Image Credit: Cryosphere Today – University of Illinois – Polar Research Group
By WUWT Regular Just The Facts
In previous years there was reason to cheer, .e.g. “Transport is steaming full speed ahead.” “Some serious ice transport going on there. If this keeps up…” Neven, “Record Arctic Sea Ice Melt to Levels Unseen in Millennia”, “Arctic Sea-ice minimum 2012 declared – it’s the Silly Season!” Skeptical Science 1 and 2
However, this year the mood is more sober and downbeat, e.g. in Neven’s recent article “ASI 2013 update 8: the end is nigh” he writes that;
I didn’t think it was possible, but area-wise 2013 is now even above 2009. Apparently this can happen when the weather isn’t conducive to ice decrease (melt, compaction and transport) for almost the entire melting season, even if you start out with a record amount of first-year ice. Fascinating stuff. After the lowest average daily decrease since 2006 for the month of August, 2013 is almost 1.3 million km2 behind last year!
Later in comments this exchange occurred:
Pete Williamson: Neven, I think at some point you’re going to have to stop being surprised at the lack of melt (or the persistence of extent) this year 😛
Neven: I know, I know. I just can’t get over it! 😀
Pete Williamson: Not only has a lot of FYI survived but so has much of the SYI (2nd) which is going to start showing up in the MYI category next year. It possible that at least a bit of a ‘recovery’ in the MYI is on the cards.
Neven: Definitely. This is now the number 1 point of interest for me. A couple of melting seasons like this one in a row, and you could really start speaking of a recovery. But just one 2007/2011/2012 year could negate all of it as well.
So what has these Sea Ice Melt Enthusiasts sober and downbeat? Well certainly the stubbornly average Global Sea Ice Area graph at the head of this article can’t help, but let’s take a closer look:
Arctic Sea Ice Extent;
continues to trend below average, however it has remained within the 30 year (1981 – 2010) “normal” range for the entirety of 2013. Conversely, Antarctic Sea Ice Extent;
continues to trend above average and has remained outside of the “normal” range for much of the last month. Furthermore, Southern Sea Ice Area has now remained above average for most of the last two years:
and is within striking distance of a record high:
All of these facts might dampen even the most dedicated Sea Ice Melt Enthusiast’s spirits, but then again, there’s always next year, i.e.:
“I have great excuses, of course, like the fact that I’m in the process of building a house (slowly reaching its climax in the next 2-3 weeks), and the melting season being less of a spectacle with slow melting and an extremely cloudy Arctic. But still, there’s always plenty of stuff to talk about when it comes to that fascinating place that is the Arctic. Next year will probably be better.” Neven
To see more information on sea ice please visit the WUWT Sea Ice Page and WUWT Northern Regional Sea Ice Page.
Better being worse – these guys have a real twist on things don’t they.
The Arctic sea ice is supposed to be gone this year. My oh my, what has happened? The Arctic has not melted?
anybody wants to count how many sites include the expression “thanks to Hurricane Sandy”?
I think things are only going to get worse for the melt enthusiasts. The recently reported increased clogging of channels between the islands of the Canadian Archipelago suggest less thick ice can be exported, and that likely signals the recovery of the Arctic sea ice. That’s why Antarctic Sea Ice Is the Better Climate Change Indicator http://landscapesandcycles.net/antarctic-sea-ice–climate-change-indicator.html
Ok, What is going on with the
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/
This is the parent site for the
Polar Ice Thickness, Concentration, Temperature, Drift plots
used on the WUWT Sea Ice Reference Page.
It is down today. It was down two days ago.
Interesting set of facts in the arctic this year – shortest duration between 1st & last freeze (see previous posts on WUWT ) & although ice area is larger this year, it doesn’t seem to be recovering in a record sort of way – still well below 70s & 80s.
From these 2 observations, it would appear that air temperature isn’t nearly as important to ice extent as other influences, such as winds, warm water advection to arctic (esp. from the Atlantic), clouds, storms, etc.
This is a fairly profound observation in that warmists are always screaming about global warming & loss of ice. Based on data, air temperature looks like it may be a minor player in arctic ice area therefore AGW has very little to do with arctic ice extent. This hypothesis is further supported by the observation that we had significant declines in arctic ice area in the 2000-2010 decade , despite the standstill in global average temperature.
Yet another AGW myth de-bunked – just like that.
Neven needs the…ACE!!!! Maybe he can borrow it.
Reblogged this on CACA.
The year 2013 has become a nightmare for climate alarmists.
Arctic sea ice at 1.6 million square kilometers greater extent than 2012,
U.S. tornado count at record low levels after an already very low level of tornadoes in 2012,
no Atlantic hurricanes to date more than 50 percent into the hurricane season,
well below average number of wildfires and acreage burned compared to long term data,
no global increase in either droughts or floods compared to long run global data,
continuing linear global sea level rise according to NOAA sea level tide gauge data with no acceleration present in more than 150 years according to the longest available records,
record high Antarctic sea ice extent continuing the long term increasing trend and continuing long term average global temperature pause despite record high CO2 emissions growth with that growth entirely due to developing nations.
One must wonder how long the climate alarmists and their biased supporters in the climate fear media can hope to hide the fact that empirical data is completely overwhelming and destroying their dishonest and purely political driven environmental campaign.
Loved that US sailer on a boat in the Arctic saying the Canadian government should learn good PR and provide gratis Icebeaking service. I wonder how much ice breakers have contributed to the “soon to be ice free Arctic”? There are Russian and Canadian icebreakers out there now breaking up the ice.
To further depress their spirits, not a single murderous hurricane has hit the eastern seaboard (but hey, there’s still time). And the tornado season, after a promising start, was a damp squib.
I love Arctic ice, that’s why I desperately like to see it disappear
Could be a Monty Python sketch, ooooh errrr:
Let’s not celebrate the lack of hurricanes yet. Conditions are becoming more favorable, and one impactful east coast hurricane is all it will take to put these guys back in business…at least for a little while..
Next year will probably be better.” Neven
It never ceases to amaze me that the predictors of doom are disappointed when doom seems to be averted. Surely Neven, you’re not cheering for the emergence of catastrophic climate change? Surely, for the sake of humanity, you’d rather be wrong? Surely you cannot be so invested in your world view, so egotistical about being right, that you would wish doom upon humanity rather than be wrong?
When do we get to start saying “Human influences in the world are the highest they have ever been and arctic sea ice is recovering, hurricanes and tornadoes have been reduced, and temperatures have been statistically stable or falling for the past decade!!”
Thus human emissions and CO2 are responsible for reversing catastrophic conditions. 🙂 If they get to blame humans when it goes bad, we get to credit humans when it doesn’t. Right? Logic!
Pete Williamson: Not only has a lot of FYI survived but so has much of the SYI (2nd) which is going to start showing up in the MYI category next year. It possible that at least a bit of a ‘recovery’ in the MYI is on the cards.
The key question is why has older multi-year ice melted out and been replaced by new ice? It must a property of the (2 kinds of) ice itself. I don’t buy that currents have preferentially exported older ice. The difference between the melt rate of multi-year ice and 2 year ice is too large, and besides this explanation is too ad hoc for my taste.
The main reason is older sea ice had high levels of embedded black carbon mostly from industries on the Kola Peninsula, now mostly shutdown. Newer ice has lower levels of BC and is more resistant to albedo driven melt.
Jeff L, The same cause of of reduced BC has also reduced Arctic aerosols (except in the western Arctic where aerosol levels have been steady due to increased aerosols from China), which has reduce aerosol seeded clouds. Hence increasing solar insolation. IMO we have seen a one time change that will result in Arctic sea ice minimum permanently reduced, although at higher levels than post 2007 (until something else changes).
“It never ceases to amaze me that the predictors of doom are disappointed when doom seems to be averted.”
All I can think about when I see the words “predictors of doom” are the nutbars wearing “The End Is Nigh!” sandwich boards on their person.
http://thisfragiletent.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/end.gif
Aphan says: Thus human emissions and CO2 are responsible for reversing catastrophic conditions. 🙂 If they get to blame humans when it goes bad, we get to credit humans when it doesn’t. Right? Logic!
——————————————
Absolutely! With you 100% on that one!
I’ve been saying this for a while, but the warmists’ greatest contribution to society is making it unhappy when doom is averted. I really don’t understand this self-loathing.
The Left had us (the people) on the ropes in so many ways, but then they committed the classic error of fooling themselves — they believed their own alarmist tripe. Now Gaia itself will show that they are wrong, plainly for all to see. So good-bye and good riddance to the Left’s phony moral imperative.
Bummer.
I need a warm winter from global warming here on the great plains. Last winter really put a damper on my bike riding. Still have to do a 600K rando event.
The last time no Atlantic hurricanes occurred in August was back in 2002 some 11 years ago. It was also in 2002 that the first Atlantic hurricane of the season occurred on Sept. 11 (late in the season) which turned into a category 2 event. You have to go back all the way to 1941 when a later start of the Atlantic hurricane commenced with a Sept. 16 date. According to NOAA at present there are no disturbances in the Atlantic region which are potentially capable of becoming a tropical storm (40 percent) within the next 5 days let alone a hurricane. Yes the season can turn quickly but 2013 certainly looks like it has the potential as a record breaker for the late start of these events. This is not good news for climate alarmists.
The warmist’s are no different than any other cult that believes the “End of the World” is nigh. Even when the signs they predict don’t happen, they just push the date out and rationalize why the sign didn’t appear. Their frustration is that though they are sure they are right regardless, the sign was to convince the unbelievers of their revealed TRUTH.
omnologos says: September 7, 2013 at 3:47 pm
anybody wants to count how many sites include the expression “thanks to Hurricane Sandy”?
327,000 according to Google:
https://www.google.com/search?q=dower&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a#q=%22thanks+to+Hurricane+Sandy%22&rls=org.mozilla:en-US%3Aofficial
The top one is a Huffington Post article, “Thanks To Hurricane Sandy, Obama Supporters Feel Better About Odds ”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/03/hurricane-sandy-obama_n_2069283.html
Here’s the thing: one tropical storm that hits the east coast and they will be back pointing. It’s no longer the “big picture.” It’s political and as the adage says, all politics are local. “superstorm sandy” isn’t called “Hurricane Sandy” for a reason and the actual lack, for two generations, of normal hurricane activity made it a disaster.
Eve wrote: “I wonder how much ice breakers have contributed to the ‘soon to be ice free Arctic?’ There are Russian and Canadian icebreakers out there now breaking up the ice.”
