It’s refreshing to see NSIDC director Mark Serreze coming to grips with his role in stirring up Arctic ice scare stories (like the famous “death spiral”) in 2007:
“In hindsight, probably too much was read into 2007, and I would take some blame for that,” Serreze said. “There were so many of us that were astounded by what happened, and maybe we read too much into it.”
Here’s some excerpts from the article:
With sea ice levels in the Arctic at record lows this month, a new report comparing scientists’ predictions calls for caution in over-interpreting a few weeks worth of data from the North Pole.
The Sea Ice Outlook, which will be released this week, brings together more than a dozen teams’ best guesses at how much sea ice will disappear by the end of the warm season in September. This year began with a surprise. More sea ice appeared than anticipated, nearing its mean level from 1979-2007. But then ice levels plummeted through May and into June. Scientists have never seen the Arctic with less ice at this time of year in the three decades they’ve been able to measure it, and they expect below average ice for the rest of the year.
But looking ahead, the ultimate amount of sea ice melt is hard to determine. Some trends, like the long-term warming of the Arctic and overall decreases in the thickness of sea ice, argue for very low levels of sea ice. But there are countervailing factors, too: The same weather pattern that led to higher-than-normal temperatures in the Arctic this year is also changing the circulation of sea ice, which could keep it in colder water and slow the melting.
“For this date, it’s the lowest we’ve seen in the record, but will that pattern hold up? We don’t know. The sea ice system surprises us,” said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
The loss of summer sea ice over decades is one of the firmest predictions of climate models: Given the current patterns of fossil fuel use and the amount of carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere, sea-ice-free summers in the arctic are a virtual certainty by the end of century, and possibly much sooner. As the globe heats up, the poles are disproportionately affected. Warmer temperatures melt ice, revealing the dark sea water that had previously been covered. That changes the albedo, or reflectivity, of the area, allowing it to absorb more heat. That, along with many other feedback loops makes predicting change in the Arctic immensely difficult.
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Correction:
“….don’t you think.[?]”
Arctic sea ice charts and observations have been documented over the last hundred years, while not as accurate as Satelitte measurement they would have picked up some decline, if it had been significant.
Andrew30 says:
June 20, 2010 at 6:20 am
“The Arctic will be Ice Free in 2013.”
“This is the most widely publicized ‘prediction’ from the CAGW camp. It is ‘predicted’ that the Arctic will be Ice Free during 2013. That is the only ‘prediction’ that I am aware of that occurs within the lifetime of any of the ‘predictors’. It is less than three years away.”
RESPONSE:
2013 IS NOT the most widely publicized prediction for “ice free summers in the Arctic”. 2020-2030 is. 2013 came from Maslowski whose prediction is an outlier compared to the others. He has now changed his predictions to 2016 +/- 3 years.
Maslowski’s new predictions, in my opinion revised because he knew it was going to fall short, is the equivalent of having your cake and eating it. If it actually were 3 years before 2016 it would verify his original prediction, bit if it were 3 years after it would fall short of 1 year of 2020 which actually seems to be where things are going.
Whether Maslowski is right or wrong, and I believe he’s definitely wrong, is irrelevant. What is relevant is that harrywr2 said is going to come back and haunt him:
“Because it’s the ‘game changer’, the ice at the poles melt, the albedo of the earth changes, sea levels rise and we all drown in boiling water or something like that.”
As the Arctic becomes mostly ice free, which happen in about half the time range of the predictions of TOTAL lack of ice (10-20 divided by two=5-10=2015-2010), It is going to have a massive impact on the weather of the Northern Hemisphere.
Increased torrential rainfall due to the increased humidity that will come from the increased evaporation of an open and warming ocean. There will also be droughts.
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
June 20, 2010 at 6:54 am
“Warmer temperatures melt ice, revealing the dark sea water that had previously been covered. That changes the albedo”
“blah, blah, blah, blah, blah”
RESPONSE:
What other overwhelming rational arguments can you give us?
Yes, the statement “We don’t know” is strangely reminiscent of Schneider’s back in the late 70’s when the Coming Ice Age was all the rage.
Here’s a picture something that’s worth a 1000 words on the subject:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/seaice.anomaly.Ant_arctic.jpg
So, whatever the Arctic_Antarctic Sea Ice is doing, it’s doing it in harmony.
Nature at it’s finest. We are the bugs in the antfarm of the planet.
