The Great Lakes are freezing over at a rapid rate. These are the numbers for ice cover for Jan. 23:
Lake Superior 57.2062%
Lake Michigan 37.7962%
Lake Huron 75.7721%
Lake Erie 94.8880%
Lake Ontario 42.9223%, the weighted average 60.02%
The forecast from NOAA was for 58 to 62% maximum ice-cover for 2014. We are already there with half the winter yet to go. The average for the last 40 years is a max. of 51.4%. See fig:
Here is a picture of the ice cover for Jan 23. Brr, and a new, longer lasting arctic blast is under way!! It will take a long time to melt all this ice come spring. It takes 80 calories to melt one gram of ice, but only twenty to heat it from zero to 20 degrees C (68 F) so you can take a dip.
The environmental fear-mongers never cease to amaze me. In an effort to publicize the impending global catastrophe of rapidly melting ice caps a Russian “research vessel” AKADEMIK SHOKALSKIY
set out to recreate the British explorer Douglas Mawson’s travel to Commonwealth Bay in 1912. A film (now a U-tube video) has been found showing Mawson landing in ice free Commonwealth Bay where he landed Jan 8, 1912.
That was then, the movie showing an ice free Commonwealth Bay around New Year. Everybody knows the Ice-caps are melting, so BBC and Australian ABC, financed by tax-payers money set out to report the re-enactment of his journey to highlight the impending incredible melting of the ice caps. There were tourists on the ship also, paying their own way wanting to see a glimpse of the rapidly melting ice before it was all gone.
Things did not turn out exactly as planned. With the ship moving ahead at full speed the crew ignored all warning signals and plowed ahead through ice that seemed to be thicker than expected. “But this is mid-summer, so the ice must be rotten” they thought and continued full speed ahead anyway. Then the wind picked up, not unexpectedly, since Commonwealth Bay holds the distinction of being the windiest place on earth, even windier than the Aleutian Islands or Mount Washington, and soon the ice closed in on the ship and got it stuck in more than 6 feet of ice.
Three ice breaking vessels, a Chinese, a French and an Australian tried to come to the rescue, but their crews had the good judgment of turning back before they got stuck too. A helicopter from the Chinese ice breaker is now near the ship, but cannot evacuate the 52 passengers until the winds calm down.
Maybe they should have looked at the statistical data on ice in the Antarctic before risking their lives and the lives of others before taking on such a fools errand.
The Ice in the Antarctic is now 1.529 million square kilometer larger than the 30 year average for this time of the year, a 30% increase over the 30 year average, and obviously more than in 1912..
By comparison the North Atlantic ice cap is now only 4 % below average for this time of the year. We hear of the melting ice caps all the time. Why is not the fact that the Antarctic ice cap has set new absolute records since measurements started two years in a row reported? Are journalists afraid of the truth, being scared to be called a skeptic, even a denier, if they mention statistically relevant data? Until people face up to the truth calamities like this are bound to occur. Look at the data before you set sail!
So what are the “Scientists” reporting back to their sponsors? Here is a sample of what they are reporting:
ICE-STRANDED EXPLORERS’ MESSAGE:
A statement from the Australasian Antarctic Expedition:
We’re stuck in our own experiment. We came to Antarctica to study how one of the biggest icebergs in the world has altered the system by trapping ice. We followed Sir Douglas Mawson’s footsteps into Commonwealth Bay, and are now ourselves trapped by ice surrounding our ship.
Sea ice is disappearing due to climate change, but here ice is building up. We have found this has changed the system on many levels. The increase in sea ice has freshened the seawater below, so much so that you can almost drink it. This change will have impacts on the deep ocean circulation.
Underwater, forests of algae are dying as sea-ice blocks the light. Who can say what effects the regional circulation changes may have on the ice sheet of the Antarctic plateau, or whether the low number of seals suggests changes to their population.
Still not acknowledging the rise in the total amount of sea ice. A sad state for a scientist. He still believes in the failing models rather than observing and drawing conclusions from how nature really behaves.
