While not hugely significant by itself, it is interesting to note that the DMI 30% Arctic extent has reached its highest number for this date, exceeding 2006. The refreeze has been very fast:
Here’s the zoom:
The JAXA 15% plot show it equal with 2006, and a steepening slope:
JAXA AMSR-E Sea Ice Extent -15% or greater – click to enlarge
I enjoy watching the ice grow as much as anyone, but I will argue that focusing on the rate of growth compared to the previous low ice years is not productive. As I have pointed out previously the arctic sea ice appears to be dependent on the AMO.
What is interesting is that the AMO was still strong in Sep with a 0.496C value. That the ice is climbing quickly while the AMO is strong is interesting and unexpected. The latest SST maps also show warmer than average waters around Greenland and the 30 day cryosphere agrees that ice is not forming there.
The main ice growth is the north of Russia where the cold water is. As long as the AMO is warm, the ice will be less. That is natural and expected. We should approach it in that manner.
John Kehr
@Oldseadog: ‘When a bear attacks, he says, you shake the tin and the rattling frightens the bear.’
Rather you than me shipmate! I think my preference would be for something of a bigger calibre.
oldseadog says: at 8:51 am “When a bear attacks, he says, you shake the tin and the rattling frightens the bear.”
A 357 Magnum works better. (Per Pt. Barrow whale biologists.)
Considering the graph and comparing years, 2010 looks to be squarely in the middle of the pack and possibly heading to the head of the class in ice formation.
So, where’s all that global warming which was predicted.
At least in terms of ice coverage, I just don’t see it.
This is starting to get interesting, but the acid test is NH snow cover this winter, not ice extent. The latter would have to do something spectacular to merit dancing in the streets. There will be no MSM coverage, no matter what it does, unless it’s something like “NINTH LOWEST ARCTIC ICE EXTENT SINCE 1979!”
Curious that the DMI 2005-2010 curves converge very tightly at the beginning of January (the left-hand edge of the graph). Coincidental artifact due to small sample size, or is there real physics or math involved?
oldseadog:
“When a bear attacks…you shake the tin and the rattling frightens the bear.”
I tried that once, except I gave the tin to my buddy. Sure enough, I was able to get away when the bear turned his attention to the noisemaker, God rest his soul.
John Kerr,
I agree that focusing year to year on the ice is not productive. The only reason I can’t get it off my mind is that every calving of ice is portrayed as impending doom by the media.
Personally, I don’t see how the pro or anti AGW crowd comes to their conclusions about sea ice extent with the limited data available.
Regarding the GFS 2m Temp Raw Anamolies chart in the Sea Ice Resources, it has shown an astoundingly warm anamoly over most of Greenland for a few days now. Anamolies of 20-30 degrees above normal. Can this be right?
It might be helpful for context if you added the longer-term average ice extent to the chart so we could see deviation from longer-term levels. Also, some commentary on sea ice age and thickness might lead to a richer discussion, too.
REPLY: Sure, next time I have a couple of extra hours when I don’t have to see me wife off to a doctors trip to the bay area, or rush my children to school and still make it to my office before 9AM sans shower and brushing my teeth, I’ll do that research for you. – Anthony
David Phillips:
“reached its highest number, not it’s (it is)…”
Alan says:
“…replace “it’s” by its full form “it is”…”
Newer grammer texts actually allow the optoinal use of the apostrophe for the posessive of “it”, m but I’m with you guys. I prefer to lump the posessive of “it” with the other pronouns (his, hers, ours, theirs, yours) and save the apostrophe for contractions. People tend to SO overwork the poor apostrophe, don’t you think?
oldseadog says:
October 12, 2010 at 8:51 am
A bit OT, but I have a friend who has visited Polar Bear country a few times, and he says that you have to carry a tobacco tin with two pebbles in it. When a bear attacks, he says, you shake the tin and the rattling frightens the bear.
Anyone tried this?
Here in bear country, we know that one facet of living successfully with bears is learning how to protect yourself. Carrying pepper spray and a walking stick with bells on it is one prescribed method of deterring bear attacks. Also learning about bear droppings is useful in identifying what type of bears may be about. Black bear scat is short and will contain the remnants of berries and leaves while Grizzly and Polar bear droppings smells like pepper and contains bells, bits of tin and a few small rocks.
