Mayday – May Day!

Uh-oh.
The Antarctic sea ice extent is running away from the norm and heading towards record territory.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_timeseries.png

I have been keeping an eye on Arctic temps and jet stream patterns. The current conditions are quite cold in the Bering Strait and the prevailing winds are keeping the ice in the Arctic Circle, even compacting it. That includes the Greenland Sea Ice Area as seen in Cryosphere Today. I would believe the crashing into average graph, not the other one. The data supports cold-hard ice conditions, not melty mushy ones.
http://www.athropolis.com/map2.htm
http://squall.sfsu.edu/gif/jetstream_norhem_00.gif

I think it portends a cooler Arctic, probably because the currents have switched due to the PDO or/and the AMO. I also believe the eruption of Mt. Redoubt will be a contributing factor for the remaining year of 2009 and the Arctic ice will be even greater.

Please. The call for distress is not Mayday but M’Aide (with an acute accent of the e.

Hey Iceberg, you be talkin my language. Whisper more sweet things in my ear. I visit my jet stream favs every day. I have a bunch more that build a picture in my head of the interconnected status of daily weather-related data, as well as longer term possible weather pattern variation. I still occasionally visit cosmic ray and ozone stuff. Those sites have been replaced with daily visits to water vapor sites. I am also trying to find a good site for trade winds that are graphed instead of just tabled. I am also looking for atmospheric dust measurement sites. Got any leads?

Fabius,
The chart is doing what you asked. The blue is approaching the grey 1979-2000 average.
You wanted “compare 1 May to past May firsts, or show a long-term graph of the data.”
Your right! They should compare this May 1 to the… wait isn’t that the what is being done? The blue (this May 1) is approaching the grey 1979-2000 average of for May 1. Uhh, I don’t see the problem?

Vernon (09:20:47) :

I concur. I don’t see a problem with this graph at all, it is precisely comparing every date within the year to the average for that same day through the time series. Where is the issue here? Granted, I would rather see a time series through the current year (ie: 1979-2008), but, otherwise, its all there!

It looks like there are three reasons why the melt is heading towards Mayday: The bowl is plugged with hard ice, the winds are in the wrong direction and lack energy, and the temperatures are witch-tit COLD. The Okhotsk Sea near Russia just outside of the Bering Strait is not getting flushed out of ice and is thus melting very slowly in colder than average water. This is also true of the Barents Sea between Russia and Greenland. Opposite ends of the Arctic and both are under the same conditions. All other areas are near to just above average. These last two areas are rapidly moving towards average due to slow melt.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.14.html
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.6.html
http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/sst/ophi/color_anomaly_NPS_ophi0.png

Have you seen this chart looks like a baloon being inflated? Perhaps by CO2 🙂

Quote of the week?
Steven Goddard (09:04:06) :
“The Stock Market has been declining for 30 years, and is currently at the 30 year mean.”
And Pamela, at the risk of being less than politically correct, or even snipped, might I compliment your feminine attributes in your many fine contributions.
Or something like that?

Anthony, there are very strange things in this world, apart from the fact that no return on the accounts of Arctic ice …
You know that I follow the cheerful vicissitudes of Sidc , and even in April, the Belgian center is manifested always more dependent of the Catania observatory in counting sunspots!
Those who dont’t like that the north pole is in recovery, are probably the same which don’t love thefact that the sun continues to sleep so deeply!
no observatory in the world had seen the sunspots of solar April 6, except the usual … Catania and Sidc it counted …
Please read here, Simon:
http://72.14.221.132/translate_c?hl=it&sl=it&tl=en&u=http://daltonsminima.wordpress.com/2009/05/01/incredibile-il-sidc-ad-aprile-conta-2-giorni-con-macchie-piu-del-noaa-ed-eguaglia-lssn-con-12/&prev=hp&usg=ALkJrhiW4Y_91ycsdwEv0R5igius7XkJ2w

I wonder, if algorithm differences can make such significant variations… concerning the data going back to 1979, and considering the extraordinary developments in computing in the intervening thirty years, are the data consistent in terms of algorithmic interpretation? Are the same algorithms now used to interpret that data? Is it done retrospectively? Or are we relying on data interpreted by divergent algorithms as they themselves have become more sophisticated?
A clarification from Dr. Meier or anyone else would be appreciated.

The Iceberg: “When the Polar Jet does reduce we might see the real Arctic ice situation is like.”
Oh, I see. We are not looking at the real ice. It must be fake, those darn oil companies will stop at nothing. As soon as the next melt hits we will be looking at the real Arctic. Right?

