From the University of Washington
From research stations drifting on ice floes to high-tech aircraft radar, scientists have been tracking the depth of snow that accumulates on Arctic sea ice for almost a century. Now that people are more concerned than ever about what is happening at the poles, research led by the University of Washington and NASA confirms that snow has thinned significantly in the Arctic, particularly on sea ice in western waters near Alaska.
A new study, accepted for publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, a publication of the American Geophysical Union, combines data collected by ice buoys and NASA aircraft with historic data from ice floes staffed by Soviet scientists from the late 1950s through the early 1990s to track changes over decades.
Historically, Soviets on drifting sea ice used meter sticks and handwritten logs to record snow depth. Today, researchers on the ground use an automated probe similar to a ski pole to verify the accuracy of airborne measurements.
“When you stab it into the ground, the basket move up, and it records the distance between the magnet and the end of the probe,” said first author Melinda Webster, a UW graduate student in oceanography. “You can take a lot of measurements very quickly. It’s a pretty big difference from the Soviet field stations.”
Webster verified the accuracy of airborne data taken during a March 15, 2012 NASA flight over the sea ice near Barrow, Alaska. The following day Webster followed the same track in minus 30-degree temperatures while stabbing through the snow every two to three steps.
The authors compared data from NASA airborne surveys, collected between 2009 and 2013, with U.S. Army Corps of Engineers buoys frozen into the sea ice, and earlier data from Soviet drifting ice stations in 1937 and from 1954 through 1991. Results showed that snowpack has thinned from 14 inches to 9 inches (35 cm to 22 cm) in the western Arctic, and from 13 inches to 6 inches (33 cm to 14.5 cm) in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, west and north of Alaska.
That’s a decline in the western Arctic of about a third, and snowpack in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas less than half as thick in spring in recent years compared to the average Soviet-era records for that time of year.
“Knowing exactly the error between the airborne and the ground measurements, we’re able to say with confidence, Yes, the snow is decreasing in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas,” said co-author Ignatius Rigor, an oceanographer at the UW’s Applied Physics Laboratory.
The authors speculate the reason for the thinner snow, especially in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, may be that the surface freeze-up is happening later in the fall so the year’s heaviest snowfalls, in September and October, mostly fall into the open ocean.
What thinner snow will mean for the ice is not certain. Deeper snow actually shields ice from cold air, so a thinner blanket may allow the ice to grow thicker during the winter. On the other hand, thinner snow cover may allow the ice to melt earlier in the springtime.
Thinner snow has other effects, Webster said, for animals that use the snow to make dens, and for low-light microscopic plants that grow underneath the sea ice and form the base of the Arctic food web.
The new results support a 15-year-old UW-led study in which Russian and American scientists first analyzed the historic Arctic Ocean snow measurements. That paper detected a slight decline in spring snow depth that the authors believed, even then, was due to a shorter ice-covered season.
“This confirms and extends the results of that earlier work, showing that we continue to see thinning snow on the Arctic sea ice,” said Rigor, who was also a co-author on the earlier paper.
The recent fieldwork was part of NASA’s Operation IceBridge program, which is using aircraft to track changes while NASA prepares to launch a new ice-monitoring satellite in 2017. The team conducted research flights in spring 2012 as part of a larger program to monitor changes in the Arctic.
The research was supported by NASA and the U.S. Interagency Arctic Buoy Program. Co-authors are Son Nghiem at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Nathan Kurtz at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Sinead Farrell at the University of Maryland, Don Perovich at the federal Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory and Matthew Sturm at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
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Snow big deal. Y’all chill out.
milodonharlani says:
August 13, 2014 at 10:17 am
Steven Mosher says:
August 13, 2014 at 9:38 am
Alarmists don’t have a scientific leg upon which to stand. There is zero evidence is support of CACA & all the evidence in the world is against it.
Very appropriate. CACA is the study of human waste production in french hospitals.
Where snow pack is increasing as in the northern hemisphere generally in the past decade, that has to be due to increased moisture in the atmosphere from global warming.
And if snow gets less – that’s from global warming too.
Heads we win, tails you lose.
“From research stations drifting on ice floes to high-tech aircraft radar, scientists have been tracking the depth of snow that accumulates on Arctic sea ice for almost a century. Now that people are more concerned than ever about what is happening at the poles, research led by the University of Washington and NASA confirms that snow has thinned significantly in the Arctic, particularly on sea ice in western waters near Alaska.”
Without really knowing who “people” are, NASA sometimes comes up with truly exciting things like the Solar studies, Cassini Solstice Mission, Magellan, Galileo, MESSENGER etc. They deserve more public attention and gratitude.
Some of the other NASA studies, like this, are a total mystery to me. Hard to think of a more boring study with less meaningful results.
more drivel
Bruce Cobb says:
August 13, 2014 at 12:09 pm
Here is an example of Mosh’s “Climate Science” at its’ finest.
Note how a skeptic will assign beliefs to people that those people dont have.
So much for being skeptical.
