by Steven Goddard,
We have been watching temperatures and webcam images closely at the NOAA North Pole drifting weather station this year. Except for a few days in early July, they have looked like the series of images below – snow, ice and clouds. No open leads and little or no surface meltwater.
June 15 (NOAA 2) more images follow…
June 22 (NOAA 2)
July 6 (NOAA 1) Small ponds covered with ice
July 24 (NOAA 2) Small ponds covered with ice
August 2 (NOAA 2) Small ponds covered with ice
This correlates closely with the record cold temperatures this summer north of 80N
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
It hasn’t always been like this. John Daly did an excellent writeup on this topic a few years back. During May of 1987, Navy subs arrived at the North Pole and found lots of open water.
In 1959, the USS Skate surfaced at the North Pole, and reported this :
“the Skate found open water both in the summer and following winter. We surfaced near the North Pole in the winter through thin ice less than 2 feet thick.”
By contrast, the New York Times published this misinformation in 2000 :
The thick ice that has for ages covered the Arctic Ocean at the pole has turned to water, recent visitors there reported yesterday. At least for the time being, an ice-free patch of ocean about a mile wide has opened at the very top of the world, something that has presumably never before been seen by humans and is more evidence that global warming may be real and already affecting climate. The last time scientists can be certain the pole was awash in water was more than 50 million years ago.
This is in sharp contrast to the NYT prediction of an imminent ice free Arctic in 1969
Expert Says Arctic Ocean Will Soon Be an Open Sea”
Almost 200 years ago, the President of the Royal Society wrote this to the admiralty :
“It will without doubt have come to your Lordship’s knowledge that a considerable change of climate, inexplicable at present to us, must have taken place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of the cold that has for centuries past enclosed the seas in the high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice has been during the last two years, greatly abated.
(This) affords ample proof that new sources of warmth have been opened and give us leave to hope that the Arctic Seas may at this time be more accessible than they have been for centuries past, and that discoveries may now be made in them not only interesting to the advancement of science but also to the future intercourse of mankind and the commerce of distant nations.”
The image below from September 1, 1996 shows what summer ice typically looks like in the Arctic. Lots of open water between the ice. That is why places like NSIDC report extent as regions which have more than 15% ice concentration. The location below would be considered ice covered by NSIDC.
Sadly, UIUC seems to have “lost” their archive of ice concentration maps. It has been offline for two weeks now, so we can’t use that valuable resource for the time being. I wonder what’s up with that?
Oops! This link appears to be broken.
Two years ago, this news was famously reported :
(CNN) — The North Pole may be briefly ice-free by September as global warming melts away Arctic sea ice, according to scientists from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado. “We kind of have an informal betting pool going around in our center and that betting pool is ‘does the North Pole melt out this summer?’ and it may well,” said the center’s senior research scientist, Mark Serreze. It’s a 50-50 bet that the thin Arctic sea ice, which was frozen in autumn, will completely melt away at the geographic North Pole, Serreze said. The ice retreated to a record level in September when the Northwest Passage, the sea route through the Arctic Ocean, opened briefly for the first time in recorded history. “What we’ve seen through the past few decades is the Arctic sea ice cover is becoming thinner and thinner as the system warms up,” Serreze said….Serreze said it’s “just another indicator of the disappearing Arctic sea ice cover” but that it is happening so soon is “just astounding to me.”
Later in the summer, Mark Serreze reported on WUWT
The north pole issue: Back in June, there was some coverage about the possibility of the North Pole being ice free by the end of this summer. This was based on recognition that the area around the north pole was covered by firstyear ice that tends to be rather thin. Thin ice is the most vulnerable to melting our in summer. I gave it a 50/50 chance. Looks like I’ll lose my own bet and Santa Claus will be safe for another year. There was indeed some coverage a some years back of an open north pole (and I was interviewed). This opening, however, was pretty clearly causes by unusual winds breaking up this ice, and not from melting out.
And yet, in 1959 the US Navy reported ice less than two feet thick at the North Pole. North Pole ice is probably 2-3 times as thick now as it was a half century ago. The Navy knows ice and ice thickness – that is why I trust Navy PIPS over academic models like PIOMAS.
Our global warming friends seem to believe that the Arctic data set began with satellites in 1978, and they appear to have difficulty interpreting even that time period in an objective fashion. Satellites (unfortunately) came on line right at the start a period of warming, after 30 years of cooling temperatures and dire forecasts of an impending ice age.
