Shear Ice Decline

Should any body think that the total global sea-ice cover is declining must have a look at the south pole. The current sea-ice cover at the S-pole is breaking the record for this time of year. One must consider that the south polar sea-ice cover is about 20 % more then the north pole one. Hence an increase of say 1.0 % at the S Pole will balance out a decrease of 1.2% at the N Pole. The Global Sea ice cover is not decreasing. The total energy of the planet is the most important scientific parameter to measure in this debate. What is decreasing is the belief in AGW at global level. AGW is dead but politicians are pumping out millions of dollars/euros to keep AGW on life-support, so that they will be able to keep on taxing us and thus feed the AGW-business monster they had created and keep it ‘alive’.
http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/ice_ext_s.png

I wonder if there is any data to indicate that there might be net polar rotational winds in right direction to account for this shearing or if this effect could be caused by under-ice ocean currents?

I think the most likely explanation was the very negative Arctic Oscillation which would promote high pressure in the high Arctic, which would promote a clockwise flow of ice. Since the AO was so negative, there could be some momentum causing the ice to flow against the spin of the earth.
I think a positive AO is actually better for high Arctic ice formation and larger minimum extents due to low pressure creating cold weather and a counter-clockwise ice flow that while drawing in more salty, warm, Atlantic water, doesn’t flush vast amounts of ice down the east coast of Greenland (like we saw in 2007).
The last large summer minimum we had was in 1996 which came off of a very small winter maximum… thanks to a negative AO in the winter and a strongly positive AO during the summer. It was a perfect storm for lack of ice melt. I believe that extremely small amount of ice melt in summer ’96 aided the development of the super Niño in 1997/98… kind of like the vast melting in summer 2007 likely enhanced the upwelling in the equatorial Pacific, and thus strengthening the La Niña from the bottom up, rather than from changes in trade winds.

James Sexton says:
May 27, 2010 at 8:33 am
@ur momisugly R. Gates,
I think what our friends are saying, it isn’t melt.
…
As you can see, the temps show what ever is occurring, one can’t call it melt. At least, not from the top.
…
Personally, I believe the underwater currents combined with volcanic activity underneath the Arctic is what we’re observing, but I’ve no way to prove it.
Yes, I think you’re right.
Melt from the bottom – the warm waters from the Atlantic (mainly) and Pacific (a bit) are causing the unprecedented melt rates this Spring:
Dropping. Like. A. Rock.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
In a few days, 2010 will have dropped past all the lowest sea ice extent years, and become the lowest for that date in recorded (satellite) history.
Notice how 2010 cut across all the other years ? (2006 coming soon)
How much heat gets into the Arctic from the warmer oceans ?

http://www.springerlink.com/content/p817k8141473v711/
These days, it would be generally accepted that through its northward transport of warm tropical waters, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) contributes effectively to the anomalous warmth of northern Europe (Large and Nurser 2001; see also Rhines and Hakkinen 2003; Rhines et al., this volume). The oceanic fluxes of mass, heat and salt that pass north across the Greenland–Scotland Ridge from the Atlantic to the Arctic Mediterranean have now been soundly established by direct measurement under the EC VEINS and ASOF/MOEN programmes, as have the corresponding fluxes to the Arctic Ocean (Ingvaldsen et al. 2004a, b; Schauer et al. 2004). We now know that the 8.5 million cubic metres per second of warm salty Atlantic Water that passes north across this Ridge carries with it, on average, some 313 million megawatts of power and 303 million kilograms of salt per second (Østerhus et al. 2005). As it returns south across the Ridge in the form of the two dense overflows from Nordic Seas, its salinity has decreased from about 35.25 to 34.88 and its temperature has dropped from 8.5 °C to 2.0 °C or less. Not surprisingly, surrendering this amount of heat is of more than local climatic importance.

Too bad Argo can’t send floats under the Arctic ice yet – but they are working on next generation gliders to get this info.
8.5 °C water in, 2.0 °C water out. Sounds like a lot of ice-melting heat going up there from the warm southern oceans.
Because of the very narrow Bering Strait, most of the ocean heat enters the Arctic by way of the North Atlantic. It just so happens that this April, and this January to April, has had the warmest northern hemisphere ocean temperatures on record:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/?report=global
The warmth was most pronounced in the equatorial portions of the major oceans, especially the Atlantic.
Warmest oceans on record, with an especially warm Atlantic.
Record fast melting of the thinning ice in the Arctic this April and May.
So, it’s not CO2 causing the Arctic ice to melt at record rates. It’s the warmer water making its way to the pre-conditioned Arctic ice, from the warmest oceans on record.
Which was caused by CO2 buildup.

Isn’t “Death Spiral” a fighting technique used by Norsemen berzerkers?

