Arctic Springtime Ice On The Mend
Guest post by Steven Goddard
Two of the Arctic ice sites show April 16 ice at recent record levels. The Japanese site IJIS has a seven year April record going back to 2003, and reports 2009 levels at the highest extent on record for the date: 13,649,219 km2.
The Danish Meteorological Institute has a five year database, and also shows April 16 ice extent as the highest in their short record.
A plot of April 16 extent made from the IJIS database shows that mid April ice extent has made a nice recovery from the 2004 low, increasing by more than 5%.
This is probably not coincidental with the fact that since 2003, global temperatures have been declining.
Next time Washington Post writers decide to bash George Will about ice, perhaps they should check their facts first. The comment below from that piece shows just how irrational the thinking of climate “journalism” has become.
“citing “global” sea ice statistics like that is nearly meaningless in the context of global climate change”
Why would you use “global” statistics when examining a “global” problem? What was George thinking of?
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
None of the story reprints allow any feedback. It’s a one-way fear sermon.
Now that we have a topic that sounds just like my last 10 posts, let me play devil’s advocate. While this year’s arctic sea ice will continue to be impressively large for a few more months, late summer will see a LOT of melting.
Look carefully at last year’s plot in the AMSR-E data. It looked like a huge recovery — right through July. But watching it in August felt like being a Cubs fan. We ended up with some recovery from ’07 but not much. Expect some more recovery this year but don’t make a big deal about this being a record high year or you’re gonna get a plate of crow served to you. The 2007 minimum left us with some seriously thin ice and the summer melt will be significant.
As the planet cools, the Sun is out to lunch, the EPA outlaws CO2.
Who needs plants when you can have better living through petrochemicals.
Earl Butz, let them eat cardboard. Oh, sorry, no more trees. Eat dirt.
Stop by your local Dirt in the Box and pick up a mudburger, rock fries, and sand shake.
The stark fist of reality will soon enough take the man-bear-pig down the memory hole where only pinks will bow down.
There is no literal difference in so called “green-house” gases and atmospheric gases. The anti-capitalists of the UN, through the auspices of the IPCC, have corrupted the language of climatology such that the unaware public is conditioned to view the atmosphere, and especially the trace gases, as equivalent to a green-house enclosure.. We continue to foster this fallacy by the continued usage of the term “green-house gases.” The conflict is not scientific but rather one of semantics and political propaganda at which the alarmists are more adept.
OT but huge change in Australian mainstream newspapers as of today. The Australian has published 4 articles debunking AGW and also the Courier mail (100% pro AGW) from Brisbane has published in full the Freeman Dyson Interviews. An eminent Australian geologist Ian Plimer is launching a new book debunking AGW. So things on this side are looking up…LOLl
Thanks a lot, Robinson. I do my best not to profane, but when I clicked on that link and saw the headline . . .
I ask you, so what? I don’t understand the significance of arctic sea ice extent. Why are we all playing along with the meme that it’s important, or in any way indicative of the “health” of the Earth? 80% of the Earth’s history has been sans any ice-cap at all. So what’s the problem?
Agree w/Robinson. If the sea level is not rising faster than its long-term average [and since floating sea ice can not affect the sea level], the amount of sea ice is of no consequence. Only melting of ice on land can affect the sea level, and that is not happening. Furthermore, the planet’s sea ice has now broken above its long term average.
Arm-waving over sea ice is just baseless alarmism.
The downturn of ice records already effects Oklahoma winter wheat harvest:
Cold snap may have broken wheat crop
The freezes of April 6 and 7 may have cut this year’s production.
Last week’s freezes have devastated Oklahoma’s winter wheat and could end up killing 40 percent to 60 percent of the crop.
The freezes of April 6 and 7 dropped temperatures into the low teens in some parts of the state, damaging the maturing plants, especially in southeastern Oklahoma.
http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/article.aspx?subjectid=47&articleid=20090417_47_E1_Lastwe475132&rss_lnk=5
Basil,
No, my intention was to affirm my belief that the “PDO” (a major driver, perhapts THE major driver of Global Temperatures) has, indeed, gone negative, but that I had my doubts about the “AMO” (a major driver of “Arctic” Sea Ice) having done so.
I thought you may enjoy this post @ur momisugly Andrew Bolt’s blog by Graeme1.
“”Oh Dear! The US EPA has declared CO2 is a harmful gas. Plants ingest CO2 and expel oxygen (photosynthesis) therefore we must urgently protect them.
Outlaw vegetarism immediately, they are the murderers who deliberately target to kill the organic saviours of us all. Cows expel massive amounts of gasses that threaten the planet, and they eat plants! Therefore meateaters by eating cows are actively trying to save the planet. What a turn around””
One way to separate climate (ie atmospheric) effects from sea currents in Arctic sea ice is to look at snow cover.
