Jeff Id at the Air Vent has been doing some interesting work lately. Before the NSIDC Arctic Sea Ice anomaly plot went kaput due to failure of the satellite sensor channel they have been using, they had created a vast archive of single day gridded data packages for Arctic sea ice extent. Jeff plotted images from the data as viewed from directly over the North Pole. It took him over 15 hours of computational time. An example image is below.
Jeff gathered up all the resultant plotted images and turned them into a movie, but placed them on the website “tinypic” where the movie won’t get much airplay.
I offered Jeff the opportunity to have it hosted on YouTube and posted here, where it would get far greater exposure and I completed the conversion this afternoon.
What I find most interesting is watch the “respiration” of Arctic Sea Ice, plus the buffeting of the sea ice escaping the Arctic and heading down the east coast of Greenland where it melts in warmer waters.
Jeff writes:
I find the Arctic sea ice to be amazingly dynamic. Honestly, I used to think of it as something static and stationary, the same region meltinig and re-freezing for dozens or even hundreds of years – not that I put much thought into it either way. Shows you what I know.
This post is another set of Arctic ice plots and an amazing high speed video. The NSIDC NasaTeam data is presented in gridded binary matrices in downloadable form HERE.
The data is about 1.3Gb in size so it takes hours to download, I put it directly on my harddrive and worked from there. The code for extraction took a while to work out but was pretty simple in the end. This code ignores leap years. Formatting removed courtesy of WordPress.
filenames=list.files(path=”C:/agw/sea ice/north sea ice/nasateam daily/”, pattern = NULL, all.files = TRUE, full.names = FALSE, recursive = TRUE)
trend=array(0,dim=length(filenames)-1)
date=array(0,dim=length(filenames)-1)
masktrend=array(0,dim=length(filenames)-1)
for(i in 1:(length(filenames)-1))
{
fn=paste(”C:/agw/sea ice/north sea ice/nasateam daily/”,filenames[i],sep=””) #folder containing sea ice files
a=file(fn,”rb”)
header= readBin(a,n=102,what=integer(),size=1,endian=”little”,signed=FALSE)
year=readChar(a,n=6)
print(year)
day=readChar(a,n=6)
print(day)
header=readChar(a,n=300-114)
data=readBin(a,n=304*448,what=integer(),size=1,endian=”little”,signed=FALSE)
close(a)
if(as.integer(year)+1900<=2500)
{
date[i]=1900+as.integer(year)+as.integer(day)/365
}else
{
date[i]=as.integer(year)+as.integer(day)/365
}
if(i==1)
{
holemask= !(data==251)
}
datamask=data<251 & data>37 ## 15% of lower values masked out to match NSIDC
trend[i]=sum(data[(datamask*holemask)==1])/250*625
}
###mask out satellite F15
satname=substring(filenames,18,20)
satmask= satname==”f15″
newtrend=trend[!satmask]
newdate=date[!satmask]
After that there is some minor filtering done on 7 day windows to dampen some of the noise in the near real time data.
filtrend=array(0,dim=length(newtrend))
for(i in 1:(length(newtrend)))
{
sumdat=0
for(j in -3:3)
{
k=i+j
if(k<1)k=1
if(k>length(newtrend)-1)k=length(newtrend)-1
sumdat=sumdat+newtrend[k]
}
filtrend[i]=sumdat/7
}
So here is a plot of the filtered data:
Here is the current anomaly.
This compares well with the NSIDC and cryosphere plots. This anomaly is slightly different from some of my previous plots because it rejects data less than 15% sea-ice concentration. Cryosphere rejects data less than 10%. In either case the difference is very slight but since we’ve just learned that the satellites have died and are about 500,000km too low, my previous graph may be more correct. I hope the NSIDC get’s something working soon.
All of that is pretty exciting but the reason for this post is to show the COMPLETE history of the NSIDC arctic sea ice in a video. I used tinypic as a service for this 27mb file so don’t worry, you should be able to see it quite well on a high speed connection. It took my dual processor laptop computer more than 15 hours to calculate this movie, I hope it’s worth it. Brown is land, black is shoreline, blue is water except for the large blue dot in the center of the plot. The movie plays double speed at the beginning because the early satellite collected data every other day. You’ll see the large blue circle change in size flashing back and forth between the older and newer sat data just as the video slows down.
