“less sea ice in the Arctic in July than at any point in recorded history”

It’s official. With two months of melting left to go in the season, scientists say there’s less sea ice in the Arctic in July than at any point in recorded history.

As previously reported, temperatures in the Arctic were as much as 14 degrees above average through parts of July, and now the National Snow and Ice Data Center has finalized its measurements of sea ice for the month. Not surprisingly, it’s another record in a long list of records for Arctic melting.

http://www.thedailygreen.com

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45 Responses to “less sea ice in the Arctic in July than at any point in recorded history”

  1. AndyW says:

    NSIDC Monthly report was good this month

    http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

    They seem to be branching out into different topics more nowadays.

    Andy

  2. Andy WeissDC says:

    14 degrees above normal? Hansen’s red and pink crayons must be working overtime.

  3. J Calvert N says:

    The wording of that first paragraph is pretty outrageous. “It’s official. With two months of melting left to go in the season, scientists say there’s less sea ice in the Arctic in July than at any point in recorded history.” Deliberately worded to mislead? Or are NSIDC just incompetent with words?

    We know what they really mean, but to the man-in-street this could sound like, “Hey wow! It’s only July and already there is absolutely less ice in the Arctic than there ever has been in history.”

    • J Calvert N says:

      “any point in recorded history” That’s just plain wrong. Depending on how it was measured and who measured it, July is perhaps slightly down on any other July since records began (which was not very long ago).

      NSIDC: Shooting the breeze!

    • julienne stroeve says:

      J…NSIDC did not write that news report. NSIDC wrote the blog entry that Andy points to.

  4. Blade says:

    So recorded history apparently began *since* the ice-age 1970’s.

    Checked the article. It turns out that the phrase:

    scientists say there’s less sea ice in the Arctic in July than at any point in recorded history

    was added by the green nutjobs at that blog.

    So NSIDC and Serreze didn’t actually use those words, this time, but their groupies of course fill in the blanks.

    Serreze and Julienne should take note that their endless propaganda pays off on some blogs. Just not here.

    • julienne stroeve says:

      Did you see Serreze’s name or my name in that news story? If you read the NSIDC blog entry you see that NSIDC states it is the lowest in the satellite data record, not EVER.

      • Grumpy Grampy ;) says:

        Julienne:
        It was not the lowest during satellite history just for a few days compared to the same days during satellite observations. Get your story straight.

      • Blade says:

        “Did you see Serreze’s name or my name in that news story? If you read the NSIDC blog entry you see that NSIDC states it is the lowest in the satellite data record, not EVER.”

        Clearly you missed my point by a country mile.

        I said that the recorded history hype was added by your sycophants (the people that re-interpret your press releases which are already chock full of loaded language).

        This discussion dovetails nicely with another comment I made here.

    • suyts says:

      Yes, the story borrowed from NSIDC and they added their own “poetic license”.

      It is interesting though. While the July comparison graph is accurate, it seemingly forgets the most recent part of the story.

      Yes, we had very rapid ice loss through much of July, but then it stopped. But no mention of this rather rare phenomena. Strange, isn’t it?

      • julienne stroeve says:

        I suppose that part of what we wrote in our blog doesn’t make for a good news story. 😉
        The ice loss has sped up again though, and given the diffuse ice cover in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas it’s entirely possible that ice loss in August could be faster than in 2007. Remember in 2008, there was a speed up of ice loss during August as the ice was rather thin and the weather pattern was conducive to more ice removal.

        FYI…here are the recent numbers:

        20110731 = 6.7905200
        20110801 = 6.6091000
        20110802 = 6.6681700
        20110803 = 6.5675000
        20110804 = 6.4907200

        • Julienne,

          I don’t see much evidence of melt so far in the Beaufort Sea, just spreading mostly. The Chukchi Sea does look like it will lose a significant amount of ice over the next week though.

      • suyts says:

        Yes, this year has been most interesting towards the annual horse race. It rarely holds much interest for me, but this year has been full of some very interesting dynamics. It could be perception, but, it seems a bit different this year.

    • Brian says:

      The real nutjob’s are creationist like Dr. Spencer who tries to mislead people about man made climate change.

      • Blade says:

        Brian, if you can keep a lid on your religious bigotry for a minute, I have one simple question …

        Can you give an example of “man made climate change“?

        Any one will do.

  5. Scarlet Pumpernickel says:

    I guess Jesus didn’t hang out there and give us reports?

  6. Chilli says:

    Another story about cuddly polar bears for you Steve:
    British group of 5 attacked by Polar bear. 1 killed, 4 seriously injured.
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/norway/8683416/British-tourist-mauled-to-death-by-polar-bear-in-Norway.html
    Obviously the victim wasn’t a Nissan Leaf driver:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDilZXXBOxs

  7. Grumpy Grampy ;) says:

    Maybe the folks at NSIDC should keep this in mind when they make claims about future ice conditions: “Please note that NSIDC is not an operational ice forecasting center. For shipping purposes, please consult the Canadian Ice Service or the US National Ice Center.” The last sentence at the NSIDC web site.
    The current information being given out is about as valuable as the information released during earlier periods of history when low ice conditions were experienced.

  8. Scarlet Pumpernickel says:

    So why is the tree line in the arctic higher in the past then it is today? Oh less climate is 20 years and weather that’s 6 hours if its hot

    • Grumpy Grampy ;) says:

      SP:
      The “Past” started at any time convenient for the promoters! For us deniers any point in the earths history can be the past, such as “Cherry picked” dates like 5,000 years before present or worse 8,000 years ago. We just do not understand that 12 years can represent recorded history when convenient.

