First, we pointed this out quite some time ago. See: Winds are Dominant Cause of Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheet Losses and also NASA Sees Arctic Ocean Circulation Do an About-Face
Second I’m pleased to see the Guardian finally catching on.You can watch wind patterns in this time lapse animation:
From the Guardian:
Wind contributing to Arctic sea ice loss, study finds
New research does not question climate change is also melting ice in the Arctic, but finds wind patterns explain steep decline.
Much of the record breaking loss of ice in the Arctic ocean in recent years is down to the region’s swirling winds and is not a direct result of global warming, a new study reveals.
Ice blown out of the region by Arctic winds can explain around one-third of the steep downward trend in sea ice extent in the region since 1979, the scientists say.
The study does not question that global warming is also melting ice in the Arctic, but it could raise doubts about high-profile claims that the region has passed a climate “tipping point” that could see ice loss sharply accelerate in coming years.
The new findings also help to explain the massive loss of Arctic ice seen in the summers of 2007-08, which prompted suggestions that the summertime Arctic Ocean could be ice-free withing a decade. About half of the variation in maximum ice loss each September is down to changes in wind patterns, the study says.
Masayo Ogi, a scientist with the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology in Yokohama, and her colleagues, looked at records of how winds have behaved across the Arctic since satellite measurements of ice extent there began in 1979.
They found that changes in wind patterns, such as summertime winds that blow clockwise around the Beaufort Sea, seemed to coincide with years where sea ice loss was highest.
Writing in a paper to be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the scientists suggest these winds have blown large amounts of Arctic ice south through the Fram Strait, which passes between Greenland and the Norwegian islands of Svalbard, and leads to the warmer waters of the north Atlantic. These winds have increased recently, which could help explain the apparent acceleration in ice loss.
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read the complete story at the Guardian
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It wasn’t mentioned in the story, but the phases of the Arctic Oscillation (AO) impact the predominant wind direction. When it’s in a positive phase there is low pressure in the Arctic and the winds swirl clockwise and speed ice loss. The lower pressure and wind pattern also allows more warm Atlantic water incursion into the Arctic Ocean.
Hopefully we see more negative phase AO this summer and it reduces the ice loss.
i wonder what all need to be discovered before they get a critical mass to disabuse the bozos of this AGW mantra. Climate changes. Yes, IT DOES. That is only constant about climate
Marx Hugoson (11:10:55) said:
If you have been listening to Anu, you would know that the inexorable rise in Ocean Heat Content will melt all the Arctic ice and then steam us all alive.
Haven’t you been listening?
Well why do they have to couch it in such CYA language. Why not just a plain; “we had it wrong; the wind blew the ice out !”
Everybody seems to want to hedge their bets.
I spent the weekend in the Stanford U Book store, looking for Physics texts, to learn something about Infra-red Molecular Spectroscopy. They had plenty of BS books; like Michio Kaku’s “Physics of the Impossible.” and similar crappola; but not much on applicable physics for climate understanding.
Finally found for $21, “General Chemistry” by some chap called Linus Pauling. Turns out I once hear a live lecture by Pauling at the UofA; and what a memorable treat that was; all about the molecular causes of sickle cell anemia.
But Back to stanford; it seems that infra-red molecular spectroscopy is taught in Physical Chemistry; and Pauling has enough to get one started.
So then I bought the current Physical Chemistry assigned Textbook for the current semester.
So these guys go in to the oscillation modes of molecules including CO2. So for good measure they throw in a comment on “Global Warming”.
CO2 is steadily increasing under man’s watchful eye; but water vapor has always been a constant on earth; so ti is the CO2 that is making it uncomfortably warm so we have to do something about it.
Hey whatever happened to the computer modellers saying that they didn’t include clouds properly because the water wasn’t permanent and it was too variable; and falls out quickly; whereas CO2 lasts forever once up there.
So let’s ignore Wentz et al; “How Much more Rain will Global Warming bring?” SCIENCE July-7,-2007 which shows that atmospheric water goes up 7% per one deg C rise in mean global surface area.
So much for it being a universal constant.
