There’s an information war on the recent Antarctic sea ice records
Guest essay by Frank Lansner
Today Cryosphere reports 2,112 million km2 more sea ice around Antarctica than normal.
Fig 1
Reality is that we right now have an area matching the size of Greenland of extra sea ice floating around Antarctica. The nightmare for the global warming believers is if the growing ice around Antarctica should be linked to cooling, and so:
1) Some Re-analysis papers and more have been made showing that the ocean around Antarctica is not cooling (as original data suggests) but is in stead warming fast.
2) Several mechanisms have been suggested to argue how come ice can grow so much faster when in fact the water is supposed to have warmed up.
Therefore in the following I will first (part 1) go through some data sources to evaluate if it’s cooling or not in the area of ice-formation around Antarctica, and then (part 2) I will go through the most frequent attempts to explain faster ice formation in supposedly warmer waters.
PART 1: ARE THE OCEANS AROUND ANTARCTICA WARMING OR COOLING?
Fig 2
The red box: I have inserted the red box 73S-63S 220W-50E because this area will be used in the following to evaluate the situation in the ice forming waters around Antarctica.
NOAA use a base period approx. 1983-1995 and they report that the waters around Antarctica today are colder than normal. In fact this is the case most of the time in the last decade in NOAAs graphics, especially in the zone where extra winter ice is being formed.
Fig 3
CMC Canada use base period 1995-2009, but still we see temperatures of the ice forming waters near Antarctica are lower than normal.
SST
NCDC ERSST v3b2
Fig 4
I use the KNMI online climate explorer to get data from the “red box” area 73S-63S 220W-50E, see fig 2.
HadISST1:
Fig 5
Fine agreement with NSDC.
TAO buoys surface air temperature:
[figure 6 was in error, and the error originated at KNMI, as you can see below and also in comments (h/t to Bob Tisdale for his interaction with KNMI to get to the root of the problem):
Bob Tisdale writes in email to me:
The problem was that Frank uncovered a problem with the KNMI Climate Explorer when he tried (and was successful) to extract what he thought was “TAO Air Temp” data for the Southern Ocean, from a dataset that only includes data for the tropical Pacific.
The data in Frank’s Figure 6 wasn’t data for the Southern Ocean, it was tropical Pacific data. That was the glitch at KNMI. I notified KNMI. They corrected the problem and we can only get data from that dataset at KNMI when the correct tropical Pacific coordinates are used…thus the error message you just got.
We hope to add a corrected graph from KNMI soon – Anthony]
Fig 6
Again, Cooling.
The SST´s and to some degree surface air suggest a drop in temperatures especially around 2008
TLT, Air temperature lower troposphere from RSS:
Fig 7
Data suggest some cooling, certainly not warming.
Thus it seems that recent years for the area of ice formation around Antarctica show:
A: Decrease in Sea surface temperatures
B: Decrease in Air temperatures
C: Growth in Sea ice
These observations are in compliance, I´d say generally in science you can hardly demand more solid evidence to support any conclusion.
* * * It’s getting colder around Antarctica and so the ice is growing * * *
PART 2: MORE ICE CREATION IN STILL WARMER WATERS?
None the less alarmist sites like “Skeptical science” in stead seem to disregard the above conventional data sources and use exclusively projects that somehow ends up showing warming around Antarctica.
Fig 8
Left: Zhangs Re-analysis ending in 2004. Right: NASA´s Earth Obs, ending in 2007.
Zhang achieves a stunning 4-5 K/century warm trend around Antarctica, and NASA perhaps a little less. Notice the “Horse shoe” shape on Zhangs illustration, left. This is the area that I have used for all graphs above. Right: NASA is using infared measurement of the very surface meaning that their data represents the extremely thin top layer ( 1 mm ? ) of the land or ocean surface. The so called “skin layer”.
Such an extremely thin skin layer is much more vulnarable to changes in precipitation or winds than any of the more conventional datasets I have shown in this writing, and the skin layer represents much less mass. More wind in an area of below freezing air temperature is likely to yield warmer skin layer due to mix with warmer water. Here are some attempts to explain matters as I have seen them in debates and on alarmist sites like “Skeptical Science”.
