Tag Archives: Arctic sea ice

 Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute Shows January Arctic Sea Ice Now 20 Years Stable!

From NoTricksZone

By P Gosselin

Winter sea ice in Arctic stable over past 20 years…has even recovered somewhat.

Hat-tip: Klimanachrichten

Arctic sea ice extent as recorded by Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) in Bremerhaven, Germany, looks at the situation in January 2024. Despite the record temperatures reported, the ice in the Arctic has recovered somewhat.

The slight recovery trend since the Arctic minimum was reached is continuing at the beginning of 2024, with the sea ice extent at the beginning of the year below the average value for the years 1981 – 2010, but in the lower range of the extreme values (minimum / maximum) of this international climate normal period (Figure 1).

If we look at the new reference period 1991 – 2020 introduced by the World Meteorological Organization in 2021, January 2024 is roughly in line with the mean value of this period (see interactive graphic). The average Arctic sea ice extent in January was 13.99 million square kilometers, around 400,000 square kilometers greater than the ice cover in January over the last 20 years (Figure 2). During the month, the extent increased by approximately 29,000 square kilometers per day, which was slower than the average increase from 1981 to 2010.”

Image: Screenshot Meereisportal.de

Among highest in past 20 years

The above chart indeed shows a stable trend over the past 2 decades. According to the AWI:

This year’s maximum sea ice extent most likely occurred on February 27, at 14.94 million square kilometers. The monthly average ice extent in February was 14.65 million square kilometers.”

That makes it higher than 15 of the past 20 years.

Compared to the long-term average for the years 2003 – 2014, it is noticeable that the sea ice cover in the northern Barents Sea is lower, but the Greenland Sea and the northern Baltic Sea in the Gulf of Bothnia and the coastal zones of the Barents Sea have more extensive sea ice areas. This indicates lower and longer-lasting cold periods in these regions.”

2024 Arctic sea ice maximum a whopping 14th below average following hottest year since 1850

From polarbearscience

Officially, the maximum winter sea ice extent for 2024 was 15.01 mkm2, reached on 14 March. At an unimpressive “14th lowest” on record, this is astounding news for the winter following the “hottest year on record.” Undeterred, the US government headline writers at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) today went for “Arctic sea ice reaches a below-average maximum.” Note the long-term average (1981-2010) is only 15.65 mkm2 and 15.01 is within 2 standard deviations (see below, screencapped 14 March 2024).

This is what the sea ice maximum extent of 15.01 mkm2 looked like on 14 March this year:

rom NOAA’s 17 January 2024 report on the “hottest year on record” [my bold] on global temperatures:

The year 2023 was the warmest year since global records began in 1850 at 1.18°C (2.12°F) above the 20th-century average of 13.9°C (57.0°F). This value is 0.15°C (0.27°F) more than the previous record set in 2016. The 10 warmest years in the 174-year record have all occurred during the last decade (2014–2023). Of note, the year 2005, which was the first year to set a new global temperature record in the 21st century, is now the 12th-warmest year on record. The year 2010, which had surpassed 2005 at the time, now ranks as the 11th-warmest year on record.

According to today’s data from today’s NSIDC report (shown below), the lowest maximum extents were reached in 2015-2018 (14.82-14.52), with 2016 being an especially warm El Nino year. It makes sense that 2017 was the lowest, since it followed the very warm summer of 2016.

However, the max extent for winter 2023 was not far behind, which is odd considering that according to NOAA, warm La Nina conditions didn’t kick in until June 2023. March ice extent for 2023 (now the 5th lowest) was still being influenced by the cold La Nina conditions that prevailed in 2021 and 2022 (2021 now 8th lowest, 2022 now 11th lowest, at 14.88, not shown).

And now 2024 max extent is the 14th lowest, following the warmest global temperature since 1850 was reached in summer of 2023?

Rarely mentioned is that 2005-2007 (weak El Nino/El Nino years) were all below this year’s extent of 15.01 and 2006 and 2007 were both among the 10 lowest extents listed above (2005 was 14.95; 2006 was 14.68, 2007 was 14.77).

It’s almost like Arctic sea ice extent in winter has almost no relationship with global temperatures!

Arctic Sea Icecapades

From Watts Up With That?

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach

I see that the usual gloomy hype about arctic sea ice continues unabated. This has been going on for a while. Here’s the dean of failed serial doomcasting, James Hansen, pontificating on the subject back in 2008.

Figure 1. James Hansen’s 2008 crashed and burned prediction of an arctic ice-free summer by 2018.

