Wikipedia : Traditional Santa Claus
Arctic ice extent continues downwards on the trend line started at the end of March, having lost a little over 1,000,000 km2 during April. If that linear rate continues, the Arctic will be ice free around January 1, 2011. That would be a complete disaster for Santa Claus and the billions of people who depend on him.
During the past month, Arctic sea ice has straddled between the NSIDC 1979-2000 average (wide black line) and the NSIDC 1979-2009 average (wide turquoise line.) The composite image below shows all four commonly used extent graphs – NSIDC/NORSEX/DMI/JAXA . The thin turquoise line is NSIDC 2009. Note that the melt season is about three weeks behind the 2007 extent (dashed) line.
During the last few days, ice has begun to disappear from the Barents Sea. The modified NSIDC map below shows loss of ice from one week ago, marked in red. I wonder if any soot from Iceland is dirtying the ice? Hansen says that soot may be responsible for 25% of all global warming.
The UIUC graph below provides a more detailed blow by blow of what is happening to ice area in the Barents Sea.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.6.html
The modified NSIDC map below shows loss of ice since the first week in April, marked in red.
The modified NSIDC map below shows changes in ice since May 2, 2007. Green areas have more ice, and red areas have less ice.
The modified NSIDC map below shows areas of above “normal” (green) and below “normal” (red) ice. The western Arctic is above average, and the eastern Arctic is below average. Perhaps all the hot air from Copenhagen in December thinned the ice?
During the past few summers, the low anomalies have been on the western side of the Arctic. Note in the SST map below, that ocean temperatures are abnormally cold on the western side, which is likely to slow melt this summer.
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
The Arctic Oscillation is forecast to go negative again, which should inhibit melt in the Arctic and growth in my garden.
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/ao.sprd2.gif
We are still about eight weeks away from the beginning of the really interesting melt season. Stay tuned. The Antarctic remains boring, staying average to slightly above. No meltdowns or collapsing ice sheets to report this week.
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A skeptic is another word for scientist. I am a scientist and I know good science when I see it. I am opposed to AGW because it is not backed by science. That does not excuse contrary papers that also use bad science. An hypothesis that cannot be properly formulated and then cannot be falsified, is not science at all, but a type of storytelling – fiction.
Feeling the brunt of that cold North Pacific now, snow in the hills, high winds and
below freezing temps in NE Oregon’s Blue mtns. tonight..
Got a crackling fire going as we speak. Also, three roses, several Delphiniums,
and Lilacs await planting-when and if it stops hailing,snowing,and blowing….
(imagine red Speedos trimmed with white fur),
Too much info.
jeff brown says [ … ]:
May 3, 2010 at 7:07 pm,
You just haven’t been around here long enough to understand. Skeptics don’t say “it’s all natural variability.” That is a strawman argument that you set up. Now you’ve knocked down that particular strawman, and you think you’re on the right track. Think again.
When you understand scientific skepticism in the context of the scientific method, you will see that what skeptics are pointing out is that the climate is well within its long term parameters. The climate is acting entirely normally. Nothing unusual is happening. The null hypothesis is natural climate variability. Falsify that, and you will be famous. But so far, no one has succeeded in quantifying human influence, outside of very limited UHI effects. There is no global evidence you can point to showing any specific, quantified, testable effect of human CO2 emissions that shows we are changing the planet’s temperature, either up or down.
It is up to the promoters of the scary CAGW hypothesis to show, through testable, empirical raw data, that anything unusual is occurring. So far, they have failed.
That being the case, alarmists always fall back on their scare tactics, pointing to the Arctic [while studiously ignoring the Antarctic], and anything else they can try to pin on what they believe to be a looming climate catastrophe caused by human activity. The problem is that it’s all in their heads, not in the data.
