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2011 Arctic Sea Ice Thread

2010 northern sea ice minimum volume already was "way below" 2007's, and 2008's and 2009's were similar. Which is the novelty? Why a process of ice decline within the broader picture of a one-way climate change on a global scale has to be referred as if it is a cherry picked example, even if the topic is sandboxed?
 
Here, from the National Ice Center -the nation being the United States-

http://www.natice.noaa.gov/ps/ProductViewer/ProductViewer_Low.htm

The areas with very positive sea surface temperature anomalies that I talked about in a previous post are north of Novaya Zemlya and NE of Chukchi Sea, that are plenty of "yellow", and north of Laptev Sea. All around the East Siberian Sea and the Canadian northmost islands there's plenty of "yellow" too, but temperature anomalies are neutral or negative (see anomalies here by selecting form the drop-down menu).

Also, for they who want to follow surface temperatures daily:

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/weather/temp_latest.big.png (not the best colour shade)
 
It's what icerat already posted. I just wanted to add that the image changes every 6 hours (it has the _00Z, _06Z, etc) so today about 35, 40 or 45% of what the images show is at night or dawn at any given time (the problem of viewing all the times zones at the same time).

NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis has tools to plot historical data,from 1948 up to the day before yesterday. This is the best I could do with the last date available (September 4th) for average day surface temperature. I couldn't get the contour traced in 273 K, but in 272 instead.

186.137.175.231.249.17.4.35.png
 
Interesting chart. 272 is more conducive to breaking up at the edges than reforming of ice. As I said a few days back, lot of warm air and water up there still.
 
Sorry, it seems they delete the images a few hours later. Here I managed to plot the 273°K contour for Sep 4th, which shows almost 100% of sea ice and much open water with surface temperatures averages below freezing point.

picture.php


icerat said:
Interesting chart. 272 is more conducive to breaking up at the edges than reforming of ice. As I said a few days back, lot of warm air and water up there still.
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What are you talking about?

It looks like several people here are expecting a deeper melting because some warmth hidden who knows in which air and water, and amazingly it'd happen in the first week of the 9 weeks of the semester when temperature falls/raises 0.5, 1 or 2°C a week depending on the latitude and hemisphere. For the Arctic it means an average temperature plummeting about 2°C per week for many weeks in a row.

The fact is that there are just 50,000 to 150,000 km2 of sea ice area to melt in the fringes and depending on the winds and how much of it is below or above 15% concentration, it will translate into 100,000 to 300,000 km2 drop in sea ice extent.

From now on, the moment the low pressures predominate in the whole area, the moment the melting season is over.
 
aleCcowaN said:
From now on, the moment the low pressures predominate in the whole area, the moment the melting season is over.
Click to expand...

Yes, yes, this is more what I've been looking at. THe temperature is certainly important, but for right now, the pressure seems the rather more important variable.
 
icerat said:
272K (-1.15C) is not cold enough for new sea ice formation.
Click to expand...

That was the contour, not the content, some wishful thinking on your part? In fact there were sea ice outside the 273 contour and open waters inside. What do you think that happens with snow falling inside the 273 contour? A not minor fraction of all yearly sea ice comes from it.

Latest data show sea ice consolidating in most of the +4 million square kilometers remaining and melting or dispersing in the fringes. Further melting will come from that. The forecasts show relative high pressures for the next few days and then lower pressures, so, five, six, seven days more and the credits start to roll -though the movie continue to play-.

Why is so important for you and others that a sea ice extent record is broken this year? I'd like to know how your minds work, pals.
 
aleCcowaN said:
Why is so important for you and others that a sea ice extent record is broken this year? I'd like to know how your minds work, pals.
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Legend has it that frogs in a pot where the heat rises slowly swim around until they're cooked to death. Turn up the heat fast, they jump out.
 
icerat said:
Legend has it that frogs in a pot where the heat rises slowly swim around until they're cooked to death. Turn up the heat fast, they jump out.
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So, buy an SUV and drive night and day. It'll turn the heat up a billionth of a bit. Wishful thinking not even that. Wishful thinking includes the frog model because last time I knew Katrina hadn't stir any wave of consciousness about the subject on part of the New Orleanians, other than having higher levees and powerful pumps. If a category-2 hurricane over your head and seeing cadavers of your fellow citizens rotting in the waters in hundreds** doesn't do the "trick", what do you expect from breaking a 4-year record in extent far away in Mars' pole? (or was it in Earth's?) The record breaking is meant to fulfill a need of yours, not to teach a social lesson. Don't fool yourself.

Laymen will safely conclude from that horse race attitude that there are two equally (just a little) sound groups still discussing. It's a pity such image is promoted by who believe to be doing the opposite.

** though I can't dismiss the effect of watching hundreds of bears drowned -because they look like puppies and because they're white-.:rolleyes:
 
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aleCcowaN said:
Why is so important for you and others that a sea ice extent record is broken this year? I'd like to know how your minds work, pals.
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To my mind you're getting a bit over-excited about how excited other people might be. Heck, if not this year, next year or pretty damn' soon. It's just something we do at this time of year, and have been for a few years now. It's a tradition.

