Measurements from ESA’s CryoSat satellite show that the volume of Arctic sea ice has significantly increased this past autumn.
The volume of ice measured this autumn is about 50% higher compared to last year. In October 2013, CryoSat measured about 9000 cubic km of sea ice – a notable increase compared to 6000 cubic km in October 2012.
See animation:
Over the last few decades, satellites have shown a downward trend in the area of Arctic Ocean covered by ice. However, the actual volume of sea ice has proven difficult to determine because it moves around and so its thickness can change.
CryoSat was designed to measure sea-ice thickness across the entire Arctic Ocean, and has allowed scientists, for the first time, to monitor the overall change in volume accurately.
About 90% of the increase is due to growth of multiyear ice – which survives through more than one summer without melting – with only 10% growth of first year ice. Thick, multiyear ice indicates healthy Arctic sea-ice cover.
This year’s multiyear ice is now on average about 20%, or around 30 cm, thicker than last year.
“One of the things we’d noticed in our data was that the volume of ice year-to-year was not varying anything like as much as the ice extent – at least in 2010, 2011 and 2012,” said Rachel Tilling from the UK’s Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling, who led the study.
“We didn’t expect the greater ice extent left at the end of this summer’s melt to be reflected in the volume. But it has been, and the reason is related to the amount of multiyear ice in the Arctic.”
While this increase in ice volume is welcome news, it does not indicate a reversal in the long-term trend.
“It’s estimated that there was around 20 000 cubic kilometres of Arctic sea ice each October in the early 1980s, and so today’s minimum still ranks among the lowest of the past 30 years,” said Professor Andrew Shepherd from University College London, a co-author of the study.
The findings from a team of UK researchers at the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling were presented last week at the American Geophysical Union’s autumn meeting in San Francisco, California.
“We are very pleased that we were able to present these results in time for the conference despite some technical problems we had with the satellite in October, which are now completely solved,” said Tommaso Parrinello, ESA’s CryoSat Mission Manager.
In October, CryoSat’s difficulties with its power system threatened the continuous supply of data, but normal operations resumed just over a week later.
With the seasonal freeze-up now underway, CryoSat will continue its routine measurement of sea ice. Over the coming months, the data will reveal just how much this summer’s increase has affected winter ice volumes.
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Source: European Space Agency
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/CryoSat/Arctic_sea_ice_up_from_record_low
For more data, see the WUWT Sea ice Reference page: http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/
h/t to WUWT reader Larry Kirk
Does anyone remember the “true believers'” response some time back when satellites documented that the Arctic summer sea ice extent had bottomed out and was on the increase? Their mantra was, “Oh, but the volume of Arctic ice continues to decline. It’s getting thinner. The ‘old’ ice continues to decline.”
Wrong yet again!
This is something for insurers of the Northwest Passage shipping BS to take note of. It will not phase Green Peace though.
Tom O says:
February 5, 2014 at 5:13 am
CodeTech, I agree in part with what you are saying about the floating ice – and the ice extent increase, for that matter, in Antarctica. However, I also know that when all the ice in my Rum and Coke melts, my drink gets warmer, so I don’t agree with the comment that it doesn’t matter or is meaningless in the big picture.
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Does your drink get warmer because the ice melts or is the ice melting because your drink is getting warmer? those two propositions are not the same thing.
albertalad says:
February 5, 2014 at 12:50 am
Oh my – now what? As we all know there is no ice. All the models said so. The global warming fanatics said the Arctic is ice free and they have the models to prove their point. This will never do.
Actually the models predict slower decrease in seaice than has been observed, the usual complaint was that the general models significantly underestimate the decline.
OT but this is amazing!
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2014/2/4/government-abandons-temperature-records.html
Phil.:
At February 5, 2014 at 6:43 am you say
Really? Please provide citations to substantiate that assertion.
Richard
Ladies and Gentlemen including Anthony Watts
I see obvious systematic errors in it.
Look at the video display graphs of Oct 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013.
There is obvious unnatural radial white and blue stripes in the thinner ice, that hardly has got any other natural explaination than the satelite going in polar orbit.
We see a very obvious, classic method and device- artifact and systematic error.
What that means for the arguments derived from it, I shall not tell, but you may think for yourselves.
Moral: Allways be aware of and keep in mind possible bias due to systematic errors. And here you see a rather obvious one.
How shall we smooth out for that error? Scrapers and sandpaper? Paint? ..Scissers?….?
But on the other hand, such device and method artifacts and obvious dirt and errors are also proof that the measurements are done at all.
A quite important method for security is to have it from another and independent source and institute also, and possibly even by another experimental or measuring method. Before you can be damned sure and allow yourself to smash around with it.
My guess looking at COLA anomaly temp maps to date is that January 2014 will hit a minus sign ~(-0.2C)
Oh no! 50% growth per year? The Arctic sea ice will soon cover the whole planet!
