Greenland – Len Bilén's blog, a blog about faith, politics and the environment.

Climate change: IPCC report is ‘code red for humanity’. Not so. The Antarctic ice sheet is the largest in many years, and the Arctic ice sheet and Greenland ice are doing quite well, thank you. A Limerick.

Antarctic’s and Greenland’s ice grow

the cool-down is starting to show

The new climate change fear

is that cooling is near

but you’d be the last one to know.

The cooling down in the Antarctic has led to the largest ice sheet in many years for this day. Check the chart: In only four years out of the last 43 has there been more ice.

So, how are the northern polar region shaping up?

The ice in the Arctic will stay

In Greenland it snowed every day

New white snow, what a sight!

Reflects back all the light

No climate change here, this i say.

Back in 2012 the Greenland ice sheet had an unprecedented melt, and the prediction was that all the Arctic ice would be melted in September of 2015, having reached the Climate tipping point from which there is no return to a normal climate unless we reorganized the whole planet into a new totalitarian global governance society.

Well, the tipping point didn’t happen, so hopefully global governance will not happen either, even though many are trying.

These are the latest charts for arctic temperatures, ice and snow for August 26:

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While still below average, it is the most ice for this day in the last ten years.

The ice-pack on Greenland has been melting much less than normal during the melting season

And yesterday’s snowfall over Greenland

Remember, H2O is a condensing gas, when cooled off it condenses into clouds. Clouds sometimes gives rain, and without rain life on land will cease to exist. In the Arctic, instead of rain it snows all times of the year, especially in Greenland. It rains for a month on the coast, but over 2000 feet it is all snow all the time when there is precipitation.

Clouds cool by day and warm by night, a one percent difference in cloud cover means more than the increase in CO2.

The only place where cloud cooling doesn’t work is in deserts. There is an Arab proverb: “All sunshine makes a desert.” The climate change danger is not more CO2, but making more deserts. The American South-west is in danger of being “desertified” unless we restore the fragile water balance in the region. To solve the problem I am proposing a Transcontinental Aqueduct, from the Mississippi river to the Colorado river, using a lot of power, but also producing a lot of peak power and hydro-power storage facilities on the way, and i so doing tripling tht hydro-power ccapacity of the whole nation.

The Arctic ice sheet and Greenland ice is doing quite well, thank you. A Limerick.

The ice in the Arctic will stay

In Greenland it snowed every day

New white snow, what a sight!

Reflects back all the light

No tipping point here, this i say.

Back in 2012 the Greenland ice sheet had an unprecedented melt, and the prediction was that all the Arctic ice would be melted in September of 2015, having reached the Climate tipping point from which there is no return to a normal climate unless we reorganized society into a more totalitarian global governance.

Well, the tipping point didn’t happen, so hopefully global governance will not happen either’ even many are trying.

These are the latest charts for arctic temperatures, ice and snow for Jan 11:

Notice the temperature has been below normal for the first half of the melting season.

The icepack on Greenland has barely started melting during the melting season

Notice the difference between this year and 2012

And yesterday’s snowfall over Greenland

Notice, Greenland only melts at the edges, the ice pack is always frozen

Remember, H2O is a condensing gas, when cooled off it condenses into clouds.

Clouds cool by day and warm by night, a one percent difference in cloud cover means more than the increase in CO2.

The only place this doesn’t work is in deserts. Forget CO2, but let us not make any more deserts.

Columbus day, let’s celebrate Leif Eriksson day!

In fourteen hundred ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

He had three ships and left from Spain; He sailed through sunshine, wind and rain.

He sailed by night; he sailed by day; He used the stars to find his way.

A compass also helped him know, How to find the way to go.

Ninety sailors were on board; Some men worked while others snored.

Then the workers went to sleep; And others watched the ocean deep.

Day after day they looked for land; They dreamed of trees and rocks and sand.

October 12 their dream came true, You never saw a happier crew!

“Indians! Indians!” Columbus cried; His heart was filled with joyful pride.

But “India” the land was not; It was the Bahamas, and it was hot.

The Arakawa natives were very nice; They gave the sailors food and spice.

Columbus sailed on to find some gold, To bring back home, as he’d been told.

