by Jim Steele
The Arctic Ocean was nick-named the “upside down Ocean” by Fridtjof Nansen. Nansen was a famous Norwegian zoologists, oceanographer, and Arctic explorer as well as winner of the 1922 Nobel Peace Prize. During his failed expedition to reach the North Pole, his boat, the Fram, got frozen in Arctic sea ice but eventually was exported by Arctic currents, along with Arctic sea ice, into the Atlantic through what is now named the Fram Strait.
Nansen named the Arctic Ocean the “upside down ocean” because contrary to other oceans, the surface waters are the coldest, while between 100 and 900-meters depths the ocean is warmer due to inflows and storage of warm salty Atlantic waters. Sea ice cover prevents the ventilation of that stored heat. However, increases in open water allows more heat ventilation which has raised Arctic air temperatures 2 to 7 times faster than the global average. Open waters have been increasing due to changes in wind direction and currents. Open water is not proof of melting.
NASA estimates that globally added CO2 has increased downward infrared and added “a little over 0.8 Watts per square meter” of energy which their Just So stories claim melted sea ice. But researchers (e.g. Kim 2019) have reported that over open water more winter heat, about 2 Watts per meter squared, is being ventilated heat away more than absorbed. That suggests radiative cooling!
So, NOAA’s 2019 Arctic Report Card created another “Just So story” to blame more open water on the greenhouse effect and Arctic Amplification even though they state, “There is currently no consensus Arctic amplification”. They listed proposed amplification mechanisms: reduced summer albedo, increase of water vapor and clouds, lapse-rate feedback, and decreased air pollution. However, despite all the evidence, ventilating heat from the warm Atlantic layer is never mentioned. That is bad science! Warming due to ventilating heat again means the earth’s climate is cooling and not in a crisis mode.
Two research papers are very informative. Kahl et al 1993, reported in the prestigious journal Nature, that after 40 years of intensive measurements there was no evidence of greenhouse warming over the ice-covered ocean. However, shortly thereafter the winds shifted in the 1990s due to the Arctic Oscillation, decreasing thick insulating sea ice and increasing open waters (Rigor 2000).
A distinction must be made between Arctic fast-ice and drifting pack ice. Fast-ice melts every year and does not add to an open ocean trend. In contrast, some wind directions and currents can cause pack ice to converge and thicken and eliminate regional open water. Other wind directions cause sea ice to diverge, opening “flaw leads” and creating a mosaic of open water and solid ice.
Rigor (2000) reported the following measurements of heat ventilating from different sea ice thicknesses, illustrating how ventilating heats causes Arctic warming. Ventilating heat has been measured to warm the Arctic air by 10 to 700 times more than the CO2 greenhouse effect.
Open leads: 700 W m-2
0.4 meter thick: 80 W m-2
1 meter thick: 30 W m-2
3-meter thick ice: 10 W m-2
Nonetheless, alarmists blame any warming in Greenland or sea ice loss on added CO2, but totally ignore the heat ventilating from the Arcdtic Ocean’s warm Atlantic layer. More Bad Science!
Finally, fast-ice, not pack-ice, is the critical habitat for ringed seals and polar bears. Fast-ice is where seals give birth and nurse their pups and molt their fur. It is during that 4 month period from March through June that ringed seals are most vulnerable to polar bears.
Polar bears have evolved to emerge from their winter dens in March to gorge and fatten on ringed seal pups, accumulating enough energy to survive until the next year. As seen, fast-ice has not melted during the seals critical period. It is why ringed seals are abundant and not threatened and why polar bears have been increasing. Alarmists never distinguish between fast-ice and pack-ice trends.
Beware the alarmists’ Arctic propganda.
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