No. The jet stream has pushed north. However, it seems to me that it is more volatile and loopy with multiple breaks that bring cold Arctic temps southward. That could be the result of stronger trade winds that blow equatorially east to west and then hit eastern landforms, causing turbulance in the back flow which may then push north and cause disturbance in the polar jet stream. The same thing may happen in the southern jet stream but land forms there are different, so the results may be different because of that.

Theory: Loopiness seems to cause a north to south air flow as the loop digs down deep into southern areas of the NH. This wind direction brings that Arctic air along with it. It at first seems counter-intuitive, but pay attention to what happens to Arctic air when a deep loop occurs versus a straight yet more southerly positioned jet stream. With straight jet streams, everything stays in its place, including Arctic air. Loopiness allows mixing and extreme weather pattern variation. Hot here, cold there.

Good grief… that’s all we need… a rapper giving his inane rhymes about global warming. All the kiddies will believe that crap and brainwashing bilge.

I must be a complete idiot. I keep seeing (and Dr Meier says so above) that 15% ice/85% open water is considered ice covered. Whose great idea was that ?
Have you finished my bridge yet? Well yes sir! there she is 15% done and we only have to finish the last 85% of details, like we are going to run some pilings down to the bedrock to hold the middle up; but you can start using her any time you like !
15% of 100,000 squ km is 15,000 squ km of ice not 100,000 squ km of ice
I just found out from an aquaintance at Scripps, that the NOAA global CO2 plot is simply mathematically constructed, and is NOT actual real world measured data at all. Who needs that sort of rubbish; and it gets paid for out of my tax dollars.
When are people going to accept responsibility for their work, and stop putting out balderdash disguised as information.
I’m also dicovering reading these blogs, that we have many potential candidates for the Bulwer-Lyton literature prize. Don’t they teach English in Schools any more. There’s a few posts here that are total gobbledegook ; with no smiley faces.
George

Mark,
Ice extent has been generally lower since 2000, so including 2001-2007 would lower the mean and probably push the NSIDC graph above “normal.”

Let me see if I’m understanding this correctly.. right now, the sea ice has been well below average for about 95% of the graph, and at normal (giving it the benefit of the doubt) about 5% of the time. For the last few years, its been below normal at least 95% of the time.
And these facts, taken together, are used as evidence that ice-cover is not decreasing?
A reasonable person would look at all the data and likely conclude 1) that the ice cover is well below normal, 2) its a noisy series subject to lots of fluctuations, and sometimes it pops up to normal (like now) and sometimes it goes well below normal (like the last two summers).
By contrast, a cherry picker would sieze on the one measurement that supports his viewpoint and write a whole blog post about it, while simply ignoring all the others.

More worrisome, May Day is also International Worker’s Day, the Soviet Union’s version of a religious holiday.
(cue the Internationale: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationale)
Despite a century of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the Dirigistes in our current administration appear to believe that central planning & control is required for “the good of the country”. In this “modern” incarnation, however, it’s not only thought control (although apparently that’s good too), but control of your personal chemistry, right down to the molecular level. That is,
Carbon Bad, Organic Good.
[perhaps it’s a hallmark of the “environmental” movement that none of them see the irony in this statement. For that matter, has anyone ever met a self-styled environmentalist who had taken college-level organic chemistry? Courses at Evergreen State, Bennington and Oberlin don’t count; they only study cannabinol and the opiates. Not that there’s anything WRONG with that..]
When are woodstoves going on sale?

“I must be a complete idiot. I keep seeing (and Dr Meier says so above) that 15% ice/85% open water is considered ice covered. Whose great idea was that?”
You must remember that ice-maps and ice-reconnaissance was originally made for a practical reason, to inform shipping about where they could and could not go. Many national ice-services adopt limits of 10% or 15% ice-cover as “open water”, because when ice gets sparser than that you can go between the floes, so for practical reasons it’s ice-free. This would also be the definition found in historical sources.

Bela (10:27:33) :
What about antarctic ice volume as studied by GRACE at the University of Colorado, which says the mass is decreasing?
Being an alumnus of Colorado State University and a natve Coloradoan, I can state with certainty that decreasing attendance at mass has caused a lack of GRACE at CU.

Tim,
Why go to mass at CU, when they can get stoned instead?
http://www.efitnessnow.com/news/2009/04/26/legalization-debate-lights-up-on-naitonal-weed-day/

While some people choose to celebrate National Weed Day with smoke-ins, which can get participants arrested, the more politically-minded have used April 20 as a day to bring attention to the argument for removing the legislation against marijuana. This year, rallies sprung up across the country, primarily in areas with large youth populations, especially on college campuses. One rally in Boulder, Colorado, was said to have nearly 10,000 in attendance.

tty, there are other areas that are not contiguous either. Do you propose that all these other areas be excluded too because they are not within the bowl? What would you say if summer melt slacks off in a longer trend and thus allows year round ice to grow farther south into the NH? Would you then also want these non-contiguous areas to not count in some kind of average? As our data stream gets longer, someone will make the decision to create a new average. Which areas should be included?

