Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Global warming is apparently making it so difficult to break through thickening Baltic Ice, the Baltic Icebreaker fleet may have to be upgraded.
More Powerful Icebreakers Needed in Baltic Sea Despite Global Warming
Oddly enough, global warming and milder winters have led to more severe ice conditions in the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Bothnia. Today, icebreakers are already struggling to get through towering compacted ice and the problem may become exacerbated in the future, unless more powerful icebreaking vessels step in.
As surprising as it may sound, milder winters don’t make life easier for icebreakers. On the contrary, thaws alternating with bouts of frost are a nightmare for icebreaker fleets, Finnish experts found. During winters with a regular cold, solid ice grows to become 50-60 centimeters thick and is easy to get through. Although milder winter temperatures at first glance make ice thinner, it also leads to the formation of an ice crust, which, with the aid of harsh winds, grows to several meters of pack ice.
According to ice researcher Patrik Eriksson of the Finnish Meteorological Institute, the Baltic ice may become 5-6 meters thick, and this phenomenon has become particularly common over the past decades of milder winters. Eriksson noted that short cold spells combined with western winds lead to ice floes clogging to pack ice, which is a bigger problem for Finland due to the wind pattern.
…
Read more: https://sputniknews.com/science/201703071051343100-baltic-sea-icebreakers/
Just as well we’re not experiencing global cooling, otherwise all the icebreaker construction workers would go out of business.
Question: When an increase, a decrease and no change proves* a scientific hypothesis correct, what is it called?
Answer: Religion.
* For the purists, yes, I know, it is impossible to prove an hypothesis correct. It is only possible to falsify the hypothesis.
Did you notice how the Sputnik News prefaced their opening statement with [i]”Oddly enough, global warming and milder winters have led to more severe ice conditions in the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Bothnia.[/i] I wonder who they are trying to placate here? They already have rightly stated that we are entering a Grand Solar Minimum, and know that things are such as global warming and milder winters, are pure fiction. This makes no sense. If they really want to get public sympathy over an increase in spending why not come right out and say that winters are Not getting milder, and are forced to improve the fleet.
If you know the boundary conditions, you can prove a model true or false with testing. Only being able to disprove a model or theory is urban lore. Since two studies are never the same, it is almost impossible to disprove a hypothesis that one concluded but the other cannot validate.
(Psst: This site uses angle brackets around its formatting tags.)
Donald Kasper
You say;
Oh dear! Oh dear! You could not be more wrong!
In science nothing can be proved to be true. A model can only be demonstrated to – or not to – emulate available empirical data.
And an hypothesis can not be “concluded”: it, too, can only be demonstrated to – or not to – emulate available empirical data. An hypothesis which makes predictions that do not agree with observed reality is observed to be wrong so must be amended or replaced.
Richard
This is what was written in the article:
Today we have it much hotter than for instance in the early 1990s. At the same time we tend to have these very cold winters, which makes it hard to realize there is a global warming going on,” Hilppa Gregow told Yle, venturing that the “difficult” ice will increase in the future.
Donald Kasper
If the conclusion of any given study cannot be replicated, either by the same researchers or different ones, it is meaningless.
Not so fast..I can see elevated surface temperature being a driver of heat loss. Loss of sea ice gives rise to increased heat transfer in both sensible and latent forms.
The problem is the models are colored by preconceived assumptions.
But after that loss, the processes in question will have only drawn even with the entity that was not “elevated”. This is the problem with a generation that has been brought up on reports that are not based on absolute measurements, but only on the difference with last year’s measurement. Actual temperatures, or expenditures (as in U. S. financial data,) are significant.
To illustrate the point, a 10% decrease this year will require an 11% increase next year. The average percent increase will be .5%, but we will be right back where we started after two years, not 1% higher.
“For the purists, yes, I know, it is impossible to prove an hypothesis correct. It is only possible to falsify the hypothesis.”
Actually, perhaps not. There’s a book called Anything Goes: Origins of the Cult of Scientific Irrationalism by David Stove (also called Popper and After: Four Modern Irrationalists), which IMHO puts a stake through the heart of Popper’s “You can only disprove it” philosophy.
“Question: When an increase, a decrease and no change proves* a scientific hypothesis correct, what is it called?
Answer: Religion.”
Nope, it’s science . . Not as we might like it to be, but as it really is.
Three phase dynamics of water incorporated in the model with assumption the liquid- solid behaves as a eutectic material (it isn’t as it is more a binary material) and the liquid-gas phases are linear WRT temperature will make for highly non-linear response to boundary conditions.
Sea ice ages, becoming harder and grain refined as brine drains and compressive stress regelates void pores. It then gains impressive shear strength exceeding that of large crystal glassine type of freshwater ice.
Then there is said anisotropic thermal and structural properties of the various ice types.
Brian, you and I have different words that have the exact same meaning, in this case your “religion” has the same meaning as what my pet bull expounds out of his back end:-)))
Brian, I see that you repeated the hypothesis that “It is impossible to prove a hypothesis correct.”
Congratulations on doing the philosophical equivalent of dividing by zero.
Oh, those poor Comrades, they are already having trouble with their economy, and not this extra expense. Uncle VV must be tossing and turning in his sleep.
Surprise, surprise. Global warming is responsible for global freezing. We need more CO2 to warm up.
Funny how any article on this site the begins with “Claim:” brings out the same old cliches, like Pavlov ringing his bell.
And here is tony drooling as predicted.
