Arctic Ice Volume Has Increased 25% Since May, 2008

Volume is everything.

I await July 1 with great interest to see many theories begin to be confirmed or exploded (including my own).

Gentlemen,
As you have both demonstrated, countless times in the past, no matter how much data, number crunching, and observed empirical evidence you present…there are those who will vehemently argue that 1+1 = 3. New math in a post-normal science world.
Keep up the great work.

Has anyone produced papers from the Arctic ice data which was declassified by Al Gore’s request in about 1996 or 1997?

kwik
Yes, this week’s Sea Ice News is going to be very interesting ;^)

Meanwhile there is no apparent connection between CO2 and Ice levels in the Arctic.Here is a neat chart showing the divergent lines on the chart:
http://www.globalwarmingskeptics.info/forums/thread-188-post-3137.html#pid3137
Then we have this Greenland temperature chart of the last 15,000 years showing that for the last 10,000 of those years.It has been oscillating in a narrow band of temperature range.Suggesting that there is very little warming UPWARD on the chart left to work with.
http://www.globalwarmingskeptics.info/forums/thread-188-post-3130.html#pid3130
Since it is apparent that there is only a short time in the summer that it is above freezing and that even in high noon,the sun is still low on the horizon.Thus not a whole lot of melting is from the air or sun.
That leaves winds and water temperature changes.

mack520 says:
May 29, 2010 at 10:32 am
The models contradict this. The Navy are not qualified Climate Scientists. Will you believe peer reviewed models or will you deny science?
Models vs observed results…
Facts vs computer models
USN says facts win…

Other than the interest in questioning the validity of the CAGW models, does the Arctic ice really matter to anyone except the polar bears who are not land based? Would the climate of the rest of the world be impacted by ice free water at the North Pole in August or September, even presuming that it was to happen during this cycle?

tommy
I tend to think of -5C on Memorial Day weekend as being cold.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/map/ANIM/sfctmpmer_01a.fnl.29.gif

I have problems trying to understand how air temperatures, which only exceed zero degrees for about 70 days each year, and never seem to exceed +3C, can melt different amounts of ice each year. In fact the melting starts long before air temperatures get close to 0C. Therefore melting must occur mostly under the ice. That can only be reported by measuring the ice thickness. Measuring area and relating it to ice melt seems meaningless when ice gets fractured and broken up at the edges by wind and wave action. That is not melting due to temperature. So whos reports to believe?

The models contradict this. The Navy are not qualified Climate Scientists. Will you believe peer reviewed models or will you deny science?
The sea ice thickness graphs from the Navy are forecasts predicted by…. models.
This is the first sentence from the front page of the section Steve and Anthony got the graphs from.

The Polar Ice Prediction System (PIPS 2.0) is the operational model run by the Naval Oceanographic Office (NAVO) for sea ice forecasting.

http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/pips2/
Models bad, right?

Peter Miller says:
Pete, Tinyurl.com is your friend.
I would put lots of trust in the USN.

There is more ice cover in 2008. There is less 5 metre ice in 2010. There is less 2 metre ice in 2010.
On the same day in 2007, the year of record melt, there is similar ice cover to 27 May 2010, but there is much more thick ice in 2007. In 2010, the thickest ice apparent in 2007 is nearly all gone.
I wouldn’t be too confident about placing bets.

sunsettommy says:
May 29, 2010 at 10:57 am
“Meanwhile there is no apparent connection between CO2 and Ice levels in the Arctic.”
From what I have read you are right. The greenhouse effect is not the major direct cause of Arctic warming. Ocean currents that are warmer than because of greenhouse effect warm and melt the ice. Less ice cover increases the direct heat absorption setting off a positive feedback.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/What-causes-Arctic-amplification.html
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v464/n7293/full/nature09051.html
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Melting-ice-isnt-warming-Arctic.htm
Another factor maybe “black carbon,” basically soot.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/warming_aerosols.html
Note: These references do not support my claim that GHG caused warmer ocean currents to reach the Arctic. I do recall reading this and will continue look for a reference.

FergalR said on May 29, 2010 at 10:46 am

This is the base for the PIOMAS anomaly : http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/images/PIOMAS_daily_mean.png
if PIPS is correct then the volume anomaly is near zero.

That chart is referenced on the Polar Science Center page thusly:

Anomalies for each day are calculated relative to the average over the 1979 -2009 period for that day to remove the annual cycle.

I find that graph troubling, as it looks like a sine wave mixed with an alternating ramping-up sawtooth wave. It says the volume goes down rapidly in the melt season yet takes a much longer time to go back up again. This seems in variance with the normal sinusoidal look of an extent graph like from IARC-JAXA. It tells me the waters will heat up quickly yet cool down slowly. Yet after so much of the insulating ice layer has vanished by the end of the summer melt, wouldn’t all that open water quickly radiate the heat away, cooling off rapidly? I thought all that thin ice at the edges was supposed to melt away first. But with such a steep decline in volume versus the extent graphs, doesn’t this mean the thicker ice is melting away fastest?
Of course the data for that chart, well, doesn’t appear to exist. It looks like somehow they were hindcasting, running the model backwards to get the data, then punching the data into the model for that daily average. There is no database of continuous measurements of volume from 1979 to 2009 to use for that chart, thus the model would seem to be the only source available for a comprehensive set of numbers they could use.