By so doing, they’re allowing more ocean heat to escape into the atmosphere and space.
one thing is for sure,it is a good time to be a cAGW sceptic. observation trumps models every time.
Eve says: September 7, 2013 at 4:27 pm
I wonder how much ice breakers have contributed to the “soon to be ice free Arctic”?
I have not seen any substantive research on the subject, thus cannot answer with any confidence. However, if I had to guess, I’d say measurable, but not major. For example, take one ice breaker per this Coast Guard Compass article;
http://coastguard.dodlive.mil/index.php/2009/06/coast-guard-and-the-arctic-part-2/
If you look at the icebreaker Healy’s Cruise Track for 2006;
http://www.icefloe.net/images/HLY-06annot.pdf
2007;
http://www.icefloe.net/docs/HLY-07track.pdf
and 2008;
http://www.icefloe.net/docs/healy2008.pdf
it is easy to see how effective a single Icebreaker can be at breaking up the ice in a particular area.
Per this report from Baltic Ice Management (BIM) on their 2008 – 2009 season;
http://portal.fma.fi/sivu/www/baltice/BIM_Joint_Annual_2008_2009.pdf
the chart on page 10 indicates that there were 23 icebreakers in use in just the Baltic Sea at the peak of their icebreaking season. Much of it is about opening and maintaining shipping lanes, cruise ship routes and fishing grounds.
However, as Philip Bradley notes, Black Carbon is likely a factor in Sea Ice melt, as are Atmospheric Oscillations, Polar Vorticity, Wind, Currents, Sea Surface Temperature, Atmospheric Temperature, Clouds, Anthropogenic Effluent, Shipping, Tourism, Fishing, Drilling, and several other variables,
There are Russian and Canadian icebreakers out there now breaking up the ice.
Yep;
And growing:
And:
And;
This is a good resource/listing of ice breakers::
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_icebreakers
“Next year will probably be better.” – Neven
If that means what I think it means then what the heck is wrong with some people. Hoping for bad things to happen. Imagine someone saying, “Well your cancer is in remission, but next year will probably be better and it’ll come back.”
Sea ice melt enthusiasts? Are you daft? You think people like me who are concerned about declining ice in the arctic are *ENTHUSIASTIC* about it?
Bluntly, I’d rather I and people like Neven were wrong. In fact, both of us would cheer heartily if we believed we were. Sadly, I don’t think that is the case, and the “pull back” of this year’s melt season does not give me great comfort.
Ice breakers a serious factor contributing to the decline in Sea Ice Area and fragmentation of the Arctic? If you followed other posts on Neven’s blog and forums, you would have read very well thought out answers to that particular assertion which clearly show the activity of ships on the ice is trivial compared to the huge exchanges of energy that take place over the melt season. To be succinct, note that ice breakers make a path through ice; they do not melt the ice they push through.
I’ll also say “shame on you” to Anthony for taking quotes on Neven’s blog out of context.
But the sea ice around Antarctica is growing because of Global Warming. The land ice is melting and pouring cold water into the sea. This cold water acts as a barrier against the warmer underlying water and allows the surface to freeze in the cold air which has been pushed North by the hot air that Global Warming has brought to the South Pole and which melts the land ice.
Or something like that.
I think.
O.K. You do better.
Kevin Ryan says: September 7, 2013 at 6:57 pm
Hoping for bad things to happen.
Per the comment from Neven’s below, I believe that this is called a ‘kick’…:
Jeff Allen says:
September 7, 2013 at 7:10 pm
Why are you worried about Arctic sea ice decline the past few years? be specific, give the your real reasons. And the much-touted Arctic amplification (sea ice loss one year leads to increased losses the following year, or the following month for that matter! It has been soundly invalidated by the 2007 and 2012 ice records – you can’t use it again.
From today’s levels (the average levels since 1980) the further the sea ice declines from late August through mid-September, the more heat is lost form the Arctic Ocean to the sky as long wave radiation and to the Arctic air with increased evaporation and greater convection losses. True, near mid-June there is some extra heat gained from the sun, but after mid-August open water creates a net heat loss compared to solar energy gain.
On the other hand, the greater the Antarctic sea ice increase at all periods of the year between latitudes 60 south and 70 south, the more energy is reflected and the more the earth cools.
http://protonsforbreakfast.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/arctic-sea-ice-volume.jpeg
Arctic ice volume is the only thing that matters now.
it will be interesting to see if the late winter rains return for the western states with the increased sea ice extent. Even though the ice is thinner now, the models made 10 years ago predicted a drop off in the western states’ rainfall over 10 years ago. After last year’s record breaking low ice extent levels, California is experiencing its driest water year in the state’s history and the Colorado river’s source Lake Powell is predicted to reach an all-time low this winter.
of course the ice levels that we are seeing today, they predicted would be happening in 2050. . .
So when are those NSIDC rocket scientists going to get out their teraflop Abacus, and see if they can incorporate the data for 2011 and 2012, and even the 2013 data (well only up to today) along with their 1981 to 2010 average.
If they like, I’ll hold their Starbucks coffee Latte for them, so they can twiddle the beads, a little bit faster.
Hopefully, none of these clowns drives a motor vehicle in my neighborhood; we’d never survive their reaction time to new information.
For some reason Arctic ice is fascinating to follow. I thought I had a life, but after religiously following the Arctic ice melt for the past 4 years I’m starting to have doubts. GO ICE!
“”””””……omnologos says:
September 7, 2013 at 3:47 pm
anybody wants to count how many sites include the expression “thanks to Hurricane Sandy”?…..””””””
Well Hurricane Sandy didn’t do much except turbulate a lot of jellyfish, out in the Atlantic; but Tropical Storm Sandy did soak a part of the east coast, which could learn a thing or two from King Canute.
Anyone dumb enough to extrapolate an exponential trend from a chaotic natural process shouldn’t be running a science blog. It’s quite clear that variation in arctic ice extent can be largely ascribed to wind patterns (+ – dipole anomalies) and oceanic cycles such as the PDO and AMO rather than some sort of fictitious runaway global warming.
Jeff Allen says: September 7, 2013 at 7:10 pm
WoodForTrees.org – Paul Clark – Click the pic to view at source[/caption]
Sea ice melt enthusiasts? Are you daft? You think people like me who are concerned about declining ice in the arctic are *ENTHUSIASTIC* about it?
No, but the Alarmists appear enthusiastic to use every natural event or climatic variation to propagate the Catastrophic Anthropocentric Global Warming narrative.
Bluntly, I’d rather I and people like Neven were wrong. In fact, both of us would cheer heartily if we believed we were. Sadly, I don’t think that is the case, and the “pull back” of this year’s melt season does not give me great comfort.
Perhaps the fact that RSS tropospheric temperatures have been “Flat For 200 Months”;
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="640"]
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/25/rss-flat-for-200-months-now-includes-july-data/
gives you further comfort?
Ice breakers a serious factor contributing to the decline in Sea Ice Area and fragmentation of the Arctic? If you followed other posts on Neven’s blog and forums, you would have read very well thought out answers to that particular assertion which clearly show the activity of ships on the ice is trivial compared to the huge exchanges of energy that take place over the melt season. To be succinct, note that ice breakers make a path through ice; they do not melt the ice they push through.
As I wrote, measurable, but not major. Ice breakers don’t always “make a path through ice”. Often they shave pieces off the outside of the pack ice, which is then free to float away to open and potentially warmer waters. If you look at Healy’s 2006 cruise track in the Bering Sea;
http://icefloe.net/images/HLY-06annot.pdf
you will see that the Healy was not making a “path through”, but rather separating the pack ice in to free floating sections so wind and currents can carry them away, in order to open up the Bering Strait.
I’ll also say “shame on you” to Anthony for taking quotes on Neven’s blog out of context.
I am not Anthony, but please share with us the missing context.
Ice volume is more significant than area:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/wordpress/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/
Jeff Allen says: “Sea ice melt enthusiasts? Are you daft? You think people like me who are concerned about declining ice in the arctic are *ENTHUSIASTIC* about it?”
Without question, Neven and his acolytes are *ENTHUSIASTIC* about the declining ice, and rah-rah every melting molecule. Their disappointment about this season’s recovery is palpable. That is obvious to any reader except perhaps those who are too deep in, like a fish which is the last to know about water.
…but as for icebreakers, as I’ve said before, they are irrelevant to the Arctic ice extent. The one-dimensional paths are far too tiny a footprint on the two-dimensional ice.
george e. smith says: September 7, 2013 at 7:33 pm
So when are those NSIDC rocket scientists going to get out their teraflop Abacus, and see if they can incorporate the data for 2011 and 2012, and even the 2013 data (well only up to today) along with their 1981 to 2010 average.
They actually moved to a 1981 to 2010 baseline in June;
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2013/06/updating-the-sea-ice-baseline/
after hanging onto the former 1979 to 2000 baseline for as long as they could. A 1981 to 2010 baseline is the World Meteorological Organizations standard, i.e.:
I see no reason why that can’t update normals more frequently, but;
NSIDC rocket scientists going to get out their teraflop Abacus, and see if they can incorporate the data for 2011 and 2012, and even the 2013 data (well only up to today) along with their 1981 to 2010 average.
Apparently the NSIDC rocket scientists may not have the time or expertise to update the normal annually, i.e. the WMO reports states that:
Hopefully, none of these clowns drives a motor vehicle in my neighborhood; we’d never survive their reaction time to new information.
You can might be able to tell, they probably only upgrade their cars every ten years, I’d look out for 3 year-old Priuses… 🙂
As
usualalways, jai mitchell is completely wrong.Arctic ice cover is now rocketing upward.
And of course, the Antarctic is also gaining gigatonnes of new ice — a trend that has continued unabated for decades.
Face it, mitchell, the last failed prediction of the climate alarmist cult — the Arctic ice scare — has been thoroughly debunked by the ultimate Authority: Planet Earth herself. You have nothing except your repeatedly falsified opinion to support your Belief system.
But that is not good enough for the internet’s “Best Science & Technology” site. Your predictions have all failed. Every last one of them. You would not be such an abject loser if you accepted what the real world is telling us: that there is no runaway global warming, that CO2 is completely harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere, and that your cherry-picked, carefully pre-selected examples of climate catastrophe are seen to be ridiculous by every thinking reader of this award-winning site.
Take an aspirin, lie down, and try to relax. Your Chicken Little fright is enough for everyone. You only got hit on the head by an acorn; the sky is not falling, as you really seem to believe.
Why are the Russians building a huge new icebreaker if they know that the ice is only going to get thinner and thinner? Surely their old ones, which have coped so far, will be easily able to cope?
