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.
R. Gates (11:52:03) :
***********************
RESPONSE:
This has all happened before so please explain how this could be?
http://www.ngu.no/en-gb/Aktuelt/2008/Less-ice-in-the-Arctic-Ocean-6000-7000-years-ago/
http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/08578.htm
http://www.icue.com/portal/site/iCue/flatview/?cuecard=41751
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/RS_Arctic.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1078291/
http://co2science.org/articles/V12/N32/C2.php
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2372
NASA blamed mainly wind and currents for the alarming 2007 in Arctic sea ice – see NASA link:
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/quikscat-20071001.html
Bad old NASA also said at least 45% of Arctic ice melting since 1976 is most probably due to aerosols:
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/warming_aerosols_prt.htm
While the Polar 5 expedition found that Arctic ice in 2009 was thicker than expected:
http://www.awi.de/en/news/press_releases/detail/item/research_aircraft_polar_5_finishes_arctic_expedition_unique_measurement_flights_in_the_central_arc/?cHash=e36036fcb4
Your expectations about this being the 2nd lowest arctic sea ice summer minimum on record this September – we will have to wait and see but I do hope your scepticism increases should your expectation fail. Would your scepticism increase?
JAN (13:33:43) :
R. Gates (11:52:03) :
No, sorry R. Gates, data do not support this. Look here, no increase in summer max temps since 1958:
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
Summertime temps are the only ones having any (limited) effect at all with respect to melting of ice and permafrost.
First, Summer is generally about June 21 to Sept 23 (varies slightly, year to year). This is Day 172 to 266:
http://www.vpcalendar.net/Julian_Date.html
So, that little ‘mountain peak’ above the melt line includes some Spring temperatures, too.
Second, the graphs you point out are for “the Arctic area north of the 80th northern parallel“:
http://clasticdetritus.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/arctic-svalbard-map.jpg
Do you see the 80° N latitude circle ? Second from the inner 85° N circle.
The Arctic is all the area above 66.5619° N, by definition (slightly above Iceland, there to the east of Greenland).
However, I think a lot of the sites that give “Arctic sea ice extent” actually use the colloquial “Arctic”, including places like the Bering Sea, Sea of Okhotsk, Hudson Bay, and the east coasts of Labrador (Canada) and southern Greenland, all of which are way below 66.5619° N.
When the NSIDC says “Arctic Sea Ice Extent”:
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png
I think they are including all those non-Arctic places I mentioned:
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_bm_conc.png
So, when a year like 2009 shows this temperature profile for above the 80° N latitude circle (click on Arkiv, year 2009):
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
I would imagine a curve similar to the red one (above the green “mean” curve from 1958 to 2002 data for most of the year) gets shifted way up for places like the Bering Sea and the Hudson Bay.
And the almost three extra 5° latitute circles in the Arctic:
http://clasticdetritus.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/arctic-svalbard-map.jpg
NSIDC
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
They call it Arctic news but for some reason they seem to be stuck in a time warmp between February 2010 and 3rd March, 2010. I wonder why? As I’ve said before be a man and face the facts. Eventually they are going to have to report this day’s event sooner or later.
Having said that the only “update” I see is their actual image.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png
Peter of Sydney (15:23:05) :
Peter, you need to ask the wrong group(IPCC), NOAA is your answer, they understand from the depths of the oceans to the surface of the sun!! More CO2 causes more ice of course! 🙂
Gaia damn youse peoples!!! I hope that the prophet algore sequesters you along side of your demon carbon dioxides for the rest of eternity. Youse guys continues to profane the holiest of the holy warming up of the almighty gaia with youse blasphemies and hersheys. Perish youse all to an oil company someplace.
Nobody, I mean nobody, predicted this much ice.
So, what IS happening ??
Hmmmm.
I have always found one observation very, very strange indeed. Why aren’t the alarmists happy when they see from their own alarmist websites that the Arctic sea ice extent is now at the 1979 – 2000 average?????? I would be sad if AGW was clearly being measured and observed as it could adversly affect my children’s futures; but they should be happy if AGW is shown to be false.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png
Is it because they have a hidden agenda?
[REPLY – One of the advantages of being an “optimist” (aside from nearly always being right) is that you can root for yourself being right with a clear conscience. In any event, Optimism is the new Realism. ~ Evan]
Anu (12:15:55) : Unusual (recently), thin ice in the Bering Sea in April does not necessarily mean a high Arctic sea ice extent in September.
