People send me stuff.
Today, just over two months away from the end of summer, when NASA’s Jay Zwally famously predicted (with an assist from AP’s Seth Borenstein): “…the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012″ and we are nowhere near that becoming true, I get sent a contest being solicited by the people who run “Vision Prize” in San Francisco. I had to chuckle at this.
CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: When will the Arctic Sea become free of summer
floating ice?
Dear Climate Scientist,
You have probably already seen the cover story of last month’s Economist on the Arctic: The vanishing north. The Vision Prize [online poll of climate scientists](http://visionprize.com/) is currently asking this related question:
**When (if ever) will the Arctic Sea become completely free of summer floating ice?**
Please [Sign Up](http://visionprize.com/users/new) now to submit your prediction and join [more than 200 of your colleagues](http://visionprize.com/participants#expertise) participating in this new climate risk communication project. Participation is free and takes just a few minutes. Thanks in advance for your support.
Vision Prize is affiliated with researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Minnesota Institute on the Environment, and is strictly nonpartisan.
Vision Prize | Box 7775 #20915 | San Francisco CA USA | 94120
===============================================================
The bottom of the original email allows the recipient to forward to a friend, so by doing so they make this a contest open to everyone.Lest some of our vocal detractors cry “foul” I’ll point out this entry in their “roster of experts“:
Glenn Tamblyn
Skepticalscience.com; (Australia); Licensed professional engineer – commercial; Mechanical Engineering; Industry – Other;
Dana Nuccitelli
Tetra Tech, Inc.; (United States); Other scientific or technical – commercial; Environmental Science, Physics; Industry – Environmental Services; climate science
Apparently, they’ll take anonymous predictions too:
puffycloud
University of Washington; (United States); Graduate student; climate variability and change; Academia – Earth Sciences; atmospheric science
They want predictions, so let’s give them some, signup here:
Please [Sign Up](http://visionprize.com/users/new) now to submit your prediction
I signed up, and the confirmation email to activate my account went immediately to SPAM, so you may have to fish it out of your own account.
Even though they’ll let members of a blog that revises history on a regular basis and treats professional scientists with unprofessional attacks and anonymous grad students in, apparently, they don’t just let anybody in. Only the anointed perhaps? This is what I got:
They are heavily weighted with UW and other faculty, according to their online live profile:
It will be interesting to see if they are biased or open and whether I get to join the “players”.
I urge WUWT readers to sign up and report your acceptances or rejections below.
Hello James Abbott
RACooke never mentioned which temperature series he used to draw the conclusion that worldwide average global temperatures have been steady for the last 15 years. He was probably thinking of HADCRUT v3 rather than the GISS product.
Funny you should do exactly what you accused him of doing!
Hmmmn.
The area of the Greenland ice is relevant only with respect to global albedo, and that area is south of the remaining area of the Arctic Ocean at minimum sea extent. That is, Greenland is between 81 north (where a smidgen sticks out north of 80 north – the area of interest with respect to future ice melting). The rest of Greenland, between 80 north and 60 north (below the Arctic Circle) is now ice covered throughout the year, and will remain ice covered throughout the year. Further, it will remain ice-covered through the next 900 years even under the CAGW’s worse-case imagined terrors. The total area of Greenland is small with respect to global absorption.
The Greenland ice cap is demonstrably increasing in depth across the center of the ice cap, and has been increasing in depth (across the center) through the 20th century. Gravity studies of Greenland’s ice mass, ice level, actual bedrock levels, and bedrock level changes do NOT prove the assumed mass changes because they measure the height of two mountain tips (which are now, and have been) uncovered approximately 500 miles apart to make assumptions about the changes in level of the bedrock 5000 feet below them and 300 miles away – without evidence of actual measurements of that rock.
The edges – near the sea – between the mountain caps – are covered by short glaciers that – while moving towards the sea – do not change the total albedo of the rest of the Arctic. That is, what is the area of Canada between 65 north and 75 north compared to the area of an ice-cap over Greenland? A glacier short by 1 or 2 kilometers but discharging into a sea-ice-covered fjord doesn’t change the Arctic albedo.
And, right now, total temperature change since 1970’s baseline is 1/3 of one degree. In the mid-90’s it was also at 1/3 of one degree. Not much change. While CO2 has been steady for 300 years, global temperatures have increased, been steady and decreased. While CO2 has increased over 40 years, global temperatures have increased, been steady, and decreased.
