by Steven Goddard
Looking at the June 14 satellite photo above, you see the view which the Sun sees of the North Pole.
Well not exactly, because the elevation of the Sun at its peak (mid-June) is actually fairly low in the sky. At the Pole, it is only 23.5º above the horizon. The video below shows what the earth would look like now, viewed from perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic. Note that the region north of 66.5º is in perpetual light. The image of the Sun is from the days when it used to have sunspots.
Now, looking at the satellite photo again, we see three different shades of white. Snow is the brightest white (highest albedo) and can be seen in Greenland. Clouds are next brightest white, and at least partially cover almost the entire Arctic. In a few locations, you can see dirty white sea ice peeking out through the clouds.
We often hear that sea ice controls Arctic albedo. There is some truth to this statement, but the real story is that the albedo of clouds actually controls the area of sea ice. When it is cloudy, little melting occurs. When it is sunny, the ice is more prone to melt.
Consider this chart from the University of Alaska.
They forecast the breakup of sea ice based on the total amount of sunshine received. When accumulated sunshine reaches 700 MJ/m², the ice breaks up. In a cloudy year (like 2009) this occurs later. In a sunny year (like 2007) it occurs earlier. 2010 is right in the middle. On a cloudy day, most of the sunshine reflects back into space from the top of the white clouds. That is why we see the bright white clouds in the satellite image.
The real key to Arctic albedo, and melt – is clouds. Can climate models effectively forecast cloudiness? Short answer – no. Clouds are one of the Achilles Heels of climate models. So next time you hear about a climate model forecasting an ice free Arctic, ask if they have the cloud problem under control.
It is cloudy at Santa’s Workshop right now.
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/webphotos/noaa2.jpg
I also tend to see wind (driven by jet stream and AO conditions) and current (driven by oceanic oscillations related to ENSO) as strong drivers of ice behavior, with clouds acting as a somewhat less effective feedback variable.
Addendum
…with solar as an external constant acted upon by Earth bound internal atmospheric (IE clouds) variations.
vukcevic says:
June 16, 2010 at 4:23 am
Arctic temperature during the last 150 years or so appear to be closely correlated to the average geomagnetic field (GMF) in the area.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC1.htm
Vuk: How does this relate with the solar activity/solar wind?
Pamela Gray says:
June 16, 2010 at 8:15 am
Have you seen this? :
http://www.xearththeory.com/introdis_earth_electromagnetic_coil_transformers_step_up_down.html
and this?:
http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=9eq6g3aj
I say it is the sea temperature, which affects the ice melt/freeze the most. If you graph AMO (=detrended NH Atlantic SST anomalies) and arctic ice anomaly against each other, you get excellent correlation. Wind of clouds are just a cherry on top.
“It is cloudy at Santa’s Workshop right now.”
and incredibly ice-free.
Oh wait…
“…So next time you hear about a climate model forecasting an ice free Arctic, ask if they have the cloud problem under control.”
They’ll say, “Oh, my goodness, yes! Our old models were poop, but our newest models are much robuster. They show things are unprecedented, worse than we thought. Now excuse me; I have to shoo these pesky birds off my nose.”
This brings me back to my earlier thoughts on a previous post. I’ve noticed that open water reflects sunlight pretty well. You can pick up quite a sunburn out on the water in just a short period of time. I’ve seen video taken from space that shows the sunlight reflecting off the ocean like a giant mirror. Narkissos saw his reflection in the water, which was acting as a mirror. If the angle of the sun to the Arctic is only 23.5 degrees, then I would think that open water at the Arctic would reflect quite a bit of the light rather than allowing the ocean to absorb it. Add those clouds into the mix and whether or not Santa’s Workshop is ice covered or floating isn’t going to make much of a difference, except to the reindeer. The point being that open water in the Arctic might be created by Global Warming, but it might not contribute to additional warming because open water at that lattitude would reflect much of the sunlight that isn’t already absorbed by the additional atmosphere that it has to travel through at such low angles to the surface. Am I smoking medicinal herbs here?
And clouds are likely in a “symbiotic” relationship with cosmic ray flux. The Chilling Stars.
