From NSIDC: Arctic sea ice reaches minimum extent for 2014 September 22, 2014
On September 17, Arctic sea ice reached its likely minimum extent for 2014. This is now the sixth lowest extent in the satellite record and reinforces the long-term downward trend in Arctic ice extent. Sea ice extent will now begin its seasonal increase through autumn and winter. Meanwhile, sea ice in the Antarctic has surpassed the previous record maximum extent set in 2013 and is now more than 20 million square kilometers (7.72 million square miles) for the first time in the past thirty-five years. It is too soon to determine if Antarctic sea ice has reached its annual maximum.
Please note that this is a preliminary announcement. Changing winds in the Arctic could still push ice floes together, reducing Arctic ice extent below the current yearly minimum. NSIDC scientists will release a full analysis of the Arctic melt season, and discuss the Antarctic winter sea ice growth, in early October.
Source: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Here is the NSIDC graph showing the turn. The 2014 minimum has stayed within 2 standard deviations.
![N_stddev_timeseries[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/n_stddev_timeseries1.png?quality=75)
Since NSIDC does not give the daily data (at least the last time I looked), here is the daily data from JAXA and their graph showing the turn:
Here is the data from 9-10-14 to 9-21-14
9-10 5000248
9-11 4987733
9-12 4935847
9-13 4902691
9-14 4904059
9-15 4888765
9-16 4886207
9-17 4884120
9-18 4898064
9-19 4927138
9-20 4975912
9-21 5021767
It appears the minimum was on Sept 17th with 4.884120 million square kilometers. That makes it higher than 2013 (4.824927) and 2012 (3.177455).
The JAXA graph shows how the value fares with other averages and the two years of lowest extent:
![Sea_Ice_Extent_v2_L[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/sea_ice_extent_v2_l1.png?quality=75)
And a zoom in on another JAXA graph showing the minimums back to 2002:
Meanwhile, the Antarctic is setting new records:
![S_stddev_timeseries[3]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/s_stddev_timeseries3.png?quality=75)
There are more graphs and comparisons at the WUWT Sea Ice Page
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Why does the report need to state, “This is now the sixth lowest extent in the satellite record and reinforces the long-term downward trend in Arctic ice extent.”
Said another way, “This decade continues to show an increasing trend of Arctic ice extent.”
I am sorry, but your grammatical proposition would eliminate a few paying grants… It is better to have a glass half empty
🙂 of course.
Well according to various scientists, Arctic ice is lower than the long term average because of Global Warming and antarctic sea ice is higher than average due to local climatic conditions.
See, there you have it. We’re all doomed.
Arctic ice is lower than the long term average because of Global Warming, and Antarctic sea ice is higher than average due to Global Warming.
There, fixed it for you. Courtesy of NewScientist
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329871.800-record-sea-ice-around-antarctica-due-to-global-warming.html#.VCEgmhatbiE
…the magazine that once reported actual science, rather than religion.
I stopped buying New Socialist a long time ago due to it’s rabid enviromentalism [sic]. It is now a Watermelon propaganda organ
Those chaps at the New Scientist don’t realise that the IPCC had projected a decrease in Antarctica’s sea ice extent because of global warming. The IPCC also projected warmer winters due to globals warming, yet other scientists came out and claimed that colder winters was being caused by global warming. Don’t they realise that people are not laughing? Even the bloke down and pub and Joe sixpack giggle when they hear this rubbish.
@Anthony
I know you’re jet lagged. Arctic minima turned the corner in 2007. Take out the Arctic cyclone induced 2012 outlier and the graph shows that there has been more ice at the September minimum every year since 2007.
The low reading for 2007 was also because of an August cyclone. Arctic ice is growing again in our cooling world, along with Antarctic ice, thanks to the switches in the AMO and PDO.
… yet the Antarctic record is the highest in the past 35 years.
When ice is low, the event is compared to the entire”satellite record” but when high the event is compared to “the past thirty-five years”
Which sounds longer?
This isn’t about science – it is a PR game.
In my local paper the article is titled “Another year of shrinking ice”. The lead paragraph states “Ice in Arctic seas shrank this summer to the sixth-lowest level in 36 years of monitoring”.
My view is the satellite record began during the beginning of a warm PDO phase and as we enter a cold PDO phase, it will return to levels seen during the early satellite record.
The report needs to give the standard government issue wording because the authors need to feed their families. The proper wording would be “This year´s minimum is X % higher than the record low observed in 2012. However, it is y % lower than the 1981-2010 average. Based on current trends it is expected next year´s minimum extent will also exceed the 2012 minimum”.
Actually, if this is the sixth lowest extent….and 1-5 were earlier, that means that the downward trend is non-existent. The trend is upwards.
It appears to me that this line is above much of the earlier “lowest.” Thus…the trend line is up.
Now..I’m not a scientist, nor do I pretend to be one like Mann….. but…..am I wrong?
reinforces the long-term downward trend in Arctic ice extent
Really?
http://notrickszone.com/2014/09/18/just-how-sure-are-sea-ice-experts-about-the-arctic-melting-continuing-looks-very-close-to-zero/
That 1000 USD bet should be taken soon then.
LOL. I’ll bet NO ONE takes that bet! Cowards.
Try asking them what value would not “reinforce the long-term downward trend in Arctic ice extent”, I did last year but got nowhere.
I fail to see how a value that reduces a trend can be seen to reinforce but, but this is Climate Science™
You haven’t been paying attention. It’s just like the temperature hiatus shows an accelerating rate of global warming.
I think the really interesting thing is that while 2014 is looking like it will be in the top 5 hottest years, the antarctic ice is high and the arctic ice not that low. In the case of the arctic, maybe the local N American cool temps this year had an influence. But why in a warming world, is the antarctic expanding, albeit mildly?
Perhaps global sea ice is a good proxy for the fabrication of the global temperature record by the conclusion-based conclusion-drawing sh!t scientists. Or perhaps global temperature anomaly is a totally useless metric …. or both.
+1
+2
+3
+4
+5
+6 anyone that recognises any of the global average temperature data sets as accurate would be advised to look at how they are generated.
Nobody knows for sure why the Antarctic ice is growing as much as it is. There are theories and speculations, but I can´t find a definitive answer I can trust. I suspect it has to do with the activity of extra tropical cyclones which tend to swirl around Antarctica. However, that´s pure speculation on my part.
Arctic sea ice is obviously affected by the flow of warmer river water from Russia and Alaska.
Therefore, Arctic sea ice is also a proxy for rainfall (OK, precipitation) in Russia and Alaska and for land-use change in Russia and Alaska.
I’m not convinced Arctic sea ice tells us anything about the global temperature… but I think the change may well be manmade.
“. . . maybe the local N American cool temps this year had an influence.”
To a significant extent local NA cool temps were the result of the displacement of the polar vortex from the pole. Simultaneously, warmer air was drawn to the pole, making polar temperatures warmer than normal during the first quarter, as illustrated in the Danish Meteorological Institute graph on the Sea Ice page. So northern sea ice increased year-to-year despite warmer temperatures.
Also we need to take into account that the “cold” PDO had a “warm” spike, (which a “cold” PDO also had during the “Ice Age Scare” of the late 1970’s.) A lot of the water up in the north Pacific was well above normal, (as it was during the winter of 1918, which was extremely cold in the eastern USA.) To have that warm water moving north through Bering Strait should have reduced the ice extent. To some degree it did, but too much ice had built up during the “cold” part of the “cold” PDO that preceded the “warm” spike.
To some degree the “warm” spike in the “cold” PDO was countered by a “cold” spike in the “warm” AMO. However by the end of the summer the AMO was back to its “warm” phase. Currently both the AMO and PDO are “warm,” which is not conducive to the build-up of ice. The fact ice has increased even slightly has me looking for other causes, such as the “quiet sun.”
We are approaching the end of the “warm” AMO, and the PDO should swing back to its “cold” phase soon. When both the AMO and PDO are “cold”, what is already obvious should become glaringly obvious. As the sea-ice gets back to the levels it was at, at the start of the satellite era, all talk of “death spirals” will seem like a joke, or maybe a bad dream.