Warmistas are getting no joy in 2013 from Arctic sea ice, U.S. tornadoes, Atlantic hurricanes, number of wildfires and acres burned, increased droughts or floods, sea level rises, record high Antarctic sea ice extent is a real downer, and long term average global temperatures are not playing ball despite record high CO2 levels.
However the Warmistas are already looking forward to some really great disasters impinging on humanity in 2013. There is nothing like some general suffering to advance The Cause.
bobmaginnis says: September 7, 2013 at 8:03 pm
Ice volume is more significant than area:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/wordpress/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/
The PIOMAS Sea Ice Volume model is highly suspect, i.e.:
PIOMAS uses an erroneous data set, weights heavily when observations didn’t fit the model and then “nudges” the output. None of the other reputable Sea Ice data sources provide Sea Ice Volume products yet, because we are struggling to accurately measure sea ice volume today, much less accurately model it back to 1979.
Jeff Allen says:
“I’ll also say ‘shame on you’ to Anthony for taking quotes on Neven’s blog out of context.”
Relax, Jeffy. The world is not ending. Arctic ice is going through its normal cycle. There is nothing to be concerned about. Nothing at all. But they have you all scared, which is what they want.
The Chicken Little [U.S.] / Chicken Licken [U.K.] brigade has you all frightened. That is their intention, and you fell for it. Now, open your wallet. Wide. Then you will feel much better!
The fact is that global ice cover is completely normal. There is nothing either unusual or unprecedented about what you see. It has all happened before, and to a much greater extent.
So don’t let the scary people make you pucker up. Their reason is to separate you from more of your tax money, nothing else. You need to be able to discern motives, or you will just be their chump. You don’t want that, do you?
Volume is important, because were warming atmospheric and ocean temperatures the cause of sea ice decreases then volume should decline in line with area. It hasn’t. Volume decline is much larger (although this year is past the peak of the differential), which means warming air and ocean isn’t the cause of the excess decline in volume.
Embedded black carbon is the cause of the excess volume decline, as I explained above.
http://www.climatedepot.com/2012/09/24/nasa-finally-admits-it-arctic-cyclone-in-august-broke-up-and-wreaked-havoc-on-sea-ice-reuters-reports-arctic-storm-played-key-role-in-ice-reduction/
Just sayin, ya gotta know where the record low (over the observed 30 year term) came from.
No suprises on the increase this year here. Add in the PDO and AO and on an on, and it’s gonna be a cold and snowy year for much of the US for the 4th time in 6 years from what I see.
Redistribution of energy principle in play, and flattening of such globally ?
Maybe I’m amazed at how climate really works in the real world ?
Enjoy the thought>
NZ Willy says: September 7, 2013 at 8:13 pm
…but as for icebreakers, as I’ve said before, they are irrelevant to the Arctic ice extent. The one-dimensional paths are far too tiny a footprint on the two-dimensional ice.
Why would we invest so much money in icebreakers is they didn’t work, e.g.:
And it is not just the Ice Breakers:
The big question in climatology may soon be – is global sea ice area/volume a proxy for the fabrication of the global temperature record. I think probably not, but it should do for wholesale firing of the current crop of climate liars and charlatans.
“Next year will probably be better” meaning of course that he expects more ice to melt. People like him are so determined to be right that they cheer for bad things to happen. This year and the lack of a new record has them sad and disappointed. The pause in warming probably has them feeling the same way.
@dbstealy
“Their reason is to separate you from more of your tax money, nothing else.”
I don’t believe you. I’m sure they don’t care whether it’s tax money or not, just as long as it’s money and they can get their hands on it.
I like Neven’s rigorous honesty combined with knowledge and insight into the Arctic system. He is also open about the side he is rooting for and his disappointment about the low melt this year. More scientists like him would be good for constructive progress in climate science.
I type “climate” on my android phone and the next word auto-prompted is “change”. How scary is that! Google – you’re being evil.
The interior of Alaska experienced an unusually warm summer while north of Alaska over the Beaufort Sea and Arctic Canada it was unusually cold. Eureka NU dropped below freezing on August 13 and has yet to rise above freezing as of Sept 7 (today). August 2013 was the coldest August in the historical record at Eureka (80N) with records back to 1947 and was also the first August to record a mean temperature below freezing.
list of 10 Augusts with mean temperature less than 2.0 C at Eureka NU:
Aug 1975 1.9 C
Aug 1976 1.6
Aug 1992 1.4
Aug 1953 1.1
Aug 1996 1.0
Aug 1985 0.8
Aug 1997 0.7
Aug 1979 0.5
Aug 2000 0.4
Aug 2013 -1.2
Justthefacts wrote
As I wrote, measurable, but not major. Ice breakers don’t always “make a path through ice”. Often they shave pieces off the outside of the pack ice, which is then free to float away to open and potentially warmer waters. If you look at Healy’s 2006 cruise track in the Bering Sea;
http://icefloe.net/images/HLY-06annot.pdf
you will see that the Healy was not making a “path through”, but rather separating the pack ice in to free floating sections so wind and currents can carry them away, in order to open up the Bering Strait.
———————————————
Now that is impressive evidence of something Mosher uses to dismiss as “unicorns.”
Such deliberate separation of the pack ice may also be accomplished on much larger scale along the Russian shore line, as this route is used for commercial marine traffic.
Agree that PIOMAS is model-driven and doesn’t equate to observation. Neven & etc take shelter in things that we can’t see or measure, such as deep-sea heat and PIOMAS, and they pretend that it constitutes observation, but it doesn’t.
And to “justthefactswuwt”, what about my statement “icebreakers … are irrelevant to the Arctic ice extent” did you not understand? The efficacy of icebreakers to break the ice in service of commerce is irrelevant to my statement about Arctic ice extent. Your reply was “not even wrong”.
NZ Willy says: September 7, 2013 at 10:49 pm
And to “justthefactswuwt”, what about my statement “icebreakers … are irrelevant to the Arctic ice extent” did you not understand? The efficacy of icebreakers to break the ice in service of commerce is irrelevant to my statement about Arctic ice extent. Your reply was “not even wrong”.
You don’t think that 23 icebreakers in use in the Baltic Sea at the peak of their icebreaking season;
http://portal.fma.fi/sivu/www/baltice/BIM_Joint_Annual_2008_2009.pdf
might be sufficient to accelerate coastal Sea Ice melt by a few days?
justthefactswuwt wrote (1846 on 7 September), inter alia:
“Canada’s most powerful icebreaker, the Louis S. St. Laurent of 13 500 tons displacement (dwt), is smaller than Russia’s four 13 300 dwt nuclear-powered icebreakers of the Rossiya class in service.”
A bit of pedantry here, “displacement” tonnage is not the same as “deadweight” tonnage, not by a long chalk. Roughly speaking, displacement is the mass of the ship when fully loaded, including her own mass and her cargo, fuel and stores. Displacement because it is the mass of water displaced when floating. Deadweight tonnage – abbreviated ‘dwt’ – is the mass of the cargo only. Necessarily far less than the displacement tonnage.
Total arctic ice volume is less independently verifiable than ice area. About anything can be said about the former by activists with little risk of such being properly cross-checked. Reports of the former happen to be changing far more in a CAGW-movement convenient manner. Strange coincidence…
Similar happens with ocean heat content (temperature) trends compared to surface temperature trends. (The former are carefully misleadingly reported in joules rather than degrees but, for hundreds to thousands of meters depth, correspond to hundredths of a degree or less change over decades — far less than the 0.3 degree disagreement in temperature records illustrated in http://s24.postimg.org/rbbws9o85/overview.gif ),
Philip Bradley said: “Embedded black carbon is the cause of the excess volume decline, as I explained above.”
How come ? If it’s embedded and therefore covered by ice then it cannot have any effect. Perhaps black carbon is overrated as a reason for ice melt.
The power of an icebreaker’s propellers, combined with their pitch which is exacerbated when/if the bow rides up onto thicker ice, breaks the halocline as well as the ice.
“Apparently this can happen when the weather isn’t conducive to ice decrease …” really profound, or stupidly obvious?
Apparently this can happen when the weather isn’t conducive to ice decrease.
Iknow, Iknow. Neven is a raving loony but there was no need for him to confirm it to all and sundry by this statement. My god what an idiot.
“the weather is not conducive for ..”. It’s “weather”, folks! You should know that by now. Arctic melting is the real thing, everybody knows that. It’ll be back with a vengeance (they think).
From the mail on line
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2415191/Global-cooling-Arctic-ice-caps-grows-60-global-warming-predictions.html
“Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% in a year with top scientists warning of global COOLING”
JimS says:
September 7, 2013 at 3:41 pm
The Arctic sea ice is supposed to be gone this year. My oh my, what has happened? The Arctic has not melted?
Easily explained in UK environment: Of course, it is the wrong kind of warming!
Eve says:
September 7, 2013 at 4:27 pm
“Loved that US sailer on a boat in the Arctic saying the Canadian government should learn good PR and provide gratis Icebeaking service. I wonder how much ice breakers have contributed to the “soon to be ice free Arctic”? There are Russian and Canadian icebreakers out there now breaking up the ice.”
I think so too. Precipitating the spring thaw/breakup goes on on the Great Lakes and ice bound harbours with the intention of getting the shipping moving.
Maybe you’ve seen this:
Spring Means Great Lakes Ice Breaking
I don’t see why the mechanics of this aren’t identical to ice breaking (in the spring) in any ice bound water. The Arctic has seen a huge increase in shipping activity and tonnage, including sub surface activity.
Mooloo says:
September 7, 2013 at 8:37 pm
“Why are the Russians building a huge new icebreaker if they know that the ice is only going to get thinner and thinner? Surely their old ones, which have coped so far, will be easily able to cope?”
OK you are being rhetorical. More shipping activity to support, replacing old stock etc. It can only increase. Not sure its an expectation of increasing ice but increasing activity.
This does not make sense. CO2 levels have been rising and rising, but the sea ice is increasing ?? Just think also of all the methane that got released from Arctic Sea Ice BS Central when this started happening. /sarc
From 1945 onward the technology to open up the arctic waters has become more powerful (nuclear) and prevalent (numbers and tonnage). Prior to 1945 Arctic shipping activity and weight was much, much less becoming inconsequential in a few short decades back from this time. And back from 1945 means all of earths history.
