We haven’t spent much time looking at Arctic Sea Ice this year, partly because I’ve rather lost interest in it as any sort of climatic indicator. This year’s melt seems similar to 2011 according to the comparison graph provided by Japan’s National Institute of Polar Research.
Source: https://ads.nipr.ac.jp/vishop/vishop-extent.html?N
The DMI graph also seems to indicate that melt has turned the corner, but shows the 2015 data higher than 2011 unlike the graph above:
Source: http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/icecover/icecover_current_new.png
Arctic air temperature from 80°N is well below the freezing point of seawater now:
Source: http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
Of course, since sea ice is highly prone to the vagaries of wind and weather, it could still take a turn downward in the next few days before starting back up again.
One of the things that I have come to notice about Arctic sea ice is that it appears to have reached a new plateau or regime, note how since 2007 the data seems to oscillate about the -1 million square kilometer line:
![seaice.anomaly.arctic[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/seaice-anomaly-arctic1.png?quality=75)
Source: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png
My personal opinion is that this new quasi-stable regime is related to increased surface soot and changes in the AMO (Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation). Since the mid-1990s we have been in a warm phase, Now the AMO is now turning sharply negative, and next year might be quite different than the past eight.
Source: Dr. Philip Klotzbach on Twitter who writes:
12-month running avg AMO continues to drop. August ’15 value (-0.9 SD) lowest since ’94. Cold NAtl persists.
Only time will tell if this change in the AMO will change the future of Arctic sea ice.
Note: [added] You can view more graphs on the WUWT Sea Ice Page: http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/
The title was corrected shortly after publication to remove a repeated word (have) and fix a spelling error.
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Don’t feel bad Anthony, for losing interest in it as an indicator of climate behavior. The gloom-and-doom CAGW prognosticators have nearly abandoned it as well. The ebbs and flows of the arctic ice is now a seasonal rhythm like the changing color of the leaves. A rhythm with no direction. I am still interested in the Great Lakes freezing extent. Maybe with El Nino, the lakes won’t freeze so much this year?
I don’t think it means much, outside of the height of the northern summer. The Arctic is basically land-bound, so the sea ice tends to vary less from year to year in those months in which it is in signficant contact with land.
There’s more land in the arctic (North of +60 deg. lat.) than in the Antarctic (South of -60 deg. lat.)
George,
IMO Mike is referring to the situation of the Arctic Ocean, the sea ice of which cannot extend as far toward lower latitudes as can sea ice in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica.
However you are right that there is more land north of the Arctic Circle (not just of 60 degrees N) than south of the Antarctic Circle. The Arctic Ocean isn’t huge.
Lady Gaiagaia
The Arctic Ocean pretty much fills the entire region north of 80 north latitude – there’s just a tiny corner of Greenand’s north coast that intrudes uppast 80 north latitude’s circle. The rest of the arcti ocean is “trapped” between a rough circle of Canada-Alaska-Siberian north coasts at 70-71-72 north, and splits and curves around the north Canadian islands and two Siberian Islands.
Now, understand that “arctic sea ice” as a term for “an area of ocean covered by sea ice up north” includes more than the nominal 14.0 Mkm^2 area of the “arctic ocean” itself. Those who spend our billions tracking these thigns add the sea ice over Hudson Bay, the Labrador and Baltic and Bering and Gulf of the St Lawrence River and areas north of Norway, etc, etc to the “arctic ocean” itself.
But… Those small areas always melt completely each summer. Most of these seas, bays, inlets, and straits are far smaller than 1.0 Mkm^2, and the largest single area is the Hudson Bay at 1.2 Mkm^2. So they affect ONLY the total “potential” sea ice area at its February-March-April maximum, and NOT ANY areas in the summer and September sea ice minimums.
Thus, it is almost impossible, for “Arctic sea ice” to extend much further south than where it is right now at a minimum 71-72 north latitude. Regardless of how “early” the Arctic coast freezes up, once it freezes, it cannot extend any further south around almost the entire edge of sea ice. Most other seas are bounded as well – and they – most years – freeze over completely. Hudson’s Bay, Bering Sea (north half), Baltic, Norwegian sea? The “arctic sea ice” can only increase in a few places.
Equally, it is physically impossible for ANY Arctic sea ice minimum to get much smaller than 2012’s minimum of 2.2 Mkn^2 area at 81 north latitude average edge.
And, if the Arctic sea ice at minimum extents does become smaller, it will quickly freeze again in the ever-darker skies of late September and October, and re-freeze completely once again.
Arctic land area: 11 million km2 link
Antarctica (the vast majority of which lies within the antarctic circle): 14 million km2 link
I do think you have to go to +/- 60 deg. before the northern land mass exceeds the southern.
” george e. smith September 11, 2015 at 2:17 pm
There’s more land in the arctic (North of +60 deg. lat.) than in the Antarctic (South of -60 deg. lat.)”
But is that as important as the area that contacts the water?
Arctic coastline: 45,389 km
Antarctic coastline: 17,968 km
Definition: This entry gives the total length of the boundary between the land area (including islands) and the sea.
Source: CIA World Factbook – This page was last updated on June 30, 2015
I think it’s an excellent climate indicator, but the problem is the fudging by NOAA / Cryostat / JAXA, in particular their use of the discriminator between surface melt and open water. An audit of their use of this would reveal, I infer, that these were set strongly to “open water” for both the 2007 and 2012 minima. I expect the current fluctuations of the Antarctic sea ice fluctuations are also due to fiddling with this, in almost a “let’s see what we can do” mindset. It is these manipulations which cause me to lose confidence in polar sea ice as a climate indicator, not the concept as such which should be a very good one.
