This is NSIDC’s report, and since I’m on a road trip, I’m unable to do an in-depth analysis. However, the WUWT Sea Ice page has more, and you can draw your own conclusions from the data presented there. Here’s one contributing factor, just have a look at 2 meter surface temperature, courtesy Dr. Ryan Maue:
Courtesy Ryan Maue, FSU – click to enlarge
Either global warming acts in blob fashion, or that’s what we call weather. Just remember, when NSIDC says “record low” it is for a 30 year satellite data set, not for the century, or millenium, or longer. Look for pronouncements from Dr. Mark “death spiral” Serreze and from others in the media soon. As a counterpoint to such pronouncements, I suggest reading this post from Willis on sea ice recover mechanisms that seems to be overlooked by the media.- Anthony
From NSIDC: February Arctic ice extent ties 2005 for record low; extensive snow cover persists
Arctic sea ice extent for February 2011 tied with February 2005 as the lowest recorded in the satellite record. Sea ice extent was particularly low in the Labrador Sea and Gulf of St. Lawrence. In contrast, winter snow cover remained extensive in many parts of the Northern Hemisphere.
Figure 1. Arctic sea ice extent for February 2011 was 14.36 million square kilometers (5.54 million square miles). The magenta line shows the 1979 to 2000 median extent for that month. The black cross indicates the geographic North Pole. Sea Ice Index data. About the data.
—Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center
Overview of conditions
Sea ice extent averaged over the month of February 2011 was 14.36 million square kilometers (5.54 million square miles). This was a tie with the previous record low for the month, set in 2005. February ice extent remained below normal in both the Atlantic and Pacific sectors, particularly in the Labrador Sea and the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
While ice extent has declined less in winter months than in summer, the downward winter trend is clear. The 1979 to 2000 average is 15.64 million square kilometers (6.04 million square miles). From 1979 through 2003, the February extent averaged 15.60 million square kilometers (6.02 million square miles). Every year since 2004 has had a mean February extent below 15 million square kilometers (5.79 million square miles).
Figure 2. The graph above shows daily Arctic sea ice extent as of February 28, 2011, along with daily ice extents for previous low-ice-extent years in the month of February. Light blue indicates 2011, green shows 2007, purple shows 2005 (the record low for the month was in 2005), and dark gray shows the 1979 to 2000 average. The gray area around the average line shows the two standard deviation range of the data. Sea Ice Index data.
—Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center
Conditions in context
While ice extent grew at average rates for February, the overall extent remained anomalously low. Air temperatures over most of the Arctic Ocean were between 2 and 4 degrees Celsius (4 and 7 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than normal. Over the East Greenland Sea and north towards the Pole, air temperatures were 5 to 7 degrees Celsius (9 to 13 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than normal. Colder conditions, 2 to 6 degrees Celsius (4 to 11 degrees Fahrenheit) below average persisted over western Eurasia, east-central Eurasia and some of the Canadian Arctic.
As air temperatures dropped in the eastern Canadian Arctic in February, parts of the Labrador Sea started to freeze over. However, the Gulf of St. Lawrence remained mostly free of ice. As during winter 2010, when Environment Canada reported that sea ice in the Gulf of St. Lawrence was at the lowest level on record, the lack of ice will make it difficult for harp seals to give birth to their pups on the sea ice, as they normally do in February and March.
Figure 3. Monthly February ice extent for 1979 to 2011 shows a decline of 3.0% per decade.
—Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center
February 2011 compared to past yearsFebruary 2011 tied February 2005 for the lowest ice extent for the month in the satellite record. Including 2011, the February trend is now at -3.0 percent per decade.
Through most of January, the Arctic Oscillation (AO) was generally in a strongly negative phase, similar to the pattern that dominated the winter of 2009 to 2010. This led to very warm temperatures over the eastern Arctic, helping to account for the low ice extents over the Labrador Sea and Gulf of Saint Lawrence. However, toward the end of January, the AO returned to a positive phase, and ice began to grow in the Labrador Sea and Gulf of St. Lawrence. For more information on current AO conditions, visit the NOAA Climate Prediction Center Web page.