Sure, but there is a new rift opens at the Icelandic volcano – this is what Eyjafjallajokull always does, starts slowly and gets more powerfull, until Katla takes over and finishes with a blast.
http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2010/03/31/new-rift-opens-at-icelandic-volcano/
You can watch it live here from Thorolfsfell
http://eldgos.mila.is/eyjafjallajokull-fra-thorolfsfelli/
And here from Fimmvorduhals
http://eldgos.mila.is/eyjafjallajokull-fra-fimmvorduhalsi/
The weather sattelites can already see the clouds from Eyjafjallajokull – now wait for Katla…
🙂
Boy, Serreze just isn’t going to lose his story line no matter what. 2007 was evidence that things were worse than we thought, but 2010 is just weather.
Maybe they’re both just weather, Mark. Maybe you’re back onto the downward path you thought you had pre-2007 and things aren’t “worse than we thought”, but merely as bad as we thought.
But, no, things must always be worse than we thought. . .
I like the current extent, no question –but I like a whole lot better how compact Cryosphere Today is showing that extent to be. It’s high and it’s compact –this is goodness.
Consider this. For Steve Goddard to be only *1/2 the blind zealot* that Mark Serreze is, Steve would have to be predicting a real possibility of a chance of a summer minimum of ~7.5M km2*.
*Based on Serreze being off be a mere 4.7M km2 in his speculation for 2008 minimum.
Tom Wiita (15:29:57) :
First, the name of that chart is:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seasonal.extent.1900-2008.jpg
Second, the date on the file is:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/
[IMG] seasonal.extent.1900-2007.jpg 14-Oct-2008 23:35 668K
[IMG] seasonal.extent.1900-2008.jpg 14-Oct-2008 23:34 668K
(Looks like they somehow have the exact same chart named twice, and copied into the same directory. Try it, you can see the same chart with either name)
So, the chart was created 14-Oct-2008, that’s why you can see data for winter, spring and summer 2008, but not autumn (Oct-Nov-Dec) or for the full year 2008.
Third, yes they could have updated the chart in 2009, but this is a University – maybe the guy who made that chart graduated, and they forgot to document the script that generated it, or they lost the script/program, or the computer it was running on died, whatever. Unlike NASA, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ( http://uiuc.edu ) has no obligation to provide the public with nice graphs and explanations of their research. They are doing it probably to teach the students something, and getting their name out there in the competitive world of University recruitment.
But I guess if you ask nicely, they might find someone to update the chart…
Fourth, if they wanted to “freeze” the chart at its most dramatic, they wouldn’t include 2008 data, those little upticks at the end of 3 of the lines.
Did you know the Mosaic web browser was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign beginning in late 1992 ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_(web_browser)
They didn’t have to provide that for free, either.
Hey!, it will PASSOVER 2007 record!
R.Gates “To me, the change in the arctic and antarctic are my “acid test’ as to whether or not AGW is happening or not. ”
Aren’t you slightly tired of rehashing the same AGW truisms? It is the way you pose the problem that leads you to the same conclusions, the conclusions AGW scientists want by activism and sometimes by believing their own bad science.
Yet serious informed observations do not lead to the same conclusions. unless you belive in averaging temperatures, the convenient way to twist the debate, the Arctic is not “warming”: some areas do warm while others do cool (source ACIA). The same in Antarctica where only the WAP is warming while Eastern Antarctica is slightly cooling or stable. Therefore, both polar areas warmings are regional. Indeed I find CO2 very discriminating…
Explanation resides in warm air advections corridors, highlighting a dynamic warming. This can be easily demonstrated through atmospheric pressure evolution of anticyclones, frequency of depressions and increasing low pressure of depressions over the past 50 years.
You’d appreciate the fact that since climatic models and their proponents enjoy wading into meteorological event predictions -heatwaves, droughts, floods, rains etc…- it is only logical that what went for the goose went for the gander, and thus meteorological understanding care to validate or not the scenarii of climate models and their underlying Laws of Physics abuse.
Geo, of course both 2007 and 2010 and 2190 will be weather… Ask what Walt Meier wrote about 2007 then…: weather.
Past summer minimums from JAXA (in sq. km.):
Year Minimum Date
2002 5,655,156 9/09
2003 6,032,031 9/18
2004 5,784,688 9/04
2005 5,315 156 9/22
2006 5,781,719 9/14
2007 4,254,531 9/24
2008 4,707,813 9/09
2009 5,249,844 9/13
Keep in mind that Serreze has made his predictions a couple of times on History Channel scare-fests. If he is wrong he will be seen as a fool.
I have recently learned that the ice coverage in the Artic is NOT an indicator of AGW anymore (which is happening faster than predicted and we MUST act now).
I laugh again. This focus on one of many aspect of climate change to prove what? That climate changes? Wow! What does it matter if one aspect taken out of context (eg, sea ice extent) is increasing or not? It proves absolutely nothing without an explanation that proven beyond all doubt with irrefutable scientific evidence as to why it is changing! AGW alarmists will always say that sea ice extent reduction is “proof” that AGW is correct, which of course is BS. Non-believers and skeptics will always say that sea ice extent increases is “proof” that AGW is wrong, which is also BS. All this proves is that all sides are idiots and the real truth is nowhere to be seen.