For months nothing much happens (except maybe some mid-winter editorial about "sea-ice recovery"), then the season starts to beckon, some desultory discussion starts about off-season transfers, then a record starts building, then a crescendo. After which, something or nothing. But always less volume, and the promise of next year.

We're watching the canary croak. Can we help it if we love it?
 
aleCcowaN said:
...Why is so important for you and others that a sea ice extent record is broken this year? I'd like to know how your minds work, pals.
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I know, that I'm still hoping that most of the last century has just been a confluence of most unusual events, which have occurred in such a manner as to mislead the world's brightest and most dedicated researchers and investigators, ...but at this point, the anticipation associated with a record minimum and the impending collapse of the arctic sea ice-cap that such portends is more about witnessing something that hasn't been witnessed in my lifetime, I'd rather not dwell on the consequences and implications.
 
aleCcowaN said:
Why is so important for you and others that a sea ice extent record is broken this year? I'd like to know how your minds work, pals.
Click to expand...
I have to admit I have sometimes caught myself, when seeing that the 'this year' line is approaching the 2007 one during the summer, hoping it will cross it. I always immediately give myself a mental rap on the knuckles for doing so, but it's definitely happened.

Why is an interesting question. I think it's partly instinct - there's just something exciting about seeing any record broken, whether it's a sporting record or the number of eggs some idiot can swallow. But for those of us who have argued with people who are stubbornly insisting that nothing untoward is going on with the global climate there's another consideration.

I believe that nothing substantial will be done by the western democracies to reduce or mitigate humanity's effect on the climate until enough citizens are demanding action to make a difference at the ballot box. That won't happen until the average citizen can see clear evidence that the world is warming at a rate which should concern them, but most of that evidence just doesn't look particularly dramatic over periods of a decade or so. If I look around for the one single consequence of global warming likely to be impressive enough in the relatively short term to convince the majority that there is something to be concerned about, then the sight of ships sailing to the North Pole is it.

So I have mixed feelings when I watch the Arctic sea ice extent dropping towards a possible record low. On the one hand it is confirming my fears, and therefore bad, but on the other hand it might convince others that those fears are justified, and therefore - in a weird, unhealthy way - good.

I'll continue to tell myself off when I catch myself urging it on, though. :)
 
aleCcowaN said:
So, buy an SUV and drive night and day. It'll turn the heat up a billionth of a bit. Wishful thinking not even that. Wishful thinking includes the frog model because last time I knew Katrina hadn't stir any wave of consciousness about the subject on part of the New Orleanians, other than having higher levees and powerful pumps.
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Belief in AGW peaked in the US the two years following Katrina.

The reality is the majority of Americans still believe in AGW, it's a matter of getting them activated enough to make it a political issue again. Records breaking, and indeed drowning polar bears, can have that effect. Records not quite being broken, even if irrelevant in the big picture, do not have that effect.

As such I'd prefer the record to be just broken than just not broken.
 
Thank you for your replies, but in spite of many points of view I do share it all boils down to

  • I expect the problem to be even worse in order for it to be better known an addressed, something like saying "if H1N3 flu had killed ten times the people, then everybody would've regarded it more seriously". Or,
  • I expect the problem to be as bad as it is but that it manifests as if it follows the recommendations of an advertising agent, what begs the questions about how much of it is real and how much is just advertising.
In almost any country there are plenty of laws that force young people to set aside a substantial fraction of their income in order to have a retirement fund or financing the actual retirees. Most young people would prefer to enjoy their money now or set it aside and use it when unemployed or to purchase their homes instead of paying interests to a bank and living some months ahead a foreclosure in the event of a personal crisis. But the law is "wise". Why would they embrace the future of our planet if they are not willing to embrace the future of themselves? And I'm talking about something indisputable in everybody's eyes: they'll grow old, and most importantly, they know it.

This brings me back to the very point of showing expectations and bitching with another group, the "deniers" as if some silly football game is being played on, with mascots, cheer leaders and all those ethnic things. It makes the subject to look unsettled. I mean, you have to explain patiently and endlessly why it is important that they gather money for their old age; you give all the details about growing old and its causes but you don't start it all over again -the technique of choice of "those people"- explaining that they'll grow old and expecting that they look themselves at the mirror and find wrinkles in order to convinced them. Particularly, using terms like "belief in AGW" is quite unfortunate. About expecting that a natural disaster do the job of persuasion, well, it's human, but nothing better than knowing what is going on.

I preferred to use the best of my knowledge and forecast a 4.55 minimum many weeks ago and be wrong -I wouldn't be wrong by much- and contrast that against the wishful prophecies at Watt's cave that have being taken in semi-official websites as "heuristics" forecasts, as a result of a successful lobbying campaign. What do you think that people will gather from a bunch of people expecting that their horse, "2011-line" drops below the established champion "2007" to no avail. You have achieved that nobody pay attention to sea ice volume dropping dramatically -the real leitmotiv here-, this year to be about some 40% less than 2007's and explaining itself a nice percentage of energy imbalance during the period, even including that "travesty" we can't talk within the scope of this thread.
 
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