From NSIDC sea ice news
During the first half of August, Arctic ice extent declined more slowly than during the same period in 2007 and 2008. The slower decline is primarily due to a recent atmospheric circulation pattern, which transported ice toward the Siberian coast and discouraged export of ice out of the Arctic Ocean. It is now unlikely that 2009 will see a record low extent, but the minimum summer ice extent will still be much lower than the 1979 to 2000 average.
Figure 2. The graph above shows daily sea ice extent as of August 17, 2009. The solid light blue line indicates 2009; the solid dark blue line shows 2008; the dashed green line shows 2007; and the solid gray line indicates average extent from 1979 to 2000. The gray area around the average line shows the two standard deviation range of the data. Sea Ice Index data.
Figure 1. Daily Arctic sea ice extent on August 17 was 6.26 million square kilometers (2.42 million square miles). The orange line shows the 1979 to 2000 median extent for that day. The black cross indicates the geographic North Pole. Sea Ice Index data. About the data. <!–Please note that our daily sea ice images, derived from microwave measurements, may show spurious pixels in areas where sea ice may not be present. These artifacts are generally caused by coastline effects, or less commonly by severe weather. Scientists use masks to minimize the number of “noise” pixels, based on long-term extent patterns. Noise is largely eliminated in the process of generating monthly averages, our standard measurement for analyzing interannual trends. Data derived from Sea Ice Index data set. –>
Note: This mid-monthly analysis update shows a single-day extent value for Figure 1, rather than the usual monthly average. While monthly average extent images are more accurate in understanding long-term changes, the daily images are helpful in monitoring sea ice conditions in near-real time.
Overview of conditions
On August 17, Arctic sea ice extent was 6.26 million square kilometers (2.42 million square miles). This is 960,000 square kilometers (370,000 square miles) more ice than for the same day in 2007, and 1.37 million square kilometers (530,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average. On August 8, the 2009 extent decreased below the 1979 to 2000 average minimum annual extent, with a month of melt still remaining.
Conditions in context
From August 1 to 17, Arctic sea ice extent declined at an average rate of 54,000 square kilometers (21,000 square miles) per day. This decline was slower than the same period in 2008, when it was 91,000 square kilometers (35,000 square miles) per day, and for the same period in 2007, when ice extent declined at a rate of 84,000 square kilometers (32,000 square miles) per day. The recent rate of ice loss has slowed considerably compared to most of July. Arctic sea ice extent is now greater than the same day in 2008.
AMSRE from JAXA shows similar extent conditions:
As does NANSEN:
The inevitable happens.
Scare mongers have to admit their mistakes and apologize.
There will be more this stuff in the near future.
Aug 19, 2009
Greenpeace Leader Admits Arctic Ice Exaggeration
The outgoing leader of Greenpeace has admitted his organization’s recent claim that the Arctic Ice will disappear by 2030 was “a mistake.”
Greenpeace made the claim in a July 15 press release entitled “Urgent Action Needed As Arctic Ice Melts,” which said there will be an ice-free Arctic by 2030 because of global warming.
Under close questioning by BBC reporter Stephen Sackur on the “Hardtalk” program, Gerd Leipold, the retiring leader of Greenpeace, said the claim was wrong.
“I don’t think it will be melting by 2030. … That may have been a mistake,” he said.
Sackur said the claim was inaccurate on two fronts, pointing out that the Arctic ice is a mass of 1.6 million square kilometers with a thickness of 3 km in the middle, and that it had survived much warmer periods in history than the present.
The BBC reporter accused Leipold and Greenpeace of releasing “misleading information” and using “exaggeration and alarmism.”
Leipold’s admission that Greenpeace issued misleading information is a major embarrassment to the organization, which often has been accused of alarmism but has always insisted that it applies full scientific rigor in its global-warming pronouncements.
Although he admitted Greenpeace had released inaccurate but alarming information, Leipold defended the organization’s practice of “emotionalizing issues” in order to bring the public around to its way of thinking and alter public opinion.
Leipold said later in the BBC interview that there is an urgent need for the suppression of economic growth in the United States and around the world. He said annual growth rates of 3 percent to 8 percent cannot continue without serious consequences for the climate.
“We will definitely have to move to a different concept of growth. … The lifestyle of the rich in the world is not a sustainable model,” Leipold said. “If you take the lifestyle, its cost on the environment, and you multiply it with the billions of people and an increasing world population, you come up with numbers which are truly scary.” See post here.
