Doomed Arctic Gains Four Thousand Manhattans Of Ice In Two Days

A new Manhattan of ice is forming in the Arctic every 43 seconds. This must be terribly confusing to the Polar Bears, which all died this summer due to ice-free conditions.

About Tony Heller

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38 Responses to Doomed Arctic Gains Four Thousand Manhattans Of Ice In Two Days

  1. Rick Pay says:

    Now that is an ice maker 😉

  2. Andy says:

    Very large upturn, will see if it is reduced down somewhat after further analysis. Normally of course at this time of year is it small amounts, but the ice is so fractured and spread that winds and increasing freezing will make larger gains or losses.

    Also, the ice is so far north it will have a large increase compared to normal at this time of year when the cold starts once again, so that is to be expected.

    Andy

    • Rick Pay says:

      Andy I was thinking that usually measurements are “reduced down” since to reduce up would almost qualify as an increase …. sarc …. and then I thought that we are dealing with the team and of course Mann and others can perform many magical adjustments of data & changes of state with cold – hot and wet – drought etc etc (we won’t even touch on the raging hurricanes making landfall with 40 mph breezes)

  3. Lance says:

    ice melts …. water freezes…repeat each year…nothing new…move along……

  4. Not all ice is equal. Some ice is an inch thin at the onset of winter, some is 2 meters thick after an entire winter’s freezing, some is 10 meters thick because it has been compressed, ridged, and thickened after many years of going through successive melt-freeze cycles, some is 100 meters thick as it breaks of glaciers. The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice cover over time has nothing but spectacular as is plain to see and as the models failed to predict properly. Combine this with the Arctic sea ice also getting thinner, and next years ice will likely cover less area again. There are devils in the details, as there always are, but try to compare apples to apples, not cheeries to jam. [The sea ice area around Antarctica is increasing, yes, it also melts completely each year and this is the very “new” state that the current Arctic sea ice is moving towards as it will become completely ice-free in summer within the next 10-20 years, models say it will take 30-50 years.]

    • That is true. There is more sea ice now in Antarctica than there has ever been in the Arctic.

    • Glacierman says:

      “The sea ice area around Antarctica is increasing, yes, it also melts completely each year and this is the very “new” state that the current Arctic sea ice is moving towards as it will become completely ice-free in summer within the next 10-20 years, models say it will take 30-50 years”

      Andreas, do you practice how many errors you can squeeze into one sentence? Keep working you are getting good at it.

      • Let me try again: The sea ice area around Antarctica has increased over the last 10 years. This first-year sea ice is also melting completely each year. The Arctic sea ice cover is moving towards a state of first-year-only ice, as after each year there is less multi-year ice. This constitutes a “new” state of Arctic ice cover, that is, the Arctic will become a seasonally ice-covered ocean the same way that the Southern Ocean around Antarctica currently is. In the past and present the Arctic Ocean is a perenially covered ocean with the area covered year-round rapidly shrinking.

        I am always willing to learn from those wiser than me … but I will need specifics. Recall, not all ice is equal and details matter.

      • Glacierman says:

        “Let me try again: The sea ice area around Antarctica has increased over the last 10 years. This first-year sea ice is also melting completely each year.”

        How could it increase for 10 years if, as you say, the first year ice is also melting completely each year?

        I hope you are not “teaching” your students this.

      • Glacierman says:

        Are you balancing that equation using a model produced by Hansen…or Trenberth?

      • Rick Pay says:

        Glacierman, given that Andreas is a native German his english is fine … I think we need to be more accepting of grammatical errors by those that aren’t native english speakers. I was able to follow the line of thought he was persuing.

      • Glacierman says:

        Rick,
        Glad you could follow his line of thought. I am worried about his logic that he claims all first year ice has completely melted every year, yet there has been an increase in area of the last 10 years. See any problem with that…..poor english or not?

      • Glacierman says:

        I see still no reply. Let me try again. Based on what you have said about Antarctica, there would only be seasonal < 1 year old ice, and all other would be greater than 10 yerars. Are you going to stick to that?

    • johnmcguire says:

      Muenchow gets his input from models that other idiots programed . He has his head so far up hansens butt that he couldn’t tell if it is day light or dark , but he will accept whatever the team tells him . As far as the ice extent goes , history tells us that it will get lower and higher as the natural cycles dictate . Unless of course some fools set off a nuclear exchange , if that happens who knows ?

      • Dear John: If you do your research you will find, that I actually go to sea, measure ocean currents, analyze data, and come to conclusions that bear no relations to models. What we currently observe in the Arctic with regard to sea ice is about 20 years ahead of what the sea-ice and climate models predict. So, I am actually saying that models get it wrong as the Arctic sea ice is disappearing faster (by about 20-40 years) than the models predict.

        Can we please do without ad homien attacks or is name-calling all you got?

      • johnmcguire says:

        Mr . Muenchow , You can spin it anyway you want but thinking people will not accept your reasoning just because you want it to be that way . Your arguement is that you take measurements and therefor know more than me . My arguement is that you are ignoring history and the proven record of natural cycles that are not in anyway affected by man . Will the arctic ice ever be gone ? I say no , unless there is something like nuclear holocaust . You are blinded by the bias that you apparently willingly accept . You can be like hansen and attempt to rewrite history or you can consider the fact that the arctic has been much warmer than it is now as proven by historical records . These records are facts and facts lead one to think in the proper direction . The CO2 spoof isn’t even good theory as it is cast into doubt by so many facts . So , are you accusing man of changing the arctic or are you acknowledging the historical records ?

