Arctic Toolbox: Did 300,000 km2 of ice suddenly melt?

Did Steve or Anthony write this? Either way, it looks like the Arctic’s ice will thicken for next summer, and see even more recovery.
“Look for the DMI graph to flatten out by the weekend.”
Steve accurately predicted the JAXA graph to level out, but can he accurately predict the DMI graph to level out? 😉
REPLY: Steve did, and I was remiss at not putting his author name on it, fixed. – Anthony

Snowlover,
The JAXA leveling prediction was a no-brainer based on the geometry of the ice. This time it is based on the weather forecast, which calls for cooler temperatures and shifted winds in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas.

The arctic 2910-melting season is obviously coming to an end. Temps above 80 North are constantly sub-zero (Celsius, that is) already, while the gradient of the melting curve is substantially flatening recently, too.
It’s lowest point may still end up above the 2007-, 2008- and 2009-melts, making it the third melting season ending with a gain, when compared to it’s predecessor.
And last, but not least, some news from from the “Weather is not climate”-department: Here in Germany, the actual weather is more reminiscent of late October than of mid August for almost a week already. Precipitation all over Europe was tremendous during the past week.
By-and-large, we consider this Summer over.

Quite reassuring, thanks!
I have been wondering about thickness in relation to area; “yes there may be a comparable erea of ice but it is much thinner than it used to be, and so AGW is still an undisputed fact”.
To me it would seem, since a certain amount of arctic ice consists of seperate pieces, smaller or larger ‘ice cubes’ in a way (at least 15% etc), that area would decrease more or less hand in hand with thickness and vice versa.
Are there any coherent thoughts to be shared on this?

Michael Schaefer says:
August 18, 2010 at 10:11 am
The arctic 2910-melting season is obviously coming to an end…
Damn!! That was really quick!
;^)

snowlover said:
“Steve accurately predicted the JAXA graph to level out…”
______
He did? When was this? I’ve not seen the JAXA graph level out yet this season.
I find it interesting to note that for AGW skeptics, when the ice extent is declining rapidly, it is never the temps, but all the “wind” but when it is slowly declining, it is always the DMI temps “declining rapidly”.

Steve, before returning to my classroom (which is just round the corner, this Tuesday), I wanted to give you props for keeping this discussion going and putting it out there. It has been both entertaining and instructive, a feat not easily done during the slow Summer months. By the way, your picture comparison of the two days looking at the affect of wind was excellent. I have been beating the drum of ice compaction for what, two years now? Or has it been three. Hard to remember but I sure have enjoyed the thread. Again, thanks so much for you courage, time, and efforts.

John W. says:
August 18, 2010 at 10:18 am
Michael Schaefer says:
August 18, 2010 at 10:11 am
The arctic 2910-melting season is obviously coming to an end…
Damn!! That was really quick!
;^)
——————————
D-u-h!
T-o-o–m-u-c-h–c-o-f-f-e-e–t-o-d-a-y!
😉

Maybe this is OT.
Maybe not.
When the Northern Hemisphere was suffering massive coldwaves and frozen precipitation in December, January, and February, we were curtly and dismissively informed that “Weather is not climate”.
But now that it is hot in the summer, and there are various floods and droughts plaguing areas historically plagued with floods and drought, we are informed that this weather is climate!
That certain weather is climate while other weather does not count.
Eff this stuff already.

Jimash
Hot weather is climate. Cold weather is weather. El Nino is climate. La Nina is weather.
Typical religion. They can always find facts which support their belief system, and ignore the ones which don’t.

Just looked at the NSIDC August report.
Most of the year they’ve only been showing 2007 and 1979-2000 average for comparison. The August report shows 2008 and 2009 as well.
At the moment, it is relatively striking how the recent (last few weeks) trend is signficantly flatter (and more what I would have expected re my comment upstream) at NSIDC vs JAXA. I wonder why?

http://www.zen141854.zen.co.uk/difference.jpg
sorry img tags included on previous post

R. Gates:
Ice extent is a function of multiple parameters that are not easily disaggregated. That is why it has limited utility in assessing AGW. It would be nice if the [snip] err pro-AGW crowd would acknowledge this.

Its too bad there is such a rampant alarmist element in anything related to climate these days. I find posts like this to be very fascinating. If only cooler heads could prevail but I sense it could be another 5-10 years before this fizzles out into something that is harmless again. Some please one knock me senseless and tell me I’m wrong!

AndyW
Your video doesn’t distinguish between melt and compaction. This one is more informative because it shows that compaction was dominant.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeBatHtMtYY]

AndyW says:
August 18, 2010 at 10:56 am
I know melt is dirty word for closed minds though …
Andy
———
Andy, thanks for contributing! Many of us are extremely open-minded and seek scientific/statistical accuracy in this field more than anything. The AGW crowd seems to cook the books, cherry-pick etc. when presenting their scenarios.
I still think that oceanic acidification could be an emerging problem, but remain far more concerned about atmospheric deposition of mercury from all sources, particularly coal-fired utilities. However, the catastrophic warming scenarios painted by Hansen et. al. seem to be less & less likely, and many of these WUWT posters are onto it.
I used to be an AGW Kool-aid drinker myself, but Climategate was the tipping point for me. If the AGW cabal expects the world to undergo wrenching financial costs in order to reduce catastrophic climate change, they better have their story straight first. I’m waiting to be convinced….

PIOMAS forecasts a record minimum of 3.96.
Walt Meier forecasts 4.74
Julienne initially forecast 5.5 but has lowered since.
My forecast is 5.5.
Who is going to be the closest?

AndyW says:
August 18, 2010 at 10:56 am
[i]However, winds from the south are warm winds at this time of year and so melt also occurs. If you look at 2007 and watch the decrease you can see most of the loss is due to melt not compaction until the end[/i]
How much warm wind would be needed to melt that much ice so quickly?

bob
The only thing which could prevent an increase in MYI (2+ year old ice) would be if a lot of ice blows out the Fram Strait this winter.