The latest entry in the prediction sweepstakes is described in the climate alarmists’ favorite newspaper, the Guardian, with the obligatory tear-jerking polar bear photo:

Ice-free summers in Arctic possible within next decade, scientists say

Home of polar bears, seals and walruses could be mostly water for months as early as 2035 due to fossil fuel emissions

The Guardian hype refers to an un-paywalled study entitled Projections of an ice-free Arctic Ocean in Nature Magazine.

Now, you’ve got to be careful to watch the pea under the walnut shell. Well down in the scientific study they say:

The definition of an ‘ice-free Arctic’ has varied over time. Early on, it referred to the nearly complete disappearance of all sea ice, or zero SIE [sea ice extent]. However, as thick sea ice remains north of Greenland and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago more than a decade after the rest of the Arctic Ocean becomes ice free in September a SIE threshold of 1 million km2 [386,000 square miles] became commonplace.

So we’re not really talking about zero sea ice extent. We’re talking about getting down to a million square kilometers of ice, more than a third of a million square miles. That’s a very different question.

Next, they say:

Statistical methods have also been used to provide predictions of an ice-free Arctic. Most of these predictions are based on observed linear relationships between global or Arctic temperature and sea ice cover.

I saw that claim of a linear relationship between temperature and Arctic sea ice extent and said “Hmmm” … let’s start with what’s actually happened to sea ice since the start of the satellite era in 1979. First, the changes up until 2012.

Figure 2. Annual minimum Arctic summer sea ice extent, 1979 to 2012. Yikes! Dropping fast.

Now, this is curious. Minimum Arctic sea ice extent decreased slowly from the start of the satellite record up to the year 2000. From there it started dropping faster and faster, up to 2012.

And that’s why the scientific cognoscenti were so sure it was going to crash. I mean, in 2012, any sane person could see the inevitable. After dropping from 6 million to 4 million square kilometers since the turn of the century, 1 million square kilometers (AKA “ice free”) was obviously just around the corner. That’s why even back in 2008 James Hansen was so sure of an ice-free Arctic in the near future.

However, a funny thing happened on the way to Thermageddon™. Here’s the rest of the Arctic ice extent record.

Figure 3. Annual minimum Arctic summer sea ice extent, 1979 to 2023

Arctic sea ice extent went flat in 2012 and has stayed relatively stable since. I’m sure this made Jim Hansen tear his hair out. And it’s an excellent example of the limitations of climate models.

As far as I know, not one climate model and not one climate scientist predicted that around 2012, the strong downward trend of Arctic ice extent would go flat, and stay that way for a decade. It’s a problem with iterative climate models of chaotic systems. It’s also a problem with humans. Both humans and models tend to calculate that a trend will continue. Neither humans nor models are very good at predicting U-turns or regime shifts in chaotic systems.

So which way will it go from here? Unknown. For example, one of the oddities is that a warmer world is a wetter world, and a wetter world means more snow. Snow on top of ice insulates the ice, making it last longer. It’s a fine example of what I modestly call Willis’s First Law of Climate, which says:

In the chaotic giant heat engine we call the climate, everything is connected to everything else, which in turn is connected to everything else …
…
… except when it isn’t.

It’s true. The climate has six main subsystems—atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, biosphere, cryosphere, and electrosphere. Each of these subsystems is constantly exchanging matter and/or energy with all the other subsystems. Each subsystem contains relevant phenomena at all time scales from nanoseconds to millions of years, and at all spatial scales from nanometers to planetwide.

In addition, each of these subsystems has its own chaotic internal resonances, cycles, and regime shifts, which in turn affect all of the other subsystems. Climate is a system of almost unimaginable complexity that we’re only beginning to understand. As a result, claiming that we can model it with current computers is … well … let me call it hubris of the highest order.

But I digress. I started to test one of their central claims, that Arctic ice extent has a “linear relationship” with temperature. So I took the Arctic ice extent data shown in Figure 4 and compared it to a variety of temperature records. To show things clearly, I used just the smoothed versions of each dataset, and set them all to the same range from maximum to minimum.

Figure 4. A view of what the paper erroneously describes as “observed linear relationships between global or Arctic temperature and sea ice cover”. Temperature datasets are inverted because greater temperatures should yield less Arctic ice.

Not only is there no “linear relationship” between Arctic ice extent and temperature, there is very little relationship at all. Yes, in very general terms, warmer temperatures are correlated with less Arctic sea ice extent.

But none of the temperature datasets show the recent leveling out of the Arctic sea ice extent. The closest, as you might expect, is the Reynolds OI sea surface temperature north of the Arctic Circle … but even that one diverges wildly in the early part of the record and matches poorly in the recent part.

