| Click for larger image – Polarstern am Eisrand vor Nordost-Grönland |
| Photo: Martin Graeve, Alfred-Wegener-Institut |
August 7-08 press release on work done from MV Polarstern in the northern Greenland Sea (between Svalbard and NE Greenland):
from Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI): http://idw-online.de/pages/de/news273425
a few excerpts, my abbreviated translation:
“this year, there was an exceptional amount of ice – according to expedition leader Prof. Gerhard Kattner. The extent reached from the high North southward to 74 degrees latitude. The main objective of the research cruise was to check 17 moorings with instruments that monitor temperature, salinity and currents of the water masses. AWI has been carrying out these unique high-latitude investigations since 1999. Observed 2008 temperatures are slightly lower than 2006 measurements, and there are preliminary indications of a return of the pacific water mass signature, which has been absent since 2004″
h/t to: Ulrich Lobsiger for the link and translation
Al Fin: Come on, you have to be smarter than that.
Last year there was much less ice than recent decades, which is posited to be due to global warming. This year there is slightly more ice coverage, overall, then last year, but still well below the average… and the estimate is that there is actually less ice (even though the coverage is not yet a record low), because the ice this year is thinner, single-year ice.
The report about “much more ice” was addressing one particular area, and due to winds… it only makes sense, then, that other areas have much less ice, which they do.
AGWers have often been accused of viewing the data and reports through a filter, where they pick out only what they want to see. Let’s not do that here.
Pierre says:
“…variability is natural, and that we are not going to be able to hold the planet at its current conditions…”
Indeed! And why ever would we desire or expect Earth to stay the way we discovered it at our birth? There must be name for this fear of change.
Cy Quick at mydigest.wordpress.com
Metathesiophobia- Fear of changes.
Too bad it doesn’t roll off the lips a little easier…
Mike Bryant
Another:
Tropophobia- Fear of moving or making changes.
blue:
“I’m sorry that all of the above may sound harsh and I am new here, after all, but I think this is something the non-German-speaking readers ought to know about”
I accept your clarifications and corrections regarding the use of “exceptional” and will be more careful in the future (I first studied sciences at a German-language university, but that’s more than thirty years ago). The context of my initial translation (again, as a short remark to an older post) was in part a response to the tone used in describing the decrease toward the 2007 sea ice minimum. Accepting it as a linear trend toward complete disappearance of ice led to numerous alarmist and sensationalist extrapolations – including in research and media reports, in English and in German.
AWI tries very hard to communicate carefully – it uses engineers and scientists to conduct interviews and formulate press releases. Even then, if you read the current original carefully, there are ambiguities.
Thanks for the reference on heat flux; I look forward to the discussion of the current data and will make an effort to put it into context of much longer data series than the quoted linear trend since 1997. My own first-hand experience starts in September 1976 at 80 degrees N. Will do some digging to assess the larger picture of variability. There is a lot of information available that is never referenced in these newer post-Rio/Kyoto studies. Example: reports from Fletcher’s Ice Island T-3, AIDJEX, the reports of exceptional (yes!) warming in the ’20s and ’30s and much more, including a great deal of Russian Arctic Ocean work.
My initial argument was that it makes sense to study non-English reports carefully.
Blue, thank you for underscoring that point.
There are many other nuances in my discussion; e.g. the high variability of particulate organic carbon fluxes as a function of constantly shifting ice edges.
The Arctic ocean is the bell weather for the Northern Hemisphere – it deserves very careful scrutiny.
I will bow out of this exchange for now. Will do my homework with data from the fifties to the eighties, to weigh in again when we know how the melt season 2008 proceeded and how easily the NW Passage was negotiated by the impressive research ice breaker Polarstern (I enjoyed a quick visit in Reykjavik, in August 2006).
one more thing, beyond translation issues:
It’s well worth remembering that we are in the second half of the current IPY – International Polar Year.
from its home page: http://www.ipy.org/index.php?/ipy/about/
“The International Polar Year is a large scientific programme focused on the Arctic and the Antarctic from March 2007 to March 2009. IPY, organized through the International Council for Science (ICSU) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), is actually the fourth polar year, following those in 1882-3, 1932-3, and 1957-8. In order to have full and equal coverage of both the Arctic and the Antarctic, IPY 2007-8 covers two full annual cycles from March 2007 to March 2009 and will involve over 200 projects, with thousands of scientists from over 60 nations examining a wide range of physical, biological and social research topics. It is also an unprecedented opportunity to demonstrate, follow, and get involved with, cutting edge science in real-time.”
A detailed assessment of “Arctic Sea Ice in summer 2008 – an outlook” is given here – the discussion includes previous studies starting in 1988, not earlier:
http://www.damocles-eu.org/artman/uploads/outlook_2008_june_damoclesupdate__2_.pdf
Schedules of several important research cruises can also be found on the IPY site.
