UPDATE: Regular Sea Ice News now posted here:
Sea Ice News #25 – NSIDC says 2010 3rd lowest for Arctic sea ice
=======================================
Normally I have a Sea Ice News feature on Sundays.
I’m holding it a day, because I’m waiting for NSIDC to make an announcement, and I want to include it. Arctic Sea Ice is making a quick turnaround, the DMI 30% graph shows we are now at 2005 levels for 30% extent.
While waiting for NSIDC in the meantime, have a look at this interesting animation showing the quick turnaround in ice extent in September…
Steve Goddard writes:
Blink comparator showing ice growth over the past week. More than 5,000 Manhattans of new ice have formed – one new Manhattan of ice every two minutes.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/CT/animate.arctic.color.0.html
Also while waiting, don’t forget to check status at the WUWT Sea Ice Page.
I’ve got to say this before R. Gates does:
“Notice the decrease in the ice extent on Greenland’s east coast.”
😉
NSIDC is trying to get its story right and blame global warming.
Ice growth at this rate forecasts a cold winter, perhaps.
Is there a strong wind blowing from Scandinavia towards the Bering Straights?
I wonder if it would be more meaningful to compare the annual average of something like August+September+October? That would average out short term wind and weather effects, and might give a bet tern year to year comparison than the minimum.
I guess this means the NW passage is now closed…alas I wonder if its the last time it will be open for a few years…
O/T: Here in Denmark we’ve just had the coldest September since 2001.
:
Just so that I can get my calculations right, how many “Manhattans”” are there in a “Wales”? ( Here in the UK large areas are spoken of as “the size of Wales”)
It is still only marginally above 2007 and 2008.
What is the 30-yr trend?
Gareth Phillips Oct 4 2:04 am:
Yes it’s strange that – “An area the size of Wales has been flooded” – “Rainforest the size of Wales is cut down every year…” But why, oh why, is it never actually Wales?
Let me guess what NSIDC is going to announce:
Walt Meier got after them to look over thier data, and they found a mixup after the Sept 10th glitch, after which they discovered that the Sea Ice never fell off after the 10th. The extent graphs should look like the NORSEX graphs.
What I saw on the Band 367 images was the Sea Ice growing from the 11th on, and it never looked back.
I’ll pinch myself first.
Ok, I’m still here.
Tap, tap, tap. Waiting is for the birds.
Gareth Phillips says:
October 4, 2010 at 2:04 am
Just so that I can get my calculations right, how many “Manhattans”” are there in a “Wales”? ( Here in the UK large areas are spoken of as “the size of Wales”)
As a Devonian I must protest at this predjudice. Why not measure things in “the size of Devon” Perhaps we could get a whole new international measuremeet system going? “It was estimated the area was about the size of two Wales’ & 4/5th of Devon!” ;-))
I am investing in woollen undergarmnets this autumn, I have a feeling I am going to need them!
This increase was completely unpresidented. But I understand it was quite prime ministered.
Gareth: Don’t you just love SI units. Area = Manhattan or Wales. Volume: How many double-decker buses are there in an olympic swimming pool?
Lionsden,
I was kind of having the same thought as the minimum extent of sea ice for any given year can be due to a freak occurrence, whereas a the average sea ice extent for the summer months would say more about the summer period in general terms.
But maybe some picked the yearly minimum extent to tell a certain story.
Rgds. Troels
Here in Britain we shivered through the coldest August for 17 years, without much sun, despite forecasts that it would be a far better summer than last year.
September was also very cold, but not seen the ‘official’ numbers yet.
I’m not looking forward to the coming winter, and I’ve stocked up on logs, fuel oils and food in case we get snowed in for a long period again. Global warming – I wish!!!
Although it’s fun looking at the daily changes, and nice to see a surge like that, what really matters is the long-term trend. Unfortunately the graph is only for the last 30 years, but it will have to do. A similar graph for the last hundred years would probably tell a completely different story.
Over recent decades the ice extent did fall somewhat, and the rate of fall actually accelerated, hence the dreaded ‘death spiral’. But around 2007 it seemed to hit the floor and it’s been bouncing on the floor ever since.
I bought and sold shares for about ten years, so I’ve looked at lots of graphs like this. Often shares fall at an accelerating rate as investors panic and the panic feeds on itself, but they then hit a natural bottom and may well bounce up and down on the bottom for a while. Occasionally the shares may start another slide and that’s when you really need to stay calm and not panic-sell. In most cases the shares turn around and start to move north at quite a rate. The real loser are the ones who panic-sold. I know, because I was one of them more than once! You end up selling when they’re low and buying them back when they’re high.
If the 30 year graph were a graph of a share price then, provided you’re buying shares for the long term, this is a great buying opportunity. Most likely the only direction those shares can move is north. But you will need to be patient.
Chris
OT.
Prof . Robert Edwards wins Nobel medicine prize for his work on IVF, had to wait 25 years, while Gore&Co had instant recognition for their efforts. A bit of hypocrisy somewhere?
Gareth Phillips says:
October 4, 2010 at 2:04 am
“Just so that I can get my calculations right, how many “Manhattans”” are there in a “Wales”? ( Here in the UK large areas are spoken of as “the size of Wales”)”
Wales’s are measurements of disasters. Manhattans are the measurement of natural events. See;
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=climate-change-ice-chunk-the-size-o-2008-09-04
There are 353 Manhattans to 1 Wales although for estimation purposes, a simple OMG! generally suffices.
I am mystified by the insistence on comparing new data to a 30-year past term. What would be wrong with comparing the new data to the entire recorded history? It seems to me that any trend you try to set for new data will depend entirely upon which 30-year period you compare it to. If you compare it to a cool 30 years, your new data may make the trend look quite warm; on the other hand, if you compare it to a warm 30 years, your new data may show a cooling trend. This seems to me like ready-made cherry-picking. Obviously, for sea-ice extent, the past data are limited to times when satellite photos have been available.
