They have launched a new web site so we have a new address for the map on current sea ice. Be sure to check the second map to compare present levels with the twenty year average.
http://www.socc.ca/cms/en/socc/seaIce/currentSeaIce.aspx
They also have a useful list of related links including the following:
http://www.polardata.ca/login.ccin
Anyway the retreat has begun and it looks like we will get a reduction similar to last year. What is more troubling, are reports from the ice observing a lack of multiyear ice. We do not know if that is observational luck of the winds putting the wrong ice in the right place or if the losses of the past two years are way more general than anticipated. A satellite map will not help there until late summer when an accelerating collapse cannot be ignored.
It is plausible that the chronic ice loss of the past decade has not ended at all and is continuing unabated. 2007 was dramatic because wind systems revealed just how much had already been lost. We are now discovering that multi year ice appears to be largely gone.
We still have a couple of years of sea ice reduction to go through, but a clear sea by 2012 continues to look plausible. A few have actually accepted the possibility and have said as much to avoid been made fools of by Mother Nature.
We may start getting some serious surprises in large stretches of open sea already this fall.
For those unfamiliar with earlier posts by myself on this subject, it is apparent that the arctic has been subject to an incremental warming action for at least thirty years that is much the same year after year. We have now entered the collapse phase that should possibly see all the ice removed as early as 2012. This is obviously a nonlinear behavior.
The cause may be an unobserved current change or a consistent unobserved atmospheric shift. It appears to be uniform which supports a current shift.
Showing posts with label 2007 minima. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2007 minima. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Classic Winter not News
I find it rather frustrating that overt media bias is preventing the major climate story to not get properly told. When last checked global temperatures had dropped 0.7 degrees and we can assume that we are experiencing an additional drop to be expressed in the next set of numbers.
This was calculated from the same sources that gave us rising temperatures for a decade and flat temperatures for the past decade. That total gain was perhaps the same size. So what is everyone waiting for? It takes two decades to warm the northern hemisphere 0.7 degrees and perhaps six months to reverse it totally. That is not a big story. Are they waiting for confirmation? Try looking outside your window.
What we know of climate change history has always said the same thing. The warming is slow and gradual while the chilling is abrupt. This looks like a chill out and it is likely good for another year or more. The next set of numbers should show even more decline.
The mechanism for all this is becoming a lot clearer. Incoming heat is unevenly distributed between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres through oscillations focused on the Pacific which is half the planet. When surplus heat is pumped into the north across the equator the PDO shifts it north and if necessary discharges the surplus into the Arctic as occurred in 2007. When that occurs the elastic band snaps back and we catch a surge of cold weather. Sound familiar?
The problem of course is that the effects of CO2 are impossible to separate out from this type of decadal cycle. We certainly do not have the centuries of accurate Arctic weather information to compare. Maybe we should be excited because we melted some sea ice this time around. Or more likely, we should be disappointed and get serious about planting trees in the Sahara.
I am trying to say that this snap back of global temperatures is a hell of a story and absolutely no one is picking up on it. What are they thinking? Their only evidence just strode out the door. Isn’t anyone brave enough to stand up and simply say that the party is over?
I want to see a credible climate scientist stand up and say this reversal is a temporary move and that the fundamentals are good for a swift return to global warming. I used to sell stock in gold mines too. Of course they are all hiding, depending on how bravely they supported the CO2 theory.
I suspect that the rest of the crowd, who are too lazy to keep a close eye on the data will keep talking global warming while we continue to have a good old fashioned multi blizzard winter well into March. How do you like it so far?
I know that this is just one winter and that last winter was the actual beginning of a cold cycle, but this really feels like we are back in the fifties for foul weather. I was just a kid then, but that sort of foul abated into the sixties and had almost disappeared running into the nineties and most recently. It was apt that they measured sea ice thickness in 1959 and likely caught the maxima. 2007 gave us a pretty good minimum.
This was calculated from the same sources that gave us rising temperatures for a decade and flat temperatures for the past decade. That total gain was perhaps the same size. So what is everyone waiting for? It takes two decades to warm the northern hemisphere 0.7 degrees and perhaps six months to reverse it totally. That is not a big story. Are they waiting for confirmation? Try looking outside your window.
What we know of climate change history has always said the same thing. The warming is slow and gradual while the chilling is abrupt. This looks like a chill out and it is likely good for another year or more. The next set of numbers should show even more decline.
The mechanism for all this is becoming a lot clearer. Incoming heat is unevenly distributed between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres through oscillations focused on the Pacific which is half the planet. When surplus heat is pumped into the north across the equator the PDO shifts it north and if necessary discharges the surplus into the Arctic as occurred in 2007. When that occurs the elastic band snaps back and we catch a surge of cold weather. Sound familiar?
