There’s a lot of interest in the blogosphere in sea ice, and the leading authority, NSIDC, only updates one a month. Yet when we reach things like peak ice, or minimum ice, we often find those occur at times when there’s no input from that organization, or others for that matter. So every week, we’ll offer a summary of sea ice news. Of course if something interesting happens, like the Arctic Sea ice line from NSIDC crosses the normal line, we’ll cover that when it happens.
This new feature gives readers a chance to submit artwork to be used as a header graphic if they wish. For example, the Quote of the Week graphic was provided by WUWT reader “Boudu”. If you have graphical skills and ideas, feel free to post them up to tinypic.com or photobucket etc and provide a link in comments below. – Anthony
WUWT Sea Ice News by Steven Goddard
Al Gore calls it global warming. Bill Clinton calls it springtime. Others call it a death spiral, tipping point, or point of no return. Whatever you call it, the Arctic has started to melt and has lost about a million km2 of ice since the peak. The NSIDC graph below does not hide the decline.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
I just measured today’s NSIDC sea ice. It has passed the median line, though would require several similar days to appear in their moving average graph.
The image below shows where ice has melted and grown during the past 12 days. Areas in red have declined, and areas in green have increased in extent.
The decline in Bering Sea ice is due to much warmer air that has arrived this week. The sea of Okhotsk remains very cold and has gained some ice near the north end.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/map/images/fnl/sfctmpmer_01a.fnl.anim.html
Sea ice remains nearly one million km2 ahead of 2007, and the map below shows where ice has gained and been lost relative to 2007. Green is growth, red is decline.
The map below shows areas of excess and deficient ice relative to the median. Green shows excess ice and red shows deficient. As of today, there is more excess ice than deficient ice. NSIDC uses a moving average, so it would take several days of similar conditions for it to show up in their graphs.
Five years ago, Steve Connor at The Independent feared that the Arctic had “irreversibly” “tipped” “past the point of no return”, but now it looks like the reports of the Arctic’s death were exaggerated.
R. Gates (15:34:44) :
there is one more issue with that graph. when you look at the scatter, and the short period of data, fitting a straight line itself is an extremely questionable task. any slope that you would come up with such foolish attempt will change significantly when the next data point is included.
now, they seem to have gone out of their way to pick a parabolic curve!!!! that does not seem to be driven by modeling or math or physics. seems to be driven by ideology. The acceleration you see in the ice mass decrease can easily reverse direction in a couple of new data points!!!!
Is this the kind of unpredictable quicksand you want to build your theories on?
Phil. (16:19:38)
What is your proof that the Northwest Passage is opening more frequently?
And you didn’t address this: what was Arctic ice like during the Medieval Warm Period?
I see another commenter (Al Gored (16:48:14)) touched on it but not you.
R. Gates,
for Antarctic (South Pole) ice to melt and flood us, as it appears you wish to have happen, it would have to warm by 132 degrees. It is -100F there right now.
http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=-78.44999695,106.87000275
It’s forecast to go up to -94F tomorrow—must be global warming.
u.k.(us) (16:03:31) :
you can rest easy. for the ash to cake, they need to get hot, as in a turbine. secondly, the loose agglomeration that happens in normal temp will fall off the windturbine blades easily. wind turbine blades turn very slowely. so the uneven weight on the blade does not have as much destructive capacity
and finally the armature ( or windings as we like to call them in USA ) in the nascelle is quite well protected, as it is expected to go though extreme weather and wind you normally find on the mountain ridges.
The null hypothesis states that the climate naturally fluctuates within parameters defined by past temperature limits. The planet does not keep getting hotter or colder indefinitely, it always returns to its long term trend line.
But the new catastrophic AGW hypothesis [CAGW] says that the minor trace gas CO2 is the major driver of the climate, and that the Earth is in danger of runaway global warming due to human CO2 emissions. They point to the relatively minor reduction in Arctic ice as proof.
But looking at only the past three decades is nearly worthless for deciding if CAGW has any merit. The Medieval Warm Period was warmer than today, but we have no satellite images from 1200 A.D. And the Greek Optimum was warmer than the MWP: click
Was the Arctic ice-free during those warmer times? And if so, what made it re-freeze? The North Pole was also ice-free in 1959: click. What made it re-freeze since then? More CO2?
What we are seeing is natural climate variability, nothing more.
Instead of concentrating on the past 30 years, if we look at a very short geological time scale, we see that the current climate is optimum: click
On a longer time scale [but still short geologically speaking], we can see that the current climate fluctuations are simply normal interglacial noise: click
The claim of climate alarmists is that CO2 causes the majority, if not all, global warming, and further, that the very tiny human component within naturally emitted CO2 will be the cause of runaway global warming.
