During our last check in, we had a look at northern Canada from the Arctic Circle to the North pole, and found we had quite a ways to go before we see an “ice free arctic” this year as some have speculated.
Today I did a check of the NASA rapidfire site for TERRA/MODIS satellite images and grabbed a view showing northern Greenland all the way to the North Pole.
There’s some bergy bits on the northeastern shore of Greenland, but in the cloud free area extending all the way to the pole, it appears to still be solid ice.
Click for a larger image – Note: image has been rotated 90° clockwise and sat view sector icon and time stamp added, along with “N” for north pole marker.
Link to original source image is here:
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/single.php?T082121805
With more than half of the summer melt season gone, it looks like an uphill battle for an ice-free arctic this year.
Here is another view from today from the Aqua satellite:
Click for a larger image – Note: image has been rotated 90° counter- clockwise and sat view sector icon and time stamp added, along with “N” for north pole marker.
Source image is here:
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/single.php?A082121655
This dovetails with a press release and news story about more ice than normal in the Barents Sea
From the Barents Observer:
http://www.barentsobserver.com/?cat=16149&id=4498513
New data from the Norwegian Meteorological Institute shows that there is more ice than normal in the Arctic waters north of the Svalbard archipelago.
In most years, there are open waters in the area north of the archipelago in July month. Studies from this year however show that the area is covered by ice, the Meteorological Institute writes in a press release.
In mid-July, the research vessel Lance and the Swedish ship MV Stockholm got stuck in ice in the area and needed help from the Norwegian Coast Guard to get loose.
The ice findings from the area spurred surprise among the researchers, many of whom expect the very North Pole to be ice-free by September this year.
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REPLY: I’ve turned them off, they kept screwing up dates like (2008) – Anthony
Yay!
If you read this link you might find out why the next ~ 10 years will be colder than the last.
http://www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/articles/IanwilsonForum2008.pdf
So do not worry about the arctic polar ice cap disappearing.
[…] inaccuracy, to which all press and blogs have to respond. And so whatever Jennifer Mahorasy, or Wattsupwiththat, or Tom Nelson, or Climate Sceptic, or OnEarth, or La Marguerite, or the Sans Pretence, or DeSmog […]
It dismays me. This blog has in the past had much good debate but it has become farcical and full of sensationalistic innacuracies lately (the very thing the average blogger here claims the AGW camp are guilty of). Even Anthony who has done much fine work on temperature equipment is guilty of this. I will use this thread as an example. First ice loss in the Arctic is above normal, due to an higher mean temperature anomolies http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data/anomnight.7.28.2008.gif.
Forget the smokescreen of undersea volcanos or soot ITS.
This thread got off to a bad start with Anthony’s “and found we had quite a ways to go before we see an “ice free arctic” this year as some have speculated.” The speculation he was refering to was an ICE FREE NORTH POLE
an entirely different and still plausable scenario. This is the repeated through the blog,some examples: With more than half of the summer melt season gone, it looks like an uphill battle for an ice-free arctic this year.”
Uphill battle indeed.”
or “Just a few months ago some highfalutin scientist was quoted in an article saying that the chances for Arctic waters being ice free this summer was greater that 50/50. ”
Or “I don’t think they’ll even get close to an Arctic passage this summer, let along an ice-free arctic this year.”
This blog is not only informative but valuable so please try and stay focused and avoid the same claptrap traps the AGW camp and media have been guilty of. Anthony’s work is too valuable to be devalued by this.
That isn’t ice, it’s soft hail.
Mike Keep,
You realize that the temps in the graph you are using aren’t measurements of temperature in the Arctic? The white area is the arctic and there are no measurements shown there because of sea ice.
The extreme melt event last year was NOT due to ‘rising temperature’ it was due to current variations. This year is different as you can see here http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png and is well ahead of last year (although below average, but the trend appears to be headed for normal vs last year)
An ‘ice free’ pole, this isn’t unusual and has happened before, in 1987 in fact, when three US Subs photographed themselves on the surface. This was the year before Hansen ‘sounded the alarm’, subsequently the pole refroze and has not been ice free this century – all the while temps reaching ‘unprecendented’ levels.
I think you need to lighten up
Just got my electric bill for June/July: $76. That’s about $30 lower than the last 6 years average (the time I have lived in this house). I’ve been in this area for 19 years so it ain’t cause I’m getting used to it. I just haven’t had to use my a/c as much this year.
First ice loss in the Arctic is above normal
Link please?
Mike Keep,
You might want to check your facts more carefully before criticizing the blog.
