Arctic Ice

[Roger J Smith]

That Canadian news story is definitely a case of glass half full vs glass half empty.

There is considerable "spin" in that story if you read it carefully. I am sure I could spin a totally different sounding narrative if I wanted with equally valid facts strung together. Let's compare and contrast --

The 2008 ice season brought Canadian ice observers back to reality after a record-breaking year.

Perhaps it was a sign of things to come when Bathurst NB and other eastern Canadian weather stations broke long-standing snowfall records and had three metres of snow on the ground as late as April. Even in normally balmy Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, there was a record breaking snowfall in April. And the arctic wasn't nearly as warm as in 2007, which probably accounts for the fact that the northern passage failed to totally melt in August, and displayed variable amounts of ice throughout the season.

"Sure, you could sail through if you were careful, but that's not all that different from years well back in the past when the arctic ice regime was much more expansive," said Regor H. Tims, the eccentric but generally likeable maverick climatologist.

And while Siberia saw another rather remarkable ice-free anomaly, veteran observer Del Texray of the University of Scotland said "the key point was that the sea surface temperatures hardly moved above 2 or 3 Celsius, compared to last year's 7 or 8." And Tims added, "the ice margin was 79 or 80 degrees north, a full five degrees south of where it was in 2007."

Another interesting development was the appearance of large ice floes in harbours of northern and eastern Newfoundland this May and June, something that reminded old timers of the once-common sight back in the 1970s.

With winter making a fairly rapid appearance from late August onward, the arctic islands are already under a considerable blanket of snow that has extended as far south as Baker Lake and almost to Fort Reliance on Great Slave Lake, probably two weeks ahead of average, and northern Ontario residents have been scraping ice off their windshields on a regular basis since mid-September. Fall has come early to the lower Great Lakes and the autumn colours are a week or two ahead of schedule.

Maybe the Farmer's Almanac is on to something in calling for a cold winter, although Tims believes it will be colder in western Canada for most of the season. "You get open water up that far north for a few years, and ask the mastodons what can happen next," he said cryptically. Perhaps he was referring to the curious sudden freeze-up of Siberian mammoths discovered by early explorers in the lower Ob and Yenisei valleys as far back as the 16th century. Or perhaps not.

[Gray-Wolf]

To be fair though, Jakobshavn has been in retreat since at least the 1850's; it's retreat was faster during the 30's&40's than it has been in recent times.

http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/...nd_glacier.html

A more up to date version of your '2003' image. Of course this is still outdated but helps to illustrate the speed of retreat since 1929.

[jethro]

A more up to date version of your '2003' image. Of course this is still outdated but helps to illustrate the speed of retreat since 1929.

Thanks GW; it's been retreating for at least 160 years, personally find it difficult to correlate this to AGW. I suppose one could say the retreat has increased in recent years but glaciers don't retreat or advance in any regular pattern, sometimes they do rapidly retreat and surge - nature of the beast.

Roger: bloody brilliant! Thank you for making me laugh.

[Mondy]

Here is some of the latest data. From the El Nino year of 1998 until Jan., 2007, the average temperature of the earth's atmosphere near its surface decreased some 0.25 C. From Jan., 2007 until the Spring of 2008, it dropped a whopping 0.75 C. The National Weather Service just issued a Sea Ice Advisory for the Western and Arctic Alaskan Coastal waters for significant ice developing in the next 10 to 14 days, with sea surface temperatures some 2 to 8 C colder than last year. Such recent data is "just the tip of the iceberg" that is in process of sinking the Gore-IPCC ship of cards.

http://www.iceagenow.com/Meteorologist_rej...20clap-trap.htm

I post this again, as the warmers seemed to have overlooked it.

At this rate, 2005 will soon be caught.

[Nick L]

Seems like a very promising rise

[davehsug]

I can't do the quote thingy, so may I just query the "first time in human history to circumnavigate the North Pole" in one of GW's earlier posts.

Do we now know with absolute certainty, exactly what the arctic ice has been like for the last 3-5 million years?

Seems like a pretty big claim to me, but then again, we're used to them now.

Dave

[osmposm]

STUCK IN THE ARCTIC FOR THREE WEEKS...AND COUNTING

Um, you don't seem to have actually read your own link, DXR. I presume - otherwise why post the link - you think it refers to being stuck in the ice for three weeks: it doesn't, they're not stuck in any ice - even if there were any it would hardly matter since they're on board an icebreaker.

The reason the journalist and his production unit are 'stuck in the arctic' is that the weather has been so bad that the chopper can't fly them back to shore, and the ship is too busy with other stuff to hang around waiting for it to improve: it is steaming freely around all over the place...."In our 23 days on the ship we have covered more than 2,500 miles. The ship rocks incessantly and a sonar machine used for ocean floor mapping ticks loudly all day and night."

