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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Almost all the gain in Arctic sea ice is on the side of the multi-year ice closest to the Kola Peninsula. Areas where sea ice has been lost at the 2014 minimum are all on far side of the multi-year ice. Except one area on the Russian coast, which may be from gas flaring (black carbon produced).
This is what you would expect if the main driver of sea ice melt is black carbon that originated from Kola Peninsula industries, progressively shut down after the 1998 Russian Financial Crisis. Sea Ice closest to Kola with the highest levels of embedded black carbon melts out first, and is replaced by new sea ice with (much) lower levels of BC. The areas most distant from Kola with the lowest levels of embedded BC melt out last.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
See fig 3
We are on track for another Arctic sea minimum increase next year.
Philip: Gas flaring doesn´t produce black carbon. The Russians flare gas in the Nenets Okrug, but the amounts are rather low (the main field at YK seems to be underperforming). I traveled in the area, and flew in helicopters over Arkhangelsk oblast and the air was always very clear.
It’s generally accepted gas flaring is a significant source of atmospheric black carbon. This study says 42% in the Arctic, which sounds high to me.
http://www.rtcc.org/2013/09/11/gas-flaring-responsible-for-42-of-black-carbon-in-the-arctic/
You can’t see the atmospheric black carbon. Particle size is around 200 nm.
Arkhangelsk oblast is a long way from the gas fields on Yamal, About as far as Washington DC from Miami.
.
Phillip, I should have stated “natural gas or methane gas flaring doesn’t produce black carbon” i checked your reference, and has been very common for these subjects the references distort what happens. The study doesn’t mention it explicitly in the abstract, but it was clearly limited to Arctic European Russia and the northern sector in western Siberia around Nadym.
The Soviet practices in the Komi republic and the southern Nenetsky Okrug were very unsanitary. These practices continued as new fields were developed in the 90’s and 2000’s north of Komi. The equipment doesn’t separate the natural gas from oil, and the oil carries over into very primitive flares they like to use.
I inspected the setup in the 1990’s and they also had terrible oil spills, including a giant one into the Pechora river.
I guess the lesson I get out of this repeats what I learned previously, the Nature publishing house has a political agenda, they use subtle distortions and limit the information to get their message out. This means I don’t trust anything they publish. In this case I happen to be very familiar with the situation. But if I wasn’t I would have swallowed their baloney. A properly written paper would have clearly identified the study area as arctic Russia in the abstract.
And who said they were flaring in Yamal? The guy mentioned industrial developments on the Kola Peninsula. Kola has as much oil as Iceland. The paper abstract mentioned the Barents to Kara sector. What they didn’t bother to discuss in the abstract was the field names. I bet they are picking up emissions from Kolguyev, Gazprom’s Prirazlomnaya, the Varandey field, Yuzhno Khichuyu, and fields to the south in Komi. The gas produced in the northern Yamalo Nenetsky Okrug is Cenomanian gas. That’s almost pure methane.
Perhaps the missing ice is hiding out with the missing heat in the deep ocean. This is truly scary because they could neutralize each other and lead people to think that there is no climate crisis.
Is this something we really need to worry that much about? Every 12,000 years or so there’s a major climate change; whether it be a cooling or warming. The glaciers have melted before and the world isn’t in horrible shape today. Although global warming should be watched to prevent a crisis of any type, should it really be treated the way that the hype portrays it? Thoughts?
[no advertisements. .mod]
It´s something to keep an eye on for sure. The hype is overdone. A more serious problem is looming over the horizon because of overpopulation and the overall resource depletion we will face. We are running out of fossil fuels, phosphates, minerals, fresh water, and other resources.
As for global warming, it looks like in a few hundred years it may turn into global cooling and we will be entering an ice age. That could be very traumatic.
stop please. There is no energy shortage… http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/there-is-no-energy-shortage/
we are not running out of stuff… http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/05/08/there-is-no-shortage-of-stuff/
For global sea ice, from Polar Sea Ice Cap and Snow – Cryosphere Today (University of Illinois):
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
I know that Nick Stokes is perfectly capable of speaking for himself, yet, he provides a unique perspective on Arctic Sea Ice:
http://moyhu.blogspot.com/p/latest-ice-and-temperature-data.html#fig1
I hope this comes through. If not, go to Lucia’s Blackboard and click on Arctic Sea Ice.
