It is still quite cold in the Arctic, with below normal air temperatures and sea surface temperatures surrounding the ice pack between around 2-4°C. Much of that has to do with meltwater. I’ve added this image to our new WUWT Sea Ice Page tonight.
Source: http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/satellite/index.uk.php
But looking at another product from the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) there’s an indication of even colder temperatures, now hitting the freezing line in the middle of the Arctic summer.
While this most certainly could be a temporary blip, it seems the temperature in the arctic above 80°N as calculated by DMI has steadily declined and hit 0°C a bit early (just past midway) in the Arctic melt season.
See the graph below:
Source: http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
Here’s the 3x magnified view of the top of the graph:
Much of the melt season so far has been below the green “normal climate” line. While it is just another data point (i.e. weather) , it is a curious and interesting development worth watching. The past few days melt has been accelerating, a bit, but with a dropping Arctic core temperature it would seem to suggest perhaps this is limited to some traditional melt zones for this time of year, such as near the Chukchi sea.
Look for more in WUWT Sea Ice News #15 this weekend.
h/t to WUWT reader phlogiston
pesadilla says:
July 20, 2010 at 12:13 am
Once again AGW (as predicted) is becoming a health hazard.
Cold is harder on human life than warm. So you could be right.
“Don Easterbrook, Impacts of global cooling”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YhDLF6s-XY
Not a problem. GISS will simply extrapolate the Arctic temps from stations located in Phoenix, AR or perhaps Death Valley, CA. There are no low temps in the Arctic, its just ‘weather’ after all.
Who are you going to believe, your lying eyes or the Government?
rbateman says:
July 20, 2010 at 12:34 am
Goes along with the recent happenings in S. America and Antarctica.
What do your instincts tell you? A big Cold One coming on?
Joe Bastardi and Don Easterbrook are both saying winter 2010/11 is going to be a very cold one.
@ur momisugly jimbo
As far as I can see the ASU temps have been below last year every day in July. This is a radical change from the direction for almost a year. I believe that almost every day from Jan – Jun the temps in 2010 virtually every day was reported higher than the same day in 2009.
While this is admittedly ‘raw’ data (adjustments made) , it is nonetheless an interesting change.
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/data/amsu_daily_85N85S_chLT.r001.txt
Michael Schafer says:
July 20, 2010 at 1:43 am
Time to start knitting warm socks and pullovers, folks!
As long as Pachauri has his women under his quilt and Al Gore has his masseuses at his ocean view mansion heated by solar all is right with the world and the rest of us can eat cake.
sarc off
Anthony,
I haven’t heard from you if you want to use
http://home.comcast.net/~ewerme/wuwt/cryo_latest.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~ewerme/wuwt/cryo_compare.png
Currently Cryosphere seems to be updating things at 1024 CDT, and I’m currently fetching them at 1145 EDT.
REPLY: Hi Ric, sorry. My Inbox is like a firehose. Is there a chance you could convert the compare.png to a JPEG? The PNG file is so large that it will really hose people on dialup. (Yes we have readers on dialup still).
Thanks for your efforts and consideration – Anthony
Icarus says:
July 20, 2010 at 3:09 am
“Interesting, but in the big picture, the decline of Arctic sea ice extent seems pretty consistent…”
To get the real big picture you have to look at total global sea ice cover. What does this tell you about global warming?
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
Well that is simply because melting is endothermic, so the air just above a melting ice will be colder if there’s more melting. It will also depend strongly on air movements and the location of the sensor.
But but but….June was the warmest ever!!!!!
Interesting, but in the big picture, the decline of Arctic sea ice extent seems pretty consistent:
…
None of those negative trends show any sign of changing, as far as I can tell.
—–
I don’t know how those numbers are calculated, but I look at the IARC-JAXA graph and I see positive trends, roughly speaking from a 2006 low, from January to May
for 2007 to 2010. I also see a positive trend emerging from July to Nov, since 2007 if 2010 continues as expected.
Those trends, when subsumed in the larger calculations for decadal trends are not enough to change the sign, so you are right to point out we should not expect to see a change in sign. In fact, if 1979 is (presumed to be) the high ice mark across a year, and the decadal trends are calculated from that date, then there never would be a change in sign until that year is matched (over a period of time), now would there, and even then the trends would be only be zero? But all during that time the percent change in those monthly trends would be getting smaller and smaller, until they were zero.
I look forward to another 15 or 20 years of people saying “None of those negative trends show any sign of changing, as far as I can tell” until we are back where we started. With any luck 1979 is a high mark in an even greater past period of time than mere satellite data and we can look forward to an almost constant period of negative trends.
To put the dot over “i” from my side here are three (not only) temp maps covering Arctic region:
http://www.uni-koeln.de/math-nat-fak/geomet/meteo/winfos/arcisoTTPPWW.gif
http://www.uni-koeln.de/math-nat-fak/geomet/meteo/winfos/snowarctis.gif
http://www.uni-koeln.de/math-nat-fak/geomet/meteo/winfos/synNNWWarctis.gif
Regards
“Arctic ice melting fast, may reach all-time low, Russia says”:
http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=aex8XOH8aaJM
(This is based on end-of-June figures.)