Figure 4. Ice motion charts for December 2009 and December 2010 show mean sea ice drift, with the size and direction of the arrows indicating average speed and direction of ice motion. December 2010 saw stronger anticyclonic (clockwise) motion that transported ice towards the southern Beaufort and Chukchi seas.
—Credit: NSIDC courtesy James Maslanik and Chuck Fowler, CU Boulder
Ice motion
Typically during a negative AO phase, weather patterns favor the retention of thick ice in the central Arctic and Canada basin, where it can better survive the summer. The negative AO also typically leads to a stronger Beaufort Gyre, which helps move ice from the western to eastern Arctic. There the ice thickens, ridging and rafting against the Siberian coast.
Last winter, the AO was in its most negative phase since at least 1951. However, slight differences from the typical AO pattern in the location of the sea level pressure anomalies had a significant impact on how the ice moved within and out of the Arctic Basin. During winter 2009 to 2010 the peak pressure anomalies were shifted towards the Barents and Kara seas, which helped transport ice from the Canadian Arctic towards the southern Beaufort and Chukchi seas. Since some of the oldest and thickest ice in the Arctic is found north of the Canadian Archipelago, this atmospheric pattern ended up further depleting the Arctic of its store of old, thick ice as that old ice melted during summer in these southerly locations.
This winter also saw a relatively strong negative AO index during December and January. However, as we discussed in our January 5, 2011 post, the positive sea level pressure anomalies were centered near Iceland. This led to a more extensive anticyclonic (clockwise) transport pattern than last winter. This may help keep a more extensive distribution of multiyear ice cover as summer approaches.
Figure 5. The maps of January and February 2011 snow cover data show the extent of snow cover over the Northern Hemisphere (top), and the percent difference from average snow cover extent from 1966 to 2010 (bottom). Strong positive departures can be seen over the midwestern U.S., western China, and Mongolia.
—Credit: NSIDC courtesy Dave Robinson and Thomas Estilow, Rutgers UniversityHigh-resolution image
January and February Northern Hemisphere snow cover
Sea ice extent is only one of a number of data sets scientists use to understand how climate is changing. Rutgers University and NOAA have compiled a 45-year record of Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent from NOAA snow charts. These data show that much of northern North America, Scandinavia and northern Eurasia are snow covered between 90 and 100 percent of the time in January and February. High elevation plains and mountains at lower latitudes, such as the southern Rocky Mountains in the U.S. and Hindu Kush in Asia, also have extensive snow cover.
Over this record, in January, Northern Hemisphere snow cover averages 47 million square kilometers (18.1 million square miles), and in February it averages 46 million square kilometers (17.8 square miles)—approximately 45 to 46 percent of the land area in the region. While sea ice extent was below average for January 2011, this month had the sixth-largest snow cover extent since the record started in 1966, at 49 million square kilometers (18.9 million square miles). Snow was unusually widespread over the mid-western and eastern United States, eastern Europe, and western China. Snow cover in February remained above average at 47.4 million square kilometers (18.3 million square miles), with more snow than usual in the western and central U.S., eastern Europe, Tibet and northeastern China.
Reduced sea ice extent and extensive snow cover are not contradictory, and are both linked to a strong negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation (see our January 5, 2011 post). A strongly negative AO favors outbreaks of cold Arctic air over northern Europe and the U.S., as many people experienced first-hand these last two winters. Whether this is a trend, or in any way linked to ongoing climate warming in the Arctic, remains to be seen.
Further reading
Stroeve, J.C., J. Maslanik, M.C. Serreze, I. Rigor and W. Meier. 2010. Sea ice response to an extreme negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation during winter 2009/2010. Geophysical Research Letters, doi: 2010GL045662.
