Guest “I doubt it” by David Middleton
September 16th, 2020
Sea ice triggered the Little Ice Age, finds a new study
Takeaways>Sea ice can act as an agent of climate change on a variety of timescales and spatial scales—it’s not just a passive responder to change.
>The Little Ice Age may have arisen “out of the blue,” from internal variability within the climate system, rather than in response to an external push from volcanic eruptions or other factors.
>A far-flung pulse of sea ice may have contributed to the demise of the Norse colonies in Greenland in the 14th and 15th centuries.
A new study finds a trigger for the Little Ice Age that cooled Europe from the 1300s through mid-1800s, and supports surprising model results suggesting that under the right conditions sudden climate changes can occur spontaneously, without external forcing.
The study, published in Science Advances, reports a comprehensive reconstruction of sea ice transported from the Arctic Ocean through the Fram Strait, by Greenland, and into the North Atlantic Ocean over the last 1400 years. The reconstruction suggests that the Little Ice Age—which was not a true ice age but a regional cooling centered on Europe—was triggered by an exceptionally large outflow of sea ice from the Arctic Ocean into the North Atlantic in the 1300s.
While previous experiments using numerical climate models showed that increased sea ice was necessary to explain long-lasting climate anomalies like the Little Ice Age, physical evidence was missing. This study digs into the geological record for confirmation of model results.
Researchers pulled together records from marine sediment cores drilled from the ocean floor from the Arctic Ocean to the North Atlantic to get a detailed look at sea ice throughout the region over the last 1400 years.
[…]
CU Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research
The full text of the paper is available… And it’s very well done.
Evidence for extreme export of Arctic sea ice leading the abrupt onset of the Little Ice Age
There’s no doubt that the Maximum Holocene Arctic sea ice extent was coincident with the coldest part of the Holocene – The Little Ice Age.
Stein et al. 2017, constructed a cross-section of PIP25 curves across the Arctic from the Fram Strait to the Chukchi Sea.
All four core locations currently reflect seasonal ice cover/ice edge situations (PIP25 index 0.5-0.7), with the Fram Strait being an ice edge situation and the other three reflecting seasonal ice cover.
Two key takeaways:
- Maximum Holocene sea ice extent occurred within the past 500-1,000 years at every location.
- The current sea ice extent is higher at all of the locations than over 50% to 85% of the Holocene.
It’s very clear that the maximum Holocene Arctic sea ice extent occurred during the Little Ice Age. And this would have been accompanied by an increase in export of Arctic sea ice… However, it seems unlikely that the expansion of Arctic sea ice caused the Little Ice Age. It seems more likely that whatever caused the Little Ice Age also caused the sea ice expansion and “extreme export of Arctic sea ice.”
The paper basically concludes that sudden, extreme climate change can result from natural internal variability, without external forcing.
Reference
Martin W. Miles, Camilla S. Andresen, Christian V. Dylmer. Evidence for extreme export of Arctic sea ice leading the abrupt onset of the Little Ice Age. Science Advances, 2020; 6 (38): eaba4320 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aba4320
In other news, the ice in my freezer caused the meat and vegetables to freeze.
In other news, when you moved ice from your freezer to the cooler full of beer, your beer got cooler.
In this example, Europe is the cooler full of beer.
I always found the temperature of beer in Europe to be on the high side.
I have always found Europe to be a bit unbeerable myself.
Groan.
Surely you mean English Ale (which I happen to like), nothing to do with Octoberfest Beer, nicely cooled.
Oh, wait, global warming CO2 caused the Pandemic, so they cancelled the Octoberfest.
No kidding!
Exactly. Belgian trappist beer always comes out on top.
Until the next morning then my head hurts a lot !!!!!
Well yes, but only for so long. You’d have to fill the cooler full of ice and then there’d be no room for the beer, and it would take a fluke of coincidences to cause the cooler to get jam packed just so.
In more other news, my ice cream in the freezer is dropping in volume because someone has been getting in there and munching it up. Probably the cat. She likes vanilla.
The probem was solved in “fancy Nancy’s house “,$25,000 ice cream freezer full of $20. A pint ice cream
And the freezer to get cold
let me see what happend
At least climate change science is “settled,” as the alarmists keep telling me.
“The reconstruction suggests that the Little Ice Age—which was not a true ice age but a regional cooling centered on Europe”
This is patently wrong, as it is clear that the Medieval Warm Period was global and there is not reasonable reason for the Little Ice Age to be local. AND, we had the Little Ice Age in North America as well, with the 1815 year without a summer sparking people who were sick of the cold New England weather heading West to settle the West. Pretending it was local goes against physics and logic.
Just because you can say something does not make it true.
Ah but you see ‘regional’ means that it is not global, unless off course when it is regional warming, then that is a sure sign of global warming.
Science is settled don’t you know.
I’m also curious how something coming from the north can be centered around something?
You know that any study that claims that the MWP was regional is either dishonest or done by ignoramuses. Refer to the following link. Red is a study that found warm conditions, blue found cool conditions. The other colors are for wet or dry. Notice how studies that found warm conditions overwhelming outnumber the studies that found cool conditions across the entire globe.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1akI_yGSUlO_qEvrmrIYv9kHknq4&ll=-3.81666561775622e-14%2C38.03818700000005&z=1
” is either dishonest or done by ignoramuses. ”
They’re not mutually exclusive. Take Michael Mann, for example.
