Arctic Sea Ice

Giant metaphor crashes through the ice

This ties in with the recent blog post about Consensus and consequences. From the Cantech Letter online magazine:

Giant metaphor crashes through the ice
in Canada’s North

An 80-thousand pound metaphor crashed through the ice in the Northwest Territories Saturday in the form of an off-white Western Star fuel tanker.

The CBC reports that the tanker was carrying heating fuel to Deline, a town of about 500 near the Great Bear Lake. The accident happened just three days after the territory’s transportation department raised the allowable weight on the Great Bear Ice Crossing from 10,000 kilograms to 40,0000 [you have got to be kidding; N].

The truck is currently semi-submerged in the top portion of the ice, which one official estimates to be between 100 and 120 centimetres thick. No one was injured in the incident.

The symbolism of a fuel truck trapped in the ice in Canada’s north will not be lost on anyone who follows news from the scientific community about climate change.

Recent data from the NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirms that global warning is particularly intense in the Arctic —a phenomenon referred to as “Arctic amplification”. In January, scientists confirmed a record low level for Arctic sea ice. And the data for January was particularly worrying.

“We’ve looked at the average January temperatures, and we look at what we call the 925 millibar level, about 3,000 feet up in the atmosphere,” says Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center. “And it was, I would say, absurdly warm across the entire Arctic Ocean.”

Read the rest of the article here (permafrost also gets a mention).

Speaking of which, here's a cool animation (in German) from the Alfred Wegener Instute explaining what Permafrost is:

 

Consensus and consequences

The following brief communication was published on the The Cryosphere Discussions website two days ago: Does it matter exactly when the Arctic will become ice-free?

It's a good question, albeit a rhetorical one. The authors argue that a "robust definition of ice-free may reduce confusion in the community and amongst the public", and start by asking what the exact definition of ice-free is.

We consider four plausible definitions of the date of an ‘ice-free Arctic’. We apply the commonly-used threshold, for which northern hemispheric sea ice extent (defined as the total area of ocean with a sea ice fraction greater than 15%) is less than 1 million km2. The threshold of 1 million km2, rather than zero, is used because ice can be expected to remain for some time along the northern coast of Greenland, whilst for navigational purposes the central Arctic is ice-free. The ‘first ice-free year’ is then defined as:

A. The first year that at least one day is ‘ice free’.
B. The first year when the September mean is ’ice free’.
C. The first time the final year of a 5 year running mean of September monthly mean extents is ice-free.
D. The final year of 5 consecutive September monthly means which are ’ice-free’.

The question is an interesting one to ponder, and not just from a scientific perspective. Still, discussing the exact definition of ice-free may itself become a smoke screen that shrouds a more important issue, and thus cause even more confusion. Fortunately, the authors seem to be aware of this when they state in their paper's final paragraph:

Global sea ice extent record minimum

As discussed in the comment section of the Global sea ice area minimum record blog post, data provided by the NSIDC shows that the Global sea ice extent record has been broken as well:

Over on The Great White Con Jim Hunt has published this graph showing the long-term trend, still down it seems:

The old minimum record was reached in 2006 and stood at 16.766 million km2. As of today NSIDC Global SIE stands at 16.707 million km2. That's a 59K difference, and given the forecasts for the Arctic, Global SIE could go even lower.

So, that's it for the two daily Global sea ice data products (Cryosphere Today Global SIA, NSIDC Arctic SIE + Antarctic SIE). If there are any other out there, let me know. The record is probably being broken there too, if it isn't already. And also let me know if a climate risk denier outlet reports this.

Global sea ice area record minimum

Okay, we can remove the question mark of the earlier blog post concerning Cryosphere Today Global SIA, as the record was broken yesterday:

And here's how it looks on the graph from the Pogoda i Klimat website:

It's not easy to see, but 2016 has dipped below the 2006 record minimum of 14.391 km2, and currently stands at 14.365 million km2, which is 25K km2 lower. It will probably go up a bit in coming days, but the final 2016 minimum might go even lower after that.

Edit: Here's a graph from the Great White Con website showing the long-term trend for Global sea ice area minimums:

Remember, as I said, this measure doesn't tell us all that much about the health of either Arctic or Antarctic regions, if only because the seasons move in opposite directions (nevertheless, the Global sea ice trend is down). It's just an interesting statistical factoid.

However, climate risk deniers often use the Global sea ice metric as an argument that nothing is wrong and AGW is a hoax. In other words, the recent growth in Antarctic sea ice offsets the loss of Arctic sea ice (it doesn't), even though the poles are literally worlds apart and are pretty much incomparable (except for the sea ice bit).

Using this logic, it would seem that this new record minimum means there is something wrong with sea ice and AGW isn't a hoax. I wonder how they will spin this one. If they report it to their loyal readers, that is.

Now we move our eyes to the Arctic and keep an eye out for the upcoming maximum. Plenty interesting too, and not just for statistical reasons.

Global sea ice area record minimum?

This post is about global sea ice area, the simple addition of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice area.
As a statistic it's somewhat interesting, but it doesn't convey all that much information about the individual health of both polar regions,
let alone their sub-regions.

