Arctic Ice 2009/2010

[Gray-Wolf]

You have to take into account the impact black, sooty deposits have had on albedo reduction though - it's gauged to have been THE most important factor. I know they're not natural and can come under the umbrella of AGW as we're responsible, but it's not a measure of a warmer world or warmer oceans, which is how ice loss is always portrayed.

SSS, are you familiar with the Arctic studies from Polyakov?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100309083700.htm

I'll repost this here.

If we're looking at 'soot' then surely before we passed the raft of clean air acts we'd have coated the ice with more soot than in our recent 'cleaner' times?

Why ,when we have apparently cleaned up our act so much, is black soot suddenly a problem?

Whilst our dark satanic mills were pumping it out full blast the ice sheets seemed untroubled and now we've cleaned them up (and converted them into apartments) we have a black soot that'll melt the ice off the top of Greenland????

What of the sub-tropical waters lapping the Greenland glaciers? was it warmed to the point that it could extend it's influence beyond it's normal limits by the soot too?

I'm still thinking that a warming planet is the best way to melt ice that has been in place since the last ice age!

Apparently Russian exports in mammoth ivory (mainly to China) are also doing very well since the permafrosts started to thaw and let it flop out onto the river banks across Siberia. Again it appears funny that this should suddenly be a boom industry where once it was such a rare commodity that museums snapped it up for displays?

[osmposm]

.....Apparently Russian exports in mammoth ivory (mainly to China) are also doing very well since the permafrosts started to thaw and let it flop out onto the river banks across Siberia. Again it appears funny that this should suddenly be a boom industry where once it was such a rare commodity that museums snapped it up for displays?

It may well be in part a result of melting tundra....or it may not. And even the two tons exported in 1989 suggests it was not exactly rare even then, except as complete animals.

This NY Times article http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/25/world/europe/25iht-mammoth.4.11415717.html confidently supports your contention, but gives no source for the information. But it also discusses at least two other major reasons for the twentyfold increase in the trade since the late 80s - the huge boom in oil & gas exploration and construction, and the 1989 CITES ban on trade in elephant ivory (only ocasionally - and partially - lifted since then). The former would presumably have increased the potential supply with or without melted tundra; and the latter has bolstered the desirability, awareness - and price - of mammoth ivory, the only sort that can be imported legally into the USA, for example.

A quick trawl through the many websites offering Russian ivory suggests that much of it is in fact excavated, by one means or another, from still-frozen tundra. The doubling in price reported by one site has clearly made it much more worthwhile to seek out; and there seems to be, in some places at least, am almost industrial extraction process going on. As one company says (by way of comparison with the rare North Sea tusk they were offering for sale): "Mammoth fossils in Russia, like most Pleistocene Russian fossils, are found in the ground in massive bone beds that extend for considerable distances. These fossils are blasted out of the tundra with water cannons and so many are found that woolly mammoth tusks are a commodity and sold by the pound....".

I'm not saying you're wrong, GW, but I'd like to hear some good evidence. On the face of it, all the other factors involved make it very difficult to assess whether melting tundra is a significant part of the equation or not.

Edited March 10, 2010 by osmposm

[sunny starry skies]

You have to take into account the impact black, sooty deposits have had on albedo reduction though - it's gauged to have been THE most important factor. I know they're not natural and can come under the umbrella of AGW as we're responsible, but it's not a measure of a warmer world or warmer oceans, which is how ice loss is always portrayed.

SSS, are you familiar with the Arctic studies from Polyakov?

Vaguely, though the ones I've seen only deal with data up to 2000AD (considerable warming in the Arctic since then), and also a rather sparse network of stations dominantly above 70 deg north, combined with very odd additions, such as Aberdeen (!) and other anomalously far south stations.

http://www.frontier.iarc.uaf.edu/~igor/research/warm/warm_apr02.pdf

If you use data only from above 70 deg north, you get a different pattern than if you use data from above 60 deg north due to the greatly reduced number of stations. Therefore I am unsure how well Polyakov's interpretation of trends (while perfectly plausible) would hold up under more detailed analysis, and also into the last decade? However I would be very interested to see how it does propagate into this decade, as there have been a few suggestions floating around that the unusual weather patterns of the last couple of years may have something to do with the warming in the Arctic. I'm not saying that's the case of course, not enough data, but I find it interesting just how low the Arctic Oscillation got this year - far lower than in the 1960s:

http://www.ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/arctic-oscillation-ao

sss

[Gray-Wolf]

Jethro , though we've been here before I thought Mr P. had accepted that ,since 07', we may have to accept that this is more than multidecadal variation in the arctic.

