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.
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
@ur momisugly 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.