Arctic Ice

[J10]

The latest chart from IJIS figures which tends to confirm the NOAA, that after being in very good position one week ago, ice growth has stalled since then.

Looking at the Cryosphere site, I cannot really see where this is occurring.

[Iceberg]

Yep Arctic ice is now below where is was last year, after all the hype around a record recovery its now basically the lowest it's been.

Two things

Firstly this goes to show that it's not how the ice responds to a particularly up or down month as synoptics will effect this greatly, Autumns seems to have been down to the AO signature.

Therefore I don't think there is anything significant about this sudden stall, it would be hypocrtical of me to point to this and not the growth in the autumn.

Secondly, It's trends that matter the shortest trend that really counts is an entire seasons cooling or warmer (So roughly 6 month periods ). We really need to wait until the Spring for this. But the promise that was offered in autumn now seems fairly dim.

[Stratos Ferric]

Yep Arctic ice is now below where is was last year, after all the hype around a record recovery its now basically the lowest it's been.

Two things

... the promise that was offered in autumn now seems fairly dim.

Those looking at apparent autumnal recovery and seeing extent as an indicator of anything meaningful are overlooking some very basic physics. However much the globe might warm, the winter pole is going to be cold for a long time to come. The long winter darkness, and generally clear skies, mean that radiative cooling soon kicks in and any water will freeze. A degree or two of mean warming only has an impact when the mean temperature is within a degree or two of freezing. For the rest of winter one, two, even five degrees of warming really makes little or no difference; generally the weather will be cold enough to freeze the oceans. GTW is quite correct that ice mass, nad persistence of multi-year snow, are far better indicators of what's actually happening.

Thin ice will melt more quickly in spring, and from there a feedback cycle will increase summer warming (dark surfaces, increased absorption, more net annual melt) and so seasonal melt. The warmer the biosphere is, the faster ice will melt.

Summer excess melt is, therefore, of far more concern than any apparent winter recovery will ever be of comfort.

[Chris Knight]

I don't think this is what we need to be seeing around solstice! I can only imagine that we are having the edges nibbled away by storms moving through the regions as some areas should still be actively growing at present.

OTOH, the ice may be packing, with ice rafts sliding over each other, creating instant double-thick ice , leaving new stretches of open water to refreeze in the deepest part of winter. It is the thickness and volume that matters, and not the area at this time, isn't it GW?

[Gray-Wolf]

And the Mystery deepens......That looks like quite a significant drop-off occuring and ,unlike the fact that ice grows in autumn, there must be reasons for what we are seeing here. Ice levels must fluctuate as the edges of the pack get nibbled away/re-grow but this seems bigger than those types of regional impacts. I'm sure NSIDC or NASA will have data to put us in the picture soon enough!

[Solar Cycles]

And the Mystery deepens......That looks like quite a significant drop-off occuring and ,unlike the fact that ice grows in autumn, there must be reasons for what we are seeing here. Ice levels must fluctuate as the edges of the pack get nibbled away/re-grow but this seems bigger than those types of regional impacts. I'm sure NSIDC or NASA will have data to put us in the picture soon enough!

I'm sure they will GW, Honestly Gw sometimes I get the impression your the official spokesperson for NASA regarding Arctic ice. Try to chill ( pardon the pun ) GW, the Arctic ice will be there long after you have departed this mortal coil!!!

[Chris Knight]

I'm sure they will GW, Honestly Gw sometimes I get the impression your the official spokesperson for NASA regarding Arctic ice. Try to chill ( pardon the pun ) GW, the Arctic ice will be there long after you have departed this mortal coil!!!

No, it cannot be!

SC, GW has booked his burial at sea at 90 deg north for September 20th 2020, and in the event his demise comes sooner than predicted, he wants to be kept on ice in the meantime.

:lol: (please forgive me, GW, no offence intended)

[Gray-Wolf]

No, it cannot be!

SC, GW has booked his burial at sea at 90 deg north for September 20th 2020, and in the event his demise comes sooner than predicted, he wants to be kept on ice in the meantime.

:lol: (please forgive me, GW, no offence intended)

LOL!, Had to ask the Ruskies for permission though as they reckon it's theirs......didn't want to land on their flag....

We've seen some pretty active systems to our north recently and the Icelandic Low seemed a bit stuck for a while so on our side of the arctic you could imagine some of the skimpy stuff being smashed about a bit directly to our north. I wonder if the Bering side is faring the same?

