The April 1st National Snow and Ice Data Center Arctic Sea Ice Extent plot continues its unusual upwards trend and is almost intersecting the “normal” line. Given the slope of the current trend it seems highly likely it will intersect the normal line with the April 2nd plot.
Other sea ice metrics such as JAXA, using a different satellite platform (AQUA) and the AMSR-E sensor agree.
It is an odd sort of a divergence, this growth of Arctic Sea ice well past the normal start of “melt”.
As first mentioned in a WUWT story two days ago, Dr. Walt Meier of NSIDC says:
“It’s a good question about the last time we’ve been above average. It was May 2001.”
It may be winds pushing ice further southwards in the Bering Sea, it may be fresh ice. It may be a combination. While this event isn’t by itself an about-face of the longer downward trend we’ve seen, it does seem to suggest that predictions assuming a linear (or even spiral) demise aren’t holding up.
We live in interesting times.
Can’t figure out how to include the plots, but this Navy site includes output from arctic ice prediction software that includes concentration, thickness and extend. Some of the archived predictions can be compared to measurements.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/pips2
I found the thickness prediction plots interesting, comparing the archived prediction for April 1st, 2010 to 2008 and 2009 . The current thickness plots include more 5 meter ice near Greenland and a widered expanse of over 3 meter ice covering the arctic basin and the east siberian sea.
Assuming the model has been compared to measured data enough to substantiate it, the current year’s average thicknesses will definitely increase in comparison to the last couple years.
The amount of multi-year ice is increasing each year (since 07) and the average concentration appears to have increased this year as well. The only regions that are below the long term average are the southern part of the Baffin Sea and the St Lawrence seaway, due to a warmer than normal northern atlantic. Even the Baltic has more ice this year.
Oh, come on. As were the Blizzards of 2010, this is surely a sign of
Global Warming…. I mean climate change.R. Gates (09:07:20) :
Uh, Henry, the figures are not out yet, but March is likely to continue the trends set in January and February showing a very warm year, in fact, 2010 could very likely beat out 1998 as the warmest year on instrument record. Where do you see signs that the warming is over? Please share that data…>>
Yup, surface (atmospheric temps) show continued (slight) rise while ocean heat content keeps falling. Since ocean heat content has more effect on ice extent than does atmospheric temps, the ice is going along with the ocean.
The ocean weighing in at more than 1000 times the mass of the atmosphere, the piddly temperature rise in the atmosphere is about to get a message (“about” being measured in “climate time” of course) that sounds like this:
I’M GOING THIS WAY AND YOU ARE COMING WITH ME WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT.
Could it be that both the North Atlantic and North Pacific are also anomalously cool right now?
R. Gates (09:01:55) :
This is most interesting to watch as spring and summer progress. This is still more of a short-term fluctuation (unless it continues over the next several years
Even if it continued over the next several years (what do you mean by ‘several’), I’m quite sure by then the goalpost will have been moved and the yardstick stretched out to support the desired trend.
Seeing that it is officially spring, and it’s snowing here today, I’d like to point out that since 1893, only 9 times has it done this. Today makes 10 April’s with snow in 117 Aprils.
Trends. You can’t swear by them and you can certainly live without them.
Arctic temps
Melting is happening in the baltic sea
Henry@R.Gates
I am going from the principle that the radiation reaching earth is getting less. This must be due to more cloud formation which in turn is caused by less solar magnetic field from the sun. I have not actually seen the latest measurements but here is something that shows the trend since about 2000.
http://www.livescience.com/environment/060124_earth_albedo.html
Which is confirmed by the papers from Palle et al.
I have not heard from Svensmark for a long time. Does he ever say something?
of course, the ice at your front door is another good indicator.
It really amazes me. Whenever we have more ice it always baby ice or thin ice or new ice or first year ice. Folks, the ice is growing point made. Deal with it. Al Gore the ice hasn’t vanished as you had predicted over 5 years ago.