To fill out my point, up to this year there was an operational rule that the meltpond/open-water discriminator should be balanced between Arctic and Antarctic in a mirror-image way, that is, if one side is set to 80% meltpond then the other side is set to 80% open-water, etc. This is why the Antarctic sea ice has been so high, because the Arctic has been set open-water heavy for years and so consequentially the Antarctic has been set to meltpond-heavy for those years (meltponds are counted as ice). This year, I detect, they have been cut free from each other, with the Arctic still held open-water heavy (perhaps even more so) while the Antarctic balance has been turned back to 50-50 at least. Thus, the sudden Antarctic drop of sea ice about 2 months ago. Yes, they are getting things ready for Paris in November, our climate scientist heroes.
NZ Willy
Going to politely disagree with you there: The Arctic IS 35 – 40% covered with shallow melt water during the summer season, but the Antarctic sea ice doesn’t have those melt water ponds. Instead, the Antarctic sea ice tends to “melt from below” with its surface still solid and clean through its entire melt season. Not absolutely clear of melt ponds, but there are very, very few of them compared to up north. The Antarctic surface – because it IS solid and clear of water, has a higher albedo through the season, with fresh snow and clear ice present the whole year.
As a result, the Arctic sea ice albedo drops significantly in May-June_July-August, going as low as 0.43 by July 5.
Are there jumps and skips I cannot explain in the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice records as you point out? Yes. But I am not convinced (yet) that an albedo correction change factor is responsible. (Yet, he said carefully.)
The reason for the sharp drop in the Antarctic sea ice extent was that there were two streams of warm, moist winds that impacted the coastline of the continent for around 3 weeks or longer. All of the heavy melt loss took place at those two spots. One location was just to the west of the Ross Sea and the other was almost directly across the continent from the Ross Sea. The Ross Sea area still has a sizeable below norm hole in the area, and there is currently a wind stream moving straight down the middle of the Pacific that impacts the Ross Sea….http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-206.02,-79.15,302
Gold,
Thanks for practicing science. It’s appreciated!
I think tracking the ice on Hudson Bay might be more interesting.
Thanks, Anthony.
Good information, corroborated by
http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr2/extent_n_running_mean_amsr2_previous.png
(University of Bremen, Germany).
Good graph from Bremen.
I’d be surprised if we see the minimum this early. That big dip at the end of Aug won’t be the low point. I’d expect another dimple in the next week or so that will probably tough out in about 7 days time. Anyway, it’s going to be pretty damn close to 2011. to within the data accuracy.
I am very interested to see the effects of a cold AMO and the passing of this el nino in the pacific. I think this will be indicative of the natural cyclical patterns as Joe Bastardi is hoping. Certainly should mess with the linearity of the models.
(I for sure can’t find any “death spiral”.)
Is this a fail? Maybe next year eh.
Tom, get back in touch with Waddhams and ask him what exactly he is an expert in.
PS Whadams has now changed his ice-free Arctic prediction to 2020…see here.
Wadhams’ answer to the question of an ice-free arctic by the end of Summer 2015: ø
Wadhams is the nut who says that a series of deaths were assassinations by the oil industry.
And his models were and are always wrong. In fact they are not models at all. Just a series of predictions based on very poor linear thinking.
Sure sounds like the preacher who predicted the 2nd coming in 2012…
(“…come on back Jesus, and pick up John Wayne on the way!” – Willie Nelson)
Jimbo,
When there is even more ice in 2020 than now, he can uproot and move the goalposts again to 2025 and repeat the process until retirement.
Lady Gaiagaia,
Professor Wadhams is at least 65 years old. I think he is already past his ‘sell-by’ date but, as with a number of elderly environmentalists, he just doesn’t know when to let go.
Billy,
Yes, Prof. Wadhams at 67 is one of those alarmists who need to pass from the scene before real climatology might once again be practiced, but I hope that the Good Lord grants him enough years to update his prediction again when aged at least 72 and then again at 77, from an exalted emeritus status.
Wadhams had forecast 0.98M km2 for the Arctic sea ice in September in the ARCUS sea ice guessing game this year. He was by far the lowest submission.
The trends are tracking toward 4.55M km2 so we can call Wadhams a bad guesser at least but more likely he is just someone to ignore because he is as wrong as it can get.
To go from “best modeller around” to last place in just 4 years would have to be extremely embarrassing.
Exactly!
a bit early for the turn, a little wind change and it could shrink again
I was thinking the same thing too. I thought it was around the 17th – so if it IS the turn then it’s about 1 week early?
Yep …
http://s7.postimg.org/wvtman8zd/Jaxa_Delta.png
I have a similar chart that covers both Jaxa and the NSIDC going back to the beginning of all the records (which is really 1972 – Jaxa uses an algorithm which is very similar to the NASA Team algorithm which goes back to 1972).
The sea ice minimum may have been reached on September 8, 2015 (4 days ahead of the average date) The daily melt rates are going positive now including today’s release as of September 11, 2015 numbers.
http://s18.postimg.org/yyta6j2w9/NH_SIE_Daily_Melt_Rate_Sept11_15.png
Jaxa minimum on September 8 —> 4.30M km2
NSIDC minimum on September 8 —> 4.34M km2
NSIDC September minimum (used in the Arcus sea ice guessing game) tracking to —> 4.57M km2
Yes I mentioned “vagaries of wind and weather” in the article.
