ARCTIC SUMMER SNOWSTORM
By Joseph D’Aleo CCM
Remember a year ago when few days of July ‘warmth’ with strong blocking over Greenland had the media abuzz over some melting?
Last July a brief spell of temperatures in the mid 30s had caused some surface slush formation on top of the 1 to 1.5 mile thick Greenland ice. The NASA sensors merely color-coded the phase of the water – ice (white), mixed water and ice (rose) and none (land grey). Rose meant some surface liquid. For Greenland, business as usual, because 150 years ago, there were no satellites to record the event.
It quickly refroze in a few days even before the flurry of news stories hyping it stopped.
The July 2012 melt event was a couple of short blips above freezing.
You can see the ice at the summit was very much still in evidence.
Well, a year later, we have an interesting opposite scenario with a deep arctic low bringing snow to the arctic and Greenland in late July.
What about the arctic ice?
According to the DMI plot it is running higher than 2012 and 2007. WE still have more than a month to go and storms and winds can compact the ice and push it out of the arctic so no promises can be made. The oceans play a role in temperatures in the US and arctic and explain the recent demise and suggest the ice will recover in the not too distant future.
Arctic Sea ice extent 30% or greater (DMI)
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I know this is only weather, but wouldn’t a recovery in Arctic ice over the next few years be nice for public perceptions right now?
Wishful thinking, but what the hey 😀
Do you ever talk to the people who live in the Arctic? Guess what … it’s getting friggin warmer … ever since the mid 90’s! The cause … who knows!
‘The people who live in the Arctic’? There are four million of them, according to http://www.athropolis.com/arctic-facts/fact-arctic-pop.htm. Where do you suggest we start?
Do you think the MSM will fall over themselves reporting this? No, me neither.
The late July snow will be blamed on man-made climate change.
Jon,
I live at 56.7266° N, 111.3797° W and this is the coldest summer in a long while. In fact my entire province is suffering from a cold a wet summer – but what would you know? I live up here, you don’t!
Having less ice up there in summer seems a good thing to me. Has anyone pointed out any harmful effects?What advatnages are there to having it colder and more frozen up there in summer. Why pull harder on the trigger (ice lingering from one season to the next) that will one day put us into the next ice age.
I wonder how many MSM titles will run this story with ‘freak July snowfall covers over half of Greenland’ as the headline.
None??
You don’t say.
You’ll tell me next that MSM journalists are interested in truth, educating the public and are open to both points of view when evaluating their judgements.
I think most here would agree that they are now paid whores, pandering to readers’ prejudices, writing sensationalist rubbish to get web hits for advertisers and that people who still read the MSM for any other reason than the defensive one of needing to know what the majority are reading and, hence, thinking are living in a fools’ paradise.
As Jon says, there are plenty of people in the Arctic to talk to. It seems some of them believe the warming is cyclical – like these weather station operators – the real experts http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2010/06/26/they-believe-it-is-cyclical/
Al Gore was probably speaking in the Greenland area…
AGU report on Greenland melt.
Last year it was “more than 90 percent of the ice-sheet surface melted.” Perhaps the MSM can spin this year with “only about 50% of the ice sheet covered!”
The PR folks aren’t pushing stories of mountain glaciers in general “retreating” in the last few years…so I am assuming the info out there shows them growing now…
It might be fruitful to take a new look at that.
Jon says:
July 25, 2013 at 2:31 pm
Do you ever talk to the people who live in the Arctic? Guess what … it’s getting friggin warmer
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July 15, 2013
The temperature in Tuk is -1C and there’s a strong Northeasterly wind blowing in the morning. Locals tell us it should be 15-20C at this time of year. “The bugs should be bouncing off your head” explained Eilleen who came down to the beach to visit with us.
http://mainstreamlastfirst.com/our-arrival-in-tuktoyaktuk-to-our-departure-is-less-than-24-hours/
Jimbo says:
July 25, 2013 at 2:42 pm
The late July snow will be blamed on man-made climate change.
________________________
Of course. You know- air warmed by global warming holds more moisture, so it snows more.
Suppose Gav’ll let me in over at “Real” Climate, now?
/ <– sarc tag
The Arctic Ice decline is a result of natural forces it has nothing to do with CO2 and global warming. Once the cold PDO/AMO become more established the Arctic Ice will rebound.
What is being forgotton is the near record level of Antarctic Sea Ice. If CO2 were responsible for the Arctic Sea Ice deficit, how does one reconcile the Antarctica Sea Ice Surplus.
Answer is you can’t because CO2 has nothing to do with it.
CO2 absorbs infrared radiation which is only able to penetrate the ocean to a depth of 1 millimeter, which means it has nothing to do with the heating up the oceans,and hence Sea Ice. More BS from the AGW crowd.,
RE: Latitude says:
July 25, 2013 at 3:18 pm
Interesting link. Temperatures nearly twenty degrees below normal, and the fellow sees evidence of warming in the beavers “coming north.” The only problem is, beavers are also coming south to the suburbs of Boston, where they haven’t been seen in nearly 400 years. Their furs were once very valuable, and it is likely they are not coming north due to Global Warming, or coming south due to Global Cooling, but rather repopulating their former range.
I suppose it is like the lyrics from the Simon and Garfunkel song “The Boxer.” “But a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.”
Luther Wu,
Thanks. And we also know that global warming was supposed to mean less snow too. 🙂 They want to have cake and eat. By the way, Antarctica got some extreme snowfall between 2009 and 2011 caused by…………..global warming. 🙂
By the way, Camera One at the pole shows a vast stretch of snow, while camera two shows a neat and large melt water pool, with pressure ridges in the distance. You can pick the view to support your view.
Or you can just enjoy the view: http://sunriseswansong.wordpress.com/2013/07/24/north-pole-ice-melt-watching-the-summer-thaw/
Caleb, they are a hoot….well, all of them are actually
Who in there right mind would think 50, even a 100 years ago……was normal…
It will he greater. Reason: there is a slight 5 to 6 year undulation where 2007 . . . . .2012
I do not trust the data anyway.
‘The oceans play a role in temperatures in the US and arctic and explain the recent demise and suggest the ice will recover in the not too distant future.”
jeez I dont know which is worse, CAGW guys talking about death spiral or this?
At least the death spiral guys put some numbers on their guess.
“You can see the ice at the summit was very much still in evidence.”
Well what would you expect? 3km of ice to melt?
“suggest the ice will recover in the not too distant future.”
this is wishful thinking not a prediction.
If the aim is to stop global climate change then how the hell are we going to get.the Earth out of the ice ages we have had the last 2-3 million years? How do we stop the ice age we have been slipping into again since Holocene optimum, 5-6000 years ago?
It’s much easier to fight the glaciers now than to wait until they again cover most of Scandinavia?
I thought that NSIDC was using 15% as the threshold for Ice versus Ice-free. Has this been changed also?
If so, that would be quite a favorable adjustment for the alarmists. Can anyone clarify?