Guest post by Steven Goddard
Hell Hath No Fury….
Catlin team member Ann Daniels had another very difficult day.
Today has been a difficult day of highs and lows, particularly for Ann, whose morning got off to a particularly bad start. In order to power the different technical components of the kit, the team use large batteries, which need to be heated to a certain temperature in order to extract the maximum amount of power. The process of heating batteries involves Ann, sitting by her stoves for several hours, using a specially insulated piece of equipment to capture the steam from boiling water, in order to get the batteries to the correct temperature.
Ann reached her lowest point of the expedition so far, when after tending the boiling pans of water for several hours, she realised she had pre-heated the wrong battery and had accidently picked up the dead battery from the previous day. It was a painful and frustrating realisation at the end of a cold morning.
On the plus side, at the end of the day, Ann felt warm enough to take off her sledging jacket when getting into her sleeping bag for the night. This is the first time in the 41 days of the expedition so far that she has felt warm enough for this luxury. She adds that she was still wearing 3 pairs of trousers, 2 thermal top layers, 2 hats and 4 pairs of gloves, but still, quite a landmark in the expedition so far!
Consider the following scenario. All goes well and the team arrives home safely some time in the next six weeks. Now, suppose that the Arctic continues to show recovery this summer, and the realization sinks in that the very premise of the expedition may have been flawed.
Such a surface Survey has never before been attempted, and the need for the information has never been greater. Current estimates for the disappearance of the Arctic Ocean’s sea ice cover vary from 100 years away down to just 4 years from now. Whatever happens, the consequences of its meltdown will be of global significance in terms of sea level rise(due to thermal expansion of the oceans), the geo-politics of energy resources, rainfall patterns and the availability of water supplies and, of course, the impact on biodiversity, including polar bear.
How would she feel? One can only speculate. But as the Catlin team suffers on the ground, the satellites are watching the ice recover.
Since 2007, the global sea ice area anomaly has increased by more than 3,000,000 km2 and is now more than 600,000 km2 above the 1979-2000 mean. You could fit England, Spain, France and Mexico inside the recovered ice area.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/iphone/images/iphone.anomaly.global.png
Arctic sea ice extent is rapidly approaching an eight year high for the date:
.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent.png
Arctic ice extent is converging on the 1979-2000 mean:
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Long time ice extent.
Does this mean 1979 – 2000 or 1900 – 2000 or 1000 – 2000?
It seems like comparing ice extent to a period of only 20 years which has a known warming anomaly is fruitless.
More meaningful would be a comparison within the Holocene boundary would it not?
Jeremy Clarkson will soon pick them up.
In an SUV, because that is what he used to get to the North Pole over a year ago when the sea ice extent was less.
Haven’t they got this the wrong way round? Isn’t the so-called meltdown because of ocean temperature rise?
Also, surely the albedo of the ice depends on it’s extent and not on it’s thickness.
Ohioholic:
Melting involves a greater difference in energy than freezing does, due to the latent heat.
In this sense, they may help the global warming church if they sink – perhaps including an airplane – and “prove” that some ice has disappeared there. If they can easily get to the North Pole during the late spring or summer, it will be strong circumstantial evidence that nothing is really melting over there.
So the church is waiting for its first martyrs! I am sure that the survivors will say that the death was not caused by fanatic bigotry and profound mistakes in planning but rather by SUVs. But I am less certain that in this case, there will be too many insane people who will buy this explanation.
Freezing and Melting are 2 sides of the same coin. It takes exactly the same amount of energy to melt ice as to freeze it.
What evidence for a recovery this summer is there currently? I see none so far.
Regards
Andy
how does that gloabl ice area graph fit into a story about the arctic exploration?
Arctic sea ice extent is rapidly approaching an eight year high for the date:
i think this is a pretty weird statement. current sea ice is below the 2008 one. and 2008 happened to become the second lowest summer extent that we have on record.
Such a surface Survey has never before been attempted, and the need for the information has never been greater.
Therefore if this is to be a correct scientific experiment, there is no comparable data. This expedition would have to be re-run again to get data to make comparisons with.
Steven,
The Catlin team might be more interested in the Arctic rather than the global ice anomaly. The up-to-data anomaly is here:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.jpg
with the iPhone version here:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/iphone/iphone.anom.series.html
Both are in agreement and show that the current Arctic anomaly is an ice loss of 341,000 square kilometers.
Ann mixing up the batteries is a sign of poor cognitive ability, possibly brought on by hypothermia – or just plain fatigue. Both are a hazard in such an environement. People who suffer from hypothermia often do “feel warm”. I hope this is not the case for Ann.
This all reminds me of Jack London’s short story:
“TO BUILD A FIRE”.
Given the fatigue the crew appears to have, it seems very unlikely they’ll have strength left to make any real progress in the weeks ahead. Mistakes in such a harsh environment can be very costly.
Again, why didn’t they use snow machines or dog sleds?
They would certainly have been far more productive.
Listening to Pen speak on the Daily Telegraph site he says that he is drilling the ice only “most days”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/5116352/Arctic-will-be-ice-free-within-a-decade.html
That’s different from four drills a day!
