NSIDC seems to be saying: It’s slightly less worse than we thought. For another view, see Dr. Tony Berry’s sea ice analysis on WUWT yesterday.
From a University of Colorado Press Release
Arctic sea ice recovers slightly in 2009, remains on downward trend, says U. of Colorado report
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  IMAGE: This graphics show multi-year Arctic sea ice changes.
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Despite a slight recovery in summer Arctic sea ice in 2009 from record-setting low years in 2007 and 2008, the sea ice extent remains significantly below previous years and remains on a trend leading toward ice-free Arctic summers, according to the University of Colorado at Boulder’s National Snow and Ice Data Center.
According to the CU-Boulder center, the 2009 minimum sea ice extent was the third lowest since satellite record-keeping began in 1979. The past five years have seen the five lowest Arctic sea ice extents ever recorded.
“It’s nice to see a little recovery over the past couple of years, but there’s no reason to think that we’re headed back to conditions seen in the 1970s,” said NSIDC Director Mark Serreze, also a professor in CU-Boulder’s geography department. “We still expect to see ice-free summers sometime in the next few decades.”
The average ice extent during September, a standard measurement for climate studies, was 2.07 million square miles (5.36 million square kilometers). This was 409,000 square miles (1.06 million square kilometers) greater than the record low for the month in 2007, and 266,000 square miles (690,000 square kilometers) greater than the second-lowest extent recorded in September 2008.
The 2009 Arctic sea ice extent was still 649,000 square miles (1.68 square kilometers) below the 1979-2000 September average, according to the report. Arctic sea ice in September is now declining at a rate of 11.2 percent per decade and in the winter months by about 3 percent per decade. The consensus of scientists is that 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, as reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Sea surface temperatures in the Arctic this season remained higher than normal, but slightly lower than the past two years, according to data from University of Washington Senior Oceanographer Mike Steele. The cooler conditions, which resulted largely from cloudy skies during late summer, slowed ice loss compared to the past two years. In addition, atmospheric patterns in August and September helped to spread out the ice pack, keeping extent higher.
The September 2009 ice cover remained thin, leaving it vulnerable to melt in coming summers, according to the CU-Boulder report. At the end of the summer, younger, thinner ice less than one year in age accounted for 49 percent of the ice cover. Second- year ice made up 32 percent of the ice cover, compared to 21 percent in 2007 and 9 percent in 2008.
Only 19 percent of the ice cover was over two years old — the least ever recorded in the satellite record and far below the 1981-2000 summer average of 48 percent, according to the CU-Boulder report. Measurements of sea ice thickness by satellites are used to determine the age of the ice.
Earlier this summer, NASA researcher Ron Kwok and colleagues from the University of Washington in Seattle published satellite data showing that ice thickness declined by 2.2 feet between 2004 and 2008.
“We’ve preserved a fair amount of first-year ice and second-year ice after this summer compared to the past couple of years,” said NSIDC scientist Walt Meier of CU-Boulder’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. “If this ice remains in the Arctic thorough the winter, it will thicken, which gives some hope of stabilizing the ice cover over the next few years. However, the ice is still much younger and thinner than it was in the 1980s, leaving it vulnerable to melt during the summer.”
Arctic sea ice follows an annual cycle of melting through the warm summer months and refreezing in the winter. Sea ice reflects sunlight, keeping the Arctic region cool and moderating global climate temperatures.
While Arctic sea ice extent varies from year to year because of changing atmospheric conditions, ice extent has shown a dramatic overall decline over the past 30 years.
“A lot of people are going to look at the graph of ice extent and think that we’ve turned the corner on climate change,” said NSIDC Lead Scientist Ted Scambos of CU-Boulder’s CIRES. “But the underlying conditions are still very worrisome.”
NSIDC is part of CIRES and is funded primarily by NASA.
How did 2008 set a record when it was higher than 2007?
First, there was the Ministry of Truth.
Then came the Ministry of Silly Walks.
Now we have the Ministry of Unsubstantiated Ice Sheet Predictions.
It just keeps on getting weirder.
It also odd that Caitlin was a ‘first ever’ jaunt of its type but they already knew that in years previous the ice had been thicker.
Ditto the Bremenhaven crew which found an ‘exceptional amount of ice’. Exceptional compared to what? The thin ice observed at exactly the same time as Caitlin.
What a bunch of amateurs
Once again, if sea ice was supposed to be the stable entity described by Serreze where is the 50 y old sea ice? Probably nowhere because this is the nature of sea ice to never really get old.
The recovery is “slight.”
The downward trend is “significant”
I bet if you actually compared compared the numbers, that [2009minimum]-[2007minimum] would similar to [mean]-[2009minimum].
