Watching the sea ice melt in the arctic 2012!

[polarbear]

2012 is going to shatter the record low for Arctic sea ice extent. Pretty much everyone agrees on that. It's nearly there now, with a full month to go. Depending how you measure it, it may have already busted the record. This is good news for denialists, as this winter they'll be able to point to record amounts of refreeze, thus disproving AGW theory. And I only wish I was joking about that, but denialist logic really is that dumb.

The interesting thing about that storm was how freakin' powerful it was. Hurricane strength. That's something we haven't seen before. That increased open water area is having an effect. A newly melted-open Arctic ocean may not be as friendly to shipping and drilling as we hope, if it regularly creates that kind of weather.

The other interesting is that for the old 2007 record, all conditions for melt were perfect all summer long. The sun was out, and the wind was constantly blowing the ice southeast past Greenland into warm water. This year, conditions for melt have only been so-so ... and the ice is _still_ melting like a mofo. Exactly as AGW theory predicted way ahead of time, and exacty the opposite of what the denialists have been predicting.

That's why AGW theory has cred, because it has a long record of making correct predictions. Unlike the denialist junk science, which has a long history of getting everything wrong. But then, they're trying to twist reality and force it match the dogma of their political/religious cult, and that's an impossible task.

"Shatter all records"...really ?
Here take a look:
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/plot.csv
2012 is the far right column... 12 524 531 km^2 on Jan 1,...show me a higher one ! (the -9999 is the sat-code for no data)
You can go down the entire 2012 column all the way to the middle of June way into the annual melting season and the 2012 ice extent is either higher than average or average,...but not below..
Right now it`s

4,801,250 km2 (August 17, 2012)

Because this particular storm over the Lincoln sea....and right away the freaks scream "climate change" ...how does that jive with your definitions :
‘It’s cold today in Wagga Wagga’–Weather and climate are different | Grist

‘It’s cold today in Wagga Wagga’–Weather and climate are different

How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic guide)

Objection: It was way colder than normal today in Wagga Wagga, proof that there is no global warming.

Does this even deserve an answer? If we must …
Answer: The chaotic nature of weather means that no conclusion about climate can ever be drawn from a single data point, hot or cold. The temperature of one place at one time is just weather, and says nothing about climate, much less climate change, much less global climate change.

The interesting thing about that storm was how freakin' powerful it was. Hurricane strength. That's something we haven't seen before.

So if it`s hot in the central U.S. then it`s "the climate" and if the entire arctic is below average for the entire time all the way up to middle of June then it was just "the weather in Wagga Wagga"..
Man are you guys ever getting twisted !

But that crap you just posted here..What the hell are You talking about?
"Hurricane force wind..that`s something we haven`t seen before"
What do you mean by "we"...When were you up there?
When the winds kick up on Ellesmere Island, Northern Greenland and over the Lincoln sea they are ALWAYS HURRICANE FORCE.
Why do you think we are stringing all these ropes between the buildings?

If you don`t hook up your harness you are gone..!!! for good...!!

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LWypbjvkfs"]Windstorm in Alert 1 - YouTube[/ame]

That`s why the approach to the northern most post on planet earth is littered with wrecks:

And believe you me, it takes more than a little wind gust to bring down a Herc C-130...!!!

Why don`t you go to AFB Trenton and ask for a ride up there during the winter.???..there is a good reason why everybody that does a tour of duty up there gets more credits as having served in a battle zone.There is no "medi-vac" up there, just our own first aid ...!!. and that`s why you get a promotion in rank each time you complete a 6 mo tour of duty up there..same goes for AFB Thule,...so why don`t you sign up and go for it...after that you can say "we" but till then quit bullshitting!!!
!

 

[daveman]

Nope. Those guys, "the same dishonest set of alleged scientists", who you denier cult cretins like to quote, work for Exxon or Western Petroleum. This data regarding Arctic sea ice and temperature trends is from the real climate scientists. They're giving us the facts and, as we all know, facts are anathema to you deranged anti-science denier cult retards, so it is no wonder that you want to dismiss their findings. You're lost in a delusional fantasy world and you can't tell the shyt from the shinola.