Because of the importance of 'thick ice' in starting a recovery we wouldn't want to see a lot of new 'open water' forming at this time of year. It was around this time last year the Canadian Coastguard spotted those giant leaders (?) to the NW of the Archipelago last year, with a slowdown of ice build, a nibbling of the edges and the central pack gaping open you might expect this kind of 'stall' though,

[Gray-Wolf]

Soooooo.......what's been going on??? We get reports of a Norwegian site showing sea ice extent (NANSEN) 'adjusting' sea ice levels downwards due to a glitch from Oct 22 whereas NSIDC's graph just stands still (flat lines).

I have not seen this type of 'natural' relative ice loss over mid winter before so must assume there has been a problem with measurement, but across the board???

Does anyone know why we should now find ice levels at their lowest since 2000?

If the ice extent plots are now 'correct' it is most worrisome when thinking forwards to next summers melt. As we have covered before the predominance of single year ice in the traditional 'perennial sectors' means that we will (again) melt out the very areas that used to anchor the ice cap in place allowing more of the remnants, of the once predominant perennial, to be flushed into the Atlantic to their doom..

[BARRY]

Soooooo.......what's been going on??? We get reports of a Norwegian site showing sea ice extent (NANSEN) 'adjusting' sea ice levels downwards due to a glitch from Oct 22 whereas NSIDC's graph just stands still (flat lines).

I have not seen this type of 'natural' relative ice loss over mid winter before so must assume there has been a problem with measurement, but across the board???

Does anyone know why we should now find ice levels at their lowest since 2000?

If the ice extent plots are now 'correct' it is most worrisome when thinking forwards to next summers melt. As we have covered before the predominance of single year ice in the traditional 'perennial sectors' means that we will (again) melt out the very areas that used to anchor the ice cap in place allowing more of the remnants, of the once predominant perennial, to be flushed into the Atlantic to their doom..

well looking at the cryosphere 30 day animation there seems more ice now, than at any other time

[pottyprof]

Does anyone know why we should now find ice levels at their lowest since 2000?

If the ice extent plots are now 'correct' it is most worrisome when thinking forwards to next summers melt. As we have covered before the predominance of single year ice in the traditional 'perennial sectors' means that we will (again) melt out the very areas that used to anchor the ice cap in place allowing more of the remnants, of the once predominant perennial, to be flushed into the Atlantic to their doom..

And? It's all happened before..

I've never seen a wolf with wings before.. Any more flapping and you'll be the first one to be airbourne..

[Roger J Smith]

The slowdown noted above is probably due to a mild winter so far in the Bering Sea and failure of ice to extend out from sheltered bays of the Sea of Okhotsk (this probably due more to currents or storms than mild temperatures from what I've seen in that region). These are the parts of the northern hemisphere most likely to be adding ice in the past week to two weeks and so if they are slow, the pace slows to a crawl. The only other area likely to ba accreting at the moment would be near the mouth of Hudson Strait down the Labrador coast. This zone is often more wind than temperature dependent for its ice formation. A stormy period lies ahead there and ice accretion will be slow along the Labrador coast for at least early January.

It's worth noting on this thread, while it has no impact on the global extent of ice, we have ice problems on the tidal estuary of the Fraser River at 49.2 N for the first time in many years, some people say "ever" although I think this may have happened once or twice in the past century. The temperatures have been so cold for the past two weeks that the lower Fraser, despite being a fast-moving river with a tidal range of four feet that extends thirty miles upstream, has essentially frozen over, and this ice is rising and falling with the tides, damaging shoreline installations. We are also "enjoying" a two-foot snowpack that is playing havoc with the local infrastructure, our ability to respond to this is little better than Dublin or Birmingham to name cities of similar population to greater Vancouver. If London had this volume of snow, I think there would be mass gridlock, the sidestreets are all pretty much impassable and from what I remember of London, it is all sidestreets.

We may at some point see some extent of sea ice out from fjords up the west coast here, something that happens only in the very coldest winters as the water temps are normally 5-8 C. There are also lakes in central BC that rarely freeze over, but some of them are showing floating ice already (the normal freeze up in the coldest winters would probably run from mid-January to mid-March, like Lake Erie).

