The position of the camera on this date in 2003 was much farther north then the current camera. If you look at the drift track from 2003 it started a southern track then turned back north, while this year the track has stayed southern.

Reply: Thanks for the info Jeff.

North Pole -- ice free -- 1987

http://www.john-daly.com/NP1987.jpg

A north pole free of ice for a few days/weeks just isn't that big a deal.

I feel like the media and those that care to keep this daily vigil are perhaps driving ourselves crazy about this ice melting. This "foal watching" is bordering on fanatical because what will be will be at this point. I mean we are helpless to make even a dent if we could and if we should to prevent any further ice melting because the game plan is complicated and like all bureaucracy will take forever to make any changes that could possibly be measured. I am not trying to rain on anyone's parade about curbing CO2 if that is possible and if that will make any difference regarding climate change, but watching every day and then reacting discounts the need to watch on a very long-term basis to really get a handle on what is happening and why.

Brett, You forgot one - The North Pole on May 18th, 1987
http://globalwarminghoax.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/np20ice201987.jpg

and the official Royal Navy record of the event.
http://www.royal-navy.mod.uk/server?show=nav.2546&outputFormat=print

Difference was, in 1987 the North Pole had open water in May - not July.

Total poo... I started to worry until I researched the normal temperatures in the North Pole. It is not the coldest place and varies in temperature greatly. The AGW fear mongers are overhyping this to hype their "save the polar bear" over-taxed bunk.

Forgot to mention - according to NASA the big drop in Arctic Basin Ice in July last summer was not due to in-situ melting, rather it was primarily due to strong winds which blew the ice to the east.

This July the AO is negative and we are not going to see a repeat. (reply: FYI, Indications are that it could go neutral in a week or so) In September we will know who the real experts are. Make note.

Open water at the North Pole - July 8, 1987
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=07&fd=08&fy=1987&sm=07&sd=02&sy=2008

And here is one just for you Steve Bloom,

Crews clearing 70 foot deep snow in Glacier National Park.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/02/america/snow.php?page=2

So much snow still remains that the Park Service had to move the 75th-anniversary celebration of the highway, held last Friday, off the pass to lower elevations

I wonder what happens to a glacier when you pile massive amounts of fresh snow it. Perhaps it retreats into Al Gore's office?

I think there is a more serious analysis of this at Cliamte audit with actual data not supossitions. It seems there is no way the melt will even come close to 2007. BTW Predict that 09 NH ice will be above anomaly for the whole year as well as SH ice more trouble for Hansen LOL

Quick comments:

1.) The camera is not the same camera. Ice at the pole is always on the move. The ice over the pole in 2003 slid down past the coast of Greenland years ago. NOAA must set up a new camera every year. Do they have a GPS?
(Reply: Thanks for clearing that up Caleb.)

2.) Read the adventures of early explorers, and you hear standing water existed back then. They planned their trips to avoid both winter darkness and summer slush. (Reply: I won't disagree with that. I did not imply that the standing water was unusual. It happens in the summer on warmer days)

3.) The picture from 2003 is of a cloudy day. Of course temperatures drop there under an overcast, just as they drop here in New Hampshire on a summer day. A drop of ten degrees means the standing water can freeze and there can be flurries and blowing snow. However my understanding is that usually the weather is fair at the pole, like a desert, which makes the 2003 picture a rarity.
Reply: Cannot argue with that either.

Brett,

On the University of Iowa website, it looks to me like the sea ice extent is very similar to what it was last year at this time: ~3.6 million km2, or 0.3 million km2 less than the 1979-2000 mean.

The picture from this year shows a huge melt pond right in front of the camera. It may not be long before the camera is in water. Do they put pontoons on it?

Meltwater ponds absorb a lot more heat than ice and it's also obvious that a lot of sunshine is reaching the ground. This is very significant and it's notable that Global temperatures have been cooled over the last year by the presence of a moderate to strong La Nina with solar activity that has been at a minimum for about 2 years now.

So, there ought to be an increase in sea ice not the observed decrease. WOW!

The prime reason for the warming of courese is the ever increasing levels of green house gases (primarily CO2) in the atmosphere, which are driving climate changes more so than the above mentioned cyclicals.