So I’m gonna say that their claim of “observed linear relationships between global or Arctic temperature and sea ice cover” is simply not true.

Finally, to return to the topic of the study, the “projections” of the year when we’ll see the first ice-free Arctic are pretty hilarious. They are so broad that if ice-free Arctic conditions were to occur at any time between now and 2150, someone’s model could claim credit for it. Below I show the nine different models and model averages reported in the study.

The first thing to notice is that contrary to the claims of an imminent ice-free summer, in fact we’re already past the claimed earliest ice-free date of five of the nine models.

Figure 5. Earliest and latest ice-free dates of the nine models and model groups. Horizontal lines connect the names of each model with the boxes whose left and right edges show the earliest and latest ice-free dates according to that model.

The dark blue region around 2035 to 2045 shows what the models say is the most likely time when we’ll see an ice-free Arctic. However, given their accuracy to date, that should be taken, not with a grain of sale, but with a kilo of salt …

Finally, the authors have used only the most extreme climate scenarios. The current general agreement among mainstream climate scientists is that these extreme scenarios (SSP5-8.5, RCP8.5, and A1B) are all highly improbable, and are not recommended for use because they lead to very unlikely projections. Despite that, the authors have selected them, presumable because it jacks up the fear and anxiety in the public … which of course will guarantee that these authors continue to receive funding in the future.

CONCLUSIONS

• There is no simple linear relationship between either global or Arctic temperature and Arctic sea ice extent.

• Models are just a reification of the understandings and misunderstandings of the programmers.

• They are supposed to be “physics based”, but if they truly were, there wouldn’t be such huge disagreements between models.

• The use of the most extreme scenarios is clear evidence of the alarmist views of the authors of this study.

And a final thought. The world of climate science would be well served to declare a moratorium on these endless failed serial doomcasts, and study the climate of the past instead. The models are a joke in that regard. Consider that the models give climate sensitivities that range from about 1.5° C to 6.5° C per doubling of CO2. Despite that, they all do a reasonable job of emulating the historical temperature record … and if they are “physics-based” as the modelers claim, that’s physically not possible. I discuss this in my post Dr. Kiehl’s Paradox That is clear evidence that they are merely tuned to match the past, and thus they have no credibility in predicting the future.

Here, it’s nighttime. I walk outside, and the redwood forest surrounding our house is perfectly silent, not a breath of wind. The constellation Orion burns low in the western sky, and Leo is right overhead. The crisp night air is redolent of springtime, of life bursting forth on all sides.

Ah, dear friends, what a wonderfully mysterious universe, with far more questions than we will ever have answers.

My best to you and yours,

w.

Big Asian Chill Pushes Arctic Ice Over 15 Wadhams

From Science Matters

By Ron Clutz

For ice extent in the Arctic, the bar is set at 15M km2. The highest daily average in the last 18 years occurs on day 61 at 15.08M before descending. Most years are able to clear 15M, but in recent previous years, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2021 ice extents failed to clear the bar at 15M km2.  On February 11, 2024 (day 42) Arctic ice extent already leaped over that bar 20 days early. Then extent dropped for several days, but has again topped 15 Wadhams with ice in Asian basins contributing greatly.

The animation shows Pacific ice growth in the last week.  Bering Sea on the right changed little, while Okhotsk in the center added ice down to N. Japan, and now well above 2023 March maximum.  The ice patch in far left is the harbor close to Beijing where the Yellow Sea added 20K km2 ice extent in two days.

The graph shows the rapid rise in Arctic ice reaching 15 M km2 extent already on Feb. 11 (day 42)  Then the extent dropped down to 14.6M before rising again to reach a new high of 15.07M. Yesterday Arctic ice was 215k km2 above average, with nearly all the surplus appearing in Okhotsk.  SII showed neither the first peak or the current one in February.

The table shows the distribution of ice compared to day 56 averages and other years on that day.

Region2024056Day 56 Ave2024-Ave.20060562024-2006
 (0) Northern_Hemisphere150391681482396721520114318117721051
 (1) Beaufort_Sea1070983107031766710697111273
 (2) Chukchi_Sea96600696449915079617964210
 (3) East_Siberian_Sea10871371087109281086702435
 (4) Laptev_Sea897845897837889777371
 (5) Kara_Sea925734916917881889987125864
 (6) Barents_Sea598915606693-7778484567114348
 (7) Greenland_Sea742472612727129745577357165115
 (8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence13916011508331-116730136549126110
 (9) Canadian_Archipelago85486085316316978527152145
 (10) Hudson_Bay1260903126046244112570773827
 (11) Central_Arctic322083432100371079732145776257
 (12) Bering_Sea619130665856-46727629210-10080
 (13) Baltic_Sea8566698767-13101101029-15363
 (14) Sea_of_Okhotsk12824771028678253799853467429010

Note that moderate deficits in Bering Sea and Baffin Bay are more than offset by a large 254k km2 surplus in Okhotsk along with 130k km2 in Greenland Sea.

