Image Credit: National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC)
By WUWT Regular “Just The Facts”
Per the image above, Arctic Sea Ice Extent made a late season run, but it appears to have reached its maximum for the year. “NSIDC calculates daily extent using a five-day average of the data.” The “method takes the average of the previous five days, so that readers will see fewer “wiggles” in the tail end of the data series. The value of the trailing mean lags the actual data values, so sea ice values will appear lower when ice extent is increasing, but will appear larger when ice is decreasing.” NSIDC
JAXA’s Sea Ice Extent, which “is updated at around 3:00(UTC) every day” JAXA, shows a significant downward turn;
DMI’s Mean Temperature above 80°N has been running well above average;
and there is a another cold air outbreak headed into North America;
thus it is unlikely that we will see significant additional Arctic Sea Ice growth this season. Part of the reason for the relatively low Arctic Sea Ice Maximum this year is that several cold air outbreaks have occurred this winter, allowing cold air to escape the Arctic, e.g.;
resulting in second highest Great Lakes Sea Ice Coverage on record reaching 92.2% on March 6th, i.e.:
In the Southern Hemisphere, Sea Ice Area reached it’s 2nd highest Minimum on record on February 23rd, 2014, and somewhere in there lost its January rabbit ears;
resulting in a large area of Sea Ice now floating in the Southern Ocean:
Southern Hemisphere Sea Ice Area has now been above average for over 2 years and 4 months;
with the last negative anomaly recorded was on November 23rd, 2011, data here and graph below:
Global Sea Ice Area has remained stubbornly average over the last year and a quarter;
and Global Sea Ice Area Anomaly is currently just .083 Million sq km above the 1981 – 2010 average:
For additional information please visit the WUWT Sea Ice Page, Northern Regional Sea Ice Page and Great Lakes Ice Page.
Great Lakes “Sea” Ice?
RE: Caleb says:
March 25, 2014 at 7:38 am
Sea ice in the Arctic probably hasn’t reached maximum volume yet though. What do you make of this PIOMAS estimate from February 28th?
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2014/03/the-arctic-sea-ice-recovery-vanishes/#PIOMAS
What relevance (if any) will that have regarding September’s minimum?
For comparison for previous years, MASIE shows these NH ice extent Maxes:
2014 15.52 MsqKm March 14
2013 15.64 Feb. 28
2012 16.10 March 04
2011 15.38 March 18
2010 15.92 March 14
2009 15.91 March 08
2008 16.04 March 24
2007 15.81 March 15
I don’t see anything alarming here.
In the south of the ice is increased the fastest from the side of Atlantic and from this side most decreases ozone in the stratosphere.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_a_f/gif_files/gfs_o3mr_10_sh_f00.gif
Richard M. You have got it right about the effect the wind has on the sea ice area/extent numbers. Multi year sea ice is all about the wind.( Even the formation of sea ice is very dependent on the wind and the creation of White caps .) You never get 5 meter thick sea ice without the wind pushing it together. The numbers change more daily because of the wind than because of the temp.
Today, March 25 on day-of-year = 85, both the Arctic sea ice extents and Antarctic sea ice extents are exposed to the sun for very close to the same number of minutes per day. (We are just past the spring equinox of 12 hours sunshine, 12 hours darkness.)
Top of Atmosphere radiation levels are very close to the yearly average at 1368 w/m^2. In January, TOA radiation is at its yearly maximum at 1410 watts/m^2, but Antarctic sea ice extents is still retreating towards its yearly minimum in late February-early March. ( Now, Antarctic sea ice extents has passed its minimum and is expanding.)
Total earth sea ice extents is meaningless and actually is very, very misleading!
Today, the edge of the Antarctic sea ice extents is exposed to 348 watts/m^2 at noon on a clear day. Antartic sea ice extents is 5.73 Mkm^2, but total Antarctic ice area (continental ice, permanent ice shelves + sea ice extents) = 23.2 Mkm^2. The edge of the Antarctic sea ice is at latitude -65.4 – much closer to the equator than the edge of the Arctic sea ice extents.
