By Steve Goddard
NCEP has changed their forecast, and it now appears there will be above normal temperatures over the Beaufort Sea for the next few days.
This will cause continued melt of the low concentration ice, and a downwards drift of the extent line. Daily loss has been declining steadily over the last month, but not enough to keep extent above my 5.5 million JAXA forecast.
Looks like it will be close at the finish line between 2009 and 2010 for JAXA 15%.
The DMI 30% concentration graph looks like 2010 will probably finish ahead of 2009.
Average ice thickness is highest since 2007 and 10% higher than 2009. Hinting at a 10% increase in ice volume next spring relative to 2010.
Barring 2007 style winds, next spring should see a third straight year of recovery since the winter of 2007-2008, when much of the thick ice blew out of the Arctic and melted in the North Atlantic.
Remember the “rotten ice” in 2008, which led to Mark Serreze betting on an ice free North Pole that summer? Looks like we have come a long way since then. Here is what the North Pole looks like today :
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Looks like it will be close at the finish line between 2009 and 2010
Agreed. I said on here a while back it looked like 2010 would be a rerun of 2009.
Steve,
Can you post the ice volume map again, like you did here? http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/09/2007-sea-ice-post-mortem/
What the North Pole Cam looks like today won’t stay up there, and will be migrating south for the winter, as will the Sea Ice Barbarians.
Hi Steve.
Admission of the ice not being able to reach your projection this year…sounds like the hyenas are coming.
Still, statistically (from my two methods of analysis) there appears to be a better chance of coming out at 2005’s value before 2008’s, so clearly 2009 has a higher probability than either of those. I’ll give more details later (either here or at Sea Ice News #19) when I have a bit of time.
Overall, if we reach last year’s value on an El Nino year, I’ll be happy with that. No matter where we end up at this point, it looks to intermediate to be able to make claims of recovery or a death spiral either one.
-Scott
It’s difficult to predict the autumn minimum without knowing what the winds will do. And the clouds. And the oceans. And the plankton. It’s a complex system and has never been successfully modeled. And probably never will be. Models are like the Tower of Babel, just another human edifice that reveals collective ego inflation.
Steve, your straight line daily ice loss is not the correct function. It should be flattening toward and assymptote at mid Sept- hey its only a couple of weeks
Oops, I mean it should be dropping off quickly to zero.
Sorry to be a complete dunce here, but when measuring ice thickness do we measure it as above the water surface or in its entirety? EG is 2.5 meters on the scale actually 1.6 meters above sea level?
tallbloke says: “Agreed. I said on here a while back it looked like 2010 would be a rerun of 2009.”
Yup, you did:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/04/discrepancies-in-sea-ice-measurements/#comment-447879
“2010 looks like it’s going to be a rerun of 2009 from here on in to me.”
Edit, that should read 0.833 meters, 2/3 being below the surface.
Gary Pearse says:
August 24, 2010 at 8:06 am
Are you sure? I would’ve thought that after the minimum is reached the daily ice loss line would go below zero in accordance to physical reality.
-Scott
“next spring should see a third straight year of recovery since the winter of 2007-2008”
Also, fourth straight year below 2006-2007 levels would not be incorrect either. :/
Remember the “rotten ice” in 2008, which led to Mark Serreze betting on an ice free North Pole that summer? Looks like we have come a long way since then. Here is what the North Pole looks like today :
More of your nonsense Goddard, as you well know Barber was no where near the location of that image (which is not at the N Pole but actually closing on the Fram strait). The following image is in the vicinity of Barber’s location, and guess what, it still looks rotten!
http://mgds.ldeo.columbia.edu/healy/reports/aloftcon/2010/20100822-0901.jpeg
Scott,
I do competitive target shooting, and the winner is the shooter closest to the bullseye. No one expects to hit dead center.
Looks to me like 2010 will likely finish closer to 5.5 than NSIDC’s 4.74, or Lindsay and Zhang’s 3.96.
Steve, please see my post here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/22/sea-ice-news-19/#comment-465146
Input on hysteresis implications from ice experts welcomed.
