Sea ice extent recovering quickly

‘ScienceDaily (Oct. 10, 2008) — Researchers from TU Delft joined forces with the Center for Space Research (CSR) in Austin, Texas, USA, to develop a method for creating an accurate picture of Greenland’s shrinking ice cap. On the strength of this method, it is now estimated that Greenland is accountable for a half millimetre-rise in the global sea level per year.’
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080930081355.htm

“As you can see the global sea ice area is around 2,500,000 square km below the mean.”
Yours is not yet established.

Gary Gulrud (08:35:03) :
“Yours is not yet established.”
“Your customary sagacity is noted.”
Amongst all the stodgy discussions above your pretentions of interest are a breath of fresh air! 😉

@Perry Debrell (& Dodgy Geezer)
I find it remarkable that the BBC are able, apparently without shame, to carry this week a June 18th report by Richard Black “Arctic sea ice melts even faster” and apparently no mention of any more recent information. I also find Richard Blacks’ reply to Perry Debrell extremely sarcastic and insolent. Clearly he is rattled. Don’t let them off the hook (Black & BBC) and don’t loose your cool – that would only play into their hands.
Thomas G

“Austin (15:25:10) :
The Arctic is losing heat very efficiently.
Think about what is occurring – massive amounts of water are changing over to ice by losing heat to the air and by radiation – more heat per unit of mass of water than that required to heat the water to near boiling. ”
The latent heat of freezing for water is roughly 80 calories per gram; which is enough to raise ice water to 80 deg C. Not exactly near boiling; but not a bad image anyway. The latent heat of evaporation is even more impressive; 595.4 cal per gram at zero C, and maybe 1-2 cal more than that for lower temperature salt water.
The arctic will be very low humidity, so open water should evaporate readily even though the saturation vapor pressure is only about 4.5 mm of Hg. But remember that it is the higher energy molecules that are emitted by the surface, so the surface cools with the evaporation. Water is the most opaque known liquid for long wave IR radiation, so the surface near zero C must emit almost like a black body with about 97% emissivity. The peak of the specral radiant emittance is shifted a few percent to about 10.65 microns, from the 10.1 at the mean earth temp of 15C. the black body emission at 15C is around 390 Watt’s per square meter, but it is only 315 at zero C, because of the 4th power relationship.
I’m not sure of the exact dynamics of the refreeze process, but I suspect that evaporative cooling of the surface starts the process, and then once you have some ice presence, the albedo effect kicks in and reflects sunlight, so the captured insolation now drops ,letting the ice cool and also the air temperature cool. the evaporation becomes sublimation from the ice, once it is thick enough and the air temperature should drop faster. I don’t have time to calculate what the heat loss (rate) due to evaporation/sublimation is but eventually radiation and conduction dominate the cooling. certainly it should accelerate once icing has started, and the earlier it starts, the higher the sun angle, so the greater is the reflective effect of the ice in terms of watts reflected. Eventually at lower sun angles the grazing incidence reflectance is higher, but the Watts per m^2 is less.
Very interesting process, with all knids of fancy optical processes going on besides the thermodynamics.
George

Mary,
It looks like we should have been more worried about the SH in the 1980s.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.south.jpg
Smaller positive anomalies, larger negative anomalies. What’s your opinion?

Re Don Shaw’s query about methane. I would think the Arctic has always been disgorging methane, as permafrost regions melt. But as the permafrost melts you also get accelerated plant growth further north in the arctic, which can soak up a lot of extra CO2. And if tropical forests are being cut down at a fast clip (bad thing), the methane emissions from decaying rain forest detritus will get less, so maybe offset some arctic methane. And maybe permafrost melt is about to stop.
NOAA shows that out of 390 W/m^2 average (15 deg C) earth IR emission, only 40 W/m^2 escapes through an atmospheric window. So allegedly 90% is already captured by GHG. So just what is there for more merhane rto grab.
I thought that methane was unstable in the sun drenched atmosphere and quickly becomes CO2 and water.
And if enough methane gets loose; it is a perfectly good fuel so we’ll mine it. What about all the methane from oil wells that is just flared off, why not start capturing that.

Bill Illis (18:07:51) :
“Has anyone seen any evidence that the summer of 2008 was colder than 2007 in the Arctic. All of the data I have seen does not show this.”
Let’s try plain text.
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/t2lt/tltglhmam_5.2

Alan Caruba has a blog in which he mentions that Joe Bastardi, the Chief Long-Range Forecaster at AccuWeather, has released his 2008-09 Winter Season Forecast addressing issues of average temperature and precipitation that will impact the nation.
http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/2008/10/cold-and-colder.html
His forecast calls for one of the coldest winters in several years across much of the Eastern portion of the United States, the population-dense third of the nation. The northern Rockies and Northwest is predicted to have more snow than normal, though not as much as last year when the snow pack reached twice normal levels. In the East, however, he anticipates a lot more snowfall than last year.
I find AccuWeather rather like the Curate’s egg, especially when it come to their Brett Anderson. He censors comments, well he censored mine some days ago in which I stood up for falling temperatures, so to speak.
His latest article of October 10, 2008, “Alarmist and Denier Scientists” should be read in order that my comment reproduced below is seen in context, as I do not think it will see light of day over there.
“Well, well, well, you could not find a more recent article than LINDZEN, Wednesday, April 12, 2006? Please allow me to assist you with “Climate Science: Is it currently designed to answer questions?” LINDZEN September 27, 2008.
Abstract
For a variety of inter-related cultural, organizational, and political reasons, progress in climate science and the actual solution of scientific problems in this field have moved at a much slower rate than would normally be possible. Not all these factors are unique to climate science, but the heavy influence of politics has served to amplify the role of the other factors. By cultural factors, I primarily refer to the change in the scientific paradigm from a dialectic opposition between theory and observation to an emphasis on simulation and observational programs. The latter serves to almost eliminate the dialectical focus of the former. Whereas the former had the potential for convergence, the latter is much less effective. The institutional factor has many components. One is the inordinate growth of administration in universities and the consequent increase in importance of grant overhead. This leads to an emphasis on large programs that never end. Another is the hierarchical nature of formal scientific organizations whereby a small executive council can speak on behalf of thousands of scientists as well as govern the distribution of ‘carrots and sticks’ whereby reputations are made and broken. The above factors are all amplified by the need for government funding. When an issue becomes a vital part of a political agenda, as is the case with climate, then the politically desired position becomes a goal rather than a consequence of scientific research. This paper will deal with the origin of the cultural changes and with specific examples of the operation and interaction of these factors. In particular, we will show how political bodies act to control scientific institutions, how scientists adjust both data and even theory to accommodate politically correct positions, and how opposition to these positions is disposed of.
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0809/0809.3762.pdf
Mr Anderson, you do yourself no favours by being deliberately obtuse and economical with the truth in your assertions that what little beneficial warmings this planet had during the 1980s and 1990s were down to human causes. You may as well accept that you are wrong, apologise to your readers and hope against hell you hang on to your job.
Whilst you have the time, please read all 36 pages of LINDZEN’s work at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.”

Tamara (13:37 ) Without commenting on the amplitude of the anomalies, NH and SH sea ice tend to run in opposite directions because Antarctica temps tend to run in the opposite direction to the rest of the globe, discussed in “The Chilling Stars.” Some have called it the sea-saw effect, but Svensmark calls it the Antarctica Anomaly, and is a result of cloud cover, not CO2, nudging the climate, by his theory.