Update:
An Icy Blast Of Scepticism Greets Climate Expedition
Rescuers in Antarctica have safely transferred all 52 passengers stranded on the ice-bound research vessel Akademik Shokalskiy. The Shokalskiy has been trapped since Christmas Eve. Its 22 crew are expected to remain on board to wait until the vessel becomes free. The ice-bound research vessel has been trapped since Christmas Eve. One of the aims is to track how quickly the Antarctic’s sea ice is disappearing. –BBC News, 2 January 2014
Update 2:
The Chinese icebreaker that supplied the helicopter for the rescue mission is now stuck in the ice too. How inconvenient.
Update 3, Jan 7 2014: Antarctic rescue operations complete.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority can confirm that the Akademik Shokalskiy and the Xue Long have broken free from the ice in Antarctica and are no longer in need of assistance.
Records are falling all over the place. Continental U.S. has had a week for the records
Low Temp: 606 + Low Max temp 1234 + Snowfall 385 = 2225 new cold records.
Compare with 98 high temperature records, and 141 high minimum temperature records.
Source: NOAA National Weather Service and HamWeather records center
But that is only here in parts of the U.S, right?
Not so.
Cairo is a city known for being hot and stuffy.
But as these incredible pictures show, things have changed.
The Egyptian capital has seen snowfall for the first time in 112 years.
As reported by Buzzfeed, Egyptians who had witnessed snow for the first time in their lives were left amazed – with the Arabic word for snow trending on Twitter.
Incredible pictures showing the normally sultry city were also posted on twitter.
A camel looks strangely out of place.
Even in swank uptown Cairo the snow is heavy.
Other countries including Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Israel also experienced widespread snow.
Temperatures have dropped so much that in Turkey they have been below the monthly average by almost 10C.
Still believe there is global warming?
2013, the year with the fewest tornadoes on record and no major hurricanes making landfall.
In their desire to sensationalize natural disasters the typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda is billed by the media as the most powerful typhoon ever. Yet it was only a category 4 typhoon at landfall. The higher speeds were estimated from satellite images. Now, its eye and size was enormous, so the damage from the storm-surge was much larger than the wind damage. Likewise, Super-storm Sandy wasn’t even a hurricane at landfall, but the storm-surge was the third largest recorded on the east coast, the other two occurring during the little ice age.
Likewise, the recent tornado outbreak in the Midwest with 82 tornadoes in one day in November is the fourth largest outbreak on record, but the total number of tornadoes for the year is the fewest ever recorded.
Both are used to advocate the case for global warming, but I maintain that the case for global cooling makes for the stronger case.
The number of strong typhoons in the Pacific is decreasing, (maybe only temporary, the future is hard to predict) see Figure.
The number of strong hurricanes in the North Atlantic is at 0 for a record time span.
The number of tornadoes is at a record low for 2013 (even with the 82 tornadoes of Nov 17 included).
These figures indicate that we are in a sweet spot as to the frequency of natural disasters. As the temperatures keep falling we will experience even fewer hurricanes and typhoons, but the spring and fall storms may be more severe since the temperature difference between the Arctic and the Tropics is increasing. (The temperature in the tropical doldrums stays more or less constant thanks to the thermostat effect of thunderstorms.)
You don’t believe me? Check out the growth in Antarctic ice and the reversal of the Arctic Ice decrease. (The freezing point of water is a constant, so if if the ice is growing it must get colder.)
The solution to the global cooling? There is no solution. We are at the mercy of the sun, which is entering a 40 or more year cycle of less activity.
We can lessen the impact of the cooling by encouraging CO2 emissions. The increase in CO2 has a very positive effect on the environment, making plants grow better, using less water in the process, and water is often the limiting factor in plant growth. This is already showing up in satellite data proving the planet is getting greener. This is good for both Flora and Fauna. In addition the Spring and Fall storms will be less severe. Oh, and a planet with more vegetation is less prone to erosion. And it staves off starvation for both man and beast. Good news all around.
On the other hand, issues like using prime farmland to produce ethanol from corn, cutting down the rain forests of Borneo to produce bio-fuel, real air pollution, water pollution, mining concerns and recycling still remain, so there is much to do to ensure we leave this earth a better place than we entered it.
NSIDC.org is back in business after the partial government shutdown and published its daily satellite data for ice in the southern hemisphere.
Ten days record ice set down under.
The IPCC torn asunder.