These results fly in the face of those claiming for years that Arctic ice is in a “death spiral.”  More sober and clear-eyed observers have called out the alarmists for their exaggerations.  A recent example comes from Allan Alsup Jensen at Nordic Institute of Product Sustainability, Environmental Chemistry and Toxicology, Denmark.  His December 2023 paper is Time Trend of the Arctic Sea Ice Extent.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Since 2007 no significant decline has been observed

Abstract

The NSIDC website, IPCC’s reports and some scientific papers have announced that the Arctic Sea ice extent, when it is lowest in September month, in recent years has declined dramatically, and in few decades the sea ice is supposed to disappear completely in the summer. In that way new and shorter ships routes will open up north of the continents.

The facts are, that the Arctic Sea ice extent measured by satellites since 1978 expresses annual variations and it has declined considerably from 1997 to 2007. However, before that time period, from 1978 to 1996, the downward trend was minimal, and in the last 17 years from 2007 to 2023 the downward trend has also been about zero. Therefore, there is no indication that we should expect the Arctic Sea summer ice to disappear completely, as predicted, in one or two decades.

Regarding the extent of the summer (February) sea ice at the Antarctic, the downward trend during the years 1979-2021 was very small but in 2022 and 2023 a considerable decline was observed, and a decline was also clearly observed for the whole period of 2007- 2023. That was in contradiction to what happened in the Arctic. The pattern of the annual levels was not the same for the Arctic and Antarctic, indicating different drivers in the North and the South.

Figure 4: The minimum extent of the sea ice at Antarctic
in February month 1979-2023 (data from NSIDC.org)

These data show that there is no apparent correlation between the variable extent of the Arctic and the Antarctic Sea ice and the gradually increasing CO2-concentrations in the atmosphere as proposed by NSIDC, IPCC and others, also for these areas of cold climate.

Postscript Feb. 14

Some seek to deny the current plateau in Arctic Sea Ice by saying that extent measure is only surface, while volume would be a truer metric.  That is true in theory, but in practice obtaining accurate and consistent data on sea ice thickness is a challenge yet to be reached.  As you can imagine, detecting a depth dimension from satellites is fraught with errors, especially with drift ice not land anchored, moving around, sometimes piling up from winds.  The scientific effort to measure volume has a short history and several uncertainties to ovecome before it can be trusted.

Unfortunately for those wanting an ice free Arctic (well, no more than 1 Wadham they say), the volume record so far shows the same plateau:

“Satellite derived sea ice thickness (CryoSat 2, AWI algorithm v2.6) shows an anomaly thickness pattern very similar to that from PIOMAS, but CS2 shows negative anomalies propagating north of the Canadian Archipelago into the central Arctic while PIOMAS has neutral conditions there. A positive thickness anomaly around Wrangle Island is spatially more extensive in CS2. January 2024 adds another month to the record of CS2 data which now spans 13 years. Neither CS2 nor PIOMAS show any discernible trend over that time period underlining the importance of internal variability at decadal timescales.”  Source: Polar Science Center

How Bogus Arctic Warming Attribution Enabled the Climate Crisis Scam

By Jim Steele

Abnormal warming over the Arctic Ocean and Arctic sea ice loss has been falsely blamed on rising CO2 and evidence of the climate crisis. Such alarmist graphic propaganda is common, like Yale 360’s emphasizing the Arctic Ocean’s warming of several degrees in November 2022, while ignoring the cooling over North America and Eurasia. But any critical thinking person can see warm Arctic temperatures are due to inflows of warm Atlantic water, NOT rising CO2.

Earth’s surface temperatures are determined by the balance between incoming solar radiation and the earth’s net outgoing infrared radiation. Net outgoing infrared radiation is determined by the difference between outgoing infrared and the recycled infrared from the greenhouse effect.

Comparing summer July 2023 to winter January 2024, Arctic summers (illustration B) receive enough solar heating to counter net outgoing infrared and slightly raise temperatures above freezing. At the North Pole, summer temperatures reach +0.5C. However, without solar radiation during the North Pole winter (illustration A), net outgoing infrared dominates the energy balance, and North Pole temperatures plummet by 33 C degrees and cooling the earth. Similarly, just inside the Arctic Circle at 70 degrees north latitude over the Gulf of Boothia, summer temperatures of 1.4 C plummet by 30.8 degrees to winter temperatures of -29.4 C.

