By Steven Goddard
Break out the Speedos and Bikinis. Springtime has finally arrived in the Arctic!
Temperatures have risen about 15C, and are now averaging a balmy -15C (5F) north of latitude 80N – with sunshine 24 hours a day. Under those conditions, you can get frostbite and a tan at the same time.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
But despite the balmy weather, NORSEX ice area continues to run above the 1979-2006 mean – as it has for the entire month of April.
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_images/ssmi1_ice_area.png
Since the melt season started, the Arctic has lost about one million km2 of sea ice. Below is a composite graph showing all of the popular (NSIDC, JAXA, NORSEX, DMI) extent measurements, superimposed on the NSIDC mean and two standard deviation region. The thin blue line is NSIDC extent from 2009. Note that all measurements have been nudging up against the mean line – for the entire month of April.
Disclaimer: All maps below are taken from NSIDC maps, and modified by the “breathtakingly ignorant” writers at WUWT.
During the last three weeks ice has melted mainly at lower latitudes, as seen below in red. Areas in green have actually increased in extent, due to drift. Ice is probably still getting thicker in much of the Arctic, because temperatures remain well below freezing.
The map below shows changes over the past week.
And the map below shows changes since the same date in 2007. Green indicates ice growth.
The next map shows current areas of deficient ice (relative to the median) in red, and excess ice in green. The total amount of excess minus deficient ice is close to zero. In other words – Arctic ice extent is normal.
The Arctic Oscillation remains negative, so circulation is clockwise – as seen below in the buoy drift map. This pattern is keeping older, thicker ice from the Canadian side inside the Arctic Basin, and bodes well for another summer of increased ice thickness and extent – relative to the record melt of 2007.
http://iabp.apl.washington.edu/maps_daily_track-map.html
People counting on bad news from the Arctic to keep their agenda alive are staring at a long, (rhetorically) cold summer……. The good news is that they can keep raising the red flags about Montana glaciers, if the Arctic refuses to melt.
It has now been over 41 years since the New York Times headlined “Expert Says Arctic Ocean Will Soon Be an Open Sea.” triggering the Arctic Death Spiral. After 41 years of dangerous and increasing melt, ice area is again above normal.
My failure to understand this is surely a sign of “breathtaking ignorance.” But don’t call me Shirley.
Take back what I said about NASA Solar previously
from icecap quote
“See in this November 2009 interview how Hathaway changed his mind when his original forecast of a quick and strong 24 rampup failed. David Hathaway, Ph.D., Heliospheric Team Leader, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama: “In the 50 years or so we’ve been making the (cosmic ray) measurements – yeah! this is by far the highest level of galactic cosmic rays that we’re seeing at Earth and we know exactly what is causing it.
It’s the sun’s weakened magnetic fields and weakened solar winds that are all related to this Solar Cycle 24 minimum.” He goes on to talk about a possible Dalton or even Maunder like minimum. Hathaway behaves like a true scientist should but few do by being willing to change his ideas as data proves his original thinking wrong. ” Therefore Svensmark was right!
Another Baltic Ice Map:
http://portal.fma.fi/sivu/www/baltice/ice_map
Homepage:
http://portal.fma.fi/portal/page/portal/baltice
Regards
COLA temps, ice data temps, cold winters etc, not showing ANY signs of abnormal warmth. Why the hell have AMSU 600 mb temps been so high for last 4 months? Maybe small deviations in global mean temps actually are not related to any real warming/cooling at surface level. Or 600 mb level temp data not related. Seems to support contention that in fact small deviations (~+/-2C) of mean average global temp are not a measurable/meaningful measurement?
All of a sudden Roy Spencer has become a hero for the AGW movement (only because the satellite temps are up and up). How pathetic, just a few months ago he was a super denier ! LOL. I have no reason to doubt the AMSU data (unless the usual drift problem) but I don’t think it means any warming/cooling as far as the Earth surface is concerned. IN other words it probably is meaningless data as far as the earth ‘s REAL temperatures are concerned.
TLm says:
April 28, 2010 at 2:22 am
In his monthly bulletins he usually quotes “channel 5″ at 14,000 ft. Every month this year has so far been warmer than the hottest year in his record, 2005 (he does not show full data for 1998), so there is no break in the trend of ever rising temperatures. All “natural variability” of course!
The AMSU temp anomalies have indeed been at high levels since the beginning of the year and actually since July of last year, but if the temps not doing much at all for nearly 15 years wasn’t deemed to be sufficient to discredit AGW projections, 9 months of elevated anomalies would hardly seem sufficient to provide verification for them or to discredit natural variation.
Re ice in Baltic in April.
There is definitely no ice in Danish water this late, though there is still some rotten ice in the Gulf of Finland and Riga Bay.
For current ice conditions in the Baltic see: http://www.smhi.se/oceanografi/istjanst/produkter/sstcolor.pdf
Incidentally “rotten ice” is an accepted term for ice in a late stage of melting, and consequently is the normal state of ice close to the ice edge in summer, not some kind of AGW induced horror as a lot of people seems to think.
As for NCDC etc indicating ice in coastal waters where there actually isn’t any, this seems to be a normal fault of all satellite sensors, especially in areas with a crooked coastline and/or a lot of islands off the coast. It was much worse in earlier satellite generations, and I strongly suspect that this factor has caused at least part of the decline of the north polar summer ice cover. If You take a look at the historical maps on Cryosphere now You will see that they regularly show lots of ice in e. g. the White Sea and the Baltic in June-July when there is never any ice there.
