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Posted
  • Location: Aberdeen
  • Location: Aberdeen
This is a new thread to discuss the Arctic Sea Ice situation, and please read the terms and conditions of posting in here, with special regard to no personal attacks.

And to start the thread, a comparison with the long term average and the picture last year.

The current ice levels are significantly larger than last year but almost equally below the climatic average.

N_timeseries.png

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Posted
  • Location: Dorset
  • Location: Dorset

A nice unbiased view Doctormog. Bang between the two. Just so that people know this is different to CT's anomaly as it uses a different percentage but still just as valid. CT's anomaly tends to reach it's minimum 2 weeks or so before the NSIDC's.

The NW passage is melting well at the moment, particularly in the last week and probably will do for the next week.

With only a small area left to open the shallow passage completely, this might happen in the next week.

The deep passage is showing consistant signs that it too will be open. There is a clear passage with only 50-70% ice concentrations which would easily allow almost any ship to pass though without having to break ice. However the passage will only really be called open when maybe 25km's or so is ice free.

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And to start the thread, a comparison with the long term average and the picture last year.

The current ice levels are significantly larger than last year but almost equally below the climatic average.

In one year the ice has recovered half the ice back to the levels of the cold years from 1979 to 2000.

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Posted
  • Location: Larbert
  • Location: Larbert
And to start the thread, a comparison with the long term average and the picture last year.

The current ice levels are significantly larger than last year but almost equally below the climatic average.

N_timeseries.png

There is a growing upturn for sure, during Arctic summer too!

Edited by Delta X-Ray
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Posted
  • Location: Putney, SW London. A miserable 14m asl....but nevertheless the lucky recipient of c 20cm of snow in 12 hours 1-2 Feb 2009!
  • Location: Putney, SW London. A miserable 14m asl....but nevertheless the lucky recipient of c 20cm of snow in 12 hours 1-2 Feb 2009!
In one year the ice has recovered half the ice back to the levels of the cold years from 1979 to 2000.

The cold years from 1979-2000? I don't quite understand, Bluecon.

According to the figures (Cryosphere again) since full satellite records began, the mean summer seasonal ice extents (not minima) were as follows:

1972 - 1978: 9.78m sq km - 7 years, of which 2 were over 10.0, and none was below 9.0

1979 - 2000: 8.81m sq km - 22 years, of which none was over 10.0, and 12 were below 9.0

If you're prepared to accept the figures back to 1953 (no satellite, but 53-71 are direct observations with "complete coverage from a variety of sources...generally accurate"), then:

1953 - 1978: 10.00m sq km - 26 years, of which 15 were over 10.0, and none was below 9.0

Since 2000, of course, they've fallen still further - The 2001-2006 mean was 8.10m sq km; and 2007 plummeted to 5.56m sq km.

So the ice coverage in the years immediately before 1979 was on average in summer nearly 1 million sq km more than in 1979-2000.

1979-2000 may have been cooler than the last seven years, but hardly cold in even recent historical terms. Whatever happens in the next few weeks, and even if things should be on the turn, there is an awfully long way to go before you get back to 1970s levels.

There is a growing upturn for sure, during Arctic summer too!

The graph line shows perhaps a couple of days of slowing in the melting so far - not the first such in this year's melt either: don't count your chickens, Delta!

Edited by osmposm
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Posted
  • Location: Napton on the Hill Warwickshire 500ft
  • Weather Preferences: Snow and heatwave
  • Location: Napton on the Hill Warwickshire 500ft

Reading the london metro today it says a 18sq km (7sq mile) slab has split from the Canadian ice platform and is slowly drifting into the Arctic Ocean. Its been in stiu for 3,000 years

The story is all doom and gloom , different story to some posts on here ? Is the story over inflated hype ?

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/climatewatch/a...amp;in_a_source=

Edited by stewfox
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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

Sadly not hype Stewfox. This area has been shedding ice for a number of years now and looks to continue. How it impacts on the 'mask' that they use when compiling sea ice extent data is another matter for now their is more open sea to be added onto the area of 'possible' sea ice.

As it drifts into open water it will also 'up' the amount of sea ice in that area (for 'sea ice' is what it now is!). As it further fragments and eases apart it may well impact upon the sea ice area in that neck of the woods so don't be surprised if we see an 'upturn' in ice levels :lol:

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Posted
  • Location: Larbert
  • Location: Larbert

I don't see what the problem is. It's an ice-shelf, let it do what it wants to do!

800px-Antarctic_shelf_ice_hg.png

Next you'll be saying it will contribute 0.000156inches to rising sea level!

Honestly, GW - you're posts are ridden with impending disaster at every opportunity. Why?

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
I don't see what the problem is. It's an ice-shelf, let it do what it wants to do!

Honestly, GW - you're posts are ridden with impending disaster at every opportunity. Why?

