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.
Caleb says:
May 17, 2010 at 5:12 pm
I don’t know if the record is online, but they don’t throw out the anomalous data, they use it to estimate the CO2 production of the volcano.
w.
Phil. on May 17, 2010 at 1:12 pm.
Perhaps you do have a good handle on the nuances of satellite data, but from your post, it is not clear that you do. On the Discover website, Dr. Spencer’s name shows up as one of two page authors — not as the owner of the data. In fact, when Dr. Spencer develops his monthly estimate of GMT, he no longer uses the data posted on that website. Rather that data is used by RSS, and RSS makes adjustments for orbital issues. Dr. Spencer uses data from another satellite. To be sure, Dr. Spencer does refer to the Discover website for those who want to look at satellite on a daily basis, but he does warn that the data will not match the monthly # because of orbital issues. Many people are surprised when the monthly # comes out — it is noticeably lower than what likely seems to be the monthly average of the daily #s on the Discover website. Nevertheless, there are plenty of warnings about that issue.
Gerhard Kramm says:
May 17, 2010 at 12:31 pm
It is interesting to me that in the same issue of the Swedish journal Tellus in which Keeling’s (1960) paper was published also Walter Bischof’s paper entitled “Periodical Variations of the Atmospheric CO2-content in Scandinavia” occurred. Bischof showed notably higher CO_2 concentrations than Keeling. Keeling’s paper has a citation number five times higher than that of Bischof.
I tried to find Bischof’s paper somewhere on the Internet, no luck. Do you have a URL for it ? All I found was the abstract:
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/123311209/abstract
The total annual mean value obtained for Scandinavia is for 1955 326 ppm, 1956 321 ppm, 1957 323 ppm, 1958 315 ppm, 1959 331 ppm.
Keeling measured 316 ppm in his first year, 1958. Pretty good match.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/guide/timeline/
However, Keeling’s manometric and later infrared measuring techniques were proven to be much more reliable and reproducible than the Scandinavian chemical methods which were in use in the 1950’s, hence Bischof’s paper never became seminal like Keeling’s.
As for Keeling’s paper (The concentration and isotopic abundances of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere), it took me about 10 seconds to find it:
http://sio.ucsd.edu/special/Keeling_50th_Anniversary/images/keelling_tellus_1960.pdf
That is interesting to me.
Smokey says: May 17, 2010 at 3:33 pm
“This chart is from today’s official ARGO site. Does it look like the deep ocean is warming to you?”
Hi Smokey. The Argo website on the “Global Change Analysis” page shows a rising ocean heat content graph for 0 to 700m. Quote “(Wijffels et al, 2008). For the upper 700m, the increase in heat content was 16 x 1022 J since 1961. This is consistent with the comparison by Roemmich and Gilson (2009) of Argo data with the global temperature time-series of Levitus et al (2005), finding a warming of the 0 – 2000 m ocean by 0.06°C since the (pre-XBT) early 1960’s”
Gail Combs says:
May 17, 2010 at 2:56 pm
GRRRRrrrrrr, So if someone does not have a PhD he is a subhuman who needs his hand held so he can publish???
As a college senior (chemistry) I and and sophomore English major were working on a topics paper (in geology) a field completely outside our majors. The dean of geology brought the paper to the attention of the state geologist. I and my buddy ended up at a conference being quizzed by a bunch of Phd’s.
Another friend is the head of research at a very large company, he barely graduated from high school but he is a brilliant chemist and the company knew it. Science is about the use of the scientific method period academic degrees have little to do with it.
Nice little speech.
If Mr. Beck has had a good paper since 2007, why has no reputable Journal published it ? Why is Energy & Environment the only place he can get published ?
http://www.biomind.de/nogreenhouse/daten/EE%2018-2_Beck.pdf
http://tinyurl.com/2epa867
According to a search of WorldCat, a database of libraries, Energy and Environment is found in only 25 libraries worldwide. And the journal is not included in Journal Citation Reports, which lists the impact factors for the top 6000 peer-reviewed journals. The editor of Energy and Environment, Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen has stated that “it’s only we climate skeptics who have to look for little journals and little publishers like mine to even get published.”