Now, just what is this assumed CO2 -temperature relationship?
James Abbott says: July 19, 2012 at 5:05 pm
You also state “during the 15 years since worldwide average global temperatures have been steady”…
Hi James. FYI, the last 15 years steady meme comes from fitting a regression line to temperature data and noting it is close to flat. What is always ignored is the biasing effect of outliers (notably the 1998 El-Nino) near the ends of the regression fit. Escpecially ignored are the implications of Foster and Ramstorf 2011 (http://www.skepticalscience.com/foster-and-rahmstorf-measure-global-warming-signal.html) or John Neilsen-Gammon’s approach (http://blog.chron.com/climateabyss/2012/04/about-the-lack-of-warming) showing that the underlying temperature trend is consistent at ~0.16C/decade for the last 30 years (and near identical when calculated across the last 15 years).
@frank K
The “crushing blow” is based on PIOMAS. Like a melting ice cube, it PIOMAS melting rates are correct, the rate should accelerate rapidly and the death spiral should deal the final crushing blow and we should see an ice free Arctic September within the next 2 years, 3 max.
I used to like Steve Mosher’s comments in years past, but once he started using Tamino and RC as his go-to reference, he has become more shrill and lost all credibility with me…..not that he cares one wit or will bother to honor your request. 🙂
P.S. Wasn’t Cryosat supposed to settle the matter on ice thickness? Seems to me its first full data release last year didn’t bode well for correlating to PIOMAS.
And whatever happened to Greenland being the canary in the coalmine for AGW?
DR says:
July 19, 2012 at 8:08 pm
Thanks DR. Here is PIOMAS
PIOMAS is a computer code for simulating arctic sea ice changes. A computer code. Numerical modeling. Not data (though it does do hindcasting).
I also did not see the words “crushing blow” in any of the online links, but then I just skimmed them. Let me know if anyone finds the words “crushing blow”. Thanks.
RACookPE1978 says:
July 19, 2012 at 3:49 pm
===============
By the lack of response to what you wrote, it may appear that you have caused some confusion.
To refute what you say would require thinking and a reasoned argument. That seems to be lacking here. The talking points focus on the death spiral of the arctic sea ice, a very narrow viewpoint and not encompassing a greater overall look at things. I am referring to the pitch in general and not specific to this thread with regards to the talking points.
If you don’t keep it simple and stay within the narrow scope covered by the established dialog of the “looming sea ice catastrophic disaster” you will get little response to your comments. Actual thinking can cause uncertainty and confusion while simply accepting and parroting that which one is told is much more comforting to some. Exercising grey matter is optional.
Frank K,
I guess the point I was stressing is what about Cryosat? Why no updates we were told that would track the monthly death spiral?
Inquiring minds want to know.
PIOMAS, like it or not, is a consistent method for estimating volume loss. Taken at face value, it would indicate 3 years or so.. hence at 2020 take the under bet.
concentration? simple. use your heads. slightly smaller area, with less volume. durrr. one need not ( and i dont) refer to tammy or RC.
when in doubt check concentration maps. and check the MYI ice exiting via fram and nares.
2020. take the under bet.
Albedo in greenland is also getting smashed
I put WUWT as my affiliation and as for my position it didn’t have sitting down so had to go with another, I’m not sure if they would have accepted university of life so just went with some college/uni. Will let you know if I get in.
James Bull
From Steven Mosher on July 19, 2012 at 11:45 pm:
It was consistently unrealistic.
As was clearly shown on the original (now defunct) PIOMAS site, it was thoroughly researched, confirmed, vetted, etc. It was widely cited by the Arctic doomsayers as undeniable proof.
Then skeptics looked closer at it.
April 28, 2010:
Disconnected Computer Modeling (Steven Goddard)
-PIOMAS animation showing sea ice north of Barrow, Alaska gone by August 18.
May 28, 2010:
Does PIOMASS verify? (Steven Goddard)
June 1, 2010:
PIOMAS (non) Verification II (Steven Goddard)
August 8. 2010:
Sea Ice News #17 (Goddard)
-Ice in Beaufort Sea is still there, PIOMAS mis-predicted the ice edge. Thick ice where PIOMAS predicted thin, PIOMAS’ volume calculations are much too low.
Then PIOMAS Version 2, the “Grand Correction”, came forth.
