Earlier today in part1, I posted about the new record low claimed by NSIDC: Sea Ice News – Volume 3 Number 11, part 1 – new Arctic satellite extent record. The number given is 4.1 million square kilometers:
That of course is being trumpeted far and wide, new life has been given to Mark Serreeze’s “Arctic death spiral” in the media. But, here’s a curiosity, another NSIDC product, the new and improved “multi-sensor” MASIE product, shows no record low at ~ 4.7 million square kilometers:
Note the label at the bottom of the image in red. NSIDC doesn’t often mention this product in their press releases. They most certainly didn’t mention it today.
Another product, NOAA’s National Ice Center Interactive Multisensor Snow and Ice Mapping System (IMS) plot, also shows no reason for claiming a record at all:
Their number is (for 8/22) ~ 5.1 million square kilometers. (NOTE: NSIDC’s Dr. Walt Meir points out in comments that IMS and MASIE use the same base data, but that this one product from IMS only updates weekly, unlike all other sea ice plots which are daily. They should be in sync on the next update cycle, but right now MASIE and IMS should both be at 4.7 million sqkm. -A)
Another curiosity is here. On the NATICE interactive maps on demand page (click on Arctic Daily in the pulldown menu):
The numbers they give for 80% and marginal ice add up to an extent of 6,149, 305 square kilometers.
So who to believe? It depends on the method, and who thinks their method is most representative of reality. Measuring sea ice via satellite, especially when you use a single passive sensor system that has been show in the past to have degradation problems and outright failure (which I was told weren’t worth mentioning until they discovered I was right and pulled the plug) might be a case of putting all your eggs in one basket. I suspect that at some point, we’ll see a new basket that maybe isn’t so worn, but for now, the old basket provides a comfort for those who relish new records, even though those records may be virtual.
Note that we don’t see media pronouncements from NOAA’s NATICE center like “death spiral” and “the Arctic is screaming” like we get from its activist director, Mark Serreze. So I’d tend to take NSIDC’s number with a grain of salt, particularly since they have not actively embraced the new IMS system when it comes to reporting totals. Clearly NSDIC knows the value of the media attention when they announce new lows, and director Serreze clearly knows how to make hay from it.
But this begs the question, why not move to the new system like NOAA’s National Ice Center has done? Well, it is a lot like our July temperature records. We have a shiny new state of the art Climate Reference Network system that gives a national average that is lower for July than the old USHCN network and all of its problems, yet NCDC doesn’t tell you about the July numbers that come from it. Those tasks were left to Dr. Roy Spencer and myself.
In fairness though, I asked Dr. Walt Meier of NSIDC what he thought about MASIE, and this is what he wrote to me today:
It can provide better detail, particularly in some regions, e.g., the Northwest Passage.
However, it’s not as useful for looking at trends or year-to-year
variations because it is produced from imagery of varying quantity and quality. So the analyses done in 2007 have different imagery sources than this year. And imagery varies even day to day. If skies are clear, MODIS can be used; if it’s cloudy then MODIS is not useful. Another thing is that the imagery is then manually analyzed by ice analysts, so
there is some subjectivity in the analysis – it may depend on the amount of time an analyst has in a given day.
Our data is from passive microwave imagery. It is not affected by clouds, it obtains complete data every data (except when there may be a sensor issue), it has only consistent, automated processes. So we have much more confidence in comparing different days, years, etc. in our passive microwave data than is possible using MASIE.
Finally, MASIE’s mandate is to try to produce the best estimate they can of where there is any sea ice. So they may include even very low concentrations of ice <15%. In looking at visible imagery from MODIS, in the few cloud-free regions, there does appear to be some small concentration of ice where MASIE is mapping ice and our satellite data is not detecting ice. This is ice that is very sparse, likely quite thin. So it will probably melt out completely in the next week or two.
MASIE has tended to lag behind our data and then it catches up as the sparse ice that they map disappears. This year the difference between the two is a bit larger than we’ve seen in other years, because there is a larger area of sparse ice.
You can thank the big Arctic storm of August 4th-8th for that dispersal.