Mike said on May 29, 2010 at 11:19 am:

If you look back you will find a year where the ice volume is larger or smaller than today. Instead one could do science:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/images/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrent.png
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/IceVolume.php

Ah, “doing science.” So that’s what you young people are calling it these days.

The AGW theory consensus will soon be, the theory doesn’t hold water.

What does the Caitlin crew have to say?
Did the US Navy consult them?
I think old mother Gaia has had enough of threats of an ‘ice free Arctic’, I do keep an eye on the ice expanse and the observations, the sea ice has recovered and that has quietened some MSM TV stations – notably the BBC (no more panic reportage of Inuit hunters losing their livelihoods, though the polar bears plight is still news).
I am awaiting a report on the ‘recovering sea ice’ but alas they choose to ignore the facts……….. if they don’t suit the meme…….. of CAGW, then eyes and heads (at the BBC) are averted/stuck firmly in the sand.

It’s never been about length, always about thickness.

Maybe this is the data that got confused with snowpack in Arizona.

• Ice melts from the bottom because the volumetric heat capacity of water is almost 4000 times that of air.
• Wind and ocean currents move ice around a LOT.
• Polar bears are opportunistic feeders. They forage on the ice because that is the easiest way to access the prey in the arctic, and that’s where the most prey lives. When there is no ice, they hunt on land (duh).
• The chief cause of death for Polar Bears is bullets.
• At one time, the chief cause of death for man in the arctic was Polar Bears. It still happens.
Just some observations.

Excellent post – yet again. Thank you. It just dawned on me (and not for the first time) that it’s actually quite sad that as a result of such political corruption of the scientific process, and the use of governmentally sponsored warped science to justify controlling our lives, many of us are actually looking forward to the return of an ice age – or at least another ‘little’ one. As devastating as this would be to lives and economies, I feel it would be the lesser of two evils. I fear anything less (e.g. a continuation of the minor cooling we’ve had over the last 10-15 years) would not be enough to stop the alarmist train.

Mike says:
May 29, 2010 at 12:35 pm
Here’s my support for natural causes of ocean waters affecting / not affecting Sea Ice :
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml
Pop in 3 decades or so of predominant El Nino’s and you have toasty oceans.
Do the opposite with 3 decades or so of La Nina’s and you get shiver me timber oceans.
False Alarm. All units return to base.

Maybe the doomsayers were right. One of the four horsemen’s horses ( I believe it was Pestilence ) just took a dump on my front lawn, ………… You will all know me as I will be the one mooning you as I ascend into the sky during the “rapture”. Just kidding, I phoned and cancelled the order for thermaggedon. There is the small issue of the “re-stocking” fee that I would like to discuss,…….

Quick! Defame, insult, bury, assassinate, debunk, dismiss, before this gets to the press!
I wonder how Al Gore is going to receive this tragic information.

roger, next step is to use CAGW when that is the point of argument:
29 May: BBC: Roger Harrabin: Harrabin’s Notes: Getting the message
In his regular column, BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin looks at the fall-out from complaints that some of the Royal Society had oversimplified its messages in public statements on climate change.
Even at the Heartland Institute climate sceptics’ conference in Chicago last week most scientists seemed to agree that CO2 had probably warmed the planet at the end of the 20th century, over and above natural fluctuations.
But they did not agree that the warming will be dangerous – and they object to being branded fools or hirelings for saying so.
The attitude of the establishment to the sceptics shines through the succession of inquiries into controversial science at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU).
When at the launch of the Sir Muir Russell inquiry I asked about the credibility of the review panel in the blogosphere, Sir Muir dismissed the enquiry with the flick of a wrist – he had been a senior civil servant and he had run a university, his bona fides were beyond question.
But the blogosphere does not respect past reputations, only current performance. And some of the top performers in the blogosphere are critics of the establishment.
Steve McIntyre, for instance, is a mining engineer who started examining climate statistics as a hobby. He has taken on the scientific establishment on some key issues and won.
He arguably knows more about CRU science than anyone outside the unit – but none of the CRU inquiries has contacted him for input.
I have been told by the review teams that they can read McIntyre’s blog if they want to learn about his views. But they can’t have read all his blog entries surely? And they would have saved a lot of time and effort if they had asked him to summarise his scientific scrutiny on a couple of sheets of A4….
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10178454.stm

Arctic sea ice extent has hit below 2007 levels, one wonders what happened to the return?
Does this blog have any scientific consistency or is it just engaged in a perpetual search for an escape from reality?

Jim Clarke
Do you really think NASA’s funding rely’s on the existence of Global warming? it is bizarre Americans are so quick to forget about NASA’s heroic conquest of space, this short term memory is reminescent of some sort of Soviet [snip].

OK, there is plenty of ice, now, where is the whiskey?

Steven Goddard,
this is OT to Arctic ice but is still about global warming predictions. Could you do a post (if Anthony approves) on how far south snow lines are reaching in recent years? Global warming predictions say snow lines will recede ever northward as global warming years go by. But it appears the snow line is heading south. Is that right?

Darn, now that death spiral looks just like a tangled ball of Slinky.
Never could straighten those out.
Better to just deem it permanently damaged and send it to the trash!