Tom in South Jersey says:
June 16, 2010 at 9:28 am
This brings me back to my earlier thoughts on a previous post. I’ve noticed that open water reflects sunlight pretty well. You can pick up quite a sunburn out on the water in just a short period of time. I’ve seen video taken from space that shows the sunlight reflecting off the ocean like a giant mirror. Narkissos saw his reflection in the water, which was acting as a mirror. If the angle of the sun to the Arctic is only 23.5 degrees, then I would think that open water at the Arctic would reflect quite a bit of the light rather than allowing the ocean to absorb it. Add those clouds into the mix and whether or not Santa’s Workshop is ice covered or floating isn’t going to make much of a difference, except to the reindeer. The point being that open water in the Arctic might be created by Global Warming, but it might not contribute to additional warming because open water at that lattitude would reflect much of the sunlight that isn’t already absorbed by the additional atmosphere that it has to travel through at such low angles to the surface. Am I smoking medicinal herbs here?
————————–
Tom, please see work by Don Perovich at CRREL who has spent a large part of his life measuring snow/ice/water albedo, I think his work will answer much of your question. He also has some recent papers that show how much the ocean has been absorbing in recent years and how much that has contributed to additional ice melt. Additionally it’s important to understand that sea ice covers not just the north pole, so the sun is higher in the sky than 23.5 degrees during summer over large parts of the Arctic Ocean that are currently covered by sea ice.
Just looking over at spaceweather.com and they have the most beautiful pics of noctilucent clouds. They tend to be greatest just after a solar minimum. Since the min was long this time around, would an increase in these clouds have an effect on the SW entering in?
stevengoddard says:
June 16, 2010 at 6:36 am
> Are you suggesting that the sun didn’t used to have sunspots?
No, I’m just trying to get you to write more clearly, unambiguously, and write more for the new/occasional readers here rather than those of us who know how the SC24 sunspot history correlates with other cycles.
However, it doesn’t seem to bother others here, so I’ll try to not let it bother me.
Thanks Julienne, I shall take a gander.
Ric,
Good plan.
stevengoddard says:
June 16, 2010 at 6:19 am
Owen from Cornwall Ontario
Maybe the sun came out for a while at 1100?
Hi Steve
Yes you are correct the sun might have, and probably did make an appearance to cause the rise in temps for those two reports. I did not think of that.
The numbers just stick out and I was thinking this might be another case, like the METAR errors, of minus signs being left out. The temp values for the two or three days before and after these readings for the most part are all below zero.
Owen
Stephen Wilde:
…just shift all the clouds 1000 miles equatorward or poleward in both hemispheres via more negative or positive Arctic and Antarctic Oscillations in the air and there will be found all the albedo change you need to significantly alter shortwave input to the oceans…
These words are to be saved. And if added to them what causes that shift…you got the whole picture.
I must be confused about the lack of sunspots. NASA says otherwise, and I was warned yesterday how important it is to trust the judgement of experts.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/21dec_cycle24/
There will come a day when fearlessly post-normal science beliefs will be bravely contested, then a new era will open up to the human kind.
It won’t matter if the “holy church” trembles with anger or if their inquisitorial priests cry aloud, their time would have been gone forever.
Steve wrote: “We often hear that sea ice controls Arctic albedo. There is some truth to this statement, but the real story is that the albedo of clouds actually controls the area of sea ice. When it is cloudy, little melting occurs. When it is sunny, the ice is more prone to melt.”
A study by Francis and Hunter (EOS 2006) states:
Limited data have hampered attempts to identify which culprits are to blame, but new satellite-derived information provides insight into the drivers of change.A clear message emerges.The location of the summer ice edge is strongly correlated to variability in longwave (infrared) energy emitted by the atmosphere (downward longwave flux; DLF), particularly during the most recent decade when losses have been most rapid. Increasing DLF, in turn, appears to be driven by more clouds and water vapor in spring over the Arctic.
So what Francis and Hunter are saying is that the ice edge depends in large part on the DLF, which is controlled by clouds, but their results showed that an increase in springtime cloudiness (defined as 90 days from the ice extent maximum) led to a decrease in the ice edge.
Basically, clouds have either a warming or cooling affect depending on the time of year they are present and also if they are over a bright or dark surface. Over a dark surface they tend to have a cooling affect whereas over a bright surface they tend to have a warming affect.
You can look at cloud forcing by separating out the shortwave and longwave components such that the total cloud forcing (CF) equals the shortwave cloud forcing (CF_SW) plus the longwave cloud forcing (CF_LW). These can be defined as the difference between say clear and cloudy skies such that CF_SW = Q(Cf) – Q(0) , where Q is the net surface SW flux and Cf is the cloud fraction. Same thing for the CF_LW. The shortwave component (CF_SW) becomes more negative as the albedo decreases and at higher sun elevations, whereas the CF_LW is positive.
