Leaving The Ice Pack Behind
Guest post by Steven Goddard
2009 Arctic ice extent has jumped into a big lead over the previous four years. Danish Meteorological Institute Ice Cover April 21, 2009
NSIDC shows Arctic extent continuing to close on the 1979-2000 mean
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
AMSR-E data shows Arctic extent extending it’s lead at a seven year high :
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent.png
Global sea ice continues to move up towards a twenty year high.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/iphone/images/iphone.anomaly.global.png
Meanwhile, US Energy Secretary (and Nobel Prize winner) Dr. Steven Chu warns of impending California flooding due to polar ice melt:
PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago — Caribbean nations face “very, very scary” rises in sea level and intensifying hurricanes, and Florida, Louisiana and even northern California could be overrun with rising water levels due to global warming triggered by carbon-based greenhouse gases, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Saturday.
In order to highlight the “very, very scary” danger California faces, I created some frightening visualizations of what California may look like once flooded with water from Arctic ice, which – as we are told by top government officials – is melting at a record pace. If you are squeamish, look no further – this is indeed scary stuff.
Here is what the Santa Ana UHI Station may look like after being flooded :
And most frightening is what might happen to Mt. Whitney after the next Biblical flood:
If these pictures don’t scare you into buying a hybrid (or even better an aquatic car) I don’t know what will.
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Hey, let the water rise. More water = more fish for me to catch. I think it would be just dandy to struggle over whether or not to walk out my back yard and fish in a stream, or walk out my front yard and fish in the ocean. Besides, I really, really, really, don’t like ice fishing. My butt is cold enough.
Arne Riewe said:
Far be it for me to defend Phil., but do not confuse Phil and Phil.
In reply to Taylor, Noastronomer and others who raised this in the past, the uptick which occurs every 1 and 2 June is likely a calibration adjustment.
Calibration is an important issue with all satellite measurements. Looking at the AMSRE pages, it seems there are calibration issues with the “hot load temperatures” and also “along scan adjustments” need to be made.
Further re-adjustment due to instrument drift is quite likely the reason for the uptick. It seems JAXA only makes the adjustment once a year on the approximate anniversary of the beginning of the AMSRE data.
What is surprising is that JAXA don’t correct past data available on their web site by making the assumption the drift was linear. But then many on this forum complain about massaged data, so we can be glad that the values are left in the “raw” state even if it does show the strange uptick every 1 or 2 June.
Expect the same to happen this year on 1 and/or 2 June
Richard Sharpe 19:52:05
I agree, that is an important distinction.
=========================
Geo, Frederick Micheal and Benjamin P are right to warn of some caution about the current 7 year “record”. Today’s ice extent is not a good predictor to minimum ice extent for the year. 2008 showed that. According to the JAXA graphs from 2002-2008 the ice extent tends to converge from May to July. Looking at Cryosphere Today (which shows ice area – not ice extent) the following have a zero mean ice area for the period 1979-2000: Bering Sea, St Lawrence, Baffin/New Foundland Bay, Barents Sea, Hudson Bay and Sea of Okhotsk. That mean they always go to zero ice area every summer. Maybe some sooner and some later, but zero nevertheless.
In 2008 also the Kara Sea, Chuckchi Sea, Beaufort Sea and East Siberian Sea reached a zero ice area in summer. The main one is the East Siberian Sea which normally has mean ice area of 400k sq km ice area and in 2008 started to lose ice rapidly from July onwards and eventually contributed to a 400k negative anomaly in ice area and presumably a much larger negative ice extent anomaly.
For ice watchers, the Beaufort Sea might be the first clue. In 2008 it started to lose ice from about now onwards and reach zero ice area by August. Its mean minimum area is about 200K sq km.
Re comments above: when I refer to mean ice area, zero or otherwise, I meant mean minimum ice area in summer. I hope that was clear from the context.
Is the data lagging or do my eyes deceive? On the first plot, it looks like the last data point is around the ides of April.
The DMIgraph at the top shows 2009 ice tracking 2008, but a little lower and later. If that pattern continues to hold we could expect a drop in ice extent sometime soon. Looks like a hangover from lower amounts of multi year ice plus a late spring. I think the two factors will more or less cancel each other out and ice minimum in september will be around the same as last year.
I cannot believe these graphs! I knew Arctic ice is in a growing trend, but not by this much!
In any case it is quite easy to note (looking at the cryosphere today ice concentrations maps) that much of the ice is very close to melting. In my opinion, we will see a rapid decrease within the next two weeks.
I thought it had sunk the lowest when they handed out prizes to Koffi Anan for presiding over the Rwanda genocide and before that to Arafat, Peres and Rabin for Middle east peace.