We have this from him in 09'

http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1755-1315/6/3/032007/ees9_6_032007.pdf?request-id=97996392-aabe-44f2-8cfe-759ec29cba28

where he is talking about the changes 'over the past several decades' and goes on to detail the changes in Arctic ocean stratification and it's impacts on the oceans ability to eat up ice these days.

Yes ,before he knew better he favoured nature running the show through multidecadal changes but he has now reviewed the evidence the noughties brought us and changed his stance.

Does this not negate his past beliefs? He may well have recognised remnant arctic systems whilst they were on the cusp of extinction but we are now in the 'new age' of Arctic changes and he recognises this.

We are due 11 papers (I believe) from the IPY expedition that Dr Barber was part of when he made his 'rotten ice' discoveries.

Maybe we need wait for this data/info to find out how the Arctic is faring since we lost the 'old perennial' through the early /mid noughties?

[stewfox]

Looks like we have reached the top of the roller coaster now (although 2003 was an interesting year with a further spurt)

http://www.ijis.iarc...aice_extent.htm

Hold on to your hats for a bumby ride

Assuming we don’t have detailed ice volumes.

If we get a a minimum of...

6m more recovery

5.2 m just about acceptable

Anything below take cover from the doom and gloom

Edited March 11, 2010 by stewfox

[Gray-Wolf]

I find it interesting to see how the post 07' years have the same 'post full moon' spurt at seasons end. All 3 appear to have this 'late spurt' with very similar growth rates and amounts.

A glimpse at the past few days 'Arctic circle' images from

http://www.woksat.info/wos.html

will show you just how the leaders have spread and the smaller, more cubic, sections are multiplying in number.

[stewfox]

I find it interesting to see how the post 07' years have the same 'post full moon' spurt at seasons end. All 3 appear to have this 'late spurt' with very similar growth rates and amounts.

Increased fragmentation due the gravitational effect of the moon ? dont follow ?

[Gray-Wolf]

Increased fragmentation due the gravitational effect of the moon ? dont follow ?

I believe so Stew. The thin pack must be more susceptible to fragmentation when the spring tides bulge underneath them and the the pack can grind itself away with wind/wave action prior to the onset of the melt season proper. The edges of the pack ,once loosened can float off into the Atlantic (via Fram or Nares straights) extending the 'extent' figures as the pack edges south. Three years of similar 'growth spurts' just after the full moon in Feb/early march just seems too coincidental for me (though I am often wrong!!!).

Talking of Nares, the ice Arch at the north end never formed again this year (as in 07' and 08') and I've been watching the ice flow out down it all winter.This is the Major route south for the Canadian 'multiyear ice' including that which has choked the NW passage deep channel the past 2 years.

Here's an image from July last year as the ice arch failed and ice flowed south;

and here it is two days ago;

Though the files are too big to load you can see the same across the Fram straight and down the East coast of Greenland.

[BornFromTheVoid]

Ice has dropped back a little in recent days, mostly due to the melting of patchy ice with low concentrations in the Barents, around the North West coast of Novaya Zemlya.

It looks as though this area will be blanketed with some very cold air right out to the medium term and with relatively little wind to disrupt or break up any new ice, I wouldn't be surprised to see another late season "growth spurt" in the coming week or 2.

T0 T240

[J10]

The latest update from IJIS, The current ice extent is 14,316,563, some 145,246 above 2003-09 average figures, and some 423,439 below 1979-2007 average figures.

This ranks 3rd out of 8, in the 2003-2010 series, and 26th out of 32, in the 1979-date series.

The highest figures so far this winter was 14,375,000 on the 7th March, so the Ice extent might have peaked for this winter.

[Gray-Wolf]

So , after a very cold northern winter (in the more temperate regions!) we're nearly ready for our summer thread!!!.

Though we've suffered a very -ve AO for most of the winter the Fram straights (exit for over 90% of Arctic ice) has been plagued with L.P.'s and continued to export our precious 'old perennial' all winter long. The same can be said of the Nares straight that no longer has enough of the thickest ,toughest, Arctic ice to form 'ice arches' and has remained mostly open water all winter at it's northern end. The ice formation south of it (newfoundland etc.) have suffered as a consequence with pitiful ice levels.