Pen Hadow was supposed to be live today in this conference:
http://www.bitc.org.uk/environment/the_princes_may_day_network_on_climate_change/the_princes_may_day_summit/take_part_online/index.html
Has someone checked if he really got live, or if there is a problem with the Catlin expedition. They seem to be having severe problems. BTW, it is interesting to follow there quotes, as this seen for today:
“Their spirits were lifted briefly today when they heard the distant engines of a DC3 aircraft overhead. They thought their minds were playing tricks on them, but sure enough a DC3 did indeed fly within 13 miles of their camp. However, it was part of a Danish research expedition and not the Twin Otter they were hoping for.”
Ecotretas

I clicked on the link provided by ecotretas and found the following on the agenda:
13:55 Case studies:
“SHAPE THE FUTURE” – Educating school children via employee engagement,
“LESS IS MORE” – How business can reduce its air travel carbon footprint,
“YES WE CAN!” –The business and climate benefits of innovation and enterprise
The first one is positively scary in tone but what caught my eye is the last one. Does it look sort of familiar ?

A couple days ago, I read a very interesting but incomplete and inaccurate translation (accredited to the Wall Street Journal) of an article by a German research organization, the Alfred Wegner Institute of Bremerhaven. So I found the original article in German, then translated it into English via a free web service which did a fair but imperfect job of it. I fixed it up a bit where I felt confident, but identified those fixes with parentheses. There are some grammatical errors from imperfect translation, some of which I could have fixed, but you should be able to get the gist OK — if not, let me know. I have copied and pasted below both the English and German versions.
Note the very significant comment that the ice is thicker than expected, but the 15 meter thickness must have been due to “pressure ridges” such as I encountered during my study of sea and river ice at and near Point Barrow and Umiat during winter 1947/48. These ridges are caused by wind and ocean currents and can create big variations in ice thickness depending on how the ice piles up as it is thrust up upon itself.
The original material in German can be found at : AWI-bremerhaven.de/de/
Pag
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
(The April 2009 flights by) German polar airplane (P)olar 5 (have come) to (an) end. The vierwöchige campaign brought singular measuring data due to the large range of the airplane and the assigned modern measuring technique over sea ice thickness, trace gases, aerosols and meteorological parameters. “We were in to a large extent unexplored areas on the way. Our northernmost position was with 88° 40′ North. Such flight operations in the Arctic require large being able and much experience, “ report Dr. Andreas (Herber), physicist and responsible for the research flight witness at the (Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, Germany, identified as “AWI” hereafter). During most time the weather for the measurements was ideal. Air temperatures of under (minus) 30 °C however often became a challenge for the scientific devices. (Twenty) scientists and engineers of six research institutes from Germany, Italy (CNR ISAC Bologna), Canada (Environment Canada, University Of Alberta, York University) and the USA (NOAA ESRL Boulder) were involved and the data in the coming months will evaluate.
The flight of the (P)olar 5 of (AWI) for polar and exploration of the sea in the helmet getting time community led from Longyearbyen on Spitzbergen across Greenland and north Canada until Barrow in Alaska. In addition (the Polar 5 aircraft was the first to be) landed 5 as the first airplane on two meters thick ice with the position 87° 40′ Nord/117° 00′ West to the Russian Eisschollen Driftstation NP-36. The entire campaign owes its success of a close international co-operation and the outstanding support at the individual research stations such as Alert and Eureka.
An emphasis of the campaign were arctic aerosols. With several vertical and horizontal profiles in low-altitude flight height (60 meters) and in Normalflughöhe of 3000 meters an image of the aerosol distribution in the Arctic was provided. Aerosols belong with water droplets and ice crystals to the climaticrelevant trace materials and rank among the largest factors of uncertainty with the estimation of future climatic changes. The measurements over the arctic ocean permit quantification and its allocation to Asian, North American and European source regions to the aerosol load of arctic pure air. They supply a realistic basis for the urgently necessary improvement of the Modellrechungen for this inaccessible and region of our earth central for the climatic research.
A further emphasis of the campaign were wide ice thickness measurements in the internal Arctic, which were accomplished in close co-operation between the AWI and the (U)niversity (of) Alberta. Thereby an ice thickness probe, the EM-Bird so called, was used for the first time under an airplane. For the investigations (P)olar 5 pulled the probe to 80 meters is enough for steel cable into twenty meters height over the ice surface. Several flights of different stations northward resulted in ice thicknesses between 2.5 meters (two-year ice in the proximity of the north pole) and four meters (multiyear ice in coastalnear areas before Canada). Altogether the ice was somewhat thicker than in the past years in the same regions, which lets a temporary recovery of the arctic ice cover assume. Along the northern coast of Ellesmere Iceland the researchers the thickest ice found often (was) larger, with thicknesses (greater?) than 15 meters.
A further high point of the campaign were atmospheric soundings in the central Arctic as well as the measurement of very small ozone and mercury concentrations over widen parts of the arctic ocean covered with sea ice. The meteorological sounding by means of drop probes resulted in flat boundary layers in connection with pronounced temperature inversions and wind jet in the lowest 300 meters. These conditions promote the loss of near-surface ozone measured of the Canadian colleagues of Environment Canada over the sea ice, caused by reaction with bromine oxide. The combination of all trace gas measurements with the atmospheric soundings will make it possible to understand the processes of the near-surface Ozonabbaus in the Arctic better.