Why is there any ice at all, in the arctic ocean, given the astronomical quantity of “HEAT” energy (noun) that gets pumped from the tropics (where it arrived on earth as EM radiant energy), by the Gulf stream, Japan current, and the like ??
There is damn little cooling going on in the arctic, which can get down closer to 200 K than 300 K, at which Temperature the maximum radiant emittance would be one fifth of what the global average rate is.
So with pitiful cooling capability, and huge heat convection to the arctic (which mysteriously shows up exactly nowhere in Kevin Trenberth’s global energy budget cartoon) why is there so much ice there.
My guess is that there is actually damn little incoming solar energy arriving in the arctic to try and warm it up.
And with so little solar insolation; I would guess that the arctic contribution to earth’s albedo is about nil.
One related question. With this huge thermal conveyor belt running heat energy to the arctic, how is it possible for land based glacial melting to dilute the gulf stream and similar currents, and mess with the so-called “thermo-haline” circulation ??
I mean what are the five principle equatorial ice fields, that are doing all this melting, and lowering ocean saltiness ??
g
You are right, a little laziness on my part.
What is also interesting is that the Arctic sea ice VOLUME is increasing (disregarding the seasonal changes). Only for 3 year, it may be only a fluctuation, but at least it decreases the long-term trend of decline.
“Of course, since sea ice is highly prone to the vagaries of wind and weather, it could still take a turn downward in the next few days before starting back up again.”
http://psc.apl.uw.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/schweiger/ice_volume/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrentV2.1.png
Sea ice extent/area seems to be driven by wind and currents.
http://psc.apl.uw.edu/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/
Can’t find a corresponding antarctic sea ice volume page
I find anomalies misleading. Please use total ice volumes instead on left side.
True, a short-term thickening trend, but strong. An increase in multiyear ice could promote higher summer extent. And the need for ice-breakers.
Last time there was a strong(ish) El Nino and cold AMO was way back in the early 1970’s. North Atlantic ocean temperatures over the last couple of weeks have warmed up a little though, with the cold pool shrinking and weakening. The AMO has a very big influence on Arctic ice due to the ocean currents it covers physically ends up there. Arctic ice predictions have been difficult generally because nobody can predict weather up there longer than about a week or so. The AMO though should be one of the few drivers that is easier to predict and very influential on Arctic ice.
Unprecedented sighting of a Bowhead Whale in UK waters
?w=698&h=436
And sighting of a Beluga Whale of the coast of Northern Ireland this year.
From this site
https://sunriseswansong.wordpress.com/2015/09/05/who-is-smarter-scientists-or-whales/
everything is unprecedented these days. I am really starting to hate that word and believe that in most cases, it is not true.
mwhite,
would that image link be the same Arctic bowhead whale seen off Isles of Scilly in February of this year? It must be the ‘unprecedented’ cold waters. 🙂
Here is a story of an ‘Eskimo’ and his Kayak that landed in Scotland in 1760. The poor chap died 3 days later. There was another Arctic visitor in 1818.
http://www.mcjazz.f2s.com/KayaksInuits.htm
Well you said it; the ” sightings ” may be unprecedented; but that doesn’t mean the whale’s presence is unprecedented !!
g
Have you noticed the “new” way the media is using “unprecedented”?
They say: “This event it unprecedented SINCE 1986.” … or similar. They love the word unprecedented. I really laughed when I heard the CBC comment on the recent wind storm that downed trees all over the lower mainland of British Columbia. They called the wind storm “unprecedented for 9 years”. Hmmm. OK.
It’s robustly unprecedented
To a person who is completely confused or suffering from profound memory loss – everything is unprecedented. Everyday is full of surprises.
That’s why I ended up on WUWT – I’m not interested in mass dementia.
Good grammatical observation.
Unprecedented should mean without precedent. Period.
What about sea ice volume? I hear people say that since extent is just area, it doesn’t do a good job of measuring the total amount of ice. Then they point to lessening amount of sea ice volume as a demonstration that sea ice extent isn’t a good measure, etc.
The Arctic Sea Ice Volume Anomaly measurements have been recovering since 2013.
See PIOMAS Arctic Sea Ice Volume Reanalysis, at http://psc.apl.uw.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/schweiger/ice_volume/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrentV2.1.png
The exact same “recovery” you refer to occurred between 1984 and 1988 (and 89-92), and yet the ice volume continued to decline. There is absolutely nothing to indicate that the 2013-2015 period is any different.
1972 Arctic Specialist Bernt Balchen predicts Ice Free Arctic Ocean by 2000:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/12/071212-AP-arctic-melt.html 2007
The arctic is screaming” said Mark Serreze Senior Scientist at the Government’s snow and Ice data center:
http://soa.arcus.org 2010 Climate Scientist Jay Zwally “at this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nerely Ice Free by 2012:
2009 Sen. John Kerry “Ice free summer in 5 years” (2014):
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/sen-kerry-predicts-ice-free-arctic-5-or-10-years 2010 Sen John Kerry “Ice free arctic in 5 to 10 years (2015 – 2020)
https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/sierra-club-predicts-ice-free-arctic-in-six-months
Sierra Club Ice free in 6 to 30 months (Sept 2013, Sept 2014, Sept 2015)
https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/ice-free-arctic-forecasts
And numerous others care of Steven Goddard dot wordpress dot com
Bryan, you look at quotes, I look at the data. And does it really matter if the year in which the Arctic becomes ice free in the summer is off by 10 or 20 years when it has been at least 8,000 years since that happened?