And, before that, Henry Kissinger, the award of whose Peace Prize prompted Tom Lehrer to suggest that satire had become obsolete!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Lehrer
At this stage were are 1million square km above last years ice
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.jpg
even at cryosphere today!
Someone mentioned a “kink” in all AMSR ice extent graphs occurring around June of every year. This is very interesting unless its a time glitch (computer generated)
RE kink in AMSR ice data. DMI does not have this, so it is a computer “glitch”
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
In any case it is quite easy to note (looking at the cryosphere today ice concentrations maps) that much of the ice is very close to melting.
I can’t find “melting” on the map. And shouldn’t it be capitalized? And what do you mean by close?
NoAstronomer said
“Does anyone know what causes the uptick that seems to occur in early June of several years?”
Idea floated is that it is a change in the algorithm to better take into account surface water on the ice as the melt season progresses. No idea if that is true or not but it is interesting.
Regards
Andy
Dave Wendt (13:13:20) :
Your mathematical approach to calculating ice coverage is way too scientifically precise. I am applying the Phil or Phil. McCavity (whatever!!) technique of factorial mismanagement on my fantasy abacus which gives a magnificent total of 6.8903215 square kilometres at nadir.
Roll up, roll up!! Watch the red line stay to the right of the blue line in a thrilling race on the big dipper. It will be this summer’s greatest spectacle.
Should have mentioned I am using AMSR graph.
Vg:
See my earlier post (2020) on this. It is not a computer glitch but likely just simply a correction for instrument drift. JAXA obviously does this correction only once per year on June 1 and/or June 2 being the anniversary of the start of the ASMR-E data.
You quote DMI, but that seems to be a different satellite system. Plus it is measuring extent as being pixels with greater than 30% ice concentration, so it is not directly comparable to JAXA which seems to use 15%.
“Total ice extent is computed by summing the number of pixels with at least 15 percent ice concentration multiplied by the area per pixel, thus the entire area of any pixel with at least 15 percent ice concentration is considered to contribute to the total ice extent”
“Total ice-covered area is defined as the area of each pixel with at least 15 percent ice concentration multiplied by the ice fraction in the pixel (0.15 to 1.00)”
(from NSIDC)
Too often extent and area are confused. Area will always be lower than extent.
An encouraging story link in today’s UK Daily Telegraph, Antarctic ice cover increasing quickly degenerates into the usual AGW voodoo.
As usual, the story is full of assertions with precisely no evidence, discussion or challenge.
Am I right in thinking that the whole “CFC / ozone hole” thing was debunked anyway?
Tetris Said:
“Data on the Norwegian Arctic Roos/Nansen site show the same development.”
Interesting that AROOS uses a 79-07 average (I assume NSIDC figures 01-07 don’t count). Also interesting there that Ice Area is closer to the 79-07 average.
I predict that when this whole Arctic Ice melting story “goes south”, we’re going to see the ol’ switcheroo and NSIDC will start showing graphs of ice volume (which nobody can really verify), so they can continue to make up stories of impending doom. That’s how this Catlin nonsense fits in. Their data will act as an “adjustment” calibration and voila! Volume is tragically decreasing – ignore what the satellites see! There’s no old man behind the curtain there! Boom! Crash!
Anybody see this in the WSJ (all about thickness – in the WSJ no less!):
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123903143093793167.html
Thanks all for such a great site!
“Flanagan (00:30:26) : In my opinion, we will see a rapid decrease within the next two weeks.”
Keep whistling past the cemetery Flanagan, keep whistling. You’re going to get light headed from all the whistling.
Len van Burgel says:
Mechanism, schmechanism!
If I am not mistaken, warm waters flowing through the Bering straight from the Pacific would have an impact on those seas.
Regarding comments by Benjamin P. and Flanagan that seem to suggest the arctic ice is on the verge of repeating previous years’ rapid late-spring slump, the difference, I think, may come in the nature of the North American and Euro-Asian snowpack this year versus previous years. Comparisons between this years’ snowpack and that of two years ago reveals that Europe and the American east coast regions received significantly more snowfall this year than back then. With this additional snow, the impact of the increasing solar irradiance (following the equinox) will be blunted in the circumpolar region for some time until the snowpack is melted off. As such, winds blowing over the continents will reduce the air temperatures to at or below freezing in the arctic regions for some time, retarding icepack melt. This will mean the current 500,000 square kilometer buffer between this year’s ice extent and that of the minimum of 2007 is likely to continue or expand.
@Vanguard (07:33:01) :
I’ve not suggested one way or another what the ice may or may not do, just that short term trends are voodoo in climate science.