For previous analyses, please see the drop-down menu under Archives in the right navigation at the top of this page.
cthulhu says:
March 3, 2011 at 8:24 am
why should anyone trust wuwt over actual experts at the nsidc. you guys have staked your flag on arctic sea ice “recovering” based on dubious wishful thinking. history will record you as being wrong.
======
Does this mean you won’t be making any donations for Anthony’s “road trip”:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/02/light-posting-this-week-and-next-but-theres-also-good-news/
Wherein Anthony humbly says:
“But if anyone can help with the road trip expenses for those 5 days, there’s an orange donate button on the right sidebar.”
I figure my donations to Anthony not only help to keep him going, but also do wonders for my own sanity (such as it is), by keeping this site alive.
You mention history.
I ask, how will it record you?
I would hope, that question, might get us out of this mess.
How about ice thickness? that is the area that will tell the tale this summer….
The ice thickness looks not too bad from PIPS2, but I think the tale will be one more year of death-spiral. There is a lag of a year or two between El Nino and low Arctic ice, and the 2009-10 El Nino is going to hit 2011’s summer ice. Close to 2007’s record level is on the cards, IMHO.
Rich.
“Last winter, the AO was in its most negative phase since at least 1951. However, slight differences from the typical AO pattern in the location of the sea level pressure anomalies had a significant impact on how the ice moved within and out of the Arctic Basin. During winter 2009 to 2010 the peak pressure anomalies were shifted towards the Barents and Kara seas, which helped transport ice from the Canadian Arctic towards the southern Beaufort and Chukchi seas. Since some of the oldest and thickest ice in the Arctic is found north of the Canadian Archipelago, this atmospheric pattern ended up further depleting the Arctic of its store of old, thick ice as that old ice melted during summer in these southerly locations.”
AFAIK, no one has ever established any connection between patterns of the AO or the BG and anthropogenically generated atmospheric CO2. On the other hand quite a bit of science exists which suggests that changes in both have played a major role in the decline of Arctic Sea Ice over recent decades. They are correct that at this point “some of the oldest and thickest ice in the Arctic is found north of the Canadian Archipelago”, but prior to 1990 most all of a much larger quantity was confined to the West of the Pole by a BG circulation that covered most of the Arctic Ocean between the Pole and the Bering Strait. Rigor And Wallace 2004 revealed that a paradigm shift in the BG and the Transpolar Drift, which occurred in 89-90, lead to a dramatic decline in the amount of old thick ice in the Arctic Ocean, from 80% of the total ice to less than 30% in little over a year. These are the notes they provided for the animations the prepared to accompany their paper
This animation of the age of sea ice shows:
1.) A large Beaufort Gyre which covers most of the Arctic Ocean during the 1980s, and a transpolar drift stream shifted towards the Eurasian Arctic. Older, thicker sea ice (white ice) covers about 80% of the Arctic Ocean up to 1988. The date is shown in the upper left corner.
2.) With the step to high-AO conditions in 1989, the Beaufort Gyre shrinks and is confined to the corner between Alaska and Canada. The Transpolar Drift Stream now sweeps across most of the Arctic Ocean, carrying most of the older, thicker sea ice out of the Arctic Ocean through Fram Strait (lower right). By 1990, only about 30% of the Arctic Ocean is covered by older thicker sea ice.
3.) During the high-AO years that follow (1991 and on), this younger thinner sea ice is shown to recirculated back to the Alaskan coast where extensive open water has been observed during summer.
The age of sea ice drifting towards the coast explains over 50% of the variance in summer sea ice extent (compared to less than 15% of the variance explained by the seasonal redistribution of sea ice, and advection of heat by summer winds).
Here is an updated version of that animation from Dec 09
There has been a decline in sea ice in the Arctic, but there is not much to suggest that CO2 is the major culprit behind it.
