“The Extent increased Today..We’ll know in a day or two..” – Julienne Stroeve on Sea Ice
September 18, 2012
This afternoon I chatted with Dr. Julienne Stroeve of the National Snow and Ice Data Center from a research station in Svalbard, Norway, in the arctic circle. Sound only, her computer apparently had no camera.
Among the remarks she made:
”Well, I think what this year shows us is that the ice cover was pretty darn thin, I mean,..there wasn’t any sort of really amazing weather patterns like we saw in 2007, that were conducive for ice loss, I mean the weather pattern was pretty normal for most of the summer. And yet you lost quite a bit more ice than 2007, in fact we’re right now about 18 percent below the 2007 minimum.
So that’s pretty substantial. It wasn’t that you just made a new record, you pretty much beat it by quite a bit.
Q. We’re 18 percent below?
A. “Yeah. 18 percent. That actually is a bit surprising, which to me just indicates that the ice was pretty thin, and speaking with a colleague at London College, Dr. Seymour Laxon, he’s been analyzing the cryosat data, and he said, yeah, the ice was thinner this year than it had been in the last several years.
So it would make sense then, I mean I think, certainly the storm in early August helped to break up the ice in the Chukchi, and East Siberian Sea, but the ice was melting out anyway, probably, because it was already pretty thin, by that point, and there was a lot of open water areas between the ice floes.
So, the storm just took it away really quickly. I think it would have melted out anyway though.”
September 19, 2012 at 12:11 am
I think we’re going to find out soon enough how this year’s massive ice loss will affect the weather in the Northern Hemisphere.
September 19, 2012 at 3:33 am
Peter,
I took the liberty of updating your excellent 2011 adaptation to Dr. Stroeve’s figure comparing arctic ice observations with climate model predictions. After careful scaling, I overlaid the NSDIC ice extent minima plot on top of the Stroeve figure on which you had put “You Are Here 2011″. Here is the update with all the data plotted, including 2012:
http://i713.photobucket.com/albums/ww133/Sane_Person/Arctic%20Meltdown/Sea_Ice_models_v_reality-2012.jpg
If you decide to make use of it, be my guest.
September 19, 2012 at 8:02 am
Nice – I think dr strove has a new paper on this, so I am looking for that!
September 19, 2012 at 9:16 am
[...] we are now 18% below the previous record low for Arctic ice set in 2007. Details from Climate Denial Crock of the Week with Peter [...]
September 19, 2012 at 9:22 am
Cheers Timothy, tweeted that. Let’s hope we’re not that wrong about temp changes.
September 19, 2012 at 10:28 am
[...] we are now 18% below the previous record low for Arctic ice set in 2007. Details from Climate Denial Crock of the Week with Peter [...]
September 19, 2012 at 1:00 pm
You got to interview Dr. Stroeve, and you did it in audio only?!
You’re killing me, Peter!
.
September 21, 2012 at 8:38 am
[...] right – they seem dedicated to sound science. For the record, it appears Arctic ice loss is 18% lower than the previous record low, set in [...]
September 21, 2012 at 11:26 am
[...] the record, it appears Arctic ice loss is 18% lower than the previous record low, set in [...]
September 24, 2012 at 1:56 pm
[...] 2012/09/18: PSinclair: “The Extent increased Today..We’ll know in a day or two..” … [...]