Elizabeth May within hours of reading a report from the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado that stated the Arctic Ice Melt this year was the worst melt since 2007 when a record was set, called on Stephen Harper to: “implement measures to prevent a a ‘national nightmare’ from unfolding in the Arctic’s rapidly changing environment”!
Now I don’t know about you but if Harper had the ability to “stop a massive slag of ice covering millions of square miles to stop melting immediately” then I would surely look at him in a bit of a different light!
This story has now been published by all the mass media sell-outs in the world and if one isn’t informed, they may just want to buy a dingy and keep it tied to their front door so they won’t get washed away by the second great flood!
This is how absolutely “loopy” the eco-whackos have become!
Now here is the TRUTH about this so-called massive melt!
Oh No! Six Thousandths Of One Percent (0.006%) More Of The World’s Ice Melted This Summer!
By P Gosselin on 27. August 2012
So just how bad is the Arctic ice melt this year? Listening to the alarmists you’d think the world’s ice supply was rapidly dwindling.
The amount of extra sea ice melting in the Arctic this summer is microscopic when compared to the world’s total ice stockpile. Photo credit: Stephen Hudson (Wikipedia).
When dealing with such phenomena, you have got to pull your eyeballs back a little and take a look at the entire picture to put things in their proper perspective.
The headlines are that Arctic ice melt will reach a record low since satellite measurements have been taken (all the way back to the 1970s, i.e. roughly a whole half an AMO cycle – sarc off).
So how much more Arctic sea ice has melted (been dispersed) this year? Let’s say the Arctic sea ice retreats to 3.5 million km2 by mid September. That would mean 800,000 sq. km less than 2007. That sounds frightening. But how much ice is that? Answer: 800,000 km2 x 0.002 km thick = 1600 cubic km. Holy moly!
Now, how much is that in relation the world’s total ice volume? This is important to know. If it’s 2 or 3%, then we will need to worry.
Using the numbers from Wikipeda we can calculate a rough inventory:
1. Antarctica continent:
Area = 13,700,000 km2 covered with ice
Mean ice thickness: 1.6 km
Ice volume: 21,920,000 km3
2. Antarctica sea ice (Aug):
Area 15,000,000 km2
Mean sea ice thinkness: 0.002 km (rough conservative estimate)
Antarctica sea ice volume = 30,000 km3
3. Greenland
Ice volume (Wikipedia) = 2,850,000 km3
4. Arctic sea ice
Area, September 2007: 4.3 million km2
Average ice thickness: 0.002 km
Total September Arctic sea ice volume = 8600 km3
Adding them up, it yields a total ice volume of:24,808,600 cubic km stockpiled on the planet (neglecting the glaciers on mountains, which are puny in comparison).
This year in the Arctic, I estimate (see above) that a “whopping” 1600 km3 more Arctic sea ice will have melted by mid September. Yes, 1600 km3 from the total of almost 25 million we have stocked on Earth!
How much is that in percent? (1600 / 24,808,600) x 100 =
The Big Green Lie 
You’re making a political statement not a scientific statement.
First, sea ice has no effect on water levels, it’s displacement is proportional to it’s submerged volume, so any causal relationship with sea level rise is fallacious. Only glacial melt on land contributes to a water level rise.
Second, there is not a linear relationship (as you assume with your math) between sea ice area and sea ice volume. There are models for sea ice thickness which could be used to estimate volume, but it is a problem which has not been “solved” in the literature. Your model (math) does not account for volume loss in the multi-year ice.
Now lets move onto interpretation. You make the clear assumption that this is the only ice volume loss in the whole world when you compute the percentage of world ice reserves. Clearly if ice is melting over the summer in the arctic it is melting elsewhere… So lets make an estimate using your numbers (even though they’re wrong, but I think they’re ballpark).
So a 1600 km3 loss from 2007 to 2012 of an average 30,000 km3 total volume is 5.3% loss in volume over that period.
I’m going to assume that if the top of the world is melting then Greenland is melting too (which I don’t have to assume because satellite gravity measurments clearly demonstrate a dramatic volume loss http://www.skepticalscience.com/Greenland-ice-loss-continues-to-accelerate.html). Which would effect water levels.
You seem to clearly miss the point that this is an indicator. Yes the volume lost is small in this one example, but it is the easiest to measure on a large scale with satellite imagery, which has been around for decades. So long term trends can be established. Loss of volume of most of the worlds glaciers has been documented, but exact figures are harder to come by.
Also you’re not even mentioning (or refuting) that a change in ice area will effect solar absorption or animal habitats…
So a pretty narrow perspective on the whole with false assumptions abounding.
Well said!!!