“The Great Arctic Cyclone of 2012″ effect on Arctic sea ice is seen in this before and after image:
Figure 4. These maps of sea ice concentration from the Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder (SSMIS) passive microwave sensor highlight the very rapid loss of ice in the western Arctic (northwest of Alaska) during the strong Arctic storm. Magenta and purple colors indicate ice concentration near 100%; yellow, green, and pale blue indicate 60% to 20% ice concentration.
Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center courtesy IUP Bremen
Trends -vs- records, just like July temperatures. One system might be better at trends, another might be better at absolutes used to determine records. In this case we have three other respected methods that show absolute values higher than that of NSIDC’s older method which they have a high confidence in. I suppose these systems are like children. In a competition, you always root for your children over the children of the other parents, so it is no surprise that NSIDC would root for their own well known media star “child” over that of NATICE’s IMS and NSIDC’s own lesser known child, MASIE.
Oh, and then there’s Antarctica, that other neglected ice child nobody talks about, with its above normal ice amounts right now:
No matter what though, its all just quibbling over just a little more than 30 years of satellite data, and it is important to remember that. It is also important to remember that MASIE wasn’t around during the last record low in 2007, and IMS was just barely out of beta test from 2006. As measurement systems improve, we should include them in the discussion.
UPDATE: Andrew Revkin reports on the issue in his Dot Earth article here
He’s a bit skeptical of the sound byte hype coming from NSIDC writing:
That’s one reason that, even with today’s announcement that the sea ice reached a new low extent for the satellite era, I wouldn’t bet that “the Arctic is all but certain to be virtually ice free within two decades,” as some have proposed. I’d say fifty/fifty odds, at best.
…
But is this a situation that is appropriately described as a “death spiral”? Not by my standards.
Revkin also takes Al Gore to task on Twitter:
help him out, retweet this
UPDATE2: Commenter Ron C. provides this useful information in comments that helps explain some of the differences and issues:
The main point is that NIC works with images, while the others are microwave products.
“Polar orbiting satellites are the only source of a complete look at the polar areas of the earth, since their orbits cross near the poles approximately every two hours with 12 to 13 orbits a day of useful visible data. This visible imagery can then be analyzed to detect the snow and ice fields and the difference in reflectivity of the snow and ice. By analyzing these areas each day, areas of cloud cover over a particular area of snow and ice can be kept to a minimum to allow a cloud free look at these regions. This chart can then be useful as a measure of the extent of snow and ice for any day during the year and it can also be compared to previous years for climatic studies.”
http://www.natice.noaa.gov/ims/snow_ice.html
“NIC charts are produced through the analyses of available in situ, remote sensing, and model data sources. They are generated primarily for mission planning and safety of navigation. NIC charts generally show more ice than do passive microwave derived sea ice concentrations, particularly in the summer when passive microwave algorithms tend to underestimate ice concentration. The record of sea ice concentration from the NIC series is believed to be more accurate than that from passive microwave sensors, especially from the mid-1990s on (see references at the end of this documentation), but it lacks the consistency of some passive microwave time series. ”
http://nsidc.org/data/g02172.html
Some have analyzed the underestimation by microwave products.
“We compare the ice chart data to ice concentrations from the NASA Team algorithm which, along with the Bootstrap algorithm [Comiso, 1995], has proved to be perhaps the most popular used for generating ice concentrations [Cavalieri et al.,1997]. We find a baseline difference in integrated ice concentration coverage north of 45N of 3.85% ± 0.73% during November to May (ice chart concentrations are larger). In summer, the difference between the two sources of data rises to a maximum of 23% peaking in early August, equivalent to ice coverage the size of Greenland.”
From Late twentieth century Northern Hemisphere sea-ice record from U.S. National Ice Center ice charts, Partington, Flynn, Lamb, Bertoia, and Dedrick
http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1058&context=usdeptcommercepub
The differences are even greater for Canadian regions.
