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
New measurement method for ice in development by NASA:
New results from NASA’s MABEL campaign demonstrated that a photon-counting technique will allow researchers to track the melt or growth of Earth’s frozen regions.
When a high-altitude aircraft flew over the icy Arctic Ocean and the snow-covered terrain of Greenland in April 2012, it was the first polar test of a new laser-based technology to measure the height of Earth from space.
Aboard that aircraft flew the Multiple Altimeter Beam Experimental Lidar, or MABEL, which is an airborne test bed instrument for NASA’s ICESat-2 satellite mission slated to launch in 2017. Both MABEL and ICESat-2’s ATLAS instrument are photon counters – they send out pulses of green laser light and time how long it takes individual light photons to bounce off Earth’s surface and return. That time, along with ATLAS’ exact position from an onboard GPS, will be plugged into computer programs to tell researchers the elevation of Earth’s surface – measuring change to as little as the width of a pencil.
More at:
http://www.photonicsonline.com/doc/new-nasa-laser-technology-reveals-how-ice-measures-up-0001
@RACookPE1978 al.
You should try and do this a little bit easier.
By learning to think in terms of the principle of Le Chatelier for instance
“The effect of variables such as pressure, temperature and concentration on the position of chemical (and physical and biological and social and political and economical…) eqvilibrium have been successfully summarized by Henri Le Chatelier (1888):
“Any change in one of the variables that determines the state of a system in equilibrium causes a shift in the position of equilibrium in a direction that tends to bcounteract the change in the variable under conscideration.”
This is a principle of broad and general utility and it can be applied not only to chemical equilibria but to equilibrium states in any physical system.. It is possible that it can be applied also with good success in the psychological, economical and sociological field…..”
Thus pleace help yourself.
This is from Physical Chemistery by Walter J. Moore, Indiana University, Fourth edition, Longmans..
Things happening that seem to counter- dict may rather tend to counter- act.
The question is, when the resources given that are able to counter- act are at an end, what will happen then?
Well,…. then we are not at an equilibrium anymore. Then there will be a so called “runaway”- effect.
and that is quite exactly what “alarmism” is trying to sell or to tell people.
So we rather ought to be aware of this and of Le Chateriers principle and discuss that instead, because that will be a more valid and fruitful discussion.
Signals that seem to “counter- dict” may thus rather counter- act, and may as well be rather alarming signals.
The religion and rumors of having to counter- dict, so called “Denial”, is rather the Mao and DDR and Lenin- and Cernobyl- religion before it blew up or before they were all out of money and out of charge, and broke.
Dia- lectic materialism is not at all as good as the proinciple of Le Chatelier.
And to all and everyone especially also including Anthony Watts:
Le Chateliers principle rules for meteorology and for the weathers of course. The Frogs are not allways so stupid, there are exeptions. And be aware that this way of thinking or shall we say grasping or worshiping is more or less religiously behind the fameous “Homøostase” theory of biology and of health, of the fameous GAIA- theory, and even creative design- theories. Just that we know it.
But Le Chateliers principle is relly a very fine lamp or enlightment for proper thought.
So it’s not just the ice extent that has increased, the volume has gone up 50% over the year before. So much for “It is just thin, rotten ice” that will melt quickly. One year is not a trend, but it is also not consistent with the notion of an irreversible, runaway Arctic death spiral that is beyond the tipping point, as the consensus crowd likes to claim.
fantastic. human psychology at work: when everybody thinks the market will go up for ever, it drops. when everybody thinks the market will crash to 0, it goes up… there is absolutely no difference in how this human psychology works on global warming, sea ice extent etc:
when everybody thinks it will get warmer (2000s) and the earth is heading into total meltup it is getting colder
when everybody thinks it will get colder and the earth is heading into an ice age (1970s) it is getting warmer
when everybody thinks the (polar) ice caps are melting to an ice-cub size, they start increasing in size.
