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Arctic Ice 2009/2010


J10

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

Interesting figures, GW. I have often wondered if there is much mileage in the albedo theory of amplification. The ocean really only opens up in the few weeks before the September equinox, when the sun is below the horizon for much of the time, and very low in the sky in polar regions otherwise. The biggest albedo effect would be around the solstice, when the ice cover is only slightly diminished.

So if we can already measure impacts with only the minimal amount of Arctic Amplification occuring what are we to expect when we start seeing more and more open waters over summer?

With the current decline in sea ice running at 11% per decade (as averaged out over the past 30yrs) we can only expect the effect to grow decade on decade.

Of course this is only part of the picture as the impacts on the Arctic land masses, once the 'cooling' of that reflective cover is lost, leads to warming up to 1,500km inland.

There is a Genii locked up in all that permafrost that we do not want to release as the positive feedbacks this would lead to would dwarf our current efforts to warm our world.

Whilst we wait for the loss in volume of the Arctic this summer (and the mass loss from Greenland) we also await the atmospheric methane levels for the year.

Are we to see a third year of increases in their levels? Does another year of ice free conditions above the shallow continental shelf off Siberia mean the loss of more 'capping permafrost' and even more methane chimneys bubbling to the surface??sad.gif

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

This data isn't perfect, but if we can't trust the people that fly over the ice in planes year on year examining the ice who can we trust ?.

We are talking about depth here.

Would you trust someone flying over the Sahara desert telling you the depth of sand is reducing or flying over london and telling you more people 'appear' to have colds ?.

If someone has taken measurements of the thickness of the sand and or ice across 100 points over a wide area for period of 30 years, then ill listen ?

Why should you 'trust' more spin.

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

I take it you know very little about the science of remote sensing stewfox? both the ICESat and Grace (and soon to be launched by Europe 'cryosat') are purpose built for the tasks they perform.

ICESat has been overpassing the polar pack since Jan 2003 and taking many thousands of measurements it was built to gather. Why should the general picture of ice thickness reduction be at fault? If height measurements aren't your bag then what of mass loss as measured by Grace? Are we to believe that some of the brightest minds on the planet, working in different specialities, can produce similar corrupt data streams showing the same level of ice loss across the polar pack?

I imagine you will take no notice of this post but for the silent lurker it is important that they have access to the info on this.

Submarines and Satellites

To put the recent decline in context, Kwok and Rothrock examined the recent five-year record from ICESat in the context of the longer history of ice thickness observed by U.S. Navy submarines.

During the Cold War, the submarines collected upward-looking sonar profiles, for navigation and defense, and converted the information into an estimate of ice thickness. Scientists also gathered profiles during a five-year collaboration between the Navy and academic researchers called the Scientific Ice Expeditions, or "SCICEX," of which Rothrock was a participant. In total, declassified submarine data span nearly five decades—from 1958 to 2000—and cover a study area of more than 1 million square miles, or close to 40 percent of the Arctic Ocean.

Kwok and Rothrock compared the submarine data with the newer ICESat data from the same study area and spanning 2003 to 2007. The combined record shows that ice thickness in winter of 1980 averaged 3.64 meters. By the end of 2007, the average was 1.89 meters.

"The dramatic decrease in multiyear ice coverage is quite remarkable and explains to a large degree the decrease in total ice area and volume," Kwok said.

Rothrock, who has worked extensively with the submarine data, agrees. "This paper shows one of the most compelling signals of global warming with one of the greatest and fastest regional environmental impacts.

taken from this NASA release;

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/seaice_skinny.html

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Posted
  • Location: Edinburgh
  • Location: Edinburgh

We are talking about depth here.

Would you trust someone flying over the Sahara desert telling you the depth of sand is reducing or flying over london and telling you more people 'appear' to have colds ?.

If someone has taken measurements of the thickness of the sand and or ice across 100 points over a wide area for period of 30 years, then ill listen ?

Why should you 'trust' more spin.

