Visualizing Arctic Coverage

I’m an avid follower of WUWT – visiting the site (and other like ones) several times a day. I have an old Bachelor’s in Science and still work in IT – where I spend my time translating someone’s business rules into computer systems. I regret that I did not study statistics but I retain a “burnt in” regard for scientific method and the significance of errors – in design and measurement.
I feel happy here because I am surrounded by scientists and mathematicians and others who are happy to put aside “belief” and examine the data, the method, the logic, the sense of the claims made by “experts” – in papers, in journals and most importantly in submissions of summmaries – I include IPCC here.
Why am I writing this?
I looked at the referred GISS “paper” – and it brings home that I am a complete layman – stopped almost immediately by the jargon (not necessarily a fault), the bits of interwoven physics, the massive chunks of statistical references etc etc.
I realised yet again, how much I am dependent on the enormous abilities of the regulars here and similar sites – to wade through the “climate babel” and tease out the gaps, the assumptions, the “gloss overs”, the mistakes or the correctness of an article or paper.
I must admit that I have had some on-site training here – I checked the refererences in the Hansen paper and noted that almost every one was to a paper from “the team”. Just a little too circular for my liking – regardless of the content!
In summary, Tony, Steve(s), Willis, Jeff et al., thanks and please keep up with your fight for the rational application of scientific method – in all of its manifestations and aspects.

Questions:
[1] Is that data raw?
[2] Is that date adjusted?
[3] If [2] above:
—-[A] WHO adjusted it, and for what reason?
—-[B] WHO says the adjuster was factually INFALLIBLE in his assertions?
[4] If in [3][B] above, the adjuster is NOT infallible, then why are his data used officially without a disclaimer stating such fallibility?
[5] In the case of [4] above, if fallibility is admitted, then WHY is ‘environmental policy’ being made, based upon such fallible data?

Steve: That 3-globe animation is quite impressive, and quite telling. I am, however, having a problem interpreting the NOAA satellite map with those large purple areas. According to the legend, these are surface brightness temperatures, that vary between -110°C and -130°C. I have always thought that the mesopause, about 80km up, was the coldest part of our atmosphere, at temperatures in the -90°C to -100°C range. Could you explain what those purple areas mean? Thanks in advance.
/dr.bill

I’ll stay in the real world of real data and not James Hansen’s global warming fantasy world of manipulated data.
If it happens to be that I am wrong about my claim of manipulated data then Mr. James, please hand over all of the hard drives you deal with at your job to JeffID, Steve McIntyre, Steven Goddard, and Anthony Watts. We’ll find what is true. You should have nothing to hide but should happy to have verification for GISTemp.

And the Hadley Centre coverage is deceptive because they are showing Sea Surface Temperature anomalies where there is ice.

Steve, thanks. I noticed something in your animation that has prompted a post for me. You will enjoy it.

Thanks Steve,
Glad to see that my puzzlement isn’t unique.
/dr.bill

You’ve got enough material to make this a paper on it’s own… but would they publish it?

It appears from the NOAA/UAH map geography that they have coverage further north than 82.5°.
It’s amazing the amount of yellow and orange where there appears actual available data that GISS just 1200-km-extrapolates over to blood-red and justifies it by claiming missing data, missing data because they have tossed most of the stations from their database.
That 1200 kilometers is a bit less than one-eight of the distance from the north pole to the equator and GISS speaks of one-tenths of a degree anomalies, kind of ridiculous!
Does anyone know why someone with proper scientific credentials has not already refuted Hansen’s 1200-km paper, or could that be work in progress?

Nice work Mr. Goddard. Guess we can call off the code brown. (Monsters vs. Aliens reference. I got kids)

899 says:
May 21, 2010 at 6:13 pm
Excellent post !! Cheers !!

