There is a webcam at the “North Pole” (at least it starts out very near there) that reports via satellite data uplink at regular intervals. They also have a weather station with a once weekly data plot. Note it is still below zero centigrade there.
Latest data (updated approximately weekly)
Readers should note that the station really isn’t at the north pole anymore due to significant ice drift.
WUWT reader GlennB called attention to the webcam images today. A couple of weeks ago (5/31/09) it looked like this. You can see the weather station in the distance.
Now it looks like this:
click for larger images
It appears either a snow drift and/or pressure ridge has blocked the view of the weather station.
Here is what they say about it on NOAA/PMEL’s web page:
NOAA/PMEL’s North Pole web cam deployments began in April 2002. The web cams operate during the Summer warmth and daylight (April – October) and are redeployed each Spring. The images from the cameras track the North Pole snow cover, weather conditions and the status of PMEL’s North Pole instrumentation, which includes meteorological and ice sensors (seen in the camera images). The instruments typically continue to transmit data for months after the solar-powered web cams stop.
Web Camera provided by Star Dot Technologies with technical support by Vance Kozik. System design by Oceantronics. Camera images are relayed via the Iridium satellite system.
Link is here: http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/gallery_np.html
What I find most interesting is the ice/snow sounder graph.
Ice-temperature plot: Plots of air, ice, and ocean temperature as measured by Mass Balance buoys developed by CRREL. Final versions of files will be created by CRREL.
Download preliminary data: 07948.cplot (click for header information)
Latest data (updated approximately weekly)
Not much change in the ice pinger distance, even though the station has drifted 161 miles to the SSE (lat lon data here). If I interpret the pinger graph correctly, the ice thickness has changed from ~2.75m to ~2.5m.
We’ll see if there is any significant chnage in a couple of weeks, assuming it is still transmitting.
A bit off topic but having to do with data analysis. I have found a very interesting correlation plotting web site buried in NOAA. I have had lots of fun all day with it! Combined with our woodfortrees plotting site, we could have nerdy fun all summer long!
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/data/correlation/
The wind direction measured from the center of the device indicates it has taken a circuitous route from its orginal GPS location. The jet stream maps parallel this motion right out to the edge of the ice. So far, I have not seen the kind of constant unidirectional strong wind that creates ice movement out of the circumpolar regions.
speaking of woodfortrees. We are now up to 12 YEARS NO WARMING using RSS MSU lower troposphere temperatures.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1997/plot/rss/from:1997/trend
What I would like to know is this. Why are various charts which are NOW negative to global warming on WICKEDpedia NOT updated past 2005.
Look at the RSS MSU chart, only to 2005.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_temperature_measurements
Here is Atlantic Cyclone Energy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NOAA_ACE_index_1950-2004_RGB.svg
and Accumulated Cylcone Energy,(global)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accumulated_cyclone_energy
here are recent versions.
http://nofreewind.com/atlantic_ace.jpg shows 06/07 down!!
http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/tropical/global_running_ace.jpg storm time if over!
i’ll save the long link. just google Wikipedia bias
I love the world wide web. Thanks
If the measurements began in 2002, then I have to wonder how the actual temperatures match up with Hanson’s’ estimates.
Based on this data from AMSU satellite (below),
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
AMSU surface temps channel 5 and 4
June 2009 temps will be well below average.. there will be quite a minus. By now nofreewind, the overall trend is starting to go negative. It’s meaningless, of course in the context of climate and even weather. We hope soon that all of us pro AGW and anti-AGW’ers will stop looking at this nonsense since it’s being going on for billions of years and we are only seeing it now due to high tech and our short lives LOL!
I don’t see any barBQ units or air conditioning vents near so I guess you can add it to your OK list of stations.
Only slightly O/T (because it has some fantastic chapters on Arctic and Antarctic ice status), I notice that Ian Wishart’s book Air Con is apparently available for order through US, Canadian and UK bookstores now or shortly via some kind of distribution deal.