Gareth Phillips says:
October 4, 2010 at 2:04 am
Ok, to accommodate all comers, here is the breakdown for some fun.
1 Manhattan = 60sq km (+/-) = 0.00288 Wales = 48038.43 Olympic swimming pools = 5.6391E-08 Atlantic oceans and 13605442.176 king sized beds. How many matchboxes, laptops or moons I’ll pass. lol
OMG! 5000 Manhattans is nearly 10 Belgiums and more than half a France!
Our current warm spell started about 30 years ago, right? If I’m a climate change missionary and I want to score myself a geek-spat point, I’m picking “30 year trend” for pretty much everything.
And didn’t they used to use “Texas” for size comparisons? As a Texan that always did me proud. As in, “Good ol’ Al Gore, he’s got an ego the size of…” or “Them ClimApologists, you couldn’t fit their heads into a basket the size of…”
In reply to Gareth Phillips, October 4, 2010 at 2:04 am:
Manhattan*: 59 square km (23 square miles)
Wales**: 20779 square km (8010 square miles)
* Wiki claims as their source the US Census Bureau although the references do not seem to link to the information. I can see no reason to doubt the figure.
** http://eulis.eu/service/countries-profile/england-and-wales/
(Other sources give trivially different figures)
Thus, there are 350 Manhattans in a Wales.
Is it just my layman ignorance, or does that graph show that nature continues to surprise no matter what “trends” appear in the little squiggly lines?
Mike Jowsey says:
October 4, 2010 at 2:16 am
It is still only marginally above 2007 and 2008.
What is the 30-yr trend?
========================
Better yet, what’s the 100 year trend?
Thus, there are 350 Manhattans in a Wales.
Sure, but if we’re counting population, how many Hiroshimas?
Gareth: Don’t you just love SI units. Area = Manhattan or Wales. Volume: How many double-decker buses are there in an olympic swimming pool?
There are approx 18 double decker buses by volume to 1 olympic swimming pool.
2.5m wide, 13 m long, 4.25m high:
50 x 25 x 2 for the pool:
Then again there have been a few measures of shiraz at this point so the figures may need to be peer reviewed.
Hope this helps.
This is one area where I argue that we are being snookered.
The minimum is largely irrelevant. It makes good news right now because of the nice 15 year trend down, which is actually a 30 year trend down. The problem is that our satellite data for the sea ice extent started in 1979 (for the whole year at least). Prior to that nothing is known.
What was going on in 1979 was that the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) was starting to trend upwards. I prefer to annualize the data and compare entire years. That is where the best results show up for this type of analysis.
My post on this from Sep 21st shows what the annual data for the AMO and the Arctic Sea Ice show. The AMO has been weaker the past few years and the sea ice has recovered. It is that simple.
http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/2010/09/arctic-sea-ice-and-the-atlantic-oscillation/
John Kehr
The Inconvenient Skeptic
> I’m waiting for NSIDC to make an announcement, and I want to include it.
I generally avoid snark, and I don’t pay too much attention to Arctic (there are plenty of people who do it better than I do), however, what should we expect the NSIDC to say?
Perhaps “The ice growth is remarkable, but keep in mind it’s thin first week ice and not the more important thick multiyear ice.”
Alan the Brit says:
October 4, 2010 at 2:22 am
“As a Devonian …….”
Devon – did you know that if you were to flatten that county and then mark the surface off into squares 1 metre x 1 metre, you could get the current population of the earth in there at the rate of 1 person per square metre?
If you did the same with Cornwall then, between the two Counties, you could accommodate more than 10 billion people at the rate of 1 person per square metre.
As we have seen the last of the outer planet induced surges of warm tropical air mass into the arctic until April, I would say the growth of ice should proceed at a fast pace, right up till mid April.
I had the thought earlier today “If the heat conductance through the ice is slower than that from exposed sea surface, as the heat radiates away into space, is the actual thickness of the ice as it builds up a negative feedback to the loss of heat?” then by extension is the total volume of ice produced over the winter an indicator of the SST heat removed from the global circulation, or is the relationship inverse, as less ice lets more heat per unit of time to escape.
Is there some tipping point(?) of the amount of heat available in the ambient temperature of the sea water entering the arctic therefore equaling less ice extent and volume an actual greater loss of total calories/btu’s over the winter, is then a positive feedback?
There exists room for the conjuncture of a bi-polar ice thermostat mechanism as well as a tropical cloud cover one. (As crazy as that sounds [pun intended];)
Would then a snowball earth, with deep snow covered ice allow a slowing of abysmal ocean cooling and gradual increase in geothermal heat loss cause an end to the snow ball phase due to the average SST increase from the “millions of degrees of crustal warmth” as the Goracle was so smart to mention?
The [dare I say back radiation?] temperature of the space above the poles is rather consistent, only the ice and overhead clouds slows down the heat loss transfer rate, with maybe some increase in insulation by deep snow?
Vuk etc. says:
October 4, 2010 at 2:58 am
“OT.
Prof . Robert Edwards wins Nobel medicine prize for his work on IVF, had to wait 25 years, while Gore&Co had instant recognition for their efforts. A bit of hypocrisy somewhere?”
No hypocrisy…remember that the Gore et al prize was NOT given for any achievement in science…
The recent melt will likely be due to weather and oceanic influences. I think NSIDC will say something similar. Along with the data glitch of course.
How about “cubits”? The we can talk in biblical proportions – even if they are not.
mrpkw says:
October 4, 2010 at 3:49 am
Mike Jowsey says:
October 4, 2010 at 2:16 am
It is still only marginally above 2007 and 2008.
What is the 30-yr trend?
