Friday
Jun282013
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill No Arctic thaw this year?
Jun 28, 2013 Climate: Surface Climate: other Harold Ambler notes the Danish Met Office's record of temperatures above 80°N. These have been running at well below the long-term average for a couple of months now, and are only just now reaching 0°C. In normal circumstances, temperatures have all but stopped rising by this time of year so, give or take a tenth of a degree or so, we may well get no melting at all this year.
Where's Lewis Pugh when you need him?
Reader Comments (23)
Yes, it makes WUWT's Ice Page especially interesting to follow ( http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/ ).
I'm not sure about the no melting at all comment, though - ice extent and area are clearly coming down roughly as usual [albeit less than the last few years].
[BH adds: I'm talking only about 80-90N]
Ice will frequently roll over during the melt process. This is due to the fact that it is melting more from below from contact with warming water, than it melts from above from contact with the air. As such I'd be suprised if we didn't see a normal amount of melt this year, even with the low air temperatures.
If you take note that the anti-hydrocarbon movement is merely a political issue within a larger political agenda, one might best present this news by first pointing out the elected officials are pursuing policies that not only starve women, children, make life harder, lower a familes income, etc., but are completely wrong on the "science" they alledgedly rely on. I.E., use the very same weapons that have made Al Gore half way to a billionaire against them.
Alternatively, if one finds a direct attack distasteful, then demand how those same elected officials are going to protect the women, children, etc., from starving in what's becoming a much, much colder world that is likely heralding the highly anticipated return of the next Ice Age cycle.
Remember, it's political, not scientific.
Sorry to put a damper on people's enthusiasm, but if you look, you will find that the 2009 curve is at similar level at this point in time.
Since Obama is now all in on the most radical aspects of AGW policy demands, this Arctic summer is likely part of the famous Gore effect, where nature in effect mocks AGW promoters.
So far it's looking a lot like 2009. To see serious gains in ice we need a favourable year for winds. One minute you think there's loads of ice then it's pouring down the side of Greenland (often mistaken for improving ice extent) or vanishing like someone's put a blow torch on it. Some of the biggest losses I've seen was after the ice started growing in October.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticictn_nowcast_anim365d.gif
I'd want to see a good summer and autumn before I'd tentatively say the Arctic is on the mend. Not that I view the current behaviour of the Arctic as abnormal. I recon it was much the same during the MWP,
Hmm ... when I mentioned this on Climate etc a few days ago, no one seemed interested.
"Before he dives in, he spends around 15 minutes using mind power alone to superheat his body."
This is Lewis Pugh.
Come on guys, we're behaving like warmists looking at the entrails of the events in the Arctic as though it would prove anything one way or the other. Whatever happens won't prove anything one way, or the other. One thing we can say with certainty is that since 1958 the Arctic hasn't warmed.
Arctice Ice....always keeps us guessing.....and no reason why it should not continue to do so.
We do not understand all the drivers yet.
With geronimo on this one.
That is not to say that I would not use a big lasting recovery, should there be one, in the declining trend of Arctic Summer Ice extent as a stick to beat the alarmists.
That declining trend the last bastion of the catastrophists. All their other concerns, accelerating temps, sea level etc have all proved to be bunk.
geronimo, it will prove that climate scientist Paul Beckwith is wrong.
Likewise Professor Wieslaw Maslowski.
And of course the charlatans like Marshall Shepherd who quote the claims of these idiots in their scaremongering talks.
It's melting alright, but the 80-90N zone has been cloud-shrouded for weeks due to the persistent low -- the cloudiness is keeping the temperature at the freezing point. The Kara Sea looks like it won't melt out til August. The ice is thick north of the Bering Strait. Only the warm Atlantic waters are on the attack but are stopped north of the Franz Josef islands as usual. So a reluctant melt thus far.
@JohnG
I went through the whole archive the other day, and apart from 2009 no other year was this late in going above zero 2009 got to 0' about the normal date whereas this was, as the Bishop says, late.
Also Steve Goddard's latest posting is this
Antarctic Sea Ice Above Normal For 581 Consecutive Days
@Robin Guenier
Sorry I didn't see your posting.
I commented somewhere (Telegraph or DM probably) earlier this week on how late the breaking of 0'C was; that's when I went through the whole DMI archive.
The interesting science aside, does it matter? And even if does matter, does it matter that it matters?
Probably not. Most likely shrinking sea-ice will net benefit living organisms. Like rain in a desert. Or extra CO2 in the atmosphere.
As others have noted, most Arctic melt is either from below due to the relatively warm water entering the Arctic as part of the positive North Atlantic Oscillation or because of physical transport to lower latitudes.
The "anomalous" "melting" seems to mostly reside in the region from the Atlantic around to the Siberian side of the pole. I find it interesting that there's still a thicker band of ice stretching toward eastern Siberia.
It's good to see that the North-west passage is open to shipping*
*If you have a nuclear powered ice-breaker.
An important topic is the way the satellites measure ice using polarized light. The filters have a single setting for both hemispheres, but the Sun is at a 45d different angle from one pole to the other. Therefore, depending on how the polarizing filter is set, you will measure more ice in the NH and less in the SH, or vice-versa. This is why there so often is a reverse correlation between ice trends at the two poles.
Now we skeptics like to say that the Antarctic ice has been high for 500+ days, but I'm not convinced of that. I think the real reason is the way the satellite polarizing filter is turned. To be blunt, I think the Antarctic ice anomaly line is actually a measure of how far the dial has been turned to make the Arctic ice look less than it is.
In the last few weeks the Antarctic ice measure became untenably high so the dials were turned, I reckon. Since then it has been zig-zagging up & down as a new "best" filter setting is searched for. The Arctic ice anomaly zig-zags oppositely as usual. So my view is that the global ice quantity is pretty reliable, but the hemispheric breakdowns can be taken with a big pinch of salt.
@NZ Willy
So the corollary is that for 500+ days Arctic Ice cover has been under estimate which would include last year. By how much do you think?
It seems to me that there are still too many unknowns to read too much into the late 0°C, either way.
This is clearly an area where we need to understand much more, hence why it remains as one of the last bastions for the alarmist.
If you speak to the average man in the street, they will tell you that they believe in AGW. If you ask them why, most will say it's because the poles are melting and the sea level is rising.
SandyS: I'm guessing about half of the Antarctic anomaly, for reasons of geometry.
Are most of these writers total idiots???? Read the link on Lewis Pugh
"Pugh, who gave up his career as a maritime lawyer to become a full-time endurance swimmer, carried out his latest expedition to highlight how global warming has melted the Arctic ice- caps.
He travelled to the geographic North Pole on a Russian icebreaker with a 29- strong back-up team including a mind coach.
To develop his cold sea swimming technique he practised in a pool filled every day with a ton and a half of ice.
He has broken more than 20 endurance swimming records which include the first swim of more than 1km in the Antarctic Ocean.
He has swum the whole of the Thames, been first to swim the length of the world's longest fjord and first to swim round the most northerly point of Europe.
He is also the first man to swim at the South Pole - where the waters are a comparatively warm zero celsius.
Although the North Pole temperature is below zero, the salt is enough to prevent the water freezing at that temperature."
So the mail online believes the south pole has open water to swim in, I learned in elementary school that the south pole was in Antartica and that it was hunderds of miles from the ocean. Maybe the mail thinks that there are fresh water lakes that ole Lewis was able to swim in. At least it is nice to know that the south pole water is comparatively warm compared to the north pole.