By Steven Goddard and Anthony Watts
From Steve: In May, WUWT reported on an apparent error in the Nansen ice extent data. It appears that we were correct, as Nansen has adjusted their 2009 extent data upwards.
The (light red) line below shows their ice extent data from May 2, 2009. It had been too low since their downwards adjustment in December.
But, as of June 5th, the 2009 extent has been corrected (dark red)
Also note that the 2007/2008 lines have not changed, and that ice extent was in the normal range for most of April and May.
From Anthony:
Interest in sea ice extent continues to run high, but there remains differences between different groups such as NSIDC and Cryosphere Today, which have both been plagued with SSMI sensor problems from the DMSP F13 satellite. NANSEN may have had the same issues with SSMI/F13, and if they did, they seem to have gotten them under control, possibly by switching to SSSMI/F17 as NSIDC did.
For example here is a page that NANSEN maintains that shows the differences between the newer AMSRE (that JAXA uses) and the SSMI. One of the images is an AMSR minus SSMI, and it looks like the two different satellites/sensors are in pretty good agreement, with areas along the ice edge (where ice/water boundaries are rapidly changing) showing noise differences where you would expect them to.
There’s another difference though between NANSEN and JAXA, and NSIDC/Cryosphere Today. The NANSEN and JAXA pages don’t have the kind of news updates that we are used to seeing from their USA counterparts. In that respect, we should probably thank NSIDC and CT for their willingness to provide timely updates and especially thanks to NSIDC’s Walt Meier for making guest posts and answering questions here.
Along the same lines, if you look at the press releases and news articles and compare them, NSIDC seems to lead in speaking to the press, followed by CT, with NANSEN/JAXA having very little press interaction.
Interestingly though, NANSEN offers forecasts of arctic sea ice extent here from their TOPAZ model with comparisons to both SSMI and AMSRE data plotted also.
What is interesting is that, at least for this year, the TOPAZ model has been underperforming both in forecasting area and extent. Perhaps this is why we don’t see much in the way of forecasts from NANSEN projected to the media. The model isn’t quite tuned yet. I applaud such caution when it comes to forecasting minimum summer sea ice extent in the spring to the media.
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The jet stream is blowing ice out of the circle and into warmer waters. The winds are not overly strong or unusual as they were in 2007. But still, it results in fast melt. But melt that occurs elsewhere. The Arctic is not warming. The ice is moving to warmer waters. No need to be alarmed.
http://squall.sfsu.edu/gif/jetstream_norhem_00.gif
Is it me or are the nights here in Europe becoming too cold?
Speaking of Greenland-
Greenlanmders say that their sea ice greatest in fifteen years–
http://sermitsiaq.gl/klima/article30834.ece?lang=EN
but after all, how could they know
anything about Greenland?-
maz2 (06:51:32) :
Brace yourselves for apocalypse now
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/apocalypse-now/article1172056/
from that article:
The idea of End Times, or apocalypses, has been around as long as religion. Until recently, it has been a mainstay of Christian fundamentalism. But the notion that the world as we know it is about to end – this time with an environmental rather than a religious-inspired bang – lately has been making inroads in more mainstream and progressive-leaning circles, including activists, scientists and pundits.
Another reason to be skeptical is that the previous round of such worries turned out to be overblown. Around 1970, two influential books fostered popular pessimism, the Club of Rome report The Limits to Growth and Paul Erhlich’s The Population Bomb (which predicted millions would die by famines in the 1970s and 1980s). Neither came to pass.
Exactly! Or “right on!”” in 70’s speak. Apocalypse Now is really Apocalypse Again,
and with many of the same prophets. I think the first Earth Day in 1970 is about the beginning of the mainstream environmental movement which is characterized by the slogan “We have met the enemy and he is us”, made famous by a Pogo cartoon at that time:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/49/Pogo_-_Earth_Day_1971_poster.jpg
By now we have had several generations who have grown up with that point of view. It’s no wonder that almost everyone, from the general public to the MSM to scientists assume that this is true. The environmentalist have done good things for the environment but now they care more about saving the world than saving the environment. Save the whales has become save the polar bears.
For fun, look at the prophesies of apocalypse from 1970, courtesy of Wikipedia. (look now before the revisionists get to it):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Day
Concerns at the time of Earth Day 1970
In 2000, Ron Bailey, the scientific editor of Reason Magazine, wrote an article considering predictions and warnings made at the time of the inaugural Earth Day and progress that had been made since then, suggesting that much of the alarmism of the environmental movement was unfounded. In particular, he mentioned these quotes:[13]
Denis Hayes, the chief organizer for the first Earth Day, wrote, “It is already too late to avoid mass starvation.”
