Those that have been watching the IARC-JAXA Arctic sea ice plot, and noting the slope of gain, rather expected this to happen. Today it did.
Here’s the current IARC-JAXA Sea Ice Extent plot:
source: http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
And here is the plot magnified and annotated to show the crossing:
While 2009 minimum on 09/13 of 5,249, 844 was just 65, 312 sq km below 2005 in minimum extent, which occurred on 9/22/2005 with 5,315,156 sq km, it has now rebounded quickly and is higher by 38,438 sq km, just 2 days before the 9/22/05 minimum. On 9/22/2009 it may very well be close to 60-80,000 sq km higher than the minimum on the same date in 2005.
While by itself this event isn’t all that significant, it does illustrate the continued rebound for the second year. The fact that we only missed the 2005 minimum by 65, 312, which is about one days worth of melt during many days of the melt season is also noteworthy.
From Wikipedia:
The troposphere begins at the surface and extends to between 7 km (23,000 ft) at the poles and 17 km (56,000 ft) at the equator, with some variation due to weather. The troposphere is mostly heated by transfer of energy from the surface, so on average the lowest part of the troposphere is warmest and temperature decreases with altitude. This promotes vertical mixing (hence the origin of its name in the Greek word “τροπή”, trope, meaning turn or overturn). The troposphere contains roughly 80% of the mass of the atmosphere. The tropopause is the boundary between the troposphere and stratosphere.
Check out chLT at 3300 Ft (bottom of the troposphere) That puppy is well above record highs.
It is rather puzzling to me that there can be such a seeming disconnect between troposphere temps and SSTs.
This map from NSIDC clearly shows the massive gain in ice extent area in 2009 (white) relative to the 2007 minimum (light and dark grays)…
NSIDC 2007 vs 2009 Map
The summer ice minimum has grown from 2007 to 2008 to 2009… How many years in a row will the summer Arctic sea ice minimum have to expand before gov’t bureaucrats and the media acknowledge that global warming has given way to global cooling?
If the three-year decline from 2004-2007 was proof that the icecap was vanishing, how is it possible that NSIDC “scientists do not consider this” two-year run in the opposite direction, all but erasing the total magnitude of the three-year decline “to be a recovery”?
Enduser (12:10:03) :
Thanks, I saw that. Hardly panic stations though.
ralph (12:11:37) :
Stop Press, Stop Press…
BBC World are now reporting a STEEP decrease in CO2 levels.
_______________________________________________________________
BBC is full of crap. CO2 levels always fall this time of year.
Mauna Loa doesn’t see anything strange happening.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
@Ralph
Checking the BBC website all I found is this
“The global recession and a range of government policies are likely to bring the biggest annual fall in the world’s carbon dioxide emissions in 40 years.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that global CO2 emissions will fall by more than 2% during 2009. ”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8267475.stm
Enduser (12:10:03) :
Thanks, I saw that. Hardly panic stations though.
One other thing isn’t the “hotspot” predicted to be at a much higher altitude?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/08/04/a-simple-analogy-on-climate-modeling-looking-for-the-red-spot/
i.e. about 10km
On AMSU this altitude looks pretty flat to me.
Steep decrease? That’s funny, the CO2 cycle usually reaches a peak during NH winter and goes to a low during NH summer if I looked at the Mauna Loa graph correctly. That and the recession not being able to explain a steep decrease as there’s still tons of CO2 emission happening here in the US, China, and sooner or later India.
Did you see nutty NSIDC report on Sea Ice Minimum???
“In addition, the Arctic is still dominated by younger, thinner ice, which is more vulnerable to seasonal melt.”
They have no evidence this is true and the rapid summer melt and then refreeze over the last few years indicates the reverse is true – older Arctic ice is more vulnerable to melt and newer ice is more resistant to melt. Probably due to accumulated particulates causing decreasing albedo in the older ice.
But heh, this is climate science. Who needs pesky evidence.
“How many years in a row will the summer Arctic sea ice minimum have to expand before gov’t bureaucrats and the media acknowledge that global warming has given way to global cooling?”
Oh, about 20 or so .. enough to counter the past 30 year decreasing trend. And enough growth in ice coverage to come somewhere close to reaching the average value over the last 30 years….
“If the three-year decline from 2004-2007 was proof that the icecap was vanishing,”. Also, you fail to mention the previous 30 years of data which shows a strong decreasing trend. It wasn’t just a 3 year decreasing trend, it was 30.
“scientists do not consider this two-year run in the opposite direction all but erasing the total magnitude of the three-year decline”….
Because they explained the different wind patterns over the last couple years which explain why the years had different ice melt patterns. You’ll find this explanation in the link I provided above.
The red 2009 line looks closer to the highest minimum blue line of 2003 than it does to the lowest minimum yellow line of 2007, which is pretty good for a couple of years work.
Next year will be very interesting.
George E. Smith (10:38:10) :
The issue with the ocean ice, is that the open water is a near black body absorber for what little solar radiation there is up there, whereas the sea ice is a fairly good reflector, and enhances the albedo, leading to cooling.