He made the trip again and again, Trading gold to bring to Spain.

The first American? No, not quite. But Columbus was brave, and he was bright.

The first American? No, not quite. Besides the aborigines that came over from Siberia, crossing the Bering’s Strait the Vikings were there before. It was the Medieval warming period, and Iceland had been colonized, mostly by the Irish and Scottish, but around 900 A.D. the Vikings took over, set up farming on Iceland and even Greenland. They navigated as far north as Ruin Island, near the 80th latitude, went down on the North American side and setting up a settlement on what is now Newfoundland.

The settlement has been excavated but before excavation it looked like this:

It has been partially reconstructed:

There are many other signs of Viking activity in North America, mostly from Rune-stones. Some are authentic, but there are also frauds, so caution is of essence to validate them. But one thing is of particular interest, a map:

The map shows the world from the Viking perspective. It clearly outlines Vineland. Commerce was good, and the Vikings even exported Perigrene Falcons to the Arab Sheiks for their famous falconry.

The climate changed again, and around 1250 the Greenland settlement was abandoned, a glacier started cover what once was “gaarden under sanden”After the little ice age the inland ice is again retreating and excavations verify the farm really existed and produced cheese from cows.

Columbus probably knew about this map, and concluded it would be a better way to get to India. After being rebuked in his home-town Genoa he went to Spain to get financing for his endeavor, and the rest is history.

He was successful beyond all expectations, and yet, he didn’t know where he was going when he started, didn’t know where he was when he got there, didn’t know where he had been when he returned. And he got someone else to pay for the
whole thing!”

Arctic ice growing again. 8th lowest minimum this year.

After a record warm winter in the Arctic last year leading to the lowest ice maximum, the ice melted at the slowest rate recorded, leading to the 8th lowest ice minimum.

On Greenland the situation was quite different. It snowed and snowed, leading to the largest yearly ice gain recorded, which was quite a change from years and years of ice loss.

This year the ice gain started even earlier

Are these changes only temporary, or are they an early harbinger of the ice age to come?

The great Arctic ice recovery of 2017.

It was very warm in the Arctic above the 80th latitude last winter. Late summer two hurricane strength storms broke up a lot of ice up and transported it south to areas where it was bound to melt. The ice area reached a new low, except for the year 2012, but the ice volume hit a new all time low on Sep 9 2016.

Since then the ice volume has recovered to equal the previous all time winter low around April 20, 2017, but the ice area hit an all time low maximum as early as March 5.

What happened?

The unusually warm temperatures averaging 7 degrees C above normal with a spike as high as 20 degrees C above normal and no days below was not because of increased CO2, but because it snowed. Anyone that has shoveled snow knows that while it snows it is usually not that cold, especially if the winds are calm. Then, when the snowing stops it gets cold indeed. Nowhere is that shown better than what happened on Greenland this winter. It snowed and snowed from one winter storm after another starting in the Philippines, raining and snowing over California, regaining strength from the Mexican Gulf and then racing up the Eastern Seaboard snowing out over Greenland.

Then on May 5 it all changed. From having been warmer than normal the Arctic became colder than normal, in fact there has been no day since then that temperatures has been above normal. Today, Aug 13 it even dipped below freezing for the first time since summer max, five days before normal.

The ice area will still decrease for another month or so since sea ice does not start forming until temperatures are -4 degree C, but the ice volume is near its minimum since snow season in the Arctic has already started, and new snow on ice stays, and fresh snow has a higher albedo than old, tired ice.

How much more ice? As of today the sea ice volume is 500 to 1000 km3 larger than last two years, not much, but enough to make a trend. In addition the ice on Greenland has increased by 150 km3, reversing many years of decline.

The prediction that the Arctic ice would be melted by 2016 was foolish extrapolation, but the chart looked good at the time.

This year’s minimum will be about 6,000 km3.

The moral of this story. Beware of extrapolations. Don’t trust models, go with observations.

And one more thing. In 2016 the sailboat Polar Ocean Challenge managed to sail through both the North East Passage and the North West Passage in the same season. In 2015 it would have been no problem The North East Passage choke point Cape Chelyuskin was ice free late July. In 2016 it was still ice covered Aug 5, but the first summer storm cleared out the ice plug. This year Cape Chelyuskin is still full of ice

This year they could not have made the journey. There is not enough time left until the North West Passage freezes over.

