By Steve Goddard
We are seeing a number of interesting polar ice milestones this month. First, WUWT now has a new permanent Sea Ice Page, where you can find all of the live graphs and images in one place. Details here.
Second, it has been the slowest July (1-17) Arctic melt in the eight year JAXA record.
Ice extent has declined at less than half the rate of 2007, and total ice loss has been more than 200,000 km² less than the previous low in 2004.
DMI now shows Arctic ice extent as second highest for the date, topped only by 2005.
Closeup below.
Cryosphere Today shows that ice extent and concentration is about the same as it was 20 years ago.
The modified NSIDC map below shows in green, areas where ice is present in 2010 but was not present in 2007.
The modified NSIDC map below shows (in red) ice loss over the last week. Note that ice extent has increased slightly in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas, while it has declined slightly in the East Siberian Sea.
The modified NSIDC map below shows the record low ice loss since the first of the month.
The modified NSIDC map below shows ice loss since early April.
The graph below shows PIPS ice thickness over the last five years. Average ice thickness in 2010 continues to track a little below 2006. It should bottom out in the next week or so between 2006 and 2009.
The low ice loss is consistent with the low Arctic temperatures we have seen this summer.
The North Pole webcam below shows that the meltponds are frozen over. Temperatures have been below -5°C this week. Very cold for July.
The video below shows ice movement since the start of June. Note that we are starting to see a clockwise circulation setting up again, which hints at increased ice loss over the rest of the month.
Another factor suggesting increased ice loss is the NCEP forecast, which projects warm temperatures over the East Siberian Sea and Arctic Basin for the next few days.
A third factor suggesting increased ice loss the rest of the month is that the the ice concentration has declined, due to winds exerting tensile stress on the ice. This allows more sunlight to reach the water and warm it. I expect to see the ice extent graphs showing steeper losses towards the end of the week, primarily in the East Siberian Sea.
GISS thinks it has been hot in the Arctic.
This is primarily due to the fact that they have almost no coverage there, and that they make up numbers extrapolate across vast distances with no data.
Meanwhile down south, sea ice continues at a record high level for the date.
July has been typified by record low ice loss in the north, and record high ice gain in the south. Global sea ice is above normal.
If the current trends were to continue, there is a small possibility that we will see a record maximum global sea ice extent towards the end of September. One thing is for sure – no matter what happens, the press will continue to be fed reports that the poles are “melting down” due to “record heat.”
Thrasher, I’m not including all the regions in the Arctic, only those that border the central Arctic Ocean. Yes, there is still ice in the Canadian Archipelago, Baffin Bay, E. Greenland Sea.
wayne,
These regions are not the whole arctic.
Wayne, when you include all the regions of the Arctic, then 2010 has less ice than in 1990. I was only looking at the central Arctic and the regions bordering it.
Julienne says at 2:24 pm [ … ]
And your prediction is …?
C’mon, Julienne, step up to the plate!☺
Julienne says:
July 20, 2010 at 4:37 pm
Wayne, when you include all the regions of the Arctic, then 2010 has less ice than in 1990. I was only looking at the central Arctic and the regions bordering it.
~~~~~
Ok. Still amazing that these regions you listed above of some 5.5 million km2 of extent shows 2010 greater than 1990. I just find that very curious and I know it shifts year to year and date to date, still I find it curious. That’s twenty years ago levels, ok, just for these central regions.
Julienne,
UIUC maps show only 30+% concentration ice. Your numbers are for 15+% concentration ice. Thus the reason why your numbers don’t agree with UIUC maps.
Pamela Gray says:
July 20, 2010 at 1:53 pm
Wow. I had no idea the Earth pays attention to calendar dates. Is she sentient? Now that’s a new AGW affect we haven’t heard yet.
Anu, you can come up with something better than this. Your point is too silly to consider seriously.
I’ll just assume you were enjoying the summer with some alcoholic beverages today.
Humans made up calendars based on Earth orbit events (the Sumerians and Egyptians made the first calendars about 5000 years ago):
http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/booksellers/press_release/studentscience/gif/equinox1.gif
The northern hemisphere “Summer” is from the June 21 Summer Solstice to the September 22 Autumnal Equinox. It’s not by accident that Summer is hotter than Spring.
Now note where the Arctic sea ice extent bottoms out:
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent_L.png
Did I mention Autumn starts September 22 ? That’s when the Summer melt season ends. The actual date of minimum sea ice extent varies a few days around that date. Mark it on your calendar.
And enjoy the Summer…
Anu, records reported for a particular date are not meaningful. It is a good example of data rich, information poor arguments. Trend lines are data rich, information poor. Global averages are data rich, information poor…etc…etc…etc.
Give me your explanation, your thoughts, your insights, your review of references. Otherwise you are quoting phone numbers from the phone book, which would also be data rich, information poor.
Steven: July 19, 2010 at 5:10 am…
indeed you are correct… I assume you do know the NSIDC graph I refer to http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20100720_Figure2.png
and I must have had a cache issue as I saw your post, went to check, pressed refresh and got a couple of new week’s data showing the line had crept above the 2007 again. So yeah who says I never fess up to a mistake… sorry.
