Multi-year Arctic ice posts a large gain, peak ice occurred later this year. Antarctica had fourth highest minimum.
From NSIDC: Arctic sea ice at fifth lowest annual maximum
Arctic sea ice reached its annual maximum extent on March 21, after a brief surge in extent mid-month. Overall the 2014 Arctic maximum was the fifth lowest in the 1978 to 2014 record. Antarctic sea ice reached its annual minimum on February 23, and was the fourth highest Antarctic minimum in the satellite record. While this continues a strong pattern of greater-than-average sea ice extent in Antarctica for the past two years, Antarctic sea ice remains more variable year-to-year than the Arctic.
Overview of conditions
Arctic sea ice extent for March 2014 averaged 14.80 million square kilometers (5.70 million square miles). This is 730,000 square kilometers (282,000 square miles) below the 1981 to 2010 average extent, and 330,000 square kilometers (127,000 square miles) above the record March monthly low, which happened in 2006. Extent remains slightly below average in the Barents Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk, but is at near-average levels elsewhere. Extent hovered around two standard deviations below the long-term average through February and early March. The middle of March by contrast saw a period of fairly rapid expansion, temporarily bringing extent to within about one standard deviation of the long-term average.
Conditions in context
In the Arctic, the maximum extent for the year is reached on average around March 9. However, the timing varies considerably from year to year. This winter the ice cover continued to expand until March 21, reaching 14.91 million square kilometers (5.76 million square miles), making it both the fifth lowest maximum and the fifth latest timing of the maximum since 1979. The latest timing of the maximum extent was on March 31, 2010 and the lowest maximum extent occurred in 2011 (14.63 million square kilometers or 5.65 million square miles).
March 2014 compared to previous years
Average ice extent for March 2014 was the fifth lowest for the month in the satellite record. Through 2014, the linear rate of decline for March ice extent is 2.6% per decade relative to the 1981 to 2010 average.
An increase in multiyear ice
The extent of multiyear ice within the Arctic Ocean is distinctly greater than it was at the beginning of last winter. During the summer of 2013, a larger fraction of first-year ice survived compared to recent years. This ice has now become second-year ice. Additionally, the predominant recirculation of the multiyear ice pack within the Beaufort Gyre this winter and a reduced transport of multiyear ice through Fram Strait maintained the multiyear ice extent throughout the winter.
In Figure 4, Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT) imagery reveals the distribution of multiyear ice compared to first year ice for March 28, 2013 (yellow line) and March 2, 2014 (blue line). The ASCAT sensor measures the radar–frequency reflection brightness of the sea ice at a few kilometers resolution. Sea ice radar reflectivity is sensitive to the roughness of the ice and the presence of saltwater droplets within newer ice (and, later in the season, the presence of surface melt). Thus older and more deformed multiyear ice appears white or light grey (more reflection), whereas younger, first-year ice looks dark grey and/or black.
Ice age tracking confirms large increase in multiyear ice
Satellite data on ice age reveal that multiyear ice within the Arctic basin increased from 2.25 to 3.17 million square kilometers (869,000 to 1,220,000 square miles) between the end of February in 2013 and 2014. This winter the multiyear ice makes up 43% of the icepack compared to only 30% in 2013. While this is a large increase, and may portend a more extensive September ice cover this year compared to last year, the fraction of the Arctic Ocean consisting of multiyear ice remains less than that at the beginning of the 2007 melt season (46%) when a large amount of the multiyear ice melted. The percentage of the Arctic Ocean consisting of ice at least five years or older remains at only 7%, half of what it was in February 2007. Moreover, a large area of the multiyear ice has drifted to the southern Beaufort Sea and East Siberian Sea (north of Alaska and the Lena River delta), where warm conditions are likely to exist later in the year.
Summer ice extent remains hard to predict
There is a growing need for reliable sea ice predictions. An effort to gather and summarize seasonal sea ice predictions made by researchers and prediction centers began in 2008. The project, known as the SEARCH Sea Ice Outlook, has collected more than 300 predictions of summer month ice extent. A new study published in Geophysical Research Letters by researchers at NSIDC, University of New Hampshire, and University of Washington reveal a large range in predictive skill. The study found that forecasts are quite accurate when sea ice conditions are close to the downward trend that has been observed in Arctic sea ice for the last 30 years. However, forecasts are not so accurate when sea ice conditions are unusually higher or lower compared to this trend. Results from the study also suggest that while ice conditions during the previous winter are an important predictor (such as the fraction of first-year versus multiyear ice), summer weather patterns also have a large impact on the amount of ice that will be left at the end of summer.