I say this because science and public policy have published a new extract from Air Con that alludes to this http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/commentaries/seriously_inconvenient_truth.pdf
But Ted, what if it runs into the fuel drums left by our superb investigative team of insurance agents and salesforce!?!?!?!?!?
VG (17:47:29) :
Based on this data from AMSU satellite (below),
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
AMSU surface temps channel 5 and 4
June 2009 temps will be well below average.. there will be quite a minus. By now nofreewind, the overall trend is starting to go negative.
According to Spencer that data isn’t really worth bothering though.
Pamela Gray (18:21:32) : Re Insruance Agents.
To date I’ve not heard from Nunavut that the Catlin Arctic Survey fuel cache and drums were recovered. Till I hear different I will assume that they are potential marine hazards and an “environmental research” caused oil spill. If the Catlin crowd were a mining or oil company you can bet that the COs (Conservation Officers) would have their ticket books in hand. (Having worked for a government environment ministry for 10 years my opinion if truly biased)
Not much change in the ice pinger distance, even though the station has drifted 161 miles to the SSE (lat lon data here). If I interpret the pinger graph correctly, the ice thickness has changed from ~2.75m to ~2.5m.
The ice surface is at about 60cm so the thickness is now appears to be about 1.9m.
The camera transmitter has been on the frizz for a few weeks but now seems to have sent some data. Rather than a snow drift and/or pressure ridge has blocked the view of the weather station it appears to be snow accumulation on the camera itself (checkout the crystals in this photo).
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/npole/2009/images/tmp/noaa1-2009-0618-041044.jpg.tmp
I have this page bookmarked, and it looked OK on June 18.
I saved one old photo where the sun was behind the camera, and the shadow of the equipment indicated the extent of the support package. I suppose there must be a long cable from the wind generator back to the camera location?
An interesting paper on the relationship between warm summers, cold summers, tree ring growth, PDO, and glacial measures in the upper northern latitudes. And as glaciers go, so goes the Arctic ice area and extent, unless anomalous wind blows it all to hell in a hand basket. Which is to say that summer ice extent and area can be given a blow to its correlation to PDO and summer temps by the blowing wind.
http://www.geog.uvic.ca/dept/uvtrl/holocene05.pdf
Right now we have something very serious to be concerned about. The evidence being presented at WUWT is starting to make itself evident in that WUWT is starting to become the bullseye of the anti-AGW crowd. WUWT and the evidence being presented there is causing “rapid” cooling which is causing the world’s ice sheets to “accelerate” towards a global cooling period. This rate of cooling is occuring faster and more dramatic than the models originally anticipated. What’s concerning me is that this past winter was expected to melt the ice caps, but they are not showing signs of this. If this rate of rapid or accelerating cooling continues, important legislation like Cap and Tax could cease to exist as we have known it. It’s really a very scary scenario.
Well this site will continue to provide evidence that the AGW house of cards is falling down, then there’s NOAA saying there will be an El Nino and that will cause record highs, last I checked El Nino is still slowly forming, the TAO data is showing a slow increase in SST anomalies in the east though not much change in the west.
I hope NOAA is wrong though about El Nino and record highs, that assumes SST anomalies near South America stop their slow rise.
James F. Calvert, died of a heart ailment June 3 at his home in Bryn Mawr, Pa. He was 88. Calvert was commander of the nuclear-powered submarine USS Skate, the first vessel to surface at the North Pole, and former superintendent of the Naval Academy.
REPLY: Saddened to hear this. I have his book “surface at the pole” which I’m reading now. – Anthony
Adam,
El Nino is, in a very important sense, distraction.
El Nino, like fluctuating CO2, variable weather, PDO, ENSO, etc. etc. etc. etc., are all part of a highly variable normal range of a fluctuating global climate/weather system.
If El Nino is strong or weak or absent is not relevant.
The AGW promotion community is based on misrepresentation of normal variable weather. The AGW industry profits by taking evidence of weather fluctutations are selling their interpretation of that variable weather as proof of dangerous global warming.
