Arctic sea ice set to hit record low

Back to the topic sea ice melt doesnt raise sea level.
Off topic ,So what about the study at #37 ?
Its current and between the 2 I posted cover over 40 years of ,more than a hundred studies ,from all over the globe.
Are you still skeptical of being skeptical?

 

If you mean ghg from humans being the reason sea levels rise, well we do have all the paleo data. It seems to say that the last two interglacials without large human burning of fossil fuels, had much higher sea levels. This has lead a number of people, james hansen among them, to believe that sea levels will continue to rise no matter what we do.

As for Soon, we do have that inconvient movie, then lots of scientific discussion. If we are scientific we should define what soon means. A number of scientists have suggested by 2100 could be defined as soon. The bulk of the find it very unlikely that sea levels will rise 6 meters by 2100.

There is a fairly large consensus that ghg are accelerating the melt and it will be between 0.3m-2m between 2000-2100. Likely less than one meter. The biggest mechanism for a fast melt would be more ice falling in the sea, which means if we are going to get to the faster rates, we would be seeing a big increase of land ice becoming sea ice.

 

AG@40 when grounded ice breaks loose and starts to float, then it has its effect on sea level, Not later. And if the ice formed at sea, zip. I suppose you know; maybe were responding to some earier comment?

New literature has identified an issue with floating sea ice up againsts coasts. Vonk et al 2012
“Activation of old carbon by erosion of coastal and subsea permafrost in Arctic Siberia”
Nature doi:10.1038/nature11392

Start with coastal permafrost. With abutting ice, it just sits there. If the ice is gone then the water sloshes against the permafrost and it gets destabilized. As often, with new knowledge, the magnitude cannot easily assessed. But it was unreconized and it adds to the list of secondary effects/feedbacks.

Once again, if this (unfortunately) growing list is not well-convered in AR5, we should be upset about that.

On temperatures over 10k year range, I still don't understand how persistently higher global temperatures could have occurred without sea level popping up. Followed by a back down. AG did link to a paper finding a small dip during the ice age, but I still await the evidence for the up. Results make sense as they are shown to be most consitent with related results. PaleoT and PaleoSea ought to have moved together.

It gets sorta confusing when we look much further back to interglacials with much higher sea levels. Antarctica was Ice-free until about 50 million years ago (after the PETM) and Greenland was until about 10 million. In times like that, interglacial sea levels got pretty frisky.

Why the icing up? There were some CO2-reducing things going on, like the vast spread of global grasslands and several mountain uplift events. The latter increase mineral weathering = CO2 trapping by rocks. But one would not wholly attribute icing up of Antarctica and Greenland to a reduction in CO2. Not as we are learning more about ocean circulation changes..

Anyway as long as Antarctica and Greenland can hang on to most of their ice, sea level has a limited upside. All the other continental glaciers have a meter of sea level 'in them'. close to that; we could check.

 

Ok I take it that neither Tohachitu or Austengreen have no real argument with the fact that the Earth was warmer for the past 10,000 years.
Today I read a study which reveals my previous speculation was correct (#19) ,about how the Arctic must have been ice free during some of the past 10,000 years .
Score Mojo+1 ,AGW Believers ZERO

"The radiocarbon-dated bowhead whale remains indicate that the whales were able to range along the length of the Passage during two intervals (centered on 9000 years ago and 1000 years ago) and that they were able to access the central part from the east about 4000 years ago. During the first of these intervals (9000 before present) ice cores indicate that summer temperatures were about 3°C warmer than mid 20th Century. Therefore, a warming of 3°C exceeds the opening threshold. Medieval Warm Period temperatures were probably about 1°C warmer than mid-20th Century,
which is likely close to threshold conditions for an opening of the passage."

Sea-Ice History of the Northwest Passage | Earth Sciences

 

You heard my argument, which is current reconstructions say something quite different from your figures. You are using old data, that has been revised. I don't really think that we need global temperatures for 10,000 years to talk about the arctic ice though.

We do have 50,000 years of local arctic proxy in the gisp 2 ice core from greenland. You posted part of that data. The only problem I have with that plot is that it is warmer today than the mid 1800s where that graph ends, it should include the modern temperature record. Obviously we have not had an ice free arctic if we have ice this old, but sea ice has melted in the past as it will in the future.

If you want to fight with AGW Believers post to real climate where they live. I just try to put forth the best facts. I don't have a religion and follow a political blog about climate change.

 

Mojo if you provide the actual references for the papers you liked from hockey schtick, I could take a look. That web sites' interpretation is not necessarily the only interpretation. Don't just take it that I don't disagree.

Meanwhile I take it that you agree that the the evidence of higher past temperatures (during 10k years) is inconsistent with the (apparently well-established) sea-level history. Is that OK, or would you like to read the publications concerning paleo sea level?

