You could almost fit western Europe inside the remaining thick ice in the Arctic. Experts tell us that the remaining ice will be gone somewhere between 2008 and 2014.
//ARCTIC.IO/OBSERVATIONS/8/2012-08-23/5-N85.90921-W133.640716
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You know, Carnegie Mellon University once invented the most powerful microscope on the planet. Said to be able to see right down to the very atomic level. One could actually see individual atoms. If I were using that microscope right now, I still could not see my concern of an ice free Arctic …. pppfffftttt….
squid2112
Here is a suggestion for why you might want to take more than a microscopic interest in the loss of Arctic ice. Do some research into the Polar Jet Stream. A band of high speed air that circles the globe roughly over the Northern US, Europe etc. It is the dividing line between colder Arctic Weather and milder mid-latitude weather. And it meanders around quite a bit.
Well the Jet Stream is slowing down (around 14% so far I believe), is meandering more widely and is becoming more prone to ‘blocking’ in place. When it does that you get longer colder or hotter weather than usual, depending on which side of the Jet Stream you are on. Think the summer this year in the US, the scorcher (with huge fires) in western Russia a few years back.
Well the thing is, the driving force for the Jet Stream is the temperature difference between the Pole and the Equator. Since the Arctic has been warming faster than the Tropics, the temperature difference between them has been dropping. And the Jet Stream slowing.
An ice free Arctic will only accelerate that change.
So if you haven’t liked the recent weather, and don’t want even worse, maybe it is worth worrying about the loss of Arctic ice just a little bit more
So why do we see this also in the antarctic ? I can’t remember record low ice there.
If the temperature difference between pole and equator is smaller, I guess those blocking events will happen at a more normal temperature.
We had a mild nearly snowless winter over much of the US in 2011-12. On the other hand, we had relatively cold, snowy winters during 2009-10 and 2010-11. Summer 2009 was cool over must of the US but 2011 and 2o12, relatively hot. If the jetstream is being controlled by less Arctic ice, why have the weather patterns been so variable? The logical conclusion is that Artic ice is not a big factor with respect to controlling the jet stream, since we are having the same swings in natural variability as always.
Global warming makes everything more of the same than it used to be.
Marc77
“If the temperature difference between pole and equator is smaller, I guess those blocking events will happen at a more normal temperature.”
Unfortunatey no. Because what matters for our local weather is not just whether a mass of air is warm or cold. It is how long it hangs around in one spot. So if we have a regular cycle of Lows & Highs, Cool & Warm, they tend to balance each other out in our neighbourhood. But if any of these persist in one place for longer, the warms are warmer, the cools are cooler.
And although the Arctic temperatures aren’t as low as they were, they are still plenty low enough to cause cold weather that is problematic if the Jet Stream allows them in for longer periods.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/08/25/no-correlation-between-arctic-ice-and-winter-weather/
AndyDC
“The logical conclusion is that Artic ice is not a big factor with respect to controlling the jet stream, since we are having the same swings in natural variability as always”
I would suggest just the opposite. Recent weather suggests increased variability, not just in the US. And the key influence of the Jet Stream in US type latitudes is it’s impact on weather variabilty. Higher Highs, Lower Lows. Because the meanderings of the Jet Stream are slower and persist at one location for longer. You might care to Google ‘Rossby Waves’ for more information on how the Jet Stream influences things.
Interestingly for the US, the 1930’s were a time of high temperatures in the SW, the dustbowl years etc. At the same time they were a time where the global temperatures climbed then dropped during the late 40’s. What isn’t obvious from just looking at the graphs of overall global temperatures is that much of the ‘global’ warming from that period was actually Arctic warming. The Earth as a whole didn’t really warm, but the Arctic did. So an interesting correlation. The Dustbowl years in the USA coincided with a warmer Arctic.
The peak year for NH snow was 1978. The minimum year was 1981. Both had lots of ice. There is no correlation.
