You gotta love it when the Earth gives back the love, especially today.
Those who have been following NSIDC and JAXA sea ice plots have noted that this has been an extraordinary year so far, with Arctic sea ice hitting the “normal” line on some datasets. Today the Earth gave back more for us.
As of today, JAXA shows that we have more ice than any time on this date for the past 8 years of Aqua satellite measurement for this AMSRE dataset. Yes, it isn’t much, but if this were September, and the sea ice minimum was down by this much compared to all other years, you can bet your sweet bippy we’d see it screamed in news headlines worldwide.
Of course some will argue that it “doesn’t matter” in the context of trend, or that it’s just a “weather” blip. Let us remind our friends of such blips the next time a heat wave or a storm is cited as proof of global warming.
What can be said about the short term trend in Arctic sea ice is that for the past two years, it has recovered from the historic low of 2007. It recovered in 2008, and more in 2009. If today’s Earth Day gift is any indication, it appears that it is on track now for a third year of recovery in 2010 as we’ve been saying at WUWT since fall of 2009.
I’d show NSIDC’s current Arctic Sea Ice graph also, but their website was down earlier today, and the current sea ice graph is not updated. But Steve Goddard has made some comparison overlays that are interesting.
He writes via email:
NSIDC’s web site is down today, but I overlaid DMI on top of the NSIDC graph and it should have hit the mean line today. Same story for JAXA. Images are below.
DMI uses 30% concentration, so their scale is lower than NSIDC and JAXA at 15%. I shifted the DMI data upwards and stretched vertically to visually match the NISDC data.
The second image is JAXA, DMI and NSIDC together. JAXA also needed to be shifted vertically as they apparently use a different algorithm for calculating extent than NSIDC. All three track each other fairly closely during the spring, DMI diverges from the others during the fall freeze up – probably because of the higher concentration requirements.
Blue is NSIDC. Green is JAXA. Black is DMI. The thick black line is the NSIDC mean. The dashed line is the 2007 historic low.
ADDED: Here is a wider view that shows that the three time series match closely over the interval of the NSIDC graph
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Happy Earth Day everybody!
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What isthe expected impact of the iceland volcano on the arctic ice? If it starts falling-out on the arctic sea ice, won’t this increase melting?
The next “bummer” was acid rain in the 1980’s. I remember well worrying about acid rain. I was young then, so I didn’t have the acumen to filter through eco-propaganda and truth. But the acid rain scare just disappeared. It was replaced by the ozone hole scare. But that disappeared too, because it was replaced by global warming. This latest scare is obviously more profitable than acid rain or ozone hole problems.
Phil. (12:25:05) :
“To be accurate about it Arctic sea ice extent is high compared with the last 9 years. The sea ice area is not nor was its maximum late. Taken together these facts indicate spreading of the sea ice more than normal. I consider that interesting, similar to what happened in summer 07.”
You need to look at a proper data-source Phil, before putting your foot in it!
If you go to the Arctic-ROOS site here…
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic
…you will find that both area and extent are dead-on the 1979 to 2006 average!
You must realise that the amount of Arctic sea-ice is the result of the many climate processes dependant on deterministic chaos, so each year is an independent event, with only a slight ‘memory’ from multi-year ice effecting it. Trends are meaningless when trying to forecast sea-ice area and extent.
Nansen Arctic Roos uses 1979-2006 average and ice cover is on ” normal ” 21 april.
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice
Sea ice extent is indeed looking great, considering how low it has been, still not above the longer term average, but very close. And now to rain on your Earth Day parade, but what really matters with the arctic sea ice is volume, and that’s not really done anything but go down for many many years. See:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/images/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrent.png
For this reason, and a few others, I’m still projecting that our summer low will be less than 2008 or 2009, but not quite as low as 2007. The big bump up in sea ice we saw in March and early April was primarily focused on the Bering Sea, and that was very thin ice that is melting fast, see:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.2.html
But Happy Earth day!
DirkH (12:50:38) :
Interesting point Dirk, in Weaver’s case the suit against the paper appears to be about the paper’s unwillingness to print retractions. In the instance of Mann, the threat appears to be focused at free speech.
Your comment above indicates Weaver is also naming commenters on the paper’s blog in the suit which is the basis of your warning. It seems logical that he’s doing this to demonstrate the impact of the article to prove his case though its tough to conclude anything without the facts.
I honestly wish someone would step forward and prove that at least one or more Climate Models has proven accurate over a reasonable span of time. Say projections for 2011-2012 from 5-10 years ago or even from today would help.
Without proof that the models work, what basis is there for the 50-100 year projections with or without CO2?
DirkH (14:47:47) :
Today’s take of yesterdays data as compared to 2003-9:
04,21,2010,13673125
04,21,2009,13527656
04,21,2008,13169219
04,21,2007,12942813
04,21,2006,12962656
04,21,2005,13119375
04,21,2004,12745938
04,21,2003,13392188
If you wait about 6 hours, todays data will be in, and it will be today until tomorrow arrives tomorrow, at which time todays data will be yesterdays data tomorrow.
