I’ve been watching this NSIDC graph for a few days, figuring it was just noise. Now, it looks like “something worth blogging about“. The Arctic sea ice extent is continuing to grow past the normal historical peak which occurs typically in late February/early March. [Note: I added the following sentences since at least one commenter was confused by “peak point” in the headline above, which I’ve now changed to “peak date” to clarify what I was referring to. -A] Of course it has not exceeded the “normal” sea ice extent magnitude line, but is within – 2 STD. The point being made is that growth continues past the time when sea ice magnitude normally peaks, and historically (by the satellite record) is headed downward, as indicated by the dashed line.
Source: National Snow and Ice Data Center – link
To be fair though, the Earth seems to be suffering from “bipolar disorder” as we have a similar but opposite trend in the Antarctic:
Source: National Snow and Ice Data Center – link
If we look at Cryosphere Today’s dandy sea ice comparator tool, and choose a standard 30 year climatology period span, it looks like we may actually be ahead this year, compared to 30 years ago. Certainly the arctic sea ice today looks a lot more solid than in 1980. I wish CT offered comparisons without the snow cover added (which was added in 2008) so as to not be visually distracting.
We live in interesting times.
h/t to WUWT commenter “Tommy” for the “tipping point”.
Just above gcb (10:52:40) Anthony responds to R. Gates’ disappointments. In the sense that gcb and A indicate, ice on the Arctic Ocean this spring appears to continue to grow beyond an unspecified date when it usually has an inflection point. At (10:50:00) crosspatch provides perspective that all should read.
Many of us have been watching these diagrams since this time last year and I knew exactly what Anthony was talking about the second I saw the headline. It is not a new topic. For example, see here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/tips-notes-to-wuwt/ 2010-03-05
The AMSR-E sea ice chart took a leap this week. If it doesn’t hit an inflection point in the next week it will exceed all but 2003 on the chart. 2003 didn’t tip (finally) until late March so we have to wait about 20 days to possibly have some fun with this issue. I think this is a developing story worth watching.
So, I find crosspatch’s comment useful and timely. My regret is that I didn’t think to write it. In contrast I find R. Gates’ comment(s) off-putting. I’m beginning to think she/he is not interested in contributing anything positive. Most mom’s have a reprimand for their children when they behave in this manner. Perhaps R. should visit mom for a refresher course.
From elsewhere:
For the period covered by the satellite 2002 to 2010 the change in extent on a particular day of the year is plotted as a linear trend.
It is interesting that just before the summer melt (May) the area increases by 5000sqkm over the 9 years.
There is then a sharp fall to 20,000 sqkm loss per year in october.
The area change over the remaining year seems to be about 5000sqkm/year
Is the rise from April to may due to delayed melt? or is it spreading of melting ice?
http://img682.imageshack.us/img682/3148/deltaseaiceaveragearea.png
In other word the melt seems to be starting later but diving deeper
/Harry
Re R. Gates (13:18:01) :
Wondering said:
“Natural variation is still mighty big compared to any trend…”
Normally, yes. But AGWT is not about what is normal, but about looking for the signal within the natural variation. And for those who think that AGW might be correct are always looking toward the arctic for proof, that’s only partially true. The arctic region is one of the first to be affected by the warming according to all models, and so it should be the “canary in the coal mine.” But other evidence comes from warming oceans, cooling stratosphere, glacial melting, accelerated hydrological cycle, etc.
Mr Gates you once again for the global in AGW. Your sentance should read the polar regions should be….canary in the coal mine.” Warming oceans are not happening sense argos as far as we know, other then very short term same with cooling stratosphere, we got at least 300 years left in the Himalayan mountains, no sign (that I am aware of) of the accelerated hydrological cycle outside on normal range. Finding the signal, “within” the normal variation, is probably beyond our current ability. If AGW science is about finding the signal “within” the natural variation, then it is a field worthy of a developing science, not world wide panic, or policy.
But more then all of this, even if we get one too three degrees of warming, are you convinced the benefits, which are manifesting, will not outweigh the “possible harm” which is not yet manifesting?
Sincerely
“once again forget” , not once again for, oops
sheesh, just worked 17 hours, sorry for all the typos
Late to the party, again. Sorry.
It is interesting to speculate what reaction and conclusions may be drawn from potential changes in sea ice.