Oh dear Glenn
Well the Jet Stream is slowing down (around 14% so far I believe), is meandering more widely and is becoming more prone to ‘blocking’ in place. When it does that you get longer colder or hotter weather than usual, depending on which side of the Jet Stream you are on. Think the summer this year in the US, the scorcher (with huge fires) in western Russia a few years back.
Scientists also identified this exact same phenomena back in the 1960’s and 70’s, when the Arctic ice was rapidly expanding.
According to Hubert Lamb
over middle latitudes the most significant feature has been the very awkward type of variability from year to year, associated with the behaviour of blocking systems and meridional circulation patterns.
And in 1973, Jerome Namias, “one of America’s leading weather scientists”, told us
We are all aware of the ravages of natural events of the recent past, the devastating Russian drought of 1972; current drought in sub-Saharan countries, especially Mali, Mauritania and the Upper Volta, which seems to have persisted and become aggravated in the last few years; the occasional seasonal droughts in parts of India and Australia and the “Seca” or” drought which occurs in some years in northeast Brazil.
On the wet side,we have the eastern U.S.A. floods in June, 1972, associated, in part, with hurricane Agnes the most costly storm in U.S. history, and we remember the 1966 tragic flood of Florence. These are but a sample of spectacular events from the climatological record.
From time immemorial there have been occasions when nature “goes on a rampage” and makes it appear that the climate is changing. Why does nature do this? Unfortunately man does not yet fully understand the causes of these events, and therefore he is unable to predict them reliably.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/03/18/1970s-global-cooling-what-the-scientists-said/
It is nothing to worry about, because it has happened before. Do some HISTORICAL research and GO TAKE A TRIP UP THERE to see if it’s really “melting”. The facts skewer your fears.
“With huge fires” – There were no huge fires. Check this blog.
The Russian heatwave in 2010 was even proved by Russian scientists that it was a natural event, not man-made. So you can stop trying to sound smart with your pseudo-scientific nonsense.
The Arctic was ice free in the 1950’s and more times before that.
Meanwhile, on Planet Guardian, where, they proclaim, “Facts are sacred”, this
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/aug/23/arctic-sea-ice-record-low?intcmp=122
The dramatic melt expected over the next week signals that global warming is having a major impact on the polar region
I have emailed the author (not allowed to comment, CiF ban all dissenters), with various from here and Watts Up, noting the unreliability of the microwave detection in the Summer. No reply. No annotation of the article. What low people we are dealing with
Same story in the dutch press
http://www.telegraaf.nl/buitenland/12819829/__Noordpoolijs_dooit_naar_recordniveau__.html
we are all gonna die
Whay unreliability of microwave detection in summer? It can report high due to melt ponds but algorithm’s should take that into account, as per JAXA who do exactly this.
Here we have laymen arguing with newspapers and the laymen calling the newspaper journo’s low. Seems to me a waste of time, argue with the scientists would be better, I am sure they could put you right.
Andy
Too bad that warming is not global
Too bad the Arctic is warming up, exactly as AGW predicted.
“the unreliability of the microwave detection in the Summer”
Is irrelevant. Satellite measurements are as reliable in 2012 as they were in 2007. Even if they are both off by 1 million sq km due to unreliability, 2012 is still lower than 2007 and the trend is still down.
It’s melting people. Denying it just makes you look stupid.
Scratch that: I shouldn’t have said “stupid”, replace that with desperate. A lot of very intelligent people really want the arctic ice to be okay, but we mustn’t let that become wishful thinking.
With all measurements showing a decline, including volume estimates and measurements, reality is pointing in just one downward death spiral direction.
Exactly, though rather than stupid or desperate I would say hiding your head in the sand because you do not like the results and are clutching at any straw to try and make this look better to fit in with your inbuilt biased initial unscientific viewpoint.
Mind you that is a bit of a mouthful, quite accurate though, snigger.
Andy
Steve, you said
“Sea level has been rising for 15,000 years.”
