Erratic as normal: Arctic sea ice loss expected to be bumpy in the short term

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2015/01/28/erratic-normal-arctic-sea-ice-loss-expected-be-bumpy-short-term

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Erratic as normal: Arctic sea ice loss expected to be bumpy in the short term[/font]

January 28, 2015 • Natural Sciences, Institutes, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science (CIRES)

[font size=3]Arctic sea ice extent plunged precipitously from 2001 to 2007, then barely budged between 2007 and 2013. Even in a warming world, researchers should expect such unusual periods of no change—and rapid change—at the world’s northern reaches, according to a new paper.

“Human-caused global warming is melting Arctic sea ice over the long term, but the Arctic is a variable place, said Jennifer Kay, a fellow of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder and co-author of the new analysis out today in Nature Climate Change.

Natural ups and downs of temperature, wind and other factors mean that even as sea ice slowly melts, random weather can mask or enhance the long-term trend. For example, even in a warming world, there’s still a one-in-three chance that any seven-year period would see no sea ice loss, such as in 2007-2013, the new analysis shows. And the chaotic nature of weather can also occasionally produce sea ice loss as rapid as that seen in 2001-2007, even though the long-term trend is slower.

Neither time period should be used to forecast the long-term future of the region, Kay and her colleagues concluded. Some commentators tracking sea ice trends have used the recent “pause” in sea ice loss to claim that human-caused climate warming is not occurring; others previously used the rapid decline from 2001-2007 to speculate about ice-free Arctic summers by 2015. Neither claim is warranted, the authors report.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2483

[delrem]

1. Perhaps in the long term *all* the ice won't be gone.

The recent melt-off was so fast and furious that I read predictions it would be all gone by now, but maybe extent of Arctic/Antarctic ice vis-a-vis greenhouse gases aren't the only variables. Perhaps factors like the orientation of the Earth w.r.t. the Sun play a part, so parts of Earth that don't see sunlight for months on end will always tend to be icy, regardless of global trends.

What can't be denied is that globally, weather continues to change at a rapid rate. This does have effects on the biosphere.