Will the North Pole be ice free at any point in 2008?

Complete nonsense and if you did any kind of research you would know that. Its completely absurd to think that the north pole would be ice free. These are the coldest spots on earth. They have no chance of ever being ice free.

@dragonfangxl,
It aint jarrods personal opinion, he cited a guy named Serreze. It is his prediction of 50:50 that the north pole would be ice free.

Before telling someone to do some research, please read the provided information yourself. About the "coldest sport on earth": "Summer temperatures (June, July and August) average around the freezing point".

"Mark Serreze, a scientist with the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, told Agence France-Presse in an interview on June 27, 2008, that by the end of the 2008 summer, there might, for the first time in human history, briefly be no ice at the North Pole. However, Serreze pointed out that ice would still be present in other parts of the Arctic Ocean."

Nevertheless I agree that the idea of a complete ice free north pole is absurd - today. But seems we must get used to it, soon.

NOTE: This past year saw the largest global cooling on record, this winter was so cold on average that it broke records going back to the 1870's in many areas. This is of course do to the actual cause of climate change: the sun. We are in a solar minimum period right now, minimal sunspots means the sun is very cool, thus warming the earth less, resulting in cooling.

While we will see a temporary return to warming over the next 5-7 years, in 2018 a complete shutdown in the suns conveyor belt system currently underway (observed by NASA solar astronomers) is being predicted to cause massive global cooling of 1.5-2.0 C, 3-4 times more cooling than the earth has warmed in the past half century.

Solar mins and max's run in 11 yr cycles and have minimal impact on the global warming that we are now experiencing. Having worked with the folks in Bolder CO., I have a fair bit of knowledge about solar cycles and their impact on earth both short term and long. Not sure where you're getting the idea of global cooling, as the exact opposite is currently happening. Average airmass temps worldwide are on the rising and significantly as are ocean temps...don't believe, go to NOAA web site for much more confirmation...or just read a couple articles about the coral bed decay happening in Australia's Great Barrier Reef. The arctic and antarctic are loosing ice and snow cover at an unprecedented rate in human history. This lack of "white" further hastens the warming effect as sunlight (heat and energy) is not being reflected back out to space...this further accelerates global warming...it's no longer rocket science.
My concern regarding this wager is, we do not know which North Pole is being referred to in the question hence bad (inconcise) and question should be voided.

Here is a great article from Newsweek. It is dated 1975. http://denisdutton.com/newsweek_coolingworld.pdf

@dragon01: I found this: Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html

Also this: Global warming and climate forcing by recent albedo changes on Mars http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v446/n7136/abs/nature05718.html

@all HD'S..there's views on both sides of the issue with science to back them up. alot of global warming "evidence" comes from projection models. i ain't smart enough to know who's right or wrong. my question is..if they can't predict the weather acculately for 7 days, what makes them think they can to it for years to come?

@notablenotices...interesting article...thanks. I would not deny his hypothesis, but I do believe that the data from Mars observations is very sparse are not nearly long term enough yet to come to any decisive conclusions.

@destry...I do recall parts of that 1975 article...portions of it were used in the more recent US military's assessment of global confict and threat analysis, but it was a very samll part, which further went on to state that after an initial short term global "cooling" there would be significant stress cause by a larger and wider global warming crisis..

I still would like to know regarding this question we are wagering on...which North Pole is being considered for the ice free episode this summer...The geographic North Pole or the Magnetic North Pole? This question could pose a serious settlement issue if allowed to stand in present format.

This past year saw the largest cooling since 1870's:
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/02/19/january-2008-4-sources-say-globally-cooler-in-the-past-12-months/

"As atmospheric CO2 has not dropped and the heat loss to space was accelerated as compared to recent years (yes, I realize temp is a noisy proxie of heat but has Anthony and others have shown, it is difficult for it to be biased cold vs. high)

As the study of the climate is an on going endeavor and the actual drivers of the system are still being discovered, the recent temperature drop pushes down the confidence of CO2 as a significant driver and increases the confidence other drivers are now more likely to be more significant. (To date, those other drivers being primarily PDO, AMO, Solar Variance)"

"Putting 0.6 degrees in perspective– That is the amount of energy we get from sun in about 3.7 hours.

assuming:
(a) Heat capacity of atmosphere ~ 3.8*10^21 Joule/K
(b) incident radiation ~ 1366 Watt/m^2)
(c) surface temp is approximative of the whole atmosphere. (big assumption)

Losing (or gaining) .6 deg over the course of a year is not a big deal percentage wise. That would mean we averaged a radiative imbalance of -0.04% in the last 12 months, and about +0.0007% over the last century.

I think a lot of people who worry about GW don’t have a good feel for the amounts of energy they are talking about.

As an example, a solar eclipse deprives the earth of ~3.3*10^20 Joules. (Assuming it happens in the daytime, ha ha) This alone is enough to drop the Atmosphere’s avg temp by 0.085 deg K.

(assumptions: solar eclipse transit time = 7 hrs, radius of moon= 0.27*radius of earth)"

"I’m amazed that no one else is commenting on the Northern Hemisphere land (where 90% of people live) average temp falling 2.4C (jan 2007 to jan 200 8) in 12 months.

The IPCC is saying we will get that amount of warming in 50 years and it will be a catastrophe. Yet, we get that amount of cooling in a year and no one bats an eyelid.

