Global Spring Sea Ice Minimum Hits 10-Year High…At Same Level As 1981 (Just After Satellite Measurements Began)!

Joe Bastardi tweeted an interesting graphic (Figure 2), indicating this year’s spring melt up in the Arctic could be off to a slow start – if one looks only at the temperature factor. There are of course lots of factors impacting sea ice melt: winds, weather, ocean currents, soot, to name a few. Here’s the sea ice extent at the moment:

Arctic Sea Ice Extent

Figure 1: Source:www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/htm.

Figure 1 above shows that we are pretty much at average Arctic sea ice extent for this time of the year, despite “the all-time record low” set last autumn. Figure 2 is the chart Joe Bastardi tweeted yesterday – a global temperature forecast for the next 6 weeks.

Arctic_2013 Spring Temp forecast
Figure 2: NCEP forecast for period 6 April to 21 May 2013. Source: NCEP.

Figure 2 shows lots of blue and green up in the Arctic and so the break-up of Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort sea ice could be delayed weeks. Using the popular warmist global warming albedo theory, that would mean lots of sunlight getting reflected back out into space, thus the dark ocean beneath would absorb less heat, and so lead to even less ice melt. Eventually, at the end of the long complicated chain, all the extra ice may lead to a warm winter at the middle latitudes next year, which then would be a clear sign of global warming. Just believe it!

Over the long-term, the Arctic is a sort of climate barometer, but one that lags the overall northern hemisphere mean temperature trend. What we saw last fall in the Arctic is in part only a consequence of the warm 2000s decade. By the end of the current decade, chances are good that we will see the Arctic recovering strongly, in response to an overall cooling of the northern hemisphere.

Spring minimum reaches a 10-year high!

Also, this year’s global spring minimum reached a 10-year high: just under 16 million sq km (Figure 3), and was thus about 1.5 million sq. km. more than 2 years ago.

Sea Ice global total

Figure 3: Global sea ice bottomed out at just under 16 million sq. km. This is the highest in 10 years and is the same as 1981! See chart: arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu.area.jpg

Right now overall global sea ice anomaly is almost plus one million sq. km., the highest it’s been in 4 years. That’s bad news for the albedo theorists. The upper curve of Figure 3 shows that the minimum global sea ice (reached every spring) was at the highest level in 10 years. This flies in the face of the claims that global sea ice is melting rapidly.

 

8 responses to “Global Spring Sea Ice Minimum Hits 10-Year High…At Same Level As 1981 (Just After Satellite Measurements Began)!”

  1. DirkH

    Taling about long term cyclicity:
    Assuming arctic sea ice volume is an integrator of NH temperatures, it should lag NH temperatures with a phase shift of 90 degree. Meaning that when the drop in NH temperatures is quickest, NH sea ice volume should be at its lowest. That moment could be now.

    Short term/ seasonal cycle:
    the same 90 degree phase shift should be found for the yearly signal. Sea ice extent is obviously the largest when NH temperatures rise the quickest – now; check – 90 degree phase shift.

    The seemingly paradoxical thing about an integrator is that it shifts all frequencies by 90 degrees. Seems to work…

  2. Kevin R. Lohse

    “that would mean lots of sunlight getting reflected back out into space, thus the dark ocean beneath would absorb as much heat, and so lead to even less ice melt.”

    Are you sure you mean that? It doesn’t make sense to me.
    [Typo – now fixed – PG]

    1. DirkH

      Looks like Pierre forgot a “not” before “getting reflected back”.

  3. Casper
    1. DirkH

      Notice the photo. “Smoke and steam rise up from the chimneys of the lignite power plant Niederaussem near Cologne”.
      Notice how the “smoke and steam” rises WHITE out of the cooling towers, then turns black near the sky, and the rays of light on the right penetrating the clouds – obviously the dark underside of cumulunimbus clouds.

      Quite impressively fotographed. Now I have worked in modern power plants like that; they have the best desulphurization and flue gas cleaning the world has to offer, for 20 years now, after the acid rain scare.

      Yet our jounros even from “conservative” outlets like Die Welt still feel the need to play fotographic tricks on us. Really rather despicable.

  4. Edward.

    7th of April UK, a walk through the hard frost this morning and I can still see vast expanses of snow on the distant northern hills.

    Undoubtedly, the world is in a cooling phase, all the pointers are for even more and colder winters – better get used to it.

    Time to take the trash out [politicians] and to bin the green agenda – cold weather not heat KILLS people.

  5. Sharon Coxhead

    Thank you for your voice of sanity. No doubt the “warmists” will try to shout you down but please keep on for all our sakes.

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