Arctic Sea Ice Continues Expansion

[Sinatra]

It's a little too cold these days...

This trumps your little 30 year base period pard...

 

[elvis]

Of course, if one is so intellectually dishonest as to use a starting point at 1998, one can show a slight decline. Should you use a starting point in 1997, or 1999, then you show a slight rise. All are false, for the median for the long run does not show a decline at all, and considering a solar minimum and a strong La Nina, there should have been much colder years in 2007, 2008, and 2009.

By the way, 2009 is shaping up to be in the top 5 warmest. Some cooling.


2009 one of hottest years on record: US study

WASHINGTON, Dec 8 (AFP) Dec 08, 2009
The world saw one of the hottest years on record in 2009 and has notched up the hottest decade since records began, a report by a US climate agency said Tuesday.
Scientists at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found in a preliminary annual report that compared current data with information dating back to the 1800s, that global land and ocean surface temperatures so far this year were the fifth warmest on record.

Temperatures from January to the end of October have been 1.01 degrees Fahrenheit above the long-term average, the report said.

A similar temperature rise was seen for the decade from 2000-2009, making it the hottest on record.

speaking of intellectual dishonesty, how are Jones and Mann doing?

 

[code1211]

No matter how many times you mindless drones parrot this lie, it doesn't change the fact that this last decade was the WARMEST in the history of direct instrument measurement.

Please explain how a decade that's been COOLING could be the warmest???
Please link to your source for your "data." Even Faux Snooze admits your "cooling" decade has been the warmest.

U.N. Weather Agency at Climate Conference Says This Is Warmest Decade on Record - Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News - FOXNews.com

http://rankexploits.com/musings/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/rss_trends.jpg

Well code, there you go again. Not only dishonestly using the Troposphere data instead of the Surface Temp data, you are using the cooked Christy and Spencer numbers where they deliberately used the wrong sign to correct for Diurnal Satellite drift.
Here is the correct data for the Troposphere which also shows warming.

You tried these same cooked numbers on me on the AOL boards without success, what made you think you would fair any better on this board?

Global, monthly time series of brightness temperature anomaly for channel TLT (Lower Troposphere), the anomaly time series is dominated by ENSO events and slow tropospheric warming. The three primary El Niños during the past 20 years are clearly evident as peaks in the time series occurring during 1982-83, 1987-88, and 1997-98, with the most recent one being the largest.

We've run around this bush before and you've made the same empty claims and presented the same misleading response.

The Warmists claim that CO2 is the primary cause of warming. CO2 has increased on a consistant track. Temperature, for the last 8 years has stalled and cooled.

You asked for proof of cooling which I provided and you respond that if one averages the recent years with the previous 30, then the averag produces an increase.

Flat Earth logic.

If you refuse to look at facts, why do you ask for them? Silly question. You're a Warmist.

 

[code1211]

By the way, look at the daily graph on the arctic ice. Once more we are tracking right with the lowest years on record;

Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis

And the track of this year's ice expnse at this time compared to the standard deviation from the average of thirty years is about one tenth of one point of standard deviation.

We appear to have recovered from nearly a full 2 point fall off from the standard deviation.

The problem seems to be going away with no help from the panic motivated.

If this recovery is the cause of your panic, are you sure that panic is justified?

 

[edthecynic]

http://rankexploits.com/musings/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/rss_trends.jpg

Well code, there you go again. Not only dishonestly using the Troposphere data instead of the Surface Temp data, you are using the cooked Christy and Spencer numbers where they deliberately used the wrong sign to correct for Diurnal Satellite drift.
Here is the correct data for the Troposphere which also shows warming.

You tried these same cooked numbers on me on the AOL boards without success, what made you think you would fair any better on this board?

Global, monthly time series of brightness temperature anomaly for channel TLT (Lower Troposphere), the anomaly time series is dominated by ENSO events and slow tropospheric warming. The three primary El Niños during the past 20 years are clearly evident as peaks in the time series occurring during 1982-83, 1987-88, and 1997-98, with the most recent one being the largest.

We've run around this bush before and you've made the same empty claims and presented the same misleading response.

The Warmists claim that CO2 is the primary cause of warming. CO2 has increased on a consistant track. Temperature, for the last 8 years has stalled and cooled.

You asked for proof of cooling which I provided and you respond that if one averages the recent years with the previous 30, then the averag produces an increase.

Flat Earth logic.

