NASA Stumped: Summer Arctic Ice Extent Among Highest This Decade, Antarctica “Headed Toward Record Extent”

NASA has released its latest sea ice report. These are tough times for climate alarmists. The truth is: There’s a lot more sea ice out there this year than they ever imagined.

NASA makes some interesting comments.

First they tell us that Arctic sea ice is over 1.5 million sq. km above last year, and is thus at one of the highest late summer extents in the last 10 years. Surprise.

Secondly Walt Meier of NASA tells us the real reason for last year’s record minimum: storms. Walt Meier (my emphasis):

Last year’s storm went across an area of open water and mixed the smaller pieces of ice with the relatively warm water, so it melted very rapidly. This year, the storms hit in an area of more consolidated ice. The storms this year were more typical summer storms; last year’s was the unusual one.”

Thirdly, NASA seems stumped by the near record extent of Antarctic sea ice (my emphasis):

Antarctic sea ice, which is in the midst of its yearly growing cycle, is heading toward the largest extent on record, having reached 7.45 million square miles (19.3 million square kilometers) on Aug. 21.  […] The phenomenon, which appears counter-intuitive but reflects the differences in environment and climate between the Arctic and Antarctica, is currently the subject of many research studies.”

One can’t help notice in NASA’s language that ice melt to them means warming, but ice forming is because of weather, a phenomena, or something. God forbid it may be a sign of cooling.

Finally, NASA likes to convey to readers and pretend that the sea ice decrease in the Arctic over the last 35 years is linear, and likely will continue so. But the fact is that Arctic sea ice extent is cyclic, and that it has flattened in the last 6 years, and the reversals of the PDO and AMO likely have something to do with it.

 

13 responses to “NASA Stumped: Summer Arctic Ice Extent Among Highest This Decade, Antarctica “Headed Toward Record Extent””

  1. Joe Bastardi

    I did a presentation at the Heartland conference on this matter over a year ago. My idea is that the so called “warming” is a distortion of temperatures, warmer northward, because of the previous warm PDO and still warm AMO, influencing the continents, which surround the northern ice cap more. In fact I also opined as to why such an event would lower the ACE index for the globe, but that is another story for another time. In any case here is the “problem” with global warming. A degree is not a degree when it comes to implications as far as the total heat budget. If one simply pulls out a skew T and looks at the mixing ratios, one sees you need a huge change in temperatures where its cold, to compensate for a small change where its warm and moist. If we were to use mixing ratios as the measure for determining the earths true tendencies, we would probably see that there is no “warming” In any case, the expansion of the southern ice cap, WHICH UNLIKE THE NORTHERN, IS SURROUNDED BY WATER, is most likely indicative of a large scale cooling over the southern oceans, at least surrounding the continent of Antarctica. This would be the sign that this is merely a distortion of the temp pattern, part of a natural swing that we can finally measure accurately because we now have the satellites to do it ( we did not before 1978).What we really have to worry about is that the flip of the AMO to cold starts the inevitable increase in the northern ice cap, but the southern, instead of shrinking, stays the same size because of solar considerations. That gives the ice, not fire, theory more credence.

    Think about what I am saying here.. that in terms of mixing rations a tiny drop of the average temp in a maritime setting that ranges from 30 degrees near the ice cap to 85 degrees in the tropics, offsets large increases MAINLY DURING THE COLD SEASON IN THE ARCTIC.. which also mean even tinier effects on mixing ratios.

    Of course to counter this, the AGW crowd is coming up with the dog ate my homework excuse of “missing heat in the deep oceans” The problem with that is Bill Grays work on this matter a) predates them and b) explains naturally what they are trying to label as something caused by man. I suspect none of them have ever read Bills paper, also presented at Heartland, on this. Here is the link.

    http://typhoon.atmos.colostate.edu/Includes/Documents/Publications/gray2012.pdf

    Stumped??? Thats what happen when you dismiss ideas by people that need to actually be judged by the RESULT OF THEIR IDEA.. so they need to be right. Just because they did not see it, does not mean others dont

    Basically, the “warmth” is distorted if measured by temperatures, but if mixing ratios are used, one may find a different story.

