Arctic Ice

[Pennine Ten Foot Drifts]

I am regularly flabbergasted by the arguments on these 'climate change/ice extent' threads. For anyone to suggest that either side of any 'warming/cooling' or 'increased/decreased ice cover' argument has now been 'shot down in flames' is frankly utterly ridiculous (to a laughable level). Basing such claims on, in some cases it appears, annual variations (can you believe it ???), or even four or five year variations, is quite clearly nonsense.

Conclusions for such discussions can only be meaningfully drawn over multi-decadal timespans (obviously) because such things can only be meaningfully observed over such time periods. In fact, there is only one sensible question which can be asked at present with regards to Arctic ice cover - how does it currently compare to long term (i.e. 100 plus years) averages, and what is the current 20-30 year trend of coverage ? Not being an expert I don't actually know the answer to either of these questions (although at a guess I would imagine current cover is well below long term averages, and the long term trend is still significantly downwards ??? - just a guess). It will only be a valid statement to say that either of these has definitely reversed if we see consistent increases over a period of at least 25 years, not 25 months !!!!!!!!!!! So, until we get to around 2030 I wouldn't be so ready to go crowing from the rooftops that 'Arctic ice has been saved'.............................

[osmposm]

QUOTE (BLAST FROM THE PAST @ 24 Oct 2008, 11:28 AM)

Too much I care for the planet or I must do because I support/believe in AGW. One still can care for the planet you know!

This comes up time and time again on these threads ie just because you dont believe in AGW or the like you must want to bury the world in Plastic bags. Its not true.

I'm sorry if you thought I was implying that, Stew/Blast - I absolutely was not. I'm sure you all hold strong views yourselves on other aspects of the planet's future well-being.

What I wrote was "is it really so difficult for you - laserguy, delta XR, nick and the rest - to accept that whether or not we are right, most people with the 'AGW mind' - expert and not - hold our opinions honestly and disinterestedly? That we are not all half-witted, blind, biased, corrupt, etc etc? And that we are in many cases so passionate about it because we hold genuine and deep fears for the future of the planet and our lives on it?"

That is to say (1) we still believe in the (AGW) problem, and we are not all stupid, ill-informed and/or biased through personal interest; and (2) we feel strongly because we think the (AGW) problem may affect all our lives dramatically and for the worse. I was only talking about AGW, not any other environmental concerns: on reflection I could have made that clearer.

We know that you, LG, DXR and others do not share these "genuine and deep fears" about GW/AGW, because you repeatedly tell us that there is no problem, and/or if there is it is nothing to do with us.

That is all I was saying.

.......I don't actually know the answer to either of these questions (although at a guess I would imagine current cover is well below long term averages, and the long term trend is still significantly downwards ??? - just a guess). It will only be a valid statement to say that either of these has definitely reversed if we see consistent increases over a period of at least 25 years, not 25 months !!!!!!!!!!! So, until we get to around 2030 I wouldn't be so ready to go crowing from the rooftops that 'Arctic ice has been saved'.............................

Very, very true - and I would have thought pretty obvious. But not, apparently, to everyone.

Ossie

[Mondy]

DXR , August 2008 melt rates, how would you describe them?

Similar to the increase of Sept/Oct..rapid. Nothing to worry about, t'is natural aided by weather influence, not agw

[osmposm]

Similar to the increase of Sept/Oct..rapid. Nothing to worry about, t'is natural aided by weather influence, not agw

....um, any comment, DXR, on my careful analysis of the 1937 Time Magazine story you linked us to? Got any other 'evidence' for us that there was as little - or less - summer ice then as now?

Ossie

[kiwistonewall]

Hi to all in the UK (from warm Australia) Hope the Winter isn't going to be to bad up there this year.

Ice images that I'll be updating regularly at these links. (You may need to hit refresh to get the latest image)

1. Speed of ice recovery (7 day smoothing) showing current rate and recent years against the long term mean. http://i410.photobucket.com/albums/pp183/k...ilyincrease.jpg

and

2. the AMSR-E data with a 1979-2000 mean:

http://i410.photobucket.com/albums/pp183/k...ewall/AMSRE.jpg

See more at the sea ice thread at Solar Cycle 24

Edited October 25, 2008 by kiwistonewall

[J10]

Hi to all in the UK (from warm Australia) Hope the Winter isn't going to be to bad up there this year.

