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.
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The Death Sprial of Arctic sea ice
BBC – 21 September 2007
Mark Serreze, a senior research scientist at the NSIDC
More death!
More spiral!
————-
The spiral seems to have gone nuts! WUWT?
@Antonio San (17:23:10) :
Walt Meier is a gentleman and a cautious scientist. I have a lot of time for the Walk Meier’s and Judith Curry’s of the world, even when there is clear daylight between their position and mine.
Mark Serreze, not so much.
If one look at and compare the ice from december to december, and june to june, for each year between 1978/79 and 2009/10, not much has actually happened.
As long as the ice extent, and area, in december and june the following year, isn’t changing much compared to say 1978/79, it doesn’t really matter how much ice there is in march nor how little in september.
Anyways compared to 1978/79, at the rate we’re going at now on the slightly down path, and assuming 1978/79 was any kind of normal, we’re loosing about, ruffly, 1 mil sq km ice per 30 years in the northern hemisphere, and in the AGW linear reality, we’re talking 300 years for the sea ice in the arctic to finally give and for once clear the area. :p
Peter of Sydney (17:57:39) : “… proves absolutely nothing without an explanation that proven beyond all doubt with irrefutable scientific evidence as to why it is changing! …
All this proves is that all sides are idiots and the real truth is nowhere to be seen.”
Dead wrong, as it is the Chicken Littles who are putting up the hypothesis (“the sky is falling”), so the onus is on them to prove it. Skeptics simply laugh and say the sky is not falling — which is not an idiotic stance at all.
@1DandyTroll (19:04:52) :
December and June are irrelevant tho. If we had daily volume data instead of extent data, that would leap out, IMO, and what you (rightly) note as a cluster at those dates would no longer be a cluster. Alas, we don’t have a long daily tail of volume data, so out of necessity we must argue extent to have a long enough “tail” to make it a worthwhile discussion to have. Frankly, I don’t even consider the extent data tail to be a long enough –I would be much more comfortable about the meaningfullness of the extent data if it went back to the early 1940s.
But extent as a (very imperfect) metric means what you really need to be interested in is maximum, minimum, and compactness (the percentage colors at Cryosphere Today) at both.
Walter Dnes (15:04:03) :
In the tradition of Winston Smith… the Youtube clip of Al Gore opening a German dinosaur museum in December 2008 is now an “unvideo”. It has been removed from Youtube. That’s the one where he talks about the entire Arctic ice cap disappearing in 5 years. I hope that people have hung on to copies of it.
Maybe they’ll even listen to it properly second time around?
[snip]
Because I am not very bright, I need help.
What would the 2009-2010 line look like in the current average, say 1979-2009?
“Of course it’s weather, all climate change is weather as “climate change” is just a mathematical averaging of WEATHER over the longer term of 10 to 30 years. In other words you can’t have “climate change” without weather actually happening in the objective reality of Nature. It takes weather for the climate to change, or the falsification of data, that tends to change the climate of science too. As math is an abstraction thus weather averaged into climate is an abstraction. Weather is what is real.” – Peter
“I don’t think so. Climate change may been SEEN in the mathematical averaging of the weather over long periods of time, but that’s not what climate change IS. Climate change is a fundamental shift in energy balances, transfers, and energy circulation patterns between sun, atmosphere, oceans, and land. Climate change is all about energy. It may be reflected in weather patterns, but it is not just some averaging of weather patterns. The reason why AGWT is so enticing is that it has a real physical basis to be potentially correct based on energy patterns and the very well known physics of GH gases and their behavior related to energy in the troposphere.” – R.Gates.
R. Gates, yes we all know that climate has multiple definitions. However without the abstractions of mathematics and statistics used in the alleged science of climate science that does abstract 10 to 30 year periods into “historical climate” and “climate baselines” the alleged climate patterns of the alleged AGW hypothesis attributed to man could not be found.
You can’t actually have climate without math. Weather is what is real.
Weather is what is happening now, and now, and now, and now…. minute by minute, day by day… averaged, chopped, diced and sliced by mathematics in an attempt by humans to find patterns.
