North Pole notes (continued)
This is a continuation of the previous (and now unwieldy) post on the current Arctic situation. We'll have a proper round up in a few weeks.
This is a continuation of the previous (and now unwieldy) post on the current Arctic situation. We'll have a proper round up in a few weeks.
22 August 2008 at 5:30
Latest (July) ARCUS Expert Assesment now out.
http://www.arcus.org/search/seaiceoutlook/report_july.php
22 August 2008 at 5:32
Well, it’s been awfully cold today in Suva (Fiji), where I live, during the wintertime as well as the summertime, so I am not surprised about anything happening up over.
22 August 2008 at 7:18
Re: #1
Well 4 of the proejections are already wrong.
Many people seems to be fixed on sea ice extent, which gives no indication of volume or thickness of the ice.
Sure if we get the right wind conditions, the remaining ice can be compacted to below the 2007 minimun.
The best indicator, although not perfect is sea ice area, as it gives a better idea of the condition of the ice, and takes in consideration the concentration for each pixel.
This is why I prefer Cryosphere Today as an indicator of the ice state (this was an unpaid endorsement
).
Right now its late August, and surface melt north of 80 will be at a minimun. I figure there is about 0.3 million sq km of ice left to melt in the Fox Basin and Siberian and Labtev sea, which will/should melt due to water temperture.
We stand a good chance of beating last years sea ice area. However I beleive the sea ice extent will end up in the high 4’s million sq km.
The end result, after a particularly cold winter, a greater volume of ice will have melted this year, than last.
With no multiyear ice in the beufort sea, the first year ice that forms will be constantly destroyed by storms, and will be at a much larger scale than last year.
Meanwhile the remaining first year ice, will not become second year ice, as it will be flushed out into the Atlantic by the trans polar current.
We will start 2009 in the same state as 2008, and if the winter is mild, and we get an early summer melt like we did in 2007, then Santa is going to be swimming.
22 August 2008 at 9:54
RE: #3
As I understand it, the concentration calculated from the passive microwave data is sensitive to melt ponds as well as to open water. Thus, your claim that the actual ice area for each pixel can be found using this calculation is likely to be incorrect. For this reason, I tend to look only at the extent calculation, not the area. In spite of that, I think an increase in melt pond area would be just as important as an increase in open water area, as the melt ponds have lower albedo than ice or snow.
E. S.
22 August 2008 at 10:00
It is clear that the NSIDC graph is correct, and that the 2007 UIUC maps are not precise enough to be used for quantitative analysis.
Comment by Steven Goddard — 21 August 2008 @ 20:17
So pixel-counting seems quite valid to me, and appears to demonstrate that older UIUC images are simply not accurate.
Since these images are widely linked, shouldn’t they do something about it before more unsuspecting pixel-counters are lured to their death?
Comment by dipole
I find that the UIUC maps seem to compare very well with the high resolution images obtained with the AMSR-E imager, see below for a comparison on 8/11/07:
http://iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsredata/asi_daygrid_swath/l1a/n6250/2007/aug/asi-n6250-20070811-v5_nic.png
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/deetest/deetmp.7104.png
The NSIDC image looks rather similar too to be honest when one considers its lower resolution (for day earlier):
http://nsidc.org/news/press/2007_seaiceminimum/images/20070810_e
22 August 2008 at 10:16
The Arctic sea ice is a key indicator of climate sensitivity. I saw a graph the other day of 1979-2007 satellite data projected onto the IPCC scenarios chart for sea ice loss and its worse than the worse scenario. However is 1979-2007 statistically significant enough to warrant a doubling of climate sensitivity. If it is then has anyone run a CGM of when climate sensitivity was doubled and if so, what were the range of scenarios then plotted agaisnt actual satellite data ?
22 August 2008 at 10:58
Might it be that albedo feedback will now play a lesser role in AGW destruction of the summer artic ice cap? Blogging as a passive, uneducated observer, it seems to me that wind and wave generation are playing an increasingly important role in the destruction of the summer ice cap. Ozone loss has increased the speed of artic winds and AGW has moved the summer storm track poleward; therefore it could be that increased wind speeds and duration will allow the destruction of the ice cap through wave-driven mixing of surface waters and increased importation on warmer Pacific and Atlantic waters into the Artic Ocean after sun-driven melting has come to a stop. Perhaps the summer melt season is being prolonged by these other than albedo feedback global changes. Perhaps a whole new crop of experts needs to be recruited; that is scientists and engineers who predict wave height and power based on wind speed and duration and fetch.
22 August 2008 at 11:09
Re #5. There is a reply from UIUC/CT on Anthony Watts site concerning claims of inconsistency between their images and other published data comparing 2007 and 2008 Arctic ice.
They do indeed confirm their image sequence is generated consistently and suggest that comparisons based on pixel-counting are invalid because of mapping distortion.
I did try to incorporate mapping distortion into my own pixel-counting adventure but was still unable to reconcile the figures. Evidently I was either using the wrong projection, or perhaps made some other error.
22 August 2008 at 11:49
Francois Marchand. was it cloudy?
Great report by Cecilia and company. Goddard is a trend setter for his colleagues, they will
use first impression “common sense” one dimensional reasoning to proclaim an “ice recovery”.
While the real argument is why it melted just as much or more than last year with the temperature record cooler?
22 August 2008 at 12:06
Remember that Maslowski’s 2013 prediction puts polar bears, walrus, narwhales, and ring seals at risk in the very near future. (see for example http://en.rian.ru/russia/20080818/116103830.html & http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/multiple-polar-bears-discovered-swimming/story.aspx?guid=%7B9D938E1B-7204-4D4E-8ACF-9EC53B685635%7D&dist=hppr.
Remember that navy is rather careful. A navy captain that runs his ship aground is likely to lose his command. I expect that Maslowski is also careful.
Besides, I got the same result using another approach.
Further more, lack of sea ice puts open water on all sides of Greenland. That means any summer breeze in the Arctic will bring rain to Greenland. And, rain melts ice. That is a subtext that no careful navy man would say these days.
22 August 2008 at 12:22
dipole Says: 22 August 2008 at 11:09 AM
> Re #5. There is a reply from UIUC/CT on Anthony Watts site …
Would you mind providing a quote/cite/link?
“There’s a pony there somewhere” just isn’t sufficient motivation to go look.
22 August 2008 at 14:16
NSIDC has worked with Mr. Goddard to get to the bottom of the issue with the UIUC and NSIDC images and as has been mentioned in the comments above, he has posted a correction. I thank Mr. Goddard for his cooperation in this matter.
Regarding sea ice area, as Eric Swanson (#4) responded already, yes area estimates can have potentially large biases because of surface melt. This tends to make the area calculations too low. It still can give reasonable results for comparisons between years, though some of the difference between years can be changes in melt instead of changes in real area. Extent is more stable and consistent because, while the sensor may underestimate the specific concentration, it does a good job capture the threshold between ice and water (using a 15% concentration for the threshold).
Another issue with area for long-term tracking is that you can’t estimate the area within the pole-hole around the North Pole. This is a problem because different sensors, with different sized pole-holes exist between 1979-1987 and 1987-present. So you can’t do a 1979-present trend with area (this cropped up in some blogs earlier, saying 1980 area was the same as this year, but neglecting the fact that the pole hole was larger in 1980). For extent, we can safely assume that the pole-hole is filled with at least 15% ice. This is a very safe assumption. Or it least it has been - it may not be for much longer, though I think we’re pretty safe now for this year.
Walt Meier
Research Scientist
National Snow and Ice Data Center
22 August 2008 at 14:23
Here’s the opening of William Chapman’s post on wattsupwiththat dated 22/08
William Chapman (07:27:26) :
Hi Folks,
There is no difference between the data or the way the 2008 and 2007 images were produced in the comparison images on the Cryosphere Today. The apparent differences Mr. Goddard observed between the NSIDC values and those produced comparing images from the CT are almost entirely due to the mistake of using pixel counting to compute area on severely distorted satellite projections………….
22 August 2008 at 16:07
I’d be interested in knowing some details on how the Cryosphere Today images are created. I found it quite easy to discover on the NSIDC site to understand where the data came from and how it was processed, but I wasn’t able to do that from the UIUC site. Could well be I just overlooked it or that it’s described elsewhere. Does anyone know?
22 August 2008 at 16:10
Plea to the Contributors — you’ve locked the prior thread with the last 2 posts being vehement affirmations of the now-discredited pixel-counting method. Could you all at least place a pointer there at the end to this continuation?
Else — as I notice happens quite often — the last few postings in the closed thread leave a quite wrong impression.
For the lazy or naive or new reader coming along later, who might not find all the scattered bits, it’d be a kindness not to leave that misapprehension easy to fall into.