Who should care, beyond the weather impact on agriculture and fishing, if the El Nino is strong, weak, or absent?
Pamela Gray (17:24:59) :
If you want strong unidirectional wind try the Kittitas Valley in Washington State. Hurry, it might slow some by July.
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/getobext.php?wfo=pdt&sid=KELN&num=72
> nofreewind (17:27:17) :
> speaking of woodfortrees. We are now up to 12 YEARS NO
> WARMING using RSS MSU lower troposphere temperatures.
I can go you 1 better… would you believe 3 better? See http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1997.333/trend/plot/rss/from:1997.25/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2001/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997.25/trend
To summarize; over 12 years of no warming according to Hadley, RSS, and UAH. Even GISS, ever the outlier, shows colling from December 2000 onwards, approx 8.5 years.
I don’t need to travel to Dutch Harbor to get some of that Alaskan weather. It’s doing it right here in sunny No. Ca with chilly unrelenting winds. Got my sweater on, the nippy stuff goes right through you. The daytime temps are totally misleading. Soon as the afternoon wears on, the slightest breeze reveals the tenuous nature of late spring. Below normal is being nice about it.
No mention of the sunspots in this article which appeared in yesterday’s Arizona Republic re: Phoenix weather this month. Note comparison to 1913.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2009/06/19/20090619junelovely0619.html
June hasn’t been this nice since … 1913
But Valley’s stretch of days below 100°, now at 14, is about to come to an end
by John Faherty – Jun. 19, 2009 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
Meteorologists are reluctant to call a month “nice.” They have their data and their science and typically do not describe the weather in such subjective terms.
Except now, because the data prove it.
“It’s probably the best June since I’ve been here, and I’ve been here most of my life,” said the National Weather Service’s Valerie Meyers, who is in her late 40s. “It’s been really nice.”
Possibly the nicest June ever.
It’s that type of thing that is fun to say but hard to quantify.
Thursday, however, was the 14th consecutive day to stay below 100 degrees. That’s the longest stretch of its kind in any June since 1913.
The lower temperatures have allowed people to sleep with windows open and drive with their arms out vehicle windows. Evenings, too, have been spent chatting with neighbors while children or grandchildren play. Those events are not life-changing, but they are, well, nice.
Typically in June, high-pressure systems begin to form above the Valley. High pressure means clear skies and little wind. And, in June, clear skies let in the sunshine, sending the temperatures soaring.
This June, though, has remained cool because of what Meyers called “a persistent area of low pressure off the West Coast.”
The low pressure has prevented the high-pressure systems from getting into place.
Alas, all good things must come to an end. This weekend, the days will heat up. Temperatures are expected to be back in the 104-105 range by the middle of next week.
nofreewind (17:27:17),
I am a firm global warming sceptic but I always feel we are misrepresenting the trend of no-warming by starting in 1997/1998. The alarmists have a point when they claim we are cherry picking.
So they chose to do the same and tell us to plot the trend from 1999 onwards rather than including the anomalous El Nino year1998:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1999/plot/rss/from:1999/trend
Very interesting news on this summer solstice.
Don’t forget folks (northern hemisphere) the nights start drawing in for winter from today!
I had sort of assumed the drift patterns of the arctic were fairly random, but if you click through the drift plots for each year of the stations deployment, the path seems to me to be remarkably consistent. Anyone have any info on why this is?
Never mind, It’s late and I wasn’t seeing great, the station is just following the flow down the east side of Greenland that showed so well in the polar ice animation.
OT but “Denmark to power electric cars by wind in vehicle-to-grid experiment”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jun/19/denmark-wind-electric-cars
“The project on the holiday island of Bornholm will use the batteries of parked electric cars to store excess energy when the wind blows hard, and then feed electricity back into the grid when the weather is calm.”
I don’t think so. Those crystals are in sharp focus while at the same time the weather station in the background is also fairly well focused. Webcams normally have very short focal length lenses, but no ordinary webcam will be able to focus at zero distance from the lens and several tens of meters away at the same time.