Steve & Athony,
An excellent presentation, and if the PIPS 2.0 data had any validity or accuracy I would almost believe it. Unfortunately, PIPS 2.0 was quite inaccurate with low fidelity and is no longer used by the Navy for any serious applications, and especially not to navigate their way through the Arctic. PIPS 3.0 has been on-line for many years and is assimilated into the HYCOM suite (HYBRID COORDINATE OCEAN MODEL)
The PIPS 2.0 model had very low resolution and large errors. Unfortunately, the Much of the capabilities of the PIPS 3.0 model are classified, as you can understand how valuable that information could potentially be for military applications. With the planting of a flag on the bottom of the Arctic Ocean by Russia a few years back, and the vast untapped resources of the region, one can certainly understand. However, a general unclassified example of what 3.0 is capable of can be found here:
http://www.oc.nps.edu/~pips3/pips.gif
An unclassified presentation of the HYCOM suite of applications (including PIPS 3.0) can be found here:
http://www.hycom.org/attachments/101_F.Bub.pdf
In general though, a nicely done effort, but I think your data is suspect, and I think you should realize that the modeling done by PIOMAS is much closer to the more updated PIPS 3.0, as they both use CICE from Los Alamos, and thus, I would tend to stick to the projections of PIOMAS and the volume loss anomlay they project for the arctic over software that the Navy abandoned many years ago in PIPS 2.0…

Why do people assume that co2 always has to do with “green house effect”.
And why do almost everyone assume that polar bears need the ice, what with they’re living on land and only uses the ice when its there to be used. Actually why do everyone who seems to assume that polar bears live on ice assumes that every polar bear out there are the smartest one around? After all there’s most likely a really good reason for why the stupid polar bears who swims for a hundred miles and drowns don’t survive. :p

R. Gates
Thanks. If the PIPS 2 data is so bad, why are they still updating the maps every day? Where are the PIPS 3 maps? I’m perfectly happy to use them, and no doubt they will show approximately the same trend.
Also, why hasn’t PIOMAS mentioned this increase on their web site?

Maybe this is off topic but I think not.
Why do almost every greenie out there want to prohibit the poor people electricity?
In pretty much every culture on this planet there’s a proverb about practicing what you preach right, but I wonder how many good and honest superbly greenies practice what they preach every time they argue, directly or indirectly, that poor have to make due with what they have rather than using oil, coal, let a alone nuclear.
If European union didn’t have ready access to coal, oil, and nuclear power, how many would have died this last winter? And why did so many good and honest superbly greenies need “power” from coal, oil, and nuclear generation to survive?
So if the western hubris suffering greenies can’t live without and as they preach why should not people of africa, china, india, south america, and et cetera not even have the ability to power themselves with oil, coal, and nuclear, even though they’re the only ones willing to pay for up to date filter and otherwise new and environmentally approved technology?

I read calls of cherry-picking upthread, so I ran the ap for all the years from 2005. Lo and behold, 2008, pictorially, was the lowest ice volume of all them. But I couldn’t find data to crunch the numbers.
That certainly seems like (visual) cherry-picking.
Could the authors (or anyone else) direct me to a website that
1) Gives observation instead of forecast values
2) Has actual data for sea ice volume
Thanks in advance.
I’ll search for the same when I have time later tonight.

Jim Clarke says:
May 29, 2010 at 2:50 pm:
“So the Navy says the ice volume in the Arctic is up 25% in the last two years and the group whose very existence likely depends on the threat of global warming for most of their funding says the volume is way down. Hmmmm…who do you believe is the most accurate, the Navy trying to navigate the Arctic or the scientists trying to navigate Washington funding protocols?”
1. The Navy gets its money from Washington too.
2. Where did the Navy say ” ice volume in the Arctic is up 25% in the last two years”? Can you provided reference? Steve and Anthony don’t as a credible source. I want to see where the Navy said this. Also, a two year trend does not trump a 30 year trend.
3. Do you have a thoughtful critic of of the Polar Center Center’s work? You can’t just say, “I do not like them.”
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/IceVolume.php
I know A tried to say something to discredit them in an earlier post here, but all he could come up with was that he did not understand part of one graph.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/28/does-piomass-verify/
You are picking the sources that say what you want to believe. The credible scientists say the Arctic sea ice is declining and that this has multiple causes about which there is still debate. If AGW is some massive conspiracy, why do papers that assess possible non AGW causes of Arctic ice loss get published? They also say the Antarctic is gaining ice. Explain why they would lie about the Arctic and not about the Antarctic?
Now you can find mangled press stories that exaggerate the evidence for or likely impacts of AGW. But there are also plenty of stories in the media that do the reverse. Journalists are not scientists. Go figure.

stevengoddard says:
May 29, 2010 at 5:19 pm
I see what you are saying. But I think some people may think that because there was so much snow in places like Washington D.C. that snow is just deeper in some places and not covering ground farther south. So something like a blink map of the past 5 years or so showing the snow line going farther south would make it unmistakable.

STS2/SS Smith:
Thank you so much for posting here, we know your information is accurate. You are in a class such as pre-80’s scientists where no data is trusted and it is a shame, yours and their measurements were accurate, to point, honest, and important, not a polital or environment statement. Well, welcome to the “skptical of modern science methods” camp, you’ll always find honest and true friends here.