Whoops forgot the link for RW 2004
http://iabp.apl.washington.edu/research_seaiceageextent.html
Dave Wendt says:
“There has been a decline in sea ice in the Arctic, but there is not much to suggest that CO2 is the major culprit behind it.”
It has to be CO2. Humans don’t emit ocean currents so that will make it hard to control the global rationing of wealth, I mean energy.
Great video.
R. Gates says:
March 3, 2011 at 12:03 pm
This years continued low summer Arctic sea ice extent (despite whatever the PDO or AMO or solar cycle are doing) will be strong indication that the 40% rise in CO2 since the industrial revolution is playing a bigger role in the climate than these other natural variations.
You were doing ok up until this point. Most sensible folk here know that the ‘recovery’ of arctic sea ice is a two steps forward one step back kind of progress. Ice is thicker than it was in 2007 though, so it will tolerate some warm anomalous weather. The warming of the deep ocean by co2 is a fantasy, there is no mechanism for it. However, the oceans were significantly warmed by a hyperactive sun during the C20th, and this will continue to have effects for some time yet.
So let me get this straight:
but…
And the mechanism by which CO2 is moving warm water into the poles is what now?
So in the Arctic, we have organisms, that are of course only sensitive to temperature, (there simply couldn’t be a single other variable which might cause their populations to increase or decrease), showing us a definitive change in temperature of 3.5°F. Wow, those are some super sensitive organism. This increase in temperature is of course due to a decrease in sea ice. But then in the Antarctic, where the anomaly has been increasing over the satellite record, we have a deep water warming trend of a whopping 0.03°C per decade.
Amazing how both more and less ice both cause warming. Reminds me of the flood-droughts and cold-heat waves that CO2 also causes
Less ice???
ooh no, updates graphs and illustrations per 1 mar 2011:
http://hidethedecline.eu/media/trends1mar/fig3.jpg
http://hidethedecline.eu/media/trends1mar/fig2b.jpg
http://hidethedecline.eu/media/trends1mar/fig2.jpg
No, NH sea ice volume is exploding, it appears.
taken From
http://hidethedecline.eu/pages/posts/climate-trends-ultimo-feb-2011-221.php
K.R. Frank
Dave Wendt says:
March 3, 2011 at 12:31 pm
AFAIK, no one has ever established any connection between patterns of the AO or the BG and anthropogenically generated atmospheric CO2.
Exactly Dave. R Gates takes any decadal pattern of weather and grafts his belief system to it.
R. Gates says:
March 3, 2011 at 12:03 pm
“We saw a frequent Dipole Anomaly this winter, leading to the meridonal flow of air across the Arctic. This flow allowed the normally trapped cold air over the Arctic to be pushed south. Some have likened this to be “the freezer door being left open”, which is roughly accurate in terms of the effect. The net effect of this is that the Arctic has generally been above average in temps over the past several years.”
=========
I may be mistaken, but I believe last year your theory was that the ice was being melted by the warm arctic water. And that the cold air present at the time was not having much of an effect. Shall I search the archives ?
R Gates
It took 30 years for the Arctic to get to this stage, do you expect it to regain all its loses in a couple of years.Joe Bastardi stated that over the next 20-30 years the ice would regain, not in a few years.
Perhaps the Dipole Anomaly will disappear with the PDO entering its cold phase.
AleaJactaEst says: March 3, 2011 at 11:31 am
Can you also overlay the CET…
Hi
A bit of correlation with the CET’s winters, particularly 1870 – 1910; more puzzling is that the 1870 – 1910 period’s winter temperature resambles strongly to the rainfall of 40 and 80 years later, 3 peaks on way down and 2 on way up (solid blue line) see graph 4 in:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/ORR.htm
Dr. Mark “death spiral” Serreze seems to have already rejected his ‘tipping point’ idea in a news article in this weeks Nature magazine
R Gates: so ice is melting while global temps go down
http://processtrends.com/images/RClimate_UAH_Ch5_latest.png
Wow!!!