The Arctic sea ice extents today is at its yearly maximum of 15 Mkm^2, just higher than the 2012 maximum extents of 14.8 Mkm^2, and higher than the 2010, 2011 or 2013 levels also! At 15 Mkm^2 sea ice extents, the edge of the sea ice is at latitude 70.5 – further from the equator than the Antarctic sea ice. (This year, Arctic sea ice extents is right at the -2 standard deviations from the 1970-2000 means levels. Low, but within 2x std deviations. Unfortunately, high spring Arctic sea ice maximum tend to lead to low September minimums – which are the ONLY advertisement accepted by the CAGW religion. And nearly the only remaining evidence for CAGW.)
Over the past 7 months, the Antarctic sea ice edge has been exposed to more radiation every day than the Arctic sea ice edge – The Antarctic sea ice edge receiving as much as 5x MORE radiation on every horizontal square kilometer than the edge of the Arctic sea ice. (Today, the Antarctic sea ice edge is radiated by 348 watts/m^2, the Arctic only 321 watts/m^2. By March 28, both will receive 340 watts/m^2. The Arctic will continue tilting towards the sun through the summer, but the TOA radiation levels will continue to decline to their yearly minimum of 1315 on July 5.
By day-of-year 241, on 28 August, the Antarctic ice edge will once again be receiving more radiation on a clear day than the Arctic sea ice.
Then by the fall equinox, when both are exposed to the same HOURS of sunlight, the Antarctic sea ice is RECEIVING 5 TIMES the sunlight that the Arctic sea ice receives. You CANNOT determine the next earth albedo by “measuring” total sea ice, just Arctic sea ice, NOR just Antarctic sea ice.
You MUST calculate the energy received at each horizontal surface of the sea ice extents during each hour of the day, the albedo of the sea ice at that day-of-year (Yes Virginia, the arctic sea ice is much, mush “darker” in mid-summer than in fall, mid-winter, or spring!), the actual open ocean albedo and actual atmospheric absorption each hour of the day for that day-of-year, AND the solar elevation angle every hour of that day-of-year.
Only then can you predict how much energy is absorbed by the sea ice and by the open ocean water, and how energy is reflected from the sea ice and from the open ocean water. All the while, every 24 hours, more energy is lost from the Arctic under today’s conditions of sea ice minimum when the sea ice is melted, than is gained when open ocean water is heated by the sunlight over 12 hours.
WIth the blocking this winter there has been a lot of cold air pouring across Hudson’s Bay. As a result the ice looks much thicker than normal. I predict that it will take a much longer time to melt the bay this spring/summer.
Having watched sea ice extent data every day this winter here at Watts Up it looked like sea ice extent was going to recover to at least within the std dev of the 1979-2000 monthly average. That recovery stalled. Probably as others pointed out it was a result of the “polar vortex” we experienced a few times here in Chicago. I will stand by my prediction that sea ice extent at the summer low will be similar to the last few years. It will remain substantially below the 1979-2000 monthly average. As a result, warmists will have their typical field day pointing to the lack of ice as proof of our impending golbal warming doom.
Snow White … PIOMAS is a model that has a number of critics … I don’t think I’d use it rather than the CryoSat data …
Looks like 2 – 3 weeks later than usual. Should I be scared?
I would expect a later turn in the peak in the presence of a declining PDO and now plunging AMO.
MikeP – All models have a number of critics don’t they?!
Unfortunately CryoSat doesn’t have a whole lot to say about the volume of sea ice in the Arctic just at the moment, unless you can provide a link to some data that I’m unaware of?
Wonderful post and analysis, Anthony. Great overall info but wow, look at how we all tend to gravitate toward the ARCTIC sea ice extent. Just what the global warming alarmists probably want.
And do you think the powers that be have fudged sensors or numbers or records over the years (ask Dr. Easterbrook about this, or better yet see his testimony to Congress on youtube). After closely following the Lake Michigan ice extent and mid-continent temperatures this winter, I REALLY feel for you folks trying to go on govt data concerning sea ice extents. I grew up on Lake Michigan and am an old geologist – it just seemed to me that numbers, records, publicity photos, and sensors experienced a lot of chicanery.
The strong trend in Antarctic sea ice growth is intriguing. Maybe we should concentrate more on that. I used to hope for a degree or so of warming as I think that would be nicer temps to deal with in the northern hemisphere population and agricultural centers. But now I don’t – I hope for a Little Ice Age return because the ruination of science’s reputation is really pissing me off. Thank you to all who are major contributors here, but I would encourage us to be about the science and not a political position. Both the right and the left have obfuscated info throughout history – not one more than the other.
