From NSIDC Sea Ice News:
Cold snap causes late-season growth spurt
Arctic sea ice reached its maximum extent for the year on March 31 at 15.25 million square kilometers (5.89 million square miles). This was the latest date for the maximum Arctic sea ice extent since the start of the satellite record in 1979.
Early in March, Arctic sea ice appeared to reach a maximum extent. However, after a short decline, the ice continued to grow. By the end of March, total extent approached 1979 to 2000 average levels for this time of year. The late-season growth was driven mainly by cold weather and winds from the north over the Bering and Barents Seas. Meanwhile, temperatures over the central Arctic Ocean remained above normal and the winter ice cover remained young and thin compared to earlier years.
Figure 1. Arctic sea ice extent for March 2010 was 15.10 million square kilometers (5.83 million square miles). The magenta line shows the 1979 to 2000 median extent for that month. The black cross indicates the geographic North Pole. Sea Ice Index data. About the data.
—Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center
Overview of conditions
Arctic sea ice extent averaged for March 2010 was 15.10 million square kilometers (5.83 million square miles). This was 650,000 square kilometers (250,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average for March, but 670,000 square kilometers (260,000 square miles) above the record low for the month, which occurred in March 2006.
Ice extent was above normal in the Bering Sea and Baltic Sea, but remained below normal over much of the Atlantic sector of the Arctic, including the Baffin Bay, and the Canadian Maritime Provinces seaboard. Extent in other regions was near average.
Figure 2. The graph above shows daily sea ice extent as of April 4, 2010. The solid light blue line indicates 2010; green shows 2007; dark blue indicates 1999, the year with the previous latest maximum extent, which occurred on March 29, 1999; and solid gray indicates average extent from 1979 to 2000. The gray area around the average line shows the two standard deviation range of the data. Sea Ice Index data.
—Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center
Conditions in context
Sea ice reached its maximum extent for the year on March 31, the latest maximum date in the satellite record. The previous latest date was on March 29, 1999. The maximum extent was 15.25 million square kilometers (5.89 million square miles). This was 670,000 square kilometers (260,000 square miles) above the record low maximum extent, which occurred in 2006.
Sea ice extent seemed to reach a maximum during the early part of the month, but after a brief decline, ice extent increased slowly and steadily through the end of the month. By the end of the month, extent had approached the 1979 to 2000 average. During March 2010, ice extent grew at an average of 13,200 square kilometers (5100 square miles) per day. Usually there is a net loss of ice through the month.
Figure 3. Monthly March ice extent for 1979 to 2010 shows a decline of 2.6% per decade.
—Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center
March 2010 compared to past yearsThe average ice extent for March 2010 was 670,000 square kilometers (260,000 square miles) higher than the record low for March, observed in 2006. The linear rate of decline for March over the 1978 to 2010 period is 2.6% per decade.
Figure 4. The map of sea level pressure (in millibars) for March 2010 shows high pressure over the central Arctic (areas in yellow and orange) and areas of low pressure over the Bering and Barents seas (areas in blue and purple). The low pressure systems over the Bering and Barents seas have helped to push the ice edge southward.
—Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center courtesy NOAA/ESRL Physical Sciences Division
Late-season growth spurt
The maximum Arctic sea ice extent may occur as early as mid-February to as late as the last week of March. As sea ice extent approaches the seasonal maximum, extent can vary quite a bit from day to day because the thin, new ice at the edge of the pack is sensitive to local wind and temperature patterns. This March, low atmospheric pressure systems persisted over the Gulf of Alaska and north of Scandinavia. These pressure patterns led to unusually cold conditions and persistent northerly winds in the Bering and Barents Seas, which pushed the ice edge southward in these two regions.
Figure 5. This map of air temperature anomalies for March 2010, at the 925 millibar level (roughly 1,000 meters or 3,000 feet above the surface), shows warmer than usual temperatures over most of the Arctic Ocean, but colder than usual temperatures in the Bering and Barents seas, where sea ice extent is above normal. Areas in orange and red correspond to positive (warm) anomalies. Areas in blue and purple correspond to negative (cool) anomalies.
—Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center courtesy NOAA/ESRL Physical Sciences Division
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Arctic
This winter’s strong negative mode of the Arctic Oscillation was moderated through the month of March. Average air temperatures for the month nevertheless remained above average over the Arctic Ocean region. Overall for the winter, temperatures over most of the Arctic were above average, while northern Europe and Siberia were colder than usual.
Figure 6. These images show the change in ice age from fall 2009 to spring 2010. The negative Arctic Oscillation this winter slowed the export of older ice out of the Arctic. As a result, the percentage of ice older than two years was greater at the end of March 2010 than over the past few years.
—Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center courtesy J. Maslanik and C. Fowler, CU Boulder
Ice age and thickness
The late date of the maximum extent, though of special interest this year, is unlikely to have an impact on summer ice extent. The ice that formed late in the season is thin, and will melt quickly when temperatures rise.
Scientists often use ice age data as a way to infer ice thickness—one of the most important factors influencing end-of-summer ice extent. Although the Arctic has much less thick, multiyear ice than it did during the 1980s and 1990s, this winter has seen some replenishment: the Arctic lost less ice the past two summers compared to 2007, and the strong negative Arctic Oscillation this winter prevented as much ice from moving out of the Arctic. The larger amount of multiyear ice could help more ice to survive the summer melt season. However, this replenishment consists primarily of younger, two- to three-year-old multiyear ice; the oldest, and thickest multiyear ice has continued to decline. Although thickness plays an important role in ice melt, summer ice conditions will also depend strongly on weather patterns through the melt season.
At the moment there are no Arctic-wide satellite measurements of ice thickness, because of the end of the NASA Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) mission last October. NASA has mounted an airborne sensor campaign called IceBridge to fill this observational gap.
More Information
For more information, including animations and satellite images, visit the NASA Arctic 2010 Sea Ice Maximum Web page.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Speaking of predictions – 5.75 mil sq km JAXA.
The ice conditions of the Sea of Othotsk and the Gulf of St. Lawrence have little impact on summer melt in the Arctic Basin since neither is directly linked to the core Arctic. Yes, Newfoundland, Labrador, and southern Greenland have had an extremely warm winter – but the powerful Baffin Island Current moves ice and cold water southwards. Thus, any loss of ice in Baffin Bay and any warming water is going to have a limited impact on the Arctic Basin.
The Bering Sea is a different story. The Bering had greater than normal ice this season – plus, the greatest inflows into the Arctic Basin are through the Bering Strait. Not to mention that ice melt and ice movement is generally from the Bering towards Greenland. So, not only is there more ice and more multiyear ice, but it will take longer for the ice melt to move into the Beaufort Sea.
The switch in the Arctic Oscillation also suggests that wind patterns prevalent in recent years – esp. in 2007 – will not be present. Of course, all bets are off if winds are similar to 2007 – since it has now become well recognized that winds, rather than temperatures, were the primary factor in the 2007 melt.
Here in New Zealand we are sort of hostages to the Antarctic ice cycles. During the summer ice melt the Antarctic blows cold air until late summer. The point is that the freezing/melting cycle keeps that air near 0C/32F, which is seen as cold in summer, and warm in winter.
So lots of freezing would stop the air from becoming too cold. The “warm Arctic air” through the past winter could be evidence of lots of ice growth. Just a thought.
The graph showing ice age back through the eighties seems to be at odds with Rigor and Wallace 2004 which claimed the ice through the eighties was up to 80% multi year ice.
http://iabp.apl.washington.edu/research_seaiceageextent.html
R. Gates (06:53:10) :
NSIDC’s latest analysis is an accurate accounting of exactly what occured in March 2010. Furthermore, their point about the warm conditions over the central arctic is also exactly right, and there is a large area of ice in this region that will show rapid melt when the full thrust of the melt season hits. I stand by my prediction of a 4.5 million sq. km. minimum sea ice extent for Sept. 2010 (as measured by IJIS/JAXA). Hudson Bay over to Greenland and then up into the central arctic has been very warm during the extreme negative AO of the winter and the ice will melt faster than normal in these regions.
