In sea ice news this week, Arctic sea ice continues its inexorable climb toward the summit, to be reached sometime in March 2011. At present the ice growth is tracking just below the rate of 2007, but it should also be pointed out that according to JAXA’s AMSRE plot, we are still slightly ahead of this date last year.
The magnified view below shows just how close together all the past years are in the “choke point”:
2010 is just between 2007 and 2009 at present, and all three traces have a “knee bend” at this point, though 2010 is sharper.
Current data for JAXA:
10,31,2010,8075000 11,01,2010,8240938 11,02,2010,8403594 11,03,2010,8500000 11,04,2010,8621875 11,05,2010,8672500 11,06,2010,8693438 11,07,2010,8800781 11,08,2010,8908906 11,09,2010,8987031 11,10,2010,9056406 11,11,2010,9117656 11,12,2010,9164375 11,13,2010,9172969 11,14,2010,9183594
Over 1 million square kilometers of sea ice extent has been added in the past 15 days.
NSIDC’s plot shows 2010 compared to 2007, but has 5 day smoothing, so the knee bend is not visible.
But the NANSEN plot shows these bends clearly:
Overall, nearly the entire Arctic ocean is well filled with sea ice at this point. Only the Barents and Chukchi seas have ice free areas:
Temperature within 80°N is slightly below normal at present, thought= nothing out of the ordinary variance:
Antarctic sea ice extent remains above normal:
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I’ve posted on this before, but I now have something to back up my comments about Chinese pollution.
When China has power shortages, as it did in 2004, its factories used diesel generators, which allowed them to continue functioning, but created a lot of pollution. I saw this first hand in Hong Kong: the air simply became very bad.
The Hong Kong Observatory publishes “Number of hours of Reduced Visibility” here:
http://www.hko.gov.hk/cis/statistic/hko_redvis_statistic_e.htm
You can see how dramatically polluted the air became from about 2002 onwards, and that it got (slightly) better by 2008. This coincides quite neatly with the Arctic ice lows.
[thanks – noted and fixed]
Once again, Minnesota is punished by climate disruption:
http://empowerednews.net/u-s-snowstorm-whips-midwest-causes-hundreds-of-car-crashes/183778/
The waters around Mexico, where thousands of climate bureaucrats will meet in Cancun 2 weeks from now, are also much colder than normal. The colder than usual water in the ARctic has descended, down to equatorial Pacific to south Pacific,
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/anomnight.current.gif
“Darn it. We need no ice to increase my grants and get me one of them Nobel prizes.” M. Mann.
Hmm… I bin thinkin….
This focus on one particular pole’s ice extent does the skeptic’s position no good imo. I have been following your ice posts for a long while and all I can say is…. what’s up with that?
You are focusing on weather, for god’s sake. It makes no difference about sea ice extent. This is what THEY want us to think. Once the Arctic ice is gone, we are doomed to an irreversible tipping point which will plunge us all into an eternal hellfire. So this is why you are focusing on it – to rebut THEIR assertions. But I am convinced this tact will come back to bite you. Artic ice is simply weather. Maybe over a decade or two. It has little to do with global climate trends.
imo. Shift the narrative, please.
No contined decline since 2007 and a long hard northern hemisphere winter ahead,
I agree with Mike Jowsey November 15 at 12.14am that we should have a wider regular update of key indicaters rather than just sea ice (with emphasis on Arctic). I posted yesterday on Tips & Notes
“I would recommend an article about “Have we arrived at at Tipping Point?” and if so which one? Atmospheric temperatures have remained steady since 1998 and may even be reducing slightly. Global sea levels are going down now. Arctic and Antarctic sea ice extent are within natural variability. Argo will not release ocean temperatures. (Suspicious and assumed to be because they are declining now) That would fit in with declining sea levels. These are all major indicators showing that the globe’s heat budget is not going up. Maybe we are at a tipping point but not as the AGW supporters think. There are clearly other forcings out there overwhelming CO2 (or negative feedbacks) as CO2 has been going up steadily by around 1.5ppm/year when the climate has steadied temperature wise. I think that a great article could be composed drawing together the implications of what major indicators show at present. This could be compared with models to show how wrong they are. Something hard hitting based on recorded facts.”
We should have global atmospheric and sea temperatures, Sea ice N/S, and sea levels To me these are major indicators of where we are heading. As far as I can see we are not at present “racing” towards this socalled “Tipping Point” when temperatures run amok. It seems to me that we are at at 50/50 point where it is as likely we are heading down as up.
Wales,AK sits at the Choke point between Russian & Alaska..The Bering Straits.
They have recorded below ave temperatures this whole month with an ave Mean Temp of 21 degrees..It can’t be that long before that hole in the Chukchi sea fills in to this point which should alow the graph to head up nicley along with 07/09…..We will hopefully keep 06 out of the pic.
Climate does not have tipping points. It changes but all changes are reversible due to natural cycles.
Temperatures have been higher and lower than those of today. Atmospheric CO2 content has certainly been much higher than today, in fact present day CO2 atmospheric content should be higher if you want plants to grow more and produce more food.
