Polar Ice

[Gray-Wolf]

4wd, LOL! You're as pedantic as I am!!! Yes ,the planet has many differing combinations of continets and climates before our dying sun boils off the oceans.

NorfolkW, The science is telling us this is the lowest the ice has gone for thousands of years (at least) and possibly tens of thousands (polyak paper? http://www.physorg.com/news194719743.html) .When they get the deep Arctic cores later in summer they hope to push the period of study back to a million years and I reckon they'll find no trace of an ice free Arctic back as far as that.

[Solar Cycles]

Arctic ice will always change, as it always as GW! There is not one shred of evidence to suggest man has been responsible for this decline. Come September we will have no records broken, just a continuing trend of a small increase. I'll be back in September to compare notes!

[Gray-Wolf]

Look forward to it S.C.!

Even with a seasonal pack ice levels will fluctuate year to year. We all know that we have multidecadal forcings in our climate system and these will come into play (both increase and decrease) but ,TBH, with no Halocline the chances of us ever going beyond 3 million sq km ,once we have reached a 'seasonal' ice level for a few years, is slender.

As the 'experts' are keen to point out once you slip below a certain level of ice the is NO going back (in our lifetimes 4wd!!).

Once beyond that point the positive feedbacks of Albedo and oceanic mixing flip us over into the world of 'seasonal ice' and there we'll stay. With no let up to the warming trend things can only become worse over time as the Arctic Amplification feeds into the general climate system enhancing the warming further.

If we destabilise the tundra then we could also find a shedload of GHG's also dumped into our atmosphere to further enhance the warming esp. if methane makes up a large proportion of the releases.

Anyhoo's, have a grand summer S.C. (lets have a sunny/dry/hot one please!).

EDIT: I decided to ask for Mr Serreze's opinions on orbital forcings and where we are now with regards to our current interglacial. I shall keep folk posted as to the outcome.

EDIT:EDIT:

NorfolkW;

the C.T. 'tale of the tape' (above) has us with a 1 million sq km negative anom of global ice at the moment. As summer progresses this negative anom will grow (southern ice will have finished it's early growth spurts and northern ice will be in rapid decline) even if the ozone hole helps Antarctic sea ice to above 'normal' levels all southern winter.

Edited June 8, 2010 by Gray-Wolf

[kold weather]

EDIT: No! I daren't do it!!! I 'predicted' approaching 07' by mid Aug and sub 07' by seasons end............

I think your going to be very close to the mark, there is HUGE heat in the tropical Atlantic and whilst we are flipping towards a La Nina in the Pacific all the heat in the Atlantic tropics is going to have to go somewhere, and that will occur in the formation of hurricanes, which will spread large areas of heat into the subtropics and even into the southern Arctic zones. Plus take into consideration just how hot the globe is right now in general I think odds are quite good in fact for us to get close to the record min, probably 50-50 as to whether we get there.

[Yorkshiresnows]

Look forward to it S.C.!

Even with a seasonal pack ice levels will fluctuate year to year. We all know that we have multidecadal forcings in our climate system and these will come into play (both increase and decrease) but ,TBH, with no Halocline the chances of us ever going beyond 3 million sq km ,once we have reached a 'seasonal' ice level for a few years, is slender.

As the 'experts' are keen to point out once you slip below a certain level of ice the is NO going back (in our lifetimes 4wd!!).

Once beyond that point the positive feedbacks of Albedo and oceanic mixing flip us over into the world of 'seasonal ice' and there we'll stay. With no let up to the warming trend things can only become worse over time as the Arctic Amplification feeds into the general climate system enhancing the warming further.

If we destabilise the tundra then we could also find a shedload of GHG's also dumped into our atmosphere to further enhance the warming esp. if methane makes up a large proportion of the releases.

Anyhoo's, have a grand summer S.C. (lets have a sunny/dry/hot one please!).