Yep. Funny that, sea level rises when warming happens. Like during an Interglacial. But rates of sea level rise are much higher now than at any time during those past 15,000 years. Yet the ice in the arctic was thicker because of an impending cooling period during the 70’s. So why weren’t sea levels falling in the 70’s Steve? Bit of a logical inconsistency there don’t you think?
Also an interesting point to consider, for all those who want to claim that the MWP was as warm or warmer than now. Or the Roman or Minoan Warm Periods.
What were sea levels back then?
How can we have ancient stoneworks around the world, Roman Baths etc that are all below sea level if it was warmer back then?
This is all part of the logical inconsistancy of many skeptic arguments. If it was warmer in the past then sea levels would have been higher. If they weren’t then it wasn’t warmer
You won today’s prize!
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/08/25/we-have-a-winner/
You people are desperate and dumb.
As Julienne Stroeve explained, the early winter storm broke up the ice and brought deep warm water to the surface.
Satellites don’t see the smaller pieces of ice. The melting is due to an early winter storm. Use your brain.
Actually Robert, yes it does. Part of global warming is that while there is more warming in the lower atmosphere, the stratosphere cools.
RSS shows no warming for 16 years.
Steve
And how was it that the storm was able to break up the ice? Because the ice was so much thinner than 30 years ago. If the Arctic had still been full of 4-5 metre Ice, the winds from the storm wouldn’t have been able to break up the ice nearly so much because they wouldn’t generate the waves needed to do it.
Ice was at its peak thickness 30 years ago, after the ice age scare of the 1970s.
Steve
Ocean Heat Content shows heating continually, unchanged, since 1970. OHC is 30 times the amount of heat that has gone into the atmosphere. If the oceans are warming, the global warming is still happening.
And sea level is rising, at around 3+mm/year. Sea level rise can only come from a mix of 2 things. The oceans warm, and as they warm the water expands and pushes sea levels up. And land ice melts, adding extra water to the oceans, pushing up sea levels. And 500 Billion tonnes of extra ice melted each year does require a fair amount of heat. Either way, both mechanisms mean that extra heat has been added to the system from somewhere. So the sea level is like a thermometer. If sea level is rising, something somewhere is warming.
And when you do the math on the amounts of heat involved and ask where that heat could have come from, there is only 1 possible conclusion. The Earth has an energy imbalance with Space. There is no source of heat here on Earth large enough to have supplied the amount of heat that has built up in the oceans over the last 4 decades.
The largest heat source here on Earth is Geothermal heat – humanities energy usage is only around 40% of that. And Geothermal heat contributes about 45 TeraWatts. However the warming observed in the oceans requires nearly 200 TeraWatts over the last 40 years. So an extraterrestial source is the only possible explanation.
And the Sun hasn’t been warming. If anything it has cooled slightly over the last 1/2 century. So a warmer Sun can’t be the cause of the warming.
Not too many culprits left standing after that are there?
Sea level has been rising for 15,000 years.
Steve
“Ice was at its peak thickness 30 years ago, after the ice age scare of the 1970s.”
Do you mean the media reports that we might be heading into a new Ice Age? Leaving aside for the moment that this was just a few media reports and maybe one or two scientists, lets take your statement at face value.
How does some people thinking that we may be heading into a new ice age translate into the idea that the ice age was ALREADY HERE? The ice thickness in the 1970’s was due to what had gone before, not what might have been about to happen (putatively) in the future. Or are you suggesting that the ice in the Arctic somehow knew that a few folks were speculating about the future, so it thickend up just to support them? Sounds like damnd smart and friendly ice there Steve.
Also, if you think that the ice was thicker back then due to impending ice ages (that never happened) does that mean you accept that a thin ice regime is the norm, and that the risk of thin ice melting away due to some warming is quite real and normal?
Spare me the BS revisionism
How about the IPCC and the directors of NCAR and CRU?
