Putting Mindless Arctic Hysteria In Perspective

A winter storm broke up the ice in the Chukchi Sea at the beginning of the month and dragged warm water to the surface. As you can see from the animation above, not much else happened this month.

What does an early winter storm have to do with global warming?

-Storm area 1 million square kilometers

-Wave height of 2 to 3 meters broke apart ice into smaller chunks, increasing surface area and thus melting

-Storm mixed fresh water at surface (from melted ice) with deeper warmer saltier water from below increasing melting rate

-Storm agitated water to depths of 500 meters (where water is much warmer) bringing it to surface increasing melt rate

-Low pressure of storm center sucked up water level by 0.3 meters, causing warm water to flow into Arctic Ocean from Pacific Ocean via Bering Strait and from Atlantic Ocean, increasing melting

-Storm rotation (counterclockwise) spread out ice over larger area and pushed ice towards open ocean (on Atlantic Ocean side)

Julienne Stroeve NSIDC

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48 Responses to Putting Mindless Arctic Hysteria In Perspective

  1. Gondo says:

    Had the ice not been so thin to start with, the storm would not have had much of an effect. Same thing in 2007, the ice was thin enough to be pushed out from the Artcic sea by standard weather phenomena.

    • Did you actually look at the animation before commenting? The ice was 2 metres thick in much of the Chukchi Sea.

      • Gondo says:

        Didn’t it use to be 5 meters thick just a couple of decades ago?

      • Blade says:

        Gondo [August 25, 2012 at 5:59 pm] says:

        “Didn’t it use to be 5 meters thick just a couple of decades ago?”

        So you really do want a return to the climate of the 1970’s. Is this really what would help you sleep at night?

        Mindless Arctic Hysteria indeed!

      • Julienne Stroeve says:

        Steve, that’s not what your animation shows. It’s also not what Cryosat shows. And remember too, the ice concentration was already low before the storm impacted that region. Finally, cyclones are not uncommon in the Arctic during summer. Remember 2002? That was a particularly stormy summer. The thinning of the ice cover in the last few years is a large part of why anomalous weather patterns can do as much damage as they do.

      • Eric Barnes says:

        “do as much damage as they do”.
        Interesting choice of words Julienne. Before 1940 was ice just melting? Or was it being “damaged” then as well? Does Gaia scream when the ice is “damaged”?

      • R. Gates says:

        Steve,

        You are so seriously outgunned by Dr. Stroeve that you really should just shut up. You make a fool of yourself…but perhaps that is your goal.

    • Graham Lear says:

      You can always lead a donkey to a water pond but you will never be able to make the donkey drink the water

    • Don Sutherland says:

      Great point, Gondo.

      Thinner ice = greater vulnerability (both to warm temperatures and to storminess).

  2. Reggie says:

    “What does an early winter storm have to do with global warming?”

    In the reality based universe an early August storm is considered to have occurred during the summer. Is this a parody blog or do you actually believe that winter in the northern hemisphere begin during the first week of August?
    I can see why Watts dumped you from is blog, you give skeptics a bad name!

  3. Gondo says:

    The sea ice area and volume were way bigger in the 1940’s. BTW the behaviour of sceptics in the face of this surprising decline have been rather predictable.

    http://hot-topic.co.nz/arctic-sea-ice-forecast-its-going-to-be-tough-to-stay-cool/

  4. Gondo says:

    Seriously, have you not looked at the PIOMAS-graph for ice volume? Looks like sort of a collapse to me…the August datapoint will be posted in about two weeks so let’s just wait. And yes, CryoSat-2 is measuring the ice thickness as we speak so we’re not depending on more models.

    • PIOMAS trends show an ice-free September in 2015 and an ice-free July in 2016. They are completely full of shit.

      • Gondo says:

        I don’t think the recent developments constitute a “trend”, but a breakout from the previous trend. But don’t worry, satellite altimetry will keep measuring arctic ice about 15 times a day so we’ll know for sure what happens to the volume. Like I said, preliminary results show that the volume has dropped drastically.

      • The map above shows an average thickness of about three metres.

  5. suyts says:

    Lol, Steve, it seems you have a couple who insist on mindless hysteria. Apparently, it’s important for them to be mindlessly hysterical.

  6. Andy DC says:

    One out of season COLD blizzard at 80 N and the alarmists would have us all head for the hills due to warming! Whatever record they are claiming is a fluke, totally irrelevant if not contrary to their global warming hysteria. It is proof that alarmists are far more concerned about spin than they are about science. These people so blatantly determined to foist an agenda also “adjust” temperatures honestly? Tell me another one!

  7. Crashex says:

    The storm clearly structurally damaged the ice and brought the warmer water from the deeper ocean to the surface that accelerated the melt of existing ice. But, that is only one side of the coin, the list considers only some of the factors.

    Large storms are regional events that carry a tremendous amount of heat energy out of the ocean and release that energy at high altitude during cloud formation. The low pressure accelerates the vaporization of ocean surface water drawing the heat of vaporization from the surface and then releasing that energy at the top of the atmosphere as the vapor condenses as clouds, likely freezing to ice crystals thus releasing additional heat energy as well. That big storm removed a huge amount of heat energy from the arctic ocean.