The CO2=CAGW hypothesis is not based on any falsifiable empirical evidence. We can see, for example, that although the very minor trace gas CO2 has risen, nothing unusual is occurring as a result. The GCMs all fail to accurately predict the climate’s sensitivity to CO2. Climate alarmism is rank speculation, based on the evidence-free belief that human activity measurably changes the global climate.
It is up to the purveyors of the new CO2=CAGW hypothesis to falsify the null hypothesis, or to show that their new conjecture has any predictive value. So far, they have come up empty handed.
If you discover convincing, reproducible and testable evidence showing that human activity is leading to runaway global warming, I will change my mind. Until then, I’m skeptical of wild-eyed climate alarmism.
Yeah, April was great. Good times. Ice all recovered.
Now, on to May –
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
Already below 2009, which was the third smallest summer minimum in the modern record.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png
yow, that looks like the start of a death spiral or something… what a drop off.
Smokey says:
May 3, 2010 at 7:37 pm
please explain the reason why the Arctic sea ice has been declining during the satellite data record and why it has accelerated the past decade. Name the natural variability affects that explain this decline, the percentages of how much of the decline is due to solar variability, the PDO, the AO, etc. etc. etc. You should be able to do that right?
Anu,
You forgot to mention that current extent is well above 2003, which was the highest in the AMSR-E record.
Anu says:
May 3, 2010 at 7:43 pm
That # (1294171 for 05,03.2010) is provisional.
As for the 3rd lowest in IJIS history:
05,03,2003,12742969
05,03,2004,12358750
05,03,2005,12574063
05,03,2006,12191094
05,03,2007,12550000
05,03,2008,12802969
05,03,2009,13031875
05,03,2010,12941719 *provisional*
Your numbers don’t add up. And you cannot compare to other data sets without calibrating first.
Lot’s of work.
Sorry, Anu… Ice doesn’t die; it simply melts away–typically to form another day. Just like the earth isn’t going to die, however we are–we’re mere specks along for the ride; the earth is largely oblivious to our presence; it neither cares nor considers who or what we are.
I know that might make you feel insignificant, but that’s the way it is. There are about as many stars in the universe as there are sand grains on all of earth’s seashores–I know, because I’ve calculated it (with a generous confidence interval for both numbers, of course). But if it makes you feel any better, you have more atoms in your body than both of those numbers combined. So cheer up–the earth isn’t going anywhere; we are. We humans are the temporary sojourners. And it is far more important that we strive to be honest, upstanding, helpful neighbors and friends than waste our time chasing some enigmatic theory about which we have no significant impact.
The arctic sea ice extent seems to have a multi-decade correlation with the AMO which seemingly peaked this past decade. It tends to have a shorter term (year to year) correlation with the AO/NAO. If you notice during past years, the lowest fall minimum extents have occurred after heavily +AO winters such as 1988-1989, 1994-1995, and 2006-2007. The higher minimum extents in recent years have been occurring after -AO/NAO winters such as 1995-1996 and 2000-2001.
Both of those factors have generally been hostile to arctic sea ice the past couple decades. The AMO is still in positive mode but its past its peak and declining now. The AO/NAO decadal cycle appears to be going back negative. This would argue that we’ve seen the bottom for sea ice extent minimums for the time being. I’d expect another rebound this year given this past winter’s conditions. But nothing is ever set in stone.
nedhead says:
“Name the natural variability affects [sic] that explain this decline…”
This is so exasperating. For the umpteenth time: skeptics have nothing to prove. Why does the alarmist contingent keep turning the scientific method on its head?
It is the job of the alarmist crowd to falsify natural climate variability: the null hypothesis. So far, they have failed. The null hypothesis stands.
rbateman says:
May 3, 2010 at 5:59 pm
“It’s nothing more than part of a cycle ”
Look, I found stacks more:!
http://holyhormones.com/uncategorized/hundred-of-natural-cycles-documented-by-the-foundation-for-the-study-of-cycles-3/
http://www.crawfordperspectives.com/Fairbridge-ClimateandKeplerianPlanetaryDynamics.htm
RockyRoad@1:38pm
Some serious cold weather gardening tips. We all may need them soon.
