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Arctic sea ice

On an island

by Gareth 24 July 2009

NASA’s Earth Observatory is without doubt one of my favourite web sites. As I write, the above view of sea ice off Baffin Island (or a version of it) is their Image of the Day, and aside from the obvious beauties of the swirls of melting sea ice (memorably described in a comment at RealClimate [...]

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Thin ice #2

by Gareth 8 July 2009

New analysis of Icesat data by a NASA team headed by Ron Kwok shows that from 2004 to 2008 Arctic winter sea ice “thinned dramatically”. Icesat measures the “freeboard” of the sea ice, the amount above water level. The graph below shows the extent of the decline, which is most marked in multi-year ice (ice [...]

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The thin ice of a new day

by Gareth 7 July 2009

The National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) has just published its July sea ice news update on the state of the Arctic and the progress of the melt season. Under the heading Melt season in high gear, it gives an overview of June events, and the conditions at the start of the period of [...]

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Gone too soon

by Gareth 26 June 2009

The June Sea Ice Outlook forecasts for the Arctic sea ice September minimum extent have been released today by SEARCH. Most groups are picking a minimum close to last year’s 4.7m km2, but the melt season is starting with an unusually small amount of multi-year ice. The report suggests that there is “a small [...]

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A long way from Home

by Gareth 22 June 2009

Film review corner: Dr Ron Smith, a senior lecturer at the University of Waikato and a regular contributor to Muriel Newman’s crank echochamber went to see Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s film Home earlier this month (previewed here), and was moved to provide Muriel with a review. As crank effluvia go, it’s a classic…

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Copenhagen 2: dangers ahead

by Bryan Walker 22 June 2009

The second section of the Copenhagen synthesis report, Social and Environmental Disruption, discusses the dangers of climate change relating to society and the environment, noting that scientific research provides a wealth of relevant information which is not receiving the attention one might expect.    
Considerable support has developed for containing the rise in global temperature to a [...]

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Start me up

by Gareth 16 June 2009

This video was embedded using the YouTuber plugin by Roy Tanck. Adobe Flash Player is required to view the video.
Above: a new animation of Arctic sea ice from 2000 to May 2009, from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research and KlimaCampus of the University of Hamburg in Germany. It accompanies their first [...]

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North to Alaska

by Gareth 11 June 2009

Interesting times in the Arctic, as spring turns into summer and the sea ice melts towards its summer minimum. Will this year’s minimum be a new record, or will the ice bounce back towards the long term (but still downward) trend? The first scientific forecasts of the season are expected soon from the Sea [...]

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Friday omnibus #37b

by Gareth 15 May 2009

To keep things ticking over while I’m in Auckland for the Royal Society’s inaugural Science Book Prize presentation here are a few items that have caught my eye over the last few days:

The BBC reports on the end of the Catlin Arctic Ice Survey expedition, and prompts UK ice specialist Peter Wadhams to comment on [...]

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Quirk, strangeness, not much charm

by Gareth 6 May 2009

Another day, another angry diatribe from Air Con author Ian Wishart — longer and more intemperate that his last, but I’m getting used to the style. It seems he believes that attack is the best form of defence, which is great if you’ve got the ammunition (like the Crusaders backs of recent seasons, if not [...]

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