Of course, why use real numbers, when great adjectives are available to obscure the situation?
“The September 2009 ice cover remained thin, leaving it vulnerable to melt in coming summers, according to the CU-Boulder report.”
That’s exactly what they said last year, that the new ice was thin and wouldn’t survive. I’m sure they’ll say it again about the new ice that will form this coming winter.
Thankfully the ice doesn’t know how it’s supposed to behave, and just keeps doing its thing.
Polyakov et al. looked at Russia and Soviet records in order to examine long term trends in Arctic sea ice (since 1900). They conclude:
“In recent decades, large-scale changes have been observed throughout the Arctic atmosphere-ice-ocean system, sparking discussions as to whether these changes are episodic events, or long-term shifts in the Arctic environment. The lack of long-term observations in the Arctic makes it impossible to reach a definitive conclusion. Long-term records are now available due to recently released Russian ice observations from the Siberian marginal-ice zone.
“Examination of records of fast ice thickness and ice extent from four Arctic marginal seas (Kara, Laptev, East Siberian and Chukchi) indicates that long-term trends are small and generally statistically insignificant, while trends for shorter records are not indicative of the long-term tendencies due to strong low-frequency variability in these time servies, which places a strong limitation on our ability to resolve long-term trends.”
Long-Term Ice Variability in Arctic Marginal Seas
http://www.frontier.iarc.uaf.edu/~igor/research/pdf/ice.pdf
They are even dumber than I thought.
I mean, if you haven’t learned from the lesson Mother Nature delivered last winter….
@Keith. (11:45:47) who ask “what’s this mean for the Polar Bears”
It means that now Polar Bears are in trouble. Polar Bears eat seals that they get through holes in the ice. If the ice is too thick, no seal … poor Polar Bears !…
“It’s nice to see a little recovery over the past couple of years, but there’s no reason to think that we’re headed back to conditions seen in the 1970s,” said NSIDC Director Mark Serreze….
Okay, the press release goes on to say:
That’s about a 40% recovery. I sure wish I could get a “little” raise like that percentage in my salary. I wonder what the climatological definition for “little” is.
Three more years at this rate and the good doctor may need a new word.
…
The September 2009 ice cover remained thin, leaving it vulnerable to melt in coming summers, according to the CU-Boulder report.
Yeah, it sounds a like a perfect set up for only a “little” more recovery next year.
Well gee, two years ago was 2007. And what was the ice extent in 2007? I wonder if it was the least ever recorded in the satellite record. The good doctor seems to be taking a page from TomP’s book and finding correlation right where you’d expect to find correlation!
“A lot of people are going to look at the graph of ice extent and think that we’ve turned the corner on climate change,”
“A lot of people are going to look at the graph of recent ocean temperatures and think that we’ve turned the corner on climate change,”
“A lot of people are going to look at the graph atmospheric temperatures and think that we’ve turned the corner on climate change,”
“A lot of people are going to look at the graph of solar activity and think that we’ve turned the corner on climate change,”
“A lot of people are going to look at the graph of antarctic ice and think that we’ve turned the corner on climate change,”
“A lot of people are going to look at the graph of the PDO and think that we’ve turned the corner on climate change,”
“A lot of people are going to look at the graph of sea levels and think that we’ve turned the corner on climate change,”
A lot of people are looking at a lot of things…and it’s starting to look bad for CO2 as a significant driver of climate.
In the mean time in the New York Times, Walt Meyer contradicts the claim but unfortunately Revkin ends his story with the wrong conclusions. As usual.
Which makes me conclude that Revkin is a dumb ass too.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/spread-of-thicker-arctic-ice-seen-last-summer/?emc=eta1
(via climatedepot.com)
“there’s no reason to think that we’re headed back to conditions seen in the 1970s,”
– Mark Serreze-
“Good.”
-Tallbloke-
“The past five years have seen the five lowest Arctic sea ice extents ever recorded.”
Ok… Well the *recording* only started in 1979… But… If there is any significance to, “The past five years have seen the five lowest Arctic sea ice extents ever recorded”… Isn’t is just as significant that the five maximum *Antarctic* sea ice extents have been in Septembers of 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2009?
If there’s all this panic about the downtrend of Arctic sea ice extent… Why aren’t the NSIDC just as excited about the record expansion of Antarctic sea ice extent?
Is it a Northern Hemisphere-centric thing? Or does Antarctica only consist of the EAIS?
Who duly deemed the 1979 to 2000 Arctic ice extent to be the norm? Why isn’t the entire period is satellite data used? How can 30 years of data rationally encompass the historical variability of Arctic ice?