Nick Stokes has an update every day so that one can see the sea ice extent “turn the cornier” from minimum to growth.
Very informative.
“This is now the sixth lowest extent in the satellite record and reinforces the long-term downward trend in Arctic ice extent.”
A couple more ^reinforcing-downtrend^ years and there’ll be whispers of a Pause.
Antarctic sea ice extent is a bit of a side show to what climate scientist are mostly focused on down there. They would really like to understand why the wind speeds are stronger.
IMO the wind speeds are stronger because there has been a decline in the number of circum-antarctic cyclones. Hence greater latitudinal temperature differentials to feed the fewer number of cyclones. Probably combined with increased katabatic winds from a colder Antarctica.
Why there are fewer cyclones is what’s not understood. Although I suspect a +ve feedback between decreased cyclones and increased sea ice.
I doubt the widely publicized claim that increased wind speeds are ‘blowing the ice around’ allowing more to form in the open water created.
Show the measurements. You are repeating propaganda and guesses.
The ships around Antarctica are NOT reporting changes in wind speed. Wind direction. Storm duration.
Then again, why would they? The Antarctic regional air temperatures have been declining since 1986, but not enough to change climate, melt rates, or wind and storm extents and durations.
Several times I have asked for evidence of decreased salinity and increase in wind speeds.
??????????????????????????????????
Mind you, I am not saying the sea ice increase is due only to the cooler S.H. SSTs. There certainly could be other factors. Just as arctic sea ice loss was due to ocean currents and wind currents as much, if not more then air temperatures. But in the arctic we have peer reviewed reports with observational evidence backing these assertions.
The political movement of CAGW has severely damaged science.
The catabatic winds are driven by the low temperatures and thus higher density of air over Antarctica compared to the surrounding seas.
The same reason why the trade winds blow from the upwelling-cooled east equatorial Pacific to the west.
The reason for the stronger winds is the same as the reason for the increase in Antarctic sea ice.
Its getting colder down there!
Yes. C.O.L.D.E.R.
Another element often mentioned is that the ozone hole is large over the Antarctic and cold air from the stratosphere pours down. The antarctic is the most isolated part of the global climate system and we should not be too quick to presume to understand it.
There is no evidence of increased Antarctic wind speeds at the sea ice edge (700 -1200 km’s from the land edge!), nor any change in Antarctic wind directions around the continent’s circumference , nor any measured change in salinity nor sea surface temperatures under the sea ice, near the sea, or outside of the sea ice.
Several government-funded people have made guesses about each of the above, but nobody has produced measurements.
This week at the Royal Society
https://royalsociety.org/events/2014/arctic-sea-ice/
“Arctic sea ice reduction: the evidence, models, and global impacts”
Wonder if it’s peer reviewed???
“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.”
From JAXA I make it the seventh lowest.
When I look at JAXA I see it as 7th also. Listed below are the 10 lowest I could see.
Lowest
2012
2007
2011
2008
2010
2013
2014
2009
2005
2002
Highest
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.
Bold mine
So, why isn’t this phrase in the report:
“…sea ice in the Antarctic has surpassed the previous record maximum set in 2013 which reinforces the long-term upward trend in Antarctic ice extent….
Just wondering…
I suspect that when the maximum for the year is finally established, the NSIDC will report it and make some statements about it’s significance. They are real scientists.
Blimey, some of these guys really do have a closed mind on this subject. The below is taken from the following BBC article
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-29312320
Dr Paul Holland works with the British Antarctic Survey (BAS): “Sea-ice extent in the Antarctic is going up by about one-fifth the speed that the Arctic is going down. And the volume of Antarctic sea ice is going up by about one-tenth the speed that Arctic volume is going down, and the volume is the more important number.
“My point is that the Antarctic is essentially flat; the increase in extent is to some degree a red herring.
“The more interesting question is why the Antarctic is not going down like the Arctic, and not enough people are asking that question.”
Nearly spat my tea out when reading the above. The question the BAS may have to be asking next Austral summer, is “will we get enough supplies in for the next winter”
DavidS
“The Antarctic is essentially flat’?
Can Dr Paul Holland read a graph without a grant giving him additional CAGW funding?
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png
Three years of rapid, continuous Antarctic sea ice increase is a ‘red herring”?