However, that seasonal temperature dynamic is grossly different where warm salty Atlantic waters enter the Arctic. Where Atlantic waters enter the Arctic at 70 degrees north latitude, summer temperatures reach +8.1 C, and despite Arctic winter cooling, temperatures don’t drop below freezing, only averaging +2.5 C. The inflow of warm Atlantic waters normally transports so much stored tropical heat to that region it raises temperatures by around 30 C higher than what would be expected from the Arctics normal greenhouse effect over insulating sea ice.

Thus, claims by alarmists attributing rising CO2 to any loss of Arctic Sea sea ice is not supported by the evidence. As graphic Cfrom the US National Snow and Ice Data Center shows the loss of insulating Arctic sea ice is primarily restricted to the regions where warm Atlantic currents normally enter the Arctic (graphic D). Furthermore, the 1990s shift in wind directions caused by the natural Arctic Oscillation, drove out much of the Arctic’s thick multi-year sea ice which resulted in thinner annual sea ice which allowed more heat to ventilate and warm the Arctic (see peer-reviewed Rigor (2002) & (2004)).

As the natural Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation shifts to more northern hemisphere cooling, a decrease in the flow of warming tropical Atlantic water entering the Arctic, a rebound in insulating Arctic sea ice will occur that will simultaneously decrease Arctic temperatures.

People who understand these natural climate dynamics that affect the Arctic, always and quickly understand the bogus global warming crisis is driven by natural Arctic warming oscillations.

The Embarrassing Pause In Arctic Sea Ice Loss Has Lasted 17 Years, Defying IPCC, NSIDC Predictions

From NoTricksZone

By Kenneth Richard on 8. January 2024

“[S]ince the dramatical decline of the ice extent in 2007, the summer Arctic sea ice area has not declined further.” – Astrup Jensen, 2023

Scientists have been using the year 2007 as the starting point for assessing Arctic sea ice trends for nearly a decade. A 2015 study published in Nature Climate Change reported a “near-zero trend” in summer sea ice over the 7 years from 2007-2013.

Image Source: Swart et al., 2015 (full paper)

Another 10 years have now passed and there is still no evidence of a further decline in sea ice.

This is interesting because since late 2007 scientists have predicted Arctic sea ice would decline rapidly as CO2 continued rising – from 385 ppm in 2007 to 422 ppm today. There were 20 models referenced by the IPCC (AR4) projecting a 40% loss of sea ice by 2050 due to an allegedly enhance greenhouse effect associated with anthropogenic CO2 emissions.

But a new study reveals there’s been no declining trend in summer sea ice area over the last 17 years, and “no apparent correlation” between CO2 and sea ice trends.

“The Arctic Sea ice extent is measured by satellites and varies by day, month and year, and the yearly minimum ice extent will occur in a day of September month every year. The ice extent is much lower now (2023) than in 1978, when the satellite measurements began. However, it has not been a gradual decline. A major decline happened during the years 1997 – 2007. Before that the decline was minimal and after that period, there was no significant downward trend.”

“These data show that there is no apparent correlation between the variable extent of the Arctic and the Antarctic Sea ice and the gradually increasing CO2-concentrations in the atmosphere as proposed by NSIDC, IPCC and others, also for these areas of cold climate.”

Image Source: Astrup Jensen, 2023
Swart_2015_NatureCC_Arcticseaicetrends_internalvariabilityHerunterladen

Astrup-Jensen-2023-Time-Trend-Arctic-Sea-IceHerunterladen

Increasing Cold, Snow Cast Doubt Over Claim Of Rapid Warming As North Freezes

From NoTricksZone

By P Gosselin on 28. November 2023

EIKE Cold Report No. 33 (excerpts)

By Christian Freuer, Electroverse

Europe’s best start to a ski season in a long time

Contrary to mainstream groupthink, reality is once again smacking climate alarmism in the face.

Recently, ski resorts from the French Alps down to the Italian Dolomites reported almost a meter of fresh snow, resulting in a historically early start to the European ski season.

And the forecast sees much more through early December.

Absurd notions that Europe’s favorite winter sport is a thing of the past have suffered a setback after temperatures across the region fell off a cliff in November, back to a “crisp climate like in the 1990s,” reports goodnewsnetwork.org.

Fukuoka, Japan, sees earliest snowfall in 40 years

On Sunday, November 19, Fukuoka Prefecture on the northern coast of the Japanese island of Kyushu experienced early snowfall.