“COO tipping” — noun phrase. The destabilization of the climate by the introduction of CO2

Buffoon says:
August 11, 2010 at 11:11 am
Where was the jetstream in sept. 2005, and how hot was moscow-lat russia?
With all that heat flowing around northern russia, prevailing winds there should drive toward the pole.
… I would look for those to shore up and thicken due to wind compaction on the russia side and for 2010 to clear 2005[‘s minimum] slightly to the negative within 10 days

Just imagine if all this money that was spent on “climate change” had been instead spent on space exploration/REAL NASA stuff.
How close to Mars do you think we would have been? And its my understanding that we would understand the climate just as well as we did 30 years ago. What a waste.

Akira Shirakawa says:
August 18, 2010 at 12:08 pm
“The “pools” on the foreground and those on the brackground appear to have grown a bit larger in size (speaking of their darker portion) and to my untrained eye it looked like some melting has occurred. What is going on, then?”
Looks more like a spot where snow keeps getting blown off the ice to me?

I thought the biggest movement was off Franz Josef Land, where ice which has been crowding those islands, suddenly has receded 100 miles to the north. All happened in 1-2 days. Warm ocean currents both pushing back the ice and melting the edge into a straight edge, is my impression.

stevengoddard says:
August 18, 2010 at 11:46 am
AndyW
Nothing wrong with the word “melt.” The problem is when people use the word “melt” to describe other processes.
_____
Indeed, melt is an actual change in the state of ice from solid to liquid. A slowdown in the melting should not be implied just because ice is diverging, nor should an accleration in melt be implied when the ice is compacting.
The actual melt rate in the Arctic during any season will be determined by the total energy available for melting, delivered by atmosphere, sun, and water, and how the ice is distributed so as to be in contact with one or more of those energy sources for the maximum period of time.

Steve maybe this seems like a dumb question:
From your blink comparator, I can see that ice is moving around, as distinct pieces persist in the two pictures. But by eye, I can’t really tell by looking that one picture is more compacted than the other.
But I understand that you have the raw pixel data for these picures; and assuming that the pixel value is representative of how much light is being received by that pixel, and assuming that open water is basically a black body, so not contributing much to the pixel total, one might deduce that a simple integral of all of the pixels would be a pretty good measure of the total ice area; if one assumes that the compaction has not yet started piling ice on top of ice.
Now I see that one picture seems to have a small cloud intrusion up at the top; and maybe you can replace that area with a black hole in both pictures, with not too much loss.
Do you have a quick routine to simply sum all the pixel values for a single grand total ?
I realize that one is making a lot of assumptions as to obliquity (these are scanned images aren’t they; not whole frame photos ?)
But your contention that the ice is just blowing around looks fairly solid from those two pictures; it would be nice to know if the total light value for the whole damn picture is the same for both.
George

The soot won’t make much difference. Sunshine and temperatures are too low to have much of an effect on the surface of the ice.

stevengoddard says:
“Loss of ice extent this time of year is primarily due to compaction.”
_____
Steve, you have no proof of this, and it is likely is incorrect. We don’t always get compaction of the ice in the last few weeks of August, and yet the sea ice extent continues to decline in these final weeks of the melt season year after year. Please explain why that could be if it happens in years even when there is not compaction?
It’s because extent loss this time of year also comes from the residual heat in the water that is responsible for most of the melting this late in the summer. Hence the reason that the DMI temps, north of 80 degrees, even if they are accurate, are of little consequence to the melt. The final melt is “already in the cards” so to speak, as it will largely be determined by the amount of heat available in the open waters.
Bottom line, the loss of extent this time of year can be from both compaction and melting, and there is no proof that this year most of it is coming from compaction. A lot of ice has drifted out of the Arctic Basin into open waters further south and is melting in the continued warmer waters there, though there may also be some compaction going on as well. This all goes back to my criticism of some AGW skeptics, who like to credit “compaction” or “wind” being the cause of a speed up or acceleration of the extent drops, or DMI temps falling to be a reason the melt is supposed to be slowing, but it never seems to be heat delivered to the ice from sunlight, atmosphere, or water causing the melting or extent drops.

R. Gates
You can see with 100% certainty from the blank map, that the loss in ice extent is due primarily to compaction.

Been following this Ice thing since 07 & have been rooting on the comeback as hard as I can But I have thought like R. Gates lately (Last 45 days)…The Ice has been melting due to warm SST & the Low DMI temps cannot faze it…in Fact the DMI is now shooting above Normal at a point where we need to halt this slide to below 09 where unfortuanetly I feel we are going to end up……SO…no 3 year gain ..BUT…I feel like there will be a rapid Ice gain & I Am Hoping & thinking that we will be in for a good year in 2011!

AndyW says:
August 18, 2010 at 11:31 am
Thanks for your off topic rant but I don’t see how you have answered my point that “melt” is a dirty word in these parts.
——-
REPLY: You are most welcome. Sea ice melts & re-freezes, it’s the driver for the process that remains unproven. If you think that AGW is “proven” in any classical scientific manner, then I feel sorry for you.
I think the Arctic is doing just fine BTW. With the ongoing solar minimum, we are likely to have a nice, frosty winter with further ice consolidation & thickening. No arctic sea ice death-spiral in the making from everything I’ve seen.
BTW, please explain this to me: http://www.rohlfamily.com/2010/01/snowy-durham-uk/
My Brit friends were sure praying for some “melt” last winter! Hope they don’t get this challenge again this winter, they really aren’t set up to handle it.