Even published scientific papers are savaged here – this paper doesn’t even rise to that level of minimum competency. We know Dr. Lindzen, or Dr. Svensmark, or Dr. Spencer, or Dr. Christy, or Dr. Pielke, or Dr. Baliunas, or Dr. Soon, or Dr. Choi can all publish in actual journals – and none of them are “warmists”. Why is Mr. Beck rejected by all reputable journals ? How come Albert Einstein, working as a patent clerk, could publish four papers in the Annalen der Physik scientific journal in 1905, his Annus Mirabilis papers ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_Mirabilis_papers
Because he wrote good papers.
Yes, “science is about the use of the scientific method period academic degrees have little to do with it” – so I conclude that Mr. Beck just didn’t write a very good paper. He has “academic degrees” – a Diploma in Biology, whatever that means in Germany.
Did you ever consider the possibility that he has made amateur mistakes, and was rejected by real journals ? This high school biology teacher has written one paper in a journal carried by 25 libraries, and setup a website to trumpet his “findings”, and now I see him cited every month by people arguing that global warming is not being caused by human emitted CO2 ?
What’s up with that ?
The argo link is “http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/global_change_analysis.html”
Smokey says:
May 17, 2010 at 3:40 pm
It turns out that the Keeling numbers are “adjusted,” like so much of the raw climate data. I don’t question that they’re in the ball park, but I would like to see all the data, not just what they want to show us.
Yeah, and it turns out that satellite temperature numbers are “adjusted” as well. Do you want to see terabytes of raw Microwave Sounding Unit data too ?
Satellites do not measure temperature as such. They measure radiances in various wavelength bands, which must then be mathematically inverted to obtain indirect inferences of temperature.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_temperature_measurements
Designing, building, testing instruments, putting them in the field or launching them (eg Argo floats, satellites), getting raw data and converting that into meaningful “data” is a very difficult, long process.
Some people make critical mistakes during this long chain of reasoning, such as Dr. Roy Spencer at UAH:
Layne Blanchard says:
May 17, 2010 at 1:23 pm
R. Gates says:
May 16, 2010 at 7:28 pm
“Another strong reason for the likelihood of a lower summer arctic sea ice minimum is the fact that January to April 2010 was the warmest first 4 months of any year in the lat 131 years. Look at this graph, and pay particular attention to the arctic regions”
I don’t know why you continue to reference data known by everyone (here) to be illegitimate. There is a wealth of evidence to show the 30′s/40′s were warmer than the present, and NOT just in the USA. There is an equal amount of evidence that NOAA and GISS have “adjusted” that inconvenient fact out of the data. The only legitimate data we have runs from the late 70s to the present. No one disputes we’re slightly warmer than that known cool period…. and there are few conclusions to draw from it.
HUH?? Can you please point to some references that show what you state above? Scientific papers, actual data, something, anything?
Anu says:
May 17, 2010 at 9:09 pm
“If Mr. Beck has had a good paper since 2007, why has no reputable Journal published it ? Why is Energy & Environment the only place he can get published ?”
The answer to that, Anu, might be found in the Climategate emails?
The GMF-z data as a proxy for the Arctic Temperature Anomaly (1600-2010).
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC3.htm
For more details on the GMF-z and Arctic temperature anomaly see:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC1.htm
kwik says:
May 18, 2010 at 12:49 am
Do you seriously think Dr. Phil Jones and friends control what goes into Journals in China, Germany, and Brazil ? Pointing out to colleagues that one journal has low standards is hardly “controlling” the scientific literature.
For example, here’s a paper from someone at Arctic Roos in Norway (an organization frequently referenced at WUWT:
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ )
http://arctic-roos.org/Members/webadmin/Ola2-2008.pdf
Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters, from China.
I’m not buying this “the whole scientific world is trying to cover up the truth” claim. We know Dr. Lindzen, Dr. Svensmark, Dr. Spencer, Dr. Christy, Dr. Pielke, Dr. Baliunas, Dr. Soon, and Dr. Choi, for example, can all publish in many journals.
