One of the common misconceptions pushed in the media is that Arctic sea ice simply “melts in place”. Much of this is due to the constant hammering of the AGW meme that the “warming in the Arctic” is the primary cause. Here is one of my favorite misconception lines from this WIRED Science article:
With arctic sea ice melting like ice cubes in soda, scientists want to protect a region they say will someday be the sole remaining frozen bastion of a disappearing world.
It is not difficult to imagine how many would think that Arctic ice is “melting like ice cubes in soda” when you see temperature anomaly maps like this one from GISS:
GISTEMP 11-12-08 – Click for larger image
The public (and sometime the media too) often mistakes these for “absolute” temperature and the colors give the impression of a “toasty” area around the arctic, when in fact the temperatures there are mostly below the freezing point. In contrast to that what looks like a heat wave in the Arctic, we have this NASA JPL study that suggests winds may play a key role in pushing Arctic sea ice into lower latitudes where it melts. The author suggests winds may be the dominant factor in the 2007 record low ice extent:
Nghiem said the rapid decline in winter perennial ice the past two years was caused by unusual winds. “Unusual atmospheric conditions set up wind patterns that compressed the sea ice, loaded it into the Transpolar Drift Stream and then sped its flow out of the Arctic,” he said. When that sea ice reached lower latitudes, it rapidly melted in the warmer waters.
Interestingly we can now watch this actually happen thanks to an animation of AMSER-E satellite 89Ghz sounder images. Koji Shimada of JAMSTEC (Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology ). See the animation below (note- size is 7.1 MB, this may take awhile to fully load):
If you want more detail, a full sized Video animation is available here as a flash video or here as an AVI file (highest quality 7.3 MB) A hat tip to WUWT commenter Bill and to Thomas Homer-Dixon for this video.
What is interesting about this video is that you can watch sea ice being flushed out of the Arctic sea and pushed along Greenland’s east coast, where it then finds its way into warmer waters and melts. Also note how in the lower right, in the Beaufort sea, older multiyear ice gets fractured and broken up as winds and currents stress it.
While indeed we can watch some of the Arctic sea “melt in place” during this animation in the fall of 2007, we can also see that winds and currents are a signifcant contributor to breaking up the sea ice and transporting it to warmer latitudes.
My apology to Dr. Ball for omitting the link to his article.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/10192
crosspatch (11:08:47) :
Hey, wattaya know, the oceans are cooling.
Two separate studies through NASA confirm that since 2003, the world’s oceans have been losing heat.
Sorry but the cooling has been “corrected”
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCooling/page1.php
And all future cooling will be “peer reviewed”. 🙂
Now that is funny.
Re: Flanagan (08:07:38) :
“Errr, I actually don’t see what you’re trying to point at… What is the point in looking at a situation where there were no emission to “prove” emissions have no effect?
Let’s take a simple example. If you pour tons of acid on Muir woods, it will disappear. Now, one can easily show that sequoia already disappeared in the past, without the need to put acid on it. Does that mean the acid has no effect?”
From your example, it appears that you believe that the correlation between anthropogenic CO2 and the late 20th century warming trend is as unambiguous as the correlation between tons of acid and the hypothetical deforestation of Muir Woods. With this belief, then the preceding sentence makes sense.
For me, the correlation between anthropogenic CO2 and the late 20th century warming trend is less clear. So examples of periods since the last ice age that are warmer than at present are highly relevant. Whatever the mechanism that led to those other warm periods may have been operative in the late 20th century and may be a more important forcing function than anthropogenic CO2.
I agree that such prior warm periods do not “prove” that anthropogenic CO2 has no effect on climate. However, until the mechanism for the prior warming is explained and incorporated into the current understanding of climate science and, yes, the models, then people like me who see far more pressing global social concerns will remain skeptical of the need to spend vast sums to reduce CO2 emissions.
BTW, there seems to be a huge cognitive disconnect in this type of exchange. Those who are passionate about the peril posed by Anthropogenic CO2 are seemingly completely uninterested in these prior warm periods and the fact that we are heading into another ice age. People like me who see the current interglacial as a blip in geologic time are unconcerned by a few degrees of warming that is similar to other warming episodes that have happened in the past few thousand years.
Massive emissions cuts can save Arctic ice: study
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.0de39bd4dba2dbb99cff5ee364630f00.21&show_article=1
Mrs Claus,
A quote from the article above:
“Recent studies have found that temperatures would reach the threshold for dangerous climate change if they rise by an additional one degree Celsius.”
