Many of you watch sea ice as closely as some people follow the NFL, soccer, or NASCAR. So when something of interest happens, I’m not without an inbox full of notices.
Today it is encouraging to see the NANSEN is reporting that both Arctic Sea Ice area and extent are above the normal line. Usually we don’t see both in this mode. Here’s area:
And here is extent:
Source: http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic
By itself, this is just a small thing, but it is just one more indication that there’s some improvement in the Arctic Ice situation again, and the indications are that we’ll have another summer extent that is higher than the previous year, for the third year in a row.
Of course our friends will argue that extent and area don’t matter now, that only volume and ice quality (the rotten ice meme) matters.
Interestingly, if you go back to the press releases on the record minimum extent in 2007 at NSIDC here:
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2007.html
And search the entire set of release for the word “volume”, you won’t find it used anywhere that year. The volume worry is a more recent talking point that first appeared in October 2008 when it became apparent that extent wasn’t continuing to decline. They couldn’t tout another record low extent, so volume became the next big thing:
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2008/
Arctic sea ice minimum press release
Please see the NSIDC press release, “Arctic Sea Ice Down to Second-Lowest Extent; Likely Record-Low Volume” for a detailed analysis of this year’s Arctic sea ice minimum and a synopsis of the 2008 melt season.
With nature still not cooperating with “death spiral predictions”, what will be the press release ice meme this year? Color? Texture? Cracks per square kilometer? It will be interesting to watch.
The important characteristic is “color” or “colour” if you prefer . This overall measurement tool takes care of volume, extent, soot and aschetics. We like our ice a certain shade of white with blue undertones….anything else is a sign of degradation.
So, what IS happening with the ice? I was browsing around the satellite maps on http://ice-map.appspot.com/ and it looks like the ice is pulling away from both the Alaskan, Canadian and Russian coasts, but where is it headed?
Anthony said:
“Of course our friends will argue that extent and area don’t matter now, that only volume and ice quality (the rotten ice meme) matters…”
——-
Now really Anthony, I don’t think any responsible arctic expert or quasi-expert or even wannabe-expert is saying that. It is not that extent doesn’t matter, for certainly it does on some level, especially it seems in terms of potential feedback loops, as greater extent means more reflectivity:
http://www.physorg.com/news191665797.html
But the point about ice mass and ice volume is that mass is a much better indicator of the state of the ice than just looking at volume alone. The 2007 low was marked by a low of both extent and volume. That volume hasn’t really recovered yet, and do the ice that we have (multi-year or single year) isn’t particularily thick. The much trumpeted “bump” up in arctic sea ice this year was late in the winter and caused primarily by some persistent low pressure systems over the Bering sea area that caused a rapid growth of thin new ice in the region. Much of which just as quickly has melted away:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.2.html
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.14.html
So, for me, it is not that sea ice extent doesn’t matter, but it is only part of the larger picture. The best current estimate we have for volume in the arctic sea ice can be found here:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/images/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrent.png
And, yes, this is only an educated estimate, but until we have better, it is the data we have. One interesting thing to note on this graph is little “bump up” in volume, 2008-2009, though the trend continues down now in 2010.
I take this matter of arctic sea ice very seriously as I personally hold it out as my own acid test related to my personal belief in the validity of AGWT. This chart is not something I can ignore:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/sea.ice.anomaly.timeseries.jpg
Yes, we’ve had a “recovery” in a very loose use of the word in arctic sea ice extent over the past few years, but this recovery would have to go on for many more years, and be match by a recovery of volume as well for me to begin to think that AGWT is incorrect or highly flawed in its models. As it stands right now, in late April 2010, I think we’ll see the 2nd lowest summer sea ice extent on record this September, the warmest year on instrument record globally, and a record low summer sea ice extent by 2015. These projections are based on long term models and charts, and not a few seaons of sea ice extent returning to near normal levels. Volume does matter, and right now, projections of the arctic sea ice staying above or anywhere near normal for the rest of the summer are literally resting “on thin ice”.
