Hi Scott,

That's a very difficult subject because the sceptics, such as Stephen, will assert that there is a long time lag between ENSO cycles and the effect on the ice. We had a long but inconclusive debate about that not so long ago.  Stephen has repeated today in another thread his views on the 30-year Pacific Ocean cycle and thinks the heat from this is still 'in the system' although stating that we are 4-5 years past the peak.  It's an unwinnable argument until we have lost a lot more of the summer sea ice - at which point his argument will have been lost.

More ice melts from below than from above so you would expect the weak solar output to have rather less effect than water temperature.  On the other hand the open expanse of water and associated heat affecting the lower atmosphere and delaying the re-freeze is a factor.

You might want to have a quick look at the other Arctic thread that I started - the graphs and snapshots of the ice show very clear and marked trends.

As for the current position, we are in that dying phase of the freeze now, with daily losses and gains: 5 of the last 10 days have seen reductions and we have only added 300k since the end of January, the lowest amount in the last decade and almost 200k less than the 1979-2000 norm.

 

 

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Well precisely! Where does all this heat energy go? Much of it into the atmosphere; some of it out of the atmosphere. It all came from the ocean.

So what's this "new reality" you talk about? The oceans are losing heat, the atmosphere is gaining heat, the arctic sea ice sheet is melting. Is it not redistribution of heat between the three main elements of the Climate System - ocean/atmosphere/cryosphere? Same as it ever was.

So, you idea is weather just changes, massive changes involving the disappearance of millions of square miles of ice - it's all just the swings and roundabouts of our atmosphere? Such changes can be waved away with a 'same as it ever was'? Are you joking, Marcus? Do you know nothing about 'forcings'?

 

It may have been mentioned before but it was pretty clear from Bruce Parry's recent Arctic series the extent and impact of changes in the region - and this was from the people who lived there and had followed the same traditions for generation after generation.

When and where to find food and the patterns of nature are essential knowledge to these people, if they are saying things are changing dramatically, then you can be damn sure that they are.

The 'forcing' in question here, is the massive loss of heat to the atmosphere. Where do you suppose this heat goes? Does any escape to space and therefore lead to an atmospheric cooling? Marcus is right, this has been going on for ages - it's just a balancing mechanism in the weather/climate system, albeit with an unusual departure from normal. So, what will happen to ocean temperatures, with all the heat being lost from the Arctic ocean?
You can forget the 'additional' heat as forecasted by the GCM's because it is not in the atmosphere, can't be found in the oceans and is not available for melting more ice,

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It appears (atm) the heat 'pushes' the forming cold down into lower latitudes delaying both ice growth and ice thickening. The displaced airs then draw WAA into the basin leading to re-freeze/thickening issues in other areas of the basin.

I believe that this is the first 'melt season' with all the ice less than 5 years old so we will see how this impacts ice extent this time around. Some of the more Skeptical folk have now started talking of 07 in terms of it just being a high melt year and not driven by both thin ice and a 'perfect storm'. The studies then showed the perfect storm synoptics appearing every 7 to 20 years with the 2 before 07'being only 7 years apart. Before 2020 we will see another such summer but I'll wager we are seasonal via 'average summers' before then. this will be down to the forcings that have left us with the pack we see this summer season.

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More open water in winter in the Arctic must always involve more energy lost to space than if ice were present.

If AGW has added to the system heat content then the reduced ice cover is allowing it out to space faster as a purely negative (cooling) feedback.

Due to the low angle of the sun in the Arctic even at midsummer that increased cooling effect during the rest of the year is far more effective than the proposed warming effect of additional summer sunshine into more open polar waters.

We should be concerned more about increasing mid latitude cold if the more meridional jets continue.

That additional energy from the oceans goes mostly out to space not just some of it. The time that the extra energy stays in the air around the pole is minimal. That must be so otherwise the mid latitudes would be receiving less cold air from the pole but they are not. The mid latitude cold outbreaks are proving to be the coldest in more than a century as per last December in the UK and various other recent events around the northern hemisphere.

As Mark Serezze advised me some ways of looking at it are far too simplistic.

Warm moist air into cold polar night air = fog. Low level clouds/fog 'trap' heat.

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I make porridge in a pan on a very low heat. If I put a lid on it boils over, if I don't it hardly boils - how much of the heat escaping from the porridge determins if it boils over or if it hardly gets hot.

You (and all the rest of the people who simply wont have it that our actions are involved in Arctic sea ice changes) would say the temperature of the porridge is caused by the temperature of the porridge...

That's completely wrong Stephen and a moment's reflection would tell you that.

There is additional energy being lost from the open water because there is more energy in the water. That is the balance which the system is attempting to restore.  What you fail to grasp is that this energy is responsible for the continuing loss of ice thickness and area, coupled with the higher air temperatures.

So, we have heat from the open oceans escaping into the lower atmosphere and we have potentially altered circulation patterns in the Arctic as a consequence driving cold air into mid-latitudes in early winter, leaving less cold air in the Arctic area, resulting in less freezing and therefore more scope for ice loss.

 

 

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There is more energy in the water because half a century of strong solar cycles drove the jets poleward so that more solar energy entered the oceans to give a run of strong El Ninos that are only now just passing the peak of their effects in the Arctic.

Warm moist air over a cold surface gives fog or low cloud under a temperature inversion.

In the Arctic we have warm water under cold dry air. The surface of the water gives off steam (sea smoke) which then evaporates to vapour as it rises into the cold dry air above.