Repeating true things to the point of cliche doesn’t make them any less true, Ol’Tony.
Passive-aggressive jab at the general commenting community. Bonus unpoints for Pavlov reference. Try again.
The omni potent force of a trace gas knows no bounds
I have a question, how can a ten day record cold spell, become a cold snap, but a one day maximum high temperature be proof of global warming?
get it right. anything and everything is proof that humans are causing global warming and we are all going to die
Let’s pretend this is true. That would mean the Baltic ice melts later in the spring when the winter has been warmer and, thus Baltic albedo is greater during warmer years. All of which would constitute a negative acceleration (warming creating cooling), which alarmists are allergic to.
Boundary conditions. I remember well the Physics classes and the lectures at University of California Davis, United States. The math was very difficult for me but I remember and still use Gauss and his Gaussian Surface. Long live the math and long live Dr. Judith Curry.
I guess enough people believe in this type of illogical stuff. Lefty designer brained pupils have by now reached a critical mass. The long program of making people dependent on the thinking of their ‘betters’ is bearing fruit. Little sound bites of ‘knowledge’ has made it easier for them to ‘think’ about issues the right way.
In a grade 5 workbook a geography lesson had an, ‘x’ marked on Baffin Island that informed the victim this was the site of a future summer Olympics!! It had nothing to do with the lesson but was a little IED to scar the brain. I informed my grandson this was fake knowledge you had to watch for in your lessons. I can’t believe the subversive uglines of these evil people.
Holy heck. That article caused you to think all that. Go and read it again Gary. There is absolutely nothing illogical about it. I know it doesn’t support your point of view but sheesh, too bad. It is possible you know that evil subversives (our “betters”) are not actually blackmailing our children.
tony is making even less sense than usual.
I’m glad Gary showed some lateral thinking which attracted your ire. As for you Tony, isn’t it then entirely possible that evil subversives are not only blackmailing our children, but everyone?
You are right, tony, it is possible the evil subversives are not blackmailing kids, but it sure looks like they are making very serious efforts to indoctrinate them with rubbish designed to influence them to the evil subversives point of view..
We live in strange times with equally strange human thought processes and beliefs.
It’s just a repeat of the Salem Witch Trials, except now all of Humanity is to blame for bad weather. If they survive burning at the stake, they’re a witch. If not, justice was served.
It’s painfully obvious that history doesn’t serve lessons to belief.
People imagine that arctic ice is something like a skating rink all the way to the North Pole. Actually, the ice forms bloody huge ridges. More than one adventurer has had his plans thwarted because he didn’t know that.
The thing that got me was the fact that these adventurers had clearly not done their homework. I stumbled across this article that indicates that things have gotten worse since my days in the arctic.
The same phenomenon with ‘continental climate’ – on the Danube, which is constantly frequented by freighters – the west-east freight route through Europe. As on the Rhine, the north-south freight route through Europe. On certain days only icebreakers can keep the fairways open.
So , how much local warming has there been in the Baltic region ?
This is what was written in the article:
“Today we have it much hotter than for instance in the early 1990s. At the same time we tend to have these very cold winters, which makes it hard to realize there is a global warming going on,” Hilppa Gregow told Yle, venturing that the “difficult” ice will increase in the future.
Tero Vauraste of Arctia supposed that the future will set higher demands on icebreakers, given that the climate is predicted to become gradually hotter in the following 20-30 years, together with harsher winters and more wind
Ah , that’s what we need . Precision .
I understand the more wind, but harsher winters? How does heating make harsher winters?
Heads we win, tail you lose and if you question it you will be called out for the Exxon funded evil d%n!@lis+ scum you are.
Tom Nelson @tan123 https://twitter.com/tan123
Five Reasons Why Ridicule Is The Proper Response To Global Warming Alarmists http://www.investors.com/politics/commentary/five-reasons-why-ridicule-is-the-proper-response-to-global-warming-alarmists/
Also: 3. Leonardo DiCaprio. Here’s a high school dropout who’s become fabulously rich doing what kindergartners do every day… The fact that DiCaprio fancies himself to be a climate expert and a model of environmental morality, and the fact that elitists have enthusiastically gone along with his adult playacting, are strong indictments against the alarmist community.
They predicted super hot warmth, not the opposite. They predicted thinning ice, not thickening ice!
They claim to have predicted everything that has happened which supports their agenda.
Though considering the state of public education these days, the dropouts may actually be the smarter ones. ;|
I don’t particularly like him in the first place, GW or not, but I suggest that if he is “among the most intelligent and well researched of the whole gang green,” then that’s a lot worse and makes him the worst kind of hypocrite if he’s knowledgeable, sincerely believes in the coming CO2 Armageddon, and still flies makeup artists thousands of miles to do his eyebrows.
This winter has been milder than usual, and while normally ice covers the whole of Gulf of Finland, this winter has been problematic, and while temperatures here are almost exactly the same as 80 years ago, the whole picture is the same as elsewhere; after WW2 temperatures dropped but started to rise back to same as before WW2.
So ,yes, last 50 years the temperature has “risen” here. That creates an illusion of “global warming” to be used as “proof”.
The ice problem mentioned is real.As a Finn I can agree with the study.Fortunately we are world leaders in icebreaker technology, so we just need icebreakers that have different bow shape for those new conditions.