Only by the close international cooperation between all partners this logistically complex campaign could be mastered successfully with places of residence in four Arctic neighboring states.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Above Report in Original German (Except Photographs) :
29. April 2009: Forschungsflugzeug Polar 5 beendet Arktis-Expedition – Einzigartige Messflüge in der zentralen Arktis abgeschlossen
Bremerhaven, den 29. April 2009. Gestern ging in Oshawa (Kanada) die Arktis-Kampagne (PAM-ARCMIP – Pan-Arctic Measurements and Arctic Climate Model Intercomparison Project) mit dem deutschen Polarflugzeug Polar 5 zu Ende. Die vierwöchige Kampagne brachte aufgrund der großen Reichweite des Flugzeuges und der eingesetzten modernen Messtechnik einzigartige Messdaten über Meereisdicke, Spurengase, Aerosole und meteorologische Parameter. „Wir waren in größtenteils unerforschten Gebieten unterwegs. Unsere nördlichste Position lag bei 88° 40′ Nord. Solche Flugoperationen in der Arktis erfordern großes Können und viel Erfahrung“, berichtet Dr. Andreas Herber, Physiker und verantwortlich für die Forschungsflugzeuge am Alfred-Wegener-Institut. Während der meisten Zeit war das Wetter für die Messungen ideal. Lufttemperaturen von unter – 30 °C wurden jedoch oft zu einer Herausforderung für die wissenschaftlichen Geräte. 20 Wissenschaftler und Ingenieure von sechs Forschungsinstituten aus Deutschland, Italien (CNR-ISAC Bologna), Kanada (Environment Kanada, University of Alberta, York University) und den USA (NOAA-ESRL Boulder) waren beteiligt und werden die Daten in den kommenden Monaten auswerten.
Der Flug der Polar 5 des Alfred-Wegener-Instituts für Polar und Meeresforschung in der Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft führte von Longyearbyen auf Spitzbergen über Grönland und Nordkanada bis nach Barrow in Alaska. Polar 5 landete außerdem als erstes Flugzeug auf zwei Meter dickem Eis bei der Position 87° 40′ Nord/117° 00′ West an der russischen Eisschollen-Driftstation NP-36. Die gesamte Kampagne verdankt ihren Erfolg einer engen internationalen Kooperation und der hervorragenden Unterstützung an den einzelnen Forschungsstationen wie Alert und Eureka.
Ein Schwerpunkt der Kampagne waren arktische Aerosole. Mit mehreren Vertikal- und Horizontalprofilen in Tiefflughöhe (60 Meter) und in Normalflughöhe von 3000 Meter wurde ein Abbild der Aerosolverteilung in der Arktis erstellt. Aerosole gehören mit Wassertröpfchen und Eiskristallen zu den klimarelevanten Spurenstoffen und zählen zu den größten Unsicherheitsfaktoren bei der Abschätzung zukünftiger Klimaveränderungen. Die Messungen über dem Arktischen Ozean erlauben die Quantifizierung der Aerosolbelastung der arktischen Reinluft und ihre Zuordnung zu asiatischen, nordamerikanischen und europäischen Quellregionen. Sie liefern eine realistische Grundlage für die dringend erforderliche Verbesserung der Modellrechungen für diese unzugängliche und für die Klimaforschung zentrale Region unserer Erde.
Ein weiterer Schwerpunkt der Kampagne waren großflächige Eisdickenmessungen in der inneren Arktis, die in enger Zusammenarbeit zwischen dem Alfred-Wegener-Institut und der Universität von Alberta durchgeführt wurden. Erstmalig kam dabei eine Eisdickensonde, der so genannte EM-Bird, unter einem Flugzeug zum Einsatz. Für die Untersuchungen zog Polar 5 die Sonde an einem 80 Meter langen Stahlseil in zwanzig Meter Höhe über die Eisoberfläche. Mehrere Flüge von verschiedenen Stationen nach Norden ergaben Eisdicken zwischen 2,5 Meter (zweijähriges Eis in der Nähe des Nordpols) und vier Metern (mehrjähriges Eis in küstenahen Gebieten vor Kanada). Insgesamt war das Eis etwas dicker als in den vergangenen Jahren in den gleichen Regionen, was eine temporäre Erholung der arktischen Eisdecke vermuten lässt. Entlang der nördlichen Küste von Ellesmere Island fanden die Forscher das dickste Eis, mit Dicken oft größer als 15 Meter.
Ein weiterer Höhepunkt der Kampagne waren atmosphärische Sondierungen in der Zentralarktis sowie die Messung sehr geringer Ozon- und Quecksilberkonzentrationen über weiten Teilen des mit Meereis bedeckten arktischen Ozeans. Die meteorologische Sondierung mittels Dropsonden ergab flache Grenzschichten in Verbindung mit ausgeprägten Temperaturinversionen und Windjets in den untersten 300 Metern. Diese Bedingungen fördern den von den kanadischen Kollegen von Environment Canada gemessenen Verlust des bodennahen Ozons über dem Meereis, hervorgerufen durch Reaktion mit Bromoxid. Die Kombination aller Spurengasmessungen mit den atmosphärischen Sondierungen wird es ermöglichen, die Prozesse des bodennahen Ozonabbaus in der Arktis besser zu verstehen.
Nur durch die enge internationale Zusammenarbeit zwischen allen Partnern konnte diese logistisch aufwendige Kampagne mit Aufenthaltsorten in vier Arktis-Anrainerstaaten erfolgreich bewältigt werden.
Hinweise für Redaktionen:
Ihre Ansprechpartner sind Prof. Dr. Klaus Dethloff (Tel. 0331 228-2104; E-Mail: Klaus.Dethloff@awi.de) und Dr. Andreas Herber (Tel. 0471 4831-1489; E-Mail: Andreas.Herber@awi.de) sowie in der Presse- und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit Folke Mehrtens (Tel. 0471 4831-2007; E-Mail: Folke.Mehrtens@awi.de). Druckbare Bilder finden Sie auf unserer Webseite unter http://www.awi.de/
Das Alfred-Wegener-Institut forscht in der Arktis, Antarktis und den Ozeanen der mittleren sowie hohen Breiten. Es koordiniert die Polarforschung in Deutschland und stellt wichtige Infrastruktur wie den Forschungseisbrecher Polarstern und Stationen in der Arktis und Antarktis für die internationale Wissenschaft zur Verfügung. Das Alfred-Wegener-Institut ist eines der fünfzehn Forschungszentren der Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft, der größten Wissenschaftsorganisation Deutschlands.