EDIT: I decided to ask for Mr Serreze's opinions on orbital forcings and where we are now with regards to our current interglacial. I shall keep folk posted as to the outcome.

EDIT:EDIT:

NorfolkW;

the C.T. 'tale of the tape' (above) has us with a 1 million sq km negative anom of global ice at the moment. As summer progresses this negative anom will grow (southern ice will have finished it's early growth spurts and northern ice will be in rapid decline) even if the ozone hole helps Antarctic sea ice to above 'normal' levels all southern winter.

I do find your doom laden posts ever more amusing as time goes on. Thing is, you do have a point in that the arctic ice is very low, I've no question with that.

...... but whether it is unprecedentally low is open to question (your already kow my view on this).

Arctic temps are now below normal after an above normal start to the year, and with the change in PDO likely to herald a cold arctic winter .... with a lot of ice generation.

Overall Global ice is well ...... bang on average ?

As the PDO is now in its negative mode and will continue to be for around 30 years (if we beleive past cycles), then the good news is that we should see a sustained recovery going forward.

You might also take a look at what is happening in the Antarctic, where there is talk of a possible record ice year this year (see Mr laminate floori is already talking about this on his blog).

Y.S

Edited June 8, 2010 by Yorkshiresnows

[kold weather]

YS, yeah it'll be interesting to see what happens to the Arctic ice pack when we flip to the cold cycle for the Atlantic as well, the possible combo of a steady drop into a less active phase in the sun could well see some global cooling occur over the next 20-30 years, before we flip into a much warmer set-up again when the Pacific flips...

I do think we will come close to a min this year but that can be staved if we do flip into a more positive phase in the AO. Either way the globe should start to cool during the 2nd half of the year as the Atlantic starts to cool and the La Nina carries on developing in the Pacific.

[Gray-Wolf]

As ever Y.S. your on contentious ground with your points.

PDO -ve has been due since the late 90's/early noughties and the minor neg blips could well have been us entering PDO-ve. We could be nigh on half way through the 30yr neg phase already (check the average temps of the early 1900's PDO-ve and the later ones and see how ,cycle upon cycle, they 'milded by up to 1/2 a degree C) just as the temps were moderated on the way in and will be further moderated on the way out. That gives us 10yrs of possible Strong PDO-ve. I don't buy it. We will have yet another failed attempt to maintain a PDO neg which will have a long run of neutral/positives interspersed within it

When I was more focused on the Antarctic (prior to the 07' wake up call in the Arctic) we had many discussions about the sea ice there (and how 'well it was doing') to the point I approached R.Gumbine, down at McMurdo, about how the ice was measured and how the grid was 'adjusted' after we lost an ice shelf?

Check out how many sq Km of shelf we have lost since the 80's, all this is now 'sea' and so any ice on it is included on the plots (i.e. the goalposts really have changed) We are now in a situation where posting an 'average' year is plotted as quite a significant increase. Also be aware that bergs trapped in SY ice are counted as ice. Now how many sq Km of floating shelf/Glacier snouts [like Metz from last winter???] do we have mangled in the figures? how much 'freezing' do they take to be included in the figures?

This is before we get to the amplification of the circumpolar winds/current due to the ozone holes impacts on the stratosphere (and this translated down through the Troposphere........like our sudden warmings over our winter can fetch extra cold at ground level).

All in all the Antarctic will prove a fickle friend if you are looking for it to provide some kind of magical balancing act for you. We are promised the ozone hole is healing and even if it doesn't the press of warm ocean is compromising the circumpolar current (as investigations into the Wilkins collapse showed us with the warm waters under the shelf itself) so before long the heat from above (remember the paper showing that temps in the upper trop there are rising faster than anywhere on earth?) will meet with the heat from the southern oceans and Mother N will do the rest (keep your eyes on Ross!!!).

Edited June 8, 2010 by Gray-Wolf

[kold weather]

Not everyone even believes the -PDO phase started in the late 90s, some believe it actually has only really started a few years back. The truth is it has been rather weak since then as well and I think its not out of the question GW has certainly had an effect...

