NOTE: there are some animated GIF’s in this post that may take time to fully load. Patience please.
By Steve Goddard
Monday’s NSIDC Arctic ice extent graph took a turn downwards, and is now showing 2010 a little more than 500,000 km2 higher than 2007. The animation below shows the change from May 1 to May 2.
By contrast, NORSEX shows something very different for May 2. They have no downwards turn, their ice extent measurement is right at the 1979-2006 average, and they show 2010 extent more than 1,000,000 km2 above 2007.
In order to look at this closer up, I superimposed the NORSEX 2010 data (red) on the NSIDC 2010 data (blue) at the same scale, and normalised to 2010, and saw some interesting things. The first problem is that they started to diverge right around the first of April, and as of May 2 they disagree by nearly 500,000 km2.
The next image shows that the X-Y scaling is identical (but normalised) in the two graphs. The grid is from NORSEX. Other colors (besides red) have been removed through chroma keying.
The second discrepancy is that the two sources show a large difference in growth since 2007. The image below normalizes the 2007 data – with identical horizontal and vertical scales. Using this view, NORSEX shows twice as much ice growth as NSIDC since 2007.
The animation below begins normalised to 2010 and finishes normalized to 2007. This technique does not show that either source is in error or has changed their data, rather the animation is done by me to enhance visualization.What it does show is the significant differences between the two records.
I believe that both groups use SSMI so it is difficult to understand what the problem is. Last year we saw something similar. NORSEX has a history of making adjustments in mid-season, so my sense is that NSIDC is probably more accurate. Any ideas from readers?
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OT: Iceland volcanic ashes being sold through the internet:
http://en.trend.az/regions/world/europe/1681536.html
My husband has been reading a book on Global Warming by Claude Allegre called ‘L’imposture climatique’ . Unfortunately I don’t read French, but he translates interesting bits. M. Allegre describes how difficult it is to decide what global temperature is, as temperature varies so much between equator and pole, mountain and plain, day and night, winter and summer, and a great deal of adjusting goes on. The same must be true for sea ice extent.
Which is perhaps why there is so much dispute going on about whether there is warming or not. The whole subject is difficult to pin down. M. Allegre is on the sceptic side of the fence.
The Arctic’s not melting! Oh well
Uganda’s highest ice cap splits on Mt Margherita
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8658270.stm
“The ice cap on Uganda’s highest peak has split because of global warming, Uganda’s Wildlife Authority (UWA) says.”
Well in this case they hide the increase in ice and make it look like a decline.At ant rate the ice is right at the normal since these records begin 1979 and we’ve been in a warm cycle now watch as were entering a cold cycle.GROW ICE GROW!
Well, since NSIDC uses a 5-day average, you’d think they’d be “sticky down” just like they are “sticky up”.
But both seem to be using 15% and 25km2 grid cells, so you really wouldn’t think they’d get that far out of whack.
I consider May 1-July 1 to be a bottleneck in extent that happens yearly, and really the extent numbers by themselves have very little meaning in that period, high or low, compared to recent averages. During this bottleneck period, the concentration levels of the central core is much more interesting (and indicative, IMO) of what happens after July 1.
Someone would rather make graphs with conventional style line-widths that we see here rather than the truer smear of a line that would reflect the inherent uncertainties?
Dave Wendt says:
May 4, 2010 at 12:35 pm
“The map is not the territory”
“If the map shows a different structure from the territory represented — for instance, shows the cities in a wrong order. . . . then the map is worse than useless, as it misinforms and leads astray.”
Alfred Korzybski
Yes, I’ve been thinking about Korzybski on the model vs data options. And Lavoisier: “It isn’t a stone fallen from the sky, because there are no stones in the sky.” Wrong maps.
R. Gates says:
May 4, 2010 at 11:53 am
There’s another possibility: Last year around February, we witnessed the degradation and failure of a satellite-based ice detector. It started off exactly as Steve has outlined. Some agencies jumped on the catastrophic decline only to find themselves embarassed.
Let’s see what transpires.
Steve: What software do you use to superimpose? I assume it’s not MS Paint.
Fox News did a report on a Galaxy 15 satellite that is lost from ground control.
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/05/03/intense-solar-storm-spins-satellite-control/
The parent company suspects damage due to recent solar magnetic storm. Wonder if other satellites are going the same way.
