There is a webcam at the “North Pole” (at least it starts out very near there) that reports via satellite data uplink at regular intervals. They also have a weather station with a once weekly data plot. Note it is still below zero centigrade there.
Latest data (updated approximately weekly)
Readers should note that the station really isn’t at the north pole anymore due to significant ice drift.
WUWT reader GlennB called attention to the webcam images today. A couple of weeks ago (5/31/09) it looked like this. You can see the weather station in the distance.
Now it looks like this:
click for larger images
It appears either a snow drift and/or pressure ridge has blocked the view of the weather station.
Here is what they say about it on NOAA/PMEL’s web page:
NOAA/PMEL’s North Pole web cam deployments began in April 2002. The web cams operate during the Summer warmth and daylight (April – October) and are redeployed each Spring. The images from the cameras track the North Pole snow cover, weather conditions and the status of PMEL’s North Pole instrumentation, which includes meteorological and ice sensors (seen in the camera images). The instruments typically continue to transmit data for months after the solar-powered web cams stop.
Web Camera provided by Star Dot Technologies with technical support by Vance Kozik. System design by Oceantronics. Camera images are relayed via the Iridium satellite system.
Link is here: http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/gallery_np.html
What I find most interesting is the ice/snow sounder graph.
Ice-temperature plot: Plots of air, ice, and ocean temperature as measured by Mass Balance buoys developed by CRREL. Final versions of files will be created by CRREL.
Download preliminary data: 07948.cplot (click for header information)
Latest data (updated approximately weekly)
Not much change in the ice pinger distance, even though the station has drifted 161 miles to the SSE (lat lon data here). If I interpret the pinger graph correctly, the ice thickness has changed from ~2.75m to ~2.5m.
We’ll see if there is any significant chnage in a couple of weeks, assuming it is still transmitting.
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A bit off topic but having to do with data analysis. I have found a very interesting correlation plotting web site buried in NOAA. I have had lots of fun all day with it! Combined with our woodfortrees plotting site, we could have nerdy fun all summer long!
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/data/correlation/
The wind direction measured from the center of the device indicates it has taken a circuitous route from its orginal GPS location. The jet stream maps parallel this motion right out to the edge of the ice. So far, I have not seen the kind of constant unidirectional strong wind that creates ice movement out of the circumpolar regions.
speaking of woodfortrees. We are now up to 12 YEARS NO WARMING using RSS MSU lower troposphere temperatures.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1997/plot/rss/from:1997/trend
What I would like to know is this. Why are various charts which are NOW negative to global warming on WICKEDpedia NOT updated past 2005.
Look at the RSS MSU chart, only to 2005.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_temperature_measurements
Here is Atlantic Cyclone Energy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NOAA_ACE_index_1950-2004_RGB.svg
and Accumulated Cylcone Energy,(global)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accumulated_cyclone_energy
here are recent versions.
http://nofreewind.com/atlantic_ace.jpg shows 06/07 down!!
http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/tropical/global_running_ace.jpg storm time if over!
i’ll save the long link. just google Wikipedia bias
I love the world wide web. Thanks
If the measurements began in 2002, then I have to wonder how the actual temperatures match up with Hanson’s’ estimates.
Based on this data from AMSU satellite (below),
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
AMSU surface temps channel 5 and 4
June 2009 temps will be well below average.. there will be quite a minus. By now nofreewind, the overall trend is starting to go negative. It’s meaningless, of course in the context of climate and even weather. We hope soon that all of us pro AGW and anti-AGW’ers will stop looking at this nonsense since it’s being going on for billions of years and we are only seeing it now due to high tech and our short lives LOL!
I don’t see any barBQ units or air conditioning vents near so I guess you can add it to your OK list of stations.
Only slightly O/T (because it has some fantastic chapters on Arctic and Antarctic ice status), I notice that Ian Wishart’s book Air Con is apparently available for order through US, Canadian and UK bookstores now or shortly via some kind of distribution deal.
I say this because science and public policy have published a new extract from Air Con that alludes to this http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/commentaries/seriously_inconvenient_truth.pdf
But Ted, what if it runs into the fuel drums left by our superb investigative team of insurance agents and salesforce!?!?!?!?!?
VG (17:47:29) :
Based on this data from AMSU satellite (below),
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
AMSU surface temps channel 5 and 4
June 2009 temps will be well below average.. there will be quite a minus. By now nofreewind, the overall trend is starting to go negative.
According to Spencer that data isn’t really worth bothering though.
Pamela Gray (18:21:32) : Re Insruance Agents.
To date I’ve not heard from Nunavut that the Catlin Arctic Survey fuel cache and drums were recovered. Till I hear different I will assume that they are potential marine hazards and an “environmental research” caused oil spill. If the Catlin crowd were a mining or oil company you can bet that the COs (Conservation Officers) would have their ticket books in hand. (Having worked for a government environment ministry for 10 years my opinion if truly biased)
Not much change in the ice pinger distance, even though the station has drifted 161 miles to the SSE (lat lon data here). If I interpret the pinger graph correctly, the ice thickness has changed from ~2.75m to ~2.5m.
The ice surface is at about 60cm so the thickness is now appears to be about 1.9m.
The camera transmitter has been on the frizz for a few weeks but now seems to have sent some data. Rather than a snow drift and/or pressure ridge has blocked the view of the weather station it appears to be snow accumulation on the camera itself (checkout the crystals in this photo).
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/npole/2009/images/tmp/noaa1-2009-0618-041044.jpg.tmp
I have this page bookmarked, and it looked OK on June 18.