========================
Better yet, what’s the 100 year trend?
………thats the billion dollar question, which nobody know the answer to. That’s why the AGW cult has taken hold, dimply because for 30 years (with a mostly positive AMO) they can show us a decline.
It means jack.
Ric Werme says:
October 4, 2010 at 4:43 am
Make sure to store your snowmobile and blower close to the garage door, and they are tuned up and ready to go this winter, you might be needing them all the way to spring in New England.
Okay, I have a question: I was wondering if the Ice meets it’s land borders by the end of October, would it be wise to assume that it would start to grow thicker, since it’s the only thing it can do after it reaches the land borders.
(I know there are a couple of places where it can continue to accumulate extent, but that depends on how cold the water is in those areas are. And who knows? With a negative PDO and a Negative AMO it could reach and surpass the average Ice Area near Svalbard and Ice Land again. Maybe this year? Or in the next couple of years? All I’m betting on for that is that it will happen in my life time and I wonder what the CAGW people will say about that? )
~Karen
You northern hemisphere types so often forget the metrics south of the Equator. A common one for volume is “The Sydney Harbour” as in “This new dam will be X Sydharbs.” Less quantifiable is a height measure, “Lower than a snake’s belly” which beats corn as high as an elephant’s eye. There are quizzical ones, such as housing land being “A good sized quarter acre,” sometimes hosting a “penthouse style apartment on the ground level.” In the conversion to decimal in 1966, we had the velocity unit “furlong per fortnight” but that has declined. We calculate that Oz uses toilet paper at about 1,600 mph, or about twice the speed of sound at C level. There are indeterminate measures such as “the spooky long drop”, being an earth toilet so deep that no noise can be heard when the velocity stops. With climate, we also have reports of winds so strong that they blew over trees that had never been blown over before.
Strangely, the decimal currency values since 1966 have not taken on names like “dime ” or “quarter” in the USA or “quid” for the old pound sterling. Strange, because there are 6 coin values and 5 paper values, but not one has a colloquial name.
Oops I meant “Iceland”
Mike Jowsey says:
October 4, 2010 at 2:16 am
“It is still only marginally above 2007 and 2008.
What is the 30-yr trend?”
30 years is wheather, not climate.
Therefore, your question, like the Arctic ice data, is irrevelant.
Sorry.
Gareth Phillips says:
October 4, 2010 at 2:04 am
Just so that I can get my calculations right, how many “Manhattans”” are there in a “Wales”? ( Here in the UK large areas are spoken of as “the size of Wales”)
Using Manhattan for size started with news reports about pieces of ice “the size of Manhattan” breaking off Antarctica. They used Manhattan when talking about the glacier in Greenland too.
Mike Jowsey says:
October 4, 2010 at 2:16 am
It is still only marginally above 2007 and 2008.
What is the 30-yr trend?
It depends on which 30 years you use. If you use 1947 to 1977 there was a growing trend. If you use 1977 to 2007 the was a decreasing trend. Arctic ice always goes through increasing and decreasing trends. It’s normal. If it didn’t change that is what would be unusual.
Chris Wright says:
October 4, 2010 at 2:49 am
what really matters is the long-term trend.
I agree. Here’s the long term trend:
Peer reviewed study says current Arctic sea ice is more extensive than most of the past 9000 years….Arctic sea ice extent at the end of the 20th century was more extensive than most of the past 9000 years. The paper also finds that Arctic sea ice extent was on a declining trend over the past 9000 years, but recovered beginning sometime over the past 1000 years and has been relatively stable and extensive since.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/23/surprise-peer-reviewed-study-says-current-arctic-sea-ice-is-more-extensive-than-most-of-the-past-9000-years/
Geoff Sherrington,
lol! 🙂
Devon – did you know that if you were to flatten that county and then mark the surface off into squares 1 metre x 1 metre, you could get the current population of the earth in there at the rate of 1 person per square metre?
———————————————————————————————
Last Bank holiday I was there I thought the process had already happened!
My hat’s off to Joe Bastardi. He was right about where decrease in JAXA would end up. And he was right about a rapid increase occurring after minimum was reached.
Any news about the sailors, trying the NW passage this year?
How about checking the instruments accuracy? We’ve been seeing ice spotted almost everywere and suddenly disappeared last summer. May be what is now growing never decreased, at least part of it.
gg
Is that Wales before or after Henry II?
On the Sea Ice page there is a picture of the “Amundsen Scott South Pole station”.
Can you see that black smoke coming up there? What is it? Scientists polluting the South Pole Ice? What about living green? hmmmm?
Well, the next line of warmista’s news will be Borge Ousland’s navigation of both NE and NW Arctic in one summer season. They are currently rounding the Southern tip of Greenland, heading for Oslo. It is quite a feat however, so hats off to them.
I reminded them on their blog to mention the open water at the North Pole …..in 1959.
Paul Richards says:
October 4, 2010 at 6:46 am
Well, the next line of warmista’s news will be Borge Ousland’s navigation of both NE and NW Arctic in one summer season. They are currently rounding the Southern tip of Greenland, heading for Oslo. It is quite a feat however, so hats off to them.
The Russian boat ‘Peter I’ is in a similar location having also cleared both passages this season.
This is probably an indication that the sea ice was just below the 15% value in many areas. At 14.9% it becomes zero in the data. However, as soon as a little cold temperatures cause some freezing, it jumps right back over 15% and looks like a big freeze.
@Geoff Sherrington
‘Strangely, the decimal currency values since 1966 have not taken on names like “dime ” or “quarter” in the USA or “quid” for the old pound sterling. Strange, because there are 6 coin values and 5 paper values, but not one has a colloquial name.’
