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.
John Finn says:
February 13, 2013 at 3:05 am
“The trouble is the ice is likely to be fairly thin and will be vulnerable during the melt season.”
The only problem with that thought is that Ice thickness seems to be fine also (and still the largest at current date since 2005).
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticictnowcast.gif
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/icecover/icecover_current.png
Here’s my prediction–when the summer sea ice extent finally goes to 1% or less (99% melted) we will see a record refreezing during the winter. After that, any changes in the summer minimum or amount of refreezing during winter will be negligible.
The record gains are a result of the record losses … one would expect that the more ice we lose in the summer the more is going to freeze in the winter!
“…this is merely an attempt to be clever with statistics.”
I’m curious. Would you describe Keith Briffa’s Yamal reconstructions in the same way? I certainly would. The later into the 20th century he got, the fewer trees he used in his plots, until one single tree core was providing about 1/2 of his hockey stick warming projection.
Most people are just interested in honesty and reality.It’s easy to mislead and to propagandize using “clever statistics.” Fortunately, though, our laws and traditions realize where the greater danger lies, and so we tolerate that some will spin and mislead and lie in their political speech.
That sea ice extent has crossed into the realm of being a political football for alarmists and activists, is beyond dispute. People have a right to mislead us, and claim that this is unequivocally due to human CO2 emissions, when they know no such thing.
But still, in the long run, I believe misrepresenting reality, spinning objective data, and even intentional lying (with or without using statistics) is bad policy. Because being too clever can fool the body politic into thinking a correlation is causal when it isn’t, or that the physics of some complex systems has been accurately described when it hasn’t, or that activists parading around as “experts” know more than an ignorant person about what will happen in the future, when they don’t. When the body politic is fooled in these ways, it might waste money and resources, both directly and through lost opportunity costs. It might surrender power to activists who want to dominate them politically, and lose some freedoms in the process.
And the only way I know of debunking such charlatanism is to design experiments that predict, observe and attempt to falsify theory, and then, if successful, to replicate, replicate, replicate (which implies archiving raw data, maintaining detailed records of methods, sharing data freely, and explaining adjustments and simplifications fully, etc, etc). This is a slow method, often times, it’s inconclusive. Activists hate that, because they can’t immediately get what they want, politically.
I could also talk about propagandizing by using “clever” statements about outputs from General Circulation Models (GCMs), but I trust you’ll get the point without additional verbiage.
I tend to see sea ice as more like this http://i46.tinypic.com/2ezgzk5.png
The ‘static’ value is around ~90KmSq with ‘central’ values occuring at ~21st May and ~14th Dec with small deviations year on year.
Sorry. Should be
I tend to see sea ice as more like this http://i46.tinypic.com/2ezgzk5.png
The ‘static’ value is around ~9KmSq with ‘central’ values occuring at ~21st May and ~14th Dec with small deviations year on year.
Richard LH says:
February 13, 2013 at 2:51 am
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!
########
They reduced the data set for readibility.
Here you get the whole Sat data /since 1978).
2013 February: by far less than previous values.
Sorry. Should be
I tend to see sea ice as more like this http://i46.tinypic.com/2ezgzk5.png
The ‘static’ value is around ~9 MilKmSq with ‘central’ values occuring at ~21st May and ~14th Dec with small deviations year on year.
MFKBoulder says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
February 13, 2013 at 7:15 am
Richard LH says:
February 13, 2013 at 2:51 am
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!
########
They reduced the data set for readibility.
Here you get the whole Sat data /since 1979).
2013 February: by far less than previous values.
Missed the link
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/arctic.sea.ice.interactive.html
and corrected the Year. please delete previous post, Thx
UAH trend for Arctic ocean temps from 2006 to December 2012 is 0.43C per decade. At almost half a degree C, how can that possibly be construed as cooling?
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
I doubt the trend is statistically significant, but there’s no way you could say that indicates a cooling trend.
While global trends have slowed for the last 15 years or so, the Arctic ocean trend since 1998 is 0.84C/decade. arctic sea ice decline is strong for this period. Hypothesised ocean cooling from exposed waters due to receding ice has no basis in the temperature record.
BillD, I can see the headline now: “Arctic ice melt stopped, say skeptics”, if we reach the point where there’s no more ice to melt. There’s always a favorable way to spin it, if you try hard enough.
