It appears Arctic sea ice has bottomed out and is now on the growth rebound. The NANSEN Arctic ROOS website shows that in terms of area, sea ice appears to have turned the corner as of Sept 13th data. While that is just one data point, it turned the corner about this time last year, and the year before.
More data and graphs from NANSEN Arctic ROOS are available here.
Many WUWT readers have been watching JAXA’s sea ice extent graph closely, so have I. Typically JAXA updates the graph twice a day; once around the start of their business day (in Japan), and then a second update that contains the corrected data (after going through processing and QC) a few hours later. Tonight (9/14) about 11:30PM PST JAXA updated their Sept 14th AMSRE data with this new number:
5,269,531 km2
UPDATE: JAXA updated the number again and it now stands at 5,276,563 km2
That is a gain of almost 20,000 26,719 km2 from the Sept 13th value of 5, 249, 844 km2 which may very well turn out to be the minimum extent for 2009. Here is the Sept 14th chart and the data from JAXA:
Source: IARC-JAXA Sea Ice page
Here is the tabular Arctic Sea Ice Extent data for September 2009 with the minimum highlighted in blue. A CSV data file for Excel is available here.
| 9 | 1 | 2009 | 5423750 |
| 9 | 2 | 2009 | 5398281 |
| 9 | 3 | 2009 | 5379844 |
| 9 | 4 | 2009 | 5387969 |
| 9 | 5 | 2009 | 5363438 |
| 9 | 6 | 2009 | 5345156 |
| 9 | 7 | 2009 | 5328906 |
| 9 | 8 | 2009 | 5330469 |
| 9 | 9 | 2009 | 5315938 |
| 9 | 10 | 2009 | 5295313 |
| 9 | 11 | 2009 | 5278594 |
| 9 | 12 | 2009 | 5259375 |
| 9 | 13 | 2009 | 5249844 |
| 9 | 14 | 2009 | 5276563 |
For 2008 the value reached minimum on September 9th, rebounded slightly, shrank again, and then turned the corner and started rebound again on September 17th.
| 9 | 1 | 2008 | 4957656 |
| 9 | 2 | 2008 | 4924219 |
| 9 | 3 | 2008 | 4927031 |
| 9 | 4 | 2008 | 4868906 |
| 9 | 5 | 2008 | 4825625 |
| 9 | 6 | 2008 | 4808281 |
| 9 | 7 | 2008 | 4739844 |
| 9 | 8 | 2008 | 4715469 |
| 9 | 9 | 2008 | 4707813 |
| 9 | 10 | 2008 | 4729688 |
| 9 | 11 | 2008 | 4751563 |
| 9 | 12 | 2008 | 4745156 |
| 9 | 13 | 2008 | 4742344 |
| 9 | 14 | 2008 | 4747188 |
| 9 | 15 | 2008 | 4731875 |
| 9 | 16 | 2008 | 4726250 |
| 9 | 17 | 2008 | 4718594 |
| 9 | 18 | 2008 | 4736406 |
| 9 | 19 | 2008 | 4745000 |
| 9 | 20 | 2008 | 4752500 |
Of course it is entirely possible nature has other plans, but the appearance of a change in direction is there and the time is about right historically. If this holds it will put 2009 542,031 km2 above 2008’s Sept 9th low extent, making it the third lowest extent in the AMSRE data set and the second year of increasing ice extent since the historic low in 2007 of 4,267,656 km2
The signs are right, and Nature will let us know in the next few days if we have indeed turned the corner and will be headed upwards.
UPDATE: Commenter Dave points out that the DMI extent graph, shown below, does a better job of illustrating the uptick.
It is interesting to note that the figure of 5,269,531 km2 is 23% higher than 2 years ago.
Doesn’t seem to stop the “it’s worse than we thought”, “…decreasing at an accelerating rate”, and “xxx shipping route open for the first time” headlines, though.
The Jaxa plot optically is still showing a slight down trend.
By my calculations the JAXA figure is a 23% increase over the 97 Minimum.
Don’t be silly! The graph clearly shows that the arctic ice is shrinking. Greenpeace said so. Oh, wait…
“……making it the third lowest extent in the AMSRE data set and the second year of increasing ice extent since the historic low in 2007 of 4267656 km2”
Sorry to nit pick but do you mean …….of increasing ice extent since the historic low, since records began in 1979, of 4267656?
