From Scripps Institution of Oceanography
![sioLogo-scale[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/siologo-scale1.png?quality=75)
Research Highlight: Arctic Sea Ice Loss Likely To Be Reversible
Scenarios of a sea ice tipping point leading to a permanently ice-free Arctic Ocean were based on oversimplified arguments
New research by Till Wagner and Ian Eisenman, scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, resolves a long-running debate over irreversible Arctic sea ice loss.
Ever since the striking record minimum Arctic sea ice extent in 2007, the ominous scenario of a sea ice tipping point has been a fixture in the public debate surrounding man-made climate change and a contingency for which Arctic-bordering countries have prepared.
For decades, scientists have been concerned about such a point of no return, beyond which sea ice loss is irreversible. This concern was supported by mathematical models of the key physical processes (known as process models) that were believed to drive sea ice changes. The process models forecasted that increased global warming would push the Arctic into an unstoppable cascade of melting that ceases only when the ocean becomes ice-free.
Implications of a permanently ice-free Arctic for the environment and for national and economic security are significant, driving deep interest in predictive capabilities in the region.
Wagner and Eisenman’s research was co-funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and by the National Science Foundation. It supports the goals of the Navy’s U.S. Arctic Roadmap, which calls for an assessment of changes in the Arctic Ocean to clarify the national security challenges for future naval operations as this strategic region becomes increasingly accessible.
“The Navy has broad interest in the evolution of the Arctic,” said the ONR’s Frank Herr. “Sea ice dynamics are a critical component of the changing environmental picture. Our physical models lack important details on the processes controlling ice formation and melting, thus ONR is conducting a series of experimental efforts on sea ice, open water processes, acoustics, and circulation.”
During the past several years, scientists using global climate models (GCMs) that are more complex than process models found sea ice loss in response to rising greenhouse gases in their computer simulations is actually reversible when greenhouse levels are reduced.
“It wasn’t clear whether the simpler process models were missing an essential element, or whether GCMs were getting something wrong,” said Wagner, the lead author of the study. “And as a result, it wasn’t clear whether or not a tipping point was a real threat.”
Wagner and Eisenman resolve this discrepancy in the study in an upcoming Journal of Climate article, “How Climate Model Complexity Influences Sea Ice Stability.”
They created a model that bridged the gap between the process models and the GCMs, and they used it to determine what caused sea ice tipping points to occur in some models but not in others.
“We found that two key physical processes, which were often overlooked in previous process models, were actually essential for accurately describing whether sea ice loss is reversible,” said Eisenman, a professor of climate dynamics at Scripps Oceanography. “One relates to how heat moves from the tropics to the poles and the other is associated with the seasonal cycle. None of the relevant previous process modeling studies had included both of these factors, which led them to spuriously identify a tipping point that did not correspond to the real world.”
“Our results show that the basis for a sea ice tipping point doesn’t hold up when these additional processes are considered,” said Wagner. “In other words, no tipping point is likely to devour what’s left of the Arctic summer sea ice. So if global warming does soon melt all the Arctic sea ice, at least we can expect to get it back if we somehow manage to cool the planet back down again.”
Source: Scripps Press Release
the more sea ice you get ..the more ice that twill be on the ocean where the sea ice is..i always thought that myself
Paper finds Arctic sea ice extent 8,000 years ago was less than half of the ‘record’ low 2007 level
“A paper published in Science finds summer Arctic Sea Ice extent during the Holocene Thermal Maximum 8,000 years ago was “less than half of the record low 2007 level.” The paper finds a “general buildup of sea ice from ~ 6,000 years before the present” which reached a maximum during the Little Ice Age and “attained its present (year 2000) extent at 4,000 years before the present”
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2012/08/paper-finds-arctic-sea-ice-extent-8000.html
CO2 was around 260 ppm at the time.
another cherry picked data point from a biased source that focuses only summer ice and not corresponding winter ice which perhaps one might average if shifts were more extreme as opposed to parallel?
You didn’t read the link since it was from SCIENCE:
“Science 5 August 2011:
Vol. 333 no. 6043 pp. 747-750
DOI: 10.1126/science.1202760”
Here is the Abstract,you didn’t read:
“ABSTRACT
We present a sea-ice record from northern Greenland covering the past 10,000 years. Multiyear sea ice reached a minimum between ~8500 and 6000 years ago, when the limit of year-round sea ice at the coast of Greenland was located ~1000 kilometers to the north of its present position. The subsequent increase in multiyear sea ice culminated during the past 2500 years and is linked to an increase in ice export from the western Arctic and higher variability of ice-drift routes. When the ice was at its minimum in northern Greenland, it greatly increased at Ellesmere Island to the west. The lack of uniformity in past sea-ice changes, which is probably related to large-scale atmospheric anomalies such as the Arctic Oscillation, is not well reproduced in models. This needs to be further explored, as it is likely to have an impact on predictions of future sea-ice distribution.”
