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.
Excerpt from: Phil. on May 20, 2010 at 6:32 am
Since when? There is no SI base unit for area, but there is the meter for length. Among the named SI derived units there is none for area. Square meters can be used, and square kilometers are often used and are the expected units for reporting sea ice measurements. The hectare is a common metric non-SI unit accepted for use with the SI used for land area measurements.
Thus both the square kilometer, by its common scientific usage, and the hectare, by being accepted for use, have a better claim to being a “proper SI unit” for area, than square megameters, although I can find no such critter as either a SI base unit or a named derived unit.
If you have references that state otherwise, please supply them.
Neven, you just got (subject to revision as the day proceeds) your 4th “century break” in the Jaxa data. Are you using Bremen for your year-rank-order? I may be misreading it, but it looks like 2010 is still (barely) in 3rd on the Jaxa graph.
My perception of the (current) spread of the measurement groups, from low to high (relative to their own histories) is Bremen, Jaxa, Cryosphere Today, NSIDC, Norsex. Yeah, it’s hard to say where to put CT on that list because they’re reporting area, not extent. Looking at the MODIS arctic mosaic, it appears that the polynyas are more accurately represented by the Jaxa map and the CT map than by the NSIDC map. Of course they all have slightly different algorithms so everything I just said could be stood on its head in a few months.
I must say the MODIS 1k resolution mosaic is just beautiful to look at, beyond its scientific usefulness. May 21 image (warning, large file!)
Well, good thing I put in that caveat about “subject to revision”. The Jaxa number has been revised, erasing that “century break”. The NSIDC seems to have caught up to Jaxa in terms of the 2010 – 2007 relative extent.
Hi Anu,
unfortunately, I only have a hard copy of Bischof’s paper.
Kind regards
Gerhard
This is somewhat related, to NSIDC, at least.
Just watched a show in History International, about “end times”, armageddon and all that nonsense. They had a big segment about Global Warming, with special guest alarmist Mark Serreze, preaching his doom and gloom of a rapidly melting arctic. The show was originally aired sometime in 2009 (that’s twenty oh nine).
He came off as a total nutcase, fitting right in with the Revelations-as-fact crowd.
REPLY: Yes I saw that too some months ago when it first aired. According to Walt Meier, Serreze “regrets” giving that interview. – Anthony
Lol, yeah, I’m so sure. He was relishing every second of it.