For the Ice does not lie.
Kiss the warming good-bye.
It’s worse than a crime, it’s a blunder.
.
In 2012 NOAA’s South Hemisphere Sea Ice Extent set a new all time record with 11 of the 12 highest levels ever recorded.
These are the top12 highest Antarctic Sea Ice Extent’s of all time (in the satellite record)!
11 of the top 12 extents are now in 2013!
This must be an inconvenient truth since NOAA isn’t mentioning it.
Day year ice extent (million sq. km)
273 2013 19.57088 (Oct 1)
264 2013 19.51394
257 2013 19.51234
270 2013 19.50797
258 2013 19.48591
263 2013 19.48309
269 2013 19.47161
274 2013 19.46862
265 2013 19.46830
260 2013 19.45470
266 2012 19.45418
262 2013 19.45109
Finally, the ice is melting, three weeks after spring has started in Antarctica, but the icepack is 1.1 million square kilometers (around 6 %) above the 30 year average
(update: Sep 30 came in with the 3:rd highest level ever at 19.50483 million square km of ice in Antarctica. October first NASA shut down so we do not know if October first was in record territory)
.
The Ice is still growing down under.
The IPCC torn asunder.
For the Ice does not lie.
Kiss the warming good-bye.
It’s worse than a crime, it’s a blunder.
.
In 2012 NOAA’s South Hemisphere Sea Ice Extent set a new record with 11 of the 15 highest levels ever recorded.
These are the data so far for 2013 (the Ice Extent is still rising, and it is spring in Antarctica)
The top10 highest Antarctic Sea Ice Extent’s of all time (in the satellite record)!
9 of the top 10 extents are now in 2013!
This must be an inconvenient truth since NOAA isn’t mentioning it.
The data is only preliminary, but it tends to indicate the Antarctic ice sheet is hitting a new record this year since measures began, after hitting a record last year Sep 25 – 29. The new record was set Sep 14 2013 at 19.52 million sqkm. the old record was set 19.44 sqkm, set two weeks later in the yearly cycle. This fig shows the extent of the ice and indicates this year’s ice is above last year and outside the 2 sigma for the 30 year average.
The Northwest Passage after decades of so-called global warming has a dramatic 60% more Arctic ice this year than at the same time last year. The future dreams of dozens of adventurous sailors are now threatened. A scattering of yachts attempting the legendary Passage are caught by the ice, which has now become blocked at both ends and the transit season may be ending early.
Check the map:
And the chart:
In fact, the Arctic has been colder than normal every day this year since May 6:
The situation is no better in the Antarctic:
It is clear that this year is a year with increasing ice cover. This is yet another sign of the upcoming little ice age, predicted by the behavior of the Sun.
So, it happened again. Global warming was the word, then it became climate change, then it was briefly global climate disruption. Since we have not had any global warming at all for the last 17 years and the latest sign is that we will enter a new little ice age, Obama and the EPA are desperately trying to change the alarmists catchphrase again. This time they came up with “carbon pollution.” It is true, chimney sweeps know all about carbon pollution. Chimneys must be swept, or else we may have a chimney fire. Is that what they mean? It must be, for CO2 is a totally clean gas. It has an effect on humans in large concentrations. Nuclear submarines try to keep the CO2 levels below 8000 ppm for breathing air , or about 20 times current levels. Recent research indicate levels should be kept lower, maybe being capped at around 1500 ppm (see fig)
The results are interesting. CO2 levels seem to affect initiative and strategic decision making the most. So it is because of all the people full of hot air in congress nothing gets done! However, it is to be noted that this test was performed without allowing for the test subject to accommodate to their new environment. When you climb mountains you have to adjust for weeks before you react normally again. This test is therefore very suspect. While it is true that the people is the subs do not like the air they are forced to breathe, it is not because of CO2, but regular body odor and other pollutants. They get used to it, and their decision making process is not negatively affected except for an occasional cabin fever.
On a serious note, the 17% increase in CO2 the last 30 years has made the earth about 10 % greener, and we can support another one billion people on earth without starvation, increase wildlife and plant life by about the same amount. Why could that be called “carbon pollution?”
Len Bilén's blog, a blog about faith, politics and the environment. 