Willis has a good rule. quote me.
find a place where I write that I accept all of climate science. I will wait.
This is the typical “thinking” that pervades skeptical sites.
They never question their own beliefs. They can’t even document what others say.
Edward Richardson says:
August 13, 2014 at 10:03 am
dbstealey says:
August 13, 2014 at 9:51 am
“default position is natural climate variability”
…
When one explanation is used to explain everything, it explains nothing.
—————————–
Using CO2 as an explantion for every regional, global , micro and macro climate, biological, zoological, and financial event grandly exercises (“When one explanation is used to explain everything, it explains nothing.”) at a scale that can be considered one of the seven wonders of the world.
We are at best scratching the surface of understanding of climate variability, which climate alarmists are in peculiar denial about feeling to have settled the science long ago.
Climate variability is not an explanation, it is a common fact, like the earth orbiting the sun. Links are not necessary to prove this, these kind of facts only require observation.
We can model trends from these observations, but there are many issues; when to start the trend, when to end it, what data is significant, what are the data relationships, how to normalize the data from different sources, what are primary indicators, secondary indicators and so on… The ultimate issue though is what is the purpose of building a trend. For Global Warming, it is to demonstrate we are destroying the planets climate with fossil fuels and most of us are going to die and if we build enough wind farms, and oil companies make less money, the climate would stabilize at the mythical optimum temperature.
Science used in the pursuit of a political cause is the only thing doomed.
Alx says:
August 13, 2014 at 2:35 pm
…
“it is a common fact, like the earth orbiting the sun.”
…
Sorry, the earth orbiting the sun was not a common fact prior to the widespread adoption of heliocentrism “Common facts” change with time. What we call “natural variability” today might be well understood as a physical phenomena tomorrow.
“PhilCP says:
August 13, 2014 at 11:16 am
At least you have to give credit to the authors of the original article. They state their observations, speculate reasons and consequences (while clearly identifying them as speculative) and stating the uncertainties, all the while refraining from making dire apocalyptic predictions that seem to have become the norm in climate science.”
“at least”
how generous.
Steven Mosher says:
August 13, 2014 at 9:38 am
“note that skeptics merely assert claims. no data. no analysis. just assertion.
no uncertainty. no doubt. no acknowledgement that they might be wrong.
no critical assessment of prior work. no citations.
read climate science. say no and throw up a reason”
GARBAGE!
After batting with climate alarmists for two years on youtube I have not yet met one climate loonie who actually asserts real facts. No hard data from reliable sources. 90% of any links I get (if lucky) are “he ses, she ses” garbage. No proofs at all.
If they do give what they consider data it is GISS, NOAA, and NASA with their apparently newly altered and defrauded datasets.
Steven Mosher on August 13, 2014 at 2:34 pm
more drivel
Bruce Cobb says:
August 13, 2014 at 12:09 pm
Here is an example of Mosh’s “Climate Science” at its’ finest.
Note how a skeptic will assign beliefs to people that those people dont have.
So much for being skeptical.
Willis has a good rule. quote me.
find a place where I write that I accept all of climate science. I will wait.
This is the typical “thinking” that pervades skeptical sites.
They never question their own beliefs. They can’t even document what others say.
“To generalise is to be an idiot”
Mark Twain.
Tom J says:
Maybe there’s a precise ‘stab’ measurement. Perhaps it’s in fractions: 1/4 stab which is twice 1/8th of a stab. Perhaps it’s in decimals: 0.01 stab + 0.01 stab = 0.02 stab… I have little doubt, as that intrepid researcher trudges onward and outward through the snow, that their good right arm (or left arm if they’re left handed) precisely and equally stabs that “automated probe” into that snow with no measurable variation whatsoever, stab, after stab, after stab, after…
They use a probe with a sliding collet that can be calibrated for a particular depth. That gives it stab-ility.☺
Climate Weenie on August 13, 2014 at 9:54 am
Positive feedback ( for both accumulating or declining )
When ice is accumulating, more snow depth is available, which protects from melting.
When ice is declining, less snow depth, exposure to sunshine increases melting.
Apply feedback to natural variability and significant changes ensue.
Exactly. In a heat dissipative system like the earth, tension between positive and negative feedbacks leads to chaotic oscillation.
A reference? Ed Lorenz 1963, Deterministic nonperiodic flow.
This reference BTW is the sufficient theoretical underpinning for natural climate variability on all timescales to be the null hypothesis of climate science, as pointed out by dbstealey.
Snow drifts, the underlying ice is not a smooth surface.
It was quite impressive and must have led to a greater significance that:
” The following day Webster followed the same track in minus 30-degree temperatures while stabbing through the snow every two to three steps.”
The greater the trial, the more weight the data holds ?
Well that’s still better than Dr. Viner’s (paraphrase) snow will be a thing of the past. Children will not know what snow is! I guess that’s why nobody got to say “it’s worse than we thought”
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html
<Snow has thinned on Arctic sea ice.