As NASA like to constantly remind us the move from a 90% albedo to an 80% absorption is the true issue. We dare not look at things in isolation and must try, at all times, to keep the bigger picture in mind whilst we 'plumb' the minor events. Arctic shelf ice has receded from 9,000 sq km to it's present level of 1,000 sq km..... if this is not cause for concern alone then I wonder what is.

We are already within a climate 'Disaster' and ,if it makes it easier to imagine, we could imagine we're all on a Boeing 747 as it plunges seawards. We may well have 2 minutes of 'falling' to endure and ,in a twisted reality, we are still living and breathing but there is no stopping the final destruction. Would you be stood at the front telling the passengers it is 'no cause for concern' Delta?

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Posted
  • Location: Napton on the Hill Warwickshire 500ft
  • Weather Preferences: Snow and heatwave
  • Location: Napton on the Hill Warwickshire 500ft
I don't see what the problem is. It's an ice-shelf, let it do what it wants to do!

Next you'll be saying it will contribute 0.000156inches to rising sea level!

Honestly, GW - you're posts are ridden with impending disaster at every opportunity. Why?

The article mentions that shelf has been there for 3,000 yrs

I assume for tha laymen reading that article its sounds 'alarming'

Your suggesting these kinds of things happen all the time ?

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Posted
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl
  • Weather Preferences: Snow and lots of it or warm and sunny, no mediocre dross
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl
We are already within a climate 'Disaster'

In all fairness though, we're not. Yes, there's less ice than in recent decades, but we've had similar minimum or less ice in the past (the not too distant past either-a couple of generations ago) to know it does not signify "climate disaster".

A little less drama, a lot more pragmatism, would IMO help a great deal in these discussions.

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Posted
  • Location: Southampton 10 meters above mean sea level
  • Weather Preferences: Cold, Frosty & Sunny
  • Location: Southampton 10 meters above mean sea level
Reading the london metro today it says a 18sq km (7sq mile) slab has split from the Canadian ice platform and is slowly drifting into the Arctic Ocean. Its been in stiu for 3,000 years

The story is all doom and gloom , different story to some posts on here ? Is the story over inflated hype ?

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/climatewatch/a...amp;in_a_source=

Can we assume then that 3000 years ago no ice platform existed in this area? If that is the case then perhaps we could look at is this way... ice has been building for the last 3000 years and this is just a minor set back on its relentless journey towards the next iceage. :lol:

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Posted
  • Location: Napton on the Hill Warwickshire 500ft
  • Weather Preferences: Snow and heatwave
  • Location: Napton on the Hill Warwickshire 500ft
Can we assume then that 3000 years ago no ice platform existed in this area? If that is the case then perhaps we could look at is this way... ice has been building for the last 3000 years and this is just a minor set back on its relentless journey towards the next iceage. :rolleyes:

It was only a question and I guess you have answered it , ie its hype

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Posted
  • Location: Dorset
  • Location: Dorset
Can we assume then that 3000 years ago no ice platform existed in this area? If that is the case then perhaps we could look at is this way... ice has been building for the last 3000 years and this is just a minor set back on its relentless journey towards the next iceage. :rolleyes:

Minor if we want to wait another 3000 years for it to build again. Mankind has advanced a lot in the last 3000 years and personally I wouldn't like to have a wait that long for the earth to recover from our vandalism.

Is it hype ? maybe a little as in chunks of ice thousands of years old are falling off all over the place and all it confirms is what is really already known, just a little bit more weight really.

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The cold years from 1979-2000? I don't quite understand, Bluecon.

According to the figures (Cryosphere again) since full satellite records began, the mean summer seasonal ice extents (not minima) were as follows:

1972 - 1978: 9.78m sq km - 7 years, of which 2 were over 10.0, and none was below 9.0

1979 - 2000: 8.81m sq km - 22 years, of which none was over 10.0, and 12 were below 9.0

If you're prepared to accept the figures back to 1953 (no satellite, but 53-71 are direct observations with "complete coverage from a variety of sources...generally accurate"), then:

1953 - 1978: 10.00m sq km - 26 years, of which 15 were over 10.0, and none was below 9.0

Since 2000, of course, they've fallen still further - The 2001-2006 mean was 8.10m sq km; and 2007 plummeted to 5.56m sq km.

So the ice coverage in the years immediately before 1979 was on average in summer nearly 1 million sq km more than in 1979-2000.

1979-2000 may have been cooler than the last seven years, but hardly cold in even recent historical terms. Whatever happens in the next few weeks, and even if things should be on the turn, there is an awfully long way to go before you get back to 1970s levels.

Spin it how you want but this years melt is behind 2007, 2006 and 2005. Telling is the fact that there is no BBC article to follow up on their end of the Arctic ice stories that they circulated earlier in the year.