If you refuse to look at facts, why do you ask for them? Silly question. You're a Warmist.

Cooked TROPOSPHERE data where the wrong sign was deliberately used to calculate Diurnal Drift are NOT "facts" nor are they surface temps.

But we are making progress, deniers had been claiming the 11 years following 1998 were cooling but you have backed off to the 8 years following 2001 are cooling. Of course, EVERY year following 2001 has been WARMER than 2001, but to deniers that means cooling.

 

[Oddball]

Here we go with that troposphere red hering.....Yet again.

For all intents and purposes --and adjusting for lapse rates-- troposphere measurments are pretty much equivalent to surface temp measurements.

Of course, there aren't any heat islands handy, so someone wanting to fudge the results can have the opportunity to do so.

The troposphere (from Greek: tropein - to change, circulate or mix) is the lowermost layer of the Earth's atmosphere. Most of the weather phenomena, systems, convection, turbulence and clouds occur in this layer...

http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/reports/wxfacts/Troposphere.htm

 

[edthecynic]

Here we go with that troposphere red hering.....Yet again.

For all intents and purposes --and adjusting for lapse rates-- troposphere measurments are pretty much equivalent to surface temp measurements.

Of course, there aren't any heat islands handy, so someone wanting to fudge the results can have the opportunity to do so.

The troposphere (from Greek: tropein - to change, circulate or mix) is the lowermost layer of the Earth's atmosphere. Most of the weather phenomena, systems, convection, turbulence and clouds occur in this layer...

Weather Facts: Troposphere - Weather UK - weatheronline.co.uk

BALONEY!!!!!!

If Troposphere temps were equivalent to surface temps you deniers would use surface temps! DUH
And there are no heat islands in the ocean either and the ocean has shown a 100 year warming trend just like the land!!!

In typical CON$ervative fashion, you deliberately left out some very important info from your own link:

"Temperature and water vapor content in the troposphere decrease rapidly with altitude and thus most of the water vapour in the troposphere is concentrated in the lower, warmer zone."

"In the troposphere air temperature on average decreases with height"

"The thickness of the troposphere varies from about 7 to 8 km (5 mi) at the poles to about 16 to 18 km (10 to 11 mi) at the Equator."

So the warmer surface temps are AVERAGED with the colder 5 to 11 mile high temps.

Furthermore, LimpBoy's climatologist Spencer and his partner Christy got caught using the WRONG SIGN to correct for Diurnal Satellite Drift making the Troposphere data read colder than it actually is, and that cooked data is of course the data deniers use exclusively. So you CON$ have no trouble "fudging" the Troposphere numbers when they don't support your "cooling" crapaganda.

 

[Old Rocks]

By the way, look at the daily graph on the arctic ice. Once more we are tracking right with the lowest years on record;

Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis

And the track of this year's ice expnse at this time compared to the standard deviation from the average of thirty years is about one tenth of one point of standard deviation.

We appear to have recovered from nearly a full 2 point fall off from the standard deviation.

The problem seems to be going away with no help from the panic motivated.

If this recovery is the cause of your panic, are you sure that panic is justified?

Recovery? The ice is tracking right on the lowest years ever recorded. And we are headed into an El Nino year.

No, in spite of your nonsense, the problem is far from going away. Ice reflects 90% of the energy it recieves back into space, water absorbs 90% of that energy. Very nice positive feedback loop there.

As the water and land surrounding the Arctic Ocean warm, more CH4 and CO2 are released. Which creates more warming.

And we are observing major methane releases now on land and in the Arctic Ocean.

 

[Old Rocks]

Here we go with that troposphere red hering.....Yet again.

For all intents and purposes --and adjusting for lapse rates-- troposphere measurments are pretty much equivalent to surface temp measurements.

Of course, there aren't any heat islands handy, so someone wanting to fudge the results can have the opportunity to do so.

The troposphere (from Greek: tropein - to change, circulate or mix) is the lowermost layer of the Earth's atmosphere. Most of the weather phenomena, systems, convection, turbulence and clouds occur in this layer...

Weather Facts: Troposphere - Weather UK - weatheronline.co.uk

Hey stupid asshole, how many heat islands in the Arctic? After all, that is where the greatest warming is being recorded. So, idiot child, point out the great cities that are throwing the temperature records off.

 

[elvis]

Here we go with that troposphere red hering.....Yet again.

