Many of you watch sea ice as closely as some people follow the NFL, soccer, or NASCAR. So when something of interest happens, I’m not without an inbox full of notices.
Today it is encouraging to see the NANSEN is reporting that both Arctic Sea Ice area and extent are above the normal line. Usually we don’t see both in this mode. Here’s area:
And here is extent:
Source: http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic
By itself, this is just a small thing, but it is just one more indication that there’s some improvement in the Arctic Ice situation again, and the indications are that we’ll have another summer extent that is higher than the previous year, for the third year in a row.
Of course our friends will argue that extent and area don’t matter now, that only volume and ice quality (the rotten ice meme) matters.
Interestingly, if you go back to the press releases on the record minimum extent in 2007 at NSIDC here:
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2007.html
And search the entire set of release for the word “volume”, you won’t find it used anywhere that year. The volume worry is a more recent talking point that first appeared in October 2008 when it became apparent that extent wasn’t continuing to decline. They couldn’t tout another record low extent, so volume became the next big thing:
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2008/
Arctic sea ice minimum press release
Please see the NSIDC press release, “Arctic Sea Ice Down to Second-Lowest Extent; Likely Record-Low Volume” for a detailed analysis of this year’s Arctic sea ice minimum and a synopsis of the 2008 melt season.
With nature still not cooperating with “death spiral predictions”, what will be the press release ice meme this year? Color? Texture? Cracks per square kilometer? It will be interesting to watch.
Phil M says:
April 29, 2010 at 4:22 pm
Weather. Is. Not. Climate.
__________________________
You forgot to add unless it helps the CAGW cause.
No one here is confusing weather with climate. The whole idea of “normal” ice extent/area used on these charts is bogus since the average used does not even take in one sixty year cycle much less the longer cycles that have been identified. See this flash chart: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/noaa_gisp2_icecore_anim_hi-def3.gif
EVERYBODY PANIC!!
…not.
There is nothing unusual happening. If this was global anything, it would be reflected at both poles. The fact that the Arctic and the Antarctic are acting entirely differently at the same time indicates regional influences, nothing more.
Here again is the late, great John Daly clearly explaining the situation. If the worrywarts read nothing else, they should read the short conclusion. Everything happening now has happened before. Relax, CO2 isn’t gonna getcha.
I note that the AMSR-E Arctic Sea-ice chart shows a series of glitches around the first of June each year. I assume that these are just normal annual recalibration adjustments.
Leif Svalgaard says:
April 29, 2010 at 10:50 am
2009 extent never went above the mean.
http://docs.google.com/View?id=ddw82wws_621fs5nw5gz
first week of June.
I misread the graph, should be middle of May. The area went above the first week of May.
geo says:
April 29, 2010 at 4:17 pm
Phil. says:
April 29, 2010 at 3:33 pm
++++
Why, yes, Phil, I do. Because I can make the simple translation of color coding that Cryosphere helpfully provides on the two different size images. The larger images shade much more rapidly as concentration percentages change. Every image is helping provided with the appropriate shading scale to make that apparent.
On the comparator image, 80% is light purple. On the large image, ~97% is light purple. On the large image 80% is yellow shading into green. With that simple helpful fact those two images do not look so different after all –where you see yellow on the large image you’re beginning to see light purple on the smaller image.
Nice try but it doesn’t wash, the uniform purple look only appeared after the hiatus in 2009 when CT had to shift to a different imager due to the failure of the SSMI.
As I said above comparison of the color fields of the two images taken with different imagers is ill advised.
But aside from your attempt at arm waving on apples-vs-oranges, now debunked, you just ignore the real apples-to-apples comparsion of 1980 vs 2007 vs 2010. If you have the large images for those dates in 1980 and 2007, I will be happy to analyze them with you vs 2010. But here’s a hint; anywhere you see light purple on those comparator images for 1980 and 2007, you’d be seeing yellow on those larger images which I anxiously await you providing.
