"... warming [from the sun] occurs every day of the year, summer and winter." (Harold Lee). Or, to be precise, warming (from the sun) occurs every time of day, day and night. At least that's what I'm reading here. Correct me please.

“In fact, all weather and climate can bee seen as sequences of sets of catastrophes.”, Posted by: Jim Williams | May 22, 2013 at 13:20 Yes!! For weather or Arctic sea-ice, say. But no for climate, which is not weather but an average of parameters over space-time. Though I’ve lived in this misunderstanding for like 20 yrs (until beginning of this century).

"New Age buzzwords are not appropriate in a scientific blog." - said A-Team re catastrophe and bifurcation theory, to my utter astonishment. There is nothing postmodern to this hard mathematical concept and what is more: it is totally applicable to what is going on in the Arctic. Sea-ice models have failed or are failing precisely because they neglect this phenomenon. Consider a well B exactly below well A. To me Jim's comment looks entirely valid. In all truth, though, I feel I might be missing your point entirely here.

Arnd Bernaerts | April 19, 2013 at 20:22 With respect but your theory is nonsense. I deliberately chose the cold spell in the winter 1938-39 for just a cold spell - but December 1933 was MUCH colder. During the so-called 'Phony War' there was virtually no warfare. None on the oceans. The mining of the few drops of water called the North Sea doesn't matter. In fact last Thursday's little gale will have churned the entire North Sea more than all the battles of history fought there combined. You cannot explain why the winter 39-40 during the Phony War was so severe; why the winter of 40-41 when fighting was on in earnest was cold but much less severe. You may be granted 41-42, but you cannot explain why the four successive winters, two of which during the thickest of fighting the world has ever seen and two after WW II, were mild. You cannot explain why during low economic and warfare activity winter 46-47 was more severe than any winter in almost 100 years preceding it (it is still the coldest since 1845 except for 1963). Besides, actually shipping in the North Sea during most of the war was very slack indeed. Because of the war, we can say. Merchant shipping was all but gone. Large military fleets did not roam the North Sea precisely because of mines and respective air forces. During these conditions both very mild and very cold winters emerged. As you can see, they had no relation to what happened in our little seas at all. Please explain to me how a blocking event spanning an area of like 100 times our little mud puddles can be related to those puddles. Please explain to me how such an event caused cold spells over almost all of Europe (an area vastly larger than North/Baltic Seas combined) and at the same time caused very mild spells over the Hudson/Baffin/Greenland region (an area vastly greater than N, B Seas combined, and ten times distant from here as the length of the North Sea while being the result of the exact same blocking event). SST's in North Sea and Baltic Sea are below average because of the prolonged cold easterlies of March and this linger for a couple weeks. But so what?

Arnd posted: "Here is an example on SST from the German Bight (Ems) from 13-27 March 2013, http://www.2007seatraining.de/Archiv/images/b/1310_11b_.jpg" The drop in SST's was the result of the prolonged cold easterlies of during the second half of the month of March (the first half btw sported some extremely warm days). Not the other way round. During past March, negative from climate temp anomalies were largest in Poland and western Russia. These regions were never touched by air from the North Sea or Baltic during the period (neither was Holland). Everything came from the Russian arctic and only that explains the cold weather in western Europe, and only that explains the drop in SST's there. Presently SST's in North and Baltic Seas are rising again. Single and simple cause: air transport from warmer zones (between Iberian Peninsula and Azores). In fact in Holland and region half April was remarkably warm, notwithstanding that very cold North Sea water. How small the North Sea pool actually is could be witnessed yesterday. The entire day very windy from the west, with gale force winds moving even up to 50 km inland. Chart: http://www.knmi.nl/klimatologie/daggegevens/weerkaarten/2013/analyse_2013041818.gif . Nevertheless temps yesterday were about 4° C above normal values for the time of year. http://www.knmi.nl/klimatologie/maand_en_seizoensoverzichten/maand_260_grafiek.html . So this event showed: you have a North Sea with SST's around +5° C; you have a full day of westerly breeze to almost severe gale force winds blowing over that sea inland and you are also actually behind the cold front, and you still get a day that is far warmer than climate wants it to and over ten degrees above SST. This simply PROVES the larger scale origin of the maritime polar air cruising through our country is MUCH more important than the little pool before the Dutch doorstep.

