by Steven Goddard and Anthony Watts
In late 2009, Anthony forecast that Arctic sea ice would continue to recover in 2010. Last month Steve Goddard did an analysis explaining why that was likely to happen and yesterday NSIDC confirmed the analysis.
The pattern of winds associated with a strongly negative AO tends to reduce export of ice out of the Arctic through the Fram Strait. This helps keep more of the older, thicker ice within the Arctic. While little old ice remains, sequestering what is left may help keep the September extent from dropping as low as it did in the last few years.
The wording of NSIDC press releases usually highlight the negative (this one being no exception) but the message is clear. This summer is likely to continue the trend since 2007 of increasing summer minimums.
So how is Arctic sea ice looking at this point, near the winter maximum? NSIDC shows ice extent within 1 million km2 of normal and increasing.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
The Baltic and Bering Sea have slightly above normal ice. Eastern Canada and The Sea of Okhotsk have slightly below normal ice.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_daily_extent.png
DMI shows sea ice extent at nearly the highest in their six year record.
Sea ice extent for the past 5 years (in million km2) for the northern hemisphere, as a function of date.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
NORSEX shows ice area just outside one standard deviation (i.e. almost normal.)
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_images/ssmi1_ice_area.png
There’s also some interesting comparisons to be made at Cryosphere Today. When you compare the current images in recent days with the same period in years past, you notice how “solid” the ice has become. For example compare March 3rd 2010 to March 3rd 2008, when we saw the first year of recovery:
Note that there’s no “fuzziness” in the signal return that creates this image on the right. A fuzzy return would indicate less than solid ice, such as we see on the left. The CT image from March 3rd is “deep purple” through and through. The edges of the ice are very sharp also, particularly near Greenland and also in the Bering sea. These two visual cues imply a solid, and perhaps thicker ice pack, rather than one that has been described by Dr. Barber as “rotten ice”.
I wish I could compare to March 3 2009, but the CT images were offline last spring then while both they and NSIDC dealt with issues of SSMI sensor dropout that was originally brought to their attention by WUWT, but was deemed “not worth blogging about“.
According to JAXA, 2003 was a good year for Arctic sea ice. Note the blue line.
So how does that year on March 3rd compare to our current year using CT’s imagery?
Compared to the best year for Arctic sea ice in the past decade, March 3rd this year looks quite solid. The setup for 2010 having more ice looks good.
You can do your own side by side comparisons here with CT’s interactive Arctic sea ice comparator.
The Arctic continues to recover, and one of the last CAGW talking points continues to look weaker and weaker. It wasn’t very long ago when experts were forecasting the demise of Arctic ice somewhere between 2008 and 2013. And it is not the first time that experts have done this – they were claiming the same nonsense in 1969, right before the ice age scare.
Note the column at the right. Even back then, skeptics got the short shrift on headlines because as we know: “all is well, don’t panic” doesn’t sell newspapers.
UPDATE: And then there’s this:
AROUND 50 ships, including large ferries reportedly carrying thousands, were stuck in the ice in the Baltic Sea today and many were not likely to be freed for hours, Swedish maritime authorities said.
@R. Gates (07:13:42)
The battle is always for “the reasonable middle that can be convinced” on any question of importance. This is what makes the AGWers flinging large groups into the “denier” bucket not just factually wrong, but actually deeply counterproductive to their own interests. Pushing centrists into the arms of your opponents thru continuous insulting is never good strategy.
Ref – R. Gates (07:13:42) :
Espen said:
“Let’s see in 2 or 3 years who is right…”
“..AGW as a theory makes specific predictions, and if these predictions do unfold then perhaps the reasonable “middle” ground of people will listen less to the extremes at either end and chart a reasonable course of action (if any action is possible).”
___________________
Understand what you’re saying and “hope” along similar lines. However, I hope more that the “Scientists” tell the “scientists, quacks, witchdoctors, politicians, media hypers, lawyers, bankers, and money makers” to take a hike; that they listen to each other and not to the two extremes, pro and con, or the middle among the people; and that they all write a report (each and every one of them). I also hope the Nobel Committees keep their bloody noses out of it for 30 years while the dust (or snow) is slowly falling to the ground.
PS: Would it be too “too” to hope that some of the ‘dokters’ in the frontlines of the climate riot today have a stroke or coronary? Or that our children and grand kids get to have a decent education and the teacher’s unions dry up and blow away?… Ok, nuf said
Caleb
Thanks for your kind comment. Yes its certainly not fashionable to research the older cultures that inhabited the Arctic area. I have been in correspondance with a guide there and there is no doubt that there is a great deal to learn about the region and our perceptions of it would I suspect change if a really good research project could bring us up to date. The more I look into it the more I realise that;
A) Periodic melting -to a greater or lesser extent than today is perfectly normal every 60/100 years or so
B) There have been various extended periods in the past which have been substantially warmer than today when arctic ice was at much lower levels than today and civilisations thrived.