The Polar ice melting? Not so fast! A Limerick.

The Icecaps we see at the poles

are growing again, who controls?

With less cold it snows more

makes more ice than before.

Just one of the clouds many roles.

In the winter it is now warmer at the poles. The temperature records indicate a noticeable recent warming in the Arctic, with large spikes up and down, up to 3 degree Celsius difference from year to year, especially the Arctic. So, how much has the Arctic melted? Here is a chart of Arctic ice cover for the date of May 31 for the last 39 years.

If this trend continues, all ice may melt in 300 to 400 years, faster if there is further warming and nothing else is changing. Let’s take a look at the Arctic above the 80th latitude, an area of about 3,85 million square kilometers, less than 1% of the earth’s surface, but it is there where global warming is most pronounced. Here are two charts from the last 2 years, ending with Jul. 22, 2017.

Starting at summer 2016, the Arctic was melting quite normally, but something else happened, shown in the chart below:

Every 5 years or so, the Arctic suffer a large storm with full hurricane strength during the summer. In 2016 there was not one, but two such storms, and as they happened late in the season when the ice is rotten they resulted in a large ice loss, making the ice minimum the lowest on record, and the ice volume nearly 4,000 Gigatons (Gt) less than the 10 year average. Then the temperature from October thru April did run 7 degree Celsius warmer than normal with a spike as high as 20 degrees warmer. Yet today the deficit is down to less than 100 Gt. What happened? It snowed more than normal. In the Arctic, it did get warmer under clouds, warmer still when it snowed. Take a look at Greenland and what has happened this freezing season. It has snowed and snowed and Greenland has accumulated 150 Gt more ice than normal. The Arctic ice sheet is at this point in the season about 50 Gt below the ten year average (July 21), and this is with Arctic temperatures being seven degrees warmer than normal during the cold season. The counterintuitive conclusion is that it may very well be that warmer temperatures produces accumulation of snow and ice, colder temperatures with less snow accumulates less. (By the way, it snowed less than half as much on the ice caps during the last Ice Age as it does now.) What happens during the short Arctic summer? With more snow accumulated it takes longer to melt last years snow, so the temperature stays colder longer. This year, Arctic temperature has been running colder than normal every day since May 1 with no end in sight. If this melting period ends without melting all snow, more multi year ice will accumulate, and if it continues unabated, the next Ice Age will start.

On Climate Change. What can we learn from the snow?

Having a snow day here at State College, and watching the birds feast on theseeds in the feeder, remembering the temperature was in the fifties yesterday my thoughts went back, way back to a time when I was trying to figure out why it was so hard to calibrate a temperature programmed gas chromatograph when analyzing samples from -40C to 275C. During the cryogenic phase water vapor froze on the inside of the oven, and when the oven temperature then rose through the melting point of water, temperature rise took a pause until all the ice was evaporated. As a result, calibration could vary widely dependent on the humidity and how long the oven was in the cryogenic state.
The weather has been unusual this year. After a long drought the Pacific coast has been hit with a seemingly unbroken string of storms, carrying moisture all the way from the Philippines, resulting in record rain and snow. Likewise, in the Atlantic there have been a string of strong storms going from the Gulf of Mexico all the way up to Greenland or Norway, and the storms are still roaring. From time to time the temperature has been reported to be up to 30 degrees warmer than normal, and it has been raining as far north as Svalbard.

A few years ago there was a prediction (was is Al Gore?) that Arctic Sea ice would be totally gone by the year 2015 and the following charts were produced as proof:

The charts seem to indicate that by September 2015 Arctic ice would be totally gone and all Arctic snow by summer 2014.

Yogi Berra said: “It is hard to predict, especially about the future.” So how are we doing?

Arctic ice started out with the lowest minimum since 2012 and is still at record low levels for this time of the year.

