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
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]