Early Onset of Winter Sea Ice

I am sure that few have noticed this but the Arctic sea ice has appeared a bit ahead of schedule. This conforms to the information that the globe itself dropped most of a degree this past year. A much thicker layer of first year ice fits and it may approach what is considered normal from historical records.

Right now the folks supporting the pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) model are making the global warming enthusiasts into purveyors of nonsense. Sorry al Gore.

Another tidbit that I picked up on recently was that the era of the Little Ice age was unprecedented during the Holocene. I presume this is meant in terms of its duration, since volcanic popped up and provided cool offs and equally swift recoveries. The little ice age was sustained over decades. I am not sure to believe that as a valid observation and will now try to get a handle on its’ validity. Help is welcome since an unprecedented event in the Holocene begs explanation.

We are now having our second cold year and this one is looking like it is heading toward the lower third of observed temperatures. IPCC and Jim Hansen is actually looking a little rattled over this one.

As I stated when I began this blog, I believed that monitoring changing climatic conditions is a worthy endeavor, and that involving ourselves in the effort to sequester CO2 was simply good husbandry. I also stated that the linkage between these two phenomena was suspect and quite likely within the band of data noise and thus indeterminate. I thought that attempting to support linkage as a truth was simply going to become untenable as soon as the weather decided to change. It appears that is what has now happened.

Unless something surprising comes along, the only interpretation that can now be supported is a recovery of perennial sea ice in the Arctic. We came very close to a warmer Arctic, but not close enough.

An ice free summer Arctic is still a worthy objective but must surely wait for a human led restoration of the Bronze Age Sahara. That would collect and retain the extra heat that is necessary.