It might be worthwhile to review preliminary results from these studies once the September minimum is reached.
To compensate for exaggerating the Fram Straight extent (both spellings are used), I will try summarizing findings from IPYs of 1882-3, 1932-3, and 1957-8.
Pierre Gosselin: There may be no “cooling” in this story … but neither is there “warming”, in this story:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2007-131
deepslope,
Thanks for the additional info.
I for one am looking forward to your summary of the 1882-3 and 1957-8 findings. That could be very interesting.
About when, and where, should we expect them?
And to be honest, looking at the characters behind the IPY, I’d advise caution with any results they put out. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to have someone like Steve McIntyre audit them.
It’ll very likely go like other major reports of this kind. It’ll hype up AGW, the media will have a field day, later the report will be found to have major biases and flaws, but no one will care to report that. A good example was the Stern Reoprt.
Paul Merek- Pierre Gosselin: There may be no “cooling” in this story … but neither is there “warming”, in this story:
From what I’ve read above Pierre Gosselin has kept to the facts without the religous fervour of some, such as Paul. Pierre didn’t say the story (this thread with the, as we now know, very misleading headline) proved warming but that there was a 1 degree Centigrade increase in ocean temperatures in the region in the last ten years.
This blog should have more people like Pierre, not the religous hot heads who could do with a bit of global cooling around the head!!
I should also point out before being blasted that Pierre also said that temperature etc is a naturally variable system and that would include the 1 degree rise in temperatures, in case you think I,or Pierre was using this to state AGW was happening. I, like him, suggest we all stick to the fact!
Pierre,
I have started to review older IPY reports (which had completely different agendas, an interesting trend in itself…), but will wait until i have time to compile my own experiences and unpublished data, which will be after the September ice melt minimum.
deepslope,
you are perfectly right that 10 years don’t make a climate trend and must not be simply extrapolated; sorry, if I unintentionally made it sound like that. I’m looking forward to your further reports and hope to be able to profit from your expertise.
deepslope,
Looking forward to it. I got it down in my calendar.
Deepslope,
As someone who leans towards the AGW side, I would like to add my agreement to you that any such reports that suggest the entire arctic could become ice-free this year, in either English or German (or any other language) publications, is alarmist or mistaken beyond any rational extrapolation.
Keep in mind that I have seen only one such report; doubtless there are others, but the majority I have read only give an estimate of a ‘good chance’ of total arctic sea ice disappearance by 2013 at the *earliest* (although earlier than previous estimates of 2050), and only the possibility of an ice-free North Pole this year, which is not all that significant (even if it were to happen, which I doubt).
It does look like we’ll have an ice-free NWP this year, though, perhaps even earlier than last year (time will tell, of course).
I doubt any NWP (there’s more than one) will be clear enough for a cruise ship to risk the price of insurance. Maybe research ships will be able to handle it if it is made for that purpose.
The other thing I want to mention is that outliers like the temp spike in 98 and ice loss in 07 are rare events. Usually gradual trends predominate in ice records. So if things start going up, the next year will follow, and the same is for downward trends. Last winter the amount of ice that formed went up, not down. This could be a single event. But odds would be on a trend. My hunch is that this winter, we will get something similar, meaning a lot of ice. That would also mean that it will build on a higher minimum than 2007, resulting in more ice than last winter at maximum.
Mary Hinge: My point was that while Pierre is correct in suggesting that this story does not Global or Arctic cooling prove; neither does arctic ice depletion prove global warming. I’m not trained in science. My interest is the politics of the AGW debate. As such, while I can’t determine scientific facts, I certainly can determine political facts.
Fact 1: An overwhelming number of IPCC supporting individuals, pundits, and institutions, point to arctic ice reduction as proof of Anthropogenic Global Warming.
Fact 2: Research by NASA suggests that arctic ice reductions are not caused by AGW or even GW (or G.W. BUSH for that matter)
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/08/11/nasa-sees-arctic-ocean-circulation-do-an-about-face/
Fact 3: AGW proponents consistently ignore the fact that arctic ice reductions are likely a natural occurrence, as suggested by NASA research, Instead, they use arctic ice reductions as one of the foremost propaganda tools in the IPCC bag of tricks.
Paul Merek- “…..I can’t determine scientific facts………… I certainly can determine political facts”.
Here we have the anti AGW argument in a nutshell!
JP Rourke
doing further research through IPY links (International Polar Year – http://www.ipy.org), I came across many more alarmist projections, often in interviews with senior scientists.
You may also be interested in this Op-Ed from Greenland by a noted columnist: “Friedman: Learning to speak climate”
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/06/opinion/edfriedman.php –
sensationalist words from a VIP cruise!
as one who has experienced tremendous variability first-hand in SW and NW Greenland, the NW Passage and the Beaufort Sea over more than three decades, I can only shake my head…
Will archive Mr. Friedman’s epistle for future assessment.
