Global Sea Ice Trend Since 1979 – surprising

An area of ice the size of the United States melts and re-freezes each year. This is an important article. Thank you Jeff

So, even with the big melt in 2007, we still see an average increase in sea ice anomaly trend with bootstrap. In that case, if you ignore the 2007 data (just for the fun of it) I bet we would see a much greater slope upwards in the 30-year trend. 2007 looks like an anomalous year, which may be influencing the statistics too much and masking a more realistic climatic trend. Just like the 1998 El Nino temperature-anomaly spike doesn’t seem to help the calculation of its long term trend, but only to increase its statistical fluctuations.

bah Cryosphere

Is it possible to get this work into a “Peer Reviewed” journal?

It also begs the question – of why hasn’t NSIDC noticed this and published these results?

A really inconvenient truth — it seems that total polar sea ice is essentially stable, notwithstanding Mr. Gore’s panic attack prediction.

Jeff Id,
May I ask some questions concerning the difference of the two methods.
The nasateam data extend closer to present day than the bootstrap data. Does nasateam use a running mean taken over previous data, while bootstrap uses a mean including forward data as well?
When looking at the two anomaly curves, they show a similar peak structure. But subtracting the two curves will not generate white noise?
Maybe, when you put in a certain time shift between the two curves?

What’s this? Has the arctic ice been melting?! In december?!
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm

The shape of the 30 year average sea ice area is also very interesting. Assuming that the Day of Year axis represents a normal western calender, the areal extent of sea ice seems to fall to a minimum during the Antarctic summer, with a much smaller dip during the Arctic summer. That suggests that there is a lot more sea ice around the perimeter of Antarctica than in the Arctic region, contrary to my expectations.

Lamont: SST for the Southern Ocean stopped its rise more than 20 years ago and has been on a sharp decline for more than 10 years.
http://i35.tinypic.com/s3djds.jpg
With respect to your realclimate link, they searched and found a few reports that discussed very specific climate models of the Antarctic and the Southern Ocean to illustrate that “A cold Antarctica and Southern Ocean do not contradict our models of global warming. For a long time the models have predicted just that.”
But what do other models say? Look at the two graphics of GISS equilibrium runs used by realclimate in another discussion, the first two figures in the following.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/tropical-troposphere-trends
There is NO cooling in the lower troposphere of the Antarctic in either illustration. While the high latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere do not warm as greatly as they do in the North, they still show warming,
Climate models contradict one another, so some will be consistent with reality while others will not. What value do they have then?

Lamont: You wrote, “The northern hemisphere has more people, more CO2 emissions, and more water to moderate the effects of AGW.”
First, CO2 is a “well-mixed greenhouse gas”, so that part of your statement has little substance. Second, oceans cover approximately 60% of the Northern Hemisphere, and for the Southern, they cover about 80%, so that part of your statement is wrong.

The trouble is it has always changed and always will especially with a live volcanoe under the ice ,If you look at history it clearly shows everytime the c02 is high the earth has been cooler not warmer ,the tree rings show that c02 in high amounts make eveything grow 75%faster ,at the end of the day no one can predict in 100yrs or conttrol it ,that is impossible ,this is a scam thats why there is no quantified equasion to predict anything exisists because its impossible .Ethanol reduces c02 slightly but burns with a lot more polluting solids as found by testing recently ,it also clogs motors and catalyic converters and produces nitros oxide which is a lot worse and that is smog ,more lies ,c02 is essential for every living thing on the planet not a pollutant .

Lamont,
Do I understand you to be suggesting that the increasing ice around the Antarctic is because the alleged AGW has not yet caused the ice to melt, but that I must believe you when you say it will melt, eventually?
You also state that more people, more CO2 emissions, and more water moderate the effects of AGW. What do you mean by “moderate”? Do you mean to “lessen” the effects of AGW, so that the Arctic ice will increase or do you mean “potentiate” the effects of AGW, so that the Arctic ice reduces?
I am directed to point out that the Arctic and Antarctic ice is increasing in both extent and area.

