Geophysical Research Letters Shock Finding: In 2014 More Multiyear Ice Than Previous Nine Years…Arctic Winter 0.5 – 1.5°C Colder!

Has anyone been wondering why we’ve been hearing so little about the Arctic lately?

New study says Arctic to remain frozen for many more years. MODIS image of the Arctic, Jeff SchmaltzNASA Earth Observatory

Reader Dennis A. sent me the following abstract of a new paper by Haas et al: Ice thickness in the Northwest Passage – Haas – 2015 – Geophysical Research Letters – Wiley Online Library. It turns out that the Arctic is far less ice free than many thought or expected just some years ago. So wrong can the models be!

More Arctic ice and up to 1.5°C colder!
Navigable NWP postponed 40 years!

The study finds that in 2014 “more ice survived the summer as MYI than in the nine most recent years” and it was only “slightly less than during 1968–2015 on average (Figure S5)“.

Also “between November 2014 and April 2015, winter air temperatures were between −0.5°C and −1.5°C colder than during 1980–2010.”

Moreover the study also has climate experts profoundly postponing yet another prediction: The Northwest passage will not be navigable for another 40 years…let alone the Arctic becoming ice free!

The entire GRL abstract (emphasis added):

We present results of the first ever airborne electromagnetic ice thickness surveys over the NWP carried out in April and May 2011 and 2015 over first-year and multiyear ice. These show modal thicknesses between 1.8 and 2.0 m in all regions. Mean thicknesses over 3 m and thick, deformed ice were observed over some multiyear ice regimes shown to originate from the Arctic Ocean. Thick ice features more than 100 m wide and thicker than 4 m occurred frequently.

Results indicate that even in today’s climate, ice conditions must still be considered severe. These results have important implications for the prediction of ice breakup and summer ice conditions, and the assessment of sea ice hazards during the summer shipping season.

For further evaluation, it is also important to consider that in Parry Channel, including VMS, i.e., in the waters of the northern NWP, in 2014 more ice survived the summer as MYI than in the nine most recent years but slightly less than during 1968–2015 on average (Figure S5).

Between November 2014 and April 2015, winter air temperatures were between −0.5°C and −1.5°C colder than during 1980–2010 which could have led to slightly thicker level ice than average, notwithstanding snow effects

However, by all means the observed thicknesses and amount of deformed ice still indicate serious ice conditions which can persist throughout the summers and provide ample potential for encounters with hazardous ice. Even in recent years, the CAA remains a source for locally grown MYI and a sink for Arctic Ocean MYI [Howell et al., 2015]; and therefore, shipping through the NWP should not be taken lightly.

These conclusions also support results of Smith and Stephenson [2013] who suggested that the NWP will not become easily navigable for another 40years or so.

In addition, we have observed two ice islands in and south of Byam-Martin Channel in 2011 which were not included in the present analysis. These ice islands originated from the ice shelves along the Arctic Ocean coast of Ellesmere Island, and were between 30 and 40m thick, adding to the variability of hazardous ice features in the NWP.”

56 responses to “Geophysical Research Letters Shock Finding: In 2014 More Multiyear Ice Than Previous Nine Years…Arctic Winter 0.5 – 1.5°C Colder!”

  1. Ed Caryl

    So. It’s…. Normal!

    We won’t see this in the main-stream media.

  2. Loodt Pretorius

    Both the Canadians and Russians invested heavily in new ice-breakers. Part of the justifications I read is that both nations aimed to keep the northern sea lanes open for longer during Summer for commercial traffic. The idea of a longer navigation time near the arctic appears to be a bit of a pipedream if the information in this article is correct.

  3. sod

    “Between November 2014 and April 2015, winter air temperatures were between −0.5°C and −1.5°C colder than during 1980–2010″

    So we had an extremely cold winter and this lead to nearly average sea ice cover?

    ” the NWP will not become easily navigable for another 40 years or so.”

    “easily” is the term to look at here. The north-west passage was open again this year.

    http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=86589

    Being “easily navigable” is a completely different thing, and may indeed take a little longer, especially if we add in

    “ice islands originated from the ice shelves along the Arctic Ocean coast of Ellesmere Island, and were between 30 and 40 m thick, adding to the variability of hazardous ice features in the NWP.”