Unfortunately I couldn’t find winter average snow cover for the NH.
Looking at January snow cover for N America and Eurasia there is a clear up trend in snow cover since 2000. With 2007 (Eurasia) being the anomaly (well below average snow cover). In N. America 2006 was the year with anomalously low snow cover.
2008 was the snowiest January on record for Eurasia. 2009 is about average for N America and Eurasia.
So using snow cover as a proxy for sea ice formation, summer 2009 will be around summer 2008. With a perhaps a small increase due to residual effects from the last couple of years.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2009/jan/global.html
It will be political suicide for democrats to pass any cap and trade. Republicans can stick the Obama administration with all the misery that will follow. As all this plays out over the next few months, people will start to take notice of the reality of what they are talking about…regulating their lives. Just maybe politicians will realize they will be looking for a new job in 2010 if they touch this evil piece of regulation. They have lost their minds and/or either so absolutely corrupt, they have lost their souls.
I accidentally ingested some DHMO once thinking it was Vodka, almost killed me. It’s role in global warming is underestimated if not totally overlooked as well.
Bill, thanks for the links. I admit, I’d kind of like to see the AMO stay negative for a couple of years (although, long-term, I gotta admit I like warm better than cold.)
I just feel much more comfortable pointing to 1998, and saying, “That’s 11 Years, Ago!”
And, then, talking about the Science.
Ed Scott (17:55:39) :
There is no literal difference in so called “green-house” gases and atmospheric gases. The anti-capitalists of the UN, through the auspices of the IPCC, have corrupted the language of climatology such that the unaware public is conditioned to view the atmosphere, and especially the trace gases, as equivalent to a green-house enclosure.. We continue to foster this fallacy by the continued usage of the term “green-house gases.” The conflict is not scientific but rather one of semantics and political propaganda at which the alarmists are more adept.
I absolutely agree with you. I would prefer to use the scientific term “atmospheric gases” than the misguiding term “greenhouse gases”.
Robinson (17:57:37) :
I don’t understand the significance of arctic sea ice extent. Why are we all playing along with the meme that it’s important, or in any way indicative of the “health” of the Earth?
I play along because this is one data set they can’t “adjust.” Also, the Gorebots unambiguously predicted further melting. They even listed Polar Bears as threatened despite clear evidence that their population is huge and rising.
I look forward to the day when the whole AGW hoax comes down like a house of cards. Looking over all the ways they can stonewall the truth, the Arctic sea ice looks like their biggest vulnerability. As any regular reader of WUWT knows, they have a zillion ways to mess up the surface temp record. While the satellite data could call them to account, they seem pretty adept at dancing away from that problem. So the mainstream news story stays the same — the warming is getting worse and we must act now. (And the scientific consensus is increasing!!)
They are the ones who doubled down on Arctic sea ice and I, for one, am ready to take the bet.
By the way, the movie (which takes forever to download) is definitely “demonstrational.” I can’t imagine they’d drill in the dark — and there’s almost none of that now where they are anyway. Are they claiming that the video is anything more than “how it’s done?”
Also, there’s something visible on the back of the tape but I’m unsure of what it is. It looks like the number 70 to me but it’s at about the 6’3″ mark and I can’t think of any explanation that makes sense.
Oops! My movie comment is for the Catlin thread. It took so long to download I had “moved on.”
A fair point, well made.
Philip_B (18:26:05) :
Is this what you were looking for?
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/files/moncov.nhland.txt
Well, how is EPA going to ban water vapor? I mean, it is the most potent greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. If greenhouse gasses are a health threat, that means we are facing the biggest threat of all from dihydrogen monoxide.
BarryW, thanks.
Here is the same data in anomaly form with rankings.
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/table_rankings.php?ui_set=1
One thing that jumps out me is the huge reduction in summer snow cover in recent years. This parallels the reductions in summer sea ice. Both have had much smaller reductions in winter extent (Jan 2008 was the snowiest on record). Which says to me soot and particulate pollution is the cause. Soot will accelerate melting in warmer weather, but has little effect in cold weather.
How ironic that this step in regulating greenhouse gases comes out the day that Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency Arctic sea ice data is now above all previous years in its short 7 year record. The 13.65 km^2 of ice is well ahead of the lowest year in 2004 with 12.90 km^2.
The ice is well below the 1979-2000 average maintained http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/ but it is a good recovery from the gloom & doommonths of 2007. Perhaps we should be celebrating the Arctic Ice recovery, the above average levels around Antarctica, and of course, the recent foot or two of snow in Denver.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/17/new-milepost-for-arctic-sea-ice-extent/
Oops – I meant to submit my previous post to http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/42883/title/EPA_says_greenhouse_gases_endanger_health