From the University of Calgary Utoday:
Melting Arctic ice cap at record low – By Heath McCoy
Think of a poor hamster on a spinning wheel, caught up by momentum and unable to stop until it’s overwhelmed, sent tumbling, crashing out of control inside.
That’s the analogy John Yackel, head of the department of geography, makes when he considers the annual summer ice melt in the Arctic, which he’s been closely monitoring for the past 15 years – documenting the ice cover as it’s steadily shrunk in the wake of Arctic and global warming.
Thoughts of imminent crashes seem particularly ominous this year as last week marked the unofficial peak, or the end of the summer ice melt, with ice levels more dramatically diminished than at any time since satellite monitoring began 33 years ago.
The previous record low for Arctic sea ice extent, set on Sept. 18, 2007 with a 4.17-million sq.-km. ice cap, was already shattered by the end of August this year when it had melted to below 4-million sq. km.
“This is the smallest minimum ice extent we’ve ever had, and not just in the satellite record, but probably in the last million years,” says Yackel, a sea ice geophysicist and climatologist.
From the patterns he has observed, this year’s extreme melt could be the beginning of a frightening trend.
Yackel and the university-based Cryosphere Climate Research Group use satellite technology to research the physical properties of Arctic ice. As recently as the 1980s, most of the ice in the Arctic Ocean was “multi-year ice,” – thick ice that would remain throughout the summer. At that time, the split between multi-year ice and seasonal ice – ice that would melt away in the summer – was about 80 per cent multi-year and 20 per cent seasonal.
“In the last 20 years we’ve almost gotten to the point where we’ve reversed that ratio,” Yackel says, predicting the ice extent that covers the Arctic Ocean “is likely to be gone in the summers within the next 20 to 25 years, if not sooner.”
The depleting ice cover would have serious ramifications for the planet. Arctic ice acts as a reflector of sunlight, helping regulate the Earth’s temperature, cooling the climate.
“When there’s no longer that sea ice below the air mass and it’s just open ocean, that’s when more moisture off the ocean’s surface gets into the atmosphere and the water vapor in the atmosphere makes for more violent storms,” says Yackel.
“We can also expect to see an increase in storm frequency and storm intensity for most of the world’s populated places as the Arctic and Earth continues to warm.”
Silver Ralph says:
September 26, 2012 at 6:53 am
“The beginning of the 14th Century is marked by one of
the great disasters of human history. The rain started in 1315, and
continued particularly in the summers for 7 years.”
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That was ‘divine retribution’ for the execution of Jaques de Molay in 1314. This is why Friday 13th is still ‘unlucky for some’.
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So, even in the 1300’s it was believed that human actions were the cause of climate change. Not much different than earlier cultures that believe human sacrifice could change the weather.
So, unlike the current crop of scholars and politicians that now believe that human actions are the cause of climate change, and that more human sacrifice is the cure. not!
Maybe someone can explain the following apparent discrepancy to me? I recently watched the latest season (2012) of the brilliant TV series ‘Deadliest Catch’ where the fishermen were fishing for opelio crab. The fishermen could not fish for a portion of the season due to the amount of ice in the Bering sea, some describing it as the worst in living memory. But if I look at the sea ice graph (http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg), the 2012 sea ice peak is much lower than for previous years. Am I missing something?
SasjaL says:
September 26, 2012 at 12:12 am
Think of a poor hamster on a spinning wheel, caught up by momentum and unable to stop until it’s overwhelmed, sent tumbling, crashing out of control inside.
A good descripton of the AGW hysteria …
I covered greenie hamster wheels a while back:
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/01/25/the-wheel-of-hamsters/
OT
Total oil company selling greenhouse equipment. But why???
http://www.totalenergygroup.com/Greenhouse_Equipment.html
I don’t know if he has his facts about ice correct, but he knows nothing about hamsters.
My hamster died at the wheel!
Message from Richard Hammond:
“We hamsters are originally from Syria. We will thrive in a warmer world!”