30 years of data appears to be barely enough to establish a trend. It strikes me that this entire line of information is at best a crock of b— s—.
Just starting:
Following is an item you may find of interest.
* Extreme Weather and Global Warming in the Southwest U.S.
Media Advisory
Climate Science Briefing for Broadcast Meteorologists:
Extreme Weather and Global Warming in the Southwest U.S.
A teleconference for Southwestern broadcast meteorologists featuring authors of the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s latest scientific assessment report, “Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States,” will be held on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2009. The report, which identifies the consensus climate science conducted by academic researchers, U.S. agencies, and international bodies, is the first of its kind to detail the impacts of global warming on extreme weather by region in the United States.
The discussion will be moderated by Dr. Thomas Karl, president of the American Meteorological Society and co-chair of “Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States.” Speakers will focus on the latest authoritative research about how climate change is affecting weather extremes in the Southwestern U.S. — heat waves, wildfires, drought and other water issues — and in turn the impacts on human health and quality of life.
When: Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2009, 1 p.m. PDT/2 p.m. MDT
Teleconference number: 1-800-290-9461, Passcode 23821
Panelists:
Dr. Thomas Karl, Director of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center and President of AMS
Dr. Bradley Udall, director of the Western Water Assessment, a joint effort of the University of Colorado and NOAA
Mike Nelson, Chief Meteorologist at KMGH-TV, Denver; author of “The Colorado Weather Almanac”
“but there’s no reason to think that we’re headed back to conditions seen in the 1970s”
“But that’s good, right? I mean, weren’t we headed for an ice age in the 70’s?”
It’s very good if we don’t, but I can’t guarantee it. If we do, there will be major crop failures due to the cold and many people may starve to death.
“but there’s no reason to think that we’re headed back to conditions seen in the 1970s”
But there is good reason to think that we might get close :
http://members.westnet.com.au/jonas1/GlobalTemperature_PDOPhaseTrends.JPG
and that’s not taking solar activity (lack of) into account.
Check out how little ice there was at the north pole in 1954. Joe Bastardi explains.
“Bastardi used this photograph of a U.S. submarine at the North
Pole on March 17, 1954 to illustrate his point that Arctic ice
can be highly variable.”
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-219-Denver-Weather-Examiner~y2009m9d11-AccuWeathers-Joe-Bastardi-presses-case-against-global-warming-theory#letter
I suspect the assessment of “age” of sea ice is badly flawed. I don’t trust the above “data” at all.
I think a couple of things are worthwhile mentioning. Although 2009 had less ice area than 2005, the difference was only about 250,000 sq kms. Since satellite data became available, there have not been three years in a row when ice area at minimum has increased. One wonders what 2010 holds. The dramatic loss of ice in 2007 was not due to any sort of increase in temperature. It was due to very unusual wind conditions which blew a lot of multiyear ice, including 7 year ice, out of the Arctic Ocean and into the Atlantic Ocean where it melted. If Arctic sea ice is, ideed, recovering, then this will, of necessity, be slow. One cannot make 7 year ice in 2 years. It will be interesting to see what ice conditions are like in the Arctic this time next year. I have noted before that future conditions may be hanging over the warmaholics like a Sword of Damacles.
““there’s no reason to think that we’re headed back to conditions seen in the 1970s,”
– Mark Serreze-”
Well as someone who lived in the Arctic for a few years in the 70’s that is a good thing because the winters were profoundly brutal.
There are not words to describe the feeling of -60
Anthony you seem to have missed that RSS came in second warmest on record for Sep. UAH will be warmest unless there is a substantial “correction” to the data, and the surface data will also likely be warmest (or nearly) warmest on record. Also look for a sharp step up in global sea level with the next update.
At this time in 98 temperatures were cooling sharply while ATM they are rising. Sadly this means lots of global temperature will likely fall in coming months.
Makes the tiny statistically insignificant recovery in Arctic sea ice seem hardly relevant.
REPLY Actually, you’re wrong, I didn’t miss it. I’m well aware of RSS value, but I want to also show UAH in the same post. UAH had been ahead of RSS announcement wise. Just waiting on an email from Dr. Spencer.
Since most of your commentary here is centered around your view of what I should and should not do, may I suggest you get your own blog where you can control it as you see fit? I’m sure you could figure out a way to make BoM pay for it. -A
So why does all the multiyear ice only stack up against Canada and not Russia?
Perhaps there are more politics at play than we thought.
““there’s no reason to think that we’re headed back to conditions seen in the 1970s,”
– Mark Serreze-”
I’m curious, based on the records he’s comparing, ie the satellite record, how does he know what the conditions in the 1970s were like? When last I check one year does not qualify for the plural.