By the way, your new sitee design is great…
Colour, flavour, centre…all better : )
It probably won’t matter so much what happens to the ice this year. The Hadow exhibition is all about ocean acidification this time around so that will be the thing which makes the news. Don’t know why they need to study ocean acidification in the Arctic (couldn’t you pick just any ocean, anywhere?) but there it is.
Of course, there will still be the obligatory nod to concerns of ice melting (gotta keep repeating), but if this years melt increases on last years, the MSM will make sure to inform us that it doesn’t matter because there’s a whole new list of things to be worried about now.
Mike Sander, The ice should be shaken, not stirred. This, I think, means earthquakes are in – wind and currents are out.
“….but it is just one more indication that there’s some improvement in the Arctic Ice situation again.”
Why is this an improvement? What empirical evidence is there that this is good or bad?
The ice will be overly eccentric.
Temperature, salinity and volume fluxes in the Fram Strait
“Now we are observing a decline in the Atlantic Water temperature but it is still higher than the long-term average.”
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/temperature-salinity-and-volume-fluxes-in-the-fram-strait
Luboš Motl says:
April 29, 2010 at 10:34 am
Cyrosphere run on a different baseline. 1979-2008 which includes the two lowest years.
Nansen runs on the baseline 1979-2006, before the two lowest years.
According to Cyroshpere, N extent is down .4 and S. extent is up .2, so you have -.2 anomaly.
More importantly for global coverage:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
looks to be right where things normally are since 1979.
And that is the big non-story of Sea Ice.
A great big fuss over the terrestrial refrigerator temporarily running low on it’s ice cube bin.
The bar drops, the automatic ice cube maker fires up and fills the void.
Thank the warmists for pointing out that the S. Hem continues to run above normal ice while the N. Hem continues to
fill in the void. Give it a year or two, and Freezists will appear out of thin modeling air to proclaim a catastrophically impending
crush of phenomenally growing Sea Ice.
We must act quickly to build a fleet of nuclear-powered ice breakers or the global trade system will be doomed.
The reason volume is important is that volume is the most difficult to measure. Therefore, the volume will have to be “adjusted.” And one can only guess which direction those adjustments will take.
what will be the press release ice meme this year? Color? Texture? Cracks per square kilometer?
Easy – now it it floating ice….
http://news.uk.msn.com/world/articles.aspx?cp-documentid=153209008
many articles on the web. My favorites are the ones who are totally confused and think that if the floating ice melts it will raise sea levels…
Based on data I have gleaned from many sites, I predict, FWIW, that September ice will be the highest on record for the month, and that thickness of even one year ice, having been stacked up by the prevailing winds, will be the thickest on record for that month. Time will tell.
Since the sunspot cycle has a 4-5 year lag time before the NH is affected (see recent sunspot articles), and since the El Nino will shift to La Nina, I think this coming winter will also prove to have the thickest, largest extent and area of all time by February.
I wonder if they will blame Elfyltotemgriggragglubglubgrindel for that, somehow.
Time wounds all heels.
The Ghost Of Big Jim Cooley says:
April 29, 2010 at 11:35 am
Colour, flavour, centre…all better : )
Or is that “bettre” bitte. meter, metre, etc
Merci bien.
A lot of flights grounded today out of Alberta due to heavy snow and wind, power out in many communities. But that is normal out here. So there will be fewer contrails in the sky to affect the climate.
But what about “ship tracks”? What is the consensus on them? Do they cause warming or cooling? Studies in 1994 said cooling but I wonder what new studies say. Has anyone on this blog reviewed this effect?
http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/notes/chap08/contrail.html
Applying kook AGW theory, that means the added albedo will reflect solar radiation back into space and cause cooling, thus more ice will form, and cause yet more albedo, which means more reflection, more cooling, more ice… and finally a cooling tipping point!
Going back to my memory of sub atomic particles, how about Beauty, Charm and Flavour?
Seriously, Mark Serreze must produce his NSIDC report for April early next week. I wonder what it will contain? It might just continue being a, basically, scientific report.
R. Gates,
Your PREDICTIONS are based on models and charts. Ice area and ice extent being ABOVE NORMAL is based on real-time observation and measurement.
In the world of real science, observation and measurement trumps modeling and prediction 100% of the time. Sorry.
