Arctic ice melts quickly through July

[Barrett808]

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2009/080409.html

[NecklyTyler]

1. This year the ice area will fall below the 2007 levels

We will have an ice free Arctic for a couple of week by 2012 and it will regularly become ice free there after.

[The Croquist]

2. We had the same predictions for 2008

Didn't happen then and it won't happen this year.

Define an "ice free Arctic". There is a reason why Robert Peary left for the North Pole in March of 1909 when there's barely any sunlight and claimed to have reached it on April 7th instead of traveling in July. That's when there is still a lot of ice to walk on up there.

[Barrett808]

5. What matters is the long-term trend, and the trend is strongly negative

Croq, we're profoundly altering Earth's atmospheric and ocean chemistry, and at a rate that's orders of magnitude faster than at any time in geological history. Why wouldn't this have profound effects on Earth's energy balance, as well as its biogeochemical cycles?

[The Croquist]

8. I agree that we are altering both the atmosphere and oceans

and I agree that is not good but I'm not sure that it is profound. I would prefer not to do either but the fact is that we are and we will continue to do it for at least decades. I don't say that because I am a skeptic but because I am a realist. The world isn't going to change overnight. During WWII Germany averaged something like a million horses at any given time for their army. This from the country that invented "Blitzkrieg". Like I said the world doesn't change overnight.

I won't argue about ocean acidification. I think that's a bigger problem then atmospheric CO2 and yes I realize that CO2 is part of the problem there as well.

What I question is how much of the current warming is due to man. I also question if a small increase in temperature is significant. We don't know what past temperatures and CO2 levels were. In just 30 years of satellite history we have seen the earth's temperature vary by 0.772 C. from 1984 (-0.258 anomaly)to 1998 (+0.514 anomaly). To think that it never varied by a couple of degrees over a period of centuries or millennium is crazy. We know that 1816 was cold as hell. Exactly how cold we don't know since there were no accurate measurements back then but we do know that lakes had ice in them in Pennsylvania that June. By the way, people the world over died of famine. This wasn't caused by man but by the eruption of Mount Tambora. Nature happens.

We know that 20,000 years ago or so there was a mile or 2 of ice sitting on top on Pittsburgh, the Great lakes and Long Island didn't exist and that it wasn't caused by man. Since the ice started melting sea level has averaged a 2 foot per century increase. Currently we are experiencing a sea level increase of about a 1 foot per century but somehow that is considered unprecedented.

Currently CO2 makes up .000365 of the atmosphere up from an estimate of .000280 from a couple of hundred years ago. That still makes up a small part of the atmosphere. If it was Arsenic I'd worry more but CO2 is an essential nutrient for plants. Without CO2 the plants would die and in all likelihood the NFL would have to cancel the fall season. What's football without peanuts, hops, grain and malt? Like I said, I like plants. I had carrots, onions and potatoes in the plant fed pork pot roast I had for dinner last night. Tonight I'm eating left over plants and plant fed pork pot roast.

All kidding aside, I don't know that we're not screwing the planet royally by CO2. I don't think so but I think that CO2 is way down the list. Let's start with population control, provide people with clean water and educate them. Somewhere in a hell hole is someone who could have been the next Einstein or Newton but is too busy fighting off dysentery because the village sewer is two hundred yards up stream from his/her home. That and they never heard the word science. It's too late for that person. Maybe we can save the next one.

While we're at it lets clean up other pollutants. We can turn this planet into a paradise but not without CO2 emissions as the engine at least for a while.

[Barrett808]

9. CO2 is indeed a trace gas, but the anthropogenic excursion will last for upward of 200 years

We've dumped over 500 gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere in about 150 years; there is no precedent in the geological record for such a gigantic excursion in the global carbgon budget over such a short time. The closest analogs are the flood basalt events, each of which dumped about 1 year's worth of human carbon emissions (~8 gigatons) into the atmosphere over a period of tens of thousands of years. The results were mass extinctions. The CO2 we've emitted will reside in the atmosphere for a century or two; longer if we wreck the natural carbon sinks, like forests and oceans.

