North pole to melt this year?

Back to the purpose of this thread: Northern Hemishpere Sea Ice (with an emphasis on the North Pole). Currently, the sea ice in the north pole is at a low for this time of year. If the PIPS is to be trusted, we should see the graph line begin to cut through previous years back into a modest place. The next 2 months should be quite interesting indeed.
 
so 2011 arctic sea ice is trending below 2007 for the lowest to date in the 15% concentration graph. On the 30% concentration graph is just went above 2007 but is still below all other years.
 
this is going on for a long time….soon we will reach the date when the original article softly predicted we "may" be ice free…...
 
paso, that was me of course! i am an eternal optimist about the ice aren't i? of course, i will remind you that the melt season is about half over now and we have by far the most interesting part of the season ahead of us. the real test of ice thickness is only just now coming. the ice has melted ahead of schedule, but keep in mind this is ice that has melted as far back as we have been watching (in terms of extent). utlimately, in the long term it is the thickness that holds out so these last 2 months will get interesting. in that vein, the 30% concentration graph has now crossed over 2007 and the 15% concentration graph has turned towards 2007 and began to close the gap. this could be a new "lowest year on record" but i wouldn't bet on it (of course from the other side, i wouldn't bet against it either!). let's give it another 8 weeks and see what comes of this year.

IJIS 15% graph

DMI 30% graph
 
not sure how much weight to attribute to PIPS (Polar Ice Projection System 2.0), but it is basically the Navy's system so I am sure they have to rely on its accuracy for practical things. it is fascinating to go to the "thickness archive" and then pull up July 20, 2011. then you can "edit" just the year and go back one year at a time. you will find that the thickness since 2008 has steadily increased. strangely, 2007 had MORE thickness than the last 3 years, but i think that had a big part to do with why it was such a low ice extent year. at any rate, we are in a far better thickness level than last year and the year before at this same time. should be interesting to see how this progresses over time. clearly, based upon 2007, merely having a big chunk of thicker ice doesn't mean the ice area extent will be bigger, but the volume may be growing nonetheless (and of course i am only referring to the past few years not making a midterm historical statement about our 30 years of solid data).
 
lindzenarctic2.jpg


pirate.gif
 
wow paso! so are we going to run out of arctic ice completely next year or the year following?

; )

seriously though, that's PIOMAS, which is fine I suppose, but it is controversial to say the least. Here is a different perspective on it as explored by Watts.

If PIOMAS is right, then PIPS is VERY wrong and vice versa.

Watts on PIOMAS
 
Paso, it would be nice to know the scale on that first graph. The downward trend could be catostrophic or insignifcant as far as it shows.
 
Weren't we told in the most alarmist tones possible that the Arctic ice cap was going to melt completely by 2008 or 2009? Whatever happened to the people who were spreading that unreliable, alarmist rhetoric?
 
paso, actually sea level rise seems to be the exact opposite of your claims. the latest studies out this year say that the sea level rise has slowed not increased in its rate. but i agree that the arctic is ahead of those earliest IPCC projections (FAR etc.). a few years ago though you will remember that scientists were starting to talk about the possibility of the Arctic melting far far earlier. still, most claims still are for 20 to 50 years out which seems reasonable at the current rates we have observed.

where skeptics like me question those projections is based upon the fact that we only have good data going back to 1979 and we have plenty of reason to believe that the Arctic has cycled to low ice extents and then high ice extents. we have pictures of submarines in the 40's coming up at the north pole with no ice. we have reports from all through the first 50 years of last century of low ice extents.

i think we need 60 years of data to have a better idea of what is going to happen. the PDO shifted positive right before the satellites went online so it is no surprise that during 30 years of a positive PDO we saw a great deal of melting. the true test begins now as the PDO has shifted negative. will we see the arctic recover over the next few decades or not?
 
Look at the the sea level projections from the 1990 IPPC and then look at the actuals. The 1990 IPCC was low. Sea level rise is not slowing either.

Do you not understand that if we wait 50 years before doing anything that it will be too late to stop a 3-4 degree C rise?
 
paso, have you ever looked at what we need to do to stop a 3-4 degree Celsius rise in temperature? have you seen it quantified and then put in terms of dollars? if so, i would love for you to present that in this thread. i think you will find it VERY interesting. needless to say, i am granting all of the alarmism you want. my point here is not to debate the science behind the claims, just to grant the science and the claims and then look at what it would cost to address it.

oh, and PLEASE avoid the "we have to do something" meme that gets so old on here and elsewhere. if "something" means spending untold trillions and getting almost nothing, then we almost certainly not only don't have to do something, we should NOT do something. so if you don't mind, get back to us with a look at how much we need to reduce CO2 globally and how much that would cost the world. i think that would be a VERY worthwhile discussion as it directly speaks to what is a reasonable response to AGW granting its overall integrity as a theory.
 
sea level rise is most certainly slowing according to the latest studies and satellite data Paso. but regardless of that fact, the rate is basically what it has been for 150 years. this certainly doesn't fit with what we would expect from all the warming which both expands the water and melts the ice. frankly, sea level rise is not something that you should be referencing to make your point, because it most certainly does not. even the wikipedia page (which we know is heavily slanted towards the AGW orthodoxy) agrees with my claims, while being sure to assure us of a future increase in the rate:

wikipedia on sea level rise



In reply to:
Click to expand...
 
so paso, you choose to join the now vast number of people i have asked to quantify that cost of reducing CO2 enough to make a difference by only slightly changing the meme or rather swapping it with one that is equally as common a reponse:

"the costs of doing nothing will wind up being far more than the costs of doing something"

???

come on paso, i implore you, give us some numbers. what is holding you back? make your argument here with clear figures based on the latest statistics. or are numbers so hard to find? can you tell us what it would take to reduce the predicted warming by 2 degrees Celsius by 2100?
 
Paso, I like how you keep correcting Mop but then he just asks another question, often times which has already been answered. Then instead of admitting his error, he often glosses over it by saying something like "well, okay then since that is true, it is probably b/c of this...." with no scientific backing of his point of view. We must be in a cycle and it must b/c of this and don't worry b/c next winter it will all refreeze or my analysis of weather patterns makes me think that next year will be colder b/c of this....blah, blah, blah. Junk science from a non scientist. Only thing that interests me is statements from actual scientists that are peer reviewed and supported by the scientific community.

For those interested in what the ice cap is doing this year, it is currently tracking below the 2007 extent which had the lowest September minimum for the satellite tracking period.

www.nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20110718_Figure2.png

Older thicker ice is slowly eroding year after year and unfortunately it just isn't reforming. That is why more and more ice is melting off each year and the extent continues to go down.
 
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