This model and Steve and Anthony’s results seem much more realistic than the Piomas model (which has also been proven to have the worst predictive capability of any model available).
The US Navy has the best ocean data and modelling. At stake are $2 billion submarines and $4.5 billion aircraft carriers.
Have a look at what the Gulf Stream really looks like.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/global_nlom32/navo/GFSTRSST_nlomw12930doper.gif
or what the La Nina ocean currents are really doing right now.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/GLBhycom1-12/navo/equpacsst_nowcast_anim30d.gif

Bill Illis
May 29, 2010 at 8:52 pm
Again, you have the coolest animations!!

EFS_Junior says: May 29, 2010 at 8:45 pm
“Fifth, given that 2007 was the current all time low in terms sea ice extent, area, and perhaps volume to date…”
Why is it a given, and who gave it? And what the heck is a “current all time low”? Do you mean since satellite measurements began ~30 years ago?

Mike
What part of this don’t you understand?
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/pips_anim.gif

EFS_Junior
May 29, 2010 at 8:45 pm
Hi EFS,
Instead of the usual hackneyed barrage of propaganda that is so five years ago would you present data that shows North Pole ice is not increasing in volume?

Is the assumption being made that the melting is the only explanation for reducing ice volume in the Arctic?
From my experience doing ice reconnaissanse in the Canadian arctic, albeit a long time ago, circulation appeared to be a factor as well. While the eastern part of Parry Channel (Lancaster Sound) would reliably be free of ice for one to two months a year. The western portion of the channel (west of Resolute) was much less likely to become ice free. This appeared to be due to the several small islands scattered across the channel just west of Resolute Bay. These appear to significantly obstructed eastern pack ice movement (the general circulation flow).
In the Beaufort Sea, the Beaufort gyre tends to retain the sea ice over a multi year period, while the transpolar drift stream offers an exit for pack ice.
So, the changes in ice volumes alre likely to be impacted by the complex interaction of the two circulation patterns. The question is how much?
In the case of the 2008 vs 2010 data, the 2008 data shows the major ridging (ice well over 3 metres thick) on the “right” pushing against the tip of Canada, and of Greenland. The 2010 data shows the major ridging against the opposite side. This would suggest very different circulation patterns between the 2008 data and the 2009 data.

mack520 says:
May 29, 2010 at 10:32 am
Try Google scholar for “Polar Ice Prediction System”
It seems to be well and truely published.

Just to follow from above.
PIPS has been published since the 1980’s.
I can only find references to PIOMAS back to 2008.
It seems PIPS has survived the rigours of public review for longer. I’m surprised given PIOMAS is newer that papers don’t make mention of the PIPS model or indicate how well the two models match or work.

Mike says:
May 29, 2010 at 11:19 am
If you look back you will find a year where the ice volume is larger or smaller than today. Instead one could do science:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/images/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrent.png
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/IceVolume.php
________________________________________________________________________
After the major loss of Sea Ice extent in the summer of 2007 we heard “oh my gosh, it’s a death spiral, the arctic will soon be ICE free, we are all going to drown…”; or words to that effect from the Climate Alarmists and their tame media. Therefore it is entirely logical to look at ice volume after the winter of 2008 and compare it to today to see if the “death spiral” of sea ice is happening as prophesied. The answer is a resounding NO. The THICKNESS of the sea ice is recovering nicely and that is the key issue.

jcrabb, you would do yourself well by including why you think sea ice extent is falling. Increased air temp? Increased oceanic current temp? Winds blowing it out Fram Strait like it did in 07? Extent is a valuable piece of data but must be taken with other factors. Ice extent that is spread out from strong wind will certainly look good on paper but runs the risk of underestimating melt. Thick ice staying in place and being melted by the incoming Atlantic current and solar radiation looks bad on paper but runs the risk of overestimating melt.
The opposing views will be tested this Summer and I think this is the place to keep up on the discussion. My opinion may turn out to be wrong. But at least I am involving some reasoning based on possible parameters at play. So add to the discussion. Your post is in need of science.

If you truly wish to know if artic sea ice is being impacted by AGW, don’t look at it, look at the planet Mars. If the ice caps on Mars are growing (or shrinking) in step with Earths’ ice caps, then the argument that AGW is a cause of artic ice melt is not supportable. It would seem that the sun alone is the deciding factor. If on the other hand the Martian ice caps are not in step with Earths’ ice caps then there is some room for the argument of AGW. So far, from the polar ice cap pictures I have seen of Mars recently, AGW loses the argument, and ice cap expansion is solar dependent. However, others may come to a different conclusion.

GeoFlynx
My understanding is that spiral only goes one direction, and that an ice free Arctic by 2013 would require significant acceleration of ice loss.

Steve Goddard writes, “I thought a death spiral was continuously downwards……..”
If that was what he meant, he would have called it a “free fall.” Did anyone in the Arctic science community actually predict monotonic change?

You may have identified a very Inconvenient Truth.

Gneiss
How do you go from five million km2 in 2007 to zero km2 in 2013, without being fairly monotonic?

