After another week of broad, high pressure and rapid ice melt in the lower latitude ice surrounding the central arctic basin, the rate of melt as slowed a bit the last couple of days.
A bit like the oil, the easy ice is gone. The ice this year has been compared to a frozen turkey put straight in the oven. Cooked on the outside, solid as a rock on the inside.
Air temperature in the high arctic remains stubbornly below season's normal, and the cloud cover is probably obscuring the fact that the high arctic ice is not melting all that fast again this year.
The El Nino has also failed to take off to any major extent so far. We are probably heading for reversion to the trend line this year, more melt than 2013 but less than 2012.
Arctic Ice Watch
Moderator: Peak Moderation
Does anybody read these posts? Or do they rank with real time stamp collecting blogs?
Anyway,
The high arctic remains cool, low pressure and clouds have returned, and the rate of melt by all measures has slowed. We are very unlikely to see records broken this year.
However, the arctic is constantly variable. When the clouds clear, satellites show that the ice is not continuous, but is shattered and mobile over vast ranges. Some amateurs are beginning to speculate that this shattered ice is actually confusing the ice monitoring software into thinking there is more ice up there than actually exists, and one summer very soon we will be shocked when the whole lot melts out. However, as this amounts to discounting the best available scientific evidence, I couldn't possibly comment.
There is,however, clear open water up to 83 degrees latitude on the Siberian side of the arctic ice - this is very high north for the time of year,
and a narrow channel or wide crack has appeared north of Canada and most of Greenland, so that the entire sea ice sheet is drifting away from shore, and it may soon possible to sail all round Greenland for the first time since boats were invented.
https://0c35ba35-a-62cb3a1a-s-sites.goo ... edirects=0[/url]
Anyway,
The high arctic remains cool, low pressure and clouds have returned, and the rate of melt by all measures has slowed. We are very unlikely to see records broken this year.
However, the arctic is constantly variable. When the clouds clear, satellites show that the ice is not continuous, but is shattered and mobile over vast ranges. Some amateurs are beginning to speculate that this shattered ice is actually confusing the ice monitoring software into thinking there is more ice up there than actually exists, and one summer very soon we will be shocked when the whole lot melts out. However, as this amounts to discounting the best available scientific evidence, I couldn't possibly comment.
There is,however, clear open water up to 83 degrees latitude on the Siberian side of the arctic ice - this is very high north for the time of year,
and a narrow channel or wide crack has appeared north of Canada and most of Greenland, so that the entire sea ice sheet is drifting away from shore, and it may soon possible to sail all round Greenland for the first time since boats were invented.
https://0c35ba35-a-62cb3a1a-s-sites.goo ... edirects=0[/url]
-
emordnilap
- Posts: 14823
- Joined: 05 Sep 2007, 16:36
- Location: here
-
Blue Peter
- Posts: 1939
- Joined: 24 Nov 2005, 11:09
- Location: Milton Keynes
-
vtsnowedin
- Posts: 6595
- Joined: 07 Jan 2011, 22:14
- Location: New England ,Chelsea Vermont
Yes I read them but don't think I need to get in your face after every post. Time will tell the story and there is no need to disagree with any ones projections early on.PS_RalphW wrote:Does anybody read these posts? Or do they rank with real time stamp collecting blogs?
Not really it is very near normal.Anyway,
The high arctic remains cool, low pressure and clouds have returned, and the rate of melt by all measures has slowed. We are very unlikely to see records broken this year.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
Sure about that? The Vikings seemed to know that it was an island.There is,however, clear open water up to 83 degrees latitude on the Siberian side of the arctic ice - this is very high north for the time of year,
and a narrow channel or wide crack has appeared north of Canada and most of Greenland, so that the entire sea ice sheet is drifting away from shore, and it may soon possible to sail all round Greenland for the first time since boats were invented.
looking at the Modis daily pic I think I'd keep my yacht tied up at the dock rather then risk it in the ice north of Greenland. [/quote]
Two more weeks.
The cool cloud weather continued as exected, and the rate of melt slowed sharply. All the 'easy' ice had melted, leaving mostly thicker ice in the high arctic. A change in wind direction closed up the gap along the Canadian and Greenland shorelines. All measures of ice are now behind even last year's slow melt figures.
Most of the volume recovery in 2013 went into 2 year old 'multi year ice' which drifted into the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska. This area has had more high pressure and clear skies than most of the arctic this summer, so this thicker ice has been melting more than most, and the ice has now fractured and started drifting apart, which generally accelerates melt. Also, the open water north of central Siberia continues to push north towards the pole, as sun and southerly winds eat away at the ice edge. If this continues we may see the main ice pack splitting in two to a greater extent than seen before. Weather for the next few days is looking better for melting.