The problem of course is that the effects of CO2 are impossible to separate out from this type of decadal cycle. We certainly do not have the centuries of accurate Arctic weather information to compare. Maybe we should be excited because we melted some sea ice this time around. Or more likely, we should be disappointed and get serious about planting trees in the Sahara.
I am trying to say that this snap back of global temperatures is a hell of a story and absolutely no one is picking up on it. What are they thinking? Their only evidence just strode out the door. Isn’t anyone brave enough to stand up and simply say that the party is over?
I want to see a credible climate scientist stand up and say this reversal is a temporary move and that the fundamentals are good for a swift return to global warming. I used to sell stock in gold mines too. Of course they are all hiding, depending on how bravely they supported the CO2 theory.
I suspect that the rest of the crowd, who are too lazy to keep a close eye on the data will keep talking global warming while we continue to have a good old fashioned multi blizzard winter well into March. How do you like it so far?
I know that this is just one winter and that last winter was the actual beginning of a cold cycle, but this really feels like we are back in the fifties for foul weather. I was just a kid then, but that sort of foul abated into the sixties and had almost disappeared running into the nineties and most recently. It was apt that they measured sea ice thickness in 1959 and likely caught the maxima. 2007 gave us a pretty good minimum.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Final Sea Ice
Needless to say, I am no longer alone in recognizing that the perennial sea ice will be gone in five years. When I posted the aggressive 2012 prediction late last summer, the consensus was many decades. This item shows that most are now bowing to the inevitable. The areal extent was slightly larger than last year, but the unusual winds of 2007 did not come along and perhaps compress it more.
We have no way of knowing for sure, but I expect that this year’s actual ice loss was significant though not as large as last years. It is still a loss rather than a gain and what is now obvious to everyone is that we are observing the dissolution of the perennial Arctic sea ice. As I posted in the past, the average loss per year is linear inasmuch as roughly the same value M will be extracted from the total. But now the exposed area of the Arctic is increasing sharply, the value of M can even be expected to modestly increase as more solar energy is absorbed.
All this adds up to an accelerating collapse of the ice over the next four years. I have yet to see a reason to back of my 2012 prediction. It is necessary to have a much colder and much longer winter than last year’s.
As I pointed out to my readers last year, this decline is all about the effect of a small incremental increase M in available heat to the Arctic. As the total ice mass declines, the effect of m steadily increases, until it becomes the dominant factor when there is little of the original ice left. We are obviously there and it can only get worse now until the long term ice is all gone over the next four years or so.
This summer, the melting and warming of the ice mass continued. Major parts of the super thick floating ice sheets broke free confirming the ongoing weakening and warming of even this ice. And this item reports that new ice that is visible is weak and thin.
I would like to believe that the apparent slight reduction in solar energy is sufficient to induce a cooling of the Northern Hemisphere. Right now the evidence is pretty sketchy and not obvious, reports to the contrary.
We have also just had a lively hurricane season which shows that the equatorial heat engine is not shut down and is winding up again. Maybe with this blow out, we will now get a couple of quiet years.
Last year proved that none of this helped in predicting the upcoming winter. However a mild winter seems to presage a warm summer in the Arctic.
Arctic Sea Ice Season Underscores Accelerating Decline
Written by Dana Nuccitelli
According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), Arctic sea ice cover appears to have reached its minimum extent for the year, the second-lowest extent recorded since the dawn of the satellite era.
While above the record minimum Arctic sea ice extent set on September 16, 2007, this year further reinforces the strong negative trend in summertime ice extent observed over the past thirty years.
Despite overall cooler summer temperatures, the 2008 minimum extent is only 390,000 square kilometers (150,000 square miles), or 9.4%, more than the record-setting 2007 minimum. The 2008 minimum extent is 15.0% less than the next-lowest minimum extent set in 2005 and 33.1% less than the average minimum extent from 1979 to 2000.
This season further reinforces the long-term downward trend of sea ice extent.
Even though the sea ice didn’t retreat this year as much as last summer, “there was no real sign of recovery,” said Walt Meier of NSIDC. This year was cooler and other weather conditions weren’t as bad, he said.
“We’re kind of in a new state of the Arctic basically, and it’s not a good one,” Meier said. “We’re definitely sliding towards a point where the summer sea ice will be gone.”
Scientists have predicted that the Arctic will become ice free in the summer by the year 2013, if not sooner. This also does not bode well for global warming, since ice reflects sunlight whereas dark oceans absorb it.
On top of that, the Arctic ice melting trend has shifted. Normally the ice would reach its minimum extent by early September, but after the record melt of 2007, much of the ice reformed with much less thickness, allowing it to continue to melt through mid-September this year.
The Arctic is warming at a faster rate than the rest of the planet, and can be considered a ‘canary in the coal mine’. Right now, that canary is not in good health.
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