Is Arctic Sea Ice Recovering?

[OnlinePoker]

I went on the U.S. Navy PIPS site (Polar Ice Prediction System) and entered in today's date and chose ice thickness. I then opened a bunch of tabs and did the same for each year back to 2005. Scrolling through them all, it appears, with the exception of the Sea of Okhosk and the Baffin/Newfoundland Seas, that the ice is the thickest it's been since 2005 for this date. I could be wrong, and if so, please let me know why what I'm seeing is wrong (I know extent is lower, but I'm sure that is due to the two sea areas I've indicated).

http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/pips2/archive/

[wtmusic]

1. I'm not sure what their system is

but satellites show a consistent downward trend in sea ice for the last 40 years, with this past January having the lowest extent recorded for that month.




http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=274140

[DCBob]

2. Not sure about thickness but sea ice extent is lower now than the record set in 2007

Hardly recovering.

[texastoast]

3. I would imagine it's thicker this winter

We've had some cold weather this year.

But "recovering" is not how I would describe it unless it measures the same or thicker over many winters, and I certainly do not expect that.

[XemaSab]

5. It's colder in the mainland US

Up north it's actually warmer.

[texastoast]

6. Is it really?

I have friends in Alaska who have had two very cold winters in a row.

[joshcryer]

10. It really is.

Red = warmer.

[texastoast]

13. Okay, but that's October

I constantly fight the idea that "it is so cold this winter that global warming must be wrong." Granted, the CLIMATE is warmer, but the winter WEATHER this year is cold. And colder in Alaska the last two winters than my two friends who have lived there for 30 years can remember, especially the 2009-2010 winter.

That we are having cold winters is not unpredicted by the theory of global warming.

So I still wouldn't be surprised if the ice is temporarily thicker these last two winters (see the link re a 2008 article I quickly found). The extent of the ice is way down, and from what I've read, the thickness will be waning as the average global temperature rises.

http://www.allvoices.com/news/1717373/s/22632939-fairbanks-daily-news-miner-alaska-colder-october-temperatures-generate-thicker-ice-on-rivers-nbsp

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/06/vanishing-sea-ice/sea-ice-interactive

[Viking12]

14. Globally January 2011, was tied for the 10th warmest January in the instrumental record

1) 2007: 89
2) 2002: 72
3) 2005: 71
4) 2010: 70
5) 2003: 66
6) 2009: 55
7) 1998: 52
7) 2004: 52
9) 1981: 47
10) 2006: 46
10) 2011: 46

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt

Edit: SP

[texastoast]

15. I'm not surprised

And with that tie, the ice is thicker. This year.

And that's what I have an amazingly hard time getting deniers to understand. They can never seem to understand the difference between weather and climate. We have very cold weather this year, and the climate is heating up, and it appears the extreme cold was caused by the warming.

I just don't think it is that hard to understand, but the deniers apparently do.

[OnlinePoker]

17. Perhaps it's because for the past decade and a half...

...all we've heard is because of global warming, all the glaciers are going to disappear and there will be no Arctic ice cap. Then you get winters like this which seem to fly in the face of the trend and the deniers start having cats. My original question was is the ice recovering because it appears thicker on PIPS, and Viking12 gave me a good site with the PIOMAS data that seems to show it is not.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Viking12]

7. No

[OnlinePoker]

8. Thanks for the first...I had never heard of PIOMAS before.

I know people don't like Watts Up, but the following is a pretty good explanation as to why PIOMAS is a better system than PIPS for showing ice thickness. This is from a scientist who worked on PIPS and seems to agree with PIOMAS being superior (with some question about multi-year ice data from NSIDC for the past several years).

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/13/nsidcs-dr-walt-meier-on-pips-vs-piomas/

[joshcryer]

11. Hehe! "No" *massive images to substantiate*

Nice post. +1

[Barrett808]

9. Sadly, no. The distribution of ice age tells the grim story:

The figure shows ice 5 years or older dropping from 800,000 sq-km in 2008 to 400,000 in 2009 to only 320,000 sq-km. Spring 2010 also saw a record low in the amount of ice 4 years or older. ...

Graph of the Day: Arctic Sea Ice Extent Partitioned by Age of Ice, 1985-2010

[joshcryer]

12. Very nice graph showing the decline of multiannual sea ice coverage. Thanks.

[Xenotime]

16. This is so sad for the earth. It has never seen anything like this.