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” The study found that forecasts are quite accurate when sea ice conditions are close to the downward trend that has been observed in Arctic sea ice for the last 30 years. However, forecasts are not so accurate when sea ice conditions are unusually higher or lower compared to this trend. ”
Right, so we have about 300 models that are basically doing nothing more intelligent than fitting a linear or perhaps quadratic “trend” and are a complete failure beyond that.
Perhaps they now need to recognise the limited record we have is not a “death spiral” but part of a cyclic pattern that has just bottomed out:
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/2013/09/16/on-identifying-inter-decadal-variation-in-nh-sea-ice/
richard says:
April 3, 2014 at 5:09 am
Arctic ice ain’t going anywhere for a while.
http://www.arctic-info.com/ExpertOpinion/Page/-the-need-for-icebreakers-will-increase-after-the-year-2016-
“…..increase of ice breakers in the Summer….”
Because of the increased commercial use of the Northern sea route between Europe and the Pacific as a result of the decrease in summer sea ice. Interesting how you continue to ignore that in your post!
Also the Russians are building a new port up there from which they will be escorting tankers:
“the need for icebreakers is set to rise markedly after 2016, when Port Sabetta is put into operation and oil tankers will be in need of escorting. “
That is counter to the story arc of climate apocalypse so is a bit inconvenient. If you are a good AGW believer, you ignore this and call more loudly for the rapid indictment of those denialist scum.
Phil’s Dad, the comment in the text was referring to the current parameters used to predict future conditions. As long as the current parameters were within the average range, the future ice condition prediction was pretty accurate. But if the current parameters were outside the average range by a bunch, future ice condition predictions were not as accurate. However, that said, I agree with your statement regarding funding and their conclusion. Knowledge of statistical-based modeling would have told them this would be so. They had to get funding to figure this out? Which means they didn’t know this would be the case in the first place? Sounds like we are funding scientists so that they can relearn what the last generation figured out. And every scientist, every PhD, every doctor, should be required to carry at least a minor in statistics at some point in their academic program.
The thicker older ice shows up slightly darker in this false color satellite pic from Jaxa (you have to put to use land-mask imagination on to distinguish between the Arctic ocean sea ice and the snow on land but it shows up reasonably well).
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/data/RGB/201404/AM2SI20140402RGB.jpg
Same image from same date last year 2013. Open both in a new tab and click back and forth to see the change over the last year. Significant change.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/data/RGB/201304/AM2SI20130402RGB.jpg
And let me also add that every school specialist, principal, and superintendent in the public school system should also be required to have graduate level statistics classes in their coursework.
@njsnowfan says:
April 3, 2014 at 2:00 am
Interesting plot but I’m a little suspicious of the not so parallel lines linking peaks. You could be kidding yourself. What would be clearer is to subtract the smooth DMI annual cycle and plot directly on top of say Potsdam Ap index.
It looks like it may match rather well but a direct comparison is needed, otherwise you could bend your lines to fit whatever was there.
Phil. says:
April 3, 2014 at 5:40 am
Interesting how you continue to ignore that in your post!
————————
it’s all there for you to read!
the Russians were using the NE ARCTIC route commercially from the 1920’s.
We now use nuclear powered ice breakers in the Summer, Russia is building the largest ice breaker ever and even the Chinese are building ice breakers.
Looking far forward, we have the Atomflot development programme lasting 30 years, and on the whole, the prospects are certainly good, if not very good.
30 years!!!!!!
I though we were supposed to be ice free today but no we need ice breakers in the summer as well.
Forecast on April 4 for the Great Lakes. Interesting.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/04/04/1200Z/wind/isobaric/850hPa/orthographic=-85.54,51.91,964
When the ice returns, as is normal with a highly variable system with lots of short and long term oscillations, the watermelons will eventually have to turn their greenpeace boats into ice breaker chasers to save the baby ice….wait a minute….that means they will have to break the ice too!!!! Never mind. They will probably do a sit-in at your local Conoco Station to protest the killing of cute furry doe-eyed baby ice by big mean oil guys.
Phil says:
“richard says:
April 3, 2014 at 5:09 am
Arctic ice ain’t going anywhere for a while.
http://www.arctic-info.com/ExpertOpinion/Page/-the-need-for-icebreakers-will-increase-after-the-year-2016-
“…..increase of ice breakers in the Summer….”
Because of the increased commercial use of the Northern sea route between Europe and the Pacific as a result of the decrease in summer sea ice. Interesting how you continue to ignore that in your post!
