http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/arctic-meteo...
"Overall, if the atmospheric pressure is high in the Arctic, it tends to be low in the northern middle latitudes, such as northern Europe and North America. If atmospheric pressure is low in the middle latitudes it is often high in the Arctic."
I think you may, in essence, have the causal mechanism backwards. The UK is hot *because* the Arctic is colder than usual for the moment.
As I understand it (admittedly a probably imperfect understanding), the Arctic has been warming faster than the rest of the planet over the last several decades, at least in part because the currents that normally keep cold Arctic air "contained" have been weakening. This has led to unusually cold weather in temperate areas over that same period, because the cold Arctic air is replacing (or at least chilling) the warmer air masses they'd normally have.
It follows, then, that if and when the air masses return to their previous normal state, places like the UK will have warmer weather than usual.
The gulf stream may be involved somehow, as well. The gulf stream is why the UK, and western Europe in general, are much warmer than areas of similar latitude in North America.
Possibly relevant pages:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_osci...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_stream
At the moment I can’t answer the question so what I’m going to do is to put your hypothesis to the test. This will involve comparing the warmest and coolest periods in the UK in recent years against the behaviour of Arctic ice during those same periods. I’ll let you know what happens.
So here’s what I did…
I looked at all the warm and cold periods in the UK during the last 10 years. There were 75 hot datapoints and 117 cold ones, these spanned 6 periods of hot weather and 5 periods of cold weather. The earliest event was the August 2003 heatwave, the most recent was the July 2013 heatwave. The other hot weather events were those of Jul 06, Apr 11, Sep 11 and Mar 12; the cold weather events were those of Feb 09, Dec 09, Nov 10, Feb 12 and Mar 13.
Your suggestion is that when it’s hot in the UK the Arctic ice increases, I extended this notion to include the possibility that when it’s cold in the UK the Arctic ice decreases. In determining ice behaviour I referenced the data for ice extent.
For each of the periods under test the change in sea-ice extent was compared to a) the mean over the ten year period from 31 July 2003 to 30 July 2013, b) the ice extent during the same period in the proceeding year and c) the ice extent during the same period in the following year (the two events that occurred in 2013 were compared with 2011 and 2012).
Additionally, each period was compared to a seven and fourteen day offset period and a seven day lead in and lead out period. For example, the UK had unusually warm weather during the period 02 to 14 Aug 2003, the behaviour of the Arctic ice for the following periods was then compared to the 10 year mean, the previous year and the following year…
02 to 14 Aug (no offset)
26 Jul to 07 Aug (-7 days)
19 to 31 Jul (-14 days)
09 to 21 Aug (+ 7 days)
16 to 28 Aug (+14 days)
26 Jul to 14 Aug (7 day lead in added)
02 to 21 Aug (7 day lead out added)
The reason for including the offsets was to determine if warming/cooling in the UK either precedes/follows unusual patterns in the Arctic as opposed to happening simultaneously. The lead-in and lead-out periods were included to determine if warming/cooling acted as a trigger. For each of the eleven periods under test some 21 comparisons were run (231 comparisons in all).
In total there were six warm periods and by applying some algorithms to the outcomes we can assign a ‘score’ to each of them. The scale is from –100 (totally opposes your hypothesis) to +100 (totally supports your hypothesis). The six results are –26, +20, +48, +46, +5, -36. A direct average gives a ‘score’ of 9.5, weighting the scoring to take account of ice dynamics and statistical variations gives a slightly higher score of 10.341.
Extending the hypothesis to include the cold periods the five results are –92, -11, -2, +12, +52, the average is –8.2, the weighted average is –3.888.
Taking all the cold and warm periods and all the different analyses gives an overall value of +1.670, bearing in mind that this is on a scale from –100 to +100 means that unfortunately your hypothesis can be neither confirmed nor rejected. Even sticking with your initial idea that warm UK weather correlates with an increase in Arctic ice (ignoring the cold UK weather events) then the score is 10.341, which is again too small to confirm or reject your notion.
Given the very limited scope of the analysis you’d be looking at a score greater than +50 to say with even moderate confidence that the hypothesis was true (below –50 to reject it). Of the eleven periods examined only two fell into the ‘high confidence’ range – one that strongly supported the idea and one that strongly rejected it, this is well within the bounds of normal statistical variation.
