2016 Arctic Sea Ice Thread

[BenBurch]

As in prior years, this is a thread on Arctic Sea Ice for tracking sea ice over the course of the 2015 melt season.

This thread is approved by the moderator team for the limited purposes described, anything more than incidentally beyond that may be subject to moderator action.

Rule;

1. This is not an AGW thread.
2. This is about Sea Ice only.
3. You may speculate on the trajectory of Sea Ice melting in here.
4. You may post data from official sources and news articles from the science press in this thread.
5. No politics.
6. See rule 5.

Now, to start us off let us discuss the three measures of Sea Ice that are often misunderstood;

Sea Ice Extent; This is the total area of sea that is at least 15% ice-covered, so this can include a lot of open water, no open water, or anything in between. This is an easy measurement to make, and is useful for navigation; unless you are an icebreaker you do not want to sail into an area that is 15% ice. However, this is a very misleading measurement at times when you want to ascertain how much ice has melted.

Sea Ice Area; This is a better measurement in that it considers just the area taken up by ice. If 1 km2 is 20% ice-covered, that is .2 km2 area. So though this measurement CAN track Extent fairly closely, there is no guarantee it will, and it can diverge markedly under the right conditions. However, this tells you nothing about the thickness of the ice; It can be 1 cm thick, or 3 m thick and it is all the same in this measure, what counts is the area it covers. This measurement is a good way to judge the amount of sunlight rejected to space by white ice as opposed to dark water.

Sea Ice Volume; This is the actual physical volume of ice in polar waters. It is probably the best measure of how far the loss of polar ice has progressed.

Anomaly plots; When you compare the ice that on average would have been found on a particular date or range of dates, in any of the above measures, and subtract that from the number you measure, you get the first derivative of the that measure, and you can see how much ahead or behind the average you are. This is very useful as it is difficult to look at the sinusoidal annual cycle these numbers go through, and get a sense of comparison between two cycles. This removes the annual signal and just shows you how it had been modulated.

Ratios of multi-year ice to single-season ice at the*start of the melt season; Multi-year ice is generally thicker and more durable than single-year ice. New ice is more saline and so melts at a lower temperature than does multi-year ice. A season that begins with a large inventory of new ice is more prone to the effects of temperature anomalies and can under identical conditions produce a lower ice minimum.

 

[BenBurch]

Current conditions;

As of right now we have not as yet reached the Arctic Sea Ice maximum for this season. That can be expected in about a month. Extent is tracking the -2 Std Dev line closely at this point in time.

 

[Warmer1]

Arctic Sea Ice Status: Crappy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eorQwoIL0W8

Arctic ice gone by 2020?

2:18 Once the ice gets thin it could get pushed out of the Arctic

 

[Warmer1]

"Unusually warm Arctic winter stuns scientists with record low ice extent for January"

http://mashable.com/2016/02/05/arctic-sea-ice-hits-record-low-for-january/#X61XSXfoEiqc

"Nothing is as it should be for this time of year across a wide swath of the Arctic. Alaska has had not yet had a winter, with record warmth enveloping much of the state along with anemic snow depth."

“For the Arctic this is definitely the strangest winter I’ve ever seen," said Mark Serreze, the director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)

"Fairbanks, Alaska, which set a record for the lowest amount of snow between Dec. 1 and Jan. 31 since records began there in 1915.......
Fairbanks had just 1.8 inches of snow during the period, which was more than 20 inches below average"

[for sea ice]
"For perspective, that departure from average is equivalent to missing a region of ice the size of the states of Texas, New Mexico, Maryland and New Hampshire combined."

 

[BenBurch]

Arctic Sea Ice Status: Crappy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eorQwoIL0W8

Arctic ice gone by 2020?

2:18 Once the ice gets thin it could get pushed out of the Arctic

Indeed we have seen massive movement of ice in to the Fram Strait in past years.

 

[macdoc]

I would speculate there is a direct link in solar output and ice area changes

you'd be wrong

while not the only thing influencing the ice
it must be easy to track

It is ..and you are spectacularly wrong.

The bottom line is solar irradiance

so the irradiance is reducing somewhat....while the Arctic ice cover has been plunging..