Despite this fact, or probably because of it, it's often being touted by climate risk deniers as proof that global warming is a scam and all is well, because Arctic sea ice loss is compensated by a growth in Antarctic sea ice. Even if this were true - it isn't, as this Skeptical Science article explains - it's like saying there is no hunger in the world because there are so many obese people.

But anyway, we're approaching that time of year when global sea ice area as calculated by and presented at Cryosphere Today is going to hit its minimum, or lowest amount of sea ice cover. And currently the number is quite low, as can be seen on this graph from Piotr Djaków's Pogoda i Klimat website:

According to the data 2016 is already 4th lowest at 14.73 million km2, just behind 2007's minimum, and almost 350K behind 2011 and record holder 2006 (14.39 million km2, the grey trend line just below the 2011 green trend line). Below I'll discuss the factors that will determine whether a new record is in the books.

An absolute prerequisite for a new record is for Antarctic sea ice area to go low. Whereas it's freezing in the Arctic right now, it's summer in the Southern Hemisphere and so the Antarctic melting season is slowly moving towards its apogee. If we look at the NSIDC sea ice extent graph for March, for instance, we can see some fairly large swings, with record years 2006 and 2011 standing out with their distinct dips:

Public knowledge and perceptions about the Arctic

University of New Hampshire professor of sociology and occasional guest blogger on the Arctic Sea Ice Blog, Lawrence 'Larry' Hamilton, is doing ongoing research into the public perception of what's going on in the Arctic (I've written about his work previously here and here).

In anticipation of a new research paper that is about to be published in Polar Geography, Larry has written an article for ARCUS to explain what it's about:

Tracking Public Knowledge and Perceptions About the Arctic

By: Lawrence C. Hamilton, Carsey School of Public Policy, University of New Hampshire

The U.S. public knows that something is happening in the Arctic. It involves melting ice, because that has been mentioned in so many news accounts and scientific reports. But where exactly is that ice? Is it still melting? What might that mean for people who live far away? On such points public awareness becomes fuzzy, with some people's perceptions shaped by their ideology instead of geographic or scientific knowledge. These findings emerge from research that has been asking Arctic knowledge questions alongside the usual public opinion or political items on national or statewide surveys.

The first research of this type involved the General Social Survey (GSS), a flagship nationwide instrument supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation. In 2006 and again in 2010, the GSS carried a "polar module" of questions assessing levels of public knowledge about polar regions, and concern about polar climate change. Analysis of those surveys found that knowledge improved slightly from 2006 to 2010, while levels of concern stayed about the same—and were strongly divided in terms of ideology (Hamilton 2008; Hamilton, Cutler and Schaefer 2012a). Ideological divisions prove to be so strong they actually reverse the effects of objectively tested science literacy. Concern about polar climate change tends to increase as science literacy rises among people who self-identify as liberal or moderate. Among the most conservative, however, concern about polar climate change tends to decrease as science literacy rises (Hamilton, Cutler and Schaefer 2012b).

The GSS results inspired a second generation of polar survey research asking more specific questions. In this note we look at one example about Arctic ice:

Which of the following three statements do you think is more accurate? Over the past few years, the ice on the Arctic Ocean in late summer...

• Covers less area than it did 30 years ago.
• Declined but then recovered to about the same area it had 30 years ago.
• Covers more area than it did 30 years ago.
• Don't know/no answer.

New Hampshire surveys from 2011 to 2015 tracking public awareness of Arctic sea ice area decline: (A) all respondents, and (B) separated by beliefs about climate change. Image courtesy of L. Hamilton.

Sixty-eight percent of those responding to a 2011 national version of the Community and Environment in Rural America survey (NCERA) knew or guessed the correct answer—ice area has declined. In fact, since 2007 the extent of Arctic sea-ice in September remains over a million square kilometers lower than it was 30 years before. Public recognition of this striking change, however, varies with political orientation and with beliefs about climate change. For example, 80 percent of the NCERA respondents who personally agree with the scientific consensus that climate change is happening now, caused mainly by human activities, answered the sea ice question correctly. On the other hand, only 32 percent of those who think climate change is not happening answered this question correctly. On this and other factual questions, it seems likely that many people chose answers derived from their more general beliefs about climate change (Hamilton 2012).

Read the rest of the article here.

The day the ice cap died

The title of this blog post is actually the title of a piece of science fiction, a short story written by Paul Briggs. Just like a couple of weeks ago when I was asked for advice on an idea for a novel, Paul asked me for some feedback on his short story. I figured posting it here, will generate a lot more feedback than I can offer. And most of you will probably find it an interesting read.

Paul writes on his website:

I started writing this story because, well, nobody else was doing it. Like a lot of people, I had read the projections of the Arctic Ocean having its first ice-free moment in human history some time in the 2020s.

Nobody seems to know what happens after that. The consensus seems to be that seasonal patterns of temperature and rainfall in the northern hemisphere will be altered in ways that will make many heavily populated parts of it much harder to survive in and seriously inconvenience anyone trying to grow crops, but no one can say exactly what this will look like.

