North pole to melt this year?

another new high today...very strange indeed. it is basically now in a statistical dead heat with 2003, but 2003 still has the slight edge by 40,000 kilometers (which is only a small percentage of 14,000.000 kilometers). but the far more interesting fact is that this is by far the latest winter high we have on record. not sure what to make of that fact and the melt off will no doubt start soon and be steep.....but in the mean time, it is starting at a fairly high level.
 
when the ice extent was steadily declining it's all some on here wanted to discuss, but now that it is growing a bit (could be temporary i know) they have discovered "thickness." now i am a very logical person......so i agree that thickness is a much better indicator in terms of total ice, but the problem is that we just don't have much data. that's why whenever i ask for it, the reports are sort of isolated reports from a while back. the extent is fairly easy to keep up with due to the satellites.

by the way....we are basically remaining in a dead heat (no pun intended) with 2003, the largest extent of the 9 years we have on record.

ice extent

of course this year may come crashing down and we might hit a new low. march tells us very little about september....should be interesting.
 
having said that...it is hard not to think that at the current trajectory this year is going to surpass 2003 for the most ice at this time of year. 2003 begins to drop VERY rapidly from April 2-11 when it drops below 14,000,000.
 
I don't think I posted on this thread until maybe the last 10 or so pages (although I don't really remember and there is no way I am going back and looking).

Here is my problem with what you are trying to do (or at least with what I think you are trying to do). The comparison between ice minimum and ice maximum is actually somewhat of an apples to oranges comparison because of the companion issue of ice age and thickness. Unless you include this issue, the comparison is misleading because new and thin ice just melts quickly in the summer. This is why the arctic scientists tend to look at the entire issue or just comapre minimums. The arctic is still going to freeze in the winter even when it is ice free in the summer. Ice forms at a comparatively mild temperature for the arctic in winter.

And then there is your insistance in only comparing the last ten years. I do not get this one at all. This is extremely misleading. It is the same sort of "trick" that deniers tried to play with the 1998 El Nino high. We have decades of good or relatively good data. This should be the time frame for comparison not some artificially short time frame particularly if you are going to exclude the age and thickness issues.

And all of this ignores the key issue in my mind. The long term trend is what is truly important. The short term trend needs to be tracked, but you might be harping on noise (ie weather not climate).
 
you are finding far too many false motives in this entire deal. i agree with you that minimums are more important....but if the ice is still extending in late March...it is reasonable to think it may be thickening. regardless, we will know far more in September (something i just said i a recent post right?). at any rate, i don't disagree with you

as for the 10 years question, it is because IJIS only has 10 years of record. i also regularly look at this:

arctic.atmos

that goes back to 1979. the truth is we just don't have any good records before that. the IJIS graph is one of the accepted standards for this entire question, so showing it is not a big deal. in fact, it sort of works against me because the last 10 years is when the ice started dramatically decreasing until the past 2 years.
 
so as suspected 2010 just moved into the number 1 position for most ice on April 2nd by passing 2003's high mark. at this point 2003 began to drop VERY quickly but with 2010 just rounding the top of a mountain it could pick up speed fairly quickly too...no doubt it will in time, but it will be interesting to see how long it takes to drop back below 2003....which will no doubt happen. i am interested to see if it can make gains on last years low mark in september....we have gained about a million square kilometers compared to 2007's low mark.
 
with Paso's points duly noted and acknowledged....i just want to comment that with 2010 moving into "1st place" from the last 8-9 years of data) it is now 1,000,000 square kilometers ahead of the lowest year on record for this time of year. that year was, oddly enough, 2006. once again, the FAR more interesting data is at the end of the melt season...but as i have said for the past 2 years (which ended progressively higher from 2007), 3 years of a dramatic rise in ice will be quite interesting indeed. of course, this year could turn into a scorcher (so to speak) in the arctic and we could see more melt-off than in 2007. just like to keep you kind people up to date:

IJIS

NSIDC is interesting too:

NSIDC

for the longer term picture (which shows how far we have to go):

arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png

all in all, i fully expect this year to begin crossing back through past years in time and i am fully confident that this summer's low will be no higher than 4th or 5th lowest (and possibly as low as #1, 2 or 3 lowest ice extent)....it is still quite fascinating.
 