In short, and bearing in mind that this analysis only extended to 192 days, your hypothesis does not appear to be a valid one. However, given that there were so few results that clearly stood out from possible statistical and meteorological noise, it can not be rejected.
To determine how much validity there was would require comparing say 10 years worth of meteorological UK data against 10 years of sea-ice extent data, so you’d have 3,653 days compared in perhaps 100 different ways to sea-ice extent, this would give about 4 million datapoints compared to the 4,000 that I used.
Just to mention about the graph you linked to. It appears that the rate of melt in the Arctic in recent weeks has slowed but in fact what’s happened is that it’s returned closer to normal after a period of very rapid decline. During the UK heatwave from 11 to 25 July the mean reduction in the ice was 83,094km2 per day, this compares to the average for that period of 79,222km2 per day. It does appear to oppose your theory, but again the numbers are too close to reliably determine anything.
Yes Arctic oscillation and jet stream plus blocking highs stop warmer weather reaching the Arctic. the ice extent has gone up because there is an arctic cyclone that has pushed the ice out, it is not because of freezing, although it is pretty cold for this time of year.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/meanTar...
Weather
Let's get this straight: it has not gone up, it has gone down less rapidly. Big difference.
Not sure how you are getting "Arctic ice increases when UK becomes hot"
Given the graph you posted http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/image...
I seem to recall deniers talking about higher sea ice back in June, a subject, they as usual, went quite on into July when as your graph shows (the blue line) fell back down to near the record low of 2012, ice is currently declining for the summer melt that will not end till near the end of September, how you are getting an 'increase' from that will just have to go into the same basket as your views on the history of thermometers, I guess.
In that same vein we have
"Never mind the "lake" at the North Pole, there has been open water/thin ice there many times, or else submarines couldn't surface."
This one comes from some nonsense on the Watts website from some time ago and has done the rounds here several times, each time I mention that 'Polynya' are a known phenomenon. Watts used a picture of the nuclear sub the 'skate' to try and make his point.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/26/ic...
Of course the reference to Polynya is right there in the text from James Hester, who was on that voyage. I pointed that out to Watts and he deleted that part of my comment as "[snip - baseless accusation]" this is the man deniers claim can be trusted.
Sadly for him the term is right there in his own comment and it is a real and studied phenomenon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynya
The Skate was able to surface through up to 1m (3 feet) of ice, the average thickness of Arctic sea ice is just 2m and they where actively looking for Polynya to use and they found one near the actual pole. Watts claims on the meaning of this are rubbish as are most of the things he posts, if you challenge him on them he deletes your comment, that is his attitude to truth.
as for the last part
"Look at the line, it's gone up, not much admittedly, since the start of our hot weather."
Talk about clutching for straws.
Edit
Hmmm, I'm ranting, am I, interesting, I note not even the slightest attempt to answer the point that there only a tiny rise in the graph you posted, even in your own words "not much admittedly", trying to draw some vague connection to an almost imperceptible rise is something I've come to expect from deniers, I note you are not trying to draw any conclusion from the much larger drop seen from late June to early July, or won't your blinkers let you see that, but expecting a real answer from you, is as always a waste of time
Then we have this "PPS Plural of phenomenon is Phenomena"
Cool, nice correction you are right phenomena is the plural of phenomenon, but as I was talking about (in the two times I used the reference) Polynya, a singular type of event, I guess all I can say in reply to that is perhaps you should look up the meaning of Plural, before you trip over your own left foot (oh sorry right foot) again, thanks for the laugh.
As to the answer you seem to want (which I doubt) the very small rise in the graph you present is about 1 week (or should I say weeks to give you something to avoid the point on) U.K temps were about average through Jun and went up around the 4 or 5 of July almost 4 weeks ago and have stayed 5-10 degs above average for most of the time since so the U.K. was warming weeks before the tiny change in ice that you are trying to link to even happened.
PPS don't worry I'm sure that nobody noticed that while you where making claims about my education that you never could actually address the point on Polynya.
Arctic ice increases when UK becomes hot. Why?
When we have warm weather in UK, I've noticed that the Arctic ice extent increases, why is this?
I mentioned this a while ago to Trevor.
Any ideas anybody?
Does the jet stream stop warm weather from reaching the icecap?
Never mind the "lake" at the North Pole, there has been open water/thin ice there many times, or else submarines couldn't surface.
Look at the line, it's gone up, not much admittedly, since the start of our hot weather.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png
