Arctic Sea Ice Has Grown Since September 1

I know what a lot of people are thinking when they look at the Arctic sea ice graph since September 1st – my oh my how has the ice reduced! Indeed just take a look at the numbers themselves:

September 1:     5,332,344 sq km
September 18:   4,813, 594 sq km

That’s a drop in area of over 500,000 sq km. Still, I’m going to say that the ice has grown. You think it’s preposterous, right?

But now take a look at the following chart that compares September 1 ice to September 18 ice. Which would you prefer to be standing on?

These charts are taken from: http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/cgi-bin/seaice-monitor.cgi

Which ice looks thicker (more concentrated)?

Don’t sweat the ice area statistics. The thickness (er, concentration) is much greater today, and we could even say the volume is likely more.  Arctic temperatures above 80°N have been colder this summer and September. The ice area will rebound quickly, of course. I projected a 5.75 million sq km min. for 2011 a couple weeks back. I’m sticking to it.

19 responses to “Arctic Sea Ice Has Grown Since September 1”

  1. Sea Ice News #23, plus a bonus NOAA sea ice blunder | Watts Up With That?

    […] R. de Haan says: September 19, 2010 at 7:03 pm Arctic Sea Ice has grown: https://notrickszone.com/2010/09/19/arctic-sea-ice-has-grown-since-september-1/ […]

  2. R. de Haan

    The animation video published at WUWT shows wind and currents
    transporting huge amounts of ice out of the Arctic basin where it melts in warmer waters.

    Let’s draw the following conclusion from this observation:

    The Arctic basin is one gigantic ice machine that is flushed on a regular basis by wind and currents.
    The seasonal ice melt within the Arctic basin is not significant.

    All alarmist reports about an ice free Arctic basin are complete and utter BS.

  3. R. de Haan

    By the way, concluding that the Arctic ice extend within the Arctic basin is more influenced by wind and ocean currents rather than melting within the basin, it is a tricky sport to make any long term predictions about the minimum ice extend in September.
    It’s like playing Russian Roulette.

    Less risky is to make predictions for the maximum ice extend in March before the ice breaks due to the Arctic summer.

    At the same time we have a very good explanation why critters like the polar bear, the seal and the walrus rather take a swim to reach the coasts of the Arctic Basin than being flushed out of their habitat to find themselves in an open ocean on a melting iceberg somewhere between Greenland and Iceland.

    So you see that those animals are a lot smarter than our alarmist environmentalists who screw the facts.

  4. Günther Kirschbaum

    Which ice looks thicker?

    I can’t tell, because it’s a sea ice concentration map. The ice might be 5 cm thick, it might be 10 metres thick. There is no way of deducing it. If you think it looks thicker, it’s because you WANT it to look thicker. Ponder that for a while. Why would you want that?

  5. markinaustin

    it’s not wishful thinking to look at a concentration map and see that one is CLEARLY more concentrated. it is fairly easy to deduce that the more concentrated map almost certainly has, on average, thicker ice.

  6. Günther Kirschbaum

    I projected a 5.75 million sq km min. for 2011 a couple weeks back.

    It could very well come about (although nobody knows for sure, so this is yet again wishful thinking on your part), but what dataset are you referring to, extent or area, absolute/daily minimum or average monthly minimum?

    This year has taught us that it’s always a good thing to ask (pseudo-)skeptics as soon as possible. Steven Goddard is still denying he predicted minimum extent this year to end up at the 2006 level. Like Anthony Watts, he was only 1 million square km off.
    —————————————
    Reply: Steve Goddard predicted we would finish at 5.5 million, which he was forced to take back. I don’t know what Anthony Watts predicted, if he predicted anything at all. I predicted we’d finish slightly above 5 million, and that wasn’t so far off. But like everybody else, it’s a just guessing. Even the experts were way off. Anyone who says their predictions are reliable is either a modeler, a NASA climatologist or a rain-dancer.
    Now as far as my crystal ball projection for next year, I base it on the 6-month forecast for the Pacific and Arctic. Stay tuned for my next post! -PG

  7. Günther Kirschbaum

    “Steve Goddard predicted we would finish at 5.5 million, which he was forced to take back. I don’t know what Anthony Watts predicted, if he predicted anything at all. ”

    There you go, you’re welcome:

    “Steven Goddard writes below that he agrees with the prediction I made in late 2009 that we’d see another 500,000 km2 of Arctic sea ice recovery in 2010. ”

    2009 + 500,000 square km = 5.75 million square km.