Ice images that I'll be updating regularly at these links. (You may need to hit refresh to get the latest image)

1. Speed of ice recovery (7 day smoothing) showing current rate and recent years against the long term mean. http://i410.photobucket.com/albums/pp183/k...ilyincrease.jpg

and

2. the AMSR-E data with a 1979-2000 mean:

http://i410.photobucket.com/albums/pp183/k...ewall/AMSRE.jpg

See more at the sea ice thread at Solar Cycle 24

Cheers for that and welcome to the forum.

The chart below suggests a very slight link of low concentration sea ice going to Iceland

is this correct?

[Gray-Wolf]

The chart below suggests a very slight link of low concentration sea ice going to Iceland

is this correct?

I think that if you look at the current synoptics (over the past 9 days or so) you'll find a strong Northerly has been affecting the area.

Seeing as we loose ice via this route (and down the east coast of Greenland) it is probably mobile ice 'chunks' being drifted by the winds (much the same as the stretching of Antarctic 'ice extents' by the strong Katabatic winds blowing off the inner continent there).

If you followed the summer melt season you'll have noted the ice 'pile up' behind Svalbard driven by similar wind/currents.

EDIT:

This is the north shore of Iceland on the 22nd at 12:10 UTC

Edited October 25, 2008 by Gray-Wolf

[Mondy]

....um, any comment, DXR, on my careful analysis of the 1937 Time Magazine story you linked us to? Got any other 'evidence' for us that there was as little - or less - summer ice then as now?

Ossie

Urghhh, do I have to! I'll get back to you by Monday, if not remind me :-) Am busy..

[osmposm]

Urghhh, do I have to! I'll get back to you by Monday, if not remind me :-) Am busy..

Yes, so am I.

Tell you what, I'll write it for you - please feel free to copy verbatim: "I now realise that the 1937 Time magazine article I linked to a few days ago does not demonstrate (as I had previously thought) that the Canadian Archipelago was as ice-free in the late 1930s as it has been in the last two summers."

You could even add "Try as I may, I've been unable to find any description of someone making the whole of the NW Passage in the past by the direct, Northern, deep-water route. Much excitement used to be generated when people made the passage at all, so I suspect that if anyone had managed that route, it would have been mentioned. As a result even I am beginning to wonder if the conditions up there in the last two summers weren't, in fact, the most ice-free in at least the last 200 years, and probably a lot longer."

Not quite your literary style, I know, but you can't have everything.

Ossie

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

am beginning to wonder if the conditions up there in the last two summers weren't, in fact, the most ice-free in at least the last 200 years, and probably a lot longer."

Ossie

Not ever then?

BFTP

[Cycles]

Question ..

NOAA (see link) just released a statement indicating "Warmest Arctic Autumn on Record".

Many forums have indicated rapid ice restoration in the Arctic during the Autumn...so my question is...

How can we have exstensive ice recovery with record warmth? The report indicated well above mean water temperatures?

http://www.earthweek.com/2008/ew081024/ew081024i.html

[osmposm]

Not ever then?

BFTP

No - certainly not (if you go back far enough!)....maybe even during the MWP, I just don't know. A very interesting analysis here about whether the Vikings made it through by one (shallow water) route and/or another.....I'd certainly buy it as a strong possibility, but their boats were shallow-draught, and many could've been been dragged across land/ice in problem sections: http://www.spirasolaris.ca/sbb4g1bv.html

But as for larger vessels, and/or the post-MWP period, the fact that the NW Passage has been such a Holy Grail for European traders since at least the end of 15th Century suggests no ships of any size made it, or the triumphant news would have been broadcast far and wide - the British even offered a prize of £20,000 (many millions in today's terms) to anyone who found it.

Bags of good info & links about the various trips in the historical period in the Wikipedia article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Passage . I suggest a quick read before being tempted to believe that things in the 1930s/40s were the same as now, ice-wise.

[Roger J Smith]

The only weather station for which I can find records in the arctic in 1937 was Cambridge Bay on southern Victoria Island. It had a rather warm July (mean max 12 C, absolute max 21 C) which would compare to the mean for 1971-2000, and was warmer than about half the years in the past 38. Much cooler July temps have been noted in various other years. Without doing a full-blown study, I noticed that colder summers up at Cambridge Bay seemed to occur before cold winters in western Canada, for instance July 1949 was quite chilly and the winter of 1949-50 is our coldest on record. Similar July 1968 and the winter of 1968-69.

However, this tells us nothing about ice concentrations in that summer. The summer of 1930 must have had considerable ice melt in the Canadian arctic, as it was about four degrees warmer than even 1998, the warmest summer in recent years.

