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.
JB1000 says:
April 29, 2010 at 2:11 pm
Dissolved gases in ice cause the ice to be cloudy.
You’ve never had the pleasure of sitting in the room with a block of dry ice in the summertime?
Not many remember what it was like before AC came out.
You got a block of dry ice (CO2 ice) from the packing plant and put it on a small box with a fan blowing on it to cool us off.
It was bright white.
If you threw a block of pure dry ice down in the snow, you’d never know it was any different.
But seriously, I don’t believe the Arctic gets cold enough to freeze CO2 out of the air.
Dear Moderators,
A colleague called Ed Bussey has just started skiing to the North pole in aid of charity. Given the interest in the subject here, he might be worth a metion. He is tweeting at http://twitter.com/EdBusseyNews
Might be interesting what he has to say about ice thickness and polar bears.
40 Shades
Here is the link to info about Eds journey.
http://www.globalangels.org/fundraiser/edBussey/
Stephan, Rudd did not decide AGW was C***. He found it politically impossible to pass cap&trade legislation with a senate in which the opposition do think it’s C***, and the balance of power is held by Greens who consider the legislation proposed to be so weak as to be useless. It’s still slated for 2013.
Growing ice may look good, but thats a fallacy.
It is growing because of global warming.
Anyway, that is what one alarmist told me.
He said that an increase in ice was expected.
It is growing, but for the wrong reason, so it is bad growing.
The difference between NANSEN and NSIDC/Cryosphere might be that the trailing averages are different. NANSEN is a more jagged track, indicating little or no averaging.
Anu,
“The volume response to rising temperatures” – sounds like global warming is melting the Arctic sea ice.
What do you mean by global warming? Do you mean the step increase in Alaska temperatures in the late 1970s associated with a shift in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation? Since then, there has been little change in Alaska temperatures. Arctic ice would slowly decrease in response to this step change, with the decline fluctuating with the wind conditions that your post talks about.
Now that the PDO appears to be shifting to its cool phase, we would expect the arctic ice to slowly increase over the next few decades. If CO2 was responsible, the warming would not come in a step change and we would not see the recovery in arctic ice we have experienced over the last few years (corresponding perfectly with the apparent shift in the PDO). In other words, the observations do not fit the AGW theory. They do, however, fit perfectly with the theory that global climate is still dominated by natural factors.
geo says:
April 29, 2010 at 2:13 pm
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=04&fd=28&fy=1980&sm=04&sd=28&sy=2010
4/28/1980 vs 4/28/2010 30% concentration. Look at the uniform deep purple of 2010 vs the many streaks of lighter purple (80%-ish) in 1980 in the central ice mass.
Now look at this:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/NEWIMAGES/arctic.seaice.color.000.png
Do you still see the uniform purple?
Using the comparator you’re not only compressing the pixels from the original but you’re also comparing images made using different sensors using different resolutions. So while comparing the geographic extent of the ice is OK trying to compare the concentrations as you attempt above is a waste of time.
Then tell me again about “rotten ice” in 2010. Tell me again too about how thick multi-year ice doesn’t happen anymore. By definition you’re going to have more thick ice in a 100% concentration area than a lesser concentration area as you get into melt season. The thin ice is going to tend towards breaking up into “rotten ice” first.
There’s ‘rotten ice’ everywhere, those expeditions heading to the pole over the last few weeks were encountering leads every km or so.
Checkout the Beaufort sea, mouth of Nares strait and entry to the Fram (zoom in) below:
http://ice-map.appspot.com/
Ice extent is increasing.
Ice area is increasing.
Ice volume is increasing.
Empirically, not imagined by models.
In the Arctic and Antarctic.
It will do so until around 2050 after the peak low in 2030. This is forecast by models that have it right in hindsight – that gives credibility to foresight – unlike the Warmist Establishment’s models that fail both ways. This is actually too bad; we can defend against too hot better than too cold. But mankind has adapted before and will do so again; we are better equipped today as long as we keep the oil, natural gas, and nuclear facilities humping.