Phil.
I have no idea what you are talking about. Who is Barber?
REPLY: Here’s our WUWT piece on him:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/14/a-look-at-sea-ice-compared-to-this-date-in-2007/
-Anthony
I notice that the NSIDC compare current sea ice extent to the MEDIAN of 1979-2000, yet they describe the outline as the “average”.
I’m trying to get my head around the relevance of the median. Obviously it would be difficult for them to create an outline of a mean extent.
Presumably NSIDC look at the extents on any particular date from each of the years from 1979-2000, line them up in order, and compare the current day to the median. It strikes me this could be very different to the mean. eg. the median of 3 large circles and 2 small ones would be one of the large ones.
Also, if this is what NSIDC do, then it may be helpful if they could state the year with which they are comparing current extent, eg. today the 1983 extent could be the median, yet tomorrow the extent in 1993 could be.
What conclusions can be drawn from such comparisons?
The average date of the minimum is September 12th or 20 more days to go from Aug 23rd.
The minimum has occurred anytime between 17 days before and 12 days after this date.
On average, there is 487,000 sq. kms of melt from Aug 23rd to Sept 12th. 2007 lost 653,000 kms from this date while 1980 only lost 190,000 kms (over 2 days) from this date until the minimum.
As I tend to take a longer term view of sea ice health than many commenters I can’t get too excited by what happens during just one season.
However, to use one of Steve Goddards football analogies, surely if the game lasts for 90 minutes that’s how long you play for-you don’t bail out after 60.
If extent IS lower than say 2009, but that extent was achieved early in the season and the ice then began to expand again before the official ‘full time,’ shouldn’t the extent at the end of the game be the one that counts?
tonyb
The big question is can 2010 be lower than 2009, if so then the recovery has stopped, at least for a year. It will then look more like a rebound from 2007 which was an exceptional year and simply walking back to the general decline.
I’m still not that certain what the final value will be, my 4.9 looks low though, we might get the final value splitting mine and Steve’s predictions.
Andy
” stevengoddard says:
August 24, 2010 at 8:21 am
Looks to me like 2010 will likely finish closer to 5.5 than NSIDC’s 4.74, or Lindsay and Zhang’s 3.96.”
Lets us not forget that these forcasts are for September average, not for the minimum.
Phil. says:
August 24, 2010 at 8:21 am
Remember the “rotten ice” in 2008, which led to Mark Serreze betting on an ice free North Pole that summer? Looks like we have come a long way since then. Here is what the North Pole looks like today :
More of your nonsense Goddard, as you well know Barber was no where near the location of that image (which is not at the N Pole but actually closing on the Fram strait). The following image is in the vicinity of Barber’s location, and guess what, it still looks rotten!
http://mgds.ldeo.columbia.edu/healy/reports/aloftcon/2010/20100822-0901.jpeg
———————–
Phil,
Very poor attitude, but great picture. Absolutely beautiful.
Is the poster ‘Phil’ crossing the line between debate and rudeness by addressing Steve Goddard as “Goddard”?
Steve has every right to post his thoughts and opinions and posters have every right to questions those thoughts ideas and opinions but in a civil manner.
To Phil I would say, if you cannot engage with respect then ‘realclimate’ is probably a more suitable home for you.
REPLY: Phil. is an academic at a major university, rudeness is one of his regular traits here. – Anthony
The ice is currently at 5.5 million sq-km in NSIDC’s ice extent data and I don’t believe the melt season is over quite yet.
stevengoddard says:
August 24, 2010 at 8:21 am
Absolutely, it’s closer to the Price is Right than anything. With the predictions you’re comparing to, clearly you’ll blow away Lindsay/Zhang. Somehow I don’t think that will stop the hyenas from coming in though…they love to trash sceptics while letting the warmists get away with all sorts of errors (to be fair, some sceptics are the same in reverse).
Also, there is still a decent chance of going below 5.12e6 km^2, the halfway point between you and the 4.74e6 value.
-Scott