How fast is the Arctic sea ice declining?
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/04/10/how-fast-is-arctic-sea-ice-declining/
Full pdf here:
http://www.trevoole.co.uk/Questioning_Climate/userfiles/How_Fast_is_Arctic_Sea_Ice_Declining.pdf
AndyW (00:17:15) wrote:
“What evidence for a recovery this summer is there currently? I see none so far.”
Take a look at the first and third figures atop this thread. They show that there’s been a recovery relative to 2007.
What hope have we got realistically of knowing whether we’re into warming or cooling? For a little while I’ve been following the radar forecast for weather for the UK here http://news.bbc.co.uk/weather/ It’s REALLY poor! What is forecast one day for the next gets changed almost every day! You’ve got to follow it to believe it. They’ll say it’s going to be fine, then whoosh – the cloud comes in where yesterday it was forecast to be cloud-free! It’s dire – we haven’t a hope of apparently knowing weather or climate the very next day! Sorry for all the exclamation marks – annoyed and bemused.
Here’s my key takeaway from the conclusions to Drake’s article (cited above):
“5. Presently, based upon the reportedly “most accurate” satellite data from AMSR-E (IRAC JAXA), Arctic sea ice extent is increasing at an accelerating rate.”
@sod
Predictions are difficult, especially about the future 🙂
According to http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm ,
the only date ice extent values higher than april 11 2009 was 2003 and 2008.
If 2009 follow the same steep decline as some of the other 21 century years in april/may, it may move back to a “typical” 21 century year. If the current trend (slope) continues, it might however soon be the post 2002 year with highest april/may NH ice extent.
Cassanders
In Cod we trust
Oops: In my reply to Andy, I should have said that we’ll have to wait to see how this summer compares to prior ones. (But the trend is looking good, and the decadal oscillations have turned cool, so I’m hoping.)
Being an alarmist means never having to say you’re wrong.
A more general comment, on the ice-extent trends. When the Polar basin is fully frozen, the possible expansion of ice-extent will be the Beering sea, the Okhotsk sea, the Barents Sea, and the Danmark and Baffin Straits.
When the ice is reciding, there is a conspicuous “uniformation” of extent around may. I suspect this coincides with the desintergration of Beering Sea Ice, and when the disintegration of ice in the Chukchi Sea starts.
Cassanders
In Cod we trust
I just hope that someone gets the poor buggers out of there in time to save them. Commitment to a cause it one thing but there are better informed folk, even on the AGW side of the argument who should have stopped their stupidity. Why not I ask….?
OT “The Weather Show looks at the arguments surrounding climate change”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0072wbb
“The more we control our environment” a definite God complex there.
Climate expert – definition – I’d love to know
About the recovery:
2007 was a very special year with a very special wind pattern, everybody knows that. Projections based on actual models estimate an ice-free Artic in the summer not before 2030-2040.
The question one really needs to answer is: will 2009 confirm the multi-decennal declining trend or not? For the moment, 2009 is below 2008. Looking at the seasonal sea ice extent evolution
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seasonal.extent.1900-2007.jpg
a confirmation of the actual decline trend would place a summer average extent of about 7 million km^2. If it is above that, then we could speak of a recovery.
What is the actual significance of sea ice thickness unless it is measured over a significant period of say 30 years but even then it is only a snapshot there & then so to speak.
As we are delving into the realms of fiction, I recall that marvellous spy thriller Ice Station Zebra! The nuclear submarine had to search for “thin” ice so that it was able to surface & break through the ice. So for something written & filmed almost 45 years ago, it suggests that the ice thickness varies considerably & probably always has done & therefore mos likely (95%) always will! Just a thought.
Anyway, Happy Easter to one & all, up to & including those three poor souls up there on the ice pack, if they are actually there.
AtB
There are two streams in the arctic melting.
Is it melting since the little ice age? It sure is, and I am very happy it has because I like the present climate.
Is the northern hemisphere melting faster because of CO2?
check the two :
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.jpg
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/ccgg/trends/co2_data_mlo.png
From 2003, last time it hit the 0 anomaly, to now, the CO2 curve and the ice curve are anti correlated. So is not a candidate for any causation.
Let us stick to that. The A in AGW is not CO2 and all these idiotic cap and trade that will enrich the rich and kill the poor are not necessary at all.
So whatever is happening, it is not CO2 that is at falt. It might be soot, as we have seen elsewhere, I have no curve for soot.( http://www.junkscience.com/may03/wsj-Asian_Brown_Cloud.html ) to see if there are correlations. If it there is an A and it is soot, the problem is already solved without taxations: filters and scrubbings.
Maybe they should be measuring the soot content of the ice encountered, and then the trip might not be in vain.
What is all this’Someone should save them’, and ‘They should step in and save them’. Apart from who this ‘someone’ or ‘Them’ is, the Catlin group are volunteers. The West is a democracy where we can do what we like so long as it does not frighten the horses! Next time these pleaders go trail walking or fishing, ‘Someone’ or ‘Them’ might come along to ‘Save’ them!