After staring at the graphs above you think you understand what is happening as ice gradually shrinks away. Well the high speed video shows a much more turbulent world with changing weather patterns in 2007 and 2008 summer blasting away at the south west corner of the ice. I’ve watched it 20 times at least, noticing cloud patterns (causing lower ice levels), winds, water currents and all kinds of different things. I’m not so sure anymore that we’re seeing a consistent decline to polarbear doom, with this kind of variance it might just be everyday noise.
Maybe I’m nuts, let me know what you see.
No Jeff you aren’t nuts. Here is the YouTube Video, suitable for sharing:
Here is another video I posted on You Tube last month which shows the flow of sea ice down the east coast of Greenland. Clearly there is more at work here than simple melting, there is a whole flow dynamic going on.
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By the way something on this post is not standards compliant, as it totally bolluxes up the page formatting in Firefox, but displays normally on windows Internet Exploader.
Larry
Is something amiss at the NOAA pole station buoy? I notice that the webcam stopped updating on 31 May and the temperature data stops on June 1.
@ur momisugly Aron (04:05:55) :
“My answer is the rate [of CO2 increase] is irrelevant”
Why?
And honestly, my comment about Marxism vs. ‘global’ Marxism was more snarc than anything. I could really care less about folks political rants on here and “green communist agenda” nonsense many here love so much.
I am only interested in understanding the Earth’s climate. And when I read folks bloviating about the politics, I can’t help but think to myself that those folks must have an agenda they are working towards as well. Hello Pot, meet Kettle.
Ben
MartinGAtkins,
Careful there Martin, Apple might come after you for infringing on a trademark, iArctic sounds a little too corporate. Thanks for the chuckle.
“Benjamin P. (09:39:36) :
Aron:“My answer is the rate [of CO2 increase] is irrelevant”
Why?”
Sorry Benjamin, I realised I had not gone into detail why the rate is irrelevant.
Firstly, regarding the timescales I mentioned, there’s no difference between an increase of 100ppm over 20,000 years and an increase of 100ppm in the last 200 years. In either example both occurred during and after the decline of ice ages (one major and one the LIA) and one would expect the oceans to release CO2 as temperatures climbed.
Then there is the CO2 emissions related to human productivity, organic decay, etc. Whether a rise in CO2 concentrations of 100ppm occurs over 10,000 years or 100 years, the effect is the same (the greenhouse gas related warming is so tiny that it matters little). We are well under the amount of greenhouse gases that would be required for dangerous global warming and there is little chance we’ll see a doubling of CO2 as predicted by James Hansen et al because we have been decarbonising our energy sources for generations (but only in recent times have we been able to afford to popularise low carbon energy).
What does matter is that human development should happen as quickly as possible as it increases the quality of life which reduces birth and death rates. Technology also increases our chances of fighting disease, protecting all living species, feeding all species, managing land better, reduces conflict, and helps us overcome natural or manmade catastrophes.
If we have prolonged, slow development (as the sustainability religion is trying to impose) then there is a chance that we never reach our goals because something somewhere along the way could hamper or prevent forward movement. It has happened before. Dictators, wars, revolutions, natural disasters have turned back the wheel of progress on many occasions in history. So we need to develop as fast as possible before history can repeat itself, which it is doing as we speak. Not only must we keep working hard but we also have to defend our freedoms and prosperity from those who believe we should feel guilty about it.
The Alarmists are saying we have to act quick to save the planet. I say we act quick to save ourselves from the totalitarian gene that is inherent in people with alarmist and radical mindsets. The faster we reach a point of technological, post-humanist no return, the less chance our detractors can turn back the clock and send us back to the trees.
(NB. By post-human I mean our next evolutionary step, which could mean cyborg but can also mean genetically enhanced and colonising new worlds. These are things that will be be opposed by some. If they do, they certainly won’t be able to call themselves progressives)
jnicklin (09:40:03) :
MartinGAtkins,
Careful there Martin, Apple might come after you for infringing on a trademark, iArctic sounds a little too corporate. Thanks for the chuckle.