Uh huh. The woman in your hour-plus video isn't a climate scientist.

Dr. Jennifer Francis is a meteologists that teaches and conducts research at Rutgers University.

SJSU Department of Meterorology

Meteorologists are not climate scientists.

Dr. James Hansen is one of the foremost researcher in climate the world, a physicist whose specialty is atmospheric physics.

NASA GISS: James E. Hansen

Hansen is a lying hack. No wonder you worship him.

And you? Well, you are an anomyous poster on an internet message board determined to display your willfull ignorance to the world.

No, Roxy, I will NOT join your mindless cult.

 

[mamooth]

2012 is the far right column... 12 524 531 km^2 on Jan 1,...show me a higher one!

You understand it's not January 1 now, correct? When I'm speaking of record low ice levels _now_, it looks like a crazy evasion when you change the topic to January.

Now, I suggest you skip down your chart to Aug. 17 2012, which shows 4 801 250, very close to the record low.

Also, on Aug 17 2012, the University of Bremen, which uses a slightly different way of measuring, shows an all-time record low for sea ice. I don't have the post count for urls yet, so stick an http in front of this, and a .html behind.

neven1.typepad.com/blog/2012/08/record-dominoes-1-uni-bremen-sea-ice-extent

If you don`t hook up your harness you are gone..!!! for good...!!

So you're equating local strong winds to a hurricane-sized storm with hurricane-level barometric pressures. Um, no. There are crazy strong winds on Mount Washington all the time, but that's not a hurricane storm.

And I was too busy running nuclear reactors for the Navy to play on Greenland. Your "I'M A VET, SO I CAN BULLY YOU!" crap ain't gonna fly with this squid.

 

[RollingThunder]

2012 is going to shatter the record low for Arctic sea ice extent. Pretty much everyone agrees on that. It's nearly there now, with a full month to go. Depending how you measure it, it may have already busted the record. This is good news for denialists, as this winter they'll be able to point to record amounts of refreeze, thus disproving AGW theory. And I only wish I was joking about that, but denialist logic really is that dumb.

The interesting thing about that storm was how freakin' powerful it was. Hurricane strength. That's something we haven't seen before. That increased open water area is having an effect. A newly melted-open Arctic ocean may not be as friendly to shipping and drilling as we hope, if it regularly creates that kind of weather.

The other interesting is that for the old 2007 record, all conditions for melt were perfect all summer long. The sun was out, and the wind was constantly blowing the ice southeast past Greenland into warm water. This year, conditions for melt have only been so-so ... and the ice is _still_ melting like a mofo. Exactly as AGW theory predicted way ahead of time, and exacty the opposite of what the denialists have been predicting.

That's why AGW theory has cred, because it has a long record of making correct predictions. Unlike the denialist junk science, which has a long history of getting everything wrong. But then, they're trying to twist reality and force it match the dogma of their political/religious cult, and that's an impossible task.

"Shatter all records"...really ?
Here take a look:
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/plot.csv

Apparently your ability to interpret raw data is as pathetic as your general understanding of this whole issue. Funny how the scientists who study the Arctic say that the sea ice extent is poised to hit a new record low, surpassing the ice loss in 2007, and you claim that all of them are wrong and everything is normal. You poor retard.

Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis
National Snow and Ice Data Center
(excerpts)

Arctic sea ice extent during the first two weeks of August continued to track below 2007 record low daily ice extents. As of August 13, ice extent was already among the four lowest summer minimum extents in the satellite record, with about five weeks still remaining in the melt season. Sea ice extent dropped rapidly between August 4 and August 8. While this drop coincided with an intense storm over the central Arctic Ocean, it is unclear if the storm prompted the rapid ice loss.