Steven Goddard wrote, in response to my question whether anyone in the Arctic community had actually predicted monotonic change,
“How do you go from five million km2 in 2007 to zero km2 in 2013, without being fairly monotonic?”
Slide 8 of this 2008 presentation by Maslowski also shows such behavior (wobbling up and down but with a downward trend in mean), together with the “2013” date based on a projection of the post-1997 trend.
http://198.7.238.201/cnws/wardept/documents/State%20of%20Arctic%20Sea%20Ice%20(NPS).pdf
Maslowski probably wishes he’d shaded in some uncertainty bands around that date, as he seems more comfortable with “before 2020” as a guess.

Gneiss
Do you support the idea of an ice free Arctic by 2020?

Gneiss
90 years ago was right after WWI. Making predictions 90 years into the future is well … pointless.

I guess we have to wait and sea if the estimate of increse in thickness is correct. The amount of ice left in the end of summer will probably give us a clue. 🙂

Without Comment.
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/images/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrent.png

GeoFlynx,
I have seen that PIOMAS graph, and it appears to be way off the mark.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/pips_anim.gif
I have measured the current volume, and it is higher than the same date in 2007, 2008 and 2009.

GeoFlynx says:
May 30, 2010 at 5:32 pm
With comment: BPIOMAS is a computer model generated WAG based on data that, so far, has not nose dived.
The credibility of such models is already been found wanting, as the goalpost of predicted disaster never materializes.
In software we called it VaporWare, and it sunk many companies unable to deliver the goods.
It now sinks AGW, as it has NOT delivered on any prediction, and therefore the product that Gore/Hansen/Mann have
attempted to sell is resoundly rejected.
Nobody wants to buy VaporWare, no matter how powerful a supercomputer it was generated on.
It’s AGW Marketing Divisions worst nightmare.
The product sucks.

I am still surprised by the attempts to either proove or disproove CAGW by referrence to melting ice. Non of this has any relevence to the central question.
What real evidence is there that clearly shows that a small increase in the concentration of a trace atmospheric gas (CO2) is a major driver of Global Warming that will ultimately destroy the earth? It is a belief in this hypothesis that requires us to all retreat to a stone age level of civilisation. So for all of you CAGW cultists. Please present the evidence for CO2 caused CAGW. In effect Put up or shut up.

Phil,
You should read the article before commenting.

Phil. says:
May 30, 2010 at 7:00 pm
Steve measured the same way Greenwich Royal Observatory measured umbra, penumbra and faculae for 100 years, and how Debrecen Observatory, Hungary measured umbra, penumbra and faculae on the Sun. They count the unit areas and strengths.
It’s really quite elementary these days, what with digitized images having pixel intensities.
Good solid science stuff.
I highly reccomend it. Layman’s spot count is based on the very same principle.

Mack 520 thinks that the models are science and we should ignore the data. That is the problem, we have relied on the models and ignored data. If the model does not agree with the data, chuck the model!
Next to be thrown out is the theory of greenhouse gasses!

phlogiston says:
May 31, 2010 at 7:49 am
“I’m not arguing that low is better than high resolution, but that if we assume from R Gates’ comments that PIPS 3 has a higher spatial resolution than PIPS 2, this does not mean that the ability of PIPS 2 to detect changes year on year in ice amount is necessarily significantly different to that of a higher-res PIPS 3.”
___________________
Actually I agree with this, and I think Steve and Anthony did an excellent job with the data they had, but the data used, PIPS 2.0 has a stated error of up to 25%, and as other posted pointed out, even large open areas of known open water were shown
as having ice in the PIPS 2.o data– and this is just one of the reasons that the NAVY needed to go to PIPS 3.0 and the HYCOM suite. Furthermore, to suggest that the NAVY was putting hundreds of million of dollars in expensive hardware and the lives of personnel at risk based on data that has up to 25% error rates is rediculous, especially to suggest that that was a reason that it should be trusted over PIOMAS, when PIOMAS is more sophisticated (i.e. CICE based) model.
PIPS 3.0 and the HYCOM suite (and other related tools) are what the Navy uses, and they are based on CICE from Los Alamos, and the full operational details and capabilities of these newer models are classified, as the Arctic is becoming an increasingly important strategic area, and will continue to grow as such as the ice continues to recede from year to year. The the Superpowers are planning for an ice free Arctic :
http://www.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=48533
http://books.sipri.org/files/insight/SIPRIInsight1002.pdf
And they have a lot more sophisticated models than PIPS 2.0 to base their projections on, and PIOMAS is more closely allied with those models than is PIPS 2.0. Having said all that, I don’t think Steve and Anthony wasted their time in the analysis, and they might even be right, the point is, with a 25% known inaccuracy in PIPS 2.0, to state with any confidence that sea ice volume has increased by 25% is not quite science.
Finally, here’s a great link to watch the ice break up in the Bering Strait in detail:
http://ice-map.appspot.com/?map=Arc&sat=ter&lvl=7&lat=67.940426&lon=-168.991006&yir=2010&day=149
You can used the calendar on the top right hand side to update the image each day.

