Back on April 2nd, it looked like Arctic Sea ice extent at NSIDC would cross the “normal” line. See: Arctic Sea Ice Extent Update: still growing
The image then looked like this:
Now before anyone starts trotting out claims of “adjustments”, I’ll point out that the independent JAXA data set, done with a different satellite and the AMSR-E sensor shows the same thing:
Note the area I’ve highlighted inside the box. Here is that area magnified below:
The NSIDC presentation is zoomed to show the current period of interest, whereas the JAXA presentation shows the entire annual cycle. So we notice small changes in NSIDC more often. Also, the NSIDC presentation is a running 5 day average according to Dr. Walt Meier.
Of course whether you are scientist, scholar, layman, casual observer, or zealot, nature never gives a care as to what we might expect it to do.
So worry not, no skullduggery is afoot. Nature is just laughing at all of us.
The report I am waiting for is the NSIDC one, early this week; Monday or Tuesday most likely. So far as I can see, Mark Serreze has nailed his colors to the mast in predicting that Arctic sea ice will disappear in the summer in the near future. Now that idea seems to be in jeopardy. I suspect he has two alternatives. He can gamble that he will be shown to be right in the end, and continue with the line that Arctic sea ice is still on track for an ice free summer in the near future. Or he can start hedging his bets, and realize that he might just be wrong. We will see, very shortly.
I’m going to lock myself in to a 5.9 million sq. km. prediction for this summer- the attraction of extrapolating a short linear trend is too great 😉 – also, I’m an optimist.
Of course, anything could happen- look at the huge variation between summer 2006 and 2007! Proof that the Arctic is capable of losing a hell of a lot of ice over a very short time. Still, we seem to be steadily climbing back to fairly ‘normal’ levels- and comparing the latest satellite images to early 80’s ones, the ice looks in much better shape all round (nice and purple). That’s my very non complex assessment of things anyway.
Who’d have imagined 20 years ago that a large portion of the general public would become so interested in tracking sea ice extent?
A digital look at the JAXA data:
03,25,2003,14800781 – 03,25,2010,14282344 – 518437
03,26,2003,14771094 – 03,26,2010,14264688 – 506406
03,27,2003,14755781 – 03,27,2010,14256719 – 499062
03,28,2003,14718594 – 03,28,2010,14299219 – 419375
03,29,2003,14647031 – 03,29,2010,14363438 – 283593
03,30,2003,14533906 – 03,30,2010,14405781 – 128125
03,31,2003,14428281 – 03,31,2010,14407344 – 20937
04,01,2003,14409219 – 04,01,2010,14395000 – 14219
04,02,2003,14335781 – 04,02,2010,14379531 – -43750
04,03,2003,14250469 – 04,03,2010,14328438 – -77969
10 days ago, 2010 was a half million sq km behind the Arctic of 2003.
Today, it is 77,000 sq km ahead.
That’s quite a change.
CRS, Dr.P.H. (10:46:38) :
Smokey (10:31:28) :
What does the acronym “AGWT” mean?
REPLY: I believe it is for “Anthropogenic Global Warming Theory.”
As far as I’m concerned, theory it remains. The science remains far from settled from all appearances.
How about a new word for it? Hypreposterothesis.
A flat running average will stay flat as long as the running data are flat. A rising set of 5-day data will average up. A falling set of 5-day data will continue its downward slope. Doing a mind experiment, what do you think a turn will look like, all the way through the turn, using 5-day data sets that have a mix of rising, flat, and falling sets?
R. Gates (10:29:54) :
I like your explanation for “death spiral”.
One would expect a longish time scale.
Why have there been claims the Arctic will be “ice free” by 2013?
R. Gates said:
Global Sea ice has spent more time since 2004 in the negative anomaly range than the positve, and this longer term perspective is all that matters.
———
Hmmm… I look at the data and it shows a bouncing decline from 2004 to 2007 (3 years), and a recovery from 2007 to 2010 (3 years). Pretty much equivalent, but I admit that it depends on what happens in September 2010. Overall, very little trend that I can see. Probably ought to get data for 30 more years to have any real understanding. All the data collected so far (since 1979) argues strongly for natural variation and “the usual noise”.
“This months “re-growth” of the arctic sea ice to almost normal (which is nearly all in the Bering sea in March’s bump upward) is certainly related to the negative AO index. ”
Anybody else notice how statistical certainty standards change according to one’s perspective?
This years min will be greater than last years’. Why? La Niña !! No El Niño.
Incidently, the french academie de science will be holding a ‘debat’ this october on AGW. M. Allegre and M. Courtillot will be there. Why them. Well, M.Courtillot was the scientist/mathemeticien who asked for the british and american unadjusted data, Mr Gates? and was refused. So he painstakingly picked all the raw data from every reporting weather station in europe and plotted over time. Guess what? He found no hockey stick, he found no exceptional warming.
The big difference here in france is that there isn’t the old boys club tie of the UK. There are however a lot of state funded scientists who don’t want the debate. With the la niña in place and the ice extent min at its max it should be très intérèssante
ScottR (11:07:49)
and if you go back to the 1930’s it becomes ever more clear that its natural variation. Submarines at the north pole, on the surface, in march.