There seem to be two competing theories about the ice in the coming years. One I have mentioned suggests that the fracturing of the ice has allowed more melting of the ice in summer, largely disguised by the cloudy weather which is caused by the ice extracting more heat from the atmosphere and rising humidity, rather than the clouds blocking the sun and reducing the melt.
The alternative theory is that, with almost all the multiyear ice already melted, the rate of net melt will slow in the coming years as there is more open water to freeze in the winter, and the thinner the ice, the faster it freezes, resulting in a 'fat tail' model.
Both theories fall outside the existing scientific models, but so far the main scientific models have drastically underestimated the net melting. We have seen two years in a row with warm arctic winters and relatively cool arctic summers. Two swallows do not make climate change.
The cool cloud weather continued as exected, and the rate of melt slowed sharply. All the 'easy' ice had melted, leaving mostly thicker ice in the high arctic. A change in wind direction closed up the gap along the Canadian and Greenland shorelines. All measures of ice are now behind even last year's slow melt figures.
Most of the volume recovery in 2013 went into 2 year old 'multi year ice' which drifted into the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska. This area has had more high pressure and clear skies than most of the arctic this summer, so this thicker ice has been melting more than most, and the ice has now fractured and started drifting apart, which generally accelerates melt. Also, the open water north of central Siberia continues to push north towards the pole, as sun and southerly winds eat away at the ice edge. If this continues we may see the main ice pack splitting in two to a greater extent than seen before. Weather for the next few days is looking better for melting.
There seem to be two competing theories about the ice in the coming years. One I have mentioned suggests that the fracturing of the ice has allowed more melting of the ice in summer, largely disguised by the cloudy weather which is caused by the ice extracting more heat from the atmosphere and rising humidity, rather than the clouds blocking the sun and reducing the melt.
The alternative theory is that, with almost all the multiyear ice already melted, the rate of net melt will slow in the coming years as there is more open water to freeze in the winter, and the thinner the ice, the faster it freezes, resulting in a 'fat tail' model.
Both theories fall outside the existing scientific models, but so far the main scientific models have drastically underestimated the net melting. We have seen two years in a row with warm arctic winters and relatively cool arctic summers. Two swallows do not make climate change.
Arctic weather has finally settled down into steady high pressure and clear skies over the Beaufort and East Siberian Seas, causing much melting and fragmenting of the ice in these areas. The Beaufort Sea is the area where the oldest, thickest ice drifts into from the core of the ice sheet, so melting here gets rid of a lot of ice volume. Elsewhere, temperatures remain cool and melting in line with season's norms.
That said, the PIOMAS model of ice volume shows a further recovery in the last month, even relative to last year's recovery. It will take a lot of good weather and warm winds to melt the ice back to last year's minimum.
There are several physical mechanisms that cause ice melt. some are
1. melt of the under ice surface by warm water currents underneath
2. melt or sublimation of the ice surface by direct solar radiation (sunlight)
3. Melt of ice surface by warm and/or low humidity air contact and winds
4. melt of ice surface due to warm rain falling on it.
5. Melt of ice surface by contact with surface melt ponds, which themselves heat up quicker than ice does in direct sunlight.
6. Melt of under ice surface by cold but salty water currents underneath
further, ice can be broken up by wave action, and it can be pushed by winds and drift in water currents into warmer sea areas causing faster melting.
This year the 'export' of ice by these last methods has been limited, and warm winds and melt ponds few.
The forecast for the next days remain good for melting, with sun, warm winds from central Siberia (!) and some export of the ice down the Fram Strait (east coast of greenland)
We may see the open water north of Siberia extend even closer to the North Pole.
That said, the PIOMAS model of ice volume shows a further recovery in the last month, even relative to last year's recovery. It will take a lot of good weather and warm winds to melt the ice back to last year's minimum.
There are several physical mechanisms that cause ice melt. some are
1. melt of the under ice surface by warm water currents underneath
2. melt or sublimation of the ice surface by direct solar radiation (sunlight)
3. Melt of ice surface by warm and/or low humidity air contact and winds
4. melt of ice surface due to warm rain falling on it.
5. Melt of ice surface by contact with surface melt ponds, which themselves heat up quicker than ice does in direct sunlight.
6. Melt of under ice surface by cold but salty water currents underneath
further, ice can be broken up by wave action, and it can be pushed by winds and drift in water currents into warmer sea areas causing faster melting.
This year the 'export' of ice by these last methods has been limited, and warm winds and melt ponds few.
The forecast for the next days remain good for melting, with sun, warm winds from central Siberia (!) and some export of the ice down the Fram Strait (east coast of greenland)
We may see the open water north of Siberia extend even closer to the North Pole.