Of the many possible influences on ice extent/mass it is interesting that the following graphic shows a change in ice stability from 1945:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seasonal.extent.1900-2010.png
I wouldn’t bet on the ice recovering or melting as it is a chaotic system with massive external forces acting on it, including continental drift (Atlantic continues to open up). Ice Breakers, soot, submarines are now additional forces and man made. The trouble with the term ‘man made’ is that any conversation on this topic has been well and truly sullied by partisan thinking that either considers man kind to be nothing but bad or the opposite where none or our actions have any consequence. Neither is helpful and often described in such a way as to be non-falsifiable. We all know this one: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his income depends on his not understanding it.” (Upton Sinclair). Well you can transpose the word ‘income’ for beliefs and mean the same thing.
Out of interest those who do ice fishing on the lakes up near Yellowknife are advised to beware of ice that has been thinned by the actions of shoaling fish. Fish swimming in circles just below the ice disturb the stable layers of water bringing warmer water closer to the surface. OK, this may be localized and have no large scale effect on winter ice extent. However, there is an effect and if one is expected to accept the notion that a 3% of 1% change in the thermal properties of the atmosphere is catastrophic then we must consider supposedly insignificant influences on the climate such as the heated wakes from nuclear powered subs and ships and just the breaking apart of large stable ice sheets.
I don’t know if this is any use (don’t even know if I’m still banned or not), but in my own ‘defense’: when I said that “Next year will probably be better”, I meant that I would try to write more about what goes in on in the Arctic next year, because I was and still am extra busy this year. This would’ve been completely clear if justthefacts hadn’t left out the first two sentences of that paragraph.
As for where I’m coming from, you can get an idea by reading the Climate Disclaimer over on my blog, and here’s a piece I wrote back in 2010 about the alarmist’s dilemma: To Melt or not to Melt.
The dilemma in short: It’s clear that as an alarmist I’m not happy about the potential risks that AGW poses, so if Arctic sea ice loss can be enough of a sounding alarm for the world to wake up to the risks, then I’m all for it. Let it all melt out. But at the same time, no, I don’t want it to melt, because of all the potential consequences (see here).
If we leave the risks and AGW etc. aside, then of course it’s really cool to witness an event like an ice-free Arctic in one’s lifetime. It’s an amazing spectacle, with all those satellites we have to record the spectacle. Humans are after all suckers for records. Cryospheric science is pretty cool as well.
But in the end what I’d really want, is for the sea ice to stay AND see some intelligent changes to our culture and economic system so that we minimize the risk of totalitarianism becoming the only route when the shit hits the fan after all. As a libertarian and believer in the free market, that for me would be a total disaster.
[Reply: You were never ‘banned’. Just abide by the site Policy and you can comment to your heart’s content. ~ mod]
Quote of the week:
Aphan says:
September 7, 2013 at 4:40 pm
When do we get to start saying “Human influences in the world are the highest they have ever been and arctic sea ice is recovering, hurricanes and tornadoes have been reduced, and temperatures have been statistically stable or falling for the past decade!!”
Thus human emissions and CO2 are responsible for reversing catastrophic conditions. 🙂 If they get to blame humans when it goes bad, we get to credit humans when it doesn’t. Right? Logic!
I’ve been watching things through the eye of the “North Pole Camera,” which may cross south of 84 degrees latitude today. This would be no big deal, however it has crossed 84 degrees headed south on three earlier occasions. It keeps getting blown back north. In other words, ice is not getting exported from the Arctic Sea through Fram Strait to melt in the Atlantic. This failure-to-export has reduced the ice “extent,” as there is less ice east of Greenland, however hoarding the ice up to the north means there will be more ice left up there, turning from “baby ice” to “multi-year-ice.”
In other news, the blasted hulk of a submarine from the 1940’s, attached to an iceberg, is currently drifting by the camera. Unfortunately you can’t see it, as the lens is frosted over.
http://sunriseswansong.wordpress.com/2013/08/31/the-arctic-sea-ice-minimum-a-september-surprise/
According to today’s Sea Ice Page the global anomaly, north and south, is minus 362000km2. If this is not the worst anomaly of 2013 then it is close. There’s some kind of logical disconnect going on here. I think that the warmists have suckered you into a fight that you have no assurance of winning. Your predictions of future sea ice extent are no better than anyone else’s. When I was a kid at school and wanted to fight with someone all I had to say was “My dad is stronger than your dad” and away we went. The whole sea ice thing is just so ridiculous, like kids fighting in the playground at kindergarten school.
June sees accelerating melting in the Arctic. However, peak Summer temperatures in the UK are usually around July well before minimum Arctic ice is reached. Of course we can have heatwaves anywhere between April and September. But generally summer temperatures are starting to go down during August so if we were to get an ice free arctic it seems more likely to bring about a colder Winter as open water late in the season loses heat rather than gaining heat. The loss of summer ice is too late to affect our summers (UK) and equally maximum ice doesn’t appear to stop the spring coming. As the Arctic is completely surrounded by somewhere else that is warmer, or hotter even, it seems more of a customer than a driver of the surrounding climates.
NevenA:
Thankyou for your post at September 8, 2013 at 4:54 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/07/tough-times-for-sea-ice-melt-enthusiasts/#comment-1411288
It admits that you are an “alarmist” saying
Especial thanks for that link. Many people come to WUWT bewailing loss of Arctic ice but, within my knowledge, you are the first person to come to WUWT who has provided any reason for bewailing loss of Arctic ice.
Your account of your reasons begins by saying
Well, the “tiny algae” are the bottom of the food chain so if they increase then that benefits all the species up the food chain from them. But you don’t say that: you merely mention the “tiny algae” as a method to appear balanced. And you don’t mention any other benefits of reduced Arctic sea ice such as benefits to trade and shipping.
However, in the same sentence, you follow that sop to balance with an unjustifiable falsehood. Anything “could” happen, but it is extremely unlikely that loss of sea ice would “spell catastrophe for larger animals that hunt or give birth to offspring on the ice”. You seem to have forgotten that land also exists, and that species adapt to changing circumstances.
Also, I commend a somewhat old paper to you which is still available; viz.
Darwin C, ‘On the Origin of Species’ (1859)
You are right when you say
Yes, they grow richer from the improved trade or – failing that – they move and adapt as humans always have. And you enter into realms of fantasy when you say such communities would “wash away” without sea ice.
After that you fly off into imaginary fantasy realms which are so improbable as to be laughable.
We know for certain fact that loss of Arctic summer sea ice would provide benefits. You imagine possible but improbable losses which “could” happen then proclaim that those unlikely possibilities are reason to fear the ice loss.
I am familiar with people who have a ‘glass half full’ mindset and others who have a ‘glass half empty’ mindset. You are the first person I have come across who refuses to see the glass is not empty.
Richard
Neven: “It’s clear that as an alarmist I’m not happy about the potential risks that AGW poses, so if Arctic sea ice loss can be enough of a sounding alarm for the world to wake up to the risks, then I’m all for it”
Denier: What about Antarctica?
Neven:
Denier: I mean, if less ice in the Artctic means climactic doom, doesn’t record levels of ice in Antartica mean we are saved … or even worse, global cooling has commenced?
Neven:
DenierL Isn’t it possible this is all cyclic and related to the AMO and has nothing to do with global warming that stopped in 1998?
Nevem:
Mike Mellor:
Your post at September 8, 2013 at 5:56 am fails in its attempt at concern trolling.
It says in total
The AGW-scare is assuaging.
The scare’s political demise initiated at Copenhagen in 2009 with the failure to obtain a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. That demise continues with Canada’s withdrawal from active support and the much more recent Australian election result. It is now a matter of time before the AGW-scare becomes a similar footnote in history to the ‘acid rain’ scare of the 1980s.
But alarmists continue to use the zombie AGW-scare as an excuse for harmful energy and taxation policies.
The scientific case for discernible AGW has been falsified by nature. The only straw the alarmists have left to grasp is Arctic sea ice loss. The Arctic would be ice-free, you all said: look at the trend, you all said. But this year the trend has reversed, so the Arctic will not be ice-free this year if ever in the foreseeable future. And now you come here to say the “whole sea ice thing is just so ridiculous”; i.e. the Arctic ice cover trend is ‘nothing to see here so move along’.
Those of us who want sound science – NOT agenda-driven science – and those of us who oppose harmful energy and taxation policies are rejoicing that the trend in Arctic sea ice cover seems to have reversed.
And you come here trying to pretend that the trend did not matter. Well, it was said to matter a lot last year when the trend was all the alarmists had. Now you have nothing. And we may get a return to sound science, and return to sane energy and taxation policies.
Richard
It’s always amusing whenever we see climate bedwetters say something like “I hope I’m wrong” (about arctic ice/climate). Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. What’s most important to them is the survival of their Belief System, now facing imminent demise. The fact is that they desperately NEED for arctic sea ice to melt, but only because it gives them propagandistic ammo, not because in itself it means anything. So, of course publicly, they claim to be “alarmed” about arctic ice melt, but privately, it is their most fervid wish, and the reverse of course is also true; when arctic ice increases, they pretend to be somewhat relieved.
According to today’s Sea Ice Page the global anomaly, north and south, is minus 362000km2
And that is what % of total global ice??
AND see some intelligent changes to our culture and economic system
Let us in on your secret Neven. What are these intelligent changes? Poverty, No heating, no transport, no new buildings, pray tell us.
NSIDC’s sea ice extent numbers went up for yesterday.
The September monthly average used in the Arcus sea ice outlook poll is now coming in at 5.30M sq kms (I’ve added 1964 from the Nimbus satellite reconstruction to the chart which has a lower extent than 1996 and 1980 for example).
http://s17.postimg.org/vcnhtohen/NSIDC_Sept_Min_Proj_Sept7_2013.png
J Martin says:
September 8, 2013 at 12:14 am
Philip Bradley said: “Embedded black carbon is the cause of the excess volume decline, as I explained above.”
How come ? If it’s embedded and therefore covered by ice then it cannot have any effect. Perhaps black carbon is overrated as a reason for ice melt.
The embedded black carbon still colours the ice as any new ice is translucent.
@ sunshinehours1
Neven: “It’s clear that as an alarmist I’m not happy about the potential risks that AGW poses, so if Arctic sea ice loss can be enough of a sounding alarm for the world to wake up to the risks, then I’m all for it”
Denier: What about Antarctica?
Neven: What about it?
Denier: I mean, if less ice in the Artctic means climactic doom, doesn’t record levels of ice in Antartica mean we are saved … or even worse, global cooling has commenced?
Neven: First of all, I don’t see how two extremes combined make for normal. It’s like saying it’s not a problem that 1 billion people are suffering from chronic hunger because there’s more than a million people suffering from obesity.
