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gerontocrat

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Re: Abrupt sea ice loss
« Reply #100 on: April 22, 2018, 01:07:45 AM »
If it truly was ice-free in the early Pliocene, the estimated atmospheric CO2 content was about 400 ppm, like the last couple of years. However, the Pliocene oceans were a huge heat reservoir because the deep ocean was much warmer then.

As in how much warmer? The data we have says that over 90% of heat trapped by additional CO2 ppm has been sucked up by the oceans over the last 50? 100? 200? years . Any sources to compare Pliocene global ocean heat content with today?

If that data does exist, it must be immensely important.
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Wherestheice

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Re: Abrupt sea ice loss
« Reply #101 on: April 22, 2018, 05:07:16 AM »
Found the attached maps in this Article. Not a lot of old ice left

http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/sotc/sea_ice.html

Note to the Maps:-
Old v. new ice in Arctic, March 1990 and 2016: These maps show sea ice age of late March 1990 (left) and 2016 (right), around the time of the winter maximum. Younger, thinner ice appears in shades of blue; older, thicker ice appears in shades of pale green and white. Ice-free ocean water is dark gray, and land areas are light gray. Image courtesy NOAA Climate.gov.

Thank you!
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Pmt111500

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Re: Abrupt sea ice loss
« Reply #102 on: April 22, 2018, 06:40:42 AM »
Wouldn't the surface of the ice free Arctic Ocean at least at +5C to keep the mixing going on even in winters when no doubt some snow and hail would reach the surface? There would need to be a quite thick layer of it to completely melt the whole amout of 0 degree snow falling during the whole winter. The energy to melt the whole of sea ice in summer is already there but is there enough to keep incessant winter snow from freezing the surface, I much doubt it.

binntho

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Re: Abrupt sea ice loss
« Reply #103 on: April 22, 2018, 07:35:27 AM »
With regards to year round ice free, I still have a very hard time trying to understand what would prevent ice forming in the long, relatively cold winter night any time soon. Would it look like today's ice? No. Will some form of ice form on large sections of the Arctic Ocean and peripheral sees? How could it not?
Ocean currents could play a large part in any year-round ice free Arctic. As an example, it's cold enough at the moment for large areas to freeze over in the Chukchi sea at 70N. On the other side of the Pole, the north Atlantic is not freezing at 70N and hasn't for thousands of years. This year there is even a year-round patch of open ocean reaching to 80N north of Svalbard. Not only is it not freezing over but actually melting the steady stream of ice that moves into it from the north.

An ice-free Arctic in summer could change ocean dynamics sufficiently so that the seas will have a very hard time refreezing. Long-fetch waves could stir up warmth from below, and the warm currents might extend their reach further north.

Ice would presumably still form along the coasts and in sheltered areas, but an open Arctic may become too dynamic for refreeze, and higher ocean temperatures could keep air temperatures above the -11 or so needed for the ocean surface to freeze.

I think this is not an unlikely scenario, and it's the only mechanism I can see that could cause a year-round ice free arctic within the next century or more.
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gerontocrat

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Re: Abrupt sea ice loss
« Reply #104 on: April 22, 2018, 01:56:31 PM »
If it truly was ice-free in the early Pliocene, the estimated atmospheric CO2 content was about 400 ppm, like the last couple of years. However, the Pliocene oceans were a huge heat reservoir because the deep ocean was much warmer then.

As in how much warmer? The data we have says that over 90% of heat trapped by additional CO2 ppm has been sucked up by the oceans over the last 50? 100? 200? years . Any sources to compare Pliocene global ocean heat content with today?


So I've had a look at Global Ocean Heat (0-700 metres only so far) and thought about how much it might increase and from what source - the obvious being increases in ppm. The data I used is from NASA going back to 1959.

I attach 2 graphs - they are the same except for the trend line but both project global ocean heat increase as CO2 concentration rises to 450 ppm.

The first is linear and shows an increase of about 7 x 10^22 joules.