So? Hair has thinned on Michael Mann’s head. It will take more than Mike’s Nature trick to hide that decline.
You can’t trick nature.
The assumption of 320 kg/m^3 snow density (in the range of wet firn) in the radar retrieval algorithm biases the estimated snow thickness to thin values: first major flaw.
Additionally, in addition to the in-situ thickness measures there should have been density measures: second major flaw.
On these errors I would have failed the paper.
Monday 20 March 2000 – Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html
I’m wondering if this is the fact-based climate science Mosh says we should all be reading?
A depth measurement without a corresponding density measurement specific to each depth measurement conveys no useful information about how much snow is present. Wind packing/shifting, brief thaws, variation in snowflake size and who knows what else are all in play. Its like equating temperature with tree rings.
For the what- its- worth file—-In the mid 50’s when the snow cap was allegedly the thickest, there were numerous media pictures of U.S. nuclear subs surfaced at the north pole with no ice in sight.
Edward Richardson says:
…“Common facts” change with time. What we call “natural variability” today might be well understood as a physical phenomena tomorrow.
I don’t understand why you keep avoiding the null hypothesis. That is directly connected with natural variability. There is nothing being observed today that is either unprecedented, or unusual. All current climate parameters were exceeded in the past. That was also natural variability, since human emissions were not a factor.
But now, human emissions have completely failed to cause the disasters incessantly predicted by climate alarmists: sea level rise is not accelerating, the added CO2 is not causing runaway global warming [or any global warming for that matter], the oceans are not “acidifying”, Polar bear populations are increasing, relative humidity is declining, confounding all alarmist predictions, global ice cover is right at it’s long term average, to the consternation of the Warmist clique, there is no indication whatever of a global ‘methane burp’, cyclical coral bleaching has almost completely recovered, the prediction of more extreme weather has failed, Kiribati is not sinking under rising seas, etc., etc. And etc.
What we are observing is simply natural variability in action, nothing more. We are very fortunate that we have been living in a “Goldilocks” climate for the past century and a half. Things could be far worse.
Or, things could be better: the added CO2 has been very beneficial: agricultural output has risen measurably and the planet is greening. More CO2 would be a net benefit. It turns out that the demonization of ‘carbon’ was a complete false alarm. Not one of the things predicted by the alarmist crowd has happened. Why would you still believe anything they say?
There is no empirical evidence showing that rising CO2 has caused any global warming [it may, but if it does, the effect has been too small to measure]. And if the planet warms by a degree or two, it will also be a net benefit: millions of hectares in new farmland will be warm enough to produce crops in currently frigid places like Alaska, Mongolia, and Siberia. Statistics show that cold kills far more people than warmth.
The one thread that runs through all climate alarmists’ comments is pessimism. They always see the glass as half empty. But, why? History shows us that humans have an immense capacity to deal with climatic changes. We can easily handle anything this side of another great Ice Age.
The “carbon” scare benefits a narrow clique of rent-seeking scientists, and a somewhat larger group of government bureaucrats. Everyone else pays. But there is no solid evidence that any of the many scary, self-serving predictions made by them are anything but a false alarm.
The Russians seem to think the ice in the Arctic will continue.
http://barentsobserver.com/en/russia/russia-orders-six-new-icebreakers
http://barentsobserver.com/en/business/2014/08/russia-orders-three-icebreakers-helsinki-shipyard-11-08
Warmologists and the MSM worldwide will now proceed in lockstep fashion to trumpet that less snow in the Arctic is “further proof” of manmade global climate Armageddon.
Because less snow always means climate change, er global warming, or something.
Same thing with more snow.
Some of you might enjoy this page. Driving on ice roads on lakes of course is much different than sea ice, but it might be interesting for southerners to check out what winter transpiration in northern Canada (Well, most parts of Canada where people use the ice to cross lakes in the winter from BC to Quebec, from the US border to the Arctic Ocean. A lot quicker to go straight across a lake at low speed in the winter than go around. (And of course all the ice fishing …) Snow is mostly a nuisance and irrelevant IMHO except in the late spring when the sun gets high enough to shine through the ice and warm the water under neath. Driving over clear ice over a metre thick is an interesting experience.
http://www.thedieselgypsy.com/Ice%20roads-3B-Denison-2.htm
http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/climate/summaries_and_publications/ice_out_description.html
Burt Snooks says:
August 13, 2014 at 4:59 pm
For the what- its- worth file—-In the mid 50’s when the snow cap was allegedly the thickest, there were numerous media pictures of U.S. nuclear subs surfaced at the north pole with no ice in sight.
Since the first sub to surface at the N Pole was the Skate in August 1958, and did so through the ice, that plainly is not true.
dbstealey says:
August 13, 2014 at 5:03 pm
.
“There is nothing being observed today that is either unprecedented, or unusual”
..
Can you tell me which biological organism in the past couple of billion years had the capability to drill down through four or five thousand feet of rock to extract hydrocarbons? Please verify that this ability is not “unprecedented” or “unusual”