From Dr. Roger Pielke Senior, one more paper saying what we’ve been reporting on since 2007 – Arctic sea ice extent is a significant function of wind and currents, not just temperature.
In 2007, when I was but a wee blogger, I wrote:
A science blogger named Tamino, in a post he made here, challenged me to “explain it or shut up” related to the loss of northern hemisphere Arctic ice this season which he claimed was …” undeniable, that it’s not natural variation” in contrast to the southern hemisphere Antarctic setting a new record for ice extent. While I suspect that sea ice is not his specialty, nor is it mine, I will bring some things to the attention of my readers available from literature.
Just last Monday, NASA was quietly issuing a press release explaining why Arctic sea ice loss was so great this year. (h/t Douglas Hoyt).
Full story: Arctic Sea ice loss – “it’s the wind” says NASA
In fact, in 2009, in further factual explanation for Tamino’s demand that I “explain it or shut up”, I did another post that showed a movie of wind pushing the ice out of the Arctic. See Watching the 2007 historic low sea ice flow out of the Arctic Sea What is interesting about this video is that you can watch sea ice being flushed out of the Arctic sea and pushed along Greenland’s east coast, where it then finds its way into warmer waters and melts.
Fast forward to today, now we have a peer reviewed paper on the issue. And, guess what, in this new paper they quantify it with a nice graph. It seems wind driven export of sea ice has been on the rise.
Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. writes:
New Paper “Recent Wind Driven High Sea Ice Export In The Fram Strait Contributes To Arctic Sea Ice Decline” By Smedsrud Et Al 2011
In response to the post
Peter Williamson alerted us to a related paper that highlights the major role of regional circulation patterns on climate (this time for the Arctic). The paper is
Smedsrud, L. H., Sirevaag, A., Kloster, K., Sorteberg, A., and Sandven, S.: Recent wind driven high sea ice export in the Fram Strait contributes to Arctic sea ice decline, The Cryosphere Discuss., 5, 1311-1334, doi:10.5194/tcd-5-1311-2011, 2011
Arctic sea ice area decrease has been visible for two decades, and continues at a steady rate. Apart from melting, the southward drift through Fram Strait is the main loss. We present high resolution sea ice drift across 79° N from 2004 to 2010. The ice drift is based on radar satellite data and correspond well with variability in local geostrophic wind. The underlying current contributes with a constant southward speed close to 5 cm s−1, and drives about 33 % of the ice export. We use geostrophic winds derived from reanalysis data to calculate the Fram Strait ice area export back to 1957, finding that the sea ice area export recently is about 25 % larger than during the 1960′s. The increase in ice export occurred mostly during winter and is directly connected to higher southward ice drift velocities, due to stronger geostrophic winds. The increase in ice drift is large enough to counteract a decrease in ice concentration of the exported sea ice. Using storm tracking we link changes in geostrophic winds to more intense Nordic Sea low pressure systems. Annual sea ice export likely has a significant influence on the summer sea ice variability and we find low values in the 60′s, the late 80′s and 90′s, and particularly high values during 2005–2008. The study highlight the possible role of variability in ice export as an explanatory factor for understanding the dramatic loss of Arctic sea ice the last decades.
The full paper is open access, and available here (PDF)
Wil. . .
You have any other explanation.
A look from outer space at night
Seeing the lights
All over looking like a petri dish
That dd not happen a hundred years ago
A bicycle gets the caloric equivalent of ~1000 miles to the gallon of gasoline.
So let put that into human/mammalian terms:
At twenty miles day one gallon of gas has the energy to sustain a human for 50 days
When we burn 10 gallon a day in addition to the food we eat anyway the energy use is exponentially huge.
That tangible relation driving to food consumption is much harder to establish/recognize when it come to turning on the lights. The fuel burnt at the power-plant being too abstract to compare. And all eight billion of us want to travel around in 3000 pound 200 horsepower steel boxes
go figure
The modern world one hundred years ago was a nice dream
but from where we are now It is not working
Time to reinvent.
