Sea Ice North: The new field of ice-free Arctic Ocean science
Sea Ice North: The new field of ice-free Arctic Ocean science
I recently read a paper in Physics Today entitled The Thinning of Arctic Sea Ice by R. Kwok and N. Untersteiner. (Nice essay by Untersteiner) This paper was written for a general scientist audience, and provides a good summary of the state of the science. The primary focus of the article is on understanding the small change to the surface energy balance required to explain the increased rate of sea ice melt in the summer. Some time ago I wrote a few blogs on Arctic sea ice; they can be found here and this one is most relevant: Sea Ice Arctic.
When the IPCC Assessment Report was published in 2007 the Arctic sea ice was in visible decline. In the summer of 2007 there was a record decline that caught the attention of both climate scientists and the broader public. As suggested in Kwok and Untersteiner immediately following the release of the 2007 IPCC report papers started to appear about how the IPCC synthesis had underestimated the melting of both sea ice and ice sheets. Much of this underestimate could be summed up as simplistic representation of the dynamics of ice melting. For example, brine-laden sea ice floating in salty sea water turns over. Snow gets on the top. It melts, then there are puddles and ponds that can flow down into ice. Simplistically, and I am a simpleton, it’s like a pile of ice cubes sitting in a glass versus stirring those ice cubes, or blowing air over the ice, heat gets carried around and ice melts faster.
The presence of large areas of open ocean in the Arctic is new to us. It motivates new research; it motivates claims to newly accessible oil, gas, and minerals; it motivates new shipping routes; it suggests changes in the relationships of nations; it motivates the development of a military presence. (All things Arctic from the Arctic Council) The natural progression of scientific investigation starts to explore, describe, and organize what is to us modern-day humans: a new environment, new ecosystems, and new physical systems. For example, the Mackenzie River now delivers a massive pool of fresh water into the ocean. Fresh and salt – big differences to flow in the ocean because the density is different; big difference to the formation of ice because the freezing temperature is different; and big differences in the plants and animals in the water.
Compared with trying to attribute the contribution of global warming to a particular weather event, it is easier to link the recent, rapid decrease of sea ice to a warming planet. The freezing, melting and accumulation of ice require persistent heating or cooling. It takes a lot of heat for a sustained period to melt continental-size masses of ice. Historically, the sea ice that was formed in the winter did not melt in the summer and there was a buildup of ice over many years – it accumulated; it stored cold. Around the edges of this multi-year ice are areas where the sea froze and melted each year. The melting of multi-year ice, therefore, represents the accumulation of enough heat to counter years of cold. The movement, poleward, of the area where ice freezes and thaws each year is the accumulation of spring coming earlier. The requirement for energy to persist and accumulate to affect changes in sea ice reduces the uncertainty that is inherent in the attribution of how much global warming has impacted a particular event.
Understanding the detailed mechanisms that provided the heat to melt the ice remains a challenge. (This is the real point of in Kwok and Untersteiner) We know it takes about 1 watt per square meter of energy to melt that much ice that fast. This could be delivered by the Sun, transported by the air, by the ocean, by warm water from the rivers of Canada and Siberia, by snow – yes, snow is energy. Once the ice is gone in the summer, then the ocean can absorb heat from the Sun. If there is growth of phytoplankton or zooplankton, then they might enhance the absorption of energy – yes, life is energy. Ocean acidification might change. The natural question that arises – do these processes that are active in this new environment work to accelerate sea ice melting or might they contribute to freezing of water. What are the local feedbacks? (This is above – see below.)
Another study that is of interest is the paper in Geophysical Research Letters, Recovery mechanisms of Arctic summer sea ice, by S. Tietsche and colleagues. This is a model study. With a model the scientist owns the world and can prescribe what it looks like. In these numerical experiments, the Arctic is prescribed with no ice. Then whether or not the ice recovers is explored. In these studies the ice does recover. The ocean does indeed take up extra heat in the summer, but it gives it up quickly in the fall. This is followed by the formation of first year ice in the winter. The ice-albedo feedback that might let the ice melt runaway is limited. Tietsche et al. conclude that it is not likely that Arctic sea ice will reach a tipping point this century.
This does not mean that summer ice loss will decrease. This does not mean that there will not be huge changes in the Arctic. This only says that it still gets cold in the winter.
Models: One of the things I like about the Kwok and Untersteiner paper is their brief discussion of models. They point out that none of the models available for the 2007 IPCC assessment were able to predict the rate of sea ice decrease. Looking forward, they state that the model projections for 2060 range from no sea ice in September to more sea ice than is observed today. The Tietsche et al. paper is a focused model experiment – not a climate projection. It is also a model result that, perhaps, helps to understand the differences in the 2060 projections. That is, how is the recovery of sea ice in the autumn represented in the projection models?