I think much the same has happened to British decimal coinage. Quid, fiver and tenner were nicknames already and of hoary antiquity. They just carried on as before but I’m not aware of any nicknames for the actual decimal currency coins. They have little character and even the 1p coin is not called a penny much anymore – most people seem to simply call it a one pence or one pee (which tends to show they don’t even remember or know the actual meaning of ‘pence’ as a plural). A quaint little article halfway down this page on the issue:
http://www.darlingtonandstocktontimes.co.uk/columnists/countrymansdiary/8215583.Saint_helping_the_harvest_home/
As regards the years before the Nobel prize for IVF award – it was probably as well to wait until the kids had grown-up healthy in mind and body, just in case. E.g. they might want to check for any accidentaly induced gene-based, inheritable resistance to warmist concepts.
Useful calculator here …
http://www.simonkelk.co.uk/sizeofwales.html
Click the area button at the top for Wales/Texas/A N Other state calcs
Alan the Brit says: “As a Devonian I must protest at this predjudice. Why not measure things in “the size of Devon”
Don’t you know that Wales is an unofficial unit of measure while Devon gets an official Paleozoic Period assigned to it? The Devonian was nearly 57 million years. That’s almost as long as the entire Cenozoic! That’s a big number. No prejudice here, so let’s not get greedy about how our home turf is used as scientific yardsticks.
Arctic Sea Ice is making a quick turnaround,
Is this unprecedented? I hear that word so much that I was just wondering… really…
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
October 4, 2010 at 5:55 am
Mike Jowsey says:
October 4, 2010 at 2:16 am
It is still only marginally above 2007 and 2008.
What is the 30-yr trend?
It depends on which 30 years you use. If you use 1947 to 1977 there was a growing trend. If you use 1977 to 2007 the was a decreasing trend. Arctic ice always goes through increasing and decreasing trends. It’s normal. If it didn’t change that is what would be unusual.
_____________________________________________________________
Source of your data trendlines?
Links?
Papers?
Blogs?
Anything will do.
My source;
Meier, Stroeve, Fetterer (2007), “Whither Arctic sea ice? A clear signal of decline regionally, seasonally and extending beyond the satellite record”, Annals of Glaciology, Volume 46, 2007, pp. 428-434.
See Figure 3, p. 432. Data 1953-2006 inclusive for sea ice extent.
“Mike Jowsey says:
October 4, 2010 at 2:16 am
It is still only marginally above 2007 and 2008.”
At the moment the extent is about 4.65 million sq km, in 2007 it was 3.53 mi sq km at the same time according to the above graph.
So: There is more than a million square kilometer more ice now than in 2007, that is about 31% more, or about 1.5 times the size of Texas.
Do not mess with Texas, Mike Jowsey. It is not “marginal”, not at all.
Alan the Brit says:
October 4, 2010 at 2:22 am
“As a Devonian I must protest at this predjudice. ”
#
But you’ve got a whole geologic period named after you, and an important one at that.
Poor Dr. Stroeve, she describes her current area of research as:
* Diagnosing the declining arctic sea ice cover
Given the direction of ice extent of the last few years, she is out of business.
Now a real scientiest, one who doesn’t entr intot he fray with preconceived ideas, one who keep an open mind, would list her research as:
Current Research [top]
* Diagnosing the arctic sea ice cover
But all the Warmistas telegraph their final conclusions by listing their biases up front.
http://nsidc.org/research/bios/stroeve.html#research
And globally the sea ice is a million and a half square kilometers in the red.
With antarctic sea ice statistically a tie with the long term mean.
“RichieP says:
October 4, 2010 at 7:23 am
They have little character and even the 1p coin is not called a penny much anymore – most people seem to simply call it a one pence or one pee (which tends to show they don’t even remember or know the actual meaning of ‘pence’ as a plural).”
At the time of the change they wanted to distinguish the old “penny” ( 1d= 1£/240) from the new one (which was not worth the same: 1p=1£/100), hence the latter was just called the “p”.
Bernie says: October 4, 2010 at 5:02 am “How about “cubits”? Wale’s Arizonas, Belgiums, etc. etc.”
These off-topic discussions have a very “end of term” feeling about them … it’s as if some people know we have already won but it’s not been officially announced – have I missed something?
What is it?
– the inevitable declaration of “a decade of cooling”.
– the expectation another cold winter?
– the domino effect after the Royal Society U turn?
– Another year past without the predicted disappearance of ice?
– growing evidence for non-CO2 causal contributors to global temperature?
– The realisation that the “scientists” have given up on bad temperature stations – they simply don’t have an answer (except saying nothing) for all those rubbish temperature station measurements?
Or what?
Richard Holle says: Oct 4, 2010, 455
Correct. That’s why Brits need to be investing in air conditioning. When the North Atlantic freezes down to the latitude of Liverpool this winter all that heat loss will waft over the Isles and render them positively tropical. Or not.
Hopefully the ice won’t grow by a Nunavut or an Ontario… That would be problematic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada
Even an NWT or a Yukon would be a problem — let alone a Quebec.
But rest assured that if it comes to pass we will do our best to direct the ice sheet south to Texas — so you can enjoy a cool beer while we freeze. …and on it’s way south the ice sheet is gonna push all them Northern Liberals south — so be prepared. 🙂
The engineering plans for “ice directors” are in the works — trust me!
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
October 4, 2010 at 5:55 am
If you use 1947 to 1977 there was a growing trend. If you use 1977 to 2007 the was a decreasing trend. Arctic ice always goes through increasing and decreasing trends. It’s normal. If it didn’t change that is what would be unusual.
Wher did you get these figures from?
Geoff Sherrington says:
October 4, 2010 at 5:35 am
Too funny!
We also have the reference of something being “two axe handles and a pack of Mail Pouch wide”.
I created an animation for the folks at http://forums.accuweather.com/index.php?showtopic=23031.
