Arctic Sea Ice Increases at Record Rate
Guest Post by Jeff Id on February 3, 2009
Something I’ve been interested in for the last several months is sea ice data. What makes it interesting is that as I understand it, models demonstrate the poles should be most sensitive to global warming leading the planet temp, especially in the Arctic. Recently I have been able to process the monthly and daily gridded arctic data as provided by NSIDC. The daily values allow a better analysis of trend than can be provided by the monthly data.
If you’re like me you recall the claims of fastest melt rate ever were made about 2007 , I fully believed them, because the graphs showed a much more negative value than in the previous 30 years as shown in Figure 1 below.
This effort was originally intended to investigate how bad the melt rate was in comparison to the natural variation, I didn’t get that far yet. Accessing and processing the gridded data was critical to the analysis, so I spent the time reading the literature and writing code. Having full access to the NSIDC data allows some interesting analysis, they do an excellent job on their site.
There are two primary algorithms used for processing ice data NasaTeam and Bootstrap. The descriptions of the data state the difference between the two is very small and the sets are interchangeable except that bootstrap is recommended for trend analysis in research publications. Bootstrap is only provided in monthly data format while NasaTeam is provided in both monthly and daily provided you’re willing to download over 1G of data, write code to process it, refit the land and missing data mask and sum the results. I am. Also, NasaTeam provides a near real time version of the polar ice data which has a different land mask and hasn’t been processed for missing data. This data isn’t as clean but I wanted to use it. I applied the same land mask as the rest of the series to insure that there was a consistent baseline for trend analysis. The missing data from Jan 2008 onward created noise in the series which I simply filtered out using a 7 day sliding window filter.
The mask looks like this Figure 2
The brown is land, black edges on land are coastline and light blue is the satellite data not measured. This mask is applied consistently through the entire data series. There was some question about masking on one of my other posts at WUWT where visually the land area seemed to change size, in the case of the NSIDC data they apply masks consistently except for the satellite hole and the near real time data.
The NasaTeam version of the arctic ice data looks like the plot below for 2009 (note the small size of the satellite data hole). This graph was created in R using the actual Nasa Team masks and data. I used the worst case land and polar masks to adjust the entire dataset to eliminate problems with consistency. Figure 3
Of course it’s an interesting picture, but what I wanted to know when I started this post was how bad was the worst melt rate in history and what is the actual melt area. In the plot below the arctic is losing sea ice at a rate of only 56K km^2/year. Of course sea ice area went up in the Antarctic during the same time frame though. Note the strong recovery in 08 of Figures 1 and 4, which actually exceeds values of most of the record, matching data back to 1980. Much of this is first year ice so the melt in 08 was expected to be a new record.
If you recall, in 2007 and 08 we were treated to headlines like this, which most of us accepted with a shrug.
Scientists warn Arctic sea ice is melting at its fastest rate since records began
NASA data show Arctic saw fastest sea ice melt in August 2008
Arctic Just Witnessed Fastest August Ice Retreat in History
I processed and analyzed the NasaTeam land area and missing data masks spending hours understanding different variances they list on their own website. After nearly everything I could find (except satellite transitions errors) was corrected (a different post) and corrections for variance in the measured pixel size, the final result in 30 day trends of arctic sea ice looks like the graph below (Figure 5). This graph is a derivative of the ice area plot. The maximum peaks and valleys represent the maximum rates of change in 30 day periods through the ice record.
Looking at this plot of the 30 day slopes of actual NASA gridded data, the maximum ice melt rate occurs in 1999 and in 2004 not in 2007. Surprisingly the maximum ice growth rates occur in 2007 and 2008, I don’t remember those headlines for some reason. Don’t forget when looking at the 2008 – 09 peak, the data is preliminary and hasn’t been through the same processing as the other data. From looking at the unprocessed data I doubt it will change much.
Certainly the 30 year arctic trend in ice area is downward, even the most committed global warming scientist has to admit this happens regularly in climate along with regular 30 year uptrends. The questions are, did we cause it or not, and was CO2 the instigating factor. The rapid recovery of ice levels has to have some meaning regarding the severity of the problem. This goes directly in the face of accelerated global warming and the doom and gloom scenarios promoted by our politicians and polyscienticians.
Why are my conclusions different from the news reported records? I think it’s likely due to the fact that the scientists used the monthly data which is processed using a weighted filter of the daily data that incorporates a longer time frame than a single month. This means their use of the monthly data to establish a monthly trend was in error and the real record down trends were actually set in 1999, 2003 and 1984. While the record uptrends were in 2007, 2008 and 1996.
