Santa’s workshop at the North Pole is not under water, despite recent reports. A dramatic image captured by a University of Washington monitoring buoy reportedly shows a lake at the North Pole. But Santa doesn’t yet need to buy a snorkel.
“Every summer when the sun melts the surface the water has to go someplace, so it accumulates in these ponds,” said Jamie Morison, a polar scientist at the UW Applied Physics Laboratory and principal investigator since 2000 of the North Pole Environmental Observatory. “This doesn’t look particularly extreme.”
After media coverage in CBS News, The Atlantic and the U.K.’s Daily Mail, Morison returned from overseas travel late last week to a pile of media inquiries. Over the weekend the team posted an explanatory page on the project website.
One of the issues in interpreting the image, researchers said, is that the camera uses a fisheye lens.
“The picture is slightly distorted,” said Axel Schweiger, who heads the Applied Physics Laboratory’s Polar Science Center. “In the background you see what looks like mountains, and that’s where the scale problem comes in – those are actually ridges where the ice was pushed together.”
Researchers estimate the melt pond in the picture was just over 2 feet deep and a few hundred feet wide, which is not unusual to find on an Arctic ice floe in late July.
In the midst of all the concern, the pool drained late July 27. This is the normal cycle for a meltwater pond that forms from snow and ice — it eventually drains through cracks or holes in the ice it has pooled on.
The now-infamous buoy was first plunked into floating ice in April, at the beginning of the melt season, about 25 miles from the North Pole. Morison drilled a hole about three football fields away for a second camera, which is pointing in a different direction and shows a more typical scene. Since then the ice floe holding both cameras has drifted about 375 miles south.
- North Pole Environmental Observatory
- Watch an April interview with Jamie Morison when he was deploying the buoy
The U.S. National Science Foundation has funded an observatory since 2000 that makes yearly observations at fixed locations and installs 10 to 15 drifting buoys.
The buoys record weather, ice, and ocean data, and the webcams transmit images via satellite every 6 hours. Images show the ice, buoys and yardsticks placed in the snow to track the surface conditions throughout the summer melt season. Maybe the instruments will survive the summer without getting crushed by shifting ice to record data for another year. Maybe they will fall in the water and eventually wash ashore. Researchers place the buoys to try to maximize their useful lifetime.
While researchers say the so-called lake at the North Pole is not out of the ordinary, there is a lot of meltwater that could affect the sea ice in coming weeks, in the closely watched lead-up to the September ice minimum.
Last summer the sea-ice hit a record low in extent since measurements began in 1979. This year the melting started a bit later than usual, Schweiger said, but picked up in the last couple of weeks. Late summer is usually the strongest period of shrinking because the ice is already thin.
“Whether we’re going to see another record or not is still up in the air,” Schweiger said.
A. Schweiger, UW
An aerial photo taken July 16 shows extensive meltwater pools off the Alaskan coast.
He flew over the ice last month in a joint project with the U.S. Coast Guard to drop instruments that measure oceanic and atmospheric conditions and ice motion.
Morison was last on the ice in April when he deployed the buoys. His forecast for this summer, based on years of experience, is included on a list of expert predictions compiled by the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration’s Seattle office.
Morison will not change his June estimate that this summer will come close to, but not pass, the 2012 record, but he is having his doubts. Looking at the photos from the recent flyover shows more melt along the Alaskan coast, and his experience suggests that ice is fragile.
“I think it’s going to be pretty close to last year,” Morison said. “Up in the Canada Basin the ice looks like Swiss cheese, with lots of holes. Even though the ice extent is pretty good, our thinking is that if there’s a big storm event we’re going to see a rapid breakup of that ice and it’s going to disappear pretty quickly.”
The UW team manages another sea-ice tracking tool. The U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center publishes daily images and calculations of sea-ice extent and area, while the UW group combines those satellite images and other data to tabulate sea-ice volume. For many people, the UW’s monthly updates are a go-to source for getting the latest numbers on sea ice.
And while the North Pole lake news stories don’t exactly hold water, UW researchers say that it at least shows public interest and concern.
“While the hoopla about Santa’s swimming pool was off the mark,” Morison said, “it is the long-term observational record from these buoys that provides the perspective needed to understand what really is going on.”
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For more information, contact Morison at 206-543-1394 or morison@apl.washington.edu and Schweiger at 206-543-1312 or axel@apl.washington.edu.
son of mulder says at August 1, 2013 at 2:21 am
True, but the 2 standard deviations are only calculated from about 30 years (1981-2010).
The world is older than that.
These trends up and down at North and South are all a bit meaningless, really.
Excellent statement from Jamie Morison, but don’t expect it to get the same degree of publicity as that given to the shrieking headlines of doom last week.
FWIW, I reckon we’re looking at a similar path to 2010. An awful lot of thick ice has gone south, literally, through the Fram Strait since 2006, including this winter, so the ice cover is more susceptible to melting and shunting around than back then. I’d be surprised if it were to go much lower than 2010’s level.