I appreciate the semi-continual updates to this thread over the months/years. It is an interesting topic to keep track of and watch some who try and remain objective by admitting weakness and strength while others just attack and generalize.(mostly)

Please continue. No matter what the outcome it is good to see the topic discussed in my opinion.
 
actually hornpharmd....that graph makes it look like the ice only had slowly declined until around 2001. from 1979 to 2000 it looked like it only went down about 1,000,000 square kilometers, which seems rather small in terms of decline when we are talking about 16,000,000 square kilometers. when you consider that El Nino's and other PDO's seem to go in 60 year cycles (30 years negative and 30 years positive) that seems well within expected variation. am i missing something?
 
for the record....what would you expect of the earth in terms of something like this? stasis? when has the earth, in 4 billion years of history, ever expressed stasis? is a 10% change in ice over 30 years really a big deal? in light of the fact that the Antarctic was growing during that same time, is it a big deal that the Arctic (which is a small fraction of the earth's ice compared to the Antarctic) lost 10% of its ice in 30 years of time?
 
don't want to make too much of this, but man is 2010 shaping up fairly well before the fall. it is now the highest on the IJIC record and according to the NSIDC it is the latest peak and latest spring on record going back to 1979 (that's only on the NSIDC because the IJIS only goes back 9 years).

Ice Extent
 
yeah..it is interesting to see that the IJIS shows this March being higher than the past8 or 9 marches (with the exception of 2003) but your graph shows it slightly different. of course different organizations work of different data so nothing fishy going on or anything.

at any rate, it is way too early to say, but we may yet see more recovery from the past 3 years of meltoff.
 
another interesting day today...the ice actually increased from yesterday...which is quite unusual for this particular time of the year. not sure what is happening up there in the Arctic, but this is getting interesting indeed. this just separates the distance between #1(2010) and #2 (2003) for this time of year. all former disclaimers in tact of course!
 
so after a week and a half or so, 2010 finally dipped into 2nd place last night...it is now just a hair's breadth less ice than 2003 on the same day.
 
well....2010, after dipping below 2003 for one day has pulled back into 1st place for ice extent for the past 4 or 5 days i believe.
 
for now 2010 is still ahead of all other years. it is about 140,000 square kilometers ahead of 2003 and about 130,000 square kilometers ahead of 2009. i really do fully expect it to drop to the middle of the pack or below soon...but i must say this is a bit surprising how long it is taking. if it goes like last year, i suppose it could end the year back into the middle of the pack, whereas 2007 was the lowest, 2008 was the next lowest and 2009 was the 3rd lowest but approaching the other years. with a similar recovery we have seen over the past 2 seasons, we could see 2010 move into the average of the past decade (which is still below the 30 year average of course).
 
or in recorded history

the only reason it is since 1880 is that is as far back as the records go

___________________________________

btw this year is a good example of why "global" temperatures are what you follow because my general impression is that the winter and spring are cooler than normal or at least cooler than the last ten years or so
 
sure guys...but this thread is primarily about the North Pole and Arctic Sea Ice. Supposedly the 2 are linked yet the Ice has recovered a bit since 2007's low. The fact that March was so warm only makes it more interesting and illustrates that we are in a dynamic system and that things are related in ways that are difficult to understand.
 
wrong mcbrett...they don't seem to understand it very well at all. in fact, the predictions they make even 12 months out routinely to be wrong. last summer there were 16 teams of ice modelers who predicted what last year's summer melt off would be. All but one was lower than the reality. 3 were reasonably close and the rest were well over 200,000 square kilometers below with the "most wrong" being about 1,250,000 square kilometers.

that was only 2 MONTHS before the low point came. so with tons of information and what you think is a good understanding of the systems involved only 3 were close and 13 were off, most being VERY off.....

this happens constantly and yet you believe that most have a good idea of what's going off? based upon what?
 
so the fact that they regularly get it VERY wrong shouldn't affect our opinions or assessments on how well they understand it? if i tell you that gravity means things should fall sideways, should you question my understanding of gravity when we observe my prediction not taking place?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Weekly Prediction Contest

* Predict HORNS-AGGIES *
Sat, Nov 30 • 6:30 PM on ABC

Recent Threads

Prediction Results Threads

2024 Schedules

Back
Top