A video animation follows. Note also that Dr. Walt Meier is now with NASA Goddard, after leaving NSIDC at the end of July. This is his first report from NASA. – Anthony
Arctic Sea Ice Update: Unlikely To Break Records, But Continuing Downward Trend
The melting of sea ice in the Arctic is well on its way toward its annual “minimum,” that time when the floating ice cap covers less of the Arctic Ocean than at any other period during the year. While the ice will continue to shrink until around mid-September, it is unlikely that this year’s summer low will break a new record. Still, this year’s melt rates are in line with the sustained decline of the Arctic ice cover observed by NASA and other satellites over the last several decades.
“Even if this year ends up being the sixth- or seventh-lowest extent, what matters is that the 10 lowest extents recorded have happened during the last 10 years,” said Walt Meier, a glaciologist with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “The long-term trend is strongly downward.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiSuUe8dhZ0
The icy cover of the Arctic Ocean was measured at 2.25 million square miles (5.83 million square kilometers) on Aug. 21. For comparison, the smallest Arctic sea ice extent on record for this date, recorded in 2012, was 1.67 million square miles (4.34 million square kilometers), and the largest recorded for this date was in 1996, when ice covered 3.16 millions square miles (8.2 million square kilometers) of the Arctic Ocean.
Watching the summertime dynamics of the Arctic ice cap has gained considerable attention in recent years as the size of the minimum extent has been diminishing – rapidly. On Sept.16, 2012, Arctic sea ice reached its smallest extent ever recorded by satellites at 1.32 million square miles (3.41 million square kilometers). That is about half the size of the average extent from 1979 to 2010.
Sea ice extent is a measurement of the area of the Arctic Ocean where ice covers at least 15 percent of the ocean surface. For additional information about the evolution of the sea ice cover, scientists also study the sea ice “area,” which discards regions of open water among ice floes and only takes into account the parts of the Arctic Ocean completely covered by ice. On Aug. 21, 2013, the Arctic sea ice area was 1.98 million square miles (5.12 million square kilometers).
This year’s melting season included a fast retreat of the sea ice during the first half of July. But low atmospheric pressures and clouds over the central Arctic kept temperatures up north cooler than average, slowing down the plunge.
With about three weeks of melting left, the summer minimum in 2013 is unlikely to be a record low, said Joey Comiso, senior scientist at Goddard and coordinating lead author of the Cryosphere Observations chapter of the upcoming report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
“But average temperatures in the Arctic fluctuate from one week to another, and the occurrence of a powerful storm in August, as happened in 2012, could cause the current rate of decline to change significantly,” Comiso said.
This year, the Arctic has witnessed a few summer storms, but none of them as intense as the cyclone that took place in August 2012.
“Last year’s storm went across an area of open water and mixed the smaller pieces of ice with the relatively warm water, so it melted very rapidly,” Meier said. “This year, the storms hit in an area of more consolidated ice. The storms this year were more typical summer storms; last year’s was the unusual one.”
The Arctic sea ice cap has significantly thinned over the past decade and is now very vulnerable to melt, Comiso said. The multiyear ice cover, consisting of thicker sea ice that has survived at least two summers, has declined at an even faster rate than younger, thinner ice.
Meier said that a thinner, seasonal ice cover might behave more erratically in the summer than multiyear ice.
“First-year ice has a thickness that is borderline: It can melt or not depending on how warm the summer temperatures are, the prevailing winds, etcetera,” Meier said. “This year’s conditions weren’t super-favorable for losing ice throughout spring and summer; last year they were. Whereas with multiyear ice, it takes unusual warm conditions to melt it, which is what we’ve seen in the most recent years.”
On the opposite side of the planet, Antarctic sea ice, which is in the midst of its yearly growing cycle, is heading toward the largest extent on record, having reached 7.45 million square miles (19.3 million square kilometers) on Aug. 21. In 2012, the extent of Antarctic sea ice for the same date was 7.08 million square miles (18.33 million square kilometers). The phenomenon, which appears counter-intuitive but reflects the differences in environment and climate between the Arctic and Antarctica, is currently the subject of many research studies. Still, the rate at which the Arctic is losing sea ice surpasses the speed at which Antarctic sea ice is expanding.