    1. DirkH

      Yes. Also, as temperatures are neither equally nor normally distributed, the Law Of Large Numbers does not hold; therefore they cannot claim to be able to overcome the violation of the Shannon theorem with statistical sampling.
      (Satellite measurements do not suffer from this as much as they have contiguous coverage) (therefore UAH and RSS are or superior quality) (WHY does NASA, a space agency insist on not using the satellites? Makes you wonder…)

  2. John F. Hultquist

    Joe B., very interesting idea – Thanks.
    ~~~

    As regards the NASA report, it is difficult not to smirk (maybe there is a better word?).
    They haven’t a clue. I have a vision of a puppy chasing its tail.

  3. Juergen Uhlemann

    I’m following some of the Northwest Passage expeditions and some of the blogs show interesting details.
    Last year the water temperature reported by the yachts was +5 degree Celsius and this year about 0 degree Celsius. Without the Canadian ice breakers some of the cruise ships (if not all) wouldn’t make it through the NWP. The small ships have trouble too and some have turned back. Other ones got help from the Canadian ice breakers.
    Amundsen did the NWP between 1903 and 1906 without icebreakers and modern ice chart information.
    The Sea Adventurer has tried the Bellot Straight twice within 5 days and went about halve into it. It’s back in the Lancaster Sound. The leader of the expedition said they had never this before. According to him, the situation of the ice will certainly not be better next year as the ice has not melted this year.

  4. Gary H

    From the NASA report: “Even if this year ends up being the sixth- or seventh-lowest extent, what matters is that the 10 lowest extents recorded have happened during the last 10 years,” said Walt Meier, a glaciologist with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “The long-term trend is strongly downward.”

    Let’s make a gander here. It’s quite possible that this year might mark the beginning of a reversal . . “let the ice heal. . .” and that for the next 9-10 years (or 35) the expanding Arctic sea ice extent is again the theme, much as it was leading up to the infamous 1974 warning.

    If the summer ice extent minimum were to gradually work it’s way back up for the next ten years , but remained more or less within the limits set by the current definiti0n of the “10 lowest extents recorded,” it would then become the “20 lowest extents recorded.” Of course the alarmists would hang their hat on that for a while.

    It’s the 25 years after that which might severely test NASA here.

    I wonder what Joe B. would predict here?

  5. Ed Caryl

    It all depends on what China does about it’s soot emissions.
    https://notrickszone.com/2012/08/27/arctic-ice-loss-temperature-or-soot/

  6. Bertold Klein

    There is an experiment that proves that the Greenhouse gas effect does not exist. This experiment which has been technologically reviewed by Ph.D physicists (at least 4). Ph.D. Chemical engineers (at least 2 at last count) and others Ph. D’s in other fields The experiment is found on the web-site http:// http://www.slayingtheskydragon.com click on the blog tab then on page 3 of 12. . It is titled “The Experiment that failed which can save the world trillions-Proving the greenhouse gas effect does not exist”

    The Greenhouse Effect Explored
    Written by Carl Brehmer | 26 May 2012
    Is “Water Vapor Feedback” Positive or Negative?
    Exploiting the medium of Youtube Carl Brehmer is drawing wider attention to a fascinating experiment he performed to

    test the climatic impacts of water in our atmosphere.
    Carl explains, “An essential element of the “greenhouse effect” hypothesis is the positive “water vapor feedback” hypothesis. That is, if something causes an increase in the temperature this will cause an increase in the evaporation of water into water vapor.”

    Another important website is www. The Great Climate Clash.com -G3 The Greenhouse gas effect does not exist.
    Dr. Vincent Gray on historical carbon dioxide levels
    Posted on June 4, 2013 by Anthony Watts
    NZCLIMATE TRUTH NEWSLETTER NO 312 JUNE 4th 2013

    CARBON DIOXIDE

    There are two gases in the earth’s atmosphere without which living organisms could not exist.

    Oxygen is the most abundant, 21% by volume, but without carbon dioxide, which is currently only about 0.04 percent (400ppm) by volume, both the oxygen itself, and most living organisms on earth could not exist at all.

