By Steven Goddard
The American Thinker ran an article by Randall Hoven that asked “Was the Arctic Ice Cap ‘Adjusted’? The conclusion is based on the chosen value of concentration of ice in the “pole hole” where the satellite can’t measure due to inclination. See the image below from Cryosphere Today for an example:
The statement from the article below is correct, but slightly misleading because March ice concentration near the pole is always close to 100%
If we add the “pole hole” back to the measured “area,” we would get a downward trend in area due to the change in pole hole size in 1987. If we assume that the pole hole is 100% ice, then the downward trend in March would be 2.2% per decade. But if we assume that the pole hole is only 15% ice (the low end of what is assumed), then the downward trend is only 0.1% per decade, which is not statistically significant. (The corresponding downward trend for “extent” was 2.6% per decade.) It is true that whatever downward trend there is for March is due only to these adjustments (assumed pole hole size and concentration). And whether that trend is statistically significant depends on ice concentration in the “pole hole,” an assumed value.
If you look at essentially any available March concentration maps, you see concentrations near the pole close to 100%. 15% is not a reasonable number to work with, or even 80%.
If we adjust the March area for 100% concentration at the pole hole (below) the area and extent trends agree with each other just as expected.
The title of the article is “Was the Arctic Ice Cap ‘Adjusted’?” I believe the answer is yes. The extent/area data is adjusted – but correctly. Comparing this to “CRUgate shenanigans” doesn’t seem appropriate.
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I don’t understand the idea that the more ice that fills the hole the greater the downward trend in ice extent. Surely it should be the other way round. How can more ice equate to a downward trend?
Richard Sharpe (10:43:41) :
The National Enquirer is pretty much all celebrity
gossipnews:http://www.nationalenquirer.com/
For the latest useful info on aliens, the best paper is Weekly World News (The Worlds’ Only Reliable News):
http://weeklyworldnews.com/category/alien-alert/
Enjoy.
This “Hole in the Pole” reminds me of an old Vaudeville routine. Those of you that don’t know this routine please stick with it to the end and you’ll see that it’s not OT in the least.
(Henry, a country bumpkin, and his wife, Liza, sing to each other.)
(Henry sings)
There’s a hole in the bucket dear Liza, dear Liza, dear Liza,
there’s a hole in the bucket dear Liza, dear Liza, a hole.
(Liza sings)
Well fix it dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,
well fix it dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry, well fix it.
(Henry sings)
With what shall I fix it dear Liza, dear Liza, dear Liza,
With what shall I fix it dear Liza, dear Liza, with what?
(Liza sings)
With straw dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,
with straw dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry, with straw.
(Henry sings)
With what shall I cut it dear Liza, dear Liza, dear Liza,
With what shall I cut it dear Liza, dear Liza, with what?
(Liza sings)
With an axe dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,
with an axe dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry, an axe.
(Henry sings)
The axe is too dull dear Liza, dear Liza, dear Liza,
the axe is too dull dear Liza, dear Liza, too dull.
(Liza sings)
Well sharpen it dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,
well sharpen it dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry, well sharpen it.
(Henry sings)
With what shall I sharpen it dear Liza, dear Liza, dear Liza,
With what shall I sharpen it dear Liza, dear Liza, with what?
(Liza sings, annoyed)
With a stone dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,
with a stone dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry, a stone.
(Henry sings)
The stone is too dry dear Liza, dear Liza, dear Liza,
the stone is too dry dear Liza, dear Liza, too dry.
(Liza sings, exasperated)
Well wet it dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,
well wet it dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry, well wet it.
(Henry sings)
With what shall I wet it dear Liza, dear Liza, dear Liza,
With what shall I wet it dear Liza, dear Liza, with what?
(Liza sings, very exasperated)
With water dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,
with water dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry, with water.
(Henry sings)
With what shall I fetch it dear Liza, dear Liza, dear Liza,
With what shall I fetch it dear Liza, dear Liza, with what?
(Liza sings, getting angry)
With a bucket dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,
with a bucket dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry, a bucket.
(Henry sings)
There’s a hole in the bucket dear Liza, dear Liza, dear Liza,
there’s a hole in the bucket dear Liza, dear Liza, a hole.
(Enraged, Liza chases Henry off the stage.)
So….
Since there’s a round “Hole at the Pole,” circular arguments are acceptable. ;o)
Morgan (11:06:10) :
“[…] one thing that puzzles me about the 1980-1995 versus 2010 comparison is how much more sharply defined the ice edges are in 2010. In 1980-1995 pictures, there is much more light purple, red, and yellow […]”
The pictures possibly come from here. I cannot comment about image sharpness, but the snow extent — I suppose it’s the white stuff — is only available for recent years.
The abundance of colors in earlier graphs, if I can read the graph correctly, means that ice concentration (color scale) is much higher lately. If I’m wrong I please correct me.
I hope I answered, but I’m not sure.
steve,
your point makes sense.
the trend that arctic ice extent (15%, 30% ) and the ice area have been on a decline till 2007.
Most probably the ice extent is a 60 year cycle, and it is possible 2007 is the end of the down side of the cycle. and the upswing might have started in 2008. all this very new, and 30 year data does not mean squat in the natural cycles of the earth. we have have to wait and see.
Meanwhile, the AGW crowd has to get the politicians to do the stupid thing rightaway. the time to get all their cap-and-xxxx window is shutting down
This is where the earth break winds and that could explain why the GISS maps are all red and hot at the North Pole… or is it just Santa’s potty?
O/T, sort of
And talking about renewables, birds and UFOs, it seem windmills are bad for UFOs too: videos here. Or UFOs bad for windmills.
