Polar Ice Extent

[Devonian]

No reason to assume current long term downward trend will continue.

Even if AGW added a couple of degrees, natural cycles could still easily cool enough for ice to increase.

No trend in the natural world goes one way only long term.

You should look at my batting average....

[Gray-Wolf]

4wd. it's not all about extent!!!

There are certain conditions that enable the pole to be the place we knew. It is not about temp alone but the ocean and it's workings, the ice (and it's workings), the impact of ocean and atmosphere, the impact of ocean on land (permafrost), the impact of atmosphere on land ,and so on and so forth.

When will folk concede that massive alterations have already taken place within the arctic and the vagaries of ice extent are but a part of that?

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Russia_swelters_amid_drownings_and_drought_999.html

Bet you're glad you're not in Siberia then BLAST!!!

Wait for the July global temp report to come out, I think a few will be surprised. Yep warm in Russia.

Dev

The NOAA had June global temps as 1.22 above average...........I'll bin that. 0.44 is more like it.

I am willing to see how this year turns out, it should cool off nicely if natural drivers are in control...a good test coming

BFTP

Edited July 19, 2010 by BLAST FROM THE PAST

[Gray-Wolf]

Hmmmm.....even with not much 'washout' from the pole the melt was a whopping 70,000 for yesterday. I guess that thin ice across the pole is now stretching to open spaces less than 15%?

Let's watch the next couple of days to see if our sub 100 melts start to re-occur and then we'll know (and worry for if the right winds set in.....?)

[Devonian]

Wait for the July global temp report to come out, I think a few will be surprised. Yep warm in Russia.

Dev

The NOAA had June global temps as 1.22 above average...........I'll bin that. 0.44 is more like it.

I am willing to see how this year turns out, it should cool off nicely if natural drivers are in control...a good test coming

BFTP

1.22F = .68C? Fwiw, I'll be surprised if the year as a whole is as warm.

But, I see no prediction, indeed I've asked several people in various places where they saw NOAA 'count chickens' about this year. I'm still waiting

I see the rate of ice melt has increased. Whatever, we still don't know what the minima will be, but we know the trend.

Edited July 20, 2010 by Devonian

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

1.22F = .68C? Fwiw, I'll be surprised if the year as a whole is as warm.

But, I see no prediction, indeed I've asked several people in various places where they saw NOAA 'count chickens' about this year. I'm still waiting

I see the rate of ice melt has increased. Whatever, we still don't know what the minima will be, but we know the trend.

Correct we don't know what the minima will be. Polar temps are continuing to run below normal and interesting to nots that global temps have dipped below last year for first time. An interesting 2-3 months ahead of us.

My linkhttp://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/arctic_meant_2010_july19.png?w=600&h=400

BFTP

Edited July 20, 2010 by BLAST FROM THE PAST

[Gray-Wolf]

Yes there have been serious outcries and critisism about noaa on breakfast news this morning, aparently they are under investigation and prohibited from publishing temperature data untill investigation is complete BOUT BLOODY TIME

I'm not here for a fight, just relaying what I've heard, It's hard to ignore phrases like high rounding factors and 1.75% upward data correction! you be the judge!

Ric

Polar Ice Extent thread?

[Richie V]

Polar Ice Extent thread?

Yes sorry, Kinda fits in though, I hang my head in shame

[Gray-Wolf]

:drinks:No worries Chassi !

If we are impacting the pole then sooner (or later?) the extra energy that soaks up in the 'dark water' will impact the northern climate 'cycles' . I do not see how you can change one thing (in a closed system) without it impacting the rest of the system.

We have now had nearly 10 years of a lot of open water , over summer, and I'm sure this is already impacting the A.O. (as we saw last winter) and also impacting SSW's?

EDIT: Had a snowy winter? well where did it all go?

Feb;

http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_anom.php?ui_set=1&ui_region=nhland&ui_month=2

May;

http://climate.rutge...land&ui_month=5

May had the lowest northern Hem. snow levels since sat records began back in 67'!

(has it been warm?)

Edited July 20, 2010 by Gray-Wolf

[picog]

Looks like it's been snowing on cam 2 today. Or perhaps it's just fallen over into slush?

http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/latest/noaa2.jpg

[Gray-Wolf]

Looks like it's been snowing on cam 2 today. Or perhaps it's just fallen over into slush?

http://www.arctic.no...atest/noaa2.jpg

Cam 1 has been stuck on july 7th for quite a while now too! Cam 2 had snow over the past couple of days so we've not been able to see the meltwater pools grow/shrink but the weather looks to be set to improve over the next few days so we'll maybe get to have a peek?

[VillagePlank]

When will folk concede that massive alterations have already taken place within the arctic and the vagaries of ice extent are but a part of that?

