By Javier
In sharp contrast with previous decades, the past 10 years have seen no change in Northern Hemisphere average sea ice extent, according to MASIE (may-zee, Multi-sensor Analyzed Sea Ice Extent) database from the National Sea & Ice Data Center (NSIDC; see figure 1).
Figure 1. MASIE sea-ice extent data for the Northern Hemisphere showing essentially no trend for Arctic sea-ice for the past 11 years.
Based on fundamental climate observations and research it has been proposed by several scientists that the Arctic might have entered a new regime with its most conspicuous consequence a reduction or even inversion of recent Arctic sea ice trends. So far, the data appears to support their interpretation. They are Miles et al. 2014, Wyatt & Curry 2014, and Årthun et al. 2017 (references in the appendix).
Last October I presented some of the evidence at WUWT here.
Despite the complete failure of every Arctic ice-free prediction so far, and the research and evidence that the Arctic is no longer melting as in past decades, some climate alarmists are rabidly attacking this interpretation and those that hold it, including me. See the “Open Mind” post: Extreme Cherry Ice.
MASIE is a relatively new (November 2010) and improved dataset on sea-ice extent for the Northern Hemisphere with very good sea-ice boundary resolution. Sea-ice extent is the preferred measurement by NSIDC to study melting, since surface melting is known to cause sea-ice area measurements to underestimate the sea-ice surface. However, sea-ice extent is rapidly falling out of favor among sea-ice alarmists as an Arctic gauge, replaced by sea-ice volume that has the disadvantage of being modeled, but the advantage that it shows continuous decline, as the models include a temperature factor. Apparently, alarmists believe that Arctic sea-ice is transforming from a pancake into a crepe of the same size.
MASIE starts in 2006. I have determined the start and end dates of the melt season from 2006-2017 (11 complete years; see appendix). The data is presented in table 1.
Table 1. Start day defined as yearly maximum extent day (7-day smoothed). End day defined as yearly minimum extent day. Length is the difference between both in number of days. Extent change is the difference between maximum and minimun sea-ice extent.
The average start for the melt season was on day 68 (March 9 in common years). For the past 12 years there has been a trend towards an earlier start of the melt season, with 2015, and 2016 starting on day 59 (February 28). The trend is very pronounced at –9 days/decade (see figure 2). Stroeve et al. 2014 report a similar trend for 1979-2013 of –2 days/decade. If anything, the trend appears to have accentuated recently. In 2017 the melt season started on day 63 (March 4) as determined by this methodology, right on the trend.
Figure 2. Start of the melt season for the past 12 years showing a pronounced trend towards an earlier start of the melt season.
The average end for the melt season was on day 262 (September 19 in common years). For the past 11 years there has been a trend towards an earlier end of the melt season, with 2016 (leap year) ending on day 253 (September 9). The trend is very pronounced at –11 days/decade (see figure 3). Stroeve et al. 2014 report an opposite trend for 1979-2013 of +3 days/decade. There is a huge inversion of 2 weeks/decade in this trend. According to the trend and methodology, the 2017 melt season is projected to end on day 255 (September 12) ± 1 week.
Figure 3. End of the melt season for the past 11 years showing a pronounced trend towards an earlier end of the melt season.
The observed trends are not sustainable (or the melt period would eventually shift seasons) and probably form part of the observed Arctic regime shift. One possible explanation is that for the past decade winters have become warmer in the Arctic, while summers have become cooler. A good example is this year situation (see figure 4).
Figure 4. Daily mean temperature north of the 80th northern parallel, as a function of the day of year. Source DMI. The average melt season start and end days have been added.
The average melt season length, defined as the number of days from start to end of melt, is 193 days (52.5% of the year, winter is 4 days shorter than summer). For the past 11 years the melt season length has shown a non-significant decrease of –2 days/decade (see figure 5). This contrasts with Stroeve et al. 2014 who report a trend for 1979-2013 of +5 days/decade in melt season length. The evidence does not support the touted increase in melt season length for the past decade. According to the trend, the 2017 melt season is projected to last 192 ± 6 days.