“More precipitation”
Since rain is ice- enemy number one, we will have to assume that this increased precipitation comes as (cold) snow?
In the Antarctic winter air temperatures are low. Snow landing on sea ice will opbviously insulate the ice from cold air temperatures. So how come more snow (precipitation) should increase sea ice areas?
The addition of fresh water should lower salinity and increase the freezing temperature of the water and thus create more ice. But can precipitation really change salinity notably in the deep ocean hundreds or thousands kilometers from the shore?
“Salinity”
The thing is, I don’t see many actual graphs of the salinity that is supposed to be decreasing fast in order to increase freezing temperatures notably.
If Salinity is really the key argument in explaining more ice growth combined with more heat, then why don’t we see several climate institutions focus on Salinity graphs?
Fig 9
From the KNMI online service it is actually possible to retrieve a salinity graph, “EN3”.
SSS = Sea Surface Salinity
The freezing point of water increase approx. 0,7 K per 1% fall in salinity.
From the Salinity data we learn that:
1) Variation is small: From 3,385 % to 3,399 %, that is 0,014 mass % over the years.
Not too surprising since we are in the middle of the deep ocean. Varitaion corresponds to a 0,01 K change in freezing point.
2) To explain MORE ice formation over the years we needed to see LESS salinity.
Problem is, the waters around Antarctica show increased salinity.
In other words:
Variations in salinity are TOO SMALL to even be considered in the first place.
And on top of this, waters are actually getting slightly more salty, thus lowering the freeze point a tiny bit. This would explain a tiny reduction in ice formation, not the opposite.
“The Ozone concentraion has declined”
Ozone concentrations has stagnated since the early 1990´ies.
But in recent years something changed.
KNMI MSR Ozone:
Fig 10
Since 2011 the ozone concentration has increased fast. The extra ice formations are sometimes explained with the drop in ozone concentration, but in recent years the development has reversed.
So in order to maintain ozone as an explanation for more ice around Antarctica you will have to claim that this effect of Ozone works whenever ozone concentrations make any change at all.
“The winds did it”
The supposed role of ozone is to trigger winds and the winds are supposed to be much stronger now when the ice area is growing faster.
So the explanation goes that even though we have a strong warming, and thus supposedly warmer waters around the Antarctic, then winds blow out ice from the Antarctic main land so that this ice will end up in waters that are quite warm. And then this ice is not melting fast as one might expect? I’m not sure if I got that explanation right…
Anyway if this was true we would see that and the ice was pushed out into warmer waters, and there would be no ice formation near the edge of the ice. In fact there should be at least some melting.
Fig 11
The illustration from NRL show actual temperatures and the question is: Are huge ice masses pushed out from the mainland Antarctica to be surrounded by warmer waters?
This color is zero degrees Celsius, so the ice is today clearly surrounded by waters well below zero degrees.
So at least at first glance the suggestion that ice is not formed on the edge but in stead being pushed out from land to warmer waters appears not supported, but what really we need is an investiagation that actually proofs or disproofs this idea and show a well supported estimate of how much ice is being formed this way.
Conclusion:
The conventional data sources like SST, MAT suggest that the bulk of the ocean surface mass is cooling in recent years accompanied by faster ice growth. Arguments based on Ozone or Salinity or precipitation appears not to be linked to the record levels of sea ice formation around Antarctica.
It is therefore fair to say the obvious:
* * * It’s getting colder around Antarctica and so the ice is growing * * *
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
David when it comes to climate, surface area extent of sea ice is 1000x more important then volume.
That said there is much doubt about the volume of sea ice which is present.
Then again when you have sea ice anomalies running over 2.0 million square km. above average I doubt very much that volume is much less if at all. Which is the present situation in Antarctica.
Bob Tisdale, what you may not realize is that Frank Lansner does not have authorship privilege at WUWT like you do. Thus, he has to wait for me to make corrections, and I just woke up. We’ll get to it right away.
========================================
I will do my best!
First visit:-
http://nomad1.ncep.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/pdisp_sst.sh
Under “Control File”
Select – “monoiv2.ctl Monthly OIv2 SST” by highlighting the circle at the LH side.