Happy Earth Day 🙂
Wade (15:10:41) :
rbateman (14:22:43) :
I’m wondering. Does anyone remember if there was an expression of relief after it was discovered the Earth wasn’t going to plunge directly into an Ice Age after the 70’s??
Or did we simply go from one bummer to the next?
The next “bummer” was acid rain in the 1980’s. I remember well worrying about acid rain. I was young then, so I didn’t have the acumen to filter through eco-propaganda and truth. But the acid rain scare just disappeared
————————
I was a biology student back when the acid rain scare took off in the 1980s. I remember very earnest grad students and profs discussing their research on this frightening phenomenon. Scientists and students at this local level were not engaged in propaganda that I recall; the problem was that they were looking for evidence of the effects of acid rain, and were not conducting double blind tests and statistical analysis of the phenomena they were encountering. When they found the damaging ‘evidence’ (two-headed fish and other mutants in acid lakes) they were convinced of the serious nature of the problem. Fortunately, critical impulses were still alive in that period, and evidence of natural acidity in many of the lakes being studied, and studies of the background mutation rates etc, put paid to the acid alarmism.
Earth Day has only been ‘celebrated’ for 20 years in Canada. One positive outcome – school children and volunteers clean up the garbage infesting the city today and tomorrow, offering a temporary improvement.
More on topic:
The Catlin Expedition has built an igloo to extend their headquarters. They have also posted about witnessing their first midnight sun of the year, but the accompanying photo shows the night sun over Spitzbergen (presumably stock photo from some previous year), so as to display open water.
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/News.aspx?newsid=91
I burned about an even ton of underbrush this morning that I cut & gathered over the preceding week. I burned a ton the week before and will be doing the same each week for about the next month. All that stored sunshine going to waste! Deadfall from amongst the big trees I eventually cut up into fireplace size chunks and get some use out of it. It’s all carbon neutral though so the green police should have no complaints either way.
Ian George (13:14:38) :
If one looks at the monthly anomalies for the Arctic on the NASA GISS website, we see that from Dec 09 to Mar 10 all are in the ‘red zone’. So with all that heat in the area how does the ice cover increase and thicken? Any explanations? Maybe it is all to do with wind direction and strength (or the temps extrapolations are faulty).
See Arctic monthly temp anomalies on:-
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/maps/
________________________________________________________________________________
Take a quick look at the last few posts attip & notes to WUWT.
Ecotretas (13:35:24) :
“I ve done some analysis of one of the most northern weather stations: Eureka, in Nunavut Canada….http://ecotretas.blogspot.com/2010/04/eureka.html“
Seems the minus sign problem from Eureka gets smeared all over northern Canada because the stations are few and far between up there.
… and if the models have yet to be perfected, what basis was there for all the claims of Global disaster and to conclude the need for a Carbon Tax related to unproven theory?
In a court of law, isn’t something that’s not proven or experienced firsthand considered “hearsay” and typically dismissed from the record?
The discovery phase of the suits is likely to require proof of AGW which would cause far more harm then all the skeptics have?
Ben Kellett (13:57:55) :
“Come on folks! Quit crowing so much. Let’s put of context behind all of this.”
Ben, I agree from the perspective you’re coming from. We see it all the time. Personally, I’m comfortable with the freezing and melting.
The semi-euphoria you’re witnessing probably isn’t really related to a high-ice mark, but rather the timing of the marking.(Lenin’s birthday.) :-). Further, it is one more marking. Given the continuous drone of the “MELTING ICECAPS” alarmist creed, we can all nod and smile at their willful ignorance. For, as you point out, regardless of the brevity, we have some data. For instance, myself and anyone else who’s bothered to pay attention, can say for the last 3 years, we’ve seen nothing but a constant growth trend in the Arctic ice. Yes, it’s brief, and the line is arbitrary, we didn’t draw the line. Some earthday-birthday-marxist-leninist-alarmist did. And, lo and behold, here we are again, after all of the wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Off to shoot some pool, Happy Lenin day!!!!
James Sexton.
As every year you guys are there!
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/gallery_np.html
Congratulations!
Where are you Alan Burke?
Why aren’t you here defending your faith?
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/why-climate-change-is-such-a-hard-sell/article1538946/
RockyRoad (13:37:28) :
What on earth has happened to the SUN? It was supposed to have kicked into the 24th cycle over two years ago, but here it is still doing practically nothing! Folks, I’m getting worried.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/10jan_solarcycle24/
_____________________________________________________________________________
The Layman’s Sunspot Count has a graph comparing Cycle 24 to Cycle 5 (1798) so far the first third of the two cycles are tracking if you compare the sunspots counted by “similar equipment” http://www.landscheidt.info/?q=node/50
Ben Kellett (13:57:55) : 4, Please, please don’t go down the line yet again of pointing out that our record is so brief that we don’t really know what “normal” actually is.
