From Walt Meier at NASA Goddard:
This year’s melt season in the Arctic Ocean and surrounding seas started with a bang, with a record low maximum extent in March and relatively rapid ice loss through May. The melt slowed down in June, however, making it highly unlikely that this year’s summertime sea ice minimum extent will set a new record.
“Even when it’s likely that we won’t have a record low, the sea ice is not showing any kind of recovery. It’s still in a continued decline over the long term,” said Walt Meier, a sea ice scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “It’s just not going to be as extreme as other years because the weather conditions in the Arctic were not as extreme as in other years.”
“A decade ago, this year’s sea ice extent would have set a new record low and by a fair amount. Now, we’re kind of used to these low levels of sea ice – it’s the new normal.”
This year’s sea ice cover of the Barents and Kara seas north of Russia opened up early, in April, exposing the surface ocean waters to the energy from the sun weeks ahead of schedule. By May 31, the extent of the Arctic sea ice cover was comparable to end-of-June average levels. But the Arctic weather changed in June and slowed the sea ice loss. A persistent area of low atmospheric pressure, accompanied by cloudiness, winds that dispersed ice and lower-than-average temperatures, didn’t favor melt.
The rate of ice loss picked up again during the first two weeks of August, and is now greater than average for this time of the year. A strong cyclone is moving through the Arctic, similar to one that occurred in early August 2012. Four years ago, the storm caused an accelerated loss of ice during a period when the decline in sea ice is normally slowing because the sun is setting in the Arctic. However, the current storm doesn’t appear to be as strong as the 2012 cyclone and ice conditions are less vulnerable than four years ago, Meier said.
“This year is a great case study in showing how important the weather conditions are during the summer, especially in June and July, when you have 24 hours of sunlight and the sun is high in the sky in the Arctic,” Meier said. “If you get the right atmospheric conditions during those two months, they can really accelerate the ice loss. If you don’t, they can slow down any melting momentum you had. So our predictive ability in May of the September minimum is limited, because the sea ice cover is so sensitive to the early-to-mid-summer atmospheric conditions, and you can’t foresee summer weather.”
As scientists are keeping an eye on the Arctic sea ice cover, NASA is also preparing for a new method to measure the thickness of sea ice – a difficult but key characteristic to track from orbit.
“We have a good handle on the sea ice area change,” said Thorsten Markus, Goddard’s cryosphere lab chief. “We have very limited knowledge how thick it is.”
Research vessels or submarines can measure ice thickness directly, and some airborne instruments have taken readings that can be used to calculate thickness. But satellites haven’t been able to provide a complete look at sea ice thickness in particular during melting conditions, Markus said. The radar instruments that penetrate the snow during winter to measure thickness don’t work once you add in the salty water of the melting sea ice, since the salinity interferes with the radar.
The Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2, or ICESat-2, will use lasers to try to get more complete answers of sea ice thickness. The satellite, slated to launch by 2018, will use a laser altimeter to measure the heights of Earth’s surface.
In the Arctic, it will measure the elevation of the ice floes, compared to the water level. However, only about one-tenth of sea ice is above the water surface; the other nine-tenths lie below.
To estimate the entire thickness of the ice floe, researchers will need to go beyond the above-water height measurements, and perform calculations to account for factors like the snow on top of the ice and the densities of the frozen layers. Scientists are eager to see the measurements turned into data on sea ice thickness, Markus said.
“If we want to estimate mass changes of sea ice, or increased melting, we need the sea ice thickness,” he said. “It’s critically important to understanding the changes in the Arctic.”
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So we are simultaneously in a death spiral and a steady ‘new normal’ cruising altitude.
More contradictory gobbledygook from NASA.
“Even when it’s likely that we won’t have a record low, the sea ice is not showing any kind of recovery.”
” ice conditions are less vulnerable than four years ago, Meier said.”
How can ice conditions be *less* vulnerable if there’s been no kind of recovery?
The Arctic is cooling quite fast right now and this is going to have a positive impact on the Arctic Ice.