Sorry, but posting a link without comment or analysis, and hoping it'll do your work for you, can be a rather unreliable way to make a debating point.

Edited October 4, 2008 by osmposm

[osmposm]

I can't do the quote thingy, so may I just query the "first time in human history to circumnavigate the North Pole" in one of GW's earlier posts.

Do we now know with absolute certainty, exactly what the arctic ice has been like for the last 3-5 million years?

Seems like a pretty big claim to me, but then again, we're used to them now.

Dave

Dave, "history" can have slightly different meanings. In this case I think the phrase is intended to mean "during the time humans have recorded history", rather than "during the time humans have existed". That is one accepted meaning, certainly, for "in human history", but for clarity's sake I personally would prefer something like "in our recorded history".

Ossie

Edited October 4, 2008 by osmposm

[Iceberg]

No but it's a pretty safe bet that humans didn't navigate the pole 50,000 or even 5,000 years ago.

[Chris Knight]

Or 500, 50 or 5 years ago even.

However, nobody did it this year either, did they?

[Gray-Wolf]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/...81003123248.htm

But obviously not because the couldn't Chris

[LadyPakal]

Check out the animation here:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/10/03/wind...e-sheet-losses/

A nice illustration of the way the ice circulates around the polar region.

[Gray-Wolf]

And how the perennial ice is being flushed out into the atlantic via the East Coast of Greenland!!!

Note how little 'red' there is by the end of the sequence

[Thundery wintry showers]

Some rather daft comments after the article, but some reasonable suggestions in the article itself. The atmospheric circulation in the Arctic has certainly changed since around 2002 (a step-change in temperature has been very apparent especially in winter), and there was certainly a previous anomalously warm period in the 1930s that was probably only slightly less warm than the last few years have been.

Still, the warming of temperatures across the globe will not be helping matters, even if the warming and ice melt in the Arctic is happening primarily because of other reasons (which it may well be). It could make the difference between an instantly reversible warming, like the one in the 1930s, and a tipping point which will take much longer to recover from.

[Roger J Smith]

I don't know if this is a small part of the puzzle or not, but while the warming episode of the 1930s abruptly ended in some regions in 1940, the west coast of North America had some very warm years in 1941 and 1942. These years had some really mild winters in particular. The year 1941 seemed to be fairly warm across eastern North America, 1942 more like this past year (near normal and wet) and the only real warm month was April. Then the colder regime that had quickly enveloped Europe seemed to set in more in small increments, and it really only cooled off very slightly from 1930s to 1940s overall, it was the hot dry summers that disappeared from the mix.

[Gray-Wolf]

Are we not entering a period of 'global dimming' from the late 30's??

If so then we are now into 'phase 2' of our efforts to render the planet uninhabitable to the majority and only another period of 'global dimming' driven by Indo-China's effort to 'modernise' would reverse it.

The other worry is the deep sea temps affected by phase 1 warming and their impacts when they arrive back 'up top'.

EDIT: Even with 'dimming' CO2 continues to amass and so, as we found from the 80's onwards, the resumption of warming is very rapid. Were we to 'stall' in our warming we would not be being given a 'get out of jail free' card but merely forestalling the inevitable impacts of such high levels of CO2 in our atmosphere.....and of course the ferocity of phase 3 warming would overshadow anything we have experienced so far

[Optimus Prime]

You do seem to live a very depressing life Gray-Wolf. I'm not a fan of that Global Dimming, as far as I remember the BBC made that up 3 or 4 years ago on Panarama.

The Historic Arctic temperature can be seen here;

[Gray-Wolf]

Global dimming is the gradual reduction in the amount of global direct irradiance at the Earth's surface that was observed for several decades after the start of systematic measurements in 1950s. The effect varies by location, but worldwide it has been estimated to be of the order of a 4% reduction over the three decades from 1960–1990. However, since 1990, the trend has reversed.^[1]

It is thought to have been caused by an increase in particulates such as sulphate aerosols in the atmosphere due to human action. The switch from a "global dimming" trend to a "brightening" trend in 1990 happened just as global aerosol levels started to decline.

Global dimming has interfered with the hydrological cycle by reducing evaporation and may have reduced rainfall in some areas. Global dimming also creates a cooling effect that may have partially masked the effect of greenhouse gases on global warming.

The above is copied from Wiki.

Because you do not care to believe does not make your opinion 'right'. The 'BBC' may have brought Global Dimming to a wider audience (via Horizon actually) but independent research has been ongoing since the early 1950's so the evidence, in the form of data/observations, is there for all to ponder........

With regards to my 'world view' I'd refer you to the old Dervish/Sufi tale of 'The day the water changed'........I ain't going to drink it though many ,apparently, have...... :lol:

[Gray-Wolf]

Just an image from NSIDC to highlight the continuing peril of the perennial ice. To think that 73% of all Arctic ice going into this years melt was thin 'single year', and that we lost not just perennial ice but large swathes of the remaining Arctic ice shelfs this season must surely reinforces the peril of the remaining perennial.