22 August 2008 at 16:37
It looks to me that the Northwest Passage will open in a week
The I look at
Daily Updated AMSR-E Sea Ice Maps
http://www.iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/amsre.html
It look to me that also Northeast Passage will open
Yesterday and day before was line of open water all the way
22 August 2008 at 17:13
The losses have failed to slow down in the last few days, but the current ice extent is still well above 2007. Closer to 2005 than 2007. The slow down could start any time. The regrow is due in a month. So it aint over until the fat lady sings!
22 August 2008 at 18:16
I think I have figured out what is going on with the UIUC images. I am pretty sure that the archived images are actually showing the extent of ice at 50% cover or more; and that more recent images are showing the extent of ice at 30% cover or more.
To check this, I have taken NSIDC satellite data, and made my own images. I have projected them on the globe using a viewpoint above the pole which has a tangent to the surface at about latitude 27. This gives a very close match for the land masses in the UIUC images. I can overlay bit maps and get quite close agreement.
I can then compare the area weighted sum of NSIDC satellite data (f13 channel, ~25km grid) with an area weighted pixel count of UIUC images; also with the reported data at JAXA.
For 12-Aug-2007
36683 pixels of ice on the UIUC image
4469014 sq km projected area
4201452 sq km at 50% or more, by simple count of NASA data
5057390 sq km at 30% or more, by simple count of NASA data
5679174 sq km at 15% or more, by simple count of NASA data
5421094 sq km at 15% or more, reported by JAXA
Some small differences are to be expected from processing differences; but basically the UIUC projected area lines up well with the extent of 50% ice, and JAXA lines up with the extent of 15% ice as reported.
For 11-Aug-2007
47822 pixels of ice on the UIUC image
5882718 sq km projected area
4612971 sq km at 50% or more, by simple count of NASA data
5783576 sq km at 30% or more, by simple count of NASA data
6462289 sq km at 15% or more, by simple count of NASA data
6291563 sq km at 15% or more, reported by JAXA
This time the UIUC projected area lines up well with the extent of 30% ice, and JAXA still lines up with the extent of 15% ice.
Furthermore, I have projected the NASA data onto bitmaps, projected to align with UIUC images, and I get close agreement with the images using 50% for 2007 and 30% for 2008.
I’m going to stick my neck out and predict that the UIUC archived images are actually showing the extent of ice at 50% or more, and that the recent UIUC images are showing the extent of ice at 30% or more.
22 August 2008 at 18:36
Re: 16
About Northwest passage: Polarstern is now crossing it. Meteorological reports: http://www.awi.de/en/infrastructure/ships/polarstern/current_meteorological_data/
Position: http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/shipposition.phtml?call=dblk and http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/Polarstern_visual.png
Ice report (2008/08/22, 21:00UTC): 44092 :
4 — Close pack ice 6/8 to
22 August 2008 at 18:36
Oops. In my previous comment, the second set of figures should be labelled 11-Aug-2008.
Here are the sources of data I used.
UIUC images are obtained from UIUC Compare daily sea ice, gives a side by side of any two days.
Extent of 15% cover sea ice is reported at IARC-JAXA
Satellite data in near real time for recent dates, available from DMSP SSM/I Daily Polar Gridded Sea Ice Concentrations, data from NASA and made available through NSIDC.
Older (and better reviewed) satellite data from Nimbus-7 SMMR and DMSP SSM/I Passive Microwave Data, data from NASA and made available through NSIDC.
22 August 2008 at 19:13
#16 NW Passage:
Called first here last year (#77 and #89) for 10 August, although NSIDC subsequently put the historic event at 11 August 2007. Looks like the McClure Strait route will open 2-3 weeks later this year.
22 August 2008 at 21:04
Re: #12
I can understand how sea ice area can be biased because of melt ponds, however this should only be an issue in July and August for the most part. By the time of the September minimun, my understanding is that the melt ponds would be frozen, and most likely snow covered.
Likewise in the fall, the sea ice extent can be biased by wind conditions that can force the compaction of the ice or vice versa loosen the ice over a wider area, making year to year conditions more biased to weather conditions.
I would think that sea ice area would be a better predictor of ice conditions, when it comes to determining the true sea ice conditions at the time of the sea ice minimun.
22 August 2008 at 23:44
# Hank Roberts Says:
22 August 2008 at 12:22 PM
“Would you mind providing a quote/cite/link?”
Sorry about the delay in replying. The thread in question is this one, which I see is also the subject of a couple of other recent posts here:
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/08/15/arctic-ice-extent-discrepancy-nsidc-versus-cryosphere-today/
But looks like discussion is not dead yet.
23 August 2008 at 1:50
Just read Jim Hansens’s report from a recent trip to Germany and a meeting with the German Minister of the environment Sigmar Gabriel. Jim Hansen has an excellent way of condensing information and presenting it in a very digestible form. His emphasis or rather crusade is to leave as much as possible of the remaining fossil fuels in the ground and fast track alternative energy sources..he touts a new revolutionary 4th generation IFR or Integral fast breeder reactors which eliminate almost all the negative aspects of current reactors..ie 99% of the fuel rods are utilised..the remaining 1% can be easily stored on-site and can not any more be used for weapons grade material. It does not need water cooling and is much more earthquake resistant than any other station..and here’s the knockout….we have enough existing fuel rods even spent fuel rods to power these stations for a few centuries!!.
World’s energy problem..sorted!!!
In Jims article there is also a fantasic counter to the contrarian angle that the world is now actually cooling and an ice age is imminent.
What he also says is that even if we stop coal use tomorrow and only use oils and gas until they dry up that will still irreversably melt the remaining ice with the resultant consequnces we all all aware of. Here’s the link for that report..GREAT READING!!…http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/20080804_TripReport.pdf
I have also come across a website which daily maps the ice melt in the arctic and antarctic..very interesting indeed!! Here’s the link… www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/arctic_AMSRE_nic.png
23 August 2008 at 3:22
Been reading about Greenland’d Ilulissat glacier and it it now travelling at over 2metres/hour- much much fater than at any time in the past; this glacier also has significant numbers of moulins futher up onto the landmass so the melt water lubrication of the bedrock is significant. Those glaciers with fewer moulins tend to move slower than the ones with more melt water pond and moulins. The IPCC predictions of sea level rise only took into account the forcasted rise in greenland temps and thus the consequent increase of the ice melt but not the amount of water vanishing into these huge holes in the pack ice. When this is factored in the rate of glacial ice becomming floating ice will definately and significantly narrow the time frame for serious sea level rise mitigation action on a global scale.
23 August 2008 at 4:27
Fret not too much about the small stuff. Over-analysing this year’s ice extent is like looking at ‘weather’. We need to look at the longer trends to pick out the ‘climate’ of the artic ice.
We have watched the multi-year ice practically vanish over the last 12 monts, and as others have said, the ice that remains will be like fluff in front of the weather this coming winter.
If I was a polar bear I would be renting a place on solid ground sometime soon, and plotting the annual ice area running averages on the wall.
23 August 2008 at 7:27
#22 LG Norton,
I was already aware of the issue Walt Meier has stated. However as I’ve already said before I still think Extent runs the risk of overlooking increasing areas of less than 100% concentration, due to thinner ice. AFAIK there will still be melt ponds around the time of the minima. But whatever method one chooses when using imperfect data one has to compromise.
For my own purposes and considerations I continue to use Area with “advice” from NSIDC’s extent, AMSRE/Terra/Aqua and all the other information available. But it’s crucial that anyone talking about this understands the indices and associated caveats.
PS useful page at Hamburg University supplementing their ARCUS outlook: http://www.ifm.uni-hamburg.de/~wwwrs/seaice/amsr-e.html
23 August 2008 at 9:45
So the same people who think that photographing weather stations gives better information than measuring temperature also seem to think that counting pixels on a map projection “proves” that graphs generated from the underlying data are wrong?
Cryosphere Today should switch to a mercator projection. Voila! More ice in the north than ever before! Just count those pixels!
23 August 2008 at 11:55
Dipole, sorry, same problem. You link to the thread.
At the top of the thread it says “see correction below - Anthony”
Search “correction” and you find —- no pony. I’m sure there’s one there somewhere. Where, exactly?
Did wossname publish a correction in the Guardian? Anyone have a direct link to that and a quote?
23 August 2008 at 12:16
29, Nigel,, it is good to micro-analyze, otherwise someone will count pixels (mixing water mixed with ice) as to make a picture mean something other than what happened. Its good to see how innocent and fragile contrarian theories are. They get blown away by the smallest wind.
#28 Lets see now, people taking pictures of weather stations? Fascinating! How they do figure out temperature from taking a picture of a silly weather station? Geography lesson. Longitude shrinks as one approaches the pole, so area is smaller where the ice is.