Second, the reasons behind the Antarctic sea ice increase is interesting (though smaller than Arctic sea ice is loss, especially when it comes to volume), but you have to keep in mind that this was predicted by a computer model quite some way back. It could very well be that AGW also has to do with this sea ice increase by changing patterns.
DenierL Isn’t it possible this is all cyclic and related to the AMO and has nothing to do with global warming that stopped in 1998?
Neven: Everything is possible, especially in the Arctic. But if these changes were all cyclical, then we would’ve seen it more often since the Holocene Climatic Optimum. I somehow don’t think that 5 years in a row of Northwest Passage and Northern Sea Route opening up simultaneously would go unnoticed.
I personally think the AMO could be a large factor, especially in the past, when influx into the Atlantic side of the Arctic and sea surface temperatures would alternate. But oceans are taking up more and more heat, and this heat eventually travels north (see here). Detrended AMO graphs don’t show this.
This year was pretty anomalous weather-wise, compared to previous years. Maybe it was just a fluke, maybe we will see more years like this, maybe it’s a negative feedback kicking in. We now have to see what volume and the distribution of first-year and multi-year ice are going to do coming winter. If those improve, the Arctic will be better equipped to handle a year like 2012. If they stay around the 2010-2013 level, a year with weather conditions like last year (or worse yet, 2007) could very possibly lead to new records.
It’s a bit too early to tell. But I’ll report it as I see it, keeping my biases as an alarmist in mind, and trying to be as transparent as possible.
Larry says,
“The year 2013 has become a nightmare for climate alarmists.
Arctic sea ice at 1.6 million square kilometers greater extent than 2012,
U.S. tornado count at record low levels after an already very low level of tornadoes in 2012,
no Atlantic hurricanes to date more than 50 percent into the hurricane season,
well below average number of wildfires and acreage burned compared to long term data,
no global increase in either droughts or floods compared to long run global data,
continuing linear global sea level rise according to NOAA sea level tide gauge data with no acceleration present in more than 150 years according to the longest available records,
record high Antarctic sea ice extent continuing the long term increasing trend and continuing long term average global temperature pause despite record high CO2 emissions growth with that growth entirely due to developing nations.
One must wonder how long the climate alarmists and their biased supporters in the climate fear media can hope to hide the fact that empirical data is completely overwhelming and destroying their dishonest and purely political driven environmental campaign.”
I agree with you 100%!
How do we get this message to the administration and our members of Congress?
“Neven: First of all, I don’t see how two extremes combined make for normal. ”
Denier: Well, there are these things called hemispheres. And in July it is winter in the south and summer in the north ….
Neven: Second, the reasons behind the Antarctic sea ice increase is interesting (though smaller than Arctic sea ice is loss
Denier: It depends on the month doesn’t it. Earlier in the year global sea ice anomaly percent was over +4% and is now down to -1.7%.
The mean for the year is +0.9%
http://sunshinehours.wordpress.com/2013/08/28/global-sea-ice-extent-anomaly-only-170000-sq-km-0-7/
Neven: Blah blah blah … unprecedented … satellites never noticed anything in the 1930s …
Denier: Neven, you would have been better off not responding.
I just find it laughable that anyone reckons they understand the ice melt/freeze ‘beats’ without having at least 300 years of data to go on.
People have only been looking at this really properly for 35 years. Thats half a PDO cycle. One and a half Hale Cycles.
The logical predictions would go that ice extent will increase up to 2030, albeit with yearly oscillations, what is less clear is what actual value it will reach around 2030 and whether that’s actually anything to worry about.
The UK Daily Mail chimes in:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2415191/Global-cooling-Arctic-ice-caps-grows-60-global-warming-predictions.html
And the year after that, and the year after that.
MORE…
The UK Daily Mail chimes in:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2415191/Global-cooling-Arctic-ice-caps-grows-60-global-warming-predictions.html
NevenA says: September 8, 2013 at 4:54 am
I don’t know if this is any use (don’t even know if I’m still banned or not), but in my own ‘defense’: when I said that “Next year will probably be better”, I meant that I would try to write more about what goes in on in the Arctic next year, because I was and still am extra busy this year. This would’ve been completely clear if justthefacts hadn’t left out the first two sentences of that paragraph.
For the record, the “first two sentences of that paragraph were;
followed by the portion I excerpted:
I read this to mean that you did not “cover this melting season as closely as” “the previous three melting seasons”, because you are “in the process of building a house” and “the melting season being less of a spectacle with slow melting and an extremely cloudy Arctic”. Thus in your view “next year will probably be better”, because you won’t be building a house and hope the melting season will be more of a spectacle with fast melting and an extremely clear Arctic. Is this not an accurate interpretation of why you think “next year will probably be better.”?
BTW, congrats on building your new house, alarmism appears to be quite well compensated…
As for where I’m coming from, you can get an idea by reading the Climate Disclaimer over on my blog, and here’s a piece I wrote back in 2010 about the alarmist’s dilemma: To Melt or not to Melt.
But then why aren’t you celebrating/relieved that Multi-Year Arctic Sea Ice might be positioned for a recovery? Isn’t this a sign that your worst fears may have been premature or unfounded? If you genuinely want Arctic Sea Ice to recover then why can’t you “get over it” that it might be occuring?
But in the end what I’d really want, is for the sea ice to stay AND see some intelligent changes to our culture and economic system so that we minimize the risk of totalitarianism becoming the only route when the shit hits the fan after all. As a libertarian and believer in the free market, that for me would be a total disaster.
But there is no empirical evidence that Earth’s climate is about to hit the metaphorical fan, so why should we make changes, when we might be wasting our limited resources on a non-issue?
ort.Is this not an accurate interpretation of why you think “next year will probably be better.”?
What I meant was that next year I will probably be less busy and be better able to write more about the melting season in play, because as I said, there’s always plenty to write about, even when there’s less spectacle on the melt side (this year had different interesting events such as one very persistent cyclone, and two short intense ones, spreading the ice pack, eventually leading to a large hole, not too far from the North Pole).
I can’t control the way you interpret what I write, but perhaps you should offer your readers the full range of interpretation by offering the entire paragraph.
BTW, congrats on building your new house, alarmism appears to be quite well compensated…
Thanks, I also work as a freelance translator.
But then why aren’t you celebrating/relieved that Multi-Year Arctic Sea Ice might be positioned for a recovery? Isn’t this a sign that your worst fears may have been premature or unfounded?
First of all, because of the alarmist’s dilemma I described in an earlier comment.
Secondly, it’s too early to speak of a sign. If volume doesn’t increase over winter above 2011-2013 levels and we get an average melting season next year, what do you reckon will happen?
Thirdly, remember, the IPCC position in Arctic sea ice is still that the Arctic won’t go ice-free before 2050. Mainstream cryospheric science says it could occur by 2030.
If you genuinely want Arctic Sea Ice to recover then why can’t you “get over it” that it might be occuring?
Again, if AGW is a real threat, I want Arctic sea ice to become even more spectacular than it has been in the past 6-7 years, because it might spur policy to minimize the risks of AGW. That’s only logical from my alarmist point of view, right? Of course, I’d prefer it if the sea ice stays in place, while at the same time there’s a shift in our culture and economic system that makes us more resilient against the crisis cocktail (AGW is just the cherry on top).
You also seem to have interpreted my “I can’t get over it” differently than I had meant it. What I can’t get over, is the way this melting season has challenged all my expectations. I thought the ice had become too thin for weather to have such a large effect. I didn’t know it was possible to have a melting season that sees only 7-10 days of weather conducive to melting, compaction and transport.
But there is no empirical evidence that Earth’s climate is about to hit the metaphorical fan, so why should we make changes, when we might be wasting our limited resources on a non-issue?
It’s all about risk management. Putting greenhouse gases that took millions of years to get sequestered back into the atmosphere in 200-300 years, and then just take the gamble that this won’t have any effect whatsoever, is a bit too much Russian Roulette for my taste.
But let me just say that I’d be the happiest man on Earth if AGW turns out to be a non-issue. That would mean I could do many things that I won’t do now, and solving all other remaining, interconnected problems will be a tad easier. Although they’d probably still need a shift in culture and economic system. How, I don’t know.
Stephen Richards says: September 8, 2013 at 7:13 am
According to today’s Sea Ice Page the global anomaly, north and south, is minus 362000km2
And that is what % of total global ice??
According to Cryosphere Today – Ice Area:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.arctic.png
Arctic “Normal”: 4.734 million sq. km
Arctic 2013 Current: 3.592 million sq. km
Arctic Anomaly: -1.142 million sq. km
Arctic Anomaly %: 24.1%
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.antarctic.png
Antarctic “Normal”: 14.965 million sq. km
Antarctic Current 2013: 15.597 million sq. km
Antarctic Anomaly: 0.632 million sq. km
Antarctic Anomaly %: 4.2%
thus combined:
Global “Normal”: 19.699 million sq. km
Global 2013: 19.189 million sq. km
Global Anomaly: -0.51 million sq. km
Global % Anomaly: 2.6%
I would do the same NSIDC, Northern Hemisphere data found here;
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/north/daily/data/
and Southern Hemisphere data found here;
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/south/daily/data/
unfortunately the baseline file “SH_seaice_extent_climatology_1981-2010.csv” is missing, i.e.:
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/south/daily/data/SH_seaice_extent_climatology_1981-2010.csv/
Thanks, Jeff! 2012 saw an immense “cyclone” descend upon the Arctic, and that seems to have been a major cause for the record ice “melt” (more properly, Arctic ice migration out of the Arctic basin). http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/24/nasa-on-arctic-sea-ice-record-low-storm-wreaked-havoc-on-the-arctic-sea-ice-cover/
The only thing that’s melting is the argument for CAGW I’m afraid.
NevenA says:
September 8, 2013 at 10:14 am
But let me just say that I’d be the happiest man on Earth if AGW turns out to be a non-issue.
Psssst! Don’t look now, but It is a non-issue. It never was one. You and your fellow travelers just have a perverse psychological need for it to be one. I think they have drugs for that.
Jeff Allen, how much Arctic Sea ice would you like there to be at the end of the melt season? Or how much do you think there ought to be?
A figure to the nearest half-million square kilometers will do for now.
Not even “The Great Arctic Cyclone of August 2012” helped them out beyond September, 2012.
The public sees the absense of a climate doom parousia.
That same public sees the IPCC irrationally persist in their prophecy of a climate doom parousia.
The believers in climate doom parousia, in dismay by its absence, are now forced to live a happy life in a naturally normal climate. Awwwww . . . do not pity the poor climate alarmist pilgrims wandering in earth’s naturally varying climate.