    A secondary effect is that the storm clouds blocked the sun’s energy from reaching the ocean surface. Thus,a week or so less sun reached the ocean during the summer. Some of this effect is balanced by the higher albedo of the exposed water surface the following week. But, the sun’s elevation is changing rapidly this time of year, so the week after the storm was necessarily at a reduced angle, therefore had less maximum insolation.

    Any snow that fell from the clouds would have also reduced the water temperature.

    With freezing air temperatures coming in now, that region of the oceans will be dissipating more heat to the air and night sky than it would if covered with ice.

    From an arctic ocean standpoint, the storm , particularly this late in the summer season, is probably a net reduction in the heat content of the arctic ocean. Definitely a reduction in the bulk temperature of the water. A lot of water heat content (temperature) would have been “used up” to melt the ice. That ice melt was NOT an elevated air temperature phenomena.

    It’s always frustrating to me to see effects lists made by scientists that only address half the factors. It leaves the impression of a biased agenda.

  8. sunsettommy says:

    Don writes,

    “Both air and water temperatures. However, this summer, warmer water played a larger role above 80°N.”

    Air temperature stayed below freezing 99% of the time in the short arctic summer certainly not enough to melt much of anything.

    Julienne made it clear that it was the wind and the upwelling warmer water that did the damage to the ice.

    • Don Sutherland says:

      Vulnerability is to either air or water temperatures. In this case (2012), as I stated, water played the larger role. Dr. Stroeve described the details related to the upwelling.

      • sunsettommy says:

        Stop the bullshit Don!

        The air temperatures is NEVER a significant factor in the melting of ice in the far north.It is the storms with wind and upwelling/incoming warmer waters that does most of the damage to the ice.

        Reread what Julienne stated where she completely omitted air temperature from her commentary about the powerful storm that greatly reduced the ice cover.

        The recovery through the winter is normal the part you guys are silent on as shown here that you have deliberately avoided commenting on:

        http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/08/25/visualizing-arctic-neurosis/

      • Don Sutherland says:

        Dr. Stroeve was explaining the storm’s impact. She was not discussing the concept of ice thickness and vulnerability. One of Dr. Stroeve’s papers does a good job explaining, among other things, the importance of thickness. That paper can be found at: http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/staff/jenkay/papers/Stroeve_2011.pdf

      • sunsettommy says:

        Don tries to be smart by missing the point entirely by bringing up a science paper published early LAST YEAR!

        “Received: 15 February 2011 / Accepted: 22 April 2011”

        What I referred to was this statement by Julienne that Steve quoted,

        “-Storm area 1 million square kilometers

        -Wave height of 2 to 3 meters broke apart ice into smaller chunks, increasing surface area and thus melting

        -Storm mixed fresh water at surface (from melted ice) with deeper warmer saltier water from below increasing melting rate

        -Storm agitated water to depths of 500 meters (where water is much warmer) bringing it to surface increasing melt rate

        -Low pressure of storm center sucked up water level by 0.3 meters, causing warm water to flow into Arctic Ocean from Pacific Ocean via Bering Strait and from Atlantic Ocean, increasing melting

        -Storm rotation (counterclockwise) spread out ice over larger area and pushed ice towards open ocean (on Atlantic Ocean side)

        Julienne Stroeve NSIDC”

        No mention of air temperature in her commentary about a powerful storm that smashed a portion of the ice pack.

        Try staying with the current topic Don.

      • Don Sutherland says:

        I responded on Gondo’s point concerning the thin ice. Thinner ice = greater vulnerability (both to warm temperatures and to storminess). That’s a non-controversial point (or at least I thought so). Quite frankly, this is the first time I’ve seen attempts made to argue that thinner ice is no more vulnerable to warmer temperatures than thicker ice. Indeed, if you believe thin ice is no more vulnerable to warm temperatures than thicker ice, you should ask Dr. Stroeve for her thoughts on that matter.

        I, for one, am certain that she will explain that the thinner ice is more vulnerable. I provided the link to her paper, because she explains that reality in her discussion in that paper concerning first year ice.

  9. sunsettommy says:

    How come Gondo,Reggie,Don Sutherland and other woe is the world groupie dudes ignoring this post by Steve?

    http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/08/25/visualizing-arctic-neurosis/

    Too inconvenient perhaps?

    • Eric Barnes says:

      Easy with them Tommy! These poor dears need to be able to think they can stop gaia’s suffering. Otherwise they would just be just filthy pond scum like you or I.

    • Don Sutherland says:

      Can you please point out where I took a “woe is the world” approach? Mentioning that Arctic sea ice extent and area have reached record lows (since recordkeeping began albeit not as low as the minima believed to have occurred during the Holocene Climate Optimum) is not a “woe is the world” perspective. Without doubt, declining Arctic sea ice will have ecological, meteorological, and human society impacts, but I haven’t discussed those possible impacts.

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