The mechanisms of the “climate” are also part of it. However the claims of those alleging man made climate change is based entirely in the sketchy mathematics of averaged weather and bizarre statistical games played such as using one thermometer for 1,200km diameter of terrain, hiding the divergence of tree ring from temperature data because if it were known it would falsify the entire notion of using tree ring data, playing with hockey sticks, interpolating to fabricate data out of thin air, hiding data, etc….
Change the math and there is no problem.
Change it again and the problem intensifies.
It’s all taking place in an abstract statistical mathematical place that has little connection to the real world. Even the alleged hard part of the alleged climate science can’t be trusted due to manipulations of raw data – so much for it being a hard science.
Certainly the assumptions used for any “predictions” (better to call them soothsayings) based upon that math or their hunches are darn lousy when it comes accurately making guesses about the objective reality of Nature.
What we’ve seen time and time again is that the math and the statistics can be used to fudge their science skewing it their own way towards their alleged AGW hypothesis. That is bias, without a doubt, and bias ridden science needs to be eliminated.
I’ve wondered how movement of heat energy around the earth affects weather and later climate. The total energy in (which I doubt is being measured or accounted for correctly or fully) and the total energy radiated from the Earth (which we know isn’t being measured since ERBE stopped) affect things the most. From ERBE we know that the CO2 atmosphere models that alleged climate scientists are using are flawed and thus falsified along with their related hypotheses. ~7 times the energy radiates than they allow for. Also there are other better hypotheses – the alleged AGW hypothesis isn’t the only game in town even if supporters claim it so – such as “Ferenc Miskolczi’s Saturated Greenhouse Effect Theory: C02 Cannot Cause Any More “Global Warming”” which you can find here: http://pathstoknowledge.net/2010/01/13/ferenc-miskolczi%e2%80%99s-saturated-greenhouse-effect-theory-c02-cannot-cause-any-more-global-warming.
Mr Gates, we all can benefit from reading, watching a dedicated master of science: http://pathstoknowledge.net/2010/02/19/cargo-cult-science-a-lesson-from-richard-feynman-for-scientists-of-today-to-learn.
Anu (17:00:38) :
Tom Wiita (15:29:57) :
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.
Actually it was updated to that point because Lucia asked Bill Chapman nicely to settle a wager on her site!
“Lucia,
It’s on my to-do list to update that table/graph. Had I known there was so much at stake, I would have bumped up the priority.
The September data will be finalized in the coming week or two so I should be able to update it in the next few weeks. Send me a reminder in a couple weeks if you don’t see it updated before then. In the future, if you would like to ensure that these things are updated promptly, you will give me advance notice on how I too can get in on some of this brownie action.
Sincerely,
Bill Chapman”
1DandyTroll (19:04:52) :
Anyways compared to 1978/79, at the rate we’re going at now on the slightly down path, and assuming 1978/79 was any kind of normal, we’re loosing about, ruffly, 1 mil sq km ice per 30 years in the northern hemisphere, and in the AGW linear reality, we’re talking 300 years for the sea ice in the arctic to finally give and for once clear the area. :p
Appropriately named, the September average is only dropping at ~11%/decade by the way.
JAN (13:33:43) :
No, sorry R. Gates, data do not support this. Look here, no increase in summer max temps since 1958:
Now would be a good time to brush up on your high school science:
http://www.kentchemistry.com/links/Matter/HeatingCurve.htm
Jimbo (16:44:02) : “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.”
==================
Damn well said!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Phil. (19:45:14) : “Maybe they’ll even listen to it properly second time around?” Go ahead, Phil. us in on what he actually said. Try to stick to the science while you are at it.
geo (18:33:30) :
Really? You really want to pull out 2009 in support of the dismal science
“At the end of the Arctic summer, more ice cover remained this year than during the previous record-setting low years of 2007 and 2008. However, sea ice has not recovered to previous levels. September sea ice extent was the third lowest since the start of satellite records in 1979, and the past five years have seen the five lowest ice extents in the satellite record.”
http://nsidc.org/news/press/20091005_minimumpr.html
Five lowest summer minimums, all in a row.