So instead of low level cloud slowing the rate of energy loss upward we see convection speeding the rate of energy loss upward.

 

Take just this sentence Gandalf -

If AGW has added to the system heat content then the reduced ice cover is allowing it out to space faster as a purely negative (cooling) feedback.

Can you name any other global negative feedbacks that are better or just as effective? Bill Illis mentioned a few posts ago that energy loss from an open Arctic lead could be up to 1000 W/m2/? Is he right?

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Dave, I understand the mechanism but to extend the argument as Stephen has done in this extract below is nonsense.

Due to the low angle of the sun in the Arctic even at midsummer that increased cooling effect during the rest of the year is far more effective than the proposed warming effect of additional summer sunshine into more open polar waters.

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Question Gandalf: What is the radiative energy of the sun and how does that compare with Bills energy loss of 1000W/m2/? from the open leads in the Arctic winter? Now adjust the radiative energy of the sun for the low angle and what do you get? And how does that compare?

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Sorry Dave, I am struggling to understand the point here.  There has always been some open water in the Arctic in summer. All that has happened is that the extent of open water is increasing.   The mechanism you/Bill describe has always been there - this amount of open water has not.  It seems improbable that the mechanism described is somehow going to result in cooler Arctic Ocean waters than if the ice had not melted.

It is the almost subliminal message that there is nothing to worry about and nothing abnormal to which I take exception.

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If the energy in the water is mostly imported by currents from warmer latitudes then the energy content of that water will remain higher if there is a lid of ice over it.

Low ice in winter is the real killer as regards energy loss to the air and then space.

Loss of arctic sea ice reduces global albedo so there is global energy gain. More open water releases more heat into the arctic region which causes further ice melt and a further reduction in albedo. . Remember radiative heat loss is a minimum in the arctic and antarctic because it is colder there, most radiative heat loss via terrestrial IR occurs at low latitudes.

I'd agree with that GTW but we must allow folk their 'support'? This is not a thing to play out in the decades beyond our lives it is something immediate and present. As such we shall 'see' the mechanisms at play and all understand that the extra energy that has been building within the climate system over the past 150 years (and more) will not suddenly 'dissipate' over the next 20yrs...in fact, it would appear, the majority of that energy is still to make itself known?

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TomC said:

"Loss of arctic sea ice reduces global albedo so there is global energy gain. More open water releases more heat into the arctic region which causes further ice melt and a further reduction in albedo. . Remember radiative heat loss is a minimum in the arctic and antarctic because it is colder there, most radiative heat loss via terrestrial IR occurs at low latitudes."

i) The reduction in albedo is but a part of the equation (and is already dealt with by the proposition that more sunlight gets into the water)and is at its least pronounced at the poles due to the low angle of insolation and is of no account at all in Arctic winter and hardly significant in Arctic Spring and Autumn either.The cooling effect of open water under cold dry air is far greater across a whole year than the warming effect from more solar energy into the water at such high latitudes.

ii)Of course more open water releases more heat into the air in the Arctic region but it is quickly lost to space under clear skies so any additional melt from that cause is pretty insignificant.

iii) Any increase in energy into the Arctic air will enhance upward radiation, convection and conduction so I don't see the relevance of Tom's final sentence.

iv) Since the loss of sea ice likely results in more energy lost from the water to the air than more energy received by the water from reduced albedo it is far from clear that the net outcome is a global energy gain.That is rather like substituting Arctic sea ice for CO2 and asserting that instead of CO2 the Arctic sea ice quantity is the primary driver of global net energy gain or loss.

Why would so many climatologists view the Arctic as the planets 'thermostat' if it's role has not proven to be a moderator of our climate. CO2 is just a nasty 'add on'.

lose the 'thermostat' and mother N ensures we get 3 or 4 times as much CO2 up there queering the deal so you'd better prove to be right Stephen or the IPCC's WCS will look attractive in comparison!!!

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Are you saying that all things staying the same (apart from the stopping of the the warm waters flowing into the Arctic), that once we have lost ice here, then the feedback is positive and temperatures will rise?
Or, are you saying the same but, that the flow of warm waters into the Arctic is part of the process?

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If the ice extent continues to fall over the next year or two then there may be something to worry about. Have you ever thought what ice conditions were like in the relevant areas when the Vikings colonised Greenland? What makes people think that what is happening now, has not happened before? The Arctic is an " Ice Factory". No additional external forcings and the sea freezes over. It is what it does.
Let me go back to the science. Please give me your answer to my question, here it is again - What is the radiative energy of the sun and how does that compare with Bills energy loss of 1000W/m2/? from the open leads in the Arctic winter? Now adjust the radiative energy of the sun for the low angle and what do you get? And how does that compare?
If there are other substantial parameters that are part of the equation, fine, please point them out.

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I think the eveidence points us towards this being the first 'basin wide' large scale loss of ice?. Polyak (et al) has more than one paper in circulation showing why the evidence shows us that this is the first time in over 2,000yrs that the ice has receded to such an extent. On land snow patch archeology is also providing evidence by uncovering artifacts, found to be up to 10,000yrs old, which  would have rotted away over a couple of seasons had they been uncovered before.

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Yes, good evidence of change, but what we don't know is whether the snow patch archaeology findings are but regional in extent? In terms of basin wide loss of ice, one has to remember that over the centuries, Arctic ice extent has been up and down like a yoyo. Even within the last 250 years and at a time when it has been colder than normal (average as we know it) ice extent has been not too dissimilar to todays extent if we take as a guide, the edge of the ice as recorded in ship's logs.

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