Now as to the hemispheric extent, the advance is likely to be fairly slow for the rest of the season, as most potential freeze zones now are in the open waters of large oceans. The Great Lakes have yet to freeze too, despite weeks of rather cold temperatures across the northern half of the basin. The other large Canadian lakes have mostly frozen up in the past two or three weeks.

I suppose there is some chance of more extensive freezing of the Baltic this season, although that will have to proceed rapidly to get anything going. The models keep showing a 5-8 day period of extreme cold over that region, which might be the required signal for it to start.

Edited December 27, 2008 by Roger J Smith

[LadyPakal]

The Great Lakes have yet to freeze too, despite weeks of rather cold temperatures across the northern half of the basin.

See here Roger: http://www.riverfallsjournal.com/articles/...;property_id=18

'The western tip of Lake Superior has frozen over in December for the first time in recent memory, and that could mean a long season of ice angling that hasn’t been seen in years.'

[J10]

Ice levels continue to fluctuate and are now above 2007, 2006 and 2005 (From IJIS), my next spreadsheet update will be on the 1st Jan and will cover the end of year figures.

[Gray-Wolf]

Now ,of course, you'd like to feel you can trust the large scientific bodies who monitor the northern ice but I'm starting to wonder about both the 'stall' and now the continued 'mirroring of the 07' levels as shown on the NSIDC graphic.

I know it has been crimbo and staff are probably thin on the ground but I hope we get a decent 'roundup' of all the comings and goings over the past 3 weeks (and any reasons for this strange period on the graph) in their next update!

[Gray-Wolf]

And? It's all happened before..

I've never seen a wolf with wings before.. Any more flapping and you'll be the first one to be airbourne..

????

Yes I know the poles have been ice free before but we weren't feeding nearly 7 billion folk at those times and the 'coastlines' looked a tad different.......or is that of no concern?

Again we must be mindful of the 'thinning' of the pack (that brought us lowest recorded volume last summer) and it's impact upon the viability of the pack through the summer months.

With Meto/Uni East Anglia predicting higher global temps than last year (for 2009) surely the sight of 'ice extent' dropping below the low of 07/08' winter must raise concerns??

The 'ice concentration' panels show that Bering and the waters to our north are failing to freeze as they have in the past and we must suspect the new 'bi-lobal' set up of the arctic system (and the static lows pumping warm air /water into the Arctic basin through these two points) is partly to blame.

I'm sorry P.P. but ,for me, the fact that we are so far in advance of the models in our arctic meltdown plainly means that one 'natural' event will doom the remaining pack (unless the findings of the relevant authorities around the globe are to be dismissed as they amass more and more evidence of the same).

I don't know what you mean by "it's all happened before" in terms of todays impacts of Arctic ice loss but it seems a little 'ill considered' for your normal banter. We know that the 'heating' of the 30's/40's did not extend to the poles (no further than 75 degrees north) and that ice thickness has been declining since that period so I'm at a loss to understand your 'thrust'.

Confirmation that methane levels have increased for the past 3 years (after a 10yr standstill when Russia plugged it's leaky natural gas operations) and that the observed 'bubbling methane' releases off the Siberian coasts, as reported over last summer, come from submerged permafrosts (drowned at the end of the last ice age) which are now at only -1c now that the protective 'sea ice' over them has melted out. Latest research indicates that the impacts from loss of sea ice extend 1,500km inland (and not 700km as previously though) which brings an awful lot of permafrost into the melting zone. If we want a 'fast track' to atmospheric concentrations of CO2 last seen in the Eocene (and we all know temps/sea levels then) then we appear to have found a mechanism to achieve it.....or were those times the "all happened before" measure?

[pottyprof]

Lets have a think then GW..

The earth has been warming for the last 18000 years.. The total ice cover on earth is only down about 5% over the last 70 years which is within the realms of natural variation.. The fact that the south has gained where the north has lost suggests that there are natural cycles at play.. The major sea level rises happened within the first 6000 years since the earth started warming.. 18000 years is only a blink of an eye in earths history and we worry about the last 100?

Why are people skeptical about AGW??

I am in no way saying the interesting facts and figures you post for our pleasure are inaccurate or nonsense. What is being observed is the end of the last iceage and the beginning of the next.. Should be a handy guide for future generations to dig up out of the permafrost and wonder what the heck we were muttering about in 2009..