What did the climatologists predict ? Oh right, the Arctic summer sea ice melting more and more, until it is gone in a few decades, or perhaps sooner.
Sixteen expert academic prognosticators with their computer models churning madly. Sixteen of ‘em. You know the theory of doing that kind of thing, right?
Computer models ?
Expert academic prognosticators ?
Why not read about the actual predictions:
http://www.arcus.org/search/seaiceoutlook/2009_outlook/full_report_july.php
One was by 84 year old retired professor of atmospheric sciences, Prof. Emeritus Norman Untersteiner of Univ. of Washington.
http://www.arcus.org/search/seaiceoutlook/2009_outlook/july_report/downloads/pdf/panarctic/15_MorisonUntersteiner_JulyReport_JuneData.pdf
Try to find “International Institute of Advanced Cryospheric Sciences” on the Web. I think he’s working from his kitchen table.
Another was by an undergraduate named Gregor Halfmann as part of his Bachelor thesis in Oceanography.
Is Oceanography a dismal science now, too ?
http://www.arcus.org/search/seaiceoutlook/2009_outlook/july_report/downloads/pdf/panarctic/12_KaleschkeHalfmann_JulyReport_JuneData.pdf
He used a simple quadratic extrapolation of the September sea ice extent time series (so much for your “expert academic prognosticators with their computer models churning madly” – Gregor could have done this prediction on his little sister’s Hello Kitty calculator), but noted that the piece of data they most wanted to factor into their very short term prediction was not available:
You also forgot all about error bars – do you know what they are ?
Young Gregor knows what they are – his prediction was, more precisely,
2009 September Extent:
Our forecast remains at 4.92 +/- 0.43 Million km2.
So, his prediction range went up to 5.35 million km2.
Actual September average ice extent was 5.36 million km2.
The average error bars for those predictions you gave were 0.4 million km2:
http://www.arcus.org/search/seaiceoutlook/2009_outlook/report_july.php
That puts another group of predictions right on the money.
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.
This Arctic Research Consortium of the United States “July Report” probably asked for volunteer predictions at some conference, with a dozen donuts to go to the team with the closest prediction. It’s like asking a group of economists what they think the Dow will be at by the end of the year – it’s an interesting question, but nobody is going to invest money based on their off the cuff guesstimates.
http://www.arcus.org/search/seaiceoutlook/2009_outlook/july_report/downloads/pdf/panarctic/2009_seaiceoutlook_july_summary-report.pdf
The important prediction, which you are missing, is that everyone predicted:
below the 1979-2007 mean
below the Linear Trend
And they all got it right.
Phil. (20:26:39) :
Interesting. Maybe that explains the two different files – they must have overwritten the 2007 one by accident.
So maybe we’ll see an updated chart soon 🙂
Not everything free is worth what you paid for it.
2010-04-02 the sea ice extent reached it’s highest ever recorded extent for this date.
1. 2010 – 14379531 km2
2. 2003 – 14335781 km2
3. 2008 – 14074844 km2
4. 2009 – 13933438 km2
3 of the 4 highest recorded extents for this date happened the last 4 years.
See:
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
I am not so sure whether we should be happy about this. What are we going to do when the blue line break through the black line and continues to rise?
Wouldn’t that mean that global cooling is on its way…?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/29/don-easterbrooks-agu-paper-on-potential-global-cooling/
What did Easterbrook say? we have to put our trousers on. How appropriate to quote him on Easter……
Henry Pool (23:26:23) :
I am not so sure whether we should be happy about this. What are we going to do when the blue line break through the black line and continues to rise?
Wouldn’t that mean that global cooling is on its way…? …
I think after the last two winters, the vast majority of people in the Northern Hemisphere (with perhaps the exception of Eastern Canada and West Greenland) are fully aware that we have already had some global cooling.
Bill Parsons (10:57:19) :
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?)
________________
If you read the research additions on my name linked web site you will see that I mention the Earth’s March 22nd Synod conjunction of Saturn, which brought warm moisture from the tropics into the mid-latitudes, up to the point of conjunction. (Which gave R.I. their first set of rains) and then just past the conjunction the wrap around of the lunar tidal bulge brought in the second round as the colder more negatively ion charged air mass wrung out the rest of the moisture in a small area (pun intended).