“More than 1380 regional Canadian weekly sea-ice charts for four Canadian regions and 839 hemispheric U.S. weekly sea-ice charts from 1979 to 1996 are compared with passive microwave sea-ice concentration estimates using the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Team algorithm. Compared with the Canadian regional ice charts, the NASA Team algorithm underestimates the total ice-covered area by 20.4% to 33.5% during ice melt in the summer and by 7.6% to 43.5% during ice growth in the late fall.”
From: The Use of Operational Ice Charts for Evaluating Passive Microwave Ice Concentration Data, Agnew and Howell
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3137/ao.410405
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kadaka,
Thanks for trying to educate Phil. It won’t do any good in his case, but other readers will see where he went off track.
Phil doesn’t understand Occam’s Razor, or the null hypothesis, or even the scientific method. But he does have a religious belief in CO2=CAGW, and for Phil, that is enough.
“A new record minimum of the Arctic sea ice extent”
http://www.eorc.jaxa.jp/en/imgdata/topics/2012/tp120825.html
Happened on Aug. 24, four weeks earlier than 2007’s minimum, and it happened despite a very slow starting melt season. And it’s still dropping, with at least 2 or 3 weeks left in the melt season.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
September 1, 2012 at 10:57 am
From Phil. on August 31, 2012 at 3:42 pm:
Unfortunately it’s Smokey who doesn’t understand it!
“CO2 levels up to twenty times higher caused no global harm” he says, of course that was when there was no life on land. Considering that the rain would have the pH of vinegar not too surprising. Only 15% O2 in the atmosphere not too healthy either!
Water normally combines with carbon dioxide from the air to form a weak carbonic acid solution. Atmospheric CO₂ concentrations of 350ppm would yield a 5.6pH solution from distilled water left exposed to air.
At 25 times a 400ppm concentration, the pH would be 4.9.
Correct.
Common distilled vinegar, aka white vinegar, runs about 2.4pH. With the logarithimic nature of the pH scale, that’s around 320 times the acidity from a CO₂ atmospheric concentration more that 25 times current.
Who said anything about ‘distilled vinegar’:
“Apple cider vinegar, otherwise known simply as cider vinegar or ACV, is made from cider or apple must, and has a brownish-yellow color. It often is sold unfiltered and unpasteurized with the mother of vinegar present, as a natural product. Because of its acidity, apple cider vinegar may be very harsh, even burning, to the throat. If taken straight, (as opposed to used in cooking), it can be diluted (e.g., with fruit juice or water) before drinking.[2] It is also sometimes sweetened with sugar or honey.[3] There have been reports of acid chemical burns of the throat from apple cider vinegar tablets, but doubt remains as to whether apple cider vinegar was in fact an ingredient in the evaluated products.[4] The pH of apple cider vinegar is typically between pH 4.25 and 5.00 if undiluted.”
“Once land plants developed the CO2 levels dropped to near contemporary values, we had the development of land animals, coincidence? (Late Devonian extinction)”
Comparing the graph from Smokey with the timeline of life on Earth, land animals were present with CO₂ levels about five times contemporary values, far in excess of the IPCC’s absolute worst case scenario by 2100. Indeed, after lowering to current levels for between around 330 to 270 million years ago, CO₂ levels then significantly rose, only lowering to “worst case” about 50 million years ago, and to about current levels around 35 million years ago when grasses evolved and grasslands expanded.
Yet despite the CO₂ levels being so far in excess of current amounts, even in excess of “worst case” from around 260 to 50 million years ago, life went on. Go figure.
I will remind you that Smokey said: “CO2 levels up to twenty times higher caused no global harm” as I pointed out there was no life on land under those conditions! ‘Life going on’ is not the same as causing ‘no global harm’.
oops, ims close to a new record!!!
http://www.natice.noaa.gov/ims/images/sea_ice_only.jpg
Jean Meeus says:
August 27, 2012 at 11:10 pm
“Today though, looking at the NSIDC extent graph, he [Mann] seems happy, declaring it ‘official’.”
I never understand the warmists. On the one side they say they are alarmed by the “catastrophic” global warming, but at the other side they are happy that the polar ice is melting. Now, what do those guys really want: warming or cooling?
