Guest Post by Steven Goddard
As reported by Anthony, RSS satellite temperature data is out for March. And as the Catlin adventurers have discovered, it has been “stupidly cold” in the Arctic. March was the second consecutive month of below normal Arctic temperatures, and the continuation of a four year cooling trend – as seen below. Google’s linest() function shows that since the beginning of 2005, Arctic temperatures have been cooling at a rate of 1.8 degrees C per decade, or 18C per century ( see comments). Also note that Arctic monthly temperature anomaly now is about three degrees lower than in January, 1981.
That short term trend isn’t meaningful, except in the context of the Catlin Expedition and the cold they are experiencing.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pj0h2MODqj3gAmFVOnSFEWQ
Note in the graph below, the huge drop in temperatures since the Catlin expedition started two months ago. Is this another example of The Gore Effect? Or, perhaps it is the “observer effect‘? Humor aside, the graph below tells the story of the cold the Catlin Expedition must be experiencing.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pj0h2MODqj3gAmFVOnSFEWQ
This cooling is reflected in increasing amounts of winter ice since 2005. Not surprisingly, as the temperature gets colder, the amount of ice increases.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent.png
Below is a longer term view of Arctic temperatures, as measured by Dr. Hansen’s GISS at Godthab, Greenland. The warmest years were the 1920s through 1940s.
How long before we start seeing stories like this one from Time Magazine again?
Another Ice Age?
Monday, Jun. 24, 1974
In Africa, drought continues for the sixth consecutive year, adding terribly to the toll of famine victims. During 1972 record rains in parts of the U.S., Pakistan and Japan caused some of the worst flooding in centuries. In Canada’s wheat belt, a particularly chilly and rainy spring has delayed planting and may well bring a disappointingly small harvest. Rainy Britain, on the other hand, has suffered from uncharacteristic dry spells the past few springs. A series of unusually cold winters has gripped the American Far West, while New England and northern Europe have recently experienced the mildest winters within anyone’s recollection.
As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval. However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age.
There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it’s only a hundred billion. It’s less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.
UPDATE: In response to questions in comments, Steve Goddard located this graph from the Danish Meteorological Institute.
Calculation of the Arctic Mean TemperatureThe daily mean temperature of the Arctic area north of the 80th northern parallel is estimated from the average of the 00z and 12z analysis for all model grid points inside that area. The ERA40 reanalysis data set from ECMWF, has been applied to calculate daily mean temperatures for the period from 1958 to 2002, from 2002 to 2006 data from the global NWP model T511 is used and from 2006 to present the T799 model data are used.
The ERA40 reanalysis data, has been applied to calculation of daily climate values that are plotted along with the daily analysis values in all plots. The data used to determine climate values is the full ERA40 data set, from 1958 to 2002.
So it is a model, not an observation.
Having seen the BBC show Top Gear (Polar Special) where they drive with a truck to the north pole and following the Catlin Arctic Survey with there resupply flights and what have you.
I’m wondering who will have the smaller carbon footprint reaching the north pole.
One thing is for sure the Top Gear team was much better prepared for the trip.
Richard: But how much ice melt will be aided by non-white ash deposition onto what is usually near-pristine white? This could change the absorptive properties enough that once the sun reaches the ice, faster melt, and sooner water albedo in melt areas (rather than ice albedo). Not saying it is definitely going to happen, but could.
This would be true if a signifcant portion of the particulates ever reached the main Arctic ice. In fact, most of these fall out rather quickly within a few hundred miles downstream from the eruption site.
What causes volcanic activity at high latitudes to result in cooling of the arctic aren’t particulates, but gases, specifically SO2, which are introduced into the upper atmosphere during powerful eruptions. The mixture of SO2, H2O and O3 in the upper atmosphere combine to form H2SO4 [3 SO2 + 3 H20 + O3 = 3 H2SO4] . Although the melting point of pure H2SO4 is around 3°C, this point lowers rapidly with its dilution in H20 and at 65% is around -64°C. So, it is these micrometer sized particles of solid H2SO4 in the upper atmosphere that can be very effective reflectors of incoming SW solar radiation while remaining fairly transparent to outgoing LW radiation. That’s where the surface cooling effect comes from.
