By Steve Goddard
The Arctic is still running well below freezing, and as a result there just isn’t much happening, except for an odd discrepancy that has developed between NSIDC and NORSEX related to the 2007 extent. Read on.
The animation video above (generated from UIUC images) shows the entire month of May to date, and as you can see we have yet to see any melt in the Arctic Basin.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
The little melt which has occurred since the winter peak has been at lower latitudes, as can be seen in red in the modified NSIDC map below.
The equivalent map below shows changes over the last week. Melt is proceeding very slowly.
The animation below shows Arctic temperatures over the last month. Note that they have alternated between a little above normal and a little below normal. The video was generated from NOAA maps.
More interesting is what is going at the South Pole. GISS says the South Pole has been cold, while NOAA says the South Pole has been hot.
GISS April Antarctica
NOAA almost always shows the South Pole hot for some reason. Temperatures in Vostok averaged -90F in April and a balmy -85F so far in May. It only needs to warm up another 117 degrees to start Hansen’s Antarctic meltdown.
This time of year there is almost no year over year variation in extent, as can be seen in the DMI graph below.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
What is interesting is that NORSEX shows 2010 extent well above 2007, while NSIDC shows it below 2007.
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_images/ssmi1_ice_ext.png
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
The four major ice extent indices continue to diverge.
Another interesting observation is that JAXA has changed their graphs. They used to show a weird little bump on June 1 of every year.
JAXA May 2 graph
But that bump has disappeared.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent.png
I hope the Polar bears aren’t disappointed at the loss of their little June 1 mogul. NSIDC anomalies can be seen below in the modified NSIDC map. The Alaska side has above normal sea ice and the Greenland side has below normal sea ice.
This is a reflection of ocean temperatures, which are below normal in the North Pacific, and above normal near Greenland.
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
We are still about six weeks away from anything interesting happening in the Arctic. Stay tuned.
A simple question: why does arctic sea ice begin to decline well before the mean temperature even comes close to reaching the freezing point? If the charts are correct, ice growth begins almost coincident with the fall of the mean temperature below the freezing point. So why does it not at least hold steady until the mean temperature again exceeds freezing?
Does it indicate that daytime insolation is overwhelming any night time freezing or does it reflect some sort of an expanded erosion due to an annual shift in winds or oceanic currents?
Artic is bipolar now (as many global warmers):
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/AT-GMF.gif
It’s worst then we thought the divergence continues!
Luke Skywarmer
Interesting. It seems that on 3 indices out of 4 the ice extent is now lower than on the same day in the extreme year 2007. Does that mean that we hold the record for the lowest ice extent ever for todays date?
Degrading sensors anyone?
Here is what NSIDC’s Mark Serreze is now saying – –
“Could we break another record this year? I think it’s quite possible,” said Mark Serreze of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/arctic-sea-ice-heading-for-new-record-low/article1575212/
That is the same Mark Serreze of the famed “Death Spiral” quote.
I have a question –
If he is proven utterly wrong again and since the agency he supervises is responsible for data collection, not policy goals – – should one call for his resignation after September of 2010? Remember, I am one of the three liberals who come to this website – – but I feel that all federal agencies with the responsibility to collect data should refrain from partisan policy pronouncements – whether Bush’s Labor Department or Hansen’s NASA-GISS.
“Melt is proceeding very slowly.” It seems the rate of melt is about highest ever for this time of year?
“The Arctic is still running well below freezing” From what I understand, isn’t that from a model of mean temps N of 80 lat.?
Looking at some concentration maps, it almost looks like a lot is going on:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/NEWIMAGES/arctic.seaice.color.000.png
I recall that JAXA was going to try to eliminate that bump in the chart where they switch from their dry to their wet ice algorithms. Suppose they “homogenized” the dry numbers with the wet ones?
“mb says:
May 23, 2010 at 11:13 am
Interesting. It seems that on 3 indices out of 4 the ice extent is now lower than on the same day in the extreme year 2007. Does that mean that we hold the record for the lowest ice extent ever for todays date?”
No, see JAXA.
Just wait for R Gates to tell us how pleased he is that the extent is lowering. Me? I think its all nonsense and will wait for the new satellite to give us a better picture of the reality up there.
Well it looks as if Artic ice is behaving as per normal whatever normal is. Variations are normal – I think. What does this tell us? Well, the warmists are wrong on this one. Maybe next year? Or in a hundred years or a thousand years. Or maybe they’re completely wrong and the next ice age is just around the corner. Now, that would be real climate change but don’t tell Obama. He just couldn’t cope with the perspective shift or whatever fancy words the spin doctors use.
What is interesting is that NORSEX shows 2010 extent well above 2007, while NSIDC shows it below 2007.