“If Norway’s average temperature this year equals that in 2007, the ice cap in the Arctic will all melt away, which is highly possible judging from current conditions,”
Dr. Olav Orheim, head of the Norwegian International Polar Year Secretariat
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-03/01/content_7696460.ht
The link got truncated in my last post.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-03/01/content_7696460.htm
From the June 27 Telegraph we have this:
“The Polar regions have been the first to show the critical changes brought by global warming and it will be a hugely symbolic moment if the North Pole is left surrounded by water.”
And this:
“The sight of ships able sailing to the Pole for the first time would be seized on by environmental groups as an example of the consequences of a failure to take action on a global scale to combat global warming.”
The AGW alarmists and propagandists were, and no doubt still are fervently wishing and hoping to see an ice-free NP happen this summer. When you don’t have science or facts on your side, which is the case with the pathetic Warmists you go for hype and propaganda, using symbols and icons to try to sway a gullible (but now increasingly skeptical) public. Unfortunately, things just don’t seem to be happening the way they’d like them to. Then, when you try to call them on it, as with folk like Mike Keep, they get all indignant, and holier-than-thou, saying, I thought you guys were supposed to be the scientific ones! That is a riot.
I just spoke to someone in my family who is an arctic enthusiast and has been travelling on cruise ships to Svalbard every year for the last 4 years.
Before, they could sail around Spitsbergen and Nordaustlandet (the big islands of Svalbard), i.e. circumnavigate the whole thing.
This year they could not sail north of Spitsbergen due to lots of ice. Also they could not sail to the east coast of Spitsbergen for the same reason. There is a marked difference from last year.
This was mid July btw.
Mike Keep,
I’d also point out that you engage in the same behavior in your post decrying it. To wit, “Forget the smokescreen of undersea volcanos or soot ITS.”
Since especially the soot issue is hardly a smokescreen and the work detailing it has been published in Journal of Geophysical Review among others I find it interesting that you include it in your ‘farcical and sensationalistic inaccuracies’ category – http://www.physorg.com/news100354399.html and melt in Greenland has also been associated with soot – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070809172126.htm
Mike Keep:
Since you are critical of inaccuracies, how do you know that the ice loss is above normal because of the warmer waters? What if the ice loss is happening for other reasons and the waters are anomalously warmer because of the lack of ice. See for example the huge gradient from positive to negative anomaly in Hudson Bay where the last of the ice just recently melted in the SW portion of the bay.
Looks like the folks at Planet Ark (and NSIDC) have thrown in the towel on this one.
“”It’s looking rather unlikely that we will beat the record sea ice minimum of 2007,” said Mark Serreze, a senior research fellow at the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), adding there could still be surprises.
“The North Pole is likely safe for at least this year,” he said. The NSIDC had suggested in May that it was “quite possible” that the pole could be ice-free this year. ”
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/49595/story.htm
They’re the folks that had the remarkable observation a week or so ago that “Wetlands contain 771 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases, one-fifth of all the carbon on Earth and about the same amount of carbon as is now in the atmosphere.”
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/49408/story.htm
Of course they had misreported the study, which actually said that wetlands store 10-20% of land based carbon, a figure I could well accept. I guess the folks at Planet Ark used the upper end figure and applied it to the planet (they capitalized earth so that makes it a proper noun naming the planet as a whole, not just the land mass)
The second picture concerning the arctic sea ice coverage deals with the area north of the Bering straight. When you compare this picture with the data from
igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu you find much more open water there. I guess there is some cloud coverage which also looks white. The first picture (near Greenland) looks more in line with the uiuc data.
Hi Mike Keep!
I tend to agree that we should not make this blog anything else than the best.
But explain to me:
You find it still plausible that the north pole could be ice free this year?
Ok, take a look, i compare 1993 with 2008:
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=07&fd=30&fy=1993&sm=07&sd=30&sy=2008
The colour nuance dark violet means almost solid ice. I cood have chosen many years like 1993 for this example.
Take a good look.
If there is some reason to expect ice-free north pole how about the situation in 1993? It definetly looks much worse! Or try 1990, 1995, 1997, 2002, 2005 etc
If you where not told by the media, would you ever have guessed that 2008 was supposed to be this “ice-free-north-pole-year”?
Honestly you would NEVER have gotten that idea, i believe.
Another thing. Look closely here:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.jpg
Ok, when did the ice stop melting last year?
In mid August!
That is in 2 weeks from now.
If ice-free-north-pole is “plausable” well, then anything is plausable.
For some reason “scientists” are not laying the cards on the table for the media, and thats a shameful thing.
They try to find every piece of info that could possibly support their theory
It’s sad that some think that man has somehow risen above God. Pride is one of the 7 deadly sins and many have fallen in it’s grip. The earth has been going through cycles that man cannot even count.
Yes, I think we should lower pollution, but to take Gore’s approach will cause millions to go without food, it’s already started. When I see Al tear down his mansion and start on the sod house, I’ll just work on the normal reductions that he seems to have forgotten. Our household of 5 uses 1/20th of what his mansion uses and we do not fly all around the world spreading man’s pride.
