On Wed, 16 Nov 2011 02:28:23 -0800 (PST)
Dawlish wrote:

On Nov 16, 10:19Â*am, Graham P Davis wrote:
On Wed, 16 Nov 2011 01:50:08 -0800 (PST)





Dawlish wrote:
On Nov 16, 9:41Â*am, Alastair
wrote:
On Nov 16, 9:01Â*am, James Brown
wrote:

James has done a
Larry/April 2010 here.

Not correct as if you look carefully at the graph this is as
the title of this thread indicated, the FIRST time it reached
less than the 2007 level this year.

That's not strictly true. Look
hehttp://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaice...03_Figure2.png

The problem is you are just handing ammunition to the deniers
who will claim it is just weather.

The point you should be making is that those graphs show that
sea ice is well below the 1979 - 2000 average. In fact it is
significantly outside the 2 sigma standard deviation, making it
clear that there has been a climate change there since 2007 at
least. If we have another 2007 type event then the sea ice may
not recover by the following spring, and then it is goodbye sea
ice :-(

Cheers, Alastair.

Do you really think there will be no sea ice in the Arctic in
winter in the near future? How much do you think winter Arctic
temperatures averaging -20-30C every single day for 3+ months
warm over the next century!

It will be goodbye *summer* sea ice, for a short time, at some
time, probably in the next 30-50 years Alastair, not goodbye
Arctic sea ice in its entirity!

If the ice is lost during the summer, which looks sure to happen
this decade, so will be the layer of fresh surface water. This would
make the re-freezing of the Arctic more difficult in winter. It was
the theory fifty years ago that if the ice completely melted, it
wouldn't return in winter. Consequences of that could be the sudden
end of this interglacial with onset of glaciation.

I understand that computer models now say that the ice would return
in winter, but we know how successful they've been at predicting the
response of ice to AGW. ;-)



At -30 for 3 months+ it won't make a great deal of difference though,
surely graham, it will just delay the freezing a little longer - which
may well be already happening as vast areas that remained frozen
through the whole year,are now ice-free through late summer and
through September. They still freeze quickly once winter starts with a
vengeance and they are almost all completely frozen again by December.

Will it be -30C with all that open water? Possibly so well away from
the coasts but it would be much higher over and near the Arctic Ocean.

With the likelihood of increased storminess in the region, the water
would get mixed to a much greater depth. If the salinity increased
enough, convective mixing would prevent re-freezing. The layer of fresh
water within the ice pack, in polynyas and leads in the summer, the
water is fresh enough to drink and only about 15 feet deep. As you get
away from the ice, the salinity would increase and depth of the surface
layer would increase, thus slowing refreezing. However, that's nowhere
near as difficult as trying to cool 2,000 ft of water to -1.8C.

I'm not saying this will happen. Just pointing out that scientists
considered it could happen and also that it had happened during
previous warming periods.

--
Graham Davis, Bracknell, Berks. E-mail: change boy to man
Teach evolution, not creationism: http://evolutionnotcreationism.org.uk/