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.
Invariant wrote:
> What is the relationship between this, and the quote by Dr. Brooks in
> Climate Through the Ages (1950) pp. 286-287?
>
> The weather of one year differs from that of another year, the
> weather of one decade from that of another decade ; why should
> not the climate of one century differ from that of another century ?
Of course the climate varies naturally. No climate scientist has ever said it does not. (Indeed, they are the ones who has discovered and detailed this.
But the relevant question is: what happens when _new_, nonnatural forcings enter the picture? What is the cumulative effect of NATURAL + MANMADE forcings?
Left alone, a child on a moving swing will eventually come to rest. But a swing that also receives pushes from the child’s father will not necessarily come to rest.
David Appell (15:33:14) : “…the science of tipping points is not yet that rigorous, and no scientist is making hard claims about them.”
Yes they have.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,686697-8,00.html
Smokey wrote:
>> “It’s very relevant that the yearly ice is getting younger, ie thinner.”
> Do you have a credible source for that?
See the sources in the animation given at
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2010/04/animation-of-decreasing-arctic-ice.html
> Because it appears that
> Arctic ice is growing substantially, as pwl posted above:
No, it does not. It appears that the _area_ of the sea ice is growing in the last year or two. It does not say anything about the volume.
Also, be sure to read this paper:
Kwok, R., G. F. Cunningham, M. Wensnahan, I. Rigor, H. J. Zwally, and D. Yi (2009), Thinning and volume loss of the Arctic Ocean sea ice cover: 2003–2008, J. Geophys. Res., 114, C07005, doi:10.1029/2009JC005312.
It’s abstract is given here:
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2009/07/arctic-sea-ice-decreasing-in-volume.html
Love that one too. 🙂 All my students get a copy of it in their “deprogramming package”.
/dr.bill
I see David Appell is commenting; I recognize the name as he’s from my neck of the woods.
Apparently, the turn of public opinion has had an effect as he seems less conclusionary than when I read his comments in the past.
Welcome aboard.
Steve Goddard (13:03:24) :
NZ Willy (12:43:30) :
A simple geology lesson on the sun and the seasons:
Amino Acids in Meteorites (16:03:03) :
opps…
geography, not geology
Submarines at the North Pole in March, 1959 and again in 1963 show varying conditions from patchy open water to a couple of feet.
So, no, I don’t see anything going on right now that is really catastrophic with ice thickness.
This is a stupid metric to be concerned about. Sea ice already crossed into the “normal” zone at the beginning of March. This AGW icon has fallen. End of discussion.
I guess it depends on how you look at it.
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20100303_Figure3.png
Of course the main measure of interest in ice mass.
Phil. (12:10:15) :
In part because of data (incl. submarine) from the likes of Maslowski such as shown here:
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn107/Sprintstar400/Maslowski_Page_16.jpg
ICESAT data since then has shown a continued decline in thickness at a slightly slightly faster rate since 2004. So despite hedging of bets etc. the data still points to around that time. With the declining thickness the rate of drift would tend to increase too.
Phil, is there a spreadsheet of this data? The seasonality of the sea ice thickness measure looks different at the end of the chart than at the beginning. In 1985 and 1986 for example, the ice thickness increases during the year to nearly 2.7 metres at the ice minimum in September. There is a mistake in this model.
R. Gates (09:38:16) : Funny, I seem to recall that advocates made rather a big fuss over the 2007 minimum. That too was a “blip” not a trend, it should be clear by now. So why exactly is it that you think such sanctimony is justified? It seems to me that noting that Arctic ice is not going away quite so quickly as some suggested it would is worthwhile.
Not to mention that, unless my eyes deceive me, we hit maximum pretty late in the year, so I don’t exactly see how, by parsing over a handful of days, you think that Rush was wrong.
Oh, I forgot, the left hates him so much that even if he was accurate to within 1.0*10^-99 , he’d still be “wrong”.
