An electromagnetic “bird” dispatched to the Arctic for the most detailed look yet at the thickness of the ice has turned up a reassuring picture.
The meltdown has not been as dire as some would suggest, said geophysicist Christian Haas of the University of Alberta. His international team flew across the top of the planet last year for the 2,412-kilometre survey.
They found large expanses of ice four to five metres thick, despite the record retreat in 2007.
“This is a nice demonstration that there is still hope for the ice,” said Haas.
The survey, which demonstrated that the “bird” probe tethered to a plane can measure ice thickness over large areas, uncovered plenty of resilient “old” ice from Norway to the North Pole to Alaska in April 2009.
There is already speculation about how the ice will fare this summer, with some scientists predicting a record melt. Haas said he doesn’t buy it.
He said the ice is in some ways in better shape going into the melt season than it has been for a couple of years. “We have more thick ice going into the summer than we did in 2009 and 2008,” he said.
Much will depend on the intensity of the winds, and how the ice fractures and is blown around, he said. “But any talk about tipping points, a sudden drop and no recovery . . . I don’t think it is going to happen.”
The more likely scenario is that the ice will continue a decline that has been underway for at least 30 years, he said. There is likely to be plenty of variability in that decline, he added, with “extreme” melts in some years, followed by “significant recoveries like we saw last year.”
Part of the problem with ice forecasting is that it based largely on data from satellites. They are good at measuring how large an area is covered by ice, but tell little about its thickness — which can measure in mere centimetres in the case of new ice, or metres in the case of ice several years old.
The thickness had “changed little since 2007, and remained within the expected range of natural variability,” the team reports in the Geophysical Research Letters.
john wright says:- “chris y says: (…) “Go bears!”
Would you kindly explain to us what that’s supposed to mean?!!”
The University of Alberta Golden Bears sports teams, of course.
This sounds like good news 🙂 but I guess some people will be angry instead.
Confusing as it implies the survey was last year yet it also implies that they already knew 2009’s result????
Still reckons that the ice in in a death spiral, just a long one.
They actually flew over the ice to really observe the ice and take take measurements IRL?!? Isn’t that like cheating? o_O
P.F. says:
June 16, 2010 at 8:28 am (Edit)
Wait. Just yesterday you posted that Arctic Ocean ice is retreating at 30-year record pace! I’m so confused. How can this be?
The science is settled. didn’t you get the memo
You mean a bit like the insurance company funded Catlin Survey who tried it out by hand because they said their radar ‘broke down’. They managed to drill a superhuman number of holes per day according to critics on WUWT by the way. ;o(
The entire problem with ice forecasting is that Nature doesn’t follow forecasts. Oh, that goes for climate soothsaying too, Nature doesn’t follow climate models.
Tom_R says:
June 16, 2010 at 9:46 am
chris y
“If you’re going to use sarcasm here in the future, make it clear by using /sarc or some other more explicit notice. Many of the responders here fail to recognize it.”
The whole point with sarcasm is that if you have to signpost it “hey, this is sarcasm,” then it ceases to have any impact. Let the interpretation be in the mind of the reader, to make of it what he or she will.
Grumpy Old Man says:
June 16, 2010 at 10:27 am
Is it that a theory, an hypothesis or just a model? ☺
Last year’s news, this year’s more interesting.
It’s far more exaggerated and imaginary than once thought.
Hypoclimatria – Fear of the climate.
Don’t crawl under a rock.
The differentiation between a theory and a hypothesis given above is not what I learned as a science undergraduate. Then, a hypothesis was an as yet unproven explanation for a series of related facts. Based on the hypothesis (explanation) one could design additional experiments and predict the results. If the hypothesis was correct, the additional experiments would have the predicted results. If the experiments did not have the predicted results, then a new or modified explanation was in order, and so were new experiments. A hypothesis that was capable of explaining the wide variety of facts that might come up and a wide variety of results from different experiments would eventually be elevated to the level of a theory. A theory still allows for tweaking of the explanation if facts and experimental results are outside the expected results, but the bar is set a little higher.
Fairbanks? Anchorage?
You missed his smilie. He was being facetious.
Christian Haas of the University of Alberta.”
