The WUWT Extent Projection: 4.55 million square kilometers.
Readers polled, 142 responded with 22.11% of responses in the range of 4.5 to 4.6 million square kilometers.
- 4.6 million sqkm 11.21% (72 votes)
- 4.5 million sqkm 10.9% (70 votes)
This was almost double the highest single category: 4.8 million sqkm 12.15% (78 votes)
Thus, the median of 4.55 million sqkm was chosen to represent WUWT readers.
UPDATE: DPlot author David Hyde sends this graph along, click to enlarge:
Here’s raw data breakdown of votes as of noon 7-5-12:
| Answer | Votes | Percent | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4.8 million sqkm | 78 | 12% | |
| 4.6 million sqkm | 72 | 11% | |
| 4.5 million sqkm | 70 | 11% | |
| 5.0 million sqkm | 58 | 9% | |
| 4.9 million sqkm | 49 | 8% | |
| 4.4 million sqkm | 39 | 6% | |
| 4.2 million sqkm | 39 | 6% | |
| 4.3 million sqkm | 36 | 6% | |
| 4.7 million sqkm | 33 | 5% | |
| Less than 4.0 million sqkm | 33 | 5% | |
| More than 5.5 million sqkm | 31 | 5% | |
| 4.1 million sqkm | 21 | 3% | |
| 5.1 million sqkm | 20 | 3% | |
| 4.0 million sqkm | 16 | 2% | |
| 5.2 million sqkm | 14 | 2% | |
| Less than 1 million sqkm (Zwally’s ice free 2012 forecast) | 14 | 2% | |
| 5.4 million sqkm | 9 | 1% | |
| 5.5 million sqkm | 6 | 1% | |
| 5.3 million sqkm | 6 | 1% |
Hold onto your hats…
This melt season is shaping up to be ‘really interesting’…
Spend some time at Cryosphere Today, going back over their images from the Arctic over the last month and comparing it to previous years. 1/2 the arctic sea ice looks like it is being attacked by rats. Hugely larger areas of ice for this time of year are showing sea ice concentrations of 60-80%. Meaning they are 20-40% open water. Reasonable perhaps in September, but not in June/July. And each of those patches, even though they may later revert back to a higher concentration some days later, represent a patch of ice that has lost it’s mechanical strength; thin refrozen sections appear to the satellites like ice, but their thinness means they don’t contribute to maintaining the mechanical strength of the ice.
So later in the melt season, this weaker ice vanishes far more easily.
For the first time in the Ice Concentration data we have seen patches of 60% concentration ice along the north coast of Ellesmere Island & Greenland over the last week. And satellite images are showing significant fissuring of the ice their now. More so than during the height of the melt season last year. When the ice looses its mechanical strength, it is a dead man walking.
Then there is the latest results from PIOMAS, estimating the total volume of ice. Their recent results are showing Arctic ice volume has already dropped below the comparable 2011 figures. And we are still in the early stages of the melt season.
PIOMAS adjusts their daily data by comparing it to the long term average for the same day.In principle, this should filter out the seasonal cycle and show the long-term trend. In the last 3 years the seasonal cycle is still strongly visible.
What this is saying is that the seasonal cycle has grown so much that it is overwhelming the adjustment based on long term averages. The seasonal cycle up there has become much more pronounced in the last 3 years.
So what does this mean for ice Extent/Area/Volume this season?
It means that the whole system is more vulnerable! If weather conditions turn towards cooling, then there may not be much changes. However, if we have a warmer melt season up there this year, it could drive significant change. An Ice Free North Pole can’t be ruled out. If we get weather conditions like 2007, after the way weather up to now has ‘primed’ the ice for change so far, substantial changes are possible.
The final collapse of the Summer Ice Sheet is now a possibility this year.
Don’t believe me. Go to Cryosphere Today and loook at how much Red (60%) ice there is up there today. Not September. Now.
Wayne, watts are a measure of power. You can’t then divide by time. They are already measured on a per second basis.