The mean max was over 20 C that year in July.

Meanwhile, I've been searching around to find any historical ice records from northern Canada. So far nothing very conclusive for the recent historical period, but this is very interesting in the longer term:

http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic49-3-235.pdf

Read carefully, it has a lot of interesting details. One thing that needs to be stressed, at the end of the Wisconsin glaciation large segments of the western arctic islands that we see on the current maps were under sea level at that time, partly because of higher sea levels and partly because of isostatic rebound just starting then. So some of the historical post-glacial peaks in open water conditions can be partly related to larger channels between islands, as well as warmer climates. The broad general conclusions of this study on whalebone remnants found in various locations, is that two warmer epochs than the present occurred in the Canadian arctic, one immediately after the glacial era and while it was still winding down further south, and one around five to three thousand years ago. The millennium from about 1,000 BC to 0 AD seemed colder than present in general, and since then there have been variations. The Medieval warm period seems to show up as a minor peak of open seas as well.

About the only point this paper makes to this discussion is still an important one -- naturally, the climate can feature extensive areas of open water in the Canadian arctic, and has done at various times since the last glacial maximum. The task, I suppose, would be to reconstruct what might be expected at this point from natural variation alone and compare that to actual observed conditions. But it does provide another strong piece of evidence that the AGW lobby's version of events is oblivious to longer-term historical records (note that this paper was published in 1996).

[Gray-Wolf]

Question ..

NOAA (see link) just released a statement indicating "Warmest Arctic Autumn on Record".

Many forums have indicated rapid ice restoration in the Arctic during the Autumn...so my question is...

How can we have extensive ice recovery with record warmth? The report indicated well above mean water temperatures?

http://www.earthweek.com/2008/ew081024/ew081024i.html

Which is why we must hark back to NASA's words about last years alleged "record re-freeze". Sadly, due to the extent of the summer melt, we now have a very different playing field with goal posts far removed from the 30yr rolling average and as such comparing 'like for like' ,in terms of surface area available for refreeze, surface freshening (by summer meltwater) and absence of perennial ice, is impossible.

As posted earlier in the thread I wonder how many years of a similar October pattern will the folk crying "record" need to witness before they concede that this is now the 'average' way of winter refreeze in such a different arctic.

The other thing is, of course, the NOAA being a fibbing, disreputable organisation who spread false data around the world for their own reasons..........obviously a claim I would never side with. It does seem ,however, that certain factions ,when presented with data that does not please them, will resort to such wayward claims (much to their personal shame).

[stewfox]

I will wager that by December we are not seeing 'fantastic' anythings in both growth rates and extent.....it'll be much of a muchness with all the rest.

If we do

Anyway must get my snow shovel ready this end of October looks to be bad

[Gray-Wolf]

Anyway must get my snow shovel ready this end of October looks to be bad

you've not been doing this long have you? LOL

EDIT: My own family got sick of my 'it's gonna give us a dumping on......' years ago. I'd love to be proven right! 'cause I love the white stuff but I'm resigned to my memories of the late 60's and early 80's being the last of my consistent and regular snow over winter or 2 weeks of ice remaining in the shade and 'white' salt covered roads and the dust it threw up when cars drove past. I've even got the gear I used to wear in such 'cold'.....but I doubt it'll fit now.

I'm lucky being up in the hills for at least my son see's it snow a couple of times a year.........but not the 8ft drifts of yesteryear. (I have fetched in the Geraniums/Fushias ready for the 2 nights of hard frost we're expecting though......but then we are nearly in the old frozen fog season)

Edited October 26, 2008 by Gray-Wolf

[laserguy]

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/NE...ce.some.001.png

What's this I see in the Denmark Strait? Sheesh,this global warming climate change is getting really bad now.

[Cycles]

I re-read the article on "Earthweek". The article talked about Record Warm Autmumn in the Arctic....but quess what? If you dig deep into the article it talks about this past winter and summer and the Record Autumn Warmth was for 2007, not 2008.

So it looks like this years autumn was not warm after all....sorry for the misleading article.

Regards

David

[Mondy]

It's comical how the agw'rs are now saying this is "no big deal/not important/nothing to see here" when just a month ago they were scaring people with their SECOND LOWEST ICE EXTENT ON RECORD!!!

So they had their fun in the park, made a big deal out of it (even though it represented a recovery from last year, more so than many experts, including the NSIDC predicted) and now that October 2008 has seen a GREATER RATE OF GROWTH THAN ANY YEAR ON RECORD!!! this isn't important now!