Even now a lot of the talk about “albedo” needs to be reexamined. With so much more ice, especially as far north as latitude 57 around Antarctica, much more sunlight is being reflected now, compared to 2007. This throws a big, fat wrench into a lot of the “albedo equations.” Likely they will have to completely remove the effect of “albedo” from some climate models, or the models will produce results they disapprove of. (sarc.)
In other arctic news:
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2014/9/22/the-royal-and-the-arctic.html
ice free by 2020…
Wadhams said there would be an ‘ice free’ Arctic NO LATER THAN 2016. He has said this many times which I have been compiling. He has also mentioned 2015 as well as a combination of both dates.
Read his quotes here (links provided).
Add to the above the following from this year.
If you include multi-year ice in the picture this starts to look like recovery.
That’s right. There is still a lot of 5 Meter thick ice around the Northern reaches of Nunavut and Greenland.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticictnowcast.gif
http://appinsys.com/globalwarming/Inquisition.JPG
“… and reinforces the long-term downward trend in Arctic ice extent.”
which is crazy, IMO. They write it as a noun phrase “the long-term downward trend”, which makes it sound real.
Didn’t Roald Amundsen et al traverse the Northwest Passage in 1903?
Yet in 2013 at least a score of boats tried and failed. And now the ice is coming back.
1903 to 1906. He was iced in for a few years.
Nope. He deliberately stayed an extra year at Gjöa Haven to study the Netsilingmiut and learn how to travel and survive in the High Arctic. He already had bigger things in mind.
In 1903, with a crew of six on his 47-ton sloop Gjöa, Amundsen began his mission to sail through the Northwest Passage and around the northern Canadian coast. He reached Cape Colborne (in present-day Nunavut) in August 1905, completing his transit of the passage proper, before ice halted his westerly progress for the winter at Herschel Island in the Yukon the following month. Amundsen and his crew resumed the journey in August 1906 and were greeted with a heroes’ welcome when the expedition concluded in Nome, Alaska, later that month.
source: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/21974/Roald-Amundsen
Careful, soon the Progressive revisionists will come come for this Norwegian Explorer and erase him from the books.
Well, his ship Gjøa (=correct spelling) is still on display in Oslo
http://www.storm.no/nyheter/taaler-polarskuten-gjoea-loeftet-3897419.html
@TobiasN,
In 2014, there were six boats that made an unassisted NW Passage, plus one 132 passenger cruise ship with assistance. See Summary 9/4. It all depends upon the wind.
Stephen, I document the 2013 passage thoroughly, and the 2014 attempts in less thorough footnotes. S, innthemforthcoming book. You will probably like some of the images from some of the vessel transit attempts. essay is titled Northwest Passage, and is about natural variability.
The M/V NUNAVIK was just built this year (2014) in Japan. From what I’m told this will be the first commercial sailing from an Arctic port unassisted to Asia through the northwest passage. It’s carrying 23,000 tons of nickel concentrate from a mine in Canada owned by a Chinese company.
The Chinese company spent one billion dollars to put the mine into production with the expectation of producing 20,000 tons per year, which will be shipped once per year through the northwest passage to China. The ship will be operated with Canadian expertise by Fednav Limited based in Montreal with Captain Randy Rose.
It’s touted as the most powerful conventional icebreaking bulk carrier in the world. It’s a Polar Class 4 Handysize Bulk Vessel with a Deadweight of 31,700 metric tons. This will be it’s maiden voyage with the first shipment from the new mine.
The Chinese must be using Soviet style economic calculators, or they got really cheap loans they will default.
Jilin Jien Nickel of China bought Canadian Royalties in 2010 to get control of the mine and have named the property The Nunavik Nickel Project. They also believe there is Copper, Cobalt, Platinum, Palladium and Gold on the property. It was financed by a consortium of Chinese banks.
Last year 8 out of 24 boats made it through the NW passage, most with some help from icebreakers. This year 6 out of 22 who tried made it, plus one (EMPIRICUS) who made a two-year transit after wintering at Cambridge Bay. Several of these were also helped by icebreakers or other ships with ice-breaking capability.
Incidentally the tug + submersible barge that were going to try to salvage the “MAUD” have given up on this year. The ships will winter in Cambridge Bay and make a new try next year. The crew of S/V GJOA which have also decided to winter in Cambridge Bay will act as caretakers during the winter and continue with GJOA to Alaska next summer.
Since the Franklin expedition is very much in the news it is interesting to note that the ice conditions during the first two years of that expedition (1845-46) were apparently better than this year (2014). Neither the voyage around Cornwallis Island to 77 degrees north in 1845, or the voyage south through the Peel sound in 1846 would have been feasible this year. Conditions in 2014 were more similiar to 1847-49 when the ice northwest of Prince William Island in which Erebus and Terror were stuck never melted.
@tty
Nice observation about comparative ice conditions.
Yes Roald Amundsen did travel Northwest Passage in 1903. Not to mention the forgotten fact that in 11th century sludge deposit found during excavation more than 50 years ago in north-north west coast area of Canada they did find a specific human lice, normally only transfered during sexual activity, which had it’s equal found in a farmhouse in Greenland and in a barn at Snorre’s farm….
I take it that too little of old history and archaelogical findings of biological deposit is presented to those who should have seen their thesis proven wrong had they only done their homework BEFORE presenting their papers…..
You haven’t argued with AGW for very long. Nothing has ever happened in the past that would or could even remotely prove AGW to be wrong. If there is something that might possibly cast a doubt on AGW, it is quickly explained away, forgotten, or just didn’t happen. There has never been more or stronger hurricanes than now, no drought has ever been worse, rain is more frequent and less at the same time. And in 20 years the Arctic will be ice free and children will not no what snow will look like. ( if 2013 didn’t work, AGW can just extend the time line out… who’s to know and who will remember)
They call skeptics ..deniers.
[Reply: This is why Anthony requests that commenters put a “/sarc” tag or something similar under posts like this. See comment below. ~mod.]
Only argued regarding AGW for the last 43 years!
Started to argue against the present AGW-believers precorsors in 1971….
continued later in 70’s after bringing Humanecology to Sweden together with three other. Managed to get it up on University agenda….
and with help of specialists in the different fields managed to get those precursors proven wrong and silent.
In later years I have argued with them from 1993….. In 1995 I was asked by those who had correct value for CO2, temperature in air (over land and over resp. under water) to ask if todays scholars were interested to have CORRECT values before archives were moved and/or devided to several archives….. the answer from those I still call so called scholars were: It’s easier to use interpolation or calculated value for the past….
So I guess I probably argued with AGW longer than you. Not to mention that I who had my Systemprogrammer exam in 1971 used my skill after changing field to History when I needed to find out correct waterlevels around the world from Stone Age up to 1000 AD. 43 variables needed for that. Without the complete picture of old ages landrise and sea level changes around the world I wouldn’t have been able to present my C-essay Waterways towards Lake Roxen from the Baltic Sea, Linköping’s University 1993.
Btw. You may look at the effect of Landrise (same as Archimede’s principle say would happen btw.)
The Baltic Sea in older ages
Oh…. I can present same pattern on all land in Northern Hemisphere that was under ice during last Ice Age.
So haven’t I argued with AGW for very long. Longer than you I promise. While you can find bloggarticles in my blogg from mid 2008
one of them Klimatfrågan och över alltihopa lyser Moder Sol
that’s not the only place I have argued….. in science discussions from first time I had my own account back in first part of 1990’s
yes you have… much longer. It must have been trying. I felt for awhile I was one of the few on this side of the fence.
norah4you, I think {rishrac September 22, 2014 at 9:20 pm} was meant as sarcasm about how arguing with alarmists is much like beating your head against a wall. They’re not interested in data and/or facts. (C)AGW is revealed religion, not science.
My experience over the years is that one needs to “take” one at a time…. and it takes a long time. Back in the 70’s it took more than five years…. and then I had help of the old experts now not among us anymore….
One need to take the AWG-believers belief into pieces using their own argumentation. It’s not easy but it’s possible.
No, as the Britannica link above (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/420084/Northwest-Passage) states: “Amundsen and his crew had set sail in 1903 in the converted 47-ton herring boat Gjöa. They completed the arduous three-year voyage in 1906, when they arrived in Nome, Alaska, after having wintered on the Yukon coast.”
OK Amundsen started in 1903. Didn’t write that the route took 23 months….