John
Do I sense doubts creeping in? If we have to act then don’t you think tackling soot might have a quicker payoff than slaughtering ourselves trying to reduce our ever rising co2?
The summer of 2013 saw record cold since 1958 for the:
What if we acted in the 1920s and 1930s? Could we have claimed success in the 1960s?
Pervasive perversity prevails. Warming and summer ice clearing would objectively be beneficial, but Arctic Ice Extent is so persistently promoted as a predictor of a parboiled planet we are obliged to pick the prognostications to pieces. Phagh!
I haven’t read all of the comments or other blog writings about ice breakers, but I’d make one observation. The various measures of ice extent or area are not necessarily measures of ice melt as such but rather measures of open water versus ice cover, aren’t they? All done by satellite? If ice cover reduces through melt and subsequent transport by wind and current, why wouldn’t breaking up ice, especially at the edges, contribute to increased transport and hence increased open water extent? And as a chaotic system, why should we be surprised if small perturbations deliver unexpected or exaggerated outcomes? I’d be interested in Neven’s thoughts on this. has there been any serious study on that question?
Most of it’s in limestone and other Ca rocks, in the seafloor and mountains. What % of those are we decomposing in the next few centuries, do you suppose? I think that Roulette bullet is a dud.
They want so badly for the sky to fall, they yearn for it.
NevenA,
That you call yourself an “alarmist” is the first step in curing your psychosis. Like a drug addict or alcoholic, it is necessary to wholeheartedly accept you have a problem before you can begin to cure it.
We are irrelevant and all of us reading this thread here today will be dead in about 100 years or in most cases far less. Consider how you wish to enjoy those remaining years of this wonderful world and wonderful experience called life. If you think carefully and deeply, there is no need for a self-important crusade, like “saving the planet”, to give meaning to your life. There is no need to live in constant fear and anger. The sooner you can escape from these fears, the sooner you can give way to your hatred and open up to all the wonder of life; and start helping others rather than trying to control them. Fossil fuels, on the whole, have been an incredible boon to all of us alive today. Life has never been more luxurious or more enjoyable. Be thankful to those who have learned to harness mother nature’s fuels for the benefit of everyone! Humans are incredible when they work together to harness the magic of technology for the benefit of all mankind, and we should hold our heads high and be proud and noble. There is no shame in burning fossil fuels. In fact, the discovery of how to make and control fire is generally regarded as the giant leap forward of our species over ordinary apes!
Brian H Says:
I think that Roulette bullet is a dud.
. . .
. . .
you think so eh? well, by all means. . .except you DO realize that the gun is pointing at your child’s head, not yours right??? (and not just your own child’s head but the head of every child alive today).
and does it even matter to you that tens of thousands of armorers, manufacturers and gun-range enthusiasts, all of whom have spent the better part of over a hundred years of cumulative study of this ONE BULLET have determined that it is 95% likely that not only is the bullet live but that the gun’s trigger has an even softer pull than we once thought?
NevenA says: “Putting greenhouse gases that took millions of years to get sequestered back into the atmosphere in 200-300 years”
Fossil fuel formation is relatively rare and it is wrong to suggest the fossil fuels we burn amount to anything like millions of years’ sequestration of greenhouse gases.
NevenA says: “But in the end what I’d really want, is for … some intelligent changes to our culture and economic system …l.”
Society has to make many value judgements on important issues. The costs of action is measured against the credibility of tangible climate outcomes. The lack of action suggests the costs are too high and the certainty of outcomes too low.
NevenA says: “It’s all about risk management.”
If you apply risk management techniques at a personal level, you’d weigh up the consequences of making a fool of yourself if your tiresome worry mongering turns out to be unfounded. Do you value your own credibility enough to reduce your personal risk?
jai mitchell says:
September 8, 2013 at 3:23 pm (replying to))
Brian H Says:
I think that Roulette bullet is a dud.
. . .
Hmmmn. Uhm, er, NO.
See, you have,in your hysteria and your fears,inverted the paranoia doctrine (er, precautionary doctrine.)
You are DEMANDING the world kill millions immediately, and condemn billions to 87 years of a guaranteed 100% certain energy-starved future of poor health, poor or no growth, poor and less food, poor water and no clean water, no sewage treatment, poor transportation and bad food, clothing and shelter in the fear that “perhaps” there is a 1/2 of one percent chance that in 100 years perhaps some part of the world “might” be in worse conditions by some unknown probability of unknown causes of unknown value!
Your “dud round” is being aimed by people PAID to aim it at hysteria and hyperbolic extrapolation towards uncertain futures BECAUSE the governments paying them DEMAND such hysteria to feed their power and their taxes.
Rather, it is the innocents YOU are killing through YOUR fears and hysteria.
jai mitchell says: “and does it even matter to you that tens of thousands of armorers, manufacturers and gun-range enthusiasts, all of whom have spent the better part of over a hundred years of cumulative study of this ONE BULLET have determined that it is 95% likely that not only is the bullet live but that the gun’s trigger has an even softer pull than we once thought?”
Jai – let’s just say we all agree the bullet is live. Just as we all agree that CO2 is a greenhouse gas (so please don’t get confused by that old chestnut).
Perhaps we can turn this into the question of whether the gun will launch the bullet.
The trigger has a logarithmic spring. The first few mm need little force to move, but the force required to pull the trigger further increases with distance. This could be an analogue for Beer’s Law.
And then we need to consider feedback and amplification. The firing mechanism might delivers either equal or lower energy to the bullet than the energy delivered at the trigger (zero or negative feedback) and the bullet will not launch (global warming not an issue). The bullet will only launch if the firing mechanism can deliver more energy to the bullet than the energy provided at the trigger (climate sensitivity amplification). If the gun has no obvious source to deliver the extra energy to the bullet, do you think there is anything to worry about?
NevenA says: September 8, 2013 at 10:14 am
What I meant was that next year I will probably be less busy and be better able to write more about the melting season in play, because as I said, there’s always plenty to write about, even when there’s less spectacle on the melt side (this year had different interesting events such as one very persistent cyclone, and two short intense ones, spreading the ice pack, eventually leading to a large hole, not too far from the North Pole).
I can’t control the way you interpret what I write, but perhaps you should offer your readers the full range of interpretation by offering the entire paragraph.
I’ve posted the full paragraph in my comment above and will leave it to WUWT’s readers to interpret accordingly, but I think my excerpt provides the context of both you being busy, as well as there being “less of a spectacle with slow melting”.
Secondly, it’s too early to speak of a sign. If volume doesn’t increase over winter above 2011-2013 levels and we get an average melting season next year, what do you reckon will happen?
I reckon that neither you nor I have any idea what will happen next melt season. It is not the skeptics who are making wild predictions and assertions based upon a rudimentary understanding of a Earth’s climate system and a laughably brief historical record…
Thirdly, remember, the IPCC position in Arctic sea ice is still that the Arctic won’t go ice-free before 2050. Mainstream cryospheric science says it could occur by 2030.
Given my prior point, and the abject failure of the predictions to date of the IPCC and Mainstream Cryospheric Science, I’d put more confidence in the predictions of a Magic 8-ball:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_8-Ball
Again, if AGW is a real threat, I want Arctic sea ice to become even more spectacular than it has been in the past 6-7 years, because it might spur policy to minimize the risks of AGW.
Ok, please provide empirical evidence that “AGW is a real threat”, I’ve been searching for years and I can’t find any.
That’s only logical from my alarmist point of view, right?
Per my prior point, unless you can provide empirical evidence that “AGW is a real threat”, then I have to assume that your “alarmist point of view” is based upon some other motivation, whether it be financial, political, or otherwise.
Of course, I’d prefer it if the sea ice stays in place, while at the same time there’s a shift in our culture and economic system that makes us more resilient against the crisis cocktail (AGW is just the cherry on top).
This says to me that you are an alarmist because you want to propagate your political and economic ideology, and CAGW is a useful vehicle to do so. In terms of a “shift in our culture and economic system that makes us more resilient against the crisis cocktail”, the most realistic crises we face are disease, drinking water shortages, and food shortages due to a large volcano that temporarily injects large amounts of Sulfur Dioxide high into the atmosphere, resulting in late frosts and lost crops. How does the “shift in our culture and economic system” you propose help address this “crisis cocktail”?
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/
Is still down for maintenance.
It is the source for the the Arctic Ice Thickness, Concentration, Temperature, Drift plots
used on the WUWT Sea Ice Reference Page.
Bill Illis says: September 8, 2013 at 7:22 am
NSIDC’s sea ice extent numbers went up for yesterday.
They’ve actually gone up for the last two days, i.e.:
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/north/daily/data/NH_seaice_extent_nrt.csv
Year Month Day Extent
2013 9 4 5.21931
2013 9 5 5.17147
2013 9 6 5.18197
2013 9 7 5.20124
We might have hit extent minimum on September 5th.
– – – – – –
jai mitchell,
The IPCC is not only a scientifically blind marksman in its targeting AGW from fossil fuels, but more importantly what you call the IPCC’s 95% likeliness claim commits what is known in statistics as the ‘sharpshooter’s’ fallacy.
If you are going to extend somebody else’s (Brian H’s) analogy, at least do so with a reasonable amount of circumspection.
In its intellectual capability, I think the IPCC only has the scientific equivalent of rubber guns. In a scientific sense, they belong to what the policy community calls the ‘rubber gun squad’; too dangerous to continue professionally without harming the public.
You used the rhetorically nefarious children maneuver? Really? If you need help with your children or grandchildren or great grandchildren or etc, we can help you. Seriously. Let us know.
John
The PIOMAS Arctic sea ice volume was up 46% compared to last year as of the end of August.
Even that number must be low given that average ice thickness according to PIOMAS was down compared to the previous year. It just doesn’t make mathematical sense.
All of the measures of Arctic sea ice are up around 50% from last year’s record low.
But then the Antarctic sea ice may break the all-time record high this year. Funny thing, that CO2.
John
I have posted this document here before, the SRI is a prestigeous group that was contracted to study this issue and published it back in 1979. At the time it was a classified government document (declassified now) and it was part of the JASONS advisory panel, for determining the potential for future threats to the United States.
https://www.fas.org/irp/agency/dod/jason/co2.pdf
This is not the IPCC, this is real. Their models were very prelimenary but the basic science has been well determined a generation ago. This is not some kind of Anti-fossil fuel conspiracy. this is real.
If you look at the following link:
http://home.comcast.net/~ewerme/wuwt/cryo_compare.jpg
you need to realize that the average thickness of the ice in the second picture (2013) is less than half as thick as the first picture (2007).