A couple of other points: First, the amount of energy needed to cause the observed melting in sea ice is 1 watt per square meter. If you calculate the amount of energy in the different factors at play in melting of sea ice, then the numbers are 10s of watts per square meter. As suggested above, there are many reservoirs of energy – the Sun, rivers, etc. So when we look at the different ways 1 watt per square meter can be delivered to the sea ice, then there are several paths. The existing models tell us that with the increased heat due to greenhouse gases, energy gets delivered to the Arctic and sea ice melts. The existing models say that there might be several different paths; it is likely, that several of them operate at different times. The second point: Of course the Tietsche et al. paper will enter as an isolated contribution to the political argument, Arctic “death spiral” – as will those of accelerated melt, New warning on ice melt.
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Figure 1: Simplistic summary of Arctic sea ice
Useful links
Recent sea ice trends
Sea ice data
Rood’s Blogs on Ice
Reader Comments
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Yeah, every snowstorm or cold spell is latched onto by denialists as the beginning of a prolonged cooldown, if not an outright plunge into some ice age. But as if in direct defiance of their forecasts, the temps continue to rise. And rise. And rise some more. Like a lonely cult camping on a remote mountaintop waiting for some flying saucer to come take them away to their new celestial home, one has to wonder just how long denialists will be able to keep moving back the start of their hoped-for ice age before they finally feel the floodwaters lapping at their feet and say, "Gee, maybe we really were misled by Tony Watts and the Koch brothers."
In the world of climate science, there have been two very large predictions made over the past several decades:
Prediction #1: denialists have been saying the rapid warming trend will likely reverse any day now, and the world will start cooling off.
Prediction #2: scientists have been saying the warming would likely lead to extreme weather events increasing in both frequency and severity.
Only one of those predictions appears to have so far come to pass.
Want your rag back now? I haven't had to use it. ;-)
Surely you can understand man plays a role in this present warming. Even if you don't understand greenhouse gas theory, every asphalt road we lay changes the surface abledo.
To what extend we are responsible is debatable. Natural oscillations can explain climate trends on our temp graphs since we only measure surface temps, however the total heat of earth system is hardly altered by these oscillations.
To admit what the Science World have known for decades now ,that Man is Warming and changing the atmosphere en masse globally by the burning of fossil fuels would be a personal admission of co-guilt.
Most that lean to the right arent upwardly mobile enough in thought to admit that "they" are as responsible as the next.Its not in their ideological Make-up,so they will deny, distort, refute every scientific fact to avoid that "feeling".
Many papers are available on this disorder and well,feel free to search the web for them..as well as one searches thru,"Watts up wit dat"?
Go in Peace,the rant has ended.
Really? So you don't read everything on WUWT, then? ;-)
Most climatologists. Many knowledgeable meteorologists. Science groups. Credible journalists. Emergency response workers. Humanitarian relief organizations. People living in the affected areas. You know, folks like them...
Region does not equal global.
I would agree, if it was not the most reliable data that we have. But unfortunately, the most reliable data that we have starts in 2003, and ARGO is an extremely effective way to measure the OHC, since they are deployed all over the ocean. This is why I trust ARGO measurements, even though they have een deployed for such a short amount of time.
If you were to use the black line, yes. If you were to use the Grey line, no. You can not base conclusions on one study if there is another study that directly contradicts it.
Here is a nice Paper by Dr. William M Gray, who is a Professor of Atmospheric Science.
A lot of the Water Vapour is lost due to condensation when clouds form.
QUOTE
Evaporation is caused when water is exposed to air and the liquid molecules turn into water vapor, which rises up and forms clouds.
/QUOTE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporation
The Increase in Parts per Million of Methane has decreased significantly, to near no trend.
As for Desertification... that is actually a negative feedback, if what you say about the feedback of co2 causing more deserts, is true. Generally, there is more moisture for it to get warmer. Why? The moisture in the air traps heat, and thus, warms the surface faster. A popular misconception is that "deserts are extremely hot." Some deserts are bone chillingly cold during the night, since there is no moisture in the air to retain the heat. With decreasing amounts of moisture in the air, places that were warm, will then become cooler, since there is no more moisture to trap the heat.
How would co2 create deforestation? If anything, higher concentrations of co2 would make more plant life grow faster.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2qVNK6zFgE
CO2 can not and will not cause cooling. The paper I cited showed that the system's negative feedbacks cancel any warming by co2, meaning that 20th Century Global Warming all together, was not caused by co2.
The oscillations do not change the total ocean heat content, but one of their feedbacks is to rapidly warm the Arctic, which in turn would melt the Sea Ice, and allow for more Incoming Solar Energy to be absorbed by the new ocean that was once Sea Ice.
I agree that the co2 will not create net cooling, however, the negative feedbacks are enough to cancel any warming caused by co2, which is why during an Ice Age, co2 was 10X as high in concentrations as it is now.
