By WUWT regular “Just The Facts”
We are pleased to introduce an array of upgrades to the WUWT Sea Ice Page, including:
Arctic Sea Ice Thickness:
From the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) – HYCOM Consortium for Data-Assimilative Ocean Modeling links to the Arctic Sea Ice Thickness 30 Day Animation at the head of this article and this 365 Day Animation, as well as a current Arctic Sea Ice Thickness Image.
Arctic Sea Ice Extent:
From Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center (NERSC) Arctic Regional Ocean Observing System (ROOS) an Arctic Sea Ice Extent chart that includes trend lines for the yearly Maximum, Mean and Minimum sine 1979:
From the International Arctic Research Center (IARC)-Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Information System (IJIS) – Arctic Sea Ice Extent– 15% or Greater including trend lines for the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s Averages, as well as for the three years with the lowest minimums since 1979, 2007, 2011 and 2008:
Arctic Satellite Imagery:
From the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) and arctic.io/ Arctic Satellite Imagery, including links to arctic.io True Color Arctic Satellite Image – which leverages NASA EOSDIS satellite data, and provides it with Google Maps functionality and zoom. Infrared and Global imagery can be found using the Arctic and Global dropdowns on the top right of the map. Also, directly from EOSDIS’ Rapid Response System links to their
Terra 4km True Color Arctic Satellite Mosaic Image, Terra 4km Bands 3-6-7 Arctic Satellite Mosaic Image, and Aqua 4km True Color Arctic Satellite Mosaic Image all with single region zoom and image capture capabilities.
An example of what you can find using these satellite capabilities. On a recent thread a WUWT commenter Caleb asked:
“Why is their open water, NNE of Alaska and North of Canada, on the west side of all the islands that make the east part of the Northwest Passage interesting.
I know this post is about the Northeast Passage, but that open water baffles me.”
Using the Satellite imagery above I was able to capture this image on June 13th;
which shows tendrils of greenish water reaching out into the Beaufort Sea. These tendrils probably result from runoff from the Mackenzie River, possibly some algal blooms and maybe some other stuff, e.g.:
“As of 2001, approximately 397,000 people lived in the Mackenzie River basin”
“the heaviest use of the watershed is in resource extraction – oil and gas in central Alberta, lumber in the Peace River headwaters, uranium in Saskatchewan, gold in the Great Slave Lake area and tungsten in the Yukon.”
“Although the entire main stem of the Mackenzie River is undammed, many of its tributaries and headwaters have been developed for hydroelectricity production, flood control and agricultural purposes.”
“The river discharges more than 325 cubic kilometres (78 cu mi) of water each year, accounting for roughly 11% of the total river flow into the Arctic Ocean. The Mackenzie’s outflow holds a major role in the local climate above the Arctic Ocean with large amounts of warmer fresh water mixing with the cold seawater.” Wikipedia – Mackenzie River
“The Beaufort Sea contains major gas and petroleum reserves beneath the seabed, a continuation of proven reserves in the nearby Mackenzie River and North Slope.[12] The Beaufort Sea was first explored for sub-shelf hydrocarbons in the 1950s and estimated to contain about 250 km3 (60 cu mi) of oil and 300,000 km3 (72,000 cu mi) of natural gas under its coastal shelf. Offshore drilling began in 1972; about 70 wells were set up by 1980s[28] and 200 wells by 2000.[29] These activities resulted in displacement of about 46.5 km3 (11.2 cu mi) of the sea bottom soil which contained barite, clay, caustic soda, as well as heavy metals zinc, copper, lead, chromium, cobalt, nickel, cadmium and mercury.” Wikipedia – Beaufort Sea
Anyway, the new satellite images linked on WUWT’s sea ice page are helpful in researching and capturing regional Arctic sea ice events, as is our last addition.