This is all part of AGW – Anthropogenic Global Weirding. First the ice grows, then it shrinks, then it’s sort of normal for a while just to get you to lower your guard, then BAM!
This on the BBC News web site
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21437680
Mike Jowsey says:
February 12, 2013 at 1:20 pm
But.. but… but…. it’s a death spiral! A tipping point. Irreversible catastrophe. Ice-free Arctic will be the new normal. These are the alarms we have been inundated with – how dare you actually look at raw data?
Perhaps if you looked at the raw data you’d see that that’s exactly what’s happening? The raw data indicates a substantially sea ice-free Arctic in a few years, when that happens we’ll doubtless break the current ‘record’ for regrowth in the following winter! This spring we will have more first year ice than last year (because we’ve had a ‘record’ regrowth). FYI is thinner than older ice because the thickness is controlled by heat loss through the ice, it’s also very fractured which doesn’t bode well for its survival next summer, I’d expect an even lower minimum next fall.
MFKBoulder says:
February 13, 2013 at 7:21 am
“They reduced the data set for readibility.
Here you get the whole Sat data /since 1979).
2013 February: by far less than previous values.”
Which still show that this is the highest value at this time of year since 2005. My comment implied that it was higher outside of that time range as you correctly observe.
http://i46.tinypic.com/2ezgzk5.png
peter laux says:
February 12, 2013 at 5:08 pm
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?
Priceless, Phobos is an apt name. The point is these, “records” are meaningless either way and this “record” shows exactly that !
Its utter hubris, the satellite “record” only goes back to 1980 !
You may recall history when Roald Armundsum sailed the ice free Nth West passage in, I think 1903 or thereabouts
Indeed, I even have a copy of his description of his journey, strangely he was more concerned about being trapped in ice and never mentioned sailing in an ‘ice free NW Passage’, he did talk about sending a recon party the summer before his departure from Gjoa Havn, they used sleds and walked!
and the Canadian Navy also did so in two summers in WWII.
No they did it once, nowadays multiple boats make the trip every year.
phlogiston says:
February 13, 2013 at 5:39 am
…
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.
I meant oscillation amplitude rather than magnitude.
This post is very… special. Summer ice area is declining. Winter ice area is declining more. Ergo, the difference between winter area and summer area is getting larger. I think budding young scientists a little way into their teens could understand that this does not mean there is “continued growth of ice in the Arctic”, but I suppose Anthony Watts is a little too old to learn now.
REPLY: Actually. That was a typo where it said “Arctic” in a paragraph about the “Antarctic”, but I guess you are too old to spot those things. Fixed now. Anthony
Pat K,
What is it about this chart that you cannot understand? Admit it, you didn’t even read the article, did you?
• • •
Phil. says:
“The raw data indicates a substantially sea ice-free Arctic in a few years…”
We can only hope that the Arctic becomes ice-free year round. It won’t happen, of course. But if it did there would be many benefits, and no downside.
Wow. This is an ultra classic WUWT thread … Even freakin’ Pat Michaels is calling bupkiss on this one.
@John@EF. Show where he calls “bupkiss”. He says “hardly surprising”. I don’t disagree. This is a news collection, showing things of interest. I found it interesting, Tough noogies if others don’t.
The main point though is this:
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.
Can you show that the big loss and regrowth has happened before? I can’t, I’m suspecting you can’t, and neither can science with no hard data. Point is we simply don’t know and 30 years of data isn’t but a tiny snapshot of the history of the Arctic.
Yet there’s lots of wailing about it as if there is significance to that 30 years.
Eric Simpson says: “It’s like reverse condensation, like a refrigerator makes it hot in the room, a counter-intuitive thing certainly that is beyond the intellect of dumb deniers.”
I’m shocked no one bit on this. Feeding a troll, perhaps. But I just gotta! This is a statement even a child could swat down. A refrigerator makes it hot in the room? Yeah, duh, it’s consuming a large amount of energy, by way of electricity, and excreting that energy in the form of heat – directly into your kitchen. And I’m curious. Is there really such a term as “reverse condensation,” outside of “The Great Soviet Encyclopedia,” that is.