Just Want Truth… (16:06:45) :
USA: 358 lowest temps and 409 snowfall records broken for week ending Apr 2, 2009
http://mapcenter.hamweather.com/records/7day/us.html?c=maxtemp,mintemp,snow
(are some of the red dots UHI? You can mouse over the dots for data)
The lows in the east half of Texas track in a band between the major population centers (and further west is at a higher altitude).
http://www.texaslegacy.org/m/curriculum/maps/texas.population.png
http://www.worldmapsonline.com/hs954texasstatemaprr.htm
Well, just noticed that one of the lows is from Austin-Bergstrom IA, but it is on the far east side of Austin. 🙂
I think you may have perhaps missed the most ridiculous statement .. “even the effects of man-made global warming are marginally reduced, though just by three-tenths of a degree at most.”
Can someone tell me just how it is possible to determine that warming is reduced by “three-tenths of a degree at most” ???
And, if that is 0.3C, would that not put us bellow the 20th century mean?
Unbelievable BS (bad science) !!!
Documentary?
eh hem…
Since when did this Sci-Fi movie become a documentary?
Steven Goddard (08:33:15) :
Leif,
Your hyper-accurate calculation is correct, but I think that temperatures will have to start tailing off as they approach absolute zero. Perhaps they will settle at around -150F, as in the excellent documentary “The Day After Tomorrow.”
Vostok low April 4 – 70c
That graph from RSS shows a large warming over the period of record. 4 cold weeks don’t wipe out a 30 year warming trend.
This blog just keeps getting worse.
Not according to ex navy Physicist James A Marusek.
See this
OT – British Antarctic Survey reports that an ice bridge to the Wilkens Ice sheet ruptured – http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7984054.stm – and for better images: http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMD07EH1TF_index_0.html
The BBC plays it up as usual – area size of Jamaica etc. This map puts it more into perpective http://www.esa.int/esaEO/SEMWZS5DHNF_index_1.html
Bob Tisdale (15:53:22) :
Thank you Bob, I have been interested in your posts previously.
There is a journalist article in this week’s Science profiling mathematician Ken Golden who has been using composite-powder models to understand the behaviour of sea ice (with brine channel inclusions etc.) which is very poorly handled in climate models. I have not yet gone back to read any of his original papers but the article got me thinking. A key finding is:
“When temperatures are just below freezing, the ice becomes permeable, allowing warm water to percolate up through it.” The critical temperature appears to be –5°C.
I wondered if this would link the residual warmth to the Arctic ice miminum in 2007, and even the recent (disputed) warming and ice losses in the Antarctic Peninsula. If we had several years of ice thinning from below due to warmer surface temperatures this would ‘set up’ conditions for a greater loss of ice in summer. I do see a difficulty with transfer of Pacific ocean heat much further than the Bering Sea – I am interested to read more on the PDO/AMO and teleconnections and I will reread some of your posts.
“DJ (22:37:57) :
That graph from RSS shows a large warming over the period of record. 4 cold weeks don’t wipe out a 30 year warming trend.
This blog just keeps getting worse.”
Oh good…Sunday morning trolling, DJ? All done with the Times crossword, walked the dog, and now time for some fun at WUWT?
Can you explain what time period you would accept to identify a valid climate trend?
JimB
DJ (22:37:57) :
That graph from RSS shows a large warming over the period of record. 4 cold weeks don’t wipe out a 30 year warming trend.
It’s actually part of a 4 YEAR trend, but hey, why bother with picky details when you’re busy banging that warmist drum, eh DJ?
Funny, I don’t see anywhere in the article where it claims anything about the 30-year warming trend being “wiped out”, so nice straw man there DJ. Good job!
This blog just keeps getting worse.
Translation: “The better this blog gets, the more I hate it because it threatens my warmist ideology which I am clinging to so desperately.”