Also the Russians are building a new port up there from which they will be escorting tankers:
“the need for icebreakers is set to rise markedly after 2016, when Port Sabetta is put into operation and oil tankers will be in need of escorting.””
Perfectly true, but if you read further down it also says:
“At the moment there is a lot of talk about global warming, but this does not deter us. In any case, even the Kola Bay freezes in winter. I admit that in the Arctic in a few years, maybe even decades, there will be a period of navigation without icebreakers. Summer navigation will be expanded, in the long term not only the west, but the entire length of the Northern Sea Route will be navigable, and it is very possible that this will be year-round. But if you look at the history of our planet’s climate, there have been periods such as this on more than one occasion.”
I’ll say it again, the images provided by NSIDC do not seem to match the quantitative values they’re plotting on their multi-year chart.
m seward says:
Linear “trend” fits for such data are simplistic, disconnected from any reasonable mechanistic connection and frankly ridiculous. If you want to get a sense of what is happening just use a running average or a binomial filter. The way the March data jumps around for example a 2 – 3 year filter would be more revealing of behaviour over time.
====
Linear trends should be banned from climate science and those that continue to use them indicted for crimes against humanity 😉
However, a 20 filter is enough to take the short term bumps out of min/max guessing games and get a more stable indication of the underlying state of the ice that does not depend on the direction of the wind last week.
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=226
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=206
I’ll update the latter one in a few weeks when there is enough data to run the filter for this year’s max.
Why are the nine huge lakes in North America still shown as open water? This would seem to be a pretty easy thing to fix. Superior is still ice-covered, and I am sure the four big ones in Canada have not thawed out yet. This represents many thousands of square kilometers of ice.
Just to remind everyone:
Just the Antarctic sea ice extents ANOMALY alone last October was larger than Hudson’s Bay. At 1.8 Mkm^2, it was a little larger than half the size of Greenland! The edge of this excess Antarctic sea ice was right at 58 – 59 south latitude, or closer to the equator than ANY Arctic sea ice ever is at ANY time of year.
That was the EXCESS Antarctic sea ice!
The Antarctic sea ice extents anomaly has been steadily and consistently increasing since May 2010. If this increase continues at this consistent 4-1/2 year rate, the Antarctic sea ice will be blocking the Straits of Magellan and the shipping routes around Cape Horn within 8-10 years.
Based on the 36 year trend, the Arctic will be ice free in 412 years. Hmmmm
My TSI and Arctic temps above 80 N chart shows an average of a few day lag time between TSI spikes/Dips by the time Temps above 80 N move up or down. Charts were lined up as closes I could get for time frame. My lines are not all perfect placement but shows a good connection.
Maybe someone else can make some better charts.
I even made arctic Forecast for temps in 2013 for 5 day periods off TSI spikes and Dips and they did good as long no large weather systems crossed the 80 N area disturbing air at the surface in a big way.
What is so interesting is that TSI spikes or Dips showed up even if the sun was out during Summer or Not shining in the winter.
My early thoughts and feelings is Spikes/Dips of TSI from the sun are effecting The Temps at the N & S polls at all times of the year more then what people think.
More data is needed to prove my theory
Re: crosspatch says:
April 3, 2014 at 1:25 am
The “idle curiosity” comes from the likes of the oil and gas industry, not to mention Chinese exporters. Here’s the latest view of the US Navy on the topic of future activity in the Arctic:
http://econnexus.org/us-navy-2014-to-2030-arctic-roadmap/
“In the coming decades, as multi-year sea ice in the Arctic Ocean recedes, previously unreachable areas may open for maritime use for a few weeks each year. This opening maritime frontier has important national security implications and impact required future Navy capabilities.”
Re: Michael Moon says:
April 3, 2014 at 6:13 am
The Great Lakes are south of where I’m sat (~ 50 degrees N). Certainly well outside the Arctic circle!
richard says:
April 3, 2014 at 5:55 am
Phil. says:
April 3, 2014 at 5:40 am
Interesting how you continue to ignore that in your post!
————————
it’s all there for you to read!
Yes but you still continue to cherry pick your quotes to imply different conclusions than are presented in the source you cite!
the Russians were using the NE ARCTIC route commercially from the 1920′s.
yes but minimally, according to your source the activity was ‘minimal’ as recently as the 90’s.