This psychology cycle will continue for ever, because our psychology won’t change! Scientists are not immune to this either since they are human too. Fun to watch this all unfold.
Why? Because it indicates that the only real climate threat, global cooling, could be on the way? This is “welcome news”?
Actually, that is exactly what it is evidence of. It is not conclusive evidence, but a turn in this year’s observed sea ice volume is evidence that there may have been a turn in the long term trend. To claim it does not indicate what it TENDS to indicate is perverse. How about a simple honest statement that we will need to see a few more years data before we have a good idea of whether this one year reversal is part of a long term reversal?
Ah, because admitting that the short term reversal could be the start of a long term reversal would allow doubt as to the validity of the models of CO2-driven warming that have already been falsified many times over. The purpose of Cryosat is to supply the observational data that theories are trying to explain. It shouldn’t be taking highly speculative positions on what in theory will happen next and stating them as matters of fact!
Thanks for the link Jimbo, this is also a useful site when looking at Arctic extent. http://seaiceatlas.snap.uaf.edu
The LongWave Radiation exchange is relatively basic, but does depend on the relative humidity in the air and the amount of clouds: Radiation losses are greatest on a clear night with almost no humidity, and are least with a cloudy or foggy night with a high relative humidity. In general, this is self-reinforcing: Open ocean waters or open water in ice leads between polar ice flows will have higher humidity levels than a closed-over ice pack solid across the water.
So, the S-B Laws reigns: Radiation losses are proportional to the surface emissivity and (surface temperature_K)^4, and both ice and open ocean have about the same emissivity.
But, the open Arctic (or Antarctic Ocean remains between 0 to -2 degrees immediately under the ice, to 2-4 degrees further out. (Depends on melt or freezing rate, 2 degrees C is a good average. So, use 275 K for open water when it radiates long wave energy..
In mid to late September – the time of interest of minimum sea ice extents – DMI average air temperature at 80 north latitude is -10 degrees_C, 263 Deg_K.
Minimum to maximum air temperatures at Thule Greenland at 79 north go up and down a bit through the year, but average 8-10 degrees C, so the hour-to-hour surface air temperature at 80 north will vary from -5 deg_C to -15 deg_C.
Notice that, if ice covers the open water, the ICE surface will radiate long wave radiaiton, not the ocean. Under the 2-5 m/sec winds normally at that latitude at this time of year, the surface of the ice will be very close to T_Air, NOT T_Water. So, the radiating surface will be much colder when ice is present than when the warmer open ocean is present.
But! That long wave radiation is exchanged with the T_Sky ABOVE that air film right above the ice surface. (Not into T_Air, but into T_Sky. The long wave energy radiates “through” that thin near-surface layer of air at T_Air into colder T_Sky above the layer.) T_Sky relates somewhat to T_Air depending on humidity, most sources I see claim a T_Sky of -30 Deg_C to -40 Deg_C.
Net: Open water at 2 deg_C loses 152 watts/m^2 into a T_Sky of -40 Deg_C.
If T_Air = -15 Deg_C, T_Surf (of the Ice) = -15 Deg_C, and 80 Watts/m^2 are lost into that same -40 Deg_C T_Sky.
More ICE (and snow) is not a good thing as we are experiencing here in North America.
Given Blockosaurus Rex, this is no surprise.
Carbomontanus says:
February 5, 2014 at 9:35 am
“…”
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Good points and I should have added…”when historical data is available.”
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Le Chatelier’s principle can be observed even in chaotic systems like Earth’s climate.
Code tech,
Here is a well done. It is your official “Attaboy”. You have ignored the nonsense and penetrated to the real issue. Regarding the Antarctic, people are also ignoring the reality about land based ice on the continent of Antarctica. Floating ice is increasing but as you say essentially irrelevant.
That non floating ice is increasing, If it were to melt, and you’re right it would take tens of thousands of years to do so, that land ice is the only ice that would raise sea levels, Ditto for land ice on Greenland, to a much smaller extent.