Cathy,
4. They’ll have the air conditioners removed from their houses and cars.
5. They’ll find a country that has no word for “snow” or “ice” and move there.
6. They’ll hope for solar maximum.
7. They’ll collaborate on a new book called, “Global Warming-Bring it ON”
The Catlin crew is learning what Lewis Pew learned last September when he tried to kayak from the northern most point of Norway to the North Pole–a distance of some 1200 kilometers. Pew made it all of 120 ks and had to abandon his most excellent adventure due to heavy ice and cold weather. Of course the media only reported the beginning of this adventure but failed to ever report on Pew’s abandonment due to too much of the frozen stuff! When it comes to the truth on the issue of AGW and the polar ice caps the media seems to be all frozen over at the mouth!
DJ
“That graph from RSS shows a large warming over the period of record. 4 cold weeks don’t wipe out a 30 year warming trend.”
Stay around you may learn something. First, more than 4 weeks, at least 4 years by his graph since 2005. The first graph starts in 1979…the end of a 30 year cooling period.
I’ve just noticed IARC-JAXA is not updating it’s plot but is updating the data.
http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt74/MartinGAtkins/Arctic-Extent.jpg
The extent is still healthy for this time of year.
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@ur momisugly Mike:
;-D
Those were good!
Back to the drawing board!
Oh! Oh! Mike! I’ve got another one:
8. When they get a ‘cold’ they will not refer to it as such but instead use the term rhinovirus.
Let’s do a re-write of the above (Steven Goddard (06:57:19) :):
(Please don’t “misunderestimate” the climatological significance of four years. According to the world’s preeminent climatologist Dr. James Hansen, four years is very significant…)
Here is a possible re-write:
“According to the world’s political strategists, four years is very significant.
Al Gore has only four years to save his thesis and his reputation, to say nothing of the political hay that he and his friends are making out of a theory that is rapidly melting. This is the stark assessment of leading climate expert ….. who last week warned that only urgent action by the new president to get mammoth destructive and expensive legislation in place could halt the devastating opinion shift among climate scientists that now threatens the mega-industry of Global Warming Fanatasism……
…..
In fact, it appears from the circumstances, that the next four years is the most significant time frame in the past 4 1/2 billion years in terms transferring wealth and power to fewer and fewer international hands.”
Nothing wrong with the original comment, but I thought this was one possible useful revision. 🙂
I was about to say; I hope nobody is going to try and draw a straight line through that RSS data from 60-82.5 degrees (first graph) but then somebody went and did that anyway, when I clicked on the page and up came the second graph.
I wish people who draw straight lines on graphs, would append the Physics or other science, that argues that the function is supposed to be a straight line graph.
Absent that and all you have is wild guesswork.
I don’t see any hint of any staright linedness in that first RSS graph. Well I see the straight line graph is just for three years of data; which is weather I suppose, and not climate.
Speaking of climate; why would you average data from local climates; which seems to be what cycles like PDO and the like are about.
Averaging the local Antarctic climate with that from Saudi Artabia doesn’t seem to be instructional in any way.
George
It has always seemed odd to me that warming is always portrayed as something undesirable. There must be something in our collective consciousness that knows the truth about cold. The languages of earth have it right.
COLD…
Synonyms: apathetic, cold-blooded, dead, distant, emotionless, frigid, impersonal, indifferent, inhibited, inhospitable, joyless, passionless, standoffish, stony, unconcerned, undemonstrative, unenthusiastic, unfeeling, unimpassioned, unresponsive, unsympathetic
Antonyms: animated, ardent, eager, enthusiastic, excited, fervid, friendly, interested, sympathetic, warm, zealous
“”” DaveCF (09:33:28) :
If the ‘Catlin Clowns’ were really being scientific, don’t you think they would be recording and transmitting temperatures and positions as part of their ’scientific’ data? There is less science in this expedition than one would find in a kindergarten treasure hunt. Of course they do have their uncalibrated ice thickness radar and that doesn’t sound like real radar to me either… Colour me sceptical of any benefits from this foolish outing. “””
Well I have a colleague at work who at one time was a Lieutenant in the US Navy; well specifically on a Nuclear Submarine (can’t tell me which one), and he spent a bunch of time underneath that Arctic sea ice; and he says they have all kinds of equipment for measuring the thickness of that ice and have done so; and no they aren’t likely to tell us what the data they have says. Well after he got out of the Navy he joined Scripps Inst; so he is a Degreed Oceanographer as well; and once degreed, he did some Arctic research for arctic ocean oil prospectors, and saw a lot more of that under the ice stuff again.
