By Steve Goddard
The Catlin Arctic Survey arrived at the North Pole this week.
Described as three of ‘the world’s toughest’ explorers, Ann Daniels, Charlie Paton and Martin Hartley reached the Geographic North Pole at on 12th May, ending a grueling 60-day trek across the floating sea ice of the Arctic Ocean…They made it with only hours to spare before a Twin Otter plane was scheduled to land on the ice to collect them.
Congratulations to them on completing a difficult journey against the Beaufort Gyre. They can now compare their Oceanic pH data vs. the non-existent database from past years, and predictably conclude that pH might be lower than it used to be – due to CO2.
The spring melt season continues to eat away at the periphery of the ice pack. The animation below (made from Cryosphere Today images) shows the changes since the first of the month.
Figure 2
As you can see, not much has changed during the last two weeks. The image below, made from NSIDC images, shows areas of anomalously high extent in green, and anomalously low extent in red.
Figure 3
As in past weeks there is excess ice in the Bering Sea and Sea of Okhotsk, and a deficiency in the Barents Sea – which are all always ice free during the summer anyway.
To keep the death spiral in perspective, the image below (made from Cryosphere Today images) compares mid-September 30% concentration ice from the years 2009 and 1990. Red shows areas of ice loss since 1990 and green shows areas of ice gain. I’m guessing that the Arctic will probably not be ice free by 2013, as predicted by researchers at the Naval Post-Graduate School.
Figure 4
The image below shows mid-September ice gain from 2007-2009 in green, and loss in red.
Figure 5
There continues to be a significant divergence in the extent graphs. Norsex in red is close to the 30 year mean, while NSIDC (blue) DMI (stippled) and JAXA (green) are closer to two standard deviations from the mean. The deficiency is almost entirely located in the Barents Sea, as seen above in Figure 3.
Figure 6
The modified NSIDC image below shows ice loss since early April in red.
Figure 7
The modified NSIDC image below compares April 14 2007 and 2010 ice. Areas in green have gained ice since 2007, and areas in red have lost ice since 2007.
Figure 8
It is still too early in the year to see much interesting. Still about six weeks before significant melting begins in the interior of the Arctic. Stay tuned.
R. Gates says:
May 16, 2010 at 7:28 pm
Yes, so far the year has been quite warm:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
The average anomaly for the first 1/3 of this year is 74.5
If the entire year finishes out at this temperature anomaly, it will be literally off the charts (74.5 equals a temperature anomaly of .745° C):
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif
Even if Sep, Oct, Nov and Dec are rather cool, if the next third of the year is equally hot, the summer ice melt should be affected by way of the Atlantic connection to the Arctic. The warm water underneath the ice is a big factor in the speed of sea ice melt.
Described as three of ‘the world’s toughest’ explorers…
What, no mention of the world’s toughest photographers, the world’s toughest IT geeks, the world’s toughest campsite construction crew, the world’s toughest sample curators, the world’s toughest generator maintenance crew, the world’s toughest cafeteria cook, etc.?
Gray Whale Returns to Mediterranean After 200 Years
During one of the daily news shows, and their near daily quota of “Climate Change” news, that I watch here in British Columbia, Canada, I was informed that, if it isn’t a hoax, due to global warming a Gray Whale has made it all the way through the Northern Passage to Europe.
Some more info here…
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/35171/
R. Gates,
Which temperatures? I looked at the link and found no temperatures. Only Anomalies. The greatest one being +6°C. Didn’t look what was that high, though it couldn’t be water. Do you really think at -24°C instead of -30°C of the air the ice thickness depends on that difference?
Anu says:
May 16, 2010 at 11:09 pm
Very trendy, those figures. As most people know, Nature abhors straight lines. Still, to this day, there’s a sucker born every minute, making fools out of straightliners.
The dot com bubble and the housing bubble seemed to be perfect at the time, enticing many to drink the intoxicating elixir of the straight line.
R gates says: May 16th 2010@7.28pm
“Jan to april 2010 are the warmest for the last 131 years”
well thats what you get by relying on data sets that rely on corupted, infilled and extrapolated data.
Have a look at the real world, we have had snow at least once a month for the last 6 months when normally we only get it one or two months and often not at all up here in the north east of England. Even now its 5 to 6 degrees below the seasonal average, so don’t tell me its warmer than its ever been, it siply isn’t.
How can you take any data seriously that relies on temperature readings at airports and other UHI corrupted sites, and then assumes that that reading will apply for 1000’s of km’s if no other site is available? I’m sorry but thats just laughable!