I think this is very plausible. Several studies have shown that as sea ice increases the Arctic Ocean warms while the air temperature cools. Dansgaard-Oechger events show that ocean heat that has accumulated in the Arctic is suddenly vented causing temperatures to rise as much 16C in 80 years during the cold Ice Age and that temperature change has global implications. The contribution of the AMOC and its transport of warm Atlantic water into the Arctic needs to be better understood to understand how it it affects heat transport and thus sea ice formation. The current reduction in sea ice has ventilated the Arctic Ocean heat and is the major reason for current warmer temperatures and warmth in the 1930s. Observations suggest the AMOC is now slowing which suggests sea ice will return (when?) , causing heat ventilation to be reduced and lower global average temperatue
Jim… Sea ice expansion requires cooling.
Progressives, including grant seeking “scientists” struggle with cause and effect on most issues IMHO.
Progress is advancement, improvement, betterment
People advocating “sub-science” are not progressives they are regressive retards hell bent on returning advanced countries to the ‘middle ages’ where disease and pestilence would decimate the population to the numbers they so enthusiastically and passionately aspire to.
David,
Poleward of about 35 degrees the earth radiates more heat back to space than it receives from the sun and any greenhouse effect. It is the transport of heat from the tropics towards the poles that reduces the equator-pole temperature gradient. If you reduce that heat transport then the polar regions cool
(I wrote this and more explanation but for some reason it did not get posted in reply to you, but at the bott0m of the thread.)
Jim,
That’s all correct… But you need cooling to cause the sea ice expansion in the first place. It’s a positive feedback.
So yes, cart also pulls horse, that’s how feedbacks work. To your statement: “…it seems unlikely that the expansion of Arctic sea ice caused the Little Ice Age.” A feedback is quite possible, triggered by Samalas? retriggered by Ilopango? who knows. The Arctic is now flipping rapidly back into a warm feedback.
Here’s one for the “ice is increasing” brigade. Humans are about to get a lesson in feed backs.
https://youtu.be/kz6WxTH-p3o?t=547
That’s exactly not how feedbacks work. At no point does the feedback drive the process.
Uh huh, cart pulls horse *and* horse pulls cart. Increasing albedo decreases sea-ice loss and decreasing sea-ice loss increases albedo, a feedback triggered by a tipping point that then drives itself.
100% wrong.
A feedback can amplify or mute a process. It can’t drive a process.
Jim, do you ever drink iced tea? Just askin’ for a friend. The air in the glass doesn’t cool off. The tea does.
Both cool.
Sara, Just askin for a friend.
Do you understand the dynamics of the Arctic Ocean? Heat always flows from warmer temperatures to cooler. The Arctic ocean stores heat at higher temperatures than air above. Likewise warm tea will warm the air above it. Why do you totally misapply your tea analogy?
You didn’t mention how an increase in sea ice would increase the albedo of the Earth. Reflecting more sunlight back into space.
Not in winter when there’s nothing to reflect surely? At low angles of incidence is there a lot of difference between water and ice in terms of reflected energy?
“Observations suggest the AMOC is now slowing which suggests sea ice will return (when?) , causing heat ventilation to be reduced and lower global average temperature”
It depends on the strength and volume of the North Icelandic Jet current (deep-reaching current that flows along the continental slope of Iceland) the key component of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation- AMOC.
Couple of years ago it was reported that the NIJ current is getting stronger.
May 2010 startet the acceleration.
https://climexp.knmi.nl/data/imoc_mar_hc10_mon.dat
NIJ current was discovered in 2004, it is a bit odd, according to very detailed Pickart et al, NIJ paper from 2017, I downloaded soon after publishing, its temperature is around -0.3C and salinity 33, i.e. it is very cold high density current flowing at the very bottom of the Denmark Strait.
Jim, I agree that sea-ice cover is a very important feedback factor. It is a great insulator between the ocean and the atmosphere, and it is one of the main factors limiting how cold it gets during glaciations. Without sea-ice cover, the ocean would loose a lot more heat.
However the fundamental factor deciding the temperature of the planet is the amount of energy transported to the poles by the ocean and the atmosphere. When the amount of energy transported to the dark pole gets too large, the atmosphere cools, the ocean cools and sea-ice cover expands towards mid-latitudes.
When the planet is not in an ice age and there are no permanent ice sheets over the poles, the dark pole is warmer and there is a cloud cover preventing the loss of heat by IR radiation. As it is now, there are no clouds over the dark pole so every calorie transported to the dark pole is lost to space. Sea-ice limits the loss from the ocean, without it the planet cools more efficiently.
“Several studies have shown that as sea ice increases the Arctic Ocean warms while the air temperature cools.”
Does this mean more energy is lost to space from open water than from ice? Is sea ice therefore a positive feedback?
Does this mean more energy is lost to space from open water than from ice? Is sea ice therefore a positive feedback?
Yes.
Should we consider sea ice a forcing?
The key admission in the paper “>The Little Ice Age may have arisen “out of the blue,” from internal variability within the climate system, rather than in response to an external push from volcanic eruptions or other factors.”
This is a huge admission from authors who have an obviously “story line” view of climate change. The climate has been known to be chaotic since Edward Lorenz discovered that evaluating the partial differential equations used to make weather models was highly sensitive to small changes(<.0001) in initial conditions.
Hopefully this public admission will push other climate scientists to admit they've been doing the modelling wrong and they must start making allowances for the chaos that prevents long range predictions of climate. They will also have to admit that no global model is within reach of any computer in the foreseeable future.
Go get them, David. These idiots should be pummeled (intellectually) about the head and shoulders. Here’s the money quote: “…sudden climate changes can occur spontaneously, without external forcing.” So, never mind about a trace gas in our atmosphere, partly due to human activity, that plants need to survive.
yeah I noted that bit made a mockery of the entire warmist schtick
Science Advances???
nah
think they meant Science regressed
“…sudden climate changes can occur spontaneously, without external forcing.”
