Antarctic Sea Ice Complete Video
by Jeff Id , reposted here by invitation. The video animation Jeff put together is well worth watching, see it below the “read more” line. – Anthony
Antarctic temperatures and sea ice are becoming quite a hobby. It should make for some interesting discussion around the campfire this summer – not really. It takes my computer about 15 hours to calculate this movie and it took all day to figure out how to make the movie work. Actually it takes a minute then wait, then a minute and wait again. I finally got a reasonable quality video at 15 frames per second, one frame per day from 1978 – 2009. Before you watch the video Figure 1 is a map of the Wilkins ice shelf which apparently is about to melt every hot January summer at the south pole.
The melting of the Wilkins ice shelf has happened over and over prompting numerous articles like the following.
Wilkins Ice Shelf About to Break Off and Alter the Map of Antarctica
Vast Antarctic Ice Shelf on Verge of Collapse
The headlines are truly endless and will continue this year as well.
Here is a video which is particularly pertinent in it’s discussion and the fact that it ends with a discussion of climate science by Hillary Clinton. I recommend it to everyone before watching the video below.
Wilkins Ice Shelf Collapse Video
Below is a plot of the sea ice area anomaly in the antarctic calculated from the NSIDC NasaTeam algorithm data. It shows an upward trend in sea ice extent over the last 30 years.
Figure 2I’ve pointed out here many times that the trends do in fact exist if the even if the statistical certainty created by typical high frequency climate activity can create a trend of the same magnitude. This is an important differentiation which certain ‘over the top’ scientists in AGW crowd tend to blur. Statistical certainty of a trend does not always mean the trend does or does not exist, a trend is a trend to the certainty of the measurement error (different than certainty created from other noise). Some global warming bloggers like to blur that distinction.
The interpretation of a trend’s meaning does change with the statistical certainty of the trend. In the case of Antarctic sea ice growth I have seen one example demonstrating the trend is statistically significant despite climate noise. However the point of ice shrinking or growing is to interpret the consequences of a trend with regards to global warming. When interpreting the consequences of ice growth or shrinkage in my opinion the arbitrary significance threshold and linear trend has little meaning.
The annual variance of the sea ice is shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3
The huge annual variation dwarfs any apparent trend with the signal dropping to near zero every year. The thermal inertia of the ice creates a smooth cyclical process allows us to make pretty anomaly plots like Figure 2 but trend wise there isn’t much to say. So I guess I’m fired from my budding climatology career again. The reason they have little meaning becomes apparent in the wildly dynamic sea ice video presented below.
Below is a link to a video file of the Antarctic sea ice trends for 30 years.
Figure 4 – Antarctic Sea Ice Video – Click to play
Now consider that each pixel of the Antarctic ice data is 25 km and in the video of the Wilkins ice shelf, the crack is 40miles long – that is about 2.6 pixels in the Figure 4 video.
What’s really interesting about the video is the clockwise rotation of the ice which becomes especially visible during maximum extent. Another interesting point is the peninsula acts as a shelter to the ice on its leeward side. The Wilkins shelf get’s blasted by air and water currents every year from the south in this image, once we understand that combined with in the CNN video (link above) the reason the ice bridge exists is obviously due to protection from ocean and air currents by a small island (look at the angle of the ice bridge in the CNN video compared to current flow). The Island has protected this very small piece of ice from cracking for some time probably because the amazing circularity of the Antarctic continent doesn’t experience very large current changes.
I’ve watched the above video a dozen or so times (wouldn’t you after a day’s work) I noticed that there does appear to be a change in weather patterns in more recent years as the upward flow below the peninsula cuts away at the maximum ice extent on the West side of the image. The same is true for the East side of the image.
I had the advantage of doing a trend by pixel plot previously which led me to look for the effect. The plot done by myself in a previous post using a slightly older version of the same data is shown in Figure 5. The loss of ice on the West and East sides of the Antarctic is visible as blue pixels at the extreme edges of the range.
Figrure 5 – Antarctic sea ice trend by pixelIts difficult to imagine after watching this video that this ice shelf hasn’t collapsed (or whatever it’s called) and re-formed in the last several hundred years, more than once. Remember the ice from the shelf forms on land and flows out to sea. Either way, considering the natural variation of Antarctic sea ice, can we really say the current Antarctic ice trend or the change of an ice shelf in such a tiny area has a powerful meaning for the future of Earth?