That snow and ice should be something like a meter away from the camera, maybe more.
Nev (18:16:28) :
I say this because science and public policy have published a new extract from Air Con that alludes to this http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/commentaries/seriously_inconvenient_truth.pdf
I think the Utopian beast is going to continue eating our lunch until we figure out how to kill it so it stays dead.
Maybe we could send them to the north pole to clean the camera lens.
Well, in the meantime the arctic sea ice extent has now gone below its 2008 value. It will be interesting to see what will happen in the weeks to come…
Chris: Good point about cherry picking start dates. I had some fun with this at: http://www.woodfortrees.org/notes#trends
I think the most we can say is that there is not (yet) any evidence of the kind of extreme increases projected at the wilder end of the debate, and until otherwise proven I’m personally still hopeful that the feedback sign will turn out to be negative.
Flanagan (03:13:57) Would you give a link to show your data that contradicts the JAXA graph above?
Phil. (18:43:57) :
Actually, from his web site, this is what he said.
I guess it’s a matter of opinion as to whether “should only be used as a rough guide” is the same thing as “isn’t really worth bothering”.
Flanagan wrote (03:13:57) :
“Well, in the meantime the arctic sea ice extent has now gone below its 2008 value. It will be interesting to see what will happen in the weeks to come…”
Well I guess it depends where you look. Looking at http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic arctic ice appears to be in good shape being close to its 1979-2007 average. If I then look at http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png the 2009 sea ice is getting pretty close to 2007 (not 2008) but not there yet. As requested by Steve Keohane above maybe Flanagan could provide a link and Anthony Watts invite someone to write an entry on the various sites providing information on arctic ice and their relative reliability.
Steve Keohane (04:25:16) :
I guess Flanagan’s counting leap days, which is legitimate.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/plot.csv
06,19,2008,10449531
06,20,2008,10386719
06,20,2009,10425000
Note that this site often issues an update for the most recent day.
At any rate, above or below 2008, 2009 is solidly in the middle of the range since 2002. The September minimum is all that really counts though.
Chris Schoneveld (23:35:47) – I agree with the dangers of cherry-picking but the year 1998 belongs somewhere in the discussion. Depending on the starting point, it can influence a trend line either way and the alarmists certainly use it to bolster their case (it’s almost critical to their proposition).
I think the salient point is that the modern warming period, the period of alarmism, runs for approximately 30 years. Yet contrary to the alarmist models, in roughly 1/3 of that period – the last third by the way – the warming appears to have ceased and receded a bit. The longer this trend continues, the less relevant ’98 becomes.
Sure enough
06,20,2009,10449375
woodfortrees (Paul Clark) (04:14:04) :
“I think the most we can say is that there is not (yet) any evidence of the kind of extreme increases projected at the wilder end of the debate, and until otherwise proven I’m personally still hopeful that the feedback sign will turn out to be negative.”
Personally I am hopeful that the feedback will be positive since I strongly believe in the benefits of a warmer world but also of the benefits of higher CO2 levels (increased food production). After all, our atmosphere is, on a geological time scale, CO2-impoverished. I think it is a shame that within 50 years we may start running out of fossil fuels to help bring up the levels well above the 560 ppm. Alas!
Flanagan, It’s called spring, then comes summer. Even in the Arctic. Just so you know, the days begin getting shorter very soon. The next couple of months will be even more interesting than the next couple of weeks. Shake it off and bring your inquisitive mind over to our side. You must feel it deep down in our bones that your viewpoint is not tenable. That nagging doubt like the telltale heart under the floorboards.
Flanagan I am predicting more ice at the minimum in 2009 than 2008.
Barring some weird weather I expect this to be the second year in a row I am correct and the consensus of science is wrong.