The first 2nd is polynomial (x2), has a much better R2 value of over 0.95, and shows an increase of about 20 x 10^22 joules, which is enough to fry just about everything. hence I called it the Armageddon Scenario.

By any measure the oceans have accumulated a lot of heat in the last 50 years. Do we have any data on the pliocene?

ps: I should not do this stuff with a hangover
« Last Edit: April 22, 2018, 02:50:08 PM by gerontocrat »
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gerontocrat

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Re: Abrupt sea ice loss
« Reply #105 on: April 22, 2018, 03:02:40 PM »
ps: Quote from Polar Science Center (in PIOMAS monthly update)

Quote
"The energy required to melt the 16,400 Km3 of ice that are lost every year (1979-2010 average) from April to September as part of the natural annual cycle is about 5 x 1021 Joules.

To melt the additional 280 km3 of sea ice, the amount we have have been losing on an annual basis based on PIOMAS calculations, it takes roughly 8.6 x 1019 Joules"

In the year mid 2016 to mid 2017 global ocean heat content (0-700 metres) increased by 1.8 x 1022 Joules.

In other words the 2016-17 annual global heat increase was over 200 times the energy required to melt that 280 km3 of Arctic Sea ice.

IT makes one think, does it not?

« Last Edit: April 22, 2018, 04:29:07 PM by gerontocrat »
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Dharma Rupa

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Re: Abrupt sea ice loss
« Reply #106 on: April 22, 2018, 04:32:43 PM »
In other words the 2016-17 annual global heat increase was over 200 times the energy required to melt that 280 km3 of Arctic Sea ice.

IT makes one think, does it not?

If we take the size of the Arctic as an order of magnitude estimate of 10% of the world's ocean and ignore energy distribution issues that would indicate that we only have about 20 times as much energy available for melting rest of the ice cap than we need.

Getting that energy there is the questionable step, however, we have been seeing trains of storms into the Arctic lately.

mitch

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Re: Abrupt sea ice loss
« Reply #107 on: April 22, 2018, 06:18:14 PM »
On Pliocene ocean heat content--the data are pretty sparse prior to the Pleistocene.  What I can find has bottom water temperatures around 4-5 deg C prior to 4 million years ago versus about 2 deg C today.  This would represent the temperature to about 2 km depth, so roughly 3/4 of the ocean.  The Pliocene ocean had a very large ocean heat content that would stabilize the system. 

Sebastian Jones

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Re: Abrupt sea ice loss
« Reply #108 on: April 22, 2018, 06:36:35 PM »
On Pliocene ocean heat content--the data are pretty sparse prior to the Pleistocene.  What I can find has bottom water temperatures around 4-5 deg C prior to 4 million years ago versus about 2 deg C today.  This would represent the temperature to about 2 km depth, so roughly 3/4 of the ocean.  The Pliocene ocean had a very large ocean heat content that would stabilize the system. 
Wow! That is a massive amount of heat! I'm not as arithmetically inclined as Gerontocrat, so working out just how much heat is required to warm up the entire global ocean that much is beyond me ( I have a distressing tendency to lose or gain zeros...). I wonder if we have already "baked in" that amount of warming? My guess is no. How long would it take to warm this amount of water? Do you have a source for this?

gerontocrat

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Re: Abrupt sea ice loss
« Reply #109 on: April 22, 2018, 07:06:38 PM »
On Pliocene ocean heat content--the data are pretty sparse prior to the Pleistocene.  What I can find has bottom water temperatures around 4-5 deg C prior to 4 million years ago versus about 2 deg C today.  This would represent the temperature to about 2 km depth, so roughly 3/4 of the ocean.  The Pliocene ocean had a very large ocean heat content that would stabilize the system.

Average depth of the oceans is, I think, about 3.8 kms. The increase in average ocean temperatures ( 0-2000 metres) in the last 60 years is only about 0.1 degrees celsius. So the Pliocene ocean was incredibly warm ?

