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Hi Chuck,
I've been disappointed how rarely the arctic depths are discussed here. I'm sure the undersea currents of the arctic ocean is no less important than any other factor in determining the state of the ice. Perhaps it is the sheer difficulty of gathering data on the under sea temperatures that causes it to be under stated. I feel like modelling the arctic is like the fable of the blind men touching and describing an elephant. I suspect that Wadhams is qualitatively right, even though it seems implausible that the Arctic sea ice plunges to such a great extent this year. I'm quite sure that most models would fail to predict the precise year of melt out the year before the melt out actually happens. The existing data sets would be barely relevant to the terra incognita of that fateful year.
2015 SIPN Sea Ice Outlook: June report
The first Sea Ice Outlook of this year has been published. The SIO is organized by the Sea Ice Prediction Network (as part of the Arctic research program 'Study of Environmental Arctic Change', or SEARCH), and is a compilation of projections for the September 2015 Arctic sea ice extent, based o...
I totally agree with the earlier commenter that Arctic oil developments could not possibly be economically viable. Now that OPEC has declined to manipulate the oil prices, the future of many deposits are in doubt. I wonder if a prolonged period of low oil prices would ruin the tar sands developments.
Frankly, I think fossil fuel companies should be spending their money on pivoting away from using their products as fuel and focus on materials research. Creating more carbon based materials could help them remain in business in the years ahead. I wonder if it is possible to create a replacement for concrete and cement from coal.
Bill McKibben nails it
This simply has to be shared, as Bill McKibben expresses my thoughts exactly. This sentence just about says it all: "It’s as if the tobacco companies were applying for permission to put cigarette machines in cancer wards. And the White House gave Shell the license." I haven't seen such a good m...
Ah, I did not notice that it was a one year old article. My bad. I suppose I'm glad I'm not depending on forecasting the Arctic for a living. There are just too many variables and too little resources to create a perfect model. '17 is as good a guess as any. I suppose random variations in melting conditions could throw off any precise prediction. I'm really curious if the Arctic would be passable to cargo traffic in another 20 years. Or would it be too rough when the ice is gone?
PIOMAS January 2015
A new year, a new volume. Here is the updated Arctic sea ice volume graph as calculated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) at the Polar Science Center: Relatively warm temperatures in the Arctic in the past couple of weeks, and an increase in Fram Strait tran...
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2013/dec/09/us-navy-arctic-sea-ice-2016-melt
In case you missed this.
PIOMAS January 2015
A new year, a new volume. Here is the updated Arctic sea ice volume graph as calculated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) at the Polar Science Center: Relatively warm temperatures in the Arctic in the past couple of weeks, and an increase in Fram Strait tran...
Errm, what could cause that? Satellite re-calibration, calibration error, website error, major compaction event?
PIOMAS October 2013, take two
Let's do this again. I was so busy building a green roof (still not finished), and devastated every evening afterwards, that I didn't get around to updating the previous PIOMAS October 2013 blog post. Here's take two (after that you can take five) with the updated Arctic sea ice volume graph as ...
@Couloir Sounds familiar, but I think I saw it in a youtube video. I'm not sure how to find it though.
Crowd-Source Prediction of September Sea Ice Extent (August report)
In mid-July through early August, participants on the Arctic Sea Ice (ASI) blog posted 66 individual predictions for the mean NSIDC September Arctic sea ice extent. The median value of these 66 predictions is 3.6 million km2, with an interquartile range (approximately the middle 50%) from 2.92 t...
hmmm new article. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/13/science/timing-a-rise-in-sea-level.html?src=rechp
Perception of the Arctic 2
Like I've written in the previous blog post with the same title, I'm not just interested in the science/ observation of Arctic sea ice and the consequences of its loss, but also in the question how and how far these events are finding their way to the collective consciousness. Are people becomi...
I'm pretty curious about these polar cyclones. It somehow feels like the poles should be a natural location to expect cyclone-like weather patterns. It just seems strange that this is still a relatively new development in the arctic.
Third storm
Are we getting used to this? After the persistent cyclone in May and June, and the spiffy, but short-lived cyclone of two weeks ago, the Arctic is visited by yet another intense storm that goes below 980 hPa. In fact, according to Environment Canada it is currently at 976 hPa, which is lower tha...
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