Seems to fit here – hope you all agree.
http://forums.accuweather.com/uploads/post-22592-1285993139.gif
September (month end averages) NSIDC (sea ice extent)
30 yrs ago
1981 Southern Hemisphere = 18.9 million sq km
1981 Northern Hemisphere = 7.3 million sq km
Total = 26.2 million sq km
Record Arctic minimum extent year (Sept 2007- 4.28 Mkm2).
2007 Southern Hemisphere = 19.2 million sq km
2007 Northern Hemisphere = 4.3 million sq km
Total = 23.5 million sq km
Last yr.
2009 Southern Hemisphere = 19.1 million sq km
2009 Northern Hemisphere = 5.4 million sq km
Total = 24.5 million sq km
This yr.
2010 Southern Hemisphere = 19.2 million sq km
2010 Northern Hemisphere = 4.9 million sq km
Total = 24.1 million sq km
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu//DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/Sep/S_201009_extn.png
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu//DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/Sep/N_201009_extn.png
1979-2000 Southern Hemisphere September mean = 18.7 million sq km
1979-2000 Northern Hemisphere September mean = 7.0 million sq km
Total Sept mean = 25.7 million sq km
All plates may be examined here:
http://nsidc.org/cgi-bin/bist/bist.pl?annot=1&legend=1&scale=75&tab_cols=2&tab_rows=4&config=seaice_index&submit=Refresh&mo0=09&hemis0=N&img0=extn&mo1=09&hemis1=S&img1=extn&year0=1981&year1=2007&year2=2009&year3=2010
GK
Am I the only one that suspects that the folks at NSIDC give high fives and go out for beers whenever the sea ice news is bad?
Things are probably quite glum in Boulder at the moment.
Karen @ 5:24
“Okay, I have a question: I was wondering if the Ice meets it’s land borders by the end of October, would it be wise to assume that it would start to grow thicker, since it’s the only thing it can do after it reaches the land borders.”
Ice is a good insulator. Once the surface has frozen to a sufficient depth the freezing will slow. Then wind and currents, and anything else that might help shatter the brittle ice, can break up and move the ice, exposing additional surface water which then freezes. Those same forces of breakup will move ice around and pile it up, making for the thicker ridges and ultimately the, so called, multi-year ice. At the fringes (“land borders”) there can be some pushing of the ice on to land. Mountain tarns can show the same processes and the jamming of ice against the shore, which will produce a ring of rocks around the parimenter. See this:
http://www.geography.vt.edu/worldlandscapes/readings2/preread/g331.JPG
Note to the warmists:
I’m guessing that Anthony raises short term changes like this in Arctic sea ice as a counterbalance to commments regularly made at NSIDC and other places.
If the scientists would avoid agenda driven, alarmist hyperbole in their official releases like “ice free summers in X years”, “death spiral”, “worse than we thought”, etc. etc., than a relatively rapid, early ice recovery in any single year would probably receive far less attention here.
D Caldwell,
My thoughts exactly.
Karen says:
October 4, 2010 at 5:24 am
Looks like the ice is shying away from Svalbard.
UHI? 🙂
I think your comeback is on thin ice! September 2010 had the third lowest Arctic ice extent ever and the trend is still markedly downward. The northern cryosphere is in decline and dumping CO2 into the atmosphere is simply not helping.
It seems that there are posters here, who do not know that there are graphs, which show 100 year data for Sea Ice extent. Ship log data has been calibrated as a proxy for the satellite data to get this.
http://www.wunderground.com/climate/SeaIce_Fig04.asp
It shows a convincing declining trend in the summer sea ice over the past 30 years after the first part of the 20th century, during which it varied in a narrow statistical band of about 1/- 1.5MKm2, and that the winter ice, as would be expected has been stable for a longer period of time and has declined very little.
This means that the difference between winter and summer ice extents is getting larger. So an increase in the recovery rate of the Arctic Sea Ice from its summer low to be expected as a consequence of global warming.
It seems that the skeptics of global warming are unduly excited by this phenomenon.
They need to wake up and smell the coffee.
The warmists are now in denial, or should that be deartic?
Personally, I am amazed, how well ice has hung on. Considering we have been on the warm side of climate variation. One also has to consider the other “ice extent” (frozen water referred to as snow extent) report. This ice extent has been increasing (winter).
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/17/northern-hemisphere-snow-extent-second-highest-on-record/ GK
eadler says:
October 4, 2010 at 9:50 am
Your graph is out of date, does not compare with the S. Hemisphere, and contains proxy points which do not display the degree of uncertaintly. Since conditions not too far removed from 2007-2010 have been documented around the turn of the 18th and 20th Century, I’d say your convincing argument is a sleight of hand.
You do remember what sank the Titanic, don’t you? And let’s not forget where those shiny white things were in relationship to the Sea Ice from whence they came.
30-year trend, 100-year trend… You guys are sissies! I’m going with the 20,000-year trend. Ice loss has been absolutely devastating! Yet nothing is done, no one seems to care. We’re all in the pay of Big Oil, apparently.
During the ’70s, there was so much ice in the Arctic it caused Leading Climate Scientists to cry out, “Ice Age!”. There’s less than that now. I’m very afraid!
If, instead of “more ice is good” ’cause it proves the CAGWers wrong, we evaluate changes in sea ice as “tending toward ice age” and “tending away from ice age”, I think I prefer “away”, actually…
Best,
Frank
Eadler says:
It shows a convincing declining trend in the summer sea ice over the past 30 years after the first part of the 20th century, during which it varied in a narrow statistical band of about 1/- 1.5MKm2, and that the winter ice, as would be expected has been stable for a longer period of time and has declined very little.
If you look at temperatures over the last 100 years you would notice that they have been rising in fact since the little ice age. You can actually see a downward trend from the 1950’s, but warming from CO2 only kicked in in 1980 (according to the “scientists”).