Having established that you are in fact comparing apples to oranges, while I can’t provide you with the 1980 image taken on the same imager I can give you ones for 2007 and 2010 which were:
http://iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsredata/asi_daygrid_swath/l1a/n6250/2007/apr/asi180-n6250-20070429_nic.png
http://iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsredata/asi_daygrid_swath/l1a/n6250/2010/apr/asi-n6250-20100428-v5_nic.png
They changed the orientation and size of the display but I’m sure you’ll be able to handle that. Both use the same (linear) color table.
So far this years sea-ice is as predicted. If you plot the linear curve fit for each day of the year from AMSRE 2002-present you get this plot.
http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/9538/seaicedelta20100430.png
Up to 1st week in may it has been INCREASING then rapidly changes to a decrease.
Strange!
Perhaps the (thin) ice is fragmenting and occupying greater area but still above the min % before rapidly melting?
Time will tell
/harry
Spector says:
April 29, 2010 at 5:10 pm
I note that the AMSR-E Arctic Sea-ice chart shows a series of glitches around the first of June each year. I assume that these are just normal annual recalibration adjustments.
Switchover to new algorithm to deal with surface ponding, switches back ~Oct 15th.
“Current version of data processing makes an erroneous bias of sea ice extent on June 1st and October 15th which are seen in the graph of sea ice extent as a small peak on these dates. The apparent bias arises due to a switching of some parameters
in the processing on both dates. The parameter switching is needed because the surface of the Arctic sea-ice becomes wet in summer due to the melting of ice which changes satellite-observed signatures of sea-ice drastically. We are planning to improve the processing to make the gap much smoother in the coming year.”
Why is Icebridge data SECRET ?
Would it show “Environmentalists are Killing the World” — just as a reporter opioned to Drew Shindell after NASA ascribed 74% of Arctic Warming to “Cap & Trade” ?
(Europe “forgives” extra Soot from Diesels & from moving industry to scrubber-less Coal-powered China — in the name of cutting CO2 — while Sulfur Cap & Trade is wiping out the “Great Global Cooler” = SO2)
If that were not bad enough, the other major factor putting us at risk of 99% of Americans dieing from 300 mph winds is … a coincidence of 2 Natural things:
a. The 60-year Pacific Oscillation makes a periodic Low point in Volume e.g. the 1950’s –for Graph See: http://psc.apl.washington.edu/zhang/IDAO/icevol_nao.gif
b. the current 1.8 “Super” El Nino (hot spot), 4th strongest in 60 years: see: http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/PDO.latest
… it led to the Record for Arctic Ocean temp anomaly for any month, December’s + 3.20 degrees C. And Feb’s 2.93 (#4). See:
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
2007’s Crazy Drop came from a mere 1.1 El Nino.
… This was so effective at reducing Ice because it STARTED from a lower point than any previous El Nino & once it melted a little, nearer the Pole — where the Sun shines 24 hours a day in Summer = 550 watts/ sq m. for 3 months at the Pole whilst the Equator peaks at only ~ 430 — the Sun thus made a LOT of feedback-melting as the “deep blue Sea” is a lot darker & absorbs 4 times the sunlight of bright white Ice.
We should expect the same thing this year. Or I do, anyway.
The only Good thing is the Arctic Oscillation might keep El-Nino-Winds from pushing Ice out of the Basin — which some put at Over half of the 2007 effect.
Either Obama is hiding his Peoples’ Guilt
— or, more likely, since all the Employed Scientists give similar Forecasts — and ALWAYS miss the big jumps because they are only assessing the Long-term trend, which gets them Global Warming funding, AND lets them make safe predictions each year that are close more than half the time — like the Louisiana Governor that cancelled the Katrina Alert — as: 3/4ths of the time she’d have been right. Of Course 1000 people DIED because of that, but she was able to Blame Bush — so it was WIN-WIN.
Except for the Dead.
This time I fear there’ll be 6 BILLION Dead People.
6 MILLION times the extra Deaths of Katrina.
Again, I figure it’s a 1-in-4 but that IceBridge would really come in handy.
After all: a false alarm would cost 6 cents per American — adding $0.00002 Trillion to our 1.4 Trillion Defecit (and reverse 1/500th of our Acid rain cuts — if only for 1 or 2 years, every 60 years).