Your “cherry pick” claim is absurd.
Fascinating how the warmistas can’t deal with reality.
If the world has gotten so warm that summer ice is less than half what it is now, how is it that the winter gets so cold that winter ice is more than large enough to compensate.
Then again, you have given no evidence of an ability for independent thought.
My claim stands. The website you referenced is from hockeyshtick.com “if you can’t explain the pause, you can’t explain the cause”, ergo bias. The article references a full report, and like WUWT cherry picks what it wants and sets a tone. The abstract references volatile levels of sea ice that they found and elsewhere it is noted that this is summer ice. Nowhere in the abstract does it mention causality, correlation or the lack thereof with CO2, so your reference to 280 ppm was your own conclusion that it was somehow relevant. I don’t presume it is irrelevant, I only would be curious what the directional trend of CO2 was, if there was a peak, and also, is the average of sea ice through out the year a relevant data point– i.e. was their greater seasonal fluctuation (some sources say yes) or was the average mass and coverage lower in general and therefore supportive of your view. None of this tells you whether to buy Miami real estate or sell though. It is merely the past, and the present has significantly different variables involved, not merely the current state of the “balance”, or sun temps, but also new variables that curious people like to consider.
@MarkW- I don’t give evidence of independent thought. At best I would sell it for value, but likely keep it to myself to profit from.
Leland, is now into troll territory, since I showed that the paper is from SCIENCE magazine,even posted the Abstract from the paper.
You have no cogent counterpoint to offer in reply to the science paper.
Leland N criticizes skeptics for saying:
“…”if you can’t explain the pause, you can’t explain the cause”, ergo bias.
It’s not ‘bias’ because that is exactly right. No one in the alarmist contingent can explain why global warming has stopped, for the simple reason that if they admitted CO2 doesn’t have anywhere near the claimed effect, their entire argument crashes and burns.
Not to mention that it would be much more interesting to know if co2 ppm was stable for 500 years before and after, or if it was trending in one direction or the other. Change in systems usually happen on the margin, not in whole, so the trend of co2, or any other input, could be just as important than the nominal level. 18,000 Dow is irrelevant, just a number in many ways, but it goes up or down due to behavior on the margin.
He he,
it has been a longstanding argument on the AGW believers part, that CO2 changed little for thousands of years until the 1800’s,when it then go up and up since then.
YOU need to go beyond babble level, to have something worthwhile, for the rest of us to ponder.
Well, I’m certainly not a believer. Not in many things. And I don’t believe the Patriots will win the next super bowl, I apply a level of expectation, otherwise known as a probability. There is then the upside of being right, and the downside of being wrong. Always try to limit your downside as there will always be another game to bet on. My concern re GW, AGW, ice ages, and bad wine, is that there is only one blue planet, and if we turn it brown because we believe in something false, it would be a shame.
We’re turning it green. Get your vision checked.
=================
Leland Neraho April 28, 2015 at 9:20 pm
“…My concern re GW, AGW, ice ages, and bad wine, is that there is only one blue planet, and if we turn it brown because we believe in something false, it would be a shame..”
///////
Leland
If CAGW is to be believed (and I mean that the C part is a belief rather than something that withstands serious scientiific scrutiny) , we are turning the blue planet bluer; disappearing ice, leading to more blue ocean, with consequent sea level rise leading to less brown land stuff as the sea encroaches.
Of course, in addition, we are turning the brown stuff greener, as CO2 fertilises the bio sphere.
What is there not to like about that? More blue ocean, more grass and forst land. Surely this ought to please any rational Greenie.
Leland N asserts:
Change in systems usually happen on the margin, not in whole, so the trend of co2, or any other input, could be just as important than the nominal level.
Flat wrong. The trend in CO2 doesn’t matter, only the atmospheric concentration matters. Most global warming happened within the first 20 ppm. At the current 400 ppm, any minuscule warming is simply too small to measure.
CO2 could ‘trend’ up by 20% – 30% from here, and we still couldn’t measure the tiny change in global warming caused by CO2. It would still be too small to measure.
What a surprise!
Well, not really.
Sort of have to agree with Nick Stokes April 28, 2015 at 5:47 pm on this one (and others who noted that “winter” will still bring ice.
Trends for January and July from 1951 to 2006 for Alert, Nunavut, Canada. Ice might melt in the summer but it’s 35 below C in January. Both show cooling trend. This is a straight download from the Environment Canada site so I have no idea if the data has been adjusted but the trend is clear. (One more time, not the the difference between the cooling Highs, and the “warming” Lows. It is apparent in most EC downloads from 49N to 82N.)
Other Arctic Canada sites are similar. I don’t worry about the polar bears.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/97o461le8n5v78e/AlertJanTrend.tiff?dl=0#
https://www.dropbox.com/s/97o461le8n5v78e/AlertJanTrend.tiff?dl=0#
Oh heck, double posted January. Here is July:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1z29ej6ds554ye2/AlertJulyTrend.tiff?dl=0
More bomb husk than shell.