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That pic of the submarine in 1959 prompted me to do some research. On the one hand, the water around the sub is probably a bit misleading, since it’s no doubt due to the sub itself breaking through the ice. On the other, I came across a reference to a study on ice thicknesses as recorded in submarine voyages from 1958 to 1992. The study notes that ice thicknesses are highly variable and consequently probably not a useful indicator of climate change.
alano;-)
Have I missed something? Reading that article I wasn’t aware that ice melt in 2008 was the “lowest on record” as the report states. I was under the impression that it was considerably less then what occurred in the summer melt of 2007, with a raid rate of recovery in the tail end of 2008!
Can anybody confirm or otherwise whether WUWT reports were incorrect when posted last year? I suspect this is sloppy reporting & a tad pinch of sensationalism for maximum effect! No change there then. This site I trust, not a newspaper story.
John Finn,
You said,
“the NH is also much warmer than average.
RSS anomaly for January is +0.322
NH anomaly (0 – 82.5) is +0.449
I’m certainly growing wary (and weary) of the constant stream of unsubstantiated “global cooling” pronouncements.
Wow… The Earth is almost a third of a degree warmer than the long term average? YIKES!!!! I didn’t realize the huge numbers involved here… OK, take all my money and please lower the thermostat by precisely .322 degrees.
Thank you for caring,
Mike Bryant
DJ (22:42:26) :
Whilst there has been a retreat of Arctic ice in the past thirty years this is nothing unusual, we know from historical records going back five hundred years that this has happened before, most recently fifty years ago. We do not know why there are periods when the ice retreats and then grows in extent again.
Papers please. This is not supported by the scientific literature.
Google Scholar returned 87,600 papers to the search terms “arctic ice history.”
Bear in mind that most here accept cyclical climate variation. It’s the assertions about AGW and the Draconian measures called for by its adherents we object to.
You wrote code, therefore I do not believe you.
I am about to update the climate science review accessed on my website at ethos-uk.com with a special chapter on the Arctic – it has bucketloads of science references – and my conclusion from a study of the atmospherics and oceanography papers, where many Arctic experts voice their assessment of the current low summer sea ice, is:
– the the current low was not predicted by AGW models until well past 2050, so they can’t claim it ;
– the ‘unusual’ events are cyclic – atmospheric temps have been almost as high and in many cases the records still stand for some localities in the 1920-1940 warm period; but the ocean temperatures are higher;
– the ice-melt is caused primarily by warm water incursion from the Atlantic, it travels under the cold fresher surface water all the way into the Beaufort Sea region, where it gives up its heat – check out the lovely cryosphere maps at Illinois and you’ll see that is the main area of summer ice loss;
– additionally, the warm phase of the PDO sent a lot of cloud over the polar regions – increased by 14% over 20 year period (State of the Arctic report, NOAA);
– thus the ice is melted from below by warm water from the Atlantic and from above by radiation down from clouds.
What has happened is a peaking of three warm cycles – Arctic Oscillation, North Atlantic Oscillation and Pacific Decadal Oscillation AND a solar grand maximum!!
Quite enough to create global warming!
But now the cycles are turning. The PDO has gone negative. The warm waters off Alaska have disappeared. The jetstream is altered and no longer drives in the moisture from the Pacific. Alaska is cooling. The Beaufort Gyre – being wind driven, is strengthening and will push out the warm Atlantic water – it will take a few years.
The Arctic atmosphere is clearing. And there is a solar minimum which may be prolonged which will disturb the stratosphere. Data on inflowing ocean temperatures to the Arctic (Norwegian Sea) is already showing lower temperatures. So there is no natural driver left for an Arctic meltdown – only carbon dioxide, if it has the power (which I doubt).
AGW theory will stand or fall (in my view it has already fallen) on what happens in the Arctic. So far – the data supports solar-cloud-ocean temperature as the main driver, followed by shifts in the jetstream that accelerate heat loss from the warm ocean stores – there is still a big one in the north Atlantic, but with a southerly shift of the jetstream it is now exposed to cloudless sky.
Meanwhile, we should expect the Antarctic to warm up a little! During La Nina years there is a vast area of cloudless sky and incoming sun in the Pacific sending warm surface waters further south. Expect droughts to persist in S Africa and Australia, torrential rain in Indonesia, and wetter Mediterranean/Spain/Portugal – another torrential summer for Britain, and this to be the first of a series of very cold winters.
I agree with all the comments about ‘sceptics’. I am a scientist. Scepticism is essential to science. But we don’t call it that – we call it critical faculty. We are getting branded so that people can justify not listening. At least things are better over the water – what with senate hearings and ex-NASA directors speaking out – here in the UK we have a monolithic monotheism.
