10/31 NEWS: See updated graphs here
UPDATED: 10/22/08 The new images below are even closer
Watching arctic sea ice rebound this year has been exciting, more so since a few predictions and expeditions predicated on a record low sea ice this past summer failed miserably. I’ve spent a lot of time this month looking at the graph of sea ice extent from the IARC-JAXA website, which plots satellite derived sea-ice extent. However, there is another website that also plots the same satellite derived data, the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center of Bergen Norway, and they have an added bonus: a standard deviation shaded area. For those that don’t know what standard deviation is, here is a brief explanation from Wiki
…standard deviation remains the most common measure of statistical dispersion, measuring how widely spread the values in a data set are. If many data points are close to the mean, then the standard deviation is small; if many data points are far from the mean, then the standard deviation is large. If all data values are equal, then the standard deviation is zero.
In a nutshell, you could say that any data point that falls within the standard deviation area would be considered “within normal variances” for the data set. That said, current sea ice extent and area data endpoints (red line) are both approaching the edge of the standard deviation (gray shading) for both data sets. Here is sea ice area:
Click for a larger image
And here is sea ice extent:
Click for a larger image
Extent has a bit further to go than area, and of course it is possible that the slope will flatten and it may not reach the SD gray area. It’s also possible it may continue on the current trend line. Only nature knows for certain. A complete presentation from Nansen is on this page which is well worth bookmarking.
What I find particularly interesting is the graph comparing the 2008, 2007, and 2006 sea ice extent. It appears 2008 extent has already bested 2006 extent:
with a hat tip to commenter Patrick Henry
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I repeat.
My two solacing pleasures during this election cycle have been:
1. the growing ice
2. the quiet sun
Really. It’s a little pathetic.
But that’s what I’ve got.
Chilling, isn’t it?
(Thanks, Anthony (and Patrick):0)
At this current dT/dt, there is going to be a process excursion of positive value. Of course, as noted on other threads, once the ice fills in the Arctic Basin proper, the rate of increase will become lower.
Hope you don’t mind but I am sending the link to this item to the Daily Telegraph UK letters page. They won’t publish and they won’t print anything about this I am sure. Worse thing is that I buy this paper every day and have to get all steamed up when I see such articles as that that they published on Monday. But the Guardian and The Independent and The Times are even worse!
Interesting. From comparing this graph with the NSIDC.ORG graph, it appears that the NSIDC.ORG graph depiction of the 1979-2000 average curve is at the upper edge of the standard deviation band… (around 9km^2 on today’s date vs. just over 8km^2 for the mid-band average on the graph you have).
Watts up with that?
What most interests me is to see how far out into the Bering Sea the ice cover extends this winter. With the PDO being in its cool phase, ice extent should increase in this area over previous years, when the PDO was in its warm phase.
sent to the D T
It will not publish anything like this and it was not really written for publication. It was sent to try to make them think before they carry such “stories” (every sense of the word!) again.
CAn they be taken to the Press Complaints Commission about the item on Monday last? Anyone know if that is possible?
Dear Sir,
Last Monday you published the most alarming report from the WWF on loss of sea ice in the Arctic.
The factual inaccuracies and the totally false comments that were reported went uncorrected and no letters were published commenting on this, although I know you received many letters.
Now that the sea ice in the Arctic is back to be within the expected averages for the last 20 year period I hope to see an item about this dominating a half page of your paper, just like the WWF report did on Monday.
Here is a link to the story :
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/10/22/sea-ice-approaching-the-edge-of-normal-standard-deviation/#comment-50793
with other links to the IRAC-JAXX website.
I buy The Telegraph every day and have done so for twenty years. I value its impartial approach, but I am finding my patience sorely tried by your reporting inaccuracies. The thing I always liked about the Telegraph as opposed to other daily papers in the UK was that the comment appeared in the editorial and guest columns and the reporting was unbiased. On the topic of Climate Change you have lowered your standards to report political comment by pressure groups as scientific fact.
Denis Hopkins.
Anthony,
Thanks. With the cold weather the Arctic is experiencing, it could approach the normal line within a week or two. Temperatures off the Alaska coast (where ice is yet to form) are running below -5C now.
http://wxmaps.org/pix/temp2.html
Boy, talk about cognitive dissonance in the mainstream media. Can anyone direct me to a single article (aside from climate blogs) that discusses this surge in Arctic sea ice?
This isn’t newsworthy – 30% more ice? Gimme a break.
Speaking of the expanding cryosphere, what’s the latest on the world’s glaciers?
Since I don’t see anything in the media about them anymore I assume they’re growing. (I know the glaciers on California’s Mt. Shasta are growing).
Thank you, thank you , thank you. Thank you for finally having a graph that covers the period 1979-2007 instead of the 1979-2000 period. Thank you for finally having a graph that has the standard deviation rather than just a single line. Now if we could just get the data to go back and start at 1907 it would be even more meaningful.
Denis Hopkins
I take the opposite view .. the DT has responsibly published information that it would have been biased journalism to ignore.
It’s articles by Mr Booker that need to be taken to PressComplaints
A closeness to the normal amount of ice that is unprecedented. Since April 2008.
REPLY: Nobody said a thing (except you) about it being “unprecedented”. I’m simply pointing out what a great recovery arctic sea ice is having. It’s funny that some people who have commented here don’t seem to like what is happening. – Anthony
Hmmmm.