But it’d also make many AGW’s look like idiots — both for Nature Dominating AGW AND for their own Greedy Schemes making things FAR worse than Industry would without their “Cap & Trade” (although remember every major AGW _SCIENTIST_ — as opposed to Politician — has denounced Cap & Trade: Hansen & “Gaia” Lovelock, “Dr. Ozone” Crutzen, etc … the President’s own AGW Advisor has been begging for SO2 injection for over a year & twice the leading Scientific SO2 Opponent has switched sides (Crutzen & Caldiera) after studying the Data.
… But when have Politicians listened to the REAL Science lately ?
Another ICE series:
Nenana Ice Classic 2010 has terminated. Another early ice breakup on the river:
April 29, 2010 9:06 AM Alaska Standard Time Tanana River went out Tripod clock stopped.
Plot of the dates of breakup:
http://img693.imageshack.us/img693/1796/nenanaiceclassic2010.png
http://nenanaakiceclassic.com/
cotwome says: April 29, 2010 at 4:50 pm
Yeah, how could March Arctic ice be larger in extent than February Arctic ice ?
It must be yet another example of subterfuge from NSIDC, or as the new saying goes: …”Hide the Decline”, since February is colder than March, right ? Doesn’t ice melt in the Spring ?
Let’s demand an investigation, fire some people, expose incompetence …
Or, look into it a bit:
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20100406_Figure2.png
And search the entire set of release for the word “volume”, you won’t find it used anywhere that year. The volume worry is a more recent talking point that first appeared in October 2008 when it became apparent that extent wasn’t continuing to decline.
It puts me in mind of 1998. Alarmists used to point to how quick and high the temperature anomaly went up that year as evidence of out-of-control global warming. But since no year after 1998 has been warmer than 1998 they will only associate 1998 with the super El Nino that happened then saying that year was an aberration and doesn’t count.
stevengoddard says:
April 29, 2010 at 10:37 am
One of the most bizarre ice stories was the “collapse”of some ice shelf in Antarctica, which was clearly a stress fracture – but was touted as “melting” by Ted Scambos and others at NSIDC. Despite the fact that there was no indication of melt anywhere in a 200 metre thick chunk of ice.
Nor of the snow on top of it.
Jim Clarke says: April 29, 2010 at 3:23 pm
What do you mean by global warming? Do you mean the step increase in Alaska temperatures in the late 1970s associated with a shift in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation?
No.
Now that the PDO appears to be shifting to its cool phase, we would expect the arctic ice to slowly increase over the next few decades.
Is that your prediction ?
During a PDO “cool” phase, the western Pacific becomes warmer and the eastern Pacific cools – do you really think this will save the Arctic sea ice for the next 30 years ?
If CO2 was responsible, the warming would not come in a step change and we would not see the recovery in arctic ice we have experienced over the last few years
Do you call 2008 and 2009 a “recovery” in arctic sea ice ?
How about 2010 ? Do you think the summer minimum will be within 2 std devs of the 1979-200 average ? What about 1 std dev ?
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20091005_Figure2.png
I’d like to see a climate science “skeptic” go on record for this summer minimum – if the Arctic ice is “recovered”, why the hesitancy ? Why not back to average, at least ? Why not a nice “natural variation” 3 std devs above the recent average ? What’s stopping that ? Is there some weather prediction for September that says the “winds” will not be cooperating like they used to, since global warming is a non-factor ?
They do, however, fit perfectly with the theory that global climate is still dominated by natural factors.
Do you think CO2 is supernatural ?
james says:
April 29, 2010 at 10:55 am
“REPLY: Such a glass half empty view. 2009 ice improved over 2008, and 2008 improved over 2007. -A”
Not to nitpick, but I would use the term “increased” rather than “improved.” Improved implies going up is somehow “good.” It is not clear to me that anyone knows how much ice is ideal, so we really have no way of knowing whether more is an improvement or not. I guess in the narrow contest of pro/con AGW, increasing ice is an improvement from the con-AGW point of view, but that is another story.