George, do you have anything more to back this up? I am genuinely asking (not making a dig) as I struggle with what you’ve said as a concept; primarily because it describes a positive feedback mode which is pretty rare in nature (i.e. less ice = more ocean = more heating = less ice, more ice = less heating = more ice) so either way you go the tendency is to move to extremes.
What do you think of an alternative supposition, namely that energy absorption of open water at high latitudes is relatively low due to atmospheric path length + angle of incidence (think low sun reflecting off a lake = big reflection); that coupled with ice cover acting as an insulator – reducing the ocean’s heat loss to the atmosphere. In this conjecture it’s a negative feedback – much more common in nature (i.e. less ice = more ocean = more heat loss = lower temps = more ice, more ice = more insulation = higher temps = less ice).
Cheers
Mark
My unofficial calculation of the AMSR-E data average annual anomalies relative to a living average of daily values for each date of the year (excluding Feb 29 and with minor gaps filled by linear interpolation) are as follows:
2002 360,279 sq km (partial year average)
2003 386,583
2004 194,509
2005 -107,636
2006 -232,108
2007 -486,735
2008 -2,624
2009 78,439 sq km (partial year average)
The last daily anomaly value I have calculated for this year is -55,044 sq km (20 Sep). From 2002 to 2006, the fall anomalies were the highest of the year, but from 2007 to 2009 the fall anomalies have been the lowest of the year.
Dave Middleton (12:27:50) :
“how is it possible that NSIDC “scientists do not consider this” two-year run in the opposite direction, all but erasing the total magnitude of the three-year decline “to be a recovery”?
The NSIDC and the BBC think, that for a recovery, the sea-ice would have had to jump to the 1979-2000 mean this year.
You could call it a partial recovery, but actually you couldn’t, because a partial recovery would be uncertain about the future.
Therefore it has to be called a pause. A pause doesn’t contain any information about the increase – which, of course, doesn’t matter – but a pause knows what will happen in the future.
Just wondering, why they don’t close the NSIDC, after they have solved science and now answered all future questions.
It may be interesting to see a map showing maximum (April) sea ice extension in the Atlantic sector of the Arctic (Norwegian Polar Institute 2000). The maximum extend in 1769 is very similar to this years minimum extend!
http://www.climate4you.com/images/SeaIceSvalbardSince1769.jpg
mudmucker (12:21:10) : “This article is highly misleading.”
On the contrary my highly misled observer. The graph itself comes from IARC-JAXA website and here’s a quote from that website:”The algorithm for calculating SIC was developed and provided by Dr. Comiso of NASA GSFC through a cooperative relationship between NASA and JAXA.” Now while I understand that you wish to inform us of NSIDC and the news they provide, most of the WUWT READERS here do and find it laughable, much like your comment. -David Alan-
Polar Bears at Center of Climate Change Debate
Monday, September 21, 2009
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,553021,00.html
facts don’t matter. Refer back to the quote of the week.
Here is the right place for this:
The total ice extent in 2009 is far more than the total ice extent of 2005 already, and the difference is getting bigger now as the freeze sets in. Though one would get the impression if one just looked at the minimum extent or even the averages for September that the ice in 2009 is less than that in 2005.
This is absolutely clear visually if you plot the areas under the graphs.
Total ice in 2009 upto 20th Sept = 4.4 million Km^2 more than 2008
Total ice in 2009 upto 20th Sept = 54.3 million Km^2 more than 2005
I suspect that the difference at the end of the year would be huge.
wws (09:18:07) :
You put your finger on the problem. Left and right are political concepts and have nothing to do with pure science.
Turn that argument on its head. The proponents of the global warming hypothesis are overwhelmingly (not exclusively) on the political left. Does this perhaps tell us something?
Not only are they leftish they betray all the characteristics of the hard left as anyone who had to sit through union branch meetings in the 70s will tell you. A similar trait can be found when any of the traditional left are in public “debate” (I use the word generously) especially on radio or television.
They cannot tolerate an opposing or even a differing opinion and will talk over or talk down anyone who attempts to express one. As far as possible they will refuse to engage in argument at all but if forced to do so, rather like a conjuror they will try to force your attention away from what they are really after so the warm-mongers drag you into quibbles about hundredths of a degree and it’s only later that you realise that what they were claiming was a) unmeasurable and b) well within any conceivable error limits, and c) not what you thought you were talking about anyway.
They will bore on at length about minutiae which are of no interest to anyone (certainly not themselves) until those who actually have a life leave or fall asleep. At which point they take a vote, declare the motion carried unanimously and proceed to declare that the matter is settled and there is no need for further discussion.
If you have the tenacity to hang in there they will resort to ad hominem attacks, a habit which has become all too familiar to us here and on other blog sites around the place!
AGW has very little to do with science; it has everything to do with leftist politics and has been successfully dressed up to appeal to mainstream politicians because it provides them with the perfect excuse to raise taxes in the interest of saving the planet. I mean, who wouldn’t want to “save the planet”?