Mea culpa fellows. I learned two good lessons. don’t post comments as your heading for bed and to be sure to re-read the source comment before hitting the submit! I simply had tera-joules in my head.
From Rob Dekker on July 5, 2012 at 11:06 pm:
See, this a prime example of having an unholy “love of numbers” where one rattles them off without considering perspective and loses credibility.
Over about 180 days, around 9 million square kilometers is normally lost in the melt season. That’s an average 50 thousand square kilometers a day.
So you have 1% of average daily loss, spread over the entire melt season, which you are touting as something significant as it’s worth mentioning.
Hate to break it to you bud, but your calculations can’t show an additional 500 km^2 loss. And I don’t care how correct they are. That amount is below the level of significance when considering the significant digits involved in sea ice calculations. Your result is noise. It is easily swamped out by random fluctuations. At 1% of 1/180th of the total loss, on a single day a small shift of a jet stream can alter the cloud patterns enough to wipe out or double that loss, easily.
Please find yourself a map before embarrassing yourself further. Ask if the Canadians got that “Arctic warmth” before wondering if the continental US got it. And if Russia got it, and Europe got it, as all of them have far greater lengths of the “northern shore” than the CONUS. If all of those did not get that “Arctic warmth” then it was merely a regional effect.
Plus in your zeal to spout off heat numbers, you fail to realize you’re treating the Arctic Ocean like a cooking pot. It’s not a closed system, energy in yields ice melted. Besides melting, there is also the loss of sea ice that gets flushed out of the Arctic basin, as through the Fram Strait. This occurred is previous melt seasons, it’ll occur this year.
You just can’t do your heat calculations for ice loss with comparisons to previous amounts without accounting for the sea ice that isn’t now and wasn’t then there to be melted. It’s a variable amount, controlled by far more other things than mere heat. By failing to account for such a major variable, you have committed a major scientific blunder.
From earlier in your comment:
You’ve shown your work to be so “little scientific” as to be insignificantly small. By worrying about such tiny amounts while missing such a large method of loss, I wouldn’t trust you to do a household budget.
I want to point out that the posts Gneiss, Rob Dekker and Steve Mosher have left are considerably more civil, and clearly more factually correct, than those countering them. They (excepting Mosher) do disparage WUWT (which deserves a fire-house pressures of scorn in unending measure), but regarding individual posters, I see only neutral, or even (and you idiots don’t deserve them) respectful responses and corrections of egregiously errant calculations or ridiculously unrealistic assumptions.
On the other side, I see completely unjustified derision, poorly phrased insults, childish taunts that always prove false, and the cocksure strutting of delusional ideologues who are wrong, again and again.
Any of you morons want to address the fact that WUWT has been predicting or claiming as proven “recovery of the Arctic Ice?” Anyone want to bet how many idiotic and delusional postings we can find on WUWT denying this degree of Arctic melt possible in 2012?
As you can tell, I admire Gneiss, Rob and Steve for their restraint. I cannot emulate them.
@ur momisugly thanes on July 6, 2012 at 7:19 pm:
And from we idiots, we morons, prone to our idiotic and delusional postings, here on the Best Science Blog which “deserves a fire-house pressures of scorn in unending measure”, you have our gratitude for providing this wonderful example of tolerance for opposing viewpoints which exemplifies one of the finest qualities, if not the absolute best one, of this excellent site.
We thank you for your patronage.
Wayne said :
No big deal Wayne. We all make mistakes (especially just before hitting the sack).
I for one missed a letter “k” behind “500” for the estimate of sea ice area loss since 2011 as caused by the extra 1 million km^2 snow anomaly in June since last year.
What matters are the numbers once corrected and what they mean.
In summary, the recod 6 million km^2 snow anomaly in June this year cause some 1180 TW extra insolation to be absorbed around the Arctic w.r.t. the long term average. When compensated for losses to space and lower latitudes, this increased heat absorption can quite easily explain the 1-3 million km^2 sea ice area loss we experienced over the past couple of decades.