Chris,
The Arctic was nearly ice free much more recently than 8000 years ago. It happened every summer during the Holocene Climatic Optimum, which ended about 5000 years ago. It probably also happened during the Minoan Warm Period, which ended around 3000 years ago, during the Roman WP of 2000 years ago and the Medieval WP a thousand years ago.
Indeed for most of the Holocene, a nearly ice free Arctic Ocean at the end of summer was normal. We are still suffering the effects of the Little Ice Age.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/03/24/new-study-shows-arctic-sea-ice-extent-6000-years-ago-was-much-less-than-today/
“There is absolutely nothing to indicate that the 2013-2015 period is any different.”
Except maybe …
http://s28.postimg.org/5bo2oj9h7/image.png
Meanwhile at the other end …
http://s28.postimg.org/9w5npq3sr/image.png
Warmer Arctic during the Medieval WP:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/28/inconvenient-study-arctic-was-warmer-than-the-present-during-the-medieval-warm-period/
Lady G said:” The Arctic was nearly ice free much more recently than 8000 years ago. …..” Followed by a link to a paper.
1) The estimates in the paper you referenced were determined by simulations. I thought models were not to be trusted? Or is that only when those models support AGW? And in any case, how can the accuracy of those models be verified?
2) The paper says the cause of the warming then was higher levels of insolation. That is not the case today, so what is causing the sharp decline in Arctic ice now?
3) The paper (at least the summary) does not mention over what period of time the Arctic ice declined. I would be extremely surprised if it was a few decades, as is the case now.
I don’t just look at Quotes but rather the Source of those Quotes.
Ice free arctic has been predicted since 1972 that I have found so far.
Pundits and Scientists alike have constantly predicted the event to happen 5 to 10 years out.
And as many others have pointed out, It is probably 95% probable that Ice Free arctic conditions have occurred much sooner than “At least 8000 years ago” It is even likely that Ice free conditions could occur in possible 1000 – 1200 year cycles…
Minoan Warm Period
Roman Warm Period
Medieval warm period
But if the current rate of accurate “The Arctic is Melting” predictions coming from climate scientists continues to mirror the prior rate, an “Ice Free” Arctic could still be a Century off (if ever) rather than the constant 5 to 10 years out that Climate Scientists and Climate Pundits continue to cast out as Model output inspired failed predictions.
If you write the Model such that “X” increase in CO2 = “Y” increase in Temperatures due to CO2 IR Trapping ability, then ask the model to produce a scenario with an increased level of CO2, the Model WILL almost always produce an end result with an increased temperature and all the predictive associated melting.
We’ve seen just how well these same models have predicted global temperature increases over the last 18 years
Chris,
The fact of lower Arctic sea ice for thousands of years is based upon sediment cores, whale remains and other hard data. It was minimal during the height of insolation, but also during other periods of the Holocene, as I noted.
The decline since 1979 is not sharp, but well within the normal range. Sea ice was low in the 1920s to ’40s, too. It was at an at least 60 year high in 1979.
We can be sure that CO2 has nothing whatsoever to do with Arctic sea ice, since carbon dioxide rose rapidly from 1945 to 1977, while sea ice was growing. Antarctic sea ice is near record levels, despite steadily rising CO2.
Sea ice has declined more rapidly than now not just in the Holocene Climatic Optimum, but during previous years and decades in the past century, as many sources in these comments show.
Chris says:
1) The estimates in the paper you referenced were determined by simulations. I thought models were not to be trusted? Or is that only when those models support AGW? And in any case, how can the accuracy of those models be verified?
Chris,
This is geology. There are other references showing the same thing. You just don’t like it because if the Arctic was naturally ice-free 6,000 years ago, it effectively undermines the current Arctic ice scare.
There is nothing to support Arctic ice fluctuations being caused by humans, other than the assertions of people who want to promote climate alarmism. When you think about it, the claim that humans are making Arctic ice vanish is a pretty silly assumption.
Chris, here is something interesting on Antarctica and the Arctic sea ice. The science is not settled.
The science.
The story as reported.
Lady Gaiagaia,
Here is what you need for future reference on the Holocene Climate Optimum and the Arctic sea ice.
During the 1920s and 1930s there was a huge warming in the Arctic as acknowledged by the IPCC.
Lady Gaiagaia
Affirmed. The north coast of Greenland was settled by Inuit and ice free during summer in the Minoan Climate Optimum. Recovered DNA gives origin and even disease risk of the male studied.
@Lady G.
“Indeed for most of the Holocene, a nearly ice free Arctic Ocean at the end of summer was normal. We are still suffering the effects of the Little Ice Age.”
How true that is. You get exactly the same message if you start looking at Fram Strait biomarkers.
Current Arctic sea ice levels are ANOMALOUSLY HIGH compared to the first 3/4 or so of the Holocene.
Unfortunately, it looks like that small amount of warming out of the LIA may have stopped !! 🙁
Gees, the Geologists even name the period that started about 3000 years ago, the NEOGLACIATION !!!
DBStealey said:”This is geology. There are other references showing the same thing. You just don’t like it because if the Arctic was naturally ice-free 6,000 years ago, it effectively undermines the current Arctic ice scare. There is nothing to support Arctic ice fluctuations being caused by humans, other than the assertions of people who want to promote climate alarmism.”
No, you are wrong. I know that the Arctic was ice free in the past. That in no way undermines the current concern about Arctic ice melting. Your position is analagous to saying that lightning caused forest fires in the past undermine the possibility of man made fires.