June 28, 2011:
PIOMAS Arctic Sea Ice Volume Model Corrected – Still Appears Suspect (Just The Facts)
Goddard was known for supporting the US Navy’s PIPS2 thickness info over PIOMAS, which I agreed with. Dr. Meier of NSIDC chimed in.
July 13, 2010:
NSIDC’s Dr. Walt Meier on PIPS -vs- PIOMAS
-“For operational forecasts, I might use PIPS. And PIPS probably does capture some aspects of the longer-term changes. But for the reasons stated above, I would trust the PIOMAS model results more for seasonal and interannual changes in the ice cover. I very much doubt that anyone familiar with the model details would unequivocally trust PIPS over PIOMAS.”
Then the first CRYOSAT data came in.
June 21, 2011:
Cryosat Agrees With PIPS
Dr. Meier wasn’t completely fooled by PIOMAS, he had remarked about PIOMAS’ “issues” before.
October 21, 2010:
Summer 2010 in the Arctic and Other Sea Ice Topics
PIPS vs. PIOMAS revisited section
-“So while PIOMAS may be biased too low on ice volume, it captures the overall thinning trend and seems to better represent the actual state of the ice cover than PIPS.”
But still, Dr. Meier, Arctic sea ice expert, trusted PIOMAS. Which was subsequently corrected.
So now there is PIOMAS v2.0, which is thoroughly researched, confirmed, vetted, etc, and can be freely trusted.
Just like the previous version.
What’s consistent about PIOMAS is its consistently being promoted as “proof” of impending Arctic DOOM, as it consistently shows a downward volume trend. Consistently reliable and accurate, not so much.
Do we really know the Arctic is warming? I was under the impression that very few, if any, weather reporting stations existed up there and that the “warming” was mostly due to interpolation of data from stations 1500 km away. How many weather stations are up there, actually?
Here are a few old WUWT comments on the supposed loss of Antarctic land ice. (I think there were better ones that I missed.)
Hello Billy Liar
You say
“RACooke never mentioned which temperature series he used to draw the conclusion that worldwide average global temperatures have been steady for the last 15 years. He was probably thinking of HADCRUT v3 rather than the GISS product.”
Hello Ammonite
You say
“Hi James. FYI, the last 15 years steady meme comes from fitting a regression line to temperature data and noting it is close to flat. What is always ignored is the biasing effect of outliers (notably the 1998 El-Nino) near the ends of the regression fit. Escpecially ignored are the implications of Foster and Ramstorf 2011 (http://www.skepticalscience.com/foster-and-rahmstorf-measure-global-warming-signal.html) or John Neilsen-Gammon’s approach (http://blog.chron.com/climateabyss/2012/04/about-the-lack-of-warming) showing that the underlying temperature trend is consistent at ~0.16C/decade for the last 30 years (and near identical when calculated across the last 15 years).”
One of the problems with the analysis of temperature is that there are several data sets and of course it is possible to do various mathematical interpretations on each, so just about everyone can find an argument to suit.
NASA GISS is one of the recognised data sets and is perfectly valid.
But in any case HADCRUT v3 does not show a 15 year standstill. It shows warming until the early 2000s then a slight decline.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/nhshgl.gif
I certainly did not “ignore” 1998 as implied. It was obviously an extreme year. Which is why a 5 year running mean is useful as it smooths outliers and gives a better medium term trend line.
It is also worth noting that in terms of individual years, every year since 2001 has been warmer than every year in the 1990s except 1998.
I think the main point arising from this exchange is that there is no smooth change in the record so we should not be looking to find such a fit. As would be expected from a dynamic system with complex forcing mechanisms, there is variation between years and cycles on medium timescales, etc. Thats obvious looking at the trend lines – for example the dips in temperature in the early 1980s and early 1990s (influenced by Pinatubo). It did not mean that long term warming had stopped then, just as it does not mean it has stopped now because the trend line has been broadly flat since 2003.
One forcing mechanism with a good correlation to annual variation is the El Nino/La Nina oscillation. When we move to full El Nino, we should see new record warmth. 2011 was the warmest recorded La Nina year.
We are currently in a neutral phase but appear to be moving to El NIno and that shows up in the monthly trend. June 2012 was the warmest on record for both the Northern Hemisphere land and ocean average surface temperature and the globally-averaged land surface temperature.
But time will tell.
OK, I’ll ask the question. Why is less Arctic ice (or Antarctic) a “bad” thing? Silly me, but I’d suppose the polar biospheres are more productive when the ice melts.