Magic?
Stochastic processes.
This is simply part of the effort to explain how the LIA was just local to Europe as a way to eliminate it as a global function and there try to prove the hockey stick.
The LIA must be eliminated to validate the climate emergency
Yep. This story ‘Little Ice Age Big Consequences’, gives a short list of bad things that happened due to the Little Ice Age (LIA).
In China.
Even in North America.
Just as the alarmists try to insist that the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was just European, they are trying the same stunt with the Little Ice Age. Fortunately we have the CO2 Science website which provides evidence that, not only was the MWP global, but the LIA was too. link
Make Europe great aigain… 😀
Yes, but i forgot to add some ?? marks.
Is this study an exploration of the cause of the LIA, or is it an exercise in decision based evidence making where they first decide the need to eliminate the LIA as a global phenomenon, then look for something “Sciency” in order to create the conditions?
“On the other side of the Atlantic, the year without a summer convinced many New England residents to relocate. Horrified by escalating grain prices and June snowfalls, they settled in the Midwestern United States, providing a boost to the expansion movement that had begun two decades earlier.”
200 years later than the Chinese situation. So was it a synchronous event or not?
Depending on who’s counting, the Little Ice Age extended from around 1300 to 1850. It’s not like the whole globe had the same temperature at the same time though. example
A modern example of the variability of climate change would be the dirty thirties. Crops on the Great Plains mostly failed but there were a couple of good years. In China there were a couple of the biggest floods in recorded history. link
Good comment commieBob!
Sea ice, especially Antarctic, contributes to albedo. During glaciations, the North Atlantic is covered by ice in winter, at latitudes where the sun still shines.
The Little Ice Age was global, not regional. It was not caused by volcanic eruptions, but by a succession of solar minima, of which the Maunder was longest and deepest, and attendant changes in oceanic oscillations. Same as the previous cool periods of the Holocene and prior interglacials.
Meltwater pulses cause even more severe coolings during ice sheet terminations, like the Younger Dryas and 8.2 Ka event. Same as Heinrich Event iceberg armadas during glaciations.
Since the Holocene Climatic Optimum, Earth has suffered five cold snaps: 1) between the HCO and Egyptian Warm Period, 2) between the EWP and Minoan WP, 3) between the Minoan and Roman WPs, 4) the Dark Ages CP between the Roman and Medieval WP, and 4) the LIA.
Sea ice is a positive feedback in the climate system.
Actually the Spörer Minimum was the longest and deepest according to Δ¹⁴C.
See for example:
Usoskin, I. G., et al. “Solar activity during the Holocene: the Hallstatt cycle and its consequence for grand minima and maxima.” Astronomy & Astrophysics 587 (2016): A150.
Then we have this:
The coldest decade of the millennium? How the cold 1430s led to famine and disease
The 1430s is considered the coldest decade of the past 1000 years.
Thanks!
Which just makes it even clearer that the LIA began in the 15th century, during Joan of Arc’s short lifetime.
I don’t think albedo really has much of an impact. We’ve seen winters in recent decades where almost the entire Northern Hemisphere was covered in snow and ice (apart from open ocean). There was no sudden, dramatic drop in temps, and cold conditions did not deepen or persist beyond a few days.
More likely that lack of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean allowed polar easterlies to deposit snow when ice on lands bordering the arctic ocean. Thus it was the refreezing of the arctic ocean that’s finally ended the Little Ice Age.
Explore the history of Ewing & Donn!!!
Replace “…when…” with “&” please!
The Little Ice Age was most likely caused by the Svensmark Effect from 4 Grand Solar Minimums (Wolf GSM: 1280~1350, Sporer GSM: 1450~1550, Maunder GSM: 1645~1715, and Maunder GSM: 1780~1820).
The timing of these GSMs fits perfectly with the start and finish of the LIA, and although a number of large volcanic eruptions between 1280~1820 certainly contributed to some short-term cooling, empirical evidence show once volcanic particulate matter precipitates out of the lower and upper atmosphere in 2~3 years, their cooling effects are short lived.
Arctic and Antarctic ice extents are effects of global cooling, not the cause—-i.e. ye ol’ post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy Leftists love so much…
BTW, it’s very interesting to note the Antarctic Ice Extent hit its 40-year low in 2017, however, the 2020 Antarctic Ice Extent snapped backed and will be in the top 10 largest in 40 years.
All oceans in the Southern Hemisphere are currently cooling, which is certainly linked the strong La Niña cycle that just started, however, I also think it could also mean the Pacific and Atlantic getting ready to enter their respective 30-year cool cycles.
Good analysis! More need to familiarize themselves with Svensmark!
Svensmark’s theory had nothing to do with it Samurai. His theory is dead Jim. Cosmic rays were high a few months ago while it’s been less cloudy and the temperature stayed high. There were no cosmic ray clouds nor cooling according to Svensmark’s theory so it is history, toast, caput, fini, done.
The climate cooled during the Little Ice Age from long duration low TSI, just as the southern ocean is starting to do now.
Bob-san: NASA’s CLOUD Experiment showed conclusively that Svensmark’s hypothesis that Galactic Cosmic Rays do, in fact, nucleate inorganic compounds in the lower troposphere, which should increase cloud seeds/cloud formation which should increase earth’s albedo leading to cooling global temps, so no, the Svensmark Effect isn’t “dead, Jim.”
