Browse: Home / 2014 / December / 23 / Ocean And Solar Cycles Show Arctic Sea Ice Will EXPAND Over The Next 3 Decades!
Due to time constraints, what follows is a shortened version of the original German blog article.
Satellites began systematically measuring sea ice about 35 years ago. Such a data series is much too short to allow conclusions to be drawn concerning long-term trends. Thus it is necessary to use geological studies to trace back sea ice development far into the past. In October 2010 we reported on such a study and found that Baltic sea ice cover over the last 500 years has been coupled with solar activity. In October 2013, we also wrote another blog article on the subject (see our blog article “Arctic sea ice melted and grew in sync with the sun over the past 500 years“).
Figure 1: Sea ice development of Western Greenland (bottom chart). Low peaks indicated in gray show sea ice increase while high peaks show reduced sea ice. The upper curve depicts solar activity. Source: Sha et al. 2014.
The scale shows that solar activity was the primary driving factor over centuries, while ocean cycles played an important role on a decadal scale. In January 2014 a Norwegian-German-US research team published a paper on this in the Geophysical Research Letters. The scientists found a clear natural rhythm of 60-90 years where the Arctic sea ice grew and shrank. The research showed that the sea ice cycles apparently were driven by the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). As a result the authors also believe that the sea ice will grow once again in the years and decades, (see Figure 2).
Figure 2: AMO. Source: Wikipedia.
For more information visit Tony Brown at WUWT.
Talking about the Arctic, North Atlantic, and cooling is always good as that is what will decide the climate we will face – at least the next generation. We are lucky to have warming, at least a bit in what we are used to, makes it easier to have a cozy holiday season.
Warming seems indeed better than cooling, although I miss the snows from my childhood and my child’s sledge wasn’t used for two years. Anyway, we’ll see what the future will bring. As for the article, I really appreciate that it is very well documented! Thank you and Merry Christmass to you all!
Great work again! Thanks and a very merry Christmas from winter-white Oslo, where children are in serious danger of not knowing what “no snow” means.
Thanks Henning. Also wishing you the same!
The AMO will remain in a warm mode for as long as the weaker solar activity continues.
Ulric, could you expand a bit on that? Are you able to connect the 60 yr ocean cycle to the sun?