Yesterday I began saving the NSIDC image of ice cover to a file on my desktop that I named, “ICE”. (Previously I’ve revealed my guilty pleasure over watching the ice cap grow) I thought I’d collect my own little slide show for future viewing enjoyment.
Like I said – anything to take my mind off politics.
Anyway.
As I was saving today’s (Oct. 22) image, I noticed that the caption in the lower right hand corner explaining their pink boundary says:
‘median’ – 1979 to 2000
Yesterday’s Oct. 21 image said: ‘normal’ ice edge
If memory serves – I think it’s previously always said ‘normal’.
Could it be – that now that the ice is becoming more “normal” – they’d rather not have that word “normal’ applying to what’s going on up there in the recovering ice? “Median” is a bit more obscure than “normal”.
Just asking.
reply: can you send me those? info -at- surfacestations.org – Anthony
So sad that we must look at graphs from Norway because our own government is filled with alarmists…
Anthony, ( or somebody)
Please enlighten me:
What’s the difference betwen Ice Area and Ice Extent ?
I assumed they were synonymous.
Please, elucidate the matter if you would.
Thank You
Gardy
But the average you are using is from 1979-2007
– what does the graph look like if you use the more usual 1979-2000 period?
That’s it. I’m officially canceling my plans for opening up my Ron Jon’s® surf shop on Hudson’s Bay and going ahead with my snow ski resort idea for the otherwise useless gypsum stacks scattered about all over West-Central Florida. Get your vacation packages and lift tickets now and save a bundle!
When the ice reaches the mouth of New York harbor, can we tie Algore & Hansen onto a chunk of it and push it off into the Gulf Stream and send them off to Europe so that they may reap the deserved rewards of their
massive scamtireless efforts from the grateful,frozen & starvingadoring masses?I was fooling around with Google Earth and at some point I tried to look at the north of Greenland to see what was there. Then I saw this icon on greenland from UNEP. It is about the Helheim Glacier. This is another typical example of one glacier recessing as their argument that Anthropogenic greenhouse gases is responsible for global warming, etc, etc, etc…
I was looking their 1986 & 2006 pictures (and the scale they give) and using a reference point it seems that the glacier is back (or about) to its 1986 position. Now I don’t know when the picture on Google Earth was taken but surely it must not be 2006 but closer to now since it is fairly high res.
Can someone go confirm this and cache the pictures.
Latitude: 66°21’11.31″N
Longitude: 38° 3’8.21″W
The Telegraph is a paper that I have read for a long time.While it traditionally has had a right wing slant it has been relarively unbiased in reporting facts.
Its current pre occupation with Green issues seems to have occured at the same time that the opposition Conservatives also found the religion.
However it is to be regretted when disinformation is presented as factual. I believe that Mr.Paul Ecclestone their SCIENCE correspondent is doing a once great paper a severe injustice.It’s not even that he had to leave his office to check it out. Easier to stay safe and keep collecting the paycheck eh ?
Why they pay Charles Clover for his stuff on green issues is beyond me. The man has no qualifications at all as a scientist, google his bio and it’s not there, and no grasp of the facts beyond what he’s heard from the green lobby.
No wonder I occasionally weep for the old country.
The more usual average from 1979 to 2000? Why leave out seven years? We have precious few years to average as it is.
Why not include the years from 6,000 to 7,000 years ago?
Anthony, I noticed something interesting in your graph. Have you tried taking the 2008 data starting at its lowest point, and delaying it about two weeks to see how closely a delayed version of it matches the 2007 recovery. They look remarkable similar, just delayed about two weeks.
REPLY Its not my graph, it is from Nansen, so I don’t have the raw data specific to this. – Anthony
Pablo
Green issues won’t gpo away no matter how much you wish we’re not living on an overcrowded planet and are currently changing the composition of the atmosphere.
The DT has done a great service by raising awareness of important issues.
Good luck in your exile status – if you’re that upset about the old country .. try returning any paying local taxes …
PeteM,
If you are running out of space in the old country, come on out to Texas. We’ve got plenty of room and people out here are right friendly.
See Ya Soon,
Mike
Here’s a century old map with a European perspective. I suspect it’s not wholly accurate as far as the sea ice extent is concerned, but still, it’s telling in the amount of open seas that are shown.
http://explorenorth.com/library/maps/franzjosefland1906.htm
Jim Watson,
I read that Mt. Shasta’s glaciers are growing because of an increase in precipitation, not because of any regional cooling trend. Since Mt. Shasta is ~14,000 feet elevation, and almost all precipitiation is in winter (unlike the Cascades further north where proportionately more precipitation falls as rain) on the upper slopes of Shasta, it falls as snow. This ~17% increase in precipitation (which some attribute to increased regional tempertature over the Pacific to the west) is thought to over-ride the ~1.8 degree increase in regional temperature over the same time period. As far as I can tell through reading the information out there, this is the only glacier in California (and the Cascades) that’s growing. The Sierra Nevada and Cascade glaciers continue to shrink.
Anyone else out there have information on the rest of the west-coast glaciers?
John D.
REPLY: That’s right, glaciers are a proxy for precipitation mostly, not temperature. Sublimation is a bigger force than melting when precipitation does not occur frequently enough to sustain it. – Anthony