But that doesn’t change the information I wrote re. voyage in older ages.
More to the point, they only have 35 years worth of data. That isn’t “long-term” anything.
Thanks, A.
From the University of Bremen:
http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr2/extent_n_running_mean_amsr2_previous.png
but:
http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr2/extent_n_running_mean_amsr2_regular.png
So, is the glass half full or half empty?
Andres, how you see the glass all depends on what your idea of what an ideal level of minimum summer Arctic sea ice extent is. How little is too little and how much is too much? These are not questions of science but of personal preference. The answers you choose will be based on your own ethical, aesthetic or utilitarian principles or else on the baseless egotistic idea that you are in some way doing something useful in holding an opinion about the matter at all.
And while you along with millions of other people are playing these mind games, the Arctic is going about its usual seasonal business of alternately freezing and thawing, tirelessly,regularly and naturally, like a once-a-year heartbeat, just as it has been doing for at least the past several million years, in complete indifference to anything you or I have to say about it.
Andres Valencia
,Your last graph excludes 2012.
Up north, the glass is half-frozen
Down south, the glass is busily freezing the rest of the food in the refrigerator.
It appears that a new equilibrium has been reached concerning the ice extent. It has been fluctuating up and down for about seven years now. I would expect this equilibrium/fluctuation to persist unless SST rises appreciably. The “death spiral” has spun out.
Dial-turning got the Arctic minimum down, and the silly-looking Antarctic maximum was the collateral damage, I reckon. They know the media will report the minimum and not the maximum. But that’s ok, with each passing season their tricks will less avail them. The recent GISS upward adjustment of current temperatures is a worry though, can they really be so brazen?
They have the advantage: they can lie much faster than we can expose the lie. We already have more lies than we can deal with. Plus, their lies get broadcast far and wide by an established propaganda apparatus. Our real hope is that the present slight cooling trend gets cooler.
The ice has increased from the minimum the same amount in the last four days what it took nine days to decrease to the minimum. Looking at past years it is funny how the extent always seem to recoil right back and fast like someone just took their thumb off the scales. Is it mother nature or is it …
When you look at global sea ice (north and south poles added together) it looks like it is in the range of the 1983 to 1985 era:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/iphone/images/iphone.anomaly.global.png
It is within that range. However, under today’s conditions at time of minimum Arctic sea ice extent in mid_September, each meter of “excess” Antarctic sea ice near latitude 58 south is receiving FIVE TIMES as much solar energy as the Arctic sea receives at 79 and 80 north latitude.
Losing Arctic sea ice from today’s levels cools the planet seven months of the year..
Gaining more Antarctic sea ice from today’s levels cools the planet twelve months of the year.
I’m not understanding that last bit. Did you mean to say “… Gaining Arctic sea ice …” ?
The phase transition from ice to water absorbs heat.
See also “evaporation is a cooling process”
replying to
and to KevinM
Well, Trenberth’s and Sereze’s simplified “Sea ice reflects the sunlight and cools the world, the dark ocean absorbs the sunlight and heats the world” always works for the unique case of “Icebergs on the Equator at noon at the Solstice”. I’ve also seen Notre Dame use it in on a mid-term test as the uber-extremis example of “Icebergs in space at noon on the solstice”
Well, at the edge of the Antarctic sea ice at 58 south -> yes, he is correct. “Expanding Antarctic sea ice from today’s limits means the planet will reflect more solar energy, and the planet will cool down.”
Today, each square meter on the edge of the Antarctic sea ice at latitude -58 south, the Top-of-Atmosphere radiation = 1351 watts/m^2.
At 12:00 AM in clear skies …
Air mass = 1.917,
989 watts hits a perpendicular surface to the sun’s rays,
515 watts hits every flat surface,
Solar elevation angle = 31.4 degrees,
If it were open ocean water, albedo = 0.072 (7 % is reflected, 93% absorbed)
ocean absorbs 478 watts/sec and 37 watts/sec is reflected.
But it is sea ice today, so today –
91 watts is absorbed into the ice, and 424 watts is reflected back into space.
Now, today, each of the 1.6 million “excess” square kilometers of “excess” Antarctic sea ice is reflecting 424 watts x 1.6 million km^2 x 10^ m^2/km^2 ….
Sounds like cooling, doesn’t it? Sounds like what they tell us is (not) happening in the Arctic, right?
In the Arctic? In our real world? Not so much.
At 80 north latitude in the arctic. Today.
Same 1351 watts/m^2 at top-of-atmosphere radiation.
Same 12:00 noon, same clear skies. (Let’s not confuse the issue with clouds. yet.)
Air mass now = 5.272 (Air mass at the equator = 1.00)
Solar elevation angle = 10.6 degrees. (SEA)
Only 574 watts/m^2 hit a perpendicular surface.
Only 106 watts/m^2 hit a flat surface.
The measured open ocean albedo at 10.6 SEA = 0.316 so, today
Only 72 watts/m^2 is absorbed, 33 watts/m^2 is reflected.
20 years ago, it this same square meter of ocean were ice-covered,
22 watts/m^2 would be absorbed, and 84 watts/m^2 would have been reflected.
Is there a difference? Is more energy absorbed in the open water in the Arctic on September 22 today than was absorbed by the sea ice 20 years ago? Yes.
A little bit more energy is absorbed in today’s open water. But ONLY between the hours of 9:00 am and 15:00 pm! And the above calc is for NOON! The HIGHEST point the sun will ever get at this latitude for the next 6 months!
Twenty years ago, theory claims this area was covered by sea ice at this time of year. If so, there was no evaporation (which cools the surface of the water depending on air temperature, wind speed, water temperature, and air humidity and thus evaporation rate.). So, no sea ice = more cooling every 24 hours today with the open ocean (under the same air, water, wind, and humidity conditions.)
Long Wave Radiation. If sea ice covered the same area 20 years ago, then the top of ice temperature = air temperature ~ 266 K.
Emissivity of sea ice and water are very, very similar -> So there is no difference.
If both the sea ice twenty years ago and today’s open ocean both radiate into the same type of clouds and sky and humidity and the same Tsky, then open ocean is radiating at 277 degrees K (+4 degrees C), and the sea ice is radiating at 266 K (-6 degrees C)
Energy loss is proportional to T^4 … Compare (277^4-Tsky^4) to (266^4 – Tsky^4)
If open ocean, more energy is lost through radiation than when sea ice covered.
Convection and conduction?
The sea ice isolates (insulates) the open ocean from the wind, damps waves, eliminates spray and mist, and separates the top-of-water from the very, very cold artic air. Again, over a 24 hour period?
More open Arctic ocean = more heat loss at 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80 degrees latitude.
More Arctic sea ice = Less heat loss.
…
Didn’t you get the memo? Everyone’s changed their mind. Sea ice extent is no longer important. It’s all about ice volume now. Something that is at the very limit of measurement capabilities (beyond?) and requires many corrections and modeling assumptions to get the ridiculous level of accuracy required. Isn’t climate science fun? Something disagrees with your models, well then just stop looking at it! Look for other data and eventually you’ll find some proxy or really noisy data big enough to fit a catastrophic trend in there somewhere.
– Trees thermometers not tracking current temperatures? Just truncate the data and splice in your favorite thermometer data. You’ll be the coolest kid at your institution!
– Missing hot-spot problems got you down? No problem! Look at wind proxy data instead of actual temperature measurements!
– Temperature pause damping public enthusiasm for the coming apocalypse? Ocean heat to the rescue! With water heat capacity so high you could fit a mini-sun the size of Hawaii and not see it for years, all your heat eating needs are easily taken care of.
– Ice extent not going your way. Cheer up mate. Science is here to save the day. Some brand new gravity satellites, a bit of hand-waving, and claimed measurement accuracy so ridiculous you could measure mosquito farts from space with it and voilà! Ice volume is falling off a cliff.
“Beyond” I think is the correct assessment. Probably a lot of “adjustments” involved with the data of the Grace satellite, which was not originally designed for ice volume measurements.
in a nutshell,excellent summary of the situation.