Buy some cheap black plastic sheeting. Thin guage is fine but you have to weigh it down with rocks. Don’t we all have too many of those in our garden!! Ideally you will lay it down before you plant your seedlings, putting the seedlings in X’s cut in the plastic, but if you don’t piece and fit it around the existing plants . This needs more rocks. [Hummm, maybe rocks aren’t so bad in a garden].
What the black plastic does is trap heat if you are lucky enough to have sun, always a problem for a cold weather gardener. If it does trap heat it creates a ground bubble of warmer air at the critical night hours. There is an informal competition among Southern gardeners for the earliest juicy ripe tomato; more often then not this strategy has helped.
Spreading the plants out does not help. Bunched plants survive better in very cold weather.
Nothing in this comment will help you deal with the birds or, in my case, the cottontails who will demolish your juicy ripe tomatos. No amount of black plastic will help you there. Everybody who reads WUWT knew a bird would get here somehow!
“Ulric Lyons says:
May 3, 2010 at 8:30 pm”
The dominance of 17yr weather/climate events, including the Cicada, on this list:
http://holyhormones.com/uncategorized/hundred-of-natural-cycles-documented-by-the-foundation-for-the-study-of-cycles-3/
Would be due to the coronal hole cycle:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/p00955r885255112/
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1998SoPh..183..201J
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2003ESASP.517..275G
It produces the the strongest monthly string on CET that you will find.
Take a look from July 2006, July 1989 and every 17th July for a really good example.
Restart at July 1852 to go back further.
Some folks thought it was Moon doing it.
Ulric Lyons says:
May 3, 2010 at 8:30 pm
Thanks for that. It’s hard to believe that, with all the advances in computer software, something as commonplace as a natural cycle eludes the programmers of GCM’s running on the world’s greatest supercomputers.
No, you fail to understand the null hypothesis: 1] the modern Arctic sea ice satellite record is not long enough to establish what average or “normal” is. Therefore, 2] it is up to the CO2AGW hypothesis and science itself to give all the mechanisms and percentages you refer to including soot, wind and currents, then say how CO2 climate physics is actually explanatory for any unexplained residual ice decline during this short period of the Earths’s climate; while also explaining 3] the fact that a “death spiral” in Arctic sea ice did not occur as a result of the 2007 decline as predicted by CO2AGW, and other things such as why Trenberth is now urgently looking for the “lost heat”.
So it is instead the CO2AGW hypothesis and science itself which needs to explain things such as any satellite era Arctic sea ice decline, especially since what we are seeing here is not known to be “abnormal”. And the CO2AGW hypothesis needs to be falsifiable, among the other requirements of the Scientific Method.
Or do you not support the idea that Climate Science should be based upon the Scientific Method?
nedhead says:
May 3, 2010 at 7:55 pm
Smokey says:
May 3, 2010 at 7:37 pm
please explain the reason why the Arctic sea ice has been declining during the satellite data record and why it has accelerated the past decade. Name the natural variability affects that explain this decline, the percentages of how much of the decline is due to solar variability, the PDO, the AO, etc. etc. etc. You should be able to do that right?
You must be joking – Smokey never “explains” what it is in nature that is causing the varying. He plays the “natural variability” card like other people play the “it is God’s will” card or “the gods are toying with us” cards. He has no idea why things are happening, so assumes nobody has any idea why. If, in the last 4.6 billion years, any climate has happened before, this is part of “natural variability”. Anything between new, molten surface Earth and snowball Earth is all “natural”, and thus no cause for alarm. If some scientists predict the Arctic will be ice free in the summers by 2020, and, what do you know, that happens…
That’s nothing. It would have happened anyway.
Natural variability.
What if something that never happened before happens – thermonuclear war, leaving a radioactive wasteland on the Earth ?
Well, nature has just entered a new realm of variability.