Every time I have looked at the NRL Ice Thickness gif there is always ice flowing out of the Arctic via the Fram Strait:
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticict_nowcast_anim30d.gif
It looks like significant volumes of ice are transported out via this strait continuously.
I am betting on another record year for Antarctic sea ice. The AWS at Dome A has already recorded a record low temperature of -92C and has dipped below -80C on several other occasions. The Australian bases at Casey and Davis have had above average mean maximums for Jan and Feb but are rapidly getting back to the average mean maximum for March. Meanwhile at Mawson, they had an above average Jan, average Feb and if the current trend continues, will set a new record low average maximum for March. The CAGW alarmists have a host of half plausible explanations for the record levels of sea ice (provided you don’t apply the same rationale to the Arctic) but for me the temperature has it.
Gary Pearse says:
March 25, 2014 at 7:46 am
” Its hard to believe there is any melting in the Canadian Arctic 2000km north of here.”
– 31 degs Celsius in Iqaluit this morning 🙂 No signs of melting here yet!
By my reckoning the average Arctic maximum date has shifted by decade (starting with the 1980’s) from Mar 9 to Mar 4 to Mar 8 to Mar 13… So this decade is the latest but not by much.
Meanwhile the Antarctic minimum, which occurs slightly before the Arctic maximum, has been remarkably stable and shifting ever so slightly earlier, with the 80’s-10’s averaging: Feb 26 / Feb 25 / Feb 24 / Feb 24.
Hard to say if any of that is significant tho.
John S. says: March 25, 2014 at 8:34 am
Great Lakes “Sea” Ice?
Good catch, corrected within the article. Thanks
RE: Stephen Skinner says:
March 25, 2014 at 1:44 pm
“Every time I have looked at the NRL Ice Thickness gif there is always ice flowing out of the Arctic via the Fram Strait:
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticict_nowcast_anim30d.gif
It looks like significant volumes of ice are transported out via this strait continuously.”
No, it isn’t continuous. It is fairly regular, but there have been interruptions this winter. Also not as much ice came from the Pole via the Transpolar Drift, but came along the ice-edge north of Svakbard to the east.
Keep paying attemtion and you’ll see what I mean. The ice seems to come through Fram Strait in bulges and pulses. There was a big one at the end of last week. Often it creates a sort of bulge “down-stream,” and the ice-extent will curve away from Greenland and be “above normal” (across the orange line) in the NSIDC map on the “Sea Ice Page.” This sort of “increased extent” is actually a loss to the Polar Total, in the long run, as it is heading south to melt. However if a lot heads south it can actually chill the waters of the North Atlantic. In 1817 so much ice flushed out that bergs were beaching in Ireland, and the chilled Atlantic may have contributed to the “Year Without a Summer.”
The opposite occurred last summer. The flow through Fram Strait was reduced, as ice was pushed over towards Beaufort Gyre. The extent below Fram Strait was below normal even as sea-ice increased up at the Pole. It makes me wonder if that means the Atlantic waters were chilled less than normal last summer, which may have been part of the reason Barents Sea froze up less last winter.
Recently a lot of ice has flushed out and traveled all the way through Denmark Strait to Cape Farewell at the bottom of Greenland. Also lots of ice has flushed south in Baffin Bay, and passed into the Atlantic off Newfoundland Island. (The top of Baffin Bay was ice-free at times in the depth of winter, so much ice was exported south.) I imagine the Atlantic has had a good chilling due to the addition of all this ice.
The more you watch the ice the more you see about twenty things are going on at the same time. I don’t claim to understand it, but it is fun to witness, if you have the time.
Caleb says:
March 25, 2014 at 6:24 pm
“In 1817 so much ice flushed out that bergs were beaching in Ireland, and the chilled Atlantic may have contributed to the “Year Without a Summer.””
Hi Caleb … this ice would have come from the Newfoundland side (i.e. come down with the Labrador Current)
LOL
Yet another year, another example of the “Catastrophic Warmers” Catastrophic Failure. Surely His Majesty Ship Of The Realm That Floats The Mighty Seas Mark Serreze The Vietnam Vet Agent Orange Drinker of the NSIDC will commit suicide Oh Happy Day and leave this Earth for the more emotionally stable to comfort and those gifted with the ability of comprehension more that he being estranged at the level of the 8th Grade English Language.