Below freezing again today in Alert.
http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/city/pages/nu-22_metric_e.html
An interesting article in UK The Sunday Times today. “Gas that saved the ozone layer is making the world warmer” A study by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency warns that “by 2050 HFCs sould account for up to 19% of global warming and a tonne of HFC-23 used in refrigeration has the same global warming potential as 14,800 tonnes of CO2.” What about getting CFCs back to combat global warming? If you are a “climate change denier” I suppose it does not matter, but perhaps such individuals as Al Gore, Dr James Hansen and Gavin Schmidt ought now to petition the UN to have the 1987 Montreal Protocol rescinded with immediate effect.
Seems to be still quite cold in the Arctic.
http://www.uni-koeln.de/math-nat-fak/geomet/meteo/winfos/synNNWWarctis.gif
The data is from the IJIS website of the JAXA, from which the graph is taken. David Ball, I’m quite surprised by your reaction. I was only noting that the extent is quite lower than the average for this date, because to my knowledge springs happens every year… It only confirms the downards trend, that’s it. But let’s wait for the spetember minimum….
Phil re Roy Spencer not bothering about… using that data… This might help…see here
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/01/daily-monitoring-of-global-average-temperatures/
I would like to start a discussion on significance of the standard deviation. It is rather uncommon to say anything about data that is at or near 1 standard deviation. It is something else again to say that a particular data point is at or beyond 2 standard deviations from the mean. However, this is complicated by the steepness or flatness of the normal distribution. It is something to consider when looking at data that includes standard deviation shading. However, in general, individual data points that are within 2 standard deviation are safely said to be normal variation from multiple normal causes. Data outside this is said to be unique and outside the normal situation. When studying time-dependent data such as the Arctic sea ice data, the shaded area can narrow or spread depending on the time axis. It is quite possible that overall extent and area at its peak in the Arctic can have a rather steep normal distribution with narrow standard deviations. However, at the bottom of the melt period, it is conceivable that the normal distribution would have a flatter bell curve, and wide standard deviations. I would hazard a guess that variables in the dead of winter are rather few, but variables in summer are many in comparison. Here are just a few websites that talk about SD and normal distribution.
http://www.robertniles.com/stats/stdev.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviation
I am left to wonder why cries of alarm, or even suggestions of alarm, have been issued by anyone at this point who is seeing anything other than situation normal regarding the current extent and area of sea ice in the Arctic.
To continue my thoughts, this site uses plus or minus one standard deviation on its graphs and therefore should be used with caution when saying something significant about the ice.
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic
This site uses the more acceptable plus or minus two standard deviations and is therefore more usable when saying something significant about the ice.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2009/050409.html
Shawn: may I remind you the consensus on the Arctic would place its extent higher than it is today. A continuation of the long term trend would mean a 3.5 million sqm area (not extent) in September. We’ll see…
Carsten Arnholm, Norway (02:12:24) :
Phil. (19:16:20) :
“The camera transmitter has been on the frizz for a few weeks but now seems to have sent some data. Rather than a snow drift and/or pressure ridge has blocked the view of the weather station it appears to be snow accumulation on the camera itself (checkout the crystals in this photo).
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/npole/2009/images/tmp/noaa1-2009-0618-041044.jpg.tmp”
I don’t think so. Those crystals are in sharp focus while at the same time the weather station in the background is also fairly well focused. Webcams normally have very short focal length lenses, but no ordinary webcam will be able to focus at zero distance from the lens and several tens of meters away at the same time.
That snow and ice should be something like a meter away from the camera, maybe more.
Not at zero but certainly those lenses will focus at a minimum distance of ~0.1m which is what that image looks like, so it is snow on the camera housing is what’s being seen, not a snow drift or pressure ridge.
Pamela Gray (09:36:09) :
To continue my thoughts, this site uses plus or minus one standard deviation on its graphs and therefore should be used with caution when saying something significant about the ice.
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic
This site uses the more acceptable plus or minus two standard deviations and is therefore more usable when saying something significant about the ice.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2009/050409.html
Acceptability depends on the number of data points, for a small number of data points two standard deviations could be very unlikely.
Check out Chauvenet’s criterion for example.
Two questions Flanagan,
1. Are you referring to a linear trend? But the historical sea ice data that creates the mean and standard deviations of the mean do not act linearly.
