Ten years ago, polar bears were classified as an endangered species due to model-based assumptions that said the recession of Arctic sea ice would hamper the bears’ seal-hunting capabilities and ultimately lead to starvation and extinction.
The Inuit, who have observed these bears catch seals in open water for generations, disagree. At least this is what scientists have found upon investigation.
“There is no evidence that the fast reduction of sea-ice habitat in the area has yet led to a reduction in population size.” (Aars et al., 2017 )
Inuit observations: “… back in early 80s, and mid 90s, there were hardly any bears … there’s too many polar bears now. Bears can catch seals even—even if the—if the ice is really thin … they’re great hunters those bears … they’re really smart … they know how to survive.” (Wong et al., 2017)
by Paul Berth, 21 octobre 2018 in ScienceClimatEnergie
Comme mentionné dans un article précédent, le DMI (Danish Meteorological Institute) publie régulièrement l’évolution temporelle, mois par mois, de l’étendue de la glace de l’Arctique en millions de km2. Le dernier graphique publié (Fig. 1) nous montre l’étendue de la glace au mois de septembre entre 1979 et 2018 (c’est au mois de septembre que l’étendue de glace arctique est la plus faible, moins de 10 millions de km2). Une droite, dont la pente est négative, est tracée parmi les points : tous les 10 ans, la surface semble diminuer de 11,4%. Si l’on extrapole la droite ont peut calculer qu’il n’y aura plus de glace en Arctique dans 60 ans. Cependant, ne remarquez-vous rien d’étrange sur ce graphique?
It is often claimed that modern day sea ice changes are “unprecedented”, alarming, and well outside the range of natural variability. Yet scientists are increasingly finding that biomarker proxies used to reconstruct both Arctic and Antarctic sea ice conditions since the Early Holocene reveal that today’s sea ice changes are not only not unusual, there is more extensive Arctic and Antarctic sea ice during recent decades than there has been for nearly all of the last 10,000 years.
Le 14 octobre dernier, durant une interview sur la chaine de télévision CBS, le président américain a exprimé à juste titre son scepticisme concernant le rôle de l’homme sur le changement climatique.
Contrairement à l’affirmation d’Al Gore daté du 12 octobre selon laquelle seuls « quelques rares marginaux » dans la communauté scientifique ne partageraient pas l’avis du GIEC, de nombreux chercheurs sont en désaccord avec les conclusions faites par l’agence internationale.
En effet, c’était un euphémisme pour le président américain de déclarer durant l’interview « qu’il y a des scientifiques qui réfutent cela », en parlant d’un lien entre la fonte de glace au Groenlandet du changement climatique anthropique.
Le 8 octobre dernier, durant sa conférence devant la Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) située à Londres, le professeur Richard Lindzen a mentionné « la découverte faite conjointement par la NOAA (la National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) et l’Institut Météorologique Danois, à savoir que la masse de glace du Groenland a effectivement augmenté ».
Arctic sea ice is proving remarkably reluctant to enter its appointed ‘death throes’, despite the usual suspects having already planned the funeral. Climate Change Anxiety Disorder, it turns out, is yet to impose its angst on the actual climate, no matter how hard the BBC tries to make it.
We’ve hit the seasonal Arctic sea ice minimum for this year, called this morning by US NSIDC for 19th and 23rd of Septmeber: 4.59 mkm2, the same extent as 2008 and 2010. This is not a “ho-hum” year for polar bears: it means that since 2007, they have triumphed through 10 or 11 years1 with summer ice coverage below 5.0 mkm2 — levels that in 2007 were expected to cause catastrophic declines in numbers.
We keep hearing about the Arctic being ice-free anytime from next month up until a continuously rolling forward decade or so. One question that has to be answered is:
What does ice-free mean?
When does ice-free mean ice-free?
First, we need to clarify what exactly an “ice-free” Arctic summer is.
By “ice-free”, scientists usually mean a sea ice extent of less than one million square kilometres, rather than zero sea ice cover.
–Dr Alexandra Jahn, Assistant Professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and Fellow at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado. Carbon Brief, August 25, 2016.
by Ron Clutz, September 22, 2018 in ScienceMatters
People are overthinking and over-analyzing Arctic Ice extents, and getting wrapped around the axle (or should I say axis). So let’s keep it simple and we can all readily understand what is happening up North.
I will use the ever popular NOAA dataset derived from satellite passive microwave sensors. It sometimes understates the ice extents, but everyone refers to it and it is complete from 1979 to 2017. Here’s what NOAA reports (in M km2):
This article claim ships will “be able to sail right over the North Pole” by 2050 due to warming, but at the same time say ship tracks will make more clouds and cool the Arctic. Of course, anything is possible with the help of climate models.