Pamela Gray
Thanks – I recall others saying they thought the Jet Stream would head equatorwards in a cooling scenario so your observation is very interesting. Trouble is I cannot remember who said it would head south!
If Stephen Wilde is reading this thread I recall he had some good thoughts on atmospheric circulation – perhaps he could comment?

Is there a relationship between Antarctic sea ice extent and volume?

If not O/T, the April numbers are in for Heating Degree Days for the Los Angeles area.
Long-term Normal is 83 HDD.
Actual is 102 HDD.
That is 22.9 percent above normal. Meaning it was much colder than normal.
In fairness, the Cooling Degree Days were also slightly below normal, with 53 compared to 58 for an 8.6 percent change.
The GCMs tell us that global warming caused by man-made CO2 will cause the low temperatures to increase. Obviously, that did not happen in the month of April, 2009, in Los Angeles.
Maybe next month?

In the previous post, Steve Goddard wrote: “But something odd happened with the NANSEN data on December 13, 2008. Overnight it lost about 500,000 km2 of ice.”
Isn’t this the specific event that Dr. Meier should be asked to address?
Why did sea ice drop by 500,000km2 on December13, 2008?
Is it an explainable event? Is it within reasonable parameters? Or is it an anomaly/error that has gone undetected until now and that Dr. Meier would be grateful that it has been uncovered since it will improve the accuracy of his data base?