23 August 2008 at 12:44
Hank Roberts:
Right at the bottom of Mr. Watts’ post is this added correction (however be aware that Bill Chapman has asserted the UIUC maps are correct, according to his post there, and Mr. Chapman claims that Mr. Goddard’s projection is incorrect):
NOTE OF CORRECTION FROM STEVEN GODDARD:
The senior editor at the Register has added a footnote to the article with
excerpts from Dr. Meier’s letter, and a short explanation of why my analysis
was incorrect.
To expound further - after a lot of examination of UIUC maps, I discovered
that while their 2008 maps appear golden, their 2007 maps do not agree well
with either NSIDC maps or NASA satellite imagery. NSIDC does not archive
their maps, but I found one map from August 19, 2007. I overlaid the NSIDC
map on top of the UIUC map from the same date. As you can see below, the
NSIDC ice map (white) shows considerably greater extent than the UIUC maps
(colors.) The UIUC ice sits back much further from the Canadian coast than
does the NSIDC ice. The land lines up perfectly between the maps, so it
appears possible that the UIUC ice is mapped using a different projection
than their land projection.
Click for larger image
Because the 2007 UIUC maps show less area, the increase in 2008 appears
greater. This is the crux of the problem. I am convinced that the NSIDC
data is correct and that my analysis is flawed. The technique is
theoretically correct, but the output is never better than the raw data.
Prior to writing the article, I had done quite a bit of comparison of UIUC
vs. NSIDC vs. NASA for this year. The hole in my methodology was not
performing the same analysis for last year. (The fact that NSIDC doesn’t
archive their maps of course contributed to the difficulty of that
exercise.)
My apologies to Dr. Meiers and Dr. Serreze, and NSIDC. Their analysis,
graphs and conclusions were all absolutely correct. Arctic ice is indeed
melting nearly as fast as last year, and this is indeed troubling.
- Steven Goddard
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/08/15/arctic-ice-extent-discrepancy-nsidc-versus-cryosphere-today/
23 August 2008 at 13:15
Uh, it’s the UIUC that makes the projection - that’s how you take the spherical earth and smooch it down to a flat piece of paper or digital image for viewing on a computer screen.
Is it really hard to understand that the map can be correct but trying to analyze the underlying data from the pixels, rather than directly from the data, is … ill-advised?
Is it really hard to understood that the maps aren’t generated without the notion in mind that someone will try to invert it to retrieve the original data, because no one sensible will do that?
Is it really hard to understand that counting pixels on a projection, without taking the distortion inherent in any map projection into account, after it’s been JPEG’s once, etc etc … and then taking that so-called “analysis” and shouting to the world “the NSIDC graph generated from REAL DATA is wrong!” is just … STUPID?
captcha is “Sherman found”, odd, because in my case it’s “Sherman lost” (having moved recently from my old house on Sherman street!)
23 August 2008 at 13:21
An computer-generated image, where you don’t know just how it’s been processed, is “raw data”?
Goddard ought to just give up on trying to justify his pixel-counting analysis. Even Watts admits that the original image that Goddard worked from had been JPEG’d once before ending up on the website in PNG format. Even if it hadn’t, what guarantee would one have that it hadn’t been (if it were me, I’d just put it up in JPEG in the first place, just to make the silliness even more apparent)?
A map projection is not raw data, regardless of postprocessing, and when you don’t know that postprocessing doesn’t include lossy compression …
Geez.
23 August 2008 at 13:27
I just thought someone should point out that ice area looks like it might be bottoming out: it was 3.653 million km2 on 19th Aug and now (23rd Aug) it is 3.669. Note that it bottomed out at this point last year as well. If the 3.635 of 2 days ago were to be the lowest of the season, then this would be 24% more than the 2.92 a year ago. Even if it drops to 3.50, this is still 20% more.
In this light, Goddard may have been onto something after all (somewhat fortuitously I admit) and statements like the following I noted above may turn out to have been somewhat premature.
“We have watched the multi-year ice practically vanish over the last 12 monts, and as others have said, the ice that remains will be like fluff in front of the weather this coming winter.”
23 August 2008 at 14:16
Walt, Great to see you in here!
I apologize for missing out on this continued thread for so long. And please pardon my ignorance of the discussion thus far. I see a lot about pixel counting and what not.
If I may summarize my own perspective, naive though it may be. We’re losing the sea ice. Volume is on a decreasing trend and existing forcing levels combined with the ups and downs of natural variability are playing a role.
The media of course continues to cherry pick data out of context due to their own lack of understanding the context.
Generally speaking, we are talking about loss of the ice and in my mind that should be getting us to think about other things like the degree of positive feedback that will cause as more and more dark water is exposed during Arctic summer.
And what is that going to do the the circulation patterns?
These are the questions that I would love to talk about.
How much will global warming accelerate, especially when you consider that the Schwabe cycle is going to be getting back in gear soon and at the same time as more dark water is exposed?
Again, my apologies for not keeping up on the thread and jumping in late. Honestly, I did not realize there was such a debate in the thread till the continued page popped up
23 August 2008 at 14:50
RE # 34
Chris, you said;
[Even if it drops to 3.50, this is still 20% more.]
I am not hair-splitting when I say the 2008 ice extent began melting from an area of 13.8 MM sqkm versus 13.2 MM sqkm in 2007. If 2008 melt stops at 3.5 versus 2.92 last year, total melt in 2008 would be about 10.3 MM sqkm compared to 10.28 MM sqkm last year. About the same, would you not agree?
Lots of heat released and lots of fresh water entering the Arctic ocean.
John McCormick
23 August 2008 at 14:51
Re: #22, LG Norton
You make good points. Yes, melt pond and surface melting effects occur primarily during mid-June through mid-to-late August. By September, even though there may be melt occurring at the edge, much of the surface of the pack ice has begun to refreeze..
And extent can be affected by winds. Winds played a role in the late dip in 2005 (making the extent minimum among the latest on record) and in last year’s record. But generally the impact of this isn’t terribly large.
There are also other factors that affect area more than extent, namely atmospheric emission, changes in other surface properties beyond melt (e.g., ice thickness, snow cover, frost flowers, etc.). All these lead to false variability in the area estimates.
In reality, both area and extent can yield insight into the ice conditions (using both area and extent can give a sense of the compactness of the ice, at least outside of the peak melt period) and both generally give consistent information in terms of trends, variability.
However, NSIDC feels that using both area and extent can lead to confusion in the public and that extent is a more stable, more consistent parameter to measure.
John Reisman (#35) - hi John! - makes some good points. Despite the confusion and some skeptical viewpoints, the reality is that Arctic sea ice is decreasing, the volume as importantly as the extent/area, and there will be some substantial impacts of this fundamental change in the character of the Arctic.
For any that might not be aware, there’s discussion on the ice thickness/volume, along with extent/area on our NASA-funded sea ice analysis web site:
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Look for our next update in the next couple of days.
Walt Meier
NSIDC
23 August 2008 at 15:00
Not really. Remember, his claim was that this map, using pixel counting to compute ice extent, proves the NSIDC graphs of ice extent to be wrong …
Extent. Not Area.
23 August 2008 at 15:02
The last poster mentioned positive feedback from water exposed during the Arctic summer. I don’t want to diminish from the possible effects of this over a period of years. However, I would like to add a perspective that some may not have considered re: this past year. If you compare Arctic ice area http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.jpg with Antarctic area http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.south.jpg over the past year, you will see that the Arctic anomaly has averaged ~ -1 million km2 while the Antarctic anomaly has averaged ~ +1 million km2, and the values for the midsummer months have been close to those averages.
I’m aware that the positive anomaly in the Antarctic may just have been a blip. However, the interesting point to note here is that the ice boundary in (SH) midsummer in the Antarctic is at a significantly lower (i.e. further from the pole) latitude than the ice boundary in (NH) midsummer in the Arctic (there’s a whole continent before you get to the sea ice!) Thus, the cooling albedo effect in Antarctica per km2 of extra ice at the margin is likely to have been greater than the warming effect in the Arctic per km2 of extra open water, and so for the past year at least, the net global positive feedback from ice albedo changes looks to have been (surprisingly) minimal.
23 August 2008 at 15:04
Addressing the pixel-counting issue:
A proper description of it is, as someone above named it, “ill-advised”. However, if the projection isn’t too distorting, it is a relatively easy back-of-the-envelope calculation that provides a decent rough estimate. If it’s an equal-area projection, then it will actually give the correct value. NSIDC’s standard sea ice products are not equal-area, but the polar stereographic grid used is true at 70 N. Thus, with summer sea ice historically having its ice edge near 70 N, such a pixel-counting method can work reasonably well. In fact, I and others, in collaboration with the NSF-funded Science Education Resource Center, helped develop an educational module to work with our data, using the approximate pixel-counting method.