Could someone explain why thickness/mass is important?

phoynix,
“I love how you say cherry prick, you take only sat photos, completely ignore all other data such actual physical investigations of the caps.”
There has been no selection of one data set over another. I used this data because it had a long timespan, it was well documented and was available.
I separated the NH and SH out in previous posts. Some here have already seen them but I think they show a lack of selective plotting.
NH
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2008/12/13/sea-ice-area-or-anomaly/
SH
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2008/12/14/sh-sea-ice-data-and-anomaly/
Lamont,
I think others have already addressed your points (thanks to Bob T and the Geezer) but on the Air Vent it is my policy to not accept real climate references as valid.
Consider that they will not accept dissenting opinion and also consider that they not only accept but embrace the Mann papers. Papers which are so mathematically and data flawed that you couldn’t push them through an undergrad stats class. They are well informed so you can learn things from them but they ceased to be scientists long ago.

We need to be careful focussing upon ‘trends’ – it can lead to serious errors of context – and this underlies the entire ‘global warming’ thesis which relies upon computer models with entirely false (i.e. non-natural) notions of an equilibrium starting point and calculations of trend – this conveniently ignores cycles, and it has to because a) there are several non-orbital cycles in motion (8-10 yr, 11, 22, 60, 70, 80, 400 and 1000-1500) depending on ocean basic, hemisphere and global view – all interacting via ‘teleconnection’ of those ocean basins , some clearly timed by solar cycles, some peaking together; b) because the cycles are not exact, you cannot tell in any one decade where you are in the longer cycles. Thirty years is far too short to encompass a cycle for the Arctic sea ice where the major cycle is at least 70 years – the best cycle context for this I have found is represented in the State of the Arctic Report or the work of Igor Polyarkov at IARC Fairbanks – looking at Surface Air Temperature trends for the whole Arctic – 60-90N, for the century you can see two peaks in 1940 and 2005 with a trough in the mid-80s (if anyone can tell me how to copy in a jpg I could put one in here!).
Thus, whatever is happening now in the Arctic, if it is air-temperature related, then something similar happened then – but instrumental records were different. If you read E. Hanna et al in the Arctic Report Card 2007 (www.arctic-noaa.gov/reportcard/ArcticReportCard_full_report.pdf):
“Over the past century, years in Greenland that register as abnormally warm, 1929, 1932, 1941, 1947, and 1960 are outstanding, having temperatures warmer than observed recently. Increases in GrIS melt and runoff during this past century warm period must have been significant and were probably even larger than that of the most recent last decade (1995-2006).”
However, despite this, the team reckon to have perhaps isolated a ‘global warming’ signal in the accelerated run off of the Greenland Ice Mass – but only just, because the runoff at the edges is balanced by increasing central mass – again, they focus upon recent trends – a net loss of about 22 cubic kilometres in total ice mass per year which they regard as statistically not significant – to find the ‘signal’, and a contradiction to their ealier context of air temperature cycles.
Anyone reading the Report Card can choose to focus upon the recent ‘trend’ and call it global warming, or the 70 year cycle.
Even if the recent cycle (of which there is evidence of a turning through 2006-2008 with run-off slowing in Greenland and the 2008 summer sea-ice melt 9% up on 2007), is different from the previous in terms of the overall pattern – as some argue, this can just as easily be the effect of the 400 year cycle – recovery from the Little Ice Age, upon which the current 70 year cycle piggbacks. See the essay by recently retired director of the International Arctic Research Centre – Dr Syun-Ichi Akasofu (www.people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/pdf/recovery_little_ice_age.pdf). So then, given that we are at a peak of the 400 year cycle and the LIA was a trough, we need to go to the previous peak – 800 years give or take a bit (and remember there is a lower frequency cycle below this one, probably due to ocean overturning) and we are in Viking settlement times on Greenland and legends of the circumnavigating Chinese fleet sailing home via the Arctic Ocean!
For a useful critique of model-starting-points which bear no relation to the real-world, see: D. Koutsoyiannis et al (2008) ‘On the credibility of climate predictions’ in Hydrological Sciences 53(4) August 2008 671-684, who conclude that the GCM models defy normal assessments of validity and should not be relied upon to predict future climate change.
And with regard to Antarctic ‘trends’ – virtually all the action is on the Peninsula region and the Western Ice Sheet (about 15% of the area) – with no significant trend for the other 85% of the continent. And it is known that the southern polar regions ‘see-saws’ with the northern – so when the north polar is on the up cycle – the south polar in on a downer (Bob Tisdale’s graph of the southern ocean SSTs shows this clearly for the ‘global warming’ period of 1980-2005 – and the Peninsula Region just catches a flow-in from warmer seas to the north).