If you recall, 2008 melting hit its low point earlier, began recovering sooner and gained ice at a fascinating rate (still is) - signs that the Arctic is cooling down. Yet this doesn’t matter to some warmers because it doesn't fit the agenda.

Oh how the warmists scheme!

**Here's a new linky too. Net weather get a mention also

Edited October 27, 2008 by Delta X-Ray

[stewfox]

Oh how the warmists scheme!

You got a update where that red line is heading, will we see it from London soon

[Mondy]

You got a update where that red line is heading, will we see it from London soon

Yeah, it's on page 8 of this thread.

[osmposm]

It's comical how the agw'rs are now saying this is "no big deal/not important/nothing to see here" when just a month ago they were scaring people with their SECOND LOWEST ICE EXTENT ON RECORD!!!

So they had their fun in the park, made a big deal out of it (even though it represented a recovery from last year, more so than many experts, including the NSIDC predicted) and now that October 2008 has seen a GREATER RATE OF GROWTH THAN ANY YEAR ON RECORD!!! this isn't important now!

If you recall, 2008 melting hit its low point earlier, began recovering sooner and gained ice at a fascinating rate (still is) - signs that the Arctic is cooling down. Yet this doesn’t matter to some warmers because it doesn't fit the agenda.

Oh how the warmists scheme!

**Here's a new linky too. Net weather get a mention also

I guess you're not too busy to give us lots of crowing & whooping (do you ever write simple facts without accompanying SHOUTING and mockery?).....only too busy to give a calm and factual answer to my calm and factual analysis of the (in)significance of that Time magazine story about the ice in 1937 that you linked us to.

But gosh, clearly my 'scheming' has been revealed for the comical nonsense it is. After - yes - the second lowest summer ice extent definitively recorded (and strong evidence of it being the lowest for much longer), the rate of increase in the last...um...month and a half reveals beyond a shadow of a doubt that the gradual-to-dramatic shrinking of the ice pack in the last 20 or 30 years is over - and of course that global warming is a complete myth put about by corrupt knaves and blind fools.

Edited October 27, 2008 by osmposm

[Mondy]

I guess you're not too busy to give us lots of crowing & whooping (do you ever write simple facts without accompanying SHOUTING and mockery?).....only too busy to give a calm and factual answer to my calm and factual analysis of the (in)significance of that Time magazine story about the ice in 1937 that you linked us to.

But gosh, clearly my 'scheming' has been revealed for the comical nonsense it is. After - yes - the second lowest summer ice extent definitively recorded (and strong evidence of it being the lowest for much longer), the rate of increase in the last...um...month and a half reveals beyond a shadow of a doubt that the gradual-to-dramatic shrinking of the ice pack in the last 20 or 30 years is over - and of course that global warming is a complete myth put about by corrupt knaves and blind fools.

I didn't think I had to give a specific response to the 1937 article after you replied (on my behalf) so eloquently. Thanks for that. I took it onboard.

As for the "shouting", well, I guess it got the point across moreso than just skim reading..sometimes the warmers need to see this factual info properly [without overlooking basics of rapid sea ice increase, circa 2008]

Global Warming is a complete myth put about by corrupt knaves and blind fools? Without making a mockery of that statement, I tend to agree with you. Infact, I'd go as far as to say the term Global Warming is a thing of the past..only a warmer would use such a phrase. Do keep up. It wasn't so long ago Global Warming was a side issue on its own, then it got lumped in with Climate Change, then agw...next the Credit Crunch will be attributed to CO2 levels or summat equally comical.

Os..I respect your posts..no harm in that, but I feel this time, you've taken the bait

[pottyprof]

Oooooh that all made me laugh..

Ok guys... You've had your fun. Back to the subject in hand please..

[osmposm]

Os..I respect your posts..no harm in that, but I feel this time, you've taken the bait

Unfortunately you have never in anything you have ever written shown the slightest sign of it. Yes, I took the bait - after a while the incessant needling - and the absolute insistence that 'warmers' are either stupid or dishonest - got to me. Well done....not that I had quite realized this was all a game to try and make those you disagree with lose their rag, but then I can be a bit dim sometimes. I'm all for humour in debate, but I'd have thought there were more persuasive debating techniques.

Anyway, as the Prof says, back to the subject in hand. A simple question: do you really feel that a month and a half (of fast ice re-growth) is long enough to determine that a melting process that has been going on for decades is now reversing?

Edited October 28, 2008 by osmposm