Here is something I prepared earlier. ;O)
Add a little soot and voila!
geo says:
June 21, 2011 at 3:31 pm
But a related important question, is to what degree is this increase in wind-driven export of ice essentially a “positive feedback” of heat-driven ice thining?
My understanding of the paper is that the long term trend is derived from a linear relationship between ice export and wind found in recent years. Any positive feedback, if it exists and it might, won’t be found by this sort of analysis. There is an implicit assumption that going back decades that the relationship is linear, that may be wrong of course.
In part of the paper they suggest that ice export in spring may be a predictor of minimu ice extent in september. It would be good to see this put to the test. A prediction to Arcus would be interesting.
jim says:
June 21, 2011 at 5:19 pm
‘groan”
“………
The modern world one hundred years ago was a nice dream
but from where we are now It is not working
Time to reinvent.”
=============================================
jim, its working just fine. People are much better off today than they were then. Humanity’s lives are much easier, we’re fed better, we still have plenty of space to grow, we live longer, we’ve eradicated diseases and continue to work toward more eradication. While the earth per capita has more food we continue to make progress toward making even more per captia. The world’s education is significantly improved, in fact, in every meaningful and measurable way, we are much better off than then. We’re fine, and it appears we will be fine for many centuries to come. (Save for the obvious misanthropy we see today and the moral decay we witness.) Yes, we’ve still a long way to go, but just because someone sees a monster in a closet, doesn’t mean there’s a monster around every corner. BTW, invention doesn’t spring from the desires of paranoid fanatics, it comes from necessity. Our energy use will change when necessary, and not before, in spite of all of the wailing from the Malthusians.
Derek @ur momisugly 1:48 why is the “geostrophic wind” stronger now
The Geostrophic Wind is an abstraction that can be calculated when the pressure is known and the actual wind is not known from measurement. In the area of study the two should be close.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostrophic_wind
The question about “stronger” may be misdirected. The position or displacement of the high and low pressure zones may be the key to “stronger” winds in one place relative to another. Consider the case of the shifting high pressure that sometimes brings strong winds to southern California (the Santa Ana Wind) on a seasonal basis. It isn’t hard to contemplate a shift in the cause (location of high pressure) to a shift in the effect (location of strong winds).
Not having read the paper, I don’t know what has been presented as an explanation – or if one was.
jim says:
June 21, 2011 at 2:51 pm
jim says:
June 21, 2011 at 5:19 pm
Your stream of non sequiturs adds nothing to the topic.
sceptical @ur momisugly 2:48 “Arctic sea ice area decrease has been visible for two decades, and continues at a steady rate.”
“Thought that part should be said again for all of your readers who claim the Artic has not been losing ice.”
Most of us agree the Arctic is in a down cycle of ice. There have been papers posted that show that sea ice concentrations have been even lower in this interglacial. It’s cyclical.
I said it on this blog before, I’ll say it again:
After reading of all the other recently proposed geoengineering dreams to change the climate, my foolish proposal sound rather tame.
@David L. Hagen (June 21, 2011 at 1:53 pm)
Figure 2 is not consistent with observation. The conceptualization is fundamentally flawed.
Overall global sea ice extent does not show the same plunge as the Arctic does:
http://oi56.tinypic.com/30a99tx.jpg
jim, you are free to try out your personal solution to whatever it is that is bothering you [not “we”]. Let us know how it all works out for you.
Yes, excellent comment and summary. The obvious — wind and circulation patterns changed, and therefore so did the ice coverage and behaviour — needed restating. Especially in view of a few preceding witless comments along the lines of “Well, the wind always blows, so that couldn’t be it!”
Thanks again.
Hear rip-roaring Hear! Modern energy tech has a vastly smaller and more readily controlled impact per capita than the crude wasteful technologies of yesteryear, all the way back to burning forests for warmth and cow dung for cooking.
And some fantastic new sources are coming down the pike, nothing whatsoever to do with diffuse and expensive “resources” like wind, wave, and sun. jim’s bucolic dreams are nightmares in practice.