I can tell already that we are going to have a field day with this… Let’s start with today’s Cornell Daily Sun:
“Prof. Charles H. Greene, earth and atmospheric sciences, believes that the United States, among other countries, underestimates the threat of global warming, and has failed to take effective measures to address it.
In the essay, “A Very Convenient Truth,” published in Oceanography this past March, Greene addresses this issue, and claims that the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change underestimates the threat of global warming and its probable effects the world. Using the melting of the Arctic as an example, Greene demonstrates the IPCC’s inaccurate predictions.
“The IPCC model of Arctic Sea melting shows concerns that the Arctic would lose all ice cover by the end of the century,” Greene said. According to his research, “We are losing ice much more quickly. It could be gone by 2025 to 2030.”
http://www.cornellsun.com/node/41888
Prof. Charles H. Greene is either ill-informed, or lying…
I also hearken back to some of my old favorites from the Guardian:
“Arctic summer ice could disappear within decades, survey data suggests”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/15/arctic-survey-ice-melting
“Thinning Arctic sea ice alarms experts”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/apr/06/arctic-sea-ice-warning
“Arctic ocean may lose all its ice by 2040, disrupting global weather”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/mar/16/climatechange.climatechange
The Warmists have left themselves very exposed and it will be difficult, if not impossible, for them to recover from this. Note to selves, don’t gamble the credibility of one’s entire ideology and narrative on short term variations in sea ice extent…
As others have alluded to, one would think that the Warmists would be rejoicing that things are not as bad as they have been led to believe, it’s as though they want so badly for a planetary climate change catastrophe on the scale and schedule forecast by the extremists of the AGW camp, that they are hostile to any evidence that may suggest that things are not going according to their expectations (and/or hopes).
This remarkable recovery of sea ice approaching the 1978 – 2000 average extent is something we all should be happy about, let us see if the Warmists even concur that this indicates that the predictions that we have all been subjected to were premature to say the least, not alone begin to take a more critical review of the so called ‘settled’ science. It wasn’t so long ago that we were being told that the Arctic could be ice free by this summer,..Arctic Ocean could be ice-free in summer as early as this summer, 2010.
http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=1aaab4cd-0ca4-4b28-8a71-f442545a9d23
http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=1aaab4cd-0ca4-4b28-8a71-f442545a9d23
Antonio San (17:21:46) :
Do you believe that if the Sun suddenly got 1 w/m^2 brighter at the surface of the Earth (annual mean) the planet’s climate would not change ?
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/Fig4.gif
Do you know how the Milankovitch cycles cause Ice Ages ?
What if the Sun got 2 w/m^2 brighter ? Still think the Arctic would not “warm” ?
How about 3 w/m^2 ? At what point does the “explanation resides in warm air advections corridors” reasoning get tossed out the window because of a systemic change to the climate system ?
At what point would you agree that the “average temperature” of the planet has gone up ? When the entire cryosphere has melted ?
I don’t see many unqualified people complaining about the “foolish” attempt to find a Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider, but it seems that a large fraction of the English speaking world fancy themselves climatologists because they’ve seen plenty of weather.
Basic precept of the US Navy’s Task Force Climate Change (TFCC): The Arctic is the veritable Canary in a Coal Mine. No joke, this is what RADM Titley (director of TFCC) states in all or most of his presentations to gov and non-gov agencies.
A bit OT but related to items unreported by mainstream media:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100031404/climategate-the-parliamentary-cover-up/
@Anu (12:15:55)
Really? You really want to pull out 2009 in support of the dismal science (economics has been surpassed by climatology for the title)?
How about this gem: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2009/072209.html
You can just feel the rooting going on there.
Including the hopeful link to this: http://www.arcus.org/search/seaiceoutlook/2009_outlook/july_report/downloads/graphs/JulyReport_JuneData_Chart.pdf
Sixteen expert academic prognosticators with their computer models churning madly. Sixteen of ’em. You know the theory of doing that kind of thing, right? It’s like those IPCC graphs where they slap all those models together and tell us solemnly that surely the truth must lay in their somewhere.
So how did the dismal science do for predicting 2009 minimum, from June data, a significant advantage from trying to do it in March and April?
Not a one exceeded actual. Not a one. One (again, of sixteen) got pretty close (nice try guys), but still low. The median of the group was a hair less than 700k km2 too low. The lowest was 1.3M km2 too low.
This is who you are putting your faith in as arctic scientists giving predictions based on only the best that science has to offer in the early part of the 21st century.