Finnish Meteorological Institute is corrupt.Fortunately there are apparently some “freedom fighters” inside, so some almost hidden FMI pages in finnish are different from those of in english: Try “ilmatieteenlaitos” – “ilmasto” – “vuositilastot”, and you can see temperatures of Sodankylä and Helsinki , that is Lapland and southern Finland for the last hundred years. The whole of Finland, that is.
Seems a bit of a coincidence that we are currently in an ice thickness sweet spot – any colder and the ice thickens, any warmer and the ice thickens.
Read the article again.
This is what was written in the article:
“Today we have it much hotter than for instance in the early 1990s. At the same time we tend to have these very cold winters, which makes it hard to realize there is a global warming going on,” Hilppa Gregow told Yle, venturing that the “difficult” ice will increase in the future.
Tero Vauraste of Arctia supposed that the future will set higher demands on icebreakers, given that the climate is predicted to become gradually hotter in the following 20-30 years, together with harsher winters and more wind
rd50: Again, how does more heat make colder winters? That defies all of physics. Please explain.
There are multiple lines of evidence that suggest that temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere today, are broadly speaking the same as the late 1930s/early 1940s.
There is no reliable or useful data on temperatures in the Southern Hemisphere. Hansen in his 1981 paper (Science 213) acknowledged this, and Phil Jones in the Climategate emails even suggested that the bulk of the Southern Hemisphere data is simply made up. Since we have no worthwhile data on the Southern Hemisphere, it follows that we have no global data worth a pinch of salt.
All we are left with is data on the Northern Hemisphere, and raw data, at any rate rural raw data, on a similar latitude to latitude basis, suggests that temperatures today are broadly the same as they were some 75 years ago. It does not matter whether one looks at the US, Greenland, Iceland, Finland. Northern latitudes in Russia, they all suggest no notable warming since 1940 (the pattern being cooling from 1940 to early 1970s, and warming from the early 1970s back up to about 1940 levels).
You are wrong about temperature dropping after the war. It dropped at the beginning of the war and stayed down. Temperature curves showing the forties as a warm platform are in error. As you ought to know know, the war started as a result of the the Molotov-Ribbentrop p[act between Hitler and Stalin. This pact divided Eastern Europe between the two of them. Finland was assigned to the Russians and when nthe Finns refused to let Russian occupation troops in the Finnish Winter War began. Stalin’s first move in Finland was to cut it in two. For that purpose he sent two divisions with tanks into Finland. The battle of Suomissalmi that resulted was fought at minus forty Celsius and one meter of snow. The Finns had no anti-tank weopons so they just improvised and threw glass bottles filled with gasolene at the tanks. They destroyed them all. Next, they cut up the infantry column that followed the tanks into sections and destroyed both divisions that Stalin had sent. The Russian high command was most impressed by the loss of their tanks and when a year later Hitler and Stalin had a falling out the Soviets decided to use the same method against the German invaders. They did not call it the Finnish method, however, but renamed it “Molotov cocktail,” the name by which it went into history books. As to the cold, it lasted the whole war through which includes the Battle of the Bulge in Western Europe. After 1950 the cold started to alleviate but global temperature did not get back yo what it had been in 1940 until the year 1980.
“The ice problem mentioned is real.As a Finn I can agree with the study.”
Ok, a Finn saying the article is correct. It does clearly explain why the ice is banking up. Seems some here have a comprehension problem or is it just the blinkers?
Read the rest of what he wrote.
Did you miss the part about temperatures being the “same as 80 years ago”, Tony?
And did you read the entire rant at the peer-reviewed climate journal “Sputnik News”, btw?
====
“Today we have it much hotter than for instance in the early 1990s. At the same time we tend to have these very cold winters, which makes it hard to realize there is a global warming going on,” Hilppa Gregow told Yle, venturing that the “difficult” ice will increase in the future.
====
► “Oddly enough, global warming and milder winters…”
► “At the same time we tend to have these very cold winters.”
What does a very cold milder winter that makes it “hard to realize there is a global warming going on” mean to you?
Quote out of context, misrepresentation of the quoted’s position, and another passive-aggressive jab. Try again.
drednicolson,
Put your superior parsing skills into action and tell us, in plain English, what the article is trying to say.
Thanks in advance.
So are you saying that local temperatures in the Baltic haven’t been “mild”, as the claim is (and which I’m guessing is backed up by some form of data), and that this is why the ice is thick, or are you saying that temperatures have been mild and sea ice thicker despite it?
http://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/ice_cover_at_sea_exceptionally_low_this_winter/9455739
http://img.yle.fi/uutiset/tiede/article9455247.ece/ALTERNATES/w960/Jouni%20Vainio,%20jääasiantuntija,%20Ilmatieteenlaitos
Hans,
Keep in mind that the Baltic Sea isn’t really an open ocean…its surrounded by land. AND…it doesn’t fall within the Arctic Circle either.
In a milder winter (not as many days cold enough to cause sea water to freeze into ice) a thin crust will form during the cold spells, that is lighter and more fragile than the normally thicker and heavier ice. This lighter, more fragile ice moves a lot more than heavier, thicker ice, and is blown into “piles” that end up being enormously thick. Think of drifting snow. Light snow that isn’t anchored to deeper snow blows with the wind until it reaches a spot of resistance and builds up there=snow drifts. Light ice, not anchored to deeper/thicker ice does the same thing.
So…milder temperatures makes thin sea ice, (because there are not month upon month of temperatures cold enough to continue to thicken it), which then gets blown by sea winds into piles. Those piles become a LOT THICKER in the piled up spots, than the ice that forms during colder winters usually is.
also the large variability in the salinity of the baltic can also have an effect on levels of sea ice. in some areas the surface is fresh water that can obviously freeze at a higher temp than salt.