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/08/01/the-1979-satellite-disaster/
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/05/27/david-appell-the-ice-age-scare-denier/
Steve
Forget about so called BS Revisionism. What percentage of papers published during the 70’s suggested cooling vs the percentage that suggested warming. Not media reports with snippets of conversations between a reporter and a scientist. Actual published science.
For God’s sake Steve, you only cite your own posts which isn’t independent support for any argument. And the post you link to doesn’t even give the source or the date for the articles you copy and paste. Journalism 101 – fail.
Al Gore hadn’t invented the Internet yet.
“Denying it makes you look stupid” – How cute of you to use the shaming term “denier”. Argumentum ad hominem.
Did you even look at the satellite measurements? 2012 has more ice than it did in 2007. Stop denying it. Stop living in your bubble of ‘WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!’. Antarctica holds 90% of the world’s ice and it’s expanding. No one is complaining about that. Stop denying it.
The Arctic was ice free in 1959. Stop denying it. It has been warmer before. Stop denying it.
There has been no Global Warming for 16 years. Stop denying it, denier. If anyone is a denier, it is YOU. YOU fail to do proper research. You only look for evidence that confirms your faulty theory. Confirmation bias.
Btw, did you know that smart, scientifically literate people are unconcerned about climate change? It was in NATURE.
There’s a lot less sea ice now than in the 2007. Antarctica is roughly in mass-balance, so not growing.
You have no idea what are talking about.
And 30 years ago you could have fit 2 Europes in there. And what is your definition of ‘thick ice’ Steve? Most people would say 4 metres plus. Yet around 1/2 the ice up there is between 0.5 to 2.5 metres. Add in ice up to around 3.5 metres and you are close to 90% Not actually much thick ice up there at all.
Who says? The US Navy
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticictn/nowcast/ictn2012082418_2012082200_035_arcticictn.001.gif
How does it feel to be the lucky man who didn’t lose $1000? Because yesterday you would have lost the bet you kept offering so many people.
Arctic sea Ice records fallen so far:
Danish Meterological Institute Ice Extent – broken
Arctic ROOS/Norsex Ice Area – broken
University of Bremen Ice Extent – broken
NSIDC Ice Extent – broken
Cryosphere Today/UIUC Ice Area – broken
IJIS/JAXA Ice Extent – broken (bet your glad you didn’t take that bet)
Still to come
NSIDC Ice Extent – looks to be a few day away
Arctic ROOS/Norsex Ice Extent – looks to be a few day away
PIOMas – end of the month before we see that.
CRYOSAT 2 Data – hopefully they will publish some more ice volume data soon
All the graphs are still falling. In fact there is little sign yet of them even shallowing out. And still 3-4 weeks to go before the traditional end of the melt season. Looks like that call you made a few weeks back, about the melt season having ended was just a teensie-weenie bit premature.
Also I have a query about one of your posts, looking at average air temperatures in the Arctic having fallen to zero C, suggesting that refreeze was about to start. You do know that the freezing point for sea water is -1.7C don’t you? And the temperature that really matters is the water temperature, and its salinity which shifts the freezing point. The big storm churned up the water up there heaps. Bringing slightly warmer and also saltier water to the surface. Refreeze ain’t happening any time soon.
Glenn Tamblyn , you do realize the arctic ice will recover when the cycle swings back to cold don’t you ? Surely you have the understanding to see that the arctic ice has always fluctuated through out known history .
Not during the industrial age it hasn’t. Oh wait, perhaps this is a previously unknown 1722-year sea ice collapse-cycle, which would make recent events to fall within “natural variability”.
“Refreeze ain’t happening anytime soon” – The freezing point of water is zero degrees. Lrn2chemistry.
“Not much thick ice up there at all” – Check the satellites, dumbass.
More argumentum ad populum.
The first ozone hole above the North Pole has been aggravated by extraordinarily cold winter temperatures, say scientists.
The current loss is thanks to the polar vortex, a weather system that circulates over the Arctic. The weather in the stratosphere remained cold for an unusually long period, and cold air spread over a larger area than normal.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2089537/Ozone-hole-Arctic-actually-caused-COLD-weather.html
does this sound like global warming ?