(Watch the full BBC interview with Leipold here.)
Note: from Marc Morano to US media: Learn from BBC Reporter Stephen Sackur on how to question enviros claims! Bravo to Sackur for knowing the purpose of a journalist when it comes to questioning green claims! Icecap Note: Also see the latest Ice coverage tracking well above 2007 and 2008 levels close to 2005 with 3 to 4 weeks of the melt season to go.
from icecap.us
Flanagan (08:52:48) :
For those trying to show how rapidly the Antarctic is growing, please take alook at the trends you show – where the error is equal to the trend itself. How statistically relevant is that? Mmmm, that must be skeptics’ science!
For those who plot sea ice extent when I’m talking about sea ice concentration, please find some dictionnary and then come back.
For the one implying that academics take 6-8 weeks holidays in the summer, this answer should be self-sufficient.
PS: today, the Arctic lost 75937 km2. That’s more than last year, or 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002 and probably even before that but I don’t have the data here.
Flanagan,
If I were you I would be worried if the Arctic ice did not melt during the melt season.
Think about that.
Flanagan (08:52:48):
PS: today, the Arctic lost 75937 km2. That’s more than last year, or 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002 and probably even before that but I don’t have the data here.
I have data here. Arctic lost 65937km on 19th August, which is less than in 2002, 2004 and 2008 and on par with 2006. These are today data of yours from CA, so stop spreading BS here.
Anyone see the despair in warmists tone?
Methane seeps from Arctic sea bed
We took a punt out on the Cherwell today. A beautiful warm English summer day – like they used to be. As I withdrew the punt pole we noticed bubbles rising to the surface. To our amazement these bubbles could be ignited with a match. Methane seeps from river in Oxford!
“”” Leland Palmer (22:34:51) :
Hi all-
It’s really hard to understand people that can look at that graph, with our ice extent curve consistently two and three standard deviations below the average of 1979-2000, and not see the obvious. The curves for the last several years have been two or three standard deviations blow the mean, in fact. The possibility of this happening by accident is less than 5%, and may be less than 1%.
As this ice melts, it decreases the amount of sunlight reflected back into outer space by the white polar icecap. This is known as the icecap/Albedo feedback.
As the icecap melts, more sunlight is absorbed by the surface of the water, which leads to more melting, in a vicious cycle that looks very much like it is running away.
Many, many vicious cycles appear to be starting. The permafrost appears to be starting to melt, releasing increasing amounts of methane- a greenhouse gas 70 times worse than CO2, when averaged over a 20 year period. The forests are starting to burn at increasing rates around the world, and may release as much as 100-500 billion tons of carbon by 2100, and amount comparable to the entire industrial revolution.
It’s all happening, guys and gals.
Just look at the graph. Forget this is about global warming, and consider that it is the probability of your house burning down.
No insurance company would ever issue a policy on this fire trap. “””
Say Leland, have you ever wondered just why they have all that ice up there anyhow. I live near San Francisco Bay, and Santa Ceuz, and we have just plenty of water around here; but for some reason we never seem to get ice all over the place, like they ahve up there in the Arctic, or plastered all over the ground in Antarctica. Some body should write a paer on why some wet places ge tice and other wet places don’t.
I used to think that they got all that ice up there because it was so cold; but all that did was beg the question; why the blazes is it so cold up there ? it’s darn cold her around San Francisco; but not that cold that we get ice on the Bay.
But if I understand your thesis, if all the ice went away from the arctic, the sun would shine down into the open water and turn the whole place into a tropical paradise with desert islands and sandy beaches. Why wouldn’t you want that to happen anyway; why all this ice fetish ?
Well I still think there’s some good reason for all that cold ice up there, and I wouldn’t invest in any tropical paradise venture up there.
Anyway, it doesn’t look like we are going to get ice on the Bay this year; we have far too much sunshine going into our water around here to ever get any ice like they get up in th arctic. I wonder just how much sunshine they get up that way anyhow; maybe that has something to do with the ice.
Well I think I’ll stay where I am; it wouldn’t be good if we got ice here; and then the Polar bears came; they would have a field day with all the fur bags we have hanging around the Monterey Pier, and Santa Cruz.
“And Phil, notice that global sea ice is increasing. Global is what matters.”
I’ve asked before but never got a satisfying answer: If all the Arctic sea ice would disappear in summer, but at the same time there would be an increase of this amount in Antarctic sea ice, ie global sea ice would remain the same, would this be alright? Would it not entail some major meteorological changes? Do the poles know that only global matters?