Richard, I believe that is correct. It was a classic case of “it’s worse than we thought”. One of the few areas where models where not extreme enough. J.Curry has commented a few time recently that models have been retuned to better match the Arctic ‘amplified’ warming and as a result get just about everything else even further from reality than before.
Well it looks like it’s time to tune/rig/fudge the “physics based models” back again.
Much ado about little blips in the weather. Silly.
“My guess looking at COLA anomaly temp maps”
What the heck’s one of those ? Is that Coke or Pepsi? Any chance of being less cryptic and spelling a couple of words in full to give us a clue?
@ur momisugly larry Kirk
Very fine, thank you.
The “cryosphere” is quite important.
Now we have it warm. Whether one can hammer nails into the soil or dig, that makes quite a difference.
My wife comes from Niedersachsen. There they have not got that “Tæle” and even “Tæla-frost!” we call it, probably Tegula.
And what melts the ices in spring? It hardly is the sunshine. Grey and warm and western winds and rains are much more efficient.
Carbomontanus: “There is obvious unnatural radial white and blue stripes in the thinner ice, that hardly has got any other natural explaination than the satelite going in polar orbit.
We see a very obvious, classic method and device- artifact and systematic error. ”
Yes, I also concluded those formations were sampling error due to orbit tracks. Whatever you do to round or average them out you are not going to get rid of 50% more volume.
However, these results do not agree with PIOMAS ice model so they obviously need to be “corrected”. I give it 6 months before they find a “bias correction” to “improve” the accuracy of the problematic data.
But, but, darker sea water, absorbing sun’s head, thermal build up, more melting next time, death spiral, ice-free Arctic. Well, at least that’s what I was told. By the way extent has always been important to Warmists until it grows then it shifts to volume until that grows. You should know by now how the game is played.
I meant
But, but, darker sea water, absorbing sun’s heat,……
Greg:
Thankyou for your reply on behalf of Phil. which you provide at February 5, 2014 at 7:22 am.
I asked for citations to support his claim at February 5, 2014 at 6:43 am which said
I still want the citations despite your post saying
There is a simple reason why I want the citations. It is that
polar ice has been growing; n.b. NOT reducing.
Arctic sea ice was reducing but the increase to Antarctic ice was greater so total polar ice is now at an all-time high in the short record for polar ice.
I recognise that not all polar ice is sea ice, but I find it difficult to accept the models were predicting anything like “slower decrease in seaice than has been observed” when the models predicted polar amplification of warming which has not happened.
Discussions about (some?) models underestimating sea ice loss seem likely to be an example of misdirection which is typical of wamunists; i.e. it’s worse than we thought.
So, I want citations.
Richard
Carbomontanus says:
February 5, 2014 at 7:08 am
…We see a very obvious, classic method and device- artifact and systematic error…
But on the other hand, such device and method artifacts and obvious dirt and errors are also proof that the measurements are done at all.
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Well, there is value in “proof”, but to me, the uncorrected data still indicates the general state/conditions observed.
Exactly! Take note kent blaker. Some of us have been around the CAGW fight for sometime and we have heard many defences from Warmists. They keep shifting more than Arctic sea ice.
Eliza I meant February 2014 NOT January will come in at around minus -02C anomaly, apologies
Like you, I am completely confused as to the meaning of “healthy”. Growing ice is much more “alarming” than decreasing ice. The biosphere increases with decreasing polar ice and decreases with increasing ice. The safe (healthy?) direction is decreasing ice NOT the other.
Many seem to have heads on backwards due to ideology instead of biology. GK
COLA maps here
http://wxmaps.org/pix/clim.html
Richard 111 at 12:33
“Air temperatures are well below freezing and little to no sun so what is limiting the normal growth? In the link above is a pointer to Arctic winds and It looks to me whenever strong winds blow towards the ice the new ice is pushed back in top of the previous ice.”
I’ve been wondering the same thing,after a nice fast start ice growth has been less than I hoped. (How long does it take ice to re-form in an area after wind or current has pushed the previous ice away?) My guess is that it’s sea surface temp. What to expect this next month, steady growth or jump?
richardscourtney says:
February 5, 2014 at 6:59 am
Phil.:
At February 5, 2014 at 6:43 am you say
Actually the models predict slower decrease in seaice than has been observed, the usual complaint was that the general models significantly underestimate the decline.
Really? Please provide citations to substantiate that assertion.
Richard
Here’re papers from Stroeve et al.: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2007GL029703/abstract
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2012GL052676/abstract
Here’s a figure illustrating the findings:
http://amper.ped.muni.cz/gw/diagnosis/fig_cz/.w/stroeve_sea_ice2007.pdf
http://nsidc.org/news/images/20070430Figure1.png
Here’s another source:
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2011/10/ipcc-models-underestimate-future-sea-ice-loss-new-scientific-paper/
Jimbo; been a fan of this site a long time. When people say that open water in the Arctic absorbs more sunlight than ice covered water, i ask them ‘what happens when the sun don’t shine”? The more area that is ice free in the winter, the more cooling that takes place.