Under “Options”
Leave as default with “include variable definitions and unit” selected
Under “Plot type:”
Select “time series”
Then click next page.
On the second page the heading should read ” display plot: monoiv2.ctl”
In “Field” box select via drop down “ssta *Olv2 SST monthly anomaly (C) rel to 1971-2000
Leave other headings in the box as default = “Level” 1, “averaging” (none) and “scaling” (none)
At “Initial Time” select your start date from drop down. I used “Nov 2004”
“Final Time” leave as default (latest available) “Jun 2014”
Under “Time series of a box average:”
“Latitude” enter “-73” in first box and “-63” in second box
Leave “Longitude” at default “-180” in first box and “180” in second box
Leave “Plot size” at default “800×600”
Leave Title blank
Cross fingers and press “Plot”
====================================
I trust the above helps, if not shout and I will give it another shot. In doing this I noticed I made a mistake in my original plot the “Initial Time” should have been “July 2004” to get the full 120 month decade. I had left the “Nov” default in.
Good luck!
Frank says
Since 2011 the ozone concentration has increased fast. The extra ice formations are sometimes explained with the drop in ozone concentration, but in recent years the development has reversed.
Henry says
In fact ozone has been increasing since 1995. The extra ice can be explained by arguing that the net effect of more ozone, & more peroxides and nitrogenous oxides, is that more radiation is deflected to space.
Chemists know that a lot of incoming radiation is deflected to space by the ozone and the peroxides and nitrogenous oxides lying at the TOA. These chemicals are manufactured from the extremely bad radiation (before UV) coming from the sun. Luckily we do have measurements on ozone, from stations in both hemispheres. I looked at these results. Incredibly, I found that ozone started going down around 1951 and started going up again in 1995, both on the NH and the SH. Percentage wise the increase in ozone in the SH since 1995 is much more spectacular.
We know that there is not much variation in the total solar irradiation (TSI) measured at the TOA. However, there is some variation within TSI, mainly to do with the UV (C). It appears (to me) that as the solar polar fields are weakening, more energetic particles are able to escape from the sun to form more ozone, peroxides and nitrogenous oxides at the TOA.
http://ice-period.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/sun2013.png
In turn, these substances deflect more sunlight to space when there is more of it.
to see this, you must try to understand this graph:
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/files/2011/08/Atmospheric_Transmission.png
Note how the ozone cuts a substantial portion of incoming radiation.
Trenberth knew this and he estimated that ozone is on its own is responsible for about 25%-30% of all that is back radiated by the sun. However, he forgot about the peroxides and nitrogenous oxides.
So, ironically, when the sun is brighter, earth will get cooler. This is a defense system that earth has in place to protect us from harmful radiation.
Henry said
Trenberth knew this and he estimated that ozone is on its own is responsible for about 25%-30% of all that is back radiated by the sun.
Henry says
oops
sorry
should be
Trenberth knew this and he estimated that ozone is on its own is responsible for about 25%-30% of all that is back radiated by the atmosphere
Figure 6 which has been in contention, has been removed and it cannot be replaced with a new figure because of an error in KNMI climate Explorer, and because there is now no TAO data for the area. Note also that Frank Lansner doesn’t have primary editing privileges at WUWT, so had to wait on me to correct this, and it was the first thing I did this morning after I woke up.
Bob writes in email:
He’s referring to the screencap I have in placer of figure 6 above.
It is clearly another case of “the algorithm is working as designed”.
As in, “That rotten ice is mucking up our models?”
Jbird says:
July 3, 2014 at 6:14 am
***Its getting colder around Antarctica and so the ice is growing***
This year, sea ice growth set 30-year records in Baffin Bay between Greenland’s west coast and Baffin Island. Is it fair to say it’s getting colder there too?
______________________
At least two more anomalies in the far North- there is a large area North of Nunavit and Greenland which has 5+ M- thick ice and Lake Superior froze over and had ice in June. Is it getting colder up there? Eyeballing the graph, the Arctic temp. trend seems to be flat, or slightly negative since about 2007.
ftp://ftp.ssmi.com/msu/graphics/tlt/plots/rss_ts_channel_tlt_northern%20polar_land_and_sea_v03_3.png
HenryP said:
“Incredibly, I found that ozone started going down around 1951 and started going up again in 1995, both on the NH and the SH. Percentage wise the increase in ozone in the SH since 1995 is much more spectacular.”