So you can dump that notion of the sun controlling Arctic ice in the trash...with the exception of albedo changes. Less ice, more absorption, less reflection, warmer water.
There is a fresh water aspect to this as well

If you need help with ice cover versus ice volume, multi-year ice versus single year ice .. just ask.

 

[bobdroege7]

Is this where we make predictions for the 2016 minimum?

Here goes

Arctic sea ice area by Cryosphere Today- 2 million +/- 250,000

Arctic sea ice extent by JAXA- 3.5 million +/- 250,000

Time for record lows by the SWAG method

 

[lomiller]

But I think along the same lines as Lomiller, it won't make a difference in this years sea ice trajectory.

The energy flux delta just isn’t higher enough to melt ice sheets or warm oceans on a decadal scale let alone a yearly scale.

 

[George 152]

When theres no more use for Icebreakers in the high north and the NW Passage is crowded with shipping you'll have a point

 

[nota]

and I still want a better standard then 15%= 100%
as a measure of ice extent

 

[lomiller]

and I still want a better standard then 15%= 100%
as a measure of ice extent

I have no idea what you are trying to say

 

[fishbob]

2 data points:

1 Open water near the shoreline in Barrow Alaska in January. Very rare.

2 480 feet of shoreline loss over the last 3 years at our job site 85 miles east of Barrow. 50 feet in a single day during one storm event. 0pen water at the site from mid-July to mid-October.

 

[kmortis]

The posts discussing topics more in line with the general AGW thread have been moved there. Please keep this thread to the discussion of polar ice.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: kmortis

 

[nota]

I have no idea what you are trying to say

did you read the opening post ?

''Sea Ice Extent; This is the total area of sea that is at least 15% ice-covered, so this can include a lot of open water, no open water, or anything in between. This is an easy measurement to make, and is useful for navigation; unless you are an icebreaker you do not want to sail into an area that is 15% ice. However, this is a very misleading measurement at times when you want to ascertain how much ice has melted.''

but this is the most used ice count in most charts

btw censorship is always wrong

 

[CapelDodger]

The advantage of sea-ice extent is that it's easy to measure consistently with good precision. Sea-ice area and volume measures are also available but are necessarily estimates and less consistent across research groups. It would be great to know both accurately but one has to work with what one has.

 

[macdoc]

btw censorship is always wrong

not always wrong ..for sure wrong is
a) off topic posts on OP specified thread
b) not knowing what you are talking about in a science forum.

••••

Fortunately not all the assessments are satellite based.
An expedition a couple years back found that much of the "ice cover" was barely more than slush.

http://gizmodo.com/nasas-incredible-expedition-to-explore-the-arctic-ice-s-1718456021

and now Arctic watersheds are playing an increasing role in influencing ice cover

“River discharge is a key factor contributing to the high sensitivity of Arctic sea ice to climate change,” said Nghiem. “We found that rivers are effective conveyers of heat across immense watersheds in the Northern Hemisphere. These watersheds undergo continental warming in summertime, unleashing an enormous amount of energy into the Arctic Ocean, and enhancing sea ice melt. You don’t have this in Antarctica.”
The team said the impacts of these warm river waters are increasing due to three factors.

First, the overall volume of water discharged from rivers into the Arctic Ocean has increased.

Second, rivers are getting warmer as their watersheds (drainage basins) heat up.

And third, Arctic sea ice cover is becoming thinner and more fragmented, making it more vulnerable to rapid melt.

In addition, as river heating contributes to earlier and greater loss of the Arctic’s reflective sea ice cover in summer, the amount of solar heat absorbed into the ocean increases, causing even more sea ice to melt.