_________________________________________
If I was Mann I wouldn’t be so happy if I knew that a negative North Atlantic Oscillator is strongly associated with Arctic ice loss. It hardly suggests that global warming is responsible:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/norm.nao.monthly.b5001.current.ascii.table
And to boot, the accelerated loss has happened since global warming has stopped:
http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/GW_4CE_PolarIceCaps_files/image001.jpg
MASIE is down to 4.0 mil sq/km, a bit higher than other indices, but this value is lower than previous records for NSIDC, IJIS and Arctic ROOS extents. So I think that’s MASIE down for the record books.
http://nsidc.org/data/masie/
IMS looks like its inevitable to break the record soon. I wonder how WUWT will comment. I guess it will suddenly be remembered that weather isn’t climate. But will the full 33 year trend rate a mention? Or the longer-term data sets and the trends they reveal?
No, if we start looking back in time I guess we’ll forget again that weather isn’t climate and pull out a few years in the 30s.
Once you know the steps, the dance isn’t that hard.
@ur momisugly Phil. on September 1, 2012 at 9:50 pm:
Excellent work, Phil-dot. You made a big deal here saying:
But given the acidity range of the various available vinegars, and comparing that to the range of “acid rain”, as seen on the pH scale I linked to, it’s clear we already have rain the pH of vinegar.
But you tied that to how “the rain would have the pH of vinegar”. That condition already exists, has existed. The resulting soil pH is tied to the local amounts of natural buffering. Evolution has given us a wide range of land plants that prefer different levels of soil pH, with acidity overwhelmingly preferred. So why make the big noise about “no life on land under those conditions” when “the rain would have the pH of vinegar”?
In case you missed it, life on land evolved with a preference for acidity. The relatively small decrease of rain pH from CO₂ levels 20 times current would be effectively not noticeable, as life survives and thrives with worse.
You took the bait I had dangled, going right to the “apple cider vinegar” part I had already seen at the link I had provided. Good job.
True in an absolute sense. The slight decrease in rain pH wouldn’t matter. But 20x current CO₂ levels would cause marked differences in the distributions of plant species, with more trees, more grasslands in marginal arid regions as water requirements decrease with increased available CO₂, etc. How such a marked increase in CO₂ would affect life on Earth starting with the species we have today and whether it would be a net harm or a benefit, well, that’s the sort of work researchers can build entire careers on.
Let’s see, warming from 1998 to present is 0.53C/decade for Arctic ocean sea surface temps. And that’s also the trend for the whole satellite period.
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
Perhaps some of the warming expected from increased GHGs has gone into melting the NH sea ice (and global glaciers), as well as into the deeper oceans as postulated. Surface temps are a one-dimensional view of where the heat may go in the system.
But NH sea ice is probably not in equilibrium with the warmer temps there, so even if temperatures stopped going up in the Arctic, summertime retreat would probably keep going for a few years. There’s little doubt now that the pack has been markedly thinning over the years.
MASIE now says 4.0 million km^2 for Sep 1.
http://nsidc.org/data/masie/
barry says:
September 2, 2012 at 5:15 pm
“Let’s see, warming from 1998 to present is 0.53C/decade for Arctic ocean sea surface temps. And that’s also the trend for the whole satellite period.
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt ”
It looks to me like there was a faster rise in Arctic SST from 1998:
http://1.2.3.13/bmi/i38.tinypic.com/142a0rt.jpg
“Perhaps some of the warming expected from increased GHGs has gone into melting the NH sea ice (and global glaciers), as well as into the deeper oceans as postulated.”
That expected warming has not been there for the last 15ys, so perhaps the Arctic warming is being balanced out by the Antarctic cooling, as postulated.
barry says:
September 2, 2012 at 5:15 pm
“Let’s see, warming from 1998 to present is 0.53C/decade for Arctic ocean sea surface temps. And that’s also the trend for the whole satellite period.
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt”
Apart from lower troposphere not being the sea surface, take a look at the lower trop N. Pole Ocean temp’s on that series and see the lack of trend till the late 1990’s, and clear step up from 1998 (June 1998 is at month 236 on the graph):
http://snag.gy/RwQte.jpg
It seems to be largely driven by the increase in frequency and magnitude of negative NAO periods, which does not equate with global warming.