More dodgy climate timelines…http://abcnewswatch.blogspot.com/2010/02/climate-time-line-or-time-lie-response.html
Gary Mount says:
Described as three of ‘the world’s toughest’ explorers…
Perhaps three of the world’s dumbest explorers, who didn’t properly test their “ice radar” at the sort of temperatures they were likely to encounter “up north”. Plastic-insulated wires stiffened and broke, and the batteries failed. Still, better than their previous effort,when they took an old tape measure with them.
I expect they’ll find that the very cold water absorbs a lot of CO2 (surprise), and that it’s “very acidic” (= very slightly less alkaline, though I’ve seen data that shows that sea water becomes MORE alkaline with increased CO2, as opposed to pure water which becomes acidic). Still, we mustn’t mock their prejudices, must we?
One of their stated aims was to “measure the rate at which CO2 can penetrate ice”. That could surely be done in a laboratory in (relative) warmth and comfort?
I hope they’ve got a boat waiting for them at the “ice-free” North Pole.
It’s not exactly surprising that the extra ice which formed in March this year, leading to the latest ice maximum seen to date since 1979, melted pretty rapidly, thus bringing the current extent down closer to other years.
Key will be how fast the ice which formed earlier melts. And how much of the multiyear ice melts.
Time will tell.
Also interesting is the ice thickness. Last week Haas published an article in GRL about EM measuring of the Arctic sea ice ( ) .
Data can be found at
The data provide detailed insight into ice thickness distributions characteristic for the different regions. Comparison with previous EM surveys shows that modal thicknesses of old ice had changed little since 2007, and remained within the expected range of natural variability.
See also http://www.klimaatgek.nl (Dutch).
Sorry about the mess in the previous post.
Also interesting is the ice thickness. Last week Haas published an article in GRL about EM measuring of the Arctic sea ice ( Haas, C., S. Hendricks, H. Eicken, and A. Herber (2010), Synoptic airborne thickness surveys reveal state of Arctic sea ice cover, Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L09501, doi:10.1029/2010GL042652 ) .
Data can be found at http://psc.apl.washington.edu/sea_ice_cdr/Sources/airborne_em.html
The data provide detailed insight into ice thickness distributions characteristic for the different regions. Comparison with previous EM surveys shows that modal thicknesses of old ice had changed little since 2007, and remained within the expected range of natural variability.
See also http://www.klimaatgek.nl (Dutch).
“floating sea ice”
As opposed to: sinking sea ice? skipping sea ice? jogging sea ice? hiking sea ice? Science reportage at its best. Oh, yeah, no science here…
What will they say IF September sea ice extent and area reach the 1979-2000 average? Of course they will then switch over to look at thicknes; but what IF this also reaches the 1979-2000 average? They WILL ignore or play it down and switch attention to the ‘warming’ Anatarctic peninsula. Should this ‘warming’ turn to cooling then what? Over to Death Valley!! :o)
We are dealing with a bunch of very selective climate bandits who HAVE TO show CAGW ‘warming’ in order to maintain their mortgages and feed their families.
The chart of Arctic temperatures ends in 2004. If you follow the link to Steve Milloy’s site, and find the update you will see the anomaly for the same data, after scaling appropriately, is between 1.5 & 2 in 2009-2010.
JurajV. in post #1 has referred to a different data set – a HADCRUT set, not the original GISS data.
Harry Lu May 16, 2010 at 4:26 pm
I think your vertical scale is 100x too big!!
stevengoddard says:
May 16, 2010 at 10:01 pm
I don’t see anything in this graph to support the “unprecedented warming” claims for the Arctic.
https://spreadsheets.google.com/oimg?key=0AnKz9p_7fMvBdG9GR1FSLVlRM3lWcnZPNkg1ZERkdFE&oid=1&zx=q557ny-2h9vee
—————–
You must have taken a different graph reading class than some of us. It seems quite obvious to me by the graph above, and by every other non-cherry picked graph that I’ve seen…
sunderland steve says:
May 17, 2010 at 2:03 am
R gates says: May 16th 2010@7.28pm
“Jan to april 2010 are the warmest for the last 131 years”
well thats what you get by relying on data sets that rely on corupted, infilled and extrapolated data.
Have a look at the real world, we have had snow at least once a month for the last 6 months when normally we only get it one or two months and often not at all up here in the north east of England. Even now its 5 to 6 degrees below the seasonal average, so don’t tell me its warmer than its ever been, it siply isn’t.