More ships and more clouds mean cooling in the Arctic
With sea ice in the Arctic melting at an alarming rate, opportunities for trans-Arctic shipping are opening up, and by mid-century ships will be able to sail right over the North Pole – something not previously possible for humankind.
by Ron Clutz, September 17, 2018 in ScienceMatters
One week ago on day 252 MASIE reported the lowest daily extent of the year at 4.43M km2. One week later the image above shows how the ice edges have refrozen and extended. Note also the significant snowfall both in Canada and Russia
The results of their analysis revealed that warming in this high Arctic site had proceeded at four times the global mean rate calculated in other data sets. However, Ding et al. note that over the last decade (2005-2014), “the warming rate in Ny-Ålesund slowed to 0.03 ± 1.85°C per decade,” which is essentially indicative of no-trend in the data. Lead-lag analysis further revealed that “Ny-Ålesund and global temperature variations were remarkably consistent, with a lag time of 8-9 years.” Consequently, the researchers say that “the ‘warming hiatus’ many scientists [have] studied also appears in Ny-Ålesund, it just started later than [that observed in] other areas.”
by P. Homewood, September 2, 2018 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat
Global temperatures fell back to 0.19C in August. This means the YTD average is 0.23C, putting them back to roughly where they were in 2002.
Arctic sea ice is tracking close to 2014, which finished with one of the highest minimums in the last decade. Current extent is well above the last three years.
Malgré des températures particulièrement élevées ces dernières semaines sur l’Hémisphère Nord, voire exceptionnelles sur l’Europe, le déclin des glaces de l’Arctique s’est vu ralenti.
Au 23 août, l’étendue des glaces de l’Arctique était d’approximativement 4.945 millions de kilomètres carrés. Des niveaux toujours particulièrement bas au regard de la moyenne observée sur la période 1981-2010 (6.866 millions de km2, soit un déficit de 28%). Néanmoins, ce niveau n’est « que » le 6e plus bas observé à cette date, très loin de la triste année 2012 (une superficie inférieure à 4 millions de km2 à la fin août). Une timide amélioration, puisque l’étendue de ces glaces avait alors été la 4e plus faible jamais observée sur l’ensemble du mois de juin.
Graphique de l’étendue des glaces de l’océan Arctique (en millions de km2) – Zachary Michael Labe
Remember this? The ill-fated “Spirit of Mawson” expedition to Antarctica (in the Akademik Shokalskiy) that set out to bring attention to “global warming” only to be trapped in ice?
It’s deja vu all over again. (with h/t to Yogi Berra)
As the Arctic summer ice melt approaches its peak, we can say with high certainty that this year’s ice melt will extend the trend of a rebounding Arctic ice mass by another year.
Arctic summer sea ice now growing 12 years
Our Japanese skeptic blogger and good friend Kirye reports using the data from the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) that peak summer Arctic sea ice volume upward growth trend has been extended yet another year – now 12 years.
Chart by Kirye. Data source: Danish Meteorology Institute (DMI).
Using data from the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), Japanese skeptic blogger Kirye just tweeted how Arctic sea ice volume has surged to the 3rd highest level in 16 years.
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Data source. Danish Meteorological Institute. Chart source: Kirye.
Recently climate catastrophe non-believers have been pointing out that Arctic sea ice volume has been gaining over the past years and has not trended downward for some dozen years now.
And global warming alarmists have been very silent on the subject of climate change now that global surface temperatures have cooled and Arctic and Greenland snow and ice have rebounded.
Embarrassed, they don’t want to be reminded of all the absurd predictions they made 10 years ago, with some as recently as just five years ago.
According to the Guardian (9 July 2018), there is a “global heat wave” going on right now.
In Siberia, the heat is supposedly “completely unprecedented” and will surely (we are told) impact Arctic sea ice — the habitat of the iconic polar bear. Yet a comparison of previous years shows little to no impact on sea ice: there is more ice present than there was in 2007.
Lately Arctic sea ice volume has been a topic which climate skeptics have been looking at quite closely.
According to Al Gore and a number of climate ambulance chasers, Arctic sea ice in late summer should have long disappeared by now, see here..
But then just a few years after, the Arctic sea ice area began to recover from its lows of 2007 and 2012. So immediately alarmists shouted that area was not really what mattered, but rather sea ice volume is what really counted. Okay, that made perfect sense. Mass is in fact what’s important, and not area, when worrying about polar ice disappearing …
La géologie, une science plus que passionnante … et diverse