Nonsense. CO2 has been many times higher in the geologic past without causing climate catastrophe. Why would it be any different now, with such historically low CO2 levels? More CO2 is beneficial, not harmful: click
CAGW believers, being perpetually in a state of alarm, point to the completely natural fluctuations in Arctic ice extent as their proof that human CO2 emissions are causing the beginning of runaway global warming. But at the same time they ignore the Antarctic, which is not behaving in a manner to support their beliefs.
If someone makes numerous predictions, and one of them happens by chance to be a correct guess [at least temporarily], and the people making the alarming predictions then tell the rest of us: “See! We told you! It’s CAGW!!”, without also admitting that all their other predictions turned out to be wrong, then reasonable people will correctly deduce that they are afflicted with cognitive dissonance. The flying saucers didn’t arrive on the predicted date, so they re-adjust the arrival date. But they never question their scary hypothesis.
Any normal scientific skeptic will ask for some verifiable, testable evidence, showing that the tiny fraction of human emitted CO2 — less than one-twentieth of naturally emitted CO2, which is itself only 0.00039 of the atmosphere — is the cause of the Arctic temporarily losing some ice.
But there is no testable, empirical evidence connecting human emitted CO2 with Arctic sea ice. There is only belief.
We need to stop this train.
Rather than Mars – lets just develop time travel –
We can the send investigators back and forward in time to see what we need to be doing today –
Don’t laugh, its just a matter of time –
bubbagyro (15:44:29) :
I predict that the Arctic passage will be clear by 1908.
And even with hindsight you got it wrong!
R. Gates (14:20:22) : “Indeed, if the steep decline of 2007 had continued, the arctic would have been ice free in 2013, but a little thing called the deepest and longest solar minimum got in the way (as well as to a lesser extent a La Nina). I look forward to more concrete research related to this solar minimum, and more to the point, the decrease in Galactic Cosmic Rays that may have led to an increase in cloudiness and slight cooling during the 2005-2009.”
==========================================
Every sentence in this paragraph is wrong, wrong, wrong, culminating with a completely backwards interpretation of Svensmark’s theory.
Chris
Norfolk Virginia USA
How much cooling is Eyjafjallajökull going to cause?
Actually, Anthony and other brilliant REAL scientists and researchers have already proven that the global temperature databases are suspect at the very best.
And more likely, the global temperature databases, are pure garbage.
Yet, the AGW crowd insists on “attempting to prove the theories”, based upon a garbage foundation?
We all know that the earth has been much warmer than today, and much colder, and yet the earth is still here, as is life on the earth.
Al Gore is trying to keep his speaking fee up at $175K and you thought Sarah Palin’s was high at $100K – he has to keep the nonsense up to keep the money.
It’s all about the money-
BTW I do appreciate the work of real scientists, but the AGW crowd has lost its credibility.
“The flying saucers didn’t arrive on the predicted date, so they re-adjust the arrival date. But they never question their scary hypothesis.”
“Any normal scientific skeptic will ask for some verifiable, testable evidence, showing that the tiny fraction of human emitted CO2 — less than one-twentieth of naturally emitted CO2, which is itself only 0.00039 of the atmosphere — is the cause of the Arctic temporarily losing some ice.”
“But there is no testable, empirical evidence connecting human emitted CO2 with Arctic sea ice. There is only belief.”
=====================================
Bravo, Smokey. Great post.
The undeniable truth…and why I repeat it again.
Chris
Norfolk Virginia USA
Now, where else have I heard about enormous economic damage being inflicted on the basis of computer models?
Regarding John Finn (16:50:07) :
” I’m not sure you understand how anomalies work. Changing the base period might change the raw numbers but it doesn’t alter the trend”
Really? Please then, what is the trend from 2007 to 2010?
One thing to realize about the flight ban is that volcanoes and wind are unpredictable. It may be safe to fly now, but half an hour later a large concentration of ash may appear. I doubt any governments and most passengers are willing to take that risk.
The fact that some test flights have made it successfully doesn’t impress me. Maybe the plane will survive one flight or five flights, but what about the long term damage to the engines?
Regarding Richard Sharpe (18:53:20) :
Bingo.
Many times the use of computer models have no more increased intelligence then computers have caused a decline in the use of paper.
Paper use has skyrocketed as accountants, MBAs, attorneys etc have created thousands of spreadsheets and new ways to analyze most everything, rarely read by anybody. The business plan for the company I retired from used to be done by one man in two weeks. For the same amount of work it now takes a team of at least ten several months.
Of course there are legit uses for models in science, but not in determing post normal society.
Smokey said:
“But at the same time they ignore the Antarctic, which is not behaving in a manner to support their beliefs.”