For all intents and purposes --and adjusting for lapse rates-- troposphere measurments are pretty much equivalent to surface temp measurements.

Of course, there aren't any heat islands handy, so someone wanting to fudge the results can have the opportunity to do so.

The troposphere (from Greek: tropein - to change, circulate or mix) is the lowermost layer of the Earth's atmosphere. Most of the weather phenomena, systems, convection, turbulence and clouds occur in this layer...

Weather Facts: Troposphere - Weather UK - weatheronline.co.uk

Hey stupid asshole, how many heat islands in the Arctic? After all, that is where the greatest warming is being recorded. So, idiot child, point out the great cities that are throwing the temperature records off.

We'll have to ask Jones and Mann. Oh wait, they'll fudge the results.

 

[Old Rocks]

Once again, avoiding an answer. Braindead troll, incapable of research.

And it is the satellites and isolated villages that are recording the temperatures there, not Mann or Jones.

 

[code1211]

Well code, there you go again. Not only dishonestly using the Troposphere data instead of the Surface Temp data, you are using the cooked Christy and Spencer numbers where they deliberately used the wrong sign to correct for Diurnal Satellite drift.
Here is the correct data for the Troposphere which also shows warming.

You tried these same cooked numbers on me on the AOL boards without success, what made you think you would fair any better on this board?

Global, monthly time series of brightness temperature anomaly for channel TLT (Lower Troposphere), the anomaly time series is dominated by ENSO events and slow tropospheric warming. The three primary El Niños during the past 20 years are clearly evident as peaks in the time series occurring during 1982-83, 1987-88, and 1997-98, with the most recent one being the largest.

We've run around this bush before and you've made the same empty claims and presented the same misleading response.

The Warmists claim that CO2 is the primary cause of warming. CO2 has increased on a consistant track. Temperature, for the last 8 years has stalled and cooled.

You asked for proof of cooling which I provided and you respond that if one averages the recent years with the previous 30, then the averag produces an increase.

Flat Earth logic.

If you refuse to look at facts, why do you ask for them? Silly question. You're a Warmist.

Cooked TROPOSPHERE data where the wrong sign was deliberately used to calculate Diurnal Drift are NOT "facts" nor are they surface temps.

But we are making progress, deniers had been claiming the 11 years following 1998 were cooling but you have backed off to the 8 years following 2001 are cooling. Of course, EVERY year following 2001 has been WARMER than 2001, but to deniers that means cooling.

It became apparrent to me that using 1998 as a starting point to measure cooling was a gimme. It's very similar to using 1880 as a starting point to measure warming.

Your clinging devotion to land stations is touching. There are more problems than one can list with these, but here is some referance material.

“The hardest part is trying to influence the nature of the measurements obtained…” « Watts Up With That?

GISS “raw” station data – before and after « Watts Up With That?

Global Warming Science and Public Policy - Temperature Change and CO2 Change - A Scientific Briefing

Data @ NASA GISS: GISS Surface Temperature Analysis: Station Data

 

[edthecynic]

We've run around this bush before and you've made the same empty claims and presented the same misleading response.

The Warmists claim that CO2 is the primary cause of warming. CO2 has increased on a consistant track. Temperature, for the last 8 years has stalled and cooled.

You asked for proof of cooling which I provided and you respond that if one averages the recent years with the previous 30, then the averag produces an increase.

Flat Earth logic.

If you refuse to look at facts, why do you ask for them? Silly question. You're a Warmist.

Cooked TROPOSPHERE data where the wrong sign was deliberately used to calculate Diurnal Drift are NOT "facts" nor are they surface temps.

But we are making progress, deniers had been claiming the 11 years following 1998 were cooling but you have backed off to the 8 years following 2001 are cooling. Of course, EVERY year following 2001 has been WARMER than 2001, but to deniers that means cooling.

It became apparrent to me that using 1998 as a starting point to measure cooling was a gimme. It's very similar to using 1880 as a starting point to measure warming.

Your clinging devotion to land stations is touching. There are more problems than one can list with these, but here is some referance material.

“The hardest part is trying to influence the nature of the measurements obtained…” « Watts Up With That?

GISS “raw” station data – before and after « Watts Up With That?

Global Warming Science and Public Policy - Temperature Change and CO2 Change - A Scientific Briefing

Data @ NASA GISS: GISS Surface Temperature Analysis: Station Data

I pulled this quote from your first link:

"He actually says, in the second paragraph, “The hardest part is trying to influence the nature of the measurements obtained, so that the key information can be obtained.”