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm

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Posted
  • Location: South Yorkshire
  • Location: South Yorkshire

Melting ice should see the extremities retreat gracefully,not break off. The reason for break-off is the increasing mass of ice behind the 'frontier' ice pushing it away from the coldest regions. It is not rocket science and it should not take half a million 'experts' to try and kid us otherwise,for whatever reasons. Honestly,a minute chunk comes away and it's made out to be a prognostic of imminent world destruction. It is nothing of the sort,it is normal but chuck in a spurious figure like 3000 years to give it gravitas. Sigh. For the sakes of all of us and with a passing nod to our intelligence,the whole global warming rubbish,with or without the 'anthropogenic' bit has got to be exposed for what it is,sooner rather than later.

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Posted
  • Location: Larbert
  • Location: Larbert
New data from the Norwegian Meteorological Institute shows that there is more ice than normal in the Arctic waters north of the Svalbard archipelago.

In most years, there are open waters in the area north of the archipelago in July month. Studies from this year however show that the area is covered by ice, the Meteorological Institute writes in a press release.

In mid-July, the research vessel Lance and the Swedish shp MV Stockholm got stuck in ice in the area and needed help from the Norwegian Coast Guard to get loose.

The ice findings from the area spurred surprise among the researchers, many of whom expect the very North Pole to be ice-free by September this year.

LINK

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Posted
  • Location: Putney, SW London. A miserable 14m asl....but nevertheless the lucky recipient of c 20cm of snow in 12 hours 1-2 Feb 2009!
  • Location: Putney, SW London. A miserable 14m asl....but nevertheless the lucky recipient of c 20cm of snow in 12 hours 1-2 Feb 2009!
Spin it how you want but this years melt is behind 2007, 2006 and 2005. Telling is the fact that there is no BBC article to follow up on their end of the Arctic ice stories that they circulated earlier in the year.

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm

Thanks for that link, Bluecon - no sign there of Delta's "...growing upturn for sure". I shall pop it into my 'favourites' and we can look at it again in a month or two.

I'm not too interested in the BBC's take on things: as many have said, the media likes a good, shocking story, and these days the Beeb is sadly little different to the redtops. I prefer to try and take a calmer look at the figures behind the stories, which is why I give them here quite often.

I'm disappointed that you don't want to discuss the apparently reliable 1972-2000 ice level numbers I carefully extracted, averaged and presented, or your use of the phrase "cold years" to describe 1979-2000.

I give you recent, satellite-derived figures for summer ice cover in a pretty straightforward way - you accuse me of spin. I offer older figures with suitable caveats - you say that the corrupt scientists made them up. The only figures you are interested in are the ones showing that at this intermediate stage the melting is significantly below last year's huge collapse, very slightly below/behind that of 2005 & 2006 - and also, of course, ahead of 2003, 2004 & probably 2002. That is the apparent situation NOW - as has been repeatedly said, neither you nor I nor anyone else knows exactly what will happen in the nest few weeks.

May I suggest, therefore, that since you do not want to talk about things that have already happened and can thus be reasonably well established, there is little point in banging the drum about what you are sure will happen but cannot possibly be established yet?

Pro-AGWers may sometimes look silly when they try and guess the details of the immediate future and say they are certain. The same applies to you.

.....Yes, there's less ice than in recent decades, but we've had similar minimum or less ice in the past (the not too distant past either-a couple of generations ago)....

Have we, J - when was that? The only figures I've seen say quite the opposite, but I would most genuinely like to see numbers/good estimates suggesting that we've been here before in the last 100 or so years - or 700 years, for that matter.

You'd better PM the link to me, however, rather than showing it publicly, as Bluecon says nobody knows what the ice cover was in 1870 - or presumably before satellite coverage full stop, and I imagine it will only annoy him.

Edited by osmposm
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Posted
  • Location: Dorset
  • Location: Dorset
Melting ice should see the extremities retreat gracefully,not break off. The reason for break-off is the increasing mass of ice behind the 'frontier' ice pushing it away from the coldest regions. It is not rocket science and it should not take half a million 'experts' to try and kid us otherwise,for whatever reasons. Honestly,a minute chunk comes away and it's made out to be a prognostic of imminent world destruction. It is nothing of the sort,it is normal but chuck in a spurious figure like 3000 years to give it gravitas. Sigh. For the sakes of all of us and with a passing nod to our intelligence,the whole global warming rubbish,with or without the 'anthropogenic' bit has got to be exposed for what it is,sooner rather than later.

Well I know who to believe those scarmongering Candian Experts that have spent there lives studying this ice, who claim that it's signficant or Laserguy, DXR and BC that think the whole think is absurdly simple and can be explained away by 14 Year old using GCSE Geography.