One key thing about the exercise is that it uses the actual data and is a count of the data pixels, not pixels in an image, which has less chance of further distortions that can occur in producing an image. The problem with the UIUC images is that the projection is more distorted, as well as other issues with the images, that Mr. Goddard and others have discussed in previous posts.
Walt
23 August 2008 at 16:07
Re #36 John
There are lots of statistics that can be presented here, including the one I cited re: absolute minimums 2007 vs 2008, and the one you cited re: absolute melts.
Ultimately it depends on your viewpoint. I would say that the key issue this year has been what happens in the summer melt season, so I would assign less importance to the brief extra ice that was around on the fringes of the Arctic circle (not in the Arctic Ocean, note) at the end of winter, thus enabling your 10.3MM to match the figure of 2007. Rather I would look at what has happened since the beginning of May, when the melt season gets going in the Arctic itself.
What you will see is that the anomaly never diverged very far from -1MM in May, June and July. It’s only in August that it took a sharp tumble (caused incidentally by persistent anomalously warm southerly winds over the Siberian seas) that has now bottomed out (n.b. the wind pattern has finally changed in the last few days)
So the average anomaly has not been nearly as low as it was last year, it’s just that the ice area was briefly very high at the end of winter, and has been briefly very low in the last couple of weeks. I therefore disagree with your characterisation of the situation as “Lots of heat released and lots of fresh water entering the Arctic ocean.” My characterisation would be something along the lines of “consistently significantly greater ice area and extent throughout the main melt season, albeit with the gap narrowing briefly towards the end”. Also if area is indeed bottoming out now and does not dip below 3.5MM, then I could perhaps add the statistic of >20% more multiyear ice, since presumably any first-year ice from last winter that survives this season becomes multiyear?
#38 Fair point - when I said “onto something”, I simply meant that he may have been onto something with his theme that “Arctic Ice refuses to melt as ordered”. Certainly looks like he was dead wrong in what he said about the NSIDC data,
23 August 2008 at 16:27
Walt:
“NSIDC’s standard sea ice products are not equal-area, but the polar stereographic grid used is true at 70 N.”
vs
“Thus, with summer sea ice historically having its ice edge near 70 N”
Must necessarily mean that the products are not equal area.
Rather like saying “the sinusoid is evenly positive and negative around the zero mark, so when we take from 0 to 0.1 it’s pretty accurate to go for that”.
Now that may mean that the overall effect isn’t a lot different, but your statement didn’t say that.
Cheers.
23 August 2008 at 16:29
I would say that as far as albedo changes are concerned,the difference between 1 year ice and multi year ice is negligible. It’s all white.
What does matter is how easy it will be to change the ice cover next time.
23 August 2008 at 16:41
Lawrence Coleman,
Is the report of Hansen’s trip available on line?
[Response: At his website - gavin]
23 August 2008 at 17:11
Enough of Goddard…… He apologized, there is hope after all! There are other ways to see what happens to the ice aside from counting pixels. One must be aware of all 5 major league ice physical vectors to observe (as often as possible) before jumping to any pixel conclusion, namely: ocean current, tides (gravity), momentum, winds, pressure, all to be watched continuously and then there is temperatures for a melt, sea (from multiple layers) and air unfortunately 2 meter height may not be enough, ice temperature, also clouds are important, radiation input, and I am missing a few. Let it be a warning for those who try to outsmart great work such as
http://www.arcus.org/search/seaiceoutlook/report_july.php
and others, but NSIDC 15% extent minima is confusing, and I think 50% or more would be better for the lay. Even studying conservative CT 2008 daily ice map is comparable to 2007. In looks now,
Now that Goddard apologized, the big question remains, since the surface temperature record
shows a cooling compared to last year, why did the ice melt just as much and a litte more (till september 20)? Something somehow must give, Even the winds and clouds were unfavorable…
Then why , anybody has a clue? I already suggested that the weighted temperature of the atmosphere was just as warm as 2007. I am all ears for other ideas.
23 August 2008 at 17:38
In case it wasn’t clear, when I called it “ill-advised” I was speaking specifically of doing it to the images published on a website.
Hacking on the data pixels themselves is another thing altogether, and makes a lot of sense.
23 August 2008 at 17:40
I just took a look at Goddards article “Arctic ice refuses to melt as ordered”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/15/goddard_arctic_ice_mystery/
There are more than a few contextual problems with the perspective representation. I’m glad Walt and Steven were able to get the truth illustrated though.
The real problem in my view is context though. We are in the low end of the Schwabe cycle, so some solar energy .3 W/m2 is removed until the cycle swings back up. That along with things to complex for me to imagine in natural variability are at work in the short term. Context is critical when explaining anything related to the climate and pieces of data.
Other things I noticed include: First “some scientists” are not all scientists regarding the ice free north pole comment. I actually did not here any scientists predict that the polar ice cap would “disappear this summer”.
When he talks about the NSIDC graph, first he states it is “an alarming graph”. Really, it’s just a graph and alarming is an insightful claim that conveniently sets him up for his coup de gras statement, i.e. that the”ice has grown in nearly every direction since last summer”. That is true, but that means nothing to the overarching trend. i.e. no relevant context.
Unfortunately this is cherry picking the data. By taking a single day v. another single day, or even a year and trying to say it proves something is certainly improper when the true contextual relevance depends on the long term trends within the scope natural variability on the new path that we have set our atmosphere on.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/07/global-trends-and-enso/#comment-91593
Arguing about the details has some constructive purpose certainly, so that we may all understand this better, but it seems to me that the main problem with the article was not merely cherry picking out of context, but it’s tone out of context with the bigger picture.
23 August 2008 at 17:46
Having now read Hansen’s account of his trip, I urge others to do so, but his attitude to “4th generation” nuclear power is not as unequivocal as Lawrence Coleman suggests. He’s recounting his own reading of a book by Tom Blees; and he’s very interested but not wholly convinced. Myself, I’m sceptical - Blees does not appear to be technically qualified, there’s always some new form of nuclear reactor just round the corner that’s going to solve all the problems of waste, proliferation, etc., and none of these “4th generation” plants yet exist or, so far as I can make out, are even planned.
23 August 2008 at 17:47
BTW, I was obliged to remove most of my #46 to get it past the ludicrously over-sensitive spamometer - e.g. the title of Blees’ book. Hansen gives it, and parts are available online if you google Blees’ name and the title.
[Response: The book is “Prescription for the planet” (website) (PS. a hyphen will work to defeat the filter - sorry for the inconvenience). - gavin]
23 August 2008 at 19:02
Wayne - “…why did the ice melt just as much and a little more…”
As I have been informed, the 2007 melt was caused by warm ocean currents and this year warm winds seem to be the cause for the recent drop.
But more importantly, why is everyone so focused on this years ice extent being a little greater than last year’s? These things fluctuate from year to year, but the long term trend is the important indicator. Since ‘79 the trend is down with occasional outlier extents. The last two years haven’t changed that. If anything the trend is accentuated.
23 August 2008 at 22:43
Partially curiousity, since last year’s record (and this year’s near-record) were unexpected. I mean, if you’re talking to the genuinely curious who accept science.
On the denialist side, there’s an obvious interest in saying “2007 was meaningless, because 2008 was less bad!” (ignoring statistical analysis of long-term trends), and associated bullshit.
After last year’s press on the issue, obviously one expects press interest this year.
23 August 2008 at 23:48
#48 Nick Gotts,
I was struck by Hansen’s inclusion of Blees’s account of the Clinton decision to deep six the 4th Gen program 14 years ago. I’ve noted that any mention of nuclear causes almost everyone who thinks there is a need for urgency in addressing climate change to “go nuclear”. It’s like reading “the climate is always changing and Gore is fat” posts, or discussing biofuels with the only heir of an Iowa farmer. Makes me wonder who has a financial stake in specific alternative energy sectors. The reaction is positively carboniferous.
More, it makes me wonder why alarm is nearly always expressed about 2nd Gen plants and fuel cycles, and doesn’t ever seem to deal with how 4th Gen addresses their concern. Partially I think it’s because “no nukes” has been mother’s milk to “the movement”, particularly in its American realization. Nuclear = bad is settled policy.
Yes it’s wise to evaluate unproven claims skeptically, but, as Hansen points out, there don’t seem to be any deal breakers, and much potential.
24 August 2008 at 0:05
# 50 weather tis better and # 51 dhogaza,
Besides the desire to have a new “We’re No 1” foam hand to beat others over the head with, I’ve been keenly interested at the amount of recovery the annual system would make. I’ve concerns about a rapid acceleration in the rate of albedo loss.