Why wouldn't our actions result in the mother of all mass extinction events?

[The Croquist]

10. 500 gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere in about 150 years

That sounds like a lot but the bottom line is it's increased the CO2 in the atmosphere from .000280 to .000365. That puts it in perspective. Increasing CO2 in the atmosphere by itself will not cause significant warming by what the IPCC predicts. It is the feedback mechanisms (mostly H2O) that are required. The question is whether the feedbacks are positive or negative. Since the earth hasn't become either a snowball or a furnace in hundreds of million years I suspect that the feedbacks are negative. Somehow the earth, without man's help, got itself into ice ages and back out many times. I'm not even sure we're not still in an ice age. Currently a significant chunk of the planet is covered by ice. Certainly not as much as 20,000 years ago but the last time I looked at Antarctica it was pretty white.

[Barrett808]

11. It is a lot: 37% above the highest levels of the last several million years

And headed upward to levels that haven't been seen for many millions of years.

And, critically: Much more rapidly than at any time in Earth's history.

You also claim: "Increasing CO2 in the atmosphere by itself will not cause significant warming by what the IPCC predicts."

Croquist, you and I have been here before. Please study some radiation physics before you make claims like this. Free online book here: Principles of Planetary Climate (http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/ClimateBook/ClimateBook.html). Check out section 1.12 on page 59 for a friendly intro; look at section 3.3 on page 113 for an introductory, rigorous analysis of radiation balance; for realistic physics, see secton 4.7, "Pure radiative equilibrium for real gas atmospheres", page 245.

It will be well worth your time to learn this stuff. Then you'll be able to distinguish science from nonsense.

[The Croquist]

16. An Apology Barrett808

I stand by what I said but I'm packing for a trip and won't be back for 10 plus days. I read parts of what you recommended but really didn't see anything that addressed my point. My point is that after a certain point there is little to no IR radiation for CO2 to absorb in the wavelengths that it absorbs. Maybe it is in the paper you provided but that was something like 500 pages and I just don't have time to look at it further.

Question:
Without feedbacks (positive or negative) how much do you think a doubling of CO2 from pre-industrial levels from about 280 ppm (?) to 560 would cause?

Next time I post please remind me that I owe you this one.

[Barrett808]

17. No apology necessary, Croq

It's a good question. I'm too lazy to do the calculation right now, but I think we would get a good answer by following Barton's recipe:

How to Estimate Planetary Temperatures
http://bartonpaullevenson.com/NewPlanetTemps.html

Fortunately, he's collected a range of estimates for us:

Estimates of Climate Sensitivity
http://bartonpaullevenson.com/ClimateSensitivity.html

[backwoodsbob]

13. actually if you look towards the graph

we are trending towards MORE ice...at the end it is trending upwards towards norm

[NecklyTyler]

12. Description of what constitutes an "ice free Arctic"

Ice free Arctic:

1. The region above 80 degrees latitude contains less than 15% contagious ice pack by surface area.

2. Satellite images show an unobstructed path from the Chukchi Sea to the Greenland Sea with water access to the North Pole from either side.

3. The above conditions are observed for more than 24 hours.

I can no longer find the link to the above description, so I must have read it in a blog.

Flame away, it wouldn't be the first time I’ve been hammered for my views on Anthropogenic Global Warming.

[The Croquist]

14. I have no interest in flaming

On the contrary I'm glad that you gave a detailed response.

I've done some math (hopefully I'm close) and I think that from 80-90 degrees North there are about 3,896,100 sq km.

Part one of your definition sounds like right out of the NSIDC playbook:
These images, derived from passive microwave satellite data, depict the most recent daily sea ice conditions. Extent images show the total area of ocean covered with at least 15% ice. Concentration images show varying degrees of ice coverage, from 15 to 100%. Monthly images are more indicative of trends than daily images. I think that means we can use their numbers but with some reservations. For example they include areas south of 80 degrees and looking at the daily picture some of the current ice is far south of 80 degrees. Take a look at Hudson Bay for example.