Professor Easterbrook has published a few papers on variations in temperature, glaciation and polar ice, and how these variations are caused by the 60 year pacific decadal oscillation cycles.
We are now entering not only a cool PDO cycle but also a solar minimum. You can expect the ice to recover to at least those levels of the 1970’s.
Professor Easterbrook has made a prediction justified by scientific evidence from the past.
Eadler we’re in 2010 and your in la la la land. Look carefully at your graph once again
After the next two NH winters, hot coffe is going to be mighty tasty…
“Two steps forward, one back.” -Joe Bastardi on the Arctic ice melt..
In Russia, journalists prefer measuring natural phenomena in “Belgiums.”
Whatever happens in Russia,good or bad, it usually encompasses a territory containing so many “Belgiums” that Russian supremacy in this department remains unquestionable.
Meanwhile, Belgian GDP per capita is 4 to 5 times larger than Russian.
To me, this is somewhat the flip side to what happened in March-June. Then, a late increase in growth season got wiped out in a hurry by a early melt of young ice.
Now, a late surge in melt season (the false bottom and then subsequent drop) is being wiped out by an apparent surge in creation of new ice.
Really, both go to the difference between extent and volume, and both suggest weakness in thickness.
I wrote the lead investigator for Cyrosat-2 on Friday. Dunno if he’ll write back, of course, but I’m curious when we’re going to start seeing some data from them. It’s almost six months now.
Yes, I know they need to do calibration work. But I’m hoping we’ll start seeing some data from them.
That is why the “prophet” just started a tour in the southern hemisphere. There he will be preaching his new age sermons.
When N. Sea ice, (and even global sea ice for that matter) get above the long term average, let me know. Then we might have something interesting to talk about. As it stand, N. Sea ice has not been above the longer (30+ year) average since 2004…quite in line with what would be expected from GCM’s taking AGW into account. This really upsets AGW skeptics, but those are the facts…now let’s hear the whining.
Bob from the UK says:
“You can expect the ice to recover to at least those levels of the 1970′s.”
____
This is very very unlikely.
Geo says:
“Really, both go to the difference between extent and volume, and both suggest weakness in thickness.”
____
Bingo.
You could see this turn around coming a parsec away.
“We are star stuff!!” – C. Sagan.
The total sea ice volume is easy to compile but but is uninformative by itself. Arctic ice is not melting uniformly but from two sides of the ocean where warm currents enter it. It is not the greenhouse effect but warm currents that have been active for more than a century that are the cause of this arctic warming. From the Atlantic side the Gulf Stream’s warm water penetrates as far as Novaya Zemlya and even beyond to keep the Russian Arctic ice free in the summer. From the west side warm water enters through the Bering Strait and normally keeps the Chuckchi Sea ice free in the summer. Both sources of warm water are independently variable and jointly they account for the observed summer melt. That is why it is important to see the geography of ice loss, not just the total volume as is done today. The big melt of 2007 is an example. That year more than the usual amount of warm water entered through the Bering Strait and melted a large chunk of sea ice on that side of the ocean while the Gulf Stream side hardly changed from previous year. Comparing the maps from 2006 and 2007 is the only thing you need to understand that. But all we heard was about a catastrophic ice loss and predictions of the North Pole being ice free by 2020. These geniuses who compile the data undoubtedly did have the maps but were too stupid to see what the maps had to say. Apparently the strong poleward winds in 2007 were responsible for pulling an extra amount of warm water through the strait. The Gulf Stream side also can vary if you check the extent to which it penetrates along the Siberian coast. The Arctic is warming and if you really want to track it you should include the geography of melting along with ice volume in your blog.
R. Gates says:
October 4, 2010 at 11:27 am
“When N. Sea ice, (and even global sea ice for that matter) get above the long term average, let me know. Then we might have something interesting to talk about. As it stand, N. Sea ice has not been above the longer (30+ year) average since 2004…quite in line with what would be expected from GCM’s taking AGW into account. This really upsets AGW skeptics, but those are the facts…now let’s hear the whining.”
Spoken like a true brain-dead liberal.
R. Gates,
“This really upsets AGW skeptics, but those are the facts…now let’s hear the whining.”
Skeptics are never upset by facts.
“Skeptics are never upset by facts.”
That’s something the scare-mongers can never understand.
And talking about a 30 year average is meaningless. Anyone who looks at the big picture immediately sees natural variability at work.
RE: eadler says:
October 4, 2010 at 9:50 am
***It seems that there are posters here, who do not know that there are graphs, which show 100 year data for Sea Ice extent. Ship log data has been calibrated as a proxy for the satellite data to get this.
http://www.wunderground.com/climate/SeaIce_Fig04.asp
It shows a convincing declining trend in the summer sea ice over the past 30 years after the first part of the 20th century, during which it varied in a narrow statistical band of about 1/- 1.5MKm2, and that the winter ice, as would be expected has been stable for a longer period of time and has declined very little. ***
With respect to this site above, this was hashed over at Climateaudit two summers ago. The apparent straight line should not be taken too seriously. The compilers issued a caution statement that there was a lot of estimation and extrapolation used. After that there was a reference to other charts which used Ship data including that from Russia, showing a much more variable ice amount.
What we have here is a hockey stick which tacks on 30 years of satellite data to several types of reports.
D Caldwell says:
October 4, 2010 at 9:29 am
If the scientists would avoid agenda driven, alarmist hyperbole in their official releases like “ice free summers in X years”, “death spiral”, “worse than we thought”, etc. etc.