Figure 1. Arctic sea ice extent for August 16, 2012 was 5.09 million square kilometers (1.97 million square miles), 483,000 square kilometers (186,000 square miles) below the same day in 2007. The orange line shows the 1979 to 2000 median extent for that day. The black cross indicates the geographic North Pole. Sea Ice Index data. About the data
Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center

Figure 2. The graph above shows Arctic sea ice extent as of August 13, 2012, along with daily ice extent data for the previous five years. 2012 is shown in blue, 2011 in orange, 2010 in pink, 2009 in navy, 2008 in purple, and 2007 in green. The gray area around the average line shows the two standard deviation range of the data. Sea Ice Index data.
Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center

The Great Arctic Cyclone of 2012

A low pressure system entered the Arctic Ocean from the eastern Siberian coast on August 4 and then strengthened rapidly over the central Arctic Ocean. On August 6 the central pressure of the cyclone reached 964 hPa, an extremely low value for this region. It persisted over the central Arctic Ocean over the next several days, and slowly dissipated. The storm initially brought warm and very windy conditions to the Chukchi and East Siberian seas (August 5), but low temperatures prevailed later.

Low pressure systems over the Arctic Ocean tend to cause the ice to diverge or spread out and cover a larger area. These storms often bring cool conditions and even snowfall. In contrast, high pressure systems over the Arctic cause the sea ice to converge. Summers dominated by low pressure systems over the central Arctic Ocean tend to end up with greater ice extent than summers dominated by high pressure systems.

However, the effects of an individual strong storm, like that observed in early August, can be complex. While much of the region influenced by the August cyclone experienced a sudden drop in temperature, areas influenced by winds from the south experienced a rise in temperature. Coincident with the storm, a large area of low concentration ice in the East Siberian Sea (concentrations typically below 50%) rapidly melted out. On three consecutive days (August 7, 8, and 9), sea ice extent dropped by nearly 200,000 square kilometers (77,220 square miles). This could be due to mechanical break up of the ice and increased melting by strong winds and wave action during the storm. However, it may be simply a coincidence of timing, given that the low concentration ice in the region was already poised to rapidly melt out.

(Use and Copyright - You may download and use any imagery or text from our Web site, unless it is specifically stated that the information has limitations for its use. Please credit the National Snow and Ice Data Center.)

Because this particular storm over the Lincoln sea....and right away the freaks scream "climate change" ...how does that jive with your definitions :
‘It’s cold today in Wagga Wagga’–Weather and climate are different | Grist

‘It’s cold today in Wagga Wagga’–Weather and climate are different

How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic guide)

Objection: It was way colder than normal today in Wagga Wagga, proof that there is no global warming.

Does this even deserve an answer? If we must …
Answer: The chaotic nature of weather means that no conclusion about climate can ever be drawn from a single data point, hot or cold. The temperature of one place at one time is just weather, and says nothing about climate, much less climate change, much less global climate change.

Wow, you're too retarded to understand even something that simple. I knew your IQ was somewhere around room temperature but I didn't realize it was a room at the north pole.

In the first place, as the folks at the NSIDC said, that storm may not have been the only or even primary cause of the sudden ice loss although it certainly seems to have been a kind of trigger. Warm temperatures, warmer oceans and the previous loss of multi-year thicker sea ice have set the stage for this year's record ice loss.

One 'cold day in wagga wagga' vs. a long term trend of declining sea ice extent and volume that is now hitting a new record low.....a "single data point" vs. a multi-year multitude of data points......and you're idiotic enough to think that those two things are the same.....wooooweee you're stupid beyond belief.....

 

[ScienceRocks]

 

[ScienceRocks]

Record dominoes 1: Uni Bremen sea ice extent



There are several scientific organisations that keep an eye on the Arctic sea ice cover and put out graphs to inform us of the amount of ice that is left. You can see most, if not all, of them on the ASI Graphs webpage.