For the Antarctic especially, which effects sea levels if the ice mass declines, we need to track the ice mass, not ice area. That data is harder to find, harder to measure, but NASA has this page:
http://climate.nasa.gov/key_indicators/#landIce
This page shows Antarctic and Greenland ice volume is decreasing despite the increase in antarctic ice area. Maybe the ice is melting and re-freezing in the water, whatever the reason is, the volume and mass are whats important to the discussion of melting polar ice and sea level discussions. So based on that data you have to say global land ice is declining, and sea levels are rising because of it, though not at alarming rates at this point. Land ice volumes are not solid indicators of climate patterns though, since huge ice masses take so long to change temperature and melt they can still melt in dropping temperatures, especially with the dark soot being deposited on the Greenland ice, so these land ice melt rates are not a foolproof measure of climate change. As for affecting the earth albedo, polar ice builds up in the winters when there is very little sun, so that doesn’t seem like it would matter to the climate.
You confuse me. We are talking about sea ice here. The melting of floating sea ice has no influence on sea level. Are you confusing sea ice and the land based ice caps of Antarctica and Greenland?
A geologists thoughts on sea level rise with melting of West Antarctic ice sheet: Generally loss of land ice gets some compensation from rising land under the ice and sinking sea floor. In the case of West Antarctica, the rebound will be muted. The overlying pressure of ice on land appears to have caused the migration of magma of a volcanically active band in W. Ant. to the coastal and submarine strip to the west, removing mass permanently from ground under the ice. This means that there has already been some sea level rise caused by the ice with this transfer of igneous mass and of course from the compensating sea floor rise from just the ice load in the first place. Indeed, the ice pressure has pushed land under the W. Ant. ice sheet down to a maximum of ~1.5 miles below sea level!!
http://www.discoveringantarctica.org.uk/alevel_1_4.html
“In contrast with the EAIS, the WAIS sits on bedrock that is mostly below sea level (lowest bed elevation of 2496m below sea level).”
Should this ice sheet melt, therefore, ~ half the water would remain in the down-pressed basin exposed. The sea level rise already caused by depressing the land down with a compensation of adjacent seafloor rise, plus the transfer of magma to the coastal and submarine areas means that future sealevel rise will be considerably less than half that calculated by just converting the ice to water. I believe I may be the first to remark on this transfer of magma already causing sea level rise.
Yes he is. Very thoroughly confusing them.
See my reply below on 22 September at 3:22.
I have seen reports over the last 5 years or so that the land ice mass in Greenland and Antarctica have been gaining and or decreasing. I don’t think the actual data is precisely known. Correct me if I am wrong. Do you trust NASA on this?
There is a saying “We use statistics like a drunk uses a lamp post, for support, not illumination.” Meaning of course that human tendency is to quickly disregard statistics that don’t support what we already believe, rather than learn from what the seemingly contradicting statistics are telling us. I wouldn’t be surprised if NASA was biasing their measurements to show more melting than there actually is, but I have no evidence at this point to dispute it now. So the melting land ice data they have measured is something I am not disregarding as hogwash.
“the volume and mass are whats important” That’s a completely unsubstantiated statement. It’s ‘albedo’ feedback that is important (right?) Which means that extent is more important than volume, specifically extent during the summer as you alluded to.
This is ever moving goalposts of climate science. Let’s move from focusing on extent (something easily measured) to volume, something that is almost impossible to measure to the necessary accuracy, and therefore dominated by modeling, corrections and uncertainty.
Not only are we are going to pretend that we can measure altitude to sub-millimeter resolutions now, we are also going to pretend that we can accurately separate out altitude changes due to ice volume from altitude changes due to tectonic plate movements (e.g. the position of the south pole itself moves about 10 meters a year).
This ridiculous level of precision (with not no statement of uncertainty) is a typical of pathological science. ‘Volume’ measurements fit the first three conditions of pathological science perfectly:
– The maximum effect that is observed is produced by a causative agent of barely detectable intensity, and the magnitude of the effect is substantially independent of the intensity of the cause.
– The effect is of a magnitude that remains close to the limit of detectability, or many measurements are necessary because of the very low statistical significance of the results.
– There are claims of great accuracy.
From a couple of years ago http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v491/n7425/full/nature11621.html
‘We resolve 26 independent drainage basins and find that Antarctic mass loss, and its acceleration, is concentrated in basins along the Amundsen Sea coast. Outside this region, we find that West Antarctica is nearly in balance and that East Antarctica is gaining substantial mass.’
Probably not that accurate either but it does show the cherry picking of research to feed the MSM.
Robert B,
Thanks for the link. Interesting to see estimates have been scaled back to 1/3 in this paper.
Indeed, GRACE is problematic. The shape of the geoid changes yearly, in some places by meters, due to tectonic movements and mantel density flux; thus making MM estimates meaningless.
Many skeptics have long thought that the GAT from surface reading should have far higher error bars. Now a new paper asserts that as well. NEW SYSTEMATIC ERRORS IN ANOMALIES OF GLOBAL
MEAN TEMPERATURE TIME-SERIES
by
Michael Limburg (Germany)
http://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/uploads/media/E___E_algorithm_error_07-Limburg.pdf
David A,
Interesting paper and nice to see that some people are attempting to introduce some realism back into uncertainty ranges. As it is now, claimed accuracies are absurd and global temperature measurements (as it relates to CO2) also match the first three criteria for pathological science:
– Temperature is “substantially independent” of the supposed cause – CO2.
– The claimed temperature signal is close to the limit of instrument detectability.
– Claims of great accuracy.
David A
people seem to be ignoring this (possibly because its the same with UAH as well as HadCRUT) but how can such a good correlation be possible? http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/derivative/mean:12/plot/hadcrut4sh/from:1959/scale:0.3/offset:0.1
They really did such a fantastic job homogenizing to get rid of the 0.3 K uncertainty?
Steve, I would suggest you print the sun declination charts for the Southern hemisphere. Then take the the ice extent data and put it on the chart using a colored pencil. After you do you will see the Antarctic ice extent is indeed helping increase the earth´s albedo.
I noticed quite a few statements like yours in the blogosphere. Are you guys getting this from a single source? Or is this something every one of you invents as the ice extent gets mentioned?
Fernando, I have never seen any study or calculations or measurements of how much antarctic ice affects overall earth albedo, but intuitively to me it seems like the changes that are occuring would not make a big difference. Since water is highly reflective of solar rays at low sun angles, less than 10 degrees, reducing the difference in reflection between ice and water, and the sea ice melts pretty quickly at higher sun angles it seems like the effect would be minor to me. Maybe it is a bigger affect on overall albedo than I’m giving it credit for, I’d like to see any data on that if it can be quantified. I’m not a warmist trying to dispell evidence that doesn’t agree with my theories, It just seems like it would be a minor effect to me.
Replying to:
Fernando Leanme, September 22, 2014 at 11:38 pm
and
Steve, September 23, 2014 at 12:31 pm Edit
Compare these two absorption/reflection energy comparisons for Arctic sea ice at 80 degrees north against a gain of Antarctic sea ice today at 58 degrees south latitude.
Expanding Antarctic sea ice from today’s limits means the planet will reflect more solar energy, and the planet will cool down.
Today, 22 September (day-of-year = 265) each square meter on the edge of the Antarctic sea ice at latitude -58 south,
the Top-of-Atmosphere radiation = 1351 watts/m^2.
At 12:00 AM in clear skies …
Air mass = 1.917,
989 watts hits a perpendicular surface to the sun’s rays,
515 watts hits every flat surface,
Solar elevation angle = 31.4 degrees,
If it were open ocean water, albedo = 0.072 (7 % is reflected, 93% absorbed)
ocean absorbs 478 watts/sec and 37 watts/sec is reflected.
But it is sea ice today, so today –
91 watts is absorbed into the ice, and 424 watts is reflected back into space.
Now, today, each of the 1.6 million “excess” square kilometers of “excess” Antarctic sea ice is reflecting 424 watts x 1.6 million km^2 x 10^ m^2/km^2 ….
Sounds like cooling, doesn’t it? Sounds like what they tell us is (not) happening in the Arctic, right?
In the Arctic? In our real world? Not so much.
At 80 north latitude in the arctic. Today.
Same 1351 watts/m^2 at top-of-atmosphere radiation.
Same 12:00 noon, same clear skies. (Let’s not confuse the issue with clouds. yet.)