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/09/prediction-arctic-ice-will-continue-to-recover-this-summer/

    “Even the experts were way off. ”

    Really? Zhang looks pretty close with his prediction (4.7 million square km) based on the PIOMAS model, some other experts as well, Tamino also hads a nice quadratic trend ending only 35K below this year’s IJIS extent minimum:

    http://www.arcus.org/files/search/sea-ice-outlook/2010/06/images/summary/sioresultschartfig1rev2.jpg

    “Anyone who says their predictions are reliable is either a modeler, a NASA climatologist or a rain-dancer.”

    I think this is – again – somehting you believe so much it has become truth for you. I would like to see a quote (not of the rain-dancer). For every quote you find of modelers and NASA climatologist that say their predictions are reliable, I’ll find you 3 quotes with caveats. And I’ll find quotes by pseudo-skeptics who claim their predictions are reliable, without caveats.

    1. Günther Kirschbaum

      Speaking of Zhang, the newest PIOMAS volume estimate is out: http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/images/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrent.png

      Only 3500 m3 below the already decreasing trend. Hopefully CryoSat-2 will prove the model wrong, or we won’t be seeing any recovery in the Arctic for a while to come.

  8. Günther Kirschbaum

    BTW, you didn’t answer my question:

    “what dataset are you referring to, extent or area, absolute/daily minimum or average monthly minimum?”

  9. R. de Haan

    Günther Kirshbaum and Pierre Gosselin.

    Your discussion about the minimum Arctic Ice Extend is completely without any merit.
    I already posted my remarks but obviously none of you read it or understood the essence my message otherwise this discussion would not have taken place. To make matters clear have a look and this time lapse video which was also published at WUWT.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxxR3Q0AgQA&feature=player_embedded

    What you see is the rapid transport of Arctic Ice out of the Arctic Basin.

    Their is no ice melt due to high temperatures, CO2 or warm currents. The ice is simply broken up and transported out of the region.

    Therefore ice extend, ice thickness can’t be parameters to determine the “health of the Arctic” and remarks like the Arctic is in a death spiral are just plain stupid..

    The time lapse makes clear that it is madness (Russian Roulette I said earlier) to make any long term estimate for Actic Ice extend at the end of the summer season because the Arctic temperatures play a secondary role.

    We have temperature data from 1958 and this data shows that we have nothing to worry about.

    What the time lapse video also shows is a rapid refreezing of the open water surfaces.

    Just regard the Arctic Basin as one gigantic ice machine that is sometimes emptied (flushed is a better word) by winds and ocean currents.

    Is this a bad thing? No absolutely not. It is part of the characteristics of Arctic sea ice to be compressed, broken up and moved.
    And all life depending on this habitat has adopted to this ever changing environment.
    The surface waters that are opened up when the ice is compressed or broken up refreeze quickly and accumulates until the next flush out.

    The seasonal ice melt during higher summer temperatures is relative small compared to the enormous ice masses that are transported out of the Arctic Basin by wind and currents.

    Therefore ice melt is not an item at all.

    And if you want to have a critical point to watch, please concentrate at the maximum ice extend before the summer break up starts.
    But IMO even the maximum ice extend is no parameter to determine the state of the Arctic.
    Everything is well within the margins of the extremes from this past interglacial (completely ice free Arctic Basin and complete NH glaciation) so we simply have nothing, I repeat NOTHING to worry about. Discussing the minimum sea ice extend or the quality of the data sets is entirely irrelevant.

    Better talk about fruit cakes.

  10. Günther Kirschbaum

    “I already posted my remarks but obviously none of you read it”

    I’m sorry to admit, R. de Haan, that I usually do not read your comments, because of the heavy confirmation bias (that’s okay, I have mine too.)

    “What you see is the rapid transport of Arctic Ice out of the Arctic Basin.”

    Are you aware of the fact that this melting season there was relatively little ice transport through Fram Strait? The video you show was of 2007, and yes, in that year there was a continuous export. This year not nearly as much transport as then, but 2010’s extent was still only 500,000 square km higher than the exceptional 2007 (with much less concentrated ice).

    “Their is no ice melt due to high temperatures, CO2 or warm currents. The ice is simply broken up and transported out of the region.”

    There is lots of ice melt due to anomalously high air temperatures AND sea surface temperatures. This has thinned the ice so much that it gets transported much more easily by winds and currents.

    What is happening now has been predicted many decades ago (by Callendar, and even Arrhenius), and it’s called polar amplification. Look it up some time.

    “The seasonal ice melt during higher summer temperatures is relative small compared to the enormous ice masses that are transported out of the Arctic Basin by wind and currents.

    Therefore ice melt is not an item at all.”

    I’m awfully sorry, R. de Haan, but this is simply not true at all. Who is giving you these ideas?

    “Discussing the minimum sea ice extend”

    It’s ‘extent’, with a T.

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