Oh for some research money from Big Oil!
tonyb
Pascvaks (07:07:00):
Excellent advice that won’t be heeded.
PDA posts all over the intertubes. He already has over 2,400 posts at Salon alone, arguing with just about everyone about anything.
How can one person write so many posts, from 5 in the morning until past midnight at WUWT – plus all those other blogs, including his own? I can think of four possibilities:
1. His daddy is rich, so he doesn’t have to work for a living
2. He’s a misanthrope on welfare, living in his mom’s basement with a computer and surrounded by Star Wars posters
3. He’s got a job, but he’s cheating his boss by spending his time posting everywhere, all day, every day, instead of doing what he’s being paid to do, just like Gavin
4. He’s retired
One thing that fits the pattern of people like PDA who show up on this site [remember Robert?] : they never convert anyone to their fact-free CAGW belief system. Pestering, arguing incessantly, and nitpicking are their stock in trade.
And that’s certainly good advice about listening to the experts here. The WUWT archives can be searched for names like Lindzen, Christy, Ball, Spencer, Seitz, Monckton, McIntyre, Kalmanovich, Crichton, Daly, D’Aleo, Rutan, Easterbrook, Landsea, and many others who have written articles and commented here [apologies for all those I’ve omitted].
But some folks who are “just learning this stuff” would rather take the side of the disreputable Hockey Team who connive to game the system for their own personal benefit, rather than try to dispel their admitted ignorance by following the strictures of the scientific method, as clearly explained by Langmuir and Popper.
When someone who is just beginning to get up to speed on a subject makes numerous, definitive, wide-ranging assertions, rather than asking questions, they are not here to learn, but to argue like common site pests.
Smokey (07:04:29) :
When you can show me that X increase in CO2 causes Y increase in temperature, wake me.
Finally! An opportunity to use the phrase “begging the question” in its proper meaning, which is “assuming the validity of a point that is in dispute.”
You are begging the question by assuming that the relation between CO2 and temperature is linear and mechanistic, and asking “me” (scientists) to prove it. Under the Ironclad Smokey Rule, it is your responsibility to support this claim of yours, and show me where your assumption appears in the hypothesis.
No science that I am aware of assumes GHG forcing is the only driver of temperature, just that its effect is significant and increasing.
Steve Goddard (07:17:20) :
Looks like Arctic ice extent may break the all-time DMI record tomorrow.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
———
Are you sure the Danish Meteorological Institute has only been looking at Arctic Ice since 2005 ? I know they are a tiny country (5.5 million people), but they have a higher per capita GDP than the United Kingdom.
I’d be very surprised if the Danes have not been studying this metric since the advent of satellite coverage of the Arctic.
One thing that fits the pattern of people like PDA who show up on this site [remember Robert?] : they never convert anyone to their fact-free CAGW belief system. Pestering, arguing incessantly, and nitpicking are their stock in trade.
I am presenting my understanding of the science in the spirit of debate. I have included links to explain where my assumptions are coming from and engaged with people who’ve engaged me on the substance. I find debate to be intellectually stimulating and I’ve learned a bunch, just in this thread.
What I have not done is made nasty, ad-hominem attacks such as the one you just posted about me. What is the old saying? “When the facts are on your side argue the facts. When the law is on your side, argue the law. When neither is on your side, just make personal attacks.”
I am trying to learn, not by surrounding myself with people who already agree with me. If debate scares you, Smokey, you can just bow out. Others here seem to have no problem with it.
I personally despise the use of “all time record”. I don’t care which “side” uses the term.
In the history of the earth, the all time low record for Arctic ice cover was most likely zero, and the all time high record was probably 90-95% of the entire globe was covered in snow and ice.
People should put strong qualifiers on what the heck they are talking about when they claim an “all-time record”.
Paul Daniel Ash,
There are MANY studies out there that confirm that heating by CO2 is a logarithmic function, and that ALL OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL, a doubling of current CO2 concentration in the atmosphere would lead to about 1C of warming. There is abundant literature on this actually.
The problem which comes in is that the IPCC/NASA/CRU models all have ASSUMPTIONS built in which assume that all feedback in the system is significantly positive, and due to this feedback, the warming would be multiplied to 3, 5, or even more degrees C per doubling due to the positive feedback.
