First let’s get a look at the current NSIDC graph:
and now the JAXA graph:
There’s an interesting news article from Canada that talks about what is being seen in the northwest passage areas.
Ice pockets choking Northern Passage: officials
By Randy Boswell, Canwest News ServiceAugust 1, 2009
excerpts:
Despite predictions from a top U.S. polar institute that the Arctic Ocean’s overall ice cover is headed for another “extreme” meltdown by mid-September, the Environment Canada agency monitoring our northern waters says an unusual combination of factors is making navigation more difficult in the Northwest Passage this year after two straight summers of virtually clear sailing.
…
“In the southern route,” Canadian Ice Service officials told Canwest News Service, the agency “has observed more ice coverage than normal. This is partly due to the fact that the ice in the Amundsen Gulf consolidated this past winter, which is something it didn’t do in 2007 and 2008.”
The result, the agency said, is that ice conditions “are delaying any potential navigability of the Northwest Passage this year. This is opposite to what Environment Canada observed in the last week of July in 2007 and 2008.”
…
Scientists believe the ongoing retreat is being driven by several factors, including rising global temperatures associated with human-induced climate change, and the associated breakup and loss of thicker, multi-year year ice that is being replaced only seasonally by a thin layer of winter ice that disappears quickly each summer.
============
Read the complete news article here
What they still don’t seem to be mentioning is wind patterns.
For example, watch this superb animation done by Jeff Id of The Air Vent:
Here is another video I posted on You Tube last month which shows the flow of sea ice down the east coast of Greenland. Clearly there is more at work here than simple melting, there is a whole flow dynamic going on.
Then read what NASA research has determined. It could explain a lot of what is observed from the news article published by Canwest.
NASA Sees Arctic Ocean Circulation Do an About-Face
PASADENA, Calif. – A team of NASA and university scientists has detected an ongoing reversal in Arctic Ocean circulation triggered by atmospheric circulation changes that vary on decade-long time scales. The results suggest not all the large changes seen in Arctic climate in recent years are a result of long-term trends associated with global warming.
Click for Larger image
It certainly would be nice to see this reported when stories on summer ice melt occur.
Usually conditions up there are described based upon how much is open, not how much is closed. I wonder about the choice of language, and how the Northwest Passage ice cover numbers from this year compare to previous years.
nsdic weasels lying again–
http://solarcycle24com.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=globalwarming&action=display&thread=346&page=81#25960
http://www.vancouvermaritimemuseum.com/modules/vmmuseum/treasures/?artifactid=86
Mark Nodine 9:25
Because the tick is a change in calculation methodology specifically to account for meltwater on top of the ice. There is no equivalent event at the end of the melt season that would need a methodology adjustment.
The NW Passage from the CIS.
http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/prods/WIS39SD/20090801180000_WIS39SD_0004497677.gif
http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/prods/WIS38SD/20090801180000_WIS38SD_0004497690.gif
http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/prods/WIS56SD/20090727180000_WIS56SD_0004492436.gif
Why isn’t the average 1979-2007?
On average sea ice melt doesn’t start leveling off until August. Another 10 or 12 days to go.
Personally I think we will end up 0.4 million sq km above last year. So you choose the headline:
1) 3rd lowest level on record!
or
2) The most sea ice in three years!
Of course, they won’t tell you that polar bears are very good swimmers or that polar beat populations have increased. I read a long time ago, somewhere, that this whole polar bear myth was based on an environmentalist claiming the polar bear looked sick, therefore it was sick even though this person had no veterinary training to make such a judgment. It would make sense, because facts are a climate change advocate’s worst nightmare. Facts don’t scare people.
evanmjones (08:20:49) :
1979 is the first year of reliable satellite measurement.
Which is every bit as ominous as the invention of the telescope ( leading to sunspot observations) just prior to the onset of the Maunder Minimum.
Hook, line & sinker.
“What they still don’t seem to be mentioning is wind patterns.”
The article says “the ongoing retreat is being driven by several factors”. It’s a newspaper article, not a science paper, so expecting a full description of all of them is a little bit unrealistic.
“Arctic ice driven by the wind not global warming”
This is deeply flawed thinking. The ice responds not to one stimulus, and one stimulus alone. Clearly, it is affected by wind. Equally clearly, that does not mean it somehow stops being affected by the ambient temperature.
Matt N
I think this is only a temporary left turn. The Arctic is warmer than normal and is expected to stay that way for the next week.
1. http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
2. http://wxmaps.org/pix/temp2.html
But as you can see in no. 2, the Arctic will be averaging below freezing in a week or so. Not that air temperatures play a big role in sea ice extent. I think it’ll track roughly parallel 2008, 400,000 sq km above. Two weeks and we’ll know a lot more.
Have you ever noticed the colors that the MSM News uses for their forecast maps? Since when did 70F constitute a RED color? Anything over 80F is almost BLACK. It has gotten so ridiculously stupid that the colors mean nothing anymore. They have actually gone beyond “spooky colors” now. Its just stupid…
Mark Nodine:-
It’s less pronounced but it seems to me to be around the end of January.
To get a better feel for annual trends of max and min artic ice extents, I would like to have Jeff Id release a time lapse video with snap shots of just these events – or allow one to choose which month to annualy loop over.
” Halfwise (09:51:36) : ”
It isn’t just “melt” ponds. Over the summer rain collects on top of the ice, too. The only way to really verify that accuracy of these estimates are to take a submarine under the ice and check to see if the concentration numbers match actual observations. There was such an event in early July at the “pole” cam where they had a significant rain event. As of today the website is still showing the July 29 picture but those ponds were starting to freeze over.