For older historical ice data of the North Atlantic I recommend:
http://acsys.npolar.no/ahica/quicklooks/looks.htm
It is instructive to compare ice extent in e. g. the 1930’s and 1970’s with current conditions. The latter are far from unprecedented while seventies had considerably more ice than average.
Do I cancel my planned pedalo and beach bar concession for the White Sea beaches.. ?
[quote Stephan April 28, 2010 at 3:11 am]
Why the hell have AMSU 600 mb temps been so high for last 4 months?
[/quote]
El Nino.
TLm; April 28, 2010 at 2:22 am
“there is no break in the trend of ever rising temperatures”
This statement is demonstrably false.
In central Ontario, Canada, we have had these high pressure systems and way above average temperatures since January which could be holding the Arctic weather at bay.
There has been very little precipitation as well. Seems any weather systems coming from the south is pushed to the coastal areas.
KimW April 27, 2010 at 10:21 pm: “as for acidic seawater – my mind boggles”.
Hi Kim. Rising CO2 absorption by sea water does indeed make it more acidic. Too much acidity is very bad for the bottom of the food chain, particularly shelled creatures.
The global decline in ice volume in the worlds glaciers and ice shelves is a sure sign of increasing temperature. The ocean is rising on the order of 3mm per year, 75% of which is due to thermal expansion. Outlet glaciers in Greenland and ice shelves in Antartica are being undercut by the steadily warming ocean. So too is Arctic ice. These trends are very clear on any graph presented with a timeframe of over twenty years. Will the North West passage open again this year? Will September show a new low in ice extent? Who knows, but the probability increases with each passing decade.
Remote concentrations of ice do not melt due to political affiliation, desire to form a world government or Urban Heat Island effects. They melt due to increased temperature – and they are melting at both ends of the globe and in all the high mountain chains. Global melting = global warming.
The water only needs 15% sea ice to be part of the NSIDC graphic. Is it no ice, or very little ice in Denmark?
I think something interesting is about to happen. As you know all air traffic was stopped for days all over most of Europe. But the ash cloud didn’t exist is has been revealed. So now the alarmists have data similar to what the gathered in the days after 9-11: measurements about dimming effect. Back then they claimed that a temperature rise could be proven. One degree Celsius, they said. This was due to no air traffic.
Actually it would be more interesting if nothing emerges from this. That would mean that the data collected in the days where Europa had no air traffic could not support the alarmists theories.
This could be dynamite in more ways hat one. I assume it’s possible to get those data from public sources? The blogosphere have a lot of people with fine skills in math…
I’ll post 2 links in a comment below. Spam filter concerns, you know…
Please help – the filter ate my comment…
[Reply: Patience. Your comment was posted after being in the moderation queue less than five minutes. ~dbs, mod.]
The promised links:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/dimming_trans.shtml
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1268794/Remember-ash-cloud-It-didnt-exist-says-new-evidence.html
Ammonite says: April 28, 2010 at 4:42 am
“Global melting = global warming”
Does Global freezing = global cooling?
Is more ice caused by melting or freezing?
You just can not be sure these days.
Ammonite says:
April 28, 2010 at 4:42 am
” Global melting = global warming.”
But “GW” does NOT = “AGW”. So the question is, What’s your point? (other than spouting generalized AGW mantra)
Sorry, ~dbs, mod, and thanks for helping. 🙂
Ammonite ,
Ammonites evolved during the Silurian, when atmospheric CO2 levels were an order of magnitude higher than at present. Unless the chemical properties of CaCO3 has changed, you can relax.
http://ff.org/centers/csspp/library/co2weekly/2005-08-18/dioxide_files/image002.gif
You should learn more about your family history.
[snip – sorry Pamela, while humorous, this will open up a line of comments where I just don’t want WUWT to go -Anthony]
In the New York Times artcile the 2nd to last paragraph makes an interesting claim.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/nyt_arctic_77442757.pdf
“There is eveidence that the carbon dioxide content of the world’s air has risen from 10 to 15 percent…”
This seems a bit of an exaggeration. What happened to the general understanding of the proportions of the constituent parts of the atmosphere? Unless this is some journalistic transmogrification that happens.
Shakespeare was the first to notice this problem.
Marcellus:
“There is rotten ice in the state of Denmark.”
BTW – Anthony got NSIDC to add the date to their graphs.
Andrew30 says:
April 27, 2010 at 10:54 pm
trying to link whale hunting to Global Warming is way, way, way out there.
obviously not an Aussie then,
eg: http://www.theage.com.au/environment/scientists-not-clear-on-climate-20100219-olyd.html
journalism – not-so-cleverly-disguised emotive associative value word salad.
The Sea Surface Temperatures in the Baltic are still below 0.0C in the northern part (and ice is still present) while temperatures are up to around 5.0C near Denmark.
US Navy animation of SSTs in the Baltic.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/GLBhycom1-12/navo/norbalsst_nowcast_anim30d.gif
North Pole view of Arctic SSTs.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/GLBhycom1-12/navo/arcticsst_nowcast_anim30d.gif
What’s people’s opinion of the data that suggest while the Arctic sea ice extent is growing the actual volume is decreasing?
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/images/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrent.png