RE: Keith says:
August 1, 2013 at 4:52 am
Besides the thick ice getting flushed south through the Fram Strait during the warm AMO, warm water came through the Bering Strait and took bites out of the thick ice during the warm PDO. However the PDO has switched to the cold mode, and “the times, they are achangin.'”
I’m still not certain the current slow-down of the ice-melt is more than a blip on the graph, but it ads to my unease, (if that is the right word,) that things are different. You add up enough blips and it starts to be more than you can ignore. The DMI graph of temperatures above 80 degrees north has never been so low, for example.
If the blogger “Latitude” is aboard, perhaps he could re-post his link to a Navy graph, which I found startling. I was in a rush or I would have saved it. I’m not sure of the location, but it seemed to show the ice was thickening in July at that spot. Not all at once, as it would if a pressure ridge was forming, but slowly and steadily, at the very time of year the ice ought to be thinning.
We will have to wait and see if these tidbits of evidence add up to anything, however, at the very least, they seem to be greatly decreasing the chances of there being an “ice-free pole,” this summer.
I just reread the article, and see the second camera is roughly 300 yards from the first.
It’s another case of “closing the gate after horse has bolted”. The “message”, as in the Cook et al “97%” paper, has been delivered. And as a thread at WUWT suggests the truth, warming isn’t a problem.
The melting had better get started soon if we are to have an ice-free Arctic Ocean this year. 🙂
Is there a problem with the DMI sensors? Extent is behaving funny. Temperature at north of the 80th northern parallel looks like it’s the coldest since 1958. What is going on?
Arctic temperature north of the 80th northern parallel
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
Arctic sea ice extent
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
As for Antarctica it’s gone off the rails again. Defying Warmists’ dreams.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_stddev_timeseries.png
DMI ice extent graph looks very interesting. Unless a big storm pops up in the next month, we could possibly have more ice at minimum than any of the last 10 years. And Antarctica is looking to shatter last years record high.
“jeanparisot says:
August 1, 2013 at 1:16 am”
Maybe it’s a sled/bouy combo?
M Courtney says: @ur momisugly August 1, 2013 at 4:27 am
…True, but the 2 standard deviations are only calculated from about 30 years (1981-2010).
The world is older than that.
These trends up and down at North and South are all a bit meaningless, really.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Not meaningless just political footballs so there is no reason we can not use them too.
Also there are the implications of the reactivation of the bipolar seesaw (WUWT discussion) and those are not nice. Paper under discussion highlighted.
(Note that the authors assume CO2 has a major effect (sensitivity) on climate which is now being revised. )
The real controversy is will the Holocene be ending now (we are near the half precession point) or will the Holocene be a double precession interglacial. You can find a synopsis in a comment from WFM (William McClenney?) http://www.cejournal.net/?p=3305#comment-7191
The above comment is more straight forward then the posts made by William McClenney here at WUWT.
The alternate theory: The Antithesis
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/30/the-antithesis/
New Geologic evidence of very very quick climate changes.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/05/on-“trap-speed-acc-and-the-snr/
The End Holocene, or How to Make Out Like a ‘Madoff’ Climate Change Insurer: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/16/the-end-holocene-or-how-to-make-out-like-a-madoff-climate-change-insurer/
The sticking point is what minimum level of solar energy in summer at 65N is the threshold for the descent into an ice age and there are a variety of guesses.
The point that no one is talking about is how unstable the weather becomes near that threshold. One point of view is the climate has two stable states, warm and cold. (Dr. Robert Brown @ur momisugly Duke Univ) That is it is bi-stable therefore when it is in the in-between state approaching a threshold the climate can swing wildly as Dr. Richard B. Alley has pointed out in “Abrupt Climate Change – Inevitable Surprises”, Committee on Abrupt Climate Change, National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences. This means approaching that threshold point can be as bad as crossing it. Note the steep declines in temperature in the geologic record. – http://climateclash.com/files/2010/10/Jouzel-science2007-crop640.jpg
Alan the Brit says:
August 1, 2013 at 1:57 am
Didn’t some “expert” say a little while ago that the ice could be all gone by as early as 2013?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Yes Steven Goddard has a collection of them: http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/ice-free-arctic-forecasts/
http://soa.arcus.org/
NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally said: “At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions.”
http://news.nationalgeographic.com
Because climate change in the Arctic region is occurring faster and to a greater extent than anywhere else, the Arctic Ocean may be ice-free for a short period of time as early as the summer of 2015, according to the 2009 Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment Report completed by the eight Arctic Council Nations.
And lots lots more. (Thanks Steven)
The winds in the Arctic have been more circumpolar this year than they have in recent years. This has two effects. It prevents intrusion of warm air from outside the polar regions. This keeps the air cooler. And, it makes it less likely the ice is pushed towards warmer water.
If this continues for the next 6 weeks we will see a rather large increase in the minimum. Also, remember that storm from last year? It did more than just break up the ice. In many cases is piled ice up upon itself creating more thicker ice than one would expect. I don’t think this factor is measured anywhere and could also be a reason for more ice. Think reinforced concrete.