Do you think we just hurt Walt’s feelings?
What’s up down in the Antarctic?
Nice post.
JAXA has posted an explanation for the change on their website:
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
All this excitement about melting ice. Did anyone ever check during the MWP on how much sea ice melted during the summer? Did anyone care? They were probably too busy trying to survive. Polar bears seem to have carried on through that era quite nicely. So who’s more intelligent, a polar bear or a WWF activist? Put both out naked on the frozen tundra and my money’s on the polar bear. The activist doesn’t stand a chance against reality; can only score guilt points against his fellow human beings.
What I see here let me believe, in 2007 we had a lot less ice than we have today, isn’t-it ?
The people with the most to lose if the ice doesn’t melt are reporting the most melt. Why didn’t you just say so? I wonder how long they can keep it up.
I am not happy with the lack of access to raw data. All you can get is these highly processed low resolution maps that are useless for checking on the differences of methodology & comparing it to reality. Suppose I wanted 100m resolution raw images and processed maps from NSIDC & JAXA. Where would I get them?
There has been ice melt in the Arctic basin if you look at a higher resolution
http://www.iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/arctic_AMSRE_nic.png
Also, “The little melt which has occurred since the winter peak” actually is a lot of melt considering the starting and finishing points :-
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
from the peak at the start of April to now is the steepest in all years on the JAXA graph. They put the reason for getting rid of the bump, due to correction for surface melt ponds, on the graph page.
Andy
And this today from the NWS:
SXUS76 KMTR 231430
RERMTR
RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN SAN FRANCISCO
730 AM PDT SUN MAY 23 2010
…RECORD COLD THIS MORNING AT DOWNTOWN SAN FRANCISCO…
THE TEMPERATURE DROPPED TO 47 DEGREES THIS MORNING AT THE OFFICIAL
DOWNTOWN SAN FRANCISCO WEATHER OBSERVING SITE. THIS TIES THE RECORD
LOW FOR THIS DATE OF 47 DEGREES LAST SET IN 1909.
INTERMITTENT CLIMATE DATA FOR THIS SITE GOES ALL THE WAY BACK TO THE
GOLD RUSH DAYS OF 1849…BUT CONTINUOUS TEMPERATURE RECORDS AND DATA
FOR DOWNTOWN SAN FRANCISCO DIDNT START UNTIL AROUND 1871. HOWEVER
THIS IS ONE OF THE LONGEST RUNNING CLIMATE SITES IN THE WESTERN US.
This is OT but the idea has a lot of merit so I hope that you will allow it to be posted in this thread where it will be near the front and thus be exposed to more readers. Thanks, RayG
The Chiefio has proposed an interesting “citizen’s audit” a la Donna Laframboise’s citizen’s audit of the citations in AR4. (WUWT readers may already know that her team found that 30% of the cites in AR4 were from the grey or worse “literature.”) His post is titled “An Easy Airport Heat Island Audit?” I am asking WUWT readers to review and comment on the proposed methodology. Given the success that Donna Laframboise’s group enjoyed, the Chiefio’s idea may provide the basis to de-bunking the claims that there is no such thing as an AHI effect making E.M. Smith’s idea worth promoting and pursuing. http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2010/05/22/an-easy-airport-heat-island-audit/
O/T sorta
May be able to predict Enso 12-14 months in advance
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2010/02/study-el-nino-could-be-predicted-more-than-a-year-in-advance/1?csp=obinsite
2008 was lower at this point. See graphs 1,2,3 and 5.
blackswhitewash.com says:
May 23, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Nonsense is right. Nobody lives up there.
According to the Sacramento Bee, the coldest winter for N. Calif. in 50 years.
Wonder what the ice was doing in the Arctic in 1960?
Joe Bastardi at his blog states:
“I want to again have my readers understand that I have a big ice melt season predicted with levels below 08 and 09, but it should not go below 07. However a big re-freeze is coming this winter to take us back to where we were, and next year, there will not be near as much ice melt in the summer, and the summer levels that year should be the HIGHEST in a decade”.
His blog is found at the Accu Weather website click Ireland/UK and Joe Bastardi.
etudiant:
The ice melts from the bottom up. Very roughly, it takes a certain air temperature to maintain a certain thickness of ice. We used to camp out on the ice starting when the sun came up in March and stay until the ice got too thin to land a DC-3 in May. The ice went from more than six feet to around two feet but you couldn’t tell it from the top of the ice. There was no sign of melting at all. The temperature was still well below freezing. I can remember a beautiful sunny day when the temperature went all the way up to minus 15 F. It was glorious, almost sunbathing weather.
OT
Humans caused global cooling 12,000 years ago by killing methane belching woolly mammoths.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2010/05/mammoth-extinction-triggered-climate-cooling/1