( richardhammond@hamstersforCO2.com )
Question. Can anyone name a time in history where it was not believed that:
1. human actions could affect the weather/climate
2. the cure was more human sacrifice
Are we any different? Surely to the rulers of past times, their beliefs were as founded in logic and knowledge as our our current beliefs. They would have been equally convinced that they were right and their actions were just.
Today, we see their past beliefs as mistaken superstition. Why will the future view our present beliefs as any different? In what way have human beings changed to indicate that we are not simply repeating the same mistakes of the past?
Isn’t the mistake in assuming that we know pretty much all there is to know, and that tomorrow will simply confirm this? Hasn’t this mistake been made time and time again over history? Every generation believes they know just about all there is to know. And the next generation sets out to prove them wrong.
Isn’t the reality that what we don’t know is vastly greater than what we do know, and always will be.
David Ball says: September 26, 2012 at 7:45 am
“Explain “normal”, please.”
In the context of this discussion, the comments that I was responding to were related to graphs of sea ice extents since the beginning of the satellite era. So “normal” in this context was the “zero line on the graph I linked to:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png
This graph is ALSO a good place to look in this context:
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_images/ssmi_range_ice-ext.png
Both graphs show that current winters are not “recovering” or “back to normal” compared to the beginning of the satellite record. The winter ice continues to decline — just more slowly than the summer ice.
Isn’t it about now that someone stands up and says, “Now you’re just making shit up!”
DaveE.
To these run-of-the-mill alarmists, the melting of ice is “frightening”. To me, poor people starving in the shadows of wind turbines is frightening.
dikranmarsupial says:
September 26, 2012 at 2:53 am
Roy, you are aware aren’t you that Arctic sea ice extent has been shrinking much *faster* than in the model projections, see e.g. http://www.realclimate.org/images/seaice10.jpg, in fact the current sea ice extent is below the lower limit of the credible interval of the ensemble. Sea ice extent is an example where the models (and climatologists) are obviously unduly optimistic.
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Silly me.
Here I was thinking this is just one more prediction where the models are unduly wrong.
I’m not a scientist but, I am a thinker. How do you ignore the logic?
Earth warms, ice melts, we get more water, more open land for food and expansion. Life will survive and even thrive. IMO this is the natural cycle. IMO this is good. How about you? Null hypothesis first, please.
beng says:
September 26, 2012 at 7:00 am
“This is the smallest minimum ice extent we’ve ever had, and not just in the satellite record, but probably since the MWP” says Yackel, a sea ice geophysicist and climatologist.
There, fixed it.
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So, that would mean the MWP and the LIA are back in the science?
He could get sued. Did he ask Michael Mann if it was ok?
cn
Tim Folkerts says:
September 26, 2012 at 6:34 am
I see many comments to the effect that ‘the winter ice is normal’. It is not.
In a system with random variations chaotic swings, one would expect “normal” to sometimes swing above average and sometimes swing below average. The truth is that the winter maximum has been “below average” for 9 straight years.
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The fact the ice is below some abstract average for some very short period of time is not even worrying. Maybe your average is wrong. My understanding is that they farmed Greenland. Ring the alarm again when your average includes chaotic swings around farming in Greenland.
cn
Yackel is a former student of Dr David Barber – you know, the guy who goes looking for ‘rotten ice’ and gives it a good ‘researching’ with an icebreaker. Then wonders why it’s melting quicker.
Garethman:
Please find the warm, ice reduced period at Marine Isotopic Stage 5e equal to the “orbitally forced” period coming out of the last glacial in your referenced paper (which was generally very good, thank you).
Clearly 65 N orbital insolation variation influences the vicissitudes of sea ice extent and foram productivity. Orbital correlations with glacial/interglacial periodicity are a mess (see Lorraine Lisiecki). Orbital variations have absolutely no power to explain why ice should return to the planet in the late Cenozoic after being largely absent for 250 million years since the Permian.
Until you can explain the big cycles, anything can happen.
tjfolkerts says:
September 26, 2012 at 8:59 am
Both graphs show that current winters are not “recovering” or “back to normal” compared to the beginning of the satellite record.