There has been a continuous Antarctic sea ice increase since the mid 1980’s. A very rapid ominous Antarctic sea ice increase during every day of the year between 2011 and today (late 2014, at the equinox). ALL of the Antarctic sea ice increase occurs between 68-69 south latitude and 58 south latitude – ALL of the increasing Antarctic sea ice is closer to the equator than ANY of the Arctic sea ice is at ANY part of the year. (The 1.2 million temporary ice in Hudson Bay and the upper Bering Sea sea ice at latitude 60 north comes closest, but both of these completely melt-out every year.)
To put this in perspective:
The ENTIRE area of Greenland is 2,166,086 km2. The ENTIRE area of Greenland is centered at latitude 71 north, most of greenland is well past the Arctic circle towards the pole.
The EXCESS Antarctic sea ice ALONE earlier this year was 2,050,000 km^2. Today, that ENTIRE EXCESS area of Antarctic sea ice is at latitude 58 – 59 south, closer to the equator – exposed to more sunlight than ANY part of Greenland can ever be exposed to!
Today’s EXCESS Antarctic sea ice – by itself! – reflected more energy from the earth’s radiation heat balance than the loss of the entire Greenland ice cap could gain.
And that is just today’s excess Antarctic sea ice, not the entire 37.5 million square kilometers of Antarctic total ice area. Antarctica is a region of ice larger than Africa and Australia… combined.
“The Antarctic is essentially flat’
He has been listening to Tales from Topographic Oceans. The earth has long been known to be an oblate spheroid.
Interesting to see all this comparing of the arctic and antarctic sea ice. It’s apples and oranges. The arctic is intricately involved in the weather of north America, Europe, and Russia. The jet stream loops up and down from the arctic to the mid latitudes mixing the weather as it goes. The arctic has warmed twice as much as the rest of the globe. The north pole is an ocean surrounded by land. The melting of that sea ice runs in tandem with the warmer arctic climate. Loss of albedo in the arctic summer is much more significant that an incremental addition of antarctic sea ice albedo in the winter. Antarctic sea ice in summer routinely retreating back close to the continental shore. Unlike the arctic, change in the antarctic albedo is insignificant.
In contrast to the arctic, the antarctic is a continental land mass surrounded by ocean. It has a tight jet stream that keeps its climate mostly contained to antarctica.
It all depends on how you count. Actually the ice in Antarctica has increased about as much as the ice in Arctica has decreased, which is the reason the total sea-ice area is flat. However the increase in Antarctica is calculated when ice is at the maximum and much larger than in Arctica so counted in percent the increase is smaller than the decrease in the Arctic which is at the minimum and so gets a much more impressive percentage.
However whatever you do don’t compare percentages for the minimum in the Arctic with minmum in the Antarctic since the latter has gone up by 50% in the last five years.
The proper way is to estimate the impact of the respective ice extent CHANGES on the worldwide climate. As far as I know the total ice is doing nicely, and it’s possible the total albedo is up. My uneducated guess would be that the energy forcing is around 0.4 watts per square meter….if it’s that high. This is much better than the figures the IPCC indicates (which by the way they seem to like to avoid disclosing openly).
The Arctic sea ice volume at minimum extent is up significantly the last 2 years and is now at the highest level for about 10 years.
Multi-year Arctic sea ice is similarly rapidly increasing.
http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/multi-year-ice/
I’d say the ‘more interesting question’ is why older thicker multi-year Arctic ice melted much faster than newer multi-year ice? Which was the cause of the volume decrease.
the bas is a churn for the privileged kids of the great and the good. read some of the papers from the various bas team members from the last 6 or 7 years then send some inquiring emails and you will get the picture .100% support for the warming/ocean acidification meme.
In regards to the Arctic, the AMO in its’ waning stage of the warm mode seems to correlate much better than any known metric from what I can tell. There are signs it is getting ready to go into the cold mode of the AMO…Occams razor anyone???