2. Using a non linear averaging statistic, what would your prediction be in terms of its relationship to 2 standard deviations from the mean?
Given the current measurement and its residence well inside the 2 standard deviation area, and given the predicted weather, current, and wind patterns through the summer, I predict a greater chance (better than 50%) of maximum melt to be within the 2 standard deviation of the mean.
To help in understanding historical weather data, use the same webcam site. Notice the wind patterns (that is while the device is not frozen up) during high melt years. Notice this year so far. A definite change. This is just one statistic used to predict rather normal melt for 2009, if you care to look at the data yourself and skip the global warming dogma based on a linear trend (IE It will melt like a child’s icecream cone).
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/gallery_np.html
John Peter (08:49:56) : 1987 Montreal Protocol re: ozone and CFCs
I haven’t seen much about the Ozone hole recently except that it still seems to come and go some 22 years after the Montreal Protocol. Thus the title “Gas that saved the ozone layer . . . ” to which you refer seems to miss the mark. One argument is that not enough time has gone by for the CFCs humans produced to have cleared the system and some sold before were later released. On the other hand, maybe there are sufficient naturally supplied halogens in the atmosphere that the CFCs scare was bogus and that effort – phase out of CFCs and replacement with other chemicals – was just a preliminary to the current CO2 scam.
The latest go-round on this issue here on WUWT is:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/26/galactic-cosmic-rays-may-be-responsible-for-the-antarctic-ozone-hole/#more-6560
The main thrust of the article of that post was directed toward the role cosmic rays play in the process in contrast to sunlight. The article did not address directly the sources of the halogen molecules, nor did the comments add enough clarity for me. Still, I favor the idea that the ozone hole predated the industrially derived CFCs and that it (the hole) will continue to expand and contract.
The above post was re-opened for comments but for how long I do not know. Maybe we’ll find a new paper on the issue soon and have another go at this issue. The prediction for a severe ozone hole this year (2009) made in the mentioned article is soon to be tested. Maybe this will induce a few articles if it does prove true.
This is a well-researched and sound prediction.
http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/prods/ARCTIC001/20090603000000_ARCTIC001_0004399792.pdf
Phil, good point, but it serves to remind us that fewer data points must be handled with a broader perspective on what is and is not significant. I would never use 1standard deviation with fewer data points.
Okay, here’s the big NOAA page with all the ENSO data
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/MJO/enso.shtml
Whether or not an El Nino forms, look at all the data and see for yourself where it could be headed, who knows how this will affect things like Sea Ice, or whether it’s already starting to affect Summer temperatures, it also doesn’t quite look it’ll get even near 1998 levels and it may not even get to 2006 levels.
Hi Pamela,
yes this is based on a linear extrapolation of the 2000s from the cryosphere. Linear trends is possible even for nonlinear behaviors if the period is short enough – at least this is what Taylor thought. Could you place a figure on the 2 sigmas prediction, because it all depends on the dataset you’re using? Thanks.
Flanagan, I am waiting for your thoughts on ice predictions given the above posts and links I provided. Those that spend their time telling ships what to expect (and they had better be right because if not, lives are at stake) are indicating normal melt and no NW passage. What say you to their predictions? Are you sticking with an arbitrary linear trend that is only an artifact of the data, or are you willing to go with the expert opinions of real data?
Pamela,
The Canadian ice Service was quite political with this last year declaring the NW Passage open when it wasn’t and they were caught on that one. If my memory serves me they declared the northern route open when only an Ice Breaker could pass through and then tried to fudge their way out of it.
CIS is not quite lilly white. They like a little AGW politics with their ice.
With the extent of cold in Northern Canada last year and the quick freeze in the Arctic and the continueing cold I expect the Arctic to have a greater extent at the minimum than in 2008. In the 40’s when the PDO changed to the cool cycle the Arctic rapidly realized an increase in ice and it was the end of easy summer travel for the Hudson Bay Company to stock it’s outposts. Some outposts were closed down due to the increased amounts of ice in the late ’40’s. expect history to repeat. Really no need for all the fancy scientific stuff.