I am not seeing the 500,000 km2 difference between NSIDC and NORSEX. If you look at the timeseries plots individually you see they both have around 13.7 million sq. km of ice extent. When you normalize the NORSEX to 2010 on the third plot, the May data never goes below 14 million sq. km, am I missing something? I understand you want to put them on the same scale, but did this normalization not arbitrarily bump up the NORSEX extent? And of course the NORSEX is closer to its mean line than NSIDC because the means are derived from two different periods..NORSEX containing 2001-2006 data and its lower values. What should be analyzed is the slope of correctly normalized data from late April-May 2 or 3, or whatever the newest data is. I know you can download NSIDC SSMI gridded sea-ice concentration…and probably NORSEX, is it too difficult to calculate the extent yourself (with and without their averaging at NSIDC)? The issue I see is no independent/external analysis of the data or comparison to the multiple other algorithms out there.
That being said, the last 5 days in NSIDC have shown a very large drop in extent, but I have not seen too much sea-ice go away on any retrieval system…NASA Team2, Bootstrap, NORSEX, Bremen, EUMETSAT or even mine in-house which is SSMIS-based. Qualitatively they all compare favorably. There has been ice loss around Svalbard and Novaya in the Berents sea, and west of the Korean pennisula…but 100,000-150,000 sq km in a day? It only went at a rate of 16,000 sq km/day in April…the rate shouldn’t increase that rapidly.
We will see, IMHO, we may end up with more extend than previous year.
Inbetween (old song from the Doors):
Wintertime winds blow cold the season
Fallen in love, I’m hopin’ to be
Wind is so cold, is that the reason?
Keeping you warm, your hands touching me
Come with me dance, my dear
Winter’s so cold this year
You are so warm
My wintertime love to be
Winter time winds blue and freezin’
Comin’ from northern storms in the sea
Love has been lost, is that the reason?
Trying desperately to be free
Come with me dance, my dear
Winter’s so cold this year
And you are so warm
My wintertime love to be
La, la, la, la
Come with me dance, my dear
Winter’s so cold this year
You are so warm
My wintertime love to be
Regards
KlausB
Meanwhile down in the Southern Hemisphere, uranium dust has been found in the Antarctic, presumed to have been blown there from Australia in 1995 when there was an increase in uranium mining:
http://momento24.com/en/2010/05/03/uranium-found-in-antarctic-ice/
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/03/2888354.htm
Does this have any significance to melting ice or does it just mean that it will glow in the dark?
What became Chaos Theory was first discovered by a weatherman. I’m surprised you don’t see more such divergence.
well Steve it looks as if the ice extent max was delayed by about one month from normal. That is kind of weird; because everything I have seen this year as a harbinger of spring, seems to have been delayed by about that same amount of time.
The tree from Hell, that grows on my front lawn (Liquid Amber) has only just spread its leaves, and that normally seems to happen way back in March. All the blossoms on fruit trees ad the like seem to have been similarly delayed.
Now I know that all of that is purely anecdotal; and I would not expect to see the same thing happen next year; but it has been dramatic enough this year to not ignore. And of course; that is just weather anyhow.
But it does demonstrate to me; that significant shifts in timing can occur; all as part of the natural variability of the climate system; and talk of evrything wandering to the north is nothing to be upset about; there’s lots of good land area up north to grow stuff, if conditions up there improve.
I would think differences in algorithms is the likely culprit for differences in the displayed extent and area. This may be the result even when the same data source is employed.
With regards to the “blip” around june 1st, I think it is related to compensation algoritms for the yearly appearing fresh-water melting pooles on the ice on this time.
Cassanders
In Cod we trust
O.T. The UK paper ‘Daily Express’ yesterday(May 3rd) had a full page article under a banner headline ‘GLOBAL WARMING IS A LOAD OF HOT AIR’ quoting former NASA climate scientist Dr Roy Spencers’ theory that current warming is not man made but the result of natural forces and intimating that the current global mass hysteria is “driven more by quasi-religious beliefs and financial and political motives than by an objective assessment of the science” To keep getting funding, scientists need to support Gores’ “consensus” that CO2 is evil and man made CO2 is an abomination. It goes on to point out the Dr Spencer has had great difficulty getting any kind of media coverage for his research and that warmists instead of attempting to disprove his theories scientifically resort to personal attacks and smears. Just one newspaper coming out of the consensus but a start. The article can be read at http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk under james dellingpole ‘global warming is a load of hot air’
@King of Cool
That’s very interesting, since there hasn’t actually been any increase in Oz uranium mining. There’s been a lot of hype in the news and on the sharemarket but the same ‘three mines’ have been operating at about the same capacity for a couple of decades (with Beverley, an in situ leach replacing an open cut in the Northern Territory – so even less dust).