There are literally thousands of variables and positive/negative feedback systems that control our complex climate, however, it’s very likely sun cycles, especially Grand Solar Maximums and Minimums, play an integral role.
“Truth is the daughter of time.”
We’ll see soon enough..
I believe that’s wishful thinking. There is plenty of data right now to know for sure Svensmark’s cosmic ray theory is wrong.
This year was an incredibly hot year because there were fewer clouds. There’ve been mostly fewer clouds all the way through the minimum.
The clouds in Svensmark’s Fig 10 inset in the last image are responding to ENSO activity and accumulate while MEI is positive and rising, and they fall during negative going and negative MEI. The cosmic rays ‘look’ like they are in control when in fact it is higher TSI generating more clouds from the time upon reaching solar maximum levels all the way to after the first cycle Nino, when cloud generation usually collapses.
This time the extended low solar activity has driven the tropics to a more cloudless state earlier, that I think will worsen over the next few years, meaning increasing drought and fire risk in the US and elsewhere until the next El Nino kicks up.
I worked on insolation data this summer and found out most of the US was nearly five standard deviations higher than the 2002-2019 average, ie more sunlight from fewer clouds and higher insolation warming over land that lead to high UV index, heat index, and widespread sun sickness mistaken for a pathogen.
“plenty of data right now to know for sure Svensmark’s cosmic ray theory is wrong.” — Well, that is true if this were a simple logic syllogism where the given is that climate change is driven by either GCR’s or TSI, but these factors are not mutually exclusive, and other variables might be involved as well. BTW, I doubt that this summer has been “incredibly hot.” Where I live, this summer definitely felt like it had fewer hot days than usual. I would be especially wary of relying on any data provided by NOAA or NASA in the US, or the UK’s Met, or from Germany’s official body that usually provides such data. They all lie. Spencer’s site shows temps running above the 1981 to 2010 thirty year average, but not by some anomalous amount.
Back to Spencer’s site https://www.drroyspencer.com/2020/09/uah-global-temperature-update-for-august-2020-0-43-deg-c/#comments
“Richard M” argues in the comments section for another temporary factor affecting 2020 temps, and I will quote him verbatim with some light editing:
high UAH anomalies have been due to warm SSTs, most often related to El Nino conditions….
The lag between ENSO (both El Nino and La Nina) and UAH anomalies has been known for years….It has always been there. It doesn’t mean other factors cannot also affect the anomalies.
For the last couple of El Nino events the normal drop in SSTs has been more extended than in previous years. After the El Nino in 2016 ended, there was a small initial drop but then the temperatures held on until they finally dropped in late 2017.
https://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst3gl/from:2014/to:2018
It now appears like the same thing will happen after the end of the latest El Nino in May 2020. SSTs are once again staying higher.
https://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst3gl/from:2018/to
This means the UAH anomaly will also remain a little higher. But, just like the previous El Nino, the anomalies will eventually drop. And, if the current La Nina conditions persist they will drop faster.
The bottom line is the oceans drive the global temperatures.
https://woodfortrees.org/plot/uah6/from:1979/to/plot/uah6/from:1979/to/trend/plot/hadsst3gl/from:1979/to/offset:-0.2/plot/hadsst3gl/from:1979/to/offset:-0.2/trend
Robert Wilson invented the Cloud Chamber, in order to study clouds, he’d been stationed on Ben Nevis’ weather station early in his career. Rather than making discoveries about clouds he detected cosmic radiation.
Svensmarks theory just builds on that.
If cosmic rays were the only thing that influenced cloud formation, and the temperature of the earth, then your point would be valid.
For example, in the modern world, there are lots of sources for nucleating particles. A lot more than there were during the middle ages. In areas were pollution and dust from farming etc. provide all the nucleating particles needed, then the presence or absence of cosmic rays would make no difference.
Exactly, but galactic cosmic rays are subatomic particles, even if really fast, and just could not affect a billion tons of ice, now could they?
/sarc off….
The Little Ice Age also coincides with the time when radiation from the nova that formed the Crab Nebula would have started arriving at the earth.
The Crab Nebula is ~6,500 light years away and imploded in 1054 AD. The maths don’t work for that, and it is a fair distance away. Maybe in the future…or perhaps some other cosmic event coincided and contributed to the LIA. We don’t pay enough attention to galactic forces, or even our own star, IMHO.
Seems to be 300-350 years out of synch with when the radiation would have arrived to have had an influence such as cosmic cloud seeding to contribute to excess cloud cover that would increase albedo and cause cooling. (Sevesmark Hypothesis)
If cosmic rays travel about 90% of the speed of light, they would arrive 650 years after the light rays arrived, which would have them reaching the earth right around 1700.
If they travel at 95% of the speed of light, then they would start arriving around 1400.
Yes, cosmic rays are matter and can’t travel the speed of light, so they would be delayed getting here even though we can see them first. In fact, I see there are several different kinds of CR’s that also travel at different speeds, anywhere from half the speed of light to 99.9% the speed of light. Gonna take a heck of a super computer to figure all that out, assuming we even know what to program for the inputs. Lots of things going on at once, from every which direction and distance. Which makes the IPCC statement that climate systems are a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible the only thing they got right.
Dalton, rather than the second Maunder.
Warming cycles in between the solar minima were pronounced, no more than after the Maunder. The early 18th century warming was stronger than the late 20th century, though within the Modern Warm Period, rather than the LIA Cool Period.
Not sure I agree with your police work, Martin and Camilla.
My regret on this article is I have no popcorn.
So what he’s saying is chickens came before eggs… (since the mutations to new types of animals occur in the eggs this is impossible, thought I should add that)
Chicken & egg is definitely a more appropriate analogy than cart before horse.