Video of rising temperatures during the satellite era.
I think this is an interesting discussion, and I’m not one of the “warmists” who think that some historical data is completely without merit. Though the standards for such data must be higher than direct measurement. A few issues for me are:
1) How good of a proxy for general sea ice conditions is area of open water right at the North Pole? We all know that open water can appear anywhere at nearly anytime in the Arctic ice.
2) Skeptics to AGW would like to imply that accurate measurements of sea ice “just so happened” to have started when sea ice started trending down during a period of warming. I always get nervous when I hear of such “coincidences”– especially if the data resulting from this coincidence tends to show something unpopular with certain groups. But if this “coincidence” is the case, what is this down trend is Arctic ice do to, if not AGW? And more importantly, when is the next “up trend” in ice supposed to begin? GCM’s clearly predict the slow year-to-year down trend in summer sea ice in the Arctic, and the general mechanisms are pretty clear, even if all the feedbacks are not well understood.
3) Satellite data clearly shows that 1987 was mostly an above average year for sea ice, with the anomaly line staying well into positive territory the great majority of the time. Using a photograph of open water near the N. Pole in 1987 and trying to read anything significant about the general condition of Arctic Sea ice that year is a pretty weak argument, that seems a bit of a reach to me. I want science and data.
4) If indeed, we “just so happen” to have begun gathering accurate satellite data during a warm period, then we ought to see some pretty strong signs of an uptrend beginning some time soon, or does this downtrend “just so happen” to last until most of us are long dead and buried?
The Arctic Sea ice is THE issue for me when it comes to looking at evidence for or against AGW. Though scientists are looking at many other effects of AGW (such as stratospheric cooling, ocean levels, plankton, acidfication, etc.) which also seem to have merit and plausible physics and chemistry behind them, it seems the state of the Arctic and Arctic sea ice is the most easy to simply look at for the non-scientist. It is either slowly going down over a period of time or it isn’t. So far, it is going down over the longer term. Please don’t show me melt ponds or open water or temps for one season and try and talk about climate at all. That’s all weather. Warmist and skeptics alike are guilty of cherry picking weather to try and prove something, and this is where the longer term anomaly charts, like my one favorite chart from Cryosphere today comes in to play.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/sea.ice.anomaly.timeseries.jpg
If you want to get a feeling for the pulse of the Arctic sea ice, just look at this chart. It is accurate real data (not a model and not a local photograph) that spans the whole Arctic across decades. Zoom in and zoom out and get a feel for what the Arctic ice has done these past 30+ years. It is at this level that you can start to see the climate in action, and all the poltical pundantry on both sides falls away. You can see, quite easily that 2007, 2008, 2009, and now 2010 are remarkable years in the Arctic, with wide swings in the anomaly range. This graph reprsents the best “heartbeat” you’ll find of Arctic Sea ice. If AGW hypothesis is correct, or if it is ultimately proven as complete nonsense, if will be most easily seen on this “tale of the tape” as they like to call it. If I was a doctor reading the EKG of a patient and suddenly the last few years came across the monitor, I’d certainly have reason to take a big notice.
If the AGW skeptics are right, then we should begin to see a longer term uptrend on this chart at some point (assuming this “coincidental” warm period isn’t going to last until after we’re all dead). If the general tenets of the AGW hypothesis are correct, then we will indeed see a slow spiraling down of year-to-year Arctic sea ice which will end with an ice free summer Arctic some year when most of us reading this are still alive. We’ve not had a positive Arctic Sea ice anomaly since 2004. If the longest and deepest solar minimum in a century couldn’t produce a positive Arctic sea ice anomaly, what mechanism do the skeptics propose will? And take note, even though the Antarctic has been showing a general uptrend over the past few years in year-to-year ice, the Antarctic also has had several NEGATIVE anomalies in that same period.
It looks like the skeptics will have to wait at least another year as 2010 doesn’t appear to be the year that this long awaited uptrend will be starting in earnest after our “coincidental” period of warming.
13.Dan in California says:
August 3, 2010 at 2:11 pm
“Something is very puzzling. I looked at both NOAA cams and all seems to be boring. But a sister website referenced in these margins (solarcycle24.com) has this still photo from NetCam #2 Tue July 27 00:54:08 2010 UTC clearly showing a submarine.”