Son of Mulder,
““….but it is just one more indication that there’s some improvement in the Arctic Ice situation again.”
Why is this an improvement? What empirical evidence is there that this is good or bad?”
It is GOOD because AGWT alarmists tell us that LESS ICE IS BAD! Since less ice is bad, more ice MUST be GOOD, yes?
R. Gates says:
April 29, 2010 at 11:35 am
“The best current estimate we have for volume in the arctic sea ice can be found here:”
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/images/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrent.png
“This chart is not something I can ignore:”
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/sea.ice.anomaly.timeseries.jpg
—
But apparently this chart is something you can ignore…
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/zhang/IDAO/icevol_nao.gif
“As it stands right now, in late April 2010, I think well see the 2nd lowest summer sea ice extent on record this September”
No.
” the warmest year on instrument record globally”
Which instrument record? How far back? Warmest means for all time? Ever? In the entire history of the earth? Really??
“and a record low summer sea ice extent by 2015.”
No.
pgosselin says:
April 29, 2010 at 12:06 pm
Applying Alarmist Theory, we should be getting AGF soon: Anthropoblamed Global Freezing.
Read that as Global Warming blamed on man’s activities until Global Freezing is blamed on man’s activities.
Railroaded verdicts guaranteed by the InterPlanetStricken Panic Choo-choo in Chief.
Here is the new meme, premiered right here on WUWT.
“This represents the multi-year high yet it is not statistically significant because it is within 1 standard deviation of the mean, whereas the multiple lows in the last decade have been outside the standard deviation.”
That will be the meme coming from people who like to ignore confidence intervals of sparse tree ring data sets.
FYI.
PS, hi R Gates 🙂
I did see your reply post to me a few days ago, but the threads had moved on a bit since then so I will thank you for your reply and clarification in this thread.
Setting aside the press reactions to summer melt this year, your point about volume is timely and at the very least reminds to not to draw hasty conclusions about complex things from a single metric. So cheers for that.
I’m betting flavour. (Or flavor, if you spell it that way.)
REPLY: Ya know, I originally wrote flavor as an option, then decided it was too absurd. -A
————————————
So….who gets the research grant to taste the “flavor” of the yellow snow?
Isn’t R. Gates cute?:
The King of the Cherrypickers has a ‘personal belief’ in Anthorpogenic Global Warming Thermogeddon [AGWT]. Arguing science based on a belief system is nonsense. Let’s look at that “acid test”:
Using alarming propaganda charts like this can only reinforce the scary belief that climate thermogeddon is happening — even though that chart is based on a model, not on empirical measurements across the ice sheet. It is no more reliable than Pen Hadow’s claimed ice thickness measurements from last year, auguring down into the ice every few hundred yards. Or so he said. In other words, the ice thickness is a model assumption.
The “Polar Science Center” that ginned up that fabulously scary chart concentrates almost exclusively on the Arctic, not on “Polar” ice as its name implies. There are two poles, but Antarctica doesn’t support their Thermogeddon bias, so they ignore the fact that the Southern Hemisphere counterbalances the Northern Hemisphere, with the result that global ice extent is pretty close to the global 30-year average.
All we are seeing is natural climate variability. Nothing unusual is occurring. This has happened repeatedly in the past, it will happen again when this cycle is complete, and it has nothing to do with human activity.
Finally, look at that fantastic chart again. Notice anything wrong with it? Other than having such a scary y-axis that it can only be labeled outright alarmist propaganda.
The fine print shows that the “trend” amounts to a minuscule decline of only 100 cubic kilometers per year. That is such a minute amount that it cannot be separated from noise. The Arctic contains ≈3.1 MILLION cubic kilometers of ice. The temporary loss of 100 cu km/yr is nothing; it is an estimate, which cannot be separated from the measurement noise.
Further, Antarctica has over 20 MILLION cubic kilometers of ice — and that ice volume is increasing. That is the reason the alarmist crowd is jumping up and down and pointing at the Arctic. They dare not point to the Antarctic; if they do, it becomes obvious that their thermogeddon argument is ridiculous.
How is sea ice volume or mass determined? Is it modeled? What types of empirical data are available?