If you suppose that the way to advance this discussion is by keeping score, then some accuracy will be required.

 

The modern record, one based upon thermometers, satellites and aircraft, pretty much confirms concurrent increases in fossil fuel, CO{2}, and increases in global warming. So the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project pretty much confirms the other modern temperature records:

Source: Home|Berkeley Earth

An open question, are we still in a buffered state where the carbon sources match the natural sinks? Or are we approaching thermal runaway where the carbon sinks, the carbon buffers, are overwhelmed by previously refrigerated CO{2} and CH{4} and the burning of newly extracted, fossil fuels? I would feel better about the buffer hypothesis if we could see growth of more effective carbon sinks. But the dead zones at the outlets of major rivers such as the Mississippi do not bode well for improved carbon sinks.

This summer, like many recent summers, the reflective, sea ice of the northern pole was replaced by light absorbing, dark water. The southern pole has already seen losses of floating ice shelfs, again replacing reflective ocean surfaces with light absorbing surface. As these floating reflectors disappear, the melting, polar ice uncovers refrigerated, organic carbon sources.

I appreciate the paleo-record because it gives us insights to likely sea level limits. But it really doesn't address the modern era CO{2}, man-based, global warming. Fire wood burning ancestors and rice growers were not in the same order of magnitude as our industrial societies. A new problem for our species to address.

Bob Wilson

 

Bob, the biological carbon sink strength does not appear to be diminishing on land or sea. THis paper

http://www.biogeosciences.net/7/621/2010/bg-7-621-2010.pdf

(larger than 4 MB to download so don't click the link if you are on a skinny pipe)
suggests that some ocean areas are becoming more productive and others less so. My concern is that productivity is not necessarily the same thing as how much carbon falls out of the active layer, and I don't know enough about the subject to know how much those two things can differ.

Generally, river outfalls do not appear to dominate the marine carbon cycle, rather it is the cold-water upwelling zones. I reckon that all the nitrogen and phosphorus exported by all the rivers is small compared to upwelling. This is not to say that dead zones are not dead - they are, but also relatively small in area.

Rivers also export soil and unweathered mineral particles. Both can contribute to carbon sequestration below the active zone. There may be a summary study on that.

Destabilizing CO2 and CH4 (not NH4) from cold soils (and shallow marine sediments) is a whole 'nother thing. You can find doom/gloom reports, and others more circumspect.

The things to watch (and I assure you they are being watched) are atmospheric CO2 trends from Mauna Loa and other similar stations, and methane trends . There is at least one Alaska station posting up to date reports on the latter.

Now we are using this arctic sea ice thread for all sorts of things, cause the melt continues and heck, it seems not a hot media topic. We have political conventions and looming food-price crunches and all sorts of other crises du jour to media-tate about.

 

Really didn't they watch that incovient movie? Someone was predicting things much worse. This is news porn, where something predicted happens and people act shocked.

I loved the fact that someone took photos of bears playing on drifting ice, then it gets reported that they are going to die. Polar beers are threatened from pollution and over hunting.

 

So you are saying that everyone who saw "that inconvenient movie" believed everything in it? That wasn't my observation.

 

No, not at all. What seems quite dishonest, is when things happening are less severe than outlined in the movie, and people act as if things are much worse than anyone imagined.

There were mulitple movies Lots of ideas in pop culture. Its just dishonest in a news report to claim things are worse than we imagined.

Waterworld (1995) - IMDb
Sometimes things are so badly done that you just don't watch it.

 

My impression of the BBC interviews of Holmen and (Edmond) Hansen was that they were comparing the rates with those over the past 1500 years. Maybe the same ref I mentioned above, maybe not. It did not seem that they were comparing with Gore's, or movies or pop culture portrayals.

In other words, doing science the right way. Compare data being aware of its limitations. If y'all are picking on those two, I can't really see why.

If picking on the BBC article, how would it have been done better? To mention predictions from Gore's movie? OK, I'll pick on it (also). The graph compares 1979-200 average ice extent to the current minimum. That is not appropriate. More informative would have been to compare current mimimum to earlier decades' average mimima.

If an ice-free Arctic follows in one or few decades (I would not extrapolate data to that extent), y'all are just going to have to deal with it. Calling out news porn or junk science is will just have been noise.

If ice extent is only becomes smaller and stabilizes, the albedo change will affect earth energy balance and we'll all have to deal with that.

 

If you can't even image it melting this fast, and call it unprecedented that is not being scientific. It is being sensationalic weather porn. Barried further down is that its the fastest in the last 1500 years. You know we can't go that far back on sea ice, since there wasn't much in the MWP when the vikings were colonizing Greenland and sailing to america.