The sea ice minimum extent analysis produced at Goddard – one of many satellite-based scientific analyses of sea ice cover – is compiled from passive microwave data from NASA’s Nimbus-7 satellite, which operated from late October 1978 to August 1987, and the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, which has been used to extend the Nimbus 7 sea ice record onwards from August 1987. The record, which began in November 1978, shows an overall downward trend of 14.1 percent per decade in the size of the minimum summer extent, a decline that accelerated after 2007.
Related Link
› Arctic sea ice multimedia resources from NASA Goddard’s Scientific Visualization Studio
Maria-José Viñas
NASA’s Earth Science News Team
Source: http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/arctic-sea-ice-update-unlikely-to-break-records-but-continuing-downward-trend/
NASA GISS looses Dr. Jimbo Hansen, who decided to step down to spend more time with his advocacy. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center acquires Dr. Walt Meier.
Wow, almost makes up for NASA loosing their entire manned space program and the thousands of experienced engineers and technicians that kept the operation running.
Good going NASA! Things are looking up!
Trivial question: Who’s left to keep NSIDC honest?
Pamela, your sarcasm is noted. My only point was that at
approximately this time of the year (air temps are falling
below freezing maybe?) the arctic ice loss is
stabilizing and has a high probability of having a minimum
that is higher than that of the next lowest year at this time and
lower than the next highest year at this time. If I’m right
then the constant gloom and doom drumbeat that we hear
will be pushed off with a “just wait till next year”, instead of the
“gee maybe we’re seeing a recovery” that the data seems to show.
What matters is
that the 10 lowest extents recorded have happened during the last 10 yearsthat we have a short recorded history of sea ice, and if the record were longer, it would more than likely show that groupings of highest extents and lowest extents tend to group together.Mike H says: @ur momisugly August 23, 2013 at 10:32 am
….A little aside on the bugs….
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WHAT? and you didn’t provide a link to this National Film Board of Canada Video? For SHAME.
What REALLY matters is how incredibly short the record is. We simply don’t know what’s “normal” or how much of a deviation we’re experiencing from anything. We’d need the entire sea ice record for the entire Holocene, not just a couple decades.
Extremely short-sighted.
One thing that has changed this year (maybe going back into the fall of 2012) is that the general ice pack circulation has shifted to the western part of the basin.
So this moved the multi-year ice etc into the Beaufort Sea and away from the flushing south ocean currents that are prevalent in the Fram Strait on the eastern side of Greenland.
It then becomes the weather/wind synoptics. Is the ice just circulating around the basin (in which case it is less likely to melt in any given year) or is it being pushed east where the ocean currents generally take the ice south to melt on the eastern side of Greenland.
This is called variability. Sustained periods of this weather/wind synoptics can lead to declining sea ice or increasing sea ice.
RACookPE1978 says: @ur momisugly August 23, 2013 at 2:57 pm
So, how many years from now will Cape Horn be closed by Antarctic Ice? 8?
10?
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And what will that do to ENSO? Changes in wind causes eddies that cause cold water to head up the coast of South America.
There also seems to be an effect on the Pacific as can be seen in this chart. and as depicted in this illustration from “Stronger winds warming Antarctica?” (Link removed new link) “…Stronger westerly winds around Antarctica are increasing eddy activity in the Southern Ocean and consequently may be driving more heat southward across the formidable Antarctic Circumpolar Current – the world’s largest current….” The Antarctic Circumpolar Current flows from west to east around Antarctica. What they forget to mention is thanks to Drake’s Passage at the tip of South America you get cold water from the Antarctic Circumpolar Current shooting up the coast of South America on both sides. The illustration from the Natural Environment Research Council shows the current going in the wrong direction but you can see the tongues heading up along South America. (These guys want us to trust them on climate when they can even get the current direction correct???)