“This is a strong indication of substantial errors in the computer models and temperature data which needs to be addressed before we throw what’s left of our global economy to the wind. ”
What errors would these be, then? Have you even looked at what the models say–especially about Southern hemisphere ice extent? How can you make such a bold statement without even consulting the literature?

The key number is neither extent nor area, but VOLUME.
That is: area*thickness.
I know that thickness has declined significantly in the arctic, but have we had accurate measurement of ice thickness long enough to make any meaningful interpretations?
Particularly in the Antarctic, where this may have a major impact on overall data…….
Look forward to hearing from the pros on this…..

there is a recent article where the geographical distribution of the warming was analyzed in detail
(by Dr. John Christy, a professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center (ESSC) at The University of Alabama in Huntsville.)
see e.g. for summary
http://www.physorg.com/news148239677.html
I think it is pretty clear why ice in south will grow as it has been cooling down durint the last 30 years !!

Mass/Volume only seem to be relevant when someone points out that total area hasn’t declined. When pointed out that, in the Antarctic, there are many places where there is increased ice pack over the last few decades, even if some shelf here or there falls into the ocean, we are told that the mass isn’t as important as the area.
Now, we see that neither mass nor area in the Antarctic has not perished, and area is making a comeback in the north.
This is very inconvenient, so the logical thing to do is tell us that mass in the north is really what’s important.
In my line of work, I end up throwing out models and stats at least as often as I actually use them. It never ceases to amaze me that a simple application of common sense more often than not gets you the right answer.
And common sense says that we have long since passed the point of common sense being applied in the climate change arena. Imagine the good we could actually do if we simply stopped wasting time, energy, and resources on this non-existent problem.

@Robinson
“Is anyone losing the will to live?”
OK. Don’t let the bastards ruin what time you have during this fascinating voyage.
Shake your head at their folly. It’s always been so with most of our species.
Then enjoy the mystery, the timeless cycles. The sun (diminished as it is) rising.
Time will throw the necessary light on this silly, misguided foolishness.

Jeff ID
The answer to you question on changein volume vs no change in area (or little change) presumably is that the area won’t change if the ice is 10cm vs 10 metres.
At the very margins, this doesn’t matter, what does matter is where ice is retained all summer but a lot of the top ice melts off, so the area doesn’t change but the volume does.
That’s what I’m thinking. It won’t change at the poles probably, but at the periphary of the permanent ice.
My view is this: it’s easier for scientists to measure area than volume, so they measure area.
I don’t know the reliability of the techniques, but aren’t there guys at UCL in London who’ve used satellites to measure thickness recently?

Eric, they said themselves, “As noted in earlier entries, persistent high pressure over the central Arctic Ocean led to fairly clear skies for the most of the summer, promoting melt.”
Is there any evidence that persistent high pressure over the central Arctic Ocean is unique, or new in some way? They use the word “extreme” a lot, but I doubt they have significant historical data over the last few millennia to substantiate such a claim.

“The summer ice area is the thing to look at, and it is decreasing in the Arctic and more and more ice is one year ice. ”
More correctly, it “was” decreasing, and more and more ice “was” one year ice. The pesky summer of 2008 didn’t go as planned, and thus there is now more 2+ year ice this winter than last winter. When we see 2009 ice increase from 2008, then that will mean there is more 2+ year ice than in the previous couple years.
Just like the cooling trend in place at the moment that gets dismissed as a short-term aberration, I wonder how many years if increasing levels on the summer trough will have to now occur before AGW proponents will move on to the next argument and ignore the trend reversal.
And yes, despite the one data point, I do believe we’ve seen a reversal. The temps in the Arctic have declined now for a few years and it had warmed enough that it makes perfect sense that we would see a lag in the reformation of ice.

Jeff ID
I’m also a open-minded skeptic, but that’s why I’m asking whether the measurements have been done.
I have no axe to grind, but my view is that sudden drops in ice extent are more explainable if a large area at the edges thins over several years, thus allowing a big chunk of melting. I have no data to support that, but it seems intuitively reasonable.
Otherwise, you’d expect a uniform increase or decrease in ice extent over multi-decadal cycles.
Wouldn’t you?
Any links you can pass me to which examine this issue?