I would like to see a calculation of how much of this ice melt was caused by Al Gore’s huge luxury $8.5 mansion, one of many which he owns. How much warming would occur if we all followed Al Gore’s example of how to live the green life?
Double standard much, Al?

@R. Gates
‘Seems that no matter what happens, AGW skeptics will try to find any OTHER reason for the ice to decline in the Arctic, other than the fact that the region has seen the bulk of global warming so far.’
Must be truly odd if you can’t see the hilarious in your attack, using a logical fallacy no less, of a scientist’s use of more proper logic debunking a crappy hypothesis.
ROFL. Do you see it now?

Non-update on the terrifying Arctic Sea Ice Volume Anomaly chart from the Polar Science Center using the PIOMAS model which the (C)AGW proponents have been posting for months as telling THE REAL STORY and clearly showing the Arctic Sea Ice Death Spiral:
No change. Last updated May 13, posted schedule for updates is every 3-5 days (based on data availability), now 14 days since last update when the graph was showing an alarming steep decline.
Maybe they read the criticisms of it here and decided the model needed further “validation.” Perhaps when done they can demonstrate it has all the robust accuracy of a tree ring, at least.

R. Gates:

Seems that no matter what happens, AGW skeptics will try to find any OTHER reason for the ice to decline in the Arctic, other than the fact that the region has seen the bulk of global warming so far.

Yes, we do tend to look for reasons other than ice melt while the temperature remains at well below freezing point.

Tamara says:
May 27, 2010 at 9:16 am
The Beaufort Gyre is not a fixed phenomenon (anymore than any other aspect of the climate). See this site: http://www.whoi.edu/beaufortgyre/results_fwcdecadal.html
It appears the Gyre was stable from the 50′s through the 80′s, then shifted in the 90′s. Could this be yet another 30 year oscillation?
At any rate, I think it is safe to assume that the shearing effect of the BG could vary from year to year, and is at least as likely to be contributing to the current conformation of sea ice as is CO2.
I have suspected for some time now that the primary driver of the decline in Arctic sea ice was the dramatic shift in the BG and the Transpolar Drift which occurred in 1989. What started me down that path was this animation from Rigor and Wallace
http://iabp.apl.washington.edu/animations/Rigor&Wallace2004_AgeOfIce1979to2007.mpg
Here is their description of the animation
The red dots shows the current location of buoys used to estimate the age of sea ice. The areas of older, thicker ice are shown in white, while younger, thinner sea ice is shown as darker shades of blue.
This animation of the age of sea ice shows:
1.) A large Beaufort Gyre which covers most of the Arctic Ocean during the 1980s, and a transpolar drift stream shifted towards the Eurasian Arctic. Older, thicker sea ice (white ice) covers about 80% of the Arctic Ocean up to 1988. The date is shown in the upper left corner.
2.) With the step to high-AO conditions in 1989, the Beaufort Gyre shrinks and is confined to the corner between Alaska and Canada. The Transpolar Drift Stream now sweeps across most of the Arctic Ocean, carrying most of the older, thicker sea ice out of the Arctic Ocean through Fram Strait (lower right). By 1990, only about 30% of the Arctic Ocean is covered by older thicker sea ice.
3.) During the high-AO years that follow (1991 and on), this younger thinner sea ice is shown to recirculated back to the Alaskan coast where extensive open water has been observed during summer.
The age of sea ice drifting towards the coast explains over 50% of the variance in summer sea ice extent (compared to less than 15% of the variance explained by the seasonal redistribution of sea ice, and advection of heat by summer winds).
For me what is most significant is the dramatic shift in where the residual ice ends up at minimum in Sept. Prior to ’89 most of the old ice is left west of the pole, after the change in the current circulation the old ice is left along the Canadian coast where the TPD, which changed from running mostly parallel to the Lomonosov Ridge to running almost exactly along the Prime Meridian, works almost year round to move it out through the Fram.
From reading the comments around here, it appears most people think that the winds are the primary drivers of ice movement in the Arctic, but having spent more than 60 yrs. living on the bank of the Mississippi in southern Minnesota, I tend toward currents being more important. If you’ve spent time in a houseboat, almost the perfect inverse of an iceberg, on the Mississippi you might also suspect that when it comes to a faceoff between the the wind and the current, the current comes out on top almost every time.
I’ve been watching the ice drift maps at DMI for a while and to my eye the patterns from this Spring suggest the BG may be returning to a pattern close to what it was in the ’80s, but they’ve shut them down for the season so we’ll have to wait to see how that pans out.
My Minnesota experience also tends to make me doubt the claims that melting is the leading cause of ice disappearing in the Arctic, at least within the confines of the Arctic Ocean itself. The west to east flow of the TPD across from the Bering Sea to the Fram looks to be somewhere between 1 and 1.5 degrees of latitude per month, which would suggest that open water from the Alaskan coast to Lat 77 to 80 or more west of the pole could be accounted for by movement alone.