Figure 5. Melt season length for the past 11 years showing no clear trend.
The average extent loss from start to end of the melt season is 10.6 million sq. km. For the past 11 years the extent loss has shown a non-significant increase of 0.65 million sq. km/decade (see figure 6). This trend is dependent on the very low value of the 2006 melt season loss, and shows no increase in surface lost during the melt season from 2007. 2017 started its melt season with a very low value of sea ice extent (14.7 million sq. km), almost as low as 2006 (14.6), and has seen below normal melting so far, so it is likely to end with one of the lowest sea-ice extent losses of the entire series.
Figure 6. Change in extent (sea-ice loss) from start to end day of the melt season for the past 11 years showing no clear trend.
The average sea-ice extent change during the melt season was plotted against the length of the melt season (see figure 7). No significant relation was found as the trend depends fully on two outliers, the very low melting of 2006 and the very high melting of 2012. It is clear that melt season length is not the main determinant of sea-ice extent decrease during the melt season.
Figure 7. Change in extent (sea-ice loss) during the melt season versus the length of the melt season for the past 11 years. No significant correlation is found.
It is important to notice that the analyzed period 2006-2017 includes 7 of the 10 hottest years recorded according to NOAA/NCEI, as reported by Climate Central (see figure 8). 2017 is trending to finish in 2nd-3rd place. The warmest decade in over a century, according to this database, coincides with a decade when no Arctic sea-ice melting has taken place. This demonstrates that global average surface temperatures cannot be the driving force behind Arctic melting, and regional ocean surface temperatures are likely to be more important.
Figure 8. The period analyzed, 2006-2017, includes most of the warmest years ever recorded, and can therefore be considered the warmest decade ever registered. The lack of ice melting demonstrates that global temperatures do not drive Arctic sea-ice melting.
In conclusion, the evidence indicates that for the past 10 years:
1. There has not been any significant Arctic sea-ice melting.
2. Both the melt season start and end have been taking place earlier.
3. The melt season length has not increased.
4. Sea-ice loss during the melt season has not increased.
5. Sea-ice loss during the melt season is not determined by season length or by the average global surface temperature, as claimed by the IPCC.
There is a stark difference between the results from the past 10 years and from earlier decades. This difference suggests a shift in the Arctic ice regime as proposed by Wyatt & Curry 2014 and Miles et al. 2014. The expectation from these authors and from Årthun et al. 2017 is that for the next decade(s) no significant Arctic sea-ice melting should be expected, and a significant increase in Arctic sea-ice is possible.
Appendix.
The MASIE database was downloaded from:
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02186/masie_4km_allyears_extent_sqkm.csv
on August 8, 2017.
The Northern Hemisphere data was smoothed with a 7-day centered moving average to reduce daily variability.
Data was plotted with Excel.
Daily polar temperature graph was obtained from the Danish Meteorological Institute at:
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
Bibliography:
Årthun, M., et al. 2017. “Skillful prediction of northern climate provided by the ocean.” Nature Communications, 8, ncomms15875.
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15875
Miles, M.W., et al. 2014. “A signal of persistent Atlantic multidecadal variability in Arctic sea ice.” Geophys. Res. Lett., 41, 463–469.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013GL058084/full
Stroeve, J.C., et al. 2014. “Changes in Arctic melt season and implications for sea ice loss.” Geophysical Research Letters, 41(4), 1216-1225. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013GL058951/full
Wyatt, M.G., and J.A. Curry. 2014. “Role for Eurasian Arctic shelf sea ice in a secularly varying hemispheric climate signal during the 20th century.” Climate dynamics 42.9-10: 2763-2782. http://cdn.cnsnews.com/documents/Curry,%20Wyatt%20paper.pdf
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That’s simply BS. I guess that any scientific studies like Kinnard et al(2011) do not convince You, so I will take another approach. We Norwegians have been doing a lot of stuff in the Arctic for several hundred years and any story that the Artic sea ice was the highest in 1979 for the past century is simply laughable. It was a bit higher in the mid seventies. But the big picture is a all over decline with the usual up and downs. I guess Your story is plausible when told in Huntsville Alabama, tell the same story to an old sealhunter in Tromsø, Norway, and You will experience what a Hakapik is.
