Record Arctic Storm Melted Sea Ice

Werner Brozek says: December 28, 2012 at 10:11 am
I would be happy to have this as a regular feature if you wish, but I have been sending these monthly stats on both WUWT and on Dr. Spencer’s site whenever the monthly data comes out each month.
It will get more visibility as an article.
Of course I may just have the latest month for RSS and UAH at the time and the previous month for the others.
We should probably wait until all the data is in before publishing, i.e. do a update using using full year 2012 for all data sets and we can figure it out from there.
Is there any problem with simply taking my post and have you edit it as you see fit and then making it a top post every month?
We need to give it an article framework, with introductory and explanatory paragraphs so that it is reasonably comprehensible to a broad audience, We need to include images so that people can see the evidence without having to click. We need to meticulously link to and document the data sources and analysis methods, so that people can readily recreate and validate the results for themselves.
Are there any additions or deletions you would want me to make in order for it to be a top post?
I think what you have is a good start, but we will also need links to each Wood For Trees’ plot used to derive each result, so they can be included in the article and I can capture the images from there. I might also add in the image of each plot directly from its source, which I have most here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/11/10/a-big-picture-look-at-earths-temperature-extreme-weather-update/
as well as links to the raw data;
http://www.woodfortrees.org/credits
in case people want to validate those. I can draft a few introductory and explanatory paragraphs, but will need you to also draft a few, including one clearly explaining your calculation method and rationale such that a high school student can easily understand and repeat it. If you can keep posting stuff in this thread, I’ll help you to frame out an article and fill it in.
I was thinking of adding the following for example:
For RSS the warming is NOT significant for 23 years.
For RSS: +0.130 +/-0.136 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1990
For UAH, the warming is NOT significant for 19 years.
For UAH: 0.143 +/- 0.173 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1994
For Hacrut3, the warming is NOT significant for 19 years.
For Hadcrut3: 0.098 +/- 0.113 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1994
For Hacrut4, the warming is NOT significant for 18 years.
For Hadcrut4: 0.098 +/- 0.111 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1995
For GISS, the warming is NOT significant for 17 years.
For GISS: 0.113 +/- 0.122 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1996
I would include the prior year anomaly, prior year overall rank, and the warmest year with anomaly. Also a link to the Wood For Trees’ plot and the source for the ranking and anomaly. There might be additional elements, but let’s see how it develops. This article should be an unbiased and unimpeachable assessment of each temperature data set.
(By the way, do you know why wti has stopped in August? I may have to stop this line if it is not being done anymore.)
The WTI (WoodForTrees Temperature Index)

“is created from the mean of HADCRUT3VGL, GISTEMP, RSS and UAH, offset by their baseline differences. It covers only the time period where all four series are valid, so begins in 1979 and will only contain the latest month’s values when all four sources are in. It is updated from the master sources at 3am GMT/BST each night.” “The four sources used are the four global sources most often quoted in climate studies, plus there are two land/sea-based (HADCRUT3, GISTEMP) and two from satellite air measurements (RSS, UAH).”
http://www.woodfortrees.org/notes#wti

I suspect that the reason that WTI hasn’t been updated since August;
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/last:12/plot/gistemp/last:12/offset:-0.35/plot/hadcrut3vgl/last:12/offset:-0.26/plot/rss/last:12/offset:-0.10/plot/uah/last:12
may be related to this;

Update to UAH v5.5 & GISTEMP fix
19th November 2012:
WFT now uses the new UAH 5.5 dataset. Here is their changelog describing the rationale for the update.
I’ve also fixed a problem in the GISTEMP file reader which was adding a bogus zero sample to the end of the dataset.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/

but recommend that you email paul at woodfortrees.com, as I am sure that he would welcome the heads up and he might be able to readily fix the WTI.

Martin van Etten says: December 28, 2012 at 3:13 pm
According to Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University, the average thickness of the pack ice has fallen by roughly half since the 1970s, probably for two main reasons. One is a rise in sea temperatures: in the summer of 2007 coastal parts of the Arctic Ocean measured 7°C—bracingly swimmable. The other was a prolonged eastward shift in the early 1990s in the Arctic’s prevailing winds, known as the Arctic Oscillation.
Sea temperature and sea ice are quite difficult to untangle, i.e. did increased sea temperature cause a decrease in sea ice, did a decrease in sea ice cause an increase in sea temperature, or both?
If you had written, first there was warming, later there was also wind and current there would have been less confusion;
But what you have written is erroneous, according to this 2012 paper “Subarctic and Arctic sea surface temperature and its relation to ocean heat content 1982–2010”:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2011JC007770.shtml

The analysis shows that much of the warming of the North Atlantic subpolar gyre during the period occurred in 1990s and compensated for cooling during the decades of the early 1960s to mid-1990s in this same region.