Jean Meeus says:
August 27, 2012 at 11:10 pm
“Today though, looking at the NSIDC extent graph, he [Mann] seems happy, declaring it ‘official’.”
I never understand the warmists. On the one side they say they are alarmed by the “catastrophic” global warming, but at the other side they are happy that the polar ice is melting.”
————————————————————————————————————–
I don’t understand that, either. Several sites I’ve been to, warmists are gloating about this years melt. Happy as all get out about the new low, despite their “concern” about the shrinking ice cap. The only thing that would probably make them happier is if hundreds or thousands of dead polar bears were now appearing.
barry says:
September 2, 2012 at 7:50 am
IMS looks like its inevitable to break the record soon. I wonder how WUWT will comment. I guess it will suddenly be remembered that weather isn’t climate.
========================================================================
Really? All summer long all we have heard from warmists is that weather=climate. I can’t think of any weather event this summer warmists haven’t connected to climate change.
Richard Carlson,
The problem is that the alarmist crowd has been allowed to frame the debate as: Arctic ice melt is caused by human emissions.
That is complete nonsense, of course. Antarctic ice is growing. And whenever I ask wild-eyed arm wavers like barry to show a connection between human activity and ice melt, all I get is more arm waving.
When a claim lacks any evidence at all, the probability is extremely high that the claim is false. And keep in mind that we have only nineteen (19) more days until Arctic ice is gone.
barry says:
“Perhaps some of the warming expected from increased GHGs has gone into melting the NH sea ice (and global glaciers), as well as into the deeper oceans as postulated.”
That’s ‘conjectured’, barry.
Now, post your evidence, per the scientific method and using raw data, showing that the decline in Arctic ice is caused by human CO2 emissions. You made the claim, now let’s see you back it up with testable data.
While you’re at it, show us how CO2 molecules go into Arctic ice and avoid Antarctic ice. I want to see you try to defend that nonsense.
The only reason that the natural Arctic ice cycle is an issue is because it is the one (1) prediction the alarmist crowd believes it got right, out of hundreds of failed predictions. But even a broken clock is right twice a day, and the entirely natural ebb and flow of Arctic ice has happened repeatedly. As recently as 1987 the Arctic was more ice free than now. And in the middle of winter in 1996 there was more open water at the North Pole than now.
You are fixated on Arctic ice levels because it feeds your belief system. But observations show decisively that the current Arctic ice level is nothing unusual. Throughout the Holocene the Arctic has been as ice free, and more, than it is today. Today there is plenty of Arctic ice. The current cycle is normal and natural, and anthropogenic CO2 emissions have nothing to do with it.
If you can prove me wrong by posting testable, empirical scientific evidence, per the scientific method, I will sit up straight and pay attention. But you will be the first, and I very much doubt you possess evidence that no one else has.
Face it, barry, yours is a belief system, not science.
Most recent three values for the MASIE daily index in square kilometers
4,027,497.41
3,935,061.38
3,863,517.58
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02186/masie_extent_sqkm.csv
Smokey says:
September 3, 2012 at 5:40 pm
Richard Carlson,
The problem is that the alarmist crowd has been allowed to frame the debate as: Arctic ice melt is caused by human emissions.
That is complete nonsense, of course. Antarctic ice is growing.
Really, how about some evidence for that claim?
Actually it’s just been bouncing around the thirty year average for some time with no significant change:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.area.antarctic.png
Prior to the late 1970s there was a significant drop in Antarctic seaice.
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/fig2-16.htm
Smokey says:
September 3, 2012 at 6:00 pm
The only reason that the natural Arctic ice cycle is an issue is because it is the one (1) prediction the alarmist crowd believes it got right, out of hundreds of failed predictions. But even a broken clock is right twice a day, and the entirely natural ebb and flow of Arctic ice has happened repeatedly.
How about you show some testable scientific evidence for that statement particularly that ” the entirely natural ebb and flow of Arctic ice has happened repeatedly”, Smokey?
