Guardian Needlessly Alarmed By Late Freeze
By Paul Homewood
The Guardian is working itself up into a lather over the Arctic again!
For the first time since records began, the main nursery of Arctic sea ice in Siberia has yet to start freezing in late October.
The delayed annual freeze in the Laptev Sea has been caused by freakishly protracted warmth in northern Russia and the intrusion of Atlantic waters, say climate scientists who warn of possible knock-on effects across the polar region.
Ocean temperatures in the area recently climbed to more than 5C above average, following a record breaking heatwave and the unusually early decline of last winter’s sea ice.
The trapped heat takes a long time to dissipate into the atmosphere, even at this time of the year when the sun creeps above the horizon for little more than an hour or two each day.
Graphs of sea-ice extent in the Laptev Sea, which usually show a healthy seasonal pulse, appear to have flat-lined. As a result, there is a record amount of open sea in the Arctic.
“The lack of freeze-up so far this fall is unprecedented in the Siberian Arctic region,” said Zachary Labe, a postdoctoral researcher at Colorado State University. He says this is in line with the expected impact of human-driven climate change.
“2020 is another year that is consistent with a rapidly changing Arctic. Without a systematic reduction in greenhouse gases, the likelihood of our first ‘ice-free’ summer will continue to increase by the mid-21st century,’ he wrote in an email to the Guardian.
The warmer air temperature is not the only factor slowing the formation of ice. Climate change is also pushing more balmy Atlantic currents into the Arctic and breaking up the usual stratification between warm deep waters and the cool surface. This also makes it difficult for ice to form.
“This continues a streak of very low extents. The last 14 years, 2007 to 2020, are the lowest 14 years in the satellite record starting in 1979,” said Walt Meier, senior research scientist at the US National Snow and Ice Data Center. He said much of the old ice in the Arctic is now disappearing, leaving thinner seasonal ice. Overall the average thickness is half what it was in the 1980s.
The downward trend is likely to continue until the Arctic has its first ice-free summer, said Meier. The data and models suggest this will occur between 2030 and 2050. “It’s a matter of when, not if,” he added.
Let’s deal with a couple of points first:
1) As Walt Meier notes, all of these so-called “records” only date back to 1979, in the middle of the period when the Arctic was undergoing substantial cooling and a massive increase in sea ice extent, as HH Lamb observed:
HH Lamb: Climate, History & The Modern World
The idea that the 1970s and 80s represent some kind of norm, either in the short or long term, is unscientific and absurd.
2) The article also notes:
The warmer air temperature is not the only factor slowing the formation of ice. Climate change is also pushing more balmy Atlantic currents into the Arctic and breaking up the usual stratification between warm deep waters and the cool surface.
In fact, the influx of warmer Atlantic waters is key to the recent warming of the Arctic, just as it was in a similar period of Arctic warming between the 1920s and 50s,
It is that factor which is increasing air temperatures, and there is no evidence that this influx has been caused by global warming.
3) Once again, we see the nonsense about “ice free Arctics”, which keep getting put back another decade or two. Previous scares have not materialised, and these latest one won’t either for a very good reason. The Arctic is a very cold place from autumn through to spring when the sun goes down, and as a consequence there is always far too much sea ice around by June for it to melt away in the short Arctic summer.
Now to the current situation.
Ice growth has just begun in the Laptev, about a week later than last year:
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icethickness/thk.uk.php
However, if we compare the whole of the Arctic basin with the same date last year, we find that sea ice is much more extensive this year on the western side, off the Canadian coast,. Also ice is much thicker in the central Arctic currently than it was last year.
As a result, sea ice volume is actually up on last year:
In other words, swings and roundabouts.
One final consideration. At this time of year, virtually no heat from the sun enters the Laptev Sea. Instead, open seas mean that a lot of the heat escapes into the atmosphere, and thence lost to space.
Low ice extent in the Arctic actually cools the earth, not the opposite. It is one of the ways in which the earth’s climate regulates itself.
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Dear Guardian,
There are now approximately 2 million square kilometres more sea ice than there was in mid-September, so to say the freeze hasn’t started is nonsense. Relax, have a cup of tea, and revisit this story in a month.
