Lots Of Wiggle Room

“Arctic sea-ice decline is perhaps the best evidence around that something truly unusual is happening to our climate,” Ted Scambos, another NSIDC scientist, said in an e- mail. “Historical records and changes in high Arctic coastal areas that have been icebound for several thousand years indicate that this is not just ‘a bad decade to be ice,’ but something outside the normal range of climate.”

The lowest ice extent recorded in data dating back to 1979 was the 4.1 million square kilometers posted on Sept. 16, 2007. This year’s lowest point will probably be 4.3 million to 5.3 million square kilometers, according to Scambos, who said it was a “personal estimate.”

Almost a 25% spread!

The latest melt is in part a result of temperatures in May through July that were 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) to 2.5 degrees higher than average, according to Scambos. The most recent daily data, for Aug. 3, show ice covering 6.57 million square kilometers, putting it back above the equivalent level in 2007, he said.

Antarctic sea ice, which is much more driven by the wind, is “slightly” below the average for this time of year, according to Scambos.

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Arctic ice is almost completely driven by the wind. What does that mean?

About Tony Heller

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8 Responses to Lots Of Wiggle Room

  1. DirkH says:

    It means that you can ignore NSIDC media scientists.

  2. Latitude says:

    It means when you increase shipping, the amount of ships working the Arctic, by over 100 times….
    ….and keep the routes broken and open year round

    Those little pieces of ice are subject to wind….
    …which piles them up and makes the satellites read it as less ice

  3. J Calvert N says:

    Is this part of a build-up to Al Gore’s day-of-rage – I mean “24-hours of Reality“ on September 14?

    Why Sept 14? – one wonders. I suspect they’re hoping for a spectacular Arctic sea-ice minimum to point-to as Exhibit A. After all there is not much else spectacular enough to point to. Global Temps? Flat since 1998. Rising sea levels? Getting less spectacular with each passing month. Antarctic sea-ice above average now! So they’re really really hoping for a result with the arctic sea ice.

    This is what WUWT had to say . . .
    ” Al Gore is back and is planning “24-hours of Reality“on September 14 to connect the dots between extreme weather and global warming. So, unless he is planning on presenting a lecture on the coupled atmosphere-ocean dynamics of the El Nino Southern Oscillation (e.g. La Nina and El Nino), the presentation may not take more than a few minutes.”

  4. Well, actually the better your science, the more precisely you nail something down, the larger your margin of error. That’s why Real Scientists always state the boiling point of pure water at sea level to be 100°C(±100°). This peer-reviewed, scientific model (sadly not mine) explains everything: http://www.lanceandeskimo.com/paul/skeletor.ppt

  5. huishi says:

    I forget things so easily these days. We are worried about arctic ice in the summer because that is where the ice come from for our drinks in bars? If we run out of ice in at the North Pole then we would have to drink Jack Daniels Whiskey at room temperature?

    In the future maybe engineers will build a machine to make ice! That would be neat!

  6. John Silver says:

    It means you forgot to mention the currents.

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