Graeme Rodaughan (19:55:36) :
“I’m shocked – that poor fellow Pugh paddled all the way to the north pole for nothing…”
Ahem. Fridjof Nansen the Norwegian explorer got 4 degrees further north than Pugh ever did, and that was back in 1893 in a much larger boat, the Fram.
Expedition route here: http://www.fram.museum.no/en/default.asp?page=142
Design of the Fram here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fram
Didn’t Pugh turn back at around 80.5 degrees Latitude? Nine and a half degrees of latitude short of target? That’s not even close.

Jeff Id said,
“Eric,
Now that’s serious cherry pickin. If the summer ice is downward trending in the arctic, other ice must be compensating for it right, or the net would be downward????
Don’t pay attention to the man behind the curtain.”
The problem with your graph is that you are adding summer ice in the Arctic to winter ice in the Antarctic in your graphs. As I mentioned the winter ice in the Antarctic can increase as much as it wants without affecting the earth’s albedo.
It seems obvious that this is why scientists look at the two regions separately.
The right way to do this is to offset the Antarctic and Arctic statistics by 6 months if you want to look at winter versus summer trends on one graph by year.
Expressing contempt is not a scientific argument even though it plays well on this web site.

Eric,
Where does the Antarctic winter ice go in the summer, and how fast?

Eric
“As I mentioned the winter ice in the Antarctic can increase as much as it wants without affecting the earth’s albedo.”
That must be one of the absurd arguments i’ve ever read. This would be true only if the ice never reached north of the arctic circle and froze/melted instantly upon the appearance/disappearance of the sun. Actually the winter ice reaches maximum about the autumn equniox, when sunlight reaches the South Pole, and the sea ice nowhere extends south of 78 degrees (because there is no sea there).
Actually the argument makes more sense applied to the arctic sea ice – both in winter and summer, since it is at a much higher average latitude and therefore affects albedo much less.

Eric,
I see we aren’t going to agree on this, there are several points in your post I have issues with.
“As I mentioned the winter ice in the Antarctic can increase as much as it wants without affecting the earth’s albedo. ”
The ice still has to melt requiring energy input, during that time the albedo in the area changes. So I don’t believe you can make this statement.
Energy in is energy in and percent reflection from a largely Lambertian diffuser (snow and ice) doesn’t change much with angle. The total energy required to melt the ice from winter to summer with either ice albedo or seawater albedo should be relatively independent of season.
“The right way to do this is ….”
I wanted to look at the overall trend not winter vs summer.
“It seems obvious that this is why scientists look at the two regions separately.”
I can think of another reason that arctic summer ice is the talking point for AGW. I bet most of the people on this blog can think of another reason too.
Whether summer ice is an example of political expedience or it is scientifically valid, the politics of AGW do exist and do pollute the science – see previous Gore post. We cannot simply pretend it doesn’t exist. This means that every claim needs to be scrutinized and assumptions need to be confirmed.
I understand the concept of summer to winter variation being a global warming response but the net change should be negative – and its not! So I would ask, does that mean the summer/winter trend you want to discuss is not a result of global warming?

Your entire analysis is invalid. You should have read the documentation more closely.
There’s a discontinuity in area data in 1987 because there’s a “hole” in the observed area which is smaller for the SSM/I satellite than for SMMR, hence area data after the switch from one satellite to another are larger — not because ice area was greater, but simply because the area which is “not counted” is smaller:

Sea ice concentrations are assumed to be 100 percent around a circular sector centered over the Northern Hemisphere pole (known as the pole hole) which is never measured due to orbit inclination. The Southern Hemisphere also has a pole hole; however, it does not affect this sea ice data set; since only land is under this hole. For SMMR, the hole is 611 km in radius and is located poleward of 84.5 degrees north. For SSM/I, the hole is 310 km in radius and is located poleward of 87 degrees north.

This is better explained in the documentation given for monthly averages:

Important Note: The “extent” column includes the area near the pole not imaged by the sensor. It is assumed to be entirely ice covered with at least 15% concentration. However, the “area” column excludes the area not imaged by the sensor. This area is 1.19 million square kilometers for SMMR (from the beginning of the series through June 1987) and 0.31 million square kilometers for SSM/I (from July 1987 to present). Therefore, there is a discontinuity in the “area” data values in this file at the June/July 1987 boundary.