The so-called “decline” in Arctic sea ice from the 1970’s, when the Arctic sea ice levels were pretty much the same as at the end of the LIA, the COLDEST period in the last 10,000.
The Icelandic sea ice index shows why the Arctic Worriers always like to work from that period.
Furthermore, there is a lot of biodata that shows the current Arctic Sea Ice level is anomalously HIGH compared to the often zero summer sea ice of most of the first 3/4 of the Holocene.
I note the sea ice looks very low during the extreme hot weather of the 1930’s.
But not as low as now… check out the whole record from 1850 from this article:
https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-piecing-together-arctic-sea-ice-history-1850
Yeah, well it is “almost” as hot now as it was in the 1930’s, or 1998, for that matter, so it could be expected that ice would be lower than when the weather is cooler.
The problem with such studies is that they rely on very sketchy data for sea ice extent numbers prior to the 1970s, and they don’t even try to calculate any confidence intervals.
In truth, there are insufficient data to support a claim that current sea ice levels are either anomalously high or anomalously low, compared to the first 2/3 of the 20th century, and before. If reasonable confidence intervals were included in the graph at the end of the CarbonBrief article, that fact would be very obvious.
Have you noticed how widely the various sea ice indices differ from one another, even now, with modern passive microwave satellite measurements, which can view ice through clouds? Well, the data is orders of magnitude worse for years prior to the 1970s.
Starting in the mid-1960s, we had visible-wavelength satellite photography, which represented an enormous improvement in sea ice data, though the ice was very often obscured by clouds. Before that there is very little data. There were spotty aerial surveys of small portions of the Arctic periphery, occasional upward-sonar measurements of ice draft above submarine tracks starting in 1958, and some ship reports, from ships which prudently tried to stay well away from anything approaching the 15% ice coverage threshold.
Considering how varying weather patterns in the Arctic can push ice around, from one side to another, such spotty information is nearly useless for estimating total ice extent or volume.
“The most elementary and valuable statement in science, the beginning of wisdom, is, ‘I do not know.’” Jack B. Sowards (screenwriter), voiced by Lt Cdr Data (Brent Spiner).
What these scammers have done is INVENT a story that low Arctic sea ice is somehow BAD.
Where in actual fact, lower sea ice levels are actually the NORM,
its just that it was EXTYREMELY HIGH in the 1970’s.
It is my understanding that 2012 lows were caused by strong gale force winds that packed the ice.
That could happen again and the alarmists would be jumping up and down thinking it was AGW.
Edmonton Al
Let them think that. It would have the truthiness they already believe. In the long run run will make no difference.
I have just been kicked off the Guardian website for pointing out the following:
AMO = average of HADCRUT3, GISTEMP, UAH and RSS = same.
Global temperature anomaly is AMO:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-amo/from:1979/plot/wti
Global climate change crisis over!
I can see why they wouldn’t want you around, doc. That’s a very compelling graph. A little too compelling, obviously.
Here’s Dr Flange’s graph, in-lined. (For better resolution, click his woodfortrees link.)
http://www.sealevel.info/AMO_vs_temp_since_1979.png
of course the AMO does or did the global warmists build a huge barrier to prevent the warm AMO phase waters to enter the arctic?
(do i need sarc tags?)
The interesting and surprising thing, Frederik, is that the green trace is not an Arctic sea ice graph, it’s a global temperature graph.
The Guardian hate scientific facts against their agenda crusade.
The AMO controls global temperatures on the scale detected during our short satellite lifetime.
http://s772.photobucket.com/user/SciMattG/media/RSS%20Global_v_RemovedAMO2_zpsssrgab0r.png.
