Arctic Sea Ice Nears Annual Low Point, Denialist Arm Waving Ensues.. September 15, 2015

UPDATE: Maybe they read this blog post first thing this morning – but NSIDC has now called the annual minimum as having occurred on Sept. 11.

National Snow and Ice Data Center:

On September 11, Arctic sea ice reached its likely minimum extent for 2015. The minimum ice extent was the fourth lowest in the satellite record, and reinforces the long-term downward trend in Arctic ice extent. Sea ice extent will now begin its seasonal increase through autumn and winter. In the Antarctic, sea ice extent is average, a substantial contrast with recent years when Antarctic winter extents reached record high levels.

We are now in the window of time when the National Snow and Ice Data Center(NSIDC) will declare this year’s sea ice minimum, which typically occurs in or around the third week of September. Here’s what we know, according to Accuweather.

1. August 2015 was the fourth lowest sea ice extent since 1979. 2. The decadal rate of sea ice extent decline in the Arctic for the month of August is 10.3 percent. 3. The southerly route through the Northwest Passage is currently open. 4. The northern sea route, which is north of the Russian coast is mostly clear of ice, according to the NSIDC.

Above, see the NSIDC graph for August ice, which should be a fairly close indicator of where we will end up, something like third or fourth lowest extent. What stands out on the graph is the deep trough of the 2012 melt year, the lowest in the modern record, and the steady downward trendline that has been consistent since the mid-twentieth century, as this graph from the University of Illinois shows.

As the ice wanes in key areas of biological importance, the animals that have evolved in tandem with the ice, and depend on it for hunting and reproducing, find themselves forced into abnormal behaviors. Here’s a new picture of walruses hauled out on a spit of land in the Alaskan arctic.

Washington Post:

The Fish and Wildlife Service has estimated that approximately 35,000 walruses are currently hauled up on shore, a number that rivals last year’s haul-out. As of Aug. 28, the service had estimated that only 5,000-6,000 walruses had already gathered, although biologists suspected more would be coming. The haul-out was first confirmed by the service on Aug. 26. It’s the seventh time in the past nine summers that a haul-out has occurred, thanks to the effects of climate change in the Arctic, which have caused all the sea ice the walruses usually rest on to melt. With nowhere else to go, the animals were forced to seek refuge on the coast. The walruses are likely to remain on shore for another month or so, as sea ice in the region probably won’t start refreezing until October. Until then, the animals are being closely monitored by local Fish and Wildlife Service officials and residents of Point Lay. Walruses that are crammed onshore together are easily frightened and prone to stampeding into the water, which can cause them to trample and kill the smaller members of their herd. Such stampedes have led to thousands of fatalities in the past, so officials are eager to make sure the area remains as isolated and free of human disturbances as possible.

The haul-out behavior is new, according to local natives, who have a long memory. Here’s my video on the walrus from (holy crap!) 2010. Informative if you have not seen.

Predictably, what we see from deniers on the sea ice issue is – whenever we don’t set a new low record, the ice is said to be “recovering”. So as you can see from the graph, the ice is damn near always “recovering” – except when it’s uh..not.

Finally, here is the NSIDC’s most current graph of sea ice extent. Although it looks like it’s bottoming out, experts will wait till they are sure before declaring this.

More on the arm waving, below.The predictably nutso World Net Daily cites psychotic blogger “Steven Goddard” (who won’t use his real name, I don’t blame him..)

World Net Daily:

Blogger Steven Goddard at Real Science is citing information from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, showing the Arctic ice mass, as of Sept. 7, is substantially bigger than it was in September 2012. Duh. There’s more ice than there was in the record low year. See graph above.

The Daily story also predictably cites cold days somewhere on the planet as proof that there is no warming, including a “coldest ever” measurement in Antarctica, without noting that, since Antarctica is very poorly measured, we’ll probably be finding new cold spots there for the next 100 years. Fail.

The Daily article also reassures us that, “..scientists and others on a team assembled by the Chicago-based Heartland Institute, which focuses on free-market solutions to problems, said the “scare” of global warming from the use of carbon fuels and other human activities “is over.” That’s the same Heartland Institute that has assured us that the “scare” over tobacco and cancer is over, as well. Whew! So, thanks World Net Daily, for settling that one! Then there’s the “Chicago saw the coldest days ever recorded” canard. That’s what happens when anomalous masses of arctic air tumble out of the north, and warm air masses move up. My video on that was called “The one video to shut down climate deniers”