Air mass now = 5.272 (Air mass at the equator = 1.00)
Solar elevation angle = 10.6 degrees. (SEA)
Only 574 watts/m^2 hit a perpendicular surface.
Only 106 watts/m^2 hit a flat surface.
The measured open ocean albedo at 10.6 SEA = 0.316 so, today
Only 72 watts/m^2 is absorbed, 33 watts/m^2 is reflected.
20 years ago, it this same square meter of ocean were ice-covered,
22 watts/m^2 would be absorbed, and 84 watts/m^2 would have been reflected.
Is there a difference? Is more energy absorbed in the open water in the Arctic on September 22 today than was absorbed by the sea ice 20 years ago? Yes.
A little bit more energy is absorbed in today’s open water. But ONLY between the hours of 9:00 am and 15:00 pm! And the above calc is for NOON! The HIGHEST point the sun will ever get at this latitude for the next 6 months!
Twenty years ago, theory claims this area was covered by sea ice at this time of year. If so, there was no evaporation (which cools the surface of the water depending on air temperature, wind speed, water temperature, and air humidity and thus evaporation rate.). So, no sea ice = more cooling every 24 hours today with the open ocean (under the same air, water, wind, and humidity conditions.)
Long Wave Radiation. If sea ice covered the same area 20 years ago, then the top of ice temperature = air temperature ~ 266 K.
Emissivity of sea ice and water are very, very similar -> So there is no difference.
If both the sea ice twenty years ago and today’s open ocean both radiate into the same type of clouds and sky and humidity and the same Tsky, then open ocean is radiating at 277 degrees K (+4 degrees C), and the sea ice is radiating at 266 K (-6 degrees C)
Energy loss is proportional to T^4 … Compare (277^4-Tsky^4) to (266^4 – Tsky^4)
If open ocean, more energy is lost through radiation than when sea ice covered.
Convection and conduction?
The sea ice isolates (insulates) the open ocean from the wind, damps waves, eliminates spray and mist, and separates the top-of-water from the very, very cold artic air. Again, over a 24 hour period?
More open Arctic ocean = more heat loss at 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80 degrees latitude.
More Arctic sea ice = Less heat loss.
do not worry about the dark soot on greenland ice,the 12 billion tonnes of snow that landed on top of it recently will keep it white for a while yet and you will find the mass balance of the greenland ice sheet is currently above the mean http://www.dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland-ice-sheet-surface-mass-budget/
There are some people who just go nuts when they are told that there are things about this world (such as sea ice) that they can’t control.
NASA just put this out a few hours ago.
http://youtu.be/jjwpOWeRZus
Defund them now.
Questions for Dr,Kurtz, Research Scientist, NASA GSFC based on your comments in quotes below…
“Arctic sea ice basically acts as a big air conditioner for the planet.”
Does Antarctic sea ice perform the same function?
“It helps to keep the planet cool”
Would the planet’s temperature be modulated/controlled by only Arctic sea ice or would the total sea ice extent be important?
“Since 1979 we’ve been monitoring the extent of sea ice with satellites. And, at the present time, we’ve lost an area equivalent of about a third of the United States.”
What do you suppose/guess/theorize happened prior to us using satellite monitoring? Do you believe arctic sea ice extent was never before as low as it is now? If not, how would you characterize historical records indicating the NW passage being clear and easily traveled at various times in the past, such as the decade starting 1900, and ice extent maps as a matter of record throughout the 1930’s indicating ice extent similar to what we see now? Are these just not correct?
“The long-term trend is that we’ve been losing a lot of sea ice”
Do you agree that total sea ice extent (Arctic and Antarctic) is above the 1979-2008 average as of September 22, 2014 by 0.470 million sq km, which is an area equivalent to the states of California, Maryland and Connecticut combined?
Assuming you agree with this data point on total sea ice, do you still believe that it is accurate to state that “the long term trend is that we’ve been losing a lot of sea ice”? Your statement DID NOT include the word Arctic anywhere and seems to be excluding present record ice in the Antarctic. Would you agree that this could be misinterpreted and construed as inaccurate? Could you provide any clarification?
Finally, do you agree that Antarctic sea ice extent is presently (as of 9/22/14) 1.679 million sq km above the 1979-2008 mean, which is equivalent to one-fifth of the contiguous US?
Do you agree that sea ice is cyclical in nature and that winds play a major role in sea ice extent, not just temperature? Your statement that we’ve lost sea ice equivalent to one-third of the US seems to be relative to the peak in the entire satellite record. Given that 1979 was a banner year for sea ice, and that sea ice extent has reportedly been lower in history, would you comment on how this is different than the cherry-picking of which skeptics are so often accused?
Thanks in advance. I look forward to your responses.
Bruce
Pay no attention to ice at the Southern pole.
Steve
September 22, 2014 at 5:01 pm
Each of your sentences is incorrect in one way or another.
The ice area PLUS the albedo of the ice and water at each instance of each day at each different solar elevation angle PLUS the amount of solar radiation at the top-of-atmosphere explicitly controls the earth’s energy radiation balance. EVERY one of those four factors:
Arctic and Antarctic sea ice area changes each day-of-year,
Arctic sea ice albedo drops from about 0.83 in winter to 0.46 in mid-summer,
but Antarctic sea ice remains clean and much brighter the whole year at 0.83 – 0.86,
Solar radiation reaches a yearly low of 1315 watts/m^2 in mid-July when the Arctic sea ice has its lowest albedo but gets hit with as much as 24 hours a day of low levels of sunlight,
but Antarctica receives its 24 hours of sunlight each day at the year’s MAXIMUM solar radiation level of 1407 watts/m^2 the first week of January.
The ice mass of Greenland and Antarctica have some 2500 years to 12,000 year before ice mass loss on either begins to expose bedrock and ocean water. Continental ice mass loss – if it occurring at all – does not matter over any period of time less than 500 years.
The GRACE satellite data is not calibrated against measured ice loss, land rebound, actual land depth and land movement, nor against bedrock data in either location. It is assumptions, no data. (Only two bore holes have been drilled in Greenland to measure actual ice depth changes assumed by the GRACE satellite: across the entire island.)
The measured average air temperature across Antarctica has been steadily decreasing since measurements began in 1979.
NO continental melting is measured, only assumed, only written as a required assumption to require an assumption of massive water flow under continental ice to diluted an assumed mass of salt water an assumed amount. NO measured water flow, change in water flow, nor change in salinity or change in water density over time has been EVER released.
The average Antarctic temperature REMAINS at -38 degrees, and NO place on the entire continent remains above freezing long enough to melt the mass of ice “claimed” by the GRACE programmers.
The tiny Antarctic peninsula extending towards South America has warmed slightly (2-3 degrees), but that area has no effect on the rest of the land mass because it is surrounded by seas. IF those seas WERE diluted by massive amounts of glacier/continental ice runoff under the glacier ice (to allow more freezing of the ocean into sea ice) then the Peninsula would NOT be warming even those 2-3 degrees.
Assuming that land ice has melted, drained off the continent under the glacier ice, run into the ocean, diluted the ocean water, allowed that now-dilute ocean water to freeze at higher temperatures, thus causing additional Antarctic sea ice to accumulate requires you show several things – that CANNOT be done.
– The increase in Antarctic sea ice occurs around the entire continent at every month of the year for over 30 years now. You must explain how the ice melts under glacier ice in winter when air temperatures are as low as -80 C, and normally run -50 for months at a time.
– The increase in Antarctic sea ice occurs uniformly at ALL edge distances from the Antarctic coastline, freezing new ice as far as 800 – 1200 kilometers AWAY from the assumed runoff locations. How much fresh water is required to dilute 18 million square kilometers of sea water 100 – 200 meters deep?
Of the steady 2 mm per year approximate sea level rise we actually measure, perhaps 0.25 to 0.4 mm might be from land-ice of all forms in all areas melting.
Good point. So why are you discussing land ice while ignoring the record high Antarctic sea ice extents? From today’s Arctic sea ice extents, more heat is lost seven months of the year through increased longwave radiation, increased convection, increased conduction, and increased evaporation when Arctic sea ice melts than is gained when the open ocean water is exposed to the sun.
False.
RACookPE1978 September 22, 2014 at 5:16 pm
Steve
September 22, 2014 at 5:01 pm
Each of your sentences is incorrect in one way or another.