I looked at your link. Here is what it says: “However, the scientists are very careful about drawing parallels with the present-day trend in the Arctic Ocean where the cover of sea ice seems to be decreasing. “Changes that took place 6000-7000 years ago were controlled by other climatic forces than those which seem to dominate today,” Astrid Lyså believes.”
So thanks for posting a link that supports my position, Dave!
Here is more.
The Holocene Climate Optimum was between about 9,000 to 5,000 years B.P.
Chris
“However scientists are careful about drawing parallels”
The “care” being taken is political, not scientific. This quite is merely the epilogue / homily added to the paper to make it PC, not the data itself (which convey a quite different message) and thus this politically inserted string in no way detracts from dbstealey’s comment.
You have constructed for yourself a narrative and mindset which insulates you from the implications of natural climate variation. AGW is founded on the mother of all logical fallacies. It really does matter that the 20th century climate oscillation is similar to about 20 other such oscillations during the Holocene.
Chris says:
“No, you are wrong.”
Chris has now resorted to using assertions as his argument. ☺
I wrote that the Arctic was ice free some 6,000 years ago, which was a natural event that undermines the current climate alarmism. It also undermines the endless, repeatedly falsified predictions that the Arctic would be ice free by now. It isn’t. Far from it, in fact.
There are plenty of references supporting the Arctic being ice free some six millennia ago:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081020095850.htm
http://iceagenow.com/Arctic_Ocean_may_have_been_ice_free_6000_Years_Ago.htm
http://www.cgfi.org/2011/11/ice-free-arctic-6000-years-ago-by-dennis-t-avery
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/08/inconvenient-ice-study-less-ice-in-the-arctic-ocean-6000-7000-years-ago
If there is a current “concern” about the Arctic, the reason is clear: The Arctic ice scare is the only prediction that the alarmist crowd clings to, because for a few years it dipped below average.
This is a cyclical event, as shown here (“The Changing Arctic / The Arctic Seems To Be Warming Up” – from 1922).
And as the late, great John Daly writes, the Arctic is often mostly water.
When we look at the big picture, we always find the same thing: there is nothing either unusual, or unprecedented happening with the global ‘climate’. Everything we see now has been observed before, repeatedly, and to a greater degree in the past.
The climate Null Hypothesis has never been falsified. The alternative hypothesis: that dangerous AGW is happening, has no measurements to support it.
I wonder, what would it take for alarmists to admit that their conjecture has turned out to be wrong? Can anything convince them? Or is their religious faith in dangerous man-made global warming so strong that it defies all evidence to the contrary?
@ur momisugly Chris… yes it does matter because the implication being that the math and the science are correct in relation to the amount of co2 and the amount of heat retained. If its off by 20 years, both the science and the math breaks down, it’s not related. I’ve done the math by the IPCC, in their view the amount of retained heat is enormous. I can’t not disagree given the parameters of how they are viewing…. However, I do disagree with the parameters. Who’s right? the hard evidence that ice hasn’t melted or the models? . The Arctic should have surely melted by now, and that is just a fact. In fact it should have melted sooner. And why is that, because not only have we not curtailed the production of co2, it has increased. Just the sea level rise should be apparent, in cm/year not mm per decade, and what from, the expanding volume of water from heat. AGW is a dead Theory.
The Minoan Warm Period around 1200 BC was in fact a very cold dry type period for the mid latitudes, it caused the demise of the Minoans.
The warmest past of the MWP for Europe was in the 8th century, while Greenland was having the second lowest temperatures of the Holocene.
..warmest *part*..
Jimbo
September 11, 2015 at 1:51 pm
Good sources.
IMO there is also strong evidence of effectively ice free Arctic Ocean summers or at least extent lower than now much more recently than the Holocene Climatic Optimum.
DB mentions some proxy data, such as the entry of the Inuit into northern Greenland during the MWP, even as the Norse were settling in its south.
Bowhead whale remains are the indicator with which I am most familiar.
DBStealey said: “Chris,
This is geology. There are other references showing the same thing. You just don’t like it because if the Arctic was naturally ice-free 6,000 years ago, it effectively undermines the current Arctic ice scare.
There is nothing to support Arctic ice fluctuations being caused by humans, other than the assertions of people who want to promote climate alarmism. When you think about it, the claim that humans are making Arctic ice vanish is a pretty silly assumption.”
I am perfectly fine with Arctic ice having melted in relatively recent times. It in now way undermines today’s events, it simply means that the Arctic can melt for natural reasons as well as man made ones, which neither I nor climate scientists dispute. Oh, and by the way, the paper you quoted was written by climate scientists – you know, the very same folks you denigrate when their findings do not agree with your opinion. And you ignore the key point they made in their article, which I will post again: “Changes that took place 6000-7000 years ago were controlled by other climatic forces than those which seem to dominate today.”
Chris quotes:
“Changes that took place 6000-7000 years ago were controlled by other climatic forces than those which seem to dominate today.”
“Seem”?? Like Chris, they’ve got nothin’.
Upthread, Chris says:
Bryan, you look at quotes, I look at the data.
Ha, ha! You’re kidding, right? You’re looking at data? What “data”??
I challenge you to produce verifiable, testable, empirical data showing that human CO2 emissions are the cause of the recent Arctic ice fluctuations, from around 2006 – 2012. Post it here.
The fact is, all you’ve got is assertions. You posted your baseless opinion, then you asserted that it’s “data”. It’s not. You have no “data” showing that changes in Arctic ice are caused by human activity.