And the 1 million km^2 difference in snow cover since last year alone would suggest that the 2012 sea ice minimum would be some 500 k km^2 \less than 2011.
In perspective, that 500 k km^2 extra melt since 2011 is a factor 20 larger than the (wind driven) sea ice export through Fram Strait in the month of June.
It’s simple, really : heat melts ice, and a lot of heat melts a lot of ice. And that’s what we are observing as we speak.
From Rob Dekker on July 7, 2012 at 12:50 am:
The 2007 record minimum is attributable to an anonymously high influx of warm water from the Pacific into the Arctic. Here’s a good write-up:
http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/RS_ArcticIce_2007.htm
As of May 2010, last update, a long term trend of increasing amounts of Pacific influx is noted. 2007 had unusual winds and much more heat coming in, leading to “record” amounts of erosion from underneath the sea ice. An example of Beaufort Sea ice was 3.3m at the start, that ended up at just 50 cm thick, with about 2m lost from the bottom, five times normal.
Compared to 2006, 2007 had 16% fewer clouds and 32 W per m² greater downwelling shortwave insolation in the Western Arctic (Beaufort Sea and Chukchi Sea area), where there was major ice loss. However downwelling longwave was reduced by 4 W/m², so a net difference of 28 W/m². For the mentioned Beaufort example, the loss from the top was about 70cm, about typical for the summer.
The increased insolation was noted as raising water temperatures enough for 0.3m of ice loss. The loss from the top was about typical. Yet about 2m of loss occurred under the ice, in excess of what was attributed to the increased insolation.
Since loss of ice due to wind driven influx of warm Pacific water is shown to be likely significant compared to that from insolation increase alone, this variable source of Arctic Ocean heating should be considered when performing calculations of ice loss from heat that are used for making comparisons with previous years. You can say X amount of heat should melt Y amount of ice. You cannot say X amount of extra heat will yield Y amount of less total ice than another year.
Is a Terra Watt much different from a Luna Watt?
Just askin’ …
“Please find a map before you embarrass yourself further.”
” I wouldn’t trust you to do a household budget.”
” You’ve shown your work to be so ‘little scientific’ as to be insignificant.”
Even though Dekker is actually right.
I do think that my post contributed to your second post being less insulting. Still wrong, but at least not insulting.
From thanes on July 7, 2012 at 9:25 am:
Certainly. He was so right he corrected himself while addressing two of my major points in his reply to Wayne, and didn’t repeat the fallacious linking of June warmth in the US to his proposed “Arctic warmth” that was a third major point.
In reality… I have had good teachers in my life who were tough yet fair. One memorable math teacher would throw chalkboard erasers at you if you were’t paying attention or otherwise being stupid. When sufficiently provoked, on rare occasions, chalk. And, I admit the style of Willis Eschenbach has rubbed off on me a bit, and that’s a good thing.
By being willing to correct himself, Rob showed me he was willing to try to get the science correct. So he warranted less eraser chucking.
As for you, your contribution has been to state how perfectly wonderful the “Death Spiral” aficionados have been while others are clearly rude and wrong, which you supplemented with your own rude derision of the site and its usual denizens. You have stated Dekker is right although he corrected himself, and that my last reply was wrong but haven’t pointed out what makes it wrong.
So will you be contributing to the factual discussion today Mr “thanes” or would you rather have an eraser?
kadaka, where is it, exactly, where you think Rob corrected himself?
I would also like to ask Wayne to thank Rob for showing him the error of his calculator ways, and I think Wayne might address his language
“See how ridiculous your statements sound? So melted snow cover has you a bit worried does it? If you can handle a calculator you might try it before posting such dribble.”
Being a dick and being wrong at the same time, I think more than “mea culpa” is called for. Maybe you should address, or consider the implications, of Rob’s original point, which you did not at first understand.
By the way, I’d like to point out, whenever I am looking at WUWT, I always keep in mind Joe Bastardi’s prediction for Arctic Sea ice extent for 2011- off by 1.2 MILLION DOLLARS! er square kilometers.
