Via press release.
Is the ice in the Arctic Ocean getting thinner and thinner? Research aircraft Polar 5 measures thickness of sea ice north of Greenland
Bremerhaven, 20th August 2010.
The extent of the sea ice in the Arctic will reach its annual minimum in September. Forecasts indicate that it will not be as low as in 2007, the year of the smallest area covered by sea ice since satellites started recording such data. Nevertheless, sea ice physicists at the Alfred Wegener Institute are concerned about the long-term equilibrium in the Arctic Ocean. They have indications that the mass of sea ice is dwindling because its thickness is declining. To substantiate this, they are currently measuring the ice thickness north and east of Greenland using the research aircraft Polar 5. The objective of the roughly one-week campaign is to determine the export of sea ice from the Arctic. Around a third to half of the freshwater export from the Arctic Ocean takes place in this way – a major drive factor in the global ocean current system.
The question of when the Arctic will be ice-free in the summer has been preoccupying the sea ice researchers headed by Prof. Dr. Rüdiger Gerdes from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association for a long time now. Satellites have been recording the extent of the Arctic ice for more than 30 years. In addition to the area covered, the thickness of the ice is a decisive factor in assessing how much sea ice there is.
However, the thickness can only be determined locally, for example by means of the so-called EM-Bird, an electromagnetic measuring device which helicopters or planes tow over the ice. For Gerdes this is a very special job because he usually models his forecasts on his home computer.
The campaign with the research aircraft Polar 5 of the Alfred Wegener Institute now takes him on an expedition in the Arctic for the first time. “I’m very keen on seeing the results of the sea ice thickness measurements,” says Gerdes. “Only when we know the distribution of ice of varying thickness, can we calculate how much freshwater is carried out of the Arctic Ocean via ice.”
About 3000 cubic kilometres of ice drift out of the Arctic Ocean every year, corresponding to around 2700 billion tons. The ice exports freshwater that reaches the Arctic Ocean via rivers and precipitation. This maintains its salt concentration, which has been constant over the long term. The temperature rise observed worldwide is especially pronounced in the Arctic latitudes.
Researchers have been observing that the ice is getting thinner and thinner for several years now. As a result, it stores and exports less freshwater and the salt concentration (also referred to as salinity) of the Arctic Ocean declines. On the one hand, this influences all living things that have adapted to the local conditions. On the other hand, changes in salinity also have an impact on current patterns of global ocean circulation and thus on meridional heat transport.
In the TIFAX (Thick Ice Feeding Arctic Export) measurement campaign the researchers are primarily interested in ice that is several years old, several metres thick and occurs predominantly on the northern coast of Greenland. “Taking off on the measurement flights from Station Nord here is a special adventure,” reports Gerdes from one of the northernmost measuring stations in the world. “Flying through virtually unsettled regions of the Arctic in the high-tech research aircraft is a stark contrast to my modelling work on the computer.”
Notes for editorial offices:
Your contact in the Communication and Media Department of the Alfred Wegener Institute is Folke Mehrtens (phone: ++49 471 4831-2007; e-mail: Folke.Mehrtens(at)awi.de).
The Alfred Wegener Institute conducts research in the Arctic, Antarctic and oceans of the high and mid latitudes. It coordinates polar research in Germany and provides major infrastructure to the international scientific community, such as the research icebreaker Polarstern and stations in the Arctic and Antarctic. The Alfred Wegener Institute is one of the sixteen research centres of the Helmholtz Association, the largest scientific organisation in Germany.
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Personally, I’m waiting for Cryosat2 to start reporting. Then we shall see just how accurate PIOMAS has been lately.
Could a layman as myself conclude from this that the actual thickness of the ice has never been established? And that any statements about it so far have not been based on observation?
Very interesting to hear why the variation in Arctic ice and ice “export” is useful to know other than as a supposed predictor of CO2-induced climate armageddon.
“”” Researchers have been observing that the ice is getting thinner and thinner for several years now. As a result, it stores and exports less freshwater and the salt concentration (also referred to as salinity) of the Arctic Ocean declines. “””
So what is it that I am missing ??
The Arctic ocean freezes; dumping tons of salts into the Arctic ocean to make it more salty. Then the ice melts which restores the fresh water and the ocean gets less salty.
