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?
It just doesn’t pay to be a global warming alarmist.
“Robert Bateman (17:49:18) :Eat dirt. Stop by your local Dirt in the Box and pick up a mudburger, rock fries, and sand shake.”
Do they still carry that ‘muket-y-muck’/volcanic ash combo with a tall glass of Glacial Milk?
“Ron de Haan (18:09:45) : Cold snap may have broken wheat crop
The freezes of April 6 and 7 may have cut this year’s production.”
Yes, this is a problem. What will poorer countries like the Philippines do if food prices start to go up, especially if this cooling does indeed pan out to be a mini ice age?
Why are we so worried about ice? It hardly affects life positively. There must be so much ice in the universe at large it is ridiculous. The presence of permanent ice on the earth’s surface is a geological anomaly.
“Kum Dollison (18:49:55) : I just feel much more comfortable pointing to 1998, and saying, “That’s 11 Years, Ago!” ”
Yes, but…. what would James Hansen say?
By the way, just in case James Hansen is right and the earth starts to burn up keep this advice from Phil Hartman in mind :
peter_ga (23:30:48) :
What???
Were you the one that coached Miss South Carolina?
See video :
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>>Hansen and Al Gore are praying for a total collapse in Arctic Sea
>>Ice in less than 4 years from now as a form of vindication!
This is standard in fundamentalist religious belief. Jeremiah (c. 6th cent BC) did much the same when he predicted that god would destroy his people (the Israelites) in order to prove that they were not worshipping him/her in quite the right fashion. See book of Jeremiah.
Strange logic, and if correct, an even stranger god.
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>>Yes, they ARE out there. I teach Science and I get students
>>who are convinced that the Moon landings were faked
Don’t knock this attitude too much, because in small doses it is healthy. Its foundation lies in the fact that governments lie and we all know they are lying, and so there is a healthy skeptisim about all government pronouncements.
Without the pool of conspiracy theorists, by now we would all be forced to bag every exhalation and take it to the local CO2 recycling depot.
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yet still the media reports go like this!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/5172098/Arctic-ice-is-thinner-than-ever-according-to-new-evidence-from-explorers.html from saturday’s Daily Telegraph (UK)
And this coincides with the London Telegraph printing this article about Arctic ice ‘thinning’ (its mostly first-year ice, so it will be thin).
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/5172098/Arctic-ice-is-thinner-than-ever-according-to-new-evidence-from-explorers.html
Any complaints to: dtletters@telegraph.co.uk
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Anthony
The Catlin Expedition seems a modern day analog of the ancient practice of Hindu observants prostrating themselves on the ground, to then rise and repeat the movement to attain “Nirvana”. It also reminds me of the self-infliction by the Jansenites some centuries ago.
Seems we are not that far removed from barbarism we believe ourselves to be.
Keep up the excellent fact-based posts.
Best regards
Louis Hissink
just want truth
no.
Meanwhile, in the “real” world …
UK Daily Telegraph swallows it hook, line and sinker.
As predicted in previous threads, the Hadow debacle results in yet more unquestioning support from MSM, and the DT is probably the most sceptical of all UK ‘papers. I’ve a written the usual, stiff letter to the Editor, which will, as usual, not get published.
Hopefully the inestimable Mr Booker will respond in tomorrow’s Sunday Telegraph.
I’m not sure who put together the temperature graph for Wood for Trees, but I would like to point out that the trend from 2003 to mid 2007 is rising ( higher highs and higher lows). This forms an uptrending channel until mid 2007 where it is broken. If you are saying that temperatures are in a downtrend since 2003 you shouldn’t use this graph to try to support that contention.
peter_ga (23:30:48) :
Why are we so worried about ice? It hardly affects life positively. There must be so much ice in the universe at large it is ridiculous. The presence of permanent ice on the earth’s surface is a geological anomaly.
Well, to put it simply, we skeptic/climate Realists are not worried so much as interested, but the Alarmists are, well ALARMED. The useful idiots, (the ones who will sign a petition against DHMO) believing everything the MSM screams about coming disasterous floods, droughts, fires, and every calamity known to man truly are worried, and full of guilt, due to the fact that they were born and require the use of resources, and will necessarily emit DANGEROUS CO2 Pollution. But, thankfully, there is a way to salvation, and they can atone for their “sins against Mother Gaia”.
The AGW “scientists” and ideologues seem to have hitched their AGW wagon to what happens (or, more importantly, what the say WILL happen) with the icecaps, particularly the Arctic icecap, which is an interesting strategy. I suppose part of it is that melting ice is something that can be more easily seen, and understood by the lay person. There are plenty of stock photos of ice doing what it has always done, which is freezing, flowing, calving and thawing which can be used to capitalize on the ignorance of the general public of these things. Throw in a wan-looking polar bear or two “stranded” on an iceberg, and voila, you have instant, ready-for-prime-time Alarmism any Chicken Little could be proud of.
Of course, the assumptions are that the ice melting is 1) caused by man and 2) the melting Arctic icecap will create a positive feedback loop, leading to the melting of the land-based ice of Greenland, resulting in catastrophic sea level rises of perhaps 80 feet.