Gotta love comments that include abusive language. The messenger shoots himself. I suppose there was no need for me to “reverse condensate” that comment. Still, I laughed out loud when I read it. WUWT provides a platform for some great entertainment along with the great debates.
george e. smith says:
February 12, 2013 at 10:18 pm
Your observation is correct – but it is a surprising complex heat transfer comparison. One, I am not too surprised to note, is one that no CAGW theist bothers to do. Rather, they “lock in” on the assumptions similar to one a university class in global warming saw in their mid-term exam: There, the “professor” required that: top-of-atmosphere average radiation levels be used for ice and water radiation comparisons (as if both were at the equator, above any atmospheric absorption!), to compare average albedo and using an incorrect equation for radiated energy! No wonder Phil (of a comparable .edu training) and others like Perlwitz and Barry are confused with the results of real calculations.
Look at the actual data for single area of Arctic Ocean water at 80 north latitude on September 21 – right at the period of minimum Arctic sea ice. We are at the equinox, that piece of water will see 12 hours of sunlight, sees 12 hours of near-total darkness. But that is only a very, very small part of the story. In open water, the water’s heat will be absorbed from the sun’s direct and indirection radiation for only12 hours, but will be lost via evaporation, radiation to the 265 K (-8 C) atmosphere, and forced conduction (from winds) to that same sub-freezing atmosphere for 24 hours.
According to the NOAA’s website, solar incidence angles will vary from .9 (at 06:00) to 10 degrees (at 12:00) and back to 0.27 (at 18:00). Air masses will vary from 25 to 6.5 and back to 29. (Look at the year and the equation of time to see why these are not exactly symmetrical about 12:00 noon.) Direct radiation from the sun will vary from 6 watts (at sunrise) up to 70 watts (wow!) and then go back to 4 watts at sunset, but will only be absorbed by a measured rough-water albedo of 0.30 to 0.48 at those very low angles.
Indirect radiation is even less than direct radiation (varying by the hour from 5 watts at sunrise to 18 watts (at noon) and then going back down to 4 watts), but will be absorbed by the “classic” open-ocean albedo of 0.07. 93% of 18 watts is … not much however: 16.74 watts absorbed at noon. Less at every other hour between 6:00 and 18:00.
But open Arctic water loses heat … A LOT of heat that area of ice covered water does not. (Assume a DMI average air temperature of -10 degrees on Sept 21 or 263 K. Arctic water temperature is 4 degrees or 277 K. then do the calculations.)
Heat is lost from the open Arctic water by radiation, evaporation, and forced convection. In every condition, more energy is lost from open Arctic water than from ice-covered water. Further, in every condition at this date, more energy is lost from from both open water or ice-covered water than can be absorbed from the sun.
At certain days of the year at certain latitudes, open Arctic water might absorb more energy than can be absorbed by ice-covered waters. Further, at some of these latitudes, more energy might even be absorbed than is lost by increased radiation, convection, and evaporation losses from open Arctic waters. This effect is, after all, the fundamental case – the only case actually! – for the CAGW religious zealotry about proclaiming/fearing a catastrophic “positive Arctic amplification” from melting Arctic sea ice.
But they have yet to show (by calculation) which days of the year at which latitudes they can actually show a “positive Arctic amplification” actually occurs.
A cynical and unforgivably cynical abuse of the statistics. Surely misleading articles like this verge on fraudulent. They certainly represent an immoral exploitation of data post-record low ice in 2012
“Arctic sea ice extent for January 2013 was well below average, largely due to extensive open water in the Barents Sea and near Svalbard”
Anthony Watts is ultimately a stooge of no consequence.
If this was in his mind a genuine post, he suffers from unbelievably extreme confirmation bias.
REPLY: Dear Mr. Wilkinson, thanks for your comment. Please, be as upset as you wish with my compliments. In the meantime, as I referenced in the story, you can see all the soothing other graphics here. – Anthony.
I would not be so happy to see the decrease in ice in the Arctic and the increase in Ice in the Antarctic, aka the bipolar seesaw. It has implications the Climastrologists are missing:
Ohter links:
Raw PDF: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/cp-8-1473-2012.pdf
Highlignted PDF: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/cp-8-1473-2012-hlt.pdf
WUWT discussion: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/02/can-we-predict-the-duration-of-an-interglacial/