I'll bite too, for the sake of the lurkers. There is visibly less ice in the polar regions over the last decade, as recorded by ice extent maps. Oddly enough, that is perfectly consistent with thinning of the remaining pack ice. Watch snow of varying depths melt in your back garden - the thin stuff will go quickly, while the deeper snow remains... but is thinner. As Gray Wolf says, you clearly know nothing of remote sensing, how it operates, or how we can determine ice thickness without sticking a pole through the ice.

On a brighter note, it's really good to see a significant increase in the second-year ice extent, though that is tempered by the record low in multiyear ice. The pack is still very vulnerable, but if it were given a few good chilly years (if it's possible), could recover a bit.

sss

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Posted
  • Location: W Kent/E Sussex border (T Wells) 139m ASL
  • Location: W Kent/E Sussex border (T Wells) 139m ASL

Just for the benefit of all lurkers here is some more information on ICEsat taken from good old Wikipedia - so ignore it if you want to.

"ICESat was designed to operate for three to five years. Testing indicated that each GLAS laser should last for two years, requiring GLAS to carry three lasers in order to fulfill the nominal mission length. During the initial on orbit test operation, a pump diode module on the first GLAS laser failed prematurely on 29 March 2003. A subsequent investigation indicated that a corrosive degradation of the pump diodes, due to an improper material usage in manufacture, had possibly reduced the reliability of the lasers. Consequentially, the total operational life for the GLAS instrument was expected to be as little as less than a year as a result. After the two months of full operation in the fall of 2003, the operational plan for GLAS was changed. GLAS now operates for one-month periods out of every three to six months in order to extend the time series of measurements, particularly for the ice sheets."

MM

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

http://icesat.gsfc.nasa.gov/history.php

Much easier for them to learn from the horse's mouth Mr M.

To lengthen the effective life of the mission the laser is turned on for periods and then when the passes are complete it's turned back off. If you click on the 'operation status' tab (on the site linked above) you can see when these schedules were and for how long.

The origional mission was for 3years and they hoped for a 5 year satellite 'lifespan', seems that things (apart from the initial GLAS issue) have gone far better than they expected with the GLAS laser taking over 1.9billion measurements up to the end of it's April run this year. The GLAS instrumentation was fired up again on Sept 30th for the next series of measurements.smile.gif

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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 take it you know very little about the science of remote sensing stewfox? both the ICESat and Grace (and soon to be launched by Europe 'cryosat') are purpose built for the tasks they perform.

GW it was you yourself who mentioned a few months back that the art of remote sensing was still being 'established'.

I am happy to be corrected.

Im sure those that wish hard enough will get their Artic Free of ice by the summer of 2015 rolleyes.gif

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

I'm sorry Stew but I can't for the life of me remember what I said (or in what context)sad.gif I know I've been noting that 'custom made' packages ,to measure specific areas of change, are becoming more common these days (as opposed to using existing platforms and extrapolating useful data from their general operations).

Sea ice does not seem to be following the past few years of rapid rebuild this autumn.If we continue in the same vein we'll second lowest in a few days (behind 07').Anyone got any info as to this slow start?

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Posted
  • Location: Aberdeen
  • Location: Aberdeen

Anyone got any info as to this slow start?

Warmer than average weather would be a good bet.

It has been anomalouslycold in the Greenland areawhich already has its ice cover whereas the areas which were open sea are still relatively unfrozen dueto recent warmer than average weather in those areas. If the weather patterns had been the other way round the refreeze would have beenmuchmuch faster. It wasn't it though.

Simply put the colder than average areas already were ice covered, the warmer than average ones (north of Siberia) did not.

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

Just looking at the current SST anoms up there and they are probably not helping with things.

Maybe we are loing at the Arctic Amplification (positive feedback mechanism) in action as the seas appear to be taking a while to be cooled down where they were longest exposed to the summer sun?

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Posted
  • Location: Aberdeen
  • Location: Aberdeen

To be honest I don't think it's even as complicated as that, just prevailing southerly winds off the SIberian landmass keeping the temperatures only marginally below freezing. In contrast it has been down to -50degC in cold spot of Summit Camp in Greenland. Cold even for there at this time of year (in fact I think September may have set a new cold record while Siberia was anomalously warm - a continuing pattern).

