Starting this month with a look at assorted volume/thickness data, here is the CryoSat-2/SMOS merged Arctic sea ice thickness map for March 31st:
Plus the associated volume graph, which still suffers from a gap in the near real time data due to the problem with the SMOS satellite during the first half of March:
The PIOMAS gridded thickness data for March 2024 is also available. Here’s the end of month thickness map:
Plus the calculated volume graph:
Especially for Peter, here too is the DMI’s chart of monthly Arctic sea ice volume for March:
You will no doubt be astonished to learn that shark jumping supremo Tony Heller has just jumped over the entire East Greenland population of this long lived but officially vulnerable species. Without harming a single one!
Over on XTwitter “Steve”/Tony was recently shown this video which graphically reveals the declining age of the sea ice in the Arctic Ocean:
It looks as though the 2024 Arctic sea ice melting season has begun. For much greater detail see the 2024 maximum extent thread. However, here’s the latest JAXA Arctic sea ice extent graph:
Here too is an animation of sea ice motion on the Atlantic periphery, showing the effect of the passage of several Arctic cyclones through the area over the past 5 weeks or so:
[Update – March 4th]
My usual start of month processing hasn’t gone according to plan. Thanks to Lars Kaleschke at the Alfred Wegener Institute for the following information:
SMOS went into safe mode on 22 February 2024 at 05:10 UTC for reasons that are still under investigation.
The spacecraft has been back in nominal mode since 25 February 2024 and on 27 February 2024, the MIRAS instrument was switched on and is currently performing well.
The reload of the nominal acquisition planning is underway, and if all science data quality checks are positive, nominal data production and dissemination will resume in the coming days.
Zack’s graph displays the JAXA/ViSHOP version of Arctic extent, so here too is JAXA’s own graph of the current sea ice extent:
JAXA extent is based on data from the AMSR2 instrument on the GCOM-W satellite, and shows no evidence yet of a local maximum, let alone an annual one for 2024.
According to Michael Mann he coined the name “Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation”:
Two decades ago, in an interview with science journalist Richard Kerr for the journal Science, I coined the term the “Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation” (the “AMO” for short) to describe an internal oscillation in the climate system resulting from interactions between North Atlantic ocean currents and wind patterns. These interactions were thought to lead to alternating decades-long intervals of warming and cooling centered in the extratropical North Atlantic that play out on 40-60 year timescales (hence the name). Think of the purported AMO as a much slower relative of the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO), with a longer timescale of oscillation (multidecadal rather than interannual) and centered in a different region (the North Atlantic rather than the tropical Pacific).
More recently Mann et al. claimed that in actual fact the AMO does not exist.
For several decades the existence of interdecadal and multidecadal internal climate oscillations has been asserted by numerous studies based on analyses of historical observations, paleoclimatic data and climate model simulations. Here we use a combination of observational data and state-of-the-art forced and control climate model simulations to demonstrate the absence of consistent evidence for decadal or longer-term internal oscillatory signals that are distinguishable from climatic noise. Only variability in the interannual range associated with the El Niño/Southern Oscillation is found to be distinguishable from the noise background.
More recently still I discovered the source of Matt’s optimistic, AMO based prediction of Arctic sea ice recovery. Here is the latest edition, courtesy of Roger “Tallbloke” Tattersall:
The so called “skeptics” are probably already salivating over that image!
The name may not be familiar on the other side of the Atlantic, but here in the once United Kingdom Mr. Toby Young self identifies as “skeptical”, having named his web site the “Daily Sceptic”. This morning he Xweeted thus:
The linked article was written by the Daily Sceptic’s alleged “Environment Editor” Chris Morrison. Mr. Morrison Xweeted thus:
A change is perhaps even better than a rest? Let’s start February with a reminder that following close behind another recent Arctic cyclone, Storm Ingunn caused red weather warnings for high winds and avalanches in Norway two days ago:
By yesterday evening another long period, storm driven swell was arriving at the sea ice edge in the Fram Strait, and to a lesser extent in the Barents Sea:
By this morning Ingunn had merged with the remnants of the prior cyclone, as revealed in Climate Reanalyzer’s visualisation of the latest GFS model run::
I was mildly surprised when a somewhat “skeptical” interlocutor of my Arctic alter ego linked to “Climate at a Glance” in the course of our alleged “debate”. I was even more surprised to discover that the far end of the suggested link was not NOAA’s familiar overview of the Arctic temperature trend:
but instead a similarly named web site proudly sponsored by the Heartland Institute:
The “Climate at a Glance” home page currently features the Arctic at the top, and it probably won’t surprise you to learn that the linked article is full of half truths and untruths about “Snow White’s” favourite topic? Here are the Heartland Institute’s key Arctic takeaways:
Maintaining my New Year’s resolution to expose bad Arctic pseudo-science on (a)social media I stumbled upon this from the self confessed “skeptic” Jim Steele on XTwitter. Jim’s paid Elmo for a blue tick and is rather verbose, but these extracts will give you the flavour of his ramblings:
How Bogus Arctic Warming Attribution Enabled the Climate Crisis Scam
Abnormal warming over the Arctic Ocean and Arctic sea ice loss has been falsely blamed on rising CO2 and evidence of the climate crisis. Such alarmist graphic propaganda is common, like Yale 360’s emphasizing the Arctic Ocean’s warming of several degrees in November 2022, while ignoring the cooling over North America and Eurasia. But any critical thinking person can see warm Arctic temperatures are due to inflows of warm Atlantic water, NOT rising CO2…
The 1990s shift in wind directions caused by the natural Arctic Oscillation, drove out much of the Arctic’s thick multi-year sea ice which resulted in thinner annual sea ice which allowed more heat to ventilate and warm the Arctic (see peer-reviewed Rigor (2002) & (2004)). As the natural Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation shifts to more northern hemisphere cooling, a decrease in the flow of warming tropical Atlantic water entering the Arctic, a rebound in insulating Arctic sea ice will occur that will simultaneously decrease Arctic temperatures.