Floating ice changes only indicate that its cold at the poles and getting colder.
Disapating the so-called stored heat is a fool’s errand too. There virtually is none. The satellites measuring Earths’s heat emissions say so. The CO2 “blanket” is woven from the material used to make sexy womens’ fish net stockings and doesn’t provide much blanketing.
Heat comes in on SW lengths and exit on LW lengths which bounce around several times but traverse the atmosphere in a tiny fraction of a second. Some heat is physically carried up above most of the the atmosphere on evaporation of water molecules. That portion of heat is the only portion that could take more than a moment to do. Once there, the radiation to space needs fewer bounces of absorption and re-radiation, and a goodly portion as the satellites confirm does it in one bounce or less.
This is Late but didn’t a trove of Artic maps just become available, and did they not cover the periods where ‘estimates’ of 20K cu kilometers are being supposed??
@ur momisugly Michael 5.28am
A very good point. But this this does require investigators go out and repeat any pre-existing localised ground or airborne measurements and then combine these and contemporaneous Cryosat-2 data to calibrate the broader applicability of the previous measurements. Until then (and possibly after that, given the inhomogeneity and variability of Arctic ice cover) those localised pre-Cryosat-2 measurements cannot really be extrapolated over a greater area.
@ur momisugly WeatherOrNot 9.28am
Cryosat-2 is a European Space Agency Mission. The ESA website is a good place to start. The following link is one of their earlier descriptions of the mission:
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Operations/CryoSat-2_operations
ESA Funding:
http://www.esa.int/About_Us/Welcome_to_ESA/Funding
ESA Facilities:
http://www.esa.int/About_Us/Welcome_to_ESA/Establishments_and_facilities
The mission has already exceeded its intended period, but there is contingency for extension. I would imagine this depends upon funding, but probably also factors such as fuel on board to correct/maintain necessary orbit geometry. Given the original premise that prompted the funding for the mission, and its (possibly to some) somewhat surprising initial results, one would expect it to be extended for as long as possible.
University College London (UCL) are one of the expert investigators of the data. They have many years of deep expertise in remote sensing, particularly that of oceans and ice, starting with the original Seasat data, and also design build satellite instruments at their Mullard Space Science Laboratory. I personally ignored the somewhat irritating graphic and focussed on what they actually said about changes in sea ice volume: their completely credible conclusions.
@ur momisugly DavidDohBro 11.03am
Yes human psychology applies fascinatingly to this entire controversy, and to the enormous output of blogged and commented opinion around it. If you are really interested in just how flawed this can get, I would recommend the first few sections of the psychiatrist Ian McGilchrist’s ‘The Master and His Emissary – The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World’ for its brilliant clinical descriptions of just how fallible and irrational the human brain is in its normal, functioning state. The entire ‘global warming controversy’, on both sides of the argument, has many of the characteristics, and amusingly many of the characters too, of earlier scientific and philosophical controversies. In spite of which, we progress.
What happened in 2013 and has so far continued since then, is that the Beaufort Gyre has resumed its normal circulatory patterns moving older multi-year ice in a clockwise direction around the Beaufor portion of the Arctic and not as much was then shipped out the Fram Strait to melt in the warmer waters of the North Atlantic.
Remember Crackopalyspe from March 2013.
This was just the Beaufort resuming its normal circulation pattern which allows the older multi-year ice to survive longer in the western Beaufort. This pattern has so far continued operating since March 2013.
Versus the early 2000’s when there was no Gyre and the multi-year ice was just getting transported out of the Fram Strait resulting in a loss of ice overall.
Not hard to imagine multi-decadal cycles arising out of the differences in these two circulation patterns.
Jeff Alberts says:
February 5, 2014 at 7:24 am
Much ado about little blips in the weather. Silly.
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Nothing defines the CAGW crowd better than this statement.