(Isn't it great when stuff one saved ages ago actually becomes of use)
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binntho

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Re: Abrupt sea ice loss
« Reply #110 on: April 23, 2018, 07:29:31 AM »
Although not directly linked to sea ice loss, this article by Dr. David Page might be of interest - if what he says is correct, we may see significant changes in the whole planet, not only the Arctic.
http://arctic-news.blogspot.it/
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Stephan

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Re: Abrupt sea ice loss
« Reply #111 on: May 18, 2018, 09:17:39 PM »
In other words the 2016-17 annual global heat increase was over 200 times the energy required to melt that 280 km3 of Arctic Sea ice.

IT makes one think, does it not?

If we take the size of the Arctic as an order of magnitude estimate of 10% of the world's ocean and ignore energy distribution issues that would indicate that we only have about 20 times as much energy available for melting rest of the ice cap than we need.

Getting that energy there is the questionable step, however, we have been seeing trains of storms into the Arctic lately.

;-)  This could be achieved much easier. Let's charter one million big container ships and fill them with warm subtropical Atlantic or Pacific water and get them up towards to the pole to release it there. These ships will run with dirty diesel oil, and their big energy consumption may be visible both in the Keeling curve as well as in a thin layer of soot that they exhaust...
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Alexander555

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Re: Abrupt sea ice loss
« Reply #112 on: May 18, 2018, 09:50:39 PM »
I don't think you need a million ships for that. That ice on the Arctic serves as a refrigerator for a big part of all the seas on this planet. And lets assume that the sea will release that heat if the air/water close to it is colder. And as far as i see it, we are not far from the point that the sea is going to hold much more heat than what it's doing today. When the arctic warms further. And the problem is that in many places far from the north pole it will also become harder to relace that heat. Because they are all getting warmer. It's not so long that i have been looking to these Climate reanaliser anomaly pics, maybe a little more than six months. But that area north of the equator is always brown, the full six monts. For the moment there is a little blue in the north of Africa. But in general it's even less. It's because of these 2 extremes that the sea is going to store more heat. That means it's going to get warmer. At least , that's what i think. But i can be wrong. But i think it's going to get warmer faster in the next years.

Stephan

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Re: Abrupt sea ice loss
« Reply #113 on: May 18, 2018, 10:27:25 PM »
It is for sure much more complicated. Looking at (air) temperature anomalies is of course not sufficient. And to use only the sea surface temperature is also not sufficient. The whole water body must be looked at - and I am pretty sure that there is a lot of un-knowns or at least un-certainties when it comes down to a precise analysis of temperature gradient and its change in deeper seas worldwide. But I think your analysis of a faster-and-faster increasing temperature (at least worldwide averaged) is correct. And in some years to come the water temperatures in the (deeper) Arctic Ocean are high enough to damage the ice from below to such an extent that the thickness can't increase even if the air temperature in winter is very low. Also the quality and physical stability of the ice-pack has already declined (see the reports of expeditions to the North Pole which become shorter because there is not sufficient ice stability for helicopters or small airplanes).
So once the time will come that the ice is so weak and thin that certain events like huge storms very far in the north or wavy jet streams that pull a lot of mild moist air towards the pole have an easy game to push most of the ice away in a short period of time...
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GoSouthYoungins

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Re: Abrupt sea ice loss
« Reply #114 on: May 19, 2018, 12:19:33 AM »
It seems to me abrupt loss will happen soon. Maybe this year, almost definitely in the next 5 years.  Atmospheric temps keep rising rapidly. Ocean temps keep rising rapidly. The Pacific and Atlantic encroach on the Arctic more and more each year. The thick old stuff north of greenland and the CAA finally met its end last summer. FASTER THAN FORECAST, and by an absurd margin. The arctic is currently like barely refrozen slushy. And this year summer appears to be about two weeks early.

Maybe an unexpected negative feedback changes everything: cloudy summers with clear winters, or the AMOC starts dumping heat farther south. Seems unlikely.
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Dharma Rupa

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Re: Abrupt sea ice loss
« Reply #115 on: May 19, 2018, 01:54:45 AM »
And as far as i see it, we are not far from the point that the sea is going to hold much more heat than what it's doing today.