Graph is scary:
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20110302_Figure3.png
Extend Y scale down to zero. It definitely becomes very less scary!
HR says:
March 3, 2011 at 2:36 pm (Edit)
Dr. Mark “death spiral” Serreze seems to have already rejected his ‘tipping point’ idea in a news article in this weeks Nature magazine
I risked putting some of it up on my site. Won’t be there long though, as I don’t fancy getting sued.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/03/03/apocalypse-postponed-mark-serreze-lays-the-tipping-point-to-rest/
Why are we concerned about a trend in a graph that starts in 1979 and which the average is based on just 21 years of data? The Arctic has been there for over millions of years.
In addition, when they started tracking Arctic ice area, it was just about at the same time as when the Pacific Decadal Oscillation switched from the cold period to the warm period.
http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/ClimTrends/Change/TempChange.html
Vuk,
44.15 year period popping up here
http://cyclesresearchinstitute.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/ssnrec-spectrum.png
u.k.(us) says:
March 3, 2011 at 1:49 pm
R. Gates says:
March 3, 2011 at 12:03 pm
“We saw a frequent Dipole Anomaly this winter, leading to the meridonal flow of air across the Arctic. This flow allowed the normally trapped cold air over the Arctic to be pushed south. Some have likened this to be “the freezer door being left open”, which is roughly accurate in terms of the effect. The net effect of this is that the Arctic has generally been above average in temps over the past several years.”
=========
I may be mistaken, but I believe last year your theory was that the ice was being melted by the warm arctic water. And that the cold air present at the time was not having much of an effect. Shall I search the archives ?
——-
No need to search anything. There are several different processes going on covering several different seasons. During the late summer melt season, when insolation is starting to rapidly decrease once more, (i.e. mid-August into mid-September) the melting of the ice largly comes from the heat remaining in the water. This is why the amount of open water in specific areas of the Arctic earlier in the season is one of the best predictors for how the late season melt will go– that open water is warming more and will cause more melting of ice late in the summer. During the the winter months, it is not the temperature of the water that will dictate how much the ice will expand but air temperatures, as the thermal gradient between the air and sea temperatures will determine how quickly that heat can escape from the water. For example, near Greenland earlier this winter we were seeing air temperatures 20 to 30 degrees above normal. It is very hard for the water to release heat and begin to freeze over as fast when the air temperatures are so high, and in fact, it was these areas around Greenland that saw the lowest amount of sea ice and accounted for a great deal of the anomaly.
But the bottom line is, there is simply more heat in and around the Arctic than there has been in quite some time, both air temps and ocean temps. GCM’s show that this is exactly what happens when CO2 increases, and this heat will cause the decline in seasonal sea-ice extent as well as of course, the melting of permafrost, and perhaps the additional release of methane from various warming sources underground and under the sea bed.
“you guys have staked your flag on arctic sea ice “recovering” […] history will record you as being wrong.”
cthulhu’s prediction is in. Who knows cthulhu, you could be the one… or not.
Glad to have you jump right in there for the 2011 sea ice games! ☺
mycroft says:
March 3, 2011 at 1:51 pm
R Gates
It took 30 years for the Arctic to get to this stage, do you expect it to regain all its loses in a couple of years.Joe Bastardi stated that over the next 20-30 years the ice would regain, not in a few years.
Perhaps the Dipole Anomaly will disappear with the PDO entering its cold phase.
______
Perhaps…but the PDO has been going into its cold phase for several years, during which time the Dipole Anomaly has been increasing in frequency– so your supposition doesn’t seem to be holding true.