Record cold and snow in recent weeks in East Asia – namely in northeast China, Mongolia and eastern Siberia – has now crossed the Sea of Japan and brought exceptionally early snowfall to the north of the country.

According to the Japanese Meteorological Agency, the earliest snowfall since November 1983 was recorded in the city of Fukuoka.

Two fatalities caused by a snowstorm in Bulgaria

A drop in temperature, strong winds and heavy rain/snow caused severe damage across much of Bulgaria on Sunday, disrupting power supplies and claiming at least two lives.

Eastern Bulgaria was the worst affected and residents said they had never experienced such extreme weather.

A state of emergency was declared in the Black Sea city of Varna as the torrential rain turned into heavy snowfall and blizzards.

30 cm of fresh snow in California

It snowed heavily at higher altitudes in California over the weekend, with over 30 cm of snow accumulating in the mountains.

Along the California/Nevada border, an early winter storm brought 30 inches of snow to Mt. Rose Ski Tahoe, another 18 inches to Mammoth Mountain Ski Base and 10 inches to Palisades. The NWS office in Reno also saw flakes fall to below 5,000 feet.

A winter weather warning was issued for the Ruby Mountains and the East Humboldt Range, where the total snowfall amounted to almost 50 cm.

Study: CO2 uptake, vegetation on the rise

Plants will have absorbed 20% more carbon dioxide by the end of the century than originally predicted, according to a new study, which even some mainstream media admits “climate models overestimate how fast the planet will warm”.

Trinity College Dublin said its study, published in the journal Science Advances, painted an “uncharacteristically positive picture for the planet” after finding that climate models had not accounted for all elements of photosynthesis.

Mainstream science had proclaimed that “climate change” was likely to weaken the process, but the new research shows that plants will continue to efficiently absorb carbon dioxide, produce extra nutrients and so continue to thrive.

Arctic sea ice is doing fine

From Antarctica to Greenland to the Arctic, global ice is doing well.

“There is a 75 percent chance that the entire north polar ice cap could be completely ice-free during some summer months within the next five to seven years,” said Al Gore in 2009.

Let’s take a look at developments up to November 20, 2023:

Chart: NSIDC

It’s clear to see that the Arctic sea ice extent is currently above the average for the period 2011-2020 and is rapidly approaching the average for the period 2001-2010. In fact, today’s extent of 10.019 million km² is higher than at the same time in 2009 when Gore made his prediction:

Chart: NSIDC

From polar bears to hurricanes, snowfall and climate-related deaths – all the theories of the climate alarmists are ultimately disproved by reality.

Climate charlatans like Gore and Gates can’t be wrong on so many issues for so long and still retain the platform they have without dubious media manipulation. The only reason the reputations of these public figures have not yet been dragged through the mud is because they 1) dutifully push the agenda and 2) believe everything printed in the legacy media.

Polar outbreaks in America, Europe imminent

The models appear to be fairly confident here: cold air of Arctic origin will affect both North America and Europe.

It’s getting colder in Brazil

According to the latest GFS runs, it will remain anomalously cold in Brazil over the next few weeks:

Chart: GFS

This is indicative of the longer-term cooling trend recorded by the country’s temperature stations.

The only weather station in Brazil with continuous data going back to 1900 is located in the eastern city of Quixeramobim in the state of Ceará, explains Tony Heller on X. According to NASA data, the temperature station in Quixeramobim shows a cooling since 1960.

Australian heat exaggerated

There is a lot of reporting about the heat and forest fires in Perth.

The exaggerations and propaganda are as captivating as the licking flames and swirling embers. But, as always, a quick fact-check destroys the scaremongering. A thin red spot [indicating heat] is not proof of a “climate crisis”:

Chart: Tropical Tidbits

According to the satellite data, there’s been a cooling trend of -0.13 °C per decade since 2013.

Heavy snowfall in Eastern Europe, much more expected

After three days of snowfall, the Russian Volga region was buried under 30 cm of snow – an unusually high amount for November.

The November norm for the city of Ulyanovsk, for example, is 8 cm, but a week before the end of the month, 24 cm of snow had already been measured.

Winter a month early

In Izhevsk, the capital of the Republic of Udmurtia, the snow drifts are also “a month ahead of the calendar”, reports gismeteo.ru.

Further west, Belarus has declared the danger level “orange”, as heavy snowfall is forecast over the Norwegian Sea. On November 23, strong winds and snowstorms hit most of the country. Icy roads were reported in the western regions, as well as in the capital Minsk.