Their title is telling. “How Climate Model Complexity Influences Sea Ice Stability.” Apparently, they think that the models are telling the physical world what to do. It’s the models that are making the world warmer!
It is telling. I have come to the conclusion at this point in my life that a significant proportion of ‘scientists’ simply cannot comprehend that a model is not that which is modeled.
This limitation shows up in art as well. A painting of a tree is not a tree, but try tell them that.
My favorite description of this is the ‘tyranny of the model.’
Ceci n’est pas une pipe …
Funny how ‘good’ these models are to bet our future on them but then they state they didn’t contain “how heat moves from the tropics to the poles” and “the seasonal cycle.” Sheez, just a tidbit of a shortcoming ya think? They are clowns.
At least 3 times in the last 5000 years, the planet has been as much as 3C to 5C warmer than it is today. Yet arctic ice recovered.
MarkW– Seriously, I have no idea, but for fun I googled temperature for the last 5000 years, and came up with this on the first go. Could be bogus but if not, you are just pulling stuff…
http://kottke.org/13/09/temperature-chart-for-the-last-11000-years
You guys really have to stop making stuff up. The article though does make a good point, what if we didn’t have the industrial age, how cold would it be?
Here’s the next item on the search:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/page3.php
It’s more like in the last 400,000 years according to this one. Shall I go to item 3?
Found it on the third try!! But as usual, from more dubious sources (another “science” blog), but at least he admits that the pace of warming is faster now, and warmer than 75% or so of the Holocene.
http://reason.com/blog/2013/03/07/earths-average-temperature-lower-than-it
Marcott, reconstruction claims was dealt with a while ago, as a bad paper:
Marcott Mystery #1
“Marcott et al 2013 has received lots of publicity, mainly because of its supposed vindication of the Stick. A number of commenters have observed that they are unable to figure out how Marcott got the Stick portion of his graph from his data set. Add me to that group.
The uptick occurs in the final plot-point of his graphic (1940) and is a singleton. I wrote to Marcott asking him for further details of how he actually obtained the uptick, noting that the enormous 1920-to-1940 uptick is not characteristic of the underlying data. Marcott’s response was unhelpful: instead of explaining how he got the result, Marcott stated that they had “clearly” stated that the 1890-on portion of their reconstruction was “not robust”. I agree that the 20th century portion of their reconstruction is “not robust”, but do not feel that merely describing the recent portion as “not robust” does full justice to the issues. Nor does it provide an explanation.”
http://climateaudit.org/2013/03/13/marcott-mystery-1/
Further examination reveals NO uptick in his thesis paper:
No Uptick in Marcott Thesis
“Reader ^ drew our attention to Marcott’s thesis (see chapter 4 here. Marcott’s thesis has a series of diagrams in an identical style as the Science article. The proxy datasets are identical.
However, as Jean S alertly observed, the diagrams in the thesis lack the closing uptick of the Science. Other aspects of the modern period also differ dramatically.”
http://climateaudit.org/2013/03/14/no-uptick-in-marcott-thesis/
The Uptick is a mystery,even to Marcott himself.
Marcott has admitted finally after some prodding:
“20th century portion of our paleotemperature stack is not statistically robust, cannot be considered representative of global temperature changes, and therefore is not the basis of any of our conclusions.”
http://climateaudit.org/2013/03/31/the-marcott-filibuster/
The uptick at the far right end of his contrived chart, is dead.
Leland Neraho: I agree, you seriously have no idea. In that first diagram at the climatic optimum 8,000 years ago Pond Turtles were thriving in southern Sweden near where I live. Today they can’t survive North of Brandenburg, about 400 miles south. When they start turning up again in the lakes around here I’ll know it is as warm as it was 8,000 years ago. It ain’t happened yet.
And if you think that it is currently acually the warmest climate in 400,000 years you are seriously deluded. During the previous Eemian/Sangamonion interglacial there were hippopotami in Yorkshire, water buffaloes on the Rhine, monkeys in Bavaria, capybaras in Florida and tapirs and jaguars around the Great Lakes.
I wonder why European pond turtles do not like France or the UK.
Further to the point made by tty (April 29, 2015 at 12:26 am)
The warmist are in historical and archaelogical denial.
The fact is that there is clear and strong evidence supporting the Minoan, Roman and Medieval Warm Periods in Northern Europe, and no evidence to suggest that these events were just a localised regional phenomena, and more significantly, there is no known mechanism whereby these could have been entirely localised phenomena.
If Greenland was warmer during the MWP, and it must have been a lot warmer than today for the Vikings with their primative tools and technology to have farmed it successfully for several hundred years, it is almost certainly the case that some part of the Arctic was warmer during this period and that there was less Arctic ice.
