From the Nature abhors a vacuum department comes this note from RealScience showing that Arctic sea ice has made a stunning rebound since the record low recorded in the late summer of 2012.
With a few weeks of growth still to occur, the Arctic has blown away the previous record for ice gain this winter. This is only the third winter in history when more than 10 million km² of new ice has formed.
Source data: arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/timeseries.anom.1979-2008
Of course, this is only a record for the satellite era data back to about 1980, and just like the much ballyhooed record low of 2012, we have no hard data to tell us if this has happened before or not.
Here’s the current Cryosphere Today plot, note the steep rebound right after the summer minimum, something also noted in Sea Ice News Volume 3 Number 14 – Arctic refreeze fastest ever:
![seaice.recent.arctic[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/seaice-recent-arctic1.png?quality=75)
Source: Cryosphere Today – Arctic Climate Research at the University of IllinoisThe Arctic ocean is well filled with ice right now:
![cryo_latest[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/cryo_latest1.jpg?quality=83)
Source: Cryosphere Today – Arctic Climate Research at the University of Illinois
In other news, the Antarctic seems to be continuing on its slow and steady rise, and is now approaching 450 days of uninterrupted above normal ice area according to this data: arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/timeseries.south.anom.1979-2008…which shows the last time the Antarctic sea ice was below normal was 2011.8932 or 11/22/2011.
![seaice.recent.antarctic[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/seaice-recent-antarctic1.png?quality=75)
This continued growth of ice in the Arctic Antarctic make the arguments for ice mass loss in Antarctica rather hard to believe, something also backed up by ICESAT data.
As always, you can see all the sea ice data at the WUWT Sea Ice Reference Page.
The fact is; the whole Arctic basin is covered in sea-ice, accumulated over a period of time that can be considered an extreme event. It isn’t climate, if this happens regularly at some point in time there is going to be more sea ice build up than sea ice loss.
After the July 2012 workshop on ICESAT data, some on that team (Zwally, Bromwich, Yi) co-authored a paper employing more data (published November 2012) on Greenland/Antarctic mass balance for the period 1992 to 2011. For that period, and for all sub-periods within, Antarctic mass balance showed an overall loss.
http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/18383638/836588054/name/Science-2012-Shepherd-1183-9.pdf
It’s much too soon to know if this increase is of any significance.
Last year, from late Feb to early May, the extent was comfortably in ’90s territory.
Look how that turned out.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/Sea_Ice_Extent_L.png
One thing I noticed is that the maxima and minima seem to shift to a few weeks later in the year. The NOREX chart has the Maxima around Mar 11 for 1979 thru 2006, and more recent years seem to be first week in April. Anybody know why this is happening?
[snip – policy violation, language – mod]
barry says:
February 12, 2013 at 7:23 pm
“bla bla bla”
For some reason 2011 to 2012 both northern and southern hemispheres had a one point above normal sea ice.
Darn, I’m trying to remember who predicted this would get posted exactly.
Anyway, just another prediction that alarmists got right. Unlike arctic sea ice — they keep getting that one wrong; it’s significantly lower than predicted.
Ok, question. The CO2 absorption band is below the visible light from the sun. Then, wouldn’t reflected light not be absorbed by the CO2, hence a lower effect on the air temp? If true, then shouldn’t you see an increase in air temps as the ice melts exposing open water (and more IR being released) continuing through the winter months? Seems like you should see a shift in the peak of the air temps in the arctic as the summer ice decreases assuming CO2 is involved. Maybe too many other factors?
So they were worse than we expected…?
[Snip. You can be insulting of WUWT on your own thinly-trafficked blog. But here you need to be polite, or one of the mods will snip your entire nasty comment. — mod.]
So which radiates more LWIR EM radiation; the frozen ice or the open water, which is very near black body like.
So the water is going to cool much more than normal during the longer open water phase, so when the Temperature of the air drops, the water wll freeze much quicker.
Overall, an open arctic ocean will cool the planet more than an ice covered ocean will.