Hello Beng
Its arguably not a case of bad or good. There has been more ice and less ice before, especially in the last 3 million years, changes which have been associated with the Croll-Milankovitch Cycles caused by periodic oscillations of the Earth’s orbital eccentricity, tilt and the precession of the pole.
The point now is that humans are the likely cause of major change in the arctic through global warming caused (largely) by fossil fuel emissions. So the relative stability that has likely existed in sea ice for the period of modern settled communities (last few thousands years), may be ending.
So if we get an ice free arctic in the summer (it won’t be in the winter unless temperatures reach levels that the worst-case models predict) we will get accelerated warming in high northern latitudes due to greater absorption of solar radiation which in turn will accelerate melting of land based ice, which in turn will accelerate sea level rise. For example, if half the ice in the Greenland ice cap melted (which would take many centuries) then sea level would rise about 3m – very bad news for the large coastal and estuary cities (ie London, New York) and for huge areas of low lying productive farmland. It might be possible to defend some cities, but not entire coastlines.
An early impact could include major disruption to arctic flora and fauna. As you say, the polar biosphere would be more productive but that would be due to invasion of species from the south at the expense of what is there now.
A largely ice free arctic in the summer would result in inevitable commercial exploitation – including yet more fossil fuel extraction – the oil companies are already getting into position for this.
On the “plus” side, tourists could go to the north pole on a cruise ship.
Check out the “North Pole Camera” on the WUWT “Sea Ice Page.” Both Camera #1 and Camera #2 show lovely summer weather, and patches of melt-water atop the ice.
One problem has been that this melt-water can appear to be open-water, in the radar-eyes of a satellite. Apparently liquid does a great job of absorbing radar, and the radar got no echo even if the water was one inch deep rather than one mile deep. Has this problem been addressed?
Also camera #1 shows a neat pressure ridge on the horizon to the upper left. That little mountain wasn’t there a month ago. Remember that nine tenths of it is under water. Quite a “Volume” of ice is in a small area, there.
RACooke says:
“Up at 80 north altitude, through the entire summer melting season the DMI-measured temperatures since 1958 have not not increased “faster than anywhere else”, they have not been steady since 1958, they have been decreasing since 1958. “
But the webpage for these numbers specifically states “The daily mean temperature of the Arctic area north of the 80th northern parallel is estimated from the average of the 00z and 12z analysis for all model grid points inside that area. ” So you are accepting one model, while rejecting another model. Why specifically do you trust DMI over NASA? What is different or better about one algorithm over the other?
Could you provide a link to support your claim about “decreasing since 1958”? Just glancing at the summer data, it seems to be holding remarkable close to the long-term average the whole time. I would be surprised to see a trend that is either statistically or climatologically significant in the summer temperatures. Of course, you would not expect to see much change in the summer temperatures, so the whole argument is a bit of a red herring. No matter how much extra energy is pushed in (eg “back-radiation” from the CO2), the air cannot warm much above 0C, the temperature of the melting ice). The ice could be melting much faster or much slower with little change in the temperature.
Furthermore, there is more to the story than just the maximum temperatures in a relatively small area. The minimums during the “entire fall/winter/spring re-freezing season” have indeed been colder even with the DMI models.
I have done a lot of statistics on correlations between northern ice extent and various parameters. I looked at areas north of 70N, rather than 80N (ie DMI models), mostly because this seemed to encompass the Arctic (and particularly the Atctic waters) pretty well. For this area using NCEP Reanalysis from NOAA, the temperature for every month — both air and sea surface temperatures — has be trending UPWARD (although a couple summer months for SST was not statistically significant).
From JamesS on July 20, 2012 at 4:09 am:
We know it is in the satellite era. This is shown in the readily-obtainable UAH data, such as for the lower troposphere: http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
(Open as text file, replace all double spaces with single spaces until no more doubles, then easily Paste Special the result into a spreadsheet using space as delimiter.)
Temperature numbers are anomalies from the 1981-2010 average.
Decadal linear trends are already calculated at the bottom (shift numbers right one column for spreadsheet). NoPol overall is 0.47°C/decade, Land is 0.44, Ocean is 0.53.
So we can see the warming from December 1978 (start of record) to the current end of record, June 2012.