James
A good, and important, nitpick.
gcb says:
April 29, 2010 at 10:56 am
“With nature still not cooperating with “death spiral predictions”, what will be the press release ice meme this year? Color? Texture? Cracks per square kilometer? It will be interesting to watch.”
I’m betting flavour. (Or flavor, if you spell it that way.)
REPLY: Ya know, I originally wrote flavor as an option, then decided it was too absurd. -A
Since alarmists always bring up how fresh water could break the oceans conveyor by diluting the saltiness of ocean water flavor could find a way into the argument.
Stephan says:
April 29, 2010 at 11:17 am
BTW… 500 “Climate Scientists” in Australia will have to be disposed of now that Rudd’s decided its was a load of C*** anyway. hahaha
Is there a link to this story or are you only joking?
PeterB in Indianapolis says:
April 29, 2010 at 12:12 pm
R. Gates,
Your PREDICTIONS are based on models
He’s been told this many times. He knows it. He wants those computer predictions.
Those computer predictions are already failing.
The only reason it is important to point out that R Gates and all others like him use computer model predictions is so that new readers are informed of it. You shouldn’t labor under the illusion that those of R Gates’ ilk are going to convert to skeptics by our pointing out their flawed message.
But hope springs eternal. Even Darth Vader came back to the light. 🙂
The next worry will be the extreme wishy-washiness of the ice.
I know! I know! They will start taking temperature readings up the ice’s ying yang (which kind of thermometer would you use for that?) and will say that the ice is less cold in January than it used to be! Warmer ice. Yeh. That’s it. The ice is warming up. The extent, area, and even volume can recover but the ice is getting “warmer” in its frozen state.
Okay, that argument made me dizzy!
Smokey says:April 29, 2010 at 1:30 pm
Ice volume is estimated using a number of different sources, empirical measurements being the most accurate for the locations measured. There are also satellite measurements, such as Icesat, which uses altimetry, the GRACE gravity measurements [not very accurate WRT ice thickness], and Radarsat InSAR measurements. None of these are accurate enough to measure a change of 100 cu km/year in ice volume.
What about accurate enough to measure a change of -1237 cu km/yr, or -862 cu km/year, in Arctic sea ice volume ?
Since this is what ICESat did measure as the changes in Arctic sea ice volume during the fall and winter, respectively:
http://rkwok.jpl.nasa.gov/publications/Kwok.2009.JGR.pdf
Thinning and volume loss of the Arctic Ocean sea ice cover: 2003–2008
R. Kwok,1 G. F. Cunningham,1 M. Wensnahan,2 I. Rigor,2 H. J. Zwally,3 and D. Yi4
Received 2 February 2009; revised 1 April 2009; accepted 22 April 2009; published 7 July 2009.
JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 114, C07005, doi:10.1029/2009JC005312, 2009
the current climate is well within its past parameters.
Yes, it’s well within Iceball Earth and Hot-Humid Dinosaur Planet.
And if your house catches fire, the temperature will be well within “past parameters” – molten surface Earth, and cold vacuum of space. No rush to get out – everything will be ‘normal’.
Anthony, what do you mean “there’s some improvement in the Arctic Ice situation again”? An improvement is a reduction in Arctic ice area, as far as I am concerned!
http://www.john-daly.com/polar/arctic.htm
Why does the above link purposely show plots that do not cover the last decade when the most extreme ice losses have occurred in the Arctic, when Arctic amplification has emerged in the observational data and when warming over the Antarctic (the entire Antarctic) has also emerged when looking at the FULL observational time-series? Is that cherry picking? What is John Daly afraid of? Why not sure the FULL observational record?
James: Clearly, you have not been keeping abreast of the Eskimo village of Kivalina.
Disappearing Alaska village takes climate suit to Ninth Circuit
http://www.ww4report.com/node/8316
In order to avert catastrophe, the tribe of 390 people is requesting 400 million dollars to relocate inland a couple of miles. This is why more ice = good.
Look at the snow pack plots for California.
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/snow/PLOT_SWC
I imagine all the Western states will tell the same story.
Anu, thank you for being a voice of reason.