« SEARCH Outlook Contribution May 2012 | Main | Naive Predictions of 2012 Sea Ice »

Comments

Feed You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

Wipneus

I have updated my graphics at ArctischePinguin:

Monthly data:
https://sites.google.com/site/arctischepinguin/home/piomas/piomas-trnd2.png

Daily data:
https://sites.google.com/site/arctischepinguin/home/piomas/piomas-trnd4.png

Daily data with a "prediction" based on exponential trend:
https://sites.google.com/site/arctischepinguin/home/piomas/piomas-trnd4-1.png

Neven

Thanks, wipneus. I have updated the post with your 'prediction' graph.

Werther

Right, two days ago I wrote I’d better wait for PIOMAS. But I voted for the lowest SIA/SIE anyway. Based on MODIS. And bad it is, day 157! And just hours ago that is confirmed through PIOMAS. We’re going to be very lucky if weather will veil the worst of high summer from this broken mess. SIA is going for a stunner anyway. The question is how much can thin remains spread?

Wayne Kernochan

Not sure which thing to post this under:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/05/14/120514fa_fact_specter is a look at geoengineering "solutions." It seems to be a somewhat reasonable assessment, although it does not seem to include Caldeira's statement that drastic cuts in emissions are a prerequisite for any such "solution".

Aaron Lewis

Climate forecasts since 1995 have dramatically understated the situation. The climate models still do not do ice dynamics (related to sea level rise) or carbon feed backs. The models got Arctic sea ice wrong, and yet we still give them full credit because everything was so carefully peer reviewed.

We need to be honest about our situation and do full "life-cycle" environmental impact studies of all proposed solutions. Conservation (not emitting CO2) is energetically better than trying capture it after it is emitted and diluted into the atmosphere - always. Anybody that wants to capture ongoing CO2 emissions, is wasting energy. That means their hidden agenda is selling energy.

The real problem is that the geo-engineering people are thinking in terms of the IPCC's sea level rise statements, and those are as likely to be as wrong as their statements about Arctic sea ice.

Geo-engineering does not work if financial and technical centers are flooded (e.g., 2+ meters SLR) in the next century. And that is possible if the IPCC was as wrong about SLR as they were about loss of sea ice.

adelady

"if the IPCC was as wrong about SLR as they were about loss of sea ice."

The IPCC isn't 'wrong' about SLR. They openly stated they didn't have data or models adequate to do the job properly - so they excluded _any_ quantity for icesheet contribution.

The next IPCC report will have some icesheet numbers in, probably with bigger than desirable error bars. But I doubt the numbers will be pretty.

Apocalypse4Real

The new (June) NSIDC report is out:

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2012/06/arctic-sea-ice-variable-ends-may-below-average/

David Penington

That almost monotonically decreasing crude thickness result (with 2008 out of line only by one position) is even more scary than the end of season extent figures. We have lost 20% of the ice thickness in 5 years, while end of May extent hasn't changed heaps.

Rob Dekker

After the harshest winter in Alaska in recorded satellite history (since 1978), the following description from 1958 may put ice thickness in the Bering into perspective. This is from the first passage under the Arctic sea ice, by the Nautilus, in 1958. The first attempt (in early June) failed :
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/cno/n87/usw/usw_summer_09/nautilus.html

Believed to be the most direct course, the intended route (to take Nautilus north through the Bering Strait, west around the Siberian side of St. Lawrence Island, and then into the Chukchi Sea, a shallow, 400-mile expanse) would ultimately deliver the boat to the Arctic Basin. However, in early June the ice was far too hazardous for Nautilus to successfully navigate. At times, there were only 45 feet of water below and 25 feet above Nautilus. Nautilus passed under a huge floe that was 30 feet below the surface.25

Capt. Anderson’s dilemma was a difficult one: if Nautilus encountered thicker ice, she wouldn’t make the passage. The captain arrived at the decision to keep his crew and boat safe for another journey by turning south and eastward, in the direction of the Alaskan side of St. Lawrence Island. Careful threading through the Strait, in waters so shallow that she could only go around rather than under ice, allowed Nautilus to safely enter the Chukchi Sea. Nautilus met a mile-long ice floe that projected more than 60 feet below the surface in the Chukchi Sea.

Some people claim that because there were few observations before 1978, that we can thus discard the fact that Arctic climste is changing profoundly.

This year, after this harshest winter since 1978, how thick is the ice in the Bering and the Chukchi ? 1 meters ? 2 ? 3 at most ? open water in many places ?

How times have changed....

The comments to this entry are closed.