“ilmatieteenlaitos” – “ilmasto” – “vuositilastot”
-> Meteorological Service “-” climate “-” Annual statistics “,
Calling Griff and co , please show us your wonderfully enlightening graphs of the ice shrinking .
Allow me.
http://psc.apl.uw.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/schweiger/ice_volume/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrentV2.1_CY.png
So everything’s within 2 sigma, otherwise known as normal.
Have a closer look steve.
It’s a problem on this site that graphs imported from other sites often show up as an older version. That is what has happened in this case, showing only data up to 2016, if you click on the image the originally posted, up-to-date version shows up. This clearly shows that the 2017 data is significantly below previous years.
But we would expect less ice pack in an el nino year right? It looks like it had been increasing through 2015, but mostly fairly stable, albeit at the low end of the range.
And why does this matter? Please explain in scientific terminology why thinning ice, assuming it’s outside whatever normal was chosen, is a horrible thing. Explain why in the past there NEVER was thinning ice until now—or if there was, why should we care now. I’m not finding anything scary in any of this. Your graphs aren’t working. Add some more data and theory. You might have a chance at swaying my beliefs.
So why does ice behave differently in the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Bothnia? Everywhere else they tell us that global warming with its milder winters thins the ice, which results in less multiyear ice sticking around. But if milder winters can create thicker ice that is 5-6 meters thick, why be so worried about all the Arctic ice melting?
The thinner ice breaks easier, due to wave action and wind. The thin broken Ice gets pushed by wind and currents into a tangled pile of ice. Then if you get a cold snap, the broken pieces of ice freeze together into a jagged ice sheet many times thicker than the original ice. We see this on the great lake during spring break up, Ice breakers often work overtime to open the clogged channels to prevent flooding do to ice jams. Get a hard freeze during breakup and it’s a real mess, especially if you mix in some freezing rain.
So this only matters to people using ice breakers.
Louis,
Ice behaves differently in the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Bothnia because it’s an INLAND SEA…it’s technically not open ocean, although it’s source is the Northern Atlantic Ocean at it’s south west end. The milder winter did not cause the ice in the Sea to become 5-6 meters thick. It cause the sea ice that did form to be thin and MOBILE, and the wind pushed it all up into the North End (imagine a cul-de-sac) where it then PILED UP until it became 5-6 M thick in spots. An ice blockade if you will.
The Baltic Sea is technically not part of the Arctic Circle either….so why anything that happens to it’s ice is considered part of the “Arctic Sea Ice” issue is beyond me.
This is hilarious. So there is lwss ice because of Global Warming, but the little ice that’s left is thicker. There’s not more ice, you understand, there’s less ice, just thinker.
Something like: heap big warmy warmy. Coldy coldy, more ice, but warmy warmy less ice, heap big warmy! (or something)
What would be hilarious if it were not just a little bit sad is your utter lack of comrehension in what the article is saying.
Maybe you should explain it for us, in CLEAR terminology so we can become as enlightened as yourself. Otherwise, we must assume you’re just blowing smoke.
@Sheri
Not to carry water for Tony, but Paul Jackson just above at 8:00 am sums it up pretty well.
I cannot tell from the article what an “ice crust” is. How is that different from the normal top of the ice that the winds also blow over?
The ice researcher quoted in the article comments that the description of the ice types has been poorly translated into english. “Worth to note, though, is that two different ice types which were mentioned in the original article have been merged to “pack ice” in this english translation. The other of the more difficult types of deformed ice is the brash ice, formed of thinner ice and gets heavily compacted into several meters thick and several kilometer wide zones and can be very touch to navigate through. This type of ice is especially typical for these new milder climate conditions.”
** This type of ice is especially typical for these new milder climate conditions.**
This is a concocted statement. This ice has been in the Arctic every winter and is typical of cold and wind. Ask the guys who tried to ski to the pole.
Gerald Machnee March 8, 2017 at 6:58 am
** This type of ice is especially typical for these new milder climate conditions.**
This is a concocted statement. This ice has been in the Arctic every winter and is typical of cold and wind. Ask the guys who tried to ski to the pole.
He’s not talking about the Arctic he’s talking about the Baltic which is quite different. From today’s ice report:
“FINNISH ICE REPORT 08.03.2017
The ice is drifting to southwest in the Bay of Bothnia.
In the northern Bay of Bothnia there is 45-65 cm thick fast ice in the archipelago. Farther out 40-50 cm thick, consolidated and ridged drift ice approximately to the line Malören – Oulu 1. The icefield is difficult to force.”
Even though today’s ice is well below the normal.
Phil
***He’s not talking about the Arctic he’s talking about the Baltic which is quite different. From today’s ice report:
“FINNISH ICE REPORT 08.03.2017***
I know he is talking about the Baltic. I was making a point. If the ice is piled up into ridges and getting thicker, you have Arctic conditions which means it is not warming. In that article they moan about climate warming and at the same time talk about harsher winters. There is no data supplied.
So my summary of the article is that their religion requires them to insist there is still warming, but they also need an excuse for thicker ice. You will not get several metres of ice when it is not cold.
Yes Tony, I have re-read the meager article.