People who understand these natural climate dynamics that affect the Arctic, always and quickly understand the bogus global warming crisis is driven by natural Arctic warming oscillations.
Needless to say my critical thinking Arctic alter ego felt an urgent need to quibble with Jim’s (almost) unevidenced assertions.
As is often the case with such skeptical “arguments”, the ancient academic articles quoted don’t actually support the conclusions. “Snow White” attempted to raise the matter with Jim:
The 2023 Arctic Report Card has been published by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). All sorts of things are discussed in the report, but sticking to Snow White’s speciality of sea ice here’s an extract:
This satellite record tracks long-term trends, variability, and seasonal changes from the annual extent maximum in late February or March and the annual extent minimum in September. Extents in recent years are ~50% lower than values in the 1980s. In 2023, March and September extents were lower than other recent years, and though not a new record low, they continue the long-term downward trends:
March 2023 was marked by low sea ice extent around most of the perimeter of the sea ice edge, with the exception of the East Greenland Sea where extent was near normal. At the beginning of the melt season, ice retreat was initially fairly slow through April. In May and June, retreat increased to a near-average rate, and then accelerated further through July and August. By mid-July, the ice had retreated from much of the Alaskan and eastern Siberian coast and Hudson Bay had nearly melted out completely. In August, sea ice retreat was particularly pronounced on the Pacific side, opening up vast areas of the Beaufort, Chukchi, and East Siberian Seas. Summer extent remained closer to average on the Atlantic side, in the Laptev, Kara, and Barents Seas
The Northern Sea Route, along the northern Russian coast, was relatively slow to open as sea ice extended to the coast in the eastern Kara Sea and the East Siberian Sea, but by late August, open water was found along the coast through the entire route. The Northwest Passage through the Canadian Archipelago became relatively clear of ice, though ice continued to largely block the western end of the northern route through M’Clure Strait through the melt season. Nonetheless, summer 2023 extent in the Passage was among the lowest observed in the satellite record, based on Canadian Ice Service ice charts.
Tracking the motion of ice in passive microwave imagery using feature tracking algorithms can be used to infer sea ice age. Age is a proxy for ice thickness because multiyear ice generally grows thicker through successive winter periods. Multiyear ice extent has shown interannual oscillations but no clear trend since 2007, reflecting variability in the summer sea ice melt and export out of the Arctic. After a year when substantial multiyear ice is lost, a much larger area of first-year ice generally takes its place. Some of this first-year ice can persist through the following summer, contributing to the replenishment of the multiyear ice extent:
However, old ice (here defined as >4 years old) has remained consistently low since 2012. Thus, unlike in earlier decades, multiyear ice does not remain in the Arctic for many years. At the end of the summer 2023 melt season, multiyear ice extent was similar to 2022 values, far below multiyear extents in the 1980s and 1990s:
Estimates of sea ice thickness from satellite altimetry can be used to more directly track this important metric of sea ice conditions, although the data record is shorter than for extent and ice age. Data from ICESat-2 and CryoSat-2/SMOS satellite products tracking the seasonal October to April winter ice growth over the past four years (when all missions have been in operation) show a mean thickness generally thinner than the 2021/22 winter but with seasonal growth typical of recent winters:
April 2023 thickness from CryoSat-2/SMOS relative to the 2011-22 April mean shows that the eastern Beaufort Sea and the East Siberian Sea had relatively thinner sea ice than the 2011-22 mean, particularly near the Canadian Archipelago. Thickness was higher than average in much of the Laptev and Kara Seas and along the west and northwest coast of Alaska, extending northward toward the pole. The East Greenland Sea had a mixture of thicker and thinner than average ice:
An excellent analysis (IMHO!), but I do have one quibble. I was following events in the Northwest Passage very closely last summer, and according to the Canadian Ice Service on September 1st:
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