To demonstrate the extensive intrusion of warm Arctic river waters onto the Arctic sea surface, the team selected the Mackenzie River in western Canada. They chose the summer of 2012 because that year holds the record for the smallest total extent of sea ice measured across the Arctic in the more than 30 years that satellites have been making observations.
The researchers used data from satellite microwave sensors to examine the extent of sea ice in the study area from 1979 to 2012 and compared it to reports of Mackenzie River discharge. “Within this period, we found the record largest extent of open water in the Beaufort Sea occurred in 1998, which corresponds to the year of record high discharge from the river,” noted co-author Ignatius Rigor of the University of Washington in Seattle.

more
https://www.nasa.gov/jpl/news/arctic-sea-ice-melt-20140305/#.VsGAQfiOpZ8

On May 12, 2015, a temperature of 80.1°F (or 26.7°C) was recorded in the north of Canada, at a location just north of latitude 63°N.
High temperatures in such locations are very worrying, for a number of reasons, including:
They are examples of heatwaves that can increasingly extend far to the north, all the way into the Arctic Ocean, speeding up warming of the Arctic Ocean seabed and threatening to unleash huge methane eruptions.
They set the scene for wildfires that emit not only greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, but also pollutants such as carbon monoxide (that depletes hydroxyl that could otherwise break down methane) and black carbon (that when settling on ice causes it to absorb more sunlight).
They cause warming of the water of rivers that end up in the Arctic Ocean, thus resulting in additional sea ice decline and warming of the Arctic Ocean seabed.

The image below shows increased sea surface temperature anomalies in the area of the Beaufort Sea where the Mackenzie River is flowing into the Arctic Ocean.

more
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com.au/2015/05/mackenzie-river-warming.html

 

[BenBurch]

As of today sea ice extent is in unexplored territory. It has actually declined slightly over the last few days...

 

[sphenisc]

As of today sea ice extent is in unexplored territory. It has actually declined slightly over the last few days...

Also, it has also consistently remained below 2012 levels since the beginning of the year.

 

[bobdroege7]

Sea ice area is also in record low territory

 

[Jules Galen]

Sea ice area is also in record low territory

Yes it is! Once again, I am starting to believe that my dream of establishing the first Banana Plantation on the shores of the Arctic Ocean may become a reality. Along those lines, I have been researching government programs that would fund school job programs that would teach the local Innuit Populations to speak Spanish and how to pick Bananas. (I figure if the Innuit are to be hired to pick Bananas, then they should at least speak the same language of the Guatamalen Task Masters whom I will put in charge of them).

As far as the Polar Bear goes....well, that's just going to be tough luck for the Polar Bear in the Northern hemisphere. Perhaps we could ship a few bears to Anarctica and let them hang with the Penguins.

As far as the Caribou are concerned: screw 'em. Caribou are ugly and I don't care if they overheat and die. Same goes for the Musk Ox.

Also, now that the Ice is dissapearing from the Arctic Ocean, I think we should drill the hell out of it. There's got to be a lot of oil down there and because the area is so remote, we really don't have to be too careful about the environment.

 

[CoolSceptic]

Arctic Sea Ice Status: Crappy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eorQwoIL0W8

Arctic ice gone by 2020?

Ah, the claim that Arctic sea ice will be gone in 3-4 years from the prediction date. That chestnut just never gets old. What will we be up to by 2020 then - successful prediction of 7 of the last 0 ice-free summers? Priceless.

Not terribly original though... http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7198083&postcount=21

 

[CapelDodger]

Ah, the claim that Arctic sea ice will be gone in 3-4 years from the prediction date. That chestnut just never gets old. What will we be up to by 2020 then - successful prediction of 7 of the last 0 ice-free summers? Priceless.

It's looking low enough that you can tell us about another sea-ice recovery next year, if that's any comfort.

 

[CapelDodger]

Also, it has also consistently remained below 2012 levels since the beginning of the year.

This is perfectly normal for a pre-recovery period.

 

[Warmer1]

Ah, the claim that Arctic sea ice will be gone in 3-4 years from the prediction date. That chestnut just never gets old. What will we be up to by 2020 then - successful prediction of 7 of the last 0 ice-free summers? Priceless.

Not terribly original though... http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7198083&postcount=21

The year is not that important. Changes in the Arctic are driving a lot of changes worldwide.

Peter Wadhams from Cambridge University explains
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-qdbICw2f8

If the following quotes are not verbatim so refer to the presentation for clarity if needed.

20:17 What Arctic warming is doing to the planet

27:26 Ice loss well ahead of climate models

29:00 Global Albedo
Fresh snow reflects about 90% of the solar radiation back into space
An open sea reflects only about 10% and 90% is absorbed.
This adds about another 1/4 to the amount of warming from greenhouse gasses.