Hockeystickler (10:48:25) :
“R. Gates – pludge ? I am unable to find this word in either the oxford or webster’s dictionary ; surely you mean plunge.”
I like the word ‘pludge’! It’s what climate ‘scientists’ do. They ‘pludge’.
The true believers will explain it all as part of the AGW climate crisis, no matter the evidence, or lack of evidence.
It’s CYrosphere!!
(for crying out loud)
Forgot to add — my guesstimate for Arctic sea ice minimum extent this September is approx. 5.95 m km²; not quite ready to call it for 6 m km².
It’s actually not that surprising, when you think that this year the ice has continued increasing two or three weeks longer than the norm.
It has to turn the corner sometime, just so happens that it happened just before the extent crossed the ‘normal’ line.
Is does, though, suggest a significant increase again at ice minimum this September, barring strange incidents.
It will be interesting for scientists and others to see how many more years the increase goes on. Perhaps from that we will start to understand decadal and multidecadal oscillations in arctic sea ice extent??
[snip – off topic, even if it is Easter]
Wind shifts, ice drifts, extents come and go,
it’s been cold I know, more ice and snow,
Spring has sprung, the bouquets been flung,
AGW is married to arctic ice extent it seems,
the sun has gone back to sleep and dreams.
At 70N, the sun is now almost 25 degrees above the horizon. In June it will be almost 45 degrees above the horizon. Ice is going to start melting quickly.
The global seaice anomaly at cyrosphere today shows:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/sea.ice.anomaly.timeseries.jpg
A roll down at 2007/8 that is on the upswing returning to normal.
That’s not a straight line, and neither is the big roll in Sunspot/10.7cm flux, or anything else nature does. Probably because we live on a squashed sphere and run in an elliptical orbit around another squashed sphere. Nothing in nature or in or Solar System or Galaxy or Galaxy Cluster runs in perfectly straight lines.
Why should we all succumb to computer modeled pencil line fever?
Funny how readily the warming proponents accept that the increase in ice now is due to a negative AO even though that allows warmer air into the most poleward areas as the cold air sinks more frequently into the mid latitudes in winter.
But wait a mo, didn’t we have 30 years of largely positive AO resulting in the eventual ice minimum of 2007 ?
Does logic work in only one direction for them ?
SandyInDerby (09:59:49) : “The recovery has made it into the UK Sunday Times”
Thanks for the link Sandy. It gave me a good laugh.
Scientists emphasise that the regrowth of ice in the Arctic and the fierce US blizzards are natural variations in weather which have little relevance for long-term climate change.
We can therefore conclude that “scientists” were wrong when they took earlier episodes of ice loss and warm winters as indicators of long-term climate change.
“Records kept by Nasa show that in January and February global average temperatures were actually well above the long-term average by around 0.7C,” Serreze said.
But “scientists” dismiss individual months as meaningless weather fluctuations. So what is the point of mentioning these particular months?
In retrospect, the reactions to the 2007 melt were overstated. The lesson is that we must be more careful in not reading too much into one event,” Serreze said.
The “reactions” to the 2007 melt placed too much emphasis on insignificant data. That was wrong, and ultimately damaging.
Scientists have made mistakes over other short-term trends such as increases in tropical storms. In 2004-5 an increase in the number and severity of storms, including Hurricane Katrina, prompted some researchers to suggest a link with global warming — but this was then followed by a decline in storms.
Other “scientists” who read too much into insignificant events, and it was wrong to do so.
Similar fears were raised in 2005 when scientists at Southampton University published research showing that some deep Atlantic Ocean currents, linked to the Gulf Stream, had slowed by a third. They issued a press release entitled “Could the Atlantic current switch off?” which suggested that circulation in the ocean, which gives Europe its temperate climate, might shut down. But more recent studies have shown that such currents slow down and speed up naturally, so short-term changes cannot be seen as evidence of global warming.
More people who like to call themselves “scientists”, and making exactly the same mistake.
“The reality is that greenhouse gases are making the world warmer, but it is a mistake to see short-term changes in weather, currents or Arctic ice cover as evidence of this,” Pope said.
Err, a tad late, but thanks for the dash of common sense Vicky. I suppose that’s why the MET Office stopped its seasonal forecasts which had factored-in global warming trends. They also fell victim to the same affliction.
Now, according to the article, Vicky Pope is saying “On current trends it will still become ice-free in summer by around 2060.”
That places her forecast into my “insignificant basket”.
I always said that it would only take one or two bad winters to bring some sanity back into the discussion. And it did!
Jimmy Haigh – perhaps R. Gates has invented a new word – pludge- climate scientists fudge when they show a plunge : therefore they pludge !
Everyone is trotting out the words “average” and ‘normal”. I will once again remind everyone that the “averge” and “normal” is simply based on an arbitrary baseline period from 1979 -2000. Nothing more, nothing less.
R. Gates (09:57:13) :
I will be watching the Global Sea Ice anomaly chart very closely the next few years.
REPLY:
You aren’t the only one who will be watching with bated breath! R. Gates, this one’s for you!
BTW, we welcome your input to the discussion, thanks for contributing!
Stephen Wilde (11:52:25) :
AGW logic is based on the idea that trace amounts of CO2 controls the universe.