Northern Regional Sea Ice Charts:
From the National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC), Arctic Climate Research at the University of Illinois’ Cryosphere Today and Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center (NERSC) Arctic Regional Ocean Observing System (ROOS), Northern Regional Sea Ice Charts:
Arctic Basin: Cryosphere Today
Central Arctic: NSIDC
Baffin Bay/Gulf of St. Lawrence: NSIDC
Baffin/Newfoundland Bay: Cryosphere Today
Baltic Sea: NSIDC
Barents Sea: NSIDC Arctic ROOS
Beaufort Sea: NSIDC Cryosphere Today
Bering Sea: NSIDC Cryosphere Today
Canadian Archipelago: NSIDC Cryosphere Today
Chukchi Sea: NSIDC Cryosphere Today
Cook Inlet: NSIDC
Gulf of St. Lawrence: Cryosphere Today
East Siberian Sea: NSIDC Cryosphere Today
Greenland Sea: NSIDC Cryosphere Today Arctic ROOS
Hudson Bay: NSIDC Cryosphere Today
Kara Sea: NSIDC Cryosphere Today Arctic ROOS
Laptev Sea: NSIDC Cryosphere Today
Sea of Okhotsk: NSIDC Cryosphere Today
Yellow Sea: NSIDC
Sources:
National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)
These Northern Regional Sea Ice Charts offer insight into localized variability, e.g.:
Bering Sea Ice Area reached a record high this year;
and Bering Sea Ice Extent decreased much later than in the prior 5 years:
Chukchi Sea Ice Extent is at a 5 year high;
as is the Ice Extent in the Sea of Okhotsk:
On the other hand, Barents Sea Ice Area appears close to a record low;
and Barents Sea Ice Extent is at a 5 year low, approximately 200,000 km2 below 2008 Extent:
Kara Sea Ice Area came close to the record low set in 2006;
and Kara Sea Ice Extent is at a 5 year low, approximately 600,000 km2 below 2009 Extent:
Greenland Sea Ice Area seems to have had a 10,000 km2 step down around 2002;
and the Gulf of St. Lawrence Sea Ice Area began to experience a strong spring decline around 1998, with it becoming particularly pronounced in 2010:
Other WUWT Reference Pages:
In addition to the upgrades to ourSea Ice Page if you have not had an opportunity to review the other Reference Pages it is highly recommended:
- Atmosphere Page
- Atmospheric Oscillation Page
- ENSO (El Nino/La Nina Southern Oscillation) Page
- Geomagnetism Page
- Global Climate History Page
- Global Temperature Page
- Ocean Page
- Ocean Oscillation Page
- Polar Vortex Page
- Sea Ice Page
- Solar Page
- The Spencer-Braswell & Dessler Papers
- Tropical Cyclone Page
- US Climatic History Page
- US Weather History Page
Please note that WUWT cannot vouch for the accuracy of the data within the Reference Pages, as WUWT is simply an aggregator. All of the data is linked from third party sources. If you have doubts about the accuracy of any of the graphs on the WUWT Reference Pages, or have any suggested additions or improvements to any of the WUWT Reference Pages, please let us know in comments below.
Record high sea ice doesn’t matter anywhere, since it’s only ‘natural variation’.
But when ice melts every spring, it’s the Arctic death spiral.
WUWT can post all the data in the world but it won’t matter to the faith-based AGW crowd. They already have their US thermometer network rigged to constantly give ‘record highs’, so they can just keep braying about ‘melting icecaps’ and be believed.
With the AGW debate we have learned an important lesson: in the fullness of time humanity is really full of it.
The AGW mob must hate the fact that the Antarctic refuses to play to their death spiral nonsense.
I hope you will take this as constructive criticism. Sometimes charts and graphs on WUWT are not well labeled. In the case of the ice thickness chart the units are not indicated. Is the thickness in feet, meters, mm, inches or what?
Anthony,
Great presentation of the data.
On the top of the post for the Naval Research…, the date counter goes to July 6, 2012 while the date counter just below goes to June 30th, 2012.
Am I misunderstanding something?
Nice animation. And it brings up a question – since the Arctic Circle is not presented, what do we mean when we say “Arctic ice” for purposes of calculating extent?
It looks like a hotspot, or undersea vent, just off the west edge of the Canadian archepelago — off Banks Island. Open water appears there early, freezes over late, and the top chart of this article shows what looks like warmed water etching into the ice there.
Better tell Tamino, he has a history of not noticing pages like this.
Oops, just now I see there is good coverage of precisely that topic (the open water off Banks Island) in the article text. Pardon me! Still, there could be an undersea vent there, in addition to what the article says.
