Winds compressed Arctic sea ice for a few days, which caused the usual morons to declare apocalypse. The ice is expanding rapidly now, is above 2006 levels, and is about to pass 2005 levels.
Ice has returned to the levels it was at a decade ago.
There is going to be a lot of ice growth over the next week.
Currently, the ice will grow on the Bering Sea.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_a_f/gif_files/gfs_z100_nh_f00.gif
Plus the weeks of below zero temperatures over the Atlantic off the North East USA coast caused by the Polar Vortex must be accelerating the swing of the AMO by sucking heat out of the Sea.
NSIDC has it well below both 2006 and 2005. http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/
Not surprised.
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/testimage.2.sh?first=20060312.jpg&second=20150312.jpg
http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/prods/WIS28CT/20150314180000_WIS28CT_0008166268.gif
Isn’t it amazing what comes out of Boulder and what comes out of Urbana-Champaign look so different? (But it does not surprise me anymore.)
In their defense, that wind whistling through their ears must be very distracting.
Compressing the ice allows more ice to survive the summer and become “old ice” and thus over time results in increased volume. Spreading the ice increases extent of course but allows for more summer melting and a subsequent decrease in volume. But no matter what the ice does to the doom sayers it’s all bad. If it increases in extent it’s bad because in their minds it is evidence against their theories and that is bad. If it gets compressed then the decrease in extent they interpret that as a sign that their notions of an ice free Arctic are being verified but it means we’re all gonna die and that is bad too!
“Extent of ice a poor indicator
The conclusion from this research is that we should be cautious about using the extent of the ice cover as an indicator of the ice’s climatic “state of health”.
The extent of the ice cover is highly dependent on the wind direction, and short-term changes in the ice cover give very little indication of whether climate change is occurring in the Arctic”
http://www.forskningsradet.no/prognett-polarforskning/Nyheter/Winds_from_Siberia_reduce_Arctic_sea_ice_cover/1253955174381?lang=en
amazing really-
back in 1952 there was such a loss of ice that sailing lasted 5 months longer than today.
“The glaciers of Norway and Alaska,” he said, “are only half the size they were 50 years ago. The temperature round
Spitzbergen has so modified that the sailing time has lengthened from three to eight months of the year.” Dr. Carlson spent several years in Greenland as a geologist and meteorologist”
today-
“Spitsbergen has a short season from mid June to mid August; and there is 24 hour daylight in all three months. There may be more sea ice in the earlier months and some more flowers, but in reality with the capricious nature of the weather and wildlife there is not much to choose between them”
http://www.exodus.co.uk/arctic…
Steve has flagged this up before but always worth repeating.