+++++++++++
After your single sentence, I looked for some verbiage as to what was wrong one way or another with great interest. But alas, you may have hit “Post Comment” to soon. Please expound, inquiring minds want to know!
Continued above. Your assumption was correct. 8<)
Thanks… your rebuttal magically appeared after I wrote my comment. You have great powers on WUWT. 🙂
Ask not Watt your web site can do for you, ask watt you can do for your web site …
And you did a good service with that post. Thank you. Let us see if Steve responds.
Sea ice extent increases. That means temperatures are decreasing over Antarctica and the encircling ocean. Unless you have some observational evidence to the contrary. Ice doesn’t melt when the temperature gets colder. If temperatures decrease, then ice mass can not decrease. You are talking nonsense.
” You must explain how the ice melts under glacier ice in winter when air temperatures are as low as -80 C, and normally run -50 for months at a time.”
…
It’s rather simple. On the coastline of Antarctica, where the land ice moves off the land and begins to float on top of the water, the temperature of the water is much much warmer than -80 / -50 degrees C. In spite of the fact that we think ice is “solid” these glaciers FLOW outwards on top of the sea water. This is where the melting is happening. The ice insulates the ocean water from the cold air temps, allowing the warm water to melt the ice.
No …. The continental ice ONLY does that in a few limited areas where specific but widely publicized glaciers push their mass out into the sea. The rest of the continental ice does NOT behave as your simplified story claims.
All glacier ice FLOWS.
Since the land is HIGHER than the water, the ice FLOWS outward to the water.
It melts at the interface of the land and the water.
This is interesting and pertinent:
http://news.agu.org/press-release/elephant-seals-help-uncover-slower-than-expected-antarctic-melting/
Please show (other [than] known areas of increased volcanic activity) where observations have detected increased flow and decreased salinity of large areas of the Antarctica continent and surrounding ocean.
Since 1979 SST surrounding Antarctica have had a modest decline.
becklybud, First, the up-welling water at the coast of Antarctica is not fresh water from melting. It is water from the deep sea.
Second, the sea-ice does not “flow” like glacial ice. It reforms every Antarctic winter. Please compare a later summer map with the current map.
Before it reforms it is one of the stormiest seas in the world. The water is churned. Any up-welled and warmer water is thoroughly mixed with the other waters. Then, as the ice forms, it is at first quite shallow, and loses heat right through its surface. Also as it forms, it exudes large amounts of salt. All winter it gets thicker and thicker. It is a foot thick, then two feet, then three feet, then four feet. It extends north kilometer after kilometer. By now we have a thousand kilometers of new ice, which has all been getting thicker and exuding cold brine for months.
To imagine a lens of milder, fresher water can somehow survive a journey of a thousand kilometers beneath ice which is never thawing and is constantly growing and raining cold brine downwards, and arrive at the outer edge as “fresher” water, is an imagination requiring blind faith.
http://sunriseswansong.wordpress.com/2014/09/19/regarding-excuses-for-record-setting-antarctic-ice/
Caleb,
Good explanation.
I also wonder which way glaciers move when they’re on flat land. Since “All glacier ice FLOWS.”
I guess we’re dealing with someone who’s not up to speed on the subject. Well, this is the place to learn, thanks to commenters like you and RACook. Thanks for the analysis.
RA Cook
Excellent analysis. I had not seen much of that kind of data before. The contribution to cooling by Antarctica is especially interesting. That aspect of its latitudinal location never occurred to me before. I try to learn something new each day. I just did.
“Since NSIDC does not give the daily data (at least the last time I looked),”
========================================================
Here you go, Anthony :
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/north/daily/data/NH_seaice_extent_nrt.csv
The minimum (so far) was 4.983,390 sq km on the 16th.
The latest figure (21st) is 5,150,660 sq km.
Heading for Sep average about 5.2m??
The Antarctic figure is an extreme outlier – so much so I wonder if it’s real. These measurements have had errors in the past that had to be fixed (legitimately).
However, if it’s real, it’s a big deal, for three reasons:
1) The Antarctic sea ice carries over from month to month and from year to year more than the Arctic does. The Arctic ice is strongly affected by how much flushes out the Fram Strait each year. More ice freezes than melts every year in the Arctic Ocean but the losses out the Fram Strait keep it from building up. Decreases in the Arctic sea Ice invariably follow years when the losses out the Fram Strait are unusually large. Conversely, years with reduced flush (such as this year) have a healthy extent. Watch this.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticictn_nowcast_anim365d.gif
But the Antarctic has no mechanism analogous to the Fram Strait, so you don’t see the wild fluctuations in Sea Ice Extent that you see in the Arctic. It’s pretty much all freezing and melting.
2) The Antarctic Sea Ice has, by virtue of a lower latitude, a larger impact on albedo. Given the carry-over mentioned in 1, we are almost sure to see a record extent in December, at the southern summer solstice. If the impact of the albedo is significant (and I don’t know that it is) then additional cooling will result.
3) The increase is huge ( > 500,000 sq.km. )
Actually, it’s a bit scary, if you think about it.
“The Antarctic figure is an extreme outlier – so much so I wonder if it’s real.”
We have the arctic and the antarctic. Two options only. How exactly can one or the other be an ‘outlier’? If we had 20 or 30 options to choose from, I could see one or another being an ‘outlier’. But how do you decide that the antarctic or the arctic is an ‘outlier’? Could not the arctic be as much the ‘outlier’ as the antarctic? This assertion just doesn’t make sense to me.
I took it that Frederick meant the increase in max extent of Antarctic ice this year compared to many previous years appeared to be an outlier.
Yes, noaaprogrammer, that’s what I meant.
It’s not an outlier in that respect either. The ice extent has increased steadily over the past several years running. The trend is upwards. A real outlier would be if this year’s extent had been significantly less than the past several years. The trend since 1979 has been up.
Look here, click on the Antarctic button, then click on Show All to see all the years together.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/
That’s an outlier!
Frederick Michael September 23, 2014 at 4:11 pm
LOL. I’ll go out on a limb. The ave increase in recent years has been 300,000+ per/annum and this year it went to 600,000+. I agree that makes it a well above the ave increase. But I’m not going to call that an outlier until I see what happens next year and the following year. If the next couple of years are back down around 300,000 then I will accept your contention this year’s extent is an outlier, for whatever reason. If the next couple of years are closer to 600,000 then this year will not be an outlier but simply the first year of an increasing trend.
Michael,
I’m guessing you didn’t even look at the graph I linked to. The annual increase is nowhere near 300,000 per year. It’s about 18,000 per year long term. If you use the zoom function, you can learn the following:
Prior to 2012 the maximum Antarctic Sea Ice extent was:
19.330 million sq. km. in 2006. Then we had new records of:
19.470 million sq. km. in 2012
19.548 million sq. km. in 2013
20.106 million sq. km. in 2014 (so far)
Where did you get 300,000 from?
Frederick Michael September 25, 2014 at 5:42 pm
I most certainly did look at the graphic you linked. Where did you get your numbers? Here’s what the dataset WUWT linked to has:
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/south/daily/data/
2014: 20.14215 – (Sep20) SH_seaice_extent_nrt.csv
2013: 19.57892 – (Sep30) SH_seaice_extent_final.csv
2012: 19.47713 – (Sep22) SH_seaice_extent_final.csv
2011: 18.95328 – (Sep23) SH_seaice_extent_final.csv
2010: 18.99680 – (Sep06) SH_seaice_extent_final.csv
In my math:
18.95 – 18.99 (2010 > 2011) = 040,000-
19.48 – 18.95 (2011 > 2012) = 530,000+
19.58 – 19.48 (2012 > 2013) = 100,000+
20.14 – 19.58 (2013 > 2014) = 560,000+
I’ll still decline to agree to 2014 as an outlier until the next couple of years. Your 18,000 “long term” is irrelevant. Maybe 2013 will turn out to be the outlier in a new trend. Who knows? Next couple of years will tell.
Cheers.
I got my numbers by zooming in on the graph I linked. They pop up when you hover your mouse over a point on a graph.