Certainly will concede that the sea-ice extent in the arctic ocean trend is 'up'.

Data sourced from here. The missing data series for each day have been removed which are in the data as -9999. I have included the trend equation in the form y=mx+c for verification since the upward trend is so slight. I do not know the reputation of IJIS/IARC

On this basis - we are not losing arctic ocean ice; we are gaining it. Of course, this is probably not a representative sample since 8 years is hardly anything in terms of climate - so the basis of this could be (and probably is) erroneous.

Edited July 20, 2010 by VillagePlank

[Gray-Wolf]

Oooooh! you are a tinker V.P.!

As we are seeing the 'high' figure for this year is not 'durable' ice and so does not (IMHO) constitute any type of arctic recovery. In fact;

when you look at 'volume' along side it you can see where arctic ice appears to be heading. You can obviously stretch a little ice a long way!!!

[VillagePlank]

snip

Yep -agreed: the question is how sea-ice affects the climate. I was under the impression that albedo, and therefore extent was the primary forcing factor? After you can have an ice sheet 10km thick but if it is only the size of a football field where it couples with the atmosphere it's not really going to have much effect.

The worrying thing is, of course, that the the ice is melting vertically - ie thinning out, which accounts for the volume figures. In which case you'd expect extent to pretty much stay the same, and then suddenly drop away sharply. And this thread is called Polar Ice Extent ....

Edited July 20, 2010 by VillagePlank

[Gray-Wolf]

Yep -agreed: the question is how sea-ice affects the climate. I was under the impression that albedo, and therefore extent was the primary forcing factor? After you can have an ice sheet 10km thick but if it is only the size of a football field where it couples with the atmosphere it's not really going to have much effect.

The worrying thing is, of course, that the the ice is melting vertically - ie thinning out, which accounts for the volume figures. In which case you'd expect extent to pretty much stay the same, and then suddenly drop away sharply. And this thread is called Polar Ice Extent ....

As we have seen this spring the 'thin ice' or ice outside the arctic circle melts out very quickly and ,now, we see the arctic basin with lots of 'open water' appearing between small ice rafts and not consolidated floes of ice lying across the pole and to the north of Greenland/Canadian Archipelago.

This means that the 'damping effect' of the ice is no longer there allowing storm systems (like the L.P. we've just had over the Siberian/Beaufort side) to propagate waves and allow vertical mixing (as happens in all other oceans) of the horizons.

We see ice volume loss and we can see how the unique environment which allowed the depths of ice (and hence volume) being eroded away before our eyes. The science tells us that it took a long time under thick ice to build this unique Arctic ocean profile and ,once it's gone, where will we find such conditions to help restore it?

Anecdotal accounts from across the Arctic this spring told of 'rolling ice' and very thin ice. This from folk who have great experience of 'normal ice conditions'.

I tell you V.P. I am very worried that we are beyond any 'recovery' in the polar region and are merely watching the 'end game' for the system that used to operate there.

6 years ago I'd have been labelled a 'doomsayer', today?

Edited July 20, 2010 by Gray-Wolf

[BornFromTheVoid]

Yep -agreed: the question is how sea-ice affects the climate. I was under the impression that albedo, and therefore extent was the primary forcing factor? After you can have an ice sheet 10km thick but if it is only the size of a football field where it couples with the atmosphere it's not really going to have much effect.

The worrying thing is, of course, that the the ice is melting vertically - ie thinning out, which accounts for the volume figures. In which case you'd expect extent to pretty much stay the same, and then suddenly drop away sharply. And this thread is called Polar Ice Extent ....

Another thing to take into account is that the thicker and older the sea ice is, the higher the albedo.

link

[Yorkshiresnows]

4wd. it's not all about extent!!!

There are certain conditions that enable the pole to be the place we knew. It is not about temp alone but the ocean and it's workings, the ice (and it's workings), the impact of ocean and atmosphere, the impact of ocean on land (permafrost), the impact of atmosphere on land ,and so on and so forth.

When will folk concede that massive alterations have already taken place within the arctic and the vagaries of ice extent are but a part of that?

The thing is Gray Wolf, .... we do not know for certain that 'massive alterations' have taken place ..... at least, all we know for certain is that the current conditions are low and as low as detailed instrumental records began back in 1979.

That's not a great deal of time to form an accurate opinion, and is particularly so give that 1979 - early 80's was a particularly good time for Arctic ice.

I do find it strange that as Arctic Ice has declined the Antarctic ice has increased, more or less keeping pace over the past 30 years (see previous links). I know that the Antarctic being mainly land based has certain peculiarities.

When the PDO switches we should see a reversal in fotunes for both the polar and antarctic regions as the various pressure belts react ....... guess this is a test ?