Given the state of the Atlantic and when it flipped its phase I actually tend to agree with the latter, the huge El Nino/long La Nina pattern really messed up the Pacific PDO signal for a good 3-4 years.

The reason I agree with the latter idea is the Atlantic when went warm in 1995, We normally see a good 10 years overlap of warm Atlantic/+VE PDO signal which normally helps to shoot global temperatures through the roof, anytime you get that signal you are going to get some very warm global temps (this winter/spring is another example of that) I think therefore we've been on a slow decline towards a -PDO but it is still rather weak, may take another 10 years or so to flip totally and not last as long as normal.

However IMO we will see a cooldown, whether we go much below average depends on how long we take to get a duel -AMO/PDO signal. We did see a brief attempt at this in early 2009 when the AMO briefly flipped negative in the first quater of 2009 and at the same time we had a -PDO...

Guess what happened, the global temperatures cooled to around average. There is no reason to think that when we do get a -PDO/AMO we won't see global temperatures drop in a similar way to what they did last year, things haven't changed at all since then really!

[Gray-Wolf]

I have to wonder at the impact of the open arctic waters on temps will have, if we have 'bleed back' into the North pacific each summer (through Bering) it could really throw any PDO signature off and not allow a constant phase of neg to form..

[Yorkshiresnows]

Not everyone even believes the -PDO phase started in the late 90s, some believe it actually has only really started a few years back. The truth is it has been rather weak since then as well and I think its not out of the question GW has certainly had an effect...

Given the state of the Atlantic and when it flipped its phase I actually tend to agree with the latter, the huge El Nino/long La Nina pattern really messed up the Pacific PDO signal for a good 3-4 years.

The reason I agree with the latter idea is the Atlantic when went warm in 1995, We normally see a good 10 years overlap of warm Atlantic/+VE PDO signal which normally helps to shoot global temperatures through the roof, anytime you get that signal you are going to get some very warm global temps (this winter/spring is another example of that) I think therefore we've been on a slow decline towards a -PDO but it is still rather weak, may take another 10 years or so to flip totally and not last as long as normal.

However IMO we will see a cooldown, whether we go much below average depends on how long we take to get a duel -AMO/PDO signal. We did see a brief attempt at this in early 2009 when the AMO briefly flipped negative in the first quater of 2009 and at the same time we had a -PDO...

Guess what happened, the global temperatures cooled to around average. There is no reason to think that when we do get a -PDO/AMO we won't see global temperatures drop in a similar way to what they did last year, things haven't changed at all since then really!

Agree with a lot of the above,

To my mind the PDO has only just started its decline into negative territory. Given the collapse of Nino and forecast Nina ... evidence of the PDO exerting influence, we will start to see global temps cool. The combo -AMO/PDO is being touted by Jo laminate floori for this winter ..... we will see !!

Y.S

As ever Y.S. your on contentious ground with your points.

PDO -ve has been due since the late 90's/early noughties and the minor neg blips could well have been us entering PDO-ve. We could be nigh on half way through the 30yr neg phase already (check the average temps of the early 1900's PDO-ve and the later ones and see how ,cycle upon cycle, they 'milded by up to 1/2 a degree C) just as the temps were moderated on the way in and will be further moderated on the way out. That gives us 10yrs of possible Strong PDO-ve. I don't buy it. We will have yet another failed attempt to maintain a PDO neg which will have a long run of neutral/positives interspersed within it

When I was more focused on the Antarctic (prior to the 07' wake up call in the Arctic) we had many discussions about the sea ice there (and how 'well it was doing') to the point I approached R.Gumbine, down at McMurdo, about how the ice was measured and how the grid was 'adjusted' after we lost an ice shelf?