This isn’t some thinly-trafficked alarmist blog that excuses bogus claims like that. If there was any verifiable “data” showing that CO2 emissions were the cause of Arctic ice fluctuations (but of course, not Antarctic ice, which is increasing), the debate would be over.
But it’s not over, only because you refuse to accept reality. Your arguments are based on nothing more than your belief; you came to your conclusions, and now you try to support them with your assertions. That’s not science, that is just your religious argument.
Really, its neither the sea ice extent nor the volume we should be worried about, but the QUALITY of the ice!
Are conditions there for a Gore effect in Paris in December?
It cracked me up that BHO, when in Alaska recently, said he wanted to support Arctic commerce by adding new ice-breakers to the US fleet by around 2020. Surely an unnecessary step if NH ice cover extent is in a death spiral ? Maybe they’re to meant to be used rescue all the climate scientists who get stuck while opining about the decline in NH ice cover ?
[snip – this is wildly off-topic and purely political, snipped per policy – Dave you should know better – Anthony]
I wonder if I can get a free flash drive too?
I suspect BHO knows what the Russians know. Are scientists telling politicians one thing, and the rest of us something else?
I think probably the Russians hope to put the Northern Sea Route between East Asia and Europe into serious use for as long as possible each year. That’ll require ice breakers to extend the season, not to mention hold marine insurance costs down. The Russians will charge the ships that use the route for their support activities.
The Pacific side of the Arctic is the reason the anomaly is so low this year and that is probably because of El Nino, right? Like others have said, I’m very interested to see what the climate indicators do after this El Nino is over and all factors, save anthropogenic, favor cooling.
I assume it is reasonable to presume that if the Arctic sea ice extent undergoes a prolonged expansion resulting from the AMO negative phase our alarmist counterparts will not acknowledge anything particularly meaningful or even claim climate models predicted it?
Or, it will be the AGW icebreaker that begins the collapse of their movement?
Steve, don’t you get it, the alarmist stake out all the possible alternatives as a result of “climate change” and therefore are impervious to being proven wrong? Just yesterday alarmist were claiming that the “Atlantic conveyor” was slowing down so an increase in ice is to be expected!
Yep I read that too. They are raising the prospect of the Day After Tomorrow scenario.
Funny that they can pretend to believe that while at the same time advocating the reduction of the very fuels needed for millions to survive such a scenario.
I guess they simply prefer a mass loss of human planet occupancy?
a significant number of them are not on “team human”
Steve Oregon
“the reduction of the very fuels needed for millions to survive such a scenario. ”
Funny you should put it that way. Recalling the movie. whatshisname survives by lighting gas fires in the restaurant and his son survives by burning books in the library. (CGI wolves were awful)
Even at the time I’m yelling stop burning the books, Start burning the chairs and whatever other wood (more energy dense) stuff you can find. Why are the accepted green solutions always least energy dense and most destructive?
Slows down, speeds up, no trend. Short termism me thinks.
WUWT – 25 March 2015
“NASA refutes Mann and Rahmstorf – Finds Atlantic ‘Conveyor Belt’ Not Slowing”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/03/25/nasa-refutes-mann-and-rahmstorf-finds-atlantic-conveyor-belt-not-slowing/
Here’s a question for those that study this more than me.
For most of the summer, there appeared to be a “ring” from 135W to 180. It was the retreating edge of the ice. Yet, inside of that ring, there was a large area that appeared to have no ice. Was this just a large melt pond (lake) inside of the retreating edge? And, if so, should we expect a rapid refreeze of this pond? Of course, this is assuming no adverse weather conditions that might affect it otherwise.
Satellites can now supposedly distinguish melt water atop ice from open seawater.
It might differ by agency, but for NSIDC, “only grid cells with at least 15% sea ice concentration contribute to the extent”.
http://icdc.zmaw.de/1/daten/cryosphere/seaiceage-arctic.html
“We haven’t spent much time looking at Arctic Sea Ice this year, partly because I’ve rather lost interest in it as any sort of climatic indicator”
Could the failure of the much heralded and hoped for rebound of Arctic ice have something to do with that loss of interest I wonder.
What failure? The no ice during the summer has failed.
The AMO has become cold while Arctic ice levels are back a decade to mid-2000’s levels. What further evidence do you need that is failure of a recovery?
Don’t speak [too] soon Gareth. If it rebounds then you will not be heard from. Here is a heralding.
If it rebounds Jimbo I will be in great spirits and contribute extensively. My loss of interest is that the majority of climate science states that Arctic ice will decrease in extent as the world warms. That seems to be what it is doing. It’s not particularly riveting to see a phenomena predicted 25 years ago slowly happen. The only really interesting bits are the catastrophists who claim it will all be gone on such and such a date, and the skeptics who say it will all refreeze in the near future. Both are profoundly mistaken.
We will have to wait and see on that one. It took Arctic sea ice decline from 1980 to 2007 for the louder alarm bells. I make that 27 years. I say we will see increasing extents within the next 15 years.
In science we have prediction followed by observations. Warmists have predicted an ice-free Arctic for 2013, 2012 and counting.
PS an ice free Arctic was predicted well over 25 years ago.
Gareth, would you say that the Arctic sea ice extent rebounded after the huge warming in the Arctic during the 1920s and 1930s?