If you missed the Arctic version of the video the link is here: Arctic Ice Video
OT, Sept 12 2009 will be a national protest on the Climate bill, Health care, All the Spending and buyouts by Obama. This event wil take place at the U.S. Capital. I wish I was able to go, but being in the military and currently deployed overseas makes it rather difficult. 🙁
[REPLY – Thank You for your service. ~ From all of us]
Jeff Id,
now if only someone with a mind/intelligence like yours could become President ?
This blog gave knowledge for me and all humankind in order to respond to nature wisely
There is obviously something else going on with that area in general. Take a look at this Sea Ice concentration image from cryosphere. How can that area be recording such low sea ice concentrations in the middle of SH coldest season?
How can that area be surrounded by 100% concentrations, yet the shelf shows 50-60% concentrations?
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/NEWIMAGES/antarctic.seaice.color.001.png
Hey, put up the time lapse video for Arctic Sea Ice extent and we can all observe the great blue dot, representing open ocean, appear in the area of the 1999 Gakkel ridge volcanic eruption. Satellite photos at the time show the area covered by clouds, which is exactly what would be there if there were open ocean. Analysis of the clouds should reveal whether or not they are the type to appear above open water or whether they are ordinary clouds.
But, not just anybody can get those photos, and I’m just an anonymous coward.
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kim 11:36:37
Ah, I see you have Jeff Id’s video on display. The blue dot I’m talking about is really not so apparent on this video as one I saw last year on DotEarth. Nonetheless, this has a lot more open water in the summer of 1999 along the Siberian coast than most years.
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Lee (07:34:30) :
Dave Wendt (20:41:48) :
My desktop thermometer says its 25 degrees – how does that sound as an average for the 1st of July?
I challenge any AGW’er to say their cherrypicked figure is more valid than mine!
Can I pick a charity, can I!
The. perhaps to subtly ironic for its’ intended audience, point of my question was that if the “settled science” of climatology cannot provide an accurate and noncontroversial answer for what the average global temp is right here, right now or in fact for any point in the past what earthly reason would there be to suppose that they can provide a value for that number for a century from now that should be treated with anything except universal derision.
“”” Walt Meier (21:16:41) :
Folks,
Wilkins ice shelf collapse = sudden “shattering” of a large area into small shards of ice due to a combination of long-term climate changes (warming temperatures) and triggering mechanisms (surface melt, ocean heat, ocean waves). This type of break-up had never been seen before the mid-1990s.
Walt Meier
National Snow and Ice Data Center “””
Well Walt perhaps you need to contact Svend Hendriksen in Greenland, and ask him to send you that photo that shows an equally large or larger section of Wilkins that clealy broke up around fifty years ago; which would have been long before your mid ninetlies.
Now I’m not going to dispute your claim that you hadn’t seen it before the mid nineties; let’s see it was the late nineties when the first polar orbit satellites went up wasn’t it ? So I can see that nobody would have seen it back then; but Svend can sure provide you with clear photographic evidence, that in fact it most crertainly DID break up in exactly the same way long before the mid nineties.
Lack of evidence, is not evidence of lack. If Svend can’t send you the photograph he sent me, then perhaps I can figure out how to send it to you.
George
Dave Wendt
Durn, Dave, you have turned all mean lately. Using actual facts to rebut the snide Pete W. and the smug Meier is pushing the boundaries of the rules. Good on yer. Time to take off the gloves.
After reviewing the video several times I couldn’t help but notice the significant difference between ice melt in the Ross Ice Shelf area. The melt generally (with the exception of two years) starts closer to the land mass and progresses seaward. Compared to the rest of ice, which melts from seaward toward the land mass. My questions are:
1. Is there solar heating of the land mass on this southern facing side which causes this effect (south facing location)?
2. Is the depth of the water in this area significantly different to allow for faster warming during summer?
3. Are there unique ocean driven currents which result in faster melting along the shore.
Great video. Another nail in the coffin of AGW.
in looking at the site of the break up there seems to be evidence of shock waves inland , inice if you prefer, can be seen cracks like crevasses and when you look at the bay to the North one can see that the ice which was attched to the land has moved away indicating shock waves.