Arnd Bernaerts | April 19, 2013 at 15:11 - I am beginning to wonder how you are going to relate the febs 1929 and 1956 to naval operations. Or the two massive winters of 1947 and 1963. "The most relevant point is not the volume of the NS + B, but the size of the surface, the capacity for a months long heat release, and the surrounding geographical features" I'd surmise capacity has all to do with volume. Please show me on charts like these where and how the circulation of half a hemisphere is drastically influenced by North Sea and Baltic Sea, you may add in a feature like the Scandinavian mountains: A bitterly cold pre-war December snap: http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/archive/ra/1938/Rrea00119381219.gif A most ordinary, mild northerly displaced westerly pattern in the thick of war: http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/archive/ra/1944/Rrea00119440118.gif Advent of the most spectacular blizzard of one of the strangest European winters ever, 1979: http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/archive/ra/1979/Rrea00119790214.gif I repeat: North/Baltic Sea could've just as well not existed but be grasslands. Big features like the entire North Atlantic, Greenland and the Arctic seas/ice - yes, they count. It so happens the patterns that determine our weather are of comparable size. They do not 'feel' puddles like the North Sea. The run of particularly severe winters during the 40's is remarkable, but not unique - by the way, you cannot put 1939-1940 into your set because this was the winter of the 'Phony War' - there was virtually NO fighting during that winter! For a worse run of bizarly cold winters, try the 1690's. If you test for an anthropogenic link to the WW II winters then you MUST show how this link could NOT be attributed to the 1690's AND you MUST show that the 1690's were cause by something totally different. Ps, you are quite right to check the days/weeks leading up to a particular chart. Of course 17th January 1940 cannot be understood just like that. It is a snapshot of a process.

“These seas are paramount for moderate winters in Northern Europe.”” (Posted by: Arnd Bernaerts | April 17, 2013 at 15:01 ) In fact the Atlantic, not its tiny rim seas, plus the normally westerly circulations are the factor for moderate winters in Northern Europe. Reverso, cold winters in this region always result from anomalous circulation types called ‘blocking events’ and these effectively cancel away all sea influence, for they induce northerly to easterly air currents (thus resulting in weather belonging more to the Newfoundland climate, which is continentally cold by virtue of same westerlies!). “The impact of off-shore wind farms, shipping, and fishing on the extreme March conditions should not be ignored and thoroughly understood. March 2013 offers a unique case for investigation.” No, the impact of those were nil. The extreme March conditions reigned over the entire northern hemisphere and were actually most marked more inland – Poland to western continental Russia up to deep in Siberia; also the US had a fairly cold March. The reason for this anomaly pattern was a huge Arctic high pressure zone which displaced Arctic air all over the hemisphere to moderate climate regions. The influence of little splashes of water like North- and Baltic seas on this kind of event is nil. It was also locally nil simply because the continental winds never travelled over those seas (or wind farms, for that matter). It was cold because easterlies in Europe are cold in wintertime and March this year sported a uniquely long spell of such easterlies. You should leaf through an archive like this to expand your meteorological world view: http://www.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten/fsreaeur.html Actually the one comparison to the recent Arctic high pressure event is this: http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/archive/ra/1940/Rrea00119400117.gif Look at the giant Arctic high pressure zone, and please evaluate how totally negligable the little European seas are compared to this. On average, by the way, March 1987 in the North Sea countries was colder. Why? Big blocking event resulting in easterly, therefore and only therefore (in March) frosty winds. See: http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/archive/ra/1987/Rrea00119870308.gif Again, the North Sea is no more than a droplet compared to the scale of Rossby patterns.

Lynn Shwadchuck, we live in most interesting times, in many respects possibly the most exciting age in the history of homo erectus and his (or her) descendents. This is one way of evading misanthropy and depression. The other way is: indulge in them. I wish four Sandy's a year at 900 hPa each, for instance - not to hit NY or NJ though because the people there got the message (even if even they already forgot Irene the year before Sandy). Confrontation will be the only tutor. Finally I have a little snippet of latin that gives me some consolation just for the pseudopoetic sound of it: ceterum censeo mundum esse delendum :)

"What is your perspective on the public perception of Arctic sea ice loss?" My perception is that only a very small fraction of the public knows more about the region than did Neven before 2006, which is basically nothing. It is too remote, too wild and empty an area. It is not a place one goes for the usual totally boring holiday everybody seems to think is the pinnacle of life (meeting the same party people in some climate of stifling heat having sun up, sun under as the full list of weather events to experience). Moreover, those who do know something about the regions are instantly élite. There is just no-one to talk with. Nowadays this is changing. IRL I have actually met someone who is not totally ignorant about the area and better still: he even takes an interest. Well, wow, that means for me the general public's interest had increased infinitely.