How can you take any data seriously that relies on temperature readings at airports and other UHI corrupted sites, and then assumes that that reading will apply for 1000′s of km’s if no other site is available? I’m sorry but thats just laughable!
_________________
There are not many urban heat islands in the arctic, and the satellite data is quite good. The arctic has been very warm for the first 4 months of 2010– that’s a simple fact. I can respect those who try to leave no stone unturned in the search to disprove AGWT, but this stone has been turned over and their is no conspiracy under it, just high arctic temps so far this year.
Anu says:
“The warm water underneath the ice is a big factor in the speed of sea ice melt.”
___________________
Indeed! The majority of the mass of the sea ice is in the water, especially in the keels. Warmer water can melt the underside of the ice rather fast.
Gary Mount: May 17, 2010 at 12:58 am
During one of the daily news shows, and their near daily quota of “Climate Change” news, that I watch here in British Columbia, Canada, I was informed that, if it isn’t a hoax, due to global warming a Gray Whale has made it all the way through the Northern Passage to Europe.
There’s also a population of Gray whales in the *western* Pacific. The whale spotted in the eastern Med could also have come from that group, in which case, it would have traveled westbound and not had to worry one bit about finding open water in the ice cap.
Described as three of ‘the world’s toughest’ explorers,
Description provided by a consensus of polar bears.
From Russ Hatch:
“Let’s see, according to the Met time line 1958 was the first year a direct measurment of CO2 in the atmosphere was made. Charles Keeling determined that there were 316 ppm. According to the time line in 2008 the CO2 concentration was 384 ppm. An increase of 68 ppm in fifty years. What am I missing here?”
You are missing about 120 years of history, likely because you are told what to believe by the MET office instead of looking up the facts for yourself:
http://www.biomind.de/realCO2/
Solomon Green, you need not worry.
If you remember the Carboniferous Period (about 300Mya) as well as I do, CO2 levels were some 20x as high as today. In the Jurassic (around 200Mya) some 10-15x today’s CO2 was floating around, and generally not making its presence felt, where life clearly thrived and delicate aragonite corals evolved in blindingly obvious non-acid oceans, which is why we have shellfish and coral fossils from this time.
If the oceans were as acid as the catastrophists claim, they would have all dissolved. The reason they didn’t is because oceans always brush upon alkaline rocks. Current oceanic PH is between 7.9 and 8.3, which is alkaline.
All this comparatively gargantuan CO2 in the past and NEVER a runaway greenhouse or fabled “tipping point”, ever – which is why we’re here to stupidly argue about (and pay for) it.
You’re only missing a few simple facts, which the catastrophists somehow made you forget – or prevented you from learning. Onward.. ever onward..
I don’t get it! I defy anyone to stare at fig.2 for five minutes without blinking and tell me that Climate Change, Global Warming, Arctic Ice Melt, etc., is NOT a Commie Plot. The USSR isn’t dead! The people we see running Russia today are merely puppits. Just look at all that HOT water entering the Arctic from Russian rivers, and all those nuclear reactors melting the snow pack. The “Fall of the Evil Empire” was all a scam. We’re toast!
PS: I understand too that Fat Albert’s real name is Alexander Goreovitch and he holds the rank of “Corporal” in the KGB, I believe he’s the only Corporal they have now. They must really think a lot of him. We’re toast!
It means that the IPCC report relies on proxy data (ice-cores,etc) prior to 1958, as the Met Office site does. Increasingly accurate chemical measurements were made from the middle of the 19th.C onwards, and are still being made. IPCC scientists chose to ignore those measurements, and the only logical reason would seem to be that they tell the “wrong” story, that is that CO2 concentrations were often higher pre-1958 than they have been since. CO2 IS measured at a number of locations worldwide.The fact that these measurements are largely ignored in favour of a site 4000 metres up an active volcano in the middle of a volcanic archipelago in the middle of the Pacific Ocean far away from concentrated industrial activity might invite comment.
I have a textbook on military infrared technology, published by DARPA in 1964. In this book it states that within about 100 meters of the ground, CO2 levels can vary from about 200-600 ppm. There has been a lot of controversy over the seemingly random variations in the chemistry based measurements and this DARPA book may have the reason for the seemingly large dispersions in these measurements.
@sunderlandsteve
You will find early 2010 are the 3 warmest months using Dr Roy Spencer’s satellite data at the University of Huntsville Alabama.
I do not think there is a dataset that does NOT show the same.
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/