Arctic Sea Ice Extent Is Second Highest In A Decade, And Highest In Nine Years

Posted on September 24, 2014 by Tony Heller

ScreenHunter_3007 Sep. 24 07.09 COI | Centre for Ocean and Ice | Danmarks Meteorologiske Institut

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15 Responses to Arctic Sea Ice Extent Is Second Highest In A Decade, And Highest In Nine Years

  1. philjourdan says:
    September 24, 2014 at 11:25 am

    Eric Worrall. over at WUWT, estimates the closing of the Drake passage in about 35 years at half the current rate of ice expansion in Antarctica. An interesting thing to ponder – what will happen when that current is cowed?

    Reply
    • Dmh says:
      September 24, 2014 at 9:56 pm

      Is this even possible, with all those strong winds down there?
      A more probable scenario IMO is the increasing spreading of colder sea surface anomalies to lower latitudes. In fact, this is already happening.

      Reply
      • philjourdan says:
        September 25, 2014 at 5:12 pm

        It definitely will not be a linear type of thing. With the currents and winds, it will be hard for ice to take hold. Some claim it happened during the past (in this ice age). But this ice age was caused by the closing of the isthmus of Panama. Do I wonder what effect the closing that passage would have.

        Reply
  2. stewart pid says:
    September 24, 2014 at 11:50 am

    Butt Obozo said we are all gonna fry!!

    Reply
  3. JN says:
    September 24, 2014 at 3:49 pm

    The Arctic death spiral has vanished instead of the ice.

    Reply
  5. bit chilly says:
    September 24, 2014 at 9:24 pm

    the guys at the arctic sea ice forum will be so pleased the ice has not all disappeared this year 😉

    Reply
  6. Dan says:
    September 24, 2014 at 11:08 pm

    It’s interesting to me how NASA is billing it. http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=84418&eocn=home&eoci=iotd_image
    If you read the article they make it sound like we’re all still doomed and everything is still “way below average.” Their “average” of course starts when the ice pack was at it’s largest in 1981 to show a continual down trend rather than starting in the 1970’s when things were lower to acknowledge the potential possibility that things could be cyclical.

    Reply
  7. paul curtis says:
    September 26, 2014 at 1:27 am

    This looks like the place for scientific illiterates. You guys do realize that this blogger is only including six years in his data, which is not a long-term trend? You also realize that the long-term trend shows the rapid retreat of Arctic sea ice? Why read a blog by a guy who has no scientific background?

    Reply
    • stevengoddard says:
      September 29, 2014 at 11:56 pm

      You sound like a forst rate moron

      Reply
    • Gail Combs says:
      September 30, 2014 at 12:30 am

      Paul you want LONG TERM?

      Abstract
      Extensive systems of wave generated beach ridges along the North Greenland coasts show that these areas once saw seasonally open water…. indicate that the Arctic Ocean was nearly free of sea ice in the summer at the time when they were formed. The beach ridges occur as isostatically raised “staircases”, and C14-dated curves for relative sea level change show that they were formed in the Early Holocene. A large set of samples of molluscs from beach ridges and marine sediments were collected in the summer of 2007, and are presently being dated to give a precise dating of the ice free interval. Preliminary results indicate that it fell within the interval from c. 8.5 to c. 6 ka – being progressively shorter from south to north. We therefore conclude that for a priod in the Early Holocene, probably for a millenium or more, the Arctic Ocean was free of sea ice at least for shorter periods in the summer.
      http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007AGUFMPP11A0203F

      Another paper.

      Temperature and precipitation history of the Arctic 2010
      Miller et al
      Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research and Department of Geological Sciences, University of Colorado, USA et al

      …. Solar energy reached a summer maximum (9% higher than at present) ~11 ka ago and has been decreasing since then, primarily in response to the precession of the equinoxes. The extra energy elevated early Holocene summer temperatures throughout the Arctic 1-3°C above 20th century averages, enough to completely melt many small glaciers throughout the Arctic, although the Greenland Ice Sheet was only slightly smaller than at present. Early Holocene summer sea ice limits were substantially smaller than their 20th century average, and the flow of Atlantic water into the Arctic Ocean was substantially greater. As summer solar energy decreased in the second half of the Holocene, glaciers re-established or advanced, sea ice expanded…

      A more recent paper looking at glaciers in Norway.