From the 24th thru the 30th there has been several large invasions of cooler dry air into the N20/25 latitude range globally, which helped inhibit the rains in china, as well as the Gulf states of the USA. Today the “normal” flow of the atmosphere is almost back to past patterns.
The long term pattern of the 18.6 year lunar declinational cycle is in the past peak 2006 stage of decreasing again, and there is a general lowering of jet stream patterns following the shift in tidal effects. In case you did not notice the snows last winter being so far South. That is showing up as the usual drought period in parts China (in the dry lee side of the Himalayas) and a couple other areas as well.
They are right that as they get into China’s normal monsoon period things will balance out again.
It’s interesting that this, along with much anecdotal evidence that the 2009/10 winter was relatively cold, is occuring when the satellite data may well show 2010 as the warmest year on record by a sgnificant margin:-
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps+002
Does the El Nino largely affect ocean temperatures, and when do we expect it to weaken?
The media seem to have lost interest is the whole global warming melodrama. After some fairly hysterical reporting of global warming in a decade when there wasn’t any, they have now dozed off when they actually have some. I’d like to see the headline “winter freeze due to global warming”.
Anu,
“I don’t see many unqualified people complaining about the “foolish” attempt to find a Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider,”
Scientists at the LHC aren’t threatening to harm civilization with futile policies to control the earth’s climate.
Anu (16:01:42) :
Thanks for replying, Anu. And I do know where Svalbard is, as I live fairly close to that area. I have even been to Svalbard a couple of times, both on land and on ships in the nearby seas. It’s a very beautiful place indeed. You should go there sometime. The sea ice around Svalbard usually reaches down to the north coast at about 80N. East of Svalbard, the winter sea ice reaches farther down the coast, sometimes reaching as far south as Bear Island, a small island half way between Svalbard and the Norwegian mainland. I’ve been there, too. Usually, there are no bears on Bear Island, but sometimes bears swim over to the island from the sea ice, and occasionally even get stranded there when the ice retreats. A person on the island was killed by a stranded bear, I think about 1975.
OK, back on topic. I mostly agree with your points. My point was that the DMI graph shows no increased summer max temps since 1958 for the arctic region. Admittedly, the graphs show temps above 80N latitude. I don’t know how the temps are calculated, since there are very few thermometers up there, but I assume they use some measurements from nearby arctic locations in Svalbard, Greenland, Canada, Alaska, and Siberia, and then employ some averaging and interpolation/extrapolation algorithm to arrive at their above 80N temps. Surely, the temp curve for locations between 66.5N and 80N will be raised compared to this.
Since we are talking about arctic sea ice, consisting mainly of frozen sea water, it will of course melt at temperatures between -1C and -2C. However, for minimum summer ice extent, we are mostly left with ice north of Greenland, Canada and across the Arctic Ocean above 80N. Therefore, other factors than air temps, like sea water temps, currents, and winds (like in 2007) have a big impact on summer minimum ice extent.
Another intriguing aspect of the DMI graphs, is that there seem to be much higher variability and even increased temps (?) in the seasons covered by days 0-120 and 260-365 compared to the 1958-2002 average. If there indeed is increased average temps during these seasons in later years compared to 1958-2002 ave., can that be attributed to increased atmospheric CO2? After all, winter season in the arctic is dark, with little LWR to be reradiated, compared to summer with more sunshine and more LWR from the ground. Any thoughts? Thanks.
Phil. (21:15:19) :
“Now would be a good time to brush up on your high school science:”
And what part of my statement do you think is contradicted by your high school science, Phil?
No, enduser, you have it all wrong. The 1980-2000 trend was an aberrant anomoly. The mid 20th century cooling trend, the early 21st century cooling trend, the low ACE numbers, and now this unprecedented ice recovery prove that there is a strong correlation between increased CO2 and global cooling. We need cap and trade more than ever!
(Sorry, I couldn’t help myself)