-
vtsnowedin
- Posts: 6595
- Joined: 07 Jan 2011, 22:14
- Location: New England ,Chelsea Vermont
I think people misunderstand the effects of latent heat. If you stick a thermometer into a glass of ice and water (or your favorite libation) it will read 32 deg.F or 0. deg. C for as long as it takes for the ice in the glass to melt. Only after all the ice is melted will the liquid (water or booze) rise in temperature towards the temperature outside the glass.
Now think of the Arctic ocean as one large vodka on the rocks. Until the last of the ice melts both the water below it and the air over it will be modified close to zero C. until all the ice is gone. for proof of this look at the history as recorded here for the area above 80 deg. n lat. click back through the years and you can see quite a variation in the winter lows but a boring consistency in the summer highs. Until all the ice is gone early in the summer I expect this phenomenon to continue as long as winter ice covers the arctic coast to coast in winter.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
Now think of the Arctic ocean as one large vodka on the rocks. Until the last of the ice melts both the water below it and the air over it will be modified close to zero C. until all the ice is gone. for proof of this look at the history as recorded here for the area above 80 deg. n lat. click back through the years and you can see quite a variation in the winter lows but a boring consistency in the summer highs. Until all the ice is gone early in the summer I expect this phenomenon to continue as long as winter ice covers the arctic coast to coast in winter.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
Vt, you overlook a factor in your choice of tipple that has parallels in the arctic. A mixture of alcohol and water has a lower freezing point than pure water, so adding ice will cool the drink to below 32f unless all the ice melts. Of course, the melting ice also dilutes the alcohol, so the more ice you add, the higher the equilibrium temperature.
Same effect with sea water, with its salt content. Watched a demonstration of how to make ice cream using fresh ice and salt to create the same effect yesterday.
However that is just nit-picking to demonstrate that the devil is in the detail.
Nine days later and we are close to the end of the melting season.
Ice extent is running close to last year's value, as the edges of the ice pack continue to melt, but the total ice area is significantly higher, as the high arctic ice remains remarkably compact. Temperatures have remained below normal all summer, for the second year in a row, having been above normal for all of winter. Any remaining melt ponds are now freezing over, and now melt is largely confined to contact with the relatively warm sea water.
Open water above Siberia has reached 85 degrees North, but is unlikely to get much further. A low pressure system is moving in, which might break up some of the thinner ice, but this late in the season the effect will be limited.
Same effect with sea water, with its salt content. Watched a demonstration of how to make ice cream using fresh ice and salt to create the same effect yesterday.
However that is just nit-picking to demonstrate that the devil is in the detail.
Nine days later and we are close to the end of the melting season.
Ice extent is running close to last year's value, as the edges of the ice pack continue to melt, but the total ice area is significantly higher, as the high arctic ice remains remarkably compact. Temperatures have remained below normal all summer, for the second year in a row, having been above normal for all of winter. Any remaining melt ponds are now freezing over, and now melt is largely confined to contact with the relatively warm sea water.
Open water above Siberia has reached 85 degrees North, but is unlikely to get much further. A low pressure system is moving in, which might break up some of the thinner ice, but this late in the season the effect will be limited.
-
vtsnowedin
- Posts: 6595
- Joined: 07 Jan 2011, 22:14
- Location: New England ,Chelsea Vermont
Yes you are nit picking.PS_RalphW wrote:Vt, you overlook a factor in your choice of tipple that has parallels in the arctic. A mixture of alcohol and water has a lower freezing point than pure water, so adding ice will cool the drink to below 32f unless all the ice melts. Of course, the melting ice also dilutes the alcohol, so the more ice you add, the higher the equilibrium temperature.
Same effect with sea water, with its salt content. Watched a demonstration of how to make ice cream using fresh ice and salt to create the same effect yesterday.
However that is just nit-picking to demonstrate that the devil is in the detail.
No additive needed to ice and water to have the tempering effect that melting ice has on the temperature of the ice water and it's container. The addition of salt ,or alcohol just changes the rate of change slightly. I mentioned alcohol only as that's how I most often encounter ice cubes.
Temperatures have remained below normal all summer,
Not much below north of 80 Deg. N , perhaps a half of a degree C. The Siberian coast seems to have been warmer then normal but balanced by the Canadian side.
I still haven't seen are report of as ship making the North East passage for commercial purposes other then deliveries in the region. Have you?
Two weeks on, and one measure of sea ice, extent, has fallen below last year's minimum value, by the smallest of margins. Sea ice area remains significantly higher, and both these measures will probably come in as the 7th or 8th lowest in the records at the minimum. We will need to wait a bit longer for the PIOMAS ice volume figures, which will probably be higher than the 2013 figure.
The North East passage is now clear, the small amount of scattered ice at the western end has now drifted away from the narrow strait.
One intrepid boat has managed to navigate the North West passage by dodging the thickest stretches of ice as it got blown about by the wind from coast to coast.