“Natural variability” explains everything.
It’s the “null hypothesis” – whatever you predict, would have happened anyway.
The Big Bang ? Hey, that cosmic microwave background radiation was there already, it’s natural. I don’t have to explain what caused it, you do. But your explanation is wrong.
It’s just natural variability in background radiation.
” stan stendera says:
RockyRoad@1:38pm
Some serious cold weather gardening tips. We all may need them soon.
Buy some cheap black plastic sheeting. Thin guage is fine but you have to weigh it down with rocks. Don’t we all have too many of those in our garden!!”
I have enough rocks to use as a border, weighing down plastic, throwing at the
infernal Eastern Red Squirrels that infest the yard. NE Oregon is cold weather
gardening most of the time…. Good advice….
Anu says:
May 3, 2010 at 9:13 pm:
“Smokey never ‘explains’ what it is in nature that is causing the varying. He plays the ‘natural variability’ card like other people play the ‘it is God’s will’ card or ‘the gods are toying with us’ cards. He has no idea why things are happening, so assumes nobody has any idea why.”
As we can see, Anu still does not understand the scientific method, or scientific skepticism; a failure that is emblematic of the alarmist contingent.
Once again: scientific skeptics have nothing to prove. It is the purveyors of the new CO2=CAGW hypothesis who have the burden of showing that their new conjecture explains reality and makes better predictions than the null hypothesis. They have failed.
Since the alarmists have failed, being humans with sensitive egos, they mendaciously turn the Scientific Method on its head and demand that skeptics must, in effect, prove a negative. But that is not the Scientific Method. That is nothing but shamanism.
Anu’s fantastic assertions that the minuscule human fraction of a very minor trace gas, comprising only one molecule out of every 2,600 in the atmosphere, is the principal driver of the climate is not only preposterous, but there is zero empirical evidence backing up that ridiculous conjecture. It is rank speculation, nothing more.
When Anu or any other climate alarmist can show that CO2 drives the climate, wake me. Until then, the alarmist case is nothing more than hand-waving.
stevengoddard says:
May 3, 2010 at 8:12 pm
Anu,
You forgot to mention that current extent is well above 2003, which was the highest in the AMSR-E record.
2009 was well above 2003 on this date as well, but finished up well below in the summer minimum. 2008 was above 2003 on this data also, and finished even lower than 2009.
Clearly 2003 is old news – the climate has changed. Current ice extent is dipping below 2009, and almost below 2008.
And just like that, the race is on.
(it’s hard to make 5 month races sound exciting…)
We’re losing about 80k sq km per day mostly from the Barents sea. This is kinda predictable because the ice there didn’t form until late winter and couldn’t have been thick. This rapid drop won’t stop until the Barents sea melts back to where it was at New Year’s. However, when that’s done, the remaining parts are not so thin and the extent will start gaining on the previous years.
But it may be playing catch up from last place. Still, the summer minimum looks strong.
What happens to the rotten ice if it doesn’t melt this year? Does it just lurk in the wings, waiting?
Smokey says:
May 3, 2010 at 9:35 pm
I realize some people mistake failure to understand as an understanding of failure.
That’s just natural variability.
And you’re right: scientific skeptics have nothing to prove.
Nobody is waiting for the results of your skepticism. No deadlines, no pressure, no need to explain yourself. No papers, no work. Just sit in a room, have a beer, and be skeptical.
Or on a patio. Wine. Sake. Whatever.
I myself am skeptical of the Large Hadron Collider finding a Higgs boson – I’ve had about 30 skeptical drinks in the last year, and plan on being skeptical until they find one.
Anu
The climate has changed. Chicago is no longer buried under a mile of ice.
rbateman says:
May 3, 2010 at 9:04 pm
Its a pleasure. I do my research on a 233MHz Pentium 2 that cost 50 quid,
Piers was on a scientific calculator when I first met him, maybe the more lost you are, the bigger supercomputer you need??