When solar activity picks up and El Nino returns for an extended stay, that amount of sea ice will retreat to unheard of levels. Kinda of a triple whammy. CO2, El Nine and Sunspots.

2007 was a record year for ice melting in the Artic, and while 2008 may be as well, it's much more likely that 2009 or 2010 will surpass both of those years.

Expect more news on deteriorating ice conditions in the artic in the future.

http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/200807_Figure4.png

For those interested, here is an interesting comparison of the onset of melting in the Arctic.

For this year, melting started several weeks earlier than during most of the last 3 years.

it says tho in the 2003 picture than the outside temperature is +6C, although it's cloudy... ^^

I have recently read a couple of articles about underwater volcanoes erupting in the arctic.

here:
http://www.livescience.com/environment/080627-sea-volcanoes.html

and here:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/06/080626-arctic-volcano.html

I am sure that many of you have already seen these but I haven't noticed any discussion of them on this blog (my apologies if I simply missed it).

One of the articles stated that this should really have no effect on artic warming but did not elaborate as to why. I am no geologist but it seems to me that molten rock could potentially have at least some warming effect on its surroundings. Can anyone here shed any light on the subject? Brett, any plans to feature any articles of this nature in your blog or do you feel they are totally disconnected from the subject?

Reply: I recently read about that study and it did not really talk about climate impacts or impacts on water temperatures.

I would appreciate any feedback I can get on this. Thanks.

Great pictures Brett.

Many people miss the point of this post. July 3rd, five years ago, it was colder and snowing, versus standing melt water and blue sky today. Granted, neither is unusual for the North Pole, but the contrast of the pictures is remarkable.

Kricki,

I think people watch the Arctic because an ice free Arctic Ocean would mean more sunlight gets absorbed by darker ocean water, meaning the weather patterns for the Northern Hemisphere would change. Those same people worry that those changes would not be so good for humans.

I agree that there is probably nothing that we can do to change it at this point.

Thanks for the weather reports Patrick H. You failed to accurately point out all of the facts however.

The latest opening of Going to the Sun Raod, in Glacier National Park was July 10, 1943.

In August of 1992, a foot of snow fell in Glacier National Park.

Going to the Sun Road, in Glacier National Park, is located in Logan Pass and is at an average of 6600 feet of elevation. Even the National Park Service says that it can snow at any time.

It gets old Patrick. Please do some research people.

http://www.nps.gov/glac/planyourvisit/gttsrfaq.htm

Steve Bloom,

Your qoute from the other thread:

"The kind of open that's being discussed for this summer is one where a ship would have open-water sailing all the way to the pole."

From the interview:

"In a telephone interview with LiveScience, Serreze explained that a melt-out at the North Pole wouldn't mean that all Arctic ice would melt. Rather, the thin, newly-formed ice around 90 degrees latitude could melt away for a few days."

Were you talking about an airship?

Also,

"That "we're going to lose a bunch of ice," is more or less certain, Serraze said, but just where that melt will occur is "a roll of the dice."

Maybe you can explain to everyone "the scientific context" of the word "bunch"? Is that like a bunch of bananas?

Using another scientific term- the whole thing sounds like a "bunch of bologna".

It's easy to get excited and worried over stories of the North Pole melting unless you know something about the 1920's and 1930's. The ice has melted before and the Northwest Passage has also been open before. None of this is unprecedented.

Even NASA acknowledged last year that the Arctic polar ice melt was due to unusual winds. Did anybody show those winds were caused by Anthropogenic Climate Change induced by increased CO2 in the atmosphere? By all indications, those winds were just unusual weather and not indicative of climate change.

And now we're back to debate and speculation over what might happen in 2 or 3 months. Why not measure the ice carefully and see what actually happens in a few months before we get too worked up over it?

Thanks Brett, interesting as always.

I am unable to believe that this summer is the one that the Arctic will melt completely and see there are some comments about ways this is not exactly true, as well as 1987 observation. I'd like to know what the consequences of such a melt would be. Are there projections as to whether this will affect the Gulf Stream (I forgot the technical name of the phenomenon) and when? Reply: I don't think there would be any immediate consequences due to a few days of open water around the pole. Long term could be a different story. I am not an expert on sea ice and it's impact on the Gulf Stream, so I do not know.