Took an interest in the Arctic and Antarctic in my teens, early 1980's. Read everything about those regions, from early expeditions to daily what-is-known on then current conditions. Fancied myself emigrating to Cape Farvell (Greenland). What I knew about Arctic sea ice was rather static until about 2003. Before that the region was always about (September) to totally full of ice cover usually 2-4 m thick (with some 'ice islands' and packing zones thicker. A boring age that was re sea ice: it was basically a constant with some seasonal variation. Passages never opened up in a way you could sail them within a single season. From 2004 onwards I was looking at what I called since then 'science fiction becoming fact'. From developments on the Beaufort side of the pack I realized THEN already average ice thickness might already have halved compared to centuries/millenia before - hence the big holes starting to appear in regions where the Soviets simply landed aircraft in all seasons to do their measurements on the pack (as of the second half of the 1920's). In 2005 I gave the pack another 10-15 years. The trend seems even a little faster than I guessed it would be in 2005 - I might actually fail this year or next with my prediction :)

On SSW's, about the strongest ever observed was about second, third week of February 1989. The winter until then was characterized by a remarkably strong, northwards displaced Atlantic jet. As the effect of this SSW took its dozen days time to percolate downward a gargantuan Alaskan high with cold air outbreak over the US evolved. Also the jet over the Atlantic tended south for a week or so, getting one of the many very lows lost over the Netherlands resulting in the lowest air pressure reading in a century or more there. Thereafter the northerly displaced westerlies simply resumed and held out all of March. That Alaskan high was soon gone too. The result: mildest winter in at least 300 yrs in Holland (and around). A different result btw was that cRR was convinced of global warming since then. Conclusion: SSW's may be a precursor to blocking patterns, but they also may not.

@NJSnowFan, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwlNPhn64TA 57 MegaTon explosion 'Czar Bomba' on Nova Zemla, ice out there? Don't think so. @Paul Beckwith | March 15, 2013 at 03:58 - like I remarked somewhere else - we need to rethink our Hadley theory... Look at all the Sandy left bend opportunities in circulations like this. Of which I think I know only one precedent, part of winter 1940...

"Open Thread February 2013" or "Colossal Polynya February 2013"... So the near future looks like the winter ice cover isn't going to be closed pack either as summer melt becomes total every summer.

One swallow doesn't make a summer, so a million swallows means Ice Age.

While last year was a La Niña year and conditions have been more or less neutral since, sea level has made a big jump: http://sealevel.colorado.edu/content/2013rel1-global-mean-sea-level-time-series-seasonal-signals-removed So where did that come from?

So, Neven, actually we are after the same thing :)

Correction to last but one sentence, it is to read: - This, alas, tells us nothing about the intensity of the patterns. E.g. a Scandinavian blocking high of 1025 hPa will be classified same as that high at 1075 hPa (end of January 1956) but it is the difference between a couple days of frosty weather and the coldest month since January 1823.

No, sorry Neven - that was more of a general rant against a spate of articles recent years trying to link cold contintental winter weather (as we have seen 2008-2010) and loose cold snaps (recent or EU, feb 2012) to the condition of Arctic Sea ice. Content of my rant is given: total lack of differential analysis and neglect of the fact that over this century most winters almost everywhere were mild, in many places some winters so mild as to be unseen (like 2007 in western Europe). Then a more general remark. Last couple of weeks the fact hit me dat even professionals in the field are underestimating, sometimes vastly, the effects of climate change. And I think this can be attributed as 'succes' for climate revisionism. Who wants to be called an 'alarmist' - even if he/she still sounds the alarm less than he/she is actually convinced is necessary? " it's not a question of 'is it changing things', but rather, like Dr. Jennifer Francis says: How could it not?" I totally agree. But the question really is: how is it gonna change and can we already see it? I mean: I feel quite sure that the Arctic situation was solely responsible for the Sandy's spectacular left turn. But there is no way I'm going to be able to prove this. It is much more complex than attributing temperature hyperextremes ('Summer in March', Moscow Inferno etc) to the combination of AGW and a climate system that is functioning far out of balance. The problem with weather patterns is that they are very hard to classify let alone quantify, and that every single weather synopsis of any minute of any day is actually unique. There exists, for North-Atlantic/EU, a classification system by Baur for circulation patterns. It has been shown that average duration of a pattern is significantly lengthening (changes in distribution of patterns e.g. more southwest less north or east are not so obvious). This, alas, tells us nothing about the intensity of the patterns. E.g. a Scandinavian blocking high of 1025 hPa will be classified same as that high (end of January 1956) but it is the difference between a couple days of frosty weather and the coldest month since January 1823. Finally, the single most important thing to watch for, imo, is the Rocky Mountains lee trough. There's a continent ready for instant desertification.