Y.S

1.22F = .68C? Fwiw, I'll be surprised if the year as a whole is as warm.

But, I see no prediction, indeed I've asked several people in various places where they saw NOAA 'count chickens' about this year. I'm still waiting

I see the rate of ice melt has increased. Whatever, we still don't know what the minima will be, but we know the trend.

Hi Dev,

I saw predictions of 2010 being possibly the warmest year on record (JAN / FEB time), but I cannot remember where. I think it was on a link over on ACCU-WEATHER, but cannot be sure.

I'll look later and see if I can post it up.

Y.S

[VillagePlank]

You probably already know this, but this is mainly the output from a computer model, PIOMAS, with only the later years real observed data. Here's the verification output. As you can see it was OK to begin with, but it got it wrong, later - and from what I can tell that error has been propogated back to 1980 to produce some ensembles, and the ensembles are used to produce the graph.

The same model has been used for prediction, and from what I can tell from the (mis)information highway, it's about a 50/50 split with winter forecasts being good, and summer forecasts atrocious.

Edited July 20, 2010 by VillagePlank

[4wd]

The piomas volume graph seems faulty it hasn't updated since mid June.

I find it rather implausible the way it's in total freefall at the end anyway - bad/missing data?

[VillagePlank]

Another thing to take into account is that the thicker and older the sea ice is, the higher the albedo.

link

Nice link

Edited July 20, 2010 by VillagePlank

[Devonian]

Hi Dev

I saw predictions of 2010 being possibly the warmest year on record (JAN / FEB time), but I cannot remember where. I think it was on a link over on ACCU-WEATHER, but cannot be sure.

I'll look later and see if I can post it up.

Y.S

No need to bother I've seen said. What I've not seen is anyone either stating the year will be the warmest without a caveat of 'possibly' or 'likely', or indeed counting chickens as regard the outcome.

[VillagePlank]

Nice link

Right - I'll try again (there was a maths bit in here, but I screwed it up)

The link has a table in it:

So what we can do is we can enter that data into Excel. Unfortunately it has classifications of ice thicknesses 0-5cm, 5-10cm, and so forth, so we have to make a call here since the last number of the preceding class is the same as the first. I have chosen to use the value up to the last value, but include the last value in the next class. I've created a number series from 1 to 100, and I've filled in the data appropriately, the start of which looks like this:

From here, then we can draw a chart of our data. We know that this looks logarithmic in nature rather like the Temp/CO₂. So, once we have the chart we can use Excel to draw a logarithmic trend over our data. This uses (I suspect) a logarthmic version of the linear least squares algorithm. I have the source code, and a short paper if your interested, however, we can get Excel to put the equation on the chart:

Now this is OK, and we're getting somewhere - technically, this is known as approximating the function. Something to chat about as you prop up your local hostelry, tonight.

If we differentiate this function (ie find out the rate of change for any thickness) we can generalise to:

where a is albedo, and t is thickness which gives us the rate of change of albedo for any thickness for whatever units were in the original table: cm for t, and % (from 0 to 1) for a, I think.

Good fun - and that's one way of turning observations into a hypothesis that is completely self-consistent with the data. We could use this equation to make predictions before carrying out experiments on classes of data outside the original series, and if it were to corroberate our theory (our maths) would gain strength.

Edited July 20, 2010 by VillagePlank

[Gray-Wolf]

Over recent years it's become apparent that we have a reasonable picture of Arctic decline running back over 100yrs? I think Oxford Uni are the folk that have the papers using this data(?) so we shouldn't be limiting ourselves to merely the Sat. era.

We now have good access to sub data back into the 50's (since the end of the cold war) and instrumental data back to the turn of the 20th century (I'm led to believe)

If you need more info on our 'info' why not approach Mark Serreze at NSIDC ?

I'm sure (though very busy!) he'd be pleased to bring you up to speed on how much we 'know' and why we have such concerns for the future.

[stewfox]

We have lost the 'sturdy' ice and the means (apart from wind/current) of trapping ice in the central arctic so once the weather settles back down you'll see ice levels start to increase in their 'extent' losses but more importantly the losses will continue past previous slow down points as some of that 'slow down' was merely the impact of the spread of collapsing 'old perennial' which is now lost and so cannot happen this year.

What would you take be on IJIS over the next few years.

All things being equal (weather wise) which of course they won’t be.

As the pack begins to break up it would stand to reason IJIS for time (I am talking over seasons) may not accurately reflect the true nature of the situation (shrinking volume of the ice).

If we see more ‘sturdy ice’ slip away from its nesting ground its going to show up on IJIS.

Open question ?

[VillagePlank]

The link NaDamntaSam posted contains a section on broken up ice and it's effect on albedo.