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/

Looking at Mapquest:
http://europe.mapquest.com/atlas/
it looks like only a small part of that region (Greenland) is land.

I'm not sure I understand the daily map at the first link. The dark gray area on the map I think is "no data". Do you agree?

Finally are you saying that the entire Arctic region above 80 degrees will have less than 15% contagious ice pack by surface area? Honestly I just don't see it. Even if I am dead wrong I can't imagine that by 2012 this will happen.

The least monthly average (I know you mentioned daily) is 09/2007 with 4,300,00 sq km. 4.3 million is close to it already but I can't call that ice free. Zero is ice free.

[NecklyTyler]

15. I am watching the trends, and the trend is for less ice coverage each year

The mechanism at work is the area of second year ice is decreasing each year. The first year ice is of less volume than multi year ice and therefore has less capacity to sink heat. Second, the first year ice is more apt to be fractured into pieces and carried into the Atlantic by currents and the winds.

The record low ice area of 2007 is an indication of this. It does not matter how cold it gets in the winter if the ice is too weak to prevent the wind from blowing it out of the Arctic. The ever reducing volume of multi year ice cannot retain the first year ice in the Arctic Ocean, and open water becomes more extensive each season. Once a low volume ice has been reached, recovery of the ice pack becomes difficult, even if the average winter temperatures go down.

[joshcryer]

18. Nah, we're experiencing La Niña, next year El Niño will rear it's head.

We'll certainly have lower concentrations than 2007 (which coincided with the last El Niño).

[hatrack]

3. The return of weather similar to 2007 is significant as well

Figure 4. The map of sea level pressure (in millibars) from July 1 to 31, 2009 shows a strong high-pressure cell over the Beaufort Sea. In 2007, a similar high-pressure cell, combined with unusually low pressure over eastern Siberia, contributed to the record melt.

Weather patterns bring clear skies, warmth

The atmospheric circulation pattern for summer 2009 has been similar to the pattern in summer 2007. As in 2007, an unusually strong high-pressure cell (an anticyclone) settled over the Beaufort Sea, bringing warm air into the Chukchi Sea. This year, the Beaufort Sea anticyclone, averaged for June and July 2009, was even stronger than the anticyclone in 2007. However, unlike 2007, this year the Beaufort Sea high-pressure cell is not paired with unusually low pressure over eastern Siberia, the “dipole" pattern that in 2007 promoted strong surface winds and extreme melt.

The strong Beaufort Sea high-pressure cell that occurred both this summer and in 2007 is part of a larger scale atmospheric pattern known as the Pacific North American (PNA) “teleconnection.” The airflow in the western hemisphere is usually characterized by a low pressure trough over the North Pacific, a ridge over western North America, and a trough over eastern North America. The PNA describes the strength of this pattern. When the PNA is positive, the normal pattern is amplified and the airflow becomes more “wavy” than usual. While the expressions of the PNA vary by season, the strong western North American ridge during the positive PNA favors a strong Beaufort Sea high pressure system. The stronger than usual trough over eastern North America also helps to explain

the cool and rainy weather that has gripped this area much of the summer.

[hatrack]

4. Interesting shift in ice cover N. of Beaufort, Chukchi Seas in last few days

Substantial melt in those two big green wedge-shaped areas at roughly 11:00 and 1:0o on this chart, just in the course of the past week.

[OnlinePoker]

6. Wedges

I looked at an image from the same date last year on Cryosphere and there's a lot more ice in the Beaufort this year than last. The wedge at 11:00 above is less than there was last year. Most of the unusual melt this year is on the Russian side of the arctic. Looks like it's almost clear sailing all the way to Asia there.

[hatrack]

7. Yeah, really thin in the E. Siberian Sea - NE Passage may open before NW Passage this year . . .

nt