As per my New Climate Model.
Note, though, that despite the radiating ability of ozone its absorption capability heats it and reverses the lapse rate slope in the stratosphere.
More ozone for a warmer stratosphere and lower tropopause. Less ozone for a colder stratosphere and higher tropopause.
Introduce different variations at equator and poles and that gives us climate change as the entire global air circulation slides latitudinally bebeath the tropopause either towards the poles when it is warming or towards the equator when it is cooling.
Frank ´Lansner says, July 3, 2014 at 6:52 am:
“If it is true that ice is pushed away from Antarctica due to stronger winds, then the ice on the edge would meet warmer waters. This should reduce creation of ice at the edge.”
But apparently not until it’s reached far enough to set a new extent record, meaning the freezing rate at the edge grows progressively slower as it moves north and into less and less cold waters, until the edge, if pushed even further out by those claimed winds, will rather start melting.
I think the point that the warmists are trying to make is that, during winter, in situ ice production along the outer (northerly) edge of the cover would potentially occur even way beyond the ‘normal’ extent, but it could never reach that far without the stronger winds pushing it there, implicitly meaning the edge freezing itself is not fast enough and thus could not cover the distance in time before the season turned towards net melting.
I know, it’s veeeery far fetched and doesn’t take into account that ice formation doesn’t necessarily need an anchoring edge to occur, as long as the waters are cold and calm enough. Also, again, I don’t remember having seen their claimed mechanism being backed up with real-world data. But just trying to understand their actual argument, here …
Philip Bradley says:
July 3, 2014 at 2:06 am
James at 48 says:
July 2, 2014 at 4:06 pm
Assuming there is an net annual albedo component term to triggering the end of an interglacial, it is a darned good thing we have not been seeing expansive sea ice in the NH the past few years.
Not so good if you live in the SH as I do.
We will know in the next couple of years whether the albedo feedback causes accelerating sea ice increases and accelerating cooling. We are already more than 3 SDs above the average which pretty much rules out natural variation ‘noise’. That is, it is a real and very likely accelerating trend.
=================================
I’m a “glass 10% full” kind of person. As you note, from a global perspective we are in a net positive trend in terms of albedo and the SH bears the brunt.
Dear HenryP
I appreciate your interesting input, thank you!
You write on Ozone:
“In fact ozone has been increasing since 1995. The extra ice can be explained by arguing that the net effect of more ozone”
When the Alarmist site “Skeptical science” first used the excuse of Ozone we had year 2007.
http://hidethedecline.eu/media/Antarctica/10.gif
As you can see, at that time there had only been a decline in Ozone and then stagnation.
So in 2007 a lower Ozone concentration was a good explanation of more ice (via winds etc).
Now when we have record levels the Ozone has increased rapidly the last few years.
So if still Ozone concentrations explains things something in the argumentation must change…
Frank Lansner
HenryP:
Correction, 2010 is the Skeptical science article, and they mention a drop in Ozone, not a rise:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/increasing-Antarctic-Southern-sea-ice-intermediate.htm
“If the Southern Ocean is warming, why is sea ice increasing? There are several contributing factors. One is the drop in ozone levels over Antarctica”
But sadly, just after that article was online the strong increase in Ozone began…. And Ice area sky-rocketed…
Frank Lansner
I enjoyed this article. And yes salinity is fairly constant and only changes by small amounts over time. I studied that when I was in the Navy. You make your argument very well. You know though that Al Gore and Bill Gates will never agree with this.
Stephen Wilde says
Note, though, that despite the radiating ability of ozone its absorption capability heats it and reverses the lapse rate slope in the stratosphere.
Henry says
you [and Frank] have to understand the principle of absorption and subsequent re-radiation
I have tried to explain this here,
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2011/08/11/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-aug-2011/
but still it seems there is much confusion.
Sofar, I have measured that earth’s global temperature is down by -0.2K since 2000.