Gareth, here are the temps from the past via HadCRUT4. Maybe there is a pattern? Maybe the sceptics are right? We will have to wait and see. Even if we can’t wait and see what can we do about it? Reduce our co2? We have been at it since the first IPCC report and still it rises.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/70-90N%20MonthlyAnomaly%20Since1920.gif
Gareth,
Here is the Arctic temperature anomaly from NASA. Like I said it could be a pattern of ups and downs or maybe not. We still have to wait and see.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/ArcticIce/Images/arctic_temp_trends_rt.gif
Slightly off topic, but the warming trends in the Arctic (not amount) are the same worldwide compared with the tropics, USA and Australia for example. Arctic temperatures show no higher temperatures over recent years than the 1930’s and 1940’s. There is no evidence that global temperature would overall react in a different trend to these.
SO that leads to the question, how are global surface data sets so different from these obvious observations? There is no evidence that the 1940’s are any different to 2010’s. I think it is clear that tamperature trends have been going on for decades, not just recent decades. HADCRUT and GISS have got the trends roughly right, but the amplitude wrong between historic temperatures and recent temperatures. The obvious reason has been continuous tampering of the data to hide this inconvenient observation which is damn pretty clear.
Gareth, it hasn’t been melting for the last 3 years and counting.
Now that PDO has flipped and AMO is getting close to flipping to their respective cool cycles, I expect ice levels to start increasing, just as it did back in the late 60’s and 70’s.
Thanks for the extensive info Jimbo. My definition of a rebound would be to see the Arctic regain the ice it has lost over the last 27 years. It can be debated whether is has been this low in times past or not, but the general slow decrease over the last quarter century is irrefutable. I agree though that there seems to be some sort of stabilisation at a lower level over the last few years.
Could the variability of the AMO cycle and the limited number of cycles to work with have anything to do with it also? That question will be coming up a lot over the next 10 years or more.
The key statistics to watch now are ice thickness and percent multiyear ice. Arctic sea is greatly affected by melting from below and there has been a pattern of alternating years of increasing vs decreasing as Arctic sea ice since 2007 as ice oscillates around 1 km2 anomaly. That would b expected from an Arctic Iris Effect under a regime of below average multiyear ice extent. As thicker multiyear ice continues to accumulate, we should expect more consecutive years of slightly greater extent. This year’s Ice volume data suggests a smaller volume than 2014, but a greater volume than observed for the 4 years from 2010 to 2013.
http://psc.apl.uw.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/schweiger/ice_volume/Bpiomas_plot_daily_heff.2sst.png
Gareth
Your death spiral also failed. So it’s honours even I guess.
Gareth, global sea ice has been above average for most of the past two years. Also there is a great deal more thired, fourth and fifth year ice this year in the Arctic. This is thicker older ice that moves less easily.
Exactly!
Gareth,
“It will without doubt have come to your Lordship’s knowledge that a considerable change of climate, inexplicable at present to us, must have taken place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of the cold that has for centuries past enclosed the seas in the high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice has been during the last two years, greatly abated.
(This) affords ample proof that new sources of warmth have been opened and give us leave to hope that the Arctic Seas may at this time be more accessible than they have been for centuries past, and that discoveries may now be made in them not only interesting to the advancement of science but also to the future intercourse of mankind and the commerce of distant nations.”
President of the Royal Society, London, to the Admiralty, 20th November, 1817 ( Royal Society Archives)
Well I guess….
When you start in 1979 with an extra 2 million km2’s…
Looks to me like it’s been “normal” all along
Exactly, the 2 M km2 ice above normal makes out it was normal back in even the 1970’s, but it certainly wasn’t. It was the highest extent recorded over the past 60 years with only a few years in the 1960’s and 1970’s matching it.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0485%281979%29009%3C0580%3AAAOASI%3E2.0.CO%3B2
The year 1961 showed Arctic ice over 3.5 M km2 BELOW normal and was astonishingly over 5.5 M km2 below the extent in 1979. During the 1950’s and 1960’s Arctic sea ice was often more than 1 M km2 below normal. The spin and exaggeration by some alarmists has been disgraceful over the years with their greatest cherry.
Thanks for the info an link.
Average Arctic sea ice extent must have gotten pretty low by the late ’40s, then struggled to rebuild until reaching a cyclical high in the late ’70s, although even 1975 was about the same as 2015.
I think the AMO connection is pretty solid. We also saw a lot less melting in Greenland this past summer. Note that when the AMO went positive around 1995 it still took about 10 years for any big changes. I suspect we will see ups and downs for several years before returning to the higher ice conditions.
Yes, if there is any science left to witness it.
There will be no highs because declining solar activity.
http://woodfortrees.org/graph/esrl-amo/from:2009/plot/esrl-amo/from:2009/trend
Looks that way but ‘never say never’ on weather. (thanks Joe)
We don’t really have a handle yet on the amount of time it takes for solar changes to influence climate (from what I have read). And, as Joe B said on weatherbell’s Sat. summary, we are starting this grand minimum at a different global temperature and ocean cycle phases than the last one, so they’re unlikely to be identical.
“And, as Joe B said on weatherbell’s Sat. summary, we are starting this grand minimum at a different global temperature and ocean cycle phases than the last one, so they’re unlikely to be identical.”
The global average surface temperature being ~ 0.8C warmer won’t make any meaningful difference to how deep the negative AO&NAO episodes will be, so regional temp extremes will tend be similar to previous solar minima.
The summer sea ice extent is not what is the most interesting thing that’s going on in the Arctic.
What interests me is what’s putting a cap on the summer temps from rising higher in the Arctic. For if the Arctic is getting warmer then why is it just confined to just the winter half of the year
keep an eye on the blob, the north atlantic is not the only ocean area going cold. 🙂 http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2015/anomnight.9.10.2015.gif
as for el nino, more like el tinio.