24 August 2008 at 1:20
Stuart Jensen..Ok. I might have rather flipantly said “worlds energy problems sorted” in actuality as Hansen mentioned a raft of approaches is needed, with ‘nuclear’ being an important factor. Case in point..how may solar cells, wind turbines, hydro power stations, hot rock plants are needed to replace fossil fuels, not just repace them but to to meet the growing energy needs of the world in say 50 years time..to me..it clearly says nuclear must be a front runner in the fossil fuel replacement process..basic common sense! 2nd gen plants still need copious supplies of reliable water to cool the rods and their efficiency is still pitiful and the waste products will still be white hot radiaoactively in many hundreds of years time. They take a long time to plan ie feasibilty sudies, environmental impact studies, geo tech studies..etc..etc; and then to eventually build them. I’m sure if leading universities were given sufficient funds to nut out all the cobwebs in 4th gen nuclear technology we would get one off the ground within 5-7 years. I’ve noticed there are hundreds of respondants who say how things cannot be done but only a handful who actually innovate and find and develop ways so that what was a ‘ludocrous’ idea is finally accepted as revolutionary and a stroke of genious by the prev.scorned inventer.
24 August 2008 at 3:22
About nukes.
Sodium spontaneously combusts in air. IFB reactors full of sodium and plutonium make a highly effective dirty bomb. A 911 or even a fire. Even generally competent operators screw up. Heard of the Windscale fire? Plus as it is sealed unit, you can not see what is inside. Unexpected cracks/leaks would be a problem to detect and fix. Any government could easily say its weapons grade material it was in the box, but really it had been transfered to other uses or partners. There are more examples of material diverted by governments than straight stolen.
But governments would not lie about nuclear stuff - would they?
There are reasons this stuff was cancelled in the 1990’s. There are no miracle solutions to energy production.
24 August 2008 at 5:12
RE 45 and some others:
I’ve read a lot of discussion about whether sea ice area or extent is more important. Thinking of the qualitative change in arctic sea ice, I think most would agree that the possibility of an ice free arctic (not just north pole) is crucial. How about if the metrics was the ice area north of 80 degrees (or maybe 77)? That would focus the metrics on the crucial area. And, here, I guess, definitely ice area, not extent.
This metric would leave out the more southern areas which always melt anyway almost completely. Concerning the discussion of this year’s total melt area vs. the minimum (compared to 2007), I would say that melting of the excess ice due to a colder winter is not all that important. That especially is the kind of ice that melts anyway and the melting is not in any way affecting the melt in more northern areas. I do acknowledge is slightly greater albedo because of this larger ice area, for some months.
Additionally, thinking of the albedo effect, the time integral of ice area wouldbe quite interesting metric, too - perhaps scaled by sun angle (intensity of sun’s radiation).
24 August 2008 at 6:31
The polar stern has just crossed the Northern Route of the North West Passage in 4 days at an average speed of 9 knots.
Polar stern crosses NW Passage in 4 days
They have not posted a weekly science report of the passage yet, but it will be found here.
Polarstern weekly report location
It should be an interesting read when it comes out.
24 August 2008 at 8:26
“I’m sure if leading universities were given sufficient funds to nut out all the cobwebs in 4th gen nuclear technology we would get one off the ground within 5-7 years.” - Lawrence Coleman
What makes you sure about that? Is Sean Egan right to say “4th generation” IFR nuclear plants are sodium-cooled and difficult to monitor? If not, why not? The nuclear industry and lobby, AFAIK, are not united behind these plants - why not, if they’re so full of promise? What would prevent a government diverting material from such plants to military use?
Stuart Jensen, I’m not “going nuclear”, I’m asking questions. As I’ve said on this site several times, I don’t favour nuclear power, primarily because of its close connection with nuclear weapons, but I am open to persuasion.
24 August 2008 at 13:59
On sea ice melting in the Arctic — assuming that the heat is being provided by somewhat warmer water entering underneath the ice, the people first able to see the results would be the submariners, right? Looking up from below, looking at the shape of the ice?
And perhaps some surface change in elevation, slightly, across large areas, assuming ice is melting off below, the surface should settle down slightly — detectably?
That should be happening long before the ice would start to break up and open water increase, wouldn’t it?
Just curious asking about the pattern of changes expected. Oh, and, would this be expected to vary according to where warmer water is entering the basin?
I don’t recall anyone coming up with a submersible that can drop below the ice, get carried by the current, and change its density if it gets hung up in the ice to drop down below the obstacle. Ought to be doable, I’d think. It’d have to hunt for thin ice or openings to rise up and send data, or else be able to drop down (or lower a speaker down) to the “deep ocean sound channel” level at which sound in some frequency ranges propagates over great distances and use acoustic signals.
_____________
Hertz, among
24 August 2008 at 15:32
Hat tip to William Connolley (”Stoat”), a different and in some ways better Arctic sea ice chart (with link to download the sea ice data):
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
24 August 2008 at 15:34
Existing types are full of actuality. I can’t speak for the industry but if I were it, I would be afraid oil-and-gas-taxing governments wanted to delay my expansion by making it contingent on the completion of very slow research by said governments.
It should excite suspicion that questions of the kind this research is putatively meant to answer — how can nuclear power plants, and their waste, be entirely harmless to neighbours and entirely unhelpful to nuclear weapon seekers — are all lies by insinuation.
The false insinuation is that the appearance of innocence on all three counts that has been shared, throughout all time to date, by PWRs, BWRs, Magnox, AGR, CANDU reactors, a small handful of prototype helium-and-carbon reactors, and another small handful of prototype sodium-cooled fast reactors is, somehow, just an appearance.
But if you understand the conflict between governments’ fossil fuel interest and their duty to regulate nuclear power, you know that it can’t be just an appearance. If the civilian nuclear industry had anything to hide, no government would be slow in dragging it into the light. Quite the opposite: they routinely keep nuclear plants shut down without giving any adequate reason, e.g., Kashiwazaki-Kariwa. Imported natural gas is expensive, both in lives — as at Skikda, Algeria — and in money, and it looks as if the Japanese government is getting some of the money.
The usual unannounced IAEA inspections, along with the technical advantages of using material from other sources.
24 August 2008 at 17:16
#61 G.R.L. Cowan,
I’m afraid that’s just more of the same nuclear lobby rubbish, and fails to answer any of my questions. The civilian nuclear industry in the UK at least has repeatedly been caught out trying to hide problems - and not by the government. Somehow, IAEA inspections don’t seem to have prevented India, Pakistan, Israel, South Africa and North Korea using nuclear power programs as a cover for developing nuclear weapons, and most people are not convinced they will prevent Iran doing the same.
24 August 2008 at 17:33
#56 Lauri,
If albedo alteration is the underlying issue, then it seems to me you’re correct in noting that the timeframe when relatively larger insolation reaches the surface is the period of most concern. I’ve been pondering for several days the plot for 2002 (partial) through the current season of Arctic ice extent from the International Arctic Research Center (IARC-JAXA) at the link Hank Roberts posted in # 60.
From mid April to about a week after the June solstice, the majority of the period of highest insolation, the chart shows the area of ice coverage varying the least between years. Last year’s large excursion from previous seasons was yet to start. Only about the 1st of July and into the period of declining insolation, did 2007 show less ice than any of the most recent years.
For the rest of the 2007 melt season, the reduced albedo camel’s nose stayed under the edge of the retreating ice and delayed refreezing during the building of a strong La Nina.
There were a number of other contributing factors affecting ice reduction last year, and I haven’t seen yet any attempts to produce a synthesis that untangles all of the processes at work.
One thing that seems obvious to me is that the area available for ice to form in the Northern Hemisphere during the cold season is restricted. The land area surrounding the Arctic Ocean and heat carried by the Atlantic Conveyor limit the southern extent of ice. The warm season’s northward progression of temperatures high enough for melting, simply has less ice to affect.
I’d think the implication is that the loss of albedo from an earlier disappearance of seasonal snow cover may be of more immediately significant than similarly timed ice loss, at least until the we observe an earlier start of ice reduction along the continental edges. Then we’re really in for it.
24 August 2008 at 17:37
> If the civilian nuclear industry had anything to hide,
> no government would be slow in dragging it into the light.
Somehow this does not seem like the same world I’ve been reading about. N. Korea? Iran?
It’s the simple existence of large volumes of transuranic elements that’s the issue for the world.
Of course we can imagine uses for them. Unfortunately so can people with shorter time horizons.
24 August 2008 at 17:41
By analogy with Godwin’s Law, I would like to propose Molnar’s Law: All climate-related comment threads eventually contain a discussion of nuclear power. Alas, by Stigler’s Law of Eponymy, I won’t get credit.
