Arctic Ice Recovery 2013

Arctic Sea Ice Extent

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm

It appears that 2013 has shown a substantial recovery as compared to recent years and in particular 2012.

It is interesting to compare the behaviour of Arctic sea ice with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation:

http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/

One can readily see that the high 2007 melt was about ten years after the powerful 1997/98 warm El Nino and the record 2012 melt was about ten years after the strong El Ninos of the early 2000s.

On the face of it Arctic sea ice responds to the PDO with a ten year delay which would be the length of time required for the Pacific waters to circulate to the Arctic Ocean. Arctic ice is melted mostly from warm water flowing in below.

There has been no substantial El Nino for ten years so we should have at least ten years of recovering Arctic ice ahead of us.

Meanwhile the PDO has now entered a 30 year cooling phase with El Ninos less dominant so Arctic ice should recover for the next 30 years albeit erratically.

Additionally the less active sun is reducing the strength of El Ninos relative to La Ninas on an even longer timescale with the consequences described in my New Climate Model.

Meanwhile Antarctic ice is at record high levels.

Published by Stephen Wilde September 22, 2013

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