I expect the record on most of these graphs to be broken in weeks to come. The first domino to fall is that of the University of Bremen sea ice extent graph, where the 2012 trend line seems to have broken last year's record:

Record dominoes 1: Uni Bremen sea ice extent - Arctic Sea Ice

 

[ScienceRocks]

NSIDC is down to 4,639,910km2

 

[polarbear]

2012 is the far right column... 12 524 531 km^2 on Jan 1,...show me a higher one!

You understand it's not January 1 now, correct? When I'm speaking of record low ice levels _now_, it looks like a crazy evasion when you change the topic to January.

Now, I suggest you skip down your chart to Aug. 17 2012, which shows 4 801 250, very close to the record low.

Also, on Aug 17 2012, the University of Bremen, which uses a slightly different way of measuring, shows an all-time record low for sea ice. I don't have the post count for urls yet, so stick an http in front of this, and a .html behind.

neven1.typepad.com/blog/2012/08/record-dominoes-1-uni-bremen-sea-ice-extent

If you don`t hook up your harness you are gone..!!! for good...!!

So you're equating local strong winds to a hurricane-sized storm with hurricane-level barometric pressures. Um, no. There are crazy strong winds on Mount Washington all the time, but that's not a hurricane storm.

And I was too busy running nuclear reactors for the Navy to play on Greenland. Your "I'M A VET, SO I CAN BULLY YOU!" crap ain't gonna fly with this squid.

Did I tell You to look JUST AT JAN 01?
I said:

2012 is the far right column... 12 524 531 km^2 on Jan 1,...show me a higher one !..
You can go down the entire 2012 column all the way to the middle of June way into the annual melting season and the 2012 ice extent is either higher than average or average,...but not below..

And so it is:

Now to the rest of your gibberish

Now, I suggest you skip down your chart to Aug. 17 2012, which shows 4 801 250, very close to the record low.

So what is that supposed to prove?
Aside from the fact that a storm hit the region on AUGUST the 8th and broke up the ice.

And then this little gem:

So you're equating local strong winds to a hurricane-sized storm with hurricane-level barometric pressures. Um, no. There are crazy strong winds on Mount Washington all the time, but that's not a hurricane storm.

"Hurricane level barometric pressures"...!!! Define that for us will you.
What`s a "hurricane level barometric pressure"...???
Wind speed is solely determined by pressure DIFFERENTIAL over DISTANCE..!!!

So before you shoot your mouth off again show me that you can calculate the wind speed for a pressure differential of 100 mbar over 1 kilometer...
By the way the ice does not care what kind of wind it was that broke it up and 964 millibar is not an unusually low pressure at Lat 84 deg, especially not during summer...we had well below 1000 mbar`s even in January..
Here I`ll give you the phone number:
8th wing-command Trenton is (613) 392 2811... 2318 is the CFS Alert "O" then ask to talk to the "Met-tech" at CFS Alert...I think it was "Andy"...Andreas Patersdorf who was the Met-Tech at our runway met-tech station that recorded the barometric pressure at that time.
While you are at it don`t forget to ask if that is "something we have never seen before"
How else would you get wind speeds that are 70 and >..!!! miles per hour winds you dimwit?

Funny how you all chimed in here after "OldRocks" could not solve a simple Archimedes puzzle.
So now I`m waiting for you to show me the math what the wind speed for a 100 mbar`s pressure drop over 1000 meters is.
I`ll have my breakfast now and when I`m done you should be too....it`s simple math if you are not one of the "scientifically challenged" OldRocks keeps referring to

 

[Old Rocks]

It is day 229 of the year. We are down to 2.92 square km of ice by this chart;

Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice Area

That ties the record set in 2007 on day 250. So we have about 20 more days of melt. Pretty obvious that we will set a new record this year.

 

[polarbear]

It is day 229 of the year. We are down to 2.92 square km of ice by this chart;

Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice Area

That ties the record set in 2007 on day 250. So we have about 20 more days of melt. Pretty obvious that we will set a new record this year.