“”” stevengoddard says:
August 18, 2010 at 2:14 pm
George E. Smith
The ice edge is moving radially inwards towards the pole, so by definition it is becoming more concentrated.
The software is about 5,000,000 lines of code and has a GUI. “””
Steve,
Yes I can see that the ice edge IS moving polewards, so as you say it IS compacting. But my question really points to a different question. That compaction could result in simply reduction of the open water (inside the ice field); which ought to keep the actual “ice” area pretty much constant; or at some point, you could have the ice starting to pile up on itself, in which case the are of the ice woule continue to diminish; but the amount of ice wouldn’t.
So I was thinking that if pileup was not (yet) occurring), then the total light returned from the ice ought to remain the same; while the light returned from the diminishing open water isn’t much anyway so the total light from the whole ice conglomeration would be the same for the two pictures. Given the pixel data, it would seem one could grab a nice rectangle that appeared to be all ice from each picture (same general region), and omitting that cloud cover area, and simply total all the pixel numbers to get a total light value which ought to be a quite good representation of the actual ice area and show that it isn’t diminishing even theough the extent is.
But I don’t want to create something that is a lot of work to do.

R. Gates:
While cryostat2 _will_ be useful to determine Ice Mass more accurately, the data gathered won’t be useful without a sufficient baseline. cryostat2 will help to establish the baseline over the next few decades; only when a sufficiently long baseline is established will any conclusions about trends be useful. Trends derived from baseline data of less than two AMO/PDO cycles aren’t particularly predictive, IMO.
I don’t have a high confidence in trends derived from paleo data.

CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
August 18, 2010 at 11:21 am
CRS sets forth a very concise definition of an honest skeptic, and like CRS I aspire to be an honest skeptic. Unlike CRS I was never an AGW believer, but I never ‘denied’ the possibility and and try not to let my skepticism reject that possibility. As a skeptic I can’t say I like Steve Goddard’s triumphantalism in this thread. yes Steve G deserves to take props for what turns out to be an accurate prediction of the 2010 melt. And yes he can delight in the fact that this is yet another data point showing that AGW alarmism is false. But, come back to us steve, this just more data, not the end. Same goes for you Phil and Andy. When does your rejection of data points disproving IPCC’s et al’s alarmist models make you guys “the deniers”. I gotta say I find comments like CRS’s more enlightening than the Steve G/Andy-Phil “yes it does no it doesn’t” debate which is just tedious. Cheers.

I’d like to see the NorthWest passage open, it’s almost there. If I was a ship merchant, I think I’d send my fleet up that way. Easy shipping New York to/from China and Japan for about 6 weeks.

NK
It isn’t an accurate prediction yet. If the winds keep up, extent will continue to drop.

R. Gates…I was wondering if the show was recently aired. I tend to get FB friend requests when I’m on TV.
I have to say though I wasn’t happy about my interview being used in that particular program. I had no idea what the program was going to be about and I certainly do not agree that the decline in Arctic sea ice is part of the 7 signs of the apocalypse.

The ice is compacting as it is melting but this is encouraging!
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/POPS13_atmos_recent.html

Steve,
Looking spot on so far. Needs stable weather and temps up to about Aug 28th to cook through nicely, then sit in the fridge from 1st Sept before serving with a cherry on top.
View in order:
1. http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/730/febsept15day.png
2. http://img844.imageshack.us/img844/3205/augsept15day.png
3. http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/5853/augsep7day.png
Good luck with it!

Check this out – DMI temperatures above normal for the first time in months. The blast of southerly air made it all the way to the pole.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php

From: Phil. on August 18, 2010 at 2:15 pm

Not so the Canadian Ice service and MODIS confirm what I said:
http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/prods/FECN14CWIS/20100818000000_FECN14CWIS_0005142759.txt
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?mosaic=Arctic.2010229.terra.1km

The Canadian Ice Service report does not mention the Nares Strait.
Please have some consideration for those of us without fast internet connections and without wall-sized monitors. A link to the 4km pixel size MODIS map is preferred, I can choose a finer resolution right on the page if I desire it.
On that cloudy mosaic, you can make out that there is ice in the channels. It is thick next to the the Arctic Ocean, looks about as dense as the ocean ice. As seen on the close-ups (one, two), it’s tending to stay together and not break up, indicating (to me) a slow current flow with slow ice movement. The CIS report mentioned Multi-Year Ice influxes at Viscount Melville Sound, which are visible (see close-up one, see the ice slowly disperse), and some drifting MYI. For both half-month forecasts, MYI will be found, well, where it’s found right now.
We must have different definitions of what constitutes a “steady flow.” You should avoid doing plumbing work. When it takes a half hour to fill a toilet tank then I’d say a trickle was going into the tank, not a steady flow, whether the trickle was steady or not.

David Gould
I can’t imagine the circumstances which would make my prediction “not in the ballpark.” But since you apparently believe that you can read minds, please entertain me further.

phil.
You have quite an imagination. The iceberg has just been rotating, and the ice to the north is rapidly consolidating.
August 14
http://exploreourpla.net/explorer/?map=Arc&sat=ter&lvl=8&lat=81.479352&lon=-61.250332&yir=2010&dag=226
August 18
http://exploreourpla.net/explorer/?map=Arc&sat=ter&lvl=8&lat=81.479352&lon=-61.250332&yir=2010&dag=230

stevengoddard,
I was teasing, hence the winky face – hard to convey it, I guess. 🙂
I would say that the ballpark would be, say, +/- 200,000 square kilometres or so. That is of course subjective, and a comparison between two predictions is objective, which is better.
Even there, though, I would allow some margin for error. For example, say the final result is 4.9 million. I would not be prepared to say that there was any difference between the accuracy of your prediction and the accuracy of R. Gates’ prediction. Likewise for 5.1 million. This is still giving around 200,000 or so of leeway.

If there was any evidence of compaction it would be the open areas of water within the ice area becoming smaller. If anything all I can see is these areas becoming bigger, which signifies melt (although cloud in the first picture may be helping to trick my eyes), and the whole ice mass moving rapidly towards the pole, which I’m pretty sure is causing some compaction, as the proportion of open water within the ice nearer the north pole and greenland has noticeably decreased in the last week or so. But no compaction in this picture.
Also this picture shows what remains of what earlier in the season was a fairly solid spur of multi year ice. You can see how along the outer edge there are many larger floes. This compares to the younger ice to the bottom right of the photo which even though closer to the north pole is in the last stages of melt and has broken down into floes that are too small to individually pick up at this resolution.