One more question; it appears to me that as the pole melts/evaporates, some of this has a consequence of spreading colder and wetter weather to the south (please excuse my amateur terminology here). Originally I thought this improbable but the more I observe the more I think it might be true, at least sometimes. Reply: I could see the colder going farther south. Not sure about the wetter idea.

from today's AccuWeather world:
"Wettest Month Ever in Hong Kong; Bangladesh Flooded; Posted: 2-JUL-2008 12:26pm EDT; By AccuWeather.com Meteorologist Donn Washburn
"In Hong Kong, China, more rain fell during June than in any other month since record-keeping began in 1884. The rainfall tally for the month was 53 inches at the Hong Kong Observatory, surpassing the old record of 49 inches from May, 1889."

This is the kind of information I opine you all should observe to alleviate quarantining from the real world at a computer. Of course it does call attention to peaks and valleys, but we've been having an increasing amount of these extreme events (Mississippi, California) recently.

I think times before 15000 years (or less) are somewhat irrelevant to human survival, except where they are included with more recent data demonstrating trends. Though being overdue for a supervolcano at Yellowstone (640,000 years for 600,000 year event) is semi-relevant, in my opinion that kind of catastrophe is beyond our control and doesn't help the discussion.

Steve Mc at CA compared 2007/2008 this week--the most important melt week year in, year out. No joy for Warmeners.

maybe I'm not looking at these pics correctly but sea ice looks bit better than last year... infact t looks better everywhere.

http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=07&fd=02&fy=2007&sm=07&sd=02&sy=2008

Well...with aaaaaAGW there is always a caveat! ok, try this for size as listed on Drudge:

Due to pending disasters predicted because of global warming, government scientists are urging the creation of a new Earth Systems Science Agency -- by merging the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Geological Survey...

'The United States faces unprecedented environmental and economic challenges in the decades ahead,' the group warns. 'Foremost among them will be climate change, sea-level rise, altered weather patterns, declines in freshwater availability and quality and loss of biodiversity'... Developing...

Flat screen TVs blamed for accelerating global warming...

You have absolutely got to be kidding me! Surely we are going to wake up one morning and the AGWer's will weaseled themselves into control of things.....

UAH just out: Global -0.11

Arctic sea ice fluctuations over time are interesting, but because ice extent is clearly affected by wind and current factors, not just temperature, perhaps not necessarily indicative of anything one way or the other.

I'll tell you what really concerns me at this point in looking at the UAH data is the apparent drop in global ocean temp in the last few months for both hemispheres and the tropics. It is my understanding that if the earth is really in a consistent, long-term radiative imbalance, the excess heat must be stored in the ocean. Is the ARGO data still indicating a slight cooling of the ocean since 2003 as well? If so, and this trend continues, I'd be more concerned about an imminent cooling of global climate rather than warming. Or is it just me?

Do the MSU satellite sensors measure only lower trop temp over the oceans or do they actually measure SST directly?

Dennis Hlinka: Thanks for your explanation. I read all of your posts as I am still learning. The more I know, the more I realize I don't know. Pretty pathetic. Climate Science seems to have a life of it's own and is dynamical and changing. Any direction or subject you wish to suggest would be most appreciated. With everyone of Brett's posts I go into each topic in due haste.
I have learned a lot in six months, and I failed Science. Any referrals with your posts would also be helpful. I read them all. You must be a good teacher. Thanks, KIPP

KRICKI:No wonder why some people feel he is offensive. Hang in there!
NASA scientist James Hansen, often called the godfather of global warming, on Thursday is scheduled to tell scientists and others at the American Geophysical Union Conference in San Francisco that in some ways Earth has hit one of his so-called tipping points, based on Greenland melt data.
"We have passed that and some other tipping points in the way that I will define them," Hansen said in an e-mail. "We have not passed a point of no return. We can still roll things back in time � but it is going to require a quick turn in direction." I had a dream about Hansen last night. He asked me if I wanted to change seats on the Titanic.
KIPP