Tag Archives: September ice minimum

Arctic sea ice tipping point nonsense at COP27 refuted by last seven years of data

David Attenborough and his cronies at Netflix devoted an entire documentary last year (‘Breaking Boundaries‘) on the nonsense notion that the world is facing a dire ‘tipping point’ where calamity is inevitable, with the Arctic being ‘Ground Zero’ for these effects. However, their sea ice model has already been falsified by the last seven years of data.

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History of anxiety over sea ice gets a video

A brief historical perspective on the failed predictions that have plagued scientific understanding of Arctic sea ice changes – predictions embraced wholeheartedly by polar bear specialists and conservation experts. It’s worth a watch.

Transcript here from the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

Polar bear habitat this fall shaping up fast – more like 2010 than 2007

Arctic sea ice tied 2007 for extent at the September minimum less than 3 weeks ago but with the refreeze proceeding much faster than 2007, seals will soon be returning to the ice edge and polar bears will be back to feeding like they did in 2010.

sea-ice-at-28-sept_2016_vs-2007_2012_5-point-0_nsidc-interactive

Sea ice extent less than 5.0 mkm2 lasted less than 6 weeks (23 August – 28 September), according to NSIDC.

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Polar bear habitat update – November 2014 average sea ice levels higher than 2003

Average polar bear habitat for November 2014 was well within two standard deviations1 and higher than 2003, according to the November report from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (line and labels added, below).

Arctic ice Nov aver_NSIDC_sm_PolarBearScience

Notice that the lowest average November level occurred in 2006not 2007 (after the second lowest September extent since 1978) and not 2012 (after the lowest September extent since 1978). Take note that the scale on the graph above does not go to zero but to a whopping ~9.5 million square km!

Quotes from the NSIDC monthy report and sea ice maps for November 2014 and 2 December 2014 below.

UPDATE 3 December 2014: CIS has issued a new ice map corrected for ice level on Hudson Bay – new map below.
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Hudson Bay freeze-up 2014 – average again this year, not late

Freeze-up of Hudson Bay sea ice is well underway now, virtually the same time as it was the last three years, and in 2008. Bears in the north will be able to move out, while near Churchill and in Southern Hudson Bay, some bears will be able to successfully hunt for seals on the newly-formed ice close to shore.

Over the next week or so, all the bears onshore will gradually move out onto the ice as freeze-up progresses. By the time there is ~10% ice coverage on the bay, most bears will have moved onto the ice (except pregnant females that have made dens onshore).

The Arctic outbreak underway in over North America may hasten this process along (see 7-day and 14-day weather forecasts for Churchill). Ice maps below courtesy Canadian Ice Service.

Sea ice extent Canada 2014 Nov 13 CIS

It seems pretty clear now that time of freeze-up on Hudson Bay is not correlated with the extent of sea ice at the September minimum. Have a look at the maps and graphs below.  UPDATE: more recent maps added below (ice concentration 15 November; ice development 14 November).
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Counting bears from space can be just as accurate as by helicopter, claims new study

Satellites images might be able to replace aerial counts of polar bears in some places — if there are no clouds. But it seldom distinguishes cubs and can’t tell males from females, found a 2012 study of Foxe Basin bears that’s just been published.

Foxe Basin polar_bears_rowley_island_Stapleton 2012 press photo labeled sm

Note: This is my 200th post since July 26, 2012!

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New interactive sea ice atlas for Alaska, 1953-2012: check out past polar bear habitat

University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) is offering a new interactive sea ice map (which they call an atlas), that looks interesting and potentially useful, announced at Alaska Dispatch over the weekend (January 25, 2014: New sea ice map offers a long-term look at climate change).

UAF Sea ice atlas_May 1958 screenshot

At the moment, the years and months available include January 1953 to December 2012. Oddly, 2013 data is not included. The sea ice atlas charts polar bear habitat for the Southern Beaufort and Chukchi Sea subpopulations (including the Bering Sea), as well as the western portion of the Northern Beaufort Sea subpopulation region.
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Nature acknowledges warming hiatus, but does not explain continued declines in Arctic sea ice

Although there have been jumps and dips, average atmospheric temperatures have risen little since 1998, in seeming defiance of projections of climate models and the ever-increasing emissions of greenhouse gases.” Jeff Tollefson, January 15, 2014, Nature. [open access]

The eminent science journal Nature has finally acknowledged that global average temperatures have not behaved as predicted by climate models over the last 16 years. [h/t A. Watts]

Note that predictions of future sea ice declines and associated predictions of future polar bear declines are totally dependent on these climate models.

Here’s my question: if global temperatures have basically flat-lined since 1998, why has Arctic sea ice continued to decline?

If average global temperatures govern Arctic sea ice behavior, why was 1998 (or the year after) not the lowest September sea ice extent reached over the last 30 years? Oddly, 2012 was the lowest September extent (see graphs below, from NSIDC).

Paradoxically, not only has sea ice continued to decline since 1998 – despite the hiatus in global warming – but since 1998, all but one polar bear populations have either increased in size, not declined, or are doing very well by other measures (see previous summary post, Polar bears have not been harmed by sea ice declines).

Sea ice extent graphs for September (which all the hysteria is about) compared to selected months from March, June and November. Ranges given are approximate; note the differences in scale for each graph. NSIDC graphs, colored labels added.

Sea ice extent graphs for September (which all the hysteria is about) compared to selected months from March, June and November. Ranges given are approximate; note the differences in scale for each graph. NSIDC graphs, colored labels added.

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Polar bears have not been harmed by sea ice declines in summer – the evidence

PB  logo colouredThe polar bear biologists and professional activists of the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) continue to insist that since 1979 increasingly smaller amounts of Arctic sea ice left at the end of summer (the September ice minimum) have already caused harm to polar bears. They contend that global warming due to CO2 from fossil fuels (“climate warming” in their lexicon) is the cause of this decline in summer ice.

In a recent (2012) paper published in the journal Global Change Biology (“Effects of climate warming on polar bears: a review of the evidence”), long-time Canadian PBSG  members Ian Stirling and Andrew Derocher (both of University of Alberta) summarized their position this way:

“Climate warming is causing unidirectional changes to annual patterns of sea ice distribution, structure, and freeze-up. We summarize evidence that documents how loss of sea ice, the primary habitat of polar bears (Ursus maritimus), negatively affects their long-term survival”

I’ve spent the last year examining their evidence of on-going harm, but in addition, I’ve looked at the evidence (much of it not mentioned in the Stirling and Derocher paper1) that polar bears have either not been harmed by less sea ice in summer or have thrived in spite of it.

This is a summary of my findings. I’ve provided links to my original essays on individual topics, which are fully referenced and illustrated. You are encouraged to consult them for complete details. This synopsis (pdf with links preserved, updated; pdf with links as footnotes, updated) complements and updates a previous summary, “Ten good reasons not to worry about polar bears” (pdf with links preserved; pdf with a foreword by Dr. Matt Ridley, with links as footnotes).

Update 8 September 2013: to include links to my post on the recently published Chukchi population report; updated pdfs have been added above.

Update 22 January 2014: added figure comparing March vs. September sea ice extent using the same scale, from NOAA’s “2014 Arctic Report Card,” discussed here.
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