Arctic Ice Area Approaching Abnormally High Range

In a sure sign of devastating global warming, Arctic ice area is nearly one standard deviation above normal.

ssmi1_ice_area.png (1667×1250)

Meanwhile, Antarctic ice has been above normal for the entire year.

S_timeseries.png (1050×840)

About Tony Heller

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27 Responses to Arctic Ice Area Approaching Abnormally High Range

  1. suyts says:

    This has got to be making the moonbats insane.

  2. M Carpenter says:

    Surely Arctic Ice is already one standard deviation above average? Isn’t it above or below the dotted line within the grey area? If it goes beyond the grey area wont that be + or – two standard deviations?

  3. Sandy says:

    ’08 stayed noticeably higher than other years through Jun/Jul, what sea didn’t melt that year?

  4. Sandy says:

    Bollox, meant ’09.

  5. Camburn says:

    This is actually troublesome. The “supposed” warmth of the ocean in the Arctic should have kept this from occuring. IF we are having climate/weather strong enough to over ride this “warmth”, what does it portend for the future?

  6. Dave says:

    Meteorologist: “Rain tomorrow.”
    (Tomorrow): “oops”

    Climatologist: “Global warming caused by humans.”
    Last Ice Age ended 12,000 years ago. Campfires?

  7. AndyG55 says:

    I thought the “base” for averages was 30 years.. These guys should change their graph so that the shaded grey area is the average and deviation from 1979-2009.

  8. F. Guimaraes says:

    Great news! Great news! First because you’re not dead Steve, second because, if the trend continues, in a few more months *global warming/change/whatever* will be dead for sure.

  9. Andrew Troup says:

    Did any of you actually look at the graph?
    It shows that the ice coverage will reach approximately FIVE standard deviations BELOW the usual, which represents the least amount ever recorded.
    I guess my comment will be deleted. That’s how “REAL” science probably works, in this comfortable little bubble of yours.

      • Andrew Troup says:

        What you don’t seem to realise is that the graph you linked to is dynamically updated.
        YOU NEED TO LOOK AT IT AGAIN.

        Since April, there has been an unprecedented collapse in the Arctic area under ice, massively contradicting your ‘snapshot’, grotesquely selective focus on data which supports your contention.
        You carefully picked out the most untypical single month in the last 67, the ONLY one where the ice area reached a whole SD above “usual”. In that whole period there have only been two other months where it exceeded usual by any margin. By the law of averages, it would have been above usual for somewhere in the 30 – 36 month range.

        You didn’t seem to notice in the graph that the progressive and worrying loss of ice, characteristic of recent decades, is a summertime phenomenon. That’s not surprising. In winter, provided the temperature stays below freezing, the ice doesn’t much care whether it’s ten below or forty; in either case, it sticks around. Once we start seeing major ice loss in winter, we’re basically stuffed.

        There is about to be less end-of-summer ice cover in the Arctic than there has EVER been since records began. The area loss in the last five months has exceeded the steepest rate known, by a considerable margin. The area under ice has collapsed, despite starting (as you point out) from a larger than usual late winter accumulation.
        (In both the Arctic and more especially the Antarctic, it snows MORE as winters get warmer, because the air masses contain more moisture. The Antarctic is technically a desert, purely because it’s so cold)

        The minimum cover (which is what actually matters for climate balance) will be nearly 50% down on the usual cover, for the same time of year, thirty-five years ago.
        Scientific predictions a few years back that we might have NO ice in mid summer in the Arctic, by 2100, have been revised downwards twice since then, last I hear it may be only twenty years hence. No ice means no habitat for a whole slew of species, but that’s the least of our worries.

        It’s beyond ironic that you’re trumpeting your message while a record low ice cover is raising unprecedented worldwide concern. Sea routes which have never been navigable are now routine. How could you fail to be aware of the massive race for the Arctic which has been underway for some years now? Multiple nations are competing to corner sovereign rights in order to access mineral and fossil fuel resources hitherto unaccessible under the ice. They’re following your advice, and following the money….

        I guess you’re immune to the acute embarrassment any normal person would feel.

        Quite possibly you probably won’t even revisit the graph at
        ssmi1_ice_area.png (1667×1250)

        … but others will (not least because I’ve drawn attention to your page elsewhere on the web, together with a current snapshot of the graph.)

        I hope your site stays up indefinitely, as a wall of shame.
        History will judge you, and those you typify.

  10. F. Guimaraes says:

    “stevengoddard says: August 24, 2012 at 12:26 pm
    You are commenting on an article from April. Are you completely daft?”
    You’re right Steve, but notice how the part about the Antarctic ice is still correct and we’re almost ending August now! Of course, the Antarctic ice is some 900% greater than the Arctic ice and no warmist would like to talk about such an inconvenient truth, would they?
    And they say that we cherry pick our data. I guess when people start to lie systematically, after some point they loose the ability to think straight and believe anything they say is right, no matter how much evidence piles up everyday to show the contrary.
    The good thing is, time is on our side.
    My guess is, in nearly 4-5 years GW will be a thing of the past.

