I don’t have much time for a detailed post, a number of people want to discuss sea ice, so here is your chance. We also need to update the ARCUS forecast for August, due Monday August 6th. Poll follows:
It would help greatly if a table of values for years at least 2007-2011 was posted for reference. I would vote for something between 2008 and 2011 value, I could even draw it into the graphs on the sea ice page but I really can’t figure out what number should I vote for.
beesaman
August 5, 2012 11:06 am
My the Warmists get all excited when the ice goes down but we don’t hear a peep from them when it all freezes up again. The influence on the Arctic is far more from weather patterns. They appear to come under the influence of long term ocean cycles, what influences them is far more complicated than mere CO2. Time will prove this and when it does we won’t hear a peep from Neven at al because they will have moved on to the next alarmist fad.
Entropic man
August 5, 2012 11:27 am
Kasuha says:
August 5, 2012 at 11:04 am
“It would help greatly if a table of values for years at least 2007-2011 was posted for reference.”
This might help http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2011/10/
Fred
August 5, 2012 11:27 am
” noiv says:
August 4, 2012 at 9:36 pm
Fred asks:
Why does Sea Ice News always just cover the Arctic and not also the Antarctic?
Yeah, that’s funny. Especially because in Summer there is even less sea ice in Antarctic.”
WTF? Isn’t this a comparison to historic norms and not absolute values at each pole? Global warming is not changing the shape of the planet in the real world, or our orientation to the sun. Is it doing that in yours? I guess it must be, as that is the only way your comment makes sense.
R. de Haan
August 5, 2012 11:38 am
Just watching a movie on a Dutch channel. During the movie a text is blended in: Polar Ice Cap is Melting…
Something is going on right now. Prepare for a coup.
Gneiss
August 5, 2012 11:53 am
beesaman writes,
“My the Warmists get all excited when the ice goes down but we don’t hear a peep from them when it all freezes up again.”
That is called winter. Scientists watch winter closely, I hear a lot about that. Where are you listening, that no peeps get through? One thing they notice is that winter ice has been declining too, if you compare it with other winters instead of with summer.
“The influence on the Arctic is far more from weather patterns.”
Long-term trends are a definition of climate change, not weather.
“They appear to come under the influence of long term ocean cycles,”
Wait, long term ocean cycles are not weather either, which is it? And which long-term cycles do you mean? Conditions not seen in several thousand years imply a cycle far longer that the AMO, which is not cyclical anyway; and yet far shorter than orbital, which is. So what *is* your cycle? What’s the evidence, what’s the period, what drives it?
“Time will prove this and when it does we won’t hear a peep from Neven at al because they will have moved on to the next alarmist fad.”
Let me offer the opposite prediction that if summer sea ice stabilizes back at 1980s levels, you will hear a tremendous amount about that from scientists, and from people (like Neven) who pay close attention to the research.
BZ-Z-Z-Z-ZT!
WRONG!!
All of the changes are due to natural variability. Proof: it has all happened repeatedly before the industrial revolution, and to a greater extent than now.
BZ-Z-Z-Z-ZT!
WRONG!!
The original claim may or may not be correct, but your faulty logic doesn’t show anything one way or the other. Just because something has happened in the past due to one cause doesn’t mean that current occurrences are due to the same reason.
By your logic, the fact that I have been watering my lawn (man-made cause) this year has no effect on keeping it green, since it has been greener in the past (natural variability, AND to a greater extent).
Learn about the null hypothesis or you will continue to be wrong.
Learn about logic and critical thinking before jumping to conclusions.
To make your claim, you would have to know what factors play into “natural variability”, how important they are, AND that they can explain the current conditions. Conversely, those claiming man-made causes should rule out that “natural variability” CANNOT explain the changes.
Jimbo
August 5, 2012 12:13 pm
It’s worse than we thought!
Dr. James Hansen
“In fact, it’s now driven our climate outside the range that has existed the last 10,000 years, this geologic epoch that we call the Holocene”.