So how special is the Russian cold snap really? Moscow, past 90 days: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/global_monitoring/temperature/tn27612_90.gif . Almost -25° C as the minimum for Moscow. Where the december record is below -38° C. O and December 1986 registered a -63° C in Siberia (no record). What is really special is the continuous heat outside of the cold spell. No word on that. What was special about the cold snap was the precipitation. Parts of China do show the news. Finally something of a winter, no? Bei Xing: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/global_monitoring/temperature/tn54511_90.gif Looks like people have no memory (and cannot appreciate the existence of archives). That pisses me off a bit. But what really bugs me is this attribution of wintery weather to the state of the Arctic Sea ice. Because the differential analysis is omitted completely. Seems we must never ask that simple question 'well how about cold winters in the past', which, incidentally, have the present pale into insignifance? And otoh, how about attributing de continentally mild tot record mild winters of 2007 and 2008 to the sea ice? Answers nowhere. Is pseudoscience that contaminating?

The European cold of past weekend breaks no records, not even close, nowhere. The 'heat' last week: did. Anyway, what I consider both weird and still (too) rarely remarked on is the blocking high in absolutely forbidden terroritory, i.e. over the Cold Wall between Newfoundland and Greenland. Never seen a high persist there so there's a first imo. The relevance of this? Sandy. The block caused this huge system to take a left instead of racing as a normal extratropical system to the Denmark Straight or so like normal. If there really is weirdness coming up from the Arctic melt, I expect it to be seen in the months of August to December, but not (yet) in the rest of the year.

The thing I don't get in those graphs like Gompertz' is the tapering off of the melt in the last phase/2 M km^2. The reality hitherto is simply sudden drop en well 'gravity' will have the curve going down virtually perpendicular. End of ice 2017 at the very latest. Of course 'gravity' is a metaphor, bad one even because the curve would be parabolic. Not (hyper-)exponential as is the real case. The theory involved is catastrophe theory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catastrophe_theory

Seke Rob, Bastardi knows the Arctic sea ice is in the death spiral. Impossible to miss the fact. 'Joe Bastardi found a cherry', yes, in other words Bastardi is really admitting the fact - and he's looking around in the muck to find any scrap to lie and deny with. This is not naievety, it is the same ole malice I term climate revisionism.

Bastardi is no rookie at climate revisionism. Don't underestimate. He knows very well what is going on.

Meantime another remarkable low was featured in the basin, pressure down to 970 hPa and storm force winds, hurricane force gusts. From Jeff Masters' blog: --- Huge storm pummels Alaska A massive low pressure system with a central pressure of 970 mb swept through Alaska on Tuesday, generating hurricane-force wind gusts near Anchorage, Alaska that knocked out power to 55,000 homes. Mighty Alaskan storms like this are common in winter, but rare in summer and early fall. The National Weather Service in Anchorage said in their Wednesday forecast discussion that the forecast wind speeds from this storm were incredibly strong for this time of year--four to six standard anomalies above normal. A four-standard anomaly event occurs once every 43 years, and a five-standard anomaly event is a 1-in-4800 year event. However, a meteorologist I heard from who lives in the Anchorage area characterized the wind damage that actually occurred as a 1-in-10 year event. A few maximum wind gusts recorded on Tuesday during the storm: McHugh Creek (Turnagain Arm)... ... ..88 mph Paradise Valley (Potter Marsh)... ... 75 mph Upper Hillside (1400 ft)... ... ... ... 70 mph Anchorage port... ... ... ... ... ... ... .63 mph The storm has weakened to a central pressure of 988 mb today, and is located just north of Alaska. The storm is predicted to bring strong winds of 25 - 35 mph and large waves to the edge of the record-thin and record-small Arctic ice cap, and may add to the unprecedented decline in Arctic sea ice being observed this summer. ---

The CT record, thanks Seke Rob. Well, I guess all records have gone now.