Guardian alarm centre – lose the Arctic obsession, and take note…
“KILLING FREEZE” HITS KANSAS AS ALL-TIME COLD AND SNOW RECORDS FALL
OCTOBER 27, 2020
NWS Kansas meteorologists warn of a “widespread killing freeze” after unprecedented October cold and snow laid waste to the record books.
https://electroverse.net/killing-freeze-hits-wichita-kansas/
Not just Kansas. Cliff Mass weather blog, Oct 25th
Lots of below freezing temps in the west, but eastern WA really impresses, with cold valley sites getting into the single digits.
More with maps and images.
If it’s really warm in one place its probably really cold somewhere else. The Guardian doesn’t seem to understand this simple fact of how energy must be distributed in a closed system that allows (creates?) uneven distribution.
But…as with the now broken but still dangerous marxists pretending to be Laburrr, the infant masquerading as editor at the Grauniad, (no doubt an avid twatter reader), “believes” there is a massive but strangely silent leftie readership out there. A readership desperate to be fed their daily dose of intersectionality, white privilege, white institutionalized racism, a fabricated phobia AND the religion that man is bigger than the planet.
Sadly given the reality of its dwindling readership, this pointless rag seem now only to be read by members of Momentum (aka Millytant Tendency), those of the Islington Bubble who dine with comrade Korbyn and the few twatter screechers who actually have money to waste desperate for a sounding board for their own personal struggle with reality.
Yes the left successfully broke our tie to Christianity in the UK and that left a sizeable vacuum that they have made great efforts to fill with the new religions of climate, feminism and the rise of professional victimhood. This is a concern doubly so because of the focus the left has on owning education and therefore the base formulation of opinion for life.
The truth of the matter is that the Great British public are still by nature naturally conservative in their ways as attested to by the number who cast off their Laburr mantle when through upward mobility they became middle class.
That voice is given only to such a minority view right across the media on both sides of the pond should be a serious point for debate and concern. The problem is, the left are fighting a war and I do not think that those right of centre have yet to wake up to this. The pathetic state of the Conservative Party today embracing all the woke nonsense is because they honestly believe that they are responding to a call for fairness and that if they show they are on board then all will be nice again. They could not be more mistaken. This is not about truth, this is not about fairness, it is brute politics with power as the end game and not a care how many get hurt on the way there.
Just look again on both sides of the pond to the vilification Trump has had with multiple fabricated stories hitting the headlines. Contrast that with the news blackout today regarding the claimed laptop of Hunter Biden and its contents. The veracity of the story is not my point. The fact that a news blackout on it right across the board feebly quoting “standards” which clearly do not apply when Trumpy is the subject not only smacks of bias but of deeper and darker forces which is in total control of the MSM. On both sides of the pond we have democratically elected conservative leadership. Contrast this with the outpourings of the MSM and statements by all the Quango and Charities. They all speak with one dangerous voice which demonstrates the Long March Through the Institutions has been completed and they are onto the next phase of their plan which is a world Marxist state, regardless of the cost economically and given their history also regardless of the cost in human lives..
Facts and real data, Paul. I wonder how long they will be made available for you to analyse?
The covid situation shows that its so easy to keep evidential data hidden, even through public information requests.
With the accumulated wisdom of a postdoctoral researcher at Colorado State University, Zachary says this is in line with the expected impact of human-driven climate change. Unprecedented…(in his lifetime?)
As usual, nothing at all about what could possibly be done to stop or prevent it. Cover the sea ice with dry ice, human captured CO2? Just more scaremongering that seems to get more shrill as the climate cools down.
So in this clown’s mind ONE YEARs start point (without even waiting for the whole cycle to play out) for ice generation is caused by Climate Change?
I quote from his page on the UCI website
“My research interests coincide with understanding the natural and forced variability of climate change.
First part ok, but WHERE is that UNDERSTANDING? Where is the pointer to the empirical data demonstrating what % is natural and what % is “forced variability” ( whatever that means) ? When ( with empirical data) did man’s % start and how has it increased year on year….quite important one would think, right?