Does he mean the ice free central Arctic Ocean during some summers in the Holocene? Is he referring to the mega droughts during the last few thousand years? Is he referring to the Holocene Climate Optimum which was warmer than today. Did Eric the Red’s group farm in Greenland or not??? Sheesh! http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2012/08/priceless-in-new-pbs-interview-hansen.html
H/T Tom Nelson
tjfolkerts
August 5, 2012 12:16 pm
Smokey says “It is even possible that the Antarctic had little ice several centuries ago. Now, of course, the Antarctic [which holds more than 90% of the planet’s ice] is steadily gaining ice.”
Have you still not learned the difference between Antarctic SEA ICE (which is unevenly gaining slightly) and Antarctic LAND ICE (which ‘holds more than 90% of the planet’s ice” and most accounts say is declining).
Jimbo
August 5, 2012 12:19 pm
Further to my last comment I have to add about Hansen’s claims:
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” (Sagan)
Gneiss
August 5, 2012 12:20 pm
Rob L. writes,
“Antarctic area about 14,000,000km², Greenland Area about 2,000,000 km². Sea ice area is about 19,000,000 km² on average, so globally about 35,000,000 km² of ice coverage. And at the moment sea ice is about 1,000,000 km² down.”
No, we are about 2 million down in the part that gets sun now. You were counting a lot of area in the dark. Also, both Arctic sea ice and Greenland have declining summer albedo even where there’s ice.
“So we are talking about <3% reduction in ice cap area in this near low point of the 30 years that we have data for."
We have satellite data for a bit more than three decades, but many other kinds of data before that. The older data tell a similar story: current melting is exceptional on time scales from decades (submarines) to centuries (historical) to thousands of years (proxies).
"All in areas that are get minimal sunlight compared to the rest of the world anyway."
Did you forget the midnight sun? In the Arctic that falls mostly on sea ice, which is why the state of that ice kicks off feedbacks. In the Antarctic the midnight sun lights up land ice.
tjfolkerts,
Instead of reading into my comment what you want, try to read it literally. It is correct.
And your confirmation bias leads you to believe baseless hearsay: “Antarctic SEA ICE (which is unevenly gaining slightly) and Antarctic LAND ICE (which ‘holds more than 90% of the planet’s ice” and most accounts say is declining).” Wrong.
GeoLurking
August 5, 2012 1:14 pm
East Antarctica is four times the size of west Antarctica and parts of it are cooling. The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research report prepared for last week’s meeting of Antarctic Treaty nations in Washington noted the South Pole had shown “significant cooling in recent decades”.
…
Ice core drilling in the fast ice off Australia’s Davis Station in East Antarctica by the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-Operative Research Centre shows that last year, the ice had a maximum thickness of 1.89m, its densest in 10 years. The average thickness of the ice at Davis since the 1950s is 1.67m.
Gneiss says:
August 5, 2012 at 9:36 am
“The most striking thing about current Arctic melting is not just that it’s moving toward a state not seen in several thousand years. It’s that the change is happening so fast, with no external drivers except us.”
==============
Care to back-up this statement with data ?
tjfolkerts says:
“To make your claim, you would have to know what factors play into ‘natural variability’, how important they are, AND that they can explain the current conditions.” BZ-Z-Z-Z-ZT! WRONG!! But thanx for playing, and Vanna has some lovely parting gifts for you on your way out.☺
See, scientific skeptics have nothing to prove. The climate alarmist crowd is asserting the conjecture that Arctic ice variability is caused by humans. So the onus to provide convincing scientific evidence is entirely on the alarmists — scientific evidence they have failed to produce.
As I have shown in numerous links here, the Arctic has been more ice-free than now many times in the past. Claiming that human activity is the now cause of the Arctic ice decline – without a shred of scientific evidence – is preposterous. You want people to actually believe that a 0.8ºC rise in temperature over a century an a half is now melting the Arctic?? Wrong. This is simply natural variability, and it has happened repeatedly in the past.
Gneiss
August 5, 2012 1:35 pm
Jimbo writes,
“Did Eric the Red’s group farm in Greenland or not???”