24 August 2008 at 18:15
Re #61
It is not the government, greenies, or the nuclear industry that is stopping the expansion of nuclear power generation. It is the people. The man in the street does not want to have the next Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, or Windscale [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sellafield ] built in his/her neighbourhood.
Nuclear power may be safe, but tell that to the marines
Cheers, Alastair.
24 August 2008 at 20:06
#60:
Does having real money on the outcome affect the quality of data presentation? But it’s a shame that he, like others, doesn’t zero-scale the y-axis.
NWP, MODIS, low-res, Friday - looks open to me…
G.
24 August 2008 at 20:31
Your fear is groundless: what I wrote was my own independent understanding of the matter. You may not wish to share this understanding, but others will.
The analogy between pistons in cylinders and bullets in guns is apt. Well, with a little elaboration. Suppose most of our personal transport were by horse, and horses were heavily taxed, and cars began to, um, proliferate.
Immediately, many persons on public stipends begin to worry that cars are being weaponized: modified to throw projectiles out of their cylinders when a fuel-air mixture is ignited in them, rather than peacefully pushing a captive piston.
Car licensing therefore comes to include a requirement to declare one has no intention of doing such alterations, and submitting the cars to inspections to prove this.
But guns also proliferate; usually in households that are entirely equestrian, but sometimes in households that also have cars. Someone like you therefore remarks that the inspections have not prevented the weaponization of cars.
In Israel’s case, you say it even though no-one in that household has ever acquired a car, and in North Korea’s case, you say it although the householder asserts he has made a car but does not attempt to license it and is never seen driving it.
25 August 2008 at 5:57
G.R.L. Cowan,
You’re right with respect to Israel - apologies. However, your gun/car analogy is utterly absurd: the materials, skills and technologies for nuclear power and nuclear weapons are intimately related. Any state can leave the NPT at 3 months notice, so an excellent strategy for any state wishing to acquire nuclear weapons would be to set up a civil nuclear power programme, accumulate as much of the prerequisites of bombs as possible under that cover, then leave the NPT.
25 August 2008 at 7:42
#68 –That was a truly horrible analogy. If the point you are trying to make is that the proliferation of nuclear (peaceful) is completely different from nuclear (apocalyptic), why muddle it? The problem with your position is not a lack of apt analogies, it is a lack of recognition that the viability of both energy programs and weapons programs depend on mastery of the set of technologies behind refining and enriching uranium.
You’d probably make a more hay if you went the MAD route and argued in favor of total proliferation of all the technologies germane to both kinds of programs.
But ultimately, doesn’t MAD (and every other argument in favor of nuclear proliferation) fail to satisfy the same set of objections?
“the general opinion is that most states are not in a position to safely guard against nuclear use, that (Kenneth Waltz) under-estimates the long-standing antipathy in many regions, and that weak states will be unable to prevent - or will actively provide for - the disastrous possibility of nuclear terrorism.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_proliferation
25 August 2008 at 8:35
I notice that James Hansen is now with James Lovelock on nuclear power in his affirmation of 4th generation fast breeder reactors. I no doubt believe though that although they agree on the use of nuclear to replace coal and more besides I doubt that the scale of the problem can be tackled in time. I read somewhere that in order to tackle 1 GB carbon emissions we would have to build 15 nuclear plants per year for 50 years (in order to keep BAU going). Not likely I would suggest.
Even if we have a solution we need to be able to ramp up in ways that we never have before, not even during WW2 perhaps.
25 August 2008 at 9:13
Pete, #71
I guess you’re talking replacing the entire US generating capacity (~1000 GW).
Building power plants is business as usual. They last how long? 30 years? 50 years? 70 years? The entire US generating capacity probably has been completely replaced in the past 50 year, so why would doing that again in the coming 50 years be an effort of WW2 scale?
25 August 2008 at 9:21
So, how’s the Arctic looking these days?
25 August 2008 at 9:30
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/plot.csv
25 August 2008 at 9:39
Alastair McDonald wrote: “It is not the government, greenies, or the nuclear industry that is stopping the expansion of nuclear power generation.”
There has been no expansion of nuclear power in the USA for decades because nuclear power is an economic failure, and investors don’t like to throw money away. Private industry simply won’t touch nuclear power unless the taxpayers underwrite all of the costs and all of the risks — and not only the risks of catastrophic accident, but the risks of economic loss.
That’s why the nuclear industry has been demanding — and in recent years receiving — tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies before they will stick a shovel in the ground to begin building even one new nuclear power plant. (Meanwhile, Congressional allies of the fossil fuel and nuclear industries have been blocking renewal of even the meager investment and production tax credits for wind and solar, in an effort to set back the growth of these industries.)
The fact is that none of the so-called “next generation inherently safe” nuclear reactors touted by the industry even exist. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has found serious problems with every proposed design, and has approved none of them for construction.
Fortunately there is no need whatsoever for any expansion of nuclear power. The USA has vast commercially exploitable wind and solar energy resources, that are more than sufficient to provide several times as much electricity as the entire country uses, with today’s technology — enough for all current needs and to electrify our transportation systems as well. Wind, concentrating solar thermal and solar photovoltaic electricity generation can be brought online much faster and at lower cost than nuclear generated electricity, and once the infrastructure for harvesting abundant, limitless, free wind and solar energy has been built, the generation of electricity produces zero GHG emissions, which is not true of the nuclear fuel cycle. And this can be done with none of the toxic pollution and grave dangers of nuclear power.
Nuclear power is a dinosaur industry that should be relegated to the trash heap of technological history along with fossil fuels. Many gigawatts of wind and solar generated electricity will be online in this country before a single new nuclear power plant is built. I would not be surprised if some new nuclear power plants are built — or at least started — because of the industry’s powerful political connections. But every dollar spent on nuclear is a dollar wasted, a dollar that would be far more effectively spent on improving efficiency and deploying clean, renewable energy sources.
[Response: I hate to encourage hugely off-topic discussions, but Amory Lovins’ recent paper on this is pretty illuminating. - gavin]
25 August 2008 at 10:27
G.R.L. Cowan wrote: “If the civilian nuclear industry had anything to hide, no government would be slow in dragging it into the light.”
That assertion is not supported by the track record of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the USA. David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer who worked in the industry for 20 years before joining the Union of Concerned Scientists, wrote this past February in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists:
This situation certainly does not inspire confidence in any notions of a fast-track expansion of the USA’s nuclear power industry from the current 104 reactors to 150 or more, as proposed by at least one prominent politician — let alone the hundreds more that would be required to “replace” all coal-fired power plants.
And again, even with hundreds of billions of dollars in public subsidies and the evisceration of safety regulations and opportunities for public review of new nuclear plant proposals, there is no way that buildup could be accomplished in the time frame needed to address global warming. Efficiency improvements and clean, renewable energy from wind, solar, geothermal and biomass can do the job. Nuclear power cannot do the job, nor is there any need for it.
25 August 2008 at 10:34
Lovins’s paper is quite good. As usual.
25 August 2008 at 11:16
Should we be revising our projections of when the methane hydrates start melting, with this faster scale removal of sea ice cover over the Arctic Ocean ?
25 August 2008 at 11:25
Nature just had an interesting news feature overview of non-carbon electric sources. It includes assessments of each source’s potential contribution to the total mix. It is available w/o subscription:
http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080813/full/454816a.html
25 August 2008 at 11:30
Energy programs do not depend on uranium enrichment. Britain’s first foray out of the weapons arena into civilian power didn’t require any isotopic separation at all, and neither does the scheme in the paper I link from my website.
Their relation is analogous to the relation between the materials and skills required to make (gun barrels, bullets, and propellants) and those required to make (engine blocks, pistons, fuel and air feed systems).
That the relationship is fundamental doesn’t allow anyone to pretend that denying a region cars will effectively deny it guns, nor that allowing it cars will help it get guns, nor that its coincidental acquisition of both proves the cars were just a cover. Nor is there any incentive for foolish arguments along those lines.
In the nuclear case, as you know, there is indeed such an incentive. (What is it?)
25 August 2008 at 11:49
#73 Hank,
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
I’m not trying to predict this and I’m most likely wrong, but I would not be completely surprised if we get pretty darn close to last years melt.
It will probably come out above, but I have a funny unscientific feeling about this. Not having good knowledge of the current ocean temps and currents the slope looks like it has some inertia.
Will be interesting to see where it is in 3 weeks.
