In Sea Ice News #14, we noted that the Arctic refreeze was the fastest ever. According to NSIDC, Arctic sea ice extent doubled in October.
Arctic rapidly gaining winter ice
Ice extent doubled in October. The rate of increase since the 2012 minimum was near record, resulting in an October monthly extent 230,000 square kilometers (88,800 square miles) greater than the previous low for the month, which occurred in 2007.
Despite this rapid growth, ice extent remains far below normal as we begin November. Average ice extent for October was 7.00 million square kilometers (2.70 million square miles). This is the second lowest in the satellite record, 230,000 square kilometers (88,800 square miles) above the 2007 record for the month. However, it is 2.29 million square kilometers (884,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average. The East Siberian, Chukchi, and Laptev seas have substantially frozen up. Large areas of the southern Beaufort, Barents and Kara seas remain ice free.
As of November 4, sea ice extent stood at 8.22 million square kilometers (3.17 million square miles). This is 520,000 square kilometers (201,000 square miles) below the extent observed in 2007 on the same date, and ice extent remains 2.04 million square kilometers (788,000 million square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average for this date.
Due to the rapid ice growth during October, Arctic sea ice extent for October 2012 was the second lowest in the satellite record, above 2007. Through 2012, the linear rate of decline for October Arctic ice extent over the satellite record is -7.1% per decade.
While overall the Arctic rapidly gained ice throughout October, the rate of ice growth was not the same everywhere. Ice growth in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas averaged about 8,500 square kilometers (3,300 square miles) per day and large areas still remain ice free. In the eastern Arctic there was rapid ice growth in the East Siberian and Laptev seas exceeding, respectively, 28,000 and 18,000 square kilometers per day (11,000 and 7,000 square miles per day). As a result, most of the region is now completely frozen over. The slowest rates of ice growth have occurred in the Kara Sea (less than 3,000 square kilometers, or 1,000 square miles per day). In large part because of extensive open water in the Kara and Barents seas, air temperatures for October in this area at the 925 hPa level (about 3,000 feet above the surface) were 3 to 4 degrees Celsius (5 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit) above average, with unusual warmth becoming more pronounced near the surface. October air temperatures over the ice-free southern Beaufort Sea were also far above average.
Source: NSIDC
See all the data on the WUWT Sea Ice Reference Page
I would like to see a different metric. Some areas are ice-free in the summer even in the 1979-2000 average. Some are 100% frozen in the winter even in the current minima. As you cannot lose more ice than zero, and you cannot gain more ice than 100%, those areas should be taken out of the computations as soon as they reach the respective thresholds, for example 5% on the way down and 95% on the way up.
I don’t know much about this, but it seems obvious from graph 2 that the Arctic ice is disappearing. Even without the 2007 spike, it is going nowhere but down. However, looking at the blue line average around 1979 it looks as though the ice was either stable, or more likely that it reached a peak in the early 80s. The blue straight line looks odd at both ends of the chart and misleading to imply that the ice was thicker before 1979, perhaps it wasn’t.
I am also curious about the little distortion in graph 1 that appears on the lines representing years 2007, 11 and 12. It cannot be a co-incidence. Yet this little feature seems to get earlier in the year – 2 weeks earlier this year than 2011. What is it? What does it mean?
Arctic sea ice is a headline grabber for sure, but for me the only real “indicator” worth of note is the gradient of the graph lines during July. If this gradient ever changed significantly then would could indeed start head scratching, but, during the most intense “true melt” time, the rate of melt is pretty constant. past that point the volume is subject to too many other factors as we saw this year big time ! Alarmists point to sea ice like its a permanent feature rather than a transient result of other things… Also its becoming pretty clear that the “tipping point” talked about is extremely dubious. I like monitoring the SIV , but I am not sure why ! 😉
Sea ice normal is not your normal normal, as it’s only 30 years. Other normals in weather are 3 times greater coverage of time, or even a lot more. I expect to see much more ice over the coming years, and no one can say that I am wrong. Time will tell. The science does not exist yet that can predict what the sea ice coverage will be in the future, near term or far.
“In large part because of extensive open water in the Kara and Barents seas, air temperatures for October in this area at the 925 hPa level (about 3,000 feet above the surface) were 3 to 4 degrees Celsius (5 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit) above average, with unusual warmth becoming more pronounced near the surface. October air temperatures over the ice-free southern Beaufort Sea were also far above average”
This happens to us every year in Florida where the water is still quite warm as the air cools. The heat coming off the water is quite pronounced. This time of year you can feel the warm, wet air near the surface as you speed along in a boat and the cooler, dryer air is just at head level. It’s a very curious sensation.
So my question is, why is the water so warm in the Kara and Barents seas right now? What is the specific source of that heat?
Gerry Parker
“A behemoth’s final days”
“Helen Czerski charts a most intrepid and storied voyage of an Arctic iceberg”
“The battle has taken its toll. The iceberg only gets seven hours and 40 minutes of daylight now, and soon the darkness will swallow it up completely. Since the supply of energy from the sun is so weak, the siege is over for this year. A winter respite is beginning.