Check out how many sq Km of shelf we have lost since the 80's, all this is now 'sea' and so any ice on it is included on the plots (i.e. the goalposts really have changed) We are now in a situation where posting an 'average' year is plotted as quite a significant increase. Also be aware that bergs trapped in SY ice are counted as ice. Now how many sq Km of floating shelf/Glacier snouts [like Metz from last winter???] do we have mangled in the figures? how much 'freezing' do they take to be included in the figures?

This is before we get to the amplification of the circumpolar winds/current due to the ozone holes impacts on the stratosphere (and this translated down through the Troposphere........like our sudden warmings over our winter can fetch extra cold at ground level).

All in all the Antarctic will prove a fickle friend if you are looking for it to provide some kind of magical balancing act for you. We are promised the ozone hole is healing and even if it doesn't the press of warm ocean is compromising the circumpolar current (as investigations into the Wilkins collapse showed us with the warm waters under the shelf itself) so before long the heat from above (remember the paper showing that temps in the upper trop there are rising faster than anywhere on earth?) will meet with the heat from the southern oceans and Mother N will do the rest (keep your eyes on Ross!!!).

Fair enough GW, I'll keep my eyes peeled.

The graph I posted was from Cryosphere today and shows total global sea ice.

Seen a couple of links on Accu-weather to suggest that Antarctic sea ice is currently expanding ..... and this year could be a record ..... but I am no expert so .... as you say, lets see what happens.

Y.S

[MR EXTREMES]

I think if you looked at the article, it offers fairly straightforward comparisons which don't depend on what various other groups think of him or what he did ten years ago.

Obviously, since it doesn't predict imminent Ice-Armageddon, it will not be to your taste

lol good to see people are open minded about the ice armageddon theory,its a great example of gray wolfs push for everyone to agree with his likely outcome.

but some are not if someone in the science field gives there idears and opions they should not be shot down like wise with the warming camp it makes sense some of what they say but none are 100% correct yet but time will tell.

as far as i can see nasa awhile back ramped up the solar cycle but this has only turned round and done the the oposite solar flux backdown into the 60s and spot numbers once again plumeting,

this in my opion is the sign of things to come la nina on its way pdo neg a pretty good winter for most of the northern hemisphere and nothing special in regards to the last few summers,in my eyes it all seems different in the last few years for reasons i feel ive stated with jet and northern blocking playing ball.

all seems more than just a blip to me its gradual but its happening.cooling planet looks very likely with the arctic holding this summer with possible recovery this winter and next year.

[stewfox]

lol good to see people are open minded about the ice armageddon theory,its a great example of gray wolfs push for everyone to agree with his likely outcome.

Should I put the humble pie spoons away for a while.

Getting confused now.

If GW turns out to be right a lot of humble pie will need to be eaten.

Edited June 8, 2010 by stewfox

[MR EXTREMES]

Should I put the humble pie spoons away for a while.

Getting confused now.

If GW turns out to be right a lot of humble pie will need to be eaten.

absolutely but im not convinced.

2007 is the only year that started the hype,

nothing before or since is convincing me.

Losses and recovery are normal and it could be that the 2007 loss may have happened before in earths history.

Edited June 8, 2010 by badboy657

[stewfox]

absolutely but im not convinced.

2007 is the only year that started the hype,

nothing before or since is convincing me.

Losses and recovery are normal and it could be that the 2007 loss may have happened before in earths history.

2007 didnt start to drift from the pack to early July.

2010 certainly at present is starting to drift from the pack at present

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

[cooling climate]

Should I put the humble pie spoons away for a while.

Getting confused now.

If GW turns out to be right a lot of humble pie will need to be eaten.

If there is any humble pie to be eaten I am quietly confident that it will again be by GW the

same as it is every year come september.

[Gray-Wolf]

Better for us all if I am to eat humble pie I reckon!

Talking of which I'm about to take a mighty dose of it right now;

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ian

I'm at a conference all week. The orbital forcing guys are

Richard Alley and Leonid Polyak, I've copied them

on this email and hopefully they can answer your question.