Dave says:
August 18, 2010 at 10:07 am
Another 70,000sk decline to yesterday.
At the present rate it will reach Steve’s predicted 5,500,000 by the middle of next week.
One morning I got up at 6:00 and it was 51F. By 12:00 noon it was 74F. Why wasn’t it 143F the next morning at 6:00???

I observe AMSU for years and I copied scans every few days building an animation that showed clearly the Antartic edges warming up substantially just 2 days before the first Chile earthquake . Site ( for Channel 1 of the AMSU instrument ) :
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/AAT_Browse.php?chan=1&satnum=15&aord=a
Main site : http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
A similar situation was developing at the Noth Pole which now subsided by half while the South is still expanding its heat signature .
It does look like a Mega Volcano is just about to change things at the South Pole while maybe triggering Pacific earthquakes .
Please comment .
Thank you ,
Doru
Canada

Fred says: August 18, 2010 at 9:58 am
“Which points to the need for an Arctic ice measurement based on Mass.
Sort of what ACE does for hurricanes. Call it AIM. Accumulated Ice Mass.”
You could also call it DIM. Declining Ice Mass 😉

The preliminary 08/18 JAXA number indicates that the recent bleeding (or compaction, whichever term you want to use) may have slowed, with a daily loss of only 37188 km^2. However, the damage from the previous two days’ losses was already done, and the current extent prediction method is now predicting 4.98e6 km^2.
To really make headway, we need to see a sporadic day here or there of increased extent. The first day of this in the JAXA record was 08/16 in 2002, followed by 08/24 in both 2002/2006. The only other August day with an increasing extent was 08/31 in 2006. By 09/04, however, all the years in the record except 2003 had shown at least one day with an extent increase.
On the other hand, if an extent increase is due to winds/divergence and occurs too early, it may lead to increased melt before the minimum occurs. 🙁
-Scott

Wayne Delbeke said:-
_________________________________
“Andy – have you never watched the video of the ice being blown out of Fram Strait in 2007. The clockwise rotation and ice flow out through Fram Strait was very impressive. Melting winds from the south were not the issue. Winds from the south in that region appear to help maintain the ice in the arctic.”
***
Ice is lost through the Framm Straight, Nares etc, but the reduction in the summer months is not due to it all being lost that way. Looking at an impressive video gives you no indication what percentage is lost that way compared to melt / compaction etc. Southerly winds are one of the main reasons for reduction in extent, by melt in situe and compaction. At the moment there is a 10C wind blowing from Siberia, I can assure you that has some effect on the extent value.
On another topic, the Modis image Phil showed earlier shows fantastically how little ice there is in the Northern route of the NW passage.
Andy

Amino Acids in Meteorites,
Lots of things *could* happen. But at this stage of the game, there are fewer than 300,000 square kilometres of extent to lose for us to hit 5.5 million. The average loss in September to the minimum alone over the last few years was 280,000 square kilometres.
It is indeed not over until it is over. But it is very unlikely that the minimum will be 5.5 plus.
Still, to boost your spirts, today’s loss of extent was well below average for the day in question. 🙂

In my previous graph http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/6696/zzamsreseaiceextentl.png I didn’t know exactly where 5.5 was or I would have put a red line on it.
Steven Goddard,
If you have the time could you make a red line in a JAXA graph at 5.5 and link it here? I think it’s not just me that would like to see it. Maybe it could be in all the Arctic ice posts until minimum so people can munch popcorn and watch.

Amino,
Below is a video showing JAXA 2010 as red, 2006 as green, and my 5.5 forecast as dashed. If the 2010 slope breaks this week like 2006 did – it should hit 5.5 almost exactly. If the winds keep blowing, it will go below 5.5.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADCpfBD37-4]

David Gould says:
August 18, 2010 at 10:34 pm
Still, to boost your spirts
No need. I’m fine. Would you like some popcorn?

But one thing we can all agree on with or without wind there is no alarming thinning/rotted ice and PIOMAS is wrong. 😉

David Gould says:
August 18, 2010 at 10:36 pm
less than 30 per cent chance of happening.
“Never tell me the odds.”

stevengoddard says:
August 18, 2010 at 2:56 pm
George E. Smith
The reason I think that the ice is piling up is because PIPS shows a higher average thickness than it did a week ago.

Steve,
Keep in mind PIPS showing a higher average does not necessarily imply ice pileup.
Examples:
Thicknesses A: 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 1,4, 10, 10, 9
Average A: 4.01
Assuming uniform loss of 1:
Thicknesses B: 1, 1, 3, 9, 9, 8
Average B: 5.2
So you can see the average ‘thickness’ has gone up, while the total amount of ‘ice’ has declined.

Akira Shirakawa says:
August 18, 2010 at 11:13 am.
Akira, having spent quite a few years outdoors in the winter above the arctic circle, my observation is that the pond is frozen solid. What you see in the pictures is rather strong winds shifting the snow around. You may also notice that the wind blows the snow onto the lens at times. No melt going on there.
Looking at the pictures, I am glad I am indoors with a hot coffe rather than next to that camera 😉

Great blink comparator, really shows the process – very similar to sand bank / coastal sand drift, which you can see on low long coasts (I’m thinking east anglia UK which is constantly on the move).

“Dropping like a rock” Anu reappears to try to rewrite his own history.

I see that despite my previous strictures Anu continues to demonstrate a complete lack of manners in his writings here.
No matter who is right or wrong there is no need to display such appaling rudeness. It is hard to believe that he attended any university, but if he did I am sure it would be ashamed to own him.