Hence there’s an artificial “jump” in sea ice area data of about 0.88 million km^2. Without compensating for that discontinuity, any trend analysis of the data (including this one) has no validity.
If you correct for the discontinuity in the way area is measured, it’s undeniable that global sea ice has trended down over the time span monitored by satellites.

Oh Drudge Report, how I love thee. Let me count the ways….no, wait…let me count the factual errors in this one news story on My Way News from AP writers Seth Borenstein and Dina Capiello.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081214/D952LKP00.html

@chris Wright (04:57:21) :
@Mister Jones (10:19:44) :
I was jesting, I’m well aware of Pughs self promoting folly.
It was the contrast b/w the “notion of an ice free artic that would allow for someone to Kayak all the way there” and “Jeff’s illumination of increasing global sea-ice” that I was driving at – all be it – from an abtuse angle.
For the AGW Warmers – a relatively short time ago – loss of sea ice extent was all the rage as an indicator of Catastrophic Global Warming… The artic was the proverbial Canary in the Global Warming Coal mine that was twittering warnings of the demise of the world.
Why has the argument moved from “ice extent” to “ice mass” – is the extent proxy no longer able to help support AGW – as it is no longer reducing and the artic is not playing ball.
And you accuse sceptics of “cherry picking” data.
I suggest that you look up “Cognitive Dissonance” on Wikipedia. Your little religion of global apocalypse is clouding your minds.

“I can think of another reason that arctic summer ice is the talking point for AGW. I bet most of the people on this blog can think of another reason too. ”
Ohhh, ohhhh, Mr Kotter, Mr Kotter…..
Because the Antarctic ice is not cooperating with their “models.”

Jeff Id, a point that may suggest further analysis.
While much is made of summer sea ice melt, it’s irrelevant to the claimed increased greenhouse effect. The best, and arguably only, measure of global warming is winter maximum sea ice extent/area.
This is because the winter maximum excludes any intra-annual effects, which cannot possibly be due to the cumulative effects of greenhouse gas warming over periods greater than a year.
Note that while GHG warming may have intra-annual effects, these effects are of no relevance to climate change/global warming defined as changes over periods greater than a year.
Also note that the GHG effect operates by decreasing cooling. An effect that should be at it’s maximum at night, which in the polar regions is synonomous with winter.
In fact the GHG effect also decreases solar warming at the surface by blocking incoming solar radiation. So an increased GHG effect should manifest in the polar regions in a decrease in winter sea ice extent and a smaller increase in summer sea ice extent relative to the winter maximum extent (ie a smaller annual range in sea ice extent).
I think you will find the exact opposite in all 3 sea ice metrics; winter maximum, summer minimum and annual range, at both poles. Compelling evidence that changes in sea ice extent/area have nothing to do with an increasing GHG effect.

The flatness is really impressive. Could it be that it is meaningful ? Is there any kind of explanation that could suggest that this is more than a coincidence ?

Ben: your
The flatness is really impressive. Could it be that it is meaningful ? Is there any kind of explanation that could suggest that this is more than a coincidence ?
Pielke Sr has the melt seasons for the Arctic and Antarctic, using minimum and maximum ice dates, and these graphs are also remarkably flat.
http://climatesci.org/2008/12/08/are-there-long-term-trends-in-the-start-of-freeze-up-and-melt-of-antarctic-sea-ice/
http://climatesci.org/2008/12/04/are-there-long-term-trends-in-the-start-of-freeze-up-and-melt-of-arctic-sea-ice/

Re: Sea Ice extent decreasing
If you look at this comparison there does seem to be some reduction of sea ice near Russia (Siberia?) just near the Pacific entrance to the Bering Strait.
That seems to be about all that is possible. It seems that Hudson Bay will be completely frozen over soon as well.

Hey, there are at least three of us trying to get somebody to notice this:Dodgy Geezer (14:00:33) :
sven (23:44:02) :
What’s this? Has the arctic ice been melting?! In december?!
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
Yup. I saw that as well. But no one seems fussed about it. I’m surprised that Anthony hasn’t picked it up….
Any explanations?

Excellent entry Jeff. Thanks.