But if the sea ice having dumped its salt load, then blows out of the Arctic; the tons of salt it leaves behind makes the Arctic Ocean LESS salty.
Yes that sounds quite clear to me !
As I pointed out in a comment here more than a week ago it appears to me that the flow of sea ice out through the Fram mostly halted nearly a month ago.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/CT/animate.arctic.color.0.html
From watching various animations of the Arctic ice decline the flow out the the Fram tends to dwindle every year, but it seems to be earlier and more thorough this year than in the past, the most of the long term animations lack the definition to be very precise on the timing in the past
If it was the thinnest ever, as PIOMAS shows, the Arctic would be ice free by now.
“”” Researchers have been observing that the ice is getting thinner and thinner for several years now. As a result, it stores and exports less freshwater and the salt concentration (also referred to as salinity) of the Arctic Ocean declines. “””
And then it will reach a tipping point any second now …..
Sorry. It’s Friday.
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Aaron Stonebeat
August 20, 2010 at 11:05 am
Not to worry. We have computer models to determine these things. Taking physical measurements is so last century!
From a press release of the Alfred Wegener Institute April 2009:
“…The measurements with the German Polar 5 plane ended…. The position most north was 88°40´N…. The flight started in Longyearbyen on Spitsbergen over Greenland and Northern Canada to Barrow in Alaska.”
One of the aims of this flight were measurements of ice thickness over larger areas. Polar 5 was carrying on a 80 m long steel rope the probe EM-Bird about 20 m above the ice surface.
During several flights to the North they found:
Ice thickness between 2.5 m (2 year ice close to the North Pole) and 4 m ice (several year old ice in coastal areas of Canada. In total, the ice was slightly thicker than in the same regions in past years.
They concluded a temporary recovery of the arctic sea ice. The ice often was more than 15 m thick along the northern coast of Ellemere Island.
Wait a minute, didn’t this same plane fly over parts of the Arctic last year and they were surprised to find ice thicknesses much thicker than expected. Why are they now talking as if the Arctic is about to collapse?
When I heard of the first study I thought, ok, these scientists are genuinely trying to get information. That blurb makes it sound like they’ve already made up their minds.
This is brilliant. Fly a plane a few times and figure out how thick the ice is over the whole arctic!
I could try something similar here in Texas. I could take a few road trips and count armadillos along the way. Then I will know the entire population.
OK but seriously, this only makes sense as a way to spot check a computer model. Then he can come home and either decide that models are useless, or make adjustments and try again to see if the new version makes the mark. I am going to predict the latter.
On the other hand… how many other hands does the reporter have anyway?
Last year they undertook similar measurements and found ice “thicker than previously thought”, See Inconvenient Eisdicken. They didn’t fit the alarmist ptofile last time, hope it will stay that way this time.
I am looking forward to their measuring results and I wish them good luck.
The arctic is not a healthy environment to fly around towing an EM bird and this kind of operations is not entirely without risks.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/28/inconvenient-eisdicken/
If this is the first time Prof Gerdes is actually undertaking real world measurements, rather than modelling them on his ‘home computer’, how will he be able to understand what the measurements mean?
Does anyone else not understand these sentences or is it just me?
“About 3000 cubic kilometres of ice drift out of the Arctic Ocean every year, corresponding to around 2700 billion tons. The ice exports freshwater that reaches the Arctic Ocean via rivers and precipitation. This maintains its salt concentration, which has been constant over the long term.”
“Researchers have been observing that the ice is getting thinner and thinner for several years now. As a result, it stores and exports less freshwater and the salt concentration (also referred to as salinity) of the Arctic Ocean declines.”
If the ice is getting thinner and less freshwater is stored and exported, how could the salinity of the Arctic Ocean DECLINE?
“Flying through virtually unsettled regions of the Arctic…”
The term “virtual…” set off an alarm. I thought of MS Flight Simulator but then he finished with
“…in the high-tech research aircraft is a stark contrast to my modelling work on the computer.”
Is he not flying over ice on the Arctic Sea, that is, sea ice? Anyway, four transects flown when conditions are appropiate over a constantly shifting and jumbled ocean surface seems to me to be like looking through the keyhole of the front door of the Musee Du Louvre.