Jai, how long have we had the ability to measure ice thickness accuratly or even at all on any scale?
Just curious, I don’t know,,,,,
QssQss
Sea ice was typically measured by submarines during the cold war since 1958 by ballistic missile submarines who needed to know where they could pop up in the event of a nuclear war.
http://rkwok.jpl.nasa.gov/publications/Kwok.2009.GRL.pdf
– – – – – – –
jai mitchell,
Thanks for your comment. Always welcome.
I think that the IPCC by its inherent ideological / political nature has insufficient scientific credibility, thus science suffers seriously wrt public credibility.
It is time to defend what is residual in science after the IPCC is subtracted. We can rebuild from there.
The IPCC is damaged goods.
John
OssQss says: September 8, 2013 at 7:09 pm
Jai, how long have we had the ability to measure ice thickness accuratly or even at all on any scale?
jai mitchell says: September 8, 2013 at 7:19 pm
Sea ice was typically measured by submarines during the cold war since 1958 by ballistic missile submarines who needed to know where they could pop up in the event of a nuclear war.
We must be careful to ask the right questions here, i.e. Jai, how long have we had the ability to measure ice volume accurately across the entirety of the Arctic?
jai mitchell says:
September 8, 2013 at 7:19 pm
USN boomers don’t operate in the Arctic. Russian SSBNs do.
Our ballistic missile subs stay in ice-free waters, but our attack subs (SSNs) do operate under Arctic ice, in order to hunt Russian boomers in their bastion.
Arctic ice extent & thickness is cyclic. It’s now coming out of a low period, as it experienced in the 1920s-40s, but the long-term trend for the past 3000 years is toward more ice. Back in the Holocene Climatic Optimum, there was usually much less ice in the Arctic in summer than now.
To paraphrase Einstein, “Alles ist natürlich”.
RE: Kwok_2009
All ice drafts are then seasonally adjusted to September 15 using the modeled
annual cycle from an ice-ocean model.
It boils down to very sparse 29 geographic locations measured by submarines whos tracks intersected as much as 35 years later, but not necessarily in the same month. Adjusted somehow in the computer to make us think they were all measured on Sept 15. What is curious is that 1980 appears to be the high point in the overall mean thicknesses, but the paper really says little about the thickening in the 1958-1980 time frame. Error bars are +/- 0.5 m
Even with the much below average temps this summer, it was still a gigantic melt because the ice is very thin and easy to melt. If the temps had been the same as last summer, we would probably have had another record low. The ice can’t even keep up with the 21st century average anymore, much less 1979-2000. The rebound was nice, but I wouldn’t put a whole lot of stock in it. We did that with the 2009 rebound after 2007, and look what happened last summer.
A couple of last comments from me:
Consider how you wish to enjoy those remaining years of this wonderful world and wonderful experience called life.
I can’t enjoy it if it’s at the expense of others.
If you think carefully and deeply, there is no need for a self-important crusade, like “saving the planet”, to give meaning to your life.
I don’t care about the planet per se, only inasmuch as it is able support to human society.
Do you value your own credibility enough to reduce your personal risk?
No, I don’t care about my credibility one bit. It’s up to you and other readers to decide whether you find me credible or not. I value transparency much more than credibility.
I reckon that neither you nor I have any idea what will happen next melt season.
Nope. But if volume stays low and you have an outlier that is opposite to this year’s weather (à la 2007), we could come very close to ‘ice-free’ (total sea ice area less than 1 million km2).
Ok, please provide empirical evidence that “AGW is a real threat”, I’ve been searching for years and I can’t find any.
I admire and am even jealous of everyone’s absolute certainty here that there is 0% chance that AGW and subsequent climate change could become a very costly affair in terms of money and human lives.
Neven, thank you for your interesting input.
There have been a number a surprises in Arctic sea ice research recently,
This summer we learned that weather can not only slow down but even reverse a death spiral.
A while ago, we learned that sea ice history needs rewriting and the big melt in the 1920s-1930s may be comparable in volume to the 1979-2012 melt, if we assume larger ice thickness at the start.
Thanks to newly discovered satellite data, sea ice 1964 is now at 1990s average, far below previous estimates, and there is more data to come.
Black carbon has been strongly upgraded in its warming forcing by Bond et al 2012.
Research on ocean currents/cycles is just starting to go public, but may eventually support as well, what sceptics have been saying for years.
The last piece would then be the acknowledgement, that either there was similar or less ice in Arctic before the little ice age, because it was warmer then (at least for some time), or that the current melt was extraordinarily enhanced by something other than temperature, such as black soot
Dana “Nutty” Nuccitelli and John Abraham attempt to refute the whole arctic ice issue in the Guardian.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/sep/09/climate-change-arctic-sea-ice-delusions
They say its regression to the mean, there is still a continual decline in ice, the IPCC isn’t having crisis meetings, its still the fault of us humans and that David Rose’s reporting is shoddy.
Kevin Ryan says:
September 7, 2013 at 6:57 pm
“Next year will probably be better.” – Neven
If that means what I think it means then what the heck is wrong with some people. Hoping for bad things to happen.
Well it doesn’t mean what you think it does, in fairness you were deliberately misled by the OP who omitted the previous sentence by Neven:
” I apologize for not having been able to cover this melting season as closely as I did the previous three melting seasons.”
So Neven is hoping that next year will be better for his participating in the blog as he will have finished building his house.
Bravo. Jeremy has the Warmist mind to a T. Sooner or later they are going to have to give up and find some other ‘problem’ to worry about. It’s so sad really.
Who said that? Man certainly does affect the climate, but by how much?
Right there is your fear. Would you use the word ‘could’ if the global surface temperature cooled? Would you use the world ‘could’ if we were plunged into another Little Ice Age? The world ‘could’ could be applied to almost anything!
NevenA says: “No, I don’t care about my credibility one bit. It’s up to you and other readers to decide whether you find me credible or not. I value transparency much more than credibility.”
The problem is that if you don’t care, why should anybody else care? The market for bad ideas is a busy place, littered with people who urgently want to save us from something. If you don’t care about your credibility, you join them and will be likewise ignored as the world goes about its business. Surely your ambitions are greater than this.
I fully agree with you on the value of transparency. But climatastrophism has a poor record on this measure. Isn’t this largely what climategate was about, and the IPCC’s issues over the last few years.
Transparency involves procedures, codes of practice, audit and (usually) regulation to enforce commonly recognised standards. This gives society the comfort that proposals are held to minimum standards, and is a basic way to expose cheating and even fraud.
There is virtually no transparency behind the climate scare stories (as far as a I can see).
I understand the AR5 SPM is presently in the hands of governments before publication. How transparent is that? Why is it necessary? Is the science not good enough until it has been vetted by politicians and civil servants?
Climatastrophism has a record of bad ideas rising and then being quietly swept under the carpet when things go against them. Will the AR5 have temperature hockeysticks splashed all over it? The divergence problem? The tropospheric hot spot? How about the shut-down of the Gulf Stream? Surely transparency would revisit these ideas and evaluate their merits (good or bad).
Thanks for participating in the discussion here NevenA. It is good to hear your position and I hope you don’t find it too off-putting if you get a lot of push-back. It is worthwhile for the people here to have the opportunity hear and to reply to your position.
NevenA says:
September 8, 2013 at 10:20 pm
I admire and am even jealous of everyone’s absolute certainty here that there is 0% chance that AGW and subsequent climate change could become a very costly affair in terms of money and human lives.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
There’s really good evidence that it’s not “everyone’s” and that it’s actually 97% of us here.
I made a fake survey and didn’t bother asking anyone. How did you get your data ?
Phil. says:
September 9, 2013 at 5:15 am
The OP did not omit sentence before the one that Kevin Ryan quoted. “Phil.” has “deliberately misled” readers by not pointing out that the preceding two sentences actually were shown by the OP, as anyone that actually read the article would know. Additionally, the link to Neven’s original article was included in this post. Anyway, here is the actual text from the OP:
Oh wait, so the OP actually did include the house-building part of the text? Wow. And the sentence in between. When I read that the first time, I took it that Neven would have been better about covering it if two things had occurred: (1) he wasn’t building a house and (2) the melting season was more of a “spectacle”. I still read it that way now after a couple days of sitting on it. The two sentences prior to Kevin’s quote were posted by the OP despite what “Phil.” implied. The “previous sentence” (actually a half sentence, as Phil himself cut off part of the sentence) that Phil says was omitted was three sentences before the quote and honestly doesn’t really change the context. It is up to the reader to interpret how they wish, though I think the 1/2 list I gave above is the most logical interpretation.
For anyone supporting Phil’s interpretation of Neven’s quote, I ask you this question–if the minimum extent this year was looking to be 1.5 million km^2 below last year’s value instead of above it, would Neven have posted the same amount that he has to date? I can’t see anyone having an honest answer of “yes”; the answer is then “no”, so clearly the melt season did matter, opposite of what Phil wants you to believe. Both factors mattered, and it was clear from the text the OP presented.
-Scott
@ Scott
When I read that the first time, I took it that Neven would have been better about covering it if two things had occurred: (1) he wasn’t building a house and (2) the melting season was more of a “spectacle”.
Except that in the next sentence I state that (2) isn’t really an excuse, because “there’s always plenty of stuff to talk about when it comes to that fascinating place that is the Arctic”.
But even if your interpretation was correct (nobody’s perfect 😉 ), doesn’t it make sense that it’s easier to write about a subject when there’s a lot going on?
Too bad so many people read the wrong thing into “next year will be better”. But what can you do?
Rock bottom may come as early as this week.
NevenA says: September 8, 2013 at 10:20 pm
Nope. But if volume stays low and you have an outlier that is opposite to this year’s weather (à la 2007), we could come very close to ‘ice-free’ (total sea ice area less than 1 million km2).
Through what lens is 1 million sq km of, likely multi-year, ice “very close to ‘ice-free’”? “Ice free” seems like a pretty clear concept, “very close” seems like backpedaling from prior predictions and trying to move the “ice free” goal posts forward.
I admire and am even jealous of everyone’s absolute certainty here that there is 0% chance that AGW and subsequent climate change could become a very costly affair in terms of money and human lives.
I am agnostic, I am not absolutely certain of anything until sufficient empirical evidence is available to support “absolute certainty”. But forget absolute certainty, I’d settle for a preponderance of the evidence. As I said above, please provide any empirical evidence that “AGW is a real threat” and I will review it with the utmost interest.