36:20 Arctic sea ice volume is about 1/4 of what it was in the 1980's

53:31 Loss of snow around the Arctic also adding about another 1/4 to the amount of warming from greenhouse gasses. Combined with
the warming from sea ice albedo loss this adds about 50% to the warming effect of greenhouse gasses.

People can read your little squabble about what year sea ice finally disappears or they can look at the science and easily understand why this is such a threat to our civilization. It's great to have you on record as a climate change denier when the science is very clear.

 

[Warmer1]

Yes it is! Once again, I am starting to believe that my dream of establishing the first Banana Plantation on the shores of the Arctic Ocean may become a reality. Along those lines, I have been researching government programs that would fund school job programs that would teach the local Innuit Populations to speak Spanish and how to pick Bananas. (I figure if the Innuit are to be hired to pick Bananas, then they should at least speak the same language of the Guatamalen Task Masters whom I will put in charge of them).

As far as the Polar Bear goes....well, that's just going to be tough luck for the Polar Bear in the Northern hemisphere. Perhaps we could ship a few bears to Anarctica and let them hang with the Penguins.

As far as the Caribou are concerned: screw 'em. Caribou are ugly and I don't care if they overheat and die. Same goes for the Musk Ox.

Also, now that the Ice is dissapearing from the Arctic Ocean, I think we should drill the hell out of it. There's got to be a lot of oil down there and because the area is so remote, we really don't have to be too careful about the environment.

Is it OK to email this post to Dr. Phil?

 

[CoolSceptic]

It's looking low enough that you can tell us about another sea-ice recovery next year, if that's any comfort.

I used the advanced search and found that I have not used the word "recovery" on any AGW thread at all, let alone with regard to Arctic sea ice. (This exact comment excepted, of course). So I'll leave you to roll around with that little strawman on your own.

 

[CoolSceptic]

The year is not that important.

Just to be clear. The Arctic has been ice free many times in the past. Almost certainly most of the year during the PETM. Very likely ice-free in summer during the Eemian. Driftwood proxies show Arctic ice to be far lower than today during the Holocene Climatic Optimum. (Oh, sorry, Holocene Thermal Maximum, we're not supposed to call warm periods "optimum", are we?)

Given that the Arctic has been ice-free in the past, and it will be ice-free at some point in the future (whether influenced by man or not), the timing of the prediction of an ice-free Arctic is the *only* distinctive part of that particular prediction. And every one of these Arctic sea ice threads comes with a new wrong prediction. Seriously, kudos to Ben for continuing to post these threads, they have provided me with a great source of entertainment year on year. "Skeptics" making predictions with the same razor sharp accuracy as astrologists, what's not to like?!?

Peter Wadhams from Cambridge University explains

Peter Wadhams?



Hopefully he is back at Cambridge studying the Arctic again after his brief foray into believing that nefarious fossil fuel companies were bumping off his colleagues using lightning. In credibility terms, Wadhams is about on a par with Piers Corbyn.

 

[macdoc]

More gish gallop from the pretend neutral guy. Your paymasters cut the denier funding again???

meanwhile in the world that matters...

January hits new record low in the Arctic
February 4, 2016
January Arctic sea ice extent was the lowest in the satellite record, attended by unusually high air temperatures over the Arctic Ocean and a strong negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation (AO) for the first three weeks of the month. Meanwhile in the Antarctic, this year’s extent was lower than average for January, in contrast to the record high extents in January 2015.

https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

pretty solid trend line that...

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2016/02/monthly_ice_01_NH-350x270.png

The Holocene optimum was 8k years ago when the Milankovich cycles favoured a warmer northern hemisphere....it WAS getting cooler...then we came along. The Eemian was 115k years ago and the optimum was a different orbital configuration with sea levels 6-9 meters above current.

Why are you comparing current temps driven by human induced CO2 increases to optimums diven by orbitals ????/are you perhaps trying to mislead ....surely not.

This thread is about 2016 Arctic Sea ice volume and extent....not a soapbox for your AGW denial campaign.