None of the usual denizens of this treasured salon the search for truth argued with Joe when he made that ridiculously wrong prediction. Did any of you ever address that you world view was SO FREAKIN’ WRONG in 2011? And that it looks to be so FREAKIN WRONG IN 2012?
Going by how wrong you guys are regarding the Arctic (now it seems, summer sea ice extent just isn’t important at all, huh, and surely there have been many previous collapses of polar bear population) I’ll assume that when you say we should look for 4.5 million square klicks, I’ll take off the usual WUWT 1.2 million square klick discount and predict that if we get 3.3 square million klicks humanity and the polar bears will be just plain lucky you gs aren’t usually more wrong.
Hey, Kadaka, if you can point out anywhere Rob Dekker admitted you were right and corrected something he posted, I’ll say the Earth is flat and up is down (that is, become one of you guys).
Timothy Hanes said on July 7, 2012 at 10:31 pm:
The specific example was the 500 km² ice loss, which he noted as in error due to a missed “k” prefix which would have made in 500,000 km².
Neither reiterating nor defending the bit about the US warmth may be considered an implicit correction.
He also gave consideration for the amount of ice flushed out of the Arctic, specifically mentioning the Fram Strait as I did, which I had pointed out as an error for not doing so previously.
It’s interesting to see someone essentially write a reply to me and slip it into a reply to someone else. But he did address my points so I did give him credit for it.
whoops, good thing I reloaded before posting. You subsequently said on July 7, 2012 at 10:45 pm:
He corrected the “500 km²”, noting it was an error. He finally gave consideration to the non-melt ice loss, which I had noted was an error to not do so.
However admitting I was right was seemingly ducked by sticking that in the reply to someone else rather than address me directly.
Since half of your conditions were met, I think it’s only fair you follow through with half of your response.
(I’d suggest you go with “up is down” as that’s defensible as a frame of reference issue.)
Timothy,
I did correct myself. I missed letter “k” in one of my posts.
The snow albedo anomaly for June 2012 suggests that 2012 would show a 500 k km^2 below 2011, and not 500 km^2.
As for Kadaka, he is not really wrong or right, but he is just ‘off’. He just throws up a lot of noise and mirrors.
For example, he spends and entire post on my missed letter “k”, instead of simply doing the calculations and finding out that it was just a typo. And then an entire post about teachers throwing chalk and erasers.
More on subject, he brings up ocean heat flux, but only talks about Pacific influx.
Of course, Pacific influx is important, but it is only some 35 TW, and affects mostly FYI in the Chukchi, which will melt out any way during summer. Besides, Pacific water is anomalously cold this year, so if Pacific influx would be a determining factor in Arctic sea ice decline, we would now be running at a sea ice area above the long term average.
But we don’t. Instead, 2012 sea ice area is running at an all-time low, even below 2007 and 2010.
Rob, I thought the typo of the k was so obvious it didn’t count as a correction. It did not affect your calculation, which was correct, and wayne has yet to discuss what implications there are to your point.
Regarding heat influx, it is remarkable, really quite remarkable, that he would choose to limit himself to the Pacific, which has to get through the Bering Straight and doesn’t have the Atlantic MOC.
I think Kadaka’s posts can best be described by the classic-
“Not even wrong.”
And Kadaka, let me get this right regarding the US warmth-
Your point is that is all regions bordering the Arctic (Russia, Canada) did not get increased warmth from the ice, it is merely a “regional effect”? I don’t know how valid what you say about Canada and Russiais, but regardless! What, exactly, does that have to do with Rob’s calculations regarding where the increased insolation energy from reduced ice albedo goes? You seem fixated on the idea of “global”. I think it is quite clear Rob does not admit error because he does not bring it up again. But Rob clearly has better things to do with his time, like understanding the science. Me, I’m catching up some, so I have time.