Satellite data seem on the other hand to indicate a crubming NW pasage (not to mention the NE which is almost open already)
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/NEWIMAGES/arctic.seaice.color.000.png
It should be emphasized also that a similar “slowdown” was observed in 2007. IMO, such a change is observed when the Hudson bay gets completely ice-free, which occured recently. We should wait and see… without forgetting that an area of 4 million km2 would already be a confirmation of the long trend decrease.
Pierre Gosselin (10:25:09) wrote:
“…. The Arctic is warmer than normal and is expected to stay that way for the next week.
1. http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
2. http://wxmaps.org/pix/temp2.html
But as you can see in no. 2, the Arctic will be averaging below freezing in a week or so. Not that air temperatures play a big role in sea ice extent. I think it’ll track roughly parallel 2008, 400,000 sq km above. Two weeks and we’ll know a lot more.”
The more I read, the more I get the idea that air temperatures have indeed very little to do with polar ice melting in summer. Instead it is how warm the water is and how fast it flows under the ice, right?
((Plus the wind breaking up the ice and pushing it south).
My question: what is the temperature of arctic water right now, and how fast does it move under the ice? Is somebody measuring that?
For a real up close look at what’s happening in the Northwest passage right now, take a look at;
http://www.aroundtheamericas.org.
This is a group of guys sailing, as the name implies, around North and South America. They are currently in the arctic ocean, near Tuktoyatuk in Canada’s Yukon territory. They’re more or less AGW believers, though they seem to be amicable people, and it’s kind of interesting to watch their progress . . . . even as I quietly root for the ice.
I wish them godspeed, and hope they safely return, but I hope the ice is non-cooperative nonetheless. The daily log contains quite a bit about the arctic communities and sailing, and they don’t tend to pontificate on climate issues, so it’s an interesting read.
Anyway, my two cents.
Using already archived satellite data, it should be possible to estimate the volume of Arctic ice flowing out around both sides of Greenland. Simple subtraction from the area/extent numbers should give us a good value of the annual melt.
That graph would be far more relevant to global warming debate than the ones above, which don’t differentiate between melt and transport.
From the above excerpts:
“.. an unusual combination of factors is making navigation more difficult in the Northwest Passage this year .. observed more ice coverage than normal .. delaying any potential navigability of the Northwest Passage this year .. ”
Abnormal conditions are blocking the Northwest Passage? When the BBC reported this back in 2007, navagability was reported to be abnormal and linked to global warming:
“The most direct shipping route from Europe to Asia is fully clear of ice for the first time since records began, the European Space Agency (Esa) says.
Historically, the Northwest Passage linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans has been ice-bound through the year. But the agency says ice cover has been steadily shrinking, and this summer’s reduction has made the route navigable .. Scientists have linked the changes to global warming which may be progressing faster than expected. ”
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6995999.stm)
evanmjones (08:20:49) :
1979 is the first year of reliable satellite measurement.
Arctic Monthly Sea Ice Concentrations: 1870 – 1998
If only the recent 1979 – 2000 data is trusted what is the point of
Walsh and Chapmans Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice Data Set 1870 – 1998.
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/guide/Data/walsh.html#descript
Is it not also around the time the PDO flipped to its warm phase.
With the sun at its most active in 11,500 years and the PDO in its warm phase is it any wonder there might be a degree of melting.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/sea.ice.anomaly.timeseries.jpg
A few weeks ago, the warmaholics made a great deal of fuss, because the 2009 graph crossed the 2008 one. People postulated that this trend would continue, and there would be less ice at minimum this September than there was in 2007. Now, I expect complete silence fromn the warmaholiucs when, on August 5th/6th, 2009 crosses 2008 again, this time the other way. If 2009 continues tracking like 2005, then minimum in 2009 will be about 600,000 sq kms more than 2008, and 1,000,000 sq kms more than 2007. Meaning more multiyear ice in 2010, and a further recovery of the sea ice in the Arctic Basin.
Mike Nicholson :
“I can see no significance to the dates apart from coinciding with the year I first got married and the year the divorce was finalised !”
Global warming causes divorce?!
July (month end averages) NSIDC
1980 Southern Hemisphere = 16.1 million sq km
1980 Northern Hemisphere = 10.4 million sq km
Total = 26.5 million sq km
2008 Southern Hemisphere = 16.6 million sq km
2008 Northern Hemisphere = 9.0 million sq km
Total = 25.6 million sq km
2009 Southern Hemisphere = 16.6 million sq km
2009 Northern Hemisphere = 8.8 million sq km
Total = 25.4 million sq km
I don’t have a definite answer, but a reasonable rationale for this. The average is meant to give a reference of what is “normal”. It simply doesn’t make sense to change your reference every year. It is my guess that in the long run they’ll adopt a scheme similar to WMO standards: take the average of the last three completed decades, e.g. the 1961-1990 period used by Hadcrut or 1951-1980 by GISTEMP. Trouble is, we do not have that much data so far, so they take two completed decades of observation as the “normal period”, just like RSS and UAH.
I don’t see a problem with taking 1979 to 2000 as the ‘average’. If you take any range within that range you do come out with a fairly consistent range of averages. That is, although it is arbitrary, there does need to be some base line average to compare it to.
The problem arises when people assume this ‘average’ is normal. It may well be, but there is no statement to that fact – it is simply the average of the years 1979 to 2000. As long as the comparisons are consistent, there isn’t any foul ball.
I have also been watching this ice coverage issue for a while. I have also noticed that the AGW crowd often move the goal posts; “well, it’s not ice coverage which is important, now, but ice volume”, or distract with other observations “the amount of second year ice is greatly diminished” (well, duh! 2007 was a low year for ice – saying the same thing but in a different way).
Even so, the majority of people have no clue that 9 million odd square kilometers of ice ‘disappears’ every year based on this new phenomenon called summer…