Cheers

Mark C. Serreze

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

followed swiftly by

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The orbital forcing is near, and for most latitudes just past, the minimum for the Holocene, so the natural trend should be slow, weak warming in the midsummer in high northern latitudes. You might see Archer, D. and A. Ganopolski, 2005, A movable trigger: Fossil fuel CO2 and the onset of the next glaciation, Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems 6, Art. No. Q05003.

There is a good bit of discussion in the community, but a reasonable interpretation is something like this:

If the next ice age had followed the pattern of the three previous ones, we probably would have started into it already. However, the eccentricity (out-of-roundness) of Earth’s orbit has a 400,000-year cycle as well as a 100,000-year cycle. Right now, the orbit is stuck at very nearly round, which has the effect of making the precessional changes small (more-or-less, they control how close to the sun we are in northern summer), so it is hard to get minimal mid-summer sunshine in the north to allow snow to survive. So, it will be a precession cycle or two before we naturally would be likely to slide into an ice age. (Note that Bill Ruddiman has argued that early humans helped the orbits a bit in heading off the ice age.) --Richard

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Frolm Richard Alley.

It seems I should have listened to C-Bob and I'm happy to appologise for not doing so.

Ian.

EDIT: NSIDC update now available;

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

Edited June 8, 2010 by Gray-Wolf

[MR EXTREMES]

2007 didnt start to drift from the pack to early July.

2010 certainly at present is starting to drift from the pack at present

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

this could well be the case but the question is does anyone really know if its happened before in earth history?

[Admiral_Bobski]

Thank you very much for that GW. I appreciate both your apology and your honesty I wonder how many posters on these boards would actually have the brass balls to do the same in this situation!

[Solar Cycles]

Better for us all if I am to eat humble pie I reckon!

Talking of which I'm about to take a mighty dose of it right now;

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ian

I'm at a conference all week. The orbital forcing guys are

Richard Alley and Leonid Polyak, I've copied them

on this email and hopefully they can answer your question.

Cheers

Mark C. Serreze

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

followed swiftly by

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The orbital forcing is near, and for most latitudes just past, the minimum for the Holocene, so the natural trend should be slow, weak warming in the midsummer in high northern latitudes. You might see Archer, D. and A. Ganopolski, 2005, A movable trigger: Fossil fuel CO2 and the onset of the next glaciation, Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems 6, Art. No. Q05003.

There is a good bit of discussion in the community, but a reasonable interpretation is something like this:

If the next ice age had followed the pattern of the three previous ones, we probably would have started into it already. However, the eccentricity (out-of-roundness) of Earth’s orbit has a 400,000-year cycle as well as a 100,000-year cycle. Right now, the orbit is stuck at very nearly round, which has the effect of making the precessional changes small (more-or-less, they control how close to the sun we are in northern summer), so it is hard to get minimal mid-summer sunshine in the north to allow snow to survive. So, it will be a precession cycle or two before we naturally would be likely to slide into an ice age. (Note that Bill Ruddiman has argued that early humans helped the orbits a bit in heading off the ice age.) --Richard

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Frolm Richard Alley.

It seems I should have listened to C-Bob and I'm happy to appologise for not doing so.

Ian. EDIT: NSIDC update now available;

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

GW, as much as I find some of your post to be rather doom laden, I enjoy reading them non the less. It's not a case of eating humble pie, and winners and losers, it's down to believing whether AGW is over hyped or not.

[Gray-Wolf]

Well ,TBH, I'd have rather us be offsetting a coming ice age than facing another 40 odd thousand years of 'optimal' orbital positioning (which would have impact without our adding to it!).

I've read somewhere that we've at least another 1,000yrs of AGW to ride out even if we stopped polluting right now...now we have two processional cycles of slow milding at the poles on top of that.

Anyhoo's ,back to the ice.

The wicked rate of decline through May was to be expected as the late extensions to ice extent went as quickly as they arrived. The 'meat' of melt season now lies before us and will be a hot topic at both Mr Serreze's conference and the one just ended so I'd expect some 'sound bites' from them over the next 2 weeks or so.