Careful with the heading. As much as a ‘good’ ice year would help destroy AGW (and avert the waste of trillions of dollars fighting an imaginary problem), you don’t want to be seen rejoicing at the thought of a harsh winter… especially if it’s worse than the previous two winters. The MSM and alarmist blogs will jump on you for being insensitive to the suffering of the vulnerable.
Hiking in Alaska with our ‘always racing ahead of us grandchildren’ my wife used a bell laden walking stick “to warn the bears of our approach”. One evening at the prompting of the grandchildren a park ranger told my wife that continuous ring of the bells attracts the bears; they are curious creatures. Bettter to save the extra sounds when approaching a blind corner. For my self I carried a can of bear spray; if allowed I would also carry a large caliber firearm..
In Denali we saw 18 grizzles in four days, one stood up on two legs in front of a bus we were on, God I was happy I never had to try that spray. They are huge and fearsome; and polar bears even more scary. Forget the tobacco tin idea.
I enjoy the ROOS presentational graphs:
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/total-icearea-from-1978-2007
Yes, the long term trend is declining, but something appears to shifted in the Max Extent in 2006-2010 and Min Extent 2007-2010. The Min is a little more shallow in the recent up-tick than the Max, but something appears to be changing in the short term (especially with the warm AMO). Not straight-forward on the ice free Arctic summers by 2020.
A sea story about a Polar Bear attack:
http://www.jpattitude.com/101011.php
I agree a large caliber weapon would be my preferred
way of dealing with the Bear.
Something on the order of a .458 win…
may have to go around with a sore arm and shoulder for
a few days but better than getting eaten..
This is weather. And just because it is weather does not make it insignificant. To be more precise, this is weather pattern variation. Understanding these pattern variations is a very important endeavor thus every data point is significant. These longer term weather patterns can exist over decades and I am beginning to see several websites come to terms with this.
Even well-known AGW’ing sites are explaining this year’s ice loss and rapid re-freeze in terms of weather. See for example http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/. Not a word about CO2.
The past decade has seen a Polar weather pattern variation that is not related to CO2. Why? Because the Polar weather pattern variations that have been at play this past decade cannot mechanistically be tied to greenhouse gasses.
So this is not climate change. We already know the Arctic climate and why the climate is the way it is up there. The Köppen climate classification labels the climate as Polar. It will never be a temperate zone, unless some rogue planet knocks into ours and places the poles further into a steeper angle towards solar radiation. Or the plates continue to migrate around. But the climate will NOT change. The weather pattern variations will, but within the confines of a polar climate. And so far, every weather pattern variation that has been discovered so far cannot be mechanistically connected to increased CO2.
The null hypothesis still rules.
Hmmm…
The Globe is Warming
…yet…
Ice is Forming.
Hmmm…
Andrew
Anthony:
I don’t intend to make your work harder.
Perhaps these would speed things up a little:
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20101004_Figure2.png
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20101004_Figure6.jpg
Rattle the tin while I run ahead and slightly faster than you.
or
.45-70 loaded with 450 grains of lead per round. It’ll rattle the hungry bear.
On a serious note…
Should the arctic sea completely break up and allow for some warm (relative to “normal”) water to occur. Wouldn’t the end result in the fall be “sea effect” snowfall before the surface refreezes? If that’s the case the glaciation of the northern climes could increase, could it not? Would Greenland likely see net gains in its glaciation?
That’s a line of (potentially faulty) reasoning I come to as I read both sides of this debate. It seems to me that the logical reasoning is the feedback of precipitation would offset the warming, at least in the high lattitudes.
Is that because they ate the last few hikers who had bells on their walking sticks?
I spent a few summers up north, and the only noise-maker we used above the arctic circle in the North-West Territories was a 12-gauge shotgun.
(Further south, we carried “bear bangers”, which fire a small black powder firecracker. The trick is to get it to land BETWEEN you and the bear, because if it lands past the bear he runs as fast he can away from it, and toward you. But the consensus was that, while these would scare black bears, they would just make the polar bears a bit more ornery.)
Surely carrying of the tobacco tin is banned by law.
One wouldn’t want an endangered species like a polar bear to have its life ruined yet further by a whiff of nicotine. I recommend that the severest penalties be sentenced to any malefactor. Twenty years chokey would seem appropriate for a first or accidental offence.
@richard sharpe
Yes. That was the point of the story.
@ur momisugly oldseadog says:
October 12, 2010 at 8:51 am
Sure it works. Tobacco tins with two pebbles in them are frequently found in polar bear scat. Where’s that link?…