Update: Claim Satellites are interpreting ice as open water in MANY spots - Tom Nelson Blog. 

One reason why your boat may not be able to pass through an allegedly ice-free area. One of the groups focusing most closely on possible Arctic shipping lanes, the National Ice Center operated by the Navy and Commerce Department, says flatly that the satellites are misreading conditions in many spots and that there is too much ice in a critical spot along the Russian coast (highlighted in the smaller image above) to allow anything but ice-hardened ships to get through. In an e-mail message Wednesday, Sean R. Helfrich, a scientist at the ice center, said that ponds of meltwater pooling on sea ice could fool certain satellite-borne instruments into interpreting ice as open water, “suggesting areas that have substantial ice cover as being sea-ice free.” The highlighted area is probably still impassible ice, including large amounts of thick old floes, he said. I sent the note to an array of sea-ice experts, and many, including Mark Serreze at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, concurred.

By John Goetz on Watts Up with that

CNN posted an AP story on their website regarding the separation in early August of a 19-square-mile ice shelf from Elsmere Island. It starts:

TORONTO, Ontario (AP) — A chunk of ice shelf nearly the size of Manhattan has broken away from Ellesmere Island in Canada’s northern Arctic, another dramatic indication of how warmer temperatures are changing the polar frontier, scientists said Wednesday. Derek Mueller, an Arctic ice shelf specialist at Trent University in Ontario, told The Associated Press that the 4,500-year-old Markham Ice Shelf separated in early August and the 19-square-mile shelf is now adrift in the Arctic Ocean.

It sure sounds impressive and scary, but then most people probably think of New York City when they hear “Manhattan”. They might even think of the greater NYC Metro Area. But in reality, Manhattan is but one of the five Boroughs in NYC. And 19 square miles is roughly 4.4 x 4.4 miles. Is it really that impressive or alarming? It is actually smaller than the town limits of the little community I live in. Furthermore, the ice did not actually melt. The article states that it is adrift in the arctic. Read more of John’s post and the comments here.

Icecap Note: This has nothing NADA to do with greenhouse gases. This is a natural cyclical change due to decadal shifts in both the Atlantic and Pacific. See story here and here. The warm water was off the Siberia coast last year originated in the North Atlantic when the AMO peaked in 2005 and this year has rotated to off the north Alaska coast. To the south it was one of coldest summer in decades in places like Anchorage as the Pacific has returned to its cold mode. The melt season is coming to an end soon.

See larger image here

You can bet the alarmists and media are rooting for a new record. They lost the global warming story. The latest UAH MSU global temperature for August is -0.01C, in other words ever so slightly colder than the normal August since 1979. Temperature trend down continues even as the CO2 continues to rise.

See larger image here