How an Alarmist thinks
Arctic sea ice below normal: You see that’s proof Global Warming is real
Antarctic sea ice at record highs: La La La La that’s weather not climate and doesn’t count
Antarctica Eastern Peninsula (95% of Antarctica) Ice sheets are stable: La La La La that’s weather not climate and doesn’t count
Antarctica Western Peninsula (5% of Antarctica) Ice sheets are melting: You see that’s proof Global Warming is real
Antarctica Western Peninsula melting because of volcanoes: La La La La that’s weather not climate and doesn’t count
Greenland Glaciers shrinking: You see that’s proof Global Warming is real
New Glaciers forming in Scotland: La La La La that’s weather not climate and doesn’t count
Low Ice levels on the Great Lakes 2012: You see that’s proof Global Warming is real
Record Ice levels on the Great Lakes 2014: La La La La that’s weather not climate and doesn’t count
Glaciers at Glacier National Park shrinking: You see that’s proof Global Warming is real
New Glaciers formed on Mount St. Helens after being wiped out in the 1980 eruption: La La La La that’s weather not climate and doesn’t count
Glacier on Kilmanjaro melting prior to 2003: You see that’s proof Global Warming is real
Glacier on Kilmanjaro growing since 2004: La La La La that’s weather not climate and doesn’t count
Ice Caps on Mars Shrinking: La La La La that’s weather not climate and doesn’t count
And they really believe that
Well, La La La La is kind of catchy, don’t you know.
🙂
My advice is well to see where grows the fastest snow and ice.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/NEWIMAGES/arctic.seaice.color.004.png
You have 21 months in a year?
How does that work?
9-21 is September 21st.
The ice between Svalbard and Franz Josef Land (top right on the map above) should be very interesting this year as the ice is exiting there instead of Fram strait. If that continues, wonder if the ice could reach Norway.
Replay to matayaya @ur momisugly September 23, 2014 at 9:31 am.
You raise valid points about the differences between Antarctica and the Arctic. However, I wonder if you miss the key conclusion. As you indicate, the Arctic has interaction with ocean currents and jet streams, and I would add on aerosols, soot, and land use practices (while some would also add icebreakers and underwater volcanoes). If you were to look at where CO2 has a discernible impact, the Arctic is a messy place to look because of the multiplicity of other significant factors. However, if you want to look at an area that has limited impact from non-CO2 factors, the Antarctic is a great place to look. If you want to have an honest examination of the validity of CAGW, the Antarctic is a great place to look.
Regarding graphs–
I know that sometimes it makes sense to to have the baseline of a graph at a value other than zero, when one desires to show small variations in a large quantity. But what is the point of starting a graph at 2 (x10^6 m^2) rather than zero, when the range is from roughly 3 to 16? It gives the impression that the sea ice extent approached close to zero, unless you look over at the labels on the y axis and realize the deception. If you put the baseline at zero, the minimum doesn’t look anywhere near zero.
In my opinion, all linear-linear graphs that use something other than zero as the baseline should have an indication of an interrupted line on the y axis as a visual indicator that the y axis does not start at zero.
Excellent point.
Whatever happened to the grand Northwest Passage sea lane?
It’s currently in use, apparently the transit will be completed in about 8 days.
http://www.fednav.com/en/voyage-nunavik
Yes the ozone “hole” is puzzling indeed. It was the big thing in the 80s and 90s but since then one heatd about it less often. But just recently it seems to have sprung back to life in a curious way. The other day we were congratulating ourselves that the Montreal protocol banning cfcs had been successful in closing the ozone hole which those pollutants had first opened.
But now the ozone hole is back, in defiance of the Montreal protocol, entering stage left just in time to explain the increasing Antarctic sea ice. Its like Schroedingers cat – both there and not there.
I doubt we have long enough records to have any idea if the ozone changes are natural or manmade. In a chaotic system like the atmosphere is that oscillation is probably the norm.
More precise language please. That is the extent of my post
Why are the tropical oceans still cold in the depths? Why don’t they become isothermal like you think the troposphere would have been without that most-prolific of all greenhouse pollutants, water vapour sending all that warming back radiation back to the surface to warm it to a higher temperature than it was when it sent the original radiation and cooled in doing so.
Well the tropical oceans are colder in the depths because the poles act as a heat sink. Isothermals (such as 4 degrees C) are deep down in the tropics, but break out at the surface in the polar regions.
So too would the atmosphere be colder at the base for the same reason. If the whole globe were paved in black asphalt the surface would be about 235K – nearly 40 degrees below freezing. You can work it out yourself with an on-line Stefan Boltzmann calculator using solar radiative flux of 161W/m^2 and emissivity 0.93.
