I don't think we can look at things in isolation like that can we? I though all things were connected? The Arctic Amplification has slowed ice growth and all that shed heat has helped drive the synoptic which has (again) placed 'Arctic air' over continental europe whilst baking Hudson/Baffin west Greenland.

As we saw last spring all of our snow/ice melts in rapid order (lowest N.Hemisphere snow levels by May last year?) and the poor Arctic growth means that even an 'average' arctic Summer will leave it as a top 4 lowest ice levels recorded.......if not with no ice (sub 1 million 'extent')at all!

I fear that we are approaching the 'End game'  so not long for anyone to wait until we know , by the evidence, that we have broken the climate.

---

"The Arctic Amplification has slowed ice growth and all that shed heat"

Shed heat ?

Until recently AGW proponents were saying that the loss of ice cover increased insolation to warm the water and thus acquire heat. It was me who was saying the outcome would be the reverse.

Which way do you want it ?

When you swap 90 odd percent refelction of incoming energy to 80 percent absorbtion there's plenty to go around!!! The top 2m of the ocean needs to chill to minus 3.7c before ice can start to form....the rest of the absorbed heat merely mixes out the halocline meaning deep ice cannot form across the basin any more (and speeds up melt come spring).

The 'heat' we measure flooding the Arctic atmosphere in Oct/Nov/Dec is merely the top skim.

So 'yes' ,both ways please!

---

Er, no.

The sun is so low in the sky at the pole even in midsummer that there is virtually no extra warmth added to the water except for perhaps a few hours a day in June.

Energy loss from evaporation into cold and very dry air is however very large. Wasn't it you who referred to sea smoke ?

All the heat in the Arctic Ocean is from more southerly oceans and the less ice there is the faster it departs to the air and then space.

Thus you cannot have it both ways.

http://www.applet-magic.com/insolation.htm

please click and scroll down to the table showing the amount of energy reaching the poles at summer solstice.

From 90 north down to 75n thats a lot of area and a lot of energy. Once ,not long ago, most of that area would have a high albedo and most of that 'jolt' of energy went straight back out again. Now , esp. in areas where 'old ice' has gone once the winters 'new' snow melts most of that 'jolt' of energy gets absorbed.

Lets not quibble about 'how long' this is for in every year.

The important thing is it didn't used to 'be' and now 'it is'.

We cannot 'pretend away' the obvious (even to lowly folk like us) fact that we are no longer miss out on that whack of energy ('cause it bounced straight back out again) but are (due to snow/ice melt) now receiving it. 

Just look at the temp rises in the Arctic region! That's not all 'well placed' migrating warm air. Anyone who has been near sea ice (only at TraveMunde, N.Germany for me!) will know that it's bloody cold near it even if it's 80c off the beach!!!. The 'Arctic Heat' is a response to the loss of reflective surfaces allowing more 'absorbent' surfaces to take their place(so temps rise) and the removal of the 'chilling ice' from nearby oceans (removal of sea ice impacts temps up to 1,500km inland from it!!!).

We also have a concentration of GHG's that then 'capture' this wallop of heat a lot better than when levels of GHG's were lower.

We were alright as we were, we had a kind of 'wobbly' balance but we have pushed too hard and that balance (along with the 'old ice') has been lost. Can we really discount this added dollop of energy that we know (and measure) that we are now getting each summer?

My head cannot deal with the amount of energy that we have allowed to 'leak' into the 'old climate system' but I do know ( Ta! Newton) that you can't add energy to a system and not expect it to 'drive' some changes....

Did you know that the Russians were planning to melt out the Arctic in the 1930's to free up farming lands/sea routes/mineral extraction to their north?

---

"Lets not quibble about 'how long' this is for in every year."


That's not a quibble. It is the main point which is why you sought to avoid it.

Anyway the extra insolation into open water at the pole is vastly outweighed by the extra energy loss to the air.

So if GHGs caused the ice loss in the first place then they have also provided a negative feedback to neutralise their warming.