“….The paper basically concludes that sudden, extreme climate change can result from natural internal variability, without external forcing……”
Er, NO!
if it did it would not be printed. What it concludes is that extreme climate change can result from natural internal variability IF IT INVOLVES GETTING COLDER. Getting hotter is ALWAYS man-made*.
* Man-made here refers to naughty capitalist patriachical men. Anyone of any other description is magically free from Global Warming Guilt**.
** Though if you are white you are not free from other forms of guilt…..
Where’s griff? Little Ice Age wasn’t “good” (actually disastrous in many respects) for Europe or anywhere else for that matter. Yet the gripper wants more ice, not less — colder, not warmer. One almost has to assume he/she & all the warmunists are just plain misanthropes.
One thing they are right about, is that when things start to go cold, it can go cold very quickly unlike warming which is a slower process…..
I think you have the the wrong way around. Interglacials start abruptly and end slowly.
This (and all those other “plausible possibilities” articles) aren’t about climate change at all.
When you really read those articles, weed them down to the real subject matter, the item that consistently comes up is that change is something, some horrifying uncontrollable thing, which scares the living hayseeds out of the people who write about it because they can’t really control it, and they know it. And it scares them to pieces. They could all probably use a good therapist.
But most of us will outlive them because we know it’s just what the planet does and we don’t worry about it or make a “thing” out of it. Sometimes, we do have to get out of Ma Nature’s way and let her dance and prance, but most of the time, we get to have some fun, too.
You all have a nice weekend and watch for sky dragons. They usually look like clouds, but once in a while, one of them makes a mistake and shows up for real.
Poleward of about 35 degrees the earth radiates more heat back to space than it receives from the sun and any greenhouse effect. It is the transport of heat from the tropics towards the poles that reduces the equator-pole temperature gradient. If you reduce that heat transport the the polar regions cool and vice versa.
There are 3 primary regions in the northern hemisphere where warm tropical waters ventilate their heat. Along the Asian and USA east coast due to cold winds from the continent and around the Barents Sea. If you look at satellite images of maximum Arctic sea ice, you will observe the lack of sea ice is mostly observed in the Barnet Sea region. Via the Gulf Stream, warm Atlantic waters enter the Arctic bringing enough heat to melt ALL the sea ice several times over. But because Atlantic waters are saltier, they are denser and sink below the surface. In addition to sea ice, the cool fresh polar water sits on top of the intruding warm Atlantic water and to varying degrees insulates the Arctic from ventilating heat. There is a balance between how much heat is transported into the Arctic via the Gulf Stream, how much sea ice is formed or retained after winter freezing, how much imported heat accumulates in the 100 to 900 meter layer of Atlantic water and how well that layer is insulated from the surface.
Importing more heat results in less sea ice with a positive feedback that less ice allows more heat ventilation. Again look at the Dansgaard Oschger warm events. Higher temperatures resulted from the ventilation of heat stored beneath the ice. How much of the melting sea ice that ventilated that heat is a matter of how much heat accumulated beneath the ice and how much more heat was transported into the Arctic.
I suggest whoever pushed the tea drinking analysis spend more time studying the dynamics and physics of the Arctic ocean
typo “Barnet Sea” should read “Barents Sea”
Yes, but what about this year’s minimum just reached? Second lowest arctic sea ice….
Yes, but what about all those predictions that there would not be any arctic sea-ice left by now? It has been 13 years since they started and there hasn’t been a significant decrease in September Arctic sea-ice extent.
Arctic summers ice-free ‘by 2013’
I thought it was supposed to be going down, not up ??
Still higher that 2012, despite much more CO2 in the atmosphere.
Regardless, according to the models, sea ice should have been gone in summer by now.
Hey give it to Griff every year for god knows how long he predicts that this is it! He was finally at least partly right. Sea ice was low this year. He may be an asshat but give him his moment he has so few.
Griff take the bet you were close this year!
From Javier’s Baghdad Bob Corporation link:
“And later, to the BBC, Dr Serreze added: “I think Wieslaw is probably a little aggressive in his projections, simply because the luck of the draw means natural variability can kick in to give you a few years in which the ice loss is a little less than you’ve had in previous years.”
Translation: Waah, waah waah, we love Arctic sea ice so much that it’s bad luck when we don’t get less of it. …. Where’s the spaz icon when you need it?
Gotta hand it to him though, Serreze did make a valiant attempt to get it below 2012 levels and give fellow Arctic sea ice lovers like Griff a stiffie. Rumor has it that Trofim Karl came out of retirement to consult on using ship’s bucket technology to adjust the data to fit.
and now ?
Where is the problem ?
Is growing since Sept. 13th
Yet again, just weather. July storms piled up and separated the floes. Winter maximum was high, despite big 2019-20 El Nino.
Next year will probably be on the high side, as were 2008 and especially 2009 after the 2007 low, and 2013 and 2014 after the record low in 2012. More ocean heat lost to space.
There is no downtrend since 2007. Rather, three high years (2009, 2013, 2014), four medium high years (2008, 2010, 2017, 2018), two medium years (2011, 2015), three medium low years (2007, 2016, 2019) and two low years (2012, 2020).
Meanwhile, Antarctic sea ice was still growing yesterday, and is higher than any maximum since 2013. Its extent has recovered from the two freak weather events in 2016 that dropped its extent after Super El Nino.
If CO2 controls sea ice, why does it make Antarctic ice grow, with its big satellite era maximum in 2014, while shrinking Arctic ice to its 2012 low?