Captha is being creative: ransom West
25 August 2008 at 11:51
Re #72. No I am talking globally. We emit 8 billion tonnes of carbon per annum and in order to limit and then eradicate it we Prineton University developed a method of splitting this into 8 GB chunks of 1GB each. In order to eliminate 1GB of carbon we would need to erect 15 large nuclear stations per annum for 50 years and we still need to eradicate 7 GB more plus the 50% growth factor by 2030. In addition nucleari is not CO2 free is it!
25 August 2008 at 11:56
Re #74
Hank,
I’ve been watching http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm for some time now. Recently the three day average rate of ice loss fell to 43,000 sq km per day, but now it is back up at around 59,000 sq. km per day. This means that within two days the total extent could be less that the minimum in 2005, making this year’s melt at least the the second greatest. At this rate it will also take 20 days to exceed 2007 record. It just depends whether it keeps melting at that rate.
Cheers, Alastair.
25 August 2008 at 12:26
Global warming IS happening. These scientist need to look right in front of their faces and see that it is real; that it is happening. Stop trying to come up with excuses to make you seem smarter than the other scientists who can actually see whats really happening. And the sad part is; when the ice caps are a few minutes from collapsing and all of us are going to die, they’ll still make up other excuses.
I’m a 13 year old girl. And it’s sad that I can see what is happening but these scientist that are supposedly brillant and can come up with a “logical” reason for the “mysteries” in the world can’t see whats right in front of their faces.
By the time they actually will live up to the fact that they’re wrong and global warming is real, the polar bears, the seals, the penguins, all arctic animals and other animals all over the world, will be either extinct or there will only be a few of them left. Then they’ll leave our world FOREVER. Just because of these stupid scientist and humans who don’t care at all about them because they’re selfish.
Yesterday, when I came on the internet I saw a story on aol. It said that a certain frog’s(i can’t remember the exact type)population was rapidly decreasing because of the warming climate. It said that the warming climate was causing a fungus to grow which was poisionus to the frogs. This really annoyed me because these frogs are suffering because of US! Us as in the human race. And because of us, this frog population will go extinct unless it adapts to the fungus and to the rising temperatures; which will take years that they don’t have.
After reading that article last night, i thought about the previous winter. In Philadelphia, the winter wasn’t really cold at all. There was only about two or three weeks of actually winter. There was no real snow, only flurries which didn’t even stick to the ground. This is a very sad thought to think that my last real snowfall was when I was about my little brother’s age, 8; or maybe even younger. To think that in a few years, everyone might be able to wear shorts in the winter and not be cold at all is a really horrible thought to me. And if that would be normal temperatures in the winter, then could we even survive a summer? Again, we would have to adapt to hotter temperatures; which would take hundreds, maybe even thousands of years that we don’t have. Just think about the human time line, how long it actually took us to evolve to this; from chimpanzees and gorillas to modern homo sapiens like us; it took a long time to become what we are today.
“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.”
— Rachel Carson
25 August 2008 at 13:00
Re #83
This means that within two days the total extent could be less that the minimum in 2005, making this year’s melt at least the the second greatest. At this rate it will also take 20 days to exceed 2007 record. It just depends whether it keeps melting at that rate.
If we talk about melt rather than the arrangement of the ice this year is already firmly in second place by ~0.5 Mm^2.
25 August 2008 at 13:37
I hope post 84 gets noticed.
Scientist while pointing out AGW, are not shouting and harassing the powers that be enough.
WE need more of you to stand up and be counted loud and clear!
There needs to be more activism in line with that of Hansen. He is the only one that anyone really notices. Stand up and be noticed guys.
This is a catastrophic situation.
25 August 2008 at 13:55
The NSIDC update for today begins:
25 August 2008 at 16:43
#80 [G.R.L. Cowan],
What utter rot you do talk!
From the site of the FAS:
“India’s nuclear weapons program was started at the Bhabha Atomic Research Center in Trombay. In the mid-1950s India acquired dual-use technologies under the “Atoms for Peace” non-proliferation program, which aimed to encourage the civil use of nuclear technologies in exchange for assurances that they would not be used for military purposes. There was little evidence in the 1950s that India had any interest in a nuclear weapons program, according to Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Under the “Atoms for Peace” program, India acquired a Cirus 40 MWt heavy-water-moderated research reactor from Canada and purchased from the U.S. the heavy water required for its operation. In 1964, India commissioned a reprocessing facility at Trombay, which was used to separate out the plutonium produced by the Cirus research reactor. This plutonium was used in India’s first nuclear test on May 18, 1974, described by the Indian government as a “peaceful nuclear explosion.”"
Incidentally, I went to your website, but can’t find any paper such as you refer to. Maybe the information is buried somewhere in your paper recommending nuclear reactors in large land vehicles (!!!), but a quick scan suggested there’s hardly room to describe a scheme for proliferation-resistant nuclear power generation.
25 August 2008 at 17:22
84, Well said, Amanda Eldridge !
What we are watching is a terrible tragedy. But I don’t think it is fair to put so much blame onto scientists. They are not all bad ! They’re often the first ones to notice the problems and tell the public. Often, the public doesn’t want to hear. IMO, the bad guys are the politicians, and the oil and coal and petrochemical industries, and the people who invest money in those companies. They don’t care about frogs or walruses, only profits.
But everybody who drives in cars and flies in airplanes is making things worse…
You tell ‘em ! It’s your future that’s being robbed.
http://www.endangeredspeciesinternational.org/overview.html?gclid=CPru6fD_qZUCFSAbEAodOE4Qjw
http://www.e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2027
25 August 2008 at 18:17
#45 [Wayne Davidson]
I can’t find anything in the literature, but I have a strong suspicion that ice at 0°C cools air faster than ice at subzero temperatures. At the melt-point it’s primed to absorb a sudden energy hit, using latent heat to become water.
This could explain why the melt goes on, even though the air temperatures seem to be steady or falling. Cause and effect goes the other way - the continuing melt is reducing air temperature. Can anyone tell me when significant areas of ice in the Arctic and Greenland reached melt point? 1998 maybe? If so, this could explain the temperature “plateau” that the denialists get so excited about.
25 August 2008 at 18:21
Amanda, it’s posts like yours that give me hope. Thank you for your comment and please keep pursuing your interests in biology and climate science.
25 August 2008 at 18:38
Re 86 - I did that (spoke up about climate change and hydrology in the Upper Midwest). As a result, my career as a hydrologist with NOAA National Weather Service ended. NWS has downplayed climate change for many years.
25 August 2008 at 18:59
Wow Amanda (#84)! I wish more of my students were as clear in their thinking and as articulate in their expression as you are. Well said!
25 August 2008 at 19:03
> everybody who drives in cars and flies in airplanes
Well, the big immediate difference people can make is:
– insulate their buildings, and
– add a solar hot water booster on the sunny side.
Those are really simple, immediate improvements anyone can do.
25 August 2008 at 20:12
Re 92, Commiserations, pat neuman, I also lost my job for speaking out, but it was the right thing to do. It was very tough, but no regrets. I kept my self-respect. I mean, just look at a few of these links…how can we be allowing this to happen ?
http://www.well.com/user/davidu/extinction.html
25 August 2008 at 20:27
#83 Alastair, You need to study present ice thickness:
http://seaice.bplaced.net/gfs.html
Il looks like 2007 will be beaten, the high melt rates at cool temperatures are due to thin ice.
#84 Amanda, my advice for young people is for them to lead the way, stay in shape, use bicycles for every need of single transport. I sympatize with your generation, but it need not do the same mistakes as the previous ones. There is also a need to go modern, electric in a real way, I suggest a study of what we can do, Look at previous generations great accomplishments, ie one example
the minirail, once dreamed of at an old worlds fair, became a reality at another, then vanished, except for a few places…:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPZHQE14HRs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Rd9BE1fHjM
Once upon a time…. There was a city within a city, with no cars…. 2 small little islands with 200,000 people visiting a day.
Hank, and #90, Jack… True physics demands a search for balance, net heat energy accounting is needed. Gistemp Northern Hemisphere running average temperature is similar to the late 90’s, but summer ice coverage is similar to 2007, the warmest year in Northern Hemisphere history. There is no such thing as a graph trend forcing the outcome of ice extent, there is such a thing as a net accounting of a) How much ice volume melted, b) how much Heat is required to melt it and c) where did the heat come from?
25 August 2008 at 21:25
When I go to Cryosphere Today
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
and run the 30 day animation for the N. Hemisphere, I am puzzled by what I see.
The sea ice seems to form in large sheets and dissipate from one day to the next in various parts of the Arctic. One day there appears to be a lot of ice, the next day much less.
Is this actually a reflection of what is happening or some kind of artifact of the imaging?