El Chiquitito.
as flagged up across at real climate science-
ice extent in 1971-
http://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/ScreenHunter_10402-Sep.-10-00.31.gif
Vs 1980- 2010-
http://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/AnimationImage97.jpg
I’m disappointed. First the El Nino fading in early 2016. Now sea ice extent in the Arctic “leveling off”.
There was supposed to be a Ka-boom. There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering Ka-boom.
Not a Ka-boom, “Shock and awe of climate change” is what you mean.
As for the Arctic, I have been looking at the early snow return in Alaska and Siberia. The ice might not be recovering quickly, but the snow on the ground is rushing ahead (keep an eye on the daily anomaly charts):
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/
The last few winters have seen a large positive anomaly during the fall, as large areas have seen early snows.
I would like to understand why that is.
Early snow is bad and because of man-made global warming, is exactly what all climate scientists have expected and all the models have always predicted it.
Not.
He speaks of Marvin the Martian, from Bugs Bunny fame.
Thanks for the snow link. We’ve cut extra wood again, expecting the 3rd colder than normal winter in a row this year.
I invoked the words of Marvin the Martian to express my disappointment in the lack of real evidence to support the dooming and glooming of climate alarmism. After all the wolf is supposed to show up eventually. Instead we get cold winters not seen for 30 years.
Snow on the ground, since that area is still receiving some sun light, should speed the cooling of the air.
Any snow that falls in the oceans will speed the cooling of the water directly.
cont….
“But it is worse than it seems – 1971 ice was 1.5 million km² larger than the year before, and there are satellite images”
http://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/ScreenHunter_10401-Sep.-10-00.09.gif
During the last major advance of the Laurentide ice sheet, the greatest thickness of the dome was found atop and just south of Hudson Bay, same area as where the “polar vortex” sets up every winter. Besides the Laurentide ice sheet, there was also the Finoscandian Ice Sheet. Siberia and parts of Alaska were relatively ice free by comparison.
It seems to me that the ice in Hudson Bay persisted for a long time this summer. Did it ever completely melt out? Also East Coast ice was drifting as far south as Martha’s Vinyard. Maybe the Arctic Ocean will not necessarily be the place to look for ice extent in the coming years.
Also the British and alpine ice sheets, besides the Fennoscandian in Europe. The extent of glaciation in Siberia remains somewhat controversial.
Much of Siberia was also glacier free. Lots of mastodons and human hunters ran around there and the humans followed the game across Siberia to Alaska and then down to California and into South America and we called these people ‘Indians’ due to mistakes made by European explorers.
The Inuit all came out of Siberia, too, and stayed Ice Age hunters where there were still lots of animals roaming about Alaska.
You mean mammoths. No mastodons in Pleistocene Siberia, although obviously their Miocene ancestors passed through there.
Late Pleistocene North America was home to at least four proboscidean species in three genera and families: woolly and Columbian mammoths (elephant family), mastodons and gomphotheres.
The ice on Hudson Bay has not melted out yet (although it still might and this is only the northern exit from Hudson Bay, the main Bay ice is gone).
I don’t think any ships are getting through this in the current year and let’s remember, they have been navigating this water since 1610 when Henry Hudson first explored the Bay.
Sea ice on the northern exit of Hudson Bay on September 11, 2015 in Red.
http://s28.postimg.org/gsojdzynx/Sept_11_15_Northern_Hudson_Bay_Ice.jpg
Interesting, I was just looking at some various write ups on arctic cyclone impacts and the Fram strait on ice and saw this post.
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/zhang/Pubs/Zhang_etal2013_cyclone_grl50190.pdf
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2012GL054259/abstract
http://www.the-cryosphere.net/5/821/2011/tc-5-821-2011.pdf
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003JC001785/full
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/1520-0442%282001%29014%3C3508%3AFSIFAA%3E2.0.CO%3B2
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/1999GL010944/epdf
Yes, I was bored on a conference call and cleaned out some old links 🙂
“We haven’t spent much time looking at Arctic Sea Ice this year, partly because I’ve rather lost interest in it as any sort of climatic indicator.”
Arctic sea ice extent may be an excellent forward hurricanes indicator of a great importance to the Caribbean and the United States, only if we knew how to interpret it.
In the summer months as ice retreats, the atmospheric pressure in the Sub-Arctic area is influenced by atmosphere’s direct contact with free sea surface, as the Icelandic Low moves much further north.
Dr. Judith Curry in her paper shows a graph of major hurricanes
http://www.eas.gatech.edu/sites/default/files/ins_tampa_09.pdf
Here I superimposed the summer Arctic pressure on the above graph
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NATL.gif
I find it hard to believe that similarity between blue and red lines is just ‘spurious’ coincidence. If it is not, then the Arctic ice extent (to which change in the summer Arctic pressure appears to be directly related) may produce even better correlation, providing good predictive indicator for the major hurricanes.
I think it’s turned the corner.
I’m not convinced that Arctic sea ice has reached its minimum yet (today, 10 September) but clearly it is near its yearly low.
On the other hand, as each day goes by, the effect of the daily sunlight difference (the difference in heat energy being either reflected (by excess sea ice) or absorbed (by the absence of sea ice above the “darker” ocean surface)) gets lower and lower.
For example, on 1 September this year, the ever-rising Antarctic Sea Ice area already was more important to the earth’s daily heat balance than the Arctic sea ice area. By September 22 – 26, each square meter of Antarctic sea ice area will be more than 10 TIMES important than the Arctic sea ice.