Open water still extends to about 86 degrees north in the Laptav Sea.
All summer the winds have failed to push sea ice down the Fram Strait (east coast of Greenland) where it normally melts out in the warm water currents. This feature alone will have had a significant impact on the overall level of ice melt.
The North East passage is now clear, the small amount of scattered ice at the western end has now drifted away from the narrow strait.
One intrepid boat has managed to navigate the North West passage by dodging the thickest stretches of ice as it got blown about by the wind from coast to coast.
Open water still extends to about 86 degrees north in the Laptav Sea.
All summer the winds have failed to push sea ice down the Fram Strait (east coast of Greenland) where it normally melts out in the warm water currents. This feature alone will have had a significant impact on the overall level of ice melt.
-
vtsnowedin
- Posts: 6595
- Joined: 07 Jan 2011, 22:14
- Location: New England ,Chelsea Vermont
Update
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
Interesting research not included in most climate models,
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... C08.f04t03
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
Interesting research not included in most climate models,
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... C08.f04t03
Real money is gold and silver
-
kenneal - lagger
- Site Admin
- Posts: 14287
- Joined: 20 Sep 2006, 02:35
- Location: Newbury, Berkshire
- Contact:
I've been having a protracted argument in the letters section of our local newspaper in the last few weeks with a chap who insists that water vapour is a more important green house gas than CO2 and that AGW is a load of twaddle (paraphrasing him there). He is gradually painting himself into a corner and these are extracts from my latest letter
If I am not mistaken the paper that Snow quoted says that increased cloud cover caused by Global warming is causing a slight cooling of the Antarctic which is causing more ice area. I have read elsewhere that the ice volume is, however, still dropping and the ice is being spread outwards by stronger circumpolar winds. So there are a couple of logical explanations for a larger ice area around the South Pole.
He's been banging on and on about the so called stasis in temperature over the last 17 years. I've already pointed out that seventeen years ago we had a high peak in temperatures because of the El Nino of that year and temperatures have continued a warming trend but he ignores all that and keeps reiterating the "stasis". The bloke says that he is a retired scientist but he seems to have scant regard for statistics in his cherry picking of points on the temperature graph to prove a point when the trend lines over the period still show an increase. My reply to this was to send in a graph which gave the figures in quoted in this next excerpt.At last there is agreement between Mr ***s and myself: water vapour in the atmosphere is a function of the temperature of the air and water! And what governs the temperature of that air and water? According to the well accepted and unargued with science dating back to Svante Arrhenius in 1896 and John Tyndall in 1859 it is greenhouse gases, of which Carbon dioxide is a major player, which govern these temperatures. I hope Mr ***** can now see the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere is a feed back effect from the temperature of the atmosphere and water which is governed by the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere: more CO2 leads to higher temperatures and then more water vapour while less CO2 leads to lower temperatures and less water vapour.
This is the temperature graphRegarding the stasis (again), last week I provided the figures for that "stasis" "The 25 year trend line shows a temperature increase of 0.19C per decade and a ten year trend line including his warm year and what was a cold year ten years later still shows an increase of 0.11C." These were from a graph that I provided to the NWN a few weeks ago but was not published. Mr ****** has not denied or shown anything to dispute those figures. So, yes, there has been a slowdown in the rate of increase but no "stasis" or reversal of the increase. There is a logical explanation for the slowdown, however, in the fact that the sun is going through a quiet period with sunspot numbers only last seen at the time of the mini Ice Age which Mr ***** mentioned. This, the Dalton Minimum, caused average temperatures to drop by a full degree C. So a reduction in the rate of increase from 0.19 to 0.11 shows how much warming CO2 might be causing at the moment. That is my hypothesis and hasn't been peer reviewed.
Mr ****** cannot say that the influence of CO2 has only a very small part to play. That is his own unqualified and unresearched hypothesis. It is not supported by Climate Scientists; indeed it is utterly discounted by accepted Climate Science going back to 1859. I might as well say that the sun will come out at midnight tonight! It's about a laughable.
If I am not mistaken the paper that Snow quoted says that increased cloud cover caused by Global warming is causing a slight cooling of the Antarctic which is causing more ice area. I have read elsewhere that the ice volume is, however, still dropping and the ice is being spread outwards by stronger circumpolar winds. So there are a couple of logical explanations for a larger ice area around the South Pole.
Action is the antidote to despair - Joan Baez
-
biffvernon
- Posts: 18538
- Joined: 24 Nov 2005, 11:09
- Location: Lincolnshire
- Contact:
You can tell him that August was the warmest EVER.
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2014/ ... continues/
Here are the number:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/table ... s+dSST.txt
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2014/ ... continues/
Here are the number:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/table ... s+dSST.txt