Arctic sea ice [image credit: cbc.ca]
Not the often-quoted ‘rapid decline’ any more then. But what’s behind the stalled trend? The researchers point to a climate cycle known as the Arctic dipole, first proposed in 2006, which ‘reverses itself’, and should (they say) be about to do so again. Are declining solar cycles accompanied by greatly reduced geomagnetic activity (see here) in the same recent years another factor, or just coincidental?
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New research by an international team of scientists explains what’s behind a stalled trend in Arctic Ocean sea ice loss since 2007, says Phys.org.
The findings indicate that stronger declines in sea ice will occur when an atmospheric feature known as the Arctic dipole reverses itself in its recurring cycle.
The many environmental responses to the Arctic dipole are described in a paper published online today in the journal Science. This analysis helps explain how North Atlantic water influences Arctic Ocean climate.
Scientists call it Atlantification.
The research is led by professor Igor Polyakov of the University of Alaska Fairbanks College of Natural Science and Mathematics. He is also affiliated with the International Arctic Research Center at UAF.
Co-authors include Andrey V. Pnyushkov, research assistant professor at the International Arctic Research Center; Uma S. Bhatt, atmospheric sciences professor at the UAF Geophysical Institute and UAF College of Natural Science and Mathematics; and researchers from Massachusetts, Washington state, Norway, and Germany.
“This is a multidisciplinary view on what’s going on in the Arctic and beyond,” Polyakov said of the new research. “Our analysis covered the atmosphere, ocean, ice, changing continents and changing biology in response to climate change.”
A wealth of data, including direct instrumental observations, reanalysis products and satellite information going back several decades, shows that the Arctic dipole alternates in an approximately 15-year cycle and that the system is probably at the end of the present regime.
In the Arctic dipole’s present “positive” regime, which scientists say has been in place since 2007, high pressure is centered over the Canadian sector of the Arctic and produces clockwise winds. Low pressure is centered over the Siberian Arctic and features counterclockwise winds.
This wind pattern drives upper ocean currents, with year-round effects on regional air temperatures, atmosphere-ice-ocean heat exchanges, sea-ice drift and exports, and ecological consequences.
The authors write that, “Water exchanges between the Nordic seas and the Arctic Ocean are critically important for the state of the Arctic climate system” and that sea ice decline is “a true indicator of climate change.”
In analyzing oceanic responses to the wind pattern since 2007, the researchers found decreased flow from the Atlantic Ocean into the Arctic Ocean through the Fram Strait east of Greenland, along with increased Atlantic flow into the Barents Sea, located north of Norway and western Russia.
The new research refers to these alternating changes in the Fram Strait and the Barents Sea as a “switchgear mechanism” caused by the Arctic dipole regimes.
The researchers also found that counterclockwise winds from the low-pressure region under the current positive Arctic dipole regime drive freshwater from Siberian rivers into the Canadian sector of the Arctic Ocean.
This westward movement of freshwater from 2007 to 2021 helped slow the overall loss of sea ice in the Arctic compared to 1992 through 2006. The freshwater layer’s depth increased, making it too thick and stable to mix with the heavier saltwater below. The thick layer of freshwater prevents the warmer saltwater from melting sea ice from the bottom.
The authors write that the switchgear mechanism regulating inflows of sub-Arctic waters has “profound” impacts on marine life. It can lead to potentially more suitable living conditions for sub-Arctic boreal species near the eastern part of the Eurasian Basin, relative to its western part.
“We are beyond the peak of the currently positive Arctic dipole regime, and at any moment it could switch back again,” Polyakov said. “This could have significant climatological repercussions, including a potentially faster pace of sea-ice loss across the entire Arctic and sub-Arctic climate systems.”
Source here.
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
Priceless. Great career choices made by many people. I read a fantastic article about how humans created the ice age by discovering fire. Such a simple idea I can see it gaining momentum.
“Our analysis covered the atmosphere, ocean, ice, changing continents and changing biology in response to climate change.”
“sea ice decline is ‘a true indicator of climate change.’”
Because they confess to looking through the lens of a politically fabricated hypothesis at their acquired data they will continue to misconstrue what their data represents. This is not science, and is therefore not new research, but the same old backward approach. Trying to identify the subcycles involved by “multidisciplinary analysis” (atmosphere, ocean, ice, changing continents and changing biology) still won’t reveal the individual cause for each. Nor will it characterize each over time because they still have no idea what are the underlying forces. Experiments are required to determine causation, and this is what is completely lacking in their new “research.”
White coat Bollix
Arctic ice is part of a self-oscillating system on a quasi-60 year cycle: Natural climate change all the way. It’s about the water, wind and weather, not CO2.
The findings indicate that stronger declines in sea ice will occur when an atmospheric feature known as the Arctic dipole reverses itself in its recurring cycle.
Nothing to do with CO2 then.
So they identify a supposed cycle but don’t know why there a supposed cycle. But they do know its Climate Change. And how far back have they identified this cycle? What did it do in the past? And how does this cycle interact with everything else? Once again we see a part of a hugely complex and utterly interactive dynamic system treated as a separate system independent of all other parts. Maybe this cycle causes ice loss when other cycles peak and ice gain when other cycles trough. We won’t know because the aim was to prove climate change.
Another graphic from Ron Clutz’s link – follow the arrows…
Caption: An analysis of cause-effect relationships does not leave any doubt in what direction and in what order the climate signal propagates in the atmosphere-ocean-polar ice system. This is not the direction and order usually assumed to cause present climate change. When it has become clear that the changes in the ocean, caused by disturbances of its freshwater balance, precede changes in the extent of sea ice, and the latter the changes in the atmosphere, then there was nothing left but for us to acknowledge self oscillation to be the most probable explanation for the development of the natural process. Pg. 58 [bold added]
[…] New research looks at ‘stalled trend in Arctic Ocean sea ice loss since 2007’ […]
Best understood from the perspective of the North Atlantic Oscillation. Negative NAO regimes 1995-1999 and 2005-2012 drove a warmer AMO and Arctic. And 1995 is when the solar wind weakened from, with a slight recovery 2000-2004, hence the break in the negative NAO regimes. Then seeing that we have been blessed with remarkably strong solar states for a centennial solar minimum since 2013, positive NAO regimes have dominated. Negative NAO in 2019 though saw increased Greenland ice mass loss.
[…] eyes on climate? Surely not! Or…guilty as charged? With Arctic sea ice scare stories looking increasingly hollow, something along apparently similar lines at the other end of the globe proved irresistible. […]