Gray-Wolf

But Pete! it's 'snow' so that means cold!!! So what if temps have gone from -40c to -2c and the air now holds four times as much water vapour as the old cold air did snow is snow and so means 'cold'!!! So what if fresh water freezes at higher temps than salt water ice is ice and so means cold!!!

Just as an aside what do the 'GW club' stand to gain by being believed KL? Will they win over the majority of science to the idea that man is altering climate? Will the world become a better place by accepting the 'GW' evidence? Who will profit if 'GW' should win? I think the consensus is that sea ice only grows 2m in open ocean? I've been using Summer rates of loss/type of loss as a way to look at the 'new Arctic' ice behaviour? Do I detect a willingness to call your climate/weather credentials into question here KL or can you really not yet understand how a warming planet can give rise to cold anoms as global changes begin to occur? Say the Gulf stream was interrupted by massive collapse in Greenland (and we lost 1/2 mile of ice from the thickness due to catastrophic summer melt) what would happen to NW Europe? Anyhoo's! with so many denier hopes would be dashed if the Weddell extension became a casualty of it's own success and Southern Ocean fringe got ripped off during one of the winter storms? With the losses in sea ice cover around the rest of Antarctica over winter be glossed over and the low extent be blamed on the 'Storm' (seems to be the 'new' poorly sited station' over the past 2 years for all things Cryospheric)

I'm sure the folk who live there can tell whether we are seeing their local glacier melting away or growing down valley? Increased weight at the head of the basin might 'squeeze out' more ice at the bottom (like toothpaste) but last winters snow will take quite a while before it presents at the base of the glacier? I tend to think 2012's snow will melt out way up valley as the recent warming perculates into the whole of the ice mass leading to enhanced ablation (as we saw last summer)?

Couldn't agree more Anyweather and the data on 'extreme weather events' seems to bear us out on the observation! Where the energy to drive such extremes arises is anyone's guess.......isn't it?

I'd even applaud the Koch Bros if they did similar! I'm still stuck with the old Rio "Think Global, act local" so every little helps. If much of the developing world could 'skip' carbon fuels and move straight into renewables that would surely be a help (and silence those voices who claim we seek to hold down development there)?

I don't know BFTV? Once we get our first 'seasonal'folk are expecting the length of time below 1 million to expand quite rapidly back into July and earlier? If so then we have a lot of water under sun and so the 'remnants' will be exposed to this 'warm ocean' for up to 2 months? I think our first 'seasonal' has to have the help of synoptics (whether random natural or 'altered' through ice loss) but then it becomes 'self fueling' with all the ice FY ice in year 1 (post melt out)

I still believe many posters are clueless as to just what a big deal the Arctic meltdown is? If my feelings about last years mega melt impacting the 'stuck' weather patterns we have suffered since 07' (by shifting the 'stuck trough' back out into the Atlantic) then the return to a 'normal' summer (with no weekly flooding and lack of sun) will have folk even more disinterested even if we see another 'record loss year'? Recent studies into past climate changes show us that the Arctic Amplification has some pretty nasty feedback's when run at 'normal' speeds. What will occur in our current 'global experiment', where we introduce GHG's into the atmosphere up to 100 times faster than Nature managed in the past, must give us all cause for concern surely? We know we have a lot of carbon stored up there and that this must be released as climate warms so what if we see CH4 'burps' instead of a steady, slow release?

I'm sure we all applaud the settling of this issue?

Once we see the first 'Seasonal' year in the Arctic Ocean all attention will then switch to the state of Greenland I.M.H.O. The impact of the ice no longer affecting the north shore will surely accelerate melt there also? When you look at the vid. you can see the edges are now badly impacted by the albedo flip. these areas also carry the eroded detritus from the land below. How long before we see slopes destabilise due to a combination of undercutting and saturation of underlying snow layers by melt water? Also remember that past warmings have seen the West Antarctic ice sheet react faster to the warming and so our 'slowing' of that process, by the ozone issues, will eventually work out of the system leaving the second ice sheet showing a similar evolution to Greenland but with no internal basin full of ice just ice draped over mountains. The loss of ice from rocky slopes will see a much faster albedo crash than we see in Greenland and lead to faster sea level impacts.