For one, I’m glad that in dmi Mr Goddard has recently found a reliable provider of climatic data.
That data will I hope more than compensate for the unfortunate & continuing off-line status of the Cryosphere Today SSM/I small scale comparison maps.

‘“Dropping like a rock” Anu reappears to try to rewrite his own history.’
Btw, Anu is a common female name in Finnish. Could be a god as well, and supposedly all Babylonian gods are fierce by their nature.

Regg_upnorth
The drop was shown in the DMI graph

Updated JAXA 08/18 number is in and daily loss was only 33125 km^2. This may just be an anomaly (honestly, likely is), but people can hope it’s a sign of a slowdown. With that number, current extent is predicting a minimum extent of 4.99e6 km^2.
We’re now 32500 km^2 higher than 2008, so it will indeed require a record loss (in JAXA dataset) from here until the minimum to go below 2008’s value.
-Scott

The past days DMI also showed a sudden rise of Mean Temperature above 80°N. Could this, at least partly, be connected to the large drop in extent?

GFY
QED
On a slightly different track, I’ve noticed that there isn’t a lot of NW Passage talk in the MSM this year.
The Norwegian adventurers in the Trimaran have made it through the last band of ice blocking the Northern Sea Route and are already making progress towards the Northwest Passage, which is very clear of ice (especially for this time of the year).
There’s a very good chance they will be the first in recorded history to circumnavigate the Arctic in one single season. Quite a feat, I’d say. The only thing potentially thwarting them – besides a bout of extreme bad luck of course – is all that multi-year ice that is being pushed through the Queen Elizabeth Islands and might reach and block the NWP before melting out.
There’s quite a bit of transport there, as is shown by the buoy map of the University of Washington. Look at those two fellers speeding throught the Prince Gustaf Adolf Sea since about 10 days ago.
All the ridges blocking the multi-year ice have broken up and ice floes are flowing in. Counter-intuitively, his is good news for people who don’t want AGW to be true, as there is a good chance this multi-year ice will block the NWP in years to come. A pretty welcome argument I would think after all those times it has opened up in the past 5 years.

Regg_upnorth says:
August 19, 2010 at 11:13 am

Scott said
We’re now 32500 km^2 higher than 2008, so it will indeed require a record loss (in JAXA dataset) from here until the minimum to go below 2008′s value.
Well not really. 32500km^2 ”catch up” can be achieved in a single day (and lost again the other) with the way the ice extent is calculated and ice pack movements – and it’s quite easy if you look at it on a daily basis as you got days where you can have up to 100000km^2 lost this year when it was 30000km^2 on that same day from a previous year. And the same goes the other way as well of course.

Um, what the heck? For most lost between now and the minimum extent to ever occur in the JAXA record is 1055781 km^2. For us to reach the 2008 minimum will require 1088281 km^2. And last I check, 1088281>1055781, thus a record loss from 08/18 to the minimum. Now, we could lose a lot of ice today and go below 2008 today. Then we would not need a record loss from 08/19 to the minimum, but that doesn’t change the results from 08/18…I record would still be needed.
And yes I’m well aware that the difference can be made up in one day. Clearly you haven’t been paying attention read my previous posts on this thread or the other recent sea ice threads, because I mention specific daily melts several times.
-Scott

“And do you happen to know when the NWP was open 4 years in a row for the last time?”
For the last time? How about the time before the time before the time before that? How many times during this interglacial? How about since there was water?
What’s the relevance of the NWP and 4 years?

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/stories/article/100810_Northwest_Passage_still_hard_to_navigate/

“The plans that you make can change completely,” he says. This uncertainty, delay, liability, increased insurance and other costs of using the Northwest Passage are likely to deter commercial shipping here. A ship with a reinforced hull could possibly make it intact through the passage. But if it got stuck, it would cost thousands of dollars for an icebreaker like the Amundsen to come to the rescue. So even if the Northwest Passage is less ice-choked than before, the route may not become a shipping short-cut in the near future, as some have predicted.

Regg_upnorth says:
August 19, 2010 at 1:07 pm
Hey, no prob…I just didn’t like the comment that a record would not need to be broken to reach 2008’s level when in fact it does. I’d agree with you that current extent cannot accurately predict the final minimum. And with weather uncertainty, nothing can really do that currently.
I’m just a bit aggressive on the subject because earlier R. Gates said that the real race was between 2008 and 2010, which didn’t make any sense because a record high loss from here on out would put us essentially equal to 2008 (as you pointed out), whereas a record low loss would actually put us above both 2009 and 2005. So while 2008 isn’t out of the realm of possibility, neither are 2009/2005 or even Steve’s 5.5e6 value. Personally, I think we’ll end up between 2008 and 2009, but it depends on so many variables right now that I think the statistical method just can’t pin it down.
-Scott

From: Günther Kirschbaum on August 19, 2010 at 1:44 pm

Like I said: It’s a good thing – for people who have a psychological problem with the practical and ethical implications of AGW – that all that multi-year ice is currently transported through the Queen Elizabeth Islands and might help keeping the NWP blocked in the next few years. Imagine the NWP being open 5, 6, 7 years in a row…

Do you really believe in what you preach?
Per IPCC AR4, we are headed for many decades of further global warming, even if we shut down civilization and all related CO2 emissions now. It will go on for centuries to come, it may be a millennium until the rise finally stops.
So you can stop talking about the implications, since they will happen regardless of what we do. An ice free Northwest Passage for years on end? It’ll happen. Clear of ice for a century or longer? That will happen, you cannot stop it. An Arctic Ocean free of sea ice in the summer? Yup, and maybe ice free winters as well, once those powerful positive feedbacks kick in. The glaciers will all melt. Greenland will be laid bare, down to whatever really is underneath all that soon-to-be extinct ice, provided the rising of the sea levels doesn’t cover it all up. Even the Antarctic ice shall go away as well.
So if you really do believe in (C)AGW, with the required acceptance of the findings presented in IPCC AR4, why are you even here exhorting us about the “practical and ethical implications of AGW” anyway? We can’t do anything about it, the warming is inevitable. The ethical implications are moot, the damage has already been done, due to our ignorance and that of many generations that preceded us. The practical implications are what we and our descendants will be adapting to, whatever they are, as they appear.
Perhaps you should consider the “ethical implications” of your spending so much time here arguing over a little bit of doomed sea ice while the long-term planning needed to ensure the survival of our species awaits.
😉