“Looking at transit data, we have already surpassed last year’s volumes. 830,000-840,000 tons of cargo were transported at that time, we have now transported one million tons and by the end of navigation, which will continue for almost 2 more months, we will be closer to 1.2 million. Compared with the minimal level of traffic on the Northern Sea Route in the 90’s, which amounted to approximately 1.5 million tons, we have already crossed the 3 million ton mark.”
The Northern route was declared open and commercial exploitation began in 1935.
We now use nuclear powered ice breakers in the Summer, Russia is building the largest ice breaker ever and even the Chinese are building ice breakers.
Looking far forward, we have the Atomflot development programme lasting 30 years, and on the whole, the prospects are certainly good, if not very good.
30 years!!!!!!
I though we were supposed to be ice free today but no we need ice breakers in the summer as well.
Some of the current fleet are nearing their end of service life and have to be replaced even without the increase in traffic.
‘Ice free’ in the fall (september) doesn’t mean there will be no ice in the summer, given some of the choke points there will always be a need for escort ships, in fact as the article says they expect more larger ships designed to exploit the arctic route which implies that two icebreakers will be needed instead of one!
In 2010 two yachts completed the circumnavigation of the arctic in a single season (both the Northern sea route and the NW passage).
There are lots of charts out there showing how dramatically Arctic sea ice has decreased even more than IPCC models. Does anybody have a chart showing IPCC Antarctic models v. observed?
I though we melted the Arctic. Why is there still sea ice around?
Snow White,
This winter in Chicago on the Lake it certainly looked like the Arctic Circle…
RE: Bill Illis says:
April 3, 2014 at 5:48 am
Thanks for sharing those two satellite shots. I did what you said, and after falling behind schedule by having a blast, clicking to and fro between the two tabs, I am struck by the increase in the ice thickness.
The exception seems to be the Laptev Sea north of central Siberia. That makes sense, when you remember the cross-polar-flow kicked in fairly often during the winter, sending Siberian air across to Canada (and then down to freeze my socks off in New Hampshire.) That flow would be offshore in the Laptev Sea, pushing the ice across towards Canada.
As you head east from North of Scandinavia the Northeast passage is wide open in Barents Sea, looks like it is open or will soon be open along the coasts of the Kara Sea and Laptev Sea (due the aforementioned offshore winds) but when you proceed east to the East Siberian Sea you start to run into the thicker ice. While there is less ice south of Bering Strait than there was the prior (record setting) winter, north of Bering Strait in the Chukchi Sea it looks thicker.
This may present a bit of a problem for shipping in the Northeast passage. It doesn’t matter much if you are following a super-icebreaker, when the winds turn north and the ice starts shifting south. The channel behind an icebreaker can close like the jaws of a bear trap. (And winds can get strong, from the north, along the Siberian coast during the summer. When you have inland temperatures of 85 degrees and offshore temperatures of 34; it generates one heck of a sea-breeze.)
(If an oil tanker gets trapped up there, for even a day, Greenpeace will be doing back-flips. So the Russians won’t mention it.)
My own take is that what really matters is the temperature of the water under the ice. My assumption is that the water is colder, and less stratified. (In calmer conditions a layer of warmer, more-salty water is below colder, less-salty surface water. However conditions have been far from calm, with large areas ice-free at the start of the past two winters. This is especially true of Barents Sea, however the waters north and south of Bering Strait on the Pacific side had below-normal ice-cover for the first half of winter. Without that protective cover the waters get churned an don’t stratify as much.) However an assumption is only a guess.
It is not that we don’t have a clue, concerning arctic sea-ice. We just need more clues. We’ll watch and wait for more clues.
Baltic Sea Icebreaking Report
2010-2011
http://portal.fma.fi/sivu/www/baltice/BIM_Joint_Annual_2010_2011.pdf
interesting , these people live in the real world of danger so have to make different decisions to alarmist statements
“According to statistics from the Baltic Sea icebreaking authorities, 10750 vessels
received assistance from icebreakers this season”
“FOREWORD
The winter of the last season has been again pretty cold. We can not tell so far
whether this is a real global warming or a process of normal alternation of warm and
cold winters. Within the limits of a separate historical period we will learn about it
later.
Can anyone tell in the affirmative now «Global warming has come, and warm winters
are established constantly for long times»? Can anyone assert there is a temporary
period of alternation of warm and cold winters? The choice of an appropriate
scenario as for a warm or a cold winter approach is certainly the right of every
member State. The real problem is that there is no way to predict authentically the
type of winters and ice conditions on long-term basis. We tend to consider that after
the period of some warm winters there will come winters with really low
temperatures.”