Two weeks or so will also show us how the central pack is holding up (warnings of weak ice at the pole are already being posted).

I honestly would prefer for us to draw back from the brink but things seem too stacked to hope for anything other than what we receive this coming summer.

May the winds and clouds be with us!

Edited June 8, 2010 by Gray-Wolf

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

A quickie re PDO, GW is very wrong in saying that it changed cold in early 90s. It has changed into longterm cold phase since last 5 years and will become a big cooling phase as it is coinciding with the La Nina perturbation cycle. This will likely make it a cold phase and not a 'milding' phase.

Arctic temps are starting to show a cold spike as La Nina and strong PDO cold set up digs in, not me saying it but the temps are spiking cold up there.

BFTP

[Gray-Wolf]

A quickie re PDO, GW is very wrong in saying that it changed cold in early 90s. It has changed into longterm cold phase since last 5 years and will become a big cooling phase as it is coinciding with the La Nina perturbation cycle. This will likely make it a cold phase and not a 'milding' phase.

Arctic temps are starting to show a cold spike as La Nina and strong PDO cold set up digs in, not me saying it but the temps are spiking cold up there.

BFTP

With no old perennial as the keel to hold the ship together the ship will sink.

EDIT: I do have an interest in PDO,AMO as for us 'oop north' they appear key. The possibility of recent warming augmenting/negating their influence troubles me. Sadly it's another 'time will tell all'.

Edited June 8, 2010 by Gray-Wolf

[cooling climate]

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php

Any warming that had, has occured has been through natural causes. The same can be said

for the up and coming colder years and perhaps decades ahead.

I just wish they would stop flogging this AGW dead horse now but then again if there are

still big bucks to be made out of it then they will continue flogging it.

[Gray-Wolf]

Some folk still seem to struggle with 'rolling 30yr average' and 'climate variability'.

The temps have risen (globally) and that average means some more than others ,some less (remember the 'drag down of that "oh so cold" Antarctic must have done to the figures over the past 30 yrs???LOL) but a steady 'trend' of rising there has been.

So ,the trend is up and has been so for 150yrs? it accelerated recently (past 30yrs?) which may ,or may not ,have been 'cyclical forcing' (I'm told that the neg feedback of the Arctic FAR outweighs any positive feedback...yeah!, right) but still 'up'.

This trend will now reverse?

This 10 to 15 yrs might 'flatten off' a bit but 'reverse'? over a similar time period or what?

I'm starting to see the noughties as a 'gateway' to the new age of our planet (I think some have even given it a name?) ,the slow tipping point, the crack before the dam break. Arctic ice may well prove to be the larger part of that 'tipping point' allowing a myriad of other forcings to either 'be' or reverse in their current roles.

The Old Arctic is dead.

Long live the new Arctic! (when we get there through this transitional period)

Edited June 9, 2010 by Gray-Wolf

[kold weather]

The whole world will probably cool over the next 15-20 years overall Graywolf, of course there will be years where the PDO and eventually the AMO will flip warm briefly and those years will be much warmer then average thanks to the background warming.

However once you do flip both the AMO/PDO negative, esp for any decent time you WILL see cooling occuring, we saw how even just 4-6 months of that pattern can have a big impact on global temps (esp if its combined with any sort of La Nina) in early 2009 where the world temps dropped to about 0.1C above average. If we were to get a mid 70s type La Nina with a cold AMO/PDO we'd still be able to go well below average globally.

My theory is there is background warming occuring but the cycles either amplify or weaken the signal...it just so happens the period between 1995-2007 has been utterly perfect for big warmings to occur...

This year is also interesting, in that we've had a big El Nino, the Atlantic is right now in almost a super +ve AMO spell with it being probably as powerful as any El Nino right now in terms of temps so not all that surprising things have been so warm globally, expect a fairly big reversal of that in the next 12-18 months.