Jeff P says:
August 19, 2010 at 7:26 am
stevengoddard says:
August 18, 2010 at 11:04 pm
If the winds keep blowing, it will go below 5.5.
——
Oh those sneaky sneaky winds. Odd that they started showing up in 2007.
Who would have guessed that Zephyrus was an AGW supporter
============================================================
JeffP,
I’m not going to let this low blow pass by without response. So answer this please: do you have proof that what happened in 2007 was anything other than natural variation?

Günther Kirschbaum says:
August 19, 2010 at 2:38 pm
the Northwest Passage at the end of July resembled those normally found in the second or third week of August.
=======================================================
This one thing means global warming is happening? Arctic ice is controlled by many factors. Temperature of the earth is just one. And actually the earth has cooled slightly since 1998. Warming is not happening right now. If you’ll look at the ice graphs you’ll see every year since 2007 shows an incrase in ice. If you wanted to you could easily make an argument about global warming not happening because Arctic ice is increasing and temperature is cooling slightly. But you don’t look at the bigger picture. You look at one single line of information and act like you want to convince people global warming is happening because of what it says.
You should focus on shorter growing seasons and longer winters that are happening on the earth. If you have friends in poor countries you might want to think about saving money to send to them to buy food in case food shortages begin to happen from this cooler climate around the world. There are also good organizations that ship food to poor countries. They may need extra help in years to soon come.

Kadaka, I believe there is a difference in outcome between following business-as-usual or transitioning towards a sustainable society. I have adjusted my lifestyle accordingly.
But there’s not much use in adjusting my lifestyle if others such as you either stick their head in the sand because they are fearful of changing unhealthy conditioned habits, or cowardly party until the end of the world because it’s too late either way. Those types of mentality are unfortunately not an option for me.
I can voluntarily stop shitting in the street in front of my house, but if all my neighbours decide not to bother and keep shitting all over the neighbourhood, I’ll be just as vulnerable to infectious diseases and smell shit everywhere.
You want to have the right to shit all over the place and are thereby limiting my pursuit of freedom and happiness. That is what is happening and that’s why we live in a unsustainable society.
I guess that somehow I’m hoping that what is happening in the Arctic makes you more aware of the implications your actions and lifestyle are having on other people and societies around the world. Perhaps you would also start realizing that switching to a sustainable society would be something good, noble and rational to strive for. Together, you and me. For ourselves, for our kids and for all other kids.
But if you don’t want a sustainable society, you won’t be getting one. And unfortunately, neither will I.

Steven, AGW is just one of many symptoms of an unsustainable society. I don’t see much use in a crusade denouncing all of climate science as a hoax or a big bunch of crap. The end effect of that is most probably that you are keeping the forces in place that perpetuate the unsustainable society.
And that is under the hypothesis that AGW is a hoax/crap. What if it isn’t…
For instance, the Arctic still isn’t recovering.

I’m not one of those people who believes that the end justifies the means. The path to hell is paved with good intentions.

Günther
I didn’t say “climate science” is a bunch of crap, did I? Tell the truth …

Stepping away from the political side and arguing a bit for an update, the 08/19 preliminary JAXA number is up for 2010 and shows a second day of below average loss. This brings up the current extent predictor for the final value to just a touch over 5e6 km^2. It’s nice to see two below-average days, but all they do is counteract the two days before that, and not even fully.
-Scott

David Gould
Catastrophic global warming. Temperatures have not risen anywhere near as fast as even Hansen’s most conservative predictions. Sea level rise has not accelerated.
It is time for some people to admit that they were wrong, and stop lying to themselves and the rest of us.

David Gould
Do you believe that all climate scientists accept Hansen’s claims?
Even from the IPCC report, it is abundantly clear that there is a very wide range of ideas. But they are drowned out by politicians posing as scientists.

Günther
I mean exactly what I say. Please don’t try to psychoanalyze or read any other meanings in to it.
What “becomes more discernible by the day” is that Hansen vastly overestimated climate sensitivity.

Gunther, your last paragraph is bunch of cherry picked stuff too. Talking about ice transport out of the Elizabeth Islands because the Fram Straight basically shut down for awhile? Give me a break.
In the end, sea ice has become a poster child for the AGW political agenda when it’s convenient. Right now it is the arctic. Back in the early 1990s and even late 1980s, most of the rant was about Antarctica. In 2007, we were presented with the “death spiral” quotes and “ice free arctic by 2013”. That is supposed to be taken at face value without any sort of actual investigation into the science? All those “experts” that picked 2008 to pass 2007? What are we to say to them?
I find it interesting that there is little talk on the PDO/AMO cycles in regards to arctic sea ice. All you hear about is AGW being the cause.

And what’s more from the MODIS image posted previously it looks like the northern direct route is actually more than possible, in fact there is more open water there than in the more narrow passages to the south.
Günther, thanks very much with your link to the Norwegian circumnavigators. I think they may run out of time as they have a lot of ice to go around, but I hope they do it, it would be a fantastic achievement.
On a similar note:-
stevengoddard said
August 19, 2010 at 12:09 pm
Amazing what you can do with ice breakers in front of you, satellites, phones, planes helicopters, a climate controlled cabin and GPS navigation. Just like the Vikings.
_______________________
What did Oscar Wilde write? “A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing”. You just stick to blogging in your nice warm house where the only ice is in your G & T :p 🙂
You’ll probably respect the British marines more, they seem to be struggling against Northerly winds at the moment
http://www.arcticmariner.org/ ( Go to JOURNEY and then BLOG )
Andy

AJB says:
August 18, 2010 at 3:56 pm
View in order:
1. http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/730/febsept15day.png
2. http://img844.imageshack.us/img844/3205/augsept15day.png
3. http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/5853/augsep7day.png
_________________________________________________________________
Nice. It puts what is happening in the Arctic in perspective…. Nothing is really changing.
Governor Hunt??? as in North Carolina?