I saved one old photo where the sun was behind the camera, and the shadow of the equipment indicated the extent of the support package. I suppose there must be a long cable from the wind generator back to the camera location?
An interesting paper on the relationship between warm summers, cold summers, tree ring growth, PDO, and glacial measures in the upper northern latitudes. And as glaciers go, so goes the Arctic ice area and extent, unless anomalous wind blows it all to hell in a hand basket. Which is to say that summer ice extent and area can be given a blow to its correlation to PDO and summer temps by the blowing wind.
http://www.geog.uvic.ca/dept/uvtrl/holocene05.pdf
Right now we have something very serious to be concerned about. The evidence being presented at WUWT is starting to make itself evident in that WUWT is starting to become the bullseye of the anti-AGW crowd. WUWT and the evidence being presented there is causing “rapid” cooling which is causing the world’s ice sheets to “accelerate” towards a global cooling period. This rate of cooling is occuring faster and more dramatic than the models originally anticipated. What’s concerning me is that this past winter was expected to melt the ice caps, but they are not showing signs of this. If this rate of rapid or accelerating cooling continues, important legislation like Cap and Tax could cease to exist as we have known it. It’s really a very scary scenario.
Well this site will continue to provide evidence that the AGW house of cards is falling down, then there’s NOAA saying there will be an El Nino and that will cause record highs, last I checked El Nino is still slowly forming, the TAO data is showing a slow increase in SST anomalies in the east though not much change in the west.
I hope NOAA is wrong though about El Nino and record highs, that assumes SST anomalies near South America stop their slow rise.
James F. Calvert, died of a heart ailment June 3 at his home in Bryn Mawr, Pa. He was 88. Calvert was commander of the nuclear-powered submarine USS Skate, the first vessel to surface at the North Pole, and former superintendent of the Naval Academy.
REPLY: Saddened to hear this. I have his book “surface at the pole” which I’m reading now. – Anthony
Adam,
El Nino is, in a very important sense, distraction.
El Nino, like fluctuating CO2, variable weather, PDO, ENSO, etc. etc. etc. etc., are all part of a highly variable normal range of a fluctuating global climate/weather system.
If El Nino is strong or weak or absent is not relevant.
The AGW promotion community is based on misrepresentation of normal variable weather. The AGW industry profits by taking evidence of weather fluctutations are selling their interpretation of that variable weather as proof of dangerous global warming.
Who should care, beyond the weather impact on agriculture and fishing, if the El Nino is strong, weak, or absent?
Pamela Gray (17:24:59) :
If you want strong unidirectional wind try the Kittitas Valley in Washington State. Hurry, it might slow some by July.
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/getobext.php?wfo=pdt&sid=KELN&num=72
> nofreewind (17:27:17) :
> speaking of woodfortrees. We are now up to 12 YEARS NO
> WARMING using RSS MSU lower troposphere temperatures.
I can go you 1 better… would you believe 3 better? See http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1997.333/trend/plot/rss/from:1997.25/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2001/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997.25/trend
To summarize; over 12 years of no warming according to Hadley, RSS, and UAH. Even GISS, ever the outlier, shows colling from December 2000 onwards, approx 8.5 years.
I don’t need to travel to Dutch Harbor to get some of that Alaskan weather. It’s doing it right here in sunny No. Ca with chilly unrelenting winds. Got my sweater on, the nippy stuff goes right through you. The daytime temps are totally misleading. Soon as the afternoon wears on, the slightest breeze reveals the tenuous nature of late spring. Below normal is being nice about it.
No mention of the sunspots in this article which appeared in yesterday’s Arizona Republic re: Phoenix weather this month. Note comparison to 1913.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2009/06/19/20090619junelovely0619.html
June hasn’t been this nice since … 1913
But Valley’s stretch of days below 100°, now at 14, is about to come to an end
by John Faherty – Jun. 19, 2009 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
Meteorologists are reluctant to call a month “nice.” They have their data and their science and typically do not describe the weather in such subjective terms.
Except now, because the data prove it.
“It’s probably the best June since I’ve been here, and I’ve been here most of my life,” said the National Weather Service’s Valerie Meyers, who is in her late 40s. “It’s been really nice.”
Possibly the nicest June ever.
It’s that type of thing that is fun to say but hard to quantify.
Thursday, however, was the 14th consecutive day to stay below 100 degrees. That’s the longest stretch of its kind in any June since 1913.
The lower temperatures have allowed people to sleep with windows open and drive with their arms out vehicle windows. Evenings, too, have been spent chatting with neighbors while children or grandchildren play. Those events are not life-changing, but they are, well, nice.
Typically in June, high-pressure systems begin to form above the Valley. High pressure means clear skies and little wind. And, in June, clear skies let in the sunshine, sending the temperatures soaring.
This June, though, has remained cool because of what Meyers called “a persistent area of low pressure off the West Coast.”
The low pressure has prevented the high-pressure systems from getting into place.
Alas, all good things must come to an end. This weekend, the days will heat up. Temperatures are expected to be back in the 104-105 range by the middle of next week.
nofreewind (17:27:17),
I am a firm global warming sceptic but I always feel we are misrepresenting the trend of no-warming by starting in 1997/1998. The alarmists have a point when they claim we are cherry picking.
So they chose to do the same and tell us to plot the trend from 1999 onwards rather than including the anomalous El Nino year1998:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1999/plot/rss/from:1999/trend
Very interesting news on this summer solstice.
Don’t forget folks (northern hemisphere) the nights start drawing in for winter from today!
I had sort of assumed the drift patterns of the arctic were fairly random, but if you click through the drift plots for each year of the stations deployment, the path seems to me to be remarkably consistent. Anyone have any info on why this is?