So the question becomes does this negative cloud forcing from the shortwave component outweigh that of the longwave component? During springtime the answer is no, the longwave component dominates and clouds have a warming affect (see more work by Francis and others). Data from the 1-year SHEBA project actually showed that only during a brief period in summer did the shortwave cooling affect dominate.
More IPCC uncertainties with a mention about aerosols and cosmic rays:
Climate Change 2007: Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis
Julienne
It certainly makes sense that LW would be greater than SW during the early spring, because there is very little SW in the Arctic at that time. And all of us here in Colorado are familiar with the idea that cloudy winter nights feel much warmer than clear ones.
The University of Alaska believes that the summer breakup of ice at Barrow is defined by the amount of SW received.
Well they say one picture is worth 1000 words; and your polar picture sure fits the model. Unfortunately, Steve, your one picture also conjures up 1000 questions.
Question #1 would be; Is this Photograph (satellite) Photoshopped; or is it REALLY RAW ALA MOTHER GAIA DATA ?
Are you able to find out Steve from your sources; what if any processing has been done to the picture ?
Why do I ask ? Well that Greenland snow white is exceptional. As you point out, the sun angle is only about 23.5 above the horizon (if I understood you correctly); but the satellite is a near zenith shot; unless it also has been geometrically transmogrified as well, as photometrically. Assuming source honesty; we are looking at extremely wide angle scattering for that Greenland snow image. It would be really great Steve if you have some way to get a hold of pixel numbers for this picture; so you could extract some relative “brightness” numbers for the Greenland snow, and some nearby muddy sea ice (and clouds too).
I’m guessing that we are looking at a lot of either very fresh snow; or at least very stable unmelted snow; and If I were a betting man, I would venture that that snow is more than Lambertian scattered (cosine theta) and much closer to isotropic at 66.5 deg scatter angle; which would be characteristic of a thoroughly rough surface; whereas a frozen sea ice surface is likely to be more “optical”, so limited to closer to Lambertian scattering.
Question #2 would be:- “How’bout dem clouds !” So much for the polar regions being dry deserts; well at least that north polar region. I have always believed that there is no place on earth where atmospheric CO2 ever exceeds atmospheric H2O; well at least up to the Tropopause.
One might almost say that we would be making a good trade, if we traded off ALL of that north polar sea ice, in exchange for clouds, and the resultant land snow that results from those clouds. And remember; there’s more land in the arctic (>60 N) than there is in the Antarctic (<60 S); so plenty of substrate to snow on.
So bring on that ice melt; we need it to cool the planet.
By the way Steve; those were serious questions. It would be great if you can put some brightness numbers to some of those characteristic regions in that picture (or some similar one) I wonder if Svend Hendriksen in Greenland; has some similar pictures; he might even have some brightness data.
I have on my office wall that wonderful picture of the "ice free" British Isles bemoaning their loss of snow.
George
“”” Phil. says:
June 16, 2010 at 6:53 am
stevengoddard says:
June 16, 2010 at 6:38 am
After Obama’s energy speech yesterday, his poll numbers have dropped to 42%
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/obama_approval_index_history
The man inspires confidence!
You just can’t stop propagandizing can you Steve? An accurate post would say “Before Obama’s………..”, but you can’t resist twisting the facts.
“These results are based upon nightly telephone interviews and reported on a three-day rolling average basis. As a result, today’s results are based almost entirely on interviews conducted before the president’s speech to the nation. The impact of the president’s speech will be seen over the next several days.” “””
I’d like a dollar for every time I have heard; since inauguration day, that the President’s polling numbers have dropped precipitously (after this or that event).
Funny thing is every one of those polling reports have said the same thing; his numbers have dropped to 42%.
I don’t know how the polls can keep on reporting these drops if they never go below 42%.
Well to me the only polling number that counts; is the one in Nov 2008 that put this candidate in office. And since it is not my privilege to participate in that choice; i’ll say nothing on the result; or for that matter the recent polls; whoever does them.
He’s MY President; for at least as long as American Citizens are happy with their choice; and wish to retain his services.
stephen richards says:
June 16, 2010 at 7:20 am
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
‘This site is good for daily arctic temps. Temps still around 0°C’
The arctic temperature above 80N is never going to go above about +2C until all the ice is gone. The melting ice holds the temperature near zero (yes – an experiment you can do at home). Take a look at any of the years in the archive; the summer temp is always in the +1 to +2C range. This will not change until a significant proportion of the ice at those latitudes is gone (/sarc ie 2013 or so /sarc).
Here is what liberal Obama supporters have to say :
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/06/15/msnbc_trashes_obamas_address_compared_to_carter_i_dont_sense_executive_command.html