Rob did not give an “implicit correction”. He was talking about where the energy goes, you raised the point that if it isn’t pan-Arctic one could use the term “regional.” So? So what? It doesn’t have the world “global” in it, and therefore there isn’t “global warming?”
And to repeat, no, I do not agree that Rob leaving a ‘k’ out when writing a calculation that he did CORRECTLY is error. The error was wayne’s, which Rob has thoughtfully corrected for him.
kadaka,
You asked me several times to respond to you directly. I did not do so yet, since for starters I find your writing style agressive, unconstructive, arogant, insulting and contradicting and besides that you did not ask any questions.
My post was about the effects of the record snow cover anomaly and the effect it may have on sea ice reduction at the end of the melting season.
One point I made (actually a question I asked) was this : The other half goes to warming (less cooling) of lower latitudes. Did we notice anything of that in the US ?
You have now twice quested that question (and once contradicted yourself on the possible answer), which may suggest that you believe that temperatures in the US have nothing to do with the record 6 million km^2 snow cover anomaly in the North, but you do not present any evidence for that opinion.
Now, let me start by saying (again) that I do not know if the high US temperatures are affected by the record low snow cover anomaly all around the Arctic this year. However, I find it plausible that the extra 1180 TW generated North of us can have influence on lower lattitude temperatures, resulting in average higher peaks and less lower valleys in the temperatures across much of the Nothern Hemisphere land.
Here is some evidence for that opinion :
Snow albedo effect (and the 1180 TW increased absorbed solar power) of course mostly has an effect over land masses, and much less over the oceans.
Now if you look at the temperature anomaly over the Northern Hemisphere during May and June it’s easy to see that the anomaly extended over the land masses, while the oceans remained cool. We see not just a warmer Canada and as far south as the US, but also a significantly warmer Russia overall, down to the Chinese border and into parts of Europe. This pattern is much wider than a simple ‘regional’ effect, and matches very well with what we would expect from a snow cover anomaly spreading all across the Arctic deep into lower latitudes.
Which suggests that the US record breaking temperatures my very well be a side effect of the record 6 million km^2 snow anomaly, or at least be “worse” than what it would be without the massive amount of extra heat this year’s snow anomaly generated all over the Northern Hemisphere land masses.
Incidentally, parts of Siberia are scorching, and the state of emergency was declared in several Siberian provences due to unprecedented wildfires burning out of control on the tundras. 30 years ago, these areas were covered in snow deep into June.
From Rob Dekker on July 9, 2012 at 1:55 am:
(You’re still here?)
Where? I accept that reading comprehension might not be one of our strong suites since you think one post was entirely about the “missing k” while another was only about teachers, chalk, and erasers, but please try to pay closer attention.
It is lamentable that you are used to neither teachers nor supervisors that aggressively challenged you to do better, as they provoke the greatest learning. I mentioned two methods of ice loss you should have considered and evaluated for significance from the start. Failing to consider them, well, that’s like a carpenter not considering kerf loss, or an electrical designer not considering line loss.
You noted about a 1×10^6 km² difference in June from last year. Checking the tabular data shows the deficit to be 1.31×10^6 km². What has that extra loss done in June, looking at mean surface temperatures, straight subtraction of 2011 from 2012?
Map.
The Arctic Ocean is overwhelmingly colder. Some land is warmer, some is colder. Overall, I don’t see any increase in warmth, looks like general cooling if anything. I don’t see that 1.31*10^6 km² making a difference.
What about May? Tabular data says deficit 2012-2011 is only 0.7*10^6 km².
Map.
Arctic Ocean perhaps slightly warmer, overall a wash to slightly warmer.
There is much snow melt from May to June. 2012 saw 30% of the Northern Hemisphere snow remaining, 2011 was 37%. So between 2012 and 2011, with less snow cover to start and more lost from May to June, with the albedo changes and the proposed increased solar energy absorption… The effect was negligible to cooling.
May and June, 2012 minus 2011: Map.
Yes, I can see the scorching -3°C hotspot around central Russia. About Siberia:
June 2012 temperatures.