Drakes Passage.
Drake Passage and palaeoclimate
Reseach on Drakes Passage today: http://climate.gmu.edu/research/drake.php
New paper: Jul 14, 2013
Meanwhile after inventing the Internet Al gore make another Scientific breakthrough by introducing a Category 6 cyclone category since Category 5 is not severe enough.
http://www.examiner.com/article/al-gore-makes-another-hurricane-sized-blunder-falsely-claims-category-6-classif
Of course the claim is being modified as a reporter error to bail out Al.
Barry you misread me completely. I actually think your calculation is a good one. It is blind to the proposed dynamics of global warming models is instead more in tune with statistical models.
I’ve been following the consensus discussion reports regarding ENSO predictions based on model outputs. They put together a report every month, explaining what the statistical and dynamical models are predicting and why their consensus is what it is. Lately they have been leaning towards the statistical models of how La Nina, El Nino, and neutral conditions play out based on what has happened in years past.
That the sea ice report indicates this year will be less than a meltdown feels like, tastes like, and sounds like a leaning towards what has happened in the past (coming up with a prediction based on a statistical model) as opposed to what the global warming models say will happen to the ice.
The bloom is off the rose me thinks.
That’s interesting. In my first vote here on the arctic minimum, I put down 4.8M. In my second, I voted 5.2M.
So no records, yet but you can bet your bottom dollar that if this was an itsi bitsi meltwater pond it would be the biggest itsi bitsi meltwater pond ever ever.
Couldn’t we just tow some of the antarctic ice up to the arctic to even things out? Maybe do it in the winter so we don’t melt too much enroute?
What really matters if the fact that these bozos’ only have 30 years of hard data for trend analysis.
I’ve also been looking at Drake’s Passage. I can’t find studies on temporary closure, only on long term closure versus long term open condition, of this very important part of the global oceanic overturning circulation. I have often wondered if it plays into the interglacial mini ice ages by an ice bridge that sends extremely cold Antarctic Circumpolar Current surface water up the coast of South America and into the Pacific, giving us a series of catastrophically cold La Nina’s. Fortunately, the clear sky conditions that come with La Ninas recharge the heat below the surface and self-destructs the mini ice age. Eventually.
It was always my great hope, that perhaps, we had a reasonable scientist embodied within Dr. Walt Meier’s intellect. I cannot express my disappointment in his ambition driven statements. I find his disingenuous distractions very depressing and as wrong as the AGU’s wagon circling.
One would think, at my age, that I would be hardened to people – not living up to expectations. GK
Anthony: (I’m assuming you’ll see this, and you don’t have to post this if you’d rather not, but I wanted to point this out.)
I’ve noticed, since you’ve stopped moderating most comments, that disrespect is becoming more common. Here’s a recent example (“bozos”)
If one is correct, one doesn’t need to use ad hominem logic. All it does is turn off the people one is trying to convince, leaving only those who already are convinced talking to each other. It would be sufficient to replace “these bozos'” with “they” unless one’s main purpose in posting is to taunt rather than inform. Unfortunately, after a while, tossing in a taunt to go along with the main point becomes habitual, if others are always doing it too.
I’ve always thought that one of strengths of your site has been the professionalism and respect demonstrated in the comments. I’d hate to see that change for the worse, because bad commentary does drive out good in time, just as with currency. I’ve no idea how best to address this, or whether you consider it a growing problem, although I suspect you’re already becoming concerned about it.
And Rob, yours wasn’t a particularly egregious example, but your comment did illustrate part of a trend that I’ve noticed recently. I used it for illustration, not to impugn you, so please don’t take offense.
In fact, this entire comment thread pretty much batters Walt Meier about the head, ears, and shoulders, even though he’s been generous enough in the past to contribute his thoughts here. Put another way, if most comment threads start to run like this one, I’ll find a different way to spend part of each day…
I agree with Rod Everson, Dr. Meier has been gracious here. I don’t agree with him, but he is certainly an agreeable person.