It is conjectured, that all that cold water and ice in the arctic has something to do with the fact that there is not much solar energy density up there, to warm things up.
[snip]
You do realise that the Arctic sea-ice area annual maximum is decreasing? The increase in area gained each freezing season is simply because the annual minimum is decreasing at a faster rate.
If you weren’t all a bunch of logic-bending denier misfits trying to hide the truth you would also plot the Arctic Sea Ice Area Loss Since Maximum (multiplied by -1 to use the same axes), which would show higher numbers, and also an increasing trend.
You don’t do that, because it would be an inconvenient truth for you guys.
numerobis, I’m pretty sure you saw that prediction on Dr Inferno’s blog.
Phobos says:
February 12, 2013 at 11:31 am
Please; this is merely an attempt to be clever with statistics. If we keep seeing record gains since the summer minimum, why do we keep seeing lower minimums and lower yearly averages?
If you reference any sine wave value and compare it to the maximum and minimum respectively then it will always be lower and that is precisely why we always see warming and low ice levels.
The whole climate science field displays an almost staggering inability to look at underlying patterns in the way anyone trained in electronics and data interception rather than climate science would do.
Clearly even to a casual look the anomaly is heavily dependent on sudden spikes of higher temperatures which have resulted in drop outs in the amount of ice, overlying a cyclic trend.
Looking at the NASA sea anomaly temperature data in AMSRE_SSTAn_M-MOD_LSTAD_M these drop outs in the ice coverage occur at the same times we see huge localised and by climate change theory utterly inexplicable localised hot spots. These hot spots to any non climate science trained observer would be attributed to volcanic activity at a first guess. The information would have driven these untrained individuals to ask for further information as to whether any evidence of hot gas sources were to be found and since even with no direct funding several articles are available these amateurs would suggest a research project to find if the ones discovered by chance were isolated cases.. Sadly it has however not even stirred climate scientists to question their beliefs the CO2 is the driver.
Even the use of anomaly shows little or no understanding of pattern analysis on the part of climate scientists. Comparing the average of a sine wave always produces an anomaly even on a steady state sine wave and comparing an average not equal to the duration of that sine wave gives a built in error depending which part of the cycle is chosen as the start time.
Nearly 11 million square km of ice formed? Gosh! Sea levels must have dropped hundreds of feet! (sarc.)
RE: misfratz says:
February 12, 2013 at 10:53 pm
And are you aware that the level of arctic and sub-arctic snow-cover set a record (for the short period these records (along with sea-ice records,) have been kept.) ???
If you weren’t a “logic-bending denier misfit trying to hide the truth” you would also plot the effect snow-cover has on albedo.
After all, albedo is what you are so frightened by, Right?
While you are at it, you would calculate the abedo of the southern hemisphere, where sea ice is increasing. You would notice that sea ice down under is much closer to the equator, and therefore has a greater effect on your precious albedo. In fact right now, at the low point in southern hemispehere sea ice levels, there is ice at a latitude of 60 degrees. That is like having sea ice nudging northern Scotland in August.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
BBC article online today. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21437680 I must admit it seems logical to me that if Summer ice gets lower each year, but refreezes each winter due to temps being consistently below freezing, a record refreeze is bound to happen. It’s not good news in that sense, what would be good news is if the record low level of ice did not occur, so that the vast amount amount of refreeze did not take place. In that sense a record low expansion of ice would be good news.
I think that this graph shows it best. http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/icecover/icecover_current.png
This shows that for this time of year the ice cover is the highest it has been for the whole of this record. i.e. since 2005!
Gareth Phillips says:
February 13, 2013 at 2:31 am
Precisely. I though I was missing something here. It’s obvious that if you get a record low summer minimum – there’s a good chance of a record freezeback. Note from the above graph that the previous 2 highest refreeze rates occurred in 2008 and 2009 following low summer minima. The trouble is the ice is likely to be fairly thin and will be vulnerable during the melt season.
numerobis says:
February 12, 2013 at 8:17 pm
Anyway, just another prediction that alarmists got right. Unlike arctic sea ice — they keep getting that one wrong; it’s significantly lower than predicted.