Yes – here is some excellent Norwegian research done recently, showing the ice state is not just in trouble in the summer:
https://www.nature.com/news/incredibly-thin-arctic-sea-ice-shocks-researchers-1.21163
“A daring 2015 expedition that collected rare measurements of the Arctic in winter found that sea ice near the North Pole was thinner and weaker than expected.
“This thinner and younger ice in the Arctic today works very differently than the ice we knew,” says Mats Granskog, a sea-ice researcher at the Norwegian Polar Institute in Tromsø and chief scientist on the expedition, called the Norwegian Young Sea Ice (N-ICE2015) project. “It moves much faster. It breaks up more easily. It’s way more vulnerable to storms and winds.” “
If measurements there are rare, how did they know what to expect?
Norsk Polarinstitutt has indeed collected a lot of ice data for the North Atlantic sector:
http://www.climate-cryosphere.org/resources/historical-ice-chart-archive/quicklooks
Please take a look at e. g. the ice situation in 1936-08-12, 1937-08-12, 1938-08-12 and 1939-08-12 and compare with the current situation:
http://polarview.met.no/regs/general_20170812.png
Interesting isn’t it?
Val,
We actually have satellite data from the 1960s and ’70s showing what a huge outlier 1979 was. How many Norwegians were in the Canadian Arctic then?
Scandinavian observations show that Arctic sea ice was as low in the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s as now, recovered some in the 1950s to ’70s, then peaked in 1979.
If there are to be any hakapiks to the head, the target will be yours.
Gloateus, we Norwegians with a Polar History with at least some merit, get pissed when You clueless tells us that the state of the Arctic sea ice is about the same today, as 70 – 80 years ago. This is utterly nonsense and there is a Mountain of evidence that this is utterly nonsense. If You have a mildly ice-strengthened vessel, You will tomorrow reach the Pole in a week from Svalbard. The USCGC Healy reached the Pole last year 10 days early, there was hardly no need for icebreaking, it was largely slush.
Why the hell did not Amundsen – who knew a little bit about Artic Ice – use an Icebreaker in the twenties in stead of two tries with flying boats and one with a Zeppeliner to reach the Pole? Lack of imagination? There was a lot of quit heavy icebreakers available in Norway, in the Baltic and in the Barents area every year from may to oktober in the twenties and the thirties, but nobody thought of that until 1977 when Arktika was the first surface ship to reach the Pole?
Get real.
Val,
You get real. You’re spouting nonsense. My dad and granddad were in the Canadian and Alaskan Arctic in the 1930s, and I’ve been there during every decade since the 1960s, so have seen or heard of the changes in sea ice of the past century.
There are actual ice observations from the ’20s and ’30s, plus historical records of Arctic navigation then, to show that sea ice extent was comparable to now.
Had there been an icebreaker capable of penetrating the central Arctic in 1928, Amundsen couldn’t have afforded it. He was bankrupt. The scarce and rotten sea ice of the early 1920s is why he couldn’t cross the Bering Strait on sleds, as planned.
From November 1922:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/graphics/globalwarming.jpg
“The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consulafft, at Bergen, Norway.
“Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm. Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared.
“Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.”
Even you must know that in the 1930s and ’40s the Northeast Passage along Siberia was open, which helped the USSR fight the war.
