The Arctic Basin is nearly full of ice and the melt season is just about done. Does this look like an ice-free Arctic?
http://www.arctic.io/observations/8/2011-08-14/5-N82.848948-E143.02348
Disrupting the Borg is expensive and time consuming!
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Terrifying. Clearly it is worse than we thought.
Jeff Masterbedwetter announced on his blog that the NWP and NEP were ice free the other day…..
“Arctic sea ice extent on August 11, 2011, was the 2nd lowest on record for the date. The Northeast Passage and Northwest Passage (southern route) were both ice-free.”
Of course this is the same guy that has every TD “slamming” into something……………
Did we expect it to be ice-free this summer?? 😉
While surface melt is drawing to a close, the ocean contribution towards melting of the ice still has a ways to go before the minimum is reached. Note that the AMSR-E data show 2007 and 2011 essentially tied right now (AMSR-E picking up more of the open water areas between ice floes than SSM/I because of differences in spatial resolution).
Julienne,
Here is a summary of some ice-free Arctic forecasts from prominent scientists, including 2000, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2015 …….
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/08/11/ice-free-arctic-forecasts/
I don’t think that 2011 will finish anywhere close to 2007.
Steve, would be good to remember though that Dr. Maslowski and Dr. Zwally never published anything in the scientific literature attesting to the Arctic Ocean nearly ice free in summer by 2012, 2013 and 2015. In fact I’m not aware of any published studies saying the Arctic Ocean would be ice-free around now. There are a number of published studies though that suggest 2030 and beyond.
Julienne,
It seems highly unethical for scientists to tell the press things that they don’t believe.
Would it be acceptable for them to publish such predictions in non-scientific literature?
I suppose an analogy would be if they started attending white-supremacist rallies: so long as they don’t publish their beliefs in scientific literature it’s acceptable for them to foment racial war in other settings, then?
Exactly! Thank you.
And is Julienne or anyone else for that matter taking to task the non-‘published’ press statements or blogging from Romm, Gore, Princess Charles, Serreze, Hansen, ad nauseum?
Nope. Tacit approval.
As with most aspects of global warming, the final melt figure will probably depend on who is doing the counting. The alarmist figure will differ significantly from the skeptic’s. Just looking at that one photo, neither the NE or NW passage will be open for commercial shipping without consderable risk and the aid of icebreakers.
We are obviously not even close to an ice-free Arctic in summertime. It may happen some day, but no time in the near future. And obviously anything beyond the near future cannot be proved or disproved one way or another.
Andy, the final # for the minimum depends on the sensor and algorithm used. AMSR-E being higher resolution probably gives the most accurate #, but because of the relatively short time-series, NSIDC sticks with SSM/I for the long-term analysis of changes in the sea ice cover so that at least the sensor and algorithm is consistent over the 30+ data record. Studies have looked at differences between the various sea ice algorithms as applied to passive microwave satellite data and find that while there are differences in the magnitude of the extent between the different algorithms/sensors, the trends are similar. Furthermore the differences in magnitude between the various algorithms is within the uncertainty of the measurement.
Julienne,
Will hope everyone agrees on a final figure. It sounds like some room for subjectivity, thus people with differing agendas will probably come up with different results.
Andy
The National Hurricane Center is determined to run thru the alphabet in record time. Just like last year, a huge number of short lived, very weak storms that threaten no one. I thought we were supposed to get fewer, but more intense storms, not a swarm of crippled weaklings.
I heard they recycled what was Emily and renamed it Gert when it regained strength and now it appears to be weakening again. And they are chomping at the bit to name a depression in the Pacific. We could have four more named fish storms this week.
I will not mention the “Wonderful” work the NSIDC has none to keep us up to date on the ice conditions in the Arctic region!