Then he continues:
In particular, my foci include modeling trends in the timing of transition seasons, such as spring, and evaluating the influences of Arctic amplification and sea ice variability on midlatitude extreme weather events.
Oh he has “foci” and not “focus” which is standard English
So he is just one more infernal modeller focussing on ONLY ONE part of a GLOBAL system pandering for research money peddaling the “extreme weather” narrative with more models which I can tell you now are assumption only based (It is certainly only a narrative because there is B ALL empirical data to support it!
His opinion is the same as that of my dog, an opinion but probably on reflection and from experience, I would value the “opinion” of my dog more.
Pardonme… You are being too kind. Why don’t you tell us what you really think about a post-doc getting his 15 minutes of fame? His professors must be quite jealous.
Ha! Well said Broadlands. There is a completely different discussion to be had regarding the political minefield that exists in “educational” institutions. I went through university in the 80’s and experienced the effect of funding cuts introduced by Margret Thatcher’s government. Any delusions I had about a career in university went out of the window when I saw how good men, free thinking men who were not politically astute were cast out and less scientifically competent but politically savvy toadies rise up through the ranks. How it is today I shudder to think even though I still have perverse dreams about restarting a shelved PhD and turning the current paradigms and gross assumption associated with crustal tectonics on their respective heads…ho hum…….
This idiot at Colorado University should look out the window. Colorado (and neighbouring states) is setting new cold records at this moment. If he looked he’d see there is unseasonal snow outside. Tony Heller is covering the record cold in the USA.
… and I love that photograph the Grauniad has used. Please do tell – what’s all that white stuff covering most of the photograph? Fairy dust?
All part of the media’s increasing Fake-news campaign. The man in the street is bombarded with this dishonesty in a way that would have pleased one Dr.Goebbels. All the meja say it so it must be true, and those honest people at the BBC would never be propaganda agents….. pigs just flew past my window…
Interesting place the Laptev Sea. It contains the Moma Rift system where two spreading oceanic plates below the Acrctic Ice are encroaching onto and into continental crust. Very interesting stress patterns around a Euler pole. Indeed this is the only place on the planet where this oceanic onto continental crust occurs. I wanted to do a PhD on it but I was frozen out……….pun intended.
“Indeed this is the only place on the planet where this oceanic onto continental crust occurs.”
Around a pole of rotation? Yes indeed. There is also the example of the Urals to Novaya Zemlya line of compression for the Boreal Ocean expansion in the Jurassic if you wanted to do a plate reconstruction comparison.
Here we go again, some people just don’t seem to have understood what a Meridional weather pattern actually does. Hint: it makes air move from south to north in one place and then, just too compensate, from north to south elsewhere.
Here is the snow and ice cover for Siberia and the Laptev Sea on day 300 (Oct 26 2020):
compared to 2019 (Ooh – Climate Change):
and here is the snow and ice cover for North America on day 300 (Oct 27 2019):
compared to 2020 (Ooh – weather)
I wonder where the cold air to make all that extra snow in North America came from this year?
The fact that there is still ice at the North pole after nearly 200 years since the end of the Little Ice Age is the anomaly!
We have not had or reached a proper warm period!
A mute point! I am freezing to death with all this man made global warming… I want real global warming! 🙂
pardonmeforbreathing,
I agree and that is because “We have not had, nor reached a proper warm period!” recently.
As I pointed out to Griff a few days ago elsewhere, the residual heat from the Siberian heatwave – weather – has left the sea surface temperature anomalies nearby quite high, but they have now dropped sufficiently to freeze (everywhere but the Chukchi Sea area and close by), and that there would probably be record ice growth in the satellite record.
I see there are now signs it has indeed taken off like a rocket.
Antarctic sea ice (because it was creeping up in extent in the entire satellite record) never got a mention until it crashed in 2016, and now the extraordinary recovery is also ignored!
Indeed Antarctic thaw is very slow so far this season and on current trend rate is polar opposite of 2019 and no doubt this will be explained away as climate driven change as well!