I notice that ‘ice cover’ is defined as at least 15% ice. But this means that some areas are 85% open water. Is there any data as to how actual ice, as opposed to water, there is, and how this compares to previous years?
I agree with Mike Jowsey that focussing on the Northern polar regions is assisting the Warmists make quick, if spurious points. I would enoy seeing a presentation of Arctic V Antarctic ice growth and retreat and other comparative information to provide a more balanced narrative about ice events on a global scale.
I feel a little greedy making this request, as what we are presented with at WUWT is indeed great, but in a very few cases I feel that more may really be better.
Alexander K says:
November 15, 2010 at 4:14 am
I agree with Mike Jowsey that focussing on the Northern polar regions is assisting the Warmists make quick, if spurious points. I would enoy seeing a presentation of Arctic V Antarctic ice growth and retreat and other comparative information to provide a more balanced narrative about ice events on a global scale.
While we all would like a ‘clear’ picture of a lot of things I believe care must be applied to Arctic vs Antarctic comparisons. Which leads, which follows? We don’t know. Then the dynamics involved for each (in regards to sea ice) are different. What winds, currents, and the AO are doing to affect the Arctic will not be relevant to what is going on in the Antarctic.
The “Global Sea Ice” graph on the actual Sea Ice Page
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/
Combined with the data for the individual hemispheres gives about as clear overview of sea ice status as one could hope for.
Mike Jowsey : “This focus on one particular pole’s ice extent does the [skeptics’] position no good imo .. It makes no difference about sea ice extent. This is what THEY want us to think .. So this is why you are focusing on it – to rebut THEIR assertions. But I am convinced this [tactic] will come back to bite you. [Arctic] ice .. has little to do with global climate trends .. Shift the narrative, please.”
What you say is possibly correct, but I’m not sure that you have understood exactly what Anthony is doing, and why. What I see is that Anthony has set up a couple of pages giving objective data on sea ice, sea temperatures and sea levels. Scare-mongering about these is one of the alarmists’ tactics, and simply presenting objective data is an effective way of countering scare-mongering. This data is sourced from reputable third parties, and is untouched by WUWT. Data for both poles is in fact provided, though the Arctic has tended to get most of the attention. Anthony also provides a specific post from time to time, such as this one, but IMHO the main thrust is via the now permanent objective data pages.
You may be absolutely correct in saying that sea ice has little to do with global climate trends, and there are a number of papers showing that winds and currents are the major influences on sea ice in the shorter term. However, there is evidence, which has been posted at WUWT, that Arctic ice increased in previous cold periods and decreased during previous warm periods. This suggests that sea ice is indeed affected by temperature. It doesn’t really matter much what the major influences are, the important thing is to make genuine data readily available so that it becomes more difficult to misrepresent what is happening. If you are correct in saying that sea ice has little to do with global climate trends, then the data will eventually show just that. (And BTW, if the skeptics are wrong and the alarm is well-founded, then the data will eventually show that instead).
I hope you can agree that if genuine data is made readily available, then it becomes more difficult for either “we” or “they” to misrepresent the situation.
I don’t know why people measure at the extremes any way.
The extremes, March and September, can be affected by too many things
that have nothing to do with nothing. That’s where Ice is at it’s most unstable,
and even the slightest change in wind or cloud cover can make a huge difference.
It always seems to come back together at the “choke points”, May and December,
and that’s where people should really look.
Hi,
I think that the NSIDC data can’t be trusted, I explain you why.
Their graph shows ice in the southernmost part of the St. Lawrence gulf. I strongly doubt that all that ice is present in the St. Lawrence gulf this time of the year…
Question: if “nearly the entire Arctic ocean is well filled with sea ice”, why is the ice extent roughly one million sq km (9%) less than the 1979-2006 monthly average (per NANSEN)? And why is the ice extent roughly 5 million sq km (1/3) less than the March peak extents?
Does the ice extend far outside the Artic Ocen at its peak? If so, what is the significance of the ocean being filled (other than frustrating people starting polar shipping lines)?
Closest to the fill rate pattern of 2004 so far, geography seems to be the upper constraint in all this. Anyone know of any monitoring of the heat coming from these things and how that’s varied over the years?
http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2005/nsf0539/nsf0539_13.pdf
Seems to at least affect the Chukchi freeze-over, watch the DMI SST anomoly loop at http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/satellite/index.uk.php. Since this heat feeds directly into the Gyre, how big a variation does it take to eventually affect the annual cycle and minimum extent numbers?
This is the time of year when the rate of ice coverage change varies little from year to year. The larger changes is what day of the year this particular volume is achieved. Missing from all this is what day is the correct day for this volume of ice to have formed. And of course we don’t know. We have only the averages from 1979 to present and that is a blink in the time frame over which our interglacial cycle has existed.
In fact, though, this volume of ice is reached within days of the day for every other year, and the rate of change is always rather close on a seasonal basis. Why is this a talking point? It seems meaningless unless we see a trend where ice coverage volume on this date is consistently occurring ever earlier or later in the year. That is just not happening, and it won’t even be an important chart for at least a hundred years anyway.