Talk of branch meetings reminds me of the local branch secretary who was taken into hospital with appendicitis the day of a meeting. The following morning the branch chairman appeared at his bedside with the message that the members wished him a speedy recovery by seven votes to three with one abstention!
O/T I see the sun has developed a sort of spot.
Mark Fawcett, this is an interesting topic and explains why Antarctic ice is not receding (overall, but on the peninsula it is). This is because Antarctic ice melts in the summer, and that is when there is the most sunshine. But in winter, when the ice forms, there is no sunshine. So there cannot be a positive feedback trend over the years between Antarctic ice and sunlight because 1) in winter there is no sunshine, and 2) in summer there is no ice. (except for maybe dates of melt)
Ouch! has anyone else noticed the DMI-COI graph for today?
Sam, your description of AGW proponents does not describe me. I am centre politically. I believe that power corrupts, and you get this on both the left and the right. I do not want carbon taxes for the sake of taxation; in fact, I don’t even believe gasoline taxes are necessary. The open market will solve this problem by itself when electric cars are brought to market, which would have happened 10 years ago were it not for patent abuse activities by Chevron to keep them off the market. In 2 years the consumer will be able to both save money and not emit CO2 by buying an electric car!
Rather than stifling debate, I embrace it, and like to point out all the logical flaws made by ~snip~. That may bore you, but that’s science.
“On the contrary my highly misled observer. The graph itself comes from IARC-JAXA website and here’s a quote from that website:”The algorithm for calculating SIC was developed and provided by Dr. Comiso of NASA GSFC through a cooperative relationship between NASA and JAXA.” Now while I understand that you wish to inform us of NSIDC and the news they provide, most of the WUWT READERS here do and find it laughable, much like your comment. -David Alan-”
Can you provide the equivalent graph going back 30 years? Or are you instead fixated on reporting on weather events?
I somehow think that they still wouldn’t call it a recovery.
Our uncertainty about the future is only just a bit greater than our uncertainty of pre-1979 quantitative ice extent changes.
Well we could just call it a “trend reversal”… If and when it turns down again, we can call that a “trend reversal” as well.
If I own a stock that suffers a share price decline from $40 to $4… And then the stock price recovers to $15… It’s a recovery… A partial recovery.
That’s a good point. If climate change is “settled science,” why bother monitoring it any longer.
“REPLY: The AMSRE satellite data set only extends back to 2002, so it it impossible to present this data in the same time period as NSIDC. That being said, you won’t find political statements like “arctic death spiral” and “ice free North Pole in 2008″ from JAXA like we did from NSIDC’s Mark Serreze.
Then there’s the SSMI sensor issue, which NSIDC missed this year, and when I pointed it out, they said “its not worth blogging about” only to then the very next day realize the seriousness of the failure and post data retractions, then going through a repair process.
I trust an organization and its data more when they don’t get politically involved and don’t have issues with sensors where they tell people who spot the problems to essentially “bug off”.
NSIDC has lost a lot of trust with a lot of people for that reason. Use them if you wish, if it suits your world view. I prefer using an data from an organization that is free of such issues. – Anthony”
So… in other words, the data set you provided hasn’t been around long enough to infer any long term trends from it….. even though it basically agrees with the NSIDC data over the same period, and the same NSIDC data going back 30 years shows a dramatic decreasing trend?
WWS
“something that I’ve been thinking on for a while: it is insane that viewing the scientific claims behind climate change skeptically has come to be seen as a “conservative” view.
Well, you would think so anyway. However when legitimate science is highjacked to drive political agendas – it makes sense. I tend to think that those who are interested in real science are skeptics by nature, so those who question AGW may have a variety of political views but , those who buy into AGW hook, line and sinker tend to be uniformly liberal. Therefore if you aren’t “for” AGW, you get branded conservative regardless of the actual situation.
A political movement that allows itself to get trapped on the wrong side of an unalterable issue of fact is committing political suicide.
I would like to believe that this is true, but there are too many instances where there is no day of reckoning. Issues just quietly disappear or media enablers revise history ex-post facto to protect their allies. Examples abound.
Personally, I believe that our current economic mess was triggered early last year when gas prices hit $4.50/gal. Many families saw their discretionary budgets shrink to zero, and many businesses were hurt because their customers were spending their “excess” income on fuel. This lead to the rounds of layoffs, which triggered the problems with the sub-prime mortgages, which of course sent Wall street into a tail spin, etc.
Have you seen those responsible for those horrible decisions ferreted out, exposed and driven out of government service? Personally, I don’t think it’s all that hard to figure out why fuel prices soared or why we had a problem with sub prime mortgages, but apparently all of the economists who know exactly what will happen in the future are unable to do a honest post mortem on what has just happened in the recent past.
If it becomes obvious to everyone that AGW isn’t happening, it won’t change anything. They will pursue the same Government controls for other reasons, reducing dependance on foreign oil or to create a green economy or some other excuse. It was never actually about the science, it’s about the social agenda.