Molon Labe says:
July 20, 2010 at 1:02 am
Is Stephen Schneider dead?
Yes go to WUWT home page and scroll down
Michael Schafer says:
July 20, 2010 at 1:43 am
Welcome to the world of wishful thinking.
Icarus says:
July 20, 2010 at 3:09 am
Trends are an inconvenient truth.
stevengoddard says:
July 20, 2010 at 3:38 am
“Temperatures are quite warm over the East Siberian Sea, which is where most of the melting is occurring now. We may see an increase in the rate of ice extent loss later this week.”
————————————————————————————-
And quite a big one too.
“None of those negative trends show any sign of changing, as far as I can tell.”
The sticky thing about trends is knowing when they change.
Jimbo says:
July 20, 2010 at 4:04 am
Joe Bastardi
MONDAY 11:30 PM
GLOBAL TEMPS GO BELOW LAST YEAR!
For the first time this year, the global temps have retreated below last years level.
And yet Spencer’s AQUA channel 05 data is showing the hottest day in its record (since 02) and it’s hotter than his record value for the day (78-98). So that should mean it’s the hottest day in the satellite record if you believe Spencer’s inter satellite ‘adjustments’.
With four and a half full cords of fire wood cut, split and drying in the tepid Washington sunlight, I’m adding more. Making firewood heats you many times, before you burn it! It takes you outside for a full body workout and leaves you with an immediate sense of accomplishment as the wood pile grows. And, better than money in the bank, it is right there next to the house and available for immediate withdrawals anytime, day or night and regardless of what the climate models are predicting. When the winter storms knock power lines down, the house is always warm and inviting, with no worries about freezing water lines and no annoying thutter from an ’emergency generator’ . I take pride in telling greenies ‘My house is heated with sustainable biofuels. How about yours?’. Granted, it is a bit difficult to haul a cord of cut block wood in a Prius, or the lumber to build a base for their yurt, but that was their choice.
I think I’m getting the ‘hang’ of this sustainable lifestyle thingy…..
Well, I guess it is a little more interesting than watching paint dry.
So Phil, where do you think all this heat is coming from? Trapped above and “back radiated” or from below where heat is actually absorbed, stored and released?
Have you looked at the OHC and SST data the last 8 months?
Robert says:
July 20, 2010 at 4:46 am
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/satellite/index.uk.php
“Switch it to anomalies and suddenly goddard’s analysis doesn’t make sense. Why didn’t you show the anomaly map instead of the absolute temperature map. Is it because one shows warmth in the arctic and the other gives the impression of cooling?”
Anomalies are for trends. Temps are for how cold or warm things are. Trix are for kids.
If the anomaly is +10.5C and the temperature is -40C, the ice she aint’a gonna’ melt, eh?
Jack Simmons says:
July 20, 2010 at 4:58 am
No Northwest Passage For You!
I seem to recall lots of discussion last year about boats sailing through the Northwest Passage.
Has this stopped this year, or am I just missing the sailing of the flotillas?
A bit early yet, for example last year Fleur Australe left Greenland on 28th July heading west. Indications so far are for a clear passage possibly by both routes.
If anyone is interested, there is a “prediction marketplace” up that is taking bets on Arctic Sea Ice for this year.
http://stip.inklingmarkets.com/markets/29529
Mike Haseler says:
July 20, 2010 at 1:05 am
Off topic news
NGO promotes ducks as solution to global warming, rice insufficiency…..
?!?WHAT?!?
_____________________________________________________
It is nothing really new. Actually it is the reapplication of old technology. The “Green Revolution” promoted monoculture farming, machines, pesticides, herbicides, patented seed… to replace the older more labor intensive methods (and make boodles of money for banks and corporations)
Murrary McMurray Hatchery has been selling “weeder” geese for years. They used to be used to weed cotton fields.
People now build chicken trackers for their garden plots to improve the soil and eat bugs.
Guinea Fowl are great for insect control especially ticks and normally do not eat plants though they will eat weed seeds. They are also very good at “raising the alarm” (very loud buggers)
Pigs used to be run in orchards to eat the dropped fruit that was full of bug larva. An ancient method for clearing a field of stumps was to take a crow bar and poke holes around the stumps, fill the holes with corn and turn the hogs lose. In rooting for the corn the hogs would dig up and push over the stump. However you have to build a hog proof fence or have “trained” hogs, so a bulldozer or stump grinder is easier. (bulldozers strip of the topsoil so a stump grinder is preferred but again more labor intense)
Goats are used to clear out under brush and weeds from pastures.
Horses are used to “timber” on fragile soil to prevent soil erosion. A good timber horse will snake a log through the woods without human attendance. Some farmers with clay soil do not use anything but horses, mules or ox because tractors compact the soil.
This, more labor intensive type of farming (organic) is the type of farming now promoted as “low carbon” I prefer a mix of technologies – whatever works best starting with the traditional solutions and using the modern solutions where the older solutions do not work. For example running goats and sheep in my pastures to eat the plants the cows and horses would not. Spot spraying 2-4D or round-up on whatever no one will eat like sicklepod or jimsonweed.