Studies have come our recently that indicate that the feedback to to water vapor may actually be significantly negative, and may REDUCE the amount of warming down to 0.5C/doubling of CO2 due to the negative feedback of water vapor in the system.
Part of the problem with modeling is that you MUST make certain assumptions about the behavior of poorly characterized (or flat out unknown) variables within complex systems. If it turns out that your assumptions for variable behavior are significantly wrong, the output of the model is obviously significantly wrong.
Smokey said
“PDA posts all over the intertubes. He already has over 2,400 posts at Salon alone, arguing with just about everyone about anything.
How can one person write so many posts, from 5 in the morning until past midnight at WUWT – plus all those other blogs, including his own? I can think of four possibilities:”
I tend to like people like Paul-they are the grit in the oyster-wouldn’t it be dull if there were no contrarians here to argue in favour of post normal science and everyone sang from the same song sheet?
By the way, what’s happened to Joel Shore, Brendan H and Scott Mandia-they were always good for a well reasoned argument. Come back you guys all is forgiven.
Tonyb
Steve Goddard (07:48:35) :
R Gates,
Read the NSIDC newsletter linked in the article. They make it quite clear that Antarctic ice is increasing and Antarctica is cooling.
———————–
This is a good opportunity for you to hone your critical reading skills.
The NSIDC link you cite ( http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/index.html ) had this to say:
“A recent report (Turner, et. al., 2009) suggests that the ozone hole has resulted in changes in atmospheric circulation leading to cooling and increasing sea ice extents over much of the Antarctic region.”
*much* of the Antarctic region.
Specifically, East Antarctica, which has been cooling slightly since the late 1970’s, due in large part to the ozone hole, as they say.
http://blackmaps.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/antarctica-map.jpg
But over the last 50 years, and over West Antarctica, it has been warming – hence it is true that the *continent* of Antarctica has been warming, and yet “much” of Antarctica has been cooling, recently.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/science/earth/22climate.html?_r=2
“Dr. Steig and Dr. Shindell presented the findings at a news conference on Wednesday. They found that from 1957 through 2006, temperatures across Antarctica rose an average of 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit per decade, comparable to the warming that has been measured globally.
In West Antarctica, where the base of some large ice sheets lies below sea level, the warming was even more pronounced, at 0.3 degrees Fahrenheit, though temperatures in this area are still well below freezing and the warming will not have an immediate effect on sea level.
In East Antarctica, where temperatures had been thought to be falling, the researchers found a slight warming over the 50-year period. With the uncertainties, East Antarctica may have indeed been cooling, but the rise in temperatures in the west more than offset the cooling. “
R Gates: Unfortunately, even if we see new modern era temperature records, and new summer arctic sea ice minimums, increasing severe weather events, and even the shrinkage of southern sea ice, tI think those who are skeptical of AGW will never concede anything.
I’m skeptical of the magnitude of AGW since so much of the theory rests on faulty temperature reconstructions and temperature records of questionable quality. I’m also skeptical of the severity of the consequences, since the WG 2 of IPCC has presented a very weak case for its alarmist scenario, including promoting the questionable claim you repeat above about severe weather events. Basically, though, I remain open-minded, since the science isn’t “settled” at all. My “gut feeling” though is that in 10 to 20 years scientists may conclude that climate is basically unpredictable, and that the claims of CO2 feedbacks were wildly exaggregated. And that the little warming and the significant plant fertilization we get from anthropogenic CO2 may, all in all, not be dangerous at all, quite the contrary.
Anu (07:44:53),
By posting skeptics in quotation marks, you show that you do not understand the scientific method. You’re confused about the essential role of skepticism in science: the only honest scientists are skeptics, first and foremost. I am a scientific skeptic, as are all but a handful on this site. Denigrating us by putting quotation marks around the term skeptic presumes that you are the arbiter of labels. You’re not.
Paul Daniel Ash (08:07:11),
I know what I’m feeding here, but I feel compelled to point out that you don’t understand the fallacy of begging the question. It is, in fact, you who assumes the validity of CO2=CAGW, not me. I question that conjecture, which is so shaky that its proponents are afraid to show their data and methods; if they did so, they know that CAGW would be instantly falsified, crushing their unearned reputations as the font of climate knowledge.
And for the umpteenth time: skeptics have nothing to prove. You impotently try to corner scientific skeptics into the false position of holding a hypothesis. That is deliberate misrepresentation.
Skeptics of CAGW hold no hypothesis; rather, we question your empirically baseless hypothesis that CO2 is the primary driver of global temperature. That hypothesis is insisted upon and believed by media informed laymen like you.
Finally, you set up your strawman [“No science that I am aware of assumes GHG forcing is the only driver of temperature…”] and knocked it right down, you brave strawman killer, you. Tell us, what skeptic has ever said that CO2 is the only climate forcing? Provide even one verifiable citation.