To me this sounds like spin for “The hardest part is making the numbers show what I want them to”. Let’s see how long it takes for that sentence in the NASA GISS website to get changed."

Because your source is toooooooo ignorant of what the satellites pick up, he spins it as spin and not his ignorance.

For example, when satellites try to read the lower Troposphere, interference from the colder Stratosphere is also picked up and must be filtered out so the key Troposphere information can be obtained. Another influence in the nature of the measurements by satellites is Diurnal Drift, which must adjusted for to get accurate and therefore useful data.

And your totally discredited Monckton link used the cooked Christy and Spencer Troposphere chart where they were caught using the wrong sign to correct for Diurnal Satellite Drift. The inaccuracy of that chart has been pointed out to you for years on this board and the AOL boards, yet you still use it thinking you might yet deceive me.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
- Albert Einstein

 

[code1211]

Cooked TROPOSPHERE data where the wrong sign was deliberately used to calculate Diurnal Drift are NOT "facts" nor are they surface temps.

But we are making progress, deniers had been claiming the 11 years following 1998 were cooling but you have backed off to the 8 years following 2001 are cooling. Of course, EVERY year following 2001 has been WARMER than 2001, but to deniers that means cooling.

It became apparrent to me that using 1998 as a starting point to measure cooling was a gimme. It's very similar to using 1880 as a starting point to measure warming.

Your clinging devotion to land stations is touching. There are more problems than one can list with these, but here is some referance material.

“The hardest part is trying to influence the nature of the measurements obtained…” « Watts Up With That?

GISS “raw” station data – before and after « Watts Up With That?

Global Warming Science and Public Policy - Temperature Change and CO2 Change - A Scientific Briefing

Data @ NASA GISS: GISS Surface Temperature Analysis: Station Data

I pulled this quote from your first link:

"He actually says, in the second paragraph, “The hardest part is trying to influence the nature of the measurements obtained, so that the key information can be obtained.”

To me this sounds like spin for “The hardest part is making the numbers show what I want them to”. Let’s see how long it takes for that sentence in the NASA GISS website to get changed."

Because your source is toooooooo ignorant of what the satellites pick up, he spins it as spin and not his ignorance.

For example, when satellites try to read the lower Troposphere, interference from the colder Stratosphere is also picked up and must be filtered out so the key Troposphere information can be obtained. Another influence in the nature of the measurements by satellites is Diurnal Drift, which must adjusted for to get accurate and therefore useful data.

And your totally discredited Monckton link used the cooked Christy and Spencer Troposphere chart where they were caught using the wrong sign to correct for Diurnal Satellite Drift. The inaccuracy of that chart has been pointed out to you for years on this board and the AOL boards, yet you still use it thinking you might yet deceive me.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
- Albert Einstein

Please provide the link as it applies to the examples that you cite.

 

[misterflew]

Arctic Sea Ice has grown to levels that exceed 2006, 2007 and 2008 for this day each year. A tick or so and 2009 will enter the "Standard Deviation Average" for the 30 year period on which the averages are based.

Watch the speeches in Copenhagen. I'm pretty sure that the over dressed, over bearing, limosine riding, leftist scandinavians in attendance will all hop onto their private jets and fly home after the announcements on this topic.

Blizzards in late Fall, growing Arctic Ice, hunters lost in deep snow in the American west.

Eeeyup! The Global Warming is kicking our collective Ars. Link below is the graph.

http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20091207_Figure2.png

Finally someone got it right

MisterFlewFeelingBlew

 

[code1211]

By the way, look at the daily graph on the arctic ice. Once more we are tracking right with the lowest years on record;

Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis

And the track of this year's ice expnse at this time compared to the standard deviation from the average of thirty years is about one tenth of one point of standard deviation.

We appear to have recovered from nearly a full 2 point fall off from the standard deviation.

The problem seems to be going away with no help from the panic motivated.

If this recovery is the cause of your panic, are you sure that panic is justified?

Recovery? The ice is tracking right on the lowest years ever recorded. And we are headed into an El Nino year.

No, in spite of your nonsense, the problem is far from going away. Ice reflects 90% of the energy it recieves back into space, water absorbs 90% of that energy. Very nice positive feedback loop there.

As the water and land surrounding the Arctic Ocean warm, more CH4 and CO2 are released. Which creates more warming.