Maybe they should correct the graph for “second year” ice. The nsidc graph which purported to show how much bad “second year” ice there was so odd because it was the only mention of “second year” ice on the nsidc website.
“Sea ice is classified by stages of development that relate to thickness and age. Most scientists describe sea ice only by its age, typically as first-year or multiyear. However, some experts who chart the extent of ice for navigational purposes use specific terms to relate the thickness of ice to its age”
…. http://nsidc.org/seaice/characteristics/index.html
“Multiyear ice has distinct properties that distinguish it from first-year ice, based on processes that occur during the summer melt. Multiyear ice contains much less brine and more air pockets than first-year ice. Less brine means “stiffer” ice that is more difficult for icebreakers to navigate and clear.”
…. http://nsidc.org/seaice/characteristics/multiyear.html
Anthony has already pointed out that Bouy 2008B has shown a characteristic increase from 2m to 3m (6ft to 9ft) that indicates a transition from first year to multi-year ice:
http://imb.crrel.usace.army.mil/2008B.htm
On the other hand, the (non-land fast) ice is really staring to move off Barrow:
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/snowice/sea-lake-ice/barrow_radar.html
Regards,
Bob

When are we going to see some brave journalists in the mainstream media start questioning the fallacy of anthropogenic climate change?

Bela (10:27:33) :
What about antarctic ice volume as studied by GRACE at the University of Colorado, which says the mass is decreasing?
I dont know, do you have a link to anything on this? Just a quick approximation tells me that if i assume the average thickness is 1m, that with losses on the shelf being around 2210km2 that it would need to be over 452m thick, seems unlikely.
But then i have no idea what the “average” thickness is.

Last January I noticed that the “sea ice anomaly” graphs on “The Cryosphere Today”
(http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.1.html)
did not match up with the total sea ice anomaly:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.jpg
Currently the numbers are:
Area anomaly (mi sq km)
Arctic Basin 0.0
Baffin/Newfoundland Bay -0.04
Barents Sea -0.08
Beaufort Sea -0.06
Bering Sea 0.08
Canadian Archipelago 0.0
Chuckchi Sea -0.02
East Siberian Sea -0.02
Greenland Sea -0.02
Hudson Bay 0.0
Kara Sea 0.0
Laptev Sea -0.04
Sea of Okhotsk -0.16
St. Lawrence 0.0
Total -0.36 mi sq km
This compares with a total of -0.60 mi sq km. That works out to a discrepancy of 0.24 mi sq km, which appears larger than any single anomaly. I know that in the grand scheme of ice edges and bad sensors that this is no big deal. But, all the graphs should be based on the same data at least on the same site.
I sent an email using the link and the website about it. My email and the reply follow below. I haven’t heard anything since then.
Regards,
Bob
From: William Chapman
To: rjtatz@chemistry.ohio-state.edu
Subject: Re: recent ice area graph for NH
Date sent: Tue, 13 Jan 2009 12:10:15 -0600
Bob,
This is a good question. I would think they should be pretty close.
The only thing I can think of
is that maybe the smallish regions that are not included in the
regional breakdown are responsible
for the difference. One possibility is the Baltic Sea region.
Another might be the Sea of Japan. There
may be others. I’ll look into this a little more and see if I can
find something.
Thanks for pointing this out.
Bill
On Jan 13, 2009, at 11:45 AM, rjtatz@chemistry.ohio-state.edu wrote:
Sorry to bother you but I have a question about the recent ice area
graph for NH. The regional sea ice graphs are very helpful to see where
the deficit for sea ice is. What I can’t figure out is that if I sum the 14 areas
to give total to compare with the recent ice area graph, I get roughly the
same number. But it I total the anomaly, it does not agree with the recent
ice area graph. For the data from 1/12/09, I get 0.6-0.65 (mil sq km) by totaling
the 14 area graphs while the recent ice area graph shows about 1.0.
I can’t see that there are other areas to include. I don’t think I am reading
the graphs incorrectly (I tried to round higher for each negative anomaly).
I’ve tried it a number of days and get similar results. I recognize
that you would just determine the whole area to give the recent ice area
graph. I can’t figure out where the discrepancy is from. I suppose some
areas might overlap but then the totals should not agree (although 0.35 mil
sq km is small relative to the total). So is there a reason the total anomaly does not
agree?
Thanks,
Bob Tatz
> rjtatz@chemistry.ohio-state.edu
——- End of forwarded message ——-

Frederick,
Au contraire. When it is a small community of ice experts, I would think it would be their obligation to sort out discrepancies, like how UAH and RSS do for example.
Speaking of which, It is unfortunate that some of the other keepers of temperature records aren’t so eager to find out what is inconsistent with their data. Or perhaps they already know?