To my readers, Anthony Watts received a comment from our friend Tamino on the ice data I used for the area analysis. Unfortunately for me he is right this time. It appears that a correction to the data is required prior to 1987 which will create an approximate negative trend of 0.88 million sq kilometers per 30 years. It is a fairly small trend in the scheme of a 20million sq kilometer signal, but understand this mistake is entirely mine and is unrelated to Anthony Watts excellent blog.
Unfortunately the change makes the Area signal difficult to determine prior to 1988 because the percent fill is unknown. Anthony cannot check every detail of a post which took me days of research and he simply requested if he could copy it here.
The link to my corrections is:
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2008/12/16/sea-ice-decreases-despite-the-air-vent/
My apologies.
Jeff Id

Richard Sharpe, GH gases, particularly CO2, do block some incoming solar radiation, although it is much less than the outgoing LWR blocked.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Atmospheric_Transmission.png
I’m not the first to point out that we should see increasing minimum temps and a decreased diurnal range as the signature of GHG warming.
However, I’m not aware that anyone else has pointed out that we should see the equivalent effect on sea ice extent/area – decreasing winter maximum extent, decreasing annual melt range and no increase or even a slight decrease in summer melt.
Note the GHG diurnal effect is accentuated toward the poles where we have moreorless 6 months of daylight followed by 6 months of night.
The pattern of sea ice melt bears no resemblance to what an increasing GHG effect should produce and therefore it cannot be the cause.

I will give applause to Tamino with the sound of one hand clapping.

There is not enough data to have a trend so no AGW.

Perhaps the gracious response would be to thank Tamino and acknowledge that the people who study these things professionally seem to have it correct:-
Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice Extent, 1979-2007: Although Arctic sea ice extent underwent a strong decline from 1979 to 2007, Antarctic sea ice underwent a slight increase. The Antarctic ice extent increases were smaller in magnitude than the Arctic increases, and some regions of the Antarctic experienced strong declining trends in sea ice extent
http://www.nsidc.colorado.edu/sotc/images/arc_antarc_1979_20…
http://www.nsidc.colorado.edu/sotc/sea_ice.html
Oh, and the headline should be edited from ‘surprising’ to ‘unsurprising’
😉

Dodgy Geezer (14:00:33) :
sven (23:44:02) :
What’s this? Has the arctic ice been melting?! In december?!
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
Yup. I saw that as well. But no one seems fussed about it. I’m surprised that Anthony hasn’t picked it up….
If you look at the cryosphere animation, you can see the cold amoeba pulling back a bit. Some of the warmth we are getting at the south east of europe might be brushing up there? Volcanic activity? That would show up on a temperature map?

Continuing my last observation, if you look at the animation ( bottom of the index) of the anomalies in the waters
http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst_anom_loop.gif
you will see hot spots on the south of Iceland starting around end of November. By 14th December it looks suspiciously like volcanic activity: localized.

I think that playing spin the bottle is a very poor substitute for scientific observation and reporting. It reminds me of current news reporting. Nobody reports news anymore. Nobody reports what they observe out the door. They seem compelled to spin it. When Anthony started his surface station review, he didn’t study just a few in a short period of time and then spend the remainder of his time spinning his opinions. As far as I know, the final report has not been printed in public because not every last station has been surveyed. Now that is self control. Though I will grant that we are getting sneak previews of stations that just leave me speechless.
If you find something interesting, state it as an observation, then try your best to prove it is not significant, or caused by some event. Everything is non-significant random events till proven otherwise and the research is repeated by others. Pay close attention to the ever present risk of possible mistakes. Send draft articles out for others to review before going public. And you should ALWAYS send a draft out to someone who is studying the same phenomena but from an opposing point of view. Their critique will be the most useful.
Finally, don’t veil your article in subtle spinning. It stinks worse than obvious tones.