I think one improvement that could be made to the ice analysis is to have all of the daily data points on every published graph made available immediately to the public. I believe that one of the reasons that the AMRS-E data is watched so closely is that the data points are released every day. This facilitates analysis and it also makes it relatively more likely that errors in data collection will be quickly detected by someone and reported back to the source of the data.
WUWT could do a service by continually pressuring agencies for the release of such data (something that is already being done to an extent, but perhaps the pressure could be much greater if an effort were made to enlist others in the effort, including sympathetic legislators. If an agency is disseminating only a graph with a five-day average, errors can persist for days, weeks, months or even forever because it’s too difficult to convert the graph to data points, sort out the averaging, etc. One person could do it but it takes too long to make the point to others and so the errors persist. (Or the obfuscation, if you’re the suspicious type.)
Another benefit of agencies releasing daily data points is that discrepancies between agencies would become more obvious. Some would have logical explanations such as one being 30% extent, the other 15%, etc., but some would claim to be measuring the same thing but coming up with significantly different results for extended periods of time. If the daily data is available, people will start digging for explanations of the discrepancies and the data collection/reporting effort will be likely to improve (much as Anthony’s SurfaceStation project is putting pressure on to improve land-based temperature collection.)
It’s my understanding that tax dollars are financing almost all of the data collection efforts. It’s a reasonable request that the daily data points of the publicized graphs be made readily available and easily accessible.
Rod Everson
Fabius Maximus says:
November 15, 2010 at 8:19 am
Exactly, weather not climate. The more I follow this along, the more “Arctic” sea ice extent/area seems like a big chocolate pipe wrench being used as a micrometer – nonsense not science.
Measuring the annual latent heat exchanges taking place might tell us something but none of this navel gazing gives us the slightest clue about that IMO. It just serves as fodder for yet more cringe worthy AGW propaganda.
Mike Jowsey said:
“But I am convinced this tact will come back to bite you. Artic ice is simply weather. Maybe over a decade or two. It has little to do with global climate trends.”
_______
Of course Mike, over the past 3 decades (and even longer) Arctic Sea Ice has been steadily going down down down. Sceptics made much of a “recovery” in 2008-2009, which is within the bounds of normal variation. But 3+ decades of decline and thinning of Arctic Sea Ice IS climate and not weather. True, Anthony and others blow by blow account of the state of sea ice is weather, but as soon as something doesn’t fit in the the sceptical paradigm (like last spring, when Arctic Sea Ice almost got back to normal) you know they must make the most of it.
As it stand, the state of the Arctic is the best indicator of the general state of the climate, but that “state” must be looked at over the longest time-frame in which we have reliable data, which is just over 30 years. Now it may be conincidental that during the entire period we have reliable satellite data on the sea ice that it has been during a declining period and is not indicative of a longer term CO2 induced climate change. But I tend to not like such coincidences, especially when they coincide with other predicted changes from AGW.
R Gates 9.20
We have had this conversation before, but it is simply not true to say we only have reliable records of arctic ice for 30 years. The arctic has been a well travelled and observed region for hundreds of years. My own home town was sending whalers to the region over 350 years ago. I don’t know why you consider satellite records to be so reliable, for example they are unable to properly differentiate between open water and water lying on top of ice.
As regards earlier periods of warming please note these two articles which are on my web site;
http://climatereason.com/LittleIceAgeThermometers/
“Article: The Great Arctic warming in the 19th Century. Author: Tony Brown
This long article -with many links- examines the little known period 1815-60 when the Arctic ice melted and the Royal Society mounted an expedition to investigate the causes.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/20/historic-variation-in-arctic-ice/#more-8688
Plus this:
“Article: Arctic warming 1919-1939. Author: Dr Arnd Bernaerts
I have often written short pieces on the frequent episodes of Arctic warming back to the Ipiatuk some 3000 years ago, and one day will work them up into a longer piece. This free online book by Dr Arnd Bernaerts examines the last great warming -prior to the modern one- in great detail.”
http://www.arctic-heats-up.com/chapter_1.html
I have gathered together the material for my Parts 2 and 3 of ‘Historic variations in sea ice.” There are dozens of episodes of considerable long tern melting of the ice.
tonyb
R. Gates says:
“…3+ decades of decline and thinning of Arctic Sea Ice IS climate and not weather.”
Wrong. The Arctic is not the globe, it is a region. For example, Antarctic ice cover recently hit a 30-year high. They are neither global climate nor weather; they are examples of always-changing regional variability. Only alarmists believe that the climate never changed prior to the invention of the SUV.
Gates continues:
“As it stand, the state of the Arctic is the best indicator of the general state of the climate…”
Wrong again. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. The reason for all the frantic arm-waving over the Arctic by the alarmist contingent is because that is the only thing that they can point to that might support their crazy world view. Their models are wrong, their predictions are wrong, and their assumptions are wrong — but hey, the Arctic region has fluctuated in a way that could be imagined as supporting their lunatic CAGW argument, so they grasp that lone example like a drowning man grabs at a straw.
And volcanic activity along the Gakkel ridge had no effect on anything of course …
http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/news/story2_4_01.html