Oeman50-
Imagine you put a tub of water in a freezer and come back in an hour to find a thin film of ice, or “crust” on the top. It’s fragile, light, and easily broken up with your finger. Now imagine leaving that film or “crust” alone until the entire container freezes. Now it’s a chunk of ice that is heavy, sturdy, and not easily broken.
“Crust ice” breaks up easily, is light weight, and not anchored to anything more solid. It breaks up with the wind blows, and is driven along with the current until it hits something that stops it’s movement. More and more of it piles up, and wind and waves force it up on top of other broken up ice. What might have been “sea ice” that was 3-6 inches thick across the bay, becomes 5-6 meters thick, like walls of ice up against the shoreline where ships need to break through it to deliver goods to shore and pick up other things.
Sheri,
I hope that what the article was saying (very poorly) has been made more clear. Why on earth tony mcleod brought Arctic Sea Ice into the discussion is a mystery. The Baltic Sea isn’t within the boundaries of the Arctic Ocean, (it’s considered to be part of the Northern Atlantic Ocean) nor is it considered part of the Arctic Circle, so it’s ice is not considered part of the Arctic Sea Ice measurements anyway.
This is a piece of creative writing that has nothing to do with reality and is based on the theory that it gets colder when it gets warmer. The winter in the Baltic region has been comparatively mild so the greatest part of the Baltic is icefree. There are no “4 to 5 meters thick ridges of pack ice”. The icebreakers of Finland, Sweden and Russia have no problems forcing the ice that remains in the inner parts of the Gulf of Botnia and the Gulf of Finland. The real situation can be seen on this ice chart updated by the Finnish Meteorological Institute:
http://cdn.fmi.fi/marine-observations/products/ice-charts/latest-full-color-ice-chart.pdf
This piece of alternative news comes from the Russian state propaganda website Sputnik News and is based on a news story published by the Finnish broadcasting company YLE a few days ago. Yle is as warmist as its role model BBC. It should never have been translated to English. In its original Finnish form it would have been read by fewer people and believed by yet fewer.
So the Nazi Invasion died in the Russian frost –
produzed by the warmth of the Panzers, the men they transported + the moisture that men exhaled and the hot fired machine guns cooled by siberian air.
the siberian air unmoved in an inversion zone between alpes and Ural.
Ahhhhhh, the power of Magical Thinking.
Anything is possible when you brain-wash yourself under the influence of sugar.
Where I was born, brought up and lived at 55 degrees North, as a kid 45+ years ago, I used to help a farming neighbour harvest spring-planted wheat.
You’d be a bit crazy to try grow spring barley there now, even with its 4 week shorter growing season.
I re-state, to measure a ‘Climate’ at any given place you look at the plants growing there – average temperature has little to do with it.
So, the Green House Effect is real.
Radiation from the dirt is absorbed at some point(s) up in the sky. It matters not where, 100, 1000 or 10000 metres up and that place is warmer than it would have otherwise been. This warmth radiates back to earth.
Fine.
But, is not this (artificially) warmed place, in the sky, closer to the ultimate heat-sink or cold source – Outer Space. Energy going there does not return.
So, this warm place, at anywhere up-a-height is closer to the cold sink. The thermal gradient is steepened so heat energy flows faster. It is a cooling effect.
S0d the radiation, absorption graphs and photons, don’t let them confuse you. Simple heat flow tells you everything.
Add in Stefan’s Law where heat flow goes as temp^4, you have an epic cooling force, even before you add in the higher emissivity of CO2 compared to N2 and or O2.
Something else is causing the thermometers to move.
That ice ‘thickening’ only works in the Baltic, obviously. In the Arctic the ‘milder’ winters only thin the ice.
Bingo!
i believe it works in the arctic as well,as will be seen in this years melting season . big thick blocks of ice cool ocean water for longer than thin sheets .
Current situation in the Baltic: cdn.fmi.fi/marine-observations/products/ice-charts/latest-full-color-ice-chart.pdf
Mild winter, less than normal ice. Sputnik News is not to be trusted on any topic.
Is it really true that Baltic ice can regularly become 5-6 meters thick each winter? That seems impossible for me to believe.
Read the article a bit more carefully.
Thank you. I see.
How thick will it get if we warm 5 degrees by the end of the century?
Low ice around Finland again this year.
http://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/ice_cover_at_sea_exceptionally_low_this_winter/9455739
Read the article again – it is saying that the ice does not now freeze over and stay frozen at a standard thickness all winter…
bouts of cold and then wind pile it up into limited areas which are much thicker…
As with the naysayers of the early shale oil boom, the answer is to give it time and don’t be so impatient.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/NOAA%20SST-NorthAtlantic%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1979%20With37monthRunningAverage.gif
And this means what? That things change? Of course. That the change is bad or wrong—not sufficient data to make that claim. It’s a nice observation. That’s all it is.
Have you aologised to Doctor Crockford for lying about her professional qualifications to discredit her on behalf of your paymasters, you mendacious, misogynistic liittle propagandist?
I just can’t read your stuff Cat without seeing the real Catweazle waving his arms in confusion and frothing at the mouth. He wore filthy hessian rags so I hope your better dressed at least.
?1425119303
I think perhaps you mistake me for someobne who could give a flying dog’s bollock for what the likes of you think.
Doctor Crockford neither studies nor publishes papers on Polar Bears. Polar bear experts can be found across the web saying she is not among their number. She receives payments, I have seen it alleged, from the Heartland institute. I submit she is an unqualified person publishing a political blog, apparently funded by political agency. I stand by the criticisms I made directly to her about the misleading nature of her posts.