Thank you for the link, but this is basically restating what you said, (or vise versa). How does Pinatubo prove that Man Made Global Warming exists? If anything, it proves that volcanoes have the potential to greatly alter the Climate.
Looks like Pinatubo contributed to at least part of the .4 Degree C Cooling that took place in 1993. I do not know if a La Nina also contributed to this cooling as well.
The later part of my comment quoted an article about the person that funds DeSmogBlog.
Your image isn't showing up, if you did put an image in your post.
See what a warming climate does? Time to cool the GOM.
Ya'll with me yet?
BTW 2011 is no longer a question mark on this graph it had well over 850 hundred tornadoes for the month shattering the old record of 267. Oh and by the way this is just another graph NOAA will have to rescale upwards because of Mans warming.
LOL
Much of the increase in your first graph, is due to better ways of observation, and population increase. (More people to send storm reports in).
LOL
Take a look at the absicssa. It is the amount of time passed. Look at the Ordinate, which shows Sea Level. Note that the y value is the lowest it has been in 6 years, which means that Sea Level is the Lowest it's been in 6 years. It's not very hard.
Not one of you have proved that the large dip in Sea Level is wrong. All you have given are your unfounded assumption.
By the way, why are none of you questioning the unusual spike in Sea Level that occured in 2000-2001? It was an even higher change in Sea Level, then this current dip.
Show NOAAs graph of it! LOL!
? NOAA's Graph of it........?
LOL that graph is 4 years old.
Correct show NOAAs graph of this?
May 2, 2011; 12:44 AM ET
It's not just Greenland and Antarctica........
Glaciers on thousands of Canadian Arctic islands off the coast of northwestern Greenland are contributing massive amounts of water into the sea and increasing global sea level.
This six year study using satellite data and computer modeling techniques was performed by Alex Gardner of the University of Michigan. The study is posted in the journal Nature.
Estimates from the study show that between 2004 and 2009 the islands of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago shed enough water to fill Lake Erie three quarters full and added a millimeter to the height of the world's oceans, according to Discovery News.
During the period from 2007 to 2009, this Canadian region was just third behind Greenland and Antarctica as the largest contributor to adding fresh water from melting ice to the global sea level.
While six years is too short a period to establish a trend, Gardner noted, the pace of the melting accelerated dramatically during the study, at a time when temperatures rose just one degree, according to the Discovery News article.
Gardner is not sure if this rate water being released into the sea from the Canadian Arctic Archipelago will continue, but it's worrisome.
Link
Because I hold out hope that one day you'll understand the meaning of words like "rapid" where global phenomena are concerned.
Please go ahead and look at the overwhelming data--such as ever-increasing temperature readings--and "conclude" that we're at the tail end of a warming trend. Then please muster every single iota of your obviously vast climate science education, knowledge, and experience and tell us what, exactly, is going to cause a cooldown, or even a leveling off. There has to be a motivator, a forcer; what is it going to be? Because CO2 causes warming, and CO2 is rising at an unprecedented rate; what, then, in your expert and professional opinion, is going to override that very strong and undeniable mechanism? And please try to answer with solid science, not snide ad hominems or lame remarks about Al Gore.
So, you elected to go with "snide ad hominems" due to a complete lack of actual science that would verify your position. I see. I hoped for more, but it's about what I expected. Pity.
I'm done here for the evening, but before I go, this: my only agenda is to care for this planet and the people on it. I realize that's diametrically opposite to the agenda pushed by the pro-pollution folks, so it may be difficult for some to understand, but it is what it is.
ARGO:
In case you still haven't got the message, ARGO admitted themselves,
They're data hasn't been around long enough. Simple as that. If you use other data, here is the graph
ALL OF THIS was taken from THEIR website link
Oscillations:
You're only looking at these oscillations when they're in one phase. In one phase, they have an overall warming effect on landmasses, but in the next phase, the result is opposite. In effect, these things balance each other out, and cause no long term climate change or variability.
In case you still haven't figured this out yet, oscillations only move around heat, they do nothing to either create or retain heat, therefore they're not capable of causing a long-term warming trend, just short-term temperature variations.
Also, the proof is in the pudding, both Ocean heat content, AND surface temps are rising. So clearly, an oscillation is NOT to blame for the warming.
Ocean Heat content:
CO2 feedbacks:
This is the last time I will repeat this, co2s feedback loops are not understood well enough to go outright and claim the net effect of all those feedback loops is cooling. All of the feedback loops you mentioned are not just acted on by co2 and have many more profound complications then you, or any scientist is aware of. If you want to keep on insisting that they are understood well enough, I'm just going to ignore it.