Ice Volume Site:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/images/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrent.png

R.Gates
“The the Superpowers are planning for an ice free Arctic :”
I’ll quote the good Admiral from the article.
http://www.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=48533
“What I mean by the ‘when’ question is ‘when do you need to spend money?'” he explained. “When do you need to invest in communications? In infrastructure? When do the policy experts come up with specific missions? And when are we going to have a lot of water to work with?”
According to Titley, the complexities of the Arctic environment make it difficult to determine that timeline. “There’s a lot of variability, it is very complex, and that is why the predictions you see have pretty wide confidence intervals,” Titley noted.”
Russia is developing a contingency plan to knock the Apophis asteroid off course in 2029.
http://cbs13.com/technology/russia.rocket.asteroid.2.1397103.html
NASA predicts the odds of the Apophis asteroid hitting earth at 1 in 45,000.
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/apophis/
Just because someone prepares a contingency plan for a ‘what if’ doesn’t have any bearing on the odds of the ‘what if’ actually occurring.
In the 1920’s the US military drew up plans for the invasion of Canada. 90 Years later it still hasn’t happened.

Gail Combs said (May 30, 2010 at 3:50 am): ”After the major loss of Sea Ice extent in the summer of 2007 we heard “oh my gosh, it’s a death spiral, the arctic will soon be ICE free, we are all going to drown…”; or words to that effect from the Climate Alarmists and their tame media. Therefore it is entirely logical to look at ice volume after the winter of 2008 and compare it to today to see if the “death spiral” of sea ice is happening as prophesied. The answer is a resounding NO. The THICKNESS of the sea ice is recovering nicely and that is the key issue.”
You invented a quote. Can you produce actual quotes to that effect from leading scientists? I’m skeptical, but maybe you can. If you can then it would be fair to criticize them whether or not the trend has continued. A one year low is not a basis for projecting long term trends. It is likely you can produce such statements from some activists or befuddled reporters. They then certainly should be criticized.
More importantly, you are arguing that it is only fair to be as illogical as those you disagree with. That’s a dangerous course. There are crazy people on both sides of any issue. Instead let’s look at what experienced researchers have to say. From my reading it seems that Arctic sea ice is in a decline. This has many causes about which there is still debate among researches. AGW is likely among these and the loss of sea ice will likely add to GW by reducing the amount of light reflected out to space. There will likely be some negative environmental effects and some positive ones. Rapid change is hard to adapt too, so my guess is the negatives will out weigh the positives.
Transforming Earth’s climate seems like a high risk experiment. Finding ways to reduce CO2 emissions seems prudent.

Pardon me if this was addressed and I failed to spot it but if the PIPS data is so good, why divide it into only five bins for the volume calculations when the original data apparently comes in 25cm steps from 0.50 to 5.00 meters?

How does this stuff keep getting circulated?
Excerpted from: R. Gates on May 31, 2010 at 8:55 am

PIPS 3.0 and the HYCOM suite (and other related tools) are what the Navy uses, and they are based on CICE from Los Alamos, and the full operational details and capabilities of these newer models are classified, as the Arctic is becoming an increasingly important strategic area, and will continue to grow as such as the ice continues to recede from year to year.

Excerpted from: R. Gates on May 29, 2010 at 9:14 pm

As I said, PIPS 3.0 is quite active (if you go to page 33 on this pdf link you can see that):
http://www.hycom.org/attachments/101_F.Bub.pdf
It has been active since 2005, and updated since then even and that’s when PIPS 2.0 was mothballed. The most I can tell you is that PIPS 3.0 is part of a larger suite of products now used by the NAVY, and it’s exact features, and certainly any charts of sea ice volume and thickness derived from PIPS 3.0 are classified. These charts can be used, and are used, by ships and submarines for navigation under across the Arctic. With the increasing focus on the Arctic for resources, it is not surprizing that the NAVY would not release this data. You can go to this site:
http://www.oc.nps.edu/~pips3/
For a bit more information, but you’ll come to a dead end if you’re trying to get any actual charts. (…)

The PIPS site: http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/pips2/index.html
There it states:

The Polar Ice Prediction System (PIPS 2.0) is the operational model run by the Naval Oceanographic Office (NAVO) for sea ice forecasting.

Not “a” operational model, “the” operational model.
There is a clearly marked link there, “Info on the future PIPS 3.0”, which yields the following pop-up:

http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/pips2/info3.html
Polar Ice Prediction System 3.0
The most recent upgrade to the Navy’s ice prediction capability is the development of the next generation forecast system: PIPS 3.0. Improvements to this new forecast system include higher horizontal resolution, a more sophisticated ocean model, improved data assimilation and perhaps most important, an improved sea ice model, based on the Los Alamos CICE model. This sea ice model will include a Lagrangian formulation for calculating a multi-category ice thickness distribution, a snow layer, a brine pocket parameterization, non-linear profiles of temperature and salinity (Bitz and Lipscomb, 1999). The CICE model is presently being tested by NRL with Navy Atmospheric forcing from the Navy Operational Global Atmospheric Prediction System (NOGAPS). This model will be coupled to Navy Operational global ocean models. These improvements are geared towards providing better forecasts of formation and lead orientation. The PIPS 3.0 is presently going through its final development.

Repeated for emphasis: “The PIPS 3.0 is presently going through its final development.”
From page 33 of that pdf link, which actually yields a powerpoint presentation, yes there is a chart which has been purported to show operational status. From 2005 to 2011. Also from the presentation:
Pg 31:

SWAN is being transitioned to NAVOCEANO during CY2005
DELFT3D, incorporating SWAN, coastal flow, and surf modules, starts transition CY2006

Pg 28:

PCTIDES undergoing OPEVAL in CY2005.
– A proposed upgrade is planned by CY2007.