Link above doesn’t work, hopefully this will.
http://i772.photobucket.com/albums/yy8/SciMattG/RSS%20Global_v_RemovedAMO2_zpsssrgab0r.png~original
Here’s Matt G’s graph, in-lined, showing the same thing as Dr. Flange’s graph, in a different way:
http://www.sealevel.info/RSS Global_v_RemovedAMO2_zpsssrgab0r.png
Oops, I overlooked the space in the name. Fixed here:
http://www.sealevel.info/RSS_Global_v_RemovedAMO2_zpsssrgab0r.png
“This year is a great case study in showing how important the weather conditions are during the summer, especially in June and July, when you have 24 hours of sunlight and the sun is high in the sky in the Arctic,” Meier said. “
I have a feeling that something is wrong with this statement. Summer solstice occurs on 22nd of June each year and on this day sunlight is hitting the North Pole from 23.5 degrees above the horizon. On 80th parallel north latitude, where, as far as I know most of the seasonally melt and refreeze takes place, the maximum observable angle of the Sun would be about 33.5 degrees at local noon. At midnight, the Sun is still above the horizon if we are observing it from 80°deg North but its angle is only 13.5° above the icy surface of the Arctic Ocean during summer solstice. After a few weeks, during the second half of July the Sun’s angle begins to shrink considerably.
So anything like “the sun is high in the sky in the Arctic” sounds pretty weird for me. I live in Eastern Europe on 47.5N, it allows a maximum angle of 66° for incoming sunlight. I wouldn’t call it high in the sky either.
So it sounds like the error on this new satellite measurement could be quite large, unless they have lots of land based survey tie-ins up there. A typical areoplane based LiDAR survey with good ground control survey tie in would have accuracy of +\- 150mm. Given 9/10 of the thickness is below the surface, this means the error on that accuracy could be in the order of 1.5m, IF they achieve same level of accuracy, unless I am missing something.
“It’s the new normal.” Well, isn’t the meteorological ‘normal’ defined in ranges of the last 30 years? Not really that remarkable in that context given the cycles involved are 30-60 years long and we only have data since ’79.
Heaven for me, would be a place where I could watch among other things, so many predictions flame out 🙂
Yes. In all honesty what the world needs is a White knight who saves all the predictions in one database so future generations can see our folly and learn something. In the old days one could create a scrap book of newspaper clippings. Those days have gone Any chance of WUWT filing all published predictions it locates in one location? . Its a thankless task but will turn out invaluable
Meantime I am investing in a laying chicken farm. Odds are there will be a lot of egg on a lot of faces somewhere down the track 🙂
With great interest I read the latest paper of the NSIDC fellows http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016JD025161/abstract about arctic summer weather and it’s “predictive skill” ( in the headline: it’s a ” cautionary tale”). In the cited paper there are some remarkable conclusions:
” Summer atmospheric circulation anomalies for years preceding Septembers with ice extent close to (within 250,000 km2 ) of the trend line are highly variable; one can identify summers for which the circulation pattern arguably should have favored a September extent well below the trend line or well above the trend line”…”All of these factors contribute to the observation that similar summer atmospheric anomaly patterns can be followed by a wide range of September sea ice extent, and that very different patterns can result in similar total extent. ”
Anyway, in the latest NSIDC- report with a retrospective review of the weather in July is written:
…”attended by persistent low pressure systems in the same region, led to slightly slower than average sea ice decline through the month. The stormy pattern contributed to a dispersed and ragged western Arctic ice pack for July, with several polynyas beginning to form late in the month. A new record low September ice extent now appears to be unlikely.”
It’s my understanding that the september-forecast ( no new minimum) in the press release is deduced vastly from the weather conditions of July. The authors are the same as these of the cited paper and there is in my eyes some kind of discrepancy: The paper says: The predictive skill of the summer-weather in the arctic for the september SIE is a “tale” and in the press release there is a great analysis of the weather in July with a resulting forecast for September from the same authors.
Yes, but a second or third lowest record is absolutely certain now – and a second lowest area…
There were poor melt conditions and we still are at a near record level…
Record lows…compared to WHEN ???
“since records began” right?? lol
A sure sign of a cooling earth. What do you think happens with open water in six months of darkness?
Poor melt conditions? With storm after storm shattering the ice and stirring it like a mixed drink?