Flanagan (00:09:04) :
John W: did you actually really write that Arctic ice is back to “normal”?
No. I didn’t. Go back and read what I posted. Think about the meaning of the phrase “behaving pretty much normally. ”
What I will assert is that, since I don’t subscribe to either AGW or Creation Science, I have a hard time with the concept of anything “permanent” in nature. (Even the constancy of the Fine Constant is questioned.)
The RSS tropospheric anomaly for January is out: + 0.322
This is the highest anomaly since July 2007, the 6th warmest since beginning of RSS but altogether the 4th coldest since 2000…
The last part was referring to January anomalies only.
I knew there would be a few critics.
Someone asked did you adjust for thickness, someone else asked where’s the data.
Arctic ice measurements are available to everyone on the NSIDC website. The monthly and daily ICE AREA data is available for two processing methods but the central satellite hole in the area data is not corrected for. The daily data is useful for establishing 30 day trends is available in NasaTeam format only. These are area plots which use the ice concentration multiplied times the area of the pixel which means yes I did adjust for thickness to the ability of the data. That’s why the area measurement is more interesting.
DJ – you say
This whole thread is built on a lack of understanding of basic climatology and climate change.
I think you stepped right on the point of the post. Would you then say the scientists who released greater than 3000 headlines across the globe about fastest melt in history also don’t have basic understanding of climatology?
lulo – you said
The melt rates look higher too if you ask me.
The graph is right there in front of you. The data is the data and record 30 day melt rates happened prior to 2007.
Mary Hinge –
What?
“I expect the alarmists will say that the winds were caused by CO2!”
Actually, they do say that. On another discussion forum I brought up the fact that the unusual melt was due in large part to a change in the Arctic Oscillation, wind not heat. The True Believer (TM) response was that the changing wind pattern was…. consistent with AGW theory.
DJ (22:42:26) :
“There are a range of studies of historical data which describe multi-year multi-metre thick ice. That ice is all now nearly gone, and as best as we can tell the current ice volume is the lowest on record.”
“…lowest on record” being precisely what record?
“This whole thread is built on a lack of understanding of basic climatology and climate change.”
Are we to understand you to mean that you have a better understanding of basic climatology and climate change”?
David L. Hagen (18:29:45) :
“Al Gore gave a presentation at the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on Jan 28. 2009, 10 AM. During that he showed graphs of the Arctic ice changing. He particularly noted a rapid change in old ice vs new ice. See:
ADDRESSING GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE: THE ROAD TO COPENHAGEN”
David L. Hagen,
People can say about Al Gore what they want to say but I think friend and enemy will agree that he is an intelligent person with a mission.
Therefore he will grab any argument to support his case.
Unfortunately all his arguments have been debunked in detail and now his arguments are reduced to a discussion about old and new (baby) ice!
It’s pathetic.
There is however a difference between old ice and baby ice.
Old ice is covered by a thick layer of algae and soot from erosion, volcanic and industrial emissions.
The new ice is clear, has better reflective properties and therefore grows thicker much faster.
It’s all part of a natural cycle and we should be discussing real world problems instead.
I think Jeff has done a fine job with this article and makes perfectly clear that humanity can stop worrying about the alarmist’s doom messages of a melting arctic, rising sea levels and drowning polar bears.
If we can now stop the cap and trade business and the pathetic efforts to generate our basic energy needs with wind mills and irresponsible wet green dreams we can
focus on real world priorities such as:
1. solving the current economic crises.
2. feeding the world under a changed climate regime (colder)
3. Clean water, housing and population growth.
4. Prevention of loss of habitat (stop palm oil exploitation, one of the other green dreams that cause havoc and destruction)
5. all other priorities that need rational approach and money which is now invested to fight a hoax.
I’ve been musing over these posts and have come to a sad conclusion. The dummies who push global warming have done a real disservice to themselves and to the planet. These knuckle heads decided to use a scare tactic which will not be proven or dis-proven till the globe either warms or, it doesn’t.
I believe the original idea came from those wanting to clean up the planet. After all, we are a messy specie. We use more than our share of resources and pay no attention to small, inconvenient facts like all the fish in all the lakes in the Midwest(USA) have a Mercury warning attached to them or, kids in cities have a higher chance of getting asthma or, that cutting down too many trees will make our air stinkier than it already is.
To those who don’t believe carbon dioxide is bad for you, try inhaling some. The same goes for sulfur dioxide, methane, etc.
The bottom line is everyone is caught up in this stupid ice melt/sea rise debate, which is unprovable, and we have taken our eyes off of the real problem. Pollution is bad for all of us.