They raised sheep, and sheep are raised near the same area today. It was ice-free when Eric landed, it is ice-free now, and it has been ice-free in all the centuries between, though sometimes rather colder. One advantage that Eric had was that no wood had been cut, and no fields ever sheep-grazed, when he landed. Eric’s descendents did not have those advantages, which made them more vulnerable when the weather got worse.
One thing that Eric’s experience does *not* prove is that the southern coast of Greenland was any warmer a thousand years ago than today. It may have been about the same, or quite possibly cooler. A toasty 61 F near Eric’s farm tomorrow, sheep don’t mind that.
Chris B
August 5, 2012 1:39 pm
Günther Kirschbaum says:
August 5, 2012 at 6:21 am
What are you LOLling, those people are in danger. They should get out of there.
________________________________
According to their post they are within sight of restaurants and the only thing they are in danger of is looking foolish at not obtaining what they thought was an easy record, blocked by too much ice.
LOL to your silly comment as well.
Some European
August 5, 2012 1:46 pm
Greatly appreciated. Posting about Arctic sea ice now, when by all measures we are running at or below record levels, isn’t susceptible of accusations of deceit and denial. The numbers are there. Those who predicted sea ice recovery are clearly wrong. The next step for them is to claim fraud for all the different datasets. Or to admit they were wrong and revisit their assumptions…
This year’s melt was particularly interesting because during the period with maximum insolation (from about mid-May until now), ice cover and area were constantly tracking at or near record low levels. This has important implications for albedo and ocean heat content. With El Niño building and increasing solar radiation, we’re looking at 2013 potentially leaving 2010/2005/1998 in the dust for global warmest year on record.
Looking forward to more updates in September, thanks!
Gneiss
August 5, 2012 1:49 pm
Smokey writes,
“You want people to actually believe that a 0.8ºC rise in temperature over a century an a half is now melting the Arctic??”
That’s not actually what scientists are saying. First, the Arctic air temperature rise has been much faster than the global rate, something like .5 C/decade since the mid-70s. Second, much of the sea ice is melting from below, because of warmer water. This warming is unprecedented over the past 2,000 years, and linked to Arctic amplification of global warming. And third, we can see that the Arctic *is* melting, including ice shelves that are thousands of years old, and an ice sheet that’s much older.
Gneiss
August 5, 2012 1:56 pm
u.k. (u.s.) writes,
“Care to back-up this statement with data ?”
Here is one place your could start. You have probably been told how wrong it is, but have you ever tried to read it yourself? http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9.html
Bruce Cobb
August 5, 2012 2:01 pm
Gneiss says:
August 5, 2012 at 10:36 am No, I meant what I wrote. Also, I don’t have a CAGW religion, my views about the Arctic are based on facts, and I don’t view a harder future for my kids as cause for celebration. All this mind-reading is projection.
Interesting, so then your cherry-picked facts and emotion-based fears for your imagined future for your kids are in fact genuine. I was wrong, my apologies.
Bill Illis
August 5, 2012 2:14 pm
First day of sea ice extent increase this season at the NSIDC. Only 60 km2 but a positive number nonetheless.
Perhaps they are only correcting the extra melt they have been throwing in over the last few weeks.
Data here – File with ending of “…nrt.csv” means “near real-time”. ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/north/daily/data/
Gneiss says:
“This warming is unprecedented over the past 2,000 years, and linked to Arctic amplification of global warming.”
Horseapples. The planet has been considerably warmer over the past 2,000 years, and warmer still over the Holocene — well before CO2 began to rise.
It is obvious to the most casual observer that Polar ice cover waxes and wanes, just like it is doing today. You’re just needlessly scaring yourself. Relax.
David Gould
August 5, 2012 3:12 pm
1.) Heat melts ice.
2.) The Arctic has warmed significantly over the last 34 years: 0.53 degrees C per decade, or around 1.8 degrees C according to UAH.
See here: http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
Even if you do not believe that humans have caused that warming, surely you must accept that the upward trend in temperatures must be having some causal impact on the downward trend of Arctic sea ice.