Be interesting to see the isotopic ratio, lots of depleted uranium dust has been put into the atmosphere in the last 20 years.
On the other hand there’s quite a lot of uranium in other materials. Garden soil typically has more uranium in it than high grade gold ore has gold in it. There’s been a vast increase in (dusty) iron ore mining, so maybe the U comes from that.
No surprise that the Oz ABC carry the story, they are very left wing, highly warmist, anti mining and anti nuclear power. Plus they like to support the government, who is in a tax war with the miners this week.
Here’s the deep link to the Delingpole article:
http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/172845/Global-warming-is-a-load-of-hot-air
I have a suggestion! Get the data in numerical form, like jaxa’s data rather than using their graphs, where the data is possibly being put through different ‘smoothing’ functions.
Bah, I’m fed up of suggesting this. You spend so much time messing with their graphs. I’m going to ask them. Do you think they’ll give me it or will I have to use the FOIA?
ok, I’ve sent off requests to cryo and nansen for starters. Hopefully the (date- quantity ) form of the data I asked for will help resolve the disparity.
This is what I wrote to them. Feel free to use it as a template for informal emails requesting data from ice monitoring groups.
***
Hi, I’ve been looking for time seriesdata for arctic sea ice extent and
area in numeric form. Ideally it would be in a simular form to the jaxa
sea-ice data here.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/plot.csv
i.e. Date and a value for the ice area on that date.
I looked for the data on your website but in was in graphical form, with some of the data abstracted as an average.
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic
My use for the data is purely as a hobby, spured by the mass-media focus
arctic sea ice.
Can you make available to me the numeric data in (
date – quantity ) format from 1978 to present on arctic sea-ice extent and
area please?
Thanks
James Grist
***
Wouldn’t the data be more suspect if there were no variation whatsoever? The difference in TMDE calibration and eyeball density due to variation in barametric pressure differences between the two sites would account for most of the difference. (Is that redundent?)
Einstein once said, “Ve are not as smart as ve dinks ve are, are ve?”
The Chinese, (yuk,spit), love the AGW scam. It enables them to exert a different culture (do the Chinese have a culture??) on their citizens. They very rarely report anything contrary to the SCAM.
regards
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/photo/2010-05/04/c_13276448.htm
I don’t know why you bother, the Arctic will be ice free in three years time and your graph will flatline.
“”” Bruce of Newcastle says:
May 4, 2010 at 3:24 pm
@King of Cool
That’s very interesting, since there hasn’t actually been any increase in Oz uranium mining. There’s been a lot of hype in the news and on the sharemarket but the same ‘three mines’ have been operating at about the same capacity for a couple of decades (with Beverley, an in situ leach replacing an open cut in the Northern Territory – so even less dust).
Be interesting to see the isotopic ratio, lots of depleted uranium dust has been put into the atmosphere in the last 20 years.
On the other hand there’s quite a lot of uranium in other materials. Garden soil typically has more uranium in it than high grade gold ore has gold in it. There’s been a vast increase in (dusty) iron ore mining, so maybe the U comes from that.
No surprise that the Oz ABC carry the story, they are very left wing, highly warmist, anti mining and anti nuclear power. Plus they like to support the government, who is in a tax war with the miners this week. “””
So just how much of that Uranium dust would you expect to find in the atmosphere now. Uranium is not the densest of materials; but it is denser than anything that is available in quantity (I didn’t say readily available). I think Tungsten is 19.3 or there abouts; and I thing the max is around 22.5 for Osmium. Apparently either Iridium or Osmium is the densest but nobody knows which for sure (as of 1968); well I guess uranium is only 18.95 ; so i guess it would just float like a feather for ages, in the atmosphere.