Tim Clark: “Are you arguing that [CO2] hasn’t been higher than ~380ppm in the past, or that man-emitted CO2 somehow magically reacts differently than naturally occurring [CO2]?”
Neither. I’m saying that we have a situation where large quantities of man-made CO2 emissions are raising atmospheric levels. As far as we know, this is a unique occurrence, since never before in human history have we produced such high levels of emissions.
Dirk H: “…if from A follows B and A is false, then it does not follow automatically that B is false.”
Fair enough. Nevertheless, if the original claim can be shown to be wrong, the conclusion can also be shown to be at least doubtful. Whether or not that would constitute a falsification would depend on one’s view of the evidence.
Smokey: “…I was specifically responding to David Gould’s comment on skepticism.”
Which is why I called you on your straw man. To regard knowledge as more or less provisional, with varying degrees of certainty, is to adopt a properly sceptical attitude.
“The vast majority of the rise in CO2 is the direct result of planetary warming since the LIA…”
That’s advocacy talk there, Smokey. What happened to 100% scepticism?
PIOMAS has now been updated again:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/images/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrent.png
The uptick at the end brings the anomaly back to the same 10.6 or 10.7 k(km^2) it was in the last update. Presumably this was caused by the cold conditions in the Beaufort Sea:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/data/composites/comp.day.pl?var=Air+Temperature&level=Surface&iy%5B1%5D=&im%5B1%5D=&id%5B1%5D=&iy%5B2%5D=&im%5B2%5D=&id%5B2%5D=&iy%5B3%5D=&im%5B3%5D=&id%5B3%5D=&iy%5B4%5D=&im%5B4%5D=&id%5B4%5D=&iy%5B5%5D=&im%5B5%5D=&id%5B5%5D=&iy%5B6%5D=&im%5B6%5D=&id%5B6%5D=&iy%5B7%5D=&im%5B7%5D=&id%5B7%5D=&iy%5B8%5D=&im%5B8%5D=&id%5B8%5D=&iy%5B9%5D=&im%5B9%5D=&id%5B9%5D=&iy%5B10%5D=&im%5B10%5D=&id%5B10%5D=&iy%5B11%5D=&im%5B11%5D=&id%5B11%5D=&iy%5B12%5D=&im%5B12%5D=&id%5B12%5D=&iy%5B13%5D=&im%5B13%5D=&id%5B13%5D=&iy%5B14%5D=&im%5B14%5D=&id%5B14%5D=&iy%5B15%5D=&im%5B15%5D=&id%5B15%5D=&iy%5B16%5D=&im%5B16%5D=&id%5B16%5D=&iy%5B17%5D=&im%5B17%5D=&id%5B17%5D=&iy%5B18%5D=&im%5B18%5D=&id%5B18%5D=&iy%5B19%5D=&im%5B19%5D=&id%5B19%5D=&iy%5B20%5D=&im%5B20%5D=&id%5B20%5D=&monr1=7&dayr1=11&monr2=7&dayr2=17&iyr%5B1%5D=2010&filenamein=&plotlabel=&lag=0&labelc=Color&labels=Shaded&type=1&scale=&label=0&cint=1&lowr=-3&highr=3&istate=0&proj=Custom&xlat1=55&xlat2=90&xlon1=0&xlon2=360&custproj=Northern+Hemisphere+Polar+Stereographic&level1=1000mb&level2=10mb&Submit=Create+Plot
” stevengoddard says:
July 19, 2010 at 7:06 pm
I’m looking at areas of potentially perennial ice in the Arctic interior. There appears to be more ice there in 2010 than 1990 in the UIUC maps.
In my reports, I have consistently ignored those regions which almost always melt before September”
” Julienne says:
July 20, 2010 at 4:34 pm
Thrasher, I’m not including all the regions in the Arctic, only those that border the central Arctic Ocean. Yes, there is still ice in the Canadian Archipelago, Baffin Bay, E. Greenland Sea.”
So these two people actually agree? Makes my heart feel warm.
Brendan me boi, you wouldn’t know skepticism if it bit you on the a… nkle.
This newfangled CO2=CAGW conjecture claiming that a tiny trace gas will lead to thermogeddon is just a silly notion invented to generate grant money and power for the unelected, nothing more. Here’s a pie chart showing the fraction of atmospheric CO2: click.
Did you see that bad carbon ol’ dioxide? What?? You didn’t? Well then, this chart shows the evil CO2 gas clouds comin’ to getcha: click
See? It’s gonna overwhelm us any day now… what’s that? You still can’t see the evil CO2 poison gas? Here, let me increase the resolution to 10X higher: click. If you can’t see it now, maybe you need new spectacles. Or a rational new conjecture.☺
It’s a free country, they say, and you are entitled to the crazy belief that a tiny trace gas rules the climate, and that any change is automatically bad. It doesn’t and it isn’t, of course, and any incidental warming is drowned out by many other, more important factors.
CO2 follows temperature; that is observable across all time scales — while the notion that CO2 causes any measurable global warming has yet to be shown with any testable, empirical evidence.