Total nonsense.
According to Joseph D’Aleo (and Joe Bastardi http://www.accuweather.com):
“ENSO models see a quick demise to this El Nino. Some have La Nina returning as early as this summer. This means a hot late summer for the central US but a return to cold across Alaska, Canada and the northern US this next winter.
Arctic ice extend will remain normal. Nothing to panic about”.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/winter12.jpg
Pamela Gray (06:39:34) :
To infer ice thickness based on age is a mistake. Ask anyone who lives on the shores of the wind blown Great Lakes. Ask anyone who has lost their river side house to an ice jam. Ask anyone who has crossed the bridge at the bottom of Chief Joseph grade during a long cold winter. Ice compaction is the key to thickness and slow melt, along with winds that are either weakly out to Fram Strait, or are blowing INTO Fram Strait. Maybe we should ask our Ice Reporters at NSICD to take a course in floating ice and wind mechanics in a confined bowl. Or better yet, have them rent a house on the edge of one of the windward sides of the Great Lakes during a cold winter. Bet they will not talk about thin one year ice ever after.
Still steadfastly denying the reality of this spring’s ice drift Pamela?
The wind is indeed the key to ice thickness and build-up, however it’s not going the way you want it to!
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn107/Sprintstar400/20100325-20100331.jpg
Of course the ice is being stretched by this flow rather than compacted so the ice is very fragmented with leads opening up all over the place. The subs could surface anywhere they want this year.
Look here off the Canadian archipelago where the thickest ice is found, leads everywhere:
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/single.php?2010095/crefl1_143.A2010095204500-2010095205000.1km.jpg
John Egan (07:13:48) :
Speaking of predictions – 5.75 mil sq km JAXA.
The ice conditions of the Sea of Othotsk and the Gulf of St. Lawrence have little impact on summer melt in the Arctic Basin since neither is directly linked to the core Arctic. Yes, Newfoundland, Labrador, and southern Greenland have had an extremely warm winter – but the powerful Baffin Island Current moves ice and cold water southwards. Thus, any loss of ice in Baffin Bay and any warming water is going to have a limited impact on the Arctic Basin.
Except that, as in 2007, the North water polynya is open very early which provides a route for MY ice loss directly from the Arctic, estimates under these conditions are ~10% of the outflow through the Fram.
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/single.php?2010095/crefl1_143.A2010095204500-2010095205000.500m.jpg
This is the first recent year with multi-year ice north of Alaska, which is where the low anomalies have been occurring the past few summers.
Why only 1979-2000 for an average? Why not average all full years, 1979-2009? Is it because the 2000’s will put the median below the current average? If that’s the case, well, we certainly can’t show that. Hide the incline!
Old Ice, New Ice is so interesting. On average, the most old ice you can have is 33% or so since 67% melts every year.
In terms of global warming, it seems the primary concern is refectivity of the ice and I can’t believe that light knows the difference between old ice and new ice or between thick ice and thin ice.
Without a decided continuous decline in the ice versus time curve, regardless of the age of the ice, it’s hard to get too excited over these short term trends. Our knowledge of the history is too limitied to get excited over three year trends or even 30 year trends?
I fear the politics is more important than the science to many of the goverment agencies, their chance to stamp the future with their own brand.
The need to create new taxes is real and great with our recent and projected government’s spending sprees. We are not simply fighting deceptive science; there is a bigger purpose here. There is an attempt to realign our national form, this requires control and cash to support it.
Joe Bastardi and some climate “scientist” were on Colbert last night. The pretend scientist didn’t know the arctic ice had been expanding.
Do the pretend scientists actually conduct observations or do they just take bulletins from the IPCC?
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/269929/april-06-2010/science-catfight—joe-bastardi-vs–brenda-ekwurzel
I know of quite a few people in the NH who complained about the arctic winters they had the past few years. But aren’t we all happy that the ice is coming back?
it was worth the suffering in the cold!!!….or do we rather prefer global warming?
Interesting. Looks like an increase in Gulf of Bothnia and Commander Islands/Aleutians, but decrease off northern East Greenland.