IMO this is like saying that it’s not a problem that millions of people worldwide are starving because there are also millions of obese Americans. Actually, I wouldn’t put it past certain free market think tanks to come up with such an argument. OMG, what have I done?
Why does the NSIDC use the 1979-2000 as a yard stick? Is 1979-2000 a magic time period? Honesty would dictate using 1979-2008. Using the 79-00 baseline makes things looks worse. Would 2009 be within one standard deviation if the 79-08 baseline were used?
The Arctic ice grew 3% last year and is doing it again. Over the past century heating and cooling trends have lasted about 30 years. 2009 is the 30 year anniversary of reliable Arctic Ice measurement.
The jury is out. The debate is on. And consensus is disappearing faster than Arctic ice.
Many strange reactions to my post…
Mr green genes answers “mmmm”. And what do you mean by that?
Ron De Haan is talking about Arctic sea ice not melting during the melting season, while it actually had the second fastest melting rate in July, just after 2007 (see the NSIDC website). I mean: what do you need?
Juraj: here is a link to the Jaxa website: http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
JAXA is publishing a preliminary value and then a final value each day. Today’s extent is thus 6037188 , yesterday it was 6113125. Now take any calculator and type “6113125” and then “-” and then “6037188”. Still with me? Ok so now what’s the result?
Flanagan,
I think Mr. GG was pointing out something when you mentioned a dictionary. Maybe this will help:
Why is the 2 std deviation band shown on these graphs rather than the usual 3 standard deviations ? Variations outside 3 std devs are seen as “abnormal”.
It would be interesting to see the 3 std dev band calculated using ALL available data, as is the usual practice.
Why does NSDIC bury its Antarctic sea ice data ? It does not appear on it’s “sea ice” pages.
NSDIC seems to find the Antarctic an embarrassment.
Waw, so he actually did a complete post on A TYPO?
Now this is becoming a very constructive exchange of points of view.
BTW, I love your “none of the alarmist predictions have come true”
Do you mean something like: arctic sea ice should be decreasing on the long term, or the global glacier mass should be decreasing or the pH of oceans should become lower or the global earth temperature should be increasing on the long term or ice shelves should disappear on the Antarctic Peninsula or monsoons should intensify in China and India or the stratosphere should be cooling during the warming of the troposphere?
They use 1979 as the starting point because it is the beginning of the satellite age records for recording this. The problem is, of course, is that 1979 is also at the beginning of the recent warming, right after a 30 year period of cooling that had at least some scientists of the day worried about a returning ice age. And given the lag in impacting the ice cap, what that means is they are starting their measurement “baseline” period at what are almost certainly at or near historic highs for the 20th century. That’s not a fair baseline if fairness was all you were after *and* (and this is important –they don’t) you had a broader choice of data to do your baselining from.
I suspect that using around 1955-1965 (i.e. the middle third of the previous 30 year cooling, midway to recovering from the 30 year warmup previous to that!) as a baseline would be something a lot closer to “fair”. But we just don’t have that data.
Or to put it another way, to support a charge of cherry-picking in baselining, there needs to be a much fuller bushel of cherries to choose from in the first place that were carefully overlooked and ignored.
or maybe that’s because there’s not much happening down there…
Flanagan (13:57:46) :
I think your response to his post is more interesting: “And what do you mean by that?”, when it was clear that you had mis-spelled ‘dictionary,’ of all words — but you still couldn’t understand what he was razzing you about. Glad you finally got it.
And your typical alarmist nonsense has no proof, or any solid empirical evidence:
“Should be” doesn’t make any of that true, except in the minds of AGW believers. None of it is verifiable, reproducible or falsifiable. It is speculation based on always-inaccurate GCMs.
But if that’s all you’ve got, I guess you have to run with it.
Nahh, you’re right Smokey. So your opinion is “as long as we don’t have a 0% uncertainty on these, we cannot thrust the figures?” It’s like putting your hands in fron t of your eyes, telling yourself “if I don’t see it, then it doesn’t exist”. If you repeat “it’s not true” very very often, maybe you will end believing it is not.
All these predictions made by climate scientists are now verified by direct measurements. What else do you need?