It’s kind of neat that this weather station resembles a probe sent to another planet. It can’t expect any maintenance work if it gets in trouble. It has to rely on sending data back through a sattelite. It’s expected to have a finite life span then die due to local conditions. It’s really very much like sending a probe to Mars, except here it’s ice instead of dust and grit that can block our view. Very interesting.
One of the most important factors to be discussed isn’t the daily maximum temperatures, but the difference between minimum and maximum temperature measured at a station during the day. Please observe that I am not refering to median temperature since what needs to be done in order to have any readings up to scientific level to hold information on how many hours it’s below freezing point and how many hours it’s over.
Also bear in mind that wind make the ‘real’ temperature lower when we talk about temperatures below + 4 Celsius degrees. Which of course all that have had to use salt of any kind to keep larger areas icefree in non Arctic regions are aware of.
As for the icedrift, the changed GPS position of this and other stations are exactly what they should be had the normal centrifugal power been taken into consideration together with the fact that our Earth isn’t a real globe but due to centrifugaleffects are more ‘flat’ around the poles.
Flanagan, after 30 years of watching my fathers position get brutally marginalized through media manipulation ( watch the CBC’s Fifth Estate about “the deniers” as one example) and you might understand that the chip on my shoulder is as big as it is. My father and I are very different. He is educated in the extreme, patient and thoughtful. I, on the other hand, wasted my youth drinking and fighting in some of the toughest bars in Canada. I am quick to temper and can still hold my own in a confrontation, and quite enjoy doing so. I am not educated, but I still comprehend a great deal of the discussions on this site and others, and I know BS when it rears it’s ugly head. Don’t get me wrong, I am glad that Anthony allows differing views to be posted, for that is the “joie de vivre” of this site. It is time that the realists had a voice in every form of media. If you believe strongly that your view is the correct one, then our view should not be a threat. Skeptics are not allowed to post on RC, and sites like it. Very telling. We are entitled to equal time. When someone is shouted down, it does not mean they are wrong. I enjoyed reading your back and forth with Pamela Gray, very enlightening and constructive. That sort of discourse will bring Anthony another “science blog of the year” award. Try to put yourself in my shoes and maybe you can understand my reaction a little better. Nothing personal and no hard feelings.
Phil, if you look at the northpole images from 21st June you can see a shadow across the ice, so indicating it is a large scale feature and not something on the lens. Perhaps this pressure ridge is what caused to it go FUBAR for a while.
Regards
Andy
Anthony as you keep suggesting that Catlin were going to polute the Arctic with their fuel cache, I am sure you will be relieved to read this from their web site:
From the Ice
Logistically, all the loose ends of the expedition have now been tied up.
On the 5th June, Kenn Borek Air scooped up the remaining fuel drums from our fuel cache on the Arctic Ocean, before returning to the base at Resolute.
Today all the freight arrived back at the Ops Room here in London. The laborious task of putting it into some sort of order begins. Some of the kit (sledges, clothing, drills etc) will be used for display purposes, some will be binned and some will be stored for any future projects
REPLY: Good for them and thanks for the note – Anthony
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/npole/2009/images/tmp/noaa1-2009-0622-055606.jpg.tmp
Looks like the webcam is still working.
BTW, you can see all the pictures from http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/npole/
HTH., Symon.
AndyW35 (22:57:46) :
Phil, if you look at the northpole images from 21st June you can see a shadow across the ice, so indicating it is a large scale feature and not something on the lens. Perhaps this pressure ridge is what caused to it go FUBAR for a while.
It’s not on the lens but is attached to the camera support, judging by the size of the ice crystals it’s within a foot of the lens. The shadow is from the camera support I expect.
Where Iive in Southern Europe the weather is cloudy and rainy which has never happened before around this month from what I remember since a little boy. It feels like it’s late September already…
Phil, I see what you mean, yes that would be a good explanation.
Regards
Andy