I had planned to do a post yesterday evening about how sea ice area and extent had returned to very near normal levels. But I was tired, so I saved off the graphs from the NANSEN arctic sea ice site.
This morning I was shocked to discover that overnight, huge amounts of sea ice simply disappeared. Fortunately I had saved the images and a copy of the webpage last night. Here is the before and after in a blink comparator:
There is no mention on the NANSEN website as to this change. So either it is an automation error or an undocumented adjustment. Either way, since this is for public consumption, NANSEN owes the public an explanation.
And there is more, see additional blink comparator graphs I’ve added below:
After examining the above, it appears the issue only manifests itself when comparisons to the 1979-2000 monthly average are made. The adjustment starting point appears to start around September 10th – at the summer minimum for both area and extent.
This could be a data processing error, though if so, it is so blatantly obvious to anyone who follows the NANSEN presentation that it immediately stands out. Many people commenting on this blog and others also saw the change without the benefit of my handy-dandy blinkj comparator above.
That fact that it occurs on a weekend could be viewed as suspicious due to fewer eyes on the website , or an indication that they have sloppy quality control there at NANSEN and this was published via automation with no human inspection prior to the update.
Steven Goddard writes via email:
The explanation (if one is offered) will be interesting to say the least.
UPDATE:
I received this email from Stein Sandven at Nansen in response to my query:
Dear Anthony,
The ice area calculation has been too high since about 22 October, causing too steep slope of the 2008 curve. We corrected for this yesterday and recalculated the ice area for 2008. The slope of the 2008 curve should now be correct and can be compared with 2007 and the previous mean monthly ice area.Best regardsStein
For my opinion though it seems to be an incomplete answer, generating even more questions.
I think that, as he says, he is confused. Perhaps he is referring to the thin turquoise line, and associated comment, where it appears to have been revised upwards in October. Clearly, however, the big change is downwards.
Look, I don’t want to be too vulgar, but is there any data anywhere in this bloody so-called climate “science” that would pass muster in a respectable experimental science laboratory? Or all all these climate “scientists” hopeless duds or crooks?
If you go to this link on the NANSEN institute homepage:
http://arctic-roos.org/forecasting-services/topaz/topaz-model-forecast
it seems that the “observed” curve in the 2008 forecast of ice area graph is out of sync with the “observed” curve on the observations page. Maybe this is the old curve before adjustment and it was just forgotten. Maybe it is the correct one (?) Mind you the colour is blue for observed on this graph.
Yes – an explanation to clear up this matter would be a good idea.
Retired Engineer
I recall that in days gone by, there was a proposal by scientists to relieve the water shortage in California by towing icebergs down to the coast of California and using the melted water to supply water to the coastal cities. My thought now, inspired by your comment, “Maybe their drinks were getting warm, and they needed…,,” would there be enough salt retained in the water to preclude the need for salt around the rim of my Margarita glass or my Salty Dog glass?
You have it backwards sir.
The original graph had the ice level at a higher level, and right when we were about to reach the average level for the first time in years, they retroactively changed the data to be lower. The original graph was higher then the new one.
OK, thanks. I seem to have misinterpreted the comment of Steven Goddard’s about not remembering a single time when ice area or extent was revised upwards, which suggested to me that it had been this time.
Carry on, then.
You poor, sweet, naive fool, you still TRUST the ‘scietific community’?
Not I.
Too many mistakes, miscounts, misspokes and misreportings (lies) in this past year. I believe nothing said, reported or attested to. The ‘scientific community is a joke. (And a bad joke at that.)
I am about sick of paying taxes for false data, bailouts, criminal politicans and on and on and on. Is anything correct any more or is it all incorrect?
It’s hard economical times now.
What is a climatologist to do if the funds start dry up.
BTW. Have you seen the cryosphere.
Today it is almost possible to walk across the ice between Greenland and Iceland.
We’ve seen this before with even honest researchers. There is little impetus to reexamine data when it is conforming to your theory. It is only when the theory is challenged that they go back and revisit their data.
Here’s wishing my fellow Southern Californians a safe and warm week of a once in 50 years arctic weather storm (as opposed to climate storm).
It’s simple. If CO2 can tele-connect backwards in time to adjust the temperature, there’s no reason it can’t go back in time and retroactively adjust the sea ice extent as well.
Reality once again is stranger than fiction (Back To The Future).
Anthony,
Perhaps you can remember (you could check the archives), where a month or two ago, I mentioned that the 2008 refreeze curve looked to be an exact copy of the 2007 refreeze except it starte around two weeks earlier.
I asked if you could delay the 2008 by two weeks to see how ell it matched 2007; and you replied that it wasn’t your graph so you couldn’t do that.
So look at your blink comparatore again and imagine the “before” regrow delayed by two weeks, and you’ll see it is a duplicate of the 2007 data..
All of which still means that outfit is screwed up.
George
I agree that NANSEN owes everyone an explanation. I suspect this represents an embarrassing situation for them in exposing an overlooked error. Sort of like the left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing. Or in this case, no one compared the difference between their three-year graph and its STD counterpart.