Lying again Griff, you misogynistic little wannabe cyber-bully?
It was brought to your attention by Climate Otter precisely what papers Doctor Crockford has published.
You are a profoundly unpleasant little craature who appears to have no life beyond taunting and smearing folk who for incomprehensible reasons you seem to believe are somehow inferior to you, despite the fact that you exhibit no understanding or knowledge whatsoever of climate science or energy, and believe that anyone who disagrees wiith the view of yhe Leftist fake news sheet ‘The Guardian’ is in the pay of ‘Big Oil’.
I assure you, thay are anything but, each and every one of them is worth a thousand of you.
As for “apparently funded by political agency”, coming from a paid propagandist for ‘Renewables’ posting from a corporate IP, for downright hypocrisy that takes some beating.
The $1mm dollar question is how many meters high will the ice be when the arctic is ice free?
It may be impassable by any size ice breaker.
Maybe they could get UN funding for that, starting with studies.
Oddly enough.
Fortunately I am sure global warming is consistent with both thicker and thinner ice. It should, because it is supposed to be consistent with any state of affairs.
In other words: It is unfalsifiable. And if it can never be falsified, it must be true, right? Q.E.D.
ER no.
Overall. ..Over the entire arctic the ice is thinning and disappearing. ..overall. However in certain small regions the thinning ice in conjunction with high winds allows part of the ice to build up thick ridges…
Overall versus local.
It’s similar with rainfall sone places getting wetter and some more dry…that doesn’t make the theory unfalsifiable.
If you think., that is.
Steven – so when will the ice disappear?
If the thick ice exists only in “certain small regions,” why is that such a problem for icebreakers? Can’t they avoid the small regions of thick ice and travel through thin ice to get where they want to go?
In February 764 seventy feet thick icebergs were driven against the walls of Constantinople (present day Istanbul) by severe winds with such a force, that threatened to ruin them.
Now, Constantinople is but a small region and seventy feet is way more than anything currently seen in the Baltic, therefore the occurrence must have been consistent with global warming theory. Right?
“Steven – so when will the ice disappear?
Imprecise question. Try again.
1. if we define “the ice” as Ice in the arctic ( say north of 70deg)
2. If we set a threshold of say 1million sq km ( as the IPCC has done)
3. If we set a time window of Sept, or end of the melting season.
4. If want to eliminate “flukes” and demand 5 straight years of “zero ice” at the end of the season
Then Take the over bet at 2050.
you have to learn to ask precise questions
And you have to learn not to act like a condescending jerk…
“And you have to learn not to act like a condescending jerk…”
He’s not acting.
Gerald Machnee asked a very specific question-“So,when will the ice disappear?”
Steven Mosher responded with “An imprecise question. Try again.”
Um….ok. Let’s try again :
When- adverb
1.at what time.
“when did you last see him?”
2. at or on which (referring to a time or circumstance).
“Saturday is the day when I get my hair done”
will-verb
1.expressing the future tense.
“you will regret it when you are older”
2.expressing inevitable events.
the-determiner
1.denoting one or more things mentioned or referred to (in this case ice in the Arctic)
ice- noun
1.frozen water
disappear-verb
1.cease to be visible
Exact, precise, translation of the basic English words used in the question originally posed:
“So at what time, or on which date, in the future, will the frozen water in the Arctic cease to be visible?”
It’s a very precise question. It could hardly be more precise! And yet Mosher not only found it imprecise, but added a bunch of assumptions, presumptions etc that made it LESS precise, changed it’s original query, and then after complicating and changing the question Mosher could only give an answer based on modeled guessing. Oddly enough, according to the IPCC, at 1 million square kilometers, Arctic Ice ceases to be visible.
I’d tell him to “Try again”, but we all know that the only possible precise answer to that very precise question is “We don’t know”.
There seems to be a good correlation between low temperatures and greater ice thickness on the great lakes. But Arctic sea ice appears much more complicated. If the science weren’t settled I would ask why.
Take a look at the published article.
Read the article again.
This is what was written in the article:
“Today we have it much hotter than for instance in the early 1990s. At the same time we tend to have these very cold winters, which makes it hard to realize there is a global warming going on,” Hilppa Gregow told Yle, venturing that the “difficult” ice will increase in the future.
Tero Vauraste of Arctia supposed that the future will set higher demands on icebreakers, given that the climate is predicted to become gradually hotter in the following 20-30 years, together with harsher winters and more wind
“Today we have it much hotter…than in the early 1990s”? That is not even a scientific statement.
Baltic Sea-not part of the Arctic Ocean. 🙂
What are they talking about? The Baltic has been practically ice free this winter
Climate is local and seasonal.
Here is the situation at area:
http://en.ilmatieteenlaitos.fi/ice-conditions
Depends on how you define “Baltic”. There is quite a lot of ice in the Bothnian Gulf and Finland Bay, and at the moment there is five Swedish and four finnish icebreakers active in the Bothnian Gulf and one finnish in the Finland Bay.
Only ships with Ice Class IA and >2000 tons DW permitted in the Bothnian Gulf, >4000 tons DW required for the northern Gulf.
Rename one of the icebreakers the SS John Holdren.