We should all endeavor to have some restraint in using adjectives.
Pamela
Gail
Ref: Sea Ice Blocking Drake’s Passage, Cape Horn, and the Straits of Magellan
I like to tease the CAGW community about this because it is so vivid an image, but one they refuse to have ever even considered in their scenarios of nightmares and gloom about CAGW.
Seriously though, if you look at the extrapolations of the Antarctic Sea Ice curves, a straight line extending through the last few years of Antarctic sea ice growth at maximum WILL see that maximum get big enough to cover the Antarctic Ocean up to 57 south latitude. Which, it so happens, is far enough to block shipping through Cape Horn.
Now, would it actually block the straits or the Cape?
Well, even if sea ice did block shipping for – say, 2-3 weeks before drifting off and melting again, the ships could just lay off further north (on both sides of the Horn) for those 2-3 weeks until they could cross. (Ice breaking a narrow passage through is foolish, considering the movement of the ships in the BIG storms and waves common down there.) More likely, they would just wait in port in early August – though that is before the Christmas shipping season! – until they knew they could get through when they arrive. Passage through the Canal is still possible for most of the ships anyway.
More important, those same big storms and near-constant large (20-30 foot waves) seas would prevent even a 2 meter sea ice cover from becoming “solid” enough to “calm” the ocean. In years past, when ice bergs were more common in the passage, these large single masses of ice would get moved by the waves and storms of course, but would not get “broken up” by the those same waves. A two meter sea ice cover over the Cape would not change appreciably the deeper and very strong ocean currents running through the Cape – which is several thousand feet in depth at maximum.
Still, it is an entertaining question, far more likely than the North Pole being exposed to the sun.
But the heat exchange (solar energy reflection of the “expanding” Antarctic Sea Ice IS a problem the CAGW alarmist REFUSE to discuss.
Look at the wave-it-away sentences in the NSIDC web site and at Meier’s own comments above. They don’t WANT to even discuss it, much less calculate it. You could argue they don’t calculate it accurately as well, but that is a different part of the same story.
The Antarctic Sea ice is expanding about 1,000,000 sq km’s now at BOTH its maximum extent (total Antarctic ice of about 35,000,000 this year) AND its minimum total extent . At minimum, it is between 2,000,000 and 3,000,000. Add to that minimum the continent’s 14,000,000 baseline (that won’t change) and the permanent ice shelves 1,500,000, you get 17,500,000 to 18,500,000 sq km’s of ice down there.
Turns out the “edge” – the point where the average sea ice is reflecting sunlight if more is added in any month, is between 70-69-68 degrees latitude at Antarctic sea ice minimum. And THAT minimum IS expanding, so these “increases in the minimum” ARE reflecting significant solar energy at solar elevation angles that ARE significant.
Up north, where that same 1,000,000 change in sea ice extents means a 50% DECREASE in Arctic sea ice? Could that same decrease occur some September?
A completely different story. That energy comes in at 3-6 degrees above the horizon. That solar energy doesn’t get absorbed, but reflected back into space regardless of whether the ice is present or the open water is present. Net energy flow is sea ice is lost up north? Negative.
The planet cools if Arctic Ocean water is exposed in September and August.
Pamela
Gail:
Look at your globe for reference: The expansion of land snow and ice at 65 north is considered a “tipping point” for rapid and long-term cooling of the planet. If land and mountain ice start increasing at 65 north (on land obviously!) then enough energy to consistently reflected to cool the planet enough to affect the next winter, which increases snow and ice deposition to second winter, which doesn’t melt the third summer so it reflects more energy the third winter,etc. A real-world “death spiral. (NOT the extremist’s favored “arctic sea ice death spiral” which cannot -regardless of assumptions EVER melt more than 3,000,000 km’s of sea ice.