Something I had not thought about but was brought to my attention the other day is the albedo of the central pack? With a lot of late formed 'fill in' ice between the fractures we could see a lot of dark water suddenly open up throughout the basin as this ice skim melts out. Will this make a difference?

I also thought we'd all seen , and digested, the report from last year that placed a 2c rise as the threshold for a total northern permafrost melt out (over time)? With sea ice loss impacting temps over 1,500km inland how can sea ice loss not impact the lands beyond? Once we have turned 'seasonal' with sea ice I believe all attention will then turn to the plight of the North's permafrost and the impacts the loss of it brings. It appears to be another 'domino' effect with melting permafrost ensuring a steady GHG output to further up the temps over time. Personally I believe we cannot escape the 2c threshold with both the temp rises we see already and those we are told are already 'in the pipeline' taking us there over the next 30yrs or so?.

Why are all those top ten temps in this period of global cooling???? How can that be right?

Just joshing with 4 BFTV but thanks for the reality check! Nice to see anomalous warm where the PDO-ve cold horse shoe should be though? Maybe West coast Alaska will join the north slope with high temps this year?

So what does happen to the global futures market when climate extremes can be expected to take their toll? What happens once the traders care to look up from the screens and contemplate what the rapidly changing global climate means to global economies?

From a quick look at current sst's I can see water near Bering and Fram? These SST's all appear to be real numbers and between 4 and 5c?

With research now pointing to an influx of warmer ocean waters (where folks 'missing heat' went) now poised to enter the Arctic basin are we about to see both the fracture event and stored energy push us below 2 million sq km this summer?

Found this of interest over on Neven's blog; I talk seldom as I find it today counter-productive to publish things and work with decision-makers at UN, EU & UK. Yet, I felt it necessary to write a note on this matter as I was nominated back in 2008 for international Nanak Peace Prize (sea level rise risks for global security and economic stability). Firstly, the Negative Arctic Oscillations will continue and intensify much like sea ice will diminish and the snow line retreat will head to the north earlier than before. Almost each year from now on will show some sort of advance in melting (snow, sea ice, tundra or sea bed) to the previous years. Storms will be fiercer. Secondly, the metamorphosis of Greenland's cold, dry, stable and moraine-forming ice sheet into warm, wet, dynamic and aggregate-forming ice sheet when summers will see Greenland surrounded by ice-free oceans. The melt water from the surface percolates to the ice sheet base and transforms it into honeycombed, water-clogged ice that is slushy and unable to withstand pressure of the overlying ice layers. This eventually leads to Larsen B style rapid ice sheet failure as watery base oozes its way out and the overlying colder and dryer ice fractures forming huge ice islands. Heindrich Minus One (H-1) Ice Berg Calving then results, with the associated Last Dryas cooling as the ocean basin between America and Europe fills with ice debris. Thirdly, the transformation of dominance of the "seasonal impact" moulins/crevasses into "accumulative impact" moulins and crevasses. Until recently the ice melting occurred on the perimeter of Greenland where melt water and ice drains into ocean by the early autumn and takes the heat (thermal inertia of melt water) with it. Although Jason Box criticised me that there exist no "accumulative impact" moulins on top of Greenland interior, I was able to find 29 sites that year in aerial survey. Ice sheet is highly insular material and when melt water falls deep into ice, no heat can escape to the surface. As each summer adds water in subglacial ponds, or crevasses within ice, there is an absolute greenhouse effect in action with 100% retention of summertime heat stored by melt water and ice (if surface water re-freezes within ice crevasses at the end of season). Accumulative impact moulins sit on ice sheet where subglacial ground inclination is inward, thus taking the melt water ever deeper into ice. Although some water re-freezes in crevasses to form those blue bands (occasionally seen in the ice bergs), the thermal inertia is absorbed by the surrounding ice matrix which warms. Each subsequent summer see the energy required for melting decreased and in many cases there are growing liquid water pockets at the base of the ice sheet. At the end of this process, after just a decade of seriously warm post-sea ice summers, the ice is so honeycombed and soft that it cannot withstand overlying layers. The harder ice sheet surface caves in while the highly pressured slushy ice and water come out. This then triggers a rapid sea level jump, Heindrich (H-1) ice debris event and the Last Dryas. Fourthly, the large supply of water triggers three rapid erosion forces. Those of cavitation, plucking and kolking and where the ice sheet edge meets ocean, the turbidic mud flows and rock falls like in Melville Bay. This region then rapidly subsides in a Storegga-slide style event pushed by the large ice islands launched to sea and the high pressure water jets that cause the three rapid erosion forces. Besides ice free Arctic Ocean, the methane infested Arctic air will trap sun's energy far more effectively that it is still doing today. None of these things should surprise us. Posted by: Veli Kallio | May 12, 2013 at 05:24 When we try to imagine the water filled slush below Greenland's surface ice this provides an interesting look at how it all hangs together? There must come a point where this unique forcing provides the means for a rapid collapse of portions of the ice sheet and , should we see an ice strewn Atlantic, a chilly medium term future for us here in the UK (will we still have folk complaining of global cooling as the massive ice sheet disintegrates before their eyes due to a down turn in UK temps?)