Jeff, great article. whether the slope is positive or negative may not be as important as the fact that either are basically flat, meaning no great change,
no great warming. Thank you

For what it is worth – the latest “scientific” report from AP news.
More than 2 trillion tons of land ice in Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska have melted since 2003, according to new NASA satellite data that show the latest signs of what scientists say is global warming.
More than half of the loss of landlocked ice in the past five years has occurred in Greenland, based on measurements of ice weight by NASA’s GRACE satellite, said NASA geophysicist Scott Luthcke. The water melting from Greenland in the past five years would fill up about 11 Chesapeake Bays, he said, and the Greenland melt seems to be accelerating.
NASA scientists planned to present their findings Thursday at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco. Luthcke said Greenland figures for the summer of 2008 aren’t complete yet, but this year’s ice loss, while still significant, won’t be as severe as 2007.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081216/ap_on_sc/sci_arctic_ice

Pamela Gray,
“I think that playing spin the bottle is a very poor substitute for scientific observation and reporting.”
I missed a single sentence in the middle of a huge pile of info which I read several times. The data was presented as a continuous time series adding to the confusion. Also adding the area back in creates an unrealistic jump in the time series so my corrected slope is exaggerated. I was tricked by it and it was my fault, but really the down slope is not as strong as my new post states. I have some ideas for correction now which should give a better view. You make it sound like scientists never make mistakes — ever read Mann08.
Thanks to the rest for your support. I did send a thank you over to Tamino on his open thread for finding my error (we’ll see if it gets accepted).
My impression is still that the down slope is pretty minor considering the rhetoric we hear. I will continue to work on this in the future. One thing we know for sure is we aren’t in the driver seat on this one right now. The ice will do what it does.
I am looking for 07-08 SH area and extent data if anyone knows where to find it.
Thanks again,
Jeff

I have added an IUIC plot to my corrected page. It doesn’t look that different from my original post but still has some down slope.
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2008/12/16/sea-ice-decreases-despite-the-air-vent/
Ice area stays flat from 1978 to 2003 then drops. I had originally done a post on this graph Dec 9.
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2008/12/09/global-sea-ice-extent-experienced-minimal-change/
I should have put it in my statement at the top.

I notice that the daily NSIDC daily extent graph today suddenly indicates a week of flat growth in extent or even a loss of sea ice extent. I follow it every day and that doesn’t seem to agree with the map of sea ice extent on the same webpage.
What’s that all about?

Lessee, I’m gonna try to answer one of my own questions. I hope I don’t screw this up.
This site: http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/environment/waterworld.html
says there is approx. 29,340,000 km^3 of grounded ice on the planet.
This site:http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2000/AlexDallas.shtml
says the density of ice is approx. 917,000,000 metric tons/km^3
That would mean there would be approx. 26,905 trillion metric tons of grounded ice on the planet. (Somebody, please double check my cipherin’! Tamino?)
That would mean that the two trillion ton ice melt amounted to 0.007% of our planets total grounded ice.
Is that a big deal?

Hey, Anthony, take a look at this BBC article and tell me what you think of it. I think it funny that the lady who did this research is stating that their research is in its “infancy” and that nobody knows where this all will go; the BBC science editors who edited this story are pretty determined to give it the worst possible spin.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7786910.stm

Today on the BBC
“Scientists say they now have unambiguous evidence that the warming in the Arctic is accelerating.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7786910.stm

That story is a classic: ‘Give us a lot of grant money otherwise you might all die!’
You’ll see similar ones about ‘curing cancer’ when they’ve identified a new protein that MIGHT be a drug target, against which drugs MIGHT be developed, which MIGHT or MIGHT NOT be better than current drugs and which will only come to market in 15 years.

To David Hagen and other commentors on the Raiswell- Fe/Iceberg/Plankton study
My understanding of this work is that a negative feedback loop is put into effect by the bio-available Fe providing an essential ingredient for stimulating the growth of plankton.
See http://www.cesm.gatech.edu/faculty/fernandez/index.php
Study of the Biogeochemical Cycling of Fe: Plankton plays a crucial role in the Earth’s life dynamics; this tiny organisms lie at the bottom of the aquatic food chain, and its fate is thus thought to have deep implications in global climate change. Iron, among other trace metals, is an indispensable nutrient for the production of plankton, the most abundant marine organism. Because iron is extremely scarce in surface seawater, it is thought to occur almost exclusively bound to complex ligands of biological origin.
Also
From the Planktos Institute
“Fortunately the utility and efficacy of iron micro-nutrient ocean eco-restoration is near to hand and has benefitted from 20 years and $200 million in public research funds. Just a few weeks ago the Chief Scientist of the largest and best ocean iron micro-nutrient replenishment study performed aboard the German Alfred Wedgner Institutes research ship Polarstern announced that in their experiment they observed the following results. Within 30 days of adding iron (Fe) to enrich a patch of iron deplete Southern Ocean water to approximately 100 parts per trillion Fe a plankton bloom had fixed 50,000 tonnes of carbon (C) for each tonne of Fe applied. Given that biomass C was derived from CO2 that is a Fe:CO2 ratio of ~1:186,000 fixation. Further that scientist reported that 50% of that fixed carbon had sunk to or below the permanent thermocline in the same 30 day time frame.”