Sea ice is advancing towards the berg from the north. This is the other type of ice at the poles, formed when the sea surface itself freezes. It’s fascinating stuff, because the salt is mostly squeezed out as it freezes, so sea ice is almost fresh. It starts as fragile platelets, and thickens as the water temperature drops. In an average year (out of the past 30 years), the sea ice would already have reached our iceberg. But this year, there was less summer sea ice in the Arctic than any other year on record, so it is taking longer for the great freeze to reach 69N. The sea ice is still crawling south, and when it touches the cliffs I saw, it will connect our iceberg to all the other ice in the Arctic. The iceberg will be frozen in place. Darkness and silence will rule. The bears will be able to walk out on to the sea ice and hunt again.
In the middle of one of my typical frantic workdays, I enjoy imagining where ”our” iceberg is now.”
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/a-behemoths-final-days-20121104-28rp9.html
I still have to question how “everyone” just knows that Arctic sea ice from 1979 to 2000 was the perfect time to be considered “normal”.
omnologos says:
November 6, 2012 at 3:29 am
Why can’t there be more ice than 100% (unless 100% is defined as the entire surface of the Earth)?
That’s a lot of heat given off in October. Say it involved just the top 2″, the heat given off to form that amount of ice would be about 370 petajoules, or 5,878 Hiroshima bombs.
Where does all that heat go, I wonder? My guess is that most of it winds up in space.
Interesting article from a few years back. Ask yourself how did the rickety old ship get there. I am distantly related to Captain Banks who discovered the island so the article caught my attention.
http://news.discovery.com/history/abandoned-ship-arctic.html
BargHumer says:
November 6, 2012 at 3:56 am
I don’t know much about this, but it seems obvious from graph 2 that the Arctic ice is disappearing. Even without the 2007 spike, it is going nowhere but down.
================================================================
Do you know what the total area of the ice is and what percentage that the “loss” represents??
Also “that the Arctic Ice is disappearing”………..
This is only 33 years of data, hardly any type of indication of any long term trend.
Excellent article:
MAURICE NEWMAN: LOSING THEIR RELIGION AS EVIDENCE COOLS OFF
Date: 05/11/12Maurice Newman, The Australian
Regrettably for the global warming religion, its predictions have started to appear shaky, and the converts, many of whom have lost their jobs and much of their wealth, are losing faith. Worse, heretic scientists have been giving the lie to many of the prophecies described in the IPCC bible. They could not be silenced.
Once upon a time when Christendom was at its peak, missionaries would be dispatched to the four corners of the globe in search of converts. They believed their mission would expand the influence of Rome and save heathens from eternal damnation.
It was a compelling message. Convert and enjoy everlasting life in the hereafter. The advantage the missionaries had was that the religion they taught had no hypotheses that could be tested. Death – “the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns” – meant that the afterlife could be neither proved nor disproved. Faith was the only thing needed.
Climate science is a bit like that – push the rewards and the catastrophes far enough into the future, and have faith that the prophecies will come true. However, unlike heaven, which we may reach at any time, climate prophecies need to be distant enough to make them hard to challenge yet sufficiently close to generate urgent action.
So when in 1969 Paul Ehrlich claimed because of global cooling it was an even-money bet whether England would survive until the year 2000, he could not immediately be proven wrong. After all, this was a cooling period.
Unfortunately for him, England is still inhabited and his predictions are still remembered. Ehrlich is now a warmist. Like a good stock analyst, when the company doesn’t perform as you thought, better to change the recommendation from a sell to a buy, than admit you were wrong.
When Mother Nature decided in 1980 to change gears from cooler to warmer, a new global warming religion was born, replete with its own church (the UN), a papacy, (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), and a global warming priesthood masquerading as climate scientists. Selfish humans in rich, polluting countries were blamed for the warming and had to pay for past trespasses by providing material compensation to poor nations as penance. Cutting greenhouse gas emissions became the new holy grail. With a warm wind at their backs, these fundamentalists collected hundreds of billions of dollars from naive governments that adopted their faith on behalf of billions of people. No crusader was ever so effective.
…….
http://www.thegwpf.org/maurice-newman-losing-religion-evidence-cools/
Dilligas says:
November 6, 2012 at 5:28 am
I still have to question how “everyone” just knows that Arctic sea ice from 1979 to 2000 was the perfect time to be considered “normal”.
=================================================
Also, 1979 was the end of a rather cold period making that the high point that the “normal” baseline was made from
Barg Humer: Yes, it looks like the arctic ice is decreasing, and disappearing like when we used to have to defrost our refridgerators.
However, with each and all of these climate topics, what we have to pay attenion to is what is happening now, plus what has been happening over a much longer term.
The arctic sea ice shows data for 30 yers. Why 30? Why not 20 or 40, or 400?
Because 30 yrs ago is when satellite msmt began. That is it. There is no magic reason for starting in 1979 other than that is when the curent method began.
So the next question is this: for this planet, historically, is this recent 30-year decrease within the normal range of the ebb and flow of nature, or is it unusual / anomolous?
Here is where we need to use common sense. What would you need to answer that question?
You would need data going farther back.
But there is no satellite data going farther back.
So, you look for second-best.
Surely, somewhere in the world, someone has some kind of record.
