Guest post by Steven Goddard
In spite of the excess global sea ice area and the freezing Catlin crew, AGW proponents have recently ramped up the rhetoric about “melting ice caps.” This has been based on a couple of points.
1. In the southern hemisphere, cracks appeared in a 200 metre thick ice shelf, as seen below.
http://www.ogleearth.com/wissm.jpg
The ice cracked, not melted – but that minor detail didn’t stop nearly every major news outlet in the world from hinting at the fiery and imminent end to the planet.
2. At the other pole, NSIDC released an interesting statistic that Arctic ice “older than two years” reached a record low this winter.
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20090406_Figure5.png
So what happened to the three year old ice in 2009? The answer is simple. During the summer of 2007, almost all of the 1st year ice melted. Because of this, there was very little 2nd year ice in 2008, and 3rd year ice in 2009. The amount of second year ice in 2008 had to be less than or equal to the amount of first year ice at the end of the 2007 summer. Even if we had entered an ice age in 2008, there would not be much third year ice in 2009.
However, note in the NSIDC graph above that the amount of 2nd year ice (orange) approximately tripled in 2009 relative to 2008, from about 3% to 10%. The implication being that (barring a radical change in Arctic conditions) the amount of 3rd year ice will likely expand significantly in extent in 2010. Perhaps even triple in extent. Simply because the “terrible two” year old ice will be one year older. The red-brown portion of the graph should increase in height next year, as the 2nd year ice becomes more than 2 years old. The top of the orange should also move up significantly, as the red-brown region below it pushes it up.
No wonder people are pushing so hard for “climate legislation” in 2009. Graphs like the one below don’t look very scary, with global sea ice area 683,000 km2 above normal, and Catlin reporting wicked cold – day after day.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/iphone/images/iphone.anomaly.global.png
The ice clearly is not melting from the top or bottom. There is lots of interstitial ice between the cracks which indicates very cold ocean water. The fractures are clean – whatever is going on there has nothing to do with melt.
It may have already been mentioned but in case it hasn’t the North pole web cams are back up.
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/gallery_np.html
Yes there has, I found a study a while ago that talked about that. The effects of gas solubility in intercrystalline layers of supersaturated brine and acidic water that would not freeze even at very low temps. The fact the bubbles disappeared at depth and only reformed when the ice was decompressed as the core was drilled and allowed to rest at low pressure for a while.
I will look around and see if I can find it. I sent a link to Anthony over on his site survey email link a while back but my email got wiped out when my ISP moved to a new client so I no longer have the sent message copy.
Larry
Steven Goddard (16:22:26) :
I’ve noticed that on the IJIS website that there seems to be an adjustment during the day. If I look at it in the morning, there’s one number and a different in the evening. No suspicion here, just curiosity. Have you heard any rationale for the change?
B Kerr (10:09:30) :
Ron de Haan (09:37:00) :
Just had a look, I’m off to my printer.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/reprint/markey_and_barton_letter.pdf
Well what can you say?
Brilliant!
A great debunk of the manic curse of AGW Catastrophism.
Pass it on too everyone you know.
LarryOldtimer (11:51:28) :
All this science, and no engineering. Once one of these ice “tongues” protrudes beyond land, it becomes nothing more or less that what in civil engineering is called a cantilevered beam. Tidal and wind action are forces which create bending moments along the cantilevered beam.
OK in this case we have a long narrow bridge, ~200m thick, which cracks longitudinally and fractures into narrow blocks that topple into the ocean.
What would cause it to break that way?
As Alan Cheetham points out in his link…
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/AntarcticWilkinsIceShelf.htm
…the same stock photo at the top of this article seems to get recycled from one year to the next.
These AGW reporters must all be in the same sewing circle.
Phil. (18:33:39) :
“OK in this case we have a long narrow bridge, ~200m thick, which cracks longitudinally and fractures into narrow blocks that topple into the ocean.
What would cause it to break that way?”
I’d call it stress fractures. But since you asked, what would you call it?
Graeme Rodaughan (18:28:29) :
B Kerr (10:09:30) :
Ron de Haan (09:37:00) :
Just had a look, I’m off to my printer.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/reprint/markey_and_barton_letter.pdf
Well what can you say?
Brilliant!