REPLY: No the AMSRE data set does not go back that far. – A
How much Manhattan islands is 531,250 km2 ?
Start spreading the news!
Ecotretas
Funny this
The NSIDC pictorial version shows that the NW passage area has been rapidly ‘melting’ in the past week and I don’t see any rapid growth elsewhere to compensate.
Also, their graph of sea-ice extent appears in the last day or so to be turning down slightly more steeply than the steady decrease of September.
Any comments from those who really know?
It’s even more clear here: http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
2005 had a late turn. Will see. antartic maximum is at its max probaly to.
The minimum sea ice extent has been increased by 11.3 percent compared to last year.
If this ‘unprecedented’ rate of growth continues, the minimum extent in September 2030 will be almost 40 million square kilometres… I have to admit that the current situation is ‘worse than we thought’. 🙂
It will be interesting also to follow the refreeze. The last years it has been pretty rapid, more rapid than the 79-00 average.
Also the IARC/JAXA data
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
appears to exhibit a turn. Though being unclear on eyeballing, the accompanying digital data is higher on 14 Sept than on 13 Sept.
I wonder how many more years we will have to wait before those who panicked in 2007 admit that their reaction may have been disproportionate (putting it charitably).
It’s cold up there, again. This looks like a clear trend and the doomsdayers said there would be no ice in the arctic this year. Hmmmmm. Maybe something is not wrong but normal with our climate.
Anthony, please check 9/9/08 for minimum!
REPLY: Yes while Sept 9th was the numeric minimum for 2008 in the JAXA AMSRE data, it was not the date that sea-ice turned the corner and started the rebound.. But I’ve made some changes in the article to reflect this. Thanks – Anthony
Will this make everyone happier and more optimistic about the future?
WOW
There is almost 1 million square kilometers more than in 2007. That is around 1.4 Texas (a american area unit, I learnt that watching Armageddon, the Bruce Willis movie)
Also, isn’t the Y-axis a bit misleading? It should start from 0, in my humble opinion.
Nice! However, the alarmists will still say that “the situation is worse than we predicted!”
AMO index for August is out, being 0.205. Looks like it is going down now, possibly going neutral/negative around winter time like it did last winter. European folks, get your snow blowers ready.
AMO relates to arctic ice quite well:
http://blog.sme.sk/blog/560/195013/arcticamo.jpg
From the chart it is visible, that the ice recovery started in 2006 and only extraordinary weather conditions in Arctic 2006/2007 caused the summer ice extent drop; 2008 suffered from it as there was more young thin ice, but 2009 looks like the recovery goes on.
The lowest extent for 2008 was on 9th September (4,707,813 sq. km.). This equalled the earliest date for the minimum since JAXA started their site in 2002. The latest was 24th Sept. 2007. The average date for the minimum is 14th Sept, so if there are no more large decreases, this year is just about on schedule.
Actually the low point of 2008 was September 9th at 4,707,813
REPLY: Yes while Sept 9th was the numeric minimum for 2008 in the JAXA AMSRE data, it was not the date that sea-ice turned the corner and started the rebound. But I’ve made some changes in the article to reflect this. Thanks – Anthony
“Climate change is happening now and nowhere is it more evident than in the Arctic,” said WWF’s head of climate change, Keith Allott.
And which way is it changing, Keith?
Switching between the September 13 and 14 photo of the arctic, one sees that the ice is indeed growing.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/cgi-bin/seaice-monitor.cgi
Concerning ocean temps and recent reports that an El Nino is in the works, I have a hard time seeing the signs for this. The images provided by Unisys over the last few weeks show the equatorial Pacific is cooling and that the Bortheast Pacific is solidly in the negative PDO mode.
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
Just in time for Copenhagen – so the MSM will of course, now point out the last two years of arctic sea ice extent recovery…
P.s. how long before someone questions the “Arctic ice thickness” on this blog?
This years provisional minimum of 5249844 sq km is a full 23% greater than the modern historical minimum, i.e. almost a quarter increase. I wonder how many column inches will be given to that statistic in the warmist camp, or for that matter, in the general media. More likely they will report that this has been the third smallest extent in history, the other two lower extents also being in this century.