I had my breakfast and still no answer from the "expert" on "hurricane level barometric pressure"...
Again here is the CFS Alert Met-tech phone number:

8th wing-command Trenton is (613) 392 2811... 2318 is the CFS Alert "O" then ask to talk to the "Met-tech" at CFS Alert

where he could find out if 964 mbar`s is something "we" have never seen there before
or the Archimedes question...
Well that`s okay. But haven`t you forgotten something else?
Like the usual name calling..since when are you so polite?
Yes it`s low and the melt season isn`t over yet, ~ 20 more days to go...that`s true also. But "climate change"...? How different is that from a "hot day in Waggawagga"..it all depends where you start the trend graph. Forget about Archimedes, tell me where you stand concerning 1800 -1900 A.D. and 9000 to 5000 B.C.and then explain what`s in almost every history book concerning arctic exploration + what Lt.Greely recorded and the trees ~ 500 miles south of the pole on Ellesmere & Greenland.

By the way if your comrade in arms is such an expert in meteorology,....since 2 years they allow "civies" to work on that base,...after they clear security.
Who knows he might like it, and after that I don`t mind at all if he says "we"...:


You may have noticed that the title is "Boxtop 2008"...Take a good look how "warm" the SUMMER 2008 was !!! The "Boxtops" (re-supply missions) start in April, but it was like that pretty much all summer long
Or was that "just another cold day in Waggawagga"..???
Before you say I`m bullshitting you about the summer 2008...:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/07/13/satellite-imagery-shows-artic-ice-still-unmelted/

Satellite Imagery Shows Arctic Ice Still Unmelted

Posted on July 13, 2008 by Anthony Watts
This photo with 1 kilometer/pixel resolution was taken yesterday July 12th at 17:05 UTC:

And the Met-tech shack you see in the video is right at the shoreline of the Lincoln sea...the ice was still right to to shoreline as in the 2008 boxtop video when summer was over.!!!
And later GW climatologist "explained" that discrepancy "Oh yes but it was thinner"....according to estimates (using Archimedes maybe) while they had no way to actually determine that with the Cryosat they used at that time.

 

[RollingThunder]

2012 is the far right column... 12 524 531 km^2 on Jan 1,...show me a higher one!

You understand it's not January 1 now, correct? When I'm speaking of record low ice levels _now_, it looks like a crazy evasion when you change the topic to January.

Now, I suggest you skip down your chart to Aug. 17 2012, which shows 4 801 250, very close to the record low.

Also, on Aug 17 2012, the University of Bremen, which uses a slightly different way of measuring, shows an all-time record low for sea ice. I don't have the post count for urls yet, so stick an http in front of this, and a .html behind.

neven1.typepad.com/blog/2012/08/record-dominoes-1-uni-bremen-sea-ice-extent

Did I tell You to look JUST AT JAN 01?
I said:

2012 is the far right column... 12 524 531 km^2 on Jan 1,...show me a higher one !..
You can go down the entire 2012 column all the way to the middle of June way into the annual melting season and the 2012 ice extent is either higher than average or average,...but not below..

And so it is:

No it isn't, you flaming retard. Why do you lie like that when the data is public and has been analyzed by experts. The 2012 ice extent starts off below average in January and only briefly gets even close to "average" in late April but then drops way below average throughout the whole rest of the year to date. It is below average, below the 2007 record lows and below all of the previous five years. Here's the relevant graphs from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, one of the premier sources for this kind of information. BTW poopbrain, since you seem do clueless about this, "average" on these graphs is the solid black line.

Figure 2. The graph above shows Arctic sea ice extent as of May 1, 2012, along with daily ice extent data for the previous five years. 2012 is shown in blue, 2011 in orange, 2010 in pink, 2009 in navy, 2008 in purple, and 2007 in green. The gray area around the average line shows the two standard deviation range of the data. Sea Ice Index data.

Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center

Figure 2. The graph above shows Arctic sea ice extent as of August 13, 2012, along with daily ice extent data for the previous five years. 2012 is shown in blue, 2011 in orange, 2010 in pink, 2009 in navy, 2008 in purple, and 2007 in green. The gray area around the average line shows the two standard deviation range of the data. Sea Ice Index data.
Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center

And BTW numbnuts, you've never given us your answer to your little "Archimedes puzzle". I showed how the question as you posed it didn't contain enough information for a precise answer. I bet you're still bumfuddled.

 

[ScienceRocks]

2010 on 8-18 thickness

2012 on 8-18 thickness

This is what we're talking about when we discuss volume. The thickness is going as fast as the extent.

 

[ScienceRocks]

 

[mamooth]

Wind speed is solely determined by pressure DIFFERENTIAL over DISTANCE..!!!

Er, no. Not even close. That's a totally ridiculous statement.

So before you shoot your mouth off again show me that you can calculate the wind speed for a pressure differential of 100 mbar over 1 kilometer...

There is not nearly enough information presented there to answer the question. Much like the Archimedes question that you asked and then ran like a clucking chicken from, you look really stupid just for thinking you asked a valid question.

Here I`ll give you the phone number:
8th wing-command Trenton is (613) 392 2811... 2318 is the CFS Alert "O" then ask to talk to the "Met-tech" at CFS Alert...I think it was "Andy"...Andreas Patersdorf who was the Met-Tech at our runway met-tech station that recorded the barometric pressure at that time.

He'd probably also tell you to man up and stop running from the issues. Your experience of being really cold in Greenland means jack on this topic. Each time you bring it up, you're essentially screaming "I SURRENDER!".

 

[Old Rocks]

Well, by Cryosphere Today's figures, we have now gone below the minimum for 2007. And the direction of the curve is still downward. And 20 days still left in the normal melt period. Now the question is, how low this year, and will the freezup start at the normal time?

Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice Area

 

[polarbear]

Well, by Cryosphere Today's figures, we have now gone below the minimum for 2007. And the direction of the curve is still downward. And 20 days still left in the normal melt period. Now the question is, how low this year, and will the freezup start at the normal time?

Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice Area

Nobody disputes that but the problem is that the Crysat Data before 2010 was flawed and the flaws were serious. That`s why (the very expensive!) CryoSat-2 was launched on 8 April 2010. Again don`t forget that CryoSat2 can not measure ice thickness. Like it`s predecessor it`s only a RADAR-altimeter with improvements:...all the other quotes listed are linked from the CrySat home page
ESA - CryoSat - The instruments

CryoSat-2’s primary payload is the Synthetic Aperture Interferometric Radar Altimeter (SIRAL), designed to meet the measurement requirements for ice-sheet elevation and sea-ice 'freeboard', which is the height protruding from the water.

And that was the problem with the previous CryoSat...but even with the new one...:

Conventional radar altimeters send pulses at intervals long enough that the echoes are 'uncorrelated'; many such echoes can be averaged to reduce noise. At the typical satellite orbital speed of 7 km/s, the interval between pulses is about 500 microseconds. However, the CryoSat altimeter sends a burst of pulses at an interval of only about 50 microseconds. The returning echoes are correlated and, by treating the whole burst together, the data processor can separate the echo into strips arranged across the track by exploiting the slight frequency shifts, caused by the Doppler effect, in the forward- and aft-looking parts of the beam.
Each strip is about 250 m wide and the interval between bursts is arranged so that the satellite moves forward by 250 m each time. The strips laid down by successive bursts can therefore be superimposed on each other and averaged to reduce noise. This is known as the SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) mode.

The altimeter makes a measurement of the distance between the satellite and the surface. However, this measurement cannot be converted into the more useful measure of the height of the surface until the satellite’s position is accurately known.

