<div dir="ltr"><div><h3>PIOMAS is Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System.</h3><h3>If I understand this correctly, the following information from the Polar Science Center at the University of Washington provides an easy to understand perspective on the energy added to the Earth's climate system from anthropogenic global warming, though this information quoted below does not specifically mention AGW.</h3><p><font size="4">They calculate the added energy that is increasing rates of ice melt in watts per square meter, in terms of flashlight bulbs.</font></p><p><font size="4">Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett<br></font></p><p><font size="4">---------------------------------------</font><br></p><h3><a href="http://psc.apl.uw.edu/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/">http://psc.apl.uw.edu/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/</a><br></h3>Content below from website above:<br></div><div><h3>Perspective: Ice Loss and Energy</h3><p>It takes energy to melt sea ice. How much energy? The energy required to melt the 16,400 Km<sup>3</sup> of ice that are lost every year (1979-2010 average) from April to September as part of the natural annual cycle is about 5 x 10<sup>21</sup> Joules. For comparison, the U.S. Energy consumption for 2009 (<a href="http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy">www.eia.gov/totalenergy</a>) was about 1 x 10<sup>20</sup>
J. So it takes about the 50 times the annual U.S. energy consumption to
melt this much ice every year. This energy comes from the change in the
distribution of solar radiation as the earth rotates around the sun.</p><p><font size="4">To melt the additional 280 km<sup>3</sup> of sea ice, the amount we have have been losing on an annual basis based on PIOMAS calculations, it takes roughly 8.6 x 10<sup>19</sup> J or 86% of U.S. energy consumption.</font></p><p><font size="4">However,
when spread over the area covered by Arctic sea ice, the additional
energy required to melt this much sea ice is actually quite small. It
corresponds to about 0.4 Wm<sup>-2 </sup>. That’s like leaving a very
small and dim flashlight bulb continuously burning on every square meter
of ice. </font>Tracking down such a small difference in energy is very
difficult, and underscores why we need to look at longer time series and
consider the uncertainties in our measurements and calculations.</p><br></div></div>