    • Andrew Troup says:

      The estimable Mr. Guimaraes is consistent in his claims, up to a point:
      Further up the page, he says “(if the trend continues) in a few more months *global warming/change/whatever* will be dead for sure.”

      Unlike stevengoddard, at least he adapts to new information, because now he says
      “My guess is, in nearly 4-5 years GW will be a thing of the past.”

      Interesting trend in his predictions. He goes on to assert, without a hint of irony:

      “I guess when people start to lie systematically, after some point they loose the ability to think straight and believe anything they say is right, no matter how much evidence piles up everyday to show the contrary.”

      A man never reveals himself so honestly as when he attacks others.

    • Andrew Troup says:

      Mr Guimaraes goes on to say:
      “Of course, the Antarctic ice is some 900% greater than the Arctic ice and no warmist would like to talk about such an inconvenient truth, would they?”

      I’m embarassed on your behalf. Perhaps you don’t think of me as a ‘warmist’? Far from avoiding the topic, I’ve just talked, in my post above yours, about why Antarctica’s glaciers were expected to accumulate, and are accumulating, extra snowfall (which compresses into ice) as a result of warming.
      It’s not until the Antarctic has warmed up to present day Arctic levels that we could expect to see the same sort of area collapse.

      Perhaps you need me to join the dots for you?

      Why does a slice of bacon or bread dry out in your freezer? Because it’s too cold in there for water vapour.
      Similarly Antarctica is too cold for water vapour, which has to be imported, because it’s too cold for local evaporation or sublimation. On the way there, the water vapour precipitates out well to the north. The warmer it gets, the further south the precipitation will move, and the MORE snow accumulation, and ice production, there will be.

      Until it’s too warm, as the Artic is already getting, to retain the crucial sea ice mantle which reflects away so much solar energy in summer and has kept our poles disproportionately cold.

      Re cherry picking data: I refer you to the focus on a single month, cherry-picked out of sixty-some, which this page exists to celebrate.

  11. Andrew Troup says:

    You don’t seem to realise that your boosters and cheerleaders are sending people to look at your article NOW.

    When they see you crowing about a graph showing Arctic ice coverage to be +1 SD,
    and they look at that graph using your link, and it shows -5 SD, they wonder if they have wandered into a lunatic asylum.

    “Cut the crap” doesn’t really cut it, as an eloquent defence of why +1 SD is significant while -5 SD is not.

  12. F. Guimaraes says:

    Let’s continue this discussion in 12 months then we’ll see who’s closer to the truth.

  13. F. Guimaraes says:

    Hi Steve, I’ve just written a long reply to Andrew Troup but it’s not showing, can you help me to recover it? Thanks.

  14. Andrew Troup says:

    What’s with the title of this page, anyway? Since when would an eighth grader, let alone a “real” scientist, describe anything above 1SD as “abnormal”.
    If it never went above +1 SD, (as it hasn’t, in the entire period covered by the graph) THAT would be abnormal.

    I’m intrigued that the author of the page seems to think that what he said in April should somehow be immune from comment now, a mere six months later, (“are you … daft ?”) now that we have the perspective of seeing how things actually panned out. Let me see: “REAL science means never looking over your shoulder ?”

    Let me inject a bit of objective analysis: the probability of straying beyond 1SD from the mean is one in six. The probability of being beyond 5 SD is not defined because the normal distribution does not extend that far, but the probability of being beyond 4 SD is three in one hundred thousand. Lets be generous, and say 5SD might happen once in one hundred thousand times.

    Tell me again why a hoped-for one-in-six event qualifies as abnormal, when a one-in-one-hundred-thousand event which did happen, JUDGED BY THE CRITERIA PUT FORWARD BY THE AUTHOR OF THIS BLOG, is shrugged off as being of no interest or relevance.

    No real scientist would come anywhere near this discussion. And it’s clear that none has.

  15. Andrew Troup says:

    I mentioned earlier that it’s the summer minimum ice area which matters to climate balance, not the winter maximum. That’s because in winter there is no beneficial effect from the ice cover reflecting away the solar energy, because it’s dark 24/7. No solar energy whatsoever.

    Celebrating the April ice coverage was like saying to your mum that you’re in good shape because you’ve put on lots of sun screen … at bedtime.

    When the sea ice area in summer is in serious decline, we lose that crucial solar protection for the ocean when it matters, and that’s what presents the alarming and entirely plausible scenario of thermal runaway. It’s the sea ice which keeps the poles disproportionately cool, all year round.

    IN SUMMER, THE POLES SHOULD BE QUITE WARM, BECAUSE IT’S ALWAYS DAYTIME

    The sea-ice phenomenon which prevents that happening is quite likely to be one of the select few which are indispensable to keeping earth habitable.

    • Doh. There is almost no sunlight at the North Pole in September.

      • Andrew Troup says:

        Try June, July, August, ie summer — which is what I wrote.

        It may have escaped your attention that there is considerable thermal inertia, and hence lag, so that the maximum melt is not evident until September, getting on for the equinox …
        But I guess a “REAL” scientist doesn’t need to consider such trivial practicalities….

        And, looking at the graph YOU CHOSE, the cover in those three months was already comparably low with the record low of 2007

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