The Arctic Ocean already has plenty of heat about 50 meters from the surface, and decreasing.

jdallen

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Re: Abrupt sea ice loss
« Reply #116 on: May 19, 2018, 04:59:47 AM »
And as far as i see it, we are not far from the point that the sea is going to hold much more heat than what it's doing today.

The Arctic Ocean already has plenty of heat about 50 meters from the surface, and decreasing.
Overall, total ocean enthalpy is rising by about 10 Zetajoules a year (10^22).  That's about 20 times  current total annual world energy consumption.
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litesong

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Re: Abrupt sea ice loss
« Reply #117 on: May 21, 2018, 05:13:05 PM »
The increase in average ocean temperatures ( 0-2000 metres) in the last 60 years is....about 0.1 degrees celsius.
Hi gerontocrat.....On other websites (dominated by AGW deniers), I've considered the following (& been pooh poohed):
The present Arctic sea ice has reduced by almost 2 million square kilometers(AGW generated) since the 1980's, while the sun is at its highest elevation above the Arctic horizon. Arctic Ocean absorption of solar energy has increased. Now, wherever there are downwellings within these excess AGW generated Arctic sea waters(not ice any longer), excess AGW heat is transported to Arctic continental shelves or into the Arctic Ocean depths for long term storage.
This would be one mechanism for the Arctic Ocean to be even warmer than the average global ocean water temperature increase.

magnamentis

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Re: Abrupt sea ice loss
« Reply #118 on: May 22, 2018, 12:58:10 AM »
The increase in average ocean temperatures ( 0-2000 metres) in the last 60 years is....about 0.1 degrees celsius.
Hi gerontocrat.....On other websites (dominated by AGW deniers), I've considered the following (& been pooh poohed):

[humor]

don't be masochistic ( posting in their forums ) LOL

[/humor]

litesong

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Re: Abrupt sea ice loss
« Reply #119 on: May 22, 2018, 03:44:39 AM »
....don't be masochistic ( posting in their forums ).....
That could be true. B-B-B-b-b-but, look what I found out!!! AGW deniers, when they try to use mathematics, have made errors as great as 1000 TIMES, 500 million TIMES & the greatest error was 1,000,000,000,000,000 TIMES.
 Yeah, gerontocrat has the right idea. Beat them up with mathematics.

magnamentis

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Re: Abrupt sea ice loss
« Reply #120 on: May 22, 2018, 08:49:26 PM »
....don't be masochistic ( posting in their forums ).....
That could be true. B-B-B-b-b-but, look what I found out!!! AGW deniers, when they try to use mathematics, have made errors as great as 1000 TIMES, 500 million TIMES & the greatest error was 1,000,000,000,000,000 TIMES.
 Yeah, gerontocrat has the right idea. Beat them up with mathematics.

it was kidding, to join the lion's cage is brave and a valid option of course, i just can't digest too much of their arguments and the reason is not even sea-ice related only.

people who deny global warming and the human role in the pace of that GW, are not only having a very horrible impact to this planet and it's inhabitants in this context. they're often the same people who are as major mass directly or indirectly responsible for many other catastrophic developments, last but not least violence, crimes, wars, mobbing, racism, terrorism and i.e. school shootings.

many of them are psychopaths or close to that IMO and they hide behind the fact that they're in many cases a majority and then it's the same majority that votes and elects our "rulers" i.e. the donald and and the GWB with his puppet players like Dicky Ch.

sophiewilson0191

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Re: Abrupt sea ice loss
« Reply #121 on: June 08, 2018, 05:01:26 AM »
Climate Change becomes a big problem all over the world.
The most affected creatures are the animals.
New Research Combats The Poor Reasoning that Influences Climate-Change Denial

Cid_Yama

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Re: Abrupt sea ice loss
« Reply #122 on: June 17, 2018, 12:42:45 PM »
Seems that there are many that don't grok that the ice loss will be non-linear. 
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