How about not putting a heading of unprecidented. No reason to mention the gore movie at all, excpet to point out this "news" and I put that lightly does not mean sea level will in the near future rise multiple meters. A graphic of sea ice for 1000 years might be nice, only showing 1979 out of context is well... misleading.

I didn't say junk science, I don't think they reported on the science at all. They took some stuff and made head lines. I guess we could also say that if the ice caps melt fast water world is a documentary.

If ice extent is only becomes smaller and stabilizes, the albedo change will affect earth energy balance and we'll all have to deal with that.[/quote]

 

Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis | Sea ice data updated daily with one-day lag
This year's arctic sea ice minimum is 3.41 million km^2. Same site says the areal extent could go a bit lower as a result of wind pushing ice floes together. But that would not mean less ice, just piled up more.
What does it mean? I doubt that it means just one thing. It is a record low, considering some particular time period that still seems to need rigid definition. Mojo commented upthread that warmer water was entering the arctic sea, and that is probably true. Thermometers around the arctic sea (and indirect measures such as permafrost melt and grounded ice melt) all point to warmer regional air. So that probably contributes as well.

A future ice-free arctic and when? Others have predicted; I really have no basis to add another prediction.

A few months back I posted a link to a modeling study suggesting that a few back to back cooler years could quickly reform this ice sheet. Persistent intrusion of warm water would act against that, even if high-latitude thermometers see a few cooler years.

So we are perhaps done talking about it. Except for 'it means nothing' spin or 'the sky is falling' spin. Both may be confidently expected. Maybe IPCC AR5 will talk about how they underpredicted this global change, last time around.

 

Hi Doug,

Perhaps not the answer expected for the question:

• Found in Google News list -> Antarctic Sea Ice Sets Another Record - Forbes
• Referenced by James Taylor 'editorial' -> Antarctic Ice Area Sets Another Record – NSIDC Is Silent | Real Science
• Found using search at National Snow and Ice Data Center -> All About Sea Ice, Arctic vs. Antarctic :: National Snow and Ice Data Center

Like peeling an onion, it shows a remarkable ability of Steven Goddard followed by James Taylor to omit and edit critical data from an original source.

So one 'meaning' is exposure of the classic practice of a propagandist to mislead by omission. In the case of James Taylor, he also accuses 'the enemy' . . . anyone who doesn't echo his propaganda which happens to be any other media. Propaganda only works when any other source is suppressed.

As for Steven Goddard, the nicest comment would be intellectual lazy and with foolish disdain for the ability of others to check the facts and data. It is the pattern of a sociopath who simply can not imagine that anyone would fact-check their claims.

Perhaps not the answer to your question, patterns of a life-time, habits dealing with propagandists and sociopath-lite, it has become almost reflexive.

Bob Wilson

 

These are interesting examples, but whomever gets their science from the media are inevitably looking through someone else's filter. In my opinion the BBC coverage of arctic ice (there is a newer article there now) is better than average. Austingreen was not so impressed though

I'd be happy to know others' opinions about where to go (in the media) to get neutral reporting. This is not necessarily the same thing as fair and balanced! It seems that most people here are not willing to read very much of the original scientific publications, although I'd argue that not all of those are written in Secret Code.

Here is another new one on testing climate models
Climate scientists put predictions to the test
This 'explainer' is not bad IMHO. If anyone wants to read the original, just say so.

Or maybe I like it because it supports my perspective that climate models will always be unsatisfying until they get the small-scale (like clouds) and large-scale (like ocean dynamics) stuff nailed down better.

But, if one chooses to just ignore the imperfect insights of climate models, what does that leave you with? The hope that suitable climates won't move away from suitable crop-growing areas this century? The hope that there will not be meters of sea level rise over two or three centuries?

Remember at least one political catchphrase: Hope is not a plan. We need to make our best guesses about future climate, so that we can decide whether continuing unlimited fossil C burning is the best option.

Those are government policy decisions, but if they are only based on media reports spinning thisaway or thataway...well, good luck to all.

 

Doug - from your link in your last post...

That's news to me (I'm a recently-retired operation meteorologist from the U.S. National Weather Service).

We often complained that we were expected to show skill over climatology at day 7 in long-term forecasts, but none of the NWP models showed any skill past about 5 days. I can't tell you how many times global NWP models (e.g., ECMWF, GFS) utterly failed on the synoptic scale (i.e., continental scale). It is not unusual for models to depict some spurious feature sometime toward the end of the model run (240 hours) that totally disappears in the next model run (most NWP models are re-run every 6 hours).

I remain skeptical of climate models and their projections, the hindcasting results of the linked study notwithstanding. Nevertheless, I agree that we can't just "hope" that no unforeseen consequences will result under continuation of a business-as-usual scenario.