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.
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.
@ur momisugly 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.