As I stated last year, I do in fact believe that there is some influence on Arctic Sea ice from some natural cycles– from ocean to solar, but that the 40% increase in CO2 since the 1700’s is now providing a stronger influence overall. Especially interesting is the warming of the deeper waters near the Arctic and Greenland– with the deeper waters near Greenland at their warmest in 2000 years. It would seem that this certainly can’t be explained by ocean cycles alone, but perhaps some longer solar cycle is the culprit. A longer solar cycle, something in the neighborhood of 1500 years, perhaps related to the Bond cycles, is the source of my skepticism about AGW. But if I had to place money on a bet of Solar/Ocean vs. CO2 for the modern decline in Arctic Sea ice, I certainly put it on the 40% increase in CO2 since the 1700’s.
A question for those who know about this sort of thing. Would satellite’s read a higher temperature anomaly if they were measuring through a snow fall? Energy, after all, is released during any form or precipitatioin isn’t it? Just wondering.
I have come to the conclusion that I fail to realize the rationale behind totting the ice extent in and around the north pole.
We have a flat trend between circa 2004 and circa 2010. Some might say seeing that way is utter BS for it is only seven years. Might be right, however, it is almost a third of the time span used for the average so it is almost a thousand years for an average calculated over three thousand years, so it’s proportionally at the least. Further we a their downwards trend during a time frame that includes the last upwards trend in temperatures from the sixties to about 1998. What would the average ice extent be if the cold of the sixties were included I wonder.
We also have 20-30 year periodic documented history of record ice melt in the north pole and the prospect of a future of no ice during summer since circa 1880 at least.
So essentially noting that there is, at times, less ice in and around the north pole, going from below average temperatures to above average temperatures is as concluding as noting that the same thing has happened before, several times no less, during the last 150 years, and worrying over that is about as intelligent as worrying over that the ice is fast disappearing compared to the ice extent during the recent, which we apparently ain’t free from yet, ice age.
And since I’m such a terrible person for liking to point out the obvious what do you think would the average ice extent really be taking into consideration the optimum ice extent during the last ice age? (If it is ok to mix and match and splice proxy temperature data why not mix and match proxy data of ice extent, and thickness as well to get a proper average in this department too?)
crosspatch writes,
“If you look at the data, you will see little to no correlation between a year’s minimum and its maximum.”
If you look at the data, there *is* a significant correlation, almost .7, between March and September Arctic sea ice extent. And both March and September ice correlate even more strongly with Northern Hemisphere temperature: warmer air, less ice. Not that the air alone is melting the ice, but both show the changing climate.
If Joe Bastardi was still public he’d sing:
“What do seals have to do with it?”
(To the tune of Tina Turner singing, “What’s love got to do with it.”)
The answer is that seal pups are adorable little creatures. Tremendous outrage was felt when people heard that these cute, cuddly critters were harvested for coats. The people wearing such coats all blushed scarlet, and hid their coats, or else they were doused by buckets of scarlet paint, as they walked into a theatre, by an incensed Animal Rights activist. So a very small bit of Canadian Economy was hurt, by a Save-the-Seals movement. (Small unless you happen to live in the arctic, where seals are a very big part of avoiding starvation,) (unless you depend on welfare.)
Seals survived, to eat codfish. Codfish are not cute. No one ever saw a picture of a codfish face and had the strong urge to cuddle the cute, little creature. (Or, well, maybe someone did, but they were a bit weird, by modern standards.)
Codfish are a far more major part of Canadian economy. Furthermore, eating fish is more common than eating seal blubber. Codfish do much more good than seals. For one thing, they help us avoid famine. So why on earth does no person say, “Save the Codfish?”
It is due to a evolutionary phenomenon Darwin failed to notice: “Survival of the cutest.”
It is for this reason the NSIDC’s report mentions seals. They think that, ever since women got the vote, mentioning cute creatures will help them survive. However they fail to understand how women behave when an economy gets bad. (Kipling understood, when he stated “There is no fury like the fury of a woman scorned.”)
When a woman sees her own children hungry, and understands there are no codfish because cute seals have eaten them, “Save the seals” will be replaced by “kill the bastards!”
We will know the economy is really going bad, if the next NSIDC report mentions codfish, but doesn’t mention seals.