The Piomas “Model” contains everything BUT the satelites — but as a chart on the site shows, it checks well – – – EXCEPT 2007 when it gave less loss than IceSat, presumably as few of the airplane/ship etc. measurements were near the center of the Arctic Ocean where 2007 –uniquely– melted ice.
Giss Temps are worse — just 2 shore stations: if you play with the scale at their site the broad colors over the Arctic shrink to 2 spots.
BUT … the Uah site for satelite temp breaks out satelite temps over the Arctic Ocean specifically:
December– #1 above normal = a 3.20 degrees C. “anomaly”
Jan. 1.60
Feb 4th most
Mar. 10th most
Apr. 7th most (almost + 2.7).
… overall, the last 5 months are a full degree above anything on the record for the same 5 months.
I say Again: My prediction of Ice in the Center of the Arctic: Zero
Chance of all of us dieing still about 25%, based on the simple equation:
5800 km3 – ( 4000 sq km loss in 2007 x 2010 El Nino 1.8/2007’s 1.1 ) =
NEGATIVE 745 = WE ALL DIE
— unless the LACK of CLOUDINESS of 2007 had nothing to do with how strong the El Nino was …
(e.g.: 2007 had a fast Reversal: it had a .1 ONI for Feb-Mar-Apr whilst 2010’s El Nino was still 1.2). I figure that 50-50.
And, even IF it all melts off & the warm surface current reverses, it has to reverse far enough back South, to create the time-lag in warm currents’ return after the Annual 24-hour-a-day Arctic 6-month Night returns, & causes a Winter Freeze. Then Air must carry the temp imbalance and as the Oceans outweigh the Air by 1900:1 — NO buildings North of Venezuela will survive the WINDS (except the Pyramids). This HAPPENED 10,000 years ago, and Logic says it should, so I MUST give it a High Probability — yet the Ocean currents are not now what they were then & the 2002 Abrupt Climate Change Task Force study found Abrupt shifts happened, yet often did NOT happen when they “should” — presumably because Climate is REALLY complex – – so this is my other 50% reduction in the probability.
Sure, MAYBE January Extent will predict September & how strong the El Nino was, is irrelevant.
But if the El Nino is the better predictor & we DO NOTHING … WE ARE ALL DEAD !
Isn’t it time to SCREAM at the President to ACT !
— with due respect to the fact we always have to make Clear that: IF… the Lack of Cloudiness does not appear in July, we have to cancel the Alert. And I will be very happy to be wrong.
But we cannot RISK 6 Billion lives on a “probably”. 25% x 6 Billion = 1.5 BILLION DEAD (on average). Even if it were 1000:1 it is Mass Murder on Hitler’s scale. And it’s a LOT more than that.
Maybe we can wait a week for another PIOMAS input. But it has been on a vertical plunge ALREADY well below 2007 at this point.
PANIC BUTTON ___ <– I want to Press it; do You ?
Anu says of Ernst-Georg Beck:
“I hope for his sake he finds some Professor in Germany, or any country, that can help him co-author an actual scientific paper challenging the established science of CO2…”
He did, apparently, find a professor in Luxembourg (admittedly one who apparently had no doctorate and only taught at a Lycee) but one who has a string of published peer reviewed scientific papers and contributions to conferences and seminars.
measurement,http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/Massen/biography_of_francis_massen.html
I may be a beginner when it comes to the mysteries of climate change but all my professional experience has taught me to be wary of attacks “ad hominem” rather than attacks on the data, assumptions, methods and conclusions in any paper.
Having now read Beck’s paper in translation I do not think that it required any special postgraduate knowledge, merely hours of diligent application. The conclusions are there to be refuted but this should not be done by attacking the author’s qualifications, which appear eminently sufficient for the work that he undertook.
I wonder when Steve is going to mention that the Arctic ice extent is only 24,000 sq-km above that seen in 2007 at this time of year? I bet by the time the next sea ice post is written, the ice extent will have dropped below that in 2007 at the same time of the year, since ice concentrations are already lower this year than last year.