Also R Gates’ temps have been measured by satellite only since the late 70’s, so trying to campare our temps now vs before satellite is like trying to play basketball with a football. You can’t. Joe Bastardi has an excellant video on Accuweather titled Another Look At Global Winter Temps, where he compares the temps on GISS site vs Noaa. According to the GISS site we had no winter at all. Try telling that to people in the Southeast and Mid Atlantic states and the northeast of the U.S. Record snow and very cold winter, and last but not least, measurable snow on ground in 49 states, FLORIDA INCLUDED, that’s right 49 states in Feb.
(AP) Former Vice President Al Gore just announced that the reason ice in the Arctic is growing is because of climate change. “See, I told you so!” he said. “As the climate changes weird things will happen, like ice growth as it warms up.” Scientists were quick to point out that they had predicted that as the Earth warms up there will be more snow caused by evaporation. As this snow adds up, more sunlight will be reflected back into space, therefore causing just enough cooling to create more ice.
As a geologist I don’t get concerned much when there’s a 1 degree C increase in temperature over a century. I don’t pay much attention to hysteria about bears dying or glaciers melting or islands sinking. Big deal.
But tell me there’s strong evidence for the next glacial epoch and I’ll go ballistic. Consider the ramifications–once that “Tipping Point” happens (and I believe there is indeed a glacial epoch tipping point because they’ve been found), in less than a decade Europe is under 20 feet of perennial snow/ice and counting; Northern Africa is the new Riviera. Canadians have all relocated to Mexico (hey, Spanish is easy to learn and green cards are only 100% of what$ever you’ve got); no reason for staying in the US ’cause now it has the same cold climate as pre-ice age Canada.
All major cities of the world are dredging their harbors because of drastic drops in sea level, and Arctic ice extends a thousand mile south of Iceland and far south of the Aleutians. Equatorial temperatures are up an average of 5 degrees C which intensifies all weather systems, creating some of the biggest and most destructive hurricanes and typhones seen since the last Ice Age melted into the Holocene ~10,000 years ago.
And humans (those that remain, anyway) are pining for the good old days once known as Global Warming.
Btw, it’s April 2nd. What’s the over/under on the first puzzled “wtf is that jog every year on June 1?” post?
So, can anyone shed ligh on:
“Hundred-year flooding” on East Coast
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gToxGRg5OgeiVpllCklfwJCmigjgD9EP40BO0
Simultaneous with:
drought “worst in a century…” in Southern China
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303338304575155822158676974.html
If there’s a known connection, what is it? (global yin / yang?)
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=43387
The fast Ice on the Greenlandic Eastcoast is about 25 KM offshore and then a wide (50-75 KM) belt of South-drifting multi-year ice, despite the Southdrifting Ice it’s still increasing probably for at least one week more.
It’s not just Arctic Sea Ice Extent, Arctic Sea Ice Area is also on the verge of average:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.arctic.png
Interesting times indeed…
Oceantwo said:
“…they all add up to a world which is not warming a whole lot, and no tangeable effects on our environment.”
———–
Tell that to the people of Newtok, AK:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/04/24/climate.change.eskimos/index.html
But, again, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, and “these are not the droids you’re looking for…”
Keep watching Faux News and all will be well…
I’d like to know how many climate models predicted this “breakout” upwards trend in the arctic sea ice levels. If it’s none that spells seriously bad news for all the climate models as in falsification bad news.
The end of soothsaying the future in science? That would be seriously nice.
Humans are – least we forget with all of our magical mythologies from the bronze age still in play – still great apes and as such even the best of us get caught up in belief stricken ideas. The idea of the scientific method is to have someone – anyone – catch when a scientist is being belief stricken ignoring the evidence before his eyes.
The ice evidence seems to be quite compelling… a upward thrust through the heart of climate models and the alleged AGW hypothesis debilitating them and showing them for what they are not good at, predicting Nature.
