Unprecedented 2012 Summer arctic ice melt

[AndyH]

Full Screen, if you please!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmfcJP_0eMc[/youtube]

 

[DaveEV]

The latest arctic ice extent chart is well below the 2007 record now.

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

How low will it go? Will it reach 3M sq/km? With another ~2 weeks of melting it sure looks possible in my totally non-expert guess.

 

[Zythryn]

Full Screen, if you please!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmfcJP_0eMc[/youtube]

Thank you Andy, that is so damn funny, and sad at the same time.

 

[evnow]

Of course, unprecedented as in since someone started keeping track.

There was no ice cover at all in the northern hemisphere a few million years back.

Anyone who said "people" are trying to take us back to the stone age chose the wrong age - "people" are trying to take us back to the age of dinosaurs.

 

[mitch672]

I recently came back from a cruise to Alaska, which toured "Glacier National Park" (3.3 million acres of protected area). The ship was within 1/2 mile of the "Marjorie Glacier", it was "calving" (large pieces the size of 18 wheel trucks) breaking away from it, into the ocean every few minutes. The crew onboard said they've never seen it so active... I suggest you get up to Alaska to see the great glaciers, before their all gone.

 

[WetEV]

There are twelve major Arctic sea ice sets that I know of. All twelve are currently showing record low sea ice. The last to do so is a navigation based record sea ice, the IMS. Remember that there are area based (if 20% of pixel is ice, add 0.2*pixel area to total ice area), extent based (if pixel is more than threshold, add pixel area to total ice area) and volume based data sets. This data set is navigation oriented, mostly for ships that operate in the Arctic ocean, and is an extent based data set with a very low threshold (if there any chance there is any ice at all in pixel, add pixel to sea ice area).

http://www.natice.noaa.gov/ims/images/ims_data.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Melt might be ending soon, or might continue for a few more weeks.

 

[smkettner]

Of course, unprecedented as in since someone started keeping track.

There was no ice cover at all in the northern hemisphere a few million years back.

Anyone who said "people" are trying to take us back to the stone age chose the wrong age - "people" are trying to take us back to the age of dinosaurs.

I read it may have been this warm just 1500 years ago.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

here is a pix taken first week of August of this year. the pix should make it obvious what "used" to be on the mountain

 

[Stoaty]

I read it may have been this warm just 1500 years ago.

I hope you aren't serious. If so, here is that argument debunked:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/medieval-warm-period.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[smkettner]

Sorry I mis read it. Not temperature but lack of ice.

Earth's icy skull cap, floating atop the Arctic Ocean, has reached its lowest summer extent since satellites first began keep in track in 1979, and by some estimates its lowest reach in nearly 1,500 years.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2012/0908/Arctic-sea-ice-falls-to-record-low.-Global-warming

 

[WetEV]

I read it may have been this warm just 1500 years ago.

Probably not. There were ice shelfs in the Arctic, and some were much older than this. Ward Hunt ice shelf was one, and was at least 3000 years old, when it collapsed in 2003. Any sustained temperature near current levels would have collapsed it.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/09/030923065136.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


There is some evidence that the Arctic was seasonally sea ice free at least occasionally at the peak of the current interglacial period, roughly 7000 years ago. We are a few years to at most a few decades away from warm enough for that. The previous interglacial period was even warmer.

 

[edatoakrun]

Arctic sea ice has reached its lowest ever recorded extent, in 'dramatic changes', which signal that man-made global warming is having a major impact on the polar region. Drag the slider across the map (link below) to see how the ice has shrunk between 1979 and 2012:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/interactive/2012/sep/14/arctic-sea-ice-before-after-interactive" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

looks likely that the minimum will be called sometime next week:

...Satellite images show that the rapid summer melt has reduced the area of frozen sea to less than 3.5 million square kilometres this week – less than half the area typically occupied four decades ago.

Arctic sea ice cover has been shrinking since the 1970s when it averaged around 8m sq km a year, but such a dramatic collapse in ice cover in one year is highly unusual.

A record low in 2007 of 4.17m sq km was broken on 27 August 2012; further melting has since amounted to more than 500,000 sq km.

The record, which is based on a five-day average, is expected to be officially declared in the next few days by the National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado. The NSIDC's data shows the sea ice extent is bumping along the bottom, with a new low of 3.421m sq km on Tuesday, which rose very slightly to 3.429m sq km on Wednesday and 3.45m sq km on Thursday...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/sep/14/arctic-sea-ice-smallest-extent" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

although our area has not really made any weather news due to the overwhelming attention paid to the rest of the country, we are having a Summer as well. we ended our record dry spell (48 days) with .02 inches of rain last week. have not had a drop since so we could be a few days short of 2 months without rain were it not for that sprinkle.

we were not short on water so no droughts, crop losses or any of that to report but still significant for us. we dont get a lot of rain in Summer but like i said, it was a record

 

[edatoakrun]

What do you want to bet that the same denialists that have bought us to the brink of "global disaster" by preventing all reasonable efforts to curb GHG emissions, will be the first to panic and demand large scale (and very profitable, to some, no doubt) geoengineering programs, to attempt to ameliorate the global disaster they have done so much to bring about?