I don’t think AGW is properly scientific. There is no core thesis statement. If you ask different climatologists what it is, you get different answers. While you’ll get some indication of a link between CO2 and warming, the very nature of how much does what in what time scales, magnified by what feedbacks, is, well, very debateable. Because there is no core thesis, falsification is absolutely and completely impossible.
What you have instead of hypotheses inferences and conclusions, is a single conclusion (calamity) and a set of totems. What is important is that the conclusion remains constant and the totems change to accommodate it.
Climatologists have reluctance about making meaningful predictions about how climate is going to change. The reason for this is simple, climate prediction over tens or hundreds of years is utterly impossible. You have to hedge your bets.
A really meaningful prediction is about what isn’t going to happen, not what is. Any fool can say that the climate is going to get warmer. If things heat up more than expected, you can always claim that your models were too conservative. If things don’t heat up quickly enough you can make up some excuse and say that it’ll heat up later on … worse, worse than you said originally!!!
What you won’t find people doing, is putting their reputations on the line by saying what absolutely can’t happen (because they don’t know what’s going to happen). If you don’t believe me take a look, in all those pages in AR4 (The Physical Science Basis) there are no statements about how …if the climate does this … they’re absolutely and completely wrong. They don’t even say succincly what AGW is.
What this means, ultimately, is that sea ice has nothing to do with AGW. It’s just a symbol to be used while pertinent.
In the Antarctic, if sea ice extent increases, it isn’t statistically significant
If the increase becomes statistically significant it’ll be the thickness
If the thickness is the same, split the continent into East and West and make some statement about how one is growing while the other is receding.
And if that’s not compelling … it’s the Arctic that’s really important not the Antarctic.
I guarantee that if this year’s Arctic minimum were to return to the 1979-2000 average or close to, it won’t make a blind bit of difference.
The response will probably be something about long term trend … or thickness … or perhaps something about the bigger picture. It’s just a convenient symbol after all, no thesis, no possible falsification.
There’ll be a historically record low winter Arctic Oscillation come next week, it’s running close to -2.5 so far since new year:
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/JFM_season_ao_index.shtml
It’s a cycle.
arctic ocean heat content
http://i31.tinypic.com/23u23cz.png
As pointed out many times before on this site, The satellite record began in 1978 when the arctic ocean heat content was lowest. It is now headed that direction again. I suspect that if we know the true sea ice mean from 1956 untill now we might even currently exceed it.
John F. Hultquist (said)
“Most mom’s have a reprimand for their children when they behave in this manner. Perhaps R. should visit mom for a refresher course.”
——-
John,
This, and your other personal comments about me I find offensive. I apologized to Anthony quickly and directly, and he even graciously edited his post to reflect some of my concerns. I’m actually surprized your post about this issue made it through as I thought Anthony had pretty much said for everyone to move on. So I would ask you: What kind of person makes such a comment once an apology has already been issued and the everyone else has moved on?
Be that at it may, I’m not here about the politics or the personal stuff (except to defend myself), I’m here about a dialog on the issues, as I think this is a great forum (perhaps the best) for intelligent dialog on AGW and other issues.
Back to the science now…several posters including myself have cautioned about reading too much into a short term extention of the “peak” arctic sea ice, as the charts in question show areas with at least 15% sea ice, and these kind of areas can show a brief blip upward as the spring melt begins. Also, other charts that follow areas with more than 15% sea ice show that we’ve passed the peak a week or so ago. That may or may not be the case, but caution is warranted. The issue does merit watching, and I look forward to following the course of the summer melt. The most important thing however is the long term trend, and we’ve still not seen a positive arctic sea ice anomaly since 2004, depite the long and deep solar minimum, increased GCR’s, etc. This is exactly the condition that AGWT would suggest, as the GH gases overwhelm the other natural variations.
Journal of climate 2002:
Long-Term Ice Variability in Arctic Marginal SeasV. POLYAKOV,* GENRIKH V. ALEKSEEV,1 ROMAN V. BEKRYAEV,*1 UMA S. BHATT,* ROGER COLONY,*
MARK A. JOHNSON,# VALERII P. KARKLIN,1 DAVID WALSH,* AND ALEXANDER V. YULIN1
5. Conclusions
In recent decades, large-scale changes have been observed
throughout the Arctic atmosphere–ice–ocean
system, sparking discussion as to whether these changes
are episodic events, or long-term shifts in the Arctic
environment. The lack of long-term observations in the
Arctic makes it impossible to reach a definitive conclusion.