Although I’d be surprised if there were in 1928 a steam icebreaker capable of penetrating multiyear Arctic Ocean sea ice north of Greenland. Seasonal ice in the Baltic is a different kettle of herring.
So he could afford two Dornier Do J flying boats and a Zeppeliner, but not hire a ice – breaker? Are You telling me that the reason why nobody reached the Pole before 1977 was a matter of economics?
Val,
That was a big reason. The USSR did it just as a publicity stunt.
Amundsen didn’t have to pay for the aircraft involved in the attempt to rescue airship Italia. You should be ashamed of your lack of knowledge of Norwegian history.
Also however, if you know of an ocean-going icebreaker capable of reaching the North Pole in 1928, please direct me to it. Steam ice breakers designed to keep open shipping lanes into Baltic Sea ports simply wouldn’t cut it in the Arctic Ocean above 80 degrees N latitude.
Russian ship Yermak might still have been the most powerful polar ice breaker in the world in 1928, when she was 30 years old. But whatever ship did enjoy that title, it wouldn’t have been much more powerful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yermak_(1898_icebreaker)
She was capable of reaching Spitsbergen. The North Pole, not so much.
So Amundsen couldn’t reach the Pole on the surface for both economic and technical reasons, after his plan to drift there locked in pack ice failed and he went broke.
Wiki has a surprisingly good account of the international rescue effort in which Amundsen participated, losing his life. It’s not as if he was able to hire a French Navy seaplane for a private exploration expedition:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airship_Italia#Rescue_effort
Another point about Amundsen is that he learned the skills and techniques, such as dog sleds, which enabled him to reach the South Pole, from the Netsilik people of the then NWT in 1903-05. Some of their elders who knew him were still alive when my granddad and dad were there in the 1930s.
In their Ford Trimotor, they flew around Catholic priests who demanded Arctic fox pelts from the Indians of the Yukon and NWT, in payment for their having preyed for them all winter in comfort. Some of the same missionaries also tried their scam on the Eskimos, to include the Netsilik.
Canada refers to the Netsilik as “Inuit”, although I don’t know how mutually intelligible is their dialect with that of Greenland Inuit. I do know it’s almost not intelligible to the Inupiat people of northern Alaska, and not even the same language as the Yupik of western Alaskan and eastern Siberian Eskimos.
Just look at the publications. Even Willie Soon agrees that the summer ice extent now is much lower than at any time in the last century.
Gloateus, I’m sorry, but You are clueless, here is a list of icebreakers, a lot of these (pre 1940) would with ease reach the Pole to day;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_icebreakers#Steam-powered
And Amundsen did no try to reach the Pole by drifting over it, that was Nansen with Fram. Cut Your drivel, learn the Science;
Vinnikov et al. (1999)
Walsh and Chapman (2001)
Kinnard et al (2008)
Kinnard et al (2011)
And here is a fresh one;
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1931-0846.2016.12195.x/full
But I guess it won’t help, You will prefer Tony Heller drivel.
Val,
You continue to embarrass yourself with your total ignorance of the events upon which you presume to comment.
Amundsen most certainly did try to reach the Pole by drifting, in Maud.
From the Wiki entry on Amundsen:
In 1918, an expedition Amundsen began with a new ship, Maud, lasted until 1925. Maud was carefully navigated through the ice west to east through the Northeast Passage, now called the Northern Route (1918–20).
With him on this expedition were Oscar Wisting and Helmer Hanssen, both of whom had been part of the team to reach the South Pole. In addition, Henrik Lindstrøm was included as a cook. He suffered a stroke and was so physically reduced that he could not participate.
The goal of the expedition was to explore the unknown areas of the Arctic Ocean, strongly inspired by Fridtjof Nansen’s earlier expedition with Fram. The plan was to sail along the coast of Siberia and go into the ice farther to the north and east than Nansen had. In contrast to Amundsen’s earlier expeditions, this was expected to yield more material for academic research, and he carried the geophysicist Harald Sverdrup on board.