Thank you for pointing out yet another failure of climate models. The reason the get it wrong is they aren’t looking at the important factors. The Arctic sea ice is driven by winds and the PDO/AMO. If they had simulated the Earth properly they would have a much better chance of getting things like this right.
So, since they keep getting almost everything wrong in their simulations I assume you are calling them out everywhere asking why anyone believes a single projection they make.
Ice has a much higher albedo than open water, reflecting, rather than absorbing, sunlight. The Arctic has warmed much more rapidly than the globe over the satellite period, and has continued to warm while global temperatures have experienced a hiatus over the last decade or so, while this period has seen the greatest trend in reduced ice cover. That would seem to indicate that exposed-ocean cooling does not outweigh or much offset the warming from reduced albedo.
In the meantime, the BBC’s Science Correspondent, Jonathan Amos, has the following startling headline on the BBC’s website today:
‘Cryosat spots Arctic sea-ice loss IN THE AUTUMN…’ (my capitals)
This is what passes for ‘news’ at the BBC – expect a headline anytime soon which states: ‘The King is dead’…
I’ve got a better headline for them: ‘All satellites agree that Arctic sea ice has recovered to a completely average value for the time of year..’
No, I know they won’t use it…!
Steven Mosher says:
February 12, 2013 at 12:59 pm
1. check volume. I think the ice freezes down as well as out, hence an extra 2 million sq miles of surface extant will mean thicker ice [more volume ] in the less peripheral areas. The comments last year of a large extent meaning thinner ice is meaningless as every year the ice that forms last is always thin ice and will always melt quickly.
2. check sat views of the condition of this ice. Satellite views of the topography, show nothing of the depth[volume] of the ice [your first point]. So pick one or the other but not both as they contradict each other. I understand the ice looks unusual but I doubt surface appearance has a graphic to say it will break up faster.
4. faster ice build up, but thinner and weaker than in the past. So how far and fast does it have to build up before it becomes thicker and stronger? According to this logic if it builds up by say 13,000,000 sq miles it will be extremely thin .and weak and if it did not build up at all it would be extremely thick and strong. Logic would seem to dictate that the more ice that forms, the less likely warming is. Could you give a ballpark figure where you would say your current view is misguided
2013 fall.. start predicting now I have already made a prediction that the global sea ice would break through to the positive side [at Lucia’s] and Tallboys[not published]. I also feel the Arctic could still reach the positive side this year which it nearly did last year. so what would it take , 1 positive year, 5 positive years or 17 positive years.
Finally, I actually appreciate your comments and preparedness to interact on this and other sites
If you look at climate4you and the ocean page and the arctic ocean regions (east Greenland sea, west Svalbaard sea, Barents sea) there is no evidence of arctic ocean warming. In fact since 2006 there has been cooling. In these arctic ocean regions the phenomenon of the 8-year jump is particularly visible. Ocean heat appears to move forward in 8 year jumps. This is visible worldwide and has been largely ignored by the climate research community (some-one tell me if I’m wrong).
The ENSO as Willis Essenbach points out is a heat pump which pumps warm Pacific equatorial water toward the poles. Thus the warm water left over from the period of mid 1970’s – 2005 dominated by el Nino events, wil continue to wash toward the poles for some years, so Arctic ice extent might continue to drop for a few years.
Since 2007 there has been an abrupt increase in summer-winter range of sea ice. This is explainable as the combination of 2 things:
1. Air temperatures in the arctic cool as atmospheric climate starts its current down-swing
2. Warm water continues to wash into the Arctic as a legacy of the recent few el-Nino dominated decades.
Warm water flowing into a cooling Arctic produces the observed jump in magnitude of oscillation between deeper summer lows with faster recovery and robust ice and snow in winter. Note that this warm inflow is not necessarily enough to show up as warmer Arctic OHC overall, but does cause summer ice loss. This jump up in oscillation magnitude occurring sharply in 2007 is a marker of a phase shift.