In fact, if there was some kind of record going back far enough, we could see if this current decrease is only seen in the current days of increasing man-made co2 in the atmoshpere, or if this variaotion is in the normal range.
Some Novembers have more rain than others. Soemtimes this is just in the range of normal variability, and some times it is a change to a new normal.
If you go to “http://www.climate4you.com,” there are tabs / index items on the left side. You can click on “sea ice.” There, it has this “satellite era” data – 1979-present. It also presents a couple data sources – one going back to 1900 – it has the title “Four Arctic Seas” – and the other goes back to 1860, and is titiled “April Ice Extents.”
Are these data sets as good as the satellite data of the recent 30 years? No. However, they do show that it is no longer such a clear issue: these contradict the CO2-warming-arctic ice loss hypothesis.
They have long-term trends suggestive of ice loss, but the trend goes way back before the current period of fosil fuel combustion.
So, instead of going into a panic, we have to scratch our heads, and figure out ever-more creative ways to gather data and otherwise understand what is going on with our planet.
We may be in an apocalypse, and it may be time to hand over the planet to Al Gore and a bunch of international poll watchers, but I would like to be more certain, after seeing these two historical arctic ice data points.
Surely, if we can be confident about the planet back in the dinosaur days, and on Jupiter, then somehow we can glean some info on the arctic ice from before 1980 – espeically since humans have occupied the arctic and have been sailing up there for hundreds of years.
Bottom line: the global warming hypothesis would suggest that these apocalyptic trends be unprecedented – glacier loss, arctic ice loss, etc., and so these trends must arise somewhere in the modern era of fossil fuel consumption/CO2 accumulation; if the trends stretch farther back in time, it does not disprove global warming, manmade, but it is a data point to the contrary and must be reconciled with other data sources in order to be cinfident that we need to hand the keys over to Pinky and the Brain. Also, the other necessity is that these striaght-line trends cannot be simply a phase of an oscillation regularly seen before the current atmospheric CO2 phase – if arctic sea ice, or glaciers, or whatever, wax and wane going back in time, and the curent waxing and waning is in that range of normal, then it does not disprove manmade global warming via SUV, but it contradicts it, and make sthe hypothesis more shaky, less trust-wrothy, and makes me less excited to hand over the keys to Al Gore.
Therefore, whenver faced with some panic-inducing hockey stick, seek out data that goes farther back in time. Look for two things: is the current trend new, or does it fit in the normal oscillaition? And look for: does the long-term trend rpre-date the SUV, or not?
“I expect to see much more ice over the coming years, and no one can say that I am wrong.”
you are wrong.
jonny old boy says: @ November 6, 2012 at 4:13 am
Arctic sea ice is a headline grabber for sure, but for me the only real “indicator” worth of note is the gradient of the graph lines during July. If this gradient ever changed significantly then would could indeed start head scratching, but, during the most intense “true melt” time, the rate of melt is pretty constant…..
_________________________________
That deserves repeating because it is the significant metric.
Milankovitch – Roe graph of Jun 65N solar insolation and RATE OF CHANGE of Ice Volume
Full Paper (5 pgs) @ http://earthweb.ess.washington.edu/roe/GeraldWeb/Publications_files/Roe_Milankovitch_GRL06.pdf
Climate scientists keep measuring the wrong parameter it is the CHANGE in the rate of change that shows something different is happening. For example the earth is warming as it comes out of the Little Ice Age. The question is not whether the earth is warming back up but has there been a CHANGE in the rate of warming. The answer is NO!
Only if there has been a change in the rate of change (as shown in Mikey’s Hockey Stick) is there any indication that something different is happening.
This cannot be right at all. Heat should not be escaping. No. We can’t have that. AGWing says that the oceans must heat up, not release heat. It must be true cuz I read it on the internet.
So let’s recap. The combination of El Nino and La Nina can result in increased heat or a cool down in the oceans. When the right combination ends up heating the oceans, those warmed waters, along with the teleconnections of the atmosphere, head towards the Arctic (that’s right, warmed currents and heat in the atmosphere from the tropics head up there). The ice cap melts a bit more than usual, leaving the lid off the pot. The heat escapes. It likely ends up escaping Earth’s atmosphere. Eventually the El Nino/La Nina events set up a cooler than average ocean. When those conditions head up to the Arctic, the cap does not melt as much and we end up with a longer lasting tight fitting lid, keeping heat IN the ocean. Anyone with a fairly logical brain can figure this out.
garymount says:
November 6, 2012 at 4:38 am
Sea ice normal is not your normal normal, as it’s only 30 years. Other normals in weather are 3 times greater coverage of time, or even a lot more. I expect to see much more ice over the coming years, and no one can say that I am wrong. Time will tell. The science does not exist yet that can predict what the sea ice coverage will be in the future, near term or far.
_____________________________
I am not so sure about that. Long term I think we can safely say that the chances are better that NYC will be under a mile of Ice again and not under liquid sea water. Hansen just neglected to mention what form (solid) all that “sea level” rise was going to take.
See: WUWT The End Holocene, or How to Make Out Like a ‘Madoff’ Climate Change Insurer for the discussion.
We are in an interglacial and near the end of that interglacial even the warmists acknowledge that.