Earlier this summer I saw some Alarmists commenting, “If only, if only, if ONLY we had a storm like 2012, that would show them.” Well, be careful what you wish for. There have been several, and the bleeping stuff refuses to melt (though the sea-ice is looking pretty pulverized).
“A persistent area of low atmospheric pressure, accompanied by cloudiness”
Hmmm… Quiet sun, GCR, persistent cloudiness. It only takes 2.5% more cloud to make a big difference to the isolation reaching the surface.
Now, we’re kind of used to these low levels of sea ice – it’s the new normal
Something that becomes the new normal is something that is not changing anymore.
i wonder do any of these global warming “scientists” even understand what the “climate” is? i ask because the climate is simply a statistic derived from the previous 30 years of weather for a given area…..the climate exerts NO CONTROL at all over the weather, just like a batter in baseball and their batting average, their average(climate) exerts ZERO control over their next at bat………
Sheesh, Google Dunning–Kruger effect before you post more stuff like this.
ty for your very lame attempt at insult……IF you disagree with the accuracy of exactly what “climate” is then i suggest you read your own link.
Looks likely that Arctic sea ice extent minimum in 2016 will be either the 2nd or 3rd lowest on the instrument record, with the previous 2 record minimum extent setters occurring since 2007. Even though it probably won’t set a new minimum (Sept) record, 2016 will very likely set a new annual average (Jan-Dec) low record Arctic sea ice extent.
Not so long ago Joe Bastardi and others were forecasting that 2007 had probably marked the trough of Arctic minimum sea ice extent and that future years (from 2011 onwards) would ultimately see a return to 1970s-type extents: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-G-ozEvSFVg
2011 came in way below Joe’s forecast and 2012 smashed the the 2007 minimum extent record. There was no recovery in the long term (30-year) trend at all, despite increased extents in 2013 and 2014. 2015 saw another downturn. The 30 year minimum extent trend as of 2015 was the same as it was at 2012 (-1.05 million km per decade reduction – NSIDC).
Alas, Arctic sea ice continues its long term rapid decline.
… and accelerating. It makes it ever more likely of massive methane release. God help us.
You can’t have, ”long term rapid decline” forever.
People were sailing around in the arctic, where they’re sailing around now in the arctic, in the 1800s.
People were surfacing submarines at the North Pole – in the mid 1900s.
The direction of the wind is the main force creating Arctic ice extents, and it’s going to continue to do that forever. When the winds spread the ice, the ice extent is far larger and repeatedly, attempts to characterize arctic ice as ”frightening” to soft sciences soothsayers have proven worse than worthless; it’s repudiation there’s any science in them.
Climate is what’s called a soft science. People looking for ghosts in houses use spectrum analyzers. They use wind detection instruments, if they could, they’d get grants and harness N.A.S.A. super-computer bandwidth to loop endless ghost ‘para-information” and predict where the next spooky edition was going to pop up.
Climatology with it’s ”It’s real math, Ya’ll!” hockey stick generators.
The ”six trees out in a stand of mud in Norway said the world never was this hot!” tree ring fraud.
The crazy as antifreeze drinking end-times groupies behavior in committing peer review fraud till your church’s adherents are the only people even mentioned any more in regard to quackery. Folks don’t refer to Bigfoot first in the kook science department any more, they refer to ‘climatology’ and ‘Area 51.’
And here comes you, DWR54 with news that the trauma just got bigger. It’s apocalyptic hellfire shooting rays of befuddlingly backerdistical boiling. Your religion’s claim is that the heat in boiling water, makes the pan hot instead of the fire the water’s cooling.
Earth’s atmosphere is a fluid that’s colder than the earth. The earth is doing the main heating of the planet/atmosphere complex. The atmosphere is doing the cooling. You don’t put water into a pan you’re heating with an infrared light and claim the water, soaking heat from that pot, is the heater,
but climatology tells the world a swirling, cold bath of atmospheric air, is a heater.