Worry yea not! the skeptics are glorying in some unseasonal ice formation in closed sea areas further south which have helped bolster 'extent' figures painting a picture ,at winters end, of a reasonable 'freeze' this year. The proof of the pudding will be the coming melt season with the 'bolster ice' already melting (too far south) and the arctic full of mush and leaders instead of thick perennial.

We have at least 1 expedition on the ice now so we'll be gaining reports of ice conditions , on the ground as it were, as the spring progresses.

Anyone want to take a poke at ice min. yet or is it too soon to tell? (second lowest or lowest for me.... just on the back of 'ice type' and conditions in the 'Arctic Fridge [Can. Archipelago] ).

Just over a month to the 'pole Cam. being set up too!!! (if they can find a spot to land!!!! very big open leads across the geographic pole)

Edited March 15, 2010 by Gray-Wolf

[MR EXTREMES]

be a good arctic summer this year cant see no records being broken at all.

pretty confident the gradual build will continue for years to come.

[Admiral_Bobski]

Wasn't this winter unseasonably warm this year up in the arctic, the cold having been displaced to lower latitudes? If so then hasn't the ice held up surprisingly well under those circumstances?

CB

[jethro]

Good point. The historically - AO this winter will have had an impact, given this, the ice has survived remarkably well.

[Gray-Wolf]

C'mon guys ! It's the freakin' Arctic!!!!!

Until sea temps are + 10c at the pole in Feb then the Arctic basin will always be icy over winter, that said what kind of ice?

You will all come around to the idea that the old Arctic is dead and that the changes the noughties set in motion will take a lot of undoing, just when will you come around to the notion???

The Siberian ocean sector is no longer zoned, the Nares Straight hasn't the quality of ice to bridge the gap at it's northern end and the Fram straights just floods ice all winter (with the help of those Northerly tracking L.P.'s ,and the northerlies they place down the eastern side of Greenland)

The Pacific input through Bering seems to be increasing year on year and the last of the old perennial is now on it's way south.

Sub-tropical waters are eating the base of the Greenland's glaciers and is moving ever north.

Please don't lull yourself into any false sense of security because you see ice over winter. It's the type /thickness of ice and what lies underneath that is important.

[Admiral_Bobski]

So it always freezes up in the Arctic in February. But some years it freezes more than other years. This year it froze more than other years, despite the "huge positive anomalies" we were told of by you and others all winter long.

So this year's ice extent is surprisingly good, no?

When will I come around to the notion that the "old Arctic" is dead? Maybe when it's actually dead.

CB

[laserguy]

The proof of the pudding will be the coming melt season with the 'bolster ice' already melting (too far south) and the arctic full of mush and leaders instead of thick perennial.

You've been saying that for at least the last two years !

[Gray-Wolf]

You've been saying that for at least the last two years !

And if you place any vredence in Dr Barbers 'shock' discoveries that's exactly what has been happening. As I said , a 10 by 10 seven m thick slab of perennial collapses into 2m strips. How much more 'extent' does this produce?

Hope the exhausts have bedded in

[The PIT]

And if you place any vredence in Dr Barbers 'shock' discoveries that's exactly what has been happening. As I said , a 10 by 10 seven m thick slab of perennial collapses into 2m strips. How much more 'extent' does this produce?

Hope the exhausts have bedded in

Same as it always has done. So previous ice records may also have shown to higher content than the actual real amount.

Lets look what we have. Winter so I've been told has been milder in the Arctic.

Yet the ice has recovered well despite this but we're now told that this still bad because the sats are mistaking broken ice as full ice.

This is the problem with pro warmers they always shift the goal posts.

[Devonian]

Same as it always has done. So previous ice records may also have shown to higher content than the actual real amount.

Lets look what we have. Winter so I've been told has been milder in the Arctic.

Yet the ice has recovered well despite this but we're now told that this still bad because the sats are mistaking broken ice as full ice.

This is the problem with pro warmers they always shift the goal posts.

This is worth a read.

[Gray-Wolf]

Same as it always has done. So previous ice records may also have shown to higher content than the actual real amount.

Lets look what we have. Winter so I've been told has been milder in the Arctic.

Yet the ice has recovered well despite this but we're now told that this still bad because the sats are mistaking broken ice as full ice.

This is the problem with pro warmers they always shift the goal posts.

Pit , where have you been?