The Authors do say there will be no returning Ice Age but that is based on the assumption of “continuously increasing anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and no change in the sun.”
Steven Mosher says:
November 6, 2012 at 6:03 am
“I expect to see much more ice over the coming years, and no one can say that I am wrong.”
you are wrong.
_____________________________
Depends on his actual age and life span.
October, magical October. Ah the scientific significance of October. It is a very special month for science is October. So much better than April. No science should happen in April. Especially Artic climate science. Noooo, you don’t want to be doing climate science in the Arctic in April – better spend your time selling dodgy insurance policies to grannies (it’s all these AGW guys are fit for).
Imagine you went to the WUWT sea ice page and did that same graph for April. Would you get the same nice trend do you think? No. You wouldn’t. Which is a little odd. You see, April is right at the end of the Arctic winter when it is completely DARK in the Arctic and there is therefore no heat from the sun – all the heat that is present is trapped by atmospheric gases like CO2. So if global warming was happening right now you’d have expect the winter Arctic to be experiencing unusual melting – but it isn’t. The summer is showing some signs of melting – but in the Summer the Arctic is in permanent daylight. So Summer temperatures are determined by the Sun – more melting in the Summer indicates more warmth coming from the Sun rather than extra greenhouse effect.
What a bunch of shysters Team AGW are. They make me want to lose my lunch.
Re: Bruce Cobb Nov 6, ’12 at 5:29 am — “Say it involved just the top 2, the heat given off to form that amount of ice would be about 370 petajoules, or 5,878 Hiroshima bombs. Where does all that heat go, I wonder? My guess is that most of it winds up in space.”
I’m an amateur layperson and I apologize if I’m misreading your intent. You seem to be implying that we should be more concerned about “all that heat”. Perhaps, but aren’t you overlooking an essential piece of information? To evaluate our need for concern, don’t we have to know the number of hours it took for the 2″ of ice to form?
I’ll hazard a guesstimate that freezing the 2″ of ice took somewhere between 2-to-10 days. That’s 48-to-240 hours. So if we divide “all that heat” by 48 hours as a worse case scenario, and divide by 120 hours as a best case scenario, do you think we’re likely to have sufficient reason to be concerned?
Maybe “current trend” is a better way to view global ice rather than the term “normal.” The climate is historically trending and changing.
This morning NPR (National Politbureau Radio) had a segment on how the melting polar ice is raising ocean levels and endangering Norfolk, VA. Most interesting was an interview piece with someone whose last name (was all I caught) named Salinger who claimed “global warming is slowing down ocean currents” which is part of the problem. What a bastion of modern science over there at NPR. Hope Mitt wins and gets rid of them, Big Bird or no Big Bird.
How do the Inuit keep warm during the winter? They build igloos out of compacted snow. The ice cap of the igloo prevents heat from escaping into space. You’d think experts on the Arctic would know this and extrapolate to conclude that an open Arctic ocean results in global colding, not warming.
@Ryan Spear –
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/Apr/N_04_plot.png
Actually, you would.
Gail Combs says:
November 6, 2012 at 6:35 am
garymount says:
November 6, 2012 at 4:38 am
Sea ice normal is not your normal normal, . . .3 times . . . or even a lot more.”
For the professional weather folks, the word normal has a defined and well accepted definition**, namely, a 30 year average with the last year of the period ending with a ‘0’ (zero). This was never intended to be a big deal, just a reporting thing adopted before digital computers. Those not liking the term as so defined ought to choose a different word.
**See here:
http://w1.weather.gov/glossary/index.php?letter=n
And here for the long history – Part 3, page 7:
http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/wcp/wcdmp/documents/WCDMPNo61.pdf
As the cornerstones of the Global Warning Industry get steadily eroded away by logic and facts, there is only one remaining which has stood the test of time:the steadily decreasing amount of late summer Arctic ice cover.
For a sceptic, this is irritating. It does not matter that the Antarctic ice extent is steadily increasing, nor that the impact of increased levels of soot, changing salinity levels, the occasional super storm and variations in sea currents have all had their impacts.
Nor does it matter that intrepid sailors of yesteryear clearly sailed deep into an ice free Arctic, nor that we do not have any reliable Arctic ice extent records prior to the satellite era. .
A melting late Summer Arctic is about the only alarmist argument that stands up to any kind of scrutiny.
There has to be some factor for the decreasing extent of the late summer Arctic ice which we are missing, or perhaps that is the wrong question.
Perhaps the right question is this: why is there any ice at all in late summer in the Arctic Ocean? After all, the Arctic Ocean. is saline, huge rivers deliver enormous amounts of relatively warm water into it in late summer, warm ocean currents flow in from the south and the Arctic is generally much warmer than the Antarctic.
thelastdemocrat
You might want to check your math, 1979-2000 is 21 years….
This is a point I brought up sometime ago, but if the CAGW Gold Standard is 30 years of data, why are they still using the 1979-2000 time frame when they now have data to 2011 and could easily put together an updated data set showing the 1979-2008 data set.