It defines both sides.
…amazing what can happen during a solar minimum! Just wait until the Thames River freezes over again! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Thames_frost_fairs
“RACookPE1978 says:
February 5, 2014 at 9:52 am
I asked above “Does excess sea ice matter?”
It depends entirely on WHERE that excess sea ice is freezing and WHEN that excess sea ice is freezing.
Excess sea ice occurring in the Arctic or Antarctic darkness does not reflect solar energy back into space.
Excess sea ice occurring near the equinox when there are 12 hours of darkness every day and when the sun’s maximum solar elevation angle is only 10 or 12 degrees above the horizon reflects less energy than when the sun is at a 30, 33, or 43 degree solar elevation angle and is above the horizon from 3:00 am until 9:00 PM.”
The reason that the ice reflects less energy at the equinox is that the ice receives much less energy. Think, for example, of a square metre sheet held perpendicular to the sun’s rays when they are at an angle of 12 degrees. This casts a shadow of approx 4.7 sq m. At 33 degrees the shadow would have an area of about 1.5 sq m, one third as much (assuming my maths is correct). So at the equinox the surface receives approx one third of the heat per sq m that it would do were the sun at an elevation of 33 degrees. Hence only one third of the heat available to reflect.
Several have used the wording “dark sea Ice” and one has used “dark water”. Does anyone have a link to actual amounts of light that would be reflected by polar ice and polar seawater under the same conditions? Remember that polar ice may appear white and reflect well, whereas the water may appear dark, leading one to suspect that it may reflect poorly, but think that the surface of ice is (irregularly) crystalline, and therefore should reflect near evenly in all directions, whereas the water surface is not, and reflects well in only one direction. Hence I suspect that if one were to measure the energy reflected from ice, integrated over the upper hemisphere, this would be close to the amount of energy reflected from the water (which would be concentrated in a beam where the angle of reflexion is equal to the angle of incidence.
And re the Cola and Ice problem. When you pour the cola into the glass it is almost certainly at a temperature above zero. It will be if the glass has not been frozen already (note that Australian pubs keep the glasses in the refrigerator so that the beer is not warmed up too quickly – Australian beer can only be drunk at temperatures close to freezing, unlike good English beer). So when you add ice (by definition at freezing point or below) the cola will cool until the ice has completely melted, the latent heat needed for melting being taken from the cola. As soon as the ice has melted the cola will warm up – taking heat from the atmosphere, the table on which the glass stands, and your hands if you hold the glass. If you drink one litre of ice cold cola, when you and the cola inside you reach equilibrium temperature, you will have used about 36 000 calories in warming it up, and you should therefore, according to nutritionists, NEVER get fat!
Look how much 3.5 metre ice has now migrated into the western Beaufort. The sea ice thickness has not looked like this in many years. When the US coast-guard ice-breaker Healy makes its usual trip through here in the summer from Alaska to about 82N, it will be hard-going this year.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticictnnowcast.gif
Animation of last 30 days.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticictn_nowcast_anim30d.gif
And then the last year ending in October 2013 (I guess they had some data problems).
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticictn/arcticictn_nowcast_anim365d.gif
NSIDC downplaying this as virtually meaningless, too.
@ur momisugly Larry Kirk, it’s not hard to find a comparison of the data sets. https://tamino.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/cryosat-2/
Thanks Michael. I am glad it wasn’t too much of a struggle. That is a very short time period though, and I have never been able to find out exactly what the real-world inputs into the PIOMAS computer model actually are. The question then in my mind is: “Is it a valid comparison?”. From what I can determine, the PIOMAS model adds in everything available in the way of real world data for the time period considered, and so for all I know it may actually have included the Cryosat-2 data for the two years shown. In fact, from what I have been able to discover about PIOMAS inputs, I would think that this very likely. If that were the case then of course the graphs would look similar for those two years. Unfortunately the source that you link to is not very helpful in this respect.