Ditto, the Roman Warm Period which is known to be warmer that the MWP and which is known to have extended quite far north (if Scotland and northern Germany were warmer, it is extremely likely that Scandinavia and Greenland were also warmer). The Minoan Warm Period is known to be warmer than the Roman Warm Period, but there is less historical and archaelogical evidence as to how far north it extended. But again, there is no obviousl phenomena that would have restricted it to the basin of the Med.
But warmist use the absence of evidence as proof that something did not exist. Just because the Southern Hemisphere is largely ocean, and to the extent that there are land masses these were relatively sparsely habited with no sophisiticated civilisations to leave their mark, such that there is little evidence for the MWP in the Southern Hemisphere, as evidence that the MWP was a Northern Hemisphere only phenomena. The fact is that we just do not know the extent of the MWP although there is some evidence that the Southern Hemisphere was also warmer, but for obvious reasons the evidence is more sparse. The absence of evidence does not make out the warmist’s case on localised phenomena.
Leland N,
You need to get up to speed. Right now it’s clear you’re a noobie on this subject.
Here is a good starting point. Learn something for a change, instead of getting your misinformation and bogus talking points from alarmist blogs:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/03/24/new-study-shows-arctic-sea-ice-extent-6000-years-ago-was-much-less-than-today/
Right, that’s Arctic Sea Ice fixed.
Next!
“We found that two key physical processes, which were often overlooked in previous process models …”
O.K. they added two more components to their model … 1,283 more KEY physical process components to go.
After that they (might) be able to obtain a model of the “earths climate” system that needs to incorporate “two more key physical processes” to be accurate.
I’ve been modeling rainfall/runoff/infiltration and collection systems for more than 20 years now. 5-year event, 10-year event, 20 year event … can’t get better than 30% accuracy ever. The secret is that the collection systems are very forgiving, and a little ponding goes a long way; and always cheat in an overflow that won’t physically impact any thing. Again … somewhere between 3 and 7 variables depending on the complexity of the model/project and a 30% error is expected. I don’t see how these bozos can expect any reasonable or consistent accuracy for a system that has unlimited variables (that are also interdependent).
(I may be a little slow, can someone define what is actually being “modeled” through the GCM’s? air temperature? Ice cover? Ocean temps? Ice loss? Ice gain? Permafrost loss? The temperature of the soup djour)?
I’ve also worked a lot on computer models, of logistical processes in my case. Our models handled a couple of dozen parameters, most of them well understood and fairly determinate. And we thought we were doing dam’ well when we got results that were consistently within 30 % of empirical data.
Yeah, I did that sort of thing for 30 years. We use return periods for 200 year events based on what – 20 or 30 years of data assuming a stable climate and we are surprised when we have to revise our expectations? Or we go into the field and see where the high water mark and erosion levels are compared to our models? The drainage models work well, but need field proofing. Same for river systems, pipelines, water networks, water treatment and sewage treatment models ad infinitum. But, in all those systems, we are usually using empirical formula that can be checked and the number of variables are reasonable. I don’t think the climate modellers know which variables are the important ones and there are simply too many to do a valitidy check and huge inertia in the system that no one really understands. I kinda like Joe Bastardi’s way of doing things for now. Understand the past, understand the potential future.
The running title of their paper is:
How Climate Model Complexity Influences Sea Ice Stability.
Now that is just plain backwards by any sane science of models vs. real world.
Do climate super-computer simulations now affect the real world, like some quatum entanglement-decoherence solution to Schroedinger’s cat? In Climate science, they obviously can run a computer simulation that commands deterministically what sea will do in the future
How appropriate. That title clearly identifies why Climate Science today is so eff’ed up.
CarlF pointed out this insanity a few posts earlier.
thx Max. I read the posted article, clicked on hypertext link to the article read it and was just struck by both the title and the author’s belief in model drives reality. didn’t see CarlF’s post… scooped.
After having some time to read through all the comments Tabya Aardman has priority on this thought.
Merely append ‘in Models’ to the end of the title and it makes sense. Charitably, I think this is what they showed.
=====================
It’s now PAINFULLY obvious the alarmists’ GCMs got Arctic Sea completely wrong.
Like most climatic variables, Arctic Sea Ice area is sinusoidal that follows closely the AMO and PDO 30-yr ocean cycles. The 30-yr PDO cool cycle started in 2008, which is causing Arctic Ice on the Pacific side of the Arctic to recover, while the 30-yr AMO warm cycle peaked in 2007 and is causing Arctic ice on the Atlantic side to recover.
The 2012 Super Arctic Cylone (one of the strongest and longest Arctic cyclones in 50-yrs) destroyed a lot of multi-year Arctic sea ice, but even with this anomaly, Arctic sea ice continues to recover. The 2014/15 El Niño, the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge and “The Blob” have all managed to lower Arctic sea ice on the Pacific side of the Arctic this year, but all these anomalies shiuld end of this year, Arctic sea ice recovery should be quite spectacular from next year when La Niña conditions are in effect.
The Antarctic Ice Extent is again setting records this year and is currently about 3 standard deviations above the 30-yr ice extent mean.