Northern hemisphere snow cover trends up 

These snow amounts will contribute to another above average snow season for the Northern Hemisphere:

Chart: Rutgers
Chart: Rutgers

Editorial deadline for this report: November 24, 2023. Compiled  by Christian Freuer for EIKE.

Main source: Electroverse. 

New Study: Modern Sea Ice Extent Is Nearly The Highest In 9000 Years Across the Arctic

From NoTricksZone

By Kenneth Richard on 20. November 2023

Millennial-scale Arctic sea ice reconstructions do not corroborate alarmist claims of unprecedented sea ice losses in modern times. 

Using sea ice biomarker proxy (IP25), scientists (Kolling et al., 2023) have determined that the sea ice extent in the Labrador Sea was nearly absent throughout the year (close to 0.0 μg/gTOC) for much of the last 9,000 years. The sea ice was lowest (~0.1 μg/gTOC) 9,300 to 8,900 years ago, and low (~0.4 μg/gTOC) from 7,500 to 4,000 years ago.

Image Source: Kolling et al., 2023

The lack of a trend in sea ice loss across the Labrador Sea is consistent with observations that show the region has not warmed in the last 70 years (Yashayaev and Loder, 2017).

Image Source: Yashayaev and Loder, 2017

Other scientists (Wu et al., 2020) determined that from about 14,000 to 8,000 years ago, when CO2 lingered near 250 ppm, the Beaufort Sea (Arctic) was “nearly ice free throughout the year” (<0.2 PIP25) and ~4°C warmer than today in winter.

With modern (1988-2007) CO2 at ~400 ppm, this region is 70-100% ice-covered (>0.8 PIP25) for 10 to 11 months per year.

Image Source: Wu et al., 2020

Svalbard sea ice has expanded to its highest extent of the Holocene (11,700 years ago to present) during the last 500 to 700 years (Allaart et al., 2020).

The Holocene’s sea ice maximum just developed during modern times, as the authors note there has been an “increase in IP25 concentrations after c. 0.7±0.2 cal. ka BP, with a maximum in the modern sediments.”

Image Source: Allaart et al., 2020

A study site northeast of Svalbard, scientists (Brice et al., 2020) find today’s sea surface temperatures of “<0°C” are at least 4°C colder than they were just a few thousand years ago, when the Arctic was sea ice free for all but “a couple of months” every year.

Today’s sea ice monthly duration (~11 months per year) and summer sea surface temperatures (zero degrees Celsius) are among the highest and lowest (respectively) of the Holocene.

Image Source: Brice et al., 2020

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1.5m Homes At Risk From Melting Sea Ice!

What? The arctic is still not free of ice?

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

A friend spotted this item on Talk TV a couple of weeks ago:

https://watch.talk.tv/watch/replay/18841536

The reporter claimed that up to 1.5 million UK properties face the increased risk of flooding because of “rising seas triggered by melting Arctic sea ice”. (At 7.05 am)

They seemingly are not aware that melting sea ice does not contribute to sea level rise!

She has filed a complaint, but Talk TV seem slow in responding. I suggest we all bombard them with complaints as well, it might wake them up!

Arctic sea ice: the canary in the coal mine

A canary in a coal mine is an advanced warning of some danger. The metaphor originates from the times when miners used to carry caged canaries while at work; if there was any methane or carbon monoxide in the mine, the canary would die before the levels of the gas reached those hazardous to humans.

From Climate Etc.

by Greg Goodman

With over a decade and a half since the IPCC AR4, it is  instructive to see how the “run away melting” of Arctic sea ice is progressing.

Mass media outlets have been paying little attention to Arctic sea ice in recent years apart from cries of alarm at carefully selected low points in the record. After much excitement and breathless claims of imminent “ice-free summers” in the Arctic starting around and inspired by the release of IPCC’s AR4 in 2007, we were told that Arctic sea ice was “the canary in the coal mine”, the harbinger of the catastrophic changes happening to the climate system and caused by human actions.

Fortunately for the purveyors of this point of view, 2007 experienced the lowest summer sea ice extent in the relatively short satellite record. Worse, after a few years of mild recovery, we witnessed the OMG minimum of 2012. Media spin went into over-drive with claims it was “worse than we thought”, and claims from activist-scientists that the Arctic was in a “death spiral”.[1]

Now with over a decade and a half since AR4 it would be instructive to see how the “run away melting” is progressing. To check in on our canary and see whether it has fallen from its perch and is lying in the saw-dust with its stiff little legs sadly pointing towards the heavens.

NSIDC maintains a very instructive and useful interactive graph [5], allowing display of any selected years from the satellite record on a day by day basis . They also publish the ice extent data for each day of the 45 year record in text format, as well as the date and magnitude of minimum ice extent each year.