Not that you’d need a trained eye to spot this fake, but my eye is trained and that photo fairly screams Photoshop
I’m no scientist but surely we could resolve the
question of what the state of Arctic ice was historically by examining polar tree-rings?
Contrarian pedants may snarkily point to the absence of arboreal lifeforms in such a region as problematic.
This is, of course, a total strawman. The robust symbiosis between temperature and tree-growth is unarguable. In layman terms, as proxies they are as two peas in a pod.
Temperature records clearly prove that the accuracy of temperature measurements is inversely proportional to the number of thermometers.
Ergo, fewer trees = better results.
Dr Mann has already laid the foundations for such a study by carefully documenting the case of the Yamal specimen. Dr Jones et al have already cracked the mathematical challenges of homogenization and teleconnected gridding.
Grant them additional funding and a few months, free of irksome FOI distractions, and they’ll lay to bed the tiresome mythologies of submarines, ice-free polar expeditions and similar re-writes of
History!
Dave Wendt says: “I hate to get too pedantic…”
Well, then don’t.
CNN and the NY Times just making things up as they go?
No… say it ain’t so.
The mainstream media is dysfunctional. The straw that broke the camel’s back for me was their failure to uncover any of Obama’s birth records or school records. Not only didn’t they put any effort into finding them they avoided any mention of them of them being concealed from public view. ABC went so far as to air forged documents about Bush’s National Guard service for Pete’s sake and if it wasn’t for bloggers discovering the forgery Dan Rather would be a liberal hero for it. They dug up Bush’s DWI conviction, his grades at Harvard, and every other bit of dirt they could find. They did the same thing to Sarah Palin too. But when it comes to Obama – complete silence and he has far more dirt to dig up than anyone in my memory.
stevengoddard says:
August 3, 2010 at 3:22 pm
Gail
At the North Pole, there isn’t any time of day. Just a gradual six month progression from solstice to solstice.
__________________________________
Steve, I realize that, I hit the submit too fast.
What I meant is you can get skim ice on top of the melt ponds as the temp changes slightly. Even though the sun never sets the temperature does change and so does the sun’s angle.
Dan in California says:
August 3, 2010 at 2:11 pm
“Something is very puzzling. I looked at both NOAA cams and all seems to be boring. But a sister website referenced in these margins (solarcycle24.com) has this still photo from NetCam #2 Tue July 27 00:54:08 2010 UTC clearly showing a submarine.”
They didn’t have photoshop in 1959, Mar. 17th.
Remember the Skate. I read that article when the ink was still fresh.
Incorrect attribution alert!
Strike Mann out. Insert Briffa.
Mike, being Mike, will just graft on relentlessly.
Dave Wendt says:
August 3, 2010 at 3:30 pm
“I hate to get too pedantic , but neither webcam site is that near the Pole at this point. Both have drifted East to about Lat 86”
One of the many points we can take from this posting is that we can view the drift as normal, so you can ease up.
Another point, that may seem obvious, yet unstated, is that before us is proof the Arctic polar cap has melted in the past. Oddly, we didn’t all die!?! Neither did the Empire State building nor did the Statue of Liberty nor did Singapore nor did Gibraltar succumb to the non-existent flooding we’re told will happen. No floods, no water-world scenarios, nothing happened, life went on and evidently, few took notice.
BTW, nice video from Amino Acids in Meteorites @ur momisugly August 3, 2010 at 3:51 pm If you’re not familiar with the history of the Arctic, you should watch it, while it isn’t comprehensive, it will give you enough knowledge to understand the Arctic ice comes and goes and isn’t at all catastrophic.
History repeats itself because no one was listening the first time. ———- Anon
RoyFOMR
It is considered scientifically acceptable to extrapolate carefully cherry-picked tree ring data from tiaga over 1200 km away. This technique has successfully passed the peer review process.
“Satellites (unfortunately) came on line right at the start a period of warming, after 30 years of cooling temperatures”
Steve, if it makes you feel any better the newest satellite up there will start, i hope we can all agree, from a low in arctic ice. It’ll be interesting to see where that one takes us.
Have you contacted Cryosphere Today about their comparison tool?
A throwaway line from one of the characters in “The Deep”, a new series shown tonight on BBC TV (where else?) as he looked out over a frozen Arctic Sea- ” Another ten or twenty years this ice will all be gone. ” Typical Beeb; they never miss a chance to spread the AGW message.