25 August 2008 at 22:04
I wanted to see the current state of affairs in the north, so I spider-searched through the links. Here’s a good one for anyone interested.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
August 25: “Sea ice extent is declining at a fairly brisk and steady pace. Surface melt has mostly ended, but the decline will continue for two to three more weeks because of melt from the bottom and sides of the ice.”
25 August 2008 at 22:33
Pat Neuman ad CL, I’ve said this before and I say it again: Kudos and we need more people like you in all government agencies and even in the legislative and judicial branches. You did the right thing.
25 August 2008 at 22:48
Dear Amanda,
You are right to be upset. My daughter is also very upset. It is often difficult to know what to do. Keep writing, reading, talk to your friends, remember to not waste resources. There are many of us fighting to try to preserve the planet for your future. The scientists are not to blame — they are trying to discover the truth of the matter, and some are trying to educate the general public. But it is not easy for them because there are many politicians and carbon-based energy companies lined up against the scientists.
25 August 2008 at 23:01
Daryl Jones wrote in 98:
Walt Meier of the NSIDC had informed us that there would be an update in the next couple of days back on the 23rd of August.
He wrote in 37:
It looks like you found it, and it would appear to be something people here might like — going into some depth on the difference between this year and last in terms of surface vs. bottom melt, the downloadable self-updating Google Earth kml animation of sea ice concentration, etc.
*
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26 August 2008 at 2:33
Phillipe Chantreau, 99, thank you. Much appreciated !
26 August 2008 at 2:55
Amanda, keep on pushing! The older folks may be in charge for now, but your generation will be suffering the impacts of global warming — and someday will take charge.
The Sacramento Bee had another great article by Tom Knudson this past Sunday, “Sierra climate change puts range’s species on the run.” It looks at evidence that spans nearly a century that shows that many critters have moved up to 2,000 feet (610 meters) upslope in the Sierra Nevada in response to warming temperatures.
http://www.sacbee.com/sierrawarming/story/1181298.html
This may be a subscription site, so if you cannot access it, please respond and I’ll get a copy to you.
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26 August 2008 at 6:44
I’m always at a loss when a young person asks me what to do about the state of things. With your whole life ahead of you on this planet we’ve hurt, you should be telling old folks like me what to do - just as you’re doing, only someday people might listen. Thanks, Amanda.
26 August 2008 at 8:25
Phew! sorry for having stirred up a hornets nest on the nuclear issue, but as Pete Best pointed out Both Jim Hansen and Jim Lovelock are on the same wavelength when it comes to the importance of nuclear in attemping to mitigate CC. It seems to me we have ‘NO’ choice in this matter. Sure we have to build 15 Nuclear power plants for 50 years, but how many coal powered or gas or diesel powered plants will that replace??
No they are not perfect..not by a long shot..no-one is saying they are..but we have to cut CO2 emmissions to close to zero in a hurry..anyone will a better idea please put your hand up. No technology at present can deliver such huge quantities of base load power..nothing can!! Put it this way re: nuclear waste and the possibility of it being used for malicious purposes. Should we do nothing and fart around with adhoc renewables and witness the destruction of planet earth or should we take a chance with nuclear which at least can promise clean energy and a real chance at reducing CO2 to below 350ppm and the sustainability of our earth..I know what my 3y/o son would say!!
26 August 2008 at 9:19
Re #96
Wayne,
that is a very interesting set of maps! Just what I have been wanting to see, especially the wind. I had assumed that the surface water would be either flowing in or out through the Bering Strait, but in fact the wind is blowing away from there in both directions. In general, it seems that at present the Arctic is effectively isolated from both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
Thus, the ice melt seems to be, like other aspects of the weather, rather chaotic. I feel that if one does make what turns out to be an accurate prediction then it is just luck.
I have been following the Japanese http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm graph and downloading the data automatically into a spreadsheet.
Using it, I am generating a running average of the daily melt over five days, and then dividing that into the amount by which today’s ice extent exceeds the historic values. I only show that if it is positive, and it gives me the days until the ice will reach that value.
Currently, on the map dated 25-8-08, there are only 0.05 days! remaining until the ice reaches the 2005 minimum, and 15.5 days until it reaches the 2007 minimum. This is using a daily average melt of 67,000 sq km/day, but yesterday the rate was only 51,000 sq km/day, so you can see that my method is no more accurate than eye-balling ice thickness.
NSIDC says the melt will continue for two or three weeks which brackets my 15.5 days, so I agree that it will be pretty close.
Cheers, Alastair.
26 August 2008 at 9:35
Lawrence Coleman,
You are, as nuclear advocates often do, simply ignoring counter-arguments. Briefly, demand reduction, energy efficiency and renewables can all bring about major reductions in emissions faster than nuclear build. Your use of terms such as “do nothing and fart around” indicates little other than the intellectual bankruptcy of your approach.
26 August 2008 at 9:37
Re #105, just not sure that we can logisically meet such a huge building program and eliminate the other 7 wedges to. Each wedge represents a vast amount of carbon. We achieve another wedge but becomming more efficient on a massive scale and another one by planting nillions of trees and another one by building 2 million 1 MW wind turbines but it all needs doing at the same time.
This is way beyond WW2 effort I would suggest and as it takes 15 years to build a nuclear power station and another age to research 4th generation so that we do not need to dig up anymore Uranium but reprocess what we already have then I am suggesting that Uranium supplies will deplete within 100 years otherwise.
Its all a bit scary.
26 August 2008 at 10:39
Re: 106
They just updated the IIJS graph, and we are now officially below 2005 minimun for sea ice extent.
I am expecting the rate of decline to slow. However if you look at the NSIDC sea ice extent. The rate of decline has kept a pretty constant slope since the third week of June.
I keep expecting the slope to change, however if things keep going the way they have been for another week, then, we will beat the 2007 ice lost in extent.
The Cryosphere Today sea ice area has seem to flat lined, however I suspect the refreezing of melt ponds is offsetting the ice lost, and eventually the sea ice area will make another dip.
It is still to warm for sea ice to form in the arctic (other than sheltered bays with little mixing), and the ice south of 78 North is still melting, so the bias must be due to melt ponds refreezing for the Cryosphere today results.
26 August 2008 at 10:46
#108–
I don’t understand the insistence on building massive wind farms of the scale you suggest….I mean, how many back yards would have to have a 40-foot tower w/turbine in order to supply half the electricity suburban America uses?
Anyway, I hope some day to live in a country where patriotism is expressed by how much electricity one’s flag pole produces….
26 August 2008 at 10:47
“Both Jim Hansen and Jim Lovelock are on the same wavelength when it comes to the importance of nuclear”
So is Iran, Pakistan and a whole lotta goat herders.
Good luck with that.
26 August 2008 at 11:21
Lawrence Coleman wrote: “Both Jim Hansen and Jim Lovelock are on the same wavelength when it comes to the importance of nuclear in attemping to mitigate CC.”
Both of them are brilliant people and genuine visionaries in their fields (climate science and ecology respectively). Neither one of them is particularly knowledgeable about energy issues. Their support for nuclear power is, frankly, based on ignorance.
Lawrence Coleman wrote: “It seems to me we have ‘NO’ choice in this matter.”
That is an assertion that is likewise based on ignorance. There are plenty of other choices. Full implementation of available efficiency technologies could save more electricity than is generated by all the nuclear power plants in the USA. Capturing waste heat from industrial smokestacks and using it to generate electricity could produce more electricity than is generated by all the nuclear power plants in the USA. The USA has abundant wind and solar energy resources that can be harvested using today’s technology to produce several times as much electricity as the entire country uses.
Not only is nuclear power NOT the “only choice”, it isn’t even a very effective choice, and it is the least cost-effective choice, and is a completely unnecessary choice, for elimininating GHG emissions from electricity generation.
26 August 2008 at 11:47
Re #111, hmmmm, Yes but they are not the world greatest energy guzzlers are they like the USA and the EU are and Iran has lots of its own oil and gas reserves and Pakistan has a small economy.
26 August 2008 at 11:50
Re #112, I still doubt that you would tackle a single wedge cost effectively. In fact energy efficiency is a great idea and would work well at first until you realise that a BAU of 2 to 3% per annum would mean that within 15 years all of your efficiency gains would be undone.
Maybe we need to take a look at capatalism itself?
26 August 2008 at 11:53
Thank all of you for agreeing with me. well for the most part.
When I wrote that I did not entirely mean to put all the blame on the scientist, but they need to help find something that we can do. There are some who are doing a lot but we need the help of everyone.
26 August 2008 at 11:55
Re the opinion that our situation is so dire that we have no choice but to go hard and fast with nuclear, along with other low emmissions technologies.
That paper Gavin linked to above- The Nuclear Illusion by Lovins and Sheikh (27 May 2008 in draft) - makes it clear that nuclear is radically more expensive than all other electricity generation options.