One of the world's leading ice experts has predicted the final collapse of Arctic sea ice in summer months within four years.[/color]
In what he calls a "global disaster" now unfolding in northern latitudes as the sea area that freezes and melts each year shrinks to its lowest extent ever recorded, Prof Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University calls for "urgent" consideration of new ideas to reduce global temperatures.

In an email to the Guardian he says: "Climate change is no longer something we can aim to do something about in a few decades' time, and that we must not only urgently reduce CO2 emissions but must urgently examine other ways of slowing global warming, such as the various geoengineering ideas that have been put forward."

These include reflecting the sun's rays back into space, making clouds whiter and seeding the ocean with minerals to absorb more CO2.
Wadhams has spent many years collecting ice thickness data from submarines passing below the arctic ocean. He predicted the imminent break-up of sea ice in summer months in 2007, when the previous lowest extent of 4.17 million square kilometres was set. This year, it has unexpectedly plunged a further 500,000 sq km to less than 3.5m sq km. "I have been predicting [the collapse of sea ice in summer months] for many years. The main cause is simply global warming: as the climate has warmed there has been less ice growth during the winter and more ice melt during the summer.

"At first this didn't [get] noticed; the summer ice limits slowly shrank back, at a rate which suggested that the ice would last another 50 years or so. But in the end the summer melt overtook the winter growth such that the entire ice sheet melts or breaks up during the summer months.

"This collapse, I predicted would occur in 2015-16 at which time the summer Arctic (August to September) would become ice-free. The final collapse towards that state is now happening and will probably be complete by those dates"...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/sep/17/arctic-collapse-sea-ice" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[AndyH]

BOULDER, Colorado—Arctic sea ice cover likely melted to its minimum extent for the year on September 16, according to scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). Sea ice extent fell to 3.41 million square kilometers (1.32 million square miles), now the lowest summer minimum extent in the satellite record.

“We are now in uncharted territory,” said NSIDC Director Mark Serreze. “While we’ve long known that as the planet warms up, changes would be seen first and be most pronounced in the Arctic, few of us were prepared for how rapidly the changes would actually occur.”

http://nsidc.org/news/press/2012_seaiceminimum.html

 

[edatoakrun]

Sorry if this was posted earlier, but the future trend report (written last month) linked below was new to me this AM:

...In conclusion, it looks like there will be no sea ice from August 2015 through to October 2015, while a further three months look set to reach zero in 2017, 2018 and 2019 (respectively July, November and June). Before the start of the year 2020, in other words, there will be zero sea ice for the six months from June through to November...

http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2012/09/piomas-data-confirm-exponential-trend.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[WetEV]

Sorry if this was posted earlier, but the future trend report (written last month) linked below was new to me this AM:

...In conclusion, it looks like there will be no sea ice from August 2015 through to October 2015, while a further three months look set to reach zero in 2017, 2018 and 2019 (respectively July, November and June). Before the start of the year 2020, in other words, there will be zero sea ice for the six months from June through to November...

http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2012/09/piomas-data-confirm-exponential-trend.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Sorry, but I don't think that a simple curve fitting provides much information. Too much year to year variation. While it is clearly possible for sea ice to be gone in 2015 or even 2013, I'd bet against it. 2020 or so is probably an even odds bet.

 

[WetEV]

Who cares about sea ice, anyway? Unless you hunt seals or polar bears for a living in the Arctic, and how many people do that?

Oh. The Arctic isn't Vegas. What happens in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vd7sAQWQzso&feature=player_embedded" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[Herm]

What do you want to bet that the same denialists that have bought us to the brink of "global disaster" by preventing all reasonable efforts to curb GHG emissions, will be the first to panic and demand large scale (and very profitable, to some, no doubt) geoengineering programs, to attempt to ameliorate the global disaster they have done so much to bring about?

While you cry into your plastic keyboard someone is doing something, with criticism from scientists afraid of losing their meal ticket:

http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/entrepreneur-seeds-ocean-with-100-tons-of-iron-dust-outrages-scientists-121023?news=846024" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Russ George was anointed the world’s first geo-vigilante in The New Yorker this week for dumping 100 tons of iron sulfate off the coast of British Columbia in July, triggering a 10,000-square-kilometer plankton bloom that the California businessman hoped would pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and take it to the Pacific Ocean’s depths.

George’s plan is to use geoengineering to heal the planet and fight global warming, while creating lucrative carbon credits to trade in burgeoning international markets.

A Montreal watchdog, etc Group, revealed George’s ocean seeding earlier in the month and The Guardian gave it its first publicity, while noting an uproar from “lawyers, environmentalists and civil society groups.” They called it a violation of at least two international laws.

George told The Guardian that his team of scientists had collected a mother lode of data and, without revealing any of it, assured them that the experiment had been a success. “We've gathered data targeting all the possible fears that have been raised [about ocean fertilization],” George said. “And the news is good news, all around, for the planet.”

 

[AndyH]

... What happens in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic.

Nope. Sure doesn't.


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-G6Z2xDuM4[/youtube]