The amount of CO2 warming being negated would be miniscule in relation to natural variability.

You shouldn't worry your head about it.

Therein lies the 'difference'?

We ( I believe) are beyond 'questioning' what we are seeing in the Arctic.

Climate is like all other 'earth processes' they do not run 'gradual and smooth'. You can average out the 'pressure' transferee for the rocks either side of the Indonesian fault line that brought us that Tsunami or you can look at how nature worked. Lots of slow nothing the 'SNAP', a big shift.

Folk seem secure in their 'where's the lost heat?', 'Why is it so slow?'

Now the ice is less than 40% over summer the switch (IMHO) is thrown. No way back.

Don't doubt me ! Leave it 5 years.

---

So if there is no evidence just introduce the concept of a hidden unseen force building up to go 'SNAP' at some undetermined future time.

Riiiight.

And in the meantime, just to be on the safe side reorder the entirety of human social and commercial activity ?

Whilst our alternative energy sources are dangerously inadequate until new technology comes along ?

Interesting proposition.

I see that you are still being as irritatingly patronising as ever, Stephen.

So, we have been losing ice for several decades. When we had a strong PV and northerly jet the ice was thinning. Now you say the jet has moved and yet the ice continues to melt. Now it's even good news because open water refreezes quicker. Oh, and of course we have warm El Niño waters flowing into the Arctic on some arbitrary and unsupported timescale that just happens to explain the melting... You really couldn't make it up - well, except that YOU have done.

Putting aside you quasi scientific 'logic' your underlying motivation is revealed in your comments about 'human social and commercial activity'.

I'm reading an interesting book analysing the causes of past collapses of civilisations. Your stance seems to fit worryingly well with one part of the analysis: ignoring growing evidence of environmental damage. Luckily the world isn't dependent on your misguided views and erroneous analysis.

---

I don't see that over a hundred years of ice melt/reduction in the Arctic is 'unseen' or without evidence, nor the temp rises across the globe?

The 'snap' is ongoing with the final flush out of the Paleocrystic ice through the 90's/noughties leaving ever more 'dark water' across the Arctic bringing about the instigation of the new 'Arctic Amplification' as a novel driver forcing novel circulation patterns across the N . Hemisphere.

Once this new 'driver' has gained enough of a presence then the 'old drivers' will be augmented/nullified by the impacts the A.A. now commands.

There is no escaping the fact that we have wrought major changes to our planet,  just that some of them take a while to 'ramp up' to a point that their impacts drive further change.

---

The buzz word of the night is "Alleged ". Again GW, all the sermons in the world won't change the facts. Which are it's all natural ( Allegedly )!

Nothing 'alledged' about our treatment of our planet S.C., we done did do it!

Be it rainforrest, be it vast swathes turned over to monoculture, be it termac jungles, be it alterations to the atmosphere. None of it alleged , all done by our own fair hands.

---

Whilst it is possible that the cause/effect relationship is this way round, I think it unlikely. The sun is generally regarded as being the main driver of whether winter NAO is positive or negative. It is the amplified pattern we have this winter that causes low winter ice extent in the arctic, with colder weather in some mid-latitude regions.

 

Hi John!

Not being an economist I do not do well with the whole "all other things being equal" gig. Everything impacts upon everything else (IMHO) and if you add in a further forcing then you will mess with everything (eventually).

 

I wonder where the red line is destined to end up????

---

Something to ponder over...........

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12025283

---

Gandalf...I myself sit rather on the fence on this whole climate whose fault it is argument, but how exactly when you state there have been SEVERAL DECADES of ice loss do you know this? I thought the satelite measurement only went back to 1980 and that was just surface area not thickness, then we had rather random submarine readings etc before the satelite era, more to the point what exactly would you consider a 'normal' Arctic ice level anyway? As far as I can tell no one knows...obviously I would assume having NO ICE is not good, so we can agree on that, but is there anything to say that that maybe the Arctic was in a cool period and had excessive ice and is now just warming? We dont have exact records here, like many you are making presumptions on what 'normal' ice levels are in my opinion.