Geo, “Alas, while we have 30 years of data,”
Can I just point out that in a system where the noise component varies depending on the time period being viewed, 30 years of data can only tell you the noise for periods of less than 30 years
This is the huge fallacy of climate forecasters. They assume that climatic noise does vary depending on the time period being analysed, but if they knew anything about the subject and even read their own IPCC report they would know that it is load of bs.
This is frequency dependent noise and anyone looking at this subject needs to read up on this subject before making statements like “30 years is long enough” … it isn’t!
Jimbo, that link is awesome! But if Andrew Weaver is so prominent… then how come I’ve never heard of him??? 🙂
Oh, and this whole ice cap thing is sooo last year. Today it’s all about Ocean Acidification. I asked a few questions, raised some points about this on my blog.
Signed
Mike… er, I mean Joe @ur momisugly sonicfrog.R. Gates (15:24:22) :
You do know that PIOMAS is a model, that was validated with 5 years of actual observational data from ICESat and then extrapolated backwards to make it look like they actually know what 1980-2005 looked like, right?
Maybe they do. Maybe they don’t. One can sure they tuned their model to be sure it did validate against ICESat, but that doesn’t increase the confidence beyond what anyone should give a 5 year observational result. 1980-2005 is still a guess, not an observation, on that chart.
http://iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/ice_ext_n.png
@Blackswhitewash
Yes. This is back to 1972. Look at how much higher the average is. 1972-1978 must have much greater seaice coverage. And that was with just 1 weak solar cycle. We’re getting 2 weak cycles now, so expect ice to even higher than any time in the 70’s by 2030.
RockyRoad (14:40:12) :
The reason I’m worried about the sun is because, as a geologist, I recognize the modus operandi for planet Earth (at least for the past several million years) is COLD, FROZEN, ICY, and MISERABLE (for humans at least)….
I’m betting with most of you–Gore is going to be severely disappointed, since this next cycle isn’t going to amount to much and however they want to dismiss and deflect it, I believe the earth’s heater actually is the sun. What a novel theory.
_______________________________________________________________________________
If you have taken a few geo courses it is really hard to believe all this “sky is falling” stuff.
I was doing some browsing over at the tips and notes and there is some brand new research on the solar wind. I hope to see it as a post here very soon. It seems to explain how the sun can have a much bigger effect despite only minor variations in TSI.
________________________________________________________________________________
enneagram (08:34:32) :
Scientists discover surprise in Earth’s upper atmosphere
The rate at which the solar wind transfers energy to the magnetosphere can vary widely…
Thanks for the link, Gail Combs (15:54:08). I’m feeling better about Cycle 24 already!
“It recovered in 2008, and more in 2009.”
The hardcore nerds here wouldn’t agree. Yes the 2009 minimum was higher, but the average wasn’t.
Integrate the AMSR-E chart and divide by the days to get the average and this is the result.
2003 10.839Msqkm
2004 10.687Msqkm
2005 10.374Msqkm
2006 10.249Msqkm
2007 09.994Msqkm
2008 10.488Msqkm
2009 10.460Msqkm
2009 slightly down on 2008
Other details, Spring season ice began year-on-year net increasing 1 year before the summer ice. i.e. 2006 was the spring min. Autumn 2007 had the highest growth rate of ice of all AMSR-E recorded ice.
Mike Haseler (15:55:52) :
But, Mike, I wasn’t arguing that 30 years was “enough”. I was arguing that 22 years *isn’t*, particularly when you have 31 available to you.
Also that NSIDC has already acknowledged that 30 would be better than 22 from a science perspective, so I shouldn’t have to make that argument to them at all –they’ve said it themselves. Yet here we are arguing over their self-acknowledged worse-than-they-have-available-to-them 22 year standard.
meemoe_uk (16:25:29) :
The same Oh my God we’re all going to boil alive like lobsters GISS graph was paraded around so much that several people, me included, decided to see what the devil was going on:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/TempGr/MarExtentVSArea.JPG
That was when I found out there are two Ice measurements.
See, when you call the alarmist on one exaggeration, they just run to another view as if nobody noticed.
So, that’s why I went to all the trouble with statistical drips and dribbles to come up with this:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/TempGr/YearlySeaIceAv.GIF
The South grew colder as the North grew warmer. Whee….. what a rush that was!!!
And what do you want to bet, 20 years from now, all this Barbecue Summer Bummer will give way to the next big Bummer/Bad Trip???
The preliminary JAXA number is out for 4/22/2010 at 13,654,531.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/plot.csv
This shows a small decrease from yesterday:
04,21,2010,13673125
04,22,2010,13654531
Most importantly, this number will be revised around 11pm eastern time and again a few hours later. The final figure tends to be greater than the initial by 15000 to 18000, so the decrease from yesterday may almost vanish.
The NSIDC plot may yet cross the 1979-2000 mean, though that won’t actually mean much. What matters is the summer minimum, but that’s looking stronger every day.