    1. DirkH

      sod, why don’t you address the failure of all warmunist prophecies and the falsification of the warmunist theory. Are you anti-science?

    2. GP Alexander

      ” The north-west passage was open again this year”!!

      OMG! I am shaking in my boots with fear of the coming apocalypse and am searching for a reliable supply of Depends.

      I can imagine that Roald Amundsen was equally fearful when he took the Gjøa through the NW Passage in 1905. Ransom Olds was building Oldsmobiles at that time so he can surely be blamed for the Global Warming that took place then.

      Years later, the Mounties must have mustered up plenty of courage to go through the “should be frozen over except for Global Warming” NW Passage. They did it twice, in the 1940’s. But they had a mighty vessel to do it in:
      http://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/uploads/r/null/8/4/849146/01222b84-e351-4825-88ba-92a45968802d-A31817.jpg

      David Suzuki was 5 years old on their first trip so we can possibly blame this episode of Global Warming on Dave. Al Gore was born at the time of their last trip so perhaps we can lay blame on the observed Global Warming on Al Gore’s birth.

    3. kuhnkat

      sod, y’all predicted the Arctic ice would be shrinking, not growing… As Dirk suggested, try explaining that…

      Oh, and try using those useless GCM’s to do it!!

      HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

    4. Moose

      ““Between November 2014 and April 2015, winter air temperatures were between −0.5°C and −1.5°C colder than during 1980–2010″

      So we had an extremely cold winter and this lead to nearly average sea ice cover?”

      -0.5 and -1.5 c colder is not extremely more cold.
      But hey, alarmists cry wolf about 0.8 warmer so they exaggerate in both directions.

      1. sod

        “-0.5 and -1.5 c colder is not extremely more cold.”

        Actually Pierre has written a post about a much smaller difference recently:

        “the country’s mean temperature for October 2015 was only 8.4 °C, which is 0.6°C below than the 1961-1990 mean and 0.8°C below the 1981-2010 mean.”

        https://notrickszone.com/2015/10/30/germany-october-2015-almost-2c-below-climate-model-projections-0-8c-colder-than-1981-2010-mean/

    5. nightspore

      Er, sod the link you gave says “partial opening”. Do adjectives give you trouble? I had thought your problem was cherry-picking, but maybe it’s dyslexia. (BTW have you bought your ticket for the NW Passage cruise for 2016? I think they’re selling for only $25,000 or so.)

      1. sod

        “Er, sod the link you gave says “partial opening”. Do adjectives give you trouble?”

        No. but those adjectives matter.

        “fully open” means, that you have a wide open path. “easily navigable” is even better.

        “partial open” means, that you have to carefully choose part of your way. you can see the drifting ice in the picture:

        http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=86589

        Yes, ships could pass the passage in the 40s. It often took multiple years are good conditions. This year, we obviously did not have good conditions (it was cold). But the passage was still open, normal ships went through it.

        “BTW have you bought your ticket for the NW Passage cruise for 2016? ”

        I am not interested. But cruise ships made it through this year. I think i linked a report from a reporter who passed the passage some weeks ago.

    6. nightspore

      Actually, the term to look at here is “another 40 years or so”. Given that in the recent past warmists suggested that the Arctic might “all melt away” by 2008, then by 2013, by 2015, etc., this is quite a come-down. Even if we take the standard definition of “all melt away” to be <= 1 million km^2, I think we can assume that the Northwest passage would be "easily navigable" under these conditions.

      Forgive me for jumping to conclusions, but if after reading this post sod pounces on the term “easily navigable” to argue that the warmist position is still solid (“nothing to see here …”), this looks to me like a rather tortured evasion of a screamingly obvious message. And that’s the most interesting aspect of sod’s comment.

      1. sod

        “Actually, the term to look at here is “another 40 years or so”. ”

        you are not getting things right.The passage could be closed, even though the arctic is “ice free” under a reasonable definition (like less than 1 million km^2). It could be just an unlucky placeme3nt of the few remaining ice.

        It could also be, that we see less ice, but the passage gets more difficult (for example if we see huge chunks of 10+ meter thick greenland ice falling into the sea and blocking shi8pping routes, possibly even for icebreakers.

        But it could also happen, that we have a year with lots of thick ice but still a good open route (like a crack, just running into the perfect direction).