Climate scientists saying that their hypothesis can’t explain what is going on in Nature is tantamount to admitting that their hypotheses has been falsified.
Questions.
So the question is how many climate models predicted this breakout?
Did any even predict the probability of such a breakout?
Do the climate models even consider more than the hypothesis they are built to prove?
Thanks for your comments, Mr. Gates. I think many people, including you, are confusing the appearance of temperature with heating. Many times, high temperatures reveal the presence of global heat-shedding mechanisms which are part of a cooling process. Temperatures alone don’t tell the story. It is the direction of net heat flow that is important. High atmospheric temperatures reveal heat on the way out of the system, not what the system is like. You can’t judge just by what’s coming out.
Jack used to pass a health club on the way home every afternoon and often saw a lot of young women coming out. After joining, he found the members were 90% guys. He’d been driving past at 2:45, when gals leave to pick up their kids at school.
R. Gates (11:17:53) :
Oceantwo said:
“…they all add up to a world which is not warming a whole lot, and no tangeable effects on our environment.”
———–
Tell that to the people of Newtok, AK:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/04/24/climate.change.eskimos/index.html
But, again, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, and “these are not the droids you’re looking for…”
Keep watching Faux News and all will be well…
——————————–
Reply:
So every piece of weather that comes along is evidence of Global Warming…er,… I mean Climate Change? I’d say it is evidence of climate, but not particularly beneficial to your argument when such things as floods, drought, tornatoes, hurricanes, etc. etc. have been common fare on this earth since way, way before history was written.
Global Warming/Climate Change uses Katrina as their poster storm, but they hide the facts. Katrina was only a category 3 storm; it was lack of proper preparation due to weakened and substandard man-made dikes that made it such a disaster. Likewise, AGW theorists takes something normal–climate–and embellishes it beyond rational justification by pointing to storms that are pretty ordinary too. That man happens to be impacted by such weather phenomena is nothing new.
rbateman:
For a very long time (20+ years at least) AGW models have stated that a slow warming and decline in arctic & arctic sea ice would be one of the earliest signs of global warming (note: not “climate change” – they were specific).
To me, the change in the arctic and antarctic are my “acid test’ as to whether or not AGW is happening or not. I’ve made it clear that I am a 75% believer, and hence a 25% sceptic about this.
First, in regards to the arctic: Regardless of whether you like the colors chosen or how the map is projected, data show that we’ve seen warming in the arctic, more so than any other region of the earth over the past 30 years. Not only do the data support this, but ground evidence does as well with permafrost melting, etc. Arctic sea ice has shown a downward trend over the past decade or more. 2007 was of course the worst year (in terms of low sea ice), and then we’ve seen some recovery in 2008 and 2009. Personally, I’d be more willing to believe that the deep solar minimum of the past few years with the increased GCR’s played a bigger role in sea ice recovery then believing that somehow the downward trend over the past decade is suddenly going to reverse. Despite this little “bump” up in March, which so far is a very short term event, I think the summer arctic minimum will be lower this year than last, as the slowdown in the increase in global temps is over with the waning of the solar minimum, and we are back to seeing the strength of forcing from increased CO2. However, having said this, my 25% sceptic side is still open to AGW being wrong, and if we don’t see a new summer sea ice minimum by 2015, I’ll be shifting my confidence in AGW downward.
As far as the antarctic ice & temps are concerned. The small year-to-year growth we’ve seen in the southern sea ice doesn’t fit the AGW models in their pure form, but it is possible that indeed, the thinning of the ozone layer has affected wind patterns around the south pole, specifically blocking warming air from reaching further south. As the ozone layer returns to normal over the south pole, AGW would predict that we’ll see more of the warming and melting that we’ve seen in the N. Hemisphere. If the antarctic sea ice doesn’t level it’s year-to-year growth and begin a decline after the ozone layer has returned to a more normal condition, then that would also present reason to doubt AGW models.