He tells me, that over most of that arctic ocean the ice typically runs about one metre thick; but of course with weather it can fold and crack and pile up so some smalls pots can be a lot thicker, but he says if you averaged one metre over the whole ice covered area you would about have the total ice about right. He also said that metre is about all that nuke commanders are comfortable about breaking through to surface. Can’t tell me the real limit but after one metre he says you better have a good reason. He also said that you could come up in total ice free water, and the next day find the same spot totally ice covered; which might then go away again.
The bottom of the ice is very briny and teeming with life from bacteria to shrimps and critters that eat them. Whales which can eat bucket loads of shrimp like to go to the arctic to feed, and they move around as the ice moves around because that’s how they find food.
Oh by the way; CO2 doesn’t dissolve in ice; so when that ice grows, as it does starting around mid September, (solstice) all the CO2 that is in the sea water which is about ocean maximum since that is the coldest (surface)water on earth; gets ejected from the ice just like the salt does; into that cold and CO2 saturated water; which immediately expels it to the atmosphere; which is why you get that 18 ppm CO2 cycle in the Arctic. Check back through recent archives to see that neat CO2 pole to pole movie that Anthony had here a few weeks ago.
So you take a typical minimum of 6 (six) million square km of September sea ice (except for the last two or three years), and you grow another 8 (eight) million square km of sea ice through to April to end up with 14 million square km of sea ice currently. That means that the extra open water went from 8 squ km down to zero; leaving the normal amount of “permanent” open water.
So now take 8squ km of sea ice growth times a mean thickness of one metre and you get 8000 cubic km of new ice grown each fall/winter. So now from Henry’s law data you find the concentration of CO2 in that cold surface water, and figure out how much CO2 is in 8000 km^3 of that water, and that is how much CO2 gets vented to the atmosphere.
Take 8 million sqare km of new ice surface, and figure out the total weight of atmosphere on that surface; then figure out how much of that is CO2 at 380 ppm roughly; compare that to the amount of CO2 forced out of the water that froze; and I believe you should end up with an 18 ppm increase in atmospheric CO2 over that part of the arctic.
Recent increases in the amplitude of the arctic CO2 cycle were often cited as evidence for global warming causing increased tree growth in the arctic so a greener earth.
But tree growth isn’t anywhere near the arctic ocean and that increased CO2 cycle amplitude, is simply proxy evidence for the fact that the last three years or so saw increased summer ice melting dropping the ice below the 6 million squ km to around 4.5; so that increased open water takes up more CO2 from the atmosphere, which is why the CO2 cyclic amplitude increased over the arctic in recent years. Nothing to do with tree growth at all.
I don’t know what the normal CO2 content of open arctic ocean water is; or else I would have done this calculation already; but if any of you practising climatologists want to do that; you can check out my thesis and report back to us here.
George
PS My ex Navy ex Scripps oceanographer agrees that because the coastline of Antarctica is way further north; than the southern perimeter of the Arctic ocean; and has warm surface tropical waters circulating and sloshing around down there, whereas the Arctic ocean is essentially landlocked, the seasonal sea ice growth around Antarctica is almost negligible, and most of that growth in thickness is from precipitation of water which evaporated from tropical and temperate oceans.
And that is why the CO2 cylcle amplitude over Antarctica is only about 1 ppm amplitude compared to 18 ove the Arctic; and of course it is six months out of phase.
Over most of the southern hemishpere there is almost no CO2 cycling like there is in the north, since most of the southern hemisphere is water; whose temperatures don’t change a lot seasonally , hence their CO2 content doesn’t change much either. In the northern hemisphere you have lots of land so lots of plant growth CO2 cycling, which happens pretty much at the same times as the Arctic ice melt,
So there’s no great mystery to that weird CO2 movie; it’s pretty obvious to me why it happens.