Please accept my humble apology. My eyes are are blind iI cannot see, I did not have my specs with Me. 😉
Aron (10:24:56) :
So if I add 1 drop of food coloring to a liter of water per day for a week or 7 drops of food coloring to that liter of water on the first day, I should expect the exact same results over the course of the 7 days?
As for the rest of your post, I will certainly agree that progress, up to this point, has been good for humanity on the whole (although different areas enjoy different amount of progress). As an American, I have grown quite accustomed to my life style (meager as it is compared to some in this country), and very little will persuade me to willingly change it.
One thing you don’t mention at all is the population growth, the rising demand for natural resources and the fact that those resources are finite. Do you not think that there will be consequences as time progresses, population and demand for those resources increase, while the supplies of those resources dwindle?
I don’t buy into all the silly conspiracy crap that some folks post on here (Club of Rome or some other nonsense about “the green agenda is all about population control, etc) But the simple fact of the matter is, we will have some unprecedented issues arise regardless of what we do with our carbon emissions. Things like iron, copper, etc are all finite as is oil and natural gas. The biggest problem we are likely to face is water issues.
Water is rarely mentioned in the media, but it will be paramount in the next half century.
Ben
@Tim F (06:28:35) :
“There are people out there who, if asked, would tell you that they know that CO2 is now the 2nd most common gas in the atmosphere, right after O2.”
There are people out there that, if asked, can not find the pacific ocean on the map. There are people out there who thing drinking clay slurry will clean the toxins from their system, there are people out there who think that taking a pill will make their penis bigger. There are even people who think that intelligent design is science.
“They’ve been taught that the ice cap had been fixed and immanent and is now (for the first time) melting because of the depravities of industrial man.”
There are many who are ill informed on both sides! You are not making much of an argument. Unless you truly believe that some of the more prominent climate scientists (that you all love to hate on this blog) truly believes that there is no natural variability to earth’s climate. So many here seem to try to make the case that folks on the “AGW” side of the discussion don’t recognize natural variability, and its silly to even say or imply.
“So if I add 1 drop of food coloring to a liter of water per day for a week or 7 drops of food coloring to that liter of water on the first day, I should expect the exact same results over the course of the 7 days?”
Analogies can be make for good conversation but unfortunately we’re talking about greenhouse gases, climate sensitivity, urban heat islands and solar radiation for which I have not been able to see any good analogies. The CO2 debate really stands on its own.
“I don’t buy into all the silly conspiracy crap that some folks post on here”
That’s because it isn’t a conspiracy. Dr Patrick Moore quit Greenpeace because he saw it as a neo-Marxist front with little science driving it. It has never been a secret anyway. Socialist parties simply took over Green language because how do you sell communism to free people? Just make them fear the future and feel guilt. Or drive companies into bankruptcy so that government takes over private industry.
Here’s some photos from a recent climate change rally. The language on the banners is classical Marxism and you need not be surprised to see George Monbiot and George Galloway’s Marxist-Islamist political party Respect involved.
http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/4125/n6856570652057161812271.jpg
http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/5419/n6856570652056715550433.jpg
http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/189/n6856570652057166552740.jpg
“Water is rarely mentioned in the media, but it will be paramount in the next half century.”
Rarely, yes. But it is mentioned from time to time;
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/magazine/21water-t.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/04/24/climate.change.eskimos/
Pete
Benjamin P. (12:20:33) :
No, I do not believe that “prominent climate scientists” think that there is no natural variability in Earth’s climate. I am consistantly disappointed in them, however, when they allow their findings to be distorted and misrepresented by politicians and an agenda driven media.
Ultimately, the point that I had hoped to make was that the video in question is easily digested by the scientifically illiterate viewer. Perhaps that makes me a propandist too.
As I was reading Jeff Id’s post on the Arctic Sea Ice time lapse video I had to take some time to reset plastic tarps (as dams) in irrigation ditches. We live very near where the stream issues from the mountains still with much snow. The water is very cold. In our sage-brush-dry valley the water is diverted across thousands of acres of pasture, timothy hay, and corn. A little farther away the variety of crops increases to include apples, cherries, grapes, and many others. Locally most irrigation is done by “flooding” the fields. One neighbor has a central pivot system. These are more common elsewhere (more below).