My expectations are that we’ll see the 2nd lowest arctic sea ice summer minimum on record this September, and 2010 will likely be the warmest year on instrument record. The only wild cards are the possible eruption of one or more large volcanoes around the world…and especially one in Iceland which could have a significant effect on N. Hemisphere weather for several years…cooling at first, followed by warming later as we saw with Pinatubo, but the effect would be greater in the N. Hemisphere if a large N. Hemisphere volcano went off.
jorgekafkazar:
“High atmospheric temperatures reveal heat on the way out of the system, not what the system is like. You can’t judge just by what’s coming out.”
_____________
True enough, but AGW is about the energy balance of the earth, and now matter how you want to play with energy flow, increased GHG change the energy balance of earth (thankfully, or we’d all be frozen), and not all the energy of the troposphere is on its way out, in fact, GHG guarantee that exactly that is NOT the case, as they absorb and then re-transmit energy in all directions, back to the ground and into space. We know that the straosphere has been cooling over the past 20 years, (as predicted by AGW models) and this is exactly because more energy is being absorbed and then retransmitted in the troposphere.
R. Gates (11:17:53) :
From the propaganda link posted by R Gates:
That’s the kind of scare story that sends a tingle up the leg of alarmists. An Eskimo village claiming they are being forced to move because of “climate change.” Sounds very similar to Kiribati, whose government is constantly begging for money to help protect them from “global warming”, although the sea level shows no rise there.
This P.R. stunt fails because it’s a tiny location out in the middle of nowhere, and a long list of people from the villagers on up through Alaska bureaucrats, to the totally corrupt UN are salivating like ravenous hyenas over the taxpayer money they covet.
$150 million to move 340 people? To a new village that’s already waiting? And it’s still not enough??
Look at the picture in the article with the caption: “Floodwaters rip through the village of Newtok, Alaska, destroying its infrastructure.” Looks like that village could be moved in a weekend with a couple of U-Haul trailers.
Anyone who believes that the AGW scare is driven by sound science, and not by greed, is completely clueless. The continuous, baseless climate alarmism is all about the money — and how crooked bureaucrats using crooked scientists as front men can get their sticky fingers deeper into honest working folks’ pockets.
What kind of a year is it?
As I’m sitting here, with only 36 days of measured snowfall in April since 1913, I now have 2.5″ of snow.
9 of of those 36 days (25%) were above trace.
2 of those days (the 2nd and 3rd of April, 1928) had more than today so far. The day is just now 1/2 over. In a few minutes, I’ll beat all but the 2nd of April, 1928, which had 6″.
That’s what kind of a year it has been.
The trendpipes froze and the models are bluescreened.
R. Gates
Be careful, you might blow your cover. You are starting to look like a contortionist trying to cram uncooperative facts into the flimsy catastrophic anthropogenic global warming narrative. You might want to try to lay low for a bit until the whole average arctic sea ice extent thing blows over, then you can try to repair the catastrophic impact this episode will likely have on the narrative and what remains of the Warmists’ credibility. If you go through the averaging of arctic sea ice extent kicking and screaming, everyone is going to think that you are just a Warmist stooge being paid to try to influence opinions on WUWT…
Touching the 1979-2000 average line, or close to it, for a day or two does not mean the summer melt minimum sea ice extent cannot still be third lowest, or lowest, since 1979:
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20090504_Figure2.png
Late April, so close…
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20091005_Figure2.png
Still way below two std dev from the average.
Unusual (recently), thin ice in the Bering Sea in April does not necessarily mean a high Arctic sea ice extent in September.
But if you’re hoping for a return to “average” Arctic patterns,
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/nsidc_n_stddev_timeseries_040110.png
you might as well celebrate with a drink tonight 🙂
Re: jeez (Apr 2 08:47),
I’ve been hoping for that. Perhaps something about the “teenaged” ice spreading out and flexing their muscles as the ice breeding season approaches.