The current solar cycle is the weakest since 1906 and peaked in 2014. It’s now in steep decline, which will continue for the next 7 years until the next solar cycle #25 starts in 2022, which is predicted by some astrophysics to be the weakest solar cycle since 1715, because Umbral Magnetic Field (UMF–the force that hold sunspots together) continues to collapse. The 30-yr AMO cool cycle should also start around 2022 and the 30-yr PDO cool cycle should also be approaching its coolest phase around 2022.
Penn & Livingston predict that if the UMF falls below 1500 gauss, a Grand Solar Minimum could develop from 2022, which may lead to an 70~80 year global cool cycle, if the Svensmark Effect hypothesis is correct.
As a side note, I find it very strange that the University of Illinois suddenly stopped their daily updates of global, Arctic and Antarctic ice areas almost three weeks ago….. I sent an e-mail to them asking why they stopped their daily updates, but they haven’t replied, nor have they posted any announcement on their website explaining the cessation. I get the impression that they’re coming up with new ice area algorithms that will generate lower values…. We’ll see…
Declining Arctic Ice Extents were alarmists’ last hope of keeping the CAGW hypothesis alive…. Now that Arctic Ice Extents have been recovering since 2007 and Antarctic Ice Extents are setting records on a yearly basis, even this aspect of CAGW is starting to crash and burn.
CAGW is so screwed…
… and to a humanity not prepared for a coming cooling world.
Thanks Sam.
This is why the world is mad not to take advantage of the time that the ‘pause’ has given us.
Whilst I never agreed with the mantra that we only had a few years to save the planet, the fact is that during the past 18 or so years, there has been all but no warming (possibly even slight cooling) such that as at 2015, we are well below the IPCC’s projections for global temp anomalies. This has boght the world considerable time to further evaluate matters, not based upon computer models, but rather upon real life empircal data obtained from real observation.
It would be mad at this stage to sign up to any further draconian steps to curb CO2 emissions and to cut back on energy use and development of the 3rd world. We are now getting the perfect opportunity to see what effect Solar may have on the climate (warming), and what if any climate sensitivity to CO2 exists.
The ‘pause’ strongly suggests that claims regarding climate sensitivity are over hyped (because they failed to take account of natural variation and ocean cycles), so the sensible course is to sit back and see how the ‘pause’ develops.
When AR5 came out, I suggested that it would be irrelevant and would be superseded by events since China had already indicated that it did not plan taking any steps before 2020 (which it has now kicked into the long grass suggesting that it will not curb CO2 emissions before 2030), and if temperatures began to cool in the run up to the 2019/20 climate circus, the IPCC would find it impossible to produce a convincing AR6 without acknowledging that the models are off (outside their 95% confidence band) and that climate sensitivity is towards the lower level such that CAGW is no longer a problem. I suggested that there would be increasing numbers of papers showing ever lowering figures for climate sensitivity. I still consider it probable that that is what will pan out. The Paris circus will achieve nothing of substance (because of China and India’s unwillingness to come on board, aided by Australia’s sceptism), and by 2020, the wheels will have fallen off the wagon.
Of course, the future can hold surprises, and only a fool predicts the future. hence my comment is a ‘projection’ not a prediction!
The paper does not say that Arctic ice is rebounding. It simply says that there is a not a tipping point beyond which Arctic ice can never recover. In fact, Arctic ice is not recovering: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
“It’s now PAINFULLY obvious the alarmists’ GCMs got Arctic Sea completely wrong.”
It is worse than you think. They have the polar see-saw effect upside down. The warming and cooling of the AMO and Arctic is a negative feedback to solar variability. The 1970’s cooling was when the solar wind was very strong, and since the mid 1990’s it has weakened. All the IPCC models indicate that increased forcing of the climate increases positive AO/NAO, that can only cool the AMO and Arctic:
http://snag.gy/HxdKY.jpg
The Arctic sea ice extent is simply the result of the two and fro of the Beaufort Gyre and the Fram Strait export/Transpolar Drift mediated by how much older ice survives the melt season based on that two and fro.
Animation of the sea ice movement and age of the ice from Mark Tschudi of the University of Colorado from 1987 to the winter of 2014.
In the last two years, the Beaufort Gyre has become more dominant (which continues in the early part of the 2015 melt season) after about 5 years that the Fram Strait export was dominant. I imagine this pattern cycles back and forth depending on various wind/weather patterns.
Bill– Satellite polar ice data only went online from 1979, which was at the peak of Arctic ice extents following the end of the 30-yr PDO cool cycle in 1977. The growing Arctic Ice Extents during the last PDO cool cycle (1943~1977) was why some climatologists were predicting a new Ice Age in the late 70’s….
When both the PDO and AMO are in their 30-year cool cycles from 2022 (and leading up to that event) Arctic Ice Extents and multi-year Arctic Ice should both continue to increase until the 30-yr PDO cool cycle ends around 2035~38.