As we saw this year, though a cold winter and an ice extent 'up' on recent years the durability of the 'thin ice' is poor leading ,by the end of the season, to the second lowest ice extent figure ever recorded (and the lowest 'ice volume' ever recorded). The loss of more perennial ,and the 'anchorages' to Greenland and Ellesmere island, make it even less likely for the kind of recovery needed over next summer to start the overall perennial 'recovery' so many on here would like to imagine into reality .

EDI: The other concern, of course, is the mobility of the thinner ices as they travel the 'Arctic Gyre'. Are we to see an acceleration of ice flushed into the Atlantic to the east of Greenland and will this prove the 'yearly' mechanism for arctic ice clear out??? Not so good for us on the Western flank of Europe as the surface 'cold' may intensify cyclogenisis south of Iceland and lead to enhanced rainfall over late June, July and August (do we see a pattern developing here??).

Edited October 5, 2008 by Gray-Wolf

[BARRY]

But wont all that first year ice that has survived, be second year ice and that be much thicker so it takes longer to melt and more will survive as third year ice

[jethro]

You do seem to live a very depressing life Gray-Wolf. I'm not a fan of that Global Dimming, as far as I remember the BBC made that up 3 or 4 years ago on Panarama.

The Historic Arctic temperature can be seen here;

There's two ways of looking at the dimming scenario IMO.

There's quite a bit of evidence which suggests it was a real phenomena, this being the case then the cooler period from mid 40's ish through to 70's, was artificially caused by dimming. It is the cooler phase brought about by this which is the anomaly in global temps; the warming since that period is as a result of less particulates.

Looking at the temperature series, not only in the Arctic, suggests the warming in the early part of the 20th century was a rebound response from the cooler temps of the 19th century; that in it's self, a continuing warming phase from the little ice age.

Temperatures today have still not reached the peak achieved in the 1930's, surely this would suggest that despite large increases of CO2, there haven't actually been any real increase of temperatures at all?

We're measuring today, against a period where temperatures were artificially lowered and jumping to the wrong conclusions.

[jethro]

Historical sea ice observations dating back to 1553 from the Norwegian Polar Institute:

http://acsys.npolar.no/ahica/summary.htm

http://acsys.npolar.no/ahica/quicklooks/looks.htm

[Gray-Wolf]

Historical sea ice observations dating back to 1553 from the Norwegian Polar Institute:

http://acsys.npolar.no/ahica/summary.htm

http://acsys.npolar.no/ahica/quicklooks/looks.htm

It appears more and more that the 'measure' is not the ice itself but that which it sits upon. Warm SST's and the currents driving them into the Arctic Basin are the major players and the ice levels merely respond to the conditions below. As we saw over the Antarctic winter even in the coldest months the ice will ablate if warm waters are able to get at it (no matter what the 2m temp is).

Maybe long history plots of both currents and temps would prove more useful (the foramoniferra deposited on the ocean floor are great paleo indicators of both of these)and I guess this is why this info is so sought after at present and brings us to the conclusion that current ice levels are a 'new' (in terms of our 125,000yr 'presence' on the planet) and novel situation over vast swathes of the polar region.

[jethro]

It appears more and more that the 'measure' is not the ice itself but that which it sits upon. Warm SST's and the currents driving them into the Arctic Basin are the major players and the ice levels merely respond to the conditions below. As we saw over the Antarctic winter even in the coldest months the ice will ablate if warm waters are able to get at it (no matter what the 2m temp is).

Maybe long history plots of both currents and temps would prove more useful (the foramoniferra deposited on the ocean floor are great paleo indicators of both of these)and I guess this is why this info is so sought after at present and brings us to the conclusion that current ice levels are a 'new' (in terms of our 125,000yr 'presence' on the planet) and novel situation over vast swathes of the polar region.

:lol: Oh Ian, you do make me smile!

First up there's less ice than ever before due to warmer atmosphere caused by CO2; warm cycles in ocean currents were insignificant. Then when it becomes clear that historically, we have been here before with diminishing ice levels and now it is warmer oceans.

I've argued for Polyakov's work innumerable times on here, can it be, you are finally coming round to accepting the cyclical ocean patterns he described?

[Gray-Wolf]

Hi Jethro! Glad to oblige!!

The 'extra' warmth (than historically present) is certainly amassed by our intervention in our planets climate but the 'transport' north/south to redistribute the heat (and do natures balancing act) is primarily by reinforcing the 'systems' that already exist. As the ice cover recedes, over the summer months ,these movements are able to penetrate further and further north 'undercutting' the ice cover there.

In the fullness of time the 'strength' of the heat exchange will be so vigorous that it will over-ride the 'naturally occurring' currents/cycles and form unique ones that will become trans-polar in nature.