———-
Here you go again Smokey. No climate scientists are “ignoring” the Antarctic. As I posted here earlier today:
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=242&rn=news.xml&rst=2444
The melting of both continental ice (i.e. glaciers) as well as sea ice takes heat, and there’s been plenty of it over the past 30 years or more. This idea that anyone is “ignoring” the largest mass of ice on the planet is rediculous. It has been shrinking over the past few decades, and shows no sign of turing around. The year to year Antarctic sea ice is of course growing slightly, but this is most likely the effect of the ozone thinning.
nandheeswaran jothi said (referring to this graph):
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=242&rn=news.xml&rst=2444
“there is one more issue with that graph. when you look at the scatter, and the short period of data, fitting a straight line itself is an extremely questionable task. any slope that you would come up with such foolish attempt will change significantly when the next data point is included.
now, they seem to have gone out of their way to pick a parabolic curve!!!! that does not seem to be driven by modeling or math or physics. seems to be driven by ideology. The acceleration you see in the ice mass decrease can easily reverse direction in a couple of new data points!!!!
Is this the kind of unpredictable quicksand you want to build your theories on?
————–
Actually it can be driven by both modeling and physics. The acceleration in such a dynamic process as ice mass loss be the result of a simple positive feedback loop (as can be the case in methane release for example). We don’t know what the acceleration might be caused by, if indeed it is happening at all, but this is exactly where the “catastrophic” part of AGW comes in to play. I’m only 75% convinced that AGW is happening…and probably somewhere south of 25% convinced that such warming will be catastrophic. But to your point…yes indeed, the data points look to be accelerating, and yes, the next few data points will be interesting. It may shift back to a more linear downtrend, but I have no doubt that it will remain a downtrend…
And by the way…I’ve not built any AGW theory as I am not a scientist, so I can’t build “my” theory on anything. I simply try to be neutral independent observer of what is happening, and if I had one wish, it would be for extremely accurate arctic sea ice mass data covering the past 100 years and probably second to that would be the temperature of the deep global oceans for the same time period…they would answer so many questions extremely fast.
What is the heat capacity of the atmosphere?
How much heat does it take to melt the ice in the Antarctic?
Richard Sharpe (18:53:20) :
Now, where else have I heard about enormous economic damage being inflicted on the basis of computer models?
Wall St. ?
R. Gates, you completely miss the point as usual. Cognitive dissonance.
The null hypothesis states that the climate naturally fluctuates within the parameters defined by past temperatures. The planet right now is in the sweet spot, not too cold, and certainly not too warm, despite your fervent hope that climate catastrophe has already begun in the Arctic.
Falsify the null hypothesis, and people will sit up straight and pay attention. But of course, you can’t.
Until then, your CO2=CAGW delusions are just that, delusions. The climate is acting completely normally, despite all your red-faced, spittle flecked arm waving that is based on nothing more than cut ‘n’ paste pseudo-science straight from the RealClimate echo chamber.
I’ve watched for the past few months since you appeared, clueless at first about even the most rudimentary knowledge of physics, to the point now where you proselytize like a Scientologist about CAGW, preposterously claiming that you are “25% skeptic.” Right, and the devil quotes Scripture.
There is not a genuine scientifically skeptical bone in your head. You are a classic example of Prof Feynman’s “cargo cult science.”
The climate is acting as it always has, and is well within its normal temperature parameters. Nothing out of the ordinary is occurring.
Falsify the null hypothesis if you can, instead of acting like a scared little puppy.
JAXA returns to growth:
04,17,2010,13766406
04,18,2010,13768594
[snip] Name calling by changing screen names is not acceptable. ~dbs, mod.]
R Gates: “And by the way…I’ve not built any AGW theory as I am not a scientist, so I can’t build “my” theory on anything. I simply try to be neutral independent observer of what is happening, and if I had one wish, it would be for extremely accurate arctic sea ice mass data covering the past 100 years and probably second to that would be the temperature of the deep global oceans for the same time period…they would answer so many questions extremely fast.”
=====================================
Thanks for that self confession. Figured that one out many many e-mails ago.
Not sure what you mean by the “AGW models” as you frequently call them.
Like the many errors in your e-mails… this is a case in point: you mean to say general circulation models, or GCM’s.
Before you comment here you may want to get your facts straight.
You proffer erroneous information such as the incorrect interpretation of galactic cosmic rays effect on climate.
Suggest you listen more and post less. You can learn a lot on here… and of course that might be why you’re here in the first place.
But before you talk out of your *ss, take a couple of minutes time out, and listen to what is being said.
I can pretty much guarantee you that if you are in a debate with Smokey, you would lose.
You need to develop defense mechanisms so that you can win the argument
But your current line of thinking will not get you very far… it is a dead end street
.
Chris
Norfolk Virginia USA
FergalR (21:52:06) :
JAXA returns to growth:
04,17,2010,13766406
04,18,2010,13768594
———-
That’s what the data says, but the number they give at the top of their graph, here:
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
Shows 13,752,500 for 4-18-2010. Why the difference? Anybody?
More often than not, the first figure they report is about 20k shy and that stays above the graph all day.