The series of photos is incomplete as one needs two at least days before the event , there is enough in the pictures to indicate a mass of ice enterring the bay and smashing into the floating ice .The winds and currents would indicate this as possible and bearing in mind the geography of the area a regular event. The refreezing of the sea shows that the temperatures are very unwarm .The series of events being a lump of ice from the south enters the bay and hits the floating ice and shatters the shock causes the land based ice to shatter and the transmits the shock waves through the floating glacier hence the cracks and deplacement of the floating ice to the north
If you look at the Wilkins Ice Shelf and Graham land as a whole it is lucky or even unlucky bto be there The northermost border of the Antarctic continent is in the roaring forties so contunally beset by very strong winds natural accidents due to wind and current must be legion and recently is our first chance to observe these events from satelite we have no statistics to go on , it is all new .
@Jared (07:44:22) :
“This type of break-up had never been seen before the mid-1990s.”
Walt Meier
National Snow and Ice Data Center
@george E. Smith (16:37:46) :
“”” Walt Meier (21:16:41) :
Thanks to Jared and George. With all due respect, Dr. Meier, your statement is embarrassingly short-sighted, and calls into question your ability to be self-critical.
Andy,
I am fascinated by the 1998 blip in the average global temperature as seen by the two satellite systems, something you wrote about a few weeks ago. Since such a large but short pulse in the Earth’s thermal state would involve an incredible amount of energy, my first impression as an instrumentation engineer is that both measurement systems experienced instrument error, as unlikely as that may seem. However, close examination of the melt period of the Weddell Sea in 1998 in your animation showed it to be qualitatively unlike any of the other years before or after. What’s up with that? And, what about that pulse?
I found my way here, how…I don’t recall…surfing… and the animation is amazing…
Up until I saw this, I was a believer in the Human Created Global Warming Scenario…
WOW…if temps don’t go above zero…how can “Global Warming” cause warming there?
You’ve given me a new “reality”…Keep up the great work…AMAZING STUFF…
I do have a question, has anyone compared earthquake activity to any of the break ups? Someone mentioned the techtonic plates down there…and wasn’t that Indian Ocean Quake and the resultant Tsunami huge and deep?
I read that it was so strong that the Earth moved 1 degree on its axis…I haven’t been able to find the article on that for a while…
Everyone, including myself noticed the clockwise rotation…I’m not a scientist…but is the Earth’s rotation a possible contributor to what we see?
It seems there are so many more possible alternative “reasons” for what’s happening…and so much “mis-information”…
I will share this site with all the blogs I’m on…hopefully this can be honestly researched before we all go down that “rabbit hole”…again…
Further to my cmmunication there are in the Antarctic huge tabular icebergs which become detached from places such as the Ross Iceshelf and these can reach 100 metres above the surface of the sea , the rampaging of the monoliths in their journies must cause all sorts of havoc .In the aerial photos taken after the event huge pieces of ice were to be seen these look to be from a tabular berg which to some degree broken up .Thewhole of Graham Land looks to be a fair target for whatever is in the grasp of currents and the wind in fact these bergs can be carried against the wind by the sea currents obviously an exciting place to be but dont go there for fine weather !
Are those data real?
It comes on my theory.
Reading the usual suspects horror stories about the Antarctic I studied your photos and something comes to mind and that is the effect or otherwise of El Nino or La Ninea or whatever .I understand that these phenomena affect or are the effect of warming in the Pacific Ocean . This being so the currents flowing past the Antarctic Peninsula are going to have an effect . I believe that there is the Humboldt Current which is very cold running up the West Coast of South America from the Southern Ocean and that this is part of the whole presentation
The panic mongers warn us about sea levels due to melting ice , if Mr Archimedes is correct this is a lie as the ice is floating .
This years race to the South Pole experienced real summer temperatures ,-40° takes your breath away .
The same panic mongers tell us that the world poulation will rise to six billion .The World is already in trouble with water , or the lack of it .Boreholes are running dry . Drinking water is one thing but irrigation another matter , we are on the limit .