From Jim G on November 6, 2012 at 8:04 am:
Sounds like something J.D. would say, apparently being the gullible sort falling for out-there oddball beliefs. And we should be expecting more of such interviews, as “Climatology” as practiced amongst the (C)AGW-pushers is voodoo science.
Jim G says:
November 6, 2012 at 8:04 am
“This morning NPR (National Politbureau Radio) had a segment on how the melting polar ice is raising ocean levels and endangering Norfolk, VA. Most interesting was an interview piece with someone whose last name (was all I caught) named Salinger who claimed “global warming is slowing down ocean currents” which is part of the problem. What a bastion of modern science over there at NPR. Hope Mitt wins and gets rid of them, Big Bird or no Big Bird.”
Typical scare mongering. Do they ever point out where sea level rise is devasting a particular community? NO. How did mankind ever get to where we are with all the sea level rise in the last 13,000 years? And the notion that artic ice melting or any other sea ice melting will raise sea level? Is that an indication that they believe their audience is too stupid to know the truth about sea ice melting?
When Mitt wins today, (fingers crossed) hopefully bye bye NPR. And while at it, maybe defund some tyranical federal agencies and put a stop to funding the AGW agenda within our federal agencies.
Steven Mosher says
you are wrong.
henry says
You did not get it. For the next two decades it is going to be cold. Very cold.
Those who can read graphs will be able to understand why.
Henry@garymount
You are right.
(two graphs proves energy-in is sinking like a big ship…)
Girma quote Maurice Newman, who said:
“So when in 1969 Paul Ehrlich claimed because of global cooling it was an even-money bet whether England would survive until the year 2000, he could not immediately be proven wrong. After all, this was a cooling period.”
No, that is not what he said. He referred to plague, thermonuclear war, overwhelming pollution, and ecological catastrophe causing the virtual collapse of Britain by the end of the century. Not global cooling. And in any case, why quote someone who is not a climate scientist, and who has never held any position of authority within the climate change scientific community? It would be analogous to listening to the former chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation as a credible authority on this – wait, that’s what you just did.
Seems to me you guys cannot count back 88 years.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/03/16/you-ask-i-provide-november-2nd-1922-arctic-ocean-getting-warm-seals-vanish-and-icebergs-melt/
Sounds familiar?
2 graphs that prove arctic ice will be back in the next 2 decades
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
Don’t worry about the carbon. Start worrying about the cold…
Eric says:
November 6, 2012 at 8:36 am
thelastdemocrat
You might want to check your math, 1979-2000 is 21 years….
Actually, the data set is 22 years being the data is inclusive for the all years 1979 thru 2000. Year 1979 is year 1, another 21 data years added makes the total 22 years of data.
” peter Miller says: November 6, 2012 at 8:34 am
There has to be some factor for the decreasing extent of the late summer Arctic ice which we are missing, or perhaps that is the wrong question. ”
Ocean floor volcanic activity may be cyclical. Just my SWAG.
Hoser says:
November 6, 2012 at 5:28 am
omnologos says:
November 6, 2012 at 3:29 am
Why can’t there be more ice than 100% (unless 100% is defined as the entire surface of the Earth)?
Because per cent means out of 100. It’s all relative to the reference frame. You can’t have 101 people out of 100 with ginger hair!
This is speculative, but a rapid recovery of ice is consistent with the theory that some of the “loss” of sea ice is due to the satellite reading ponds of water on top of ice (melt due to soot) being read as open water. These ponds would re-freeze very rapidly after the melt period ended.
HenryP says: @ November 6, 2012 at 9:00 am
Don’t worry about the carbon. Start worrying about the cold…
__________________________
Unfortunately our politicians and activist friends are bullheadedly intent on making sure western civilization is stripped of the energy needed to withstand brutish cold. I guess they figure in their warmist fuzzy hearts freezing to death is a faster cleaner death that starvation but they do not want the masses to understand those are the two choices. (Tongue firmly stuck in Paul Ehrlich’s cheek)
The politicians and activists have certainly been very concerned about ‘The Population Bomb’ since the 1970’s so maybe this is the answer they came up with. We will have to ask Obama’s Science Czar John Holdren and his close colleagues Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich.
No WAIT!
They already have published their recommendations back in 1977. Zombie Times: John Holdren, Obama’s Science Czar, says: Forced abortions and mass sterilization needed to save the planet However that was back in 1977 when the population was only 4,230,768,221 and it is now 6,991,800,919. link Negative Population Growth
(Looney Lew will have to ask John Holdren and Paul Ehrlich about this ‘denier conspiracy’)
/snark
In defense of Milankovitch by Gerard Roe
Department of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Washington
ABSTRACT
… Basic physical arguments are used to show that, rather than focusing on the absolute global ice volume, it is much more informative to consider the time rate of change of global ice volume.
This paper is looking at 100k year scale but a similar thing can be seen in the last few decades.
Good to see someone involved in published climate science has cottoned on to need to study the rate of change if it’s change you are interested in.
This seems blatantly obvious to me but has largely escaped the notice of the climate comunity obsessed with staring at time series and try to guess how much they are going up and down.
Rate of change of Arctic ice cover vs N. Atlantic temp (AMO)
http://i46.tinypic.com/r7uets.png
WARMISTA WARNING : This graph was created by using ALL the available data rather than just one day per year, so results may be “misleading”.
