Sea Ice News Volume 3 number 12 – has Arctic sea ice started to turn the corner?

Nothing definitive, but interesting. The area plot above is from NANSEN. The extent plot also shows a turn:

DMI also shows it…

ssmi1-ice-extDanish Meteorological Institute (DMI) – Centre for Ocean and Ice – Click the pic to view at source

But JAXA does not….suggesting a difference in sensors/processes.

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) – International Arctic Research Center (IARC) – Click the pic to view at sourceOf course NSIDC has a 5 day average, so we won’t see a change for awhile. Time will tell if this is just a blip or a turn from the new record low for the satellite data set.

More at the WUWT Sea Ice reference page

0 0 votes
Article Rating

Discover more from Watts Up With That?

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

501 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
NevenA
September 4, 2012 11:43 pm

Where’s the IMS graph?

September 4, 2012 11:44 pm

Just The Facts says:
September 4, 2012 at 10:37 pm (Edit)
Steven Mosher says: September 4, 2012 at 10:05 pm
In a warming world we expect less ice floating in the warmer water.
I agree, but the question is how much of the decrease in Global Sea Ice do you think is attributable to the ~.44 degree C increase in “Global Temperature” during the last several decades versus the multitude of other factors involved?
#########
That is a silly question. the arctic doesnt respond to the GLOBAL temperature. That is an average.
A mathematical entity that has no real physical meaning.
“attributing” a portion to the global average makes no sense because the global average is not a physical entity. no average exists as a physical entity. An average is a mathematical “model” that gives you a very low order estimate or understanding of a complex system.
If you want to start to break it down you;d start by reading the papers that cover the various heat fluxes into the basin.
Neven does a nice start of a lit review
http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2012/06/ocean-heat-flux.html#more

Nylo
September 4, 2012 11:53 pm

Brian R says:
September 4, 2012 at 2:49 pm
If the upturn continues, what I find interesting is that the freeze would be happening 2-3 weeks earlier than anytime in the satellite record.

Not really, it would be 2-3 weeks earlier than in the last few years, but only about 1 week earlier than average for the whole satellite record, and probably not the earliest.

September 4, 2012 11:59 pm

“Until we have reasonably accurate estimates of the portions attributable, Sea Ice seems more like a distraction to keep people scared while “Global Temperature” goes nowhere fast…”
You hardly need a reasonably accurate estimate of what portion is attributable to AGW.
You can of course find recent modelling work that attributes 70% of the loss to AGW.
you could, absent any information, attribute 50% of it to AGW. absent any information
about the true value ( 0-100%) the estimate that minimizes the error is 50%. the point being
Nothing turns on having or not having a “reasonable accurate” estimate of the portion.
For the sake of argument I could say 90% of the observed loss is due to ‘other factors”
whatever they are. The point would still be the same. In a warmer world we expect less ice floating in the water. It’s silly to argue otherwise, its silly to suggest, when you dont know, that other factors
explain the loss. However one sorts out the final “apportionment” the fact remains.
Adding GHGs will warm the planet. Ask Lindzen, if you dont like hearing that from me.
in a warmer world you can expect less floating ice in water. Poor your self a drink and figure that shit out.

Ally E.
September 5, 2012 12:44 am

Sorry, Mosher, but who cares? Climate has never been static and no one should want it to be. I see no problem with an ice free arctic. The planet is warming (or was up until recently). A warmer world is better for plants and animals alike – including people, we belong here too.
Unfortunately, the signs I’m seeing point to the opposite gearing up to happen, a colder more dangerous world. But I guess you don’t see that, being solely focussed the other way. That’s a shame. Somehow, though, I suspect the Big Chill will be blamed on global warming – it’s amazing how the alarmists can twist the tale and use absolutely anything to back their claims and demand more power and more money, blaming people and civilization all the way.
They lost me a long time ago.

Harry
September 5, 2012 1:18 am

When you look at the “satellite” photos, one from Cryosphere and the other from NSIDC, why does the NSIDC always seem to have much more snow on the ground than the Cryosphere ones? There really isn’t much more than a day between them, so I don’t think it is just the slightly different times. Is there some filtering taking place on the Cryosphere images?

Peak Warming Man
September 5, 2012 1:38 am

The good thing is that we wont get another record low Arctic sea ice extent for another four or five years (the record low before this new record low was 5 years ago), this means that every year before the next record low we will be able to tell those AGW believers that the ice is not melting, yay for us!

Graeme M
September 5, 2012 1:44 am

“in a warmer world you can expect less floating ice in water.”
Makes sense.
So… If over the next 10 years we find MORE floating ice in water?

