Arctic sea ice reaches new record low mark for wintertime

[webfact]

Arctic sea ice reaches new record low mark for wintertime
SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The growth of Arctic sea ice this winter peaked at the lowest maximum level on record, thanks to extraordinarily warm temperatures, federal scientists said Monday.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center says ice covered a maximum of 5.607 million square miles (14.52 million square kilometers) of the Arctic Ocean in 2016. That's 5,000 square miles (12,950 square kilometers) less than the old record set in 2015 — a difference slightly smaller than the state of Connecticut.

It's also some 431,000 square miles (1.1 million square kilometers) less than the 30-year average. That difference is the size of Texas and California combined.

Records go back to 1979 when satellites started measuring sea ice, which forms when Arctic Ocean water freezes.

This year's ice didn't break the record by much, but it's "an exclamation point" on a longer-term trend, said NASA scientist Walt Meier, who helped calculate the data.

The sub-par showing doesn't necessarily mean that the minimum extent this summer will also break a record, scientists said. The summer minimum is more important for affecting Earth's climate and weather.

Data center scientist Julienne Stroeve says winter temperatures over the North Pole were 16 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal, while other parts of the Arctic ran 4 to 11 degrees F warmer than normal.

Data center chief Mark Serreze said in a press release, "I have never seen such a warm, crazy winter in the Arctic."

It was so warm that the Barents Sea was "pretty much close to ice -free for almost the whole winter, which is very unusual," Meier said.

Stroeve said early indications show that the sea ice is thinner than last year.

A leading but still controversial theory says loss of sea ice in the Arctic may change the jet stream and bring more extreme weather to the United States, Stroeve said.

The new report reveals "just the latest disturbing data point in a disturbing trend wherein climate changes are happening even faster than we had forecast," Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann said.
___

National Snow and Ice Data Center: http://nsidc.org/news/newsroom/arctic-sets-yet-another-record-low-maximum-extent


-- (c) Associated Press 2016-03-29

[Merylhighground]

Sounds like a job for Boaty McBoatface <deleted>......

[wabothai]

Sounds like a job for Boaty McBoatface <deleted>......

For you who don't know: the most ever stupid name given by popular vote to a research vessel

[billd766]

Sounds like a job for

<deleted>......

For you who don't know: the most ever stupid name given by popular vote to a research vessel

For those of you who also didn't know, the research vessel has not yet been named and the name Boaty McBoatface was chosen by only a few thousand people.

However

Traditionally, ships are named after explorers, so Boaty McBoatface would be an unusual choice.

There's no guarantee that the ship would have the name though, as the poll is only a suggestion and a panel of experts will choose the name.

Other names in the running are RRS Pingu and RRS Usain Bolt.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/35856560

[freebyrd]

Sounds like a job for Boaty McBoatface <deleted>......

For you who don't know: the most ever stupid name given by popular vote to a research vessel

Is it any wonder extra terrestrials haven't made contact with us? The world gets more ridiculous by the day.

[Neurath]

Sounds like a job for Boaty McBoatface <deleted>......

For you who don't know: the most ever stupid name given by popular vote to a research vessel

Is it any wonder extra terrestrials haven't made contact with us? The world gets more ridiculous by the day.

They're waiting until it gets much hotter. Won't be long.

[JGV]

And Republicans still think global warming is a liberal lie

[i claudius]

Global warming means more taxes, wonder what caused the last ice age? There were no Govts then to raise tax

[RickBradford]

Records go back to 1979 when satellites started measuring sea ice, which forms when Arctic Ocean water freezes.

A textbook piece of cherry-picking, which manages to ignore official information from NOAA which was incorporated into an IPCC report in 1990, which shows clearly that Arctic ice extent was much lower in the mid-1970s, ie just before they decided to start their "records".

Global warming may not be a liberal lie, but significant parts of the global warming narrative are a stew of obfuscation, exaggeration, lying by omission, agit-prop, confirmation bias, data manipulation and plain ol' bad science. Add plenty of media scaremongering, and serve hot.

[Chicog]

All of the anti-global warming narrative is obfuscation, exaggeration, lying by omission, agit-prop, confirmation bias, data manipulation, usually completely crap science and a whole steaming cess pool of taking things out of context.

Which is what the people who pay for it expect.

After this winter’s record ice lows, scientists now expect more than ever that the Arctic will be entirely ice-free in the summer months within 20 or 25 years.

“Sometime in the 2030s or 2040s time frame, at least for a few days, you won’t have ice out there in the dead of summer,” said Dr John Walsh, chief scientist of the International Arctic Research Centre.

Those changes are already evident on the ground. In 1975, there were only a few days a year when ships could move from Barrow to Prudhoe Bay off the north coast of Alaska. Now that window lasts months.

The Arctic will always have ice in the winter months, Walsh said. But it will be thinner and more fragile than the multi-year ice, and less reliable for indigenous peoples who rely on the ice as winter transport routes or hunting platforms.

“It’s not just about how many hundreds of thousands of square kilometres covered by the ice. It’s about the quality of that ice,” Thoman said.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/28/arctic-sea-ice-record-low-winter

which manages to ignore official information from NOAA which was incorporated into an IPCC report in 1990, which shows clearly that Arctic ice extent was much lower in the mid-1970s

They did not have satellites doing accurate measurements in the mid-1970s.

