Dramatic Slowdown in Melting of Arctic Sea Ice Surprises Scientists (theguardian.com)
- Reference: 0178778348
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/08/20/1155233/dramatic-slowdown-in-melting-of-arctic-sea-ice-surprises-scientists
- Source link: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/20/slowdown-in-melting-of-arctic-sea-ice-surprises-scientists
> The finding is surprising, the researchers say, given that carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning have continued to rise and trap ever more heat over that time. They said natural variations in ocean currents that limit ice melting had probably balanced out the continuing rise in global temperatures. However, they said this was only a temporary reprieve and melting was highly likely to start again at about double the long-term rate at some point in the next five to 10 years.
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> The findings do not mean Arctic sea ice is rebounding. Sea ice area in September, when it reaches its annual minimum, has halved since 1979, when satellite measurements began. The climate crisis remains "unequivocally real," the scientists said, and the need for urgent action to avoid the worst impacts remains unchanged. The natural variation causing the slowdown is probably the multi-decadal fluctuations in currents in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, which change the amount of warmed water flowing into the Arctic. The Arctic is still expected to see ice-free conditions later in the century, harming people and wildlife in the region and boosting global heating by exposing the dark, heat-absorbing ocean.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/20/slowdown-in-melting-of-arctic-sea-ice-surprises-scientists
Hmmm, not immediately obvious from the paper (Score:3)
Where's Tamino when you need him?
I've not read the paper, just scanned it for keywords but my first glance doesn't fill me with confidence that the headline matches the results.
They say that there's a decline for the last two decades 2005-2024 and that that's statistically indistinguishable from zero. Fair enough. But it's clearly also statistically indistinguishable from a larger decline.
So it's not completely obvious to me that there's been a change in the rate of sea level decline, just that the earlier decades might have been a bit high and regression to the mean giving a smaller rate of decline than statistics says is happening.
Need some change point analysis to tell if there's anything significant happening and I couldn't see anything in the article that suggested that this had been done.
Re: (Score:2)
Hold on there, grasshopper. check [1]https://climate.nasa.gov/vital... [nasa.gov]. Since you cannot be arsed to even do the minimal in Google-Foo, I'll repeat some of that page here:
Arctic sea ice reaches its minimum extent (the area in which satellite sensors show individual pixels to be at least 15% covered in ice) each September. September Arctic sea ice is now shrinking at a rate of 12.2% per decade, compared to its average extent during the period from 1981 to 2010.
[1] https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/arctic-sea-ice/?intent=121
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, but I don't know what point you're trying to make. Your kind link to climate.nasa.gov doesn't tell me anything I didn't already know.
The headline says "Dramatic Slowdown in Melting of Arctic Sea Ice Surprises Scientists", but I cannot see anything in the paper that suggests that there's actually a statistically significant slow down at all nor that it has surprised scientists.
The title of the paper is:
Minimal Arctic Sea Ice Loss in the Last 20 Years, Consistent With Internal Climate Variability
In my
Re: (Score:2)
You should click on the link before typing nonsense.
In the middle of TFA, there is a graph that shows exactly what the headline reports. Sea ice decreased until 2010, and since then there is no clear trend.
Re: (Score:2)
No it doesn't show that. Definitely not by eye.
You do NOT see a change in trend by drawing a line between points A to B and B to C and declare that implies there's no trend in sea ice decline over the last 20 years.
You have to show that there's no possible trend from A to C that is consistent with the trends from A to B and B to C. (You also can't have a discontinuity at B which is another thing that doing it by eye can mislead)
My by eye look suggests that there's no significant change in change over the sa
Re: (Score:2)
Congrats, you clicked on the link and looked at the graph. You are now less ignorant than before. Excellent work.
Now if you will read the text of the article, it should clear up some of your concerns, and you will be even less ignorant than before. I suggest you do it before replying.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm failing to see what you're seeing. As I quoted above:
In my skim of the paper I saw:
The trend of September Arctic sea ice extent for the most recent two decades 2005Ã"2024 is Ã'0.35 and Ã'0.29 million per decade according to the NSIDC and OSISAF sea ice indices respectively (Figures 1a and 1b). The key point, we emphasize, is that these trends are not statistically significantly different from zero at a 95% confidence level.
But in case you missed it, let me quote the entire paragraph:
The m
Re: (Score:2)
Their claim is just wrong. Look at [1]the actual data [statista.com]. There were three years of anomalously low sea ice in 2005-2007. Aside from those three years, the trend is completely clear and hasn't changed at all. So of course you pick 2005 as your starting point if you want to claim it's stopped decreasing.