The increases you list are recovery from low values that did not break the previous all time high record. Any point in a data series whose value is “in the middle of the pack”l would not be an outlier, regardless of how much it increased over the previous point. (if you want to talk about the first derivative being an outlier, OK, but that’s not what we were talking about.). However, any point whose value is well outside the range of all the other points, is an outlier.
Notice that there is a grey 2 sigmas band in the last graph Anthony included in his post. (I assume this was computed using the usual statistical variance formula.) Notice that the current extent is more than 3 sigmas above the mean.
It’s all alone.
Frederick Michael September 26, 2014 at 11:50 am
The figures I listed are the yearly maximum extent values. That is what we’re talking about here. I remain reluctant to call this year an outlier until we see the next couple of years. It could be that the past couple/few years are the beginning of a new trend, and we can’t determine that for at least a couple more years.
If the next couple of years of extent retreat back into the range of the previous trend, leaving this year high and lonely, I’ll then call it an outlier. Not now. Too soon.
Cheers. And I think we’ve beaten this particular horse to death. See you again next September.
No, Antarctic “carry-over” from year to year almost never happens. Look at the WUWT sea ice web page
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/
specifically, the Southern Sea Ice Area – it shows all of the maximum and minimum Antarctic sea ice since 1979.
Minimum Antarctic sea ice area hovered between 1.75 Mkm^2 to 2.0 Mkm^2 for almost every year from 1979 through 2002. THEN – It – the Antarctic minimum sea ice area started growing: At the same time the “Pause” froze the earth’s former temperature rise. (Coincidence? Or is Antarctic sea ice the Cause of the Pause?)
Regardless, if the maximum is 16.5 Mkm^2 (more “normally” 14.5 Mkm^2 up until recently) and 2.0 to 2.5 were all that was left from the preceding year, then there could be little multi-year ice even on a percentage basis (14/16 means almost 90% must be fresh sea ice anyway.)
But, it is worse than you think!
The remnants and left-over Antarctic sea ice from year xxxx isn’t in one single area or wide spread section like the Arctic sea ice – where it can cycle in a spiral about the pole so 3-year and 4-year sea ice is common, and even 5-year sea ice is measured. Rather, the Antarctic sea ice is nestled into small coves and between bays along the whole continent, blow there by wind from offshore, trapped against the cliffs by wind currents and water currents. There, it cannot easily “spread out” and influence the next year’s sea ice. Year xxx1 sea ice, instead, build up outside of the sheltered area, and is more readily dislodged and spread around into the general mass. The multi-year ice melts in its cover and bay off as currents and storms change the second year, and is replaced by the end of year 2. (Permanent shelf ice is replenished by on-shore glaciers moving out over the water – and are NOT included in sea ice, according to my emails to the NSIRDC.)
But it is worse than you think!
Multi-year sea ice in the Arctic gets dirty from the steady accumulation of dirt, grit, sand, algea growth, and melting-freezing cycles. Judith Curry measured the Arctic sea ice albedo all summer a few years ago: It got as low as 0.36 in early August, and had a “averaged” low albedo in late July-early August of 0.43.
Freshly-frozen Antarctic sea ice is nice and brightly reflecting the sun with a snow-covered albedo of 0.83 to 0.86 all year long, every day.
Your message about Antarctic ice albedo is quite compelling – chillingly so.
Hum? sounds like lots of Hiroshima’s of energy back to space.
I agree with almost everything you said about the but the Antarctic correlation is still much higher than in the Arctic. Specifically, you can see considerable multi-year ice (many meters thick) flowing out the Fram Strait in the NRLSSC graphic I linked above (and that’s in a good year). Spend some time looking at this and you’ll see what I mean.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/
Note: there’s a zoom function. Mark any section with your mouse to zoom in. If you look at the Antarctic, you can see last year’s record high ice persist, being #1 or 2 all the way through now. Since you can turn on or off any year, you can track this precisely.
But try the same thing with the Arctic and you’ll see more volatility. A high year can lose everything in a season. That’s the Fram Strait flush effect. It doesn’t happen every year but when it does it’s a killer. That’s where the 2007 and 2012 lows came from. It wasn’t melting ice, it was flushing ice (which then melted in the North Atlantic).
I recall a good read on the subject of Arctic ice export. The paper has much good information in it and surpisingly references GCM issues in the conclusions. I really don’t think we have a clue with respect to the interaction of oceanic cycles and their impact on Arctic weather patterns as a side note. Think of a 964mb cyclone at the North pole…… 2012.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/21/peer-reviewed-paper-wind-contributes-to-arctic-sea-ice-decline/
Link to the PDF is at the bottom of the WUWT post.
Frederick
Re: “Given the carry-over mentioned in 1, we are almost sure to see a record extent in December, at the southern summer solstice.”
Allow for the ~90 degrees (Pi/2) lag in ocean temperatures per David Stockwell’s Solar Accumulative model and their impact on ice melting/growth. e.g. see
Arctic Sea Ice Data at The Blackboard. Note particularly NickStokes post who maintains “<a href=a plot here of JAXA and NSIDC (NH and SH) data. It’s a polar plot, not smoothed. There is also tabular data (scroll up). The Arctic minimum/maximums appear to be about 3 months lagged from the June and December solstices.
I should have specified that as a record for that time of year, not an overall record (which, of course, it won’t come close to).
No, it is NOT an outlier.
Antarctic sea ice extents, and ANtarctic sea ice area, are both merely continuing a continuous, multi-year trend of constantly increasing size. Now – this year, they are setting records simply because the trend has been steadily increasing so long.
+2,050,000 square kilometers EXCESS sea ice anomaly in June.
Today’s 1.6 million sq km’s is actually “down a bit” from its max, but is merely “average” for the past 3 years.
16.6 Mkm^2 sea ice area is a new record high for the Antarctic.
20.5 Mkm^2 sea ice extents is a new record high for the Antarctic.
Look at the past two years: A steady increase in Antarctic sea ice:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.antarctic.png
Look at the past 50 years: Antarctic sea ice areas that were NEVER seen before 2001 at maximum are now routinely exceeded for months of the year.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/
Antarctic sea ice minimums (used to be 1.5 to 2.0 Mkm^2)?
Now 2.5 to 3.0 Mkm^2 routinely.
15.0 Mkm^2 maximum? Never touched before.
Now? Old story. Routinely exceeded.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png
An Antarctic sea ice anomaly of 500,000 sq km^2?
Now 1,500,000 is routine, 2,000,000 barely makes waves.
For this date, or even this month, the current Antarctic Sea Ice extent is clearly an outlier. Consider this:
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/
Click on the Antarctic button, then click on Show All to see all the years at once.
Notice how the current extent sticks out way above the “crowd” which is bunched together below.
Sorry to make you follow a link – plus a couple of clicks. I wish I knew how to paste in a picture. It’s instantly convincing.
The Northwest Passage 2014 blog reports the Canadian ice breakers are “hurrying to take care of business before making a turn for the south.” Had a story about how the Laurier in 1996 couldn’t make it west past a wind driven ice floes in the Beaufort Sea in Early October and had to return east to Vancouver via the Panama Canal.
The M/V NUNAVIK is still out in Baffin Bay, headed for a westward Northwest Passage Route 6, through the Queen Maud Gulf. I figure it is at least 4 days from the west side of the Ballot Strait.
This is what the Canadian Ice Survey has for the Queen Maud tonight, a little past ice minimum with new ice growing by day. The passage is technically already cut-off in three places:
The West of the Ballot Strait (bodies T & P),
east end of the pink new ice patch H on the way round Gjoa Haven,
and the R,J finger blocking Cambridge Bay in the SW exit.
They are going to scratch the paint on their new ship.
http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/prods/WIS38CT/20140922180000_WIS38CT_0007880551.gif
Lot of nickel on the boat, nice for patching, they are on their way, they will make it.
But this year has the ability to be a little bit trickier than originally thought. I notice Route 7 has already been discounted!
I noticed that about Route 7, too. It froze/jammed up quickly.
I imagine that one or two of the ice breakers will accompany the NUNAVIK on their exit of the arctic.
They definitely won’t be going through Bellot Sound and south of King William land with a 23,000 tonner. They might possibly try Peel Sound and Queen Maud Gulf, but most likely they will attempt the northern deep-water passage through the McClure strait. In which case they will probably have quite tough going at the western end where a lot of multi-year ice has been blowing in the last several days. They might try Prince of Wales strait like Larsen did in 1944, but that’s pretty shallow and badly surveyed for large ships.