The Doppler Orbit and Radio Positioning Integration by Satellite (DORIS) radio receiver detects and measures the Doppler shift on signals broadcast from a network of more than 50 radio beacons around the world. Although the full accuracy of this system is obtained only after ground processing, DORIS provides a realtime estimate on board, good to about half a metre.

Remember the 2008 discrepancy between Cryo-1 and what the visual Sat-pic showed for ice cover...It was "explained" that the ice thickness according to the previous Cryo was 67 cm thinner...even though the Satellite Position can only be estimated within 50 cm with the new CryoSat2....
That`s exactly how Hansen screwed up...till an "ignorant denier" pointed that "little problem" out...
which is precisely the reason for the push to involve the Military....which has the technology to do that with centimeter accuracy...with their own "Milsats"...which is from where you get your GPS data

While some of the processed data are available almost immediately to the team monitoring how the mission is performing, the scientific users need accurate orbits and other environmental data to be able to fully exploit the altimeter measurements. Until these are available, which can take up to a month, the final data products have to wait.
These great reductions in the area of sea ice in the middle of the summer are much worse than expected if we simply extrapolated from the previous trends. There are several factors involved: the prevailing winds have a great influence (floating ice can be simply blown out of the Arctic Ocean, passing Greenland and Iceland and disappearing into the Atlantic). Thermodynamics is also playing a role: as the amount of ice reduces, more heat is absorbed by the ocean in summer, and consequently less ice formed by freezing in winter, accelerating the trend in reducing ice cover.
While these reductions in the area of sea ice are readily observable using a variety of satellite remote-sensing techniques, there is only one practical way of converting this knowledge of sea-ice area into the amount of sea ice. We need information about the thickness of the ice, and the only way to measure that on a large scale is by satellite. This is where CryoSat comes in.

Apart from floating sea ice, the other characteristic manifestations of ice in polar regions are the ice caps: thick domes of ice resting on land, from relatively small islands up to the complete continent of Antarctica. The two largest, Antarctica itself and Greenland, are several kilometres thick and, at the summits, very cold. Thus they may seem immune to the influence of a few degrees of global temperature rise. Indeed, prior to 2000 the indications were that these major ice caps were largely stable, at least in their interiors. The principal means of determining this was satellite altimetry. However, the capabilities of such instruments to measure change at the ice cap margins, where most change is expected, is limited by their design.

So I suggest You do what real Science does and instead of making alarming predictions with computer models which are notorious when it comes to flawed "calculations" which turn out by later admission having been no more than guestimates....wait till there is enough data to plot a valid trend with more accurate data.

That does not just apply to the sea ice, but also to the Greenland Glaciers:
Large-scale changes in Greenland outlet glacier dynamics triggered at the terminus : Abstract : Nature Geoscience

Large-scale changes in Greenland outlet glacier dynamics triggered at the terminus

The recent marked retreat, thinning and acceleration of most of Greenland's outlet glaciers south of 70° N has increased concerns over Greenland's contribution to future sea level rise1, 2, 3, 4, 5. These dynamic changes seem to be parallel to the warming trend in Greenland, but the mechanisms that link climate and ice dynamics are poorly understood, and current numerical models of ice sheets do not simulate these changes realistically6, 7, 8. Uncertainties in the predictions of mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet have therefore been highlighted as one of the main limitations in forecasting future sea levels9. Here we present a numerical ice-flow model that reproduces the observed marked changes in Helheim Glacier, one of Greenland's largest outlet glaciers. Our simulation shows that the ice acceleration, thinning and retreat begin at the calving terminus and then propagate upstream through dynamic coupling along the glacier. We find that these changes are unlikely to be caused by basal lubrication through surface melt propagating to the glacier bed. We conclude that tidewater outlet glaciers adjust extremely rapidly to changing boundary conditions at the calving terminus. Our results imply that the recent rates of mass loss in Greenland's outlet glaciers are transient and should not be extrapolated into the future.

And that was the claim till now...while none of the Greenland glaciers have crevices that go all the way down to the base.