Note the Arctic is warming at roughly twice the rate of the Northern Hemisphere. Which brings up something really important. With some searching on WUWT you can find posts about numerous peer-reviewed published papers showing up to around half of the Arctic warming is actually from carbon soot, aka black carbon. Plus it could be increasing global warming in general.
Black carbon linked to half of Arctic warming
http://notrickszone.com/2011/03/05/new-earth-moving-un-study-says-half-of-arctic-warming-caused-by-soot-and-not-co2/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/29/oh-soot/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/16/carbon-soot-may-be-driving-the-expansion-of-the-tropics-not-co2/
Etc.
The Arctic doomsayers will point to the increased warming rates as proof of “Arctic amplification” and such and claim it proves we must cut CO₂ emissions. That’s a lot easier than saying countries like China, India, and others need to burn their fuels cleaner and stop dirtying up the Arctic snow and ice.
GISS will “smear” temperature data from up to 1200km away. What relatively few stations there are, tend to be around notable concentrations of humans, who prefer heated buildings and power generation that consequently releases heat, which influences temperature measurements.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/22/arctic-isolated-versus-urban-stations-show-differing-trends/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/05/dmi-polar-data-shows-cooler-arctic-temperature-since-1958/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/26/giss-swiss-cheese/
-“Most Arctic stations used in GISTEMP are 1000 km (621 miles) or more away from the North Pole. That is about the distance from Chicago to Atlanta. Again would you use climate records from Atlanta to gauge what is happening in Chicago?”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/28/giss-arctic-vs-dmi-arctic-differences-in-method/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/31/giss-deletes-arctic-and-southern-ocean-sea-surface-temperature-data/
And recently:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/11/another-giss-miss-warming-in-the-arctic-the-adjustments-are-key/
So the surface-based temperature datasets like GISS, which has “adjusted” the temperature records like clay into the shape of extreme Arctic warming, are best ignored, even though that means discarding what are theoretically the older temperatures. However the modern satellite records like UAH are good enough to be trusted.
James Abbott says:
July 20, 2012 at 6:42 am
NASA-GISS is not a credible source of climate temperatures: Its head (Hansen) has been personally paid several hundreds of thousands in dollars (in addition to his millions of government salaries) specifically and directly BECAUSE of his CAGW views and politics. Hansen has manipulated even his own earliest research – changing his published temperatures several times to lower measured temperature values in the twenties and thrities to make his (very profitable!) CAGW politics even more politically corrupt (er, correct) and to increase his agencies budgets.
Measured global temperatures are now +1/3 of one degree above the baseline value set in the early 1970’s. That is the same as they were in the mid-1990’s – before the 1998 El Nino.
From James Abbott on July 20, 2012 at 6:42 am:
NCDC GHCN disagrees.
Relevant datasets here. Select “The Annual Global (land and ocean combined) Anomalies (degrees C)”.
1990 0.3903
1991 0.3630
1992 0.2203
1993 0.2505
1994 0.3131
1995 0.4352
1996 0.3066
1997 0.5038 - warmest
1998 0.6184
1999 0.4359
2000 0.4120
2001 0.5344
2002 0.5939
2003 0.6038
2004 0.5620
2005 0.6365
2006 0.5812
2007 0.5734
2008 0.4954 - cooler
2009 0.5780
2010 0.6358
2011 0.5100
For selected range, 1990-1997 and 1999, warmest year was 1997. 2008 was cooler.
If you look only at Land then you are correct. Warmest year of the selected range was 1995, which was actually quite a spike with 1996 being much lower.
But if you look at Ocean then warmest year of selected range was 1997. 2007, 2008, and 2011 were all cooler than 1997.
***
James Abbott says:
July 20, 2012 at 7:44 am
***
Hehe. You must take me as a neophyte. Thanks for taking the bait.
The point now is that humans are the likely cause of major change in the arctic through global warming caused (largely) by fossil fuel emissions. So the relative stability that has likely existed in sea ice for the period of modern settled communities (last few thousands years), may be ending.
Stability? The Arctic sea-ice is the epitome of transience. In the order of a mere 6 months it changes on the scale of a continent. The Antarctic even more — all the sea ice vanishes at it’s minimum. And how are modern communities going to be affected by not having their shores encased in ice? Sea-ice melting doesn’t affect sea-level, remember?