So there is a lot of thermal energy entering the ocean surface in non-polar regions, moving downwards through the thermocline and exiting in the polar regions.
But why is the thin transparent ocean surface so hot? Before you say it’s the back radiation, I have to tell you that radiation from colder regions does not penetrate the warmer ocean surface more than a few nanometres. It is “pseudo scattered” because it merely raises electrons to higher energy states and then those electrons immediately drop back and emit an identical photon. The electro-magnetic energy is not converted to thermal energy, and so it does not raise the temperature.
In fact there is a gravitationally induced temperature gradient (aka lapse rate) in any planetary troposphere, and thermal energy absorbed from solar radiation in the upper troposphere can flow up that sloping thermal profile restoring thermodynamic equilibrium as it does so, and even entering the oceans. Water vapour reduces the temperature gradient (fortunately) making the surface about 10 to 12 degrees cooler. Carbon dioxide makes it another 0.1 degree cooler for the same reason.
It is “pseudo scattered” because it merely raises electrons to higher energy states and then those electrons immediately drop back and emit an identical photon. The electro-magnetic energy is not converted to thermal energy, and so it does not raise the temperature.
Not true, the IR radiation excites the vibration and rotation of the covalent bonds of the water, it doesn’t do anything to the electrons, that’s the province of UV and visible. It certainly doesn’t “immediately drop back and emit an identical photon”, because there are about 10^13 collisions/sec between water molecules which is much faster than the emission time so the energy is shared with other molecules long before it has time to emit a photon.
@Climaate Scientist 3:02 pm
using solar radiative flux of 161W/m^2
Where did you get that number?
Total normal solar flux is 1365W/m^2. Even if you use the simplistic evenly illuminated sphere, divide by 4, you get 342 W/m^2. You are using half of that.
Then multiply by 1-albedo, 0.7 for earth.
One of the interesting things about this system is the role of multi-year ice in determining the rate of melt and whether the best-fit minimum curve will be asymptotic over a few decades, taking time to recover from minimum minimum and only leaving maximum minimum levels slowly, but having a relatively quick transition once a trend is set in motion or not…….
My hunch is that this is what the data will show in the 21st century.
I’ll be dead before the experiment is completed of course…….
Northwest Passage:
M/V NUNAVIK: At 17:00 [9/23] we are just past 73 degrees north, 73’06” North, 72’59” West to be more precise.
Entering the Lancaster Sound on 9/24.
Late 9/24 early 9/25 should be near Resolute and turning south into the Prince Regent Sound.
9/26 take Bellot Strait into the Queen Maud Gulf and tangle with 200 mi of ice.
Here is an interesting map from Canadian Geographic Apr 2013 showing the Admunsen 1906 route, the Belzebub II in 2012. It shows the minimum ice in 2012 and the median ice for 1979-2000. What I noticed is that the 2014 minimum is very much like the 1979-2000 median. Admunsen’s 1906 route was impassible in 2014 south of Resolute.
Canadian Ice Survey map, Queen Maud Gulf, 9/23/14. It will be interesting to see whether the Nunavik tackles the ice or goes around via Gjoa Haven. I don’t know what the maximum draft for Gjoa Haven route (don’t know where to find it) — Nunavik drafts 12 m.
Great Reference of Geographic Names along the Northwest Passage: NorthwestPassage2014 – Apr 23 Alas, no bathymetry.
Since Amundsen was nowhere near Resolute in 1906 I don’t see the relevance? In september 1905 he was iced in at King’s Point (clear water there at present) and in August 1906 proceeded from there to the Bering St.
Take it up with the Canadian Geographic Society. It is their map and their plot for “Amundsen 1906” goes right by Resolute. Maybe they were sloppy and it should have been marked 1904-1906. The point being part of that plotted route, Peel Sound, south of Resolute, has been iced in all year 2014.
Wow, what a difference a day makes.
9/23 Queen Maud gulf was 90% ice for 200 mi, half of it new ice.
9/24 Queen Maud shows 40 miles of 70% (new ice) and 40 miles of 10% ice.
The NUNAVIK will hardly break stride.
Apparently so, it appears that they aren’t going to use Queen Maud but instead head west to Prince of Wales St.
“A new course has been set, conditions are fine along this northerly route and so the ship will press west at this latitude until reaching Prince of Wales Strait, at first light tomorrow likely.”