As recently as 1987 the Arctic was more ice free than now.
No it wasn’t:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.area.arctic.png
And in the middle of winter in 1996 there was more open water at the North Pole than now.
Produce some evidence for that claim too, not that the 1st of September is Mid winter, in fairness John Daly’s site where you got that photo from does not claim that merely using as an illustration of “typical pack ice”, as usual you have misquoted your source!
You are fixated on Arctic ice levels because it feeds your belief system. But observations show decisively that the current Arctic ice level is nothing unusual. Throughout the Holocene the Arctic has been as ice free, and more, than it is today.
Again let’s have some evidence for that, particularly ‘throughout the Holocene’, the available evidence is that the current seaice level is unusual.
Today there is plenty of Arctic ice. The current cycle is normal and natural, and anthropogenic CO2 emissions have nothing to do with it.
Current cycle of what? Evidence? The graph you post is of temperature not seaice and as has been pointed out to you before has an incorrect time axis. Since you continue to link to this graph without pointing out the error I assume you’re attempting to deliberately mislead readers.
If you can prove me wrong by posting testable, empirical scientific evidence, per the scientific method, I will sit up straight and pay attention. But you will be the first, and I very much doubt you possess evidence that no one else has.
Done many times, but you will ignore it as usual.
Face it, Smokey, yours is a belief system, not science.
Phil says:
“Done many times, but you will ignore it as usual.”
And as usual, Phil produces no evidence, per the scientific method. Just Phil’s baseless opinion, nothing more.
Someone please wake me if/when Phil produces testable evidence of a direct connection between human produced CO2 and the natural Arctic ice cycle. So far, Phil has emitted his opinion, nothing more. That is not science, that is only belief.
Smokey:
Scientists have been saying the Arctic would warm faster due to CO2 levels than all other places on the globe for decades now. And the observations have proven those out:
2002
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/298/5601/2171.short
Synthesis of river-monitoring data reveals that the average annual discharge of fresh water from the six largest Eurasian rivers to the Arctic Ocean increased by 7% from 1936 to 1999. The average annual rate of increase was 2.0 ± 0.7 cubic kilometers per year. Consequently, average annual discharge from the six rivers is now about 128 cubic kilometers per year greater than it was when routine measurements of discharge began. Discharge was correlated with changes in both the North Atlantic Oscillation and global mean surface air temperature. The observed large-scale change in freshwater flux has potentially important implications for ocean circulation and climate.
2004 Arctic Climate Assessment
http://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=e3q7tmOKxVMC&oi=fnd&pg=PA21&dq=global+warming+Arctic+IPCC&ots=y9q_KzB79C&sig=CirKCSNykxM7s5cD0PwIwFNDExg#v=onepage&q=global%20warming%20Arctic%20IPCC&f=false
2005
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/JCLI3767.1
“As a consequence of the oppo- site-signed changes of multiyear and seasonal sea ice, seasonal cycles of sea ice cover are dramatically ampli- fied and an increased large portion of only seasonally ice-covered Arctic Ocean is expected by the end of the twenty-first century.”
“Seasonal” ice being ice that is *not* multiyear. ie. it melts in summer.
Observational data is proving this out.
The multiyear ice is quickly disappearing and as of 2011 and 2012, ice that is 3 years or more years old is gone and ice between 2 and 3 years old is effectively gone.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8041/7912767338_85bf936aa1_o.jpg
Smokey, take a look at the arctic now that there is big breaks in the clouds to the north of the Bearing Sea. The current view is still Sept. 3. You’ll have to really zoom in to see all of the ice many agencies say is not there at all. That is where the missing ice went to.
http://www.arctic.io/observations/
Checked Realclimate. They posted an article about this but no mention whatsoever of the Super Cyclone breaking up the ice which contributed to the loss. No mention whatsoever of the Super Cyclone in the first 75 comments, either. They’re acting like the cyclone never happened.
While satellites measure lower troposphere radiance above land, they measure sea surface radiance from the ocean skin (where cloudiness doesn’t interfere, for infrared sensors; microwave can penetrate clouds).
