{"id":284463,"date":"2023-10-22T12:57:39","date_gmt":"2023-10-22T10:57:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=284463"},"modified":"2023-10-22T12:57:42","modified_gmt":"2023-10-22T10:57:42","slug":"arctic-sea-ice-the-canary-in-the-coal-mine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=284463","title":{"rendered":"Arctic sea ice: the canary in the coal mine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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A canary in a coal mine is an\u00a0advanced warning of some danger. The metaphor originates from the times when miners used to carry caged canaries while at work; if there was any methane or carbon monoxide in the mine, the canary would die before the levels of the gas reached those hazardous to humans.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From Climate Etc.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Greg Goodman<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With over a decade and a half since the IPCC AR4, it is  instructive to see how the \u201crun away melting\u201d of Arctic sea ice is progressing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mass media outlets have been paying little attention to Arctic sea ice in recent years apart from cries of alarm at carefully selected low points in the record. After much excitement and breathless claims of imminent \u201cice-free summers\u201d in the Arctic starting around and inspired by the release of IPCC\u2019s AR4 in 2007, we were told that Arctic sea ice was \u201cthe canary in the coal mine\u201d, the harbinger of the catastrophic changes happening to the climate system and caused by human actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately for the purveyors of this point of view, 2007 experienced the lowest summer sea ice extent in the relatively short satellite record. Worse, after a few years of mild recovery, we witnessed the OMG minimum of 2012. Media spin went into over-drive with claims it was \u201cworse than we thought\u201d, and claims from activist-scientists that the Arctic was in a \u201cdeath spiral\u201d.[1]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now with over a decade and a half since AR4 it would be instructive to see how the \u201crun away melting\u201d is progressing. To check in on our canary and see whether it has fallen from its perch and is lying in the saw-dust with its stiff little legs sadly pointing towards the heavens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NSIDC maintains a very instructive and useful interactive graph [5], allowing display of any selected years from the satellite record on a day by day basis . They also publish the ice extent data for each day of the 45 year record in text format, as well as the date and magnitude of minimum ice extent each year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the September minimum is the most volatile this became a favourite metric and was a regular media climate highlight each September. In 2007 Al Gore was famously saying (unnamed) scientists had told him there may be no more Arctic ice at all in summer by as early as 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Climatologists frequently explain the idea of the \u201calbedo feedback<\/em>\u201d whereby less ice leads to more solar energy entering the sea, causing warmer waters, more ice melting, more solar \u2026 and a \u201ctipping point\u201d being reached where irreversible, run-away melting would occur. This explanation, while plausible, is of a naive simplicity and does not even examine what other effects more open water may have and what other feedbacks, positive or negative, may come into play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n