      • Grumpy Grampy ;) says:

        Those stumps sticking out of the ice can be ignored because they do not have any green on them and were probably planted by Goodard to trow off “Real” climate scientists. 😉

  9. Gator says:

    Ice melts. Big deal.

  10. Paul H says:

    The NSIDC report states :-

    While the amount of older sea ice has increased somewhat since September 2007, an updated analysis of satellite-derived sea ice age recently published by James Maslanik and co-authors show the oldest ice (ice older than five years), has continued to decline.

    Is this not self contradicting, Julienne?

    • Julienne Stroeve says:

      I’m not sure I follow. Multiyear ice is ice 2 years or older. What that statement says is that while multiyear year ice has increased somewhat from the 2007 minimum, the amount of ice that is 5 years or older has continued to decline. So basically you have less of the really old ice, which tends to be the thickest ice, despite the fact that there has not been a new record low since 2007.

      • Paul H says:

        Surely the 5 year ice, i.e. ice that survived in 2007, can only reduce at the moment as inevitably some must always melt every year. It can only start growing after the 2007 low is out of the way and the recovery in ice starting in 2008 becomes 5 years old?

    • suyts says:

      We (at realscience) have discussed this. Julienne, wouldn’t this be what is expected, given the ice loss of 2007? Next year can we expect a study of the diminished amount of 6 y/o ice?

      • Julienne Stroeve says:

        Perhaps Steve can post the paper we published in GRL? I sent it to him a while back. It might be easier for you to read it rather than me detailing every part of it since I can’t show you the corresponding graphs to go along with the discussion.
        Neven did post a summary as well with graphs from the paper if you don’t want to read the paper: http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2011/07/new-paper-from-maslanik-et-al.html. The graphs on Neven’s site will help you understand what I mean about the 5+ ice.

      • suyts says:

        Julienne, I’d love to read the entire paper……. while I can glean much information from graphs, I seem to get more from reading. Unfortunately, you guys published to GRL, where my opportunity to read the paper is limited to my willingness to depart with some money.

        I’m hoping to change this system soon. I have an aversion to buying some information that I’ve likely already paid for in one form or another. (Note, this comment wasn’t directed at you, but rather a general observation.)

        Steve!!! Send me the paper…….. please.

      • Scott says:

        Is it legal to send papers like that? I have access to most paywalled articles…

        -Scott

  11. Julienne Stroeve says:

    i can share my papers with anyone and we all regularly pass our papers onto our colleagues, so if you send me your email address I can email you a copy as well.

    • suyts says:

      Wonderful!! That’s very gracious.

      Uhmm, I don’t have your e-mail addy to send you my addy….. 🙂

      No biggy, if you’d just send the paper to suyts@hotmail(dot)com…..

      Thanks much.

      James

    • Paul H says:

      Hi Julienne

      I think I understand bits of Neven’s post but please bear with me if I make an obvious boo boo.

      But Neven’s graph clearly shows 3 and 4 year ice in 2011 well up on 2010. This being so and assuming no extraneous factors surely this can only lead to an increase in 5 year ice over the next 2 years.

      PS I would add to Scott’s and others’ comments and thank you for spending time with us.

      Thanks

      Paul

      • Paul H says:

        Just to add as well.

        When I eyeball the graph, the very low level of 2011 5yr+ seems to correspond with the very low level of 3yr ice in 2009. Is not it this factor that has most to do with determining this year’s 5 yr+ rather than this year’s climate?

      • Julienne Stroeve says:

        Hi Paul, no question is a bad one 😉
        For the Arctic as a whole, the 4 year ice did increase from 163,906 sq-km to 298,750 sq-km between March 2010 and March 2011. So depending on how much of this survives this summer, it could help the 5+ ice recover. And there was also a doubling of 3 year old ice.
        As of the 3rd week of July most of the 4 year old ice was still there, but I suspect that more of that was lost in the Beaufort since I last looked at the data, as well as more of the 5+ ice since some of that ice is right in the region of the Beaufort/Chukchi seas where lots of open water areas have developed. Guess we’ll know soon enough. More 3 year old ice has been lost than the 4 year old ice thus far, but percentage wise, there has been more 5+ ice lost between March and the third week of July than 3 or 4 year old ice, so there will be a trade-off.

    • Scott says:

      Julienne – is it legal for me to share my papers with anyone like that? No one ever taught me what those sort of rules were while I was in grad school.

      Thanks,

      -Scott

      • Julienne Stroeve says:

        Scott, my understanding is that we can send whoever we want a pdf (or hard copy) of our papers. Back in the past before everyone was using pdfs, we would always purchase the hard-copies and then I would make a list of colleagues I thought may be interested in my paper and then mail them a hard copy. Today, we don’t tend to purchase the hard copies but keep the pdf to pass around. I don’t see why there should be distinction if I give the paper to another scientist or to someone from the general public interested in reading the paper.

      • Scott says:

        Hi Julienne,

        Thanks for the clarification. I’d avoided passing around my stuff (to say, my family), just b/c I was worried about the legality of it.

        -Scott

  12. Ah, yes the old “shifting definitions” trick. You see, to most people recorded history means the last 3000-5000 years, since we actually have a written record of at least some part of this period. In this case, though, they give us the definition meaning, “Since 1979 A.D.”. It’s a pretty good trick, if you ask me, being able to give an impression of 5000 years, while also being able to back up and say that 32 years or so is all they have to furnish for evidence.

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