Hm, I’ve been reading their monthly reports, and don’t recall seeing any of those comments in them…
Otherwise, watching the displacement maps on PIPS2, I can see why the ice extent has been growing, as the ice has gotten dispersed out for 2 weeks. http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/pips2/idis.html
Luckily for those agonising over the exact size of Wales – or Belgium but not, sadly, Manhattan – there is a handy online calculator:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/page/reg-standards-converter.html
This page will also allow you to easily visualise other standard units such as the double decker bus, the olympic sized swimming pool and Bulgarian airbag (in two sizes).
http://www.wunderground.com/climate/SeaIce_Fig04.asp
Interesting that this chart shows a marked decline in Summer Ice Extent in the early 50’s, not long after the warming phases of the PDO and AMO (c.1910-1940) came to an end.
What we are seeing now would seem, on the face of it, to be a repeat performance, with the latest warming phases of the PDO and AMO coming to an end c.2000, and a decline in Arctic Sea Ice summer extent coming a few years later.
Hmmm……
Smokey says October 4, 2010 at 12:19 pm
Ahhh, but Smokey, surely you understand that if we return to conditions of 2MYA or so all the children will explode, or something.
jakers says:
October 4, 2010 at 1:43 pm
Several people have made similar remarks in the last few weeks, including you last week IIRC, and I don’t buy it. Here’s why:
JAXA extent increase from the minimum = 983437 km^2 (20.4%)
CT area increase from the minimum = 942295 km^2 (30.7%)
So the relative area has increased ~50% more than the relative extent since their respective minima…how could dispersion alone lead to that? AFAIK, it can’t. Please let me know if that is an incorrect conclusion and provide a mechanism for support. The only decent argument I can think of against my conclusion is that the area had been increasing for ~10 days before the extent minimum. However, the extent/area ratio was 1.45 on Sept 18, and it’s currently 1.44, so that argument is weak at best. Looking at yesterday’s gains, I can see why one would argue that the single-day gain was mostly wind-driven, as JAXA extent gained 129843 km^2 and CT area gain was a weak 53148 km^2. But if one makes that single-day argument, then it just strengthens the fact that the rest of the gains before yesterday were freeze-driven.
Also note that, despite the recent slowdown, the minimum-to-Oct 3rd increase in extent is the second largest in the JAXA record (only behind 2002). The same metric for CT area has 2010 being the 2nd best in the last 10 years (only behind 2001).
I think the only reasonable conclusion here is that, with respect to the last decade, the refreeze has indeed been rapid this year. That doesn’t at all answer the more pertinent question as to whether it matters much. Personally, I don’t think it does (which I imagine most of the skeptics here will disagree with), but I need to analyze the numbers in more detail to really say that with any sort of confidence.
-Scott
R. Gates says:
October 4, 2010 at 11:27 am
When N. Sea ice, (and even global sea ice for that matter) get above the long term average, let me know. Then we might have something interesting to talk about. As it stand, N. Sea ice has not been above the longer (30+ year) average since 2004…quite in line with what would be expected from GCM’s taking AGW into account. This really upsets AGW skeptics, but those are the facts…now let’s hear the whining.
Always with the disingenuous arguments (You see, I give you credit for being misleading rather than ignorant, although I really have no way of knowing which is truly the case.)
The Arctic minimum will continue to wallow “in recovery” regardless of annual global temperatures because the ice volume low reached represents a cumulative energy gain that has to be dissipated by natural forces over time. It simply won’t turn around on a year to year basis – it’s not as if that energy balance is zeroed out every year. It’s similar to the difference between budget deficits and debts: you can run many years of budgets without a deficit (ie, a surplus) but still remain in debt if that debt is great enough.
Unlike water/ice, the atmosphere has relatively little energy, and thus rapid temperature changes can occur that represent very little energy accumulated or lost. In other words, atmospheric temperatures can vary significantly from one year to the next without representing a large (relative) energy change.
So, let me know when you can demonstrate that the amount of Arctic ice is dependent on atmospheric temperatures more so than sea temperatures and that the atmosphere warms the sea instead of the other way around. Then we might have something interesting to talk about.
The 2007 Arctic minimum certainly sticks out like a sore thumb in regards to extent or area, but what happened in November 2006 when there was seemingly little or no ice accumulation? Did this lead to or help move the sea ice towards the 2007 minimum?
Daniel M says:
October 4, 2010 at 3:21 pm
Yes, I was sort of trying to get to that in the Sea Ice News #24 thread…does the a rapid refreeze make a difference? 2006 had a very slow refreeze and 2007 was then the largest single-year loss ever. 2007 had a late-starting, but rapid, refreeze and we saw some gain in 2008. 2008 then exhibited a very rapid and early refreeze and the 2009 gain was very good (best in JAXA extent since 2002, 3rd best in CT area since 1979). However, 2009’s refreeze was slow, and we saw 2010 go back down to 2008 levels…
So, does a rapid refreeze matter much? I’m still leaning towards “no” or “only a little”, but the anecdotal info above seems to disagree with me. If it does matter, the mechanism would likely be in the quality of the first-year ice in the following summer. With a little extra time and colder weather, there could be a big difference in the quality/thickness of the 1st year ice which would make a difference in the melt season. A similar mechanism might be that a slower refreeze gives more time for wind to crack the ice?…dunno about that one. Naturally, older ice would also be affected by the rapid refreeze (both mechanisms), but not on the same percentage basis.
I need to dig into the numbers here, but I’m short on the time to do so right now.
-Scott
Anything is possible says:
October 4, 2010 at 2:13 pm
http://www.wunderground.com/climate/SeaIce_Fig04.asp
Interesting that this chart shows a marked decline in Summer Ice Extent in the early 50′s, not long after the warming phases of the PDO and AMO (c.1910-1940) came to an end.
What we are seeing now would seem, on the face of it, to be a repeat performance, with the latest warming phases of the PDO and AMO coming to an end c.2000, and a decline in Arctic Sea Ice summer extent coming a few years later.