      A new approach for reconstructing glacier variability based on lake sediments recording input from more than one glacier January 2012
      Kristian Vasskoga Øyvind Paaschec, Atle Nesjea, John F. Boyled, H.J.B. Birks

      …. A multi-proxy numerical analysis demonstrates that it is possible to distinguish a glacier component in the ~ 8000-yr-long record, based on distinct changes in grain size, geochemistry, and magnetic composition…. This signal is …independently tested through a mineral magnetic provenance analysis of catchment samples. Minimum glacier input is indicated between 6700–5700 cal yr BP, probably reflecting a situation when most glaciers in the catchment had melted away, whereas the highest glacier activity is observed around 600 and 200 cal yr BP. During the local Neoglacial interval (~ 4200 cal yr BP until present), five individual periods of significantly reduced glacier extent are identified at ~ 3400, 3000–2700, 2100–2000, 1700–1500, and ~ 900 cal yr BP….

      The authors of last paper simply states that most glaciers likely didn’t exist 6,000 years ago, but the highest period of the glacial growth has been in the past 600 years. This is hardly surprising with ~9% less solar energy.

      Other data verifies these findings.

      Mid to late Holocene sea-level reconstruction of Southeast Vietnam using beachrock and beach-ridge deposits

      Abstract
      Beachrocks, beach ridge, washover and backshore deposits along the tectonically stable south-eastern Vietnamese coast document Holocene sea level changes. In combination with data from the final marine flooding phase of the incised Mekong River valley, the sea-level history of South Vietnam could be reconstructed for the last 8000 years. Connecting saltmarsh, mangrove and beachrock deposits the record covers the last phase of deglacial sea-level rise from ? 5 to + 1.4 m between 8.1 to 6.4 ka. The rates of sea-level rise decreased sharply after the rapid early Holocene rise and stabilized at a rate of 4.5 mm/year between 8.0 and 6.9 ka. Southeast Vietnam beachrocks reveal that the mid-Holocene sea-level highstand slightly above + 1.4 m was reached between 6.7 and 5.0 ka, with a peak value close to + 1.5 m around 6.0 ka. This highstand is further limited by a backshore and beachridge deposit that marks the maximum springtide sea-level just below the base of the overlying beach ridge. After 5.0 ka sea level dropped below + 1.4 m and fell almost linearly at a rate of 0.24 mm/year until 0.63 ka and + 0.2 m as evidenced by the youngest beachrocks….
      (wwwDOT)sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818113001859

      Another Sea-level highstand study shows similar findings:

      CONCLUSION
      We have constructed a new Holocene sea-level curve for Oahu showing mean sea level higher than today between ~5000 and ~2000 yr ago with a maximum ~2 m above present ca. 3500 yr ago….
      http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/ericg/kap_paper.pdf

      Sea-level highstand recorded in Holocene shoreline deposits on Oahu, Hawaii

      Abstract
      Unconsolidated carbonate sands and cobbles on Kapapa Island, windward Oahu, are 1.4-2.8 (+ or – 0.25) m above present mean sea level (msl). Agreeing with Stearns (1935), we interpret the deposit to be a fossil beach or shoreline representing a highstand of relative sea level during middle to late Holocene time. Calibrated radiocarbon dates of coral and mollusc samples, and a consideration of the effect of wave energy setup, indicate that paleo-msl was at least 1.6 (+ or – 0.45) m above present msl prior to 3889-3665 cal. yr B.P, possibly as early as 5532-5294 cal. yr B.P., and lasted until at least 2239-1940 cal. yr B.P. Hence, the main phase of deposition on Kapapa Island lasted a minimum of c. 1400 yr and possibly as long as c. 3400 yr. No modern samples have been recovered from the fossil beach…Radiocarbon ages of coral and mollusc clasts from a breccia lining an emerged (1.4 + or – 0.25 m msl) intertidal notch, cut into emerged coralline-algal carbonate of presumed last interglacial age, on south Mokulua Island (15 km to the southeast of Kapapa Island) correlate to the history recorded on Kapapa Island. Calibrated ages range from 2755-2671 to 3757-3580 cal. yr B.P. (averaging c. 3100 cal. yr B.P.) suggesting that a higher than present sea level formed the notch prior to 3757-3580 cal. yr B.P….
      http://jsedres.geoscienceworld.org/content/66/3/632.abstract

      Reply
    • philjourdan says:
      October 1, 2014 at 1:10 pm

      Would that be the 100 year trend? Or the 200 year trend? Please support your speculation with actual data.

      Reply
    • mjc says:
      October 1, 2014 at 1:35 pm

      Why is that a single event (pick one) is enough for your side to claim doom and catastrophe, but anything that shows the opposite is ‘not long enough to be a trend’, ‘is just weather’ or any one of a hundred more lame excuses?

      Reply

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