Arctic Ice Extent May Have Already Hit Minimum
By Paul Homewood
https://thinkprogress.org/arctic-sea-ice-death-spiral-b928be2fde0a#.w54cczpz9
While Joe Romm spreads his lies, the real news is that Arctic sea ice extent appears to have reached minimum remarkably early this year, and looks to be quickly regrowing, as NSIDC figures below show:
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/north/daily/data/NH_seaice_extent_nrt_v2.csv
According to DMI, extent this year finished only slightly down on last year:
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
This is despite not one but two very strong cyclones in August, as NSIDC report:
Two very strong cyclones entered the central Arctic Ocean in August from along the Siberian coast, bringing strong winds. On August 16, the central pressure of the first cyclone dropped to 968 hPa, nearly rivaling the storm in early August 2012 that attained a minimum central pressure of 966 hPa. On 22 August, the second storm started moving to the central Arctic Ocean along a similar track, and on August 23, attained a central pressure of 970 hPa.
Past studies have shown that stormy summers tend to end up with more sea ice at the end of the melt season than summers with high pressure over the central Arctic Ocean, primarily because stormy summers are both fairly cool and the wind pattern tends to spread the ice out. However, the impact of strong individual storms may be different—the 2012 event appears to have temporarily boosted ice loss by breaking up the ice cover, with the wave action tending to mix warmer waters from below to hasten melt. It may also be that, as the ice cover thins, its response to storms is changing.
It indeed appears that the August 2016 storms helped to break up the ice and spread it out, contributing to the development of several large embayments and polynyas. Some of this ice divergence likely led to fragmented ice being transported into warmer ocean waters, hastening melt. Whether warmer waters from below were mixed upwards to hasten melt remains to be determined, but as discussed below, these storms were associated with very high wave heights.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2016/09/arctic-sea-ice-nears-its-minimum-extent-for-the-year/
And they estimate that September’s average will be above 2007. What is clear from this graph is that extent has stabilised since 2007.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover_30y.uk.php
As for Romm’s ludicrous assertion of death spirals and ice disintegration, DMI show what conditions are really like:
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icethickness/thk.uk.php
PIOMAS also show ice thickness well above 2010 to 2013 levels, although less than last year.
http://psc.apl.uw.edu/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/
As WUWT reveals, Romm is paid to write this nonsense, so he should know that icebreakers have been sailing to the North Pole for decades.
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‘And they estimate that September’s average will be above 2007. What is clear from this graph is that extent has stabilised since 2007.’
Consistent with ‘the pause’ it would seem. The satellite record since the late 70’s is too short a period to draw any long term conclusions about Arctic sea ice, which is known to have fluctuated in various ways over the last few centuries at least.
Another accurate prediction by Wadham then – only 4.2 million square kilometers out this year.
It is amazing that Wadhams is still in employment. But of course the BBC hangs on his every alarmist word and has done so for over 20 years.
Hilariously, not many people on his site agree with him!
We might see a quick refreeze this year. The sea surface temperatures are colder than I’ve seen them on this chart.
There have been periods with more ice and there’s a normal warm zone near the land but it might be interesting to see what happens in the blue area.
Sent an email to Professor Wadhams, last week, offering to double my previous public bet of £1000 on his sea ice extent fantasies, to £2000 for next year. Same conditions.
Needless to say he has not replied.
MASIE tells a similar story, though the lowest extent is more recent.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2016/09/12/arctic-ice-minimum/
Is there a different story? It seems important not to confuse sq. km with sq. miles. In September of 2007 it reached 1.65 million sq. miles equivalent to 4.27 sq. km. In August of 2008 it was 2.03 million sq. miles, 5.26 sq. km.
The link to WUWT at the end of your post doesn’t work – it should be
Cheers, sorted
The DMI graphs have been all over the shop this year with several fairly major revisions (at one point a few days back their extent graph had almost dived to 2012). And NSIDC had the satellite failure. Not sure how accurate any of them are anymore. I think all you can say is that the exceptionally warm Arctic winter and this latterly stormy summer should have conspired to make a convincingly low record, it didn’t. What next for the ice – who knows – does it even matter – probably not!
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