David Gould says:
August 19, 2010 at 5:38 pm
kakada,
We believe that it can be prevented. The point of the IPCC AR4 is that we are headed for serious trouble if we continue down the current path. If, however, we take steps to significantly reduce CO2 emissions then we can prevent that serious trouble. Thus, trying to convince those who are sceptical of this may be a worthwhile, although very difficult, endeavour.
________________________________________________
David,
Given that CO2 has a measurable influence on the global temperature, have you ever bothered to think about the other side of the argument?????
This what I mean.
Joe Romm over at Climate Progress states:
Absent human emissions, we’d probably be in a slow long-term cooling trend due primarily by changes in the Earth’s orbit — see Human-caused Arctic warming overtakes 2,000 years of natural cooling, “seminal” study finds.
When he speaks of changes in the Earth’s orbit he is talking about the Milankovitch cycles that ushers in ice ages.
This peer reviewed paper also agrees:
Lesson from the past: present insolation minimum holds potential for glacial inception (2007)
“Because the intensities of the 397 ka BP and present insolation minima are very similar, we conclude that under natural boundary conditions the present insolation minimum holds the potential to terminate the Holocene interglacial. Our findings support the Ruddiman hypothesis [Ruddiman, W., 2003. The Anthropogenic Greenhouse Era began thousands of years ago. Climate Change 61, 261–293], which proposes that early anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission prevented the inception of a glacial that would otherwise already have started….”
And so does this paper:
Temperature and precipitation history of the Arctic
“..Solar energy reached a summer maximum (9% higher than at present) ca 11 ka ago and has been decreasing since then, primarily in response to the precession of the equinoxes. The extra energy elevated early Holocene summer temperatures throughout the Arctic 1-3° C above 20th century averages, enough to completely melt many small glaciers throughout the Arctic, although the Greenland Ice Sheet was only slightly smaller than at present… As summer solar energy decreased in the second half of the Holocene, glaciers reestablished or advanced, sea ice expanded, and the flow of warm Atlantic water into the Arctic Ocean diminished. Late Holocene cooling reached its nadir during the Little Ice Age (about 1250-1850 AD), when sun-blocking volcanic eruptions and perhaps other causes added to the orbital cooling, allowing most Arctic glaciers to reach their maximum Holocene extent…”
The point I am trying to make was put very nicely in this article:
Abrupt Climate Change: Should We Be Worried? – Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
“Most of the studies and debates on potential climate change, along with its ecological and economic impacts, have focused on the ongoing buildup of industrial greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and a gradual increase in global temperatures. This line of thinking, however, fails to consider another potentially disruptive climate scenario. It ignores recent and rapidly advancing evidence that Earth’s climate repeatedly has shifted abruptly and dramatically in the past, and is capable of doing so in the future.
Fossil evidence clearly demonstrates that Earthvs climate can shift gears within a decade….
But the concept remains little known and scarcely appreciated in the wider community of scientists, economists, policy makers, and world political and business leaders. Thus, world leaders may be planning for climate scenarios of global warming that are opposite to what might actually occur…“
As far as I am concerned neglecting change towards a COOLING world is down right criminal negligence – my biggest gripe with CAGW.
So what if the sun has had more of an effect on the recent climate than is acknowledged by the IPCC, after all it IS a variable star and just recently even Dr. Lief Svalgaard acknowledged some of the recently held theories were wrong.
We now know that lately there have been changes in the sun:
During the last century the sun has been very active but with cycle 24 the sun has now gone into a long minimum with “unusual characteristic”s according to NASA and the Solar Dynamics Observatory Mission News
“We want to compare the sun’s brightness now to its brightness during previous minima and ask: is the sun getting brighter or dimmer?”
The answer seems to be dimmer. Measurements by a variety of spacecraft indicate a 12-year lessening of the sun’s “irradiance” by about 0.02% at visible wavelengths and 6% at EUV wavelengths.”
This is in contrast to what was happening in the solar cycles before cycle 24.
Solar activity reaches new high – Dec 2, 2003
” Geophysicists in Finland and Germany have calculated that the Sun is more magnetically active now than it has been for over a 1000 years. Ilya Usoskin and colleagues at the University of Oulu and the Max-Planck Institute for Aeronomy say that their technique – which relies on a radioactive dating technique – is the first direct quantitative reconstruction of solar activity based on physical, rather than statistical, models (I G Usoskin et al. 2003 Phys. Rev. Lett. 91 211101)
… the Finnish team was able to extend data on solar activity back to 850 AD. The researchers found that there has been a sharp increase in the number of sunspots since the beginning of the 20th century. They calculated that the average number was about 30 per year between 850 and 1900, and then increased to 60 between 1900 and 1944, and is now at its highest ever value of 76.
“We need to understand this unprecedented level of activity,” Usoskin told PhysicsWeb.”
There is also the changes in albedo from cloud cover as measured by the Earthshine Project
“…..The earthshine observations reveal a large decadal variability in the Earth’s reflectance [7], which is yet not fully understood, but which is in line with other satellite and ground-based global radiation data….”
Climate Scientists really do not actually know what is going to happen and the unhealthy focus on just one variable, CO2, could leave mankind unprepared for a very nasty surprise. This is especially true if we have a large volcanic eruption in the right place during a solar grand minimum, a cool ocean cycle and during the wrong point of the precession of the equinoxes.
Well David, have you ever even LOOKED at the other variables that effect climate and what it could mean to mankind’s future???