I am currently in personal communication with active researchers in the field and agree that there are unusually large areas of open water, including in several NW Passage bottle necks. For perspective – we made it easily into Thule – 76 degrees N, through slushy and sparse pancake ice in August 1976. At that time, we were talking about a looming ice age.
Again, will reserve assessment of summer 2008 Arctic ice until after September minimum is reached, aiming at summarizing as many contributing factors as possible (observed and anecdotal, as opposed to extrapolations based on models – we’ve got more than enough of that!)
Mary Hinge: I gather from your comment, that you have nothing to say concerning my central point. You’ve dodged it, and quite nicely demonstrated the IPCC scientific method. I think in fact, that a movie was made about this … what was it called? Somthing about Dodging … and Balls.
Paul Marek: “Fact 2: Research by NASA suggests that arctic ice reductions are not caused by AGW or even GW…
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/08/11/nasa-sees-arctic-ocean-circulation-do-an-about-face/”
Well, no. The original article says “not all” recent changes in the Arctic are the result of global warming. Further, the lead researcher is quoted as saying :
“The events of the 1990s may well be a preview of how the Arctic will respond over longer periods of time in a warming world…”
In other words, the results of this research are consistent with global warming, and certainly do not contradict it, as you imply.
Brenda H: You quoted: “The events of the 1990s may well be a preview of how the Arctic will respond over longer periods of time in a warming world…”
Absolutely nothing in the released NASA summary attributed ice loss to AGW. The quote you give, for example, does no such thing. Please explain, how the above attributes ice loss to AGW. It’s clearly only a suppositional statement and offers no proof. It takes an incredible stetch to say that this statement attributed ice loss to AGW.
Sure, it leaves the “door open” to AGW attributed ice loss, but that is a far cry from finding that the ice loss we see is caused by AGW. The ice loss is caused by upper Arctic Ocean circulation which is decadal in nature according to this study. There were no other conclusions offered.
This: “Our study confirms many changes seen in upper Arctic Ocean circulation in the 1990s were mostly decadal in nature, rather than trends caused by global warming,” said Morison. … is about as clear as it gets.
Did NASA prove that AGW is not decaying arctic ice? NO.
Did NASA find that significant natural cycles are at play? YES
The rational conclusion: At this point the relationship between AGW and ice loss is unknown and no understood.
Paul Marek- “Mary Hinge: I gather from your comment, that you have nothing to say concerning my central point. You’ve dodged it, and quite nicely demonstrated the IPCC scientific method.”
I haven’t ‘dodged’ your centralpoint because your ‘central point’ is not valid,but since you ask….
Your ‘Fact 1’ is a blatant untruth, the vast majority of IPCC individuals do NOT see the Arctic ice reduction as ‘PROOF’ of AGW, they do however see that it supports models/predictions made from AGW proponents thus strenghening the theory.
‘Fact 2’- NASA does not say that the Arctic ice reduction anomolies are NOT caused by GW but “The results suggest not all the large changes seen in Arctic climate in recent years are a result of long-term trends associated with global warming.”
So Paul, do you see the difference between ‘NOT’ and ‘NOT ALL’!! Your misuse of absolutes in your posts is very telling of your political agenda!
Oh, and while we’re at it let’s look at ‘Fact 3’…
You state that the entire reason for the ice melt anomolies is natural and that NASDA agrees with this. As stated above NASA does not attribute it entirely to natural occurence but suggests that natural variability is part of the cause.
So Paul I hope you are now satisfied, so stop misquoting and taking out of context anything that goes against your religion.
Paul Marek: “Absolutely nothing in the released NASA summary attributed ice loss to AGW.”
The first para of the article in question includes this comment: “The results suggest not all the large changes seen in Arctic climate in recent years are a result of long-term trends associated with global warming.”
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2007-131
So if “not all” recent changes in the Arctic can be attributed to AGW, then by implication some of those changes can be attributed to AGW.
Further, my claim was that the results of the NASA research into Arctic Ocean circulation are consistent with AGW, and this claim is supported by the lead researcher’s comments:
“Morison cautioned that while the recent decadal-scale changes in the circulation of the Arctic Ocean may not appear to be directly tied to global warming, most climate models predict the Arctic Oscillation will become even more strongly counterclockwise in the future.”
In other words, the research is consistent with what AGW models say about Arctic Ocean circulation.
The fact that natural events may have contributed to Arctic ice loss in the 1990s does not rule out an AGW effect. Note that the lead researcher also refers to “longer periods of time”. AGW is a long-term trend, and this study is about decadal patterns. It is possible to have natural, shorter-term events occurring within a long-term AGW trend.
“Morison cautioned that while the recent decadal-scale changes in the circulation of the Arctic Ocean may not appear to be directly tied to global warming, most climate models predict the Arctic Oscillation will become even more strongly counterclockwise in the future.”
I get it now. Model forecasts are considered facts. How silly of me.