[Gray-Wolf]

OK P.P. whilst I go away to dig up the figures of ice loss over the past 70yrs you can do the same as we obviously do not use the same source references. As you know from the documents from the U.S. Navy (after the cold war) ice thickness had already dropped by 40%up until 1980( from measurements commenced in 1958)....since 79' and the advent of satellite measurements we've witnessed even more ice loss. Only last year Ellesmere island shed portions of the remaining ice shelfs (down 9/10ths in area measured in 1900 and down 25% of the remaining shelf systems in 1 year) so your "5%" ice level fluctuations seem a tad askew.

Before we get into pedantic exchanges we are talking about the measure of minimum ice (as it impacts far greater on climate than ice max) aren't we? for ice will always form over winter ,due to the lack of solar input, whereas ice didn't used to melt out completely in many of the areas that it is today (with the consequences we are now measuring?).

Edited January 2, 2009 by Gray-Wolf

[pottyprof]

Where did i mention thickness? I agreed that thickness is down elsewhere on here..

Never mind..

Still doesn't change the fact that the earths been warming for 18000 years..

whereas ice didn't used to melt out completely in many of the areas that it is today

This is so true.. I do honestly agree with most of what you are saying..

[Iceberg]

well just out of interest ice extent on the 31st of December was lower than any other year, this means that we start 2009 off on the lowest extent recorded.

[Devonian]

Where did i mention thickness? I agreed that thickness is down elsewhere on here..

Never mind..

Still doesn't change the fact that the earths been warming for 18000 years..

I think has been warming for 18,000 years is stretching it a bit.

[Gray-Wolf]

What's the similarity between P.P. and the Arctic? they're both on very thin ice.......Boom,Boom. :wacko:

The fact we are entering 09' on the lowest extent with the least volume whilst MetO/Uni East Anglia give us the prospects of a warmer year does not bode well.

We would do well to watch the remaining perennial around (and to the north )of the Canadian Archipelago and North of Svalbard. This all seemed well fragmented last autumn and is ripe for drift down the coasts of Greenland (and possibly causing issues in the NW passage for a few years to come) as soon as melt begins in March.

[J10]

As Promised here is my end of year spreadsheet, it has been delayed pending any late updates on the IJIS website. Over the past week, the figures on the website have been subject to upward revisions, a couple of days after the initial ice amounts has been posted. So I had been waiting for them, and as a result if further amendments are to be made, I will update the spreadsheets, the last update on the IJIS website, related to ice thicknesses as at the 31st December.

The provisional figure on the 31st December was the lowest in the sequence, about 35,000 lower than the 2004 figures, and on average 140,000 lower than the 2003-2008 figures.

The 2008 minimum ice extent was the lowest with the exception of the 2007 figures.

The 2008 maximum was the 2nd highest, with only 2003 being higher.

The 2008 average ice extent was above 2005,2006 and well above 2007, but below 2003 and 2004.

Arctic_Ice_Autumn_2008.xls

[Sleet30031972]

I am at a loss to understand climate change sceptics. For me it is not a complex question it is common sense.

The facts are that as a species we have undergone a sudden and massive population increase. That species (us) daily indulges in the pumping of millions of tonnes of pollutants (of various kinds) into the ecosystem alongside all the other things we do (such as deforestation etc).

Given that it seems that one can either believe that all that will have no effect on the world we live in (and consequently the climate) - the sceptics positon - or that it does (everyone else).

Sorry, that is very simplistic i realise, but the fact that there is still a debate being conducted by intelligent people frustates me. Humans are changing the world on a massive scale in a way that is not conducive to life. That to me seems an established fact.

[jethro]

I am at a loss to understand climate change sceptics. For me it is not a complex question it is common sense.

The facts are that as a species we have undergone a sudden and massive population increase. That species (us) daily indulges in the pumping of millions of tonnes of pollutants (of various kinds) into the ecosystem alongside all the other things we do (such as deforestation etc).

Given that it seems that one can either believe that all that will have no effect on the world we live in (and consequently the climate) - the sceptics positon - or that it does (everyone else).

Sorry, that is very simplistic i realise, but the fact that there is still a debate being conducted by intelligent people frustates me. Humans are changing the world on a massive scale in a way that is not conducive to life. That to me seems an established fact.

I think you'll find an awful lot of the scepticism is rooted in holding CO2 up as "THE" root cause.

As for changing the world on a massive scale in a way which is not conducive to life; can't have that and a population explosion surely? One would rule out the other.