I just looked at my thermometer and realized that it is an additional one degree Celcius warmer than it was yesterday!!!
I probably won’t be able to sleep tonight wondering how I and my woodland friends will die….
Thanks,
Mike
“Sorry but the cooling has been “corrected”
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCooling/page1.php
And all future cooling will be “peer reviewed”. 🙂
Now that is funny.”
Any and all data that does not conform to expectations will be adjusted, corrected, homogenized and tortured until it begs for forgiveness and signs this form:
I’m sorry. I was wrong. signed… The data.
It appears that torture is ok in some limited circumstances.
(I know that data is plural, but it just don’t flow like that.)
If flanagan had pointed to the article from which the graph was pulled…
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/001319verification_of_ipcc.html
Then people would have been able to read Pielke Jr writing…
“2. The IPCC actually has a pretty good track record in its predictions, especially after it dramatically reduced its 1990 prediction. This record is clouded by an appearance of post-hoc curve fitting. In each of 1995, 2001, and 2007 the changes to the IPCC predictions had the net result of improving predictive performance with observations that had already been made. This is a bit like predicting today’s weather at 6PM.”
DaveE.
I wonder if anyone here knows whether the Pacific currents that entered the Arctic Ocean in 2007 were warmer or colder than those likely to enter this summer.
Thanks in advance,
Mike
Hi Chad.
You seem to be cutting your teeth in the debate, so here’s a heads-up.
I won’t speak for them, or pretend to know their minds, but it seems the good folks on this blog responding to your comments are being firm though gentle; choosing civility, to their credit.
But make no mistake. If you and I were to “debate” in person, my choice of discourse will be ridicule, civility be damned, and heaping helpings, too.
Mike Bryant (17:36:01) :
I wonder if anyone here knows whether the Pacific currents that entered the Arctic Ocean in 2007 were warmer or colder than those likely to enter this summer.
Thanks in advance,
Mike
Check it out:
http://sharaku.eorc.jaxa.jp/AMSR/polar_sst/2009/P1AME0904PNSST000600ANOML.png
http://sharaku.eorc.jaxa.jp/AMSR/polar_sst/2007/P1AME0704PNSST000500ANOML.png
Phil.
It looks like there is a warmer zone south of the Bering Strait that wasn’t there in 2007. It’s slightly cooler near the strait but that is not very much water… I am looking forward to the progression of the minimum. Anything can happen.
Thank you,
Mike
Flanagan (08:07:38) :
“Errr, I actually don’t see what you’re trying to point at… What is the point in looking at a situation where there were no emission to “prove” emissions have no effect?
Robert (16:44:57) has already done a good job of answering you comment, but just to ram the point home, it’s not up to me to prove that emmisions have no effect, it’s up to you to prove that natural cycles are NOT responsble for the fluctuations we see in the climate today. After all, we can see there is absolutely nothing unusual about todays climate by looking at the past, so the rational response is to deduce that these natural changes are continuing. That is before you get to all the empirical evidence that contradics man made AGW theory. Until recently the AGW camp was hiding behind long term (100 years in the future) style predictions for our doom. Fortunately they’ve started giving more short term predictions of drastic changes to scare us, such as Gores ice free Arctic in about 4 years from now. This means we won’t have to wait too long now to see how utterly wrong they are.
Re Nick Yates (20:36:24) :
Drat, I wish there was a preview option on this board. Moderator, could you correct my tag so that only Flanagan’s comment is in italics? Thanks.
Mike Bryant (20:14:01) :
Phil.
It looks like there is a warmer zone south of the Bering Strait that wasn’t there in 2007. It’s slightly cooler near the strait but that is not very much water… I am looking forward to the progression of the minimum. Anything can happen.
Thank you,
Mike
That warm zone is due to the ‘PDO’.
“If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth
as a killer virus to lower human population levels.”
– Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh,
patron of the World Wildlife Fund
Thats hate speech. Doesn’t Britain have laws against hate speech? Thats also threatening to commit genocide. Someone get him a KKK application form.
I don’t think virus can be prosecuted for genocide Mike.
Regards
Andy
“If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth
as a killer virus to lower human population levels.”
– Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh,
patron of the World Wildlife Fund
Hrrummph a wonderfully grumpy statement. Although the Gaians have claimed the quotation, there is nothing in the statement itself to say which part of the population he’d target.
Frankly it’s fairly tame compared to a pre-coffee morning me.