Since this was not a peer reviewed study, and is instead a gray paper or maybe even just an interview I will give this junk speculation a pass lest I throw up trying to make anything of it except pig slop. Sorry pigs.
in 1970s global cooling caused colder climate and no warming or patterns related to warming.
now global warming causes warming, cooling, and no changes.
yeah we should go crazy and over react to it all…
This is probably a translation problem. What they are talking about is presumably what is known in Swedish as “stampisvallar” (literally “stamped ice ridges”, there is as far as I know no English word for it). This is a mixture of finely divided ice and water which can collect at the edge of a fast ice sheet when there is an onshore wind. It does not protrude much but it can extend to a depth of many meters since it has a density extremely close to water. It can be very difficult to penetrate, and if it freezes together it is about the only thing that will stop just about any icebreaker no matter how powerful, since it can extend much deeper than the keel of the icebreaker.
It is true that stampis is most common when there is much new ice or nilas that can be broken up finely by the wind, but it is by no means restricted to mild ice winters.
This is what a “stampisvall” looks like:
Is this the same as a pressure ridge?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressure_ridge_(ice)
“This is probably a translation problem.”
This sentence (particularly the last clause) is misleading, it seems to me.
“Although milder winter temperatures at first glance make ice thinner, it also leads to the formation of an ice crust, which, with the aid of harsh winds, grows to several meters of pack ice.”
Something like this seems to be what was meant;
“… leads to the formation of an ice crust, which, with the aid of harsh winds, gets driven together into several meters of pack ice.”
Yep. It’s all lost in translation….well that, and a lack of geographical knowledge. *grin*
Best solution is for Russia to give Finland back their ice-free port Pechenga on the Murmansk Sea. I suspect Vladimir won’t, though.
So we are talking here about the wrong kind of ice ??? Shades of British Rail and the wrong kind of leaves.
I’m waiting for the day that climate science proves I can freeze a pan of water in my oven with it set to 350.
There is almost no ice in the baltic see for your selves Todays ICE report :
http://baltice.org/pdf/IceChart_20170308_Baltic.pdf
Look at the top and to the right. That’s about 75 000 square kilometers of ice, a fairly large almost nothing.
tty,
Yep. And how odd….that 75,000 square kilometers of ice, is EXACTLY in the Gulf of Bothnia….exactly where the article said the problem has arisen. 🙂
It seems that the author of this blog post got tied up in the translation issues (which do indeed cause a mess) and either confused a local issue that truly is happening due to thinner ice forming (due to warmer conditions than normal recently in that area) and then being blown into the upper “corner” of the Baltic Sea by the wind (which then DOES cause thicker than normal ice to form in that particular location)…with global climate and global sea ice issues…or attempted to use the localized issue as if it relates to global climate/sea ice for some unknown reason.
The Gulf of Bothnia is only about 40,000 square kilometers. And the ice forms there, it doesn’t get blown there. And all ice isn’t there either. At the moment twenty icebreakers are active in the Baltic, nine in the Gulf of Bothnia (five Swedish, four Finnish), ten in the Gulf of Finland (one Finnish, eight Russion, one Estonian) and one (Estonian) in Riga Bay. Although actually one of the Swedish is now south of the Gulf of Bothnia in the Umeå area.
Rather a lot of icebreaking capacity is apparently being used to fight “almost no ice”.
“for some unknown reason.”
You forgot the /sarc
tty March 9, 2017 at 2:19 am
The Gulf of Bothnia is only about 40,000 square kilometers. And the ice forms there, it doesn’t get blown there. And all ice isn’t there either. At the moment twenty icebreakers are active in the Baltic, nine in the Gulf of Bothnia (five Swedish, four Finnish), ten in the Gulf of Finland (one Finnish, eight Russion, one Estonian) and one (Estonian) in Riga Bay. Although actually one of the Swedish is now south of the Gulf of Bothnia in the Umeå area.
Rather a lot of icebreaking capacity is apparently being used to fight “almost no ice”.
They’re being used in various dispersed locations, typically near ports, and routes to the ports in the north.
You can see the ice and location of shipping and icebreakers at the following site:
http://baltice.org/map/
Choose ‘Icebreaking & Traffic’ then ‘Traffic & Ice situation map’.
Note the dark red areas on the map, “compact floating ice”, which appears to be what this article is about, it’s concentrated along parts of the coast and bays (and it does get blown there).
Here’s a map from the same source showing where the ice is blowing.
http://ice.fmi.fi/polarview/latestfc.php?var=drift&area=nbs&hour=6
“They’re being used in various dispersed locations, typically near ports, and routes to the ports in the north.”
Yes, there is always a strong tendency to locate icebreakers where they are needed.
“Note the dark red areas on the map, “compact floating ice”, which appears to be what this article is about, it’s concentrated along parts of the coast and bays (and it does get blown there).”
No, it isn’t what this article is about. It is about brash ice barriers, of which there isn’t any in the Baltic at the moment:
http://www.smhi.se/oceanografi/istjanst/produkter/sstcolor.pdf
“and it does get blown there”
To some extent yes, but mostly it just grows there. It is largely a matter of water temperatures. Colder water = more ice, it’s as simple as that:
http://www.smhi.se/oceanografi/istjanst/produkter/sstchart.pdf
By the way I’ve lived most of my life on the Baltic coast so I feel fairly confident about how the ice forms and what it is like.
tty March 9, 2017 at 6:22 am
“They’re being used in various dispersed locations, typically near ports, and routes to the ports in the north.”
Yes, there is always a strong tendency to locate icebreakers where they are needed.
Exactly my point, the need for ice breakers at the ports isn’t determined by the total quantity, rather whether is at the sensitive areas, i.e. ports.