R. Gates says:
June 20, 2010 at 8:56 am
What is the trend is this graphic:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/seaice.anomaly.Ant_arctic.jpg
I assume you are proficient in calculating slopes.
villabolo says: June 20, 2010 at 9:31 am
2013 IS NOT the most widely publicized prediction for “ice free summers in the Arctic”
Actually, it is and has been since 2007. It has appeared in the news in Canada anytime the subject of Global Warning has been raised in the news, on television and radio interviews, and in the newspapers.
The prediction is: The Arctic will be Ice Free in 2013.
BillD says:
June 20, 2010 at 7:07 am
Clearly, the trend over the last 30 years is most important and not what happens during a certain month or even a particular year.
What’s been happening in the ice over the last 1000 years would be better.
If these short term occurrences don’t mean anything then those who began shouting about the end of the world because of what happened in 2007 are profoundly wrong. And to that I’m sure you’d agree.
Jimbo says:
June 20, 2010 at 8:10 am
“How did the Arctic loss of ice reflectivity in September 2007 affect September 2008 and September 2009? Answer: increase in sea ice extent in 2008 and 2009.”
RESPONSE:
I think that a lack of perception of the big picture is what allows you to make very simplistic arguments. First of all, do you actually believe, because you are strongly implying it, that albedo has no affect on heat absorption?
As for 2007, and years prior to it, the increased heat absorption was obviously a contributor to the melting and thinning of the multiyear ice. That ice was being attacked from below. You can see this in the color coded ice thickness images such as:
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20091005_Figure5.png
Please note that from 2007 through 2009 there was a massive decrease in the green, which represents 3-10 year ice, in spite of surface area increase with thin 1 and 2 year ice.
Now take a look at what happened to the thickness of the ice from September of 2009, which is the end of summer and beginning of winter, and March of 2010, the end of winter. Please keep in mind that this is HAPPENING IN THE WINTER!:
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20100406_Figure6.png
As far as the ice extent you mentioned, keep in mind that it happens in the winter. It was a La Nina winter in 2008 and 2009 which was colder than El Nino. That would affect the thin surface ice that won’t even survive the summer. It won’t affect the persistent and consistent thinning of multiyear ice because, since ice is a good insulator, the warmer waters below that are eating away at it won’t be affected by slightly colder air temperatures.
It is this colder air temperature that affected, in part, the ice extent. And before you tell me that those warmer waters should have eliminated the thin crust of ice extent in the first place let me tell you this. First year ice used to be an average of 3 feet thick up to 5 at times. It no longer is.
barry
June 20, 2010 at 8:23 am
Barry, relax. What happens in a 1 year or 30 year period doesn’t matter.
Let’s look at the bigger picture. For example what happened in Arctic ice from 1945 to 1975?
Let’s keep it is context.
villabolo
my point is that talk of albedo has been beaten to death
There is more ice in the Arctic now than in 2007.
The ‘death spiral’ is not happening.
villabolo says: June 20, 2010 at 9:31 am
“As the Arctic becomes mostly ice free, which happen in about half the time range of the predictions of TOTAL lack of ice”
Ice Free means No Ice, None.
Does “mostly ice free” mean not as thick as at the peak of the last Ice Age?
I can not even guess at what the weasel words “TOTAL lack of ice” might mean, but it sounds like it does not mean Ice Free.
The Prediction Is: The Arctic will be Ice Free in 2013.
R. Gates,
You finally show up. I didn’t see any comments from you in the DC-3 survey thread. There was not one.
The worry is that some poe-dunk little red haired country bumbkin figured this out WHILE the melt was occurring in 2007, and figured out the possibility of re-growth, all based on topographical independent variables, oceanic oscillations, and atmospheric weather pattern variations. None of my 3 degrees are in Arctic Science.
Hell, it even worries me.
The prediction of 2013 for an ice free Arctic ocean in the summer has been the most widely publicized date, but it is NOT the most widely accepted date by the actual experts in the field, nor the mean date given by GCM’s. The media have used it so much because it is so sensational and relatively close, and AGW skeptics love to pounce upon it to show how foolish the AGW believers are and how wrong their models are. It might be helpful if some readers would review these presentation:
http://soa.arcus.org/sites/soa.arcus.org/files/sessions/1-1-advances-understanding-arctic-system-components/pdf/1-1-7-maslowski-wieslaw.pdf
ftp://ftp.gfdl.gov/pub/r1m/articles/Wang_Overland_GRL_09.pdf
The second presentation is especially helpful in understanding the varibility within models and how difficult it is to pin down a precise year (or even decade) when the Arctic will be ice free. When I hear or read AGW skeptics as they keep quoting the 2013 date given by Maslowski in December 2007, right after the low 2007 melt season, then I know that they are simply mouthing off and parroting information they get from the rather uneducated media or even worse, from some AGW skeptical pundits, rather than doing any actual research or study of the cryosphere for themselves.