So I decided to take a guess. I'm not a climatologist or anything, I'm just winging it.

I wrote this for AlternateHistory.com, in the "Future History" section where only registered members could read it. Since it won the 2013 Turtledove Award for Best New Future, I thought I'd give it a little editing and share it with a wider audience.

It goes without saying that I find Arctic sea ice loss an excellent subject for this kind of fiction. As with most science fiction and predictions, it's all about timing. Maybe the sequence of events is a bit too soon and too fast (my only 'gripe'), but it portrays the potential risks of Arctic sea ice loss in a gripping way. Like a fist gripping your stomach. The narrative style, a description of what happens after the Arctic becomes ice-free, followed by a collection of future news stories covering the consequences, makes the story exciting and easy to read. The open ending leaves some room for optimism, in the sense that not all is lost. At least, that's how I (want to) read it.

Here's the first part of the story:

Decreasing Arctic albedo boosts global warming

A new paper in PNAS, called Observational determination of albedo caused by vanishing sea ice, reminds me of scientific work Peter Wadhams published a year and a half ago wherein he showed Arctic ice melt is 'like adding 20 years of CO2 emissions'. He based this assertion on calculations, as can be read in this BBC article from around that time.

This new paper by Pistone et al., however, is based on observations (as it says in the title) and similarly concludes that the "decrease in albedo is equivalent to roughly 25 percent of the average global warming currently occurring due to increased carbon dioxide levels"

I've taken this last quote from a livescience article. Here's more:

Warming from Arctic Sea Ice Melting
More Dramatic than Thought

Credit: Stefan Hendricks, Alfred Wegener Institute

Since as early as the 1960s, scientists have hypothesized that melting sea ice amplifies global warming by decreasing Arctic albedo. Researchers have since devised climate models to demonstrate this phenomenon but, until now, nobody had relied entirely on satellite data to confirm this effect through time. [See Stunning Photos of Earth's Vanishing Ice]

Now, scientists based at the University of California, San Diego have analyzed Arctic satellite data from 1979 to 2011, and have found that average Arctic albedo levels have decreased from 52 percent to 48 percent since 1979 — twice as much as previous studies based on models have suggested, the team reports today (Feb. 17) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The amount of heat generated by this decrease in albedo is equivalent to roughly 25 percent of the average global warming currently occurring due to increased carbon dioxide levels, the team reports.

"Although more work is needed, a possible implication of this is that the amplifying feedback of Arctic sea ice retreat on global warming is larger than has been previously expected," study co-author Ian Eisenman told Live Science.

Previous models of Arctic albedo have suggested the reflectiveness of white cloud cover could potentially mitigate a portion of albedo loss due to melting ice; but these new observations show that cloud cover has had a negligible effect on overall Arctic reflectivity, the team says.

While Arctic sea ice will not likely return to 1979 values in the near future, the ice does change from year to year and might still experience some comeback this century, though the extent to which this might happen remains unclear, Eisenman said.

Read the rest here.

Here's another quote from the September 2012 BBC article mentioned above:

Sea ice atlas

Now, this is what I call a cool tool:

Researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks have developed a "web based atlas to let users view historical sea ice data collected between the mid-1800s and today, and compiled for display on an interactive map of the seas surrounding northern Alaska". Here's an overview of all the data sources they used to compile the historical sea ice atlas.

More background info in this Alaska Dispatch article:

New sea ice map offers a long-term look
at climate change

Mining more than a century of sea ice observations, including from 19th century Yankee whalers and 20th century Arctic wildcatters, researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks have put together an expansive view of climate change that lets web surfers track the ice pack off Alaska for decades.   

The interactive digital map, dubbed the Sea Ice Atlas, allows viewers to watch the ice around Alaska shrink and grow -- but mostly shrink -- during a period of their choosing, month by month or year by year.

To create the play-by-play of diminishing sea ice, researchers relied on space-age data -- satellite images collected since 1979 -- plus decades of older information collected from ship decks, shorelines and airplanes.  

Looking for winter weirdness 2014

There has been some stuff in the past 2 months that could be linked to erratic jet stream behaviour - which in turn could be influenced by Arctic sea ice loss - like a series of storms battering Europe's Northwest, such as the St. Jude storm at the end of October, followed in December by Xaver, Dirk and Erich. Or a huge part of Siberia being so anomalously not-cold that it helped November being the warmest on record globally.

Now we have this:

This funny image (though what it depicts isn't funny for people who live in the US) from Greg Laden's blog shows how a portion of the polar vortex has broken off and moved over to the US, bringing ultra-low temperatures and snow to the Midwest and Northeast. Just two weeks ago there was a winter heat wave on the US East Coast, now it's extremely cold, and who knows what' swings will follow in weeks to come.

Like Andrew Freedman wrote over at Climate Central a couple of days ago:

The cause of the Arctic outbreak can be traced to northeastern Canada and Greenland, where an area of high pressure and relatively mild temperatures is set to block the eastward progression of weather systems, like an offensive lineman protecting the quarterback from the other team.

Here's an animation of that high pressure area (that incidentally also causes something of a cracking event in the Beaufort Sea, but more on that later):