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

So back to the re-build. It would appear that from the 3rd lowest ice extent we are now in joint second lowest ice extent for this time of year.

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

Seeing as we have had good natural cycle props to enable good ice growth/retention over the past two years (as final ice max. extent figures have shown for the past two years) does anyone know if these aids to ice growth will be in place across the pole this winter (ESP. with a growing El-Nino across the pacific equatorial zone) or will we be treated to final figures reminiscent of 05',06' and 07'?

With a pack lacking in perennial any low start point to melt season must be something to be feared (IMHO).smile.gif

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Posted
  • Location: W Kent/E Sussex border (T Wells) 139m ASL
  • Location: W Kent/E Sussex border (T Wells) 139m ASL

Seeing as we have had good natural cycle props to enable good ice growth/retention over the past two years (as final ice max. extent figures have shown for the past two years) does anyone know if these aids to ice growth will be in place across the pole this winter (ESP. with a growing El-Nino across the pacific equatorial zone) or will we be treated to final figures reminiscent of 05',06' and 07'?

GW

If I had to chose a single factor I would want to be in place it is a negative AO, which would mean that high pressure is predominant over the arctic. This should enable ice to form in the coldest periods of the winter and also mean that the formed ice is less subject to wind damage in the summer melt period.

Looking at the NOAA AO index it seems to me that the period when the greatest ice loss occurs is during periods when the AO is positive - such as in the early 1990s and, broadly, the last decade

month.ao.gif

current.anom.jpg

I cannot really give a prediction for this winter, except to say that the current AO pattern looks to be moving from a positive over the past two months to a more negative bias. However, this can (and has) changed quite quickly in the past.

Also, looking at solar minimums (1954, 1964, 1976, 1986, 1996) the AO seems (to me, anyway) to trend towards negativity after the minimum - so that may be an additional factor this year.

MM

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

Hi Mr M.!

Would it be unkind of my 1 factor to be the El-Nino event of 06/07?

NASA's Bill Patzert tells us:

"...... this El Niño bears many similarities to the 2006-2007 El Niño event. During that winter, much of the American Southwest experienced record-breaking drought, and Los Angeles had its driest winter in recorded history."

(taken from http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=2325 )

Ice rebuild continues on a slow burner and now lies at second lowest for this time of year, another 2 weeks without the kind of re-growth/rebound we have become used to and I will start to wonder what is going on.

As it is the spreading out of the ice through Aug left a lot of 'wiggle room' so we may just be seeing compaction of this thin spread pack into a more normal pattern masking normal amounts of ice regrowth for the time of year?smile.gif

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On the IJIS figures Arctic Ice now stands at 6257188 the sixth highest in the series (of 7) and around 200,000 below the 2002-2008 average. The average growth over the past week is around 73,000 per day, which is slightly below the average growth at this time of year, however this disguises the fact that at the start of the week, ice growth was very low, but it seems to be picking up quite a bit now.

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Posted
  • Location: Swallownest, Sheffield 83m ASL
  • Location: Swallownest, Sheffield 83m ASL

Once again, thank you J1 for the details. I'm sure everyone who downloaded it appreciates you doing this. :(

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

With a pack lacking in perennial any low start point to melt season must be something to be feared (IMHO).smile.gif

Fear not that little red line now appears to be climbing at a 'alarming' rate

If that rate of increase continues for the next 6 months, I hope they have a graph that goes to 18m Kms 2 rolleyes.gif . A very steep rise in the last week.

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

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Posted
  • Location: Epsom, Surrey
  • Location: Epsom, Surrey

On the IJIS figures Arctic Ice now stands at 6257188 the sixth highest in the series (of 7) and around 200,000 below the 2002-2008 average. The average growth over the past week is around 73,000 per day, which is slightly below the average growth at this time of year, however this disguises the fact that at the start of the week, ice growth was very low, but it seems to be picking up quite a bit now.

