to Twiggy. And I can’t see R2D2 making it too far without a good dent. And when the first one decides to sue for its inhuman rights…
“I’m still waiting for my Flying Car Popular Science promised me in the 50’s, and 60’s, and 70’s, and 80’s, and 90’s, and why, there was just one a couple months ago.”
Really? Is it in any way practical? Does it fly or merely hover? What does it have by way of autopilot? Or was it just another empty Popular Science promise?
Fellas the way this election is shaping up we will be stuck with a full on AGW believer as President.
This is rapidly becoming a certainty.
There will never be an outcry against staged polar bear pictures. Forget about it.
Keep an eye open for other more blatant false evidences.
Moving a harbor tide marker? With these sorts of people that and more would be rationalized as tiny white lies in the service of the greater good.
We need a more robust campaign. We need a mainstream politician as our spokesman. We need the reams of evidence organized and editted for him or her to present in general public understandable chunks.
Before McCain is anointed the GOP standard barer. Before Hill or Barry beats him down in the general election.
We need an anti AIT movie, pointing out exactly in painstaking detail each and every instance of outright fraud perpetrated by Gore.
And we need that now.
Before global warming becomes an official federal agency.
The Canadian Arctic since October has had ‘normal’ or slightly below normal temperatures. At the moment the temperatures are well below, normal some 15 degrees, several locations are reporting minus 50 C (58 below F) this morning with no letup in sight. I see that parts of northern Alaska are even colder.
Arctic ice will certainly spread considerably this winter given 2 to 3 more months of cold weather yet ahead.
“REPLY: They are fine to use, but the premise of the original post remains, the arctic ice rebounded to Feb 2007 levels. Yes there’s been a reduction in coverage, attributable to the mechanism that NASA discovered, and also likely due to PDO shift that occurred in 1977.”
Yet somehow you failed to mention that 2007 was a tie for the record low area! Also you may want to take a look at the breakup of the multiyear icepack in the Beaufort sea this December and January.
http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/App/WsvPageDsp.cfm?Lang=eng&lnid=43&ScndLvl=no&ID=11892
REPLY: “Yet somehow you failed to mention that 2007 was a tie for the record low area” well yes, but that headline has been trumpeted around the world this year, and has had overexposure, so didn’t need repeating here, while the other headline of “Antarctic ice reaches record high levels” was ignored. I didn’t cite that Antarctic headline in this post either, neither did you. This post was a bit of tongue in cheek satire over the headlines seen this year, with some data attached, so I expect some folks won’t like the mix, but that’s ok.
I appreciate the link though, thank you. I’ll put that one in my library.
Actually I don’t think that the 2007 Arctic winter max was a low has been that publicised.
That the record high for the Antarctic was ignored isn’t that surprising since it was only <1% higher than the previous whereas the Arctic minimum was ~27% below the previous record. It will be interesting to see what happens in the Beaufort sea this summer.
REPLY: Well it is all about balance, be it headlines or bipolar ice distribution. Total global ice is up, we don’t hear much about that either.
curves79lady stated: “The fact that many said to let nature take its course (not help the polar bears, seals and other animal in the arctic) when in fact it wasn’t the nature to blame for this but us humans PISSED ME OFF!!”
In fact, nature is the only one to ‘blame’ in this example.
See, the polar bears eat the seals. Those cute cuddly little white harp seal pups with the big eyes. Polar bears eat those little suckers like popcorn.
So, which ones should we ‘help’?
What really, really scares the hell out of me is the fact that unthinking, emotional people can vote.
Good luck getting the sea ice anomaly above 0. A warm spring or fall in any year which delays your ice over of the arctic basin can never be recovered in the anomaly calculation-when this area freeezes over you are at 100 percent of maximum coverage, with no upside to overcome acccumulated ice deficits. The only way you get to zero if you expand the icepack across open ocean areas, namely the Bering or Greenland sea. In these areas, ice extent is as much a measure of sea and wind conditions as it is temperature. Try forming ice on a 12 foot swell and 50 knot wind.
Carbon taxes are a massive scam.
[…] Yes folks you heard that right, the eco-loons could care less about actual evidence of expanding polar bear numbers and are relying on computer models instead. So how long before the anti-whaling lobby releases their own computer model claiming whales will go extinct? Since the facts did not fit the reality these people want they rely on computers to make the reality for them. By the way I have to wonder if any of these computer models predicted the fact that the Arctic ice pack has returned to its previous levels? […]
Science is at its best when it openly projects a high degree of skepticism about it’s own findings and conclusions and freely admits that “all is tentative.” It is at its best when it deals in a respectful and reasonable manner with those who disagree or have doubts. It is at its best when it serves as an independent arm of society and does not tie itself to special interest groups or to those who have personal agendas.
Humility is also a virtue for science. For example, the earth and environmental sciences are in their infancy. Yet, they frequently do not behave that way. It is important to admit this fact and that it is possible that many methodologies and computer model forecasts, etc. may not be much more accurate than a coin flip.