September 5, 2012 1:46 am

Steven Mosher says:
September 4, 2012 at 11:59 pm
………
Steven, when you have some time take a look at: comment on the JC’s blog

Ken Nohe
September 5, 2012 2:34 am

I spent the time to read all the comments and found them unconvincing as a statistician. The aguments based on averages and trends mean nothing against a complex system made of multiple cycles most of which (at least their interactions) we do not understand yet.
In some areas there is indeed some warming but in others we can clearly see some cooling. (South hemisphere this winter) The variability also seems to be increasing with cooler winters and warmer summers as well as more violent swings in the spring and autumn. Is this the sign of a warming or cooling earth? I would personaly err on the side of cooling. Long term statistics tell us that a cooling period is overdue. Now, does the huge amount of CO2 we pump into the atmosphere has the relatively slow, gradual effect people expect? I am doubtful. I expect the effect will come at some stage and it will be violent and maybe not even a warming effect. The risk is that the atmosphere has “modes” of functionment that we do not understand because we haven’t experienced them yet. (We only see their effects in ice and sediments but without knowing exactly what happened.) I have seen an increadibly wet summer last year in the desert in Australia and conversely a very hot and dry summer this year in the Midwest in the US. We also can notice huge polar blasts in the spring in mid latitudes almost everywhere for the last 2 or 3 years. This is new. Is it significant? Hard to say but something seems to be happening. People working in the airline industry are well aware that the jetstreams are not always where they are suppose to be with unfortunate consequences (Less confort for the passengers and more costs for the companies.) But just looking at ice cover or Hurricanes may not tell us much. Here in Japan, we haven’t seen many hurricanes yet this year; they all went to China! This has probably no meaning whatsoever, or maybe the gods…

Venter
September 5, 2012 3:10 am

Notice how Mosher avoids answering Philip Bradley’s question about the Antartic.
As for your models Mosher, pure BS.

September 5, 2012 5:19 am

Reblogged this on shadowvigil.

Olavi
September 5, 2012 5:47 am

Russians have seaicemaps too. It’s bit diffrent.
http://www.aari.ru/odata/_d0015.php?lang=1
It has been wery similar after that storm.

September 5, 2012 6:06 am

Venter, the antarctic is a lot colder than the arctic, and that makes a difference to how it responds to warming. Imagine you have an ice block at a temperature of -50C. Add a little warm water to it, and the volume of ice will increase, because some of the water will freeze. Now do the same with an ice block at 0C. You’ll end up with less ice, because some of the ice will melt.

David Ball
September 5, 2012 6:13 am

Venter says:
September 5, 2012 at 3:10 am
Avoiding also my father’s article, ….

JohnB
September 5, 2012 6:21 am

Venter, as everyone should realise, the Antarctic is a very diffferent place. The Arctic is an ocean surrounded by land, the Antarctic is a continent surrounded by ocean. The Antartcic is much colder and drier. The increase in sea ice there (much less than the decrease in the Arctic) is dominated by increased snowfall. All well understood.

JJ
September 5, 2012 6:23 am

Steven Mosher says:
“In a warming world we expect less ice floating in the warmer water.”

&
“That is a silly question. the arctic doesnt respond to the GLOBAL temperature.”
Physician, heal thyself.

Gneiss
September 5, 2012 7:02 am

Lots of straw-grasping here. But contrary to pretty much all the predictions made by WUWT regulars in the past, and consistent with pretty much all the predictions made by real Arctic scientists (though much faster than many of them thought), arctic sea ice is going down.
* The annual minimum is going down.
* The annual mean is going down.
* The annual maximum is going down.
* The daily anomaly is going down.
* The extent, area and volume measured by different teams are all going down.
And,
* Arctic temperatures are rising.
* Arctic land ice is melting.
* Arctic permafrost is thawing.
* Arctic shores are eroding.
* Arctic ecosystems are on the move.
Now, there are ways to graph each of these facts if you need to hide them, some ways are explored on this thread. There are ways to deny that each data sets can be right. But climate changing now in the arctic is quite real, for anyone who looks.
So … Look somewhere else! There, the antarctic! That’s grasping a different straw. Like a patient told by his doctor that his left foot is falling off, and then answering heatedly “You’re cherry-picking the bad news, my right foot still looks fine!”

David Ball
September 5, 2012 7:07 am

JohnB says:
September 5, 2012 at 6:21 am
But not well advertised.