Long-term records are now available due to recently
released Russian ice observations from the Siberian
marginal-ice zone.
Examination of records of fast ice thickness and ice
extent from four Arctic marginal seas (Kara, Laptev,
East Siberian, and Chukchi) indicates that long-term
trends are small and generally statistically insignificant
Nickname (16:20:42) : Nail => Head.
The Arctic was a guessable variable. That is why their models said it will warm up up there.
FergalR (16:29:51) : From the site:
“Bith curves are standardized using 1950-2000 base period statistics.”
I have seen agnostic paperwork dismissed for much less obvious spelling mistakes – notably John Nicol’s paper on CO2 lasers showing that the first, and most important “doubling” took place at 22ppmv..
http://www.ruralsoft.com.au/ClimateChange.doc
From time to time I wonder, why does anyone really care whether the Arctic melts? It wouldn’t hurt to have nice clear sea lanes year round—now would it?
I understand, as R. Gates (13:18:01) says, that “The arctic region is one of the first to be affected by the warming according to all models, and so it should be the ‘canary in the coal mine’.” Is the Arctic thus a test of the AGW hypothesis? If so, it is not a very cooperative one, as not much seems to be happening very fast, if at all, and not always in the predicted direction.
The press and the general public appear to be unaware of the evidentiary question. They seem to be mostly fearful of a change, as if losing the polar ice caps would be a dire event, a loss greatly to be regretted. Why this emotional attachment to regions of full of nothing but snow and ice? It is hard to fathom, but every report of the slightest melting is trumpeted as if the world were on the brink of disaster.
I suppose you could argue that the polar caps should be maintained for the benefit of the fuzzy polar bears, and of course the comical penguins.
I also understand that the extreme alarmists, like the Goracle, are fond of predicting the imminent melting of both ice caps, which would (at least for the Antarctic—and Greenland, if the latter is considered part of the polar ice region) raise the world’s sea levels and force millions of people to relocate away from the coasts.
But how likely is this scenario, even if the extreme AGW conjecture (thanks, Smokey!) were true? And more to the point, would that be a bad thing? Lose a little coastline, but gain vast regions—maybe even a whole continent!—of arable and livable space, where once there was only a frozen, uninhabitable wasteland—not a bad tradeoff, if you ask me.
/Mr Lynn
The ASMR-E sea ice extent graph, linked by the graphic on this web site, shows a current decrease in extent (with a tiny uptick at the end) – while the above article shows a sustained climb for all of March. WUWT?
…I can just hear Al Gore, holding his breath, as he visits this website on a minute-by-minute basis!!
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png
…I wonder how that new book of his is selling these days?
I could be a about a week from signing-up for the Steve/Anthony summer minimum forecast.
Nickname (16:20:42),
Excellent analysis of the catastrophic global warming conjecture. As you point out, “a really meaningful prediction is about what isn’t going to happen, not what is.”
Karl Popper gives the reasons why AGW is pseudo-science in #2 below [emphasis is mine]. Popper says:
Popper wrote this when scientists were generally willing to share their data and methods with other scientists, in an effort to arrive at an accepted theory. But current AGW proponents refuse to even discuss working with skeptical scientists to formulate tests of AGW, and they routinely refuse to share their raw data and methods with scientific skeptics.
AGW is not a theory. Neither is it a real hypothesis, because those promoting it routinely stonewall requests for their data, algorithms and methodologies. Thus, AGW is simply a conjecture; an opinion. It is not science, because its proponents, by their secrecy and unwillingness to cooperate with other scientists, make it impossible to move beyond conjecture.
The scientific method has been abandoned in the case of AGW for clearly self-serving motivations: money, professional status and political aggrandizement. But those are not ethical or legitimate reasons to jettison the scientific method, therefore their conclusions carry no scientific weight; they are used for public relations purposes only, in order to advance their agenda.
As you point out, what is obvious throughout the AGW scare is that the conclusion always remains constant, and the ad hoc auxiliary assumptions, thought up on the spur of the moment, change over time to accommodate the conclusion.
The chameleons who argue here on behalf of a non-existent AGW “theory” are fooling no one. AGW is simply a story designed to transfer wealth, and to reassign and expand political power. It is intended to benefit the few at the expense of the many who will be saddled with the enormously increased costs and additional new taxes under the guise of fighting “carbon.” And it will make no perceptible difference in the global climate.