So if we get an ice free arctic in the summer (it won’t be in the winter unless temperatures reach levels that the worst-case models predict) we will get accelerated warming in high northern latitudes due to greater absorption of solar radiation which in turn will accelerate melting of land based ice, which in turn will accelerate sea level rise. For example, if half the ice in the Greenland ice cap melted (which would take many centuries) then sea level would rise about 3m – very bad news for the large coastal and estuary cities (ie London, New York) and for huge areas of low lying productive farmland. It might be possible to defend some cities, but not entire coastlines.
Greenland’s already pretty much ice-free in summer around its periphery except the north shore. You really think briefly-opened Arctic waters that are barely above freezing (and not even necessarily upwind) can significantly melt Greenland? Alotta free-wheeling extrapolation/alarmism there.
An early impact could include major disruption to arctic flora and fauna. As you say, the polar biosphere would be more productive but that would be due to invasion of species from the south at the expense of what is there now.
More unfounded alarmism? As I said, there is already a massive 6-month change in the sea-ice coverage. Life there is already adapted to those conditions (or it’d be extinct). Whales moving into newly opened, now plankton-rich waters hurts exactly what? Polar bears survived the recent Holocene Optimum & the previous, warmer interglacial. Nuff said.
A largely ice free arctic in the summer would result in inevitable commercial exploitation – including yet more fossil fuel extraction – the oil companies are already getting into position for this.
Environmentalist drivel (using the word-speak “exploitation”). I’d say it’s a good thing.
PS Now are there any serious responses?
Hello beng
The stability I referred to is in the range of the annual oscillation. I think you will find that in the major glaciations of the last 3 million years ice extended well south of where it has ever reached in the modern era – and deep glacial ice, not just sea ice.
Yes a more ice free arctic in summer is likely to increase melt in Greenland. Its basic physics. The sea ice cools the air above it to near zero. Much less sea ice means warmer surface temperatures in the arctic basin which will tend to erode the polar glaciers and ice sheets faster. And the albedo feedback is on top of that.
The deepest, most persistant sea ice is north of Greenland, which on current trends will be the last to go in the summer melts of years to come. It locks to the land around the north of Greenland and Ellesmere Island. Remove it and the coastal areas where the glaciers calve into the sea will be exposed to much higher summer temperatures. The glaciers in west Greenland which are being exposed to higher temperatures and less coastal sea ice are already speeding up and producing more meltwater.
The 2 main drivers of sea level rise are thermal expansion and grounded ice melt. The sceptic community claims that neither the world is warming nor is the ice melt increasing. So why is sea level rising ? Lets have an explanation please.
Finally, do you really believe that oil companies moving into the arctic is a good thing – in your own words it is “environmentalist drivel” to be concerned about it ?
Even if you dismiss the link betwen rising carbon dioxide concentrations and temperature, surely the risk of major oil spills in cold, remote waters should concern you ?
Caleb:
“Scientists at NSIDC report extent because they are cautious about summertime values of ice concentration and area taken from satellite sensors. To the sensor, surface melt appears to be open water rather than water on top of sea ice. So, while reliable for measuring area most of the year, the microwave sensor is prone to underestimating the actual ice concentration and area when the surface is melting. To account for that potential inaccuracy, NSIDC scientists rely primarily on extent when analyzing melt-season conditions and reporting them to the public. That said, analyzing ice area is still quite valuable. Given the right circumstances, background knowledge, and scientific information on current conditions, it can provide an excellent sense of how much ice there really is “on the ground.”
yes, that pressure ridge is interesting. I suppose when relatively thin ice is compacted you will see: a decrease in area/extent in one place… and a increased thickness in another place.
Change in volume? I dunno, go ahead and make an argument
JamesS says:
July 20, 2012 at 4:09 am (Edit)
William Astley says:
The warming in the Arctic is due to changes in planetary cloud cover (less cloud cover).
Do we really know the Arctic is warming? I was under the impression that very few, if any, weather reporting stations existed up there and that the “warming” was mostly due to interpolation of data from stations 1500 km away. How many weather stations are up there, actually?
#### depends if you want to include Bouys.
But in general. you have land stations These are warming, they measure air temp.
over melting ice the air temperature is stable.
You have SST.
So it depends on the season. what you really care about in the temperatures during melt season, and primarily SST, which is measured by satellites. The influx of heat through the arctic is best analyzed I would think by looking at SSTs. not air temp. remember the air temp over melting ice.
[Snip. Accusing readers of being in “denial” violates site Policy. ~dbs, mod.]