Part of the problem may be that there too many “scientists” studying the same issue and even a scintilla of information can be transformed into a trend for a scientific paper and publicity – the old publish or perish.
An earlier post’s vanished without even a mod. warning, lost the will to retype, in brief:
Residual high sea surface temps. from Siberian heatwave, most of sea now cool enough to freeze, likely at a rapid rate in satellite record, appears to have started, why do they ignore Antarctica sea ice except for the dramatic 2016 decline – now recovered.
Here we go again, wettest ever pre-announcement, just a change of criteria.
https://www.expressandstar.com/news/uk-news/2020/10/27/londoners-could-be-experiencing-wettest-month-on-record-met-office/
Grim,
compose in a word processor & copy & paste it onto web, then you always have a record.
Yes could do, I just select what I wrote and ‘Ctrl C’ in case it doesn’t appear, forgot this time!
Earlier post has popped up now!
It was in the spam box for some reason!
The Guardian article references “following a record breaking heatwave ” which links to the Guardian’s website article on the heatwave. That Guardian article claims “The record-breaking heatwave in the Siberian Arctic was made at least 600 times more likely by human-caused climate change, according to a study.” and links to a study on a website called
http://www.worldweatherattribution.org
The linked study starts its introduction with the following statement:
“Since the beginning of 2020, anomalously high temperatures have repeatedly been reported in Siberia. For instance, on June 17, 2020, the Guardian reported that Russia as a whole had experienced record high temperatures in 2020, with the average from January to May being 5.3°C above the 1951-1980 average.”
Click to access WWA-Prolonged-heat-Siberia-2020.pdf
Extraordinary – self referencing but two steps removed!
In the report they analyse the station data for June from Verkoyhansk (Figure 6). Check it out – the data from 1926 on look incompletely fine, the only value which is extraordinary is…..June 2020. No possibility of data error then? No trend? No, it just SUDDENLY jumps 8 degC above the long term average! The obvious conclusion is bad data, but no – global warming.
Everything after that is gridded models, which makes it nonsense, including CMIP5 & 6. These are the “experiment”. They fit a completely unwarranted, insignificant “trend” to the station data (Figure 7) as compared to global average (seriously – I kid you not) and then derive “return periods” for the “event” (which still looks like a data recording problem, almost certainly bad data). They they look at climate model trends (actually from ERA5, a mix of model and data) and CMip5 climate models (33 of them – why not the full set of 39? After all this website is supported by KNMI).
Anyway, wave some nonsense statistics at it and hey presto – its man-made climate change wot dunnit, all based on one suspect data value and a nonsense of climate models.
The world weather attribution site seems to have close connections with the Guardian and the BBC, from the statement:
“Through extensive media engagement – including the Guardian, the Daily Mail, the Times, Scientific American, CBS, BBC and many more – WWA has helped to change the global conversation around climate change, influencing adaptation strategies and paving the way for new sustainability litigation.”
Those are clearly the gullible fools who believe this guff. Its not science, its snake oil.
Any thoughts of the N Hemisphere ozone hole’s influence this year? Of course it was a man-made one /sarc off
“…the likelihood of our first ‘ice-free’ summer will continue to increase by the mid-21st century…”
Note all the qualifiers, “likeliehood” “increase” “mid-21st century” etc etc.
Wasn’t it absolutely definitely certain to have occurred by now? Or are those statements “no longer operative”?
“no longer operative”
Correct. The DJT presidency and now Panic2020 have required a pause in ice melt and other things.
If Harris/Biden bring benign government to the USA and/or a highly effective virus vaccine is found, then Arctic Ocean floating ice can again take its rightful place in the headlines of the media.
The hard-Left Guardian lying by omission yet again. Imagine my surprise.
I suppose if your grant/salary conditions have anything to do with AGW/CC it wouldn’t do your tenure any good if you didn’t mention CC in your paper. And, because of the many qualifiers it’s likely that even if you are wrong in your conclusion you’re likely not going to be around to worry about any loss of income when it’s discovered. It’s no better than dodgy roofers knocking a few tiles off your roof and then telling you the whole thing needs reworking (and it won’t be long before they will claim CC as a reason to fix it).