The voyage was to the northeasterly direction over the Kara Sea. Amundsen planned to freeze the Maud into the polar ice cap and drift towards the North Pole (as Nansen had done with the Fram), and he did so off Cape Chelyuskin. But, the ice became so thick that the ship was unable to break free, although it was designed for such a journey in heavy ice. In September 1919, the crew got the ship loose from the ice, but it froze again after eleven days somewhere between the New Siberian Islands and Wrangel Island.
During this time, Amundsen participated little in the work outdoors, such as sleigh rides and hunting, because he had suffered numerous injuries. He had a broken arm and had been attacked by polar bears.[13] Hanssen and Wisting, along with two other men, embarked on an expedition by dog sled to Nome, Alaska, more than 1,000 kilometres away. But they found that the ice was not frozen solid in the Bering Strait, and it could not be crossed. They sent a telegram from Anadyr to signal their location.
After two winters frozen in the ice, without having achieved the goal of drifting over the North Pole, Amundsen decided to go to Nome to repair the ship and buy provisions. Several of the crew ashore there, including Hanssen, did not return on time to the ship. Amundsen considered Hanssen to be in breach of contract, and dismissed him from the crew.
During the third winter, Maud was frozen in the western Bering Strait. She finally became free and the expedition sailed south, reaching Seattle, Washington, in the US Pacific Northwest in 1921 for repairs. Amundsen returned to Norway, needing to put his finances in order. He took with him two young indigenous girls, the adopted four-year-old Kakonita and her companion Camilla. When Amundsen went bankrupt two years later, however, he sent the girls to be cared for by Camilla’s father, who lived in eastern Russia.[14]
In June 1922, Amundsen returned to Maud, which had been sailed to Nome. He decided to shift from the planned naval expedition to aerial ones, and arranged to charter a plane. He divided the expedition team in two: one part was to survive the winter and prepare for an attempt to fly over the pole. This part was led by Amundsen. The second team on Maud, under the command of Wisting, was to resume the original plan to drift over the North Pole in the ice. The ship drifted in the ice for three years east of the New Siberian Islands, never reaching the North Pole. It was finally seized by Amundsen’s creditors as collateral for his mounting debt.
The attempt to fly over the Pole failed, too. Amundsen and Oskar Omdal, of the Royal Norwegian Navy, tried to fly from Wainwright, Alaska, to Spitsbergen across the North Pole. When their aircraft was damaged, they abandoned the journey. To raise additional funds, Amundsen traveled around the United States in 1924 on a lecture tour.
Although he was unable to reach the North Pole, the scientific results of the expedition, mainly the work of Sverdrup, have proven to be of considerable value. Many of these carefully collected scientific data were lost during the ill-fated journey of Peter Tessem and Paul Knutsen, two crew members sent on a mission by Amundsen. The scientific materials were later retrieved by Russian scientist Nikolay Urvantsev from where they had been abandoned on the shores of the Kara Sea.[15]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maud_(ship)
The 1925 Dornier flying boats were paid for by American explorer Lincoln Ellsworth and his backers.
You still haven’t provided an instance of an icebreaker in which Amundsen could have reached the pole in the 1920s. Nor do you recognize the fact that he could not have afforded one had one been available. The Maud expedition broke him, and it was all he could afford.
You also still apparently labor under the misconception that Amundsen died in an attempt to reach the Pole in 1928. Nothing could be farther from the truth, as I’ve repeatedly showed you. He was a small part of the international expedition to search for and rescue the crew of airship Italia. He died in a French Navy seaplane participating in the attempt.
Barrow, AK is 12 degrees F cooler today than yesterday. It’s going to freeze there tonight.
It’s snowing in Amundsen Land, Greenland. The Canadian Arctic coast remains warm, but the NW Passage is still blocked by shorefast and drift ice.
It’ll be funny if Chris Mooney has to wait weeks up there for an opening.