Pieter has it correct on mayday. Pan-pan would be the proper call for a possible collision situation. CQD is an early Morse code distress call from the Q set of int’l Morse code shortforms- made up of CQ – general call to all stations, and D to indicate its a distress call (dah.di.dah.dit dah.dah.didah – Dah.didit) . SOS was not in common usage for commercial maritime distress (and if you’ve ever been unfortunate to hear either one emanating from a stormy ocean in the middle of the night, you will truly know what a shiver up the spine feels like…:( . Now, what was that about ice…? 🙂

Pamela Gray
Have you ever read the work of H H Lamb? He wrote on many climate related subjects and had a particularly good grasp on atrmospheric circulation/jet streams and also wrote about trade winds.
This is a bibliography of his very extensive publications.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/pubs/byauthor/lamb_hh.htm
Tonyb

From the National Climate Centre of Australia (and winter has not started yet)
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25416630-11949,00.html

Antarctic heating or cooling? Read this and shake your head.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25416631-11949,00.html

MikeE,
Here is a link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/03/060302180504.htm
I live in Boulder CO and I sometimes speak with scientists, profs, etc. and this has recently come up (this morning!).
Bela

From Bela’s link:
“The most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment, completed in 2001, predicted the Antarctic ice sheet would gain mass in the 21st century due to increased precipitation in a warming climate. But the new study signals a reduction in the continent’s total ice mass, with the bulk of loss occurring in the West Antarctic ice sheet, said Velicogna.”
So, from that would one not conclude that the climate must be cooling? They can spin stuff anyway they want it seems.

You don’t suppose all the Antarctic Ice Shelf melting got refrozen on the other side of the world, do you?
Darn sea levels are stuck.
Aunt Artica giveth, Uncle Artic taketh away.

Jim Cripwell (09:13:18) sed :
“Please. The call for distress is not Mayday but M’Aide (with an acute accent of the e.”
WHG sed: tomato, tomahto

“deadwood (09:06:44) said::
Any bets on how long before they “adjust”?”
Deadwood,
My money is on late Friday (May 8) afternoon!

Flanagan (10:55:11) :
I do not see the point either. So, MAYBE the arctic will come back to its normal extent for a few days in the last 10 years? And are you actually going to make titles with that? This is called in here “l’énergie du désespoir”. For those who understand…
If I were you, I would wait for the summer minimum.
Perhaps you should also wait until the summer minimum to characterize the current condition as “a few days in the last 10 years”.  🙂
I do agree that we will not know the full story until the end of September.  However, the trend is definitely towards more ice at the same time that CO2 is just going up and up.  That weather is sure fickle.
–Mike Ramsey

Robert Wood (15:43:06) :
Jim Cripwell @09:13:18
It’s M’aidez!! The imperative, old man, the imperative!
Robert, if you think “M’aidez” is the imperative, what do you suppose “Aidez-moi” is?

George E. Smith (10:47:00) :
🙂 🙂 🙂

actually it’s m’aidez, it derives from french which means: help me.
As english speakers don’t speak french to well its become garbled.

A little sign of a solid ice condition in the arctic:
First take a look at the NSIDC arctic situation:
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_daily_extent_hires.png
In general we are close to normal. And there is a little thing that will support the arctic anomaly curves for a while more at least.
The Okhotsk sea, east of Siberia is perhaps the main reason that we have not yet actually crossed the normal line for ice anomaly.
This is indeed interesting because, the Okhotsk sea will allways melt totaly around June. This means, the the negative anomaly from that area will be omitted within a good month or so.
Get the point?
Never mind what happends, the Okhotsk sea in the coming 5 weeks will contribute with perhaps 0,3-0,5 mio kvm2 + in sea ice anomaly.
Ice anomaly will go from negative to zero in that area.
Here the Okhotsk trends on Cryosphere, but please be aware that Cryosphere uses sea ice concentration and not sea ice area, so the approx -0,17 mio kvm2 og present negative ice anomaly is perhaps half the number in NSIDC calculation.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.14.html
Cheers!

Why is the verage taken from 1979 to 2000? Is there anything special about this time frame? Thanks for filling me in even if it turns out to be a silly question.

There was not just one speaking of mass loss. Here are a sample of more links:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/view.php?old=2006030221819
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2006/2006-03-03-03.asp
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2009/04/28/ESA-Wilkins-Ice-Shelf-is-now-unstable/UPI-86731240946372/
Watts up with this?
Bela

Mass/volume loss, if accurate, is much more significant than stable area don’t you agree?
Bela

Ok, that’s fine. But the claim is that loss of mass is just another piece of evidence for AGW (which is not my position). If mass/volume decreases, it must be added to the ocean thereby raising water levels and killing everyone on the planet in 5 years!