If we happen to enter a Grand Solar Minum from 2022 and global temps fall 1C~2C as some climatologists are predicting, Arctic Ice Extents may even continue to slowly expand until 2100..
Wouldn’t that throw a monkey wrench into CAGW model predictions…
It’ll be extremely interesting to see what happens to Arctic Ice Extents between now and 2022.
Thanks Bill. I often wonder how much effect the Russian nuclear icebreakers have on Arctic ice extent. I read the Russians try to keep their sea routes open as long as possible and I bet they are smart enough to use those sea currents to help move the broken ice away.
It is very hard to maintain a permanently ice-free route. It is only really possible in protected waters with fast ice and even there it tends to re-freeze unless in constant use. At sea ice is always moving and will normally close up a lead created by an icebreaker within minutes or at most hours.
Welp, they weren’t lying when they said it was all based on ‘simple physics.’ The physics were so simple they didn’t even include convection and seasons.
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” – Albert Einstein
This whole idea of a ”tipping point” and ”permanently ice-free Arctic” has always been completely absurd asnd could only have been dreamed up by ‘scientists’ with no practical experience of Arctic or even Boreal climate. I live by the Baltic Sea. Every spring the winter ice there melts away completely and the sea even becomes warm enough for bathing. And every winter it re-freezes. This has happened every year since the last ice-age, 11,700 times, with nary a tipping-point in sight.
The ringed seal population that was isolated in the Baltic at the end of the ice-age and are dependent on sea-ice for pupping are still there, so if there were actually intervals of ice-free winters during past warmer periods (unlikely) they certainly never lasted than a ring seal’s lifetime. There definitely has never been an ice-free winter in recorded history.
And it doesn’t only happen in the Baltic. It works the same for the Bering Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk and the Bohai Sea.
It is quite possible that the Arctic was ice free during the Holocene Optimum. But if so, of course, it follows that the ice recovered. As a matter of first principle, the ice must recover as long as it is cold enough for ice to form, so the question is simply: will temperatures in the region only ever increase, or is it possible that tempeatures may decrease (of course, warm/cold currents and wind etc are part of the mix, but I am just looking at matters simplistically)?
The tipping point assertion/conjecture is based upon the premise that with ever increasing levels of CO2, it will become increasingly warmer in the Arctic as time goes by and thus once the ice has disappeared, it will not re-appear because temperatures would be on an upwards trajectory due to ever increasing levels of CO2..
It is all part of the runaway CAGW argument.
The Arctic was probably (almost) ice-free in summer during the Holocene optimum. Based on geological evidence it hasn’t been permanently ice-free at least since the Eocene optimum, at which time alligators were living in northern Greenland.
It will reappear every winter, regardless of summer temperatures.
Up to six months without sunlight will tend to drop temperatures below zero for ice to be able to form!
Sorry, I was being lazy. I thought that we were discussing summer ice (albeit the precise definition of this is uncertain). Obviously proxies are uncertain and should be viewed with a large pinch of salt such that I would not dispute whether it was nearly ice free during the Holocene Optimum rather than ice free.
If one goes deep enough into the past, there was no polar ice (albeit at that the distribution of land masses was very different and the Antarctic Continent was not at the South Pole). This in itself should demonstrate that ice formation and hence ice recovery is always possible. There are no tipping points (at least not until the Sun starts to expand)
Where is the august Jimbo in trying times like these?
“So if global warming does soon melt all the Arctic sea ice, at least we can expect to get it back if we somehow manage to cool the planet back down again.”
They are hopelessly deluded if they think mankind controls the global climate.
——————————————————————————–
“
The Artic. In summer: Cold. In winter: Very cold. Future prediction: It will remain cold and very cold respectively. Therefore it will continue to have Ice at varying levels all year round.
Now can I have some science money and a Nobel Prize, please?
Here’s an anecdote: a few years ago, I calculated total solar insolation by latitude and orbital parameters, hoping to get some feedback from ice albedo into a Milankovitch cycle model of global temperature.
When I ran it, to my chagrin I discovered that there was no ice at all in the summer in the Arctic. The reason is that the sun shines all day, and net all factors, insolation is too high for a radiative model to predict temperature below the freezing point of sea ice. By the same token, there is no insolation at all in winter, and a radiative model says the sea will freeze, full stop.
To model summer sea ice, you have to start calculating how thick the ice will be before the melt season starts, and how fast it will melt. That leads you on to having to calculate the inter-year accumulation of ice in order to make any sensible model. Even the rate of melting will depend on air temperature, which has memory (heat capacity) and will depend on such inconveniences as wind and clouds. That’s all way before starting to think about geography, ocean currents, ice flow, and the variability of weather.
So I gave up on the model.
But, in summary, sea ice will melt in summer and the sea will freeze in winter. The complexity of saying anything further about ice extent is nicely illustrated by the fact that sea ice is expanding in the Antarctic while it is falling in the Arctic.
R.