I never really looked at their upper set of graphs comparing ice extent/area for three years, usually just looked at the standard deviation graphs. I had noticed some time ago that NANSEN’s standard deviation graphs were running ahead of the values shown at the IARC-JAXA site. I doubted my own doubts and just assumed they were using a different standard or software. With this adjustment, it appears that NANSEN’s standard deviations graphs now match their own three-year comparison graphs as well as the graph put out by IARC-JAXA. Notice that NANSEN’s uncorrected STD graph had ice extent at over 12 million km², whereas the data at IARC-JAXA for 12 Dec had ice extent at 11.681 million km².
Doesn’t look like an AGW conspiracy of any type, more like an embarrassing case of sloppiness.
The remaining three months of ice formation should be most interesting. FWIW, I don’t pay close mind to NSIDC as their explanations sound too much like trying to get the data they observe to fit the warming orthodoxy. What I would have been interested in hearing though, would have been an explanation for the way the ice formation in the Bering Sea seems to be doing so much better this year while, at the other exteme, Hudson Bay has been so slow to freeze this year.
“The remaining three months of ice formation should be most interesting.”
I think the 2009 melt season should be most interesting. We will start into 2009 with more “multiyear” ice which stands up better to summer conditions than we had in 2008. Extent doesn’t matter as much as salinity and density. Salty “yearling” ice melts fairly easily once the sunshine hits it. Fresher, denser “old” ice stands up better.
probably a bunch of government scientists sitting around one day figure they needed a few extra years of heavy funding and lots of Travel & Expense Accounts so they could max out their pensions before the whole scam went kablooey. Gotta keep the scare going or the scammed might find time to actually think about the real data.
By the time the scam is busted, they’ll be retired, have lots of great memories about saving the world and pictures from the numerous Global Warming Conferences they attended in Bali.
The new guys can wear the crap can of retribution when the “science” fails to match the actual data, when even fudging the data no longer can be used to hide the truth or used to scare people.
Wonder what would happen if we based the pension on of the global warming science Team on the accuracy of their “science”
Different game, different song me-thinks.
These guys don’t sleep at night.
I had the following exchange with Stein Sandven::
From: Stein Sandven
Sent: Saturday, December 13, 2008 3:05:43 PM
Subject: Re: Something is rotten in Norway – 500,000 sq-km of sea ice disappears overnight
Hello,
There has been an error in the ice area calculation since about 22 October, causing too steep slope of the 2008 curve. We corrected for this yesterday and recalculated the ice area for 2008. The slope of the 2008 curve should now be correct and can be compared with 2007 and the previous mean monthly ice area.
Best regards
Stein
On Dec 13, 2008, at 7:59 PM, L. Gardy LaRoche wrote:
> Mr. Sandven,
> what happenned to your data ?
>
> Something is rotten in Norway – 500,000 sq-km of sea ice disappears overnight
>
> http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/13/something-is-rotten-in-norway-500000-sq-km-of-sea-ice-disappears-overnight/#more-4514
>
Video: Al Gore in Germany last week:
“The entire Polar Ice Cap will dissapear within 5 years”.
wattsupwiththat (11:54:55) :
There is no connection of any sorts to the presidential election – Anthony
References, documentation, peer review?
What is Al Gore using to make this statement?
Gardy LaRoche quotes Stein Sandven:
This explanation does not seem to match what has happened. The slope of the graph after 22-Oct does not seem to have changed (much), Rather, the graph between 11-Oct and 22-Oct has changed such that the inflection point on the graph has been lowered. (There might be a small reduction in the slope, but the largest effect seems to be that starting point has been lowered.)
Does Al Gore really believe he can convince people that the ENTIRE cap will melt in 5 years? That is a physical impossibility. Temperatures on the polar plateau rarely exceed 10F in summer and -115F is common in winter. The annual mean temp is less than -50F.
Temperatures would have to rise 20F just to BEGIN melting that ice. He seems to forget that ice is accumulating at the South pole. The ice cap is thickening in interior Antarctica and on Greenland.
I’ve seen this kind of “adjustment” all too often with raw data covering an assortment of parameters. Whether it is tropical storms, temperatures, or ice cover, the adjustments also serve the interests of the Alarmists agenda. This could very well be a legitimate adjustment, but I am too cynical anymore to buy into it.
In recent years it isn’t just stock analysts, politicans, and CEOs who have a problem with the truth. Scientists can now count themselves as peers in that infamous group of public liars. One can tell a lie as long as it “serves the greater good” -however the “good” can be defined. But please, don’t pee on my boots and tell me it’s raining.
How does Al Gore figure that the ice never melted in the last 3 million years?
Must be one of his “I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is.”
We know that it didn’t melt for the last 30 years so over-represent that by a factor 100,000.
“There has been an error in the ice area calculation since about 22 October, causing too steep slope of the 2008 curve.”
I accept the explanation as Gardy relayed it to us at 15:51 and assume good faith .
But the graph changed per 11 September, not 22 October.
Apparently the error in the calculation – what ever it was – about 22 October affected calculated areas from 11 September onward. That seems odd.
My guess at an scenario: a first error existed from 11 September to 22 October. Then a newer error was loaded about 22 October. And both have been fixed now.
I have been watching that page daily for a couple of months and had noted that the bottom graphs where the data is compared to the standard deviation was different on the leading edge from the graphs above it. I wondered why that was because the graphs are labeled the same. I thought maybe it was some sort of smoothing filter run on the data and the two graphs would converge. It couldn’t be a mistake on such a scientific site, I thought. So nothing nefarious is going on but obviously it seems someone has been doing his graphs wrong since Sept. 11th.