I sit on the fence with regards AGW, whilst I agree we do influence Climate, I still believe Mother nature is way more influential than we are, but that's another debate

I believe we've already posted maps from the 30's and 40's showing where the max/min ice extents were positioned then? Ships data has been the mainstay for this for many centuries?

Both Sub and aircraft supplemented this data in the 20th century but to think that only 'sat. data. ' can bring us useful data is being a tad unfair?

Next the sat data will be useless because it wasn't ICESat or Cryosat2?

We have an ice loosing over 50% of it's max extent (and close to being 'seasonal' at it's min) and you feel that our data is not good enough to witness such monumental changes?

Sadly I do not think you wish to open your mind to the papers/data prior to 79' do you?

---

Hi Allyjo, there is plenty of evidence that ice area/extent has been declining for decades. Have a look at the Cryostat site for example. I don't have a view about any 'correct' level because that's not the issue. The issue is the RATE of change and the fact that it is clearly not just a natural cycle ( as I indicated in my response to Stephen). When the cold was bottled up in the Arctic the ice was thinning & retreating. Now the pattern may have changed and it's still disappearing.

A material factor has to be AGW because nothing else fits the facts at the moment - whatever Stephen & others might postulate.

---

I agree. The dipole pattern might be the most favourable for warming the arctic and reducing sea ice, but the fact is that the ice has been declining during periods of positive AO as well.

Let's not mix up 'ice melt' with ice ship out. The A.O. will promote large losses via Fram but first you need it to be able to flow out of Fram.

Until you have impacted the Paleocrystic ice to the point that it does not bridge the area between Svalbard and East Greenland (over winter) then losses via the AO is a 'summer issue' (as we saw in 74'?).

The decadal 'melting' (via warmer waters through Bering?) is what starts the ice loss process. The later stages involve the year round ice losses via Fram and Nares (of the older ice) leaving a basin ever more filled with F.Y, ice.

The sub data did show variations in ice thickness decline with the 70's ramping it to the point of 50% thinning compared to the late 50's. The 74'(?) losses through Fram over summer showed us the shape of things to come .This winters losses via Fram have been well highlighted by the drift 'north Pole Cam' buoy and maybe further highlighted by our last few days losses on IJIS as ice from Barents and Greenland sea are flushed into Fram.

 

---

Baltic SST hotspot is now only 4c

Plenty of Coastal ice including Denmark

http://www.smhi.se/oceanografi/istjanst/produkter/arkiv/sstchart/sstchart_20101222.pdf 

---

'I don't have a view about any 'correct' level because that's not the issue.'

Im sorry Gandalf I completely disagree, this is the crux of the entire issue, if you have no idea what a correct level is then what use is all the alarmist words then? more grey wolf than you actually. It seems if no one can conclude what a 'correct level' of ice actually is then then why keep ascerting AGW theory here when you have no idea yourself what the correct value should be? For all we know to maintain Earths temperature control it sheds ice to advect more heat.

 

Many folk (in the field) accept that the 'correct' level for ice is 'seasonal' and it is only the remnant negative feedbacks that have kept the Arctic as we knew it for the past 11.5 thousand years. Remove those 'negative feedbacks' and we end up with the positive feedbacks we see and a slow inexorable undoing of the last ice age remnants (ice shelfs, ice sheets etc.)

We may have helped push the planet in this direction but our 'near round' orbit will provide the tools to keep the planet so for at least 2 precessional cycles.

Should we continue to flood the atmosphere with CO2 we may even trigger the planet into another 'warm phase' and lose the 'interglacial' completely?

Anyhow , with this winters losses of Paleocrystic ramped on top of last summers think we stand a very good chance of smashing 07's min and plunging into the murky sub 3 million 'area' by mid sept 2011.

A low start point may even take us close to the 'seasonal pack' level of sub 1 million?

---

The local temperatures are extreme.

---

Temps significantly above normal in the arctic currently....

---