As a graduate of this fine institution back a few decades, I know that the U of A receives considerable funding from the Provincial Government, which in turn receives considerable revenue streams from royalties on oil/gas sales and leasing of Crown land to tar sands and gas projects. Big Oil also directly funds the University with ‘dirty’ industry money.
Logically, it is clear that these researchers must be partially funded by ‘big tar sands’ and ‘big gas’, and therefore cannot be trusted. 🙂
______________________________________________________________
Chris, your premise is that those connected with “big oil” and “Big gas” are not to be trusted. That is very smart.
As a Canadian you therefore must know of “big oil” Maurice Strong, father of the UN First Earth Summit, where he brought up “Global Warming” and Chairman of Kyoto.
Worse Strong was a senior advisor to the World Bank. So by your logic you should not trust Maurice Strong, Father of the global Warming and the Environmental movement.
Lest you think oil companies are fighting Cap and Trade, there is this from an eye witness journalist:
“On that day, August 4, 1997, then-CEO [of BP], (then-Sir) John Browne, joined by Ken Lay, met in the Oval with President Clinton and Vice President Gore.
Their mission that day? As revealed in the August 1, 1997 Lay briefing memo whiih I was later provided — having left a brief dance with Enron after raising questions about this very issue — it was to demand that the White House ignore unanimous Senate instruction pursuant to Art. II, Sec. 2 of the Constitution (”advice”, of “advice and consent” fame), and to go to Kyoto and agree to the “global warming” treaty.
Oh, and to enact a cap-and-trade scheme….” http://biggovernment.com/chorner/2010/06/15/bps-excellent-oval-office-adventure/#more-132782
SO please look at the global warming camp for the backing of the oil companies, you will find it in spades.
Roger Knights says:
June 16, 2010 at 2:34 pm
CodeTech says:
June 16, 2010 at 8:12 am
Fairbanks: 35,000 – metro area 97,000 (2008 census)
Anchorage: 279,000 (2008 census)
Edmonton: 782,439 – Metro area: 1,034,945 (2009 census)
Quote from wiki: “making it the northernmost North American city with a metropolitan population over one million”.
Not a big deal to me, really, and it might even be pedantic for me to point it out… but I’m not sure I personally consider 300,000-ish to be a major city. YMMV.
chris y – I got your little joke, very amusing too. Most Americans don’t do the irony/sarc thing too well though. Must be something (rotten ice?) in the water up there 😉
“Big Oil also directly funds the University with ‘dirty’ industry money.”
The CRU was founded with funding from British Petroleum and Dutch Shell – not to mention Nuclear Power interests – in the 1970’s when they thought we headed into another ice age.
Since then they’ve re-calibrated their message and are currently funding the AGW grant machine.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/about/history/
the most detailed look yet at the thickness of the ice has turned up a reassuring picture.
But the PIOMAS graph doesn’t. So they are wrong.
😉
The meltdown has not been as dire as some would suggest,
He doesn’t agree with what the PIOMAS graph shows. So he is wrong.
😉
Alan F wrote (June 16, 2010 at 11:21 am ):
As always doom & gloom guesstimation garners media fireworks and headlines while actual measurements snag a footnote on page 100 opposite that coupon for GE fluorescent bulbs on page 99. This wasn’t on any Canadian news that I’m aware of. David Suzuki buying new hemp socks is more likely to end up on the CBC News with an in depth follow-up by CTV.
I read the story this morning in the Telegraph-Journal (New Brunswick), a paper not generally given to anything but the AGW version. For the story, see: http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/rss/article/1096396
It’s the same story as in the Vancouver Sun, I am sure.
IanM
They found large expanses of ice four to five metres thick, despite the record retreat in 2007.
The PIOMAS graph shows things are worse that 2007. So they are wrong.
“This is a nice demonstration that there is still hope for the ice,”
Nope. The PIOMAS graph shows the ‘death spiral’.
The survey, which demonstrated that the “bird” probe tethered to a plane can measure ice thickness over large areas,
But is is wrong since it didn’t show the same thing the PIOMAS graph shows.
uncovered plenty of resilient “old” ice from Norway to the North Pole to Alaska
That is impossible. The PIOMAS graph doesn’t show that.
There is already speculation about how the ice will fare this summer, with some scientists predicting a record melt. Haas said he doesn’t buy it.</i.
Hey, I'd like to be optimistic and agree. But the PIOMAS graph just wont let me.