OT:
It would bee nice if the navigation for the articles was sorted with numbers (ex. 1 2 3 … last) instead of “See more entries”
Here’s the code to replace it.
————————-
Also it would be even better if you could add a page with a list of All the articles (just the tittles).
I can help if you want me to.

Bela,
The Grace satellites, while a great example of engineering, is showing such small changes in ice balance, that the numbers are within the margin of error (of the measurements themselves and of the adjustments required to account for other normal changes in gravity). When combined with gravity changes due to land subsidence, post-glacial rebound, ocean temperature, soil moisture changes, mantle plumes and plate tectonics, the measurements are not reliable enough.
For example, Grace measurments of Greenland have to be corrected for changes caused by post-glacial rebound in Hudson Bay and in Scandinavia.
And if Antarctica is losing 156 cubic kilometres of ice volume per year, then that should be compared to the 30,000,000 cubic kilometres that is there already.
And I believe there has been some corrections of even these numbers recently showing ice loss on parts of the coastal regions of Antarctica and ice gain in the interior.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008AGUFM.G31A0643Y
ftp://ftp.csr.utexas.edu/pub/ggfc/papers/EPSL_9011.pdf

Having used “Mayday” in my aviation career,(Usually when something important has just quit working , has fallen off the aircraft or has started smoking when it shouldn’t)
The “Mayday” here is the warmist oh, Zeppelin which has now sprung a leak and is heading into the Arctic icepack…

Or, even better; Mayday, Mayday!

Glenn (23:54:59) :
Got this pic from ICECAP, of a “NASA Observatory” image that seems to show some Arctic ice detail, and compared it to Cryosphere. Anyone see a clear discrepancy?
http://www.examiner.com/x-1586-Baltimore-Weather-Examiner~y2009m4d29-NASAs-Earth-Observatory-10th-anniversary-top-10-images
Look what I found on the 9th photo in that slide show:
“Our Sun experienced fewer spots in 2008 than it had since the 1957 launch of Sputnik. As of March 2009, the Sun was still in its quiet pattern, explaining recent cooling.“

Flanagan (04:57:46) :
You write: “The problem is that the Barents sea, which makes almost all the difference with previous years, is always completely ice-free in the summer.”
This is somewhat true, but the longer the Barents sea holds ice it does to some degree prevent melting of other ice areas. So, more ice in Barents sea is just more ice.
The area around the Barents sea has been really cold for months, which has obviously contributed to the ice formation.

“E.M.Smith (13:25:56) :
Pamela Gray (10:33:43) : Loopiness allows mixing and extreme weather pattern variation. Hot here, cold there.
I find it helpful to think of it as a spherical lava lamp. Hot tropical air (powered by a 30 year accumulation of ocean heat) makes blobs headed to the cold pole. Colder than typical polar air makes blobs of cold headed south. A big ‘heat engine’ driven by the differential temperature redistributing the heat from the topical oceans to the polar zones for radiation away.
Don’t know if it’s the correct physics, but I find it a helpful image… ;-)”
Near enough but may I suggest the following:
1) Warming of air by the oceans pushes energy into the air, expanding the equatorial air masses, and the extra energy in the air is then accelerated to space.
2) Cooling of air by the oceans shrinks the equatorial air masses so that larger and more frequent surges of colder drier polar air move towards the equator across larger areas of ocean and pull energy from the oceans to try and balance the energy flow to space with energy from the oceans.
3) The air can push extra energy to space and pull it from the oceans.
4) The air cannot pull energy from space or push it into the oceans.
That says it all really.

Well, NASA satellite measurements just revealed there are very large parts of deep-arctic zones that are covered with very thin ice layers. This is especially striking if one takes a look at the sea ice concentration rightnow
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/NEWIMAGES/arctic.seaice.color.000.png
There are some immense patches of low-concentration ice right in the middle of the Arctic basin, which I never observed before at this time of the year. Even the multi-year ice that drifted in the Barents sea is beginning to melt now. Given the wind pattern we had, we might well be heading for a new record.

Let’s hope things don’t turn into a real mayday. If the sea ice situation, over the next few years, gets into the realm last experienced during the LIA, there will be quite a few mayday calls going out from ships striking icebergs in the North Atlantic.

Actually ‘MAYDAY’ is the international call for immediate help and has nothing to do with collision. If in n trouble but not immediate danger the call would be ‘Pan Pan’.
It comes from the French, M’aidez, ie, help me! Pan Pan comes from Panne which means a mechanical breakdown.
Just thought I would let you know.