Somebody should tell Jonathan Watts at the Grauniad that you cannot trap heat. Mind you, as a long time journalist at the Grauniad he has zero qualifications to cover the environment (he has been funded by Greenpeace) or any form of science. It is just more Grauniad fake news and propaganda.
Does Walt Meier use 1 million square kilometers ( 1 Wadhams ) as the “ice free” summer metric or does he actually mean ‘no ice’?
In 2007 ice dams (also called ice arches)
a recent mention of
. . . did not form, allowing much multi-year to ice escape to the south and warmer water. That is, it did not melt in place.
more than you want to read
All this makes me wonder if something similar happened in April 1912 – reference RMS Titanic.
In an effort to prepare for carbon fuel shortage and eyeing self reliance, the narrative has got completely out of hand. Being sympathetic to some understanding of future might see the effort as responsible. Yet, because it is covered in obfuscation and the contradiction of science it becomes rich ground for charlatans and litterateurs to romance about.
This is as much a moral dilemma as much as a technical issue. If we can come to a point whereby faith is turned against us and someone devises a God that has not got our best interest at heart then all that stuff on Commandments, the moral code of our lives, the rules by which we live, go out the window.
You do not have to be a practising Christian, Muslim, whatever, to see that if nature is turning against us then we are abandoned. If in times of huge stresses or in moments of frailty brought on by the human condition, you cannot look for help or consolation outside the help of faulted man, then nothing in life is believable or coherent.
From the Deccan Traps to Attenborough’s cuddly kittens there has always been purpose and assurance, lose that and life becomes too ephemeral to have any worth. We enter the Truman Show.
Oh ho! I notice a vocabulary change. A need for CO2 reductIon had become a need for SYSTEMATIC reductIon. Subtext – Greta Thunberg’s recent COVID industrial catastrophe has not affected Mauna Loa one whit. So we need more than that, we need SYSTEMATIC!
The Guardian daily touts 350ppm as the ‘safe’ level. But it creeps up everyday and will continue to do so! The horror, the horror.
‘Previous scares have not materialised’ – when they do all of your children and their children for the next x generations will be paying the price of your inaction. They will look at your generation in horror and confusion. You still have time to act, look with your eyes and see the what climate change is doing already. I beg of you.
Nameless, 17
Rest easy, Nameless. Nothing’s going to happen. I’m a scientist. You can trust me.
Nameless, if all action were founded on baseless emotional blackmail, we’d all be in a right mess. But resorting to such tactics reflects the weakness and politicization of the scientific evidence. It’s already demonstrable that the actions ‘greens’ demand are far worse for the natural world and mankind than the status quo.
When Greta and your ilk are retired and living in a world ruined by the greens, you’ll be blaming everyone else for not stopping you; it’s not fair, you were the adults, I was only a child, it was your responsibility, you allowed me to ruin the world and my life, how dare you.
Nameless,
If you are 17, couple of pieces of advice:
1. Go and learn some hard science and read the fundamental scientific papers with paelo data over the Quaternary period
2. Follow the motto Nullius in Verba – take no-one’s word for it. Don’t be swayed by political words like “consensus” or “97%”. Consensus is not science, its politics. Just because your teachers, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Guardian said it doesn’t mean its true.
I hope you have given up your smartphone, smart TV, anything that is made from fossil fuels and that you walk everywhere. Until you have do not try to lecture a generation that has lifted you out of the dark ages.
How many people will die because of this?
These stories never tell us why we should care. The extent of Arctic sea ice is esoterica.
*IS* really it a ‘late freeze’ or is it actually wind-driven compression?
“…wind compression…”
As explained hereunder, in a paper from ten years ago:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100427111449.htm
Easy sailing in early winter, on the Russian side of the Arctic Basin, is the “new normal” – at least, until the cycles in Arctic weather change again.
Not a lot of people know that thin ice holds together better than thick ice, in the sense that it is less disturbed by winds and waves. It heaves up and down, like a blanket, without cracking under gravitational stress. So a “late” freeze has little to do with the eventual maximum ice extent, or with the volume for that matter.