Günther Kirschbaum says:
August 19, 2010 at 6:57 pm
Steven, AGW is just one of many symptoms of an unsustainable society. I don’t see much use in a crusade denouncing all of climate science as a hoax or a big bunch of crap. The end effect of that is most probably that you are keeping the forces in place that perpetuate the unsustainable society.
_____________________________________________
First, none of us here at WUWT are interested in “soiling our nests”- most of us are conservationists.
You talk of “sustainability”. Do you KNOW what “sustainability” really is??? It is the code word for Global Governance and Agenda 21 Before you decide I am crazy please read the links.
Here is the context and history:
A key player is Maurice Strong:
Maurice Strong started in oil in the 1950’s working for the Rockefeller’s in Saudi Arabia and became CEO and president of Power Corporation, Petro-Canada and Ontario Hydro and others. He is on the board of trustees for the Rockefeller Foundation who funds Greenpeace and WWF, a senior adviser to the World Bank. He is also an acomplished conman with the Denver oil, AZL Resources, lawsuit, the Molten Metal Inc swindle involving Al Gore, tax payer money and the UN Food for Oil scandal After that scandal Strong escaped to Beijing China to escape questioning. Now he is a senior adviser to the Chinese government and also works for CH2M Hill, “an employee-owned, multinational firm providing engineering, construction, operations and related services…” [Sustainability, what sustainability…]
Here is the Global Warming tie in:
Climategate e-mail on Global Governance & Sustainable Development (B1)
Here is more on the (B1) scenario IPCC Emissions Scenarios
Here is who Ged Davis is (Shell Oil executive with IPCC connection) who wrote the B1 scenario.
Here is the start:
In Maurice Strong’s 1972 First Earth Summit speech, Strong warned urgently about global warming
Obama’s Chief Science Adviser is John Holden.’In their 1973 book “Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions,” Holdren and co-authors Paul and Anne Ehrlich wrote:
“A massive campaign [read global warming] must be launched to restore a high-quality environment in North America and to de-develop the United States. De-devolopment means bringing our economic system (especially patterns of consumption) into line with the realities of ecology and the global resource situation. Resources and energy must be diverted from frivolous and wasteful uses in overdeveloped countries to filling the genuine needs of underdeveloped countries.”
“The need for de-development presents our economists with a major challenge,” they wrote. “They must design a stable, low-consumption economy in which there is a much more equitable distribution of wealth than the present one. Redistribution of wealth both within and among nations is absolutely essential, if a decent life is to be provided for every human being.””
The de-development plan is UN Division for Sustainable Development – full text of Agenda 21
UN REFORM – Restructuring for Global Governance
Our Global Neighborhood – Report of the Commission on Global Governance: a summary analysis
a lot of research and links about Agenda 21 in the USA
Despite the finger pointing by Greenpeace, it is the Big Oil companies (and banks), David Rockefeller, Maurice Strong and Shell who are behind CAGW.
In Sept. 14, 1994 David Rockefeller, speaking at the UN Business Council,.
“This present window of opportunity, during which a truly peaceful and interdependent world order might be built, will not be open for too long – We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order.”
Rockefeller also stated “…the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.”
YOU may want a world government by non-elected bankers, corporate CEOs and oilmen, I do not.

Julienne,
Looks to me like summer 2010 will finish well above 2007, and that the NSIDC official prediction is too low.

Steve, the most recent estimate based on August 1st ice extent and using an average rate of decline until the minimum gives us 5 million sq-km for the minimum, well above the 2007 minimum. If the rate of decline is like it was in 2008 the minimum will certainly fall well below 5 million sq-km.
Also on the model sea ice issue….the latest climate models are not consistent with their forecasts on Antarctic sea ice. Some models show increases and some decreases during the observational data record. This is in sharp contrast to the Arctic where all the climate models show a decrease (even though it’s not as fast as observed). Antarctic model results indicate an increase in sea ice extent resulting from a strengthening of the winds around Antarctica that has been linked to ozone depletion.
Eventually by the end of the century these models indicate that sea ice in Antarctica will decline.

Julienne Stroeve
Antarctic models have produced meaningless results so far. What reason is there to believe the current ones are any better?
In 2006, Arctic ice extent loss pretty much stopped after the third week of August.

Steve, as you know, I’m not a modeler, but instead work with observations, primarily from satellite. Thus I’m not an expert as to what all the factors may be in regards to the lack of consistency in the model projections in the Antarctic in regards to the sea ice cover, though how well the models are able to reproduce the variability of the Antarctic Oscillation index is important.
Certainly improvements are needed and I hope the next round of models, which will include more sophisticated sea ice models, as well as more sophisticated terrestrial carbon feedback models and cloud models, will reduce some of this inconsistency. I do find it interesting that in the Arctic the models are all consistent with each other, and this is despite the fact that all models would be in their own phase of natural variability and could therefore be showing increases or decreases over the observational record. Because they are all showing a sea ice decline in the Arctic, that implicates GHGs as playing a role in the modeled sea ice decline.

Julienne
Well, I guess it all comes down to weather (not climate.) ;^)

Hey Steve ….
I posted this on the Cryosphere thread, but nuttin happening there anymore.
Why is that the sum of the individual sea anomolies does not equal the overall anomoly?
I calculated it up from Cryosphere …. adding all the individual anomolies, you get -0.850 million sq kms .. approximately. Yet, Cryosphere says the overall anomoly is -1.3 million sq kms.
I can see the added anomolies being a 100K or so off, but, we’re talking 500K or half a million.
WattsUpWithThat???

Deanster says:
August 20, 2010 at 5:31 pm
Are they calculating the anomalies for only the first X number of years in the dataset? Try a running sum until there is a year where the value is 0…that’ll be the last year of the anomaly years. Note that by doing it this way when there’s a long-term downward trend ensures that recent numbers get portrayed as more negative than they would be otherwise.
-Scott