        But the all of this would be just random effects.

        In the real world, we have a stable linear trend:

        http://neven1.typepad.com/.a/6a0133f03a1e37970b01bb088254b3970d-pi

        Though it is more likely than not, that at a certain moment warm feedbacks (and lack of thick ice) might kick in, and we will lose another big chunk in another 2007 event.

  4. Paul Vaughan

    Conventional mainstream academia remains darkly ignorant of the role of solar cycle frequency in multidecadal arctic sea ice cycles. It’s reprehensible and almost incomprehensibly creepy. It’s even a bit heartbreaking because they refuse to acknowledge nature for what she is.

    How do we go about correcting people who have proven themselves beyond reach? It’s a difficult problem. Almost certainly ripe timing — whenever it arises — will be a primary factor. We may need to have the wisdom and the patience to realize and accept that broader awareness cannot happen sooner than its natural time.

    In such a stubborn context, the more sensible avenue might be to focus on reaching only true luminaries. The channels to a broader audience are so clogged with incorrect information that they are for all practical purposes literally impenetrable. In such a time of social and political distortion, misguidance, and interference, the most ambitiously feasible goal for responsible luminaries might be to vigilantly attempt to ensure that awareness survives in background refuges during an era of extremely strict unjust suppression. The pendulum is swinging decisively hard in the wrong direction.

    Can genius messaging crafted at great expense correct this? Even if so, it isn’t sufficiently efficient — and therefore it isn’t a sensible strategy — being such a try-hard. An efficient, aesthetic path will arise naturally when the time is ripe.

  5. Lars P.

    The fun part will be to watch what they will do with their PIOMAs data for instance. They digged a deep hole and they should stop digging but they can’t stop that…
    http://psc.apl.washington.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/schweiger/ice_volume/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrentV2.1.png

  6. Ron C,

    Even if you use NOAA dataset, the pattern of recovery is clear.

    https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2015/10/06/arctic-ice-made-simple-2/

    1. sod

      “Even if you use NOAA dataset, the pattern of recovery is clear.”

      No, it is not. Somebody adds a random trendline to a graph. That is not recovery.

    2. Ron C.

      Since the period of decline only lasted 13 years, ending in 2007, it is not a death spiral either.

      1. sod

        “Since the period of decline only lasted 13 years, ending in 2007, it is not a death spiral either.”

        It did not end in 2007. Why do you think it did?

        There will always be a lowest point in datasets with a random factor.

        Drawing trendlines to the lowest/highest point and then adding another trendline from that point is garbage and not science.

        There are specific statistical test for this purpose. What the article does and what you do is simply false.

        1. DirkH

          “There will always be a lowest point in datasets with a random factor. ”

          But Global Warming is not a random factor in your mindset. It is the certain death of the planet. If we don’t build even more windturbines.

        2. DirkH

          Oh I see. You gave the Blck Knight response. “It’s nary a scratch.” Meaning, when there’s growing multiyear ice, it’s just noise.
          (While warmunists still claim we have the hottest year ever right now, and that we have a mightily strong El Nino. Warmunists have such an amazing capacity of ignoring contradictions. Is that because they are so hyperintelligent or because they are the opposite`?)

          1. sod

            “Meaning, when there’s growing multiyear ice, it’s just noise.”

            It is too short to speak of a change of trend.

            “While warmunists still claim we have the hottest year ”

            What is the connection? Globe can be warm, some places can be cool (north Atlantic, we learned here recently).

            Both things are true at the same time: Hottest year even on the globe. Some places cool. some indicators of the arctic at pretty low points (extend) some a little higher than in the past (volume).

            The problem, is, that you folks only focus on the one thing that fits your story.

        3. Ron C,

          sod keeps referring to trendlines to distract from what the measurements say: 2007 was lower than all the years afterward.

          1. sod

            “2007 was lower than all the years afterward.”

            Barely. and we do not expect a monotonous fall in this kind of data.

            What is your obsession with outliers (1998 for temperature, 2007 for ice, …)?

  7. nightspore

    Again, this matches what Tony Heller has been saying for some time. He’s been drawing attention to the increase in MYI for at least a few years now, by my recollection.