The Alarmists are wrong about what is happening with the Arctic ice, since it is in fact rebounding from its low 2007 anomaly. But, they dodge, move the goalposts, and cherry pick to their hearts’ delight to try desperately to keep the Alarmism alive, as is their wont.
We skeptic/climate Realists do need to remember to hold the Alarmists’ feet to the fire on their false and fraudulent assumptions on why ice melts, or doesn’t, and not get too bogged down in their little games about what the ice is actually doing, as interesting as that is.
Just Want Truth… (23:28:15) :
“Poorer countries” will export to the USA the food they will need, of course provided they pay with real money, not with newly printed “trillions”
D. King: 🙂 Maybe I should have said: unsuspected consequences of Arctic melting. The current party line is “the globe will burn up”. The geologic report I cited says instead that eradicating (melting and evaporating) the Arctic ice ushers in the next ice age and provides the water to feed continental glaciers – exactly the opposite of the present “consensus” idea.
Frederick Michael (17:45:36) :
“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.”
I don’t disagree with a lot of what you say, but what crystal ball is telling you a LOT of late summer melt? The previous 2 seasons had unusual wind and Pacific warm water incursion leading to larger than normal July-Sept. ice loss. I’d be interested if anyone has any idea or info on similar conditions that might apply this season. The Bering Sea looks cold now with higher than normal ice cover. I have no idea if AMO or PDO will have any influence over the wind conditions. Anybody?
Mike B,
Not sure why you would want to ignore the last two years, but even if you did – RSS showed a downwards trend from 2003-2007
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:2003/to:2008/plot/rss/from:2003/to:2008/trend
You can always plot these out for yourself.
DHMO is so bad it can eat through concrete just by dripping on it over an extended period of time! And if it gets mixed in with a levee, it can cause the levee to fail, thus flooding and even killing the folks who live behind the broken levee. All because of unregulated use of DHMO.
The biggest issue will be centered around Arctic summer land temperatures and SST, along with wind patterns. If a colder oceanic current, land temps, and wind keeps ice within the circle and unmelted (it matters little how much is regrown in the winter), the ice cap will grow. Plain and simple. Year in and year out. Let’s hope that other weather pattern variations come into play to stop that growth from becoming a more significant ice advance. Anyone have a temp graph of summer only over the last 20 years? The noisy anomalous tracing would work just fine along with a moving average.
Arn Riewe (09:55:04) :
I don’t disagree with a lot of what you say, but what crystal ball is telling you a LOT of late summer melt? The previous 2 seasons had unusual wind and Pacific warm water incursion leading to larger than normal July-Sept. ice loss.
Experience. Disappointment has given me an attitude.
The ice is mostly 1 or 2 years old and thus thin. What happened last summer was that a huge area all melted simultaneously. “Sea ice extent” is the area where the ocean is 15% or more ice. I watched huge regions falling below 100% and each day more pixels would drop below 15%. (Yes, “pixels;” that’s how they measure it.) It was rather predictable short term. Those 24hour days melt a lot of ice, and the first year ice is hard pressed to survive (though some does).
But my real reason for the issuing the strong caution is just a matter of tactics. It’s always wiser to use measured language. Avoid going out on a limb (which is exactly why this issue matters — the Gorebots have staked a clear claim here and it’ll be tactical error that sinks their ship.)
I fully expect arctic sea ice to recover significantly over the next few years. But don’t expect too much progress in any one year. It could happen but don’t count on it.
And definitely don’t put yourself in a position to get zinged if we have a single bad month. Always caveat any “bragging” with the boilerplate, “we expect further melting and this summer’s minimum will not show this much recovery.”
The sea ice plots will be shocking as hell to anyone who refuses to step out from behind the iron curtain (AKA the MSM). The AMSR-E plot will soon show 2009 as the highest ever (but in 2008 early May was the highest ever.) There’s a good chance that 2009 in the NSIDC plot will even touch the 1979-2000 average. That’ll be a great time to send out some “wake-up” emails. But those emails will wear better over time if their predictions are VERY conservative.
Will the Gore administration in 2018 declare that all non-essential carbon life forms report to the vaporization rooms ? Seriously, if co2 is deemed as a pollutant and we all exhale co2, who’s to say they won’t try to push for extreme actions such as this, in the name of saving the planet ?
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Jim F (09:01:47) :
D. King: 🙂 Maybe I should have said: unsuspected consequences of Arctic melting. The current party line is “the globe will burn up”. The geologic report I cited says instead that eradicating (melting and evaporating) the Arctic ice ushers in the next ice age and provides the water to feed continental glaciers – exactly the opposite of the present “consensus” idea.
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That’s possible. Right now, I think the high Arctic tundra is already cold enough to produce glaciers, but has too little snow for it to accumulate. If the Arctic ocean stayed relatively open in the winter, much more prec (snow) would be available. IIRC, Barrow, AK had record early-season snow this past autumn, w/unusually wide-open water to its north.
There is some computer modeling that suggests the Arctic ocean was actually mostly open during the glacial periods. Goggle “Gildor-Tziperman” for these simulations.
The Catlin Arctic Adventure has issued its first report.
They apparently found what they intended to find.
Now they need a crisis getting the intrepid polar adventurers of the ice.
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/assets/downloads/Ice_Report_14_4_09.pdf