You can see it is cooling from the top latitudes down, e.g.
http://oi40.tinypic.com/2ql5zq8.jpg
To me it is possible that this is entirely due to the increase in ozone & others. Although the formation of these compounds prevents harmful incoming radiation, more of these compounds deflect more radiation due to absorption, re-radiation and and subsequent more back radiation.
Trenberth never knew or forgot about the peroxides and nitrogenous oxides also being formed TOA. These are not being measured or monitored, I doubt we even have spectra on them….
HenryP
I have to reflect a little more on your input but notice that the first very strong increase in Antarctic ice are peaked around 2007-2008 where there were no increase in Ozone. So.. its fluffy to say the least .
Frank Lansner
So if still Ozone concentrations explains things something in the argumentation must change…
Frank Lansner
Henry says
Hi Frank
You are definitely on the right track. Just forget about SS. SS is a waste of time, as they have always removed my important comments.
You must try to understand the principle of absorption, re-radiation and subsequent back radiation.
I got hold of ozone results from a station in the swiss alps with data on ozone going back to 1927. That is where I saw the bending points 1951 and 1995 (in the polynomials fits of the third order with fair correlation (ca. 0.5)
I also saw a graph from a station in the SH with data going back to 1980. Clearly the trend there was going up, from 1995. %wise, quite spectacular. On short term results, [like the lower results you mention] you must expect variation in ozone [and others] as per the variation in radiation coming from the sun:
http://ice-period.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/sun2013.png
I was able to correlate the dates of the change in ozone [&others – not measured] with the change in maximum temperatures,
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
look at both graphs….
There are more such correlations which ultimately lead me to believe that the sun will only change its course [to a more increasing field strength] around 2016, give or take a year.
taxed on July 2, 2014 at 1:48 pm
I’ve been following Arctic summer air temps as reported by DMI over the last few years and they have indeed been below average. However up to the last 2 years this has not stopped continued ice loss. My take on this has been that Gulf stream warm water was still flowing into the Arctic. However in the last couple of years it seems that the overturning of the AMO is correlated with weakening north Atlantic drift and thus reducing warm supply to the Arctic. Thus as you observed, summer cold at the Arctic is now accompanied by recovering ice.
Your observation about noctilucent cloud is interesting; however isn’t the stratosphere kind of inverse to temperature trends, cooling when the troposphere warms and vice versa – that at least is part of the warmists optical depth CO2 story. But I have my doubts. Maybe the beautiful night shining cloud could be an important indicator of something else.
Green Sand, thanks very much – I have been exploring the URL and will use your details to further my understanding – I appreciate your efforts.
phlogiston:
Today, 7/3/2014, the UV recorded 177 sfu. In one to two weeks [Sun in the Northern hemisphere] expect a jump in the DMI air temps. When the Sun is in the southern hemisphere, it takes about three weeks for DMI to pulse.
Isn’t it obvious that because of global warming of the oceans, all the heated water is rising to the North Pole and melting the Article Sea ice. The Antartic ice is growing because all the hot water is rising to the the top of the world. /sarc
Well it’s a more scientific theory than what Al Gore peddles.
HenryP
It has long been established that the reverse of the lapse rate slope in the stratosphere (warmer with height) is due to ozone directly absorbing incoming solar energy and heating up.
More ozone gives a higher stratosphere temperature and a lower tropopause.
Green Sand, yes, works !
I’m somewhat familiar with Christian inerrancy apologetics (using smoke, mirrors and rhetoric to explain away problems in New Testament documents). Frank’s article shows that apologetics is alive and well in the sciences, and he does a good job of dismissing some of it.
It’s my view that AGW theory is mostly apologetical in its nature. But I’m not a scientist, so what do I know?
Stephen Wilde thanks for your input.
I will check your site. I am particularly interested in Ice Age data that shows tropical freeze lines at 1000 meters lower than today with an implied steepened lapse rate. Richard Lindzen marvelled at this fact, and the fact that tropical oceans seem to be about as warm as today. Your ozone theory indicates there may be more to learn about ice ages. I guess that’s understatement for sure:) In particular it may be possible to surmise about solar activity during the Ice Ages.