Well I`m off now for a 2 month trip to Europe and don`t really care who writes what into this forum. It`s not as if people who make policy decisions or others who strive for more accurate data acquisition and how that should be done come here and read the foul language rants that are posted here.

 

[polarbear]

Wind speed is solely determined by pressure DIFFERENTIAL over DISTANCE..!!!

Er, no. Not even close. That's a totally ridiculous statement.

So before you shoot your mouth off again show me that you can calculate the wind speed for a pressure differential of 100 mbar over 1 kilometer...

There is not nearly enough information presented there to answer the question. Much like the Archimedes question that you asked and then ran like a clucking chicken from, you look really stupid just for thinking you asked a valid question.

Here I`ll give you the phone number:
8th wing-command Trenton is (613) 392 2811... 2318 is the CFS Alert "O" then ask to talk to the "Met-tech" at CFS Alert...I think it was "Andy"...Andreas Patersdorf who was the Met-Tech at our runway met-tech station that recorded the barometric pressure at that time.

He'd probably also tell you to man up and stop running from the issues. Your experience of being really cold in Greenland means jack on this topic. Each time you bring it up, you're essentially screaming "I SURRENDER!".

Wind speed and spacing of isobars

WIND SPEED AND SPACING OF ISOBARS
Wind speed is also a reflection of isobaric spacing. After you have drawn your first complete isobar, the next one should more or less be parallel to the first. How close or how far away it is from the first one can be correlated to the wind speed. The spacing of isobars is inversely proportional to the wind speed. In other words, the greater the wind speed, the smaller the spacing and vice versa. Some additional relationships also exist. l For a given wind speed, the spacing be-tween isobars decreases with increasing latitude. Table 7-2-1 shows the spacing of isobars, at 4-mb
Table 7-2-1.—Geostrophic Wind Distance between Isobars over Ocean at 4-mb Intervals for Various Wind Speeds and Latitudes

 

[ScienceRocks]

NSIDC 4,447,380 -109k km^2

 

[ScienceRocks]

Record dominoes 3: Cryosphere Today SIA



There are several scientific organisations that keep an eye on the Arctic sea ice cover and put out graphs to inform us of the amount of ice that is left. You can see most, if not all, of them on the ASI Graphs webpage. I expect the record on most of these graphs to be broken in weeks to come.

After Uni Bremen sea ice extent and Arctic ROOS sea ice area another big domino has fallen with Cryosphere Today sea ice area:

And the close-up:

Larry Hamilton's graph:



Here are the numbers of all the minimums since 2005:

•2005: 4.09 million square km
•2006: 4.03 million square km
•2007: 2.92 million square km
•2008: 3.00 million square km
•2009: 3.42 million square km
•2010: 3.07 million square km
•2011: 2.90 million square km
•2012: 2.88 million square km (and running)

As usual, Jim Pettit has the details:


Though it happened 23 days earlier than it did last year, today's CT SIA value is already 27,281 km2 lower than last year's record (which itself only edged out the 2007 record by fewer than 15k km2). 17 days elapsed last year between the date the 3 million km2 mark was passed and the record was set; this year, that only took four days.

Over the course of the record--1979-2011--the average CT area loss from this day to minimum has been 521k km2. Based on a straight extrapolation from prior years, 2012 SIA would/could/almost certaionly will end up somewhere between 1.92 million and 2.77 million km2, with a mean minimum of 2.36 million km2.

Tomorrow DMI sea ice extent?
Record dominoes 3: Cryosphere Today SIA - Arctic Sea Ice

Some good stuff!
http://meteomodel.pl/index.php/arcticice

This year is kicking the living fucking hell out of 2007! It wouldn't surprise me if it went down to 3.8 million km this year based on noaa sea ice data official data.

Today

August 19th 2007

August 19th 1990

August 19th 1979

 

[Old Rocks]

And the extent of the thicker ice has really decreased this year as compared to 2007.