It’s sad to see that the world leaders have sunken so low. How many millions have died since DDT was banned in Africa? Many want to control population as well, I guess banning DDT was in that plan.
my 2 cents
Anthony,
My apologies for using this thread to mention this, but the BBC today have an article about Jason 1 & 2 satellites measuring oceans.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7533921.stm
There appears to be an anomaly just of the east coast of KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa where the seal level is shown as having risen. This may be nothing to do with the matter, but on June 18th there was a huge rainstorm that caused rivers to wash away beaches. Could the satellites be registering deeper water as an increase of sea level. This was Uvongo Beach, before it was washed out to sea. http://www.uvongoholidays.co.za/images/js/11.jpg
These are Phil Girdlestone’s photographs taken the next day. http://www.sandstone-estates.com/interim/Natal_south_coast_floods/index.html
The railway bridge on the Izotsha river was washed away as was the entire headland , as seen in the last photograph.
The event was tremendous and I wonder if coincidently, the satellite images were being processed at that time?
Regards,
Perry
REPLY: I don’t know, it is possible, but I think those maps are from multiple passes.
You’re kidding, right? We will give no weight whatsoever to huge masses of molten magma directly beneath the ice as a contributing factor to melting. Sounds like a completely unbiased assertion to me.
Mike Keep makes a great comment. This blog is very informative, and its value is its dedication to facts and reasoned conclusions, as well as a vigorous use of Occam’s Razor to shed unecessary and unwarranted conclusions.
Scientist are people like the rest of us, and some are better than others, more careful than others, more skeptical than others. Being a “scientist” doesn’t mean that you automatically rigorously follow the scientific method all the time! Why pile on and pummel some of them – it makes you seem like Yahoos.
I think it’s valuable to point out how the news media handles and mishandles these facts, but there too, stop acting as if the news media were more than an outlet for entertainment. That’s what it is for the most part – entertainment values have triumphed everywhere! I don’t like this, but I recognize it. To rant on against it and make snarky comments about it just reduces your own position to little better than that of an AGW enthusiast, even though you may know your facts better.
I noticed something on the first TERRA/MODIS image (north coast of Greenland) which grabbed my attention & I haven’t seen it brought up here but…in the image, you see Greenland’s inland icepack & the Arctic Ocean icepack right up to the north coast of Greenland. However, there is a strip of land between the two which is snow/ice free.
Question – with the ice-free area of Greenland, was there not that much snow this winter or was it warm enough to melt that snow but allow the ocean ice to remain frozen (which seems contradictory to me) -or- is that area actually averaging above freezing and the ocean ice is actually melting but other ice is being moved against the Greenland north shore by wind/ocean currents to keep it iced-in? Any ideas why this happens & is this normal (not the moving of the ice but the bare land with ice against the shore)?
Thanks in advance
Mike Keep: “sensationalistic [sic] innaccuracies [sic]”
Over the past decade there has been an open northwest passage for several weeks during the summer. It was usually along the high Russian shore, but it was also possible to run from New Foundland to Alaska. I have a colleague who made the trip and turned it into a documentary. Indeed, the “Canadian Melt Model” from the early 1990s predicted a commercially available passage in 35 years from then. There is no open passage this year and, with days becoming shorter and temperatures running below average in the high Arctic, it’s not likely a passage will open this summer.
I have also heard those purporting to have insight and authority warning of the chances of an “ice-free” Arctic. Perhaps these people were exaggerating some other person’s prediction of an ice-free North Pole. Perhaps they were looking at the trend of ice extent over the past decade. Even so, the point is, ice is building again inthe north and neither the North Pole or the Arctic will be ice free anytime soon. Both Anthony’s and my statements are true and reasonable in response to exaggerations appearing in the media or long-standing predictions by the AWG leaders. They are not “sensational inaccuracies.”
Mike Keep:
You comments are not fair at all. The point of this post, and the focus of most of the comments, is the alarmist and sensationalistic reports from the media. We have been told by the media that the Arctic is melting, that the northwest passage will soon be open, that the polar bears are drowning and so on and so on. Media reports like those have an effect on policy, such as the recent decision to list the polar bear as a “threatened” species by the US EPA, even though there is evidence that polar bear numbers are actually increasing.
Many on the AGW side of the debate remain silent when the most exaggerated and irresponsible media reports come out. Under those circumstances, such silence amounts to tacit approval. When the alarmism is debunked, as it has been, they retreat to the “we only claimed that their might be a “ICE FREE NORTH POLE”, ( your caps), and accuse the folks here of being “farcical and sensationalistic.”
The farcical and sensationalistic label should only be applied to the exaggerated media scare mongering, not to the necessary counterweight provided by this blog.