It's the same way denialists claimed for years that global warming had stopped by choosing 1998 as their starting point. It was an exceptionally warm year, so they cherry picked it as the starting point to cla
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/530045/maximum-arctic-sea-ice-extent/
Re: (Score:2)
I have no idea what you are talking about.
Re: And remember, folks... (Score:2)
Aeroplane contrails, large seas of asphalt, pollution, we've been doing large scale geoengineering for over a 100 years now
It's almost as if the Climate... is Changing (Score:3, Interesting)
Earth has been doing its thing for billions of years. It will continue to do so.
Re: You mean, killing off stupid species? (Score:2)
AND eating them.
Yummy, yummy stupid species.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Sigh. That's not at all what they said. If there was any nefarious "agenda" at play "they" (whoever the fuck "they" are in the minds of climate change conspiracists) wouldn't even be publishing data like this since smoothed brain folk like you will take the shallowest of positions on the observation to refute the underlying science.
Re: (Score:2)
Wouldn't it be better to make it change at the natural rate instead of the man-made rate it is changing now?
Indeed (Score:2)
And it doesn't give a fuck about us. In the Cretacious it is believed the daytime temp rose to 60-70C in some places inland, totally inhospitable for any life alive today apart from some bacteria. If we don't reduce our emissions we're heading back to that but hey, you carry on being blase about a large proportion of the continents being uninhabitable.
Re: (Score:2)
> Earth has been doing its thing for billions of years. It will continue to do so.
That is not and has never been a point of contention.
The question is what Earth doing its thing, when the cycles of climate are perturbed by our activity, will do to us.
Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! (Score:5, Interesting)
> no statistically significant decline in its extent since 2005.
For the entirety of that 20 year period I have be told, persistently and with increasing urgency and shrillness, the exact opposite of that line.
For 20 years it has been 'melting at alarming rates. Melt rates accelerating! Sea ice extent SHRINKING! All time lows. Northwest passage could be completely ice free by next year....'
So how does this come out of left field in 2025? And how am I reading it in the Guardian of all places?
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah Al Gore promised us a hockey stick shaped curve dam it!
Re: (Score:3)
>> no statistically significant decline in its extent since 2005.
> For the entirety of that 20 year period I have be told, persistently and with increasing urgency and shrillness, the exact opposite of that line.
Looking at [1]the graph [nasa.gov], there's considerable variation from year to year, and it's not clear if the loss of ice has actually slowed down, or if it's just statistical variation.
It really depends on how long a time period you average over.
[1] https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/arctic-sea-ice/?intent=121
Re: (Score:2)
Well, the reason why is because news reporters aren't required to learn calculus. That chart is not a chart of the extent of sea ice, its a chart of the rate of sea ice decline. The ice is still shrinking. The ice is still at all time lows.
Re: Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! (Score:1)
Because trump is cleaning shit up right now
"halved since 1979" (Score:3)
> ... halved since 1979...
... which was after a decade of news articles about global cooling and the coming ice age.
Re: (Score:2)
> No idea, neither does anyone else or they wouldn't have been telling us for 20 years how dramatically ice coverage has been dropping when it hasn't, according to this data set.
I'll bet if you looked, you would see that most of those articles were based on data from before 2017.
Re: (Score:2)
Clearly you didn't read it. They explain away why they have been wrong for twenty years, didn't know what was happening and misrepresented it. Then they state that they have "a very solid understanding" of what's happening. Clearly they didn't. Then why were your predictions so wrong? Why should you have any credibility at all?
Re: (Score:2)
Those articles don't actually contradict global warming. Just that they assume no man-made influence on climate. Too simplistic is all.
Sea ice vs. Total ice (Score:2)
Aren't the glaciers draining out to sea? That's a constant influx of near freezing and frozen water settling out. I would expect things to remain in balance until that feed stops. Then when the temperature isn't held down any more we would see the impacts assert themselves in earnest.
Re: (Score:2)
Mountain glaciers are a pinprick compared to the ice sheet currently melting at an accelerating rate on greenland not to mention in antartica.
/. needs a new icon (Score:2)
for triggered.
but but but.... (Score:2)
But but but it was "settled science."
Ice age (Score:1)
Lol I said it a numerous turner and again : by burning fossil fuels we only accelerated the coming of the next ice age, and it will be shorter but much much much colder.
nuclear winter (Score:2)
cold day in hell