Senator Gaylord Nelson, the founder of Earth Day, stated, “Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”
Peter Gunter, a professor at North Texas State University, stated, “… by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions…. By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”
Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb, predicted that between 1980 and 1989, 4 billion people, including 65 million Americans, would starve to death.
Life Magazine wrote, “… by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half.”
Ecologist Kenneth Watt stated, “The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”
Watt also stated, “By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil.”
The vision of the future in movies changed about then too. For example, Mad Max (1979). Apocalypse Now (1979). Star Wars (1977).
Forecasts up there are looking warmer than the S.F. Bay Area (almost 80 in Middle Tanana Valley). It’s freezing cold where I’m at… unseasonably cold. It’s 10 – 20 degrees warmer up there… they can have some of this down here.
Not much forcast…. the best way to know about the future, as Winston Churchill among other noted, is to know a lot about the past.
Since computermodels of this Earth forecasters aren’t up to the standard one would expect to find, given that some of those who tries to make believe they know so much about the present situation.
But one thing they don’t know about is the past.
Ice cores examples, used to present the situation of the past, never ever can present situation from one longitude and latitude 10 years before an observationpoint was established. Let alone from 1000 years ago.
But let’s look at facts from Fritiof Nansen’s Polarexpedition in 1888 as shown on a map at urlFram’s icedrift, Norsk Polarhistorie As seen the ‘_ _ _’ is the route the ship took when sailing and the unbroken line the route the icedrift made the ship travel. THIS type of facts are real. Ice drift is a wellknown fact among scholars of geology, oceanography, hydrology and so on, given they learnt what the teachers at high school and university taught… if they didn’t they missed their arguments for their CO2 case.
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My late husband was a very wealthy and after his death i inherited all his business and wealth, due to my situation now i decided to give some part of my wealth to contribute to the development of churches in Africa, America, Asia and Europe and i selected you after visiting this website and gone through your profile i prayed over it, I am donating the sum seventeen million five hundred thousand dollars($17,500.000.000.00 usd) to the less privilleged
Please get back to me on my mail address david.joy27@yahoo.com for more detaills
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Wait for your urgent reply
Your sister in Christ
Mrs Joy David
Finally, the long awaited recognition from Nigeria. 😉
For laughs: http://www.419eater.com/
Joy 147
I think you have the wrong web site.
Gavin Schmidt and Joe Romm are the extremely gullible ones. I suggest you repost this on Real Climate and Climate Progress.
Tip: You’ll just need to mention AGW somewhere then they will be all ears.
Tonyb
As usual Roger Pielke Sr is worth a read in relation to forecast ice area
http://climatesci.org/2009/06/09/an-comment-on-a-1999-paper-global-warming-and-northern-hemisphere-sea-ice-extent-by-vinnikov-et-al/
I did not read through all of this but I seem to recall some global warming fan on another topic showing the old chart and making statements of all the ice melting. Seems like they were point fingers at someone and yelling I told ya so.
Better get out the pickles for the crow sandwich, there is no AGW.
I wish we could gather up all the people that want total Federal Gov. control of their lives and give them their own nation. Maybe we need to split the USA up? I bet the Government controlled one would like North Korea in 10 years and the non Government controlled one to look like South Korea.
Wake up America!
Where else other than in publications attempting to cause alarm, could a one standard deviation band be considered “normal” ?
2 or 3 standard deviations is far more realistic … but that would defeat the purpose.
Sorry to burst the [snip] bubble but the sea ice extent is descending from the 30 year norm yet again. How long will it be before we hear choruses of these measurements being described as inaccurate?
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_images/ssmi1_ice_ext.png
Dr A Burns (16:34:47) :
Where else other than in publications attempting to cause alarm, could a one standard deviation band be considered “normal” ?
2 or 3 standard deviations is far more realistic
Not for a sample size of 28.
dennis ward (22:48:36)
Why does this “burst the [snip] bubble”? The real question is if the 2009 minimum is greater than the 2007/2008 minima or not. That question cannot be answered for several months. If 2009 has more ice at the minimum, that would be evidence for the melting trend reversing, given that 2008 was greater that 2007. Too early to tell, but so far no indication that its going to be worse than 2007.
I am curious though, if the NSIDC data still reflects the faulty sensor. The drop for NSIDC appears more dramatic that that from other sources. Steve Goddard – any insight?
Cheers, K.
Anthony,
Do you see anything fishy in the nsidc.org arctic sea ice extent graphic? After sea ice extent was near “normal” they went off line for a while, and when they came back up their graphic shows a precipitous decline, dipping below the 2007 line. This is especially odd when you consider the Nansen sea ice extent revision. WUWT?
Keep up the good work,
Jim