Sea ice levels were lower during the 1930s much lower during the Medieval Warm Period, and much, much lower during the Holocene Optimum.
“Yes, but what about this year’s minimum just reached? Second lowest arctic sea ice….”
Or you could say, this is the eighth year in a row that the Arctic melt season minimum has not fallen below the 2012 low. I know that’s disappointing for you, maybe next year.
2020 3.7
2019 4.1
2018 4.5
2017 4.6
2016 4.1
2015 4.4
2014 5.0
2013 5.1
2012 3.4
……and just before we try communism again to save the planet, let’s look at the maximum extent in the month of March, because the ice actually comes back in winter, I know it’s bonkers isn’t it……
2020 15
2019 14.7
2018 14.4
2017 14.4
2016 14.5
2015 14.5
2014 14.8
2013 15.1
2012 15.2
Griff, how long is your record?
“Second lowest arctic sea ice….”
Over a piddlingly short period of time, which started at the highest extent since the LIA.
Over the longer time period the sea ice extent is in the top 5-10% of the last 10,000 years.
You must know that by now, so you are obviously regurgitating a DELIBERATE LIE.
Or you are in a completely mindless state of Climate Change DENIAL.
It is tempting to believe that the LIA and The Maunder minimum were in some form of causal relationship, although nobody has so far offered and authoritative explanation of how. Plus the LIA started 50 year before the Maunder minimum, whereas the Daunton minimum is associated with a cooling that started sometime after the minimum was underway. Any explanation has to cover that difference in my view.
My personal view is that there almost certainly is a causal relationship, but the mechanism is abstruse and intermittent. Quantities of sea ice might well be in here, but not in the way this paper puts forward. I say this as someone whose opinions in these matters are worth SFA.
The LIA began in AD 1400, if not earlier.
Besides the Maunder and Dalton Minima, it includes at least the Spörer Minimum (1460-1550) and arguably the preceding Wolf.
Precisely the paper discussed above says:
“all of the high-resolution records show a change that commenced abruptly in the late 1200s or around 1300 CE …
One explanation is that it was caused by an increase in the frequency and/or magnitude of explosive volcanism beginning in the 1250s CE and a decrease in solar irradiance (e.g., Wolf minimum 1280–1350 CE)”
Actually the timing favors the solar explanation, but they are not about to say that. The biggest volcanic eruption by far was the Samalas in 1257 (the biggest in 2000 years, –35 W/m2; Sigl et al., 2015) which is about 40 years too early to trigger what they see. There are two other ones between 1270 and 1290 but much smaller (~ –10 W/m2). Volcanic effects are not going to wait 40 years to manifest, and if the much bigger one didn’t do it, why would the 2 smaller ones?
Solar activity has a recognized lag of ~ 20-40 years (Eastoe et al., 2019; Kobashi et al., 2015). The timing is correct for the Wolf Minimum that started about 20 years before the effects they see.
The really funny thing is how the authors say there are two possible causes but they go about discarding both without reason saying that models admit that it just happened for no good reason. Atta models!
Interesting. We must take tips from our alarmist friends here. It is quite possible that loss of insolation causes increasing ice spreading south, until we get to a tipping point (I am proud of myself here) and that causes widespread cooling. Further, having presented an argument for how things might have happened, that’s it, bingo I’ve done it, certainty.
Solved! Glacier melting is causing modern warming
The Little Ice Age is a terrible scientific name for the cool period during the 14th – 19th centuries. It got named by a news reporter after interviewing François Matthes in the late 1930s, and Matthes introduced it in his papers foolishly. It has nothing to do with the current ice age or with a glaciation. It is just a cooler period within an interglacial. I guess if you are stuck in Iceland or Greenland it is a problem, but for the rest it wasn’t such a problem. It was a time of great advancement for Europeans, that went out and explored the World, conquering a great deal of it.
The LIA was more intense in the North Atlantic region because it is a hotspot for climate variability. This is due to the Atlantic being the only ocean where there is heat transport across the equator, and the main ocean that communicates with the Arctic, linking both poles. Everything is more intense in the North Atlantic, warming and cooling. That’s why very cold Heinrich events take place there and why very warm Dansgaard-Oeschger events take place there. It is due to the current distribution of continents, and the closure of the Panama waterway. So both those that say the LIA was mainly a European thing, and those that say it was a global thing are correct. It was a global phenomenon, but more intense in the North Atlantic region.
Agree, although ice did grow a lot during the so-called LIA.
Much of the advancement to which you refer was in response to the colder climate.
Currents cross the Equator in the Pacific and Indian Ocean, too, including the warm Agulhas Current along the East African coast. The Equatorial Counter Currents in both oceans are more or less neutral in temperature, but warm El Niño waters spread north along the coasts of NW South America, Central America and Mexico, until encountering the cool California Current.
The Atlantic constitutes an important anomaly. It is the only major ocean that has northbound heat transport across the equator. In the figure positive values are northbound and negative values southbound.
If you want a reference for that:
Trenberth, K. E., & Caron, J. M. (2001). Estimates of meridional atmosphere and ocean heat transports. Journal of Climate, 14(16), 3433-3443.
That is what makes the North Atlantic a hotspot for climate variability. Everything is bigger and better in Eastern US and Western Europe, including the LIA. The North Atlantic region is particularly sensitive to low solar activity, when the heat gets suck by the Arctic. Jim Steele has been saying why. Oceanic heat gets sequestered under the sea-ice and the polar front moves South due to a disorganized Polar Vortex. Then the Thames freezes and you get an ice fair. Since we have Brueghel’s paintings the LIA can’t be denied in Europe. In China they were too busy painting characters to paint the LIA.