Please explain why some random point in time (when satellite technology became available) should be considered ‘normal’ as far as Arctic ice is concerned.
What is “frightening” about a warmer planet? What is scary about an atmosphere with more CO2 plant food? Humanity would benefit if both scenarios occurred.
The professor’s comment about the lowest ice extent in “probably the last million years” is just plain silly. There is plenty of ice core data indicating the planet was much warmer in the geologic past. Does the professor use a crystal ball in his research?
It won’t be long before these experts launch into the old speal, repent your evil ways.. yada yada, Oh wait thats where they started. I was hoping our conservative govt would cut the funding to these con artists and start criminal investigation into civil servants who fail to do their duty. My favourite example is the scientific advisors to our govts who can not produce any science references to back the policies they push, but defer to the IPCC and then quote the precautionary principle. The last one did not like being compared to a thief who I was sure intended to steal from me, therefore under the precautionary principal….Logic is not these peoples strong point.
Thomas U said: Further warming (“runaway, per chance?) because less ice around the north-pole ice reflects less sunlight. Has the good professor ever heard of the reflecting properties of water, particularly in respect of the angle at which the sunlight hits the north pole? Has he ever considered the insulating capabilities of ice, perhaps thought of designing one of these wonderful and ever so accurate climate models which includes the reduced insulation?
While water is reflective at low angles of incidence, the albedo is still lower than that of ice. See http://alaska.usgs.gov/geography/conference/presentations/Seward%20talk_tschudi.pdf which shows a clear decline in Arctic albedo over the last 25 years.
With regards to the insulating properties of ice, um, no, ice is not a good insulator. That’s why it feels cold when you touch it. Put a piece of cardboard in your freezer, then take it out – it will not feel nearly as cold as an ice cube because ice is not a good insulator, unlike cardboard. The U value for ice is just over 2 W/m2K, about the same as marble or rock – which aren’t exactly considered to be insulators: http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/thermal-conductivity-d_429.html
Tim Ball says on September 25, 2012 at 11:39 pm:
““In the last million years.” A comment that is so wrong ——— were markedly warmer than today.”
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Quite correct as usual and regrettably I have for some reason not seen or read any “guest posts” by Tim Ball here on WUWT – and I am quite certain we can all benefit from a few of them here just like I did benefit (I am certain I did) from reading his postings on another blog.
IMHO that blog has suffered “post Ball fading” and is therefore, as far as I am concerned, no longer worth reading.
Yackov is either totally incompetent, completely delusional, a liar, or more probably all of the above. He most certainly has no bushiness being around kids.
According to some chaps at NASA the Earth might have a few tricks up its sleeve to counter Arctic amplification.
kirkmyers says:
September 26, 2012 at 10:18 am
“What is “frightening” about a warmer planet?”
Oh, simple. above 37 deg C at 100 % rel. humidity the human body is no more able to cool itself. At 42 deg C humans die.
(That’s what I read from an alarmist, I THINK at Michael tobin (but don’t beat me to it) as the major concern.)
As according to CO2AGW theory from a certain “tipping” point temperatures will grow exponentially the believers in CO2AGW theory really do fear certain death.
That’s why they’re constantly thinking about ripping out our throats.
Billy, Chuck, David, et al
Let me reiterate .. I was responding to this comment (and similar ideas):
I am not the one who chose these these 30+ years. I am not the one who defined “normal”. I am not the one who chose to look at winter maxima. If you want to object to those, then talk to P. Solar.
But if you DO choose to to look at those, then the inescapable conclusion is that the last few years are NOT “normal”. Considering the minima does NOT give a “misleading impression” that the ice is declining, since looking at the maxima ALSO leads to the conclusion that the ice is declining. (And looking at the age and/or thickness of the ice strengthens the conclusion even more).
FWIW, I agree that ….
* 35 years is a relatively short time to study any climate phenomenon.
* using the last 35 years to define “normal” is definitely a bit arbitrary.
* Ice has most likely been lower “in the last million years” (quite possibly sometime 6-10,000 years ago).