TallDave: there is absolutely NO global warming model that predicts dropping maxima and minima each year.
You warmenists are straight out of Orwell.
The 4th assessment report (AR4) of the IPCC (IPCC, 2007) has compiled projections of Northern hemisphere sea ice extent from future climate scenarios calculated with global coupled climate models. The results of these experiments exhibit a persistent decrease of summer sea ice extent as seen in the ‘model ensemble mean’ of 19 climate models, i.e. the average of all 19 model applications (Fig. 1).
http://www.damocles-eu.org/artman/uploads/2007-record-low_sea-ice-event.pdf
Of course, given that we’re working with only 30 years of data anyway, having “record lows” is almost meaningless anyway.
But never mind that. We have always been at war with Eastasia.
I know that there has been some after the fact discussion of ice thickness. Indeed, I find it plausible but not compelling. The ice thickness argument would have applied before all of the predictions of a record extent melt in 2008 were falsified. Is there a published peer reviewed paper that predicts that the arctic melting would be evidenced by reduction in thickness rather than extent prior to 2008?
Also, it’s worth mentioning again that this total lack of scientific rigor is why scientific forecasters have said global warming predictions have no scientific basis, as previously posted here at WUWT, and that IPCC predictions violate 72 tenets of scientific forecasting.
Most things that are “expected under global warming” are also expected if the earth goes through a normal warming cycle, unless of course, you use bogus data to “disappear” the previous warm cycles then they are “unprecedented”.
I am not surprised,,, 1996, 2007, 2008 are all years notorious for relatively brutal winters
Understanding Arctic ocean currents and prevailing wind patterns as well as weather patterns both short and long term, will go a long way in helping you understand sea ice behavior. I have posted links before and will again.
Regarding wind patterns. Go to http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/ and click on the 30 animation. Watch as the ice moves around the pole center from West to East. That will help you understand how wind moves the ice around and packs it up against land forms. It will also help you to go to http://squall.sfsu.edu/gif/jetstream_norhem_00.gif and click on the animation to see how prevailing winds and jet stream patterns work together to vary the prevailing or common wind pattern around the pole.
To get a basic understanding of Arctic ocean currents go to http://www.aquatic.uoguelph.ca/oceans/ArticOceanWeb/Currents/frontpagecur.htm and spend a day reading and viewing the information there. Then go to http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/sst/ophi/color_anomaly_NPS_ophi0.png to study the day’s oceanic temperatures.
During the ice build up season, this study will help you understand how ice grows and shrinks. But don’t stop there. Go back to cryosphere and click on the various Arctic areas to see the anomaly in each area. You cannot make blanket statements about Arctic ice. Each area has its own environment to content with and thus acts in very different ways from one another. If you keep up on this study at least weekly, your ideas about a flea (CO2) affecting your Arctic room will slowly fade away as the elephant in the room (weather patterns) finally comes into view and you see that elephants have a far greater ability to change what your room looks like than a flea.
The earth is how old? A better question is perhaps a record since when, since the last ice age or since we just started measuring the Arctic sea ice extent 30 years ago with satellites?
We haven’t really been tracking the Arctic sea ice extent or the Arctic sea ice mass for very long.
DJ (22:42:26) :
“>Whilst there has been a retreat of Arctic ice in the past thirty years this is nothing unusual, we know from historical records going back five hundred years that this has happened before, most recently fifty years ago. We do not know why there are periods when the ice retreats and then grows in extent again.
Papers please. This is not supported by the scientific literature.”
Yes it is. Do a little research yourself. This information, provided by the climate scientists of early 1990s, is out there and I have read it. You might learn something if you seek the truth.
Oops. That should be “early 1900s”
My above posts brings an idea to mind. It would maybe be a good idea to have a sticky above that works like the glossary. Weather patterns 101. It would have basic no-comment posts about seasonal and long term tilt, jet stream behavior, oceanic currents, sea ice behavior, climates and weather patterns, etc since all of these things have incredibly strong influences on any theory (especially since it is quite obvious that warmers work very hard to exclude these elephant-large affects in order to find the flea). Heck, even skeptics do that. But we must contend with the noise and understand that first, in order to have the proper perspective on smoothed data. Who knows, we all may be blinded by the flea (the CO2 kind and the Sun kind). The weatherman may one day be king once again.
RE: Lance (01:33:24) :
The Washington post, ice age July 9, 1971 Hansen
http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=275267681833290
Hansen appears to be consistent throughout. Once an alarmist, always an alarmist. The exact nature of the predicted calamity is irrelevant, apparently.