James Abbott
September 5, 2012 7:07 am

Steve from Rockwood said
“James Abbott says:
September 4, 2012 at 4:14 pm
———————————————————
I am very sympathetic to your comments. As a follower of WUWT I have noticed the redirection away from this amazingly low Arctic ice extent. Talk about Antarctica, talk about an end to the melting for this year – but ignore the record low extent.
However, I remain a skeptic that the Arctic ice is to disappear for the summer forever starting in 2013 because of CO2. So next year when we are nowhere near a record low, I look forward to James Abbott discussing why the dire predictions of no summer ice are not coming true.”
I would be very happy to discuss the situation in the arctic next year whether it is another record or not. And actually if you look at my post I made no mention of another record next year. What I said was that on the current trend we could be looking at a largely ice free arctic in September before the end of this decade.
But if that does not happen, then fine. The point is that the science must be based on the evidence and not wishful thinking (Smokey). I am not hoping for an ice free arctic, but just like lots of others, observing thats where we look to be heading.
But that does not mean that an ice free arctic is not a serious matter. The UK Met Office is looking at what the implications could be for weather patterns in the northern hemisphere precisely because changes are expected but uncertain as this is a situation not seen in the period of instrument records – and the UK holds some of the longest series of met data.
This thread has several comments ducking out of the seriousness of an ice free arctic by claiming its all part of a a natural ice cycle or part of a steady warming trend over several centuries.
Well no, the evidence does not support those claims.
The evidence says that until the late 1990s, the minimum ice anomaly was becoming more negative, but fairly steadily and pretty much on a linear trajectory. Then in the early 2000s we saw a much morer rapid decline setting in:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png
We do not have accurate ice records going as far back as the temperature records, but the proxy records (NSIDC) show that the current melts have not been seen for several centuries at least. Its not helpful to try to confuse by comparing (interpreted) ice conditions many thousands of years ago to the current period of human influence on the climate of a few hundred years.
The temperature record shows that whilst there was C20th warming, it was modest until the 1980s and then much more rapid warming started:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A2.gif
shows about 0.3C warming in the century to 1980, then over 0.5C in the next 30 years.
So the “natural cycles” and “steady natural warming ” theory needs to explain the observed acceleration in change before it is credible.
Far more credible is that human induced climate change mainly due to CO2 is the primary reason for the observed changes (as anticipated in science papers as far back as the 1960s/1970s) and that whilst natural cycles of course exist, these cannot explain what is being observed in the arctic.

Some European
September 5, 2012 7:14 am

[Snip. Policy. ~ dbs, mod.]

Editor
September 5, 2012 7:17 am

Steven Mosher says: September 4, 2012 11:44 pm
That is a silly question. the arctic doesnt respond to the GLOBAL temperature. That is an average.
That’s a silly answer, I didn’t say anything about the Arctic, my question as written was, “how much of the decrease in Global Sea Ice do you think is attributable to the ~.44 degree C increase in “Global Temperature” during the last several decades versus the multitude of other factors involved?”
A mathematical entity that has no real physical meaning.
Funny, that’s sometimes how I feel about you…

izen
September 5, 2012 7:25 am

@- Philip Bradley says
“So why is Antarctic sea ice increasing?
By your logic, it follows the world isn’t warming and the seas aren’t getting warmer.
You have to explain all the data. Just ignoring some of it, because you can’t explain it isn’t science.”
The Arctic and Antarctic are opposites. The Arctic an ocean surrounded by land, the Antarctic land surrounded by ocean. The result is that in the Arctic the summer melt is significant but in the Antarctic the sea ice can melt back to the edge of the Antarctic continent, but can decrease no further.
However the land ice on the Antarctic ice-cap IS shrinking as shown by direct observation and GRACE satellite data.
So at BOTH poles the ice-caps are shrinking and at both poles summer sea ice is at or near the minimum that it could possibly reach.
Winter ice in both regions may vary, but is dependent on salinity, snowfall and currents as much as temperature so provides no clear guide to warming alone.
However the large summer reduction in ice both sea and land based at both poles confirms the significant addition of energy to the climate system.
For those that think it is a distant irrelevency, consider that the low Arctic summer ice triggers instabilities in the N.H. Jet stream that leads to increased winter snowfalls and increased summer droughts for many parts of the N.H. While other parts may see increased storms and flooding. It is changes in the Arctic that puts the local weather on steroids.

Editor
September 5, 2012 7:32 am

Gneiss says: September 5, 2012 at 7:02 am
Lots of straw-grasping here. But contrary to pretty much all the predictions made by WUWT regulars in the past, and consistent with pretty much all the predictions made by real Arctic scientists (though much faster than many of them thought), arctic sea ice is going down.
* The annual minimum is going down.
* The annual mean is going down.
* The annual maximum is going down.

Per the graph below, why do you think that the annual Minimum is going down so much faster than the annual Mean and Maximum?
Sea Ice Extent – Change in Maximum, Mean and Minimum;
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600"]ssmi1-ice-area Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center (NERSC) – Arctic Regional Ocean Observing System (ROOS) – Click the pic to view at source[/caption]

September 5, 2012 7:36 am

James Abbott says:
“Far more credible is that human induced climate change mainly due to CO2 is the primary reason for the observed changes (as anticipated in science papers as far back as the 1960s/1970s) and that whilst natural cycles of course exist, these cannot explain what is being observed in the arctic.”
You are as crazy as Gneiss. Well, almost. Both of you suffer from confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance. Natural cycles fully explain all current observations, without the need for a magic molecule that knows the North Pole from the South Pole.
The Arctic is a region. Globally, temperatures are not rising. [That incredible GISS chart is a masterpiece of alarmist propaganda — and as debunked as Mann’s hokey stick chart.] And the Antarctic, with more than ten time the ice of the Arctic, is still growing.
Once you admit that the Arctic region fluctuates, maybe the scales will fall from your eyes, and you will see the truth: nothing unusual or unnatural is occurring. So relax, and worry about something real for a change.