Arctic Sees Massive Gain in Ice Coverage [twice the size of Germany: "colder weather" to blame]

Daily Tech ^

[Sub-Driver]

Arctic Sees Massive Gain in Ice Coverage Michael Asher (Blog) - September 3, 2008 2:44 PM

Increase twice the size of Germany: "colder weather" to blame.

Data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) has indicated a dramatic increase in sea ice extent in the Arctic regions. The growth over the past year covers an area of 700,000 square kilometers: an amount twice the size the nation of Germany.

With the Arctic melting season over for 2008, ice cover will continue to increase until melting begins anew next spring.

The data is for August 2008 and indicates a total sea ice area of six million square kilometers. Ice extent for the same month in 2007 covered 5.3 million square kilometers, a historic low. Earlier this year, media accounts were rife with predictions that this year would again see a new record. Instead, the Arctic has seen a gain of about thirteen percent.

[trublu]

Great. Now all those swimming polar bears are going to get frozen over. Bush’s fault!!!

[1stMarylandRegiment]

SEE? SEE? GLOBAL WARMING IN GOING TO CAUSE ANOTHER ICE AGE!!!

Pssst. It's called Climate Change dummy, not Global Warming.

[synchron]

“paging AlGore - white courtesy phone........”

Somebody tell him to stop buying so many carbon credits. He's overdoing things as usual.

[dfwgator]

Arctic Sees Massive Gain in Ice Coverage [twice the size of Germany...

I guess the ice needs some Lebensraum

[JoeGar]

The same issue (Sept 3) also carries this story: “ New Climate Study Indicates Hottest Decade in 1,300 Years”. WTF?

[boomop1]

Next to the old refrigerator , I bet.

[zot]

Onset of the Gore Minimum.

[Interesting Times]

It could well be. We’ll know a lot more a year from now...

[Blood of Tyrants]

Sell them to some envirowhacko.

[PistolPaknMama]

I thought two weeks ago all the ice everywhere was about half gone, the rest had huge cracks in it and the eskimos were handing out coronas and sun screen to the hunters who came for the few remaining polar bears and baby seals.

[Secret Agent Man]

Start breathing more.

And start investing in natural gas companies. Big time.

[Bulwinkle]

CooL!!! refreezing started 2 week earlier than it did last year!!!!
http://nsidc.org/news/press/2007_seaiceminimum/images/20071001_timeseries.png

[L,TOWM]

I guess the ice needs some Lebensraum

Nein! Othervise the ice vould have driven osten into the Ukraine und taken alles ob die lebensraum it needed von den slavic untermenschen...

[keepitreal]

Weren’t the poor polar bears swimming scores of miles last week because there was no ice in the Arctic?

[keepitreal]

Also, if this freezing keeps up, can we have our lightbulbs back?

[Mike Darancette]

Still way below average (see pink line). It will take a couple more years to get the lost multi year ice back.

[CharlesWayneCT]

Now we know they were just swimming away from Wasilla before Sarah Palin bagged them.

[cogitator]

I don't know where this guy is getting his numbers, but this is what NSIDC says:

Update 9:15 am MT August 27: Arctic sea ice extent on August 26 was 5.26 million square kilometers (2.03 million square miles), a decline of 2.06 million square kilometers (795,000 square miles) since the beginning of the month. Extent is now within 430,000 square kilometers (166,000 square miles) of last year's value on the same date and is 1.97 million square kilometers (760,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average.

Furthermore, it says the melt season still has several weeks to go. Compare that to what the article says:

"With the Arctic melting season over for 2008, ice cover will continue to increase until melting begins anew next spring. ... The data is for August 2008 and indicates a total sea ice area of six million square kilometers. Ice extent for the same month in 2007 covered 5.3 million square kilometers, a historic low.

Even though his numbers make no sense, he's quoting a difference of 0.7 million square km between this year and last year, while NSIDC is stating a difference of 0.43 million square km between this year and last year, this year having more ice than last year. It looks like some sort of monthly averaging vs. daily value discrepancy, but it isn't clear.

[cogitator]

What makes you say refreeze started two weeks earlier?? Below is the August 27 graph from the NSIDC Web site.

Here's what things looked like two days ago, from Cryosphere Today:

[cogitator]

For anyone following along, I did a bit more research. The comparison graph in the article is for August 10 of this year compared to August 8 of last year. The problem is, ice loss accelerated in mid-month this year. Another problem is that the quoted sea ice area for August 8, 2007 was 5.8 million square km, and the quoted sea ice area for 6.54 million square km. So the difference then was about 0.7 million square km, which he got about right. But the difference now is less, as noted above, it's 0.43 million square km.

ClimateAudit has a thread following daily developments for Arctic sea ice extent. Post 252 indicates that the difference is only 0.344 million square km two days ago. Post 273 puts it at 0.38 million square km yesterday.

So, to summarize: the article was a bit premature. Looks like the ice won't melt quite as much as last year. But not by much.