The Arctic Sea Ice Concentration map (the one comparing 2007 with present) seems to be wrong. Barrow webcam
http://seaice.alaska.edu/gi/observatories/barrow_webcam/
evidences more than 50% coverage for second day already, while the map insists ice field being somewhere 100-200 miles offshore.
I will declare it. The climate is flickering. What can it mean? Out of box* thinking needed.
* The AGW / positive feedback / interglacials-are-bad orthodoxy
Check out spaceweather.com ! It had the best, best, best statement “Foresaters have long expected the SolarMax of 2013 to be the weakest of the SpaceAge. It might even be weaker than they thought”.
Absolutely liberal!!!
So when the lack of solar energy reaches the poles, what will the hungarian’s say (humor)!!!
omnologos says: “I would like to see a different metric. ”
How about this one: length of melting season.
http://i45.tinypic.com/27yr1wy.png
Jonny old boy says:
“past that point the volume is subject to too many other factors as we saw this year big time ! ”
This is only problem if you insist on looking at one day of the year to find the minimum. To find the length of melting season I used the ALL daily data and removed the “weather” noise with a 13day gaussian filter.
Even a very short filter like that leaves you with a very smooth annual curve that is not highly dependant on which way the wind was blowing etc. Then by looking at when the rate of change crosses zero you can find the winter max and summer minimum.
Arctic melting season has been getting dramatically shorter in recent years and crossed the 6 month line in 2010.
Both these plots show very clearly that Arctic climate changed behaviour in 2005.
AMO has a dominant 40y pattern, expect 20 years of Arctic ice recovery.
HELP!
I have read occasionally that at high latitudes, the sun angle is so low when the ice seasonlly disappears, that any open water reflects the incoming radiation much like ice. Therefore, any open water at say 75 degrees loses as much heat as it absorbs. I tried to calculate this myself for this specific latitude and time of year and found I was in over my head. Can anyone direct me to where this problem has been calculated? I’d love to know what the heat flux is for this problem. NASA has excellent tables for determining solar angle at various latitudess at different times of the year but I need some help putting it all together. Cruising around the net I could only find claims one way or the other with no actual calculations.
Thanks in advance to the hive
If one chooses 1979 as the norm that is definitely misleading as 1979 followed thirty years of colder weather. Oh I forgot that doesn’t count [sarc]
Steven Mosher says:
November 6, 2012 at 6:03 am
“I expect to see much more ice over the coming years, and no one can say that I am wrong.”–garymount
you are wrong.
No, Mosh-san. He’s right. He really does expect to see much more ice.
p.Solar says
AMO has a dominant 40y pattern, expect 20 years of Arctic ice recovery
henry says
true
\
for the next 2 decades it will be cold. very cold
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
Henry@gail
thanks gail. It is indeed 88 years and we are back to where we started.
there is appareently also a 200 year and a 500 year cycle.
I don’t think I wil be able to trail those ones….
Sorry – a few thousand km OT – but I thought you might like to know that at least in one small area around Antarctica, pack-ice has been a little heavier than the Australian Antarctic Division expected. Their Antarctic supply ship “RSV Aurora Australis” has been icebound for some weeks. Possible free now but at time of writing (6am Aust East time) the last webcam photos 5 Nov at 5.30pm shows them still icebound but trying to ram their way to a lead a few hundred metres away. Yesterday the 6th there was no news that I heard despite emailing AAD.
“Australia’s Antarctic supply ship “RSV Aurora Australis” – icebound”
October 23rd, 2012 by Warwick Hughes
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=1801
Posts like these are why you are not considered credible. A statement that the summer minimum was a record low, so a record freeze would be helpful. Instead you make it look like this is a talking point for skeptics.
Dave in Canmore says: “I have read occasionally that at high latitudes, the sun angle is so low when the ice seasonlly disappears, that any open water reflects the incoming radiation much like ice. Therefore, any open water at say 75 degrees loses as much heat as it absorbs. I tried to calculate this myself for this specific latitude and time of year and found I was in over my head. Can anyone direct me to where this problem has been calculated? I’d love to know what the heat flux is for this problem. NASA has excellent tables for determining solar angle at various latitudess at different times of the year but I need some help putting it all together. Cruising around the net I could only find claims one way or the other with no actual calculations.”
I investiged this a couple of years ago. The albedo of sea water is very complex, a function of clouds, wind, salinity, temperature, current, zenith angle, and plankton content. The theoretical albedo for still water is essentially 1.0, but for actual ocean conditons, the best I can say is that its albedo overlaps that of ice. Ice albedo deteriorates with age as it gets dirty or sublimes, forming little pockmarks due to uneven heat gain. Snow and clouds are also factors. Wind may have some influence, as well, if there is a surface of snow atop the ice. The calculation is impossible, though doubtless some one will create a model and call it reality.
Remember that not only is the zenith angle very high at the poles, but solar radiation has to pass through a somewhat thicker atmosphere there. Also, ice is a good insulator. In the winter, open water loses heat faster than ice. There will always be ice at the poles in winter.
Wind, of course, has a major affect on ice extent, sweeping unmelted ice out of the Arctic sea, as in 2007 and 2012.