Well, the edge of Antarctic Sea Ice is already well past 65 south latitude: The Antarctic minimum sea ice extents is at 69-70 south latitude, and its maximum is now at 59-60 south latitude – 5 degrees “past” what Curry and others consider a “safe” band for the northern hemisphere.
Mitigating this is the near-constant clouds in the south: what is reflected away from the earth up high (above the top of the clouds) cannot heat up the earth below the clouds at the sea surface. Further, the Antarctic sea “maximum point” DOES melt away each Antarctic summer.
However, since it is the MINIMUM Antarctic sea ice that is not melting away, it is that MINIMUM Antarctic Sea Ice trend line that DOES and SHOULD concern anyone – such as Dr Meier – who claims he or she is studying the long-term heat balance of the world.
Anthony:
Ref: Dr Meier
But, in today’s Washington environment of slavish political obedience, he and his administration – who openly and deliberately declare as the highest possible government (bureaucratic) Department Heads – that THEY will refuse to even ALLOW discussions, much less debates or arguments or studies that might find evidence against their dogma; and who will never fund a study that “might” contradict it, and- if such information IS found accidentally by someone accidentally funded to provide some other data, will NEVER promote or publicize such “new” information.
He has actively and deliberately and publicly agreed, by applying for and interviewing with this people, by accepting Hansen’s position at NASA-GISS, to continue Obama’s UN-Inquisition into global warming. By his actions and his promotion and his paycheck each month, he has declared that he agrees with and will support these policies of denial
He is not the Pope being advised on arcane scientific matters of far-away moons around tiny dots of light where the evidence is strange and far away. Dr Meier IS the person deciding what HIS people are “allowed” to study and he IS the person deciding to what his people and his projects and his reports and his publicity and his conferences WILL BELIEVE “scientifically “
NET /NET there is no really significant change in sea ice for the globe.
The above proves it is not global warming but local variations in ocean currents and circulations ,and the AMO phase, which is what governs Arctic Sea Ice.
If global warming were(strictly) responsible for the Arctic Sea Ice decline, then the same would be occurring in Antarctica.
The time to worry is when the arctic ice is expanding, not when it is shrinking. Warmists just can’t seem to grasp that, or don’t want to.
Rod Everson says:
August 24, 2013 at 9:11 am
If one is correct, one doesn’t need to use ad hominem logic. All it does is turn off the people one is trying to convince, leaving only those who already are convinced talking to each other.
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That is an important point to remember when debating with ‘them’. Lately, I have noticed a change in the pattern of the more dedicated ‘thems’. They are spamming comment threads with a steady stream of attack statements against any who try to argue any point other than theirs. There is no attempt to discuss aspects of climate change or of the article. The resulting comment section becomes littered with this stuff. This has been going on for awhile, but not with this intensity until the last several months. There are small dedicated groups of 2 to 3 who will show up on a particular website to attack any sceptical voice. After awhile you recognize the names and the purpose.
Jim Cripwell says:
August 23, 2013 at 7:56 am
Walt Meier writes ““The long-term trend is strongly downward.””
Where on God’s Green Acre does this come from? Unless we have something like Newton’s Laws of Motion, which permit us to predict the timimg and locations of future eclipses, what has happened in the past cannot be used to predict what is going to happen in the future. I have had this discussion with other warmists, and what they say makes absolutely no sense scientifically whatsoever.
It is perfectly legitimate to say that the trend WAS strongly downward. But is is just plain wrong to say that the trend IS strongly downward.
The trend is about -10% / decade, this year will still be below the trend line so the trend will be more downward than it was last year.
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu//DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/Aug/N_08_plot.png
RACookPE1978 says:
August 24, 2013 at 9:45 am
Pamela
Gail
Turns out the “edge” – the point where the average sea ice is reflecting sunlight if more is added in any month, is between 70-69-68 degrees latitude at Antarctic sea ice minimum. And THAT minimum IS expanding, so these “increases in the minimum” ARE reflecting significant solar energy at solar elevation angles that ARE significant.
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Would this be the ‘missing heat’ that Trenberth and others are not seeing?