The worst is some call it a Mini Ice Age, so “Little” = “Mini”.
And we still got Tiny Ice Age (TIA) for next winter.
We’ve got La Niña and low solar activity. However it is hard to tell because the QBO is acting strange again. It just turned from easterly to westerly at midway again.
https://psl.noaa.gov/data/correlation/qbo.data
The 2016 disruption got a lot of reports and was mainly blamed to the strong Niño. That won’t explain this one.
It is hard to make predictions with this climate weirding. Something is going on in the stratosphere.
I don’t think the millions that died of cold and starvation in e. g. Finland, Sweden and France in the icy 1690’s considered it such a good time, nor the people that had to abandon farms that were no longer viable, or were even swept away by glaciers in Scotland, Scandinavia and the Alps.
And the Little Ice Age came very close to becoming a big Ice Age:
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f962/3d98fe21b9f7e49507be979c885c2a8fe122.pdf
People swept away by glaciers were very few. After all no important town got destroyed by glaciers. I guess after one third of the population of Europe died of the Black Death between 1347-1351 we have to put those deaths from cold and famine into perspective. Pandemic diseases were the main killer during the LIA by far. After all Southern Europe wasn’t much affected by the cold and only relatively by famines, but very much by diseases.
So from people’s perspective it was more a time of diseases that a time of cold. During the LIA there were very warm times. 1540 is considered the warmest year of which we have notice.
Wetter, O., et al. “The year-long unprecedented European heat and drought of 1540–a worst case.” Climatic Change 125.3-4 (2014): 349-363.
“The heat waves of 2003 in Western Europe and 2010 in Russia, commonly labelled as rare climatic anomalies outside of previous experience, are often taken as harbingers of more frequent extremes in the global warming-influenced future. However, a recent reconstruction of spring–summer temperatures for WE resulted in the likelihood of significantly higher temperatures in 1540. In order to check the plausibility of this result we investigated the severity of the 1540 drought by putting forward the argument of the known soil desiccation-temperature feedback. Based on more than 300 first-hand documentary weather report sources originating from an area of 2 to 3 million km2, we show that Europe was affected by an unprecedented 11-month-long Megadrought. The estimated number of precipitation days and precipitation amount for Central and Western Europe in 1540 is significantly lower than the 100-year minima of the instrumental measurement period for spring, summer and autumn. This result is supported by independent documentary evidence about extremely low river flows and Europe-wide wild-, forest- and settlement fires. We found that an event of this severity cannot be simulated by state-of-the-art climate models.”
The LIA was not what most people think it was.
Europe did come out of the LIA well, but not without facing challenges (famines, plagues, mass migration, intensified warfare); but the challenges were offset by innovation and discovery: the printing press that accelerated the spread of knowledge and literacy, cannons that made feudal era castles obsolete and let large national governments consolidate their power, innovations in ship design that facilitated deep ocean navigation, and the discovery of the New World with its new crops, especially the potato which was a more reliable producer than grains in northern Europe’s cool, damp climate and allowed its population to expand. Nevertheless, it has been estimated the world’s population may have contracted up to 10% during the Dalton Minimum, and perhaps 25% during the Maunder. It was no cake walk.
However, the two previous relatively deep coolings that show up in the GISP2 ice core coincide with the post-Roman Dark Ages and the Bronze Age collapse. Next time we are faced with one of these prolonged and relatively deep coolings, will we be able to innovate our way out of it again? There are no guarantees, and so far civilization’s record is only one-and-two against Mr. Cool.
Science Advances? Backwards on a pony, perhaps? But at least these authors do implicitly confirm that there was a little ice age, a prologued period of cooling, indeed. Does Mann comment on it on twitter?
Griff pointed me to an issue I have with the fast response so many expects, when he said:
“Yes, but what about this year’s minimum just reached? Second lowest arctic sea ice….”
Wouldn’t the oceans work as a moderator in temperature change.
Can change in the Sun be reflect in the ocean temperature with one tau in just a few years – I doubt it!
Without knowing much, I would have thought the influence Sun to Ocean hangs around 800 years. Or is it only the CO2 out gassing that lags temperature around 800 years?
Antarctic sea ice extent was still growing yesterday. This year will be well above the 1981-2010 average.
Oh yes, it is already well above average (twice this year!) and we likely have not seen the real peak yet. Been well above the average sea ice extents for Sept in 1979-1990, 1990-2000, 200-2020, and the general 1981-2020 averages. About 1/2 Greenland’s total area greater than 2017, to use the “iceberg larger than Manhattan” scale of exaggeration.
There was an earlier bump at 18.910 Mkm^2 on Sept 18, and today’s 27 Sept Antarctic sea ice extents are back above that value now – still going up. Lower than the 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 values though – Several times just the “excess” Antarctic sea ice exceeded the entire area of Greenland.
Anyone interested in science would put the article in the rubbish bin at the word “may”. Why would you go on? I may dream up up many scenarios to suit myself and my beliefs with the magic might words…
An odd thing about sea-ice during the Little Ice Age is that while there was certainly more of it off East Greenland and around Iceland (this is well documented in historical sources), ice conditions in the Svalbard area were much like they are today, there are several reports from whalers that reached very high latitudes north of Svalbard in the 18th century, and even during the worst of the LIA in the 17th century the dutch whalers built their base “Smeerenburg” on Amsterdamöya, at the northwesternmost tip of Svalbard, since they were hunting Bowhead whales who stay close to the ice-edge in summer, and it was up there that ice could be found in summer.