And pg 15:

HYCOM will begin to run on MSRC in an R&D model in CY2005 & a 1/12-degree global HYCOM will begin OPEVAL testing in CY2007.

Checking the Properties of the pdf file, we find the following for “Created” and “Modified”: Mon 12 Dec 2005 10:40:57 AM EST
So the great pdf PROOF that PIPS 3.0 is operational and PIPS 2.0 has been mothballed, to all appearances looks like an old forward-looking presentation of “works in progress” done in 2005, perhaps even 2004.
And what about that PIPS 3.0 site? Every page I look at on the site has a “Last Modified” date in 2003. This page on “Ice model Improvements” has a link for info on the “Ice Motion Assimilation Project,” which throws a “403: Forbidden” error. There are some images from testing runs available, that look somewhat old. Frankly, I don’t think anything has been done to that “official” site for ages.
So, what seems likely?
A. There is a conspiracy by the US Navy to lie to the public about PIPS 3.0 being operational and deployed since 2005, which was accidentally revealed on page 33 of a declassified powerpoint presentation after they altered the file dates and modified much text to make it appear to be a rather old document, and to hide the truth that PIPS 2.0 was mothballed in 2005 the US Navy continues to run a site that purports to show 2.0 data but apparently is either taking 3.0 results and making them look like they are from 2.0, or they are still devoting considerable resources to running the “mothballed” 2.0 to generate public consumption data for disinformation purposes that they themselves do not use.
B. PIPS 3.0, which will use the same model information as PIOMAS, ran into serious development issues, hasn’t been deployed, and 2.0 is the system currently in use.
Which, dear reader, do you think it is?

From: R. Gates on May 31, 2010 at 10:48 pm

Odd, don’t you think, that there would be a training manual for something that some would say the Navy never developed.

Really? Who said that? PIPS 3.0 is being developed, or at least it was, that is not in dispute. But the evidence points to it still being in the development stage and never yet deployed. I already knew there was a training manual for sale, which isn’t surprising.
So, we’ll see what we can find out about the manual. First up is the seller, which says in their FAQ:

Storming Media is a private federal government information reseller. We sell unclassified U.S. federal government reports.

So, you have claimed PIPS 3.0 is operational and its output is classified, it’s all hush-hush secret and people aren’t supposed to know it exists. Therefore they have released an unclassified document on setting up and running PIPS 3.0 proving it exists. Right, sure…
What does the abstract say?

Currently, the domain includes the Irminger, Labrador, North, and Baltic Seas on the Atlantic side and the Bering Sea, Sea of Japan, and the Sea of Okhotsk on the Pacific.

“Currently” sounds like a work in progress to me.
What does the PIPS 3.0 site say?

At this point the domain includes the Labrador, Irminger, North, and Baltic Seas on the Atlantic side and the Bering Sea, Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan on the Pacific side.

Yup, looks like a match. So this training manual corresponds to the period of development found at the official PIPS 3.0 site. So this training manual corresponds to something still in development.

Also, check out page 13 of this presentation:
http://www.hycom.org/attachments/082_079_OS2008_metzger.pdf
I would just say this, dear reader, consider the extent that some people will go to in order to try and deny the obvious. (…)

Yeah, I’ve noticed.
Go to the HYCOM site, search for “pips” and you find what looks like two copies of the same powerpoint presentation, and that’s it for site. So what is on slide page 13?

Couple HYCOM/NCODA with a sea ice (CICE) model developed by Los Alamos
(…)
* In Navy parlance: Polar Ice Prediction System (PIPS)
* Assimilate SSMI ice concentration in PIPS

Yup, another to-do list. Go look at the next three pages as well as all of 13. Looks clear to me, they’re working to improve HYCOM by coupling it to a sea ice model, namely CICE. In this one presentation, they say in Navy terminology it’d be called PIPS.
And that’s it. There is no version number for PIPS given. Search the HYCOM site, get one presentation where they say CICE is known as PIPS in Navy-speak. And never again. Apparently there’s a misconception going around that the Navy is using PIPS 3.0 which is CICE. For this single presentation, all that is found on the HYCOM site, I see nothing to suggest this wasn’t a one-time unintentional mistake.
So, R. Gates is saying PIPS 2.0 is mothballed, left in the dustbin, not being used by the US Navy since 2005 when PIPS 3.0 went operational. His support is some mentions that really only show 3.0 exists, somewhere, out there in the world. This goes against an active and operational PIPS 2.0 site and the US Navy saying 3.0 is in final development, not deployed, as well as other evidence.
At which point I conclude R. Gates is either just doing this for fun, throwing up this ever-weaker “evidence” to amuse himself as he watches people scurry to show how his false “evidence” is false, or he really is a conspiracy nut theorist.
To: R. Gates
Re: PIPS 3.0
Please immediately write to the US Navy, asking them to stop wasting their resources by maintaining a fake PIPS 2.0 site and spreading disinformation to disavow that PIPS 3.0 is the system they have been using since 2005. Provide your overwhelming evidence. Also send a copy to the President, as he is very concerned with wasting taxpayer money, and copies to your elected US Congressional representatives as such massive waste and fraud clearly deserves a full investigation in both houses. If you truly believe that you have discovered the truth, you owe it to the truth to do what is right.
God bless!

