CJWRC

Thanks CC, I noticed that too , silence says it all I think! It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few years. Even if Arctic ice does an absaloute turnaroaund a goes back to the little ice age , some on here would still see it as the sign of the deathe of Arctic ice. But if Antartica starts losing ice over the coming years and the Arctic rebounds(what I think will happen) I bet everything I own that there will be an Antartic ice extent thread and the Arctic will be totally ignored as the Antartic is now!

Well in Fairness I witnessed 10-15 foot of snow in the blackstairs on 29th December before the main snow came over the next few days , possibly 20 foot up there in the end. Thats at 800m so why is there none left up there? And the snow is now all gone from Lugnaquilla , looking at it right now , thats at 920m in South Wicklow. I highly doubt there is any snow left at 500m even in the Scottish Highlands , all the patches shown here atleast 900m plus. I think you know full well it wasn't snow you saw mate. And for that 200m hill , strange since I heard the last snow went off the mournes in may also at 850m , hell of a micro climate you got there. Yep I thinks so Eoin, from reading your last post here I guessed who you were aswell. Boards is so much fun , you should come back!

Always an overcomplicated reason for everything , record ice in antartica or slow melt in the arctic , it's all down to global warming. Why can't it be the most probable cause , i.e melt is slowing in the arctic and it is alot colder than normal in antartica? Oh sorry I just realised these can't be the reasons, I don't know why yet but by this evening i'll have a really good off the wall explanation , then by the time you finally understand it you'll be too tired to understand! EDIT: Again I post the lates area and extent charts. Still in area we are above '07, '08 and '09. In extent we are we above '07, above '08 and if things keep going as they are soon above '09 aswell. No sub 4 million sqkm this year , oh well maybe next year eh? Although next year we are very likely to see a rebound from recent figures!

Well since there is no ice in the picture i think it is irrelevant how much it can surface at! The point of the picture is it shows an ice free north pole! I think if an ice lead was used to explain open water at north pole this year you would be shot down hear in seconds! Ialso wouldn't expect the very thick old perenial, that should be there at this time according to you , to break apart so dramatically , a few metres square maybe. Oh yes this old perenial that your always on about , maybe it's not so old after all , maybe it wasn't around in 1951? I've awnsered all question demand , still stand by my post!!!!!

Thanks sb

After a bit of searching I found this picture: Geographic north pole totally ice free! I remember Accuweather did a peice on this because this is apparently a picture of the first ever submarine to surface at the north pole. This picture is supposedly taken at the north pole in July 1951. Maybe the levels of ice we see now is only low in relation to the last 30 years? If the north pole was ice free in 1951 it shows recovery is possible over time , contrary to what many say on here!

SSHHHH! Don't post facts here that might crush somebodys power trip , you might get banned...shhh

Well since the highest point in Antrim is only around 500m , it definately wasn't a snow patch you saw , if it was then the mournes and the sperrins would be covered, which are not. Tracks worn down in the hill is another cause of what you saw , but definately not snow.

You should have been in Ireland last year then from the first day the snow fell on 17th December to the middle of jan not once were the main comuter roads from rosslare europort to dublin or cork gritted , theses roads are usually unbeleivebly busy at boat times , but yet the council tought it was fine to let the cars flatten down some tracks in the snow for themselves! Irish local goverment is a joke! If only the army could take control! Gritting might not have done anything but it was worth a try!

Well after some reserch it appears that ice thickness in 2007 was quite , this points to the fact that ice extent loss in 2007 was not dues to melting but due to compression. If we look at the ice thickness I posted the other day we can see that ice thikness has been on a steady upward trend since 1999(as far as the charts go back). Now as area and extent increase thickness goes down , showing melting and high tempuatures are not the main force at work!

I can't understand why some people would be happy about or take pleasure in possible disastouras loss of ice Any way we are now above 07, 08 and 09 in area and above 07, and 08 in extent at the moment. This is all subject to change but a pretty ok turnaround if you consider the May and June we had up in the arctic!

Wow, stunning pic well done! A bit eery really. Can you stitch the photos using photoshop or was it a function on the camera?

OK , your saying the ''accelerating loss of antartic ice'' , I'm sorry but that's a very misleading statement. If anything it's the accelerating record expansion of antartic ice. I'm sorry to smash your illusion but ice is not concrete is will break up when put under stress from sea currents etc. And since we have tempuratures well below normal, record high sea ice and since you said above that one of shelfs broke off in winter it is very obvious that this loss of ice shelfs have little to do with excess melt or higher tempuratures. It couldn't be clearer that this is breaking off of ice shelfs in antartica is 100% normal and probaly was happening during the last ice age aswell.

How does this one compare to last weeks flare , better chance to see the aurora than last week?

Hmmm... I gathered that alright. But in relation to the solar activity , the evidence says both! I think it effects overall global average tempuatures , making no difference to day ton day weather , but it also changes weather patterns such pushing the jet south which will effect day to day weather. I am not sure about this but I think low solar activity actually promotes warm uppers over the poles causing high pressure , i.e a -AO , I am open to being wrong though.

Thanks Phil , that' reassuring anyway , fingers crossed for the weather i suppose is all we can do

Is there more of them to the northeast or is that the direction they come from? 100% clear skies here in Wexford at the moment so I'm goin out for a look. Does antbody know where the moon will be on the night of 12th(on the other side of the world hopefully), I think much of the perseids last year was ruined by a full moon.

Exactly , overall global ice figuresare bang on top of normal!

No probs , any idea when they might be back?

, You do know that we have all time record high ice down there at the moment don't you or have you filtered that FACT out? ''The mass loss'' , just a perfect example of the kind misinformation you post on this forum. For anybody new to this forum , or anybody using this forum to get information , please go look at the data for yourself and take anything G.W says with a massive truck load of salt!!!!!!!!

Yep her it is the exact page , G.W gave the link above aswell: Ice projection Unfortunately it does only go back to September 1998 , 'Cryosphere Today' did have similar charts going back to the 70's unfortunately there archives are gone down , may be back up soon though.

OK I've got thickness charts from August 6th 1999, 2003, 2007, 2010. BLUE/PURPLE=THIN GREEN/YELLOW/RED=THICK ICE 1999 2003 2007 2010 So at all the images there seems to be a signifiant thickening of the ice between 1999 and 2003 , this holds even after the disastorous melt season of 2007 , then as area recovers over the next few years the ice thins out again(makes sense really , the pack being compressed might exaggerate ice loss figures , i.e 2007) although we are still quite thicker than 11 yeears ago in 1999. I was under the illusion than when thickness is lost it is near impossible to recover it , learn't that on here ofcourse :lol:. With global tempuatures set to take a drop and with the -PDO setting in , thickness and area could well get a chance to recover. Then it will be the Antartics turn to have it's own thread in the Netweather forums , in 10 years we won't be hearing about the Arctic on here , it will be ingnored just as the Antartic is being now.

To be fair i wish I was giving a euro for everytime I've G.W saying that extent is pointless and that area was a much better measure because ut only measures thick ice(which is true , I agree with him there) back when extent showed a slowdown but area was still droppping. You can't decide to discount data one day and then treat it as the holy grail the next. This just proves that there is more of the thick ice and that there is less fragmented 'weak ice' this year. EDIT: Sorry if I am soundin a bit harsh , I get a bit carried away in a good debate , lol.

You do realise that the first image is from 3-august 2010 i.e the low point of the ice , and that the other three are all from feb-mar, i.e the high point of the ice! Never mind that they are two different data sets. Nope this map is showing concentration , i.e the color coding. This obviously shows a recory in concentrain from 2007 not just area!