“What replacement chemicals for CFCs have been found? Are they safe?
Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) and “Greenfreeze” chemicals (hydrocarbons such as cyclopentane and isobutane) have been the primary substitutes. The primary HFC used in automobile air conditioning, HFC-134a, costs about 3-5 times as much as the CFC-12 gas it replaced. A substantial black market in CFCs has resulted
HFCs do not cause ozone depletion, but do contribute significantly to global warming. For example, HFC-134a, the new refrigerant of choice in automobile air conditioning systems, is 1300 times more effective over a 100-year period as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. At current rates of HFC manufacture and emission, up to 4% of greenhouse effect warming by the year 2010 may result from HFCs.”
WHAT
forgot
http://www.wunderground.com/resources/climate/holefaq.asp
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png
says it all.
I predict little or no change to arctic sea ice until 2020, when the AMO switches back to cold and the sea ice will return.
How do you mean, shows it all? That shows nothing about AMO.
How can you predict no sea ice change until 2020 when the current trend for summer extent is down year on year? What is going to happen up to 2020 to stop this decline then?
How do you know the AMO will turn positve in 2020?
How do you know the supposed change in AMO in 2020 will actually stop the decline?
Any model to back this up or is it just wishful thinking?
Andy
Hahahahaha Andy , no offense but modeling is for long legged slender girls . As to climate modeling , I have yet to see the models be anywhere close to accurate . Garbage in and garbage out . There are so many complex variables in climate that the thought that we can put them in a program and get accuracy is unbelieveable .
That’s my prediction based on the AMO switch in 1995 causing the big decline in Arctic sea ice from 1995. I can’t say AMO will switch back in 2020, but it will +/- 4 years.
This is a regional climate effect, other wise there would be a similar melting of Antarctic sea ice. Which there isn’t.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png
What is your prediction?
john mcquire, Actually modelling is for everybody and everything, from pharmaceutics to fisheries to land management to growing tomatoes to sports betting to space flight to weekend weather reporting and everything in between. I will bet you that you cannot name one industry in which modelling is not crucial. Not one.
You think you sound clever spouting off about modelling, you don’t, you sound ignorant.
What do we need polar sea ice for anyway? It hardly prevents any warming since the angle of the sun is less than zero in winter, little greater in summer and doesn’t raise sea levels at all when it melts. I just love to see warmist “expeditions” to the fabled melting Arctic fail in an epic way every time they think it’s melting away, only to need a rescue from the freezing blizzards. I s’pose I’ll have to give that up if it does melt. However, the increased trade across Europe from extra shipping lanes won’t hurt global economy at all. Think of the energy we could save if the globe actually was 1 degree warmer..
Steven you must really be getting under their skin as the GW Worms are comming out of the woodwork here. But then again it may stop when school starts. 😆
My wife and I are still laughing .
I don’t think Western Europe will have an early winter all the sea ice lost on the western side of the Arctic will have to freeze again this Autumn and it will take time to do this.I think that there is less ice on the western side this year then there was in 2007,2007 and 2012 were very close in area even before the “storm” because of this.
Huh? There is a lot more ice in the western Arctic this year than 2007.
Not in volume. It’s the volume that counts.
Sorry I meant Eastern arctic ,thanks for correcting me.
@Whatever – Climate models are garbage, as they don’t count all the variables of climate. Given the fact that we do not know or understand how climate works, we just “guess”. And climate models are horribly bad at making predictions.
You think you sound so smart, you little Greenie, you. You sound more like a prententious asshole.
Did someone say there is a problem with the models?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJfx0d-mmIo
Actually I hav an excellent idea on ice sheet mass balance and have been following the latest studies. WAIS is losing mass and EAIS gaining it so Antarctica as a whole is roughly in balance. Greenland is not, it went quite strongly negative in the mid-nineties.