I was replying to your assertion: Rather a lot of icebreaking capacity is apparently being used to fight “almost no ice”.
“Note the dark red areas on the map, “compact floating ice”, which appears to be what this article is about, it’s concentrated along parts of the coast and bays (and it does get blown there).”
No, it isn’t what this article is about. It is about brash ice barriers, of which there isn’t any in the Baltic at the moment:
http://www.smhi.se/oceanografi/istjanst/produkter/sstcolor.pdf
So this report on the Baltic ice from yesterday isn’t accurate?
“In the northern Bay of Bothnia there is 45-65 cm thick fast ice in the archipelago. Farther out 40-50 cm thick, consolidated and ridged drift ice approximately to the line Malören – Oulu 1. The icefield is difficult to force.”
Note that coincides exactly with the dark red region on the map.
“and it does get blown there”
To some extent yes, but mostly it just grows there.
No, that’s why they call it ‘Drift ice’
This map shows where it’s drifting from and how fast (currently to the north at 0.6 knots):
http://ice.fmi.fi/polarview/latestfc.php?var=drift&area=nbs&hour=6
tty March 9, 2017 at 6:22 am
No, it isn’t what this article is about. It is about brash ice barriers, of which there isn’t any in the Baltic at the moment:
Like these you mean?
“In the northern Bay of Bothnia there is 45-65 cm thick fast ice in the archipelago. Farther out 40-50 cm thick, consolidated and ridged drift ice approximately to the line Malören – Oulu 1. The icefield is difficult to force. Farther out there is a lead, which runs from Nygrån via Farstugrunden to Merikallat and further to Ulkokalla. There is new ice and 5-20 cm thick level ice in the lead. Further south there is first an area of 10-20 cm thick close ice and then 30-60 cm thick ridged compact ice. Further south 15-40 thick very close ice mixed with thick floes of consolidated brash ice.
tty-
Let me rephrase then-
The Gulf of Bothnia, the location specified in the article, makes up more than half of that 75,000 sq km of ice.
Of course the ice is formed there. No one said it wasn’t. But sea ice MOVES based on wind direction and water currents, and CHANGES forms many times during it’s existence.
Brash ice-
“Accumulations of floating ice made up of fragments not more than 2 m across; the wreckage of other forms of ice. Brash is common between colliding floes or in regions where pressure ridges have collapsed”
Brash ice is defined by it’s width or surface area, NOT it’s thickness.
Once “brash ice” gets blown into “fast ice” and refrozen into it, it’s no longer called “brash ice”, it’s called fast ice. If brash ice becomes frozen together in large free floating masses, it’s called “pack ice”. If pack ice is pushed against the shore and freezes to the fast ice, it’s then called fast ice. Then there are pressure ridges:
Pressure Ridges-
“A pressure ridge develops in an ice cover as a result of a stress regime established within the plane of the ice. Within sea ice expanses, pressure ridges originate from the interaction between floes,[note 1] as they collide with each other.[3][4][5][6] Currents and winds are the main driving forces, but the latter are particularly effective when they have a predominant direction.[7] Pressure ridges are made up of angular ice blocks of various sizes that pile up on the floes. The part of the ridge that is above the water surface is known as the sail; that below it as the keel.[note 2] Pressure ridges are the thickest sea ice features and account for about one-half of the total sea ice volume.[2] Stamukhi are pressure ridges that are grounded and that result from the interaction between fast ice and the drifting pack ice.[8][9]” wiki
When one ice floe slides up on top of another floe, it’s called “rafting”, and that immediately changes the thickness of the floe where the rafting is.
So sea ice can change shape, density, location, and thickness due to interactions with other ice without a change in the temperature of the water necessarily being part of those processes. It’s the same amount of ice whether it’s piled on top of itself or spread out evenly. But the thicker it becomes, through whatever process, the harder it becomes for ice breakers to get through it.
Oh, and tony mcleod,
I find making assumptions and presuming things to be illogical and biased, so I try not to pretend to know why someone does something. Just like I don’t know the reason why you brought up Arctic Sea Ice when the Baltic Sea has nothing to do with the Arctic, I don’t know why the author did what he did either. I find both odd, but that’s my personal opinion, not a statement of fact about either of you.
Question is why isn’t greenpeace up there stopping ice breakers??? You would think with all their caterwauling about whales they would have already surrounded that ice breaking vessel with their cries of “save the ice”!
This is an interesting summary of Baltic Sea ice winters (around Finland)
http://en.ilmatieteenlaitos.fi/baltic-sea-ice-winters
I should really stop typing now as breaking cover never results in anything good. I think I bookmarked this site in 2008 and try to visit weekly but have never before posted.
I’m enjoying the comments by tty and Phil. I must comment as, after retirement as a biophysicist and biomedical engineer, I fell in love with a Sjöräddningssällskapet (Swedish SSRS) icebreaker. I took her from her home in Stocka (61.89N 017.33E – the economics were cruel as she was no longer up to supporting modern commerce and breaking stampisvallar.)
She and I have had fun gingerly poking around other types of ice in the Denmark and Hudson straits and Baffin Bay. Now she keeps the St. Johns River ice-free between Jacksonville and Lake Monroe, Florida.
http://i1226.photobucket.com/albums/ee412/NelsTandberg/morningfog0028thumb.jpg
Re Greenpeace – I think I’d mount an old-fashioned 2″ deck gun forward.
well done sir, that truly is a beautiful purposeful ship.
By summer there is no telling how thick the ice will be.