….it’s just weather, nothing more….right?
Just watch as CT will not allow this to go +
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.arctic.png
It ain’t over yet – there’s a tiny uptick on that red line.
..winter ice cover remained young and thin compared to earlier years.
Unlike most of us who wish to return to those earlier years of being young and thin!
Ponce de Leon missed his mark, the Fountain of Youth is in the arctic!
wws (06:30:19) :
I wonder how long they think they can keep milking this?
Just until the carbon markets (Cap and Trade) fully spin up.
But you’re right, this tap dance is looking labored.
News alert: New hurricane forecast from Colorado State University by Philip J. Klotzbach and William M. Gray.
Reuters’ report with mention of the AccuWeather forecast as well.
Last year was below average, this year is forecast above average… I take it that it’s a safer bet to pick the other extreme rather than a repeat of the same extreme?
I don’t understand figure 3.
It seems that the average monthly Arctic Sea extent was higher in March 2008 and March 2009 than in March 2010… Or am I missing something?
In focusing on Artic ice, the skeptics (or flat earthers of which I am one) are putting too much meaning on one signal. How Artic ice expands and retreats is no doubt connected to global climate but over a period of just a few years, it is more pertinent to look at winds and currents. Of course it easy to laugh at the warmists with their ridiculous predictions of an ice free Artic but if warming continues, it may yet come about. The Earth has warmed since the Little Ice Age and may yet continue to do so. The real question is can we do anything about it? The answer I feel is no. The theory of CO2 warming just doesn’t add up ( see the Roman warming period and the Middle Ages warming period).
Sure, lots of folks want us to believe in CO2 warming and they are sure to makes lots of money out of it with Carbon trading scams but climate will do what it is driven to do – most probaly by the variability of the Sun. We should be looking at a whole host of signals from ocean salinity to glacier melt to have some idea of where our climate is going. Probaly the biggest factor is cloud cover and we don’t even understand this process as yet, although we have pointers.
Given the history of climate, it seems certain that we will face another ice age. Is it in 20 years, 200 years or even 2000 years? Whenever, we certainly know how to survive the next ice age or be able to get off this planet.
I have followed this blog for a few years now and it has always been instructive and thought provoking but please don’t turn it into a point scoring exercise. We need some really serious thought about this. We know that the warmist have a closet mentallity worthy of the most fundamentalist taliban but we must try to see the big picture and not rubbish everything the warnists say but look at it objectively and answer it in a proper critical fashion, ie – scientifically. One signal is not enough.
Never mind, I see it now.
If the average ice extent was the average for the period from 1979 thru 2009, would the current ice extent curve intersect with the average curve? This does seem plausible.
Beth Cooper (01:31:07) :
Leon Brozyna, it’s a question of mindset: is your tumbler of, let’s say… whisky on the rocks, half full or half empty?
Then there’s the third option — that the glass is exactly the right size for the drink.
Well one thing that continues to puzzle me, is why they compare recent results with the mean from 1979 to 2000. The JAXA ice graphs only seem to go back to 2003; presumably because that’s when they started observations.
But surely the NSIDC has had enough time to masticate the 2000-2009 data until it fits their agenda, so why not include it in the average.
Seems to me that they cherry picked an anomalous period of high ice; namely 1979-2000, and decided to try and sell everybody that that is what is normal; yet they can’t have had any satellite measurements before 1979; so they have no robust basis for assuming that 1979-2000 was normal, rather than perhaps the most advanced ice growth in a long time.
There’s plenty of historical records, of large areas of ice free arctic oceans from the distant past, so I don’t see the validity of their assumption that 1979-2000 represents long term normal conditions; rather than a cherry picked fluke.
I share and support Przemysław Pawełczyk’s observation (01:00:12) about temperature anomaly maps being misleading, and don’t understand the rather rude and unthoughtful attitude toward Mr. Pawełczyk by the moderators.
Those who call Mr. Pawełczyk “Mr. Unpronounceable” should think again. His name is very pronounceable and simple to those who know the rules of the Polish language. Your inability to pronounce it is an evidence of your limited education, nothing else.