My, such very large images used in the post, scaled way down to fit the width of the post, taking so very long to load all that fine detail on dial-up…
How soon until the conversion to fast-loading “click for larger image” format?
Steve,
Thanks for pointing this out at WUWT. I get a little tired of people trying to turn everything into a CRUgate, erodes the brand. And its good to see skeptics call other skeptics out. I wish the warmists had such courage
The UN/IPCC hole.
But, not to worry; it’s O’s vision: cliches abounding.
“The United States on Friday praised the document as the springboard to the future.”
The Cliche Meisters also contributed: One Mao’ day, Gaia, please.
“”At the end of the day, it is about survival,” said Bangladesh’s negotiator,”.
“”We already have a very good basis for work,” Chinese delegate Su Wei said,”.
…-
“UN rifts exposed after Copenhagen setback”
“Others downplayed the status of the accord or made no reference to it, while left-led countries in the Caribbean and Latin America battered the deal with verbal broadsides.
They said its emissions pledges were only voluntary and far from the mark needed to reach the 2C (3.6 F) target and denounced the closed-doors deal as an abuse of transparency and democracy.
“The total failure of the meeting in Copenhagen… was simply because the principles of the United Nations were not respected, nor were international rules,” said Venezuelan delegate Claudia Salerno.
The “neo-colonialist exercise” seemed set to be revived, she warned.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100409/sc_afp/unclimatewarming
Oh for gosh sakes, you people think this is news? I have a an old globe, one of those spinning ones mounted in an arc of plastic with degrees latitude marked on it. I took the globe out of the mount and sure enough, there is a hole right on the north pole and an identical one at the south pole. So these polar holes have been known for at at least 60 years.
We all know that 1998 was a high in warm years going back 70 years or so. So that should be the staring point for a trend line. What happens if you start the trend line in 1996 or 1999? Too short a time frame? I thought so…and so is 1980 then.
Starting and stopping points determine trends. It is a statistical art when to start or stop depending on ones bias. The only way to make this scientific is to do trend line analysis, or analysis of trends. This has to be set ahead of the fact to set the rules. For example, one sets a trend period using a random rule, say arriving at 17 or 27 years. Then you analyze, say, 7 periods of 17 or 27 years, each time the confidence grows and odds of chance are minimized.
Say what? We only have one 30 year period? That’s my point.
Steve Goddard (09:55:08) :
Thanks for setting me straight.
@Morgan
‘Does anyone know why the difference, whether it’s real or instrumental artifact, and (if artifact) how it’s accounted for?’
It’s more a difference in the code that paints the pictures, rather than either “real or instrumental”.
So think like visual comparison artifact only, or interpretation artifacts. That’s why most people want to use the the pure numbers from the same instrumentals after all.
There is nothing alarming about the loss of ice. There is nothing alarming about how the hole is measured. What should concern all of us immensely is similar to what terrified Rep. Hank Johnson concerning the island of Guam tipping over. If one more group of alarmists join the Catlin crew where they are on the icecap, it will tip over on Canada.
http://hankjohnson.house.gov/
This from the ‘Band of Despots’ seeking handouts, which our politicians seem so desperately keen to give them. Urgent – they need your money now – their Swiss bankers are insisting on immediate payment.
Another scare story – if Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez supports it, you just know it has got to be right.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8611811.stm
Speaking of holes in the Pole http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
Any comments to that? The temperature seems to have taken a jump up.
Philip T. Downman (12:28:45) :
Temperatures at the North Pole were about 20C above normal yesterday.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/map/ANIM/sfctmpmer_01a.fnl.29.gif
steven mosher (11:47:23) :
Thanks. I don’t care which side is correct. My interest is in good science, which often seems difficult to come by.
My take on NSIDC is that they are very good at data collection and processing, but am less confident in their interpretations – which usually seem to assume that the last 30 years are typical of the Arctic.
Looking at GISS Greenland temperature data, my sense is that satellites came on line at a most unfortunate time.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=431042500000&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
That’s the 19th Tiger Woods SIN hole
Philip T. Downman (12:28:45) : Doesn’t seem to be compatible with the very small loss of ice over the last month: average loss from 8 March to 8 April in 2003-2009 was just over 600,000 km2, this year it is only 190,000 km2. I could understand that wind and currents might make the difference if temperatures were average, but surely not if they are way above average??
Steven, those Cryosphere pics are huge in size, over 2Mb each. Lots of work for the servers and transmission time. They pics need to be no more than 10K large. Could you reduce them in future. cheers.
REPLY: Agreed, CT for some odd reason uses PNG format for these, and they don’t compress well due to the complex imagery. I converted them to JPG and they are now 1/10th the size. Faster load now. – Anthony
You will have to forgive my non scientific terms.
I have read that the worlds magnetic field is in a state of flux at the moment and has been for a while.
I imagine the magnetic field around the earth as being like a ring dough nut with a marble(the earth) sitting in the hole.
If the dough nut is puffed up(Strong magnetic field) less of the earths poles ar exposed and if the dough nut is slimmed down(weak magnetic field) more of the earths poles are exposed.
Exposed to what? is the question I am asking.
And does it have have any bearing on temps at the poles and any effect on the Ozone layer at those points as well?
Many thanks,
Dave UK.
1DandyTroll (12:22:55) :
Thanks for your reply.
“It’s more a difference in the code that paints the pictures, rather than either “real or instrumental”.”
I’m not sure I follow this. Are you saying that the code that was used way back when interpreted a specific piece of data as 60% concentration, but the code used today would interpret it as 100% concentration?
Isn’t that the internet portal ?