This article is based upon DECREASING greenhouse gases.. sorry people but greenhouse gases are INCREASING. Accelerating and increasing… Have you all missed that FACT? Look at the Keeling curve. And where is the so called longterm cooling except in tiny minded imagination? Wakey Wakey.
Phil, that isn’t what it says. From the article:
…global climate models (GCMs) that are more complex than process models found sea ice loss in response to rising greenhouse gases in their computer simulations is actually reversible when greenhouse levels are reduced.
Yes, CO2 is rising. It is not accelerating. But if it was, so what? It is a tiny trace gas measured in ppm, and as we see, the rise in CO2 has not resulted in any of the scary predictions happening, including the endless scaremongering over ‘Arctic ice’.
Furthermore, the rise in CO2 has been beneficial to the biosphere, with no global harm being done. It was entirely accidental that human CO2 emissions increased. That was a byproduct of fossil fuel use. But as it turned out, none of the scary predictions happened. The only problem now is the complete inability/unwillingness of the alarmist contingent to admit: “We were wrong.”
dbstealey commented
This seems to be a trend, actually it’s worse than that, he’s great at quoting stuff he doesn’t understand.
But de navy is “Big Oil”, innit?
Dey got ships wot iz big and oily.
I don’t see any reason for the sea ice to return yet. If the AMO repeats its ~69yr envelope, it should cool in the mid 2030’s, and reach its coldest in the mid 2040’s. I am expecting a large uptick in negative episodes AO/NAO through the next decade, that can only mean a renewed warming of the AMO and Arctic. And it also follows the pattern of the AMO being anti-phase with solar cycles when in its warm mode, and in phase with solar cycles when in its cold mode:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-amo/from:1880/mean:13/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1880/normalise
Yet another political argument put forth to support controlling energy. The only noteworthy part of the article is “our new models show we can reverse if we act” since the old models were just not really that good. The bottom line is the article will be used to show why “The Pause” can be ignored.
In reply to:
William,
Cryosphere today appears to have stopped updating the sea ice coverage. Hopefully they can resolve the problem. Record sea ice both poles is an inconvenient fact. There was and is a physical reason why there is suddenly post 2012 the highest amount of surface ice coverage in the Antarctic in recorded history. Multiyear arctic sea ice has started to increase due to anomalously cold summer Arctic temperatures due to an increase in cloud cover in the Arctic in the summer. The mechanisms that were abating the change in cloud coverage and properties due to abrupt change in the solar cycle have started to abate. The planet is going to significantly cool, with the majority of the cooling occurring in high latitude regions.
Why in the world are you plotting sunspot number vs planetary temperature? If one has absolutely no understanding of the mechanisms the analysis goes in circles.
The variable to plot is the number of solar wind bursts and time between solar wind bursts: The variable that captures solar wind bursts is Ak, the four hour disturbance of the geomagnetic field.
Solar wind bursts primarily caused by persistent coronal holes create a space charge differential in the earth’s ionosphere which in turn causes a movement of electrical charge from the earth’s poles to the equator.
Coronal holes of course have nothing to do with sunspot number. Why coronal holes appear, when coronal holes appear in the solar cycle, and at what latitude coronal holes appear on the sun surface is not known.
The electrical charge movement removes cloud forming ions in the high latitude regions which causes there to be a reduction in low level clouds and an increase in cirrus clouds. A decrease in low level clouds warms the region in question due to a reduction in short wave radiation that is reflected to space albedo and an increase in the high wispy cirrus clouds causes the region in question to warm due to increased greenhouse effect of the high altitude water.
The return electrical current changes cloud properties in the equator and changes cloud lifetimes in the equator. El Nino events occur when there is large movement of electrical charge.
Recently although the number of sunspots has been dropping there has been a large number of persistent coronal holes on the surface of the sun in low latitude regions. It is these coronal holes that are partially responsible for the lack of significant cooling of the earth due to the astonishing slowdown in the solar cycle.
Offset the anomalous number of coronal holes is a reduction in the solar heliosphere density of 40%. The low density of the solar heliosphere (Solar heliosphere is the name for the tenuous gas and magnetic flux that stretches far past the orbit of Pluto.) reduces the rise time of the magnetic pulse that is caused by solar wind bursts which in turn reduces the effect on the earth ionosphere.
Now finally the size of coronal holes on the surface of sun has started to shrink and the coronal holes have started to move to high latitude regions on the surface of the sun where they no longer affect the earth. Bingo, there will be a significant increase in sea ice in the Arctic and the planet will cool. We are experience the cooling phase of a Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle.
http://gacc.nifc.gov/sacc/predictive/SOLAR_WEATHER-CLIMATE_STUDIES/GEC-Solar%20Effects%20on%20Global%20Electric%20Circuit%20on%20clouds%20and%20climate%20Tinsley%202007.pdf
The role of the global electric circuit in solar and internal forcing of clouds and climate
http://sait.oat.ts.astro.it/MmSAI/76/PDF/969.pdf
“Why in the world are you plotting sunspot number vs planetary temperature?”