Figure 7 shows this quite well:
http://www.agu.org/journals/jc/jc1206/2011JC007770/2011jc007770-op07-tn-350x.jpg
This NOAA Arctic Sea Surface Temperature plot;
http://www.grida.no/graphicslib/thumbs/1805c933-493c-4b85-be16-ad06eb342332/medium/arctic-ocean-surface-temperatures_1242.jpg
also shows that Arctic Sea Temperature began to increase in the 1990s.
Similarly, Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University stated in the Economist article that there

“was a prolonged eastward shift in the early 1990s in the Arctic’s prevailing winds, known as the Arctic Oscillation. This moved a lot of ice from the Beaufort Gyre, a revolving current in the western Arctic, to the ocean’s other main current, the Transpolar Drift Stream, which runs down the side of Siberia. A lot of thick, multi-year ice was flushed into the Atlantic and has not been replaced.

This 2004 Science Daily article, ”Winds, Ice Motion Root Cause Of Decline In Sea Ice, Not Warmer Temperatures”;
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/12/041220010410.htm
states that:

“extreme changes in the Arctic Oscillation in the early 1990s — and not warmer temperatures of recent years — are largely responsible for declines in how much sea ice covers the Arctic Ocean, with near record lows having been observed during the last three years, University of Washington researchers say.”

This 2003 paper “Arctic climate change: observed and modelled temperature and sea-ice variability“;
http://www.tellusa.net/index.php/tellusa/article/download/14418/16180
states that:

“The decreases in recent decades, which are also partially due to circulation-driven ice export through the Fram Strait between Greenland and Svalbard (Vinje, 2001), have coincided with a positive trend in the NAO, with unusually high index values in the late 1980s and 1990s.”

This 2001 paper, “Fram Strait Ice Fluxes and Atmospheric Circulation: 1950–2000”;
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/1520-0442%282001%29014%3C3508%3AFSIFAA%3E2.0.CO%3B2
states that:

Due to an increasing rate in the ice drainage through the Fram Strait during the 1990s, this decade is characterized by a state of decreasing ice thickness in the Arctic Ocean.

As such it appears that, at minimum, the changes in wind and current occurred simultaneous to the increase in sea temperature, and there is in fact evidence that “extreme changes in the Arctic Oscillation in the early 1990s — and not warmer temperatures of recent years — are largely responsible for declines in how much sea ice covers the Arctic Ocean”.
If Monckton had written ‘increase of warming has stropped’, in stead of ‘warming has stopped’ it would have been clear immediately;
I am not sure what you mean. Do you dispute Werner’s calculations?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/27/record-arctic-storm-melted-sea-ice/#comment-1184736
If yes, why? Do you think that Earth has warmed significantly in the last 10 – 15 years? Can you present data such that we can validate it?
If no, then how many years without warming do you think are necessary before we can reasonably state that the “warming has stopped”?
regards and best wishes for the new year
May you have an enlightened, happy and healthy New Year

Martin van Etten says: December 27, 2012 at 6:11 pm
I asked how come there is arctic melt, while there is no warming
Further to your question, I just came across another reference, the “Impact of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) on Arctic Surface Air Temperature and Sea Ice Variability” Salil Mahajan, Rong Zhang and Thomas L. Delworth, 2011:
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2011JCLI4002.1

The simulated impact of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) on the low-frequency variability of the Arctic surface air temperature (SAT) and sea ice extent is studied with a 1000-year-long segment of a control simulation of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory Climate Model version 2.1. The simulated AMOC variations in the control simulation are found to be significantly anticorrelated with the Arctic sea ice extent anomalies and significantly correlated with the Arctic SAT anomalies on decadal time scales in the Atlantic sector of the Arctic. The maximum anticorrelation with the Arctic sea ice extent and the maximum correlation with the Arctic SAT occur when the AMOC index leads by one year. An intensification of the AMOC is associated with a sea ice decline in the Labrador, Greenland, and Barents Seas in the control simulation, with the largest change occurring in winter. The recent declining trend in the satellite-observed sea ice extent also shows a similar pattern in the Atlantic sector of the Arctic in the winter, suggesting the possibility of a role of the AMOC in the recent Arctic sea ice decline

Thus there are numerous reasons why “arctic melt” can occur, “while there is no warming”. Less than a degree Celsius of warming in air temperature;
ftp://ftp.ssmi.com/msu/graphics/tlt/plots/rss_ts_channel_tlt_northern%20polar_land_and_sea_v03_3.png
and sea surface temperature;
http://www.grida.no/graphicslib/thumbs/1805c933-493c-4b85-be16-ad06eb342332/medium/arctic-ocean-surface-temperatures_1242.jpg
cannot cause 3 – 5 meter thick multi-year ice to melt in the brief and chilly Arctic summer. Rather wind, currents and storms that break-up and move 3 – 5 meter thick multi-year ice into warmer waters, appear to be the primary causes of the decrease in Arctic sea ice.
Furthermore, a significant portion of the atmospheric warming in Arctic, aka Arctic Amplification, doesn’t appear to be related to “Global Warming”, rather it’s caused by an array of factors, e.g.:
The central role of diminishing sea ice in recent Arctic temperature amplification, Screen & Simmonds 2010;
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v464/n7293/full/nature09051.html
The abstract states that;

“Increased concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases have driven Arctic and global average warming; however, the underlying causes of Arctic amplification remain uncertain. The roles of reductions in snow and sea ice cover and changes in atmospheric and oceanic circulation cloud cover and water vapour are still matters of debate.” before claiming that, “Here we show that the Arctic warming is strongest at the surface during most of the year and is primarily consistent with reductions in sea ice cover.”