I can’t show you this but try to visualize – as a movie like Jeff did with the ice – the fields in the Spring as the water is diverted from the rivers into major canals, than splitting into smaller laterals and arriving at the high point of a field. Then it is spread out over the warmed soil, seeps in, and then it can go below the root zone, can be taken up by the plant, or run out into another “waste-water ditch.” As it touches the soil, the color of the field darkens. When sufficient water is on one field the operator makes adjustments and the diversion then goes to another. In a few days the soil, ditches, and wasteways are filled with water. For a crop such as wheat the water will be shut off at some point, the soil will dry, the crop will mature, and harvest will begin. For some crops the soil will be replenished with water until Fall.
Along with many things that happen in this agricultural landscape the water warms as it spreads over the fields and much is evaporated or transpired directly to the atmosphere. So any water re-entering the streams will be warmer than when it was diverted and the local atmosphere becomes hazy with the introduction of the water vapor.
The irrigation projects of the western (US) states coincided with the apparent warming of the 20th Century. While the start dates of these projects were in the first half of the period, much of the progress occurred in the second half. This includes the widespread adoption of spraying rather than flooding, especially the central pivot system. A brief historical statement is here:
http://pivotirrigation.blogspot.com/2008_08_01_archive.html
For a look at the landscape of flood irrigation of the Naneum (alluvial) Fan use Google Earth and these coordinates [ 47.04 n, 120.475 w ]. Zoom out to about 22 km. Even though the photo is late October the green wedge of the fan is still visible. Yearly precipitation here is about 8 inches (20 cm).
Use Google Earth and these coordinates [ 46.32 n, 120.067 w ] to view the Yakima Valley southeast of the city of Yakima where fruit, grapes, hops and many other crops are grown using water from the river plus a few wells. Zoom out to about 43 km.
Moving still to the southeast, use the scroll function for about one-half of the screen diagonal. Look for where I-82 and Hwy. 395 reach the Columbia River. View at about 80 km. zoom. Lots of “french fries” grown here.
Want more? Use these [ 40.463 n, 98.722 w ]. This will take you to south-central Nebraska. Zoom out to about 60 km for a view of the area covered by irrigated fields. This image is July, 2006 – earlier in the growing season than the Washington views.
These projects cause warming of water that is returned to streams and an increase in atmospheric moisture. A secondary effect is the use of CO2 in the photosynthesis of all the green plants you see in the images.
I can imagine, but can’t produce, a video of the filling of the fields with water each year with side-bar charts or graphs showing the rising and falling of the amounts of such variables as humidity, temperature, biomass, and CO2 uptake.
I’ve also read that the large lakes (reservoirs) and in-soil storage of water that is mostly in the Northern Hemisphere has an effect on Earth’s rotation.
Is there a contribution to climate in any of this?
Jeff Id (13:19:19) :
Phil. (11:52:29) :
The NSIDC does an excellent job maintaining and making available data to the public. I’ve also found them responsive to questions, I take it NOAA 17 is an unknown.
Actually they just put it online today, you can see the calibration data at:
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
John F Hultquist
The techniquie you describe of flooding the fields for an early crop is one that has been carried out in England since the 12th Centrury.
Some months ago several of us heree had a similar discussion concerning the huge amount of spray irrigation being carried out for crops (in Australia) and the even greater use of the technique for golf courses around the world.
It puts water into the air of which a percentage will evaporate before it reaches the ground.
What effect field flooding or spray irrigation actually had (if any) was debatable but I do remember there was a report from a govt agency about it-which was also inconclusive.
Tonyb
@ur momisuglyAron (13:26:06) :
“Analogies can be make for good conversation but unfortunately we’re talking about greenhouse gases, climate sensitivity, urban heat islands and solar radiation for which I have not been able to see any good analogies. The CO2 debate really stands on its own.”
Well, the analogy was about rates, something you seem to not care much about, although its the most important part of the debate.