Yes it does but this recent decline covers just over 1 climate point i.e 30 years (as per IPCC definition). In the absence of satellite data prior to 1979 we have to look elsewhere.
Try these and you will quickly see that perhaps the recent decline is just part of natural climate variation.
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/historic-variation-in-arctic-ice-tony-b/
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/polar-meltdown/
MikeN says:
“Posts like these are why you are not considered credible.”
You’re speaking just for yourself. Right?
I don’t know how the sea ice can double that fast with all the warming feedback. Shouldn’t it just continue melting away with out the older ice reflecting sun light back into space? Where did the feedback go?
Dave in Canmore (November 6, 2012 at 10:22 am):
“Can anyone direct me to where this problem has been calculated?”
Check out Hudson, “Estimating the Global Radiative Impact of the Sea-Ice-Albedo Feedback in the Arctic”, GRL 2011.
From the abstract:
It should be borne in mind that this accounts only for changes in sea ice, and excludes land ice/snow cover reduction.
HaroldW: thanks very much for the link! Exactly what I was looking for.
Sea ice volume is a better metric. It has been decreasing since about 1960, about the time China, India, Brazil, etc., started to use more coal without or with minimal air pollution control systems. See URLs.
http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/83704/reduce-co2-and-slow-global-warming
http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/107316/global-warming-coal-combustion-and-sea-level-rise
Has anyone mapped de oscillation of the arctic ice and snow cover in relation to the tilt of the earth for the real north pole and the tilt of the core for the magnetic north pole?
It seem to me everyone is screaming about the ice and snow cover disappearing earlier and earlier in the year so something has to be amiss, yet figuring out that the calendar was originally mapped to fit the season back when, the calendar never changes even though we all ought to know by now the season always does. It’s kind of like the alarmist crowd want the season to fit their static calendar instead of continuing to adapt the calendar to the seasons. Caesar did it after all. And the seasons of the northern hemisphere tend to relate to both of the northern poles after all.
Anthony, a gentle reminder that you should say average rather than normal.
Dave in Canmore says:
November 6, 2012 at 10:22 am
HELP!
Dave, here’s a paper on the topic
http://sun.iwu.edu/~gpouch/Climate/RawData/WaterAlbedo001.pdf
There’s a bunch of equations and tables in it.
Here are the twenty year rates for the North Hemisphere (Arctic) sea ice, based on NSIDC data, running from an October up to an October 20 years hence, indexed in 2-year increments to cover the entire NSIDC satellite record:
WoodForTrees 20-yr trends graph
Obviously the rate of loss was accelerating for some time. But what about with a shorter period, to catch more recent rate changes?
15 yr trends starting 1983
Same.
10 yr trends starting 1988
1998-2008 was fastest, but overall the rates of loss are still high and not noticeably decelerating.
Oh well. Guess the Arctic sea ice is just going to go away.
So the Greenies will scream about the suffering polar bears, there will be too many for their habitat.
So the humane thing will be to eliminate the excess by hunting, culling to maintain sustainability.
Since it is good to not waste resources and to support recycling, we’ll convert the culled bears into meat and warm coats.
As the numbers of such a major predator decline, the numbers of seals will increase to where their habitat won’t sustain them, and the Greenies will scream about the suffering seals.
So the humane thing will be to…
Compare figure 2 with this http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Amo_timeseries_1856-present.svg – a plot of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) since1860. Coincidence?, I think NOT.
David vun Kannon says:
November 6, 2012 at 8:29 am
Opinionated computer science geek (your description of yourself) – your opinions seem to have got the better of you.
@Ryan Spear –
Imagine you went to the WUWT sea ice page and did that same graph for April. Would you get the same nice trend do you think? No. You wouldn’t.
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/Apr/N_04_plot.png
Actually, you would.
Actually you wouldn’t.
April graph -2.4% per decade
October graph -7.1% per decade
Ryan is correct – you would not get ‘the same nice trend’ – you would get a significantly diminished trend.
BargHumer says:
November 6, 2012 at 3:56 am
Here’s my take on it.
MkI eyeball says the decrease is not linear. I don’t think we’ve reached the minimum yet.
I would expect large variation close to minimum. Relatively thin ice will break up and be transported to warmer climes more easily.
The main argument for positive feedback is that the albedo of the Polar waters would decrease. This is BS because albedo is measured Normal to the surface but the incidence is much less than that. Losses from surface radiation and evaporation will exceed any warming.
I originally made this hypothesis a year or two ago, shortly after Willis’ thermostat hypothesis. It was a posit of a second thermostat. I do not claim originality as I may have nicked it from elsewhere without realising it.
DaveE.
Re my wshofact – November 6, 2012 at 11:00 am
Australia’s Antarctic supply ship “RSV Aurora Australis” has now been icebound for about three weeks. Webcam photos today show the ship still pushing through pack ice. Thanks, Warwick Hughes
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/
David Evans says “This is BS because albedo is measured Normal to the surface but the incidence is much less than that. Losses from surface radiation and evaporation will exceed any warming.”