For as long as I've known of you on here we've gone from the 'Grand Arctic Ice Island', the big central mass rammed hard and grounded against the Canadian Archipelago, a recognisable chunk consisting of 60% of the ice up there ,which calved bergs off it as big as office blocks, to today with a 2m thickness across the Basin, a skim, a nothing, and you say the folk who recognise this "move the goal posts"?

If you think it's all about the pond being ice covered and nothing else you might find you change your POV once you've acquainted yourself with what the Arctic Ocean used to be like before 1950. I know when folk say " I don't wish to seem......." that they then always seem just that, but I think you've missed the point here and 'I don't want to seem 'patronising' but it's more than just the 'ice cover'. It's the thickness ,it's the zoning of the ocean itself , it's the currents from the temperate oceans now happily flowing into the basin at speeds we've never witnessed before, it's why 3rd year ice is only as thick as second year, it's why the Siberian shelf 'can' leak methane when we were told it was 'sealed', why Svalbard has half the island ice free come mid winter, why the ice arches no longer form at the Nares straight, why Grizzlies are now in polar bear territories, why Ellesmere island has shed 80% of her ice shelfs over the past 15 years (and that the 'exposed' rocks below tell us they haven't seen light since before the last ice age), why Greenland is losing mass, why her Glaciers are being eaten away by sub-tropical waters, need I go on? (I know I do).

I have no answers so maybe you have but how long did/does it take to form a thermocline layer to the depth we used to have? How long (of ice covered , 'still' ocean) before we can see the layers rebuild?.

My other passion ( the Antarctic ) never had what the Arctic had, never had the 'layers' and each year all the ice melts there ( the percentage left compared with ice max. is where we are headed with the arctic). It took an ice age (I understand) for our Arctic Ocean's systems to impose themselves, now this is gone, When /how can it reform without the same conditions???.

It's like me and GHG's. I can only see what went before and what became of those conditions.

However much we wish different how can we see it another way without falling into delusion?

Edited March 16, 2010 by Gray-Wolf

[stewfox]

This is worth a read.

What to see how many cherries you can pick ?

I love the fact they use Antartica data 1979 to 2000 to compare it with current year (still up) what happen to the rest of this decade

Anyway another 50,000 spurt re IJIS

http://www.ijis.iarc...aice_extent.htm

No guarantee the Max has passed could we be seeing another 2003 ?.

[Devonian]

What to see how many cherries you can pick ?

Actually, because I thought it was worth a read

[stewfox]

So it always freezes up in the Arctic in February. But some years it freezes more than other years. This year it froze more than other years, despite the "huge positive anomalies" we were told of by you and others all winter long.

So this year's ice extent is surprisingly good, no?

When will I come around to the notion that the "old Arctic" is dead? Maybe when it's actually dead.

CB

Yes up a bit yesterday

If we are still above 14m by the end of the month, I'll be pleased

2002/3 was warm in the artic over winter maybe will see a repeat pattern with a further increase in the next few weeks ?

[Gray-Wolf]

Stew , please look at the images provided here;

http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?mosaic=Arctic.2010079.terra.4km

click on an area and then zoom in to the 250m resolution.

Check out the peripheries of the ice and the areas where ice is shipped out of the arctic (Fram and Nares) do you see solid pack growing out or do you see fragmented pack drifting south and spreading over more area than it did before it broke up?

I know what I see and how I interpret it.

Yes, 'ice extent' is not plummeting away right now but the only 'growth' I see is this stretching of the ice that has been there all winter. With the pack extended further south (in the areas affected by the AO generated polar outbreaks) this gives even more ocean area to spread over so you (or at least 'I') would expect the first couple of weeks to be slow work if storms aren't compacting the ice (and showing an 'exaggerated ' ice loss) but you can plainly see from the state of this years pack (or listen to the 'experts' on the subject) that we do not have a strong,well consolidated pack.We have a pack more disrupted over winter (and riddled with old leads re-frozen) which in turn will expose more surface area of this wafer thin ice to the sun/water earlier and so melt away faster and earlier in the season.

We are close to having Cryosat2 launched (after it's delays) and so are closer to having reliable 'thickness' measurements instead of this poorly performing 'extent'. In the meantime the U.S. 'Ice Bridge' mission will be giving us data on thickness over the next 6 weeks or so as they overfly the poler ice and measure it's 'thickness' in repeated passes.

We have already lost the majority perennial that characterised the 'old Arctic' and are now within the realms of the skimpy 'new arctic' and whilst 'extent' may mimic results from back then they do not represent the same thing. We can't compare apples and pears and expect to gain insight (apart from their differences).