    This happened when the more complex of the two living cells (called “eukaryote”) evolved a process called a “chloroplast” some 3 billion years ago, which utilized a chemical called chlorophyll to capture energy from the sun and convert carbon dioxide and nitrogen into a range of chemical compounds and structural polymers by photosynthesis. These substances provide all the food required by the organisms not endowed with a chloroplast organelle in their cells.

    This process also produced all of the oxygen in the atmosphere

    The relative proportions of carbon dioxide and oxygen have varied very widely over the geological ages.

    Oxygen_earths_atmosphere_historical

    CO2_temperature_historical

    It will be seen that there is no correlation whatsoever between carbon dioxide concentration and the temperature at the earth’s surface.

    During the latter part of the Carboniferous, the Permian and the first half of the Triassic period, 250-320 million years ago, carbon dioxide concentration was half what it is today but the temperature was 10ºC higher than today . Oxygen in the atmosphere fluctuated from 15 to 35% during this period

    From the Cretaceous to the Eocene 35 to 100 million years ago, a high temperature went with declining carbon dioxide.

    The theory that carbon dioxide concentration is related to the temperature of the earth’s surface is therefore wrong.

  7. Bertold Klein

    Report of Alan Carlin of US-EPA March, 2009 that shows that CO2 does not cause global warming.

    Greenhouse Gas Hypothesis Violates Fundamentals of Physics” by Dipl-Ing Heinz Thieme This work has about 10 or 12 link
    that support the truth that the greenhouse gas effect is a hoax.
    R.W.Wood
    from the London, Edinborough and Dublin Philosophical Magazine , 1909, vol 17, p319-320. Cambridge UL shelf mark p340.1.c.95, i
    The Hidden Flaw in Greenhouse Theory
    By Alan Siddons
    from:http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/the_hidden_flaw_in_greenhouse.html at March 01, 2010 – 09:10:34 AM CST

  8. Ronald Hartman

    The one thing that I have never seen discussed are the large rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean. They should be bringing in to the ocean warmer waters from the interior of the continents surrounding the Arctic. My question is, is there enough water to noticeably influence the Ice melt/formation. I also have a feeling that the contribution of undersea volcanos has been underestimated because there may be many undiscovered one’s

  9. Ed Caryl

    There are two processes in play with the rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean. One is salinity. The more flow, the less salinity, which lets the sea surface freeze at a higher temperature. The other is river temperature. Water usage on the arctic rivers has tended to reduce flow and make it warmer. It has also smoothed out the flow. Dams have been built for flood control, improved navigation, power generation, irrigation, and industrial water. All these things have increased salinity and reduced ice formation and enhanced melt. Then plug in soot.

  10. John

    Can one of you tell me if co2 will e absorbed by rain water and then be taken out of the atmosphere. It seems that when it rains plants do better than when watered with ground water. And also because it is heavier than air , it will generally sink and if there is more co2 around the plants will grow faster and bigger? Thanks

    1. DirkH

      John, cloud droplets and raindrops do pick up a little CO2, forming carbonic acid in solution; one of the reasons that forest creeks are naturally slightly acidic. Whether plants profit from this carbonic acid I don’t know.

      As for heavier than air: The smaller an object gets, the less important becomes gravity in relation to the forces exerted on its surface – it is a model law -when the diameter of an object is halfed, its volume and weight goes down by a factor of 8; its surface only goes down by a factor of 4. Imagine it with a cube being subdivided into 8 cubes with half the edge length.

      So, due to the model law, the importance of gravity goes down faster as objects become smaller than forces like friction, or kinetic energy transferred from surrounding objects.

      For single gas molecules we can say that gravity is negligible. Only when there is no disturbing kinetic force at all can gases separate out over time like in a grain silo or in a closed room. In the open, this does not happen; CO2 tends to diffuse. BUT this diffusion also happens with limited speed – on a sunny day with no wind a fast growing maize plant – a C3 plant which can suck out all the CO2 molecules of the surrounding air straight down to zero ppm – will stop photosynthesizing after minutes due to the lack of CO2 availability – until air movement supplies new CO2.

      1. DirkH

        Sorry, mistake: Trees are C3 plants and stop photosynthesizing at 150 ppm CO2; maize, bamboo and other grases are C4 plants and can extract CO2 down to zero ppm.

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