Anthony.
“Nature is just laughing at all of us.”.
Yep! Sun’s up!
Best regards, suricat.
As springtime goes on…IPCC, Al “Baby”(aka “ElGordo”), JH “Coal trains”, CRU aka “Climate Gate” Jones, XXX novels writer “Patchy”(aka “Train engineer”), et al. should be preparing all their paraphernalia to scare to death innocent people of the whole world, next summer, in their final attack before Mexico´s next jamboree, so beware!
The funding for NSIDC and JAXA come from the same place, national governments of developed countries who put global interests (control) ahead of national interests (ie, the citizens, not the national elite who have global interests) .
Satellite measurements are all converted to data using algorithms that can be tweaked for good reasons, or not so good reasons.
“Japan’s Cabinet has endorsed a climate-protection draft law today (march 12)that would cap industrial emissions and thrust the second-biggest economy into the $125 billion market for trading carbon credits.”
1+1 +1= 3
This AGW fraud is global in scope. Think big, they do.
The absence of direct evidence is not disproof of a plausible hypothesis.
Of course, all these old records will soon be meaningless.
In the continuing effort to save the dangerously endangered polar bears and stave off the great calamitously catastrophic permafrost melting, they are about to deploy the massive steel cables across the straits alongside Greenland that will catch the ice before winds blow it out of the Arctic waters. The expected massive ice buildup is also expected to stop and possibly reverse the Greenland glacier ice melt, thus saving the Maldives from drowning in devastatingly sudden sea level rises.
So soon they will have to start constructing a brand new dataset that documents the new precipitous decline in line with the climate models.
Quite a bargain too on that project, will only cost $349.68 billion of someone else’s money…
Apparently in climate circles “average” doesn’t mean what it does everywhere else. If it was “average”, each year’s extent would be folded into the “average” line. Using an arbitrarily chosen “baseline” is ridiculous, no matter what it shows.
The assumption seems to be that they are showing changes caused by AGW. The reality is not even close. What they are showing is that the last few years are the trough and their cherry picked baseline was a peak. I’m pretty sure they’ll change the methodology once we have a few years that match or exceed the baseline.
It’s a “clever trick” by nature.
David Appell (15:47:50) : Of course the climate varies naturally.
You did not answer the quiz, you gave a good answer to another question!
In all probability, the severe fluctuations in the area of sea ice in all the graph lines are the result of measurement error.
CodeTech (17:03:35),
Exactly right. As David Appell’s abstract shows, the paper is, in it’s own words, simply an estimate. Coming from GISS, the paper in question should probably be taken with a grain of salt:
“We present our best estimate of the thickness and volume of the Arctic Ocean ice cover…”
In addition, that paper is getting old. It recounts 2005 – 2009 ice extent. We are discussing 2010 events here, which show a large recovery in Arctic ice.
Bill Illis (16:32:08) : “In 1985 and 1986 for example, the ice thickness increases during the year to nearly 2.7 metres at the ice minimum in September. There is a mistake in this model.”
Intuitively it makes sense. At the ice minimum, only the thicker multiyear ice should remain, so with good average thickness. Between seasons, the average thickness is lower because of large areas covered by thin ice. Intuitively speaking.
Is this NSIDC graph using a running average and not plotting actual daily figures?
If so, why does it not state that on their graph?
And why on earth use a running average? Please would everybody stop manipulating data if at all possible. I want to see actual figures that don’t change in a few days, as these ones have just done.
Amino Acids in Meteorites (16:03:03) :
Mr Amino, thanks for the repetition!
It is indeed a very nice representation. Ah, youtube is great.
Jees R Gates, Why’d ya have to go and spoil it? I was starting to like ya:
I could generally care less about the political and other social commentary that goes on here, and I would think a “spammer” would really care about that sort of rot…
Rot? There is a very significant political and social dimension to all of this. You do realise that, yeah?
Rot indeed!