Edited March 29, 2016 by Chicog

[TuskegeeBen]

Sounds like a job for Boaty McBoatface <deleted>......

For you who don't know: the most ever stupid name given by popular vote to a research vessel

Is it any wonder extra terrestrials haven't made contact with us? The world gets more ridiculous by the day.

FYI~ We have already been contacted, but the powers that be, were too greedily stupid to heed the warning! The "internal_combustion" engine should have been completely destroyed, and banned from any form of production, 50-years ago. Duh!

Edited March 29, 2016 by TuskegeeBen

[RickBradford]

After this winter’s record ice lows, scientists now expect more than ever that the Arctic will be entirely ice-free in the summer months within 20 or 25 years.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.....

“If Norway’s average temperature this year [2008] equals that in 2007, the ice cap in the Arctic will all melt away, which is highly possible judging from current conditions,” - Dr. Olav Orheim - Norwegian International Polar Year Secretariat

“According to these models, there will be no sea ice left in the summer in the Arctic Ocean somewhere between 2010 and 2015. And it’s probably going to happen even faster than that,” said Fortier,” [Professor Louis Fortier - Université Laval, Director ArcticNet]

“At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions.” - Dr. Jay Zwally - NASA

“Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer is not accounting for the last two minima, in 2005 and 2007,”…….So given that fact, you can argue that may be our projection of 2013 is already too conservative.” - Professor Wieslaw Maslowski

“…..It is quite likely that the North Pole will be exposed this [2008] summer – it’s not happened before,” Professor Peter Wadhams - Cambridge University

“…..one can project that at this rate it would take only 9 more years or until 2016 ± 3 years to reach a nearly ice-free Arctic Ocean in summer. Regardless of high uncertainty associated with such an estimate, it does provide a lower bound of the time range for projections of seasonal sea ice cover…..” - Professor Wieslaw Maslowski: Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences

“For the record—I do not think that any sea ice will survive this summer. An event unprecedented in human history is today, this very moment, transpiring in the Arctic Ocean….” - [Paul Beckwith - PhD student paleoclimatology and climatology - part-time professor]

“It could even be this year or next year but not later than 2015 there won’t be any ice in the Arctic in the summer,” - Professor Peter Wadhams - Cambridge University

That's climate alarmism for you -- always absolutely certain, and always wrong.

Edited March 29, 2016 by RickBradford

[Chicog]

The key is in the wording....

scientists now expect more than ever

While the predictions may be inexact, the scientific measurement of the trends is inescapable.

However, thank you for proving my point by lifting a load of vague, out-of-context quotes from the blog of Anthony Watts, who just happens to be on the Koch payroll, as all of these climate "science" hacks seem to be.

[Chicog]

Having said that, there are less drastic predictions out there, and this illustrates the number of variables with which they are working:

Ice coverage has been declining drastically over the last several decades, a decrease of about 40 percent since the late 1970s. In just the last few years, from 2007 to 2012, the Arctic has seen the lowest September ice cover in history, the new study stated.

"An ice-free Arctic would have a significant impact on the ocean's ecosystems, biogeochemical feedback, and extreme weather and climate in the mid- and high-latitudes," UAlbany Professor Jiping Liu of the Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences (DAES), said in a statement. "It will also affect Arctic maritime and commercial activities, including shipping, transport, and energy exploration."

Speaking to NBC News, Liu pointed out that by 2054, ice in the Arctic could theoretically be only found in small pockets, and would drastically alter shipping routes as boats would no longer have to go around large masses of ice. Mark Serreze, another Artic sea ice expert speaking to NBC News, said Liu's study was too conservative. Serreze predicts an ice-free Arctic by the 2030's and cites several unknown variables, such as heat transfer from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arctic, which could alter estimates.

http://www.hngn.com/articles/9729/20130809/scientists-predict-ice-free-arctic-2054-caused-global-warming.htm

Edited March 29, 2016 by Chicog

[Catoni]

" Records go back to 1979......" That's the important part of the post......

37 years........

Such a short time period for this planet is not going to get me excited... How much Arctic ice was there at the height of the Medieval Warm Period, the Roman Warm Period, or the Minoan Warm Period and other warm periods ?

How do the present Arctic ice conditions compare the the ice conditions for a much longer period of time.... let's say.... oh..... the last five million years ? ? ?

​ We just came out of the Little Ice Age round 1850. ( L.I.A. approx. 1300 - 1850). We should expect it to warm.

You see..... using a much longer data set... we can see if the present Arctic ice conditions are outside the normal range of variability for this planet.. or not.

You just can't judge what is normal or not in the history of the planet with only 37 years worth of data..... it's not possible. No one should be jumping to any conclusions about Arctic ice levels with only 37 years worth of data.

​ Meanwhile.... Antarctica is gaining ice...

[freebyrd]

Sounds like a job for Boaty McBoatface <deleted>......

For you who don't know: the most ever stupid name given by popular vote to a research vessel

Is it any wonder extra terrestrials haven't made contact with us? The world gets more ridiculous by the day.

FYI~ We have already been contacted, but the powers that be, were too greedily stupid to heed the warning! The "internal_combustion" engine should have been completely destroyed, and banned from any form of production, 50-years ago. Duh!

50 years ago? That would have been about 100 years to late then?......