The true believers in CO2=CAGW claim that CO2 is the main culprit, and evidence be damned. Their focus is on reducing CO2 to 350 ppmv or lower, which would hobble our society, sharply raide prices, and greatly increase new taxes — for no discernible benefit. How crazy is that??
When you start asking questions instead of making know-it-all false assertions, you will be on the road to enlightenment.
Smokey (09:00:36) :
Your assertion that the hypothesis holds that “X increase in CO2 causes Y increase in temperature” is incorrect. This is an assertion you and only you made. It is, in other words, a straw man.
Steve,
The DMI data span a whole 5 years? Is this the “all time” record you’re referring to?
Best chart overall to see the trends of arctic sea ice remains:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png
This tells the accurate trend over a longer period. Arctic Sea ice remains in a negative anomaly state, and is just about (though not quite) at is maximum extent for the winter. True, there was much less shedding of older ice, so ice did thicken as well over the winter. Likely we won’t see a record minimum this summer, but I’ll predict 2011 will set a new minimum summer extent.
Behind all this, we really ought to be talking about the root cause of a slowing in the rate of warming these past few years. The biggest cause is most likely the recent rather extended solar minimum. A quick glance at the charts found here:
http://www.climate4you.com/
Clearly shows the relationship between solar cycles and temperature, and the rise in temperatures levels out as the solar minimum began and progressed. No doubt we are seeing some of the lingering affects of that. But with the sun clearly picking up activity, and troposphereic temps already approaching record territory at the beginning of the march to the next solar max, 2010 looks to be a record warm year globally, and I’m pretty confident we’ll see a few more record years between now and the peak of the next solar max.
RE: Paul Daniel Ash (08:07:11) :
**No science that I am aware of assumes GHG forcing is the only driver of temperature, just that its effect is significant and increasing.**
Where is the proof? Where is it MEASURED?
Pascvaks (07:07:00) :Plato’s 1st Rule – “Comments Personal Counterproductive Are”
Sounds more like Yoda,
Paul Daniel Ash (09:07:08) :
“Your assertion that the hypothesis holds that ‘X increase in CO2 causes Y increase in temperature’ is incorrect.”
That was not my “assertion.” That was my request for empirical evidence showing a cause and effect relationship between a rise in CO2 and a subsequent rise in temperature.
But no such real world, measurable evidence exists. As I stated:
I was providing you with a testable, verifiable means of validating your hypothesis, which states that CO2 is the primary driver of global warming – that is your assertion, not mine.
Absent any testable, reproducible evidence, I remain skeptical that an increase in a minor trace gas comprising only 0.00038 of the atmosphere causes much of anything except more rapid plant growth.
PeterB in Indainapolis (08:42:01) :
I personally despise the use of “all time record”. I don’t care which “side” uses the term.
In the history of the earth, the all time low record for Arctic ice cover was most likely zero, and the all time high record was probably 90-95% of the entire globe was covered in snow and ice.
People should put strong qualifiers on what the heck they are talking about when they claim an “all-time record”.
————–
The “snowball earth” hypothesis suggests even 100% ice coverage between 750 and 650 million years ago:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowball_Earth
You are right, journalists are often sloppy when reporting scientific results:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/science/01/22/nasa.warmest.decade.data/index.html
Here, CNN says “The first decade of the 21st century was the warmest ever on Earth according to data released by scientists at NASA.”
while clearly, NASA is only saying the warmest decade ever **since modern records began in 1880**.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20100121/
CNN *does* also say “The U.S. space agency’s data also revealed that 2009 was the second warmest year since temperature records began in 1880 ”
which indicates that CNN just made mistakes with the HEADLINE and LEAD-IN SENTENCE. Sort of as though they cynically wanted to attract readers attention with sensational statements, before they get down to the actual scientific results.
Science is best explained by scientists.
Gerald Machnee (09:22:06) :
Where is the proof? Where is it MEASURED?
I guess one reason that I might appear like a “know-it-all” is because people keep asking me these kinds of questions, which I go out and try to find answers for.
I’m not trying to present that I just know these things off the top of my head, or that I think the answers are unassailable, just that there are answers to the questions. As I’ve said repeatedly, I’d like to know what the problems/flaws/errors are in the answers I present.
Anyway, as to measurement:
Murphy et. al. presented an analysis of Earth’s “energy budget”: how much is received, how much is absorbed, and how much is reflected back to space. to do that, they used buoy data of ocean heat content from the upper 700m, heat content from deeper waters down to 3000m, computed atmospheric heat content using the surface temperature record and the heat capacity of the troposphere, and used the same data to determine land and ice heat content.