Caution and prudence is needed when issuing public statements about potential consequences of scientific findings and conclusions. The very reputation of science is at stake when it takes on the aura of a “new priesthood.”
Care to comment on this?
Losing the Thick Stuff
Jan. 18, 2008 — A new study using satellite measurements of Arctic sea ice have revealed that thinner ice that’s only two or three years old now accounts for 58 percent of the ice cover — up from 35 percent in the mid-1980s.
Meanwhile, ice older than nine years had all but disappeared by 2007.
The extinction of the older, thicker ice is effectively melting away the Arctic Ocean’s hedge against complete summer meltdowns, say researchers.
http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2008/10.html
The new study by Maslanik and his colleagues appears in the Jan. 10 issue of Geophysical Research Letters. Co-authors include CCAR’s Charles Fowler, Sheldon Drobot and William Emery, as well as Julienne Stroeve from CU-Boulder’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and Jay Zwally and Donghui Yi from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
Sent from Stockholm, Sweden, where arrival of spring has just been officially declared several weeks before the normal time, ending a “winter” which has been the warmest on our 250 year record. No snow, no ice in the Baltic. If this is a scam, it is indeed very elaborate…..
It will indeed be very interesting to watch what will happen with this summers sea ice cover.
[…] year since 1966, a full 0.3 degrees F below the 20th century average. More coincidentally, Arctic ice is as thick as ever (in recent times, anyway). (Watts Up With That is one of the best climate blogs on the […]
“Where is the thick ice?”
Please give a source for your statement “Arctic ice is as thick as ever”
I gather no one has a really accurate way of measuring ice thickness. Otherwise, I would not think a polar team would actually need to look at the situation first hand. See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/devon/content/articles/2007/10/17/vanco_ice_cap_feature.shtml
These intrepid explorers say that “The only way to accurately gauge the current thickness of the polar ice cap is to physically go out there and measure it on the surface, to supply crucial data that can’t be recorded by submarine or satellite”
The team says it “…will travel on foot, pulling a sledge boat containing a ground penetrating radar unit. Their route will take them from Point Barrow in Alaska to the North Pole.”
Brrr!
I would be delighted to find that the warming scenario put forward by Gore et al is exaggerated or altogether wrong. Your data on this winter’s temps and ice extent are certainly at odds with the notion of continuous year over year warming, but don’t represent (to me anyway) enough of a trend to warrant any real conclusions one way or the other. Questions of ice thickness vs extent are of interest, and summer ’08 numbers should prove useful.
As a skeptic, I’m suspicious of scenarios that suggest that industrial business-as-usual just happens to have either neutral or only slightly negative environmental consequences. The oil, coal and gas industries, among many others, have everything to gain and money to burn (heh, heh) promoting such ideas. Further, the human tendency toward wishful or magical thinking is so pronounced that just saying “everything will be OK” is not exactly comforting to me, especially in light of the tragedies of the past century. But just because someone’s motives are unrealistic doesn’t mean his beliefs are wrong.
What I’m left with is an inability to believe that the consequences of human contributions to the environment are scientifically predictable at this point. Given that assumption, wouldn’t the most prudent approach be to try to minimize human inputs into the ecosystem? Absent hard evidence to the contrary, should we not assume that whatever degree of stability earth’s climate has shown since the last ice age, we’re extremely unlikely to make it more stable by burning fossil fuels? If there were only a 5% chance of the direst climate change predictions coming to pass, would that be acceptable, given the stakes? We know why the captain of the Titanic failed to slow down or change course, and the odds of actually striking an iceberg were presumably miniscule. Are we assuming climate change is not our fault (or doesn’t exist) for the same reasons the Titanic didn’t take action? I’m guessing yes. Could we err on the side of caution, or are we so locked into current practices that proposing that we clean up our act is tantamount to threatening global prosperity.
I think, global warming has been happening in these past years, but I doubt that CO2 is the main cause.
Scientists talk about global warming, but they do not mention anything about hte heat generated by the energy that we consumed. Will the burning of the fuel increas the earth’s surface temperature? I wonder if there is a scientist that actually does this caculation.
I believe that the enenrgy we consume will increase the earth surface temperature, but natual plays dominant role.
If the natual process is a “constant”, then the earth surface temperature should increase a bit and reach a new equilibrium, unless we keep increasing the energy consumption rate endlessly.
100s of millions of years of volcanoes spewing billions of tons of deadly gasses into the athmosphere and land formations destruction, earthquakes of unrecorded unimaginable forces, tsunamis, sea level changes, meteor strikes wiping out over 90% of life on earth!!
And we are all alive today ( at least until the next meteor strike )in a world that has suffered so many ecological disasters.
And the fringe lunatics want to save planet earth?!! From what ?
If a big meteor were to hit the earth in a year’s time wiping out the surface of the earth as we know it and all living creatures, wouldnt we feel pretty stupid not having used the abundance of wealth the earth has to offer us in the forms of coal, gas, oil, minerals etc. to better our lives until that time.
I say build a big enough institution for all the insane environmentalists and house them there under lock and key because right now they are the biggest threat to all of mankind’s future prosperity.