David S says: July 1, 2012 at 11:53 am
I hope you will take this as constructive criticism. Sometimes charts and graphs on WUWT are not well labeled. In the case of the ice thickness chart the units are not indicated. Is the thickness in feet, meters, mm, inches or what?
Constructive criticism is most welcome, unfortunately we cannot control the labels on the charts, as they are all designed by and linked from 3rd party sources. In the case of the thickness chart, it is in Meters, but this does not seem to be made apparent anywhere on NRL’s site. For comparative perspective, here are a couple other Sea Ice Thickness images that help make the scale more apparent:
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMAAW0T1PG_index_1.html
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/icesat/20090707/icesat-20090707-browse.jpg
On the WUWT Sea Ice Page I’ve added “in Meters” to the title of the Sea Ice Thickness image, in order to help avoid confusion.
If so inclined, you can contact the NRL/ACNFS Webmaster at acnfs_webmaster@nrlssc.navy.mil and ask if they can add the measurement units to their charts.
Don Shaw says: July 1, 2012 at 12:16 pm
On the top of the post for the Naval Research…, the date counter goes to July 6, 2012 while the date counter just below goes to June 30th, 2012.
Am I misunderstanding something?
Appears to be melting from MacKenzie and from surface water entering through the Bering Strait.
Facinating plastic flow from this point along the 2m contour directly over the pole and down the east coast of Greenland.
Links to the terra sat images are dated links from 7/31/2011. Need to use these links for the most recent.
Terra true color
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?mosaic=Arctic
3-6-7 image
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?mosaic=Arctic.terra.367.4km
Aqua true color
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?mosaic=Arctic.aqua.4km
“About 50,400 km3 (12,100 cu mi) of oil was produced in 1986.”
Is this Wikipedia’s error or an error of transposition? This would amount to 300 trillion barrels. in 2009 the world produced 25 billion barrels.
Just the facts … Well, one does require a balance between the mind and the heart. In a corrupt world ruled temporarily by the evil of our adversary, a knowing of truth from the heart in proper relationship with God is far more advanced in understanding from within, than any formal university education in the world, regardless of the subject matter. The spiritual potential of human beings is so much greater than any technology that exists, that the world is more advanced in technologies than it is spiritually. This speaks volumes of the nature of evil, that it hides our true nature and that of all life from us so well, that very very very few are spiritually prepared for our true reality…that which is pure spirit, and no longer energetic. That said, there is certainly very little in this life I wish to sustain at all. Physical life is but a shadowy whisp against limitless potential in eternity.
Advanced physics are important to study even if like myself, it’s understood intuitively since in practice, we are not all advanced in our comprehension of physics…far from it. There are for example equations or concepts a contact of mine Dr. John Droz would have no trouble with due to his particular education, that are simply beyond my ability & have never been trained for. But when it comes to industrial scale wind energy, we are in complete agreement. I have been in the energy industry for over fifteen years now, but I am self educated about the topic of energy generation…especially on the true nature of the ultimate energetic source, the unified field and the earth itself, now weaponized and used against humanity. My good friend Dr. Mike Castle who discovered the welsbach seeding is another I am in complete agreement with, but he is a polymer chemist and environmentalist, who’s knowledge base is quite different than DR. John Droz., so it takes in all kinds of studies to unravel the truth. Both these gentlemen have done great work to bring truth to light.
There is geoenergetics for non living systems bioenergetics for living systems, and psycoenergetics for mind and emotion. It is this knowledge that has weaponized earth to increase the severity of these long term cyclical celestial events in order to gain control.
I spent ten years in the military. When I read the prerequisits for career training in military intelligence, I said to the fella next to me, well, I don’t know why this trade was offered to me… but I sure would like to meet the fella they’re talking about in this description ! Today however I have basic understanding of things I could never explain or prove using math skills.
There is one who is much better than I am at explaining the nature of the universe, of life, and can explain it in ways that makes sense to the average lay person. He has several interviews that I placed on my site, because everything he says comes from TRUTH. For those without any spiritual comprehension or belief and depend only on science, you will appreciate his call for those who are scientifically capable to offer assistance in locating the position of Nemisis, now within the solar system, on trajectory south of earth’s eclyptic plain. The last time it was here was called passover, in the time when Israel was seeking freedom from Egypt, and suffered the death angel as it was then called. Today, there are several cyclical celestial events culminating in a combination of events never before experienced in this age of humanity, that will be more severe than what happened at that time. The tereforming of our blue jewel is for a purpose most readers would not yet be prepared to believe, so here is one who is on my blog to help get some of you there. http://authorthat.wordpress.com/2011/09/14/original-geoengineering-of-creation/
That Arctic Satellite Imagery is really nice. Great detail. You can even see the drowning polar bears . . .