Oh yeah, with those “hotspots” no greater that 17.5°C (63.5°F) and around the July average, they must be sweating buckets from those scorching temperatures!
Kadaka,
“It is regrettable that you are used to neither teachers nor supervisors that aggressively challenged you to do better…”
Jesus, who are you, Dwight Schrute? Go screw yourself. You authoritarians are all like this. Why on Earth do you think of yourself in some position of authority just because you are fascinated/enslaved by ideas of authority? You are incorrect in virtually everything you say, PLUS you know nothing of Rob’s credentials, plus you don’t seem to have ANY interest in addressing Rob’s point- describing the effect of the positive feedback of ice/snow albedo.
Your first point, missing the simple ‘k’ typo,well hell say I wrote a five page post about your first sentence about your “strong suites”. I’d be signalling “I am an unable to understand what I am reading because I don’t follow arguments or contexts.” You DID spend half a post typing about what you didn’t follow. And, if you pull your little authoritarian strutting again I’ll tell you what to do with your chalk and eraser, you poser.
Second, funny thing you should go nuts when Rob asked if the US has seen anything of the extra heat of the decreased albedo effect this year- All-time US Record Heat this last twelve month period,
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/2012/6
Finally, faux-professor, I was making fun of you and all the jack-asses, especially Joe Bastardi, who opine about Arctic Ice in this site, in part because your ilk continues to pretend 2007 was aberrant and Arctic amplificiation of global warming is something you can ignore. You can’t. You were wrong about 2011. You will be more wrong now.
Timothy Haynes says:
“Record Heat this last twelve month period…”
Posting an NOAA link about U.S. temperatures is typical alarmist cherry-picking. If you want a link showing global temperatures, then see here. Globally, 2012 temperatures are far below recent highs, and continue to decline.
And even if current temperatures were at an all time high — which they are not — so what? Any warming due to CO2 is so small that it is unmeasurable, so get off your high horse. AGW is still only a conjecture.
AGW is a theory which has, time and AGAIN,predicted, and explained WHY, the world will get warmer, Smokey. Hottest twelve month EVER SEEN in the US is along those lines. Predicted. Proven. Prediction made, confirmed. Conject that, you ideologue.
The world I’m leaving my children is down more the 3/4 the Arctic ice I got when I was born, and the 98% + of the climate scientists are just about screaming at the top of their lungs (for about the last 100 years) they knew it was coming, why it it happening, and what we need to do to stop it becoming a PETM level disaster. Conjecture, my foot.
Where is my children’s ice?
From Timothy Hanes on July 9, 2012 at 9:15 pm:
Wrong. I said “lamentable” not “regrettable”. Simply cut-and-paste to correctly copy source quotes, include original errors like typos as that makes the quote authentically true.
As I demonstrated by showing in my last comment how a notable increase in snow cover deficit between 2011 and 2012 had little effect, arguably a negative effect. If it’s such a robust positive feedback then the result should have been more noticeable.
The idiom “strong suits” comes from card playing, specifically Bridge. Who plays Bridge anymore? “Suites” are collections, by context as used they are collections of skills. For example, I have suites of carpentry, electrical, and mechanical skills. There is more than one type of reading comprehension, for example I am more adroit at reading electrical wiring codes (specifically the NEC) than I am reading medical jargon. Thus “strong suites” says what I meant.
But, as we have heard many times before, the US is not necessarily representative of the world. So I went to the global data, NCDC GHCN, available near the bottom here, selecting “The Monthly Global (land and ocean combined into an anomaly) Index (degrees C)” and put it into a spreadsheet. Although this extends back to 1880, I only used from January 1895 to present to match the US data. Turns out the hottest 12 month period globally, found by simply summing the anomalies, was August 2009 to July 2010.
Note that, at the time I looked, June 2012 wasn’t posted. But July 2011 to May 2012 adds to 5.6012°C, the highest 12 month sum is 7.9019°C, a difference of 2.3007°C. As a simple perusal of the monthly anomalies shows none greater than 1.0°C, it is very unlikely June 2012 will end the all-time highest global 12 month period. Indeed, the hottest month ever was over five years ago, January 2007, an anomaly of 0.8418°C.
