This is the press release sent out by NSIDC today (sans image below). Instead of celebrating a two year recovery, they push the “ice free” theme started last year by Marc Serreze. There’s no joy in mudville apparently. My prediction for 2010 is a third year of increase in the September minimum to perhaps 5.7 to 5.9 million square kilometers. Readers should have a look again at how the experts did this year on short term forecasts. – Anthony
Image source: NOAA News
Arctic sea ice reaches minimum extent for 2009, third lowest ever recorded
CU-Boulder’s Snow and Ice Data Center analysis shows negative summertime ice trend continues
The Arctic sea ice cover appears to have reached its minimum extent for the year, the third-lowest recorded since satellites began measuring sea ice extent in 1979, according to the University of Colorado at Boulder’s National Snow and Ice Data Center.
While this year’s September minimum extent was greater than each of the past two record-setting and near-record-setting low years, it is still significantly below the long-term average and well outside the range of natural climate variability, said NSIDC Research Scientist Walt Meier. Most scientists believe the shrinking Arctic sea ice is tied to warming temperatures caused by an increase in human-produced greenhouse gases being pumped into Earth’s atmosphere.
Atmospheric circulation patterns helped the Arctic sea ice spread out in August to prevent another record-setting minimum, said Meier. But most of the 2009 September Arctic sea ice is thin first- or second-year ice, rather than thicker, multi-year ice that used to dominate the region, said Meier.
The minimum 2009 sea-ice extent is still about 620,000 square miles below the average minimum extent measured between 1979 and 2000 — an area nearly equal to the size of Alaska, said Meier. “We are still seeing a downward trend that appears to be heading toward ice-free Arctic summers,” Meier said.
CU-Boulder’s NSIDC will provide more detailed information in early October with a full analysis of the 2009 Arctic ice conditions, including aspects of the melt season and conditions heading into the winter ice-growth season. The report will include graphics comparing 2009 to the long-term Arctic sea-ice record.
NSIDC is part of CU-Boulder’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and is funded primarily by NASA.
For more information visit http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/, contact NSIDC’s Katherine Leitzell at 303-492-1497 or leitzell@nsidc.org or Jim Scott in the CU-Boulder news office at 303-492-3114 or jim.scott@colorado.edu.
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“ice-free Arctic summers”
Well, you wouldn’t want the wine to freeze, so it should be ice-free year-round. So the NSIDC can move on to other things now that it’s happened.
So if 2007 was a bottom, would it not make since that 2009 was one of the lowest?
Will they have hysteria next year, when it is the 4th lowest?
“While this year’s September minimum extent was greater than each of the past two record-setting and near-record-setting low years, it is still significantly below the long-term average and well outside the range of natural climate variability, said NSIDC Research Scientist Walt Meier.”
How can this Walt Meier make such an audacious claim? Isn’t an ice-free north pole in fact part of “natural climate variability”? Doesn’t this guy know anything about geologic history and time scales? Why didn’t he mention that the extent is returning to the mean? And the very next sentence links it all to CO2. Is this guy a “scientist” or a PR guy reading from a politician-supplied script? What an embarrassment!
Read my take on the alarmist spin here:
http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/2009/09/who-says-media-is-biased-on-climate.html
Is there any actual science on how the ice acts as an insulator for the water? Much of the AGW hype focuses on a feedback loop where open water absorbs more energy from the sun and further promotes ice melting.
However, I wonder if the opposite is in fact true, that open water allows for heat loss – on a regional scale – and that the ice cap actually acts as an insulator to keep the water warm.
It seems like some of the buoy data might reveal some sort of longer term relationship between ice cover and water temperature.
I think it is clear that 1st year ice doesn’t stand up as well as mature ice. August 15-September 15 2008 proved that to my satisfaction. Tho it is also clear that the ice scientists overestimated that factor, and still are. It appears to me that 2nd year ice stood up much better. I would expect third year ice to perhaps gain a bit on that as well. We’ll see.
I am awaiting eagerly my honorary doctorate in artic ice science to be awarded by Real Climate any moment now. I predicted 5.1M km2 on their thread in July when the 15 other degreed experts all picked no higher than 5.0M (and many much lower). NSIDC has called the low at 5.1M now. So, having displayed my superiority and hit it right on the button when all the other experts were low, I’m sure the certificate of my doctorate, suitable for framing, must be on the way by now.
I’m more a believer in Arctic Sea Ice “flush” rather than “melt”. While some melting does occur, I think it’s pretty clear that wind and currents “flush” a larger percentage of the “lost ice” out the Atlantic side where it melts in more open waters.
I’m sticking with the prediction I made a few days ago here of between 6.0 and 6.3 million sqkm for the 2010 Arctic Sea Ice minimum.
Not entirely a WAG.
For most of the record, the PDO and other major ocean occillations were positive and wind and ocean currents favored breaking up the ice in the summer. For now that has changed.
So, I’m betting on a larger maximum this winter due to a colder winter and a smaller “melt” during the summer because there’s more ice (and it’s thicker), augmented by negative major oceanic occillations resulting in reduced “flushing” out the Atlantic side due to ice buildup in the channels that will cause more ice to pile up.
“We are still seeing a downward trend that appears to be heading toward ice-free Arctic summers,” Meier said.
I thought you were a better man than this Walt.
What can one say about Mark Serreze? I cannot view him any higher than the view he has of himself.
I reckon that the Catlin Expedition should fire up again and go back too repeat their “research” from last year, especially now that’s there so much more ice to measure…
“But most of the 2009 September Arctic sea ice is thin first- or second-year ice, rather than thicker, multi-year ice that used to dominate the region, said Meier.”
