I'd say that my comments are not even as strong as a hunch, Michael;
merely speculation of the most unscientific kind. I don't really
expect too much 'new' to happen to the main pack ice itself, unless
there is some evidence of stronger than usual interannual drift over
the coming years.
One reason that I suggested a possible strengthening of the AO was a
comparison with the Antarctic, where open water all around appears to
amplify the force of the internal circulation patterns and isolate
their effects from the surrounding areas to some extent. The present
situation is not likely to do that, but perhaps a semi-permanent
seasonal decoupling of the pack from the surrounding land areas will,
in future, produce a smaller, comparable effect during the Summer.
This would then have implications for North Atlantic and Continental
weather, and possibly thereby patterns of ocean circulation or
jetstream position.
Now that's speculation...
On Aug 11, 4:20 pm, "Michael Tobis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> WHAT CAN BE NEGLECTED
>
> Of course ice has some tensile strength; the question is whether that
> is important in a given circumstance.
>
> Consider the question of liquid water surface tension. It's a crucial
> term in cloud microphysics. Cloud microphysics is important to
> weather, and weather is important to ocean circulation, yet no
> oceanographer (actually I know of a marginal exception, someone
> looking at air entrainment into the ocean in surf, but his career is
> in trouble because it has turned out that the problem he is pursuing
> is unimportant) spends any attention on surface tension. It negligible
> on the scales of interest.
>
> It seems to turn out to be negligible in sea ice distribution
> calculations. I have not seen this worked out, but likely it has been
> done often enough. If William says the term is negligible then I
> believe him. That certainly agrees with my qualitative understanding.
>
> The present question seems to be whether the possibly unprecedented
> opening near the Ellesmere or North Greenland Coast has large scale
> geophysical implications. If that is the question your intuition
> counts for less than the intuition of people working in the field.
>
> BURDEN OF PROOF
>
> It is not inconceivable that the conventional wisdom, here represented
> by WIlliam with me as cheerleader, is wrong.
>
> The same applies elsewhere in climate. Science cannot pursue every lay
> person's intuitions, even every informed lay person's opinions, a
> resource that our field is unusually blessed with in proportion to the
> actual population of professional workers.
>
> That's why burden of proof is on you to come up with a model (not
> necessarily a computation, but necessarily something resembling a
> testable hypothesis) where this matters.
>
> Now, getting that noticed if you have such a model originating outside
> the recognized research centers is another matter, and maybe science
> is due for some criticism on that score.
>
> As far as I know you and Fergus just have hunches, though.
>
> IMPLICATIONS ON SMALLER SCALES
>
> If there are smaller scale implications at the site is another
> question. Maybe so.
>
> I doubt if anyone has paid enough attention to those sites to have any
> strong opinion. It is interesting. I wonder if there is any precedent,
> and if not, what is actually going on up there.
>
> Interestingly, it will be impossible to fund and mount a mission in
> time to do an in situ check. Perhaps some fabulously wealthy cowboy
> will do us the favor of getting some cameras and instruments to the
> site and simultaneously loosening the institutional monopolies.
>
> SCALING REVISITED
>
> All of this reminds me how scaling and regimes are not generally
> understood. It's a part of basic undergraduate mathematics to
> meteorologists and oceanographers, and to a lesser extent to fluids
> folk in general, but it isn't really part of even the mathematically
> literate lexicon in general. We are so steeped in it that we forget
> how alien it is to others. I heard nothing like it in engineering
> school. Though in retrospect it is implicit everywhere in engineering,
> as far as I know it is nowhere explicit.
>
> Since this is fundamental to my critique of economics, it's a first
> order important culture gap in my peculiar worldview. In short, I
> suspect that the approximations on which conventional economics is
> based are inappropriate on longer time scales. I have never seen
> economics explicitly apply conventional scaling arguments either.
> However, engineers have the advantage of real world tests. Either the
> bridge stands up, or it falls down.
>
> mt
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