To say that it is wind or ocean currents implies that there has been some trend in wind or ocean currents. While ice is certainly affected by such things and particular years, such as 2007, will have wind patterns that are more conducive to a reduction in ice, the trend is the important thing to consider here.
What could be causing the decline in sea ice on decadal time scales?
A decadal trend.
A decadal temperature trend.
Heat melts ice.
Jim
August 5, 2012 3:14 pm
Gneiss writes: That’s not actually what scientists are saying. First, the Arctic air temperature rise has been much faster than the global rate, something like .5 C/decade since the mid-70s. Second, much of the sea ice is melting from below, because of warmer water. This warming is unprecedented over the past 2,000 years, and linked to Arctic amplification of global warming. And third, we can see that the Arctic *is* melting, including ice shelves that are thousands of years old, and an ice sheet that’s much older.
2000 years? That’s not very long. The earth has been here billions of years. It’s been way hotter, and way colder before. You know what? The earth has survived each time. I, for one, am not concerned over a degree temperature rise. It’s way to frigging cold here in Minnesota 9 months of the year anyways.
It would help greatly if a table of values for years at least 2007-2011 was posted for reference. I would vote for something between 2008 and 2011 value, I could even draw it into the graphs on the sea ice page but I really can’t figure out what number should I vote for.
My the Warmists get all excited when the ice goes down but we don’t hear a peep from them when it all freezes up again. The influence on the Arctic is far more from weather patterns. They appear to come under the influence of long term ocean cycles, what influences them is far more complicated than mere CO2. Time will prove this and when it does we won’t hear a peep from Neven at al because they will have moved on to the next alarmist fad.
Kasuha says:
August 5, 2012 at 11:04 am
“It would help greatly if a table of values for years at least 2007-2011 was posted for reference.”
This might help
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2011/10/
” noiv says:
August 4, 2012 at 9:36 pm
Fred asks:
Why does Sea Ice News always just cover the Arctic and not also the Antarctic?
Yeah, that’s funny. Especially because in Summer there is even less sea ice in Antarctic.”
WTF? Isn’t this a comparison to historic norms and not absolute values at each pole? Global warming is not changing the shape of the planet in the real world, or our orientation to the sun. Is it doing that in yours? I guess it must be, as that is the only way your comment makes sense.
Just watching a movie on a Dutch channel. During the movie a text is blended in: Polar Ice Cap is Melting…
Something is going on right now. Prepare for a coup.
beesaman writes,
“My the Warmists get all excited when the ice goes down but we don’t hear a peep from them when it all freezes up again.”
That is called winter. Scientists watch winter closely, I hear a lot about that. Where are you listening, that no peeps get through? One thing they notice is that winter ice has been declining too, if you compare it with other winters instead of with summer.
“The influence on the Arctic is far more from weather patterns.”
Long-term trends are a definition of climate change, not weather.
“They appear to come under the influence of long term ocean cycles,”
Wait, long term ocean cycles are not weather either, which is it? And which long-term cycles do you mean? Conditions not seen in several thousand years imply a cycle far longer that the AMO, which is not cyclical anyway; and yet far shorter than orbital, which is. So what *is* your cycle? What’s the evidence, what’s the period, what drives it?
“Time will prove this and when it does we won’t hear a peep from Neven at al because they will have moved on to the next alarmist fad.”
Let me offer the opposite prediction that if summer sea ice stabilizes back at 1980s levels, you will hear a tremendous amount about that from scientists, and from people (like Neven) who pay close attention to the research.
Smokey says:
BZ-Z-Z-Z-ZT!
WRONG!!
The original claim may or may not be correct, but your faulty logic doesn’t show anything one way or the other. Just because something has happened in the past due to one cause doesn’t mean that current occurrences are due to the same reason.
By your logic, the fact that I have been watering my lawn (man-made cause) this year has no effect on keeping it green, since it has been greener in the past (natural variability, AND to a greater extent).
Learn about logic and critical thinking before jumping to conclusions.
To make your claim, you would have to know what factors play into “natural variability”, how important they are, AND that they can explain the current conditions. Conversely, those claiming man-made causes should rule out that “natural variability” CANNOT explain the changes.
It’s worse than we thought!