So according to Dr. Meier, second-year ice is not multi year ice. In 2010 if Anthony’s predicition of a higher minimum than 2009 is realized, will third-year ice not count as multi-year ice? Perhaps it will be “…thin first- or second- or third-year ice, rather than thicker, multi-year ice…”
BarryW (20:34:29) :
Temps predicted to rise are not, sealevel rise slowing or flat, hurricanes predicted to increase in number or intensity haven’t, and arctic sea ice predicted to catastrophically fall hasn’t.
Nail => => Head
I wonder what a graph of ice levels from 1979-2009 would look like?
Anthony, is NSIDC taking the Arctic Oscillation into account? Google for example piece from ScienceDaily 29 December 2004, title ‘Winds, Ice Motion Root Cause In Decline Of Sea Ice, Not Warmer Temperatures’.
REPLY: we’ve covered the topic here several times. – A
It’s still all about computer models for them.
I don’t see how wind patterns would “spread out” the ice, leading to less melt but also thinner ice. This does not make physical sense. I followed wind patterns every day through out this melt season. If anything, the ice was compacted and thus thickened, not spread out. I am keenly interested in the ice thickness measures that should start here soon. Remember, the buoys that measure ice thickness don’t do this kind of measure during the melt season. I am predicting that the ice thickness will be surprisingly (for some but not for me) similar to multi-year ice thickness.
“well outside the range of natural climate variability”
[snip] Natural climate variability has had a very great range throughout history and they know it.
What about a prediction for the upcoming maximum extent? If I am looking at the data correctly, the 2007 max was the greatest since 2002 and 2008 ws only a small decrease. I say we hit 14.5 million km2 again next year.
I’d like to coin a new term – “Debate Deniers”
The debate deniers at the BBC have described this 23% increase in Arctic summer ice compared with 2007 as a “pause”.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8261953.stm
“We are still seeing a downward trend that appears to be heading toward ice-free Arctic summers,” Meier said.
Walt Meier,
At what point in time in the data did you start with to base your prediction on? It appears from 1979, when satellites ‘began measuring sea ice extent’ (actually began before that).
Would you be able to come to the same conclusion if you started at 1000 A.D.? Or 300 B.C. ? Or 2007? (I wish we had satellite data going back to 1000 A.D.)
It all depends on perspective. You can make the glass half full. Or, you can make it half empty. Which do you think is the more ethical half to side with?
———–
Global warming seems to be a Rorschach Test. People’s view of global warming reveals more about them than they realize.
———–
Rorschach Inkblot Test, for those that don’t know what it is :
http://www.rorschachinkblottest.com/inktest.php
Ben (23:15:13) : The debate deniers at the BBC have described this 23% increase in Arctic summer ice compared with 2007 as a “pause”.
If trends continue as they are in a couple of years I will describe it as “blowing up in their face”.
Re: david elder (22:47:20)
You may find this interesting:
http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/CumuSumDJFMwinterNAO.png
“square miles below the average minimum extent measured between 1979 and 2000 —”
However it is very comfortably above the average between 979 and 1000 AD.
Following a linear trend and meteorology/climatology have no intersection, there are no linear trends in sciences built on loops and feedbacks. Unfortunately I find this so obvious that I find it difficult to explain and prove.
I posted this comment yesterday, but it didn’t seem to get much notice so I will try again. I really think the paper and accompanying animation provide the most reasonable and sensible discussion of the what and why of Arctic sea ice over the last couple of decades I’ve ever encountered. The most compelling insight is that the seed of the minimum of 2007 was planted in 1989 by profound changes in the Beaufort gyre and the Trans Polar Drift which caused the percent of old ice to decline from 80% to 30% in a little over a year. Everything that has developed in the Arctic since then has been dominated by those changes. I include my entire comment below because I’m quite tired and I ain’t up to an edit.
Anthony;
I was just revisiting the website of the International Arctic Buoy Programme, which I came across some time ago but hadn’t been back to since an equipment problem wiped out most of my bookmarks file a couple of months ago. In browsing around I came across this paper
http://iabp.apl.washington.edu/research_seaiceageextent.html
which is from 2004, but includes this updated animation thru 2007
http://iabp.apl.washington.edu/animations/Rigor&Wallace2004_AgeOfIce1979to2007.mpg. The description of the animation includes the following
This animation of the age of sea ice shows:
1.) A large Beaufort Gyre which covers most of the Arctic Ocean during the 1980s, and a transpolar drift stream shifted towards the Eurasian Arctic. Older, thicker sea ice (white ice) covers about 80% of the Arctic Ocean up to 1988. The date is shown in the upper left corner.
2.) With the step to high-AO conditions in 1989, the Beaufort Gyre shrinks and is confined to the corner between Alaska and Canada. The Transpolar Drift Stream now sweeps across most of the Arctic Ocean, carrying most of the older, thicker sea ice out of the Arctic Ocean through Fram Strait (lower right). By 1990, only about 30% of the Arctic Ocean is covered by older thicker sea ice.
3.) During the high-AO years that follow (1991 and on), this younger thinner sea ice is shown to recirculated back to the Alaskan coast where extensive open water has been observed during summer.
The age of sea ice drifting towards the coast explains over 50% of the variance in summer sea ice extent (compared to less than 15% of the variance explained by the seasonal redistribution of sea ice, and advection of heat by summer winds).
I generally don’t like to jump to wild conclusions, but to me this appears to be almost “smoking gun” evidence that the dramatic decline in summer ice in the Arctic is unrelated to temperature trends. I don’t recall coming upon any references to this elsewhere and it is not featured prominently on the IABP site, so I wonder if you might consider doing a post on it here. I really think it deserves wider circulation.
REPLY: I’ll give it a look – Anthony
Gene: there was a paper recently showing from proxies that the Arctic ice was on the rise for the last 2000 years and then started decreasing in the beginning of the 20th century.