Edited by Iceberg
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Posted
  • Location: Larbert
  • Location: Larbert
Well I know who to believe those scarmongering Candian Experts that have spent there lives studying this ice, who claim that it's signficant or Laserguy, DXR and BC that think the whole think is absurdly simple and can be explained away by 14 Year old using GCSE Geography.

Do you believe the "scaremongering" GW writes?

I'm all for facts, proof, hell - even something to change my mind completely - but when I read some of the utter nonsense on here - which in truth - must make people who have no idea about AGW, Climate Change begin to panic. It should not be like that. That is called scare-tactics, and that's the kind of thing a 14 year old GCSE student would do at school, ie bully.

I have a question for you and others alike:

What will be the state of play regarding AGW when the US has a new president? I mean in terms of debunking and skeptics. Do you agree AGW will be dead as a Dodo and Global Cooling will start to be the talk of the town?

Simply put, I think people are just becoming fed-up with all of it.

Edited by Delta X-Ray
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Posted
  • Location: South Yorkshire
  • Location: South Yorkshire
....the whole think is absurdly simple and can be explained away by 14 Year old using GCSE Geography.

Yes,it really is that simple. Why complicate matters? I don't want to go off topic but necessarily to furnish my response - where would all these 'experts' be now without their beloved 'climate change'? Stacking shelves in Tesco or 'working holidays' leaving no snowball unturned in a quest to prove...nothing,never mind the causes which were already decided upon many years ago. The probe into AGW/Arctic ice (in keeping with this thread) goes ever on and gets precisely nowhere.

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Posted
  • Location: Rossland BC Canada
  • Location: Rossland BC Canada

DXR, isn't it the case that both major candidates for the presidency (and Hillary just in case) have stated that they believe in climate change and will be more aggressive than Bush in terms of compliance with international obligations they perceive the U.S. has ... whether McCain will remain committed to it is somewhat questionable. Obama will be as green as they come, if he survives to become president (just sharing a little secret Cheney told me at the last global warmers meeting). :lol:

Personally, here's how I think it will play out in reality. About mid to late 2009, a split will emerge in the IPCC, reflecting the fact that there are many silent skeptics "out there" both inside and outside the official "community" and also showing a response to the developing temperature downturn or at least stabilization. The emphasis will slowly shift with the pro-AGW lobby to more of a "can't hurt to promote clean technology" stance and the political differences will diminish. Face saving, in other words, because the media and academia are heavily invested in the "truth" of climate change and politicians along for the ride will not want to signal abrupt change in thinking.

Public attitudes will soften too, we have probably passed the high water mark of public acceptance of the theory -- seems that everyone wants somebody else to pay for the solution (evidence, here in British Columbia, the political left are already bailing out on the centrist party's aggressive and frankly utopian program that hits people at the gas pump, not a popular thing in this time of already high prices).

In other words, this is not perceived as a real emergency, it's a fashionable talking point just like all leftist politics tend to be, the shared guilt of urban angst fueled by undiscriminating media hype from those who apparently feel both guilt and responsibility to "save" the planet from something that probably isn't happening and almost certainly can't be changed even if it is (especially if India and China tell the IPCC to sod off, which stripped of diplomatic pretence is an accurate read).

Everyone else scrambles to appear concerned, with one nervous eye on the arctic to see what's really happening, and there, the evidence is somewhat inconclusive, and never entirely inconsistent with Reason B, natural variability. Suspicions remain that at least in the MWP if not at various other times, the 2007 type melt was seen before, for reasons entirely out of Al Gore's control.

So my overall reading is that the pro-AGW lobby won't be able to "close the deal" for any number of reasons, including skepticism, political apathy, diversions of other more immediate and real "crises" and possibly just the ongoing refusal of Asian countries to play ball. The media and academics have had pretty much of a free ride so far in the absence of a Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher style heavyweight public champion to oppose them, the class of non-compliant political leaders today are nuanced in the extreme, even Bush has been making some of the required noises although he has the benefit of being almost a lame duck now. Much depends on whether the issue actually becomes political -- right now it is somewhat off the radar because the mainstream media refuse to acknoweledge that there is any significant debate. A lot of ordinary people out there probably don't know the depth of the debate or the fragile nature of the global warming theory in reality because they have taken at face value these assertions that "all reputable scientists" believe in it. A circular argument if ever there was one, that. But my feeling is that "climate change" is a bridge too far, that people will step back from the brink and reassess the theory in the light of inconvenient weather facts. You can see here on NW that plenty of weather-conscious UK residents have varying degrees of doubt about the theory as conventionally presented. That would only go away if we saw massive shifts of climate beyond those seen in the 1990s. How many really believe these shifts will happen? And if they don't, what is the point of the "concern" or the "crisis" mentality? Not so much my opinion as my interpretation of what I see across the spectrum today.

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