Ha ha Ha ha
SIGINT EX and numerous other posters, above
Shakespeare had it right, IMHO. This blog post is Much Ado about Nothing much.
You Skeptic Memers are all in such a hurry for your catastrophes! You want extinctions now! You want the Arctic to be ice-free now! You want the oceans to be acid now! You want coral reefs bleached now! You want every species that is extending its range or changing its phenology to be there already! You want the consequences to be terrible already! You want the air to be hot now!
Why is it so?
Warming, loss of global ice mass balance, changes to species ranges and the consequences, sea level rise, and chemistry changes to the ocean will take decades, centuries, millenia. No need for one-day-in-the year-annual or seasonal frenzies about anything, really.
A year here or there is neither here nor there. A bit more sea ice here or there, or a bit less sea ice here or there in any given year is neither here nor there. Unless you are a Memer, of course.
AGW is like the old saw, slowly, slowly catchee monkey. No need for you to hang on to your hats. It is going to be a slow ride. It is your grandchildren who are going to be in a position to make some real, hard judgements about our so-called risk management and one-off planet experimentation.
This year’s sea ice minimum and maximum, what day in the calendar year it happens, how much sea ice volume there is on a given day, where it is thick, where thin, what the air temperature is on a given day, what the water temperature is on a given day, are all statistically meaningless, is it not so?
climateace says: March 26, 2014 at 2:24 am
Shakespeare had it right, IMHO. This blog post is Much Ado about Nothing much.
I certainly agree about the “Nothing much” part, however “Much Ado” is in the eye of the beholder. It is the Warming Memers who told us that “Arctic is Caught in Rapid Melt ‘Death Spiral’”;
http://ecowatch.com/2013/08/12/arctic-rapid-melt-death-spiral/
that “Global Warming is Accelerating”
http://www.nwf.org/Wildlife/Threats-to-Wildlife/Global-Warming/Global-Warming-is-Accelerating.aspx
that “Global Warming Is Rapidly Accelerating”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/global-warming-is-rapidly_b_4499119.html
and that “NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future”:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/NASA-scientists-expect-more-rapid-global-warming-in-the-very-near-future-part-2.html
No need for one-day-in-the year-annual or seasonal frenzies about anything, really.
Again, I agree, silly frenzies like these are unnecasary, i.e.: “Arctic sea ice at lowest level ever: Losses accelerating over last decade”;
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121003082526.htm
Arctic sea ice shrinks to lowest ever level
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2012/09/201292051955741907.html
“2013’s Summer Arctic Sea Ice a Top 10 Low”;
http://www.livescience.com/39833-2013-arctic-sea-ice-sixth-lowest.html
This year’s sea ice minimum and maximum, what day in the calendar year it happens, how much sea ice volume there is on a given day, where it is thick, where thin, what the air temperature is on a given day, what the water temperature is on a given day, are all statistically meaningless, is it not so?
Yes, Sea Ice change is primarily driven by wind and atmospheric oscillations;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/16/the-economist-provides-readers-with-erroneous-information-about-arctic-sea-ice/
and Earth hasn’t warmed over the last 9 – 17 years depending on data set;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/25/when-did-global-warming-begin/
thus all of the recent changes to sea ice are likely naturally occurring and nothing of concern.
RE: JBJ says:
March 25, 2014 at 9:01 pm
Caleb says:
March 25, 2014 at 6:24 pm
“In 1817 so much ice flushed out that bergs were beaching in Ireland, and the chilled Atlantic may have contributed to the “Year Without a Summer.””
“Hi Caleb … this ice would have come from the Newfoundland side (i.e. come down with the Labrador Current)”
Hi JBJ — You could be right, or it could have involved both sides of Greenland. We should get Dr. Tim Ball to comment. He was the one who put me on the trail of the huge post-Mount-Tamboro discharge of ice into the Atlantic. Apparently that volcano threw things out of balance, and rather than any sort of zonal flow around the Pole there was some sort of bizarre meridianal flow that had the Arctic Sea surprisingly ice-free,
See more at: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/08/1815-1816-and-1817-a-polar-puzzle/
Hey climateace, you just got seriously OWNED. LOL