E.M.Smith said:

These events are unusual even in the depths of winter. (In 30+ years here I don’t remember anything like it… but then again 25 yrs ago I wasn’t as interested in weather…)

Oh pshaw, don’t you know that the behavior of the atmosphere to increasing CO2 is counter intuitive? At first, you get global warming, but after a while you get global cooling and then chaos!

even more to the point cryosphere today has ice area growing steadily over the past few days and IJIS has it static or declining. What’s up with that!!

Can some one explain what is happening up there in the Arctic?
The increasing recovery of ice has come to an end

The whole concept of the biosphere as a greenhouse is incorrect to begin with. It does not behave like a greenhouse. It is a flawed idea from the start, at its roots, so all the arguing about whether or not there is global warming due to GHG’s is also flawed and pointless. This is also one reason that the computer models are complete failures – they are based on a false idea. The ONLY greenhouse type of effect occurs as a result of the effects of clouds, especially the large and reflective type which are generally cumulous (low) clouds and to some extent cirrus and stratos, but mostly the low clouds. More CO2 does not mean higher temperatures but only greater thermal “intertia” so that temperature variability is reduced, not temperature changed. As the atmosphere builds in energy content as a result of greater thermal mass it also builds in re-radiation into space as a result of a pretty constant absolute temperature, this increase in re-radiation away from the earth being in direct proportion to the increased energy concentration. If temperature does increase or decrease then energy re-radiation into space also increases or decreases in direct proportion BUT it also increases and decreases in proportion to the TOTAL available energy. Each extra CO2 molecule equates to an extra absorber AND an extra radiator. Putting aside the effects of clouds, the biosphere is not some kind of thermal “diode” that allows energy in but not as much out. If we are to understand the mechanisms behind global climatic temperature variability then it is absolutely essential to look at clouds as being the primary direct controller of variability and therefore we must understand how and why clouds form and what controls them. This is where Henrik Svensmark and his team of honest, non-politically biased work has been of such great importance.
More CO2 has no effect on temperature average, only on temperature range (day to day, season to season, etc) just like the effect of atmospheric water. Moreover, the oceans have about 1000 times the thermal capacity of the atmosphere and to think that the atmosphere could so dramatically affect the oceans when it is apparent and obvious that the major portion of sunlight is absorbed by the oceans, the stmosphere being largely transparent to this, and therefore the oceans have the major controlling effect on temperature variability AND absolute temperature of the biosphere when combined with the effects of land on atmospheric temperature (apart from seismic or volcanic or other internal mechanism activity), to think the atmosphere has a major say in temperature control is incredibly scientifically ignorant or just an outright lie. It shows little if any true understanding of heat, temperature, thermal capacities, energy, radiation or any meaningful physical science relating to the subject in question. The main difference between H2O and CO2 (apart from the numerical differences of their specific physical properites such as degree of freedom, thermal capacity, physical mass, etc) in terms of their effects on the atmosphere is that water is capable of condensing into liquid to form clouds and readily and rapidly moves between surface and atmosphere, daily, seasonally, annually and on even greater time scales, but CO2 does not liquify in the biosphere and transfers over mostly long time periods between surface (primarily oceans, seas, etc) and the atmosphere.
If you want to understand climate temperature trends you MUST study clouds, their formation, their causes, their dissipation, how pressure and temperature systems affect them but most importantly what seeds them. Clouds do not just appear when air and therein contained atmospheric water cools down. Every droplet in a cloud must be seeded on a particle of some kind, generally referred to as aerosols. Up until Svensmark’s work, there were inadequate explanations for some of the effects we have seen in terms of cloud variability and especially with its association with solar magnetic activity. I will not go into depth here but for anyone wanting some real and honest science rather than cult faith you should look into the whys and wherefores of clouds, and not just the work of Svensmark but all reputable scientific sources who do not have an agenda of self-interest (usually income or reputation based on past work – pride is a great influence on perception) with regards to the ever variable climate.