This was my question earlier in the thread. Open water does absorb more incoming radiation than ice covered water (though it appears variation in cloud cover can trump this effect) but is this increase in watts LESS than the outgoing radiation from having open water when the air temperature is much lower in say late September and early October? You suggest that it is less and I would be very interested to see this calculation as this is my hunch as well. My thanks to other who linked to the front end of this calculation but it’s the other half that I am most interested in.
@David von Kannon:
Nice try warmista. Now go and look at the JAXA data on the WUWT sea-ice web-page it shows the sea ice extent month by month. If you plot a graph of the data from the last 10years you will see that there has been NO TREND for the April sea-ice extent – it has been stuck at 14msqkm all that time – that’s 1/3rd of the record. You can also see that the April 2012 sea ice extent for the Arctic was right on the 1990s average.
Now go back to selling insurance policies to grannies, and in your spare time you might like to go back to Real Climate and ask them why winter (dark) sea ice extent isn’t changing that much when increasing greenhouse gases should make the Arctic winter much warmer.
NSIDC 7.0 value for october is strange. Look on the daily numbers – I’ve got 5.8. Look on the graph. How 7.0 is possible?
Really.
Few mathematicians are to be found here.
ANY variable function, looked at for a sufficiently short interval, is a straight line. This is, after all, the secret of Calculus.
Arctic ice is gone. It is official. Garrison Keillor has announced that the Northwest Passage is now open for business.
Folks, get real. Arctic ice is CYCLICAL. Let me see here. The first powered flight was in 1903, which is 119 years ago. Before then, how could the variation in arctic ice be estimated? What was the extent of said ice during the Medieval Warming Period? [this did not happen, according to the U.N.].
How was that arctic ice during the last interglaciation, when the Bering Straits froze over?
This is all so bogus. Why not simply state that we have insufficient data for a long-range prediction?
Doesn’t anyone know what the kink is each of the years 2007,11 and 12, the kink that is getting earlier?
The blanket of sea ice floating on the Arctic Ocean melted to its lowest extent ever recorded since satellites began measuring it in 1979, according to scientists from US space agency NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).On August 26, the Arctic sea ice extent fell to 1.58 million square miles, or 4.10 million square kilometers. The number is 27, 000 square miles, or 70,000 square kilometers below the record low daily sea ice extent set September 18, 2007. Since the summer Arctic sea ice minimum normally does not occur until the melt season ends in mid- to-late September, the scientists expect the sea ice extent to continue to dwindle for the next two or three weeks, said Walt Meier, an NSIDC scientist.”It’s a little surprising to see the 2012 Arctic sea ice extent in August dip below the record low 2007 sea ice extent in September,” he said. “It’s likely we are going to surpass the record decline by a fair amount this year by the time all is said and done.”On September 18, 2007, the September minimum extent of Arctic sea ice shattered all satellite records, reaching a five-day running average of 1.61 million square miles, or 4.17 million square kilometers. Compared to the long-term minimum average from 1979 to 2000, the 2007 minimum extent was lower by about a million square miles — an area about the same as Alaska and Texas combined, or 10 Britains.The sea ice cap naturally grows during the cold Arctic winters and shrinks when temperatures climb in the spring and summer. But over the last three decades, satellites have observed a 13 percent decline per decade in the minimum summertime extent of the sea ice. The thickness of the sea ice cover also continues to decline.
[snip – chemtrails is a banned topic on this blog]
[yes it is and gone thanks]
We need some metric for the tonnage of shipping using the NW Passage each summer. Then we can celebrate as it increases, mourn decreases.
I still wonder if we aren’t seeing the same shift in ice patterns we are seeing in the Antarctic. A rapid building of ice along one side, and a deficit on the other. Unlike the Antarctic most of our Arctic ice measurement is done in the water… it would be interesting to see if there is any increase of accumulated snow/ice along the Russian or Canadian/Alaska land masses as compared to other years of course. http://www.natice.noaa.gov/ims/loop/nhem-1mo-loop.html
Sea Ice is measured as greater than 15% ice cover in a unit area. The ice per unit area could “disappear” in two ways, simply stay put and melt, or disperse. The 2007 event was due to high winds dispersing the sea ice rendering the unit areas with less than 15% ice cover, therefore “ice free”. The fast “regrowth” of ice was caused by winds/currents pushing the ice puzzle back together along with refreeze.
Winds and dispersion are rarely mentioned in the NSIDC articles. If the ice pack is held together by wind, ice melt will reduce. If the ice is dispersed due to wind, each unit of ice will melt faster as there is open ocean around each ice unit that warms adding to the “normal”melt rate due to temperature rise in the summer.
Are we seeing a long term change in wind circulation in the Arctic that may in fact be cyclical?
Curious minds want to know.
Sugel says:November 7, 2012 at 3:51 pm
But over the last three decades, satellites have observed a 13 percent decline per decade in the minimum summertime extent of the sea ice.
As compared to what? Three decades is the whole observation period. Three decades ago was probably a peak in Arctic ice, since it had been cooling since the 1940s.
Look at the amount of multi year ice leaving the Arctic this year , it will be interesting to find out how this changes during the Arctic winter.
http://www.aari.ru/odata/_d0015.php?lang=1&mod=0&yy=2012