Northeast Passage 2013

FlaP,

I confess I am no climate scientist, but I do live in the the sub arctic where the effect of snow and ice is profound. I have also read numerous scholarly and anecdotal reports suggesting that decreased albedo in arctic have a real potential to help accelerate climate change. Small inputs have large effects. Earlier ice free leads to warmer water, which leads to later freeze up, which in turn leads to earlier ice free etc.

The effect can be felt further down, in lower latitudes. The ability of the arctic to reflect or absorb heat, and to radiate cold has a profound effect on lower latitudes. What many folks don't realize is that how the (accelerated) changes happening in the far north, effect those further south.

Icarus

 

It must be understood that my comments here are not in defense or support of any viewpoint about AGW. While albedo effects should have some ripple effects, they must be kept in perspective of the total system effects. It would be almost automatic for an natural ice variation to be mistaken for a pure AGW effect by anyone looking at it for the first time or not exposed to it first hand like I was.

Having studied and observed the arctic ice extensively for months, it was clear to me that it is "always" in flux. In the 1980, the understanding of widespread ice behavior was a real void. Long before AGW was remotely an issue, Arctic Ice was known to be extremely variable at the fringes (since the fringes varied by 100s of miles from year to year). There could be more cold war knowledge of ice behavior than open source knowledge.

The arctic regions could be extremely sensitive to what humans are doing in the middle latitudes. But wide variations in natural behavior need to be considered as a high likelihood given the extremely limited thickness compared to all other ice expanses in the world. Extensive arctic ice records of what the sea ice has done over a long stretch of history is pretty sparse since it was far from civilization and was something best avoided by all ships.

 

^^agreed

Icarus

 

Sail-World.com : North West Passage blocked with ice - yachts caught

 

^No news here! The passage has been historically more closed than open!

This article is sorta like saying it snowed somewhere today, ergo, there is no global warming/climate change! A bit of cherry picking at the very least!

Here a good day,

Icarus

 

Tom Nelson: Warmist Arctic rowers fail: "...Residents of Resolute say 20 years have not seen anything like. Its, ice, ice and more ice"

 

Where did you get that information? Icebergs in the Arctic Ocean are rare, so I would like to learn more about where they came from.

 

As I understand it, the vast majority of icebergs in the north are calves from Greenland glaciers. These tend to sail down Davis Strait into the north Atlantic above Newfoundand. (see also Titanic!)

Floating sea ice slabs are not really considered in bergs, but are non the less dangerous to vessels.

As a side note, I was on the Northern Coast of Newfoundland in the fall of 2011. The remnants of an iceberg that had called off in greenland that was reported to b the size of Manhatten Island was grounded for months in the Bay of St. Anthony . The parts of this berg scattered along the N. coast of the Island of Newfoundland for most of the fall. Locals had never seen bergs so late in the fall as that year. Some of the smaller "Bergy bits" we as big or bigger thn a cruise ship. Pretty impressive. I believe this was the berg whose calving was filmed by the filmmaker of "Chasing Ice"

Icarus

 

From a submarine view, arctic ice is something fairly easily avoided by going under it. Not so with a big iceberg. Those can ruin your day. However really big northern icebergs are exclusively a Greenland product (the glacier generating an deep iceberg must be really thick at the calving point). They then have to go a long long way North to get into the Arctic. Once in the Arctic, they are blocked by the ice sheet from moving very fast. The bottom line is submarines don't find icebergs that far north in the ice regions. A little counterintuitive for sure....but not impossible by any means.

 

It is time to call out a fib. The claimed 69% increase (as of Aug 25 or a bit earlier) is not compared to the same date in 2012. Instead, it compares Aug 17, 2013, to the season and all-time record low of Sept 16, 2012.

Comparing Aug 25 2013 (5589531 units km^2) to the same date in 2012 (4138125), the increase is just 35%.

Compared to the same dates in prior years, coverage on Aug 25 2013 was:
10% higher than 2011;
1% higher than 2010;
1% lower than 2009;
5% higher than 2008;
15% higher than 2007;
7% lower than 2006;
4% lower than 2005;
9% lower than 2004;
13% lower than 2003;
8% lower than 2002;
7% lower than 2000s average;
21% lower than 1990s average;
27% lower than 1980s average.

To see this graphically, and for the whole year, see my graph in post #36.

 

I suspect you are correct .
Im going to contact Goddard and see whats true.
But otherwise touche.
Good call.
Anyway 30% increase from 2012 is huge.
The point being the Arctic is not going to be ice free this year.
Meanwhile the Antarctic is at record high ice levels.

 

Interesting, but I would think airships would be far cheaper, and more practical. Not least because they can also service places inland.

 

The raw data is at http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/plot.csv

When the average summer minimum of the 1980s was 110% greater than the 2012 summer minimum, this year's 30% increase doesn't sound very impressive.

Volume, or surface area? They are not the same. I think we were already talking about the distinction in a couple other threads.