Dear MACK520 – Let me see if I have this right > the Navy are not qualified climate scientists and the empirical evidence says the ice extent is growing, but the evidence must be wrong because it disagrees with “peer reviewed” MODELS??

Thank you for helping to prove that global warming is a myth. Mack520 who said “The models contradict this. The Navy are not qualified Climate Scientists. Will you believe peer reviewed models or will you deny science?” is a typical brainwashed idiot at best, and an environmental communist supporter at worst. I am disgusted with the environmentalists and their frantic global warming scare, which does nothing other than support the move to communism. The best way to symbolize the environmental movement is to take the communist flag with the hammer and sickle and replace the color red with green. The environmental movement is the new form of communism; and those who deny this have not studied the movement and its roots in depth. Environmentalists will not be satisfied until they have taken away all of our freedoms and placed us back in caveman times. If we went back to riding around in horses and stagecoaches they would attack us for the manure our horses leave on the ground and attribute it to global warming. Furthermore, if we resorted back to caveman times they would attack us for using fire, claiming it could burn down the forests. There is no way to satisfy environmentalists. They are in fact mental, and ironically the word mental is in the word evvironMENTAList.
Keep up the good work !

Monckton mentions the increase in Arctic ice in his seminars.
Check this link to find out what he says, there are ten parts and I can’t remember which part he says it so watch all the parts as it’s all very interesting.
http://www.youtube.com/user/johnpabraham#p/u/9/QpOrjaWlC_E
There are full citations so that you can check all the facts for yourself.

If your post had any validity then my mind would be put to rest .
However If the navy were so sure of the concepts that would support your theory of increasing ice then this article on the navy contradicts your theory
http://www.canada.com/Health/navy+plots+Arctic+push/2278324/story.html

Man seperated himself from nature hundreds if not thousand s of years ago.
We can not claim a moral stand by trying to say we are a part of nature. We are not.
Conservatives are afraid of the boogeyman of higher taxes yet they would have our planet destroyed in the name of keeping their treasures.
This is so illogical as to be laughable.
So you have no place to live and no place to spend the worthless paper and metals you have gathered about you in the greedy rendition of Armageddon… So what is the point of your existence?
Conservatives fool the fundamentalist Christians into backing them when they are all about destroying Creation.
Ask yourself: What would be the opinion of the Creator for us systematically destroying what He has wrought?
The tendency to inject fear of taxes is a little old and worn.
Let’s fear rather God’s wrath.

This article is a wonderful example of junk science.
First and foremost. Two Years. TWO YEARS. That’s all this study even pretends to cover. An event that is occurring over several decades and centuries is bound to have blips and glitches in it, easily of a two year duration. One of the things the climate change ignorers never seem to fathom is that things don’t always happen in a straight, unidirectional way. Show me something over two decades, and maybe I’ll pay attention. This study is one step away from saying “uhhh, jeez it were awful cold last month. Can’t be no global warmin’. Yuck yuck yuck”.
The link to the navy ICEX 2009 sure doesn’t make the claims this paper does. Moreover, the “data” is a forecast–I see no convincing evidence of “real data” that this article boasts about.
The irony of the Bacon quote is priceless. These authors and their cheerleaders in the comments knew that global climate change was a “hoax” the moment Rush told them it was. I, on the other hand, really did start as a skeptic and became convinced by the real science out there (not this kind of meaningless drivel). I’d bet not one cheerleader on this site even knows enough about the debate to be able to say what property of carbon dioxide makes it a greenhouse gas. If you don’t know even the fundamentals, you’re just following the right-wing crowd. Step in line, give up any ability to think critically, or even think, and lurch zombie like in formation. Fox News will win the battle for you–no need to actually come up with anything compelling.

Smokey
Are you discussing climate, or weather?
Sorry, but the greenhouse property of CO2 is no longer even debated. This has been experimentally demonstrated by Tyndall et al as far back as the late 1870’s. Have you considered that maybe the “facts” you’ve learned from this one very biased website just may have been twisted, misrepresented, with conclusions specious and misleading or in the worst case, plain wrong? This is, after all, the internet!
An analysis of actively published and peer-reviewed science indicates with high repetition the conclusion that anthropogenic climate change is real and happening and these conclusions are largely supported by empirical evidence.
Why, indeed, hasn’t this “chilling” data been heralded as the end of anthropogenic climate change? Because it isn’t, of course.

Observation shows that climate last Winter was very cold across Asia and Europe and other countries like Mexico. This was oposite to predictions of climate scientists. This Winter was said by the MET office to be 2C hotter than the last one. Again, conditions are opposite to those predicted by the “experts”. Global warming is promoted by governments as a legitimate reason for tax increases. “Experts” depend on these governments for project and research funding and find themselves having to advance warming as fact when its only theory and now theory that is proving false.

In my part of America we are seeing a city sinking and oceam levels rising.
According to naysayers this shouldn’t be happening.
Maybe we are putting more boats in the water and so the levels are rising?
There are island nations that are in a losing battle to save their homes.
There is definitive reasoning that supports the global warming “theory”.