6 Years? Really?!?!
Let's take a closer look
The red line is a straight line across the graph from the dip that you pointed out. It shows each and every time sea height levels have reached that height. The latest time being somewhere in 2007. And if you really look hard,
you will see that in 2007, the sea surface height was actually lower than it was in the latest dip you are pointing out.
So, since when did 2011-2007 = 6???????????
But does any of this really matter? Nope. It's the trend that matters.
So why is it the global temp has been below normal for 3 months running? A fluke also? That should not happen in a warming world.
Tell me, linear or logarithmic is the relationship with CO2 and temp?
Per your Spencer comment, April data is on us soon
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/04/uah-temperatu re-update-for-march-2011-cooler-still-0-10-deg-c/
Co2 is not the only factor which acts on global temperatures. Additionally, natural ossifications constantly alter the distribution of this heat, and since we only measure temperatures on the surface of the earth (not the entire heat content of the earth), we see wide fluctuations in temperature.
Below normal for three months running? Wow! I'm shocked! Let's see what NOAA says about these below normal temperatures of which you speak:
--The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for January 2011 was 0.38C (0.68F) above the 20th century average of 12.0C (53.6F). This is the 17th warmest January on record. (Here.)
--The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for February 2011 was 0.40C (0.72F) above the 20th century average of 12.1C (53.9F). This ties for the 17th warmest such value on record. (Here.)
--The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for March 2011 was the 13th warmest on record at 13.19C (55.78F), which is 0.49C (0.88F) above the 20th century average of 12.7C (54.9F). This was also the 35th consecutive March with global land and ocean temperatures above the 20th century average. (Here.)
Oh, wait. Didn't you say below normal?
Uh-oh...
Tell us the process used for the GISS homogenization and is it 1,200 KM smoothing they use? Clear it up for us.
Edit, on second thought, don't waste the PCO2 footprint credits there Adolf -- out>>>>>
Doesn't begin to be climactically interesting until the trend persists for a decade. Climactically important after, say, 60 years...in order to effectively measure the effect of at least one full cycle of some of the bigger ocean cycles. (For which we haven't any global measurements for, yet, in most of our data, thus most of our trends are merely climactically interesting.)
Its about oscillation and Indoctrination folks...
And gone>>> I hate smart phones :P
Oh, I forgot; those stupid, dishonest, socialist, agenda-driven climate scientists over at NOAA aren't to be trusted, right?
And denialists wonder why they're ridiculed so mercilessly by the science community... ;-)
Seriously? You expect me to see that insignificant change in Sea Level without magnifying the image a lot? Maybe you're right... I do need glasses ;)
One of the great things about living in America is that each one of us is free to believe what we want to believe. If a grown man wants to believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy, that's his choice and his right. If he wants to believe that the duly-elected and fully-qualified President of the United States is an illegal alien, that's also his choice and his right. And if that grown man wants to reject decades of observation and study performed by thousands of honest, hard-working, disciplined, ethical, objective, educated, and experienced scientists, he or she is certainly free to do so.
Now, of course, believing in the Easter Bunny doesn't make it real. Believing that the President is not a natural-born citizen of the U.S. doesn't make that so. And believing that the planet isn't warming doesn't make that warming go away.
The simple scientific facts are, as has been demonstrated time and time and time again, the oceans are warming and the atmosphere is warming. There are literally thousands of signals that make it clear that warming is happening, and that it's happening quickly. Every single major credible science organization on the planet is in agreement with the basic tenets of the theory of AGW (it's warming quickly, and the unimpeded burning of fossil fuels is a--if not the--primary cause). But if a man wants to ignore all that and believe instead that those tens of thousands of scientists are plain wrong, that's his choice and his right. It doesn't make him correct. But that's how America works.
Absolutely true.
Not remotely close to being true.
Record daily high temperatures: 2728 (1850 new; 878 tied)
Record daily high minimum temperatures: 3123 (2137 new; 986 tied)
Total record high temperatures: 5851 (3987 new; 1864 tied)
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Record daily low temperatures: 675 (378 new; 297 tied)
Record daily low minimum temperatures: 1298 (884 new; 414 tied)
Total record low temperatures: 1973 (1261 new; 711 tied)
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High temperature record/low temperature record ratio: 2.97 to 1
----------------------------------------------
U.S. daily temperature records for 2011 Year-To-Date as of 4/30/2011
Record daily high temperatures: 6699 (4582 new; 2117 tied)
Record daily high minimum temperatures: 6422 (4373 new; 2049 tied)
Total record high temperatures: 13121 (8955 new; 4166 tied)
-------
Record daily low temperatures: 3222 (2232 new; 990 tied)
Record daily low minimum temperatures: 5275 (3957 new; 1318 tied)
Total record low temperatures: 8497 (6189 new; 2308 tied)
-------
High temperature record/low temperature record ratio: 1.54 to 1
(All temperature record data from http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/extremes/records.php)
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