But by all means, continue to believe that CO2 is gonna getcha, against all the evidence. It won’t, but some folks have a need to worry about imaginary events. This chart shows more correlation with temperature than CO2 ever had.
Anyone who is not skeptical of the repeatedly falsified notion that CO2 will cause runaway global warming probably believes in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, because they aren’t really skeptical of anything.
Brendan H says:{July 21, 2010 at 12:01 am}
“I’m saying that we have a situation where large quantities of man-made CO2 emissions are raising atmospheric levels. As far as we know, this is a unique occurrence, since never before in human history have we produced such high levels of emissions.”
Your reference to “large quantities of man-made CO2 emissions” and “high levels of emissions” are obviously relative to the atmosphere as a whole.
Please re-read ” Smokey says: July 21, 2010 at 6:02 am”
@Smokey: Arguments based on the absolute proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere (~31 ppm as of April 2010) are stupid. If you disagree, you’re welcome to prove your point by breathing air with 391 ppm of hydrogen cyanide, or 391 ppm of carbon monoxide. After all, these trace gases can’t possibly be harmful.
@Steve Goddard: The recorded temperature at the POPS13 buoy is now around -13 degrees C. Are you going to claim that’s genuine data, or admit that it’s likely the instrument is malfunctioning?
Edit: that should of course be ~391 ppm CO2, apologies for the typo.
Peter Ellis,
That failed analogy is like saying water is dangerous because you can drown in six inches of it.
Although atmospheric CO2 has risen by over 35% in the past 150 years, you can’t show that it has had any effect on temperature. Maybe it has, but the planet’s emergence from the Little Ice Age is a much more credible explanation for the very minor 0.6° rise in temperature during that time. If a small part of that 0.6° rise is due to the one-third rise in atmospheric CO2, then we have absolutely nothing to worry about with regard to “carbon.”
Peter, if your analogy is a good comparison between trace gasses being toxic, you seem to infer that animal life would be improved. However, you would be wrong. We would all be anaerobic one celled bacteria without CO2, and lots of it. Without carbon dioxide residing in our lungs, we would not be able to take our next breath. CO2, as a gas, is as necessary for breathing animals as certain trace minerals are, which without them, we would not survive long.
Peter Ellis says:{July 21, 2010 at 7:19 am}
“@Smokey: Arguments based on the absolute proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere (~31 ppm as of April 2010) are stupid. If you disagree, you’re welcome to prove your point by breathing air with 391 ppm of hydrogen cyanide, or 391 ppm of carbon monoxide. After all, these trace gases can’t possibly be harmful.”
If the harmful level of CO2 is 5000 ppm then 381 ppm is but 7.6% of that harmful level. Your argument be more successful if you asked to prove the point by breathing in 7.6% of the harmful level of hydrogen cyanide or carbon monoxide. Or maybe it wouldn’t?
Smokey: “This newfangled CO2=CAGW conjecture claiming that a tiny trace gas will lead to thermogeddon is just a silly notion invented to generate grant money and power for the unelected, nothing more.”
More advocacy, Smokey? Let’s see your 100% scepticism in operation. What prevents you taking a 100% sceptical stance about your own claims?
“…while the notion that CO2 causes any measurable global warming has yet to be shown with any testable, empirical evidence.”
Just by way of interest, what would constitute “testable, empirical evidence” for CO2-induced global warming?
stevengoddard says:
July 19, 2010 at 8:18 pm
Phil,
An individual molecule has absolutely no knowledge of vapour pressure. Molecules freeze below the freezing point. The dew point is where sublimation is equal to freezing.
Vapour pressure is a statistical concept, and has no impact on the behaviour of individual molecules. The fact that you don’t understand something does not make someone else a “liar.” You lack both education and manners.
Sorry Steve, its clear you don’t know what you’re talking about here. Similarly to vapor pressure, temperature is a statistical concept – it is the measure of average kinetic energy of molecules in a substance. So from your statement above, an individual molecule also has no ‘knowledge’ of temperature… Speaking of which, it is strange to say ‘molecules freeze.’ Sorry Steve, individual molecules do not undergo phase changes, the phase is a bulk measure of an ensemble of molecules.
Your arrogance astounds me. I think a basic course in thermodynamics would do you some good.
Tim Clark: “Are you arguing that [CO2] hasn’t been higher than ~380ppm in the past, or that man-emitted CO2 somehow magically reacts differently than naturally occurring [CO2]?”
Brendan H says:
July 21, 2010 at 12:01 am
Neither. I’m saying that we have a situation where large quantities of man-made CO2 emissions are raising atmospheric levels. As far as we know, this is a unique occurrence, since never before in human history have we produced such high levels of emissions.
By your omission, you are admitting that CO2 has been higher in the past, regardless of source, which agrees with the science. Plants and animals survived. Man is still here. WUWT?
More correctly: An individual molecule has “approximately” no “knowledge” of the macroscopic observable quantities of the gas it is part of (This is almost true when gases are nearly ideal, that is, when intermolecular forces are negligible). Sorry for being OT here, though!