There is two easy things to check out:-
1) Use PIPS 2.0 and look at the ice displacement and ice thickness, to see movement and ice packing in the Arctic Ocean.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/pips2/index.html
Entries are up to 23rd May 2011, but you can search back through the archives from that date, using ‘previous plot’
to observe day to day changes in ice flow and packing.
2) Russian Drifting Ice Station NP-38, which gives the ice drift track since it’s launch last year
http://www.aari.nw.ru/resources/d0014/np38/default.asp?id=drift&lang=0
NP-38 must becoming to the end of it’s useful life (as it drifts of into the sunset on the melting ice)
Driven ice is called “ivu” by arctic circle natives. It is multi-year ice that is driven ashore by wind and currents. It can pile up to the height of six story buildings. There is no reason to believe the same forces cannot stack ivu in ridges far out at sea. All that is required is the presence of ice and a bit of wind. Add an immoveable object such as a long fetch of locked sea ice and you have ivu. While ivu that come ashore are witnessed, those that happen far out to sea are not. Doesn’t mean they don’t happen – it only means nobody is around to see it. Ive are to northern people what tsunami are to the rest of the world. Dangerous, sudden, fast moving, deadly. To paraphrase a young member of the Donner party – if you see signs of ivu, don’t tarry along the way.
Strong winds will reduce ice cover but increase thickness. Formation of ice ridges is the start to blocks being pushed over others. Area shrinks thickness increases. Ice volume stays approximately the same.
Three major solar cycles in a row and a tad more ocean heat, changed wind and changed currents are the reaction of a world chasing its tail in trying to reach equilibrium. It is called weather and wether it melts ice or not is entirely up to the world and our choices are rather limited. The more open water only means more cooling of the oceans it certainly has diddly squat to do with Arctic air temperature. Add +5 to -20 and try and melt ice.
The cooling of the oceans is not particularly propitious for the near future with the sun in a funk. The warmist cause is not helped by the wishing of the Arctic to melt as it may leave them up sh*t creek in a barbed wire canoe without a paddle. My take is that the poor old world at the moment is caught between a rock and a hard place, the lag in the system is fighting previous solar inputs and now has to cope with a change, The lag will cause an over compensation that is reinforced by the changed new parameters, thus a period of cool or maybe cold for some decades. This also explains warm periods when parameters are reversed. Cyclical solar and celestial period.
If the globe cooling, particularly in the high latitudes, wind would increase. Not only would this move ice, but wouldn’t the winds evaporate ice?
apologies if someone else has already posted this…but it’s a truly amazing animation…I would love to see several years worth of this stuff… up to recently. VERY EDUCATIONAL…
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/detect/animations/halfsize_20030928-20040510.avi
I am fascinated by historical references to sea ice coming south of iceland.
& the northwest passage…where did these ancient mariners get the idea that they
could sail to the pacific?
http://www.nmm.ac.uk/explore/sea-and-ships/in-depth/nelson-a-z/arctic-expedition
David Hagen
Many thanks for the excellent link to http://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/uploads/media/Moerner_Science_environm_sea_level_3_11_Paper_534.pdf by Nils-Axel Mörner.
Wil, “There may be other areas with a human footprint of some kind but it is insignificant in any relation to global warming.”
While I agree with this statement the implication of your presentation is misleading. While the warming may be insignificant compared to GHG warming of the entire atmosphere, the effect on on-the-ground temperature sensors and very near surface temps is not trivial.
TrueNorthist says:
June 21, 2011 at 4:17 pm
I have my own theory of fluctuations in Arctic ice, which is mine. So what follows is MY theory. By me. (ahem) My Theory of What Causes Fluctuations in Arctic Ice, by me, TrueNorthist. And it is as follows. First, the ice gets reeeeeeeaaally thick when it is cold, and gets reeeeeeeaaaallly thin, when it gets warm again. And then the wind blows it away. OK. So I added that last bit a minute ago. Still, pretty amazing. Thank you.
An excellent paper. Keep it up.
Geo, the extent to which it is a positive feed back is the extent to which melting draws heat from the air.