@tty 3:20 am
Their plan map is Route 6 through Bellot.
But as I look at it more closely, their plan is not via Gjoa Haven but SSW from Bellot to Cambridge Bay through the main ice body in the Queen Maud.
From what I have gathered here, it seems we have all been mugged in broad daylight – Anthony do you have a phone number that where I can lodge my complaint about this scam or is this a new type of April’s fools joke – Asking for a friend because I keep getting put on deniers bad people’s lists.
The NSIDC September average for the sea ice extent is looking to be very close to last year’s number of 5.4M km2 (rounded – the 2014 latest numbers could put it at 5.45M but 5.4M is probably a better bet) .
So, the WUWT August outlook submission of 5.6M is looking to be better than 17 of the 23 contributors to the ARCUS sea ice outlook game (although the June WUWT submission at 6.1M was a little too optimistic).
http://www.arcus.org/files/sio/21233/sio2014_augustbargraph_22aug_v3.png
This time that’s true, but it hasn’t been true very often.
We WUWT readers are consistently too optimistic about the sea ice extent… if more ice is optimistic.
Since the minimum 2014 extent is less than the minimum 2013 extent, I guess this article looks funny in hindsight. The spiral has not “reversed”
.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/30/the-arctic-sea-ice-spiral-of-death-seems-to-have-reversed/
Pardon, but You are mistaken. The 2014 minimum Arctic sea ice extent is greater than the 2013 minimum. Please consult the WUWT sea ice page for links to graphs and data.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/
This information was/is readily available. Perhaps next time…
Technically, the 2014 Arctic sea ice minimum extent was higher than EVERY year since 2006.
beckleybud@gmail.com September 22, 2014 at 6:03 pm
Since the minimum 2014 extent is less than the minimum 2013 extent, I guess this article looks funny in hindsight. The spiral has not “reversed”
++++++++++
What are you talking about. 2013 min was lower than 2014 min’ you can see it on this very page.
Beckley is transmitting from Universal Continuum 2B. Over there the ice is reaching a record low and 20 % of the polar bear population has been returned to Ireland.
A picture is worth a 1000 words.
..
Note the 2014 line dipping BELOW the 2013 line.
..
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2014/09/Figure22.png
beckleybud@gmail.com
I don’t disagree with the graph you linked. NSIDC does indeed report 2014 as lower than 2013, however it should be noted, and not discounted, that JAXA, DMI, and NERSC Arctic ROOS all show 2014 as greater than 2013.
The take away being that there is variability in the data. I’d say that the more important note is that 2014 is within 2SD of the average, and if I’m not mistaken, 2013 was also within 2SD, and not just for the minimum, but essentially for the entire calendar year. But I don’t suppose that brings in as much grant money as “the sixth lowest extent in the satellite record”
A lesson to learn from Wikipedia:
Speaking of standard deviations, and statistics, I think it is notable that one has to go back all the way to 2001 to find a minimum that “reverted to the mean”
They had to rescale the Antarctic graph to go above 20M.
> Stephen Rasey
> September 22, 2014 at 5:55 pm
>
> @TobiasN,
> In 2014, there were six boats that made an unassisted NW
> Passage, plus one 132 passenger cruise ship with
> assistance. See Summary 9/4. It all depends upon the wind.
110 years ago, there were no satellites to take photos of iced-over/ice-free passages, and they wouldn’t have been very useful anyways, without today’s GPS systems that tell you where you are on the surface of the planet to within 3.5 meters http://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/performance/accuracy/ Calling today’s faux-adventurers with modern equipment “unassisted” is a joke of major proportions. Not to mention the fact that they can radio for rescue helicopters, if “things go south” up north.
So, at the recent year’s rate of increase in Antarctic sea ice, how long will it be before Cape Horn is blocked to sea traffic by sea ice and icebergs ? 8<)
Earlier than that increased sea ice will make resupply (by ship) of some Antarctic bases too difficult and they will have to be abandoned. Australia’s bases had significant resupply problems the last couple of years.
Why do you think they are building a much wider passage across the Panama divide between the Atlantic and Pacific. They are very worried (they being the shipping companies) that the passage around Cape Horn will be blocked. Really big container ships are too big to use the existing canal.
Absolutely right. Being unassisted by icebreaker and avoid needing a tow by another ship is a far cry from sailing without satellite, without ice maps downloaded by satellite, without gas, without inhabited ports, without weather forecasts, without radio,….
without navigation charts that you didn’t make yourself.
As for “radio for rescue helicopters,” we nothing stops you from radioing… Whether a helicopter comes is entirely another matter. The author of the Northwest Passage 2014 blog has gone on several rants about plans for a 1000 passenger non-ice-classed cruise ship has to traverse a NWP in 2016. His point is forget about Rescue. Getting people off such a ship in distress is the least of your problems. There is nowhere in the NWP to PUT 1000 survivors and get them out.
That ship should carry the equipment to spray sea water over the ice, stabilize it and thicken it so it can take a C130. The C130 can take the passengers out. It COULD be done, but they need to stash a lot of equipment aboard and carry a 100 person crew trained to make ice roads and landing pads. The passengers would have to remain aboard special survival capsules until the runway has been prepared. If the ice conditions don´t allow runway construction they will need a supply of body bags so the passengers can be prepackaged for evacuation in subsequent years.
“That ship should carry the equipment to spray sea water over the ice, stabilize it and thicken it so it can take a C130.”
Spraying (salt) sea-water on ice to stablize it is a strange idea, particularly in summer when this jaunt is due. And I gather that you have never seen actual sea-ice in your life. Finding a flat stretch of sea-ice large enough for a C-130 is about halfway between very difficult and impossible. It isn’t easy to find places for airstrips even on inland ice.
Tty, it depends on the stretch of sea ice we are discussing. Look up “Alaska is full of Venezuelans, yes sir” and you will see my photograph standing in Arctic Ocean meltwater. As it turns out I have been on sea ice, but before I got out I sent a couple of guys armed with rifles and carrying supplies before I left camp. The idea was to use junior personnel to check the ice thickness and feed the polar bears as needed.
As regards the use of sprayed sea water to strengthen ice, it works when the air temperature is around minus 10 degrees C. The trick is to pick thick ice, cut a hole, drop a pump with a very large hose (16 inches coflex would work), and spray up in the air. After a week of pumping you can get thick ice, the idea is to run parallel to ice ridges, and the wind can wreck the layout. Haven’t you seen the Clint Eastwoid movie? They got the idea from my buddies who were building on ice many years ago. Don’t pass this on, I may be giving away a secret.
he is quite correct to make an issue of this cruise ship. if something goes wrong the passengers will be in big trouble.there is no infrastructure to cope with such large numbers in an arctic emergency.
I was in Copenhagen and heard Gore say there would be no sea ice in the Arctic by 2013. Another Climate Fail.
When the last Vietnam Agent Orange Vet at NSIDC finally retires there will be a North Pacific Decadal Oscillation JUMP in the NSIDC dour Nixon-esq rhetoric.
About that “110 years ago”.
The DMSP satellites have never had GPS and their onboard clocks are a joke!
Their orbits all have an atrocious drift over time and this is an alias’ in all “measurements and observations”!
I am not laughing.
I haven’t posted this for a while so it’s probably due for a repeat, from
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
One of the bullet points from under the SIE graph
“In principle, SIC data could have errors of 10% at most, particularly for the area of thin sea ice seen around the edge of sea-ice cover and melted sea ice seen in summer. Also, SIC along coastal lines could also have errors due to sub-pixel contamination of land cover in an instantaneous field of view of PMR data.”
Did you get that? The is sea ice concentration data is off by at “Most” 10%!
Post that early & often. I’ve often posted about “dial turning” which is about which way the polarizing lens is turned. But people don’t get how much extent is available to the dial turner, even when you baldly state it, even on this blog. When the lens is turned, Arctic ice is (say) decreased and the Antarctic ice is increased. There is a symmetry which I call the daily tango. The record Arctic minimum in 2007 was accompanied by a record Antarctic maximum at the same time. The dial turners were having a great old time.