@ur momisugly Aron (13:36:06) :
Got it, some fringe elements in global politics trying to use climate change to kill capitalism. Not a conspiracy at all as evidenced by the young girl in your 2nd photo.
@ur momisuglyPete W (14:26:08) :
Yes, mentioned from time to time…but rarely (as you noted) is the key word. I mean, one of the stories you linked is from 2007. Folks here should read about the ogallala aquifer, because when that is dry, we are in for some tough times.
@ur momisugly Tim F (14:36:22) :
“Ultimately, the point that I had hoped to make was that the video in question is easily digested by the scientifically illiterate viewer.”
Yes, the videos were fantastic. There is no argument from me there.
@ur momisuglyJohn F. Hultquist (15:04:36) :
I live in Western Washington and have spent some time in the “fruit belt” to the east. I’ve always enjoyed looking at the various types of irrigation the farmers use.
As for this statement,
“I’ve also read that the large lakes (reservoirs) and in-soil storage of water that is mostly in the Northern Hemisphere has an effect on Earth’s rotation.”
That I find hard to believe.
At Ric Werme’s request I’ve posted my LNC notes at the other WUWT discussion and added the Abstract of a recently publihed paper,
Yasuda, Ichiro (2009) “The 18.6-year period moon-tidal cycle in Pacific Decadal Oscillation reconstructed from tree-rings in western North America”, GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 36, L05605, doi:10.1029/2008GL036880, 2009.
But I can’t get my jpg drawings of the LNC to copy
Benjamin P. (17:25:42) : “That I find hard to believe.”
http://internationalrivers.org/en/node/490 See third paragraph.
Also see:
http://books.google.com/books?id=oqpp4bbQTWcC&pg=PA209&lpg=PA209&dq=reservoir%2B%22earth+rotation%22&source=bl&ots=WXmqFCWYnI&sig=9IXmLzG4vfDookM5DS14u0L-YRg&hl=en&ei=DeAlSuiAEpbmsgPtl4GdBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10
Second and third paragraphs on page 209.
Both links come up when I search for [ reservoir+“earth rotation” ]
I did not say it was important. I said I’d read it.
Okay John F. Hultquist! Yes, following the most basic of laws of physics redistributing mass on the earth will certainly have an effect. But as your source says, its pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things.
I guess what I found hard to believe was that it would have any meaningful effect.
I had a good view of the sea ice west of Prudhoe Bay today as I flew at about 1200′. It’s barely off the coast now, clearly visible a short distance offshore. Surprisingly, I didn’t see any starving polar bears.
John F. Hultquist (15:04:36) :
Thanks for the interesting and illustrative post on irrigation in your area.
Is there a contribution to climate in any of this?
Lets do a back of the paper napkin estimate and see:
Water vapor is about ten times as effective as CO2 in the “green house” effect, and anthropogenic CO2 is less than 10% of the total CO2.
Now, if irrigation increases moisture by 1% average globally per year, it would be competing with CO2 in climate change (1/ 10*10 ). Of course this happens only on the 25% that is land, but that is where anthropogenic CO2 also happens, so they will still be competing .
Considering that huge areas on all continents are changed from desert type to humid type and that moisture when visibly rising is much more than a 1% increase, I would say that yes, irrigation affects the climate.
anna v (22:33:04)
p.s. to above.
Irrigation will affect at least as much as CO2 and possibly much more.
One would have to have an estimate of human area occupation. Wherever there are humans, houses, cities, farms and fields humidity rises because we are water consumers in general. If it is 10% of the land and we increase humidity by 100% of what it would be, that would be a 10% increase over all land.
Maybe that is why the southern hemisphere, not populated as much, has a stable temperature. One needs a computer model :).
Did you notice the “june bump” occurring in all years of the ice record
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent.png
Any ideas for it’s cause?
Looking at the AMSR Ice Chart linked from here…
Why do all years seem to have a “bump” in their lines at right about now? Including the present year.
Maybe this has been up for discussion before…
Parameters used in the processing of the satellite data are changed on June 1st and October 15th to account for the changes in the surface of the ice (i.e. wetting) which cause differences in the signature. This switch can result in the ‘blip’ you see.