As we know, the propaganda machines which rule our Western World have hundreds of lies already written as “news items,” and merely wait for real, random, trivial events to cue them. These “influencers” can rely on the fact that they have already induced extreme fear in the naive half of the population; all that is needed is a little, reinforcing nudge, now and then.
In any case of junk science, preferably using one of the trigger phrases, “Scientists fear…” and “Scientists warn…”
The residual high sea temperatures from the summer heatwave in Siberia are by far the overwhelming factor this time, they have now widely dropped sufficient to freeze.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/ice_temp/index.uk.php
If you switch between ‘today’ and 14 days ago you can see how the ice free ocean goes from yellow/green to green and ice is now building out from the land on the Russian side as well as advancing from the central sea.
So long as the sun is shining in polar regions, its rays counter the process by which the upper few thousandths of an inch of water become super-cooled, by outgoing radiation.
It follows that as soon as the sun ‘disappears’ for the winter, nothing (not even a high air temperature) can stop the sea from quickly freezing over.
It is alarming but there is more to it than global warming. Please see:
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/10/28/arctic-warming-alarm-of-october-2020/
So 2018 was an expectional year compared to the declining 2016, 17, 19 and 2020. It will be interesting to see 2021, and if there is variations decade to decade over the longer term, with the current group of years lower than the average given in the last figure.
NSIDC’s MASIE (Multisensor Analyzed Sea Ice Extent) shows a marginal down trend in annual ice extent, but essentially it’s 15 years of stability after a rapid decline (which was before MASIE existed).
Thanks. I was not aware of that series so I can now dip in and out as needed. Agreed with your view.
Where are these warm temperatures in the Arctic?
https://apps.ecmwf.int/webapps/opencharts/products/w_sst?area=Arctic&base_time=202010280000&level=sst&valid_time=202010280000
The slow freezing this year might have allowed arctic ocean temperatures to fall further because the North Atlantic seems to be cooling down now.
Thanks Paul for clearing that up. That story – and I use that word advisedly – did the rounds of the daily newspapers in Britain and Ireland and a few of the Sunday additions also.
Can’t decide whether these constant fake and/or exaggerated climate alarm stories are motivated by ignorance or intellectual dishonesty or a combination of the two.
Sorry – should have typed “Sunday editions”.
Art Krugler – an observer living in LaLa Land – California, USA.
“Are you the only one in the world to see this?” So asked a PhD of me.
What have I seen a month ago? Has anyone reading this site seen this.
1 There are 16 “Hot spot areas” in the world. Each “Hot spot” is directly over a major deposit of Uranium Ore.
2 All hot spots but the Russian area have cooled considerably in the past 5 years.
3 The Russian area appears to be smaller in area but the center is hotter.
4 Sunspot activity is declining rapidly to levels observed during the recent mini-ice ages.
5 Low sunspot activity also occurred during each of the mini-ice ages.
What does all this mean?
1
Art Krugler – continuing – somehow I must have clicked on “send”; sorry.
What does all this mean?
1 The uranium ore contains enough uranium, UO2, to react and produce heat by fissioning.
2 Fissioning requires low velocity neutrons – look up nuclear reactors and power plants.
3 Sunspots can produce slow neutrons to activate the natural nuclear reactors.
4 The deposits in Russia are probably deeper than most and their heat takes more time to reach the surface or the Arctic Ocean shore. ( The article does not explain why Arctic Ice has not melted north of Canada which is under the same GHG blanket, or why doomed Polar Bears now number over 25,000 healthy bears )
No we need not fear Global Warming, we have entered an Ice age (100,000 years of cooling)
We do need to fear the consequences of 100% wind/solar when there are more cloudy and quiet weeks and no backup energy form hydrocarbons or nuclear. And no asphalt for roofs or roads.
I published a book two years ago “Polar Bears in the Hot Tub” explaining the rise in CO2 and how CO2 has nothing to do with warming but before I learned of the “Natural Nuclear Reactors”.
Thanks for your attention.
Art Krugler – Professional Chemical and Mechanical Engineer
More about the late freeze
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/10/28/arctic-warming-alarm-of-october-2020/