I would think that having that dark bouy and other equipment on the ice would also increase the chances of localized melting of the ice.
Talking of the North Pole swimming pool check this out from the Nostradamuses at the Independent – our trusty snow and ice forecasters.
Then we have the good Professor Wieslaw Maslowski talking to the ever alarmist BBC.
Professor Wieslaw Maslowski later changed his mind in 2011 when he realised he would FAIL. He went on to tell the BBC
So it could now be anywhere from 2014 to 2019, based on new computer simulations of course. 🙂
Before mid July melt rate pattern was similar to 2007. Closest now is 2011:
http://postimg.org/image/ly1frwkk1/full
A key factor regarding the pond that I haven’t seen mentioned is that it’s not all meltwater. It had rained at that buoy during the prior days; a lot of that “pond-water” was rainwater accumulating in the low spot of that ice floe.
Jimbo says:
“As for Antarctica it’s gone off the rails again. Defying Warmists’ dreams.”
Antarctica sea ice area has been setting new daily maxima records for the last week, no banner headlines about this:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/antarctic.sea.ice.interactive.html
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/arctic-ice-almost-identical-to-1974/
M Courtney says:
July 31, 2013 at 11:47 pm
Sea-ice extent at the North Pole has been measured since 1979,…”
The above link shows that in fact satellites have been recording sea-ice extent longer than1979. It just happens that the 1979 year was a high for extent so that is picked as a starting point.
Just more propaganda by the cagw crowd.
I remembered reading a paper prior to the 2007 ice death spiral hype. Thought I would share it. Kinda related to Caleb’s reference to the positive PDO.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/JCLI3619.1
Gail Combs says at August 1, 2013 at 5:57 am
Not sure I can agree with that. Two wrongs do not make a right.
Besides, there are an infinite number of scare stories that can be hyped. If we allow fear-mongering then we will always be in fear.
We should be rational and show that this is meaningless. If we think it is meaningless.
You also post a lot of papers that I haven’t time to read now. I have a job and a test Match to follow. But if they do predict that the next Ice Age is imminent then we should evaluate it carefully.
We would definitely regret politicising the warning flag if we come to believe the warning flag is real.
RE: Richard M says:
August 1, 2013 at 6:14 am
“….In many cases is piled ice up upon itself creating more thicker ice than one would expect. I don’t think this factor is measured anywhere and could also be a reason for more ice. Think reinforced concrete.”
I think you may be onto something here, though I haven’t seen any of the experts talk about any sort of accumulation-of-piled-up-ice. The danger is we tend to see what we are looking for, and they may be looking for one thing as I look for another.
However I have been focusing on small areas of thicker ice because I expect it, and noted what seemed to be a pile-up northwest of the Bearing Straits last fall, off the farthest east Arctic coast of Russia. Also there was that oil rig shut down last year around this time due to the approach of an area of ice, even though the maps showed that area as “ice-free.” That was so puzzling I emailed one of the sites that compiled the figures, and to my astonishment and delight got a long and detailed response to my questions.
One problem they had was that they were dealing with “grids,” and a significant ice-island may overlap the borders of grids, or in a worst-case be quartered by the four-corners where four grids join, and that makes an ice island, which might have caused a grid to report “10% coverage” if it lay entirely in one grid, to be divided to a degree it “doesn’t count,” because the separate grids each are below some baseline.
Those guys are just as curious as we are, and every chance they get they go out flying over the Arctic Ocean to see things for themselves. One guy described such a flight to me, and stated most of the “ice free” water is truly ice free, but once in a while you do see a lone, big berg. Some of these bergs have calved off glaciers, but others are actually created out of “baby ice” being crushed into the formation of larger pressure ridges.
I imagine adding more of these bergs to the mix of each year’s baby ice would do exactly what you say, “reinforce the concrete,” until we got back to the former situation, and arctic with lots of “old ice.”
For me this whole Arctic/Antarctic sea ice issue best encapsulates the bias of climate reporting by most media sources. I have never, ever seen a single article that even mentions the increase in Antarctic sea ice or mentions that globally it is pretty much balanced. Now maybe there have been some and I missed them, but I have trawled through countless ‘Oh my god, the Arctic is melting, we are all doooomed!!1!1!’ so it isn’t for want of looking.
Can anyone point me to a mainstream article that does mention the Antarctic increase?
“While the hoopla about Santa’s swimming pool was off the mark,” Morison said, “it is the long-term observational record from these buoys that provides the perspective needed to understand what really is going on.”
Of course long term data is important to have. But we don’t *have* long term information. Our records only go back to 1979. There’s no record from previous decades, previous centuries, or previous millenia. So it’s interesting what’s been happening since 1979, but certainly not definitive of climate trends.
One of my favorite photos taken in May, 1989, several months before the minimum for that year.
http://olsonglobalwarming.com/attachments/Image/Image12.jpg
Sorry, 1987 for the photo of the 3 submarines surfaced at the North pole.