And we are observing major methane releases now on land and in the Arctic Ocean.

And yet the warming stalls.

Mother nature apparently has a learning problem and does not understand the science of AGW. Did it really snow in Copenhagen today?

 

[Old Rocks]

Arctic Sea Ice has grown to levels that exceed 2006, 2007 and 2008 for this day each year. A tick or so and 2009 will enter the "Standard Deviation Average" for the 30 year period on which the averages are based.

Watch the speeches in Copenhagen. I'm pretty sure that the over dressed, over bearing, limosine riding, leftist scandinavians in attendance will all hop onto their private jets and fly home after the announcements on this topic.

Blizzards in late Fall, growing Arctic Ice, hunters lost in deep snow in the American west.

Eeeyup! The Global Warming is kicking our collective Ars. Link below is the graph.

http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20091207_Figure2.png

Finally someone got it right

MisterFlewFeelingBlew

Does the stupidity on this board never cease?

Here are the real facts.

SVS Animation 3593 - Fall and Winter Arctic Sea Ice Thickness Declining Rapidly

Fall and Winter Arctic Sea Ice Thickness Declining Rapidly

Using five years of data from NASA's Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat), a team of NASA and university scientists made the first basin-wide estimate of the thickness and volume of the Arctic Ocean ice cover between 2003 and 2008. The scientists found that younger, thinner ice has replaced older, thicker ice as the dominant type over the past five years. Until recently, the majority of Arctic ice survived at least one summer and often several. That balance has now flipped. Seasonal ice, or ice that melts and re-freezes every year, now comprises about 70 percent of the Arctic sea ice in wintertime, up from 40 to 50 percent in the 1980s and 1990s. Thicker ice — surviving two or more years — now comprises just 10 percent of ice cover, down from 30 to 40 percent in years past.Sea ice thickness has been hard to measure directly so scientists have typically used estimates of ice age to approximate thickness. With ICESat, NASA scientists were for the first time able to monitor the ice thickness and volume changes over the entire Arctic Ocean. The Arctic ice cap grows each winter as the sun sets for several months and intense cold sets in. The total volume of winter Arctic ice is equal to the volume of fresh water in Lake Superior and Lake Michigan combined. Some of that ice is naturally pushed out of the Arctic by winds, while much of it melts in place.

But not all of the ice in the Arctic melts each summer, and the thicker, older ice that survives one or more summers is more likely to persist through the next summer. This older, thicker ice is declining thinner ice that is more vulnerable to summer melt. Seasonal sea ice usually reaches about 2 meters (6 feet) in thickness, while ice that has lasted through more than one summer averages 3 meters (9 feet), though it can grow much thicker in some locations near the coast. From 2003 to 2008, multi-year ice has thinned by an average of 60 centimeters (2 feet). The total ice volume in winter has decreased by 6,300 cubic kilometers, or 40 percent. The maximum extent of multi-year ice is now one-third of what it was in the 1990s.


There are many confirming pictures from the satellites for the decreasing volume of ice.

 

[Old Rocks]

And the track of this year's ice expnse at this time compared to the standard deviation from the average of thirty years is about one tenth of one point of standard deviation.

We appear to have recovered from nearly a full 2 point fall off from the standard deviation.

The problem seems to be going away with no help from the panic motivated.

If this recovery is the cause of your panic, are you sure that panic is justified?

Recovery? The ice is tracking right on the lowest years ever recorded. And we are headed into an El Nino year.

No, in spite of your nonsense, the problem is far from going away. Ice reflects 90% of the energy it recieves back into space, water absorbs 90% of that energy. Very nice positive feedback loop there.

As the water and land surrounding the Arctic Ocean warm, more CH4 and CO2 are released. Which creates more warming.

And we are observing major methane releases now on land and in the Arctic Ocean.

And yet the warming stalls.

Mother nature apparently has a learning problem and does not understand the science of AGW. Did it really snow in Copenhagen today?

And so what if it did? Changes not a thing concerning the overall warming.