Just for you, as we’re examining Northern Hemisphere snow deficits and the proposed Arctic amplification, I did the same with the Northern Hemisphere dataset. The hottest NH 12 month period was June 2006 to May 2007. The hottest Northern Hemisphere month was also January 2007, in anomaly terms.
Again, no June 2012, July 2011 to May 2012 summed to 6.6376°C, highest 12-mo was 9.3494°C, difference 2.7118°C, hottest month was only 1.1798°C.
So both globally and in the Northern Hemisphere, the peak in temperatures was about 5 to 6 years ago. The US “heat wave” represents neither the globe nor the Northern Hemisphere.
And way back when Rob Dekker atarted this by noting the June snow cover anomaly graph. Ignoring 2012 as the June 2012 global and NH temperature anomalies are not currently available, you can see the 2006-7 deficits are about half of the 2010-11 amounts. So the temperature records were set when there was much more snow cover. Thus to me, it looks like the proposed “positive feedback” of “Arctic amplification” has been debunked.
And the “extra heat of the decreased albedo effect this year”, doesn’t seem to be there this year. It’s not in the global nor the NH data. The US “heat wave” is a regional effect.
But 2007 was aberrant, tied to unusual winds and greater Pacific influx.
I’ve shown how the “Arctic amplification” doesn’t seem to be happening, thus I can ignore it.
And I actually bid low this year, only 4.5*10^6 km² Arctic sea ice extent. It’ll take some doing to get much below that.
Good news,Timothy Hanes! I hit “Post” instead of “Preview” (available when using CA Assistant, highly recommended) so you can complain about my “Rob Dekker atarted” typo, which should have been “Rob Dekker started”.
KD Knoebel
Boy oh boy. You would not be able to point out a dog even if you stepped on its tail, would you, Knoebel ?
You don’t “see” any difference because you are looking in the wrong places.
For starters, as I mentioned before, heat generated by snow albedo shows up as a land temperature anomaly, not over the oceans, and not over (sea) ice either.
Since you seemed to be intrigued by teaching, let’s see if you have learned anything in this post on the albedo effect of snow cover and polar amplification :
Question 1 : If you take your 2012 minus 2011 temperature anomaly map and you discard oceans and discard the areas well outside the 2012-2011 snow anomaly (south of 60N), then what is the area integrated average temperature anomaly between 2012 and 2011 over the remaining land area ?
Question 2 : These should be easy, but a reasonable test of your high-school mathematics skills and understanding of basic physics :
(a) How much heat does it take to melt 50 cm snow (assume a 20% water content) over 1.3 million km^2 ?
(b) What is the approximate amount of extra absorbed solar power of a 1.3 million km^2 snow anomaly in June, assuming average insolation on the ground of 280 W/m^2 and an albedo factor of 0.8 for snow and 0.1 for a snow-free surface ?
(c) Given (b), how much extra solar heat is absorbed in the anomaly area during the month of June ?
(d) What is the heat amplification factor for the snow anomaly area in June (compare result of (c) to the result of (a)).
(e) What is the volume of sea ice lost if 25 % of that heat (d) ends up melting Arctic sea ice ?
(f) Assuming 1.5 meter thick ice, how many km^2 of sea ice would be lost due to the 2012 – 2011 June snow cover anomaly ?
(g) Quantify other heat sinks for the remaining 75% of the heat calculated in (c). (Where does that heat go ?).
and if you may :
(h) Re-do these calculations, now given the 6 million km^2 snow anomaly in June 2012 with respect to the long-term average, and compare to observational evidence.
Knoebel :
Yes, and that 30% is almost exclusively on the Greenland ice sheet.
If that number goes down any further, we are in much deeper trouble than the loss of summer Arctic sea ice.
Who are you kidding, Knoebel ?