Many of these charts seem to coincide with oceanic and atmospheric trends. And they all look roughly like sine waves. Because the data begins in ’79 or whenever the individual satellites started sending data back to us, does not mean the trend seen is a linear trend. With the side-blindered view we have of satellite data, no wonder the easily convinced hot-to-be-top scientists jump on this data as proof of their latest biblical pronouncement that the world will end lest we board a spaceship.
The majority of ice melt is due to volcanic activity.
Without meaning to sound negitive to bliblical proportions…the coming ice age is part of what has been foretold.
Is there any significance in the growing difference between the annual maximum and minimum over the last three decades? If so, would that suggest increasing heat transfer from the Arctic ocean through the atmosphere- or just altered sea ice aggregation?
What is significant is the amout of sulphur dioxide and rain fall from increased volcanism. These are some of the signs of the ice age returning….far from being global warming due to co2 levels rising which to believe is simply ignorance.
Brian D says: July 1, 2012 at 1:18 pm
Links to the terra sat images are dated links from 7/31/2011. Need to use these links for the most recent.
Terra true color
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?mosaic=Arctic
3-6-7 image
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?mosaic=Arctic.terra.367.4km
Aqua true color
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?mosaic=Arctic.aqua.4km
Corrected in both the article and on WUWT Sea Ice Page, and added in the Aqua True Color image. Thank you
JTF
Gary Pearse says: July 1, 2012 at 1:43 pm
“About 50,400 km3 (12,100 cu mi) of oil was produced in 1986.”
Is this Wikipedia’s error or an error of transposition? This would amount to 300 trillion barrels. in 2009 the world produced 25 billion barrels.
It is verbatim from Wikipedia, but it definitely appears to be erroneous. I’ve removed this sentence from the article. Thank you
JTF
Is there any significance in the growing difference between the annual maximum and minimum over the last three decades? If so, would that suggest increasing heat transfer from the Arctic ocean through the atmosphere
Your conclusion is correct (IMO). We are seeing satellite era record melt and record ice formation (in the cold season), because of the difference in decline of the minimum and maximum extents. That must mean record heat loss from the Arctic ocean. Although the albedo change from ice to water, I discussed earlier, will mean a large increase in ocean heat from insolation.
Overall I think there is a net heat gain in the Arctic Ocean.
Ice melts in two ways. Increasing volcanic activity which releases water at close to 800 degrees, and the decreasing magnetic field of the planet which creates the ion fields which in turn now creates less for the ozone layer.The thining layer allows more high uv radiation to reach the surface and melt the ice. So it comes from above and below, even though It only converts to heat when it reaches the surface. So most melting is from the volcanic activity. Perhaps 90% of volcanic activity is beneath the oceans. So, while overall I would say we’re approaching an ice age now, we also see increased melting in the arctic.
The impacts of compression are apparent between 0 and 180 W longitude.
Go to my blog site Steve, and listen to the video in the section. Original Geoengineering of Creation / Pole Shift. https://authorthat.wordpress.com/2011/09/14/original-geoengineering-of-creation/comment-page-1/#comment-144 See Approaching Brown Dwarf.
@ authorthat,
Thank you for posting this information. I am reading your blog link right now. I always believed that our planet was growing, just as everything else. Growth is life itself. If you dont grow, you dont live. That is the difference between a tree and a rock…
Thanks again!
authorthat says: July 2, 2012 at 9:35 am
The majority of ice melt is due to volcanic activity.
Can you provide any evidence to support your assertion?
authorthat says: July 3, 2012 at 5:39 am
Go to my blog site Steve, and listen to the video in the section. Original Geoengineering of Creation / Pole Shift. https://authorthat.wordpress.com/2011/09/14/original-geoengineering-of-creation/comment-page-1/#comment-144 See Approaching Brown Dwarf.
This is nothing short of incoherent…
[Sorry, but HAARP is off-limits here. ~dbs, mod.]