The worst ice-conditions around Svalbard and further east in the Barents and Kara sea occurred after the end of the LIA in 1850.
The little ice age was gradual and not abrupt. First colder winters and later also colder summers. This was the experience in Europe.
As someone once stated here, “the more it melts, the more it freezes”. Wouldn’t that set up up more of a dense brine cold seawater annually that would sink and contribute to the oceanic circulation currents? How, when, and where that manifests itself, I don’t know we really know all the answers to everything yet. But if the sea is melting and re-freezing every season, dropping its brine salt content out annually instead of staying frozen year after year, this should contribute to a stronger cold water currents in deep sea oceanic circulation. That has to manifest itself sooner or later, somewhere.
Plus the open polar waters lose a lot of heat to space, not being insulated by ice cover. So things tend to oscillate between slightly warmer to slightly cooler, assuming no external forcing. Things don’t stay the same for long. Even all the cyclonic storm activity this season will be moving a lot of heat from the tropics poleward, and hence off to space shortly thereafter. So I would assume we are in for a general cooling trend, at least the next several years, present moderate La Nina conditions notwithstanding.
“Wouldn’t that set up up more of a dense brine cold seawater annually that would sink and contribute to the oceanic circulation currents? ”
That is how it works in the Antarctic, but not in the Arctic where the surface layer is freshened by the large Siberian rivers. NADW is instead created further south off South Greenland and in the Norwegian Sea.
That would be me 🙂
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/10/17/fast-regrowth-in-arctic-sea-ice-outpaces-recent-years/#comment-2184265
Ahhh…I see I was even in that thread almost 2 years ago, which is why I remember that phrase and think about that concept regularly every time I see something about polar ice melting and freezing. I guess my memory isn’t totally gone yet. Amazing how a few words can convey so much.
Come up with a hypothesis (or model) and then go look for confirmation: the scientific method bass ackwards.
The history of Glacier Bay and its people illustrates nicely the ice accumulation and melting periods associated with the LIA.
The visitor center is a good place to explore this is https://www.nps.gov/glba/learn/historyculture/early-peoples.htm
For the glaciers https://www.nps.gov/glba/learn/nature/glacier-bay-s-glacial-history.htm
Of particular interest is the terminus of the glacier ca. 1680, with a meltwater stream connecting it to the ocean, and the location of Huna Tlingit habitation. Between then and 1750, the ice advanced over this habitable area, and extended out from the coast. This protrusion could not be sustained, and by the time the George Vancouver explored 45 years later, the glacier had retreated (calved/melted) 5 miles back, forming the bay.
The history there is fascinating, including status during the visit of John Muir.
I’ve been there twice, and viewed the terminus of the Marjorie and Grand Pacific Glaciers both times. I recommend the trip.
Sorry for the earlier misspelling of ‘Margerie Glacier’
And Co2 induced global warming caused the Titanic to sink.
“Trough record with bidecadal resolution based on the relative absence of the foraminifera Cassidulina teretis as an indicator shows a marked increase in sea ice and polar waters just before 1300 CE of several decades duration culminating around 1370 CE”
Moore et al 2001 also notes a profound cooling at Baffin Island in 1375, because there was a strongly positive North Atlantic Oscillation regime and it was actually very warm in Europe. So much for their Little Ice Age theory, it’s backwards.
Figure 4 A shows less sea ice during the Sporer, Maunder, and Dalton solar minima, because of negative NAO regimes.
“previous experiments using numerical climate models”
That’s an oxymoron. You run a numerical climate model precisely because you can’t do a real experiment.
Sea Ice can never start any kind of ice age, the sea ice does not form until after the oceans are cold enough. Land ice dumping into the oceans and cooling by thawing cause colder oceans that allow sea ice to even form. Again, again, look at ice core data.
“supports surprising model results suggesting that under the right conditions sudden climate changes can occur spontaneously, without external forcing”
Why the heck is this a surprise to anyone who studies natural systems? It’s called chaotic behavior and is well understood to be part of many natural systems. Only a utter fool would believe that climate (or weather) is some kind of linear response to a gas like CO2.
The 2020 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Minimum was hit a few days ago, and will rapidly increase from now.
Because a strong La Niña cycle will be in effect this year and next, the 2021 Arctic Ice Extent Minimum will be substantially larger than 2020.
BTW, the 2020 Antarctic Ice Extent Maximum will soon peak and will be around the 8th largest in 40 years.
https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/
Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary levels of proof. Vague waffle words are not proof.
Highlights and bolding are mine.
• A) Now Greenland and the North Atlantic are considered parts of Europe?
• B) Do their surprising model results include the increased levels of glaciation in Greenland and the Alps?
• C) One is curious just how a sea ice exodus from the North Pole seas causes significant portions of the world to freeze and accrete greater levels of ice?
e.g.
And this is caused by sea ice influx into the North Atlantic?
Never mind that North America was likely to be completely in sync with Greenland.
This is a two way street folks!
Perhaps, North America’s northern coastal residents should note that their local sea ice and resident icebergs may cause their towns to freeze?
Riigghht…
We need to start praying now, since it takes 300 years to be answered, but what do we pray for and who will do the praying? So many questions, so many answers – it’s all so confusing. We had a nice summer in So MO. Lots of rain and rarely over 95 degrees. In the 1950’s-80’s it was really hot w/ temps in the 100’s. Grass went dormant mid-July and our family spent a month in national parks out west. In the early 1930’s-1960’s, my grandparents spent summers in Manitoe Springs, CO. No A/C sucks.
Yes, and Eskimos were stockpiling that sea ice so again, humans are to blame!
This is getting so old…