A great debunk of the manic curse of AGW Catastrophism.
Pass it on too everyone you know.
———————–
Great stuff, and what I like about it most, is that it is written in a way that a jury WILL understand.
Who is going to be the first deep-pockets target of the many currently unemployed contingency attorneys ??
Jack Simmons (00:20:45) :
Frederick Michael (21:52:14) :
…
Based on the timing of Hansen’s and Gore’s dire predictions, I’ve come to the conclusion the AGW environmental-investment complex took a calculated risk this year. They were hoping for a big push by the current administration on some sort of cap and trade program, along with restrictive EPA regulations. To succeed, one of the key elements in all this was some cooperation from the climate. As you pointed out, nature is not cooperating.
…
In all events, these things will provide a lot of amusement.
The AGW Proponents must really hate Nature right now….
I can see them twisting the tips of their moustaches and going “Curses, Curses…”
On the initial topic.
All first year ice is not created equal, some 9 month ice, some 8 month ice, some 7…etc. The longer it’s present, the more time it has to thicken.
The NH anomalies graphed on CT show that in late ’08 the ice recovered from the minimum much more rapidly than in ’07. To such an extent that there is about 1.7 Mil Km^2 more that would fall in the 9 month catagory. Further, there was no “dip” to the area anomoly in Dec or Jan due to short term weather.
Thus, this year, the first year ice is likely older and thicker, on average, than the first year ice from the prior year. I think that indicates that the summer minimum will recover back toward ‘average’–somewhere between the ’05 and ’04 minimums.
Arn Riewe (17:04:52) :
Steven Goddard (16:22:26) :
I’ve noticed that on the IJIS website that there seems to be an adjustment during the day. If I look at it in the morning, there’s one number and a different in the evening. No suspicion here, just curiosity. Have you heard any rationale for the change?
Perhaps because they get two full sets of data every 24hrs.
Ok, here is the JAXA for 4-17-2009. 2009 has just passed 2003 for largest extent for this date. The spread of values starts to compress about now so it will be interesting to see what happens next.
year extent weekly change
2003 13.63094 -0.39922
2004 12.93062 -0.61563
2005 13.12719 -0.21984
2006 13.00281 -0.02219
2007 12.97031 -0.24187
2008 13.57734 -0.31781
2009 13.64922 -0.09859
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=5614#comment-337310
REPLY: Hmmm Still not updated on the JAXA website I’ll wait. Anthony
Regarding the ice bubbles in compressed ice. Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski the preeminent Ice Core scientist and the chair of a IPCC group on Ice cores broke with the ICPP over the non-inclusion of corrections for the selective hydrate formation of various gases inside pressurized Ice. CO2 selectively forms hydrates at a much lower pressure than other gases. So comparing the ice bubble air lin a core to determine old atmospheric CO2 levels is a fools errand, if uncorrected. The IPCC and the Moana Loa fools refused to do so, and as a result the “well established” levels of pre-industrial CO2 are all wrong.
Georg Beck recovered manypublishe scienitfic reports documenting scientific laboratory measurements of CO2 throughout he 18th and19th centuries. These are Lab results done by diverse teams of scientists in various nations, over long periods and include efforts by 4 Noble prize winners. and total 90,000 or more measurements. The 19th century average CO2 reading was 335 ppm, not 280 ppm. Rhe data even reveasl peaks due to Volcanic eruptions, Tambora and Krakatoa at the beginning and end of the 19th century peaking at 444 ppm. Some 60 ppm higher than current CO2 readings.
The CO2 ice core measurements without proper adjustment for clathrate formation are a scientific scandal. As is the phony smooth Moana Loa marriage of ice core data and its current CO2 readings, that we have all seen numerous times. To make the smooth match early Moana Loa scientists matched data separated by 83 years, as though the data fit in time perfectly! The fix was in, in the 1950s when Moana Loa started recording CO2 levels.
Dr Callendar anealy AGW alrmist inthe1950s even trashed the19th century lab data in a paper questioning the scientific rigor,of one small team, and by inference discrediting all the other independent efforts. As though lab measurements are more imprecise than any assumed proxy for CO2.
stas 09:48:26
That’s very interesting. Just another nail in the wall. I mean brick in the coffin.
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