“About 3000 cubic kilometres of ice drift out of the Arctic Ocean every year, corresponding to around 2700 billion tons. The ice exports freshwater that reaches the Arctic Ocean via rivers and precipitation. This maintains its salt concentration, which has been constant over the long term. The temperature rise observed worldwide is especially pronounced in the Arctic latitudes.”
There seems to be a disconnect between sea ice and ice formed in rivers, glaciers, etc. that would be fresh water in the above paragraph. How much of the ice that flows out of the arctic is sea ice, and how much is the fresh water that reaches the arctic by rivers, etc.? Sea ice is not fresh water, it may be less salty than the sea it forms from, but it is not fresh water. Something in this paragraph does not make sense.
“The question of when the Arctic will be ice-free in the summer has been preoccupying….”
So, it’s when –no if’s, no possibly, it might, etc – a flat predetermined prognosis. Quite a safe bet (if one sticks around long enough).
“If the ice is getting thinner and less freshwater is stored and exported, how could the salinity of the Arctic Ocean DECLINE?”
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CJames, they are saying that if it doesn’t float out as ice cubes, or stay locked up in ice cubes, it sits there and melts.
So it’s not the thinnest “ever.” Ludicrous doublespeak and extremely nearsighted hubris…
With knuckleheads in charge, “ever” continues to mean a whopping 30+ years of measurements. Oh, be still my heart.
So a 30+ year “trend” is measured against, what? C02? Water vapor? Perhaps they should measure the non-existent “trend” against the amount of tax dollars flushed down the crapper protecting us against a manufactured threat?
The sky IS falling, yes, around the heads of scientists who are kicking the very dead horse of AGW daily and with vigor, and when the day comes when the poor horse explodes in a shower of gore, on that day they will begin to understand the true cost of their zealotry…
Ice levels in the Fram Strait are unusually low right now. Hopefully, they’re well aware of this.
Other times, with other winds will be very different.
CJames: If the ice is getting thinner and less freshwater is stored and exported, how could the salinity of the Arctic Ocean DECLINE?
There is a constant flow into the arctic of fresh water from the landmass (rivers). If you decrease the export, the net result is a reduction in salinity.
glacierman says:
August 20, 2010 at 12:35 pm
Ice is by construction fresh water, because it is the solid state of H2O , which in its liquid form is water. It is crystalline and there is no space for the salt molecule in the crystal. Pockets of brine are slowly rejected as the freezing advances.
One way of solving water problems for coastal areas is to carve icebergs and navigate them where needed. 😉
Forgive my temerity in “interpreting” this statement, folks.
“The ice exports freshwater that reaches the Arctic Ocean via rivers and precipitation. This maintains its salt concentration, which has been constant over the long term.”
I think the writer means:
“The ice exports the EQUIVALENT of the freshwater that reaches the Arctic Ocean via rivers and precipitation. This maintains its salt concentration, which has been constant over the long term.”
Anna V
I understand that, but the paragraph says that the ice that flows out of the Arctic is fresh water that arrives there via rivers and precipitation. I do not think that is what is measured as flowing out of the Arctic, which would be, as you say, sea ice with some level of brine – salt – trapped in it. Obviously the older the ice, the more time it has to shed its salt and get “fresher”. And yes, people can get fresh water from glaciers, but ask a sailor in the Arctic if the ice pack can be melted and used as fresh water….
I’m virtually pain-free after reading this article. Let me get some Advil, because reality is a b**ch…
I know what will happen before it happens; one of two things:
1) The ice is thinner than last year when the “Ice Dicks” did the scan and found it 4 meters thick. Now it comes in at 3.8 meters thick, a 5% reduction. At this rate it is melted, for sure, in xxxyyy years. That 0.2 meter reduction represents zzz number of Manhattans (or is it “ice sufficient to make 7.8 billion Manhattans) Do the GISS and PIOMAS people drink too many Manhattans? Is that the crux of their problems?
2) Or it will come out thicker than last year, yet below what the real “Ice Dicks” on their polar sleighride said it was? “Worse than we thought” say the “Head Ice Dick”.
In either case, we do a linear regression to see when all the little prima donnas in their little Sunfish can sail through the NW passage.