I did wonder about this years season throwing up a few 'rogues' that swing north pretty much after falling off Africa? Should ice loss mess with positioning of steering currents then we could see another year of either 're-curves' or just coast hugging TS's heading north?

Though a short span of time it does appear that , during the less damped phase, temp RoC is getting higher? Sorry to Harp on about man made dimming but this is a'new' forcing and maybe the 'straw' on our camels back when PDO phase shifts? Maybe once Indo -China clean up their acts we will see better if this alters the amplitude of the wave back to the near zero we see at the start of the series? I'm just aware of a 1940-80 'dimmed' period and the onset of another period from the late 80's/early 90's? Should we believe the NASA study then this time it could be taking up to 50% of the warming potential before it is able to impact temps? That is a mighty big drop off in RoC once the impact is manifest?

Correct Pete! If it doesn't tick the boxes for Nino or Nina then we call it neutral but folk have realised that this means not a lack of influence but a wide range of influences either trending toward Nino like impacts or Nina like impacts. If N.Hemisphere changes in atmospheric circulation are altering wind regimes across this part of the Pacific then we may see more 'Nada's' over the coming decades?

We also seem to be moving away from calling 'neutral' neutral as it suggests little or no impact whereas impacts, though less predictable, can be just as wide reaching. They seem to favour La Nada, when you cannot call Nino or Nina from the temp plots, and if climate change is impacting ENSO then more La Nada's may be a result?

The 'alarm bell' that rang in my noggin was the rapid fall off of forcing through the 70's and the equally large upswing when indo-china came on line? The only 'natural ' dimming events are rather short lived but also show this rapid growth and fall off?

I think the one thing I'd try to remove would be human 'dimming'? I think we have good figures for the N.Hemisphere through the initial 'dimming' (40's to 80's) and the recent , ongoing, event is pretty well studied? Had we two volcanoes spaced that distance apart we'd be wanting to remove their influence and ,as I'm given to understand this is a much bigger forcing?, so why now the human made equivalent? As Songster pointed out we are only covering a short span and it does include these two recognised 'dimming events'?

We could also expect to see km wide rafts of pumice floating on the surface of the ocean? After Krakatoa a vast swathe of the ocean could not be traversed due to the depth of pumice on the surface. Other sub-surface eruptions leave this tell tale marker so why not something big enough to impact the way folk are suggesting? Seeing as we know humans emit 100 times more CO2 than volcanoes (on average) we'd expect to see a huge peak in CO2 emissions if such a scale of eruption was ongoing??? All in all I don't get how folk could see this as a serious effort to explain changes esp. when we have good data on man's outputs and see no 'volcanic' signature in that data?

And so we come to 'scaling'? Sure 1c does not sound very much at all but it's impacts in differing areas of our world are huge! 1c rise of sea ice at -1.5c leads to a huge change with open water the result and the flip of albedo (leading to further heating)? We talk about 1c global average and we should have this qualified by examples of just what that means around the globe and what other 'forcings' it brings into play compared with 'the norm'? If we talk sea levels and a Greenland input of 2mm per year with a doubling period of 4 years then some folk will think' 2mm? that isn't a lot' without working out what it means in 40yrs time when they are older? For folk used to talking climate impacts the difference between 1 and 3c warming globally is huge, to folk that don't it's the difference between a hot summers day and a sweltering one!