Temperatures will drop below freezing at the North Pole in a few days, ending any possibility of melt there.
COI | Centre for Ocean and Ice | Danmarks Meteorologiske Institut
With 70% of the Arctic Basin covered with ice, that melt better get cracking!
Happy Polar Bears ?
These Danish scientists apparently don’t know that James Hansen has already declared New York City to be underwater and that his grandkids will have to develop gills to survive global warming. 🙂
GREENLAND RESEARCH: Climate models wrong
Danish researchers are calling for the models used it forecast sea level rise to be changed after their research shows that Greenland’s ice-cap is not melting more quickly, but rather in bursts.
The group’s research, which has been published this week in the Science magazine, shows that the speed at which Greenland’s ice-cap melts, rises and falls in different periods.
“It’s controversial and probably also the reason that Science decided to publish it as it moves us along in understanding the dynamism of the ice-cap,” Natural History Museum Research Chief Kurt Kjær tells videnskab.dk.
Up to now scientists have believed that Greenland’s ice was melting faster and have used the hypothesis in developing many of the climate models that are now used to calculate future sea-water levels.
“The bottom line is that it’s not going to happen as quickly as people have feared,” Kristian Kjeldsen who is another of the researchers tells TVA.
By studying aerial photographs of northwest Greenland back to the 1980s, as well as more recent satellite photographs, the researchers mapped the ice-cap over the past 30 years.
This showed that Greenland’s glaciers lost large amounts of ice between 1985 and 1992, but that they then stabilised so much that the losses stopped over 10 years.
http://politiken.dk/newsinenglish/ECE1708614/greenland-research-climate-models-wrong/
Well , our hot spell here in NW Oregon seems to be over . The temperatures I noted were 97 for saturday and 89 for sunday . Portland to the east saw 102 and 92 respectively. Even though Portland is on the columbia river and gets more air flow than we do they record much higher temperatures . I say UHI is much higher than the fraction of a degree the warmists claim .
Where is the empirical evidence supporting the theory that the Greenland ice cap is going to melt even in spurts? There is a growing body of evidence that indicates we may be headed for a period of long-term cooling. The current solar cycle 24 is the weakest in more than a century, and some scientsts, including David Archibald, are predicting an even weaker solar cycle 25. This factor alone could catapult us into another Dalton Minimum or, worse, Maunder Minimum.
In addition, we are now in the cold phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which should drive temmperatures lower over the short term. What happens when the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) shifts into its cold phase? Throw in a a large volcanic eruption, and temperatures could drop like a stone.
There’s simply no way to predict with any accuracy what is going to happen to the Greenlance ice cap decades into the future.
I mean’t Greenland, not “Greenlance.”
Arctic melt not behaving? Take a tip from Nancy Pelosi, and ‘deem’ it melted. Those billions of sheeple who want to be led will believe it.
Steven,
Your Aug 5 map is old. You should post the latest for Aug 27, which shows another 2.2 million km2 retreat.
http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/ssmis/arctic_SSMIS_nic.png
Sure, some freezing now of open water within the pack. But there is another 15 to 30 days before the minimum, so there will be a little more ice loss till the minimum. Meanwhile, I hope you all are having fun laughing to yourselves. Facts are ice, AREA will be down to less than 45% of what it was in the 1970’s and early 80’s. And, the average THICKNESS of the ice remaining at the minimum is also down to about 45%. So the VOLUME will be down to about 20% of previous! My actual quote in 2007 in the AP was “At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions.” Well, the rate slowed some and new ice area when back and forth for a few years, but now a new record low in 2012 (about 1.2 million km2 lower than 2007), Anyhow, some might think down to 20% of previous volume is getting close to nearly ice free?
Jay Zwally
Hi Jay,
The 1990 IPCC report showed a 2 million km^2 gain from 1974 to 1979, and CRU indicated more prior to that. Are you familiar with those numbers?
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/08/26/hiding-the-incline-at-nsidc-and-giss/
The August 5th map here is old because this post (if you look at the top of the page) was made on August the 6th.
Steven,
Haven’t checked those reports to verify your quote or sort out the discrepancy. But I just rechecked our NASA published numbers and I can tell you that such a 1973 to 79 increase definitely did not occur! BTW, you may know my colleagues and I pioneered the all-weather all-season satellite measurements (initiated Dec 1972) of sea-ice area and extent, published in several atlases.
Jay
Jay,
Actually, when I hear “nearly ice-free” I think along the lines of 1%, not 20% as you have suggested. “Nearly free of ice” is the functional equivalent of “having almost no ice”. I don’t consider 1/5 of the amount of ice that existed in 1979 to be “almost no ice”. Saying which …
If you are comparing now to 1979 to get to “20%”, what percent is it of the 1974 volume? Surely higher than 20%?
RTF
RTF,
Fair enough about “nearly”, but I’ll bet you think your tank is nearly empty at the 5% level. I said some may think 20% is getting close to nearly. But that is all semantics, ice is decreasing rapidly and the sea-ice climate feedback is to increase the warming from greenhouse gases alone. As well as we know, there was little change from 1974 to 1979 in either area or thickness. see Kwok and Rothrock GRL 36 (2009) re thickness 1975 to 2009.
Jay
BTW, the “Arctic Basin” is only the deep-water part of the Arctic Ocean, so the Danish quote about still covering 70% (if 70 is the right value) of the Arctic Basin is misleading because the sea ice used to cover much more than just the deep water basin at summer minimum.
Jay Z
Jay, your replies are appreciated. Not sure I accept your statement about 1975, but I’ll try to look into it more. I still think this is just a cyclical manifestation (which is also why I am not viewing 5% in the same vein as I would my fuel tank) and I am not at all impressed by the argument that it is due to any long-term global warming. But, thanks for sharing your information and thoughts.
RTF