And that the ice which maintains it’s historically known norms, keeps cycling through each year, till now,
your church is facing the fact that every single major math-set used to predict coming temperature oscillation around the well known 30 year half-cycles
says it’s cooling time again, just like every time before, and the unwashed records still don’t show anything different about today’s climate than the past 100 plus years.
Your scientists got caught passing hockey stick fraud as fake math.
They thought it was going to continue warming so they faked warming till at least, when Phil Jones admitted he faked warming for 10 years. He admitted it had actually cooled since 1998, in February of 2010 to the BBC.
You’re the classical alarmist – that is,that you don’t appear to have worked in the metrics fields. Programming for my skyscraper elevator isn’t wrong often. Neither is the programming for my wide body jumbo jet. The computer programming for my space orbits isn’t questionable and ‘iffy’.
All this is,
is a single body of gas on one small planet and the thing modern ”climatology” brought it is that people go find, and ridicule, people who believe in it, even if they’re college professors.
Working scientists in the world’s real programming fields don’t touch climatology because the universally deplorable lack of any standard for data and even criminal behavior on behalf of it’s adherents is so high.
Insiders to your field wrote the ”HarryReadMe.txt file, not skeptics of your religion’s pseudo-science and pseudo-scientific methodologies.
Insiders to your field refuse to even use proper atmospheric gas equations to analyze the atmosphere; claiming the fact they can’t predict the temperature at all, and are legendary for being wrong,
has nothing to do with refusing to use proper gas equations for calculation of atmospheric gas properties.
The Arctic is not only still very much alive and kicking, there are more polar bears than in recorded history when ”climatologists” told the entire planet they were diminishing and in grave danger.
The Arctic isn’t any different today than it was many, many years ago, when wooden ships were plying the waters of the North Atlantic and beyond the Arctic Circle just like ships do today.
So your teen blog alarmism might go well wherever they ban people for telling the truth about your religion but here the religious is less,
the ”you repeat that and explain every aspect of it, or you’re running a fake” is more.
This site was founded on having people mail in photographic proof of the deplorable state of the earth sensing stations and how those data didn’t agree with reality. At all.
This site was also founded on having caught your religion’s major founders in several scientific errors regarding their altering U.S. temperature records without reason.
This site also has members who come from around the world having checked the records and statements of pseud-science and there’s no indicator to anyone, not involved in government employ or the alarmism field, that temperatures are, or have been rising, really.
As noted, your own #1 climatologist admitted as recently as 2010 that he checked – and it was colder then than 1998. (The Phil Jones BBC interview)
If you sound so sure of Arctic Apocalypse then you probably also, didn’t get the news about that. Or when the Met Office issued the press release ”The Recent Pause In Warming” in 2013 where they laid out their 3 papers detailing how they just forgot about how there had been a pause in global warming since 1998. (They were about to be sued for their refusal to tell the truth to insurers so they came clean: temperatures flat since the late 90s).
And nobody ever went back and corrected their records on that, after those confessions there’s been no warming since the late 90s, either, come to think of it. So you’re way behind the real story it sounds like. It’s not actually boiling worldwide like you’re being told.
If it were, the world’s #1 climatologist wouldn’t have admitted it had cooled since 1998 and the world’s #1 climatology organization wouldn’t have posted three papers detailing how they knew it hadn’t warmed since 1998.
Those aren’t skeptical organizations that were hedged and forced through legal means, to admit it hadn’t warmed, those are the very organizations issuing the press releases claiming warming.
what strikes me in all this is that seen the record low maximum the melt was pretty “average” except for the month of May.
it was a bit below or near the standard -2 deviation at it’s maximum, and not far from the same point right now.
now i wouldn’t be surprised to see this is the new “normal” After all except for the 2012 dip the ice remained “stable” around the -1 million km² mark on cryosphere.
The great ice pile up on the north coasts of Greenland and North America thickens the ice. It does this via mechanical processes. The meta message in all this is, volume is a more interesting metric than area.