So I’ll return to my perennial invitation: what does this miss? What is faulty? Is there another way to measure global warming (or its lack)?
Smokey (09:45:49) :
That was my request for empirical evidence showing a cause and effect relationship
And I ask again: what would such empirical evidence look like? There is no way to look at a joule of energy and see what caused it.
Scientists have
* a falsifiable measurement of the amount of GHGs in the atmosphere
* a falsifiable calculation of the radiative forcing of the different GHGs
* a falsifiable measurement of the change in the Earth’s heat content
* falsifiable experiments that show other causes insufficient to account for the change
If you can’t describe the evidence you are looking for, how will you ever know if you’ve found it or not?
These are real questions.
Paul Daniel Ash (09:53:38), (10:03:27),
Thank you for the citation, which seems to primarily concern the effect of aerosols.
So once again: the hypothesis is that CO2 is the main driver of global warming. That citation never mentions CO2 explicitly, but gives numerous other specific forcings. Certainly if the paper’s conclusion was that CO2 is the primary cause of global warming, it would have said so.
You ask: “If you can’t describe the evidence you are looking for, how will you ever know if you’ve found it or not?”
I have repeatedly described the evidence I’m looking for: a verifiable, measurable increase in the global temperature resulting from a quantifiable increase in human emitted carbon dioxide. Is that not clear?
The answer must be precise and testable, since it affects our entire civilization, our personal freedoms, and the major portion of our lives we exchange for our employment.
Reducing CO2 to 1990 levels, or to 350 ppmv, or whatever the big government bureaucrats want to engineer for society, ignores the fact that over just the past century, the use of fossil fueled technology has allowed us to greatly extend human life spans, eradicate numerous mass killing diseases, travel to other continents in hours instead of weeks, allow women to trade in their washing boards and river rocks for washing machines, allow men to use machines instead of baling hay by hand [ever bale hay? Try it and you will really appreciate fossil fuels], and in general to fantastically improve the quality of life, while at the same time cleaning up 99%+ of the pollution in our lakes, rivers and air. In fact, it’s all good.
But so-called “greens” want everyone to revert to the endless drudgery and shortened life-spans of a century ago, based on what amounts to speculation that CO2 is the major cause of global warming.
Since they want to radically dismantle the benefits fed by fossil fuels, they need to show more than just grant-fueled “consensus” and GCMs that are incapable of making accurate predictions. So far, they have failed. And with the Climategate corruption exposed, why should we listen to any of them? [The author of the Harry-Read_me file admitted to fabricating thirteen years of temperature data.]
Gore is still a profligate energy waster, Pachauri flies around the world constantly, both of them use their positions for personal enrichment, and the IPCC is composed entirely of political appointees who either get with the program or lose out on taxpayer-funded, all expense paid jaunts around the world, so they come back with lock-step pronouncements that we had better start paying through the nose or the planet will burn up.
Anyone who believes those self-serving hypocrites also believes their predictions of doom. I look at them with a jaundiced eye, while they look at our wallets like a ravenous hyena looks at a gazelle.
Smokey (10:43:23)
I have repeatedly described the evidence I’m looking for: a verifiable, measurable increase in the global temperature resulting from a quantifiable increase in human emitted carbon dioxide. Is that not clear?
It’s the “resulting from” that is not clear. How would you show that, if not what I outlined above?
so-called “greens” want everyone to revert to the endless drudgery
Well, that’s pretty alarmist talk, though I grant you your central point. Reducing carbon is a really thorny problem that I don’t think anyone has solved to my satisfaction. The only feasible solution seems to be a huge increase in nuclear power generation, which seems to be replacing one problem with another.
So I agree that the evidence needs to be overwhelming. Part of why I’m here is to try and understand the state of the science – including dissenting science – better, and how best to communicate that.
My assertion is that most people on both sides of the debate come to their understanding of the science from pre-established prejudices. For every “the greens just want us to go back to the Stone Age” knee-jerk there’s a “debate is manufactured by the oil companies” knee-jerk.
The science is hard, but not impossible, to understand. I’m not saying I understand it, but I’m trying, as best I can, to step outside my prejudices.
Smokey said:
“…But so-called “greens” want everyone to revert to the endless drudgery and shortened life-spans of a century ago…”
Really Smokey? Is this what the so-called “greens” want? Is this kind of fear-mongering alarmism any different that what the AGW skeptics claim the “warmists” are doing? Most of the “greens” I know simply want some kind of habitable planet for their children and grandchildren. Fear mongering from either side is both counter-productive and just plain ignorant.