Arctic Sea Ice Extent In March
April 6, 2017
By Paul Homewood
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover_30y.uk.php
DMI have now published the Arctic sea ice extents for March. The average this year was 14.71 million sq km, exactly the same as 2015, and only 60,000sq km less than in 2006.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/sie_monthmean.uk.php
Though there have been ups and downs, it is clear that March extent has remained stable since 2006.
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Why does the chart only go back to 1979??
Because they changed the Satellite coverage and they can use that as an excuse to not show that it was much lower prior to 79.
If you can bear it there’s yet another awesomely stupid Guardian article on their site, this time linking (by the most tenuous means possible) an increase in Atlantic icebergs to yes, you’ve guessed, global warming. The BTL comments are as usual dripping in runaway climate hysteria.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/apr/06/huge-fleet-icebergs-north-atlantic-shipping-lanes
Better warn the Titanic!
I am sure that I remember a comment on the BBC, some time ago (2012?) to the effect that there were LESS icebergs then, as a result of “global warming”.
Amazingly, record Antarctic sea ice in 2014 was blamed on global warming! Too much ice, too little ice – everything is caused by global warming.
I think it has something to do with increased “calving”‘.
Just realized I should have said “fewer” icebergs. (i think)
Reblogged this on Climate Collections.
Meanwhile:
Atlantic ferry carrying 209 passengers stuck in ice off Cape Breton.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/04/04/atlantic-ferry-carrying-209-passengers-stuck-in-ice-off-cape-breton.html
Sometimes storms and high winds break up the ice on the Arctic Ocean and then the ice gets pushed out to lower (warmer ocean) latitudes. Sometimes multi-year (thick) ice stays intact and acts as a plug or blocker, thus keeping the ice at high latitude. This creates lots of bergs some years, fewer in other years.
For reference, here is a map showing the location of the Fram Strait:
Fram Strait
Here is a WUWT report from 8 years ago about a “flow out” in 2007:
Arctic sea ice flow
The animation with the the WUWT report is excellent. It shows how the circulation must always leave 2 or 3 million sq km of ice on the Canadian side even through the annual melt. The gap between Alaska and Russia is too small to allow egress, unlike the gap between Greenland and Iceland.
Although parts of the open ocean have less ice-cover every winter, the Arctic Basin never fails to freeze completely (excepting polynas.)
Paul we all know alarmists use every trick in the book to present their scares in the ‘worst’ possible way, but to put the above figures in perspective I make the ‘collapse’ to be all of…. 7.8%. It’s a century-rate of just over 25% which requires a LOT of assumptions to actually happen.
Arctic: 14.42 / 15.64 = 92.19%. A drop of 7.81% over 30+ years. Big wow. Funny but ‘Less than an 8% reduction’ doesn’t sound quite as scary as ‘a collapse of 1.22 million sq km’s’.
Greenland: Look how SkS throw in a scare story about ‘excessive calving’ to offset a record year. Entirely typical of SkS though.
https://skepticalscience.com/sea-ice-record-lows-arctic-antarctic.html
Erm, ITV aren’t gonna fall for ‘sea ice normal’ …………………
SNAFU alert?
TARFUN could be?
“at this time of year, the sea here is normally covered in ice”
“normally” maybe……….. but……………….. and what about da poley bears huh?
ITV they shame us, they really do.
“…frozen solid during the dark Arctic winter months.”
Which is, anyway, a flat-out lie. It is NEVER frozen in the winter. The freeze is strictly an occurrence of the SPRING. The official tourist guide says it only freezes from February to early May, and “this varies.”
I have just looked up the nearest official weather station, which is at Svalbard Airport. In the last 30 days the average temperature has been -12.8 C which is 2.6 C above normal (their records start in 1964). The highest recent was +2.5 C on March 14th and the lowest was -23.5 C on March 18. A downswing of 26 C in 4 days. As said, things “vary.”
OK yes, island weather does vary, we know it – might be sumpfink to do with that ever so sneaky Ocean and NA drift maybe?
The media goons who put out this sort of claptrap, ie: ‘normally covered in ice’. At Latitude 74º+ N yeah! you’d expect things to be a tad on the cold side but insofar as the weather is concerned – nothing but nothing is ‘normal’ we just observe the variability and we love variability otherwise – we’d have nowt to talk about – yeah even in Svaalbard.
That location is inland (or up-fjord!) of where the Gulf Stream warmth finally peters out. The tiniest change in the strength or direction of the current determines how much ice forms there in late spring.
http://polarportal.dk/en/havisen-i-arktis/nbsp/sea-ice-temperature/
That tiny bit of yellow extending (intruding) up the west coast of Svalbard (Spitzbergen) is where the water is above freezing at present.
Big whoop.
Arctic sea-ice volume reaches its maximum after the areal extent does. Volume is still increasing. According to the DMI Ice Portal it is EXACTLY what it was, at this time last year.