Does he mean the ice free central Arctic Ocean during some summers in the Holocene? Is he referring to the mega droughts during the last few thousand years? Is he referring to the Holocene Climate Optimum which was warmer than today. Did Eric the Red’s group farm in Greenland or not??? Sheesh!
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2012/08/priceless-in-new-pbs-interview-hansen.html
H/T Tom Nelson
Smokey says “It is even possible that the Antarctic had little ice several centuries ago. Now, of course, the Antarctic [which holds more than 90% of the planet’s ice] is steadily gaining ice.”
Have you still not learned the difference between Antarctic SEA ICE (which is unevenly gaining slightly) and Antarctic LAND ICE (which ‘holds more than 90% of the planet’s ice” and most accounts say is declining).
Further to my last comment I have to add about Hansen’s claims:
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” (Sagan)
Rob L. writes,
“Antarctic area about 14,000,000km², Greenland Area about 2,000,000 km². Sea ice area is about 19,000,000 km² on average, so globally about 35,000,000 km² of ice coverage. And at the moment sea ice is about 1,000,000 km² down.”
No, we are about 2 million down in the part that gets sun now. You were counting a lot of area in the dark. Also, both Arctic sea ice and Greenland have declining summer albedo even where there’s ice.
“So we are talking about <3% reduction in ice cap area in this near low point of the 30 years that we have data for."
We have satellite data for a bit more than three decades, but many other kinds of data before that. The older data tell a similar story: current melting is exceptional on time scales from decades (submarines) to centuries (historical) to thousands of years (proxies).
"All in areas that are get minimal sunlight compared to the rest of the world anyway."
Did you forget the midnight sun? In the Arctic that falls mostly on sea ice, which is why the state of that ice kicks off feedbacks. In the Antarctic the midnight sun lights up land ice.
tjfolkerts,
Instead of reading into my comment what you want, try to read it literally. It is correct.
And your confirmation bias leads you to believe baseless hearsay: “Antarctic SEA ICE (which is unevenly gaining slightly) and Antarctic LAND ICE (which ‘holds more than 90% of the planet’s ice” and most accounts say is declining).”
Wrong.
Read more: http://www.news.com.au#ixzz22hkedTnW
Gneiss says:
August 5, 2012 at 9:36 am
“The most striking thing about current Arctic melting is not just that it’s moving toward a state not seen in several thousand years. It’s that the change is happening so fast, with no external drivers except us.”
==============
Care to back-up this statement with data ?
tjfolkerts says:
“To make your claim, you would have to know what factors play into ‘natural variability’, how important they are, AND that they can explain the current conditions.”
BZ-Z-Z-Z-ZT!
WRONG!! But thanx for playing, and Vanna has some lovely parting gifts for you on your way out.☺
See, scientific skeptics have nothing to prove. The climate alarmist crowd is asserting the conjecture that Arctic ice variability is caused by humans. So the onus to provide convincing scientific evidence is entirely on the alarmists — scientific evidence they have failed to produce.
As I have shown in numerous links here, the Arctic has been more ice-free than now many times in the past. Claiming that human activity is the now cause of the Arctic ice decline – without a shred of scientific evidence – is preposterous. You want people to actually believe that a 0.8ºC rise in temperature over a century an a half is now melting the Arctic?? Wrong. This is simply natural variability, and it has happened repeatedly in the past.
Jimbo writes,
“Did Eric the Red’s group farm in Greenland or not???”
They raised sheep, and sheep are raised near the same area today. It was ice-free when Eric landed, it is ice-free now, and it has been ice-free in all the centuries between, though sometimes rather colder. One advantage that Eric had was that no wood had been cut, and no fields ever sheep-grazed, when he landed. Eric’s descendents did not have those advantages, which made them more vulnerable when the weather got worse.
One thing that Eric’s experience does *not* prove is that the southern coast of Greenland was any warmer a thousand years ago than today. It may have been about the same, or quite possibly cooler. A toasty 61 F near Eric’s farm tomorrow, sheep don’t mind that.