Ah, I see the “Imaginary Sumerian Sky God” improvisational show is playing at this venue.
“I don’t care if you say the emails show those actors were blacklisted from Hollywood and Broadway, which was never proven anyway. They can still do independent films and community theater, they can still find work. Hey, if that Beck guy was any good he’d be in a major production, no problem. Did you ever think he’s really just a lousy actor? Did you? Well, did you?”
A truly scintillating performance. Indeed. Zeus would reward it with a special Hephaestus-forged lightning bolt.
Solomon Green, May 18, 2010 at 9:38 am,
Pay no attention to Anu.
I admire Beck’s work. He has compiled over 90,000 individual CO2 readings taken at hundreds of locations, meticulously recorded by unsubsidized scientists who cared much more for their reputations than for money and job security. Many were Nobel laureates such as Krogh and Warburg, at a time when the Nobel prize meant something.
Their measurements were taken on mountain tops, and on desolate, sparsely populated coastlines far from any cities, and on mid-ocean crossings throughout the Antarctic, South Pacific, Atlantic, Arctic and Pacific oceans, and the Beaufort sea. Ocean measurements were taken from the windward side of the ships to ensure that the measurements were not contaminated by human emissions.
Unlike today’s government subsidized sloppy scientists, they kept notebooks copiously filled with handwritten entries and drawings of their test apparatus, so their experiments can be reproduced exactly.
Even if the upper and lower ten thousand measurements are discarded, the record shows that CO2 significantly exceeded todays CO2 levels in the early 1800’s and in the 1940’s, thus falsifying the increasingly ridiculous AGW conjecture. Further, the ramp-up of those two CO2 spikes was much steeper than the current, gradual [and almost completely natural] CO2 rise.
Alarmists attack Beck personally because they have tried and failed to falsify his methods and conclusions: CO2 has been higher in the past without causing global temperatures to increase.
Any putative rise in temperature due to CO2 is so insignificant that it can be completely disregarded. If it exists it is too small to measure — and the human component of CO2 is only one molecule out of every 34 emitted by natural processes.
The catastrophic AGW scare is built on smoke an mirrors, not on science. If it were not for the $billions annually poured into “studies” of the CO2=CAGW conjecture [the CO2 scare being the stalking horse for the approaching immense increases in taxes, and the cost of goods and services across the board], no one would pay the slightest bit of attention to the harmless rise in this entirely beneficial minor trace gas.
Anthony, would it be possible to get Mr. R. Gates to do a guest post on this topic? It would be nice to see all of his info in one spot, instead of being broken up amongst the replies.
I’m agreeable if he is
A
Smokey says:
May 18, 2010 at 11:18 am
It seem that you don’t have any idea of how science is funded. Why not search NASA’s calls or NSF calls and see if you see AGW used in any of the titles of the funding calls. Even search the actual descriptions and you will see that AGW studies are not called for. BTW…I would trust science funded by the government over businesses any day.
I bet by the time the next sea ice post is written, the ice extent will have dropped below that in 2007 at the same time of the year, since ice concentrations are already lower this year than last year.
It might, but it doesn’t mean anything. The only thing that counts is minimum extent in September. The melt figures took a huge plunge in July 2009 only to level off just as drastically.
jeff brown says:May 18, 2010 at 9:44 am
I wonder when Steve is going to mention that the Arctic ice extent is only 24,000 sq-km above that seen in 2007 at this time of year? I bet by the time the next sea ice post is written, the ice extent will have dropped below that in 2007 at the same time of the year, since ice concentrations are already lower this year than last year.
This site shows the actual figure is 240,000 sq-km, which means today’s amount is closer to the average than to the 2007 total. Check your math.
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic
R. Gates says:May 16, 2010 at 7:28 pm
“Another strong reason for the likelihood of a lower summer arctic sea ice minimum is the fact that January to April 2010 was the warmest first 4 months of any year in the lat 131 years. Look at this graph, and pay particular attention to the arctic regions”
Look at this graphic which refutes your claim. It pays particular attention to the Arctic region.