I think the reason is that both sides of the debate instinctively believe that whatever happens, climate changes slowly and therefore a 2.4C drop in average temperature in a year must be a statistical quirk or anomaly.

Well maybe it isn’t and climate can change rapidly. There is some evidence that at the start of the Little Ice Age we had an abrupt cooling of around 3C in just a few years (perhaps 5 years).

BTW, I went and checked there wasn’t a mistake in the Jan 2007 NH land temp and found in fact it had been adjusted down slightly in the jan 2008 report and the cooling would have been -2.45C using the jan 2007 value.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2007/jan/global.html#Temp "

Jan 2008 NOAA Global Temperature Anomalies chart: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/2008/jan/map-blended-mntp-200801-pg.gif

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2008/jan/global.html#Temp

"The January global land surface average was below the 20th century mean for the first time since 1982. La Niña, the cold phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, persisted in the equatorial Pacific, damping ocean surface temperatures."

2007 ranks as only the 63rd warmest year in the past century or so, for global land temperatures. The pacific occillation La Nina/El Nino is in a strong La Nina phase that coincides with the extended solar minimum we've been in. Cooling is predicted to extend for at least another 6 months, after which Solar Cycle 24 will be back in swing and solar radiance levels will climb again, and La Nina will have subsided after significantly cooling the Pacific.

Note also: one of the four main temperature indexes includes the poles, while the other three do not. This one index showed the largest change in temps, indicating that the poles cooled the most out of most locations on the planet (you see that NOAA's maps do not count the polar areas in their measurments, hence why NOAA only recorded an average 0.1 C reduction in temps). As the Arctic saw the largest cooling in many decades (as did Antarctica), it therefore lends credence to the argument that the North Pole will NOT be free of ice within the time frame specified.

"More ice than expected in parts of the Arctic"
http://www.barentsobserver.com/?cat=16149&id=4498513

I wonder where Algore's $$ is...

http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/07/13/satellite-imagery-shows-artic-ice-still-unmelted/

Satellite Imagery Shows Arctic Ice Still Unmelted
13 07 2008

"There has been a great deal of speculation about the possibility that the arctic sea ice could, at the worst case, melt entirely, or more realistic, possibly break the record sea ice melt set last year.

Judge for yourself. This photo with 1 kilometer/pixel resolution was taken yesterday July 12th at 17:05 UTC:" http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/aqua_image_071208.jpg

These very recent (July 12th) satellite images of the arctic ice cap show NOTHING like what is being claimed in major media, there is hardly ANY significant ice loss.

The only thing melting here is the campaign by malthusian disasturbationists to use the media to promote a lie. You have to wonder what ever happened to journalistic integrity. You have to wonder why none of the major corporate media is reporting on this. What the HELL is going on with the propaganda we are all being fed of massive meltings and imminent danger of extinction of polar bears and other BS. These satellite images clearly expose the claims of the global warming people are completely and utterly false.

LATEST NEWS:
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/07/30/polar-ice-check-still-a-lot-of-ice-up-there/

"Polar Ice Check - Still a lot of ice up there
30 07 2008

During our last check in, we had a look at northern Canada from the Arctic Circle to the North pole, and found we had quite a ways to go before we see an “ice free arctic” this year as some have speculated.

Today I did a check of the NASA rapidfire site for TERRA/MODIS satellite images and grabbed a view showing northern Greenland all the way to the North Pole.

There’s some bergy bits on the northeastern shore of Greenland, but in the cloud free area extending all the way to the pole, it appears to still be solid ice."
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/arctic_aqua_ice_073008.jpg

I might make my own prediction: before the end of summer, at least one major media outlet will claim to be broadcasting from the 'north pole' with open seas, but will not be within 1,000 miles of the north pole.

Thnx for the updates!

Looks like the media fix is starting to set in:

http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/08/15/arctic-ice-extent-discrepancy-nsidc-versus-cryosphere-today/

http://c.moreover.com/click/here.pl?r1550597893&f=9946

Again: Despite satellite images showing tons of ice cover, the AGW chichen little disasturbationists are putting out fake data claiming otherwise.

@intlibber: Yeah, and I found this too-

Arctic ice refuses to melt as ordered http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/15/goddard_arctic_ice_mystery/

The Arctic melt season is nearly done for this year. The sun is now very low above the horizon and will set for the winter at the North Pole in five weeks. And none of these dire predictions have come to pass. Yet there is, however, something odd going on with the ice data.

ya the satellite imagry clearly shows 30% more ice cover than this time last year, and while this ice is first year ice, thus thinner than old ice, it also has much higher albedo due to a lack of accumulation of soot depositions, so it has higher reflectivity than old ice and thus should provide more cooling.

That said, the North Atlantic Occillation, which is the prime mover of ice cycles in the arctic (has nothing to do with global warming) is causing increased storm activity, the wave and wind action is the prime driver of ice breakups right now, not solar activity.

Oh, ye deniers: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26426382/

"Arctic sea ice is at its second lowest level...with about three weeks left in the Arctic summer, this year could wind up breaking that previous record."

95% of earth's existence has seen NO ice at the poles

fact.

Global warming is in fact a predessesor for a new ice age according to some. Apparently by trying to stop this we are in fact cooling down the planet so when the ice age does come it will hit harder and longer. We are destroying the little protection the earth has given us!