The total sea ice volume is also at a record low for this time of the year: (from DMI, Danish Meteorological Institute)

Couple this with the message that 2016 was reported the warmest year on record, and there seems to be plenty cause for alarm. But then it was reported by whistle blowers that the temperature data is homogenized to better align with climate models, in other words, falsified, so we may have to look for something that does not change over time, like temperature. Snow and ice have the characteristic of freezing and melting at the same temperature, al long as there is no change in what else is in the snow or ice, like soot or salinity.

With all this ice melting, what is happening to the snow? Checking Rutgers’ University Global Snow Lab ice charts it is clear that the fall snow cover is increasing, signifying an about 8% increase in the last 50 years, and surprisingly, a significant rise in the last 8 years.

This seems to hint it is getting colder.

Not so fast: what happens to the winter snow cover?

Again we see a slight upward movement, about 2% in the last 50 years.

The January 2017 result are in, and the snow cover was the 5th highest on record for January, so the upward trend continues, indicating the climate is getting colder.

But what happens in spring?

The story is quite different with the snow cover decreasing about 10% in the last 50 years.

That must mean the climate is warming.

Let us look at one more piece of statistics: The Greenland ice cover.

This fall has seen a lot of snow falling over Greenland, about double of normal, much like the rain falling in California, the result of a string of storms starting in the Philippines, raining and snowing i California, snowing out in the Western states, recharging themselves with moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, and finally snowing out over Greenland or Norway.

When the storms hit Greenland the temperature spikes, sometimes reaching 30F above normal, but it is still snowing!

This year the snow fallen over Greenland is larger than ever recorded. This means that al this new-fallen snow will not melt during the melting season, which means the snow albedo is higher this year and will cause less snow melt than in years when the albedo is lower

The albedo was constantly getting lower until 2012, and then it again snowed more than normal and the albedo recovered in 2013, from then continuing a downward trend. This year it will probably recover some more, leading to a year of ice gain over Greenland.

Why is the albedo decreasing? Blame China. The last few years they have been building one dirty coal plant every week, spewing out soot and sulphur compounds in spite of their claim to have the best scrubbers. This is the reason for the earlier spring snow melt.

The conclusion?

The effects of increasing CO2 is mush less than the effects from clouds and what the clouds reflect back into the sky and what they carry in the form of water vapor. We are now seeing the result of the end of the el nino, the raining out of the excess humidity, which happens when the earth again is cooling.

The 18 year pause is back, and is now 19 years.

Thermal runaway or the beginning of a new ice age? Opinions are poles apart. A Limerick.

The Arctic warms up when it snows,

and Greenland gains ice, yes it shows.

Snow comes down from the cloud

like a mid-winter shroud.

The Arctic blast blows, burr, it grows!

In November the global land temperatures had its steepest 8 month drop recorded.At the same time the Arctic icecap temperatures were unusually warm, spiking one day at 36F above normal.What happened? Look at the Greenland ice cap

The total ice accumulation over Greenland is now over 300 Gigatons, about 60% above normal since the season started.

That was over land. How is the accumulation over the Arctic ice cap? After a summer that will go down in history, where the Arctic suffered not one, but two devastating storms, equivalent to category 2 hurricanes, breaking up mush of the outer ice rims the, ice volume has recovered at an above normal rate. The total ice coverage still lags, but the gap is narrowing.

So, is this climate change, and if so, is it getting warmer or colder, or is this just weather?

The climate change alarmists seems to selectively report the weather news showing it is warm somewhere and ignore a more balanced picture. The science is by no means settled, the climate modellers still grossly underestimate the importance of clouds, not only the average coverage, but what time of day or night they appear, and how much thermal energy they carry, and, most important of all, if they come through dry or result in snow or rain.

Finally here is the current snow cover, about 10% above normal for this time of the year. And it isn’t even astronomical winter yet!

snowcover

Record July cold from Greenland. Early winter? A Limerick.

On August 1, 2016 the Danish Meteorological Institute’s measuring station registered an appalling -30.7 ° C at the ice cap’s summit as the month of July expired. (elevation 10500 feet)

“This is the lowest temperature for July we have from this station,” said DMI senior climatologist John Cappelen.

The previous record was -27.7 ° C on 30 July 1992.

Winter came early to Greenland

Nature has dealt it a mean hand.

It begins to unfold,

record temperature cold.

Melting? In fantasy dreamland.