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/icrutem3_hadsst2_0-360E_66-90N_na.png
Anthony Watts said on May 18, 2010 at 1:12 pm:
You could start another site, “Watt’s Down With That!” which features “dissenting” articles compared to the standard fare found here. Run it like this one with open comments (under the same “play nice” rules), go out of your way to promote “an honest exchange of ideas” to counter that old spurious charge. Let the CO2=(C)AGW supporting stuff go up, and we can see what real and open scientific discussions arise without the heavy censoring of Real Climate et al.
Using white text on a black background so readers can easily see they’re at the “Dark Side” of the debate would be your option to choose, of course. 😉
Tim Clark says:
May 18, 2010 at 1:26 pm
I’m using NSIDC’s data to assess it, and they show it only 24,000 sq-km above 2007.
And Neven, yes you are correct that it may not mean anything since summer circulation can result in a pattern that causes ice divergence (and hence an increase in extent). BUT…with an even thinner ice cover this year than last, ice divergence can also result in enhanced lateral melt that takes away more of that thin ice cover. My concern is that 2nd and 3rd year ice that was advected into the Beaufort this winter may not survive the transit through the Gyre this summer. And since a negative AO summer tends to follow a negative AO winter, that is actually worse news for ice in the Beaufort as the negative AO brings in even more warmth to that region (as well as cause ice advection away from the Alaska coast). Since we can’t predict the weather for the summer, we’ll just have to wait and see. But given the current warmth up there (right now temperature anomalies are nearly 8C in the Eurasian sector for the first 2 weeks of May), together with a strong Beaufort Sea High (yes the summer dipole pattern is back which also means clearer skies in the Beaufort), I’m betting on large ice loss this summer.
Well Mr. R. Gates, are you up for a guest post? I would appreciate the alternative view in one nice layed out segment.
Go for it!
Solomon Green says:
May 18, 2010 at 9:38 am
Anu says of Ernst-Georg Beck:
“I hope for his sake he finds some Professor in Germany, or any country, that can help him co-author an actual scientific paper challenging the established science of CO2…”
He did, apparently, find a professor in Luxembourg (admittedly one who apparently had no doctorate and only taught at a Lycee) but one who has a string of published peer reviewed scientific papers and contributions to conferences and seminars.
measurement,http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/Massen/biography_of_francis_massen.html
Yes, he co-authored a paper that wasn’t published.
http://tinyurl.com/2epa867
If you followed my link to the google scholar search on Ernst-Georg Beck, you would see four separate links to this conference-only paper.
I may be a beginner when it comes to the mysteries of climate change but all my professional experience has taught me to be wary of attacks “ad hominem” rather than attacks on the data, assumptions, methods and conclusions in any paper.
That’s the point, he does not have a published paper – and I don’t want to be the one that has to do the peer review, by having to become an expert in CO2 measurement techniques to see what errors or mistaken assumptions he is working under. Even in the late 195o’s Scandinavia was getting screwy data using measurement techniques that were dropped in the 1960’s – I don’t want to learn about what they doing back in 1812, the beginning of the literature Beck was looking at.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/123311209/abstract
It is not an “ad hominem” attack to point out that he is a high school biology teacher, with an unpublished paper on atmospheric chemistry which he promotes with his own website:
http://www.realCO2.de
Maybe that is science in your “professional experience” – you’re welcome to it. But on a blog where NASA scientists with 30 years of published research work are savaged as incompetent buffoons, don’t expect a citation of Mr. Beck to carry much weight.
To people that understand science.
Having now read Beck’s paper in translation I do not think that it required any special postgraduate knowledge, merely hours of diligent application. The conclusions are there to be refuted but this should not be done by attacking the author’s qualifications, which appear eminently sufficient for the work that he undertook.
Yes, if he ever publishes and invites refutation, I will be interested to see what experts in this field say about his work. So far, he is off the radar, much like Richard C. Hoagland:
http://www.enterprisemission.com/index.php
I’ve heard Richard on Coast to Coast AM a few times many years ago – he’s actually a very entertaining speaker, and sounds quite plausible if you don’t think too hard. You might be interested in his data, assumptions, methods and conclusions.