Err the AMO and sunspot number. The phase reversals are apparent in a number of different studies.
“If one has absolutely no understanding of the mechanisms the analysis goes in circles.”
Yes that’s what happens with the assumption that natural variability is internal, including the AMO.
Witches! burn the witches!
amazing that anyone thought there was a problem-
1923- NORTH POLE MELTING. MANY GLACIERS VANISHED.Daily Mercury (Mackay, Qld. : 1906 – 1954) Saturday 7 April 1923 p 9 Article… that part of the world? Science is asking thesc questions (says Popular Science Siftings”). Reports … from ‘fishermen, seal hunters, and’, explorers who sail the seas around ‘Spitsbergen and the eastern … 1170 words
1937- Alaska “All of the major glaciers of the country have been retreating instead of advancing in recent years.There has not been nearly enough snow in recent years to start them advancing toward civilisation.
This, plus the fact that all other
great glaciers throughout the world
are receding”
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/de…
1947- Dr. Ahlmann added that temperatures in the Arctic have increased by10 degrees Fahrenheit since 1900.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/de..
1911- Warming Up The Artic
” In this part of the Arctic Ocean there is quite a remarkable absence of floating ice and it looks as if the famous hot water system which originates in the Gulf of Florida, after traversing the North Atlantic Ocean, finds its way to the Arctic to keep an open sea route to Siberia”
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/de…
Arctic 1923 – “At many points where glaciers extend far into the sea half a dozen years ago they have new entirely disappeared”
eeek- “Seals which used to be plentiful in
those seas, have almost entirely disappeared”
“Last winter the ocean did not freeze over
even on the north coast of Spitzber
gen”
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/de…
1951- “Glaciers present the most striking evidence . The Americangeographer, F. E. Matthes, has re-ported that ”glaciers in nearly all parts of the world receded regularly during the last 60 years, but especially rapidly during the 1930-40decade.”
Antarctic melting : the disappearing Antarctic ice cap / Michael A. SommersSommers, Michael A., 1966-
Melting away : a ten-year journey through our endangered polar regions / Camille SeamanSeaman, Camille, 1969-
‘MELTING DOWN’ OF ANTARCTIC BRINGS FRESH CLAIMS[coming soon]Daily Mercury (Mackay, Qld. : 1906 – 1954) Saturday 21 August 1948 p 5 Article
WORLD IS WARMER Glaciers MeltingWorker (Brisbane, Qld. : 1890 – 1955) Monday 15 October 1951 p 11 Article… . If the Antarctic Ice regions and the major Greenland Icecap should continue to melt at their present … WORLD IS WARMER Glaciers Melting
Antarctic Area Free Of SnowThe Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 – 1954) Monday 31 January 1949p 5 Article… journey which reached a point 305 miles south of the Antarctic Circle, discovered mountains which were … ‘ completely free of snow, with manymelted streams, and lakes up to a mile ia length.
RIDDLE OF THE GLACIERS. Ice Retreating. GEOLOGISTS STILL PUZZLED. CANBERRA, Thursday.The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 – 1954) Friday 13 January 1939 p 13 Article… being about 50 feet a year. The Antarctic ice- sheet also showed signs of recent retreat.
SNOW-FREE RANGE IN ANTARCTICBarrier Miner (Broken Hill, NSW : 1888 – 1954) Tuesday 1 February 1949 p 3 Article… SNOW-FREE RANGE IN ANTARCTIC .
WORLD GROWING WARMER.The Mail (Adelaide, SA : 1912 – 1954) Saturday 7 October 1922 p 7 Article… fringes of both poles are retreating
BRITISH EXPERTS DISCOVER WARM AREA IN ANTARCTIC LONDON, Sunday.The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 – 1995) Monday 31 January 1949p 1 Article… Antarctic Circle, discovered mountains which were snow free with many melted .streams and lakes, up to a … BRITISH EXPERTS DISCOVER WARM AREA IN ANTARCTIC
Photos Showed Antarctic Getting Warmer “Herald” Service.Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate (NSW : 1876 – 1954) Friday 11 April 1947 p 7 Article… Photos Showed Antarctic Getting Warmer “Herald” Servlqe. NEW YORK, April 10.-The Antarctic is … getting warmer, it is concluded from a preliminary study of aerial ahotographs taken by the Navy task
Antarctic May Be Warmer “The Mercury” Special ServiceThe Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 – 1954) Friday 11 April 1947 p 17 Article… Mercury” Special Service ]^EW YORK, Thurs. – The Antarctic is becoming warmer. This is the conclusion from …
WORLD NEWS ROUND-UP Antarctic Getting Warmer, Southern Ice Cap RecedesBarrier Miner (Broken Hill, NSW : 1888 – 1954) Saturday 12 April 1947 p 6 Article
oh and in the 1950s the arctic sea lanes were open for 8 months of the year.
and on and on and on.