NevenA says:
September 9, 2013 at 2:00 pm
Hi Neven. Reread what I posted…it includes that sentence that you have. Looks like I didn’t miss that after all. Unless of course I went back and somehow edited my earlier post SkS style.
Neven, there is a lot going on in the Arctic. Pretty much just the same amount going on up there as every year. But, I’m guessing the things going on up there weren’t what you were looking for, so you didn’t write as much. Maybe I’m wrong. But if we’d been 1.5 million km^2 below last year instead of above it, would you have written more? If the answer is yes, then my interpretation of what you wrote has plenty of validity. Even if my interpretation is wrong, Phil’s response to Kevin was just as shortsighted as he claimed the OP to be, so I was calling out his hypocrisy.
Not much you can do. People will always read their own context into what you write. Sometimes they’ll even see things that are true that the original writer didn’t even realize/intend. In reality, Neven, you are a fabulous public communicator who is very good at convincing people of your viewpoint. Typically, that makes many people either strongly supportive or strongly against you, with little of the population in between. The only way to avoid that would be to post only numbers/graphs/pictures.
-Scott
NevenA says: September 9, 2013 at 2:00 pm
But even if your interpretation was correct (nobody’s perfect 😉 ), doesn’t it make sense that it’s easier to write about a subject when there’s a lot going on?
But this also speaks to perspective, from the skeptics’ viewpoint, a lot is going on, as you said, “Fascinating stuff. After the lowest average daily decrease since 2006 for the month of August, 2013 is almost 1.3 million km2 behind last year!”
Too bad so many people read the wrong thing into “next year will be better”. But what can you do?
Try to be as unbiased as possible, present the facts, and let people draw their own conclusions. If the facts supporting the likelihood of CAGW become apparent, then people like me will begin to advocate for rapid action to address it. If the facts don’t support the likelihood of CAGW, then people like you will have to offer a gentle mea culpa and we will all move on with our lives.
NORSX area is indicating we are at the minimum now.
I hope Neven is a little bit right, despite all the evidence. Open Arctic and a return to the Roman Warm Period, or even earlier Warm Periods (better) would be great. Boom times for all!
NevenA says:
September 9, 2013 at 2:00 pm
Again: What exactly are you worried about the recent decline in Arctic Sea ice?
1) After mid-August, more energy is LOST from the Arctic ocean surface after sea ice melts due to increased longwave radiation losses, more evaporation losses, greater convective heat losses, and greater conduction losses than can be absorbed by the somewhat darker ocean surface during the ever-decreasing hours of sunlight. Every hour, the sun after mid-August is lower and lower in the sky, increasing albedo significantly of the ocean, and greatly increasing the transmission losses of what little sunlight does get through the clouds. The increased LOSSES due to sea ice melt in mid-September are 24 hour values. Potential solar gain is only a few hours a day, and those hours are with the sun only 3-8 degrees above the horizon.
2) At mid-September, AT MOST the Arctic can only lose 2 – 3 million km^2 of sea ice. That’s it. There is NO way any additional arctic sea ice can be lost.
But in the Antarctic, what is the limit of sea ice growth? Hawaii? South Africa? Australia? India? Chile and Argentina? If current trends continue, within 10 years the sea ice will block Cape Horn and the Straits of Magellan to ship traffic. Got any worries about that – It is as likely as losing Arctic sea ice, and much more frightening. Except it does not fit your propaganda and agenda.
3) You correctly claim that the area lost in the Arctic is greater than that gained in the Antarctic. True. But how much ENERGY is reflected from the “lost” Arctic sea cie at 85 north from mid-August on?
If 3 – 5 times as much energy is reflected by the increased Antarctic sea ice than can be absorbed by the exposed Arctic open ocean, is that not that ever-increasing, record-setting Antarctic sea ice GAIN cause for YOUR concern?
Show me your math defining the heat gains and losses for Arctic and Antarctic sea ice. Show us you actually know what you are talking about, and what “monsters” you are falsely worried about in the night hours.
Try to be as unbiased as possible, present the facts, and let people draw their own conclusions. If the facts supporting the likelihood of CAGW become apparent, then people like me will begin to advocate for rapid action to address it. If the facts don’t support the likelihood of CAGW, then people like you will have to offer a gentle mea culpa and we will all move on with our lives.
OK, will do. I have no problem with admitting I’m wrong about something whatsoever. I hope I can count on you if the rapid rate of Arctic sea ice loss continues. And, please, also realize that by the time you become convinced that the chance that AGW will be a costly affair is significantly higher than zero, it might be too late to do something about it. We all insure our houses, don’t we? In fact, I just signed an insurance policy for our new house half an hour ago. 🙂
The OP did not omit sentence before the one that Kevin Ryan quoted. “Phil.” has “deliberately misled” readers by not pointing out that the preceding two sentences actually were shown by the OP, as anyone that actually read the article would know.
The OP did omit the preceding sentence as I said:
“ It’s just one of several things that slipped through my fingers this year, and so I apologize for not having been able to cover this melting season as closely as I did the previous three melting seasons. I have great excuses, of course, like the fact that I’m in the process of building a house (slowly reaching its climax in the next 2-3 weeks), and the melting season being less of a spectacle with slow melting and an extremely cloudy Arctic. But still, there’s always plenty of stuff to talk about when it comes to that fascinating place that is the Arctic. Next year will probably be better.”
By leaving out that sentence the OP led several readers who did not read Neven’s link to suppose that “next year being better” referred to the state of the melt which it clearly did not.
NevenA says: September 10, 2013 at 2:14 am
OK, will do. I have no problem with admitting I’m wrong about something whatsoever.
Admirable in concept, we may see in practice, as reality unfolds.
I hope I can count on you if the rapid rate of Arctic sea ice loss continues.
Obviously Arctic sea ice loss is only one in a number of factors that could portend CAGW, e.g. if temperatures continue to pause, but Arctic sea ice continues to decline, I would not see it as a sign of CAGW. As I am sure you are aware, the largest factor in Arctic sea ice decline, especially the decline in multi-year ice, is likely Atmospheric Oscillations, wind and transport through the Fram Strait:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/16/the-economist-provides-readers-with-erroneous-information-about-arctic-sea-ice/
Black Carbon is is also likely a factor, as are Clouds, Currents, Sea Surface Temperature, Atmospheric Temperature, Anthropogenic Effluent, Shipping, Tourism, Fishing, Drilling, and several other variables. However, if Earth’s temperature begins to rise rapidly, disassociated with ENSO or any other natural forcing, you can count on me to investigate it thoroughly and communicate it clearly.
And, please, also realize that by the time you become convinced that the chance that AGW will be a costly affair is significantly higher than zero, it might be too late to do something about it.
On the flip side, by the time you become convinced that CAGW may not be a reality, we may have wasted hundreds of billions of dollars that could have been spent addressing real issues, such as disease, drinking water shortages, and the food impact of large sulfur dioxide rich volcanic eruption.
We all insure our houses, don’t we?
But we insure against reasonably likely threats, e.g. if they had told you that alien invasion protection for your house would be an extra $1,000 a year, would you take it? I assume not, because the likelihood of this threat is so de minimus as to not justify the investment. The issue that we have with CAGW is that the cost of the insurance does not appear to be commensurate with the likelihood of the threat.
In fact, I just signed an insurance policy for our new house half an hour ago. 🙂
Again, congrats, just beware, there are so many exclusions and limitations in those things, if anything out of the ordinary happens, trying to get a claim paid can be like a root canal… 🙂
Looks like the “pole” cams are done for the season. Cam 1 of course fell over (or according to some was pawed by a bear). It has been buried in the snow for several weeks. Cam 2 has been iced over now for several days. I doubt it will experience enough warmth at that point to de-ice. As the cams are well above the Arctic Circle and unlikely to move very much, Arctic night will fall in a matter of weeks and that will really be it for the year.
End of Trough Times For Sea Ice Melt Enthusiasts…
Estimates [ie: predictions] of 2013 Arctic sea ice extent have a directly inverse correlation with the climate alarmist’s false narrative:
http://stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/screenhunter_143-sep-03-13-40.jpg
That indicates that the last bastion of alarmist scares — Arctic sea ice — is predicated entirely upon politics, not on any testable science.
Thus, the final humiliiation of the climate alarmist cult plays out. They have got everything wrong. No exceptions.
OK. Since you refuse to tell us why the decline in Arctic sea ice area from today’s limits at the minimum point will be any kind of hazard at all …. Let me see if I understand this “insurance policy” you DEMAND the world buy to ease YOUR fears of some far future catastrophe which you cannot quantify, and which all present trends show will not occur at all.
So, you DEMAND the world pay a guaranteed 100% assured forced-by-government 1.3 trillion dollars a year for 87 years – killing millions through food loss, cold, lack of decent food, clothing, shelter, transportation, bad water, job loss, fodder loss, feed loss, and bad sewage, and harming 100% definitely billions of other victims of YOUR fears by condemning them to an 87 year future of bad roads and no rails and limited power … in order that the world “might have have a 5% chance of avoiding a “part” of a fraction of potential increase in world temperature of less than 2 degrees. And, by the way, such a 2 degree increase promises nothing but good for the world. And the CO2 now being released serves to green the planet, increase plant and animal growth, and provide even more food, fodder, fuel, feed, and fortune.
So, what is the “cost” if the world gains 2 degrees by 2100? Nothing. What is the chance of gaining 2 degrees by 2100? 10%? 5%
So, what is the “cost” if the world gains 3 degrees by 2100? We have to move 100,000 residences from low-lying pacific islands. Or, then again, maybe we don’t need to move them at all. So, is that a 2% chance of harm IF the 2% chance of increasing temperature by 3 degrees actually happens?
So? The liberal’s CAGW Precautionary Principle: Guaranteed harm to billions for a hundred years in order than a chosen few “might” have a chance of not fearing a potential heat gain.
Sure. I’ll sell you an insurance policy for your $200,000.00 home. Pay me 1,000,000.00 per year every year for one hundred years, and I’ll pay for your mailbox if the house burns down during a hurricane but only if a blizzard causes the pipes to freeze the night before.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/
Is still down for maintenance, going on 6 days right at the Ice Minimue.
Looks to me like this budget line deserves to be zero’ed out.
It is the source for the the Arctic Ice Thickness, Concentration, Temperature, Drift plots
used on the WUWT Sea Ice Reference Page.
Looks like we are really close to the dA/dt= 0 point. Depending on which “measurement” you trust, we are either there now or within a week or two of being there.
Pole Cam 2 defrosted today. Pretty mundane view of overcast and snow. Nothing to see there, move along.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/
is back up on on Sunday Sep 15. I had not checked Friday.