Hmmm……
_____________________________________________________________
Well if you looked into it some more, you’d find that prior to 1950 the data is largely derived from a “climatology” (e. g. not much real world data exists for this era) while the era from 1953-1978 (or maybe 1972/3, TBD) was largely derived from Arctic sea ice charts, and of course the 1979-2010 (0r 1972/3-2010 and ongoing) are from the modern satellite era.
So the “drop” from 1952 to 1953, is, for all intents and purposes, an artifact of the dataset eras, and not due actual real world conditions at that time.
Response to EFS_Junior @ 4:22pm
Russian Arctic Ice Charts – released in 2007 – date back to 1933, while the Canadian and American Ice Charts started in 1968 and 1972 respectively.
I can’t anything specific that would dramatically change the dataset eras in 1952-3, but if you know different, pray tell.
Interestingly the abstract of this analysis of the Russian Arctic Ice Charts (Mahoney, Barry, Smolyanitski & Fetterer, 2008) http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2008JC004830.shtml
tends to support my (very tentative) hypothesis.
R. Gates says:
Bob from the UK says:
“You can expect the ice to recover to at least those levels of the 1970′s.”
____
This is very very unlikely.
I agree looking at the fact that we are entering a solar minimum at least as weak as the Dalton minimum, returning to the levels of the 1970’s is a significant underestimate.
Phillip Bratby says:
October 4, 2010 at 2:29 am
“Gareth: Don’t you just love SI units. Area = Manhattan or Wales. Volume: How many double-decker buses are there in an olympic swimming pool?”
Depends how good their brakes are!
Would they fit in at all, I wonder, given that a double decker bus is as tall as half a football pitch on its side (or half a penalty area on end … or something)? Wouldn’t they just stick out?
Gerald Machnee says:
October 4, 2010 at 1:15 pm
“RE: eadler says:
October 4, 2010 at 9:50 am
***It seems that there are posters here, who do not know that there are graphs, which show 100 year data for Sea Ice extent. Ship log data has been calibrated as a proxy for the satellite data to get this.
http://www.wunderground.com/climate/SeaIce_Fig04.asp
It shows a convincing declining trend in the summer sea ice over the past 30 years after the first part of the 20th century, during which it varied in a narrow statistical band of about 1/- 1.5MKm2, and that the winter ice, as would be expected has been stable for a longer period of time and has declined very little. ***
With respect to this site above, this was hashed over at Climateaudit two summers ago. The apparent straight line should not be taken too seriously. The compilers issued a caution statement that there was a lot of estimation and extrapolation used. After that there was a reference to other charts which used Ship data including that from Russia, showing a much more variable ice amount.
What we have here is a hockey stick which tacks on 30 years of satellite data to several types of reports.”
If there are alternative charts, from other sources, that show more variability of the Arctic Sea Ice Extent deduced from ship logs, that have been published in the peer reviewed literature I would like to see them. I am not impressed by what I read from bloggers on AGW denier web sites.
The original hockey stick paper did underestimate the statistical variability of northern hemisphere temperatures, as was shown by many subsequent papers, that did a variety of statistical analyses, and all showed that the hockey stick characteristic was still present.
Alan Bates says:
October 4, 2010 at 3:44 am
“* Wiki claims as their source the US Census Bureau although the references do not seem to link to the information. I can see no reason to doubt the figure.”
You see no reason to doubt the figure!!! From Wiki!!!
I’d doubt Wiki even if it told me humans have ten toes!
In fact, I propose a new measure of information content, loosely related to the baud; the wikibit shal be defined as the average length of wiki article per bit of valid information. I estimate that 1 wikibit ~ 10kbit raw data. 🙂
Eadler says:
If there are alternative charts, from other sources, that show more variability of the Arctic Sea Ice Extent deduced from ship logs, that have been published in the peer reviewed literature I would like to see them. I am not impressed by what I read from bloggers on AGW denier web sites.
No there isn’t but then the chart you posted was unreliable not really scientific, relying on some observations, I’m not in the slightest impressed with anecdotal evidence of that nature.
However polar glaciation is something for which there is reliable scientific evidence, as there is on temperatures in Greenland, which I think you would agree gives an indication on the variability of the Arctic climate and hence ice extent.
Professor Easterbrook has an excellent paper.
http://myweb.wwu.edu/dbunny/research/global/glopubs.htm
I find Warmist blogs base their arguments on unsubstantiated facts from IPCC reports such as the verbal comments on the disappearing Himalayan Glaciers, which as we all know turned out to be complete nonsense.
Any scientific discourse on polar ice can’t ignore the evidence in the peer reviewed literature on variations in polar glaciation and temperatures derived from ice cores in Greenland.
PIOMAS shows the 60-year Ice/PDO cycle as quite different from the Cryosphere’s GW-like constant decline: The Low Ice Record of 1954 is not again reached until 2002 (the cold La Nina of that year & the next is the RECORD La Nina in the last 60 years) (bottom of the page, past the Sub Charts: note how the explanation below the Ice Volume Chart, tries to pass off the up-n-down “wave” trend as just “a few years in the 1950s” — that is the Most reliable kind of proof: from someone who does not WANT to show it. In History, one is always suspicious to take something as SOLE PROOF if it is put forward by someone who wants to find just exactly that. — PS this does not mean Cryosphere is neccessarily Wrong: their Extent could fall and yet Volume rise – – as Sunspots continually increased for near 200 years until a stunning collapse a year ago, maybe the Winds had a Continuous change that concentrated Ice ! And thus, logically. predicting the reversal this year, when the Winds dispersed it. Hmmmm ???). http://psc.apl.washington.edu/IDAO/retro.html
From eadler on October 5, 2010 at 5:45 am:
Aren’t they cute when the drop the pretense of being reasoning and just go for the insults?
☺