So are these two authors just plain crooks; or are they dumber than a box of rocks for assuming that just because CO2 is increasing, and it is a GHG absorbing LWIR, that we muct be in trouble. Are these guys too stupid to not think there might be other effects that will maybe stop CO2 warming in its tracks; like CLOUDS for example.
I don’t like calling people crooks; well except AlGore; specially not “Scientists”; so that leaves stupid; unless there’s a third option.
Well I suppose there is; there’s always Ignorant to fall back on.
But how can you write a very fine College Txtbook; and thank 146 other scientists from universities all over the world for their advice and input for the book; which is in its 9th edition; so likely is well known; and never ever hear the word CLOUD; leading you to suggest to your readers that cO2 warming must go on forever unchecked by anything.
Not to mention that the earth’s temperature seems to be unable to exceed +22 deg C, and that life has flourished for millions of years at such mean global temperatures (if you can believe the proxies).
Well anyway; it seems like the Chemists know more than the Physicists.
Maybe the Guardian can get smart if they are waking up to the wind.
The Linus Pauling cost me $21; the modern supertext a whopping $157. It’s a bit easier to read; but that’s the most I have ever spent on any Book. I wouldn’t even pay that much for a complete set of the Prose Works of Richard Wagner; well assuming I could even find a copy.
Could it be that polar winds affect Polar Winds?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_wind
It’s a “spin” anyway,…it used to be to the right now is to the left. Easy! ☺
Hello, anyone read the article ?
“Arctic winds can explain around one-third of the steep downward trend in sea ice extent”
ie the other two thirds is due to warming.
Even at the most simplistic reading this is yet another study backing up the consensus on warming. Why commenters here think it challenges that is genuinely bemusing.
George E. Smith (12:02:59) : The Linus Pauling cost me $21; the modern supertext a whopping $157.
College textbooks are 200 smackers here, and also they are vacuum wrapt so you cannot look at it before you buy it. So I guess they think we were all born yesterday.
Only 10% of the ice is exposed to the wind and 90% to the sea currents. Granted, wind is much faster but the water is ~722.5 times heavier than air, so wind has to be 722 * 9 (90% vs 10%) ~6500 faster than ocean current to exert same force. Assume speed of the Arctic gyres surface current at say modest 5cm/sec, equivalent wind speed is 32500cm/sec or 325m/s which is just under speed of sound or 1170miles/h, not a likely scenario. Thus conclusion must be that currents are the critical factor.
R.Craigen.
Svensmark hypothesises about the polar anomaly in his book The Chilling Stars, essentially the change in cloud cover and albedo affects each pole differently. Sadly,I’m in no position to comment on the veracity of his theory, but no doubt some of our clever readers will, if we are lucky.
By the way, how is Svensmark and his pacemaker?
So how does this affect the outlook for Polar bears?
Quote from H. Lamb, “Climate Present, Past, and Future,” vol. 2 page 516:
“There was a period of severe ice on the SE coast of Greenland even in the spring of 1938 owing to the exceptional rapidity of the outflow of ice from near the North Pole (fig. 7.4 vol. 1). The late summer of that year saw the most extensive open water ever known north of the coast of Asia.”
It seems as though someone was measuring the ice in 1938. I’ll see if I can find vol. 1.
Didn’t some WUWT poster a year or so ago laboriously aggregate a years NSIDC images and demonstrate the swirling discharge of ice from the arctic in 2007? Now some eggheads have plagiarized this and published a peer-reviewed paper on their discovery (of WUWT)!!! Why are we so delighted about this. We should be sending the old posting to the journal with a cover “We was robbed!” Anyway, there is some consolation I guess that the #1 science blog beat them to this and to a heck of a lot of other things as well.
[Reply: click on the picture in the article. ~dbs, mod.]
Not directly relevant to this item but I can’t get into Notes & Tips so I ask it here.
My question is: If CO2 had a colour would we be able to see its presence in the air at its present or predicted concentrations? If, as I suspect not, then making this clear would help to convince many more people that it cannot be relevant.
Well of course it doesn’t question ‘Climate Change’, bet it doesn’t question the grassy knoll theory or alien bodies at Area 51 either.