 

[Old Rocks]

NSIDC Press Room: Sea Ice Minimum 2008

2 October 2008

Arctic Sea Ice Down to Second-Lowest Extent; Likely Record-Low Volume

Despite cooler temperatures and ice-favoring conditions, long-term decline continues

This is a press release from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), which is part of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Media Relations Contact:
Stephanie Renfrow, NSIDC: [email protected] or +1 303.492.1497 (se habla Español)


Arctic sea ice extent during the 2008 melt season dropped to the second-lowest level since satellite measurements began in 1979, reaching the lowest point in its annual cycle of melt and growth on September 14, 2008. Average sea ice extent over the month of September, a standard measure in the scientific study of Arctic sea ice, was 4.67 million square kilometers (1.80 million square miles) (Figure 1). The record monthly low, set in 2007, was 4.28 million square kilometers (1.65 million square miles); the now-third-lowest monthly value, set in 2005, was 5.57 million square kilometers (2.15 million square miles).

The 2008 season strongly reinforces the thirty-year downward trend in Arctic ice extent. The 2008 September low was 34% below the long-term average from 1979 to 2000 and only 9% greater than the 2007 record (Figure 2). Because the 2008 low was so far below the September average, the negative trend in September extent has been pulled downward, from –10.7 % per decade to –11.7 % per decade (Figure 3).

NSIDC Senior Scientist Mark Serreze said, “When you look at the sharp decline that we’ve seen over the past thirty years, a ‘recovery’ from lowest to second lowest is no recovery at all. Both within and beyond the Arctic, the implications of the decline are enormous.”

Conditions in spring, at the end of the growth season, played an important role in the outcome of this year’s melt. In March 2008, thin first-year ice covered a record high 73% of the Arctic Basin. While this might seem like a recovery of the ice, the large extent masked an important aspect of sea ice health; thin ice is more prone to melting out during summer. So, the widespread thin ice of spring 2008 set the stage for extensive ice loss over the melt season.

 

[elvis]

Arctic Sea Ice has grown to levels that exceed 2006, 2007 and 2008 for this day each year. A tick or so and 2009 will enter the "Standard Deviation Average" for the 30 year period on which the averages are based.

Watch the speeches in Copenhagen. I'm pretty sure that the over dressed, over bearing, limosine riding, leftist scandinavians in attendance will all hop onto their private jets and fly home after the announcements on this topic.

Blizzards in late Fall, growing Arctic Ice, hunters lost in deep snow in the American west.

Eeeyup! The Global Warming is kicking our collective Ars. Link below is the graph.

http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20091207_Figure2.png

Finally someone got it right

MisterFlewFeelingBlew

Does the stupidity on this board never cease?

Here are the real facts.

SVS Animation 3593 - Fall and Winter Arctic Sea Ice Thickness Declining Rapidly

Fall and Winter Arctic Sea Ice Thickness Declining Rapidly

Using five years of data from NASA's Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat), a team of NASA and university scientists made the first basin-wide estimate of the thickness and volume of the Arctic Ocean ice cover between 2003 and 2008. The scientists found that younger, thinner ice has replaced older, thicker ice as the dominant type over the past five years. Until recently, the majority of Arctic ice survived at least one summer and often several. That balance has now flipped. Seasonal ice, or ice that melts and re-freezes every year, now comprises about 70 percent of the Arctic sea ice in wintertime, up from 40 to 50 percent in the 1980s and 1990s. Thicker ice — surviving two or more years — now comprises just 10 percent of ice cover, down from 30 to 40 percent in years past.Sea ice thickness has been hard to measure directly so scientists have typically used estimates of ice age to approximate thickness. With ICESat, NASA scientists were for the first time able to monitor the ice thickness and volume changes over the entire Arctic Ocean. The Arctic ice cap grows each winter as the sun sets for several months and intense cold sets in. The total volume of winter Arctic ice is equal to the volume of fresh water in Lake Superior and Lake Michigan combined. Some of that ice is naturally pushed out of the Arctic by winds, while much of it melts in place.

But not all of the ice in the Arctic melts each summer, and the thicker, older ice that survives one or more summers is more likely to persist through the next summer. This older, thicker ice is declining thinner ice that is more vulnerable to summer melt. Seasonal sea ice usually reaches about 2 meters (6 feet) in thickness, while ice that has lasted through more than one summer averages 3 meters (9 feet), though it can grow much thicker in some locations near the coast. From 2003 to 2008, multi-year ice has thinned by an average of 60 centimeters (2 feet). The total ice volume in winter has decreased by 6,300 cubic kilometers, or 40 percent. The maximum extent of multi-year ice is now one-third of what it was in the 1990s.


There are many confirming pictures from the satellites for the decreasing volume of ice.

real facts? really dumbfuck? what information have these fuckers thrown away?