RE: Non-US paypal donations: Paypal and credit card/debit card payments made in dollars are automatically converted from your native currency.
geo says:
August 3, 2010 at 4:24 pm
“Sadly, UIUC seems to have “lost” their archive of ice concentration maps. It has been offline for two weeks now, so we can’t use that valuable resource for the time being. I wonder what’s up with that?”
Yes, by amazing coincidence this sad occurrence followed just a few days after WUWT began posting the 2007/2010 comparo pictures on the new Sea Ice page.
Hmmm. . . .
I have tried writing them in the past at the email addresses they provide –I’ve yet to receive a response (yes, I’m very polite and respectful in my queries).
———-
REPLY:
The UI computer network is all messed up (amazing, since we did invent the graphic browser, Mosaic!) Not long ago, we had a massive attack of the email system from Chinese servers, which shut the whole bloody thing down.
With ongoing budget problems here, network and mainframe maintenance has been a problem. We have undergrads toiling away, trying to fill in for experienced IT professionals. Throw in a holiday weekend once in a while, and stuff happens.
I’ll make an inquiry with my UIC email account. After all the attacks we’ve had, the computing centers have tightened up the email filters so that nearly all .com email addresses get rejected to “trash.” Meanwhile, I see that someone has mined up the data with the “Wayback machine” (Internet archive), good going!
I really don’t suspect nefarious activity, just Big 10 computing screwup. Sorry about that!
Anyone else feel like we’re watching an analogy to the Scope’s Monkey Trial slowly play out?
CAGW is simply an arrogant belief system, a “cult of the carbon cow” as I would like to say.
Buz From Topeka says:
August 3, 2010 at 2:25 pm
No, that URL seems to have numeric data ending a couple years ago. The missing images are the ones used in Cryosphere’s date comparison engine.
Sorry biddyb, I didn’t mean to repeat your post at 2.55 ; I hadn’t read it before I jumped in. And you’re right, he did say ten to fifteen years and not twenty as I misquoted.
I read “The Arctic Grail” by Canadian historian Pierre Berton about 20 years ago. My memory won’t retrieve much in the way of details regarding the various Arctic expeditions, but certainly one of the main themes was how that ‘one warm line through a land so wild and savage’ (Stan Rogers’ lyric) kept changing over very short timeframes. One expedition would get so far through open water, and report back regarding their route. The next would set out only to find that path blocked by ice. They would find another open route that might take them further north and west, and themselves become blocked, later to report back, if they were fortunate. And so on, etc.
Sing it, Stan…
OT & unscientific, but yesterday I drove from my folks’ place which is 2km inland from Halifax Harbour and at some elevation. Temperature in the car when I left their place, 31C. I drove home in about 15 or 20 minutes, about 8km as the crow flies. I live about 400m from the Harbour, just above sea level. Temperature in the car when I stopped at my house? 21C. If I’d have driven another 1,192 km, I would have frozen to death! 😉
Symon says:
August 3, 2010 at 2:52 pm
I clicked on a couple image links, but got a message saying they weren’t archived.
Thanks Anthony and Amino Acids – the John Daly article and videos were great.
RCMP explorer Henry Larsen sailed the Northwest Passage in 1940, then sailed it in the opposite direction along a different route in 1944.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Passage
ROFL!!!! The whole family had a good laugh over dinner this evening after seeing the image of the three subs in 1987 and then reading the NYT’s article below it saying:
“……The last time scientists can be certain the pole was awash in water was more than 50 million years ago….”
Gotta love the NYT!! If I had written that piece I’d change my name!
Great post!!
May I suggest that the Polar controversy could be resolved by studying polar snowman rings?
It’s be at least as accurate as treerings…;)
Anthony posted:
I suspect that Cryosphere consists of 2-3 scientists and occasional programming help.
They were very slow to respond to the satellite issues a couple years ago with the degrading image sensors. They did disable the comparison form the simplest way they could, they took the affect months off the form, you could still craft a URL that produced the comparison.
I’ve written them a couple times about a bug in their map of the Arctic but never heard back. Hmm, looks like it got fixed, but probably not thanks to me.
When the data first disappeared I suspected a failed disk at igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu that may still be the case. It is a Linux system, FWIW. Maybe it will be down until the end of the month when the students return.
I’m not expecting a timely fix, heck http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/ still has the warning “July 14, 2010: Server issues – updating of the above hemispheric images will resume in the next few days.” Those pages have been updating just fine….