Günther Kirschbaum says:
August 5, 2012 at 6:21 am
What are you LOLling, those people are in danger. They should get out of there.
________________________________
According to their post they are within sight of restaurants and the only thing they are in danger of is looking foolish at not obtaining what they thought was an easy record, blocked by too much ice.
LOL to your silly comment as well.
Greatly appreciated. Posting about Arctic sea ice now, when by all measures we are running at or below record levels, isn’t susceptible of accusations of deceit and denial. The numbers are there. Those who predicted sea ice recovery are clearly wrong. The next step for them is to claim fraud for all the different datasets. Or to admit they were wrong and revisit their assumptions…
This year’s melt was particularly interesting because during the period with maximum insolation (from about mid-May until now), ice cover and area were constantly tracking at or near record low levels. This has important implications for albedo and ocean heat content. With El Niño building and increasing solar radiation, we’re looking at 2013 potentially leaving 2010/2005/1998 in the dust for global warmest year on record.
Looking forward to more updates in September, thanks!
Smokey writes,
“You want people to actually believe that a 0.8ºC rise in temperature over a century an a half is now melting the Arctic??”
That’s not actually what scientists are saying. First, the Arctic air temperature rise has been much faster than the global rate, something like .5 C/decade since the mid-70s. Second, much of the sea ice is melting from below, because of warmer water. This warming is unprecedented over the past 2,000 years, and linked to Arctic amplification of global warming. And third, we can see that the Arctic *is* melting, including ice shelves that are thousands of years old, and an ice sheet that’s much older.
u.k. (u.s.) writes,
“Care to back-up this statement with data ?”
Here is one place your could start. You have probably been told how wrong it is, but have you ever tried to read it yourself?
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9.html
Gneiss says:
August 5, 2012 at 10:36 am
No, I meant what I wrote. Also, I don’t have a CAGW religion, my views about the Arctic are based on facts, and I don’t view a harder future for my kids as cause for celebration. All this mind-reading is projection.
Interesting, so then your cherry-picked facts and emotion-based fears for your imagined future for your kids are in fact genuine. I was wrong, my apologies.
First day of sea ice extent increase this season at the NSIDC. Only 60 km2 but a positive number nonetheless.
Perhaps they are only correcting the extra melt they have been throwing in over the last few weeks.
Data here – File with ending of “…nrt.csv” means “near real-time”.
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/north/daily/data/
Gneiss says:
“This warming is unprecedented over the past 2,000 years, and linked to Arctic amplification of global warming.”
Horseapples. The planet has been considerably warmer over the past 2,000 years, and warmer still over the Holocene — well before CO2 began to rise.
It is obvious to the most casual observer that Polar ice cover waxes and wanes, just like it is doing today. You’re just needlessly scaring yourself. Relax.
1.) Heat melts ice.
2.) The Arctic has warmed significantly over the last 34 years: 0.53 degrees C per decade, or around 1.8 degrees C according to UAH.
See here: http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
Even if you do not believe that humans have caused that warming, surely you must accept that the upward trend in temperatures must be having some causal impact on the downward trend of Arctic sea ice.
To say that it is wind or ocean currents implies that there has been some trend in wind or ocean currents. While ice is certainly affected by such things and particular years, such as 2007, will have wind patterns that are more conducive to a reduction in ice, the trend is the important thing to consider here.
What could be causing the decline in sea ice on decadal time scales?
A decadal trend.
A decadal temperature trend.
Heat melts ice.
Gneiss writes:
That’s not actually what scientists are saying. First, the Arctic air temperature rise has been much faster than the global rate, something like .5 C/decade since the mid-70s. Second, much of the sea ice is melting from below, because of warmer water. This warming is unprecedented over the past 2,000 years, and linked to Arctic amplification of global warming. And third, we can see that the Arctic *is* melting, including ice shelves that are thousands of years old, and an ice sheet that’s much older.
2000 years? That’s not very long. The earth has been here billions of years. It’s been way hotter, and way colder before. You know what? The earth has survived each time. I, for one, am not concerned over a degree temperature rise. It’s way to frigging cold here in Minnesota 9 months of the year anyways.