Also worth noting I think is that even just on the avererage of these few years it is below by ave 300,605 with only 2007 lower :)

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Posted
  • Location: W Kent/E Sussex border (T Wells) 139m ASL
  • Location: W Kent/E Sussex border (T Wells) 139m ASL

Hi Mr M.!

Would it be unkind of my 1 factor to be the El-Nino event of 06/07?

NASA's Bill Patzert tells us:

"...... this El Niño bears many similarities to the 2006-2007 El Niño event. During that winter, much of the American Southwest experienced record-breaking drought, and Los Angeles had its driest winter in recorded history."

(taken from http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=2325 )

GW

Interesting.....but Pazert also says ""Unless present El Niño conditions intensify, I believe this El Niño is too weak to have a major influence on many weather patterns,"

My own view is that this is a weak/moderate El Nino at best and I doubt it will have any significant effect on Arctic Ice in 2009.

We shall see.

MM

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

My own view is that this is a weak/moderate El Nino at best and I doubt it will have any significant effect on Arctic Ice in 2009.

We shall see.

MM

I assume you mean 2010 ? mellow.gif

Glad to sea the artic is still playing catch up

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

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Posted
  • Location: W Kent/E Sussex border (T Wells) 139m ASL
  • Location: W Kent/E Sussex border (T Wells) 139m ASL

Also worth noting I think is that even just on the avererage of these few years it is below by ave 300,605 with only 2007 lower :drinks:

At this time of year the figures vary quite wildly.

For example as at 9 October, 2009 was 321k was below the 2003-8 average. By 11 October, just three days later, this has reduced to 174k. This does not mean that 2009 is out of the woods but just shows how quickly things can change. In three days time things may have gone the other way again!

It is worthwhile tracking what is happening but, for me, the minimum and maximum extents are what I'm really interested in.

MM

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Also worth noting I think is that even just on the avererage of these few years it is below by ave 300,605 with only 2007 lower :drinks:

Firstly I pointed out in my figures that the figures were the 6th highest, with only one year lower, and by yesterdays figure we were below recent averages by some 233,099. Today that has dropped even further to be 186,172 below recent averages, so I do not know where your figure of 300,605 comes from to be honest, if you do look at figures it is worth waiting until later in the day when they are confirmed.

With the data supplied last week, I have been able to create an average based on http://polynya.gsfc.nasa.gov/seaice_datasets.html . However these are not exact figures and the figures do not agree with the figures from IJIS from 2003-2007, however I have applied a correcting factor to make the effective figures the same as that reported on IJIS for the same period of 2003-2007, as a result these are only indicative figures.

So on this basis the figure reported on IJIS on the 11th October is 6,379,063 some 186,172 below the IJIS 2003-2008 average and 1,618,583 below the indicative average for the period 1979-2007. All future comparisons will now include both sets of average figures.

Fear not that little red line now appears to be climbing at a 'alarming' rate

If that rate of increase continues for the next 6 months, I hope they have a graph that goes to 18m Kms 2 rolleyes.gif . A very steep rise in the last week.

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

Recent rises are now more in keeping with 2003-08 averages over the past week or so.

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Posted
  • Location: Weston-S-Mare North Somerset
  • Weather Preferences: Hot sunny , cold and snowy, thunderstorms
  • Location: Weston-S-Mare North Somerset

Artic to be free of summer ice in 10 yrs,

http://news.bbc.co.u...ech/8307272.stm

I guess that's after the gain of the last two years then.

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

Do we know if C.T. are having issues or is the anom dipping away a reflection of what we are seeing?

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/

with only the Greenland sea showing a positive anom and the rest either still ice free or into neg anom.s I'm failing to see where this 'good start' to refreeze is.

Even IJIS shows us appreciably now at second lowest for this point in the season (as J1 has shown).

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Posted
  • Location: portsmouth uk
  • Weather Preferences: extremes
  • Location: portsmouth uk

i think jackone has clearly stated the data.

and in anycase theres plenty of time for much more gain evey year is never the same anywhere on earth so the same goes for the arctic.

instead of looking for fults why not be happy with what we got.:crazy:

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