Since the September minimum is the most volatile this became a favourite metric and was a regular media climate highlight each September. In 2007 Al Gore was famously saying (unnamed) scientists had told him there may be no more Arctic ice at all in summer by as early as 2013.

Climatologists frequently explain the idea of the “albedo feedback” whereby less ice leads to more solar energy entering the sea, causing warmer waters, more ice melting, more solar … and a “tipping point” being reached where irreversible, run-away melting would occur. This explanation, while plausible, is of a naive simplicity and does not even examine what other effects more open water may have and what other feedbacks, positive or negative, may come into play.

  • More conductive heat loss since the ice was a good insulating barrier.
  • More evaporative heat loss due to more open water exposed to persistently strong Arctic winds.
  • More radiative heat loss, since water has a high emissivity in the infra-red and will be radiating more 24/7 throughout the summer and continuing into the winter when the Arctic is in permanent darkness and there is zero incident sunlight.

Even in the summer months, the little sunlight there is arrives at very low incident angles and a high proportion is reflected not absorbed at all. This weakens the supposed albedo feedback. It seems this has not been measured or quantified in place. It remains speculative but is somehow expected/assumed to be a dominant factor in the changing polar climate.

So what does the 45 years of daily satellite data tell us?

Figure 1. Arctic sea ice extent ( areas with less than 15% ice coverage ). 

We can see that in 2007 and even up until 2012, the reduction in sea ice extent was indeed reducing significantly and at an accelerating rate. A quadratic function, corresponding to a constantly increasing rate of melting, did provide a reasonably good fit to the date from around 1995. This does not prove that AGW was the cause of that change but it did at least seem a reasonable hypothesis which merited proper investigation. Instead this was taken as a self-evident truth which did not require any proof.

Had that indeed been the case there would have been no summer ice by around 2023/24. However, as the subsequent record now tells us, this simplistic interpretation no longer fits the observed data and therefore is formally rebutted. Not to recognise this would be “science denial” or to display a “flat-earther” mentality. It may even constitute “climate change denial” !

With 16 years more data under our belts, we see a very different outcome. The 2023 sea ice minimum on 18/19 September was indistinguishable from that of 2007 when all the hysterical screaming began. ZERO net change in 17 years. The linear trend since 2007 is indistinguishable from zero ( around -0.17% per year ). Sadly, virtually no one seems to be aware of this GOOD NEWS because there is a stony silence from the media who steadfastly avoid mentioning it and climatologists who prefer to divert the discussion elsewhere : ice maximum, Antarctic sea ice, calving glaciers …. anything but canaries !!

At best we are told the lowest 17y on record are the last 17y, without also being told that period shows no net change.[2] Or we are told sea ice IS shrinking implying it is still happening. The grammatically a falsehood and at best wilful misdirection. eg. NASA Vital signs: “Key Takeaway: Summer Arctic sea ice extent is shrinking by 12.3% per decade due to warmer temperatures.”[3] Climate science seems to have moved from “Hide the decline” to “Hide the lack of decline” !

Regime change
Sumatra et al 2023 [4] Determines that there has been a regime change in the Artic since 2007 witnessed by the thickness and character of ice flow through the Fram Straight.

“Here we show that the Arctic sea ice regime shifted in 2007 from thicker and deformed to thinner and more uniform ice cover. Continuous sea ice monitoring in the Fram Strait over the last three decades revealed the shift.”

Figure 3.

Derivation of this result is shown here:
https://climategrog.wordpress.com/arctic-min-dates/
With a more detailed discussion here:
https://climategrog.wordpress.com/category/periodic-analysis/

Conclusion

The detailed daily satellite data of sea ice extent provides the basis for extended study to understand the variation and forces driving change. Sadly much of the discussion seems based on drawing a straight line through the entire dataset and reducing it to single scalar value: the “trend”, which is instantly, and spuriously, attributed to the monotonic rise in atmospheric CO2. This is lazy and convenient but not scientific. The rich granularity of 45y of daily data shows the variation is anything but monotonic and that other factors and feedbacks are at play.

More serious analysis is necessary to determine the extent that long term temperature rise is contributing to change, what feedbacks ( both positive and negative ) are at play and what this tells us about long term change. Trivial “trend” fitting is clearly grossly inadequate to understand the cryosphere and inform energy policy consequences and adaptation measures.

More honest reporting is required from media outlets, climate scientists and government bodies about the true nature of change, good news as well as bad, instead of highly selective reporting or misreporting to build an alarmist narrative.