    • F. Guimaraes says:

      The Antarctic sea ice anomaly has been increasing on the average for at least 33 years. This means that during the last 3 decades (at least) your statement that the new ice “completely melts every year” is wrong.
      Of course, you probably believe in “your words”, even if the facts contradict them.

  5. roger says:

    Andreas Muenchow says:
    September 21, 2012 at 2:59 pm
    OK … but do you or have you ever done anything useful with your life? I only ask because as one reaches old age, this becomes a matter of great importance and your time spent measuring oceanic currents and analysing data might appear to you to have been a foolish waste of life at some time in your future.
    We laugh at angels dancing on pins today, but who knows whether future generations might not laugh at such a fuss and commotion over annual transitions from ice to water and back again.

  6. Blade says:

    To Andreas Muenchow, Two questions …

    “Not all ice is equal. Some ice is an inch thin at the onset of winter, some is 2 meters thick after an entire winter’s freezing …”

    Is this the visible portion of sea-ice or do we even acknowledge the existence of the 90% of it that is invisible, meaning the part that lies underwater? I just want to be sure that we human beings in their race to destroy the planet haven’t found a way to alter the immutable laws of buoyancy by creating magic sea-ice. Such information would be useful to future Row-to-the-Pole and Titanic captains.

    “The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice cover over time has nothing but spectacular as is plain to see …”

    What happens to the adjective spectacular if we discover that the current sea-ice minimum extent ( only seen during the peak of summer melt! ) is actually the norm for the warmer times between cyclic cool periods like the 1960’s to 1970’s? What if those cyclic cool periods like the 1970’s and the LIA and others are the anomalies with respect to the warm Holocene since the last glaciation? Wouldn’t ‘spectacular’ need to be replaced with another word, like perhaps expected or normal or regular or usual? In this case, the measurements always being compared to 1979 would look like quite silly, correct?

    In a related note, I began recording temperatures 12 hours ago at 1:00 am and have noticed an alarming trend of super-linear warming from 44°F to 72°F presently. Preliminary projections show that 1:00 am tomorrow it will be exactly 100°F and models show an even more frightening 156°F the following day. P.S. I am awaiting further results from NCAR models that will factor in positive feedback for even more accurate, and much more alarming projections.

    • Don Sutherland says:

      Ice volume takes into consideration thickness. Per PIOMAS, both the annual maximum and annual minimum thickness have been declining. In 2002, the maximum figure was 27,538 cubic kilometers and the minimum volume was 10,792 cubic kilometers. In 2012, the figures were 21,930 cubic kilometers and at least 3,407 cubic kilometers respectively. Both figures are record lows and it is possible that the minimum might have been somewhat lower as the data through 9/16 is not yet available.

      • Who cares and why is this important to anyone?

      • And if it was, that would actually be good, right? So what is the issue again?

        Is this based on the fear that polar bears will die without sea ice in mid summer? Or is it because unnatural freaky anthropogenic storms will cause really annoying weather somewhere ‘in the north’ ? Or something like that…

      • Blade says:

        Don Sutherland [September 22, 2012 at 12:18 am] says:

        “Ice volume takes into consideration thickness. Per PIOMAS, both the annual maximum and annual minimum thickness have been declining. In 2002, the maximum figure was 27,538 cubic kilometers and the minimum volume was 10,792 cubic kilometers. In 2012, the figures were 21,930 cubic kilometers and at least 3,407 cubic kilometers respectively. Both figures are record lows and it is possible that the minimum might have been somewhat lower as the data through 9/16 is not yet available.”

        What happens if we discover that the current sea-ice minimum extent and volume is actually the norm for the warmer times between cyclic cool periods like the 1960’s to 1970’s? What if those cyclic cool periods like the 1970’s and the LIA and others are the anomalies with respect to the warm Holocene since the last glaciation? In this case, the measurements always being compared to 1979 and all the incessant alarmism would look like quite silly, correct?

      • Ice volume takes into consideration thickness.

        Bull. Pure unadulterated papal bull. Ice thickness is derived from volume. It takes exactly two parameters to calculate ice volume: a previously assumed value & a time factor.

  7. So that’s 23,600 km^2 ? Does a “Manhattan” contain an implicit standard error ?

  8. richard says:

    dear Andreas , do you think the NE passage will become commercially viable again as it was from the 1930’s through to the 1980’s for the Russians.

    the russians were also using it in the 1870’s.

  9. Shooter says:

    And Queen Latifah made a movie about it.

  10. Don Sutherland says:

    Melt season has ended. Recovery in the ice is not unexpected. The issue concerns whether the Arctic is transitioning from perennial sea ice coverage to seasonal sea ice coverage.

  11. Billy Liar says:

    Unfortunately, there is a large lump of fast ice attached to northern Greenland which might take rather a long time to melt.

    I never underestimate, however, the ability of researchers and their icebreakers to chisel this lump off and smash it up ‘researching’ it.

  12. Steve Clough says:

    I love this site! Reading this in the am with my morning coffee just juices up my day.

  13. RoyFOMR says:

    Let us salute those far-sighted Russians of centuries past who invested in creating towns with harbours in anticipation of ice-free passages in the 21st Century!

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