My analysis and study of all the data over the past 20 years– Arctic will see an ice free period in the summers before 2030 and the AGW very likely the cause. After the first few ice free summers, the length of period in the summer of being ice free will increase gradually from days at first and then to weeks and eventually to months.
Some nice movies of future projections, that aren’t too far off my own proejction can be found here:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/IDAO/multi.html
And yep, these are CICE/PIOMAS based on not PIPS 2.0!
villabolo says:
June 20, 2010 at 9:31 am
2013 IS NOT the most widely publicized prediction for “ice free summers in the Arctic”.
At the end of 2008 Al Gore said the Arctic could be ice free in “5 years”. That is 2013. I would link the video from YouTube of him saying it but for some reason, strangely, that video is gone now.
Andrew30 says:
June 20, 2010 at 10:04 am
villabolo says: June 20, 2010 at 9:31 am
2013 IS NOT the most widely publicized prediction for “ice free summers in the Arctic”
“Actually, it is and has been since 2007. It has appeared in the news in Canada anytime the subject of Global Warning has been raised in the news, on television and radio interviews, and in the newspapers.”
RESPONSE:
It appears, Andrew, that you are confusing what the general Media has to say and what the actual scientists are saying. This is what you originally said:
“This is the most widely publicized ‘prediction’ from the CAGW camp. It is ‘predicted’ that the Arctic will be Ice Free during 2013. That is the only ‘prediction’ that I am aware of that occurs within the lifetime of any of the ‘predictors’. It is less than three years away.”
And in an earlier post you said:
“I have heard it on the Front Page of every newspaper for years.
They must drop the ‘theory’ if the prediction is not observed.”
I simply quoted your statement about the “CAGW camp”
You do realize that there is a distinction between the Media and the actual scientists (“CAGW camp”), don’t you? The Media in general not only has a tendency to sensationalize things it also has no, or at the best, the most shallow understanding of ANY subject that it covers.
My prediction is 5.5. That is the only number I have given for 2010
jcrabb says:
June 20, 2010 at 9:16 am
Arctic sea ice charts and observations have been documented over the last hundred years,
Could I have a link to that.
Andrew30,
An ice free summer in 2013 was one prediction amongst many. It comes from a single source. By contrast, the IPCC predicted summer time ice-free Arctic by the end of the century. Other predictions I’m familiar with are ~2040 or ~2065. I don’t take 2013 very seriously, though it seems to be popular at skeptical sites.
The 2013 prediction crops up regularly at WUWT. Otherwise, it doesn’t feature too highly in Australia. But you might get different news in Canada – take issue with your journalists.
villabolo says:
June 20, 2010 at 9:37 am
What other overwhelming rational arguments can you give us?
You want rationality? I doubt an alarmist cares for rationality.
Almost all the trolls are back out.
I also love it when the rather uneducated AGW skeptic points at the Antarctic sea ice and says, “but but look at these charts! Surely they prove that AGW models are crap!”.
What is sad is that many very smart AGW skeptics don’t want to really take a look at the very big differences between the Arctic and Antarctic, with one being essentially an ocean surrounded by land, and the second being land surrounded by ocean, and each having very different dynamics in the annual variability and formation of sea ice. All GCM’s have shown the Arctic to show more atmospheric warming than the Antarctic, but in addition, the Arctic sea ice is much more under the influence of energy transport to the region via ocean currents, with heat measured in terawatts coming from both the Atlantic, via the West Spitzbergen Current for example, and Pacific, with heat coming through the Bering Strait. In the Antarctic, in addition to the thinning ozone layer, which affects wind patterns and thus, sea ice formation, other studies has suggested even more causes of a general trend of increasing Antarctic sea ice on a year to year basis:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/zhang/Pubs/Zhang_Antarctic_20-11-2515.pdf
Bottom line: For a AGW skeptic to simply point at increasing Antarctic Sea ice as proof that AGW models are wrong tells me they’ve not done quite enough homework yet.
R. Gates
you brought up PIOMAS already. But you didn’t bring it up in the Arctic ice survey thread.
villabolo says:
June 20, 2010 at 9:31 am
“Bla bla bla…. rainfall bla bla bla….droughts.”
Typical chicken-bones prediction. There will be rain and droughts.
Meaningless drivel.