Yes, although the time periods are too short to say much with confidence (the trends fail statistical significance tests at these time periods), it appears that when the global trend flatlined from 1998, the Arctic trend, which has been relatively little from 1979 to 1997, suddenly roared into life. As ~8000 cubic kilometers have melted away since 1998, then some of the heat not seen is surface temps globally since that time has perhaps gone into melting the ice there, as well as land glaciers around the world (85% have been receding), and, as theorized into the ocean depths (OHC to 2000 meters appears to have an upward trend from 1998.
Missing heat? Maybe. The thermal capacity of the boiosphere is hardly limited to surface temperatures.
Which warmists have connected every weather event to climate change? Can you name one weather event that ‘warmists’ (preferably scientists – the press sensationalise all over the place as we all know) have said is a result of climate change this summer?
As for the satellite-era record sea ice retreat;
Here’s one scientist who thinks the record is ‘just a number’, and points out the longer term behaviour as being significant.
http://nsidc.org/news/press/20120827_2012extentbreaks2007record.html
One cannot claim it was just the weather, that is patently ridiculous.
If you compare just the two record years, 2007 and 2012…. 2007 actually had a far more severe pressure pattern that compacted the ice and ejected out Fram strait nearly the whole summer. But even that doesn’t explain the amount of melt in that year it just helped it along. Yes, the 2012 cyclone certainly did do damage, however 2012 was already setting up below 2007 and has had a normal weather pattern nothing like 2007. Ice was already at record lows, before the storm, and kept marching after the storm as well.
It can also be argued, very strongly, that the storm is a symptom, not a cause. It is a classic case of a manifestation of the newly opened sea ice, warm waters, and weather that can result. It is, in effect a reinforcing feedback caused by the decline of the ice that will cause yet more decline by damaging and dispersing the ice pack.
But as others have said, it is volume that is the real elephant in the room. The extent and areas certainly matter and are the most visible change but it’s the loss of the multiyear ice that has caused the decline to stick over the past decade. 60% in a decade. Just as multiple studies predicted in the late 90s and early 00s, as the Arctic warms, the sea ice is becoming seasonal.
Mathematical plots have the PIOMAS volume going down to Zero in September by as early as next year but more likely around 2015 with August and October not long after.
https://sites.google.com/site/arctischepinguin/home/piomas
That ain’t just ‘the weather’. Anyone who says so is, well, dead wrong.
I can hardly wait to hear what blogs and commenters like at WUWT will say when the ice finally melts away completely. Of course first there will be the required argument about what’s “completely”…..
They don’t mention attribution at all, just give figures. They do link to the NSIDC announcement I linked above, which mentions the cyclone.
When news of the cyclone first arrived at WUWT, brought by visitors from Neven’s blog, it was downplayed as just another storm, with a frequency in summertimes of 1 in 4 years, as a couple of posters put it. Now that records have been broken, the storm is cast here as a ‘supercyclone’. Suddenly the storm is no longer ordinary.
But if storms like this do come once every four years, then why haven’t we seen retreat nearly as extensive as this summer’s over the last several decades?
Because there has been a long-term decline in sea ice, pre-conditioning the pack for such events. Summer weather conditions in 2007 were even more favourable to sea ice retreat than this year’s, and that year, to saw a record-breaking minimum – a combination of the long-term trend and weather patterns for that year.
It aint the storm, it aint the weather, and it aint even the long-term trend that makes a record-breaker. It’s a combination of trend and weather. And it’s just a number. What really matters is the trend. And the metric that really matters for analysing sea ice change in the Arctic is not extent or area, it’s volume. Area and extent changes, even year on year, are indicators.
REPLY: Sorry, but it IS the weather, Every year near maximum ice melt time, weather is in fact the biggest factor on Arctic sea ice. Always has been, always will be. This year weather in the form of a storm had an even bigger impact than usual. Get over it. – Anthony
Amusing. Anyone checked on the IMS recently?
And this:
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02186/png/masie_all_r00_v01_2012251_4km.png
3.6 Million km^2?
Is that perhaps a typo? Oh, there must be a good explanation.