Steve, you do a great job creating nice looking graphics but I once more I think that you miss the mark in terms of relating what is really happening in the Arctic right now. Now even though 2010 Arctic Sea ice has fallen below even 2007 levels for this same date, this is not nearly as important as the Arctic sea ice volume anomaly, which is showing rapid negative declines. I would direct readers attentions to these two pages:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/images/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrent.png
and also here, to undestand how the sophisticated PIOMAS volume model is validated:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/zhang/IDAO/index.html
Steve, et. al. here on WUWT were quite excited earlier this year when the Arctic Sea ice made a small late season surge, though myself and others tried to be realistic about this surge in pointing out that it was new very thin ice that formed from a series persistent low pressure systems over the Bering Sea mainly. Analysis of the winter however, with warmer than normal temperatures in the Arctic (as shown by GISS et. al) had failed to thicken up the multi-year ice in the same manner as might have been found in previous winters. Sure enough, the low volume of Arctic Sea ice as shown in the graph above is now being seen quite dramatically in a sea ice extent that has fallen a rate that one would normally expect for later in the heart of the melt season mid-June to Mid-August.
Steve’s insistence of harping on the GISS data techniques, which may or may not have data smoothing issues, which may or may not result in a few tenths of a degree change at most, when the arctic is showing several degrees of anomalies, seems spurious at best. and a distraction from the real issue– the rapid decline of sea ice volume in the Arctic. If the AGW skeptics doubt the PIOMAS volume model, then please (sincerely) let us know what issue you have with it. But as of right now, the Arctic sea ice is behaving exactly as one would expect if the volume is as low as PIOMAS says it is. We may not have lost as much ice through the Fram Strait this winter (due mainly to the very negative AO index), but the ice that remained did not get extremely thick, and in fact, has a very negative volume anomaly, which is exactly why it is melting so quick, even before the main melt season hits.

Another great post from Mr. Goddard!
@Phil
Is it just me or do all of the graphs at clearclimatecode.org
Look as if they have been run through the Mann Hockey Stick Program?
Maybe they are using “adjusted” data.
Interolation of data at 1200KM interval seems a stretch if I am understanding the concept!

anna v says:
May 21, 2010 at 9:26 pm
Sometimes I think we are still in the middle ages discussing differences between archangels. We have accepted that average global anomalies have a meaning and reason merrily along on differences of representations.
Thanks anna, that needs to be re-raised regularly!

O/T
In this web site Gavin tells us it’s not too late, calculates (economic also) impacts of polar melt down for any level of sea level increase.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=interactive-12-events select polar meltdown and look in the bottom for Dr. Gavin interview

Phil.: May 21, 2010 at 10:29 pm
….. You really shouldn’t discuss this material when you don’t understand how it’s done. You haven’t included the UAH maps, but I guess you’ll continue in your delusion.

I’m just guessing here, but if your level of talent matches your level of arrogance, you must fairly glow in the dark. I bet it was hard to sneak back into the house when you were a kid, huh? Ease up man. The rest of us dummies are just trying to understand things.
/dr.bill

Phil,
There is something interesting in the UAH map, but not what you were expecting…

R Gates: ‘2010 Arctic Sea ice has fallen below even 2007 for this same date’
Looking at current sea ice coverage, present day coverage for this time of the year seems to fall within a very narrow band which suggests this of all times is not a time we can make confident predictions about coverage.
You further say:
‘the low volume of Arctic Sea ice as shown in the graph above is now being seen quite dramatically in a sea ice extent that has fallen a rate that one would normally expect for later in the heart of the melt season mid-June to Mid-August.’
But again, given the very narrow band width of sea ice extents at this time of the year, suggesting the current extent is falling at a rate consistent with a June to August melt seems a trifle premature.
I think it’s too early to call.

R. Gates, love that site you provided on volume models. Reminds me of the various scenarios for El Nino prediction models. Statistical versus dynamical. A very good site that we should all visit.
My bet is on the statistical natural climate models based on…wait for it…weather pattern variability and oscillations (IE if these weather system parameters exist, ice will do that), not the second one that includes projected warming scenarios from long-wave re-radiation as a result of increasing levels of greenhouse gasses over the