    Maybe sometime in the near future someone in the climatology community will get the bright idea to look at trends in over-90 degree F days in the US, which Heller has already done. (Come to think of it, maybe these guys are already sneaking over to Real Science [as well as Notrickszone] for heretical research ideas.)

  8. Bob/W in NC

    When are “they” going to be called out on their “willful blindness” or outright fraud?

    2015 Arctic Ice extent melt ended (a record?) early this year and is now at or above all others since 2005 (http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/old_icecover.uk.php) and Greenland Ice Sheet is running above the 1990-2013 mean, (http://beta.dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland-ice-sheet-surface-mass-budget/ gaining about 300 billion tons each year according to Tony Heller(http://realclimatescience.com/).

    I don’t get it…

    1. Bob/W in NC
  9. DirkH

    Warmunist theory predicts that Global Warming progresses as a function of CO2 concentration, and especially that the poles warm faster than the rest of the globe.

    Also, warmunists claim we have the hottest year ever and an ultrastrong el nino.

    So all of that ice clearly cannot exist. It is a hallucination.

    1. Bob/W in NC

      Hallucination? Of course. How silly of me not to have thought of that…

  10. handjive

    97% Consensus Settled Science claims of extreme 2015-16 North American winter to be caused by a polar votex because of LESS arctic ice will be tested this year.

  11. DirkH

    sod keeps telling us that wind energy is the cheapest electricity.
    I guess that is why East Germany pays more than the West (about 2 Eurocents per kWh more) (28 cents vs 26 cents).
    http://www.morgenpost.de/wirtschaft/article206336211/So-ungerecht-sind-die-Strompreise-in-Deutschland.html?google_editors_picks=true

    Because the entire East is full of wind turbines.

    sod, you keep mistaking “true” for “false”. Everything is upside down in your world. Go to a neurologist and have your brain stem examined, it is not working.

    1. Lars P.

      There is this nice linear dependency between installed wind capacity and price in Europe countries:
      http://gegenwind-starnberg.de/wp-content/uploads/wind-strompreis_n.png

    2. sod

      “Because the entire East is full of wind turbines.”

      EEG is the same all over Germany, so wind does not factor into this.

      The east still has less dense population so “netzengelt” (payment for grids) might be higher there.

      1. DirkH

        Read the article. And maybe just for one second use your brain.

        I have been telling you for ages that the intermittent nature of wind power spikes requires absolutely massive overcapacity in transmission lines.

        You constantly claim “wind power averages out over large areas” – yes it does when you’re lucky and don’t have a blocking high. But to AVERAGE OUT YOU HAVE TO HAVE THE TRANSMISSION CAPACITY FOR THE LOCAL MASSIVE SPIKES.

        You really didn’t understand this? This is the reason why massive cost for transmission lines occur everywhere where there are wind turbines.

        sod, visit a neurologist.

        1. sod

          “This is the reason why massive cost for transmission lines occur everywhere where there are wind turbines.”

          Please provide evidence for this claim. There are 2 huge transmission lines being planned. But those are not causing costs so far.

          The more reasonable explanation is a simple one: The big power companies controlling the grids did not do the necessary investments into the grids over the last 20 years. Now they are trying to hide this investment deficits, blaming them on wind power.

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  14. Philip Berkin

    Crystal Cruises’ Crystal Serenity is still planning to transit the NWP (but they do add that the itinerary can be subject to change)…

    http://www.crystalcruises.co.uk/northwest-passage-cruise/northwest-passage–6319

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  16. David Appell

    Are you allergic to actual data?

    Here is NOAA’s data for Arctic sea ice extent:

    ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/north/daily/data/NH_seaice_extent_nrt.csv

    It shows that, as of 10/27/85, Arctic SIE is a whopping 4.9% below last year’s value at this time.

    That’s just a year, so who cares. The long-term trend is very much downward, -54,000 km2/yr. That shows no sign of changing.

    PS: Climate models *underproject* the loss of Arctic SIE:

    “The Puzzles Involving Sea Ice at the Poles,” The Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media, March 20, 2014.
    http://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2014/03/the-puzzles-involving-sea-ice-at-the-poles/

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    The arctic volume “recovery” is basically a myth, because the data is in perfect alignment with the long term downward trend.

    http://neven1.typepad.com/.a/6a0133f03a1e37970b01bb088254b3970d-pi

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