 

[Pixel42]

When I first started following the climate change issue at the turn of the century, most estimates of when the Arctic would become ice free in summer were around 2080. They've certainly come down since, the last time I checked around 2040 seemed the most common estimate.

Of course it's possible, if circumstances conspire to produce the right conditions, that we might get a year with a dip to zero considerably sooner, maybe even in the next decade, but it would be a one off. It could be another decade or more to the next one, and it will probably be at least a century before the Arctic is ice free in summer more often than it isn't.

 

[sphenisc]

This is perfectly normal for a pre-recovery period.

It doesn't seem to have happened for the last 37 years. Could you explain what you means by "normal for a pre-recovery period"?

Thanks

 

[macdoc]

turn your sarcasm detector up a notch

 

[sphenisc]

turn your sarcasm detector up a notch

Doh!

 

[CapelDodger]

It doesn't seem to have happened for the last 37 years. Could you explain what you means by "normal for a pre-recovery period"?

I was being facetious. Any period between record lows is celebrated as a recovery period in denier circles, so any record low is necessarily pre-recovery in those terms.

 

[CapelDodger]

turn your sarcasm detector up a notch

Irony, please. Sarcasm is what the other guy does.

 

[macdoc]

ironic sarcasm then

 

[BenBurch]

Slight derail; The very low levels in the north combined with slightly below average levels in the south mean the Global sea ice is also at a record low.

 

[CoolSceptic]

I was being facetious. Any period between record lows is celebrated as a recovery period in denier circles, so any record low is necessarily pre-recovery in those terms.

Likewise, any local downturn is used by climate activists to claim that the Arctic is in a death spiral and will be ice-free typically in 3-4 years. As we've already seen.

Both of these are hysterically unscientific, although notably your blinkers only allow you to see one of them. C'est la vie.

 

[CoolSceptic]

More gish gallop from the pretend neutral guy.

I never claimed, pretended or otherwise to be neutral. So that's one fail right there. Oh, and you should learn what a gish gallop is, because you have no idea:

Gish Gallop
Note in that discussion, the written form of the gish gallop:

Cite a giant wall of text, or a three hour long [Y]ou[T]ube video

Indeed, it wasn't me that posted the long rambling youtube video, it was "Warmer1" who did that which utterly failed to address the point being made, but instead brought up a bunch of different issues (which confirms it as a gish gallop) by Wadhams who has little credibility. Notably, you also failed to address the point, which should have been both trivial and obvious to anyone who has scientific training.

My responses addressed one thing and one thing only: the claim that the Arctic would be ice-free in 4 years time. That's a nice claim, because it is both testable and not that far away in time. So we can test it. Testing a prediction about an observational data set is particularly nice because we don't need to know anything other than the data set. So your statement here:

Why are you comparing current temps driven by human induced CO2 increases to optimums diven by orbitals

Shows an astonishing ignorance of science. The prediction is simple: that the Arctic be ice free in 2020. To test a prediction - which is what I was talking about - we don't need to know anything about the cause. We just need to measure the ice in 2020. If it's gone, then Warmer1's prediction is correct. If ice remains throughout 2020, Warmer1's prediction is wrong. It really is as simple as that, and your oddball attempt to insist the reason for observation somehow affects our ability to test whether the prediction happens or not simply underscores your lack of scientific knowledge.

This thread is about 2016 Arctic Sea ice volume and extent....not a soapbox for your AGW denial campaign.

Ben makes it clear that Arctic sea ice predictions are acceptable in this thread and that is all I've talked about. I do wonder if Ben might change that in the future, since it is a tad embarrassing to have the pseudoscience "ice-free in three or four years" that climate activists can't help spouting out.

 

[JeanTate]

Possibly ignorant question: the 'retreat' of the ice seems uneven, much greater at some locations than others.

To what extent is it understood why there is such a difference?

 

[ehcks]

Likewise, any local downturn is used by climate activists to claim that the Arctic is in a death spiral and will be ice-free typically in 3-4 years. As we've already seen.

Both of these are hysterically unscientific, although notably your blinkers only allow you to see one of them. C'est la vie.

The entire Arctic and average global sea ice both decreasing is not "local." Repeatedly breaking record low ice extents and never breaking record highs over a period of more than a century is not a "downturn."