Here’s another paper, “Vertical structure of recent Arctic warming” by Rune G. Graversen, Thorsten Mauritsen1, Michael Tjernström, Erland Källén & Gunilla Svensson, Nature, 2008.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v451/n7174/abs/nature06502.html
The abstract states that;

“The underlying causes of this temperature amplification remain uncertain. The reduction in snow and ice cover that has occurred over recent decades may have played a role. Climate model experiments indicate that when global temperature rises, Arctic snow and ice cover retreats, causing excessive polar warming9, 10, 11. Reduction of the snow and ice cover causes albedo changes, and increased refreezing of sea ice during the cold season and decreases in sea-ice thickness both increase heat flux from the ocean to the atmosphere. Changes in oceanic and atmospheric circulation, as well as cloud cover, have also been proposed to cause Arctic temperature amplification. Here we examine the vertical structure of temperature change in the Arctic during the late twentieth century using reanalysis data. We find evidence for temperature amplification well above the surface. Snow and ice feedbacks cannot be the main cause of the warming aloft during the greater part of the year, because these feedbacks are expected to primarily affect temperatures in the lowermost part of the atmosphere, resulting in a pattern of warming that we only observe in spring. A significant proportion of the observed temperature amplification must therefore be explained by mechanisms that induce warming above the lowermost part of the atmosphere. We regress the Arctic temperature field on the atmospheric energy transport into the Arctic and find that, in the summer half-year, a significant proportion of the vertical structure of warming can be explained by changes in this variable. We conclude that changes in atmospheric heat transport may be an important cause of the recent Arctic temperature amplification.”

Here’s another paper, Arctic air temperature change amplification and the Atlantic
Multidecadal Oscillation, by Petr Chylek, Chris K. Folland, Glen Lesins, Manvendra K. Dubey, and Muyin Wang, Geophysical Research Letter, 2009:
http://www.lanl.gov/source/orgs/ees/ees14/pdfs/09Chlylek.pdf
It states that;

“Analyzing temperature records of the Arctic meteorological stations we find that (a) the Arctic amplification (ratio of the Arctic to global temperature trends) is not a constant but varies in time on a multi-decadal time scale, (b) the Arctic warming from 1910–1940 proceeded at a significantly faster rate than the current 1970–2008 warming, and (c) the Arctic temperature changes are highly correlated with the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO) suggesting the Atlantic Ocean thermohaline circulation is linked to the Arctic temperature variability on a multi-decadal time scale.

Here we have three recent papers that state that, “Arctic warming” “is primarily consistent with reductions in sea ice cover.” or “A significant proportion of the observed temperature amplification must therefore be explained by mechanisms that induce warming above the lowermost part of the atmosphere.” or “the Arctic temperature changes are highly correlated with the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO) suggesting the Atlantic Ocean thermohaline circulation is linked to the Arctic temperature variability on a multi-decadal time scale.”
Earth’s climate system is ridiculously complex;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/30/earths-climate-system-is-ridiculously-complex-with-draft-link-tutorial/
with a dizzying array of variables;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/research-pages/potential-climatic-variables/
many of which we have a limited understanding of:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/29/new-wuwt-polar-vortex-reference-page/
We must take into account all of the significant variables in order to make an accurate attribution of causation.

E.M.Smith says: December 28, 2012 at 9:46 pm
@kwinterkorn:
Especially given the “Polar See-Saw” that causes a long cycle oscillation between the two poles…
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/12/15/d-o-ride-my-see-saw-mr-bond/
D.O, events and Heinrich Events have such a process, with alternating warming / cooling of opposite poles
This article also provides a good overview:
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/6256/antarctic-arctic-cycles-are-sync
It looks like it is related to changes of the thermohaline rate.
The Cosmos article states that

“However, the question of how on one end of the Earth are communicated to the other side still remains. Winds and currents undoubtedly play a role, but computer models of these have so far failed to really explain how the seesaw works.”

I would add polar vorticity to the mix, and suggest that the See-Saw is an important area for us to better understand. The Cosmos article also states that;

“another possible application of their [Jose Rial and Jeseung Oh] idea is the phenomenon of ‘oscillation death’: if the coupling between two pendulums becomes too strong, the same mathematics that describe synchronisation predict that the two oscillators, who are after all not quite the same, will start to impede each other’s swings and come to a stop.
Rial and Oh speculated that this is what sometimes happens on Earth as well – and may even give rise to the interglacial warm periods on Earth – such as the one mankind has enjoyed for the past 12,500 years.