Anyone waiting for the Guardian or other media outlets to come out and say, “WE WERE WRONG ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING”, is going to wait a very long time. They’ll do what they usually do, articles such as this showing alternative explanations while posting ‘not questioning AGW’ as part of the tag line, followed over time by fewer and fewer and references to “Global Warming’, until eventually they simply don’t mention it at all and they’ll latch on to some other ‘we’re all gonna die’ problem. 20 years from now they’ll say, “Global What?”, just like they did with the ‘Coming Ice Age’ in the 70’s
VeryTallGuy (12:15:38) :
Hello, anyone read the article ?
“Arctic winds can explain around one-third of the steep downward trend in sea ice extent”
ie the other two thirds is due to warming.
Even at the most simplistic reading this is yet another study backing up the consensus on warming. Why commenters here think it challenges that is genuinely bemusing.
=============
Seems like a ‘jump to conclusion’ on your part. It isn’t necessarily true that because changing wind patterns explain 1/3 of the decline that the remaining 2/3 is due to ‘global warming’ (whatever that may actually mean). The rest could be seasonal variation or increased soot rather than increased temperatures in the Arctic (I’m not certain but I don’t think higher temps in Tuvalu would necessarily melt more ice in the Arctic), who knows?
George E. Smith (12:02:59) : The Linus Pauling cost me $21; the modern supertext a whopping $157.
That shows that a genius like Linus Pauling needed less words, “spinned” knowledge is more confusing and expensive. BTW You paid $7.50 more than the Amazon’s price.
Looking at the sea ice graphs it seems to me that ice extent at this time of year means very little. 2006 had somewhat less ice than normal at this time of year but a large ice cover in summer. 2008 was the opposite. Regardless of what happens in summer looking at the graphs you can see that sea ice extent recovers to approximately the same starting point each winter.
Several posts here have gloated about sea ice recovering as if it were now inevitable that sea ice would continue to increase. However we really have no idea what kind of ice cover to expect this coming summer as it completely depends on what wind patterns we get.
Yes sea ice levels now are slightly above average for the short period we’ve been able to measure directly, but that means nothing. Given a repeat of the wind pattern of 2007 a repeat of the very low ice levels of that year is entirely possible. You can imagine the rhetoric that would accompany such an event.
The fact that winds are the immediate mechanism for the ice clearout doesn’t completely settle the argument for me. What causes those wind patterns? Has there been some shift in the climate that increases the probability of such an event?
The climate definitely has warmed over the last half century. We are still a lot cooler than the Roman warm period though, which seems to have been a rather pleasant climate for human beings. This raises the question of what the arctic was doing at that time.
I seem to dimly recall some mysterious ancient maps that show the North coastline of Russia in detail. Daniken mentioned this I believe as one of his supposed relics from ancient space visitations, with the idea being that you couldn’t map this coastline because of the ice so it must OBVIOUSLY have been done from orbit by visiting friendly aliens. However I’ve been unable to dig up a modern reference to this map. Is my memory playing me false or does such a relic exist.
Doh!
Anthony, as you had predicted, Arctic sea ice extent is growing. Look at the direction of the graph for 2010:
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png
I suppose that, coming from the imbeciles at the Grauniad, this should be something to gladden the heart.
Not today.
Vuk etc. (12:25:52) :Great!….and the heat capacity of water is 4.186 joules and air is 0.001297, this is= 3227.4479568234387047031611410948 times.
Most surely climate modellers have their brains filled with air if not empty at all.
dorlomin (11:35:03) : If you’d been paying attention, you’d have noticed that what is new here is the fact that the Grauniad has printed an article that dispels a common alarmist notion regarding why the 2007 ice extent dropped so much.
As for ice thickness, see the animation.
Global Warming/Climate Change is going to just fade away as time goes on. However, ocean acidification caused by CO2 is next on the agenda. The real or imagined damage will be touted as the worst catastrophe in the history of mankind.
Above image is not part of original story, but included to demonstrate the issue.
Darn. I was so hoping an animated cartoon page was under development…