If its proponents want to elevate AGW into a genuine hypothesis, which it is currently not, then they must “open the books” by providing all their data, code and methods, and by answering all questions raised by skeptical scientists fully, completely, and without reservation, rather than treating them like enemies. They have not even begun to take the first steps in that regard.
Phil. (11:06:24) :
The JAXA data show that the peak was on 8th March:
REPLY: see the point made above by “crosspatch”, which bears consideration. – Anthony
I assume you mean this:
crosspatch (10:50:00) :
You have to be careful with these extent figures because this graph is 15% ice extent. In other words, it includes areas that are 85% water as “ice”. If you look at a graph of more consolidated ice such as this one which shows 30% concentration, you see that the ice is actually declining.
I considered it but I don’t think it has any merit for the following reasons:
firstly that data is pretty much the same as the JAXA data, they both show a decline from about 8th March.
What is happening is that the ice edge is breaking up as the ablation season begins and the wind and storms spread it about. This decreases the 30% concentration number but can increase the 15% concentration as the ice is less consolidated around the edges.
Yes but to a very much smaller extent than implied, look at the JAXA data for instance, there’s virtually no area between 30% and 15%, yet the DMI data used by Crosspatch would appear to imply about 2 million km^2 in that range. Clearly that difference has another source!
The MODIS images support the JAXA view that there is very little low coverage at the edge of the sea ice, look north of Svalbard on this image:
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/single.php?2010084/crefl1_143.A2010084125000-2010084125500.500m.jpg
and here in the Bering sea:
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/single.php?T100842250
Like the JAXA and DMI data the NSIDC also shows a maximum at about 8th March and declines slightly since, so unless there is an upwards spike in extent soon the arctic sea ice is not continuing to grow.
http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/03/25/polar-bears-on-thin-ice/?test=latestnews
At the San Diego Zoo polar bears are now on thin ice, at least that’s the word from the zoo as a new million dollar expansion to its polar bear experience opens this week. The zoo has spent considerable time and money to make the exhibit interactive, but some critics complain with this interaction comes politics and they argue the zoo should stay out of a policy debate.
Smokey (12:06:23) :
As always, Smoke…..damn well said.
Chris
Beautiful pictures of icebergs at Mail online,they always publish great pictures.The comments are interesting,because of the rating given to them.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1258041/Incredible-pictures-giant-ice-sculptures-carved-sea-water-polar-winds.html?ITO=1490
OT: Lots of mentions of Anthony and WUWT by Bob Zimmerman on John Batchelor’s excellent radio program tonight (the John Batchelor Show, 9 PM – 1 AM on WABC, NYC, streamed if it’s not in your area). Zimmerman and Batchelor pretty much ran through the latest bunch of posts, including Joe Bastardi, the fragrance-depleted flowers, and the British Museum backdown off the AGW bandwagon. Fun to hear—”Hey, I read that!” Good recognition for WUWT.
/Mr Lynn
Thank you R. Gates:
“R. Gates (15:11:42) :
Antonio San said:
“Where is the 100y old, 50 y old, 20y old ice?”
Answer: There is no arctic sea ice that old (or if there somehow is, it is such as small amount as to be too to measure…”
Indeed and this is proof that multiyear ice is basically 10 years old max (more or less) and that Arctic sea-ice never gets really old and is permanently rejuvenated, sometimes dramatically sometimes less dramatically. Only modern observation techniques allow such precise mapping of the detail workings of this rejuvenation cycle. As for the decline since the 1970 inflexion point, it is dynamic and due to atmospheric circulation as discussed by Leroux back in 2005. So the recent paper does confirm his findings.
Paying attention to every little bump on the time scale of months and ignoring the long term trend!
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20100303_Figure3.png
30 year time lines to determine climate trends is the work of fools. It has been known for over 200 years that climate changes over 60+ year cycles. The amount of ice in the arctic ocean is well within the norms of the last 100years.
I have been paying attention to climate for near 60 years, warmer is better then cooler and hot is much better then cold.
Just why do AGW people want the arctic ocean frozen over all the time. Don’t they know that Greenland ice fields are fed by evaporation off the Arctic Ocean.
Cold means dry, warm means damp. Warm and damp means MORE FOOD. Cold and dry means starvation and DEATH.
Your food does not come from Safeway, It grows out in open fields and needs heat, water and CO2, in that order. Any shortage means disaster.
Wake up people, warming, more CO2 is very good for people. Cooling is the road to death and disaster.