Flanagan, please tell me what part of any sea ice graph tells you ice melted instead of being shoved back. I always pair sea ice graphs with jet stream wind strength and direction to inform me whether or not the graph is telling me the ice went outside the Arctic basin and melted, or got shoved back with only minimal melt. I do that because the graph alone does not tell me anything about where the ice went or how it melted. Graphs can’t do that. Unless you have found a graph that talks to you.
Flanagan (15:06:19) :
Flanagan, I sincerely hope that whoever said you were a teacher was wrong.
The direct measurements. Nothing from computer models, or peer reviewed speculation, OK? Thanx.
BTW, anything that is preceded by ‘should be’ is not evidence. It is only opinion:
“…arctic sea ice should be decreasing on the long term, or the global glacier mass should be decreasing or the pH of oceans should become lower or the global earth temperature should be increasing on the long term or ice shelves should disappear on the Antarctic Peninsula or monsoons should intensify in China and India or the stratosphere should be cooling during the warming of the troposphere…”
Seewhatimean?
I see nothing exciting about Arctic sea ice. What we are experiencing is regression to the mean. Ocean temperatures have not changed this decade according to ARGO. I expect the extent this year will continue back to the normal that was established 2000-2006. As has been established the 2007 extent was an anomaly caused by unusual winds. If Pamela is right we could see an even greater increase in extent next year. However, that would probably also be an anomaly. This is just common sense. Ocean heat controls average sea ice extent. However, it appears some people tend to throw out common sense when they feel strongly about something.
Can anyone imagine what Flanagan would be saying now if the extent was below 2007? He would be crowing that it was proof of CAGW. Yet, even though that didn’t happen he is still crowing the current extent is proof. And, if sea ice increases next year he will still say the same thing. That what happens when someone stops thinking rationally.
Well, the first Alberta clipper is coming through this week, “unusual for August ” it will collide with hurricane coming in for a real blowout. It’s just weather LOL.
If the ice compacted rather than blew out, we will be in for a
horrendous winter in Michigan; don’t worry we have Stabenow to take care of us……….
Felicitations all around!!
Flanagan with his ‘ice concentration’ and phil. and others with their ‘ice volume’ last year are sophists atttempting to make lemon ices out of lemons. They are attempting to explain away an apparently emerging increasing trend in Arctic sea ice extent.
The best evidence is that the global temperature peaked around 2004-2005, despite the anomalous high in 1998, and has been cooling ever since. Since the earth is a heat engine that pumps heat from the equator to the poles over time, my interpretation is that the 2007 historical minimum in sea ice extent represents a three year lag from the peak heat in 2004. Insofar as Arctic sea ice extent is a proxy for global temperature, and it is not a perfect one, it was predictable that sea ice extent would grow from its nadir in 2007. And that is what I predicted nearly a year and a half ago, remember phil.?
We are cooling, folks; for how long even kim doesn’t know. My best guess is for another two to three decades because of the cooling phases of the oceanic oscillations. If the present unusual behaviour of the sun is presaging a new Grand or Lesser Minimum, and if the sun directs the climate, then we may well cool for a century or even longer.
We far more likely face a human holocaust from crop failures from global cooling than any adverse consequences from global warming. What insurance company, flanagan, is going to insure against that? Please, approach this topic with an open mind; it is desperately important.
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Here’s a question about ice: Does it sublime? Does it ridiculuous? (Where’s Cole Porter when you need him?)
Seriously though. Does ice stay as ice until it melts back into water or does it sublime into water vapour at temperatures below freezing? Does it depend on partial pressures and all that? – harking back the the ‘CO2 freezing out in Arctactica’ debate a few weeks ago?
Smokey (09:23:07) :
Phil.:
“And as of today global sea ice area is 1.115 Mm^2 below the average for the day!”
As pointed out, it’s late August.
So, you claimed that global sea ice is increasing yet today it’s over 1Mm^2 below average!
Sorry about the June images, they’re the only ones I have. Post the same July/August images if you’ve got ‘em — and if you dare.
I have, see below, what does ‘dare’ have to do with anything?
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn107/Sprintstar400/2008vs05.png
I repeat, none of the alarmist predictions have come true. None of them.
The ones you referred to above have in fact happened.
Where is your god now?
I don’t have one.
Jimmy Haigh (21:30:37) :
Seriously though. Does ice stay as ice until it melts back into water or does it sublime into water vapour at temperatures below freezing? Does it depend on partial pressures and all that? – harking back the the ‘CO2 freezing out in Arctactica’ debate a few weeks ago?
Yes below the triple point ice will sublime into water vapor provided that the gas phase isn’t saturated.