Longyearbyen has cooled off even more, ie 23 degrees! Low tonight will be 42 F and in the 30s next week.
If You insist doing weather forecasts at a climate blogg, at least do it properly, here is Longyear;
https://www.yr.no/sted/Norge/Svalbard/Svalbard_lufthavn_målestasjon/langtidsvarsel.html
For Your information, Longyear has had more than 80 consecutive months above the normal, You have no good case there.
That’s only to be expected if the reference period be 1951-80, when the Arctic was so cold.
But the recent warm cycle has been good for reindeer there.
Gloateus August 12, 2017 at 1:52 pm
That’s only to be expected if the reference period be 1951-80, when the Arctic was so cold.
Well it’s 1961-90 so yet another error by you.
Phil,
I said “if”.
I suspected that was the interval, but of course the books have all been cooked to a crisp, so it’s meaningless.
Just what errors do you imagine I’ve made?
Are you sure about the base period?
This says the base for global T is 1951-80:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/08/16/climate-science-double-speak/
Greenland smashes all-time cold temperature in July 2017
Citing the Danish Meteorological Institute, the -33°C reading earlier this month was “the coldest July temperature ever recorded in the northern hemisphere“
https://bazonline.ch/wissen/natur/ab-nach-groenland/story/28363255
Greenland cooling since 2005
http://notrickszone.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Greenland-cooling.png
North Atlantic Ocean cooling since 2005. Has cooled by 0.45 C
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v9/n7/abs/ngeo2727.html
Arctic Ocean to follow soon…
Interesting link, abstract and figures. Unfortunately paywalled.
Some of the comments opposing Javier’s conclusions fit well the ‘denial-acceptance’ range. ‘Denial and isolation’ is the first of five in that range. It implies that his opponents consider him to be right.
The observations over the last 10 years of unchanged arctic sea ice extent and the trend to an earlier end of the melt season make a strong case for his modest conclusions.
teerhuis August 13, 2017 at 12:31 pm
The observations over the last 10 years of unchanged arctic sea ice extent and the trend to an earlier end of the melt season make a strong case for his modest conclusions.
The observations over the last 10 years include the ten lowest extents in the record and show a very fluctuating record. This year will probably pass the 10th lowest minimum extent (2005) in a couple of days with a month to go. The ‘trend’ to a earlier end of the melt season reflects this variability:
“According to the trend and methodology, the 2017 melt season is projected to end on day 255 (September 12) ± 1 week.”
So somewhere between 249 and 262, so a melt season length between 186 days (shortest by 1 day) and 199 (2nd longest by 2 days)! I wouldn’t say that makes ‘a strong case’.
Changes in recent arctic sea ice (i can’t say for past instances) appears to be from changes in the winter season. Indeed, it seems the summer temperature is trending a little lower. CO2 has no place in sea ice extent discussions if we think about the greenhouse effect, as the greenhouse effect doesn’t pick and choose the time of year.
If you look back at reanalysis of arctic winter temperatures going back to 1958, you can see that it wasn’t uncommon for there to be well above average temperatures in winter, but that their duration was much smaller, before returns to average or below average conditions. To me that says those warm instances previously were weather pattern related. So, rather than looking at a direct CO2 causation, people need to be looking at weather pattern changes in winter over the past 60 years or so (i’m no specialist and also don’t have time) and then go looking for what caused those changes.
I can see scenarios where summer sea ice extent could all but disappear. It would need a spring and summer of 2012 (not temperature driven, so therefore not CO2 driven) and a winter/spring of 2016/2017(weather system driven). After a few years of that, it would be just about gone.
Alas, as we saw in this melt season, starting at a record low starting point, the weather isn’t always going to play ball. Just like for 2012 the starting extent was respectable, all the damage was then done in the late spring and summer. Still, if you keep starting out at 2016/2017 levels, at some point the right numbers will come up.