The climate temperature, ice and seas will go up again in time and down again in time, with CO2 having little or nothing to do with it.
Ainsi va la monde.
Seems a bit premature to be claiming an increase over 2009. Right now NANSEN has them almost exactly the same, despite having been higher for most of March. Btw, the NANSEN and Cryosphere baselines are different: 79-06 average v. 79-08 average; and NANSEN uses some smoothing filter – not sure if Cryosphere does.
As for area/extent v. thickness, clearly they’re both important but on different timescales. Less area means less albedo and more warming; thickness affects the likelihood of low area in the months and years to come.
Jim Clarke says:
April 29, 2010 at 3:23 pm
Anu,
“The volume response to rising temperatures” – sounds like global warming is melting the Arctic sea ice.
What do you mean by global warming? Do you mean the step increase in Alaska temperatures in the late 1970s associated with a shift in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation? Since then, there has been little change in Alaska temperatures. Arctic ice would slowly decrease in response to this step change, with the decline fluctuating with the wind conditions that your post talks about.
And what do you mean by the PDO? The PDO Index shifted back negative around 2000:
1996 0.59 0.75 1.01 1.46 2.18 1.10 0.77 -0.14 0.24 -0.33 0.09 -0.03
1997 0.23 0.28 0.65 1.05 1.83 2.76 2.35 2.79 2.19 1.61 1.12 0.67
1998 0.83 1.56 2.01 1.27 0.70 0.40 -0.04 -0.22 -1.21 -1.39 -0.52 -0.44
1999 -0.32 -0.66 -0.33 -0.41 -0.68 -1.30 -0.66 -0.96 -1.53 -2.23 -2.05 -1.63
2000 -2.00 -0.83 0.29 0.35 -0.05 -0.44 -0.66 -1.19 -1.24 -1.30 -0.53 0.52
2001 .60 .29 0.45 -0.31 -0.30 -0.47 -1.31 -0.77 -1.37 -1.37 -1.26 -0.93
2002** 0.27 -0.64 -0.43 -0.32 -0.63 -0.35 -0.31 0.60 0.43 0.42 1.51 2.10
Followed by a brief positive period followed by another negative period until recently when it returned to positive territory:
2003** 2.09 1.75 1.51 1.18 0.89 0.68 0.96 0.88 0.01 0.83 0.52 0.33
2004** 0.43 0.48 0.61 0.57 0.88 0.04 0.44 0.85 0.75 -0.11 -0.63 -0.17
2005** 0.44 0.81 1.36 1.03 1.86 1.17 0.66 0.25 -0.46 -1.32 -1.50 0.20
2006** 1.03 0.66 0.05 0.40 0.48 1.04 0.35 -0.65 -0.94 -0.05 -0.22 0.14
2007** 0.01 0.04 -0.36 0.16 -0.10 0.09 0.78 0.50 -0.36 -1.45 -1.08 -0.58
2008** -1.00 -0.77 -0.71 -1.52 -1.37 -1.34 -1.67 -1.70 -1.55 -1.76 -1.25 -0.87
2009** -1.40 -1.55 -1.59 -1.65 -0.88 -0.31 -0.53 0.09 0.52 0.27 -0.40 0.08
2010** 0.83 0.82 0.44
Now that the PDO appears to be shifting to its cool phase, we would expect the arctic ice to slowly increase over the next few decades. If CO2 was responsible, the warming would not come in a step change and we would not see the recovery in arctic ice we have experienced over the last few years (corresponding perfectly with the apparent shift in the PDO).
Why do you think that the PDO is shifting to the cool phase when the data appears to indicate otherwise? The observations do not appear to match your PDO theory.
Incidentally you’d expect less sea ice in the western Arctic during the ‘cool phase’!
Skye says:
“…And of course to all those who want to explore the Arctic for oil and gas and other minerals, if the Ocean is covered by a thin layer of ice in the spring (and thus the ice extent still shows high values), they can still move their ships through the thin ice and set up drilling rigs.”
OK, so we have another positive thing about potential global warming to add to the already long list. It will make it easier to get to the energy supplies needed to sustain a meaningful level of civilization!
40 Shades of Green says:
April 29, 2010 at 2:55 pm
Dear Moderators,
A colleague called Ed Bussey has just started skiing to the North pole in aid of charity. Given the interest in the subject here, he might be worth a metion. He is tweeting at http://twitter.com/EdBusseyNews
Why on earth is he leaving now, it’s about a month too late?
“With nature still not cooperating with “death spiral predictions”, what will be the press release ice meme this year?”
I was going to say salinity, but I can’t possibly beat Kwik’s “There will be no press release.”
Greetings to our friend, Herr Gates, btw.
Inconvenient facts will be ignored. I would expect continuing MSM silence on the arctic ice rebound this year, or the use of longer time frames such as baselining in the 1970s to allow for a “precipitous decline…”.
Phil. says:
April 29, 2010 at 3:33 pm
++++
Why, yes, Phil, I do. Because I can make the simple translation of color coding that Cryosphere helpfully provides on the two different size images. The larger images shade much more rapidly as concentration percentages change. Every image is helping provided with the appropriate shading scale to make that apparent.
On the comparator image, 80% is light purple. On the large image, ~97% is light purple. On the large image 80% is yellow shading into green. With that simple helpful fact those two images do not look so different after all –where you see yellow on the large image you’re beginning to see light purple on the smaller image.
But aside from your attempt at arm waving on apples-vs-oranges, now debunked, you just ignore the real apples-to-apples comparsion of 1980 vs 2007 vs 2010. If you have the large images for those dates in 1980 and 2007, I will be happy to analyze them with you vs 2010. But here’s a hint; anywhere you see light purple on those comparator images for 1980 and 2007, you’d be seeing yellow on those larger images which I anxiously await you providing.
Anthony Watts says:
‘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.’
Yet another example of subterfuge from NSIDC, or as the new saying goes: …”Hide the Decline”
I see your 3-year trend and raise you 27 years:
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20100406_Figure3.png
This is the same myopic approach to environmental data analysis I see all the time on this blog, e.g. “Record snowfalls = no AGW; below normal temperatures = no AGW”.
Weather. Is. Not. Climate.
skye April 29, 2010 at 2:40 pm,
What month[s] for the U of Bremen map would you like?
“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.”
Yes, volume was hardly ever mentioned until a year or two ago, when suddenly it mushroomed on Warmista sites. That was when I realized, “Hey! These guys are making it up as they go!”
That seemed to be the impetus for the Catlin Cavort, where they dragged along their much-touted whiz-bang ice-thinness-ometer, only to have it fail. They were reduced to poking a stick into hand-drilled ice holes to make their planned worse-than-we-thought measurements.
Phil M says:
April 29, 2010 at 4:22 pm
I see your 3-year trend and raise you 27 years:
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20100406_Figure3.png
…according to that graph (produced on 4/6/2010) it shows 15.3 million square kilometers.
… this next one (produced on 3/3/2010) shows only 14.7 million square kilometers; how can that be? It was a month earlier!
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20100303_Figure3.png
Phil. says:
April 29, 2010 at 4:08 pm
40 Shades of Green says:
April 29, 2010 at 2:55 pm
Dear Moderators,
A colleague called Ed Bussey has just started skiing to the North pole in aid of charity. Given the interest in the subject here, he might be worth a metion. He is tweeting at http://twitter.com/EdBusseyNews
Why on earth is he leaving now, it’s about a month too late?
He is leaving now because he wants to provide food for the hungry polar bear Mammas…. That is if he makes it past the grizzly bears.
Anyone who wishes to “make it interesting” by wagering on this matter can do so here:
https://bb.intrade.com/intradeForum/posts/list/4474.page
bubbagyro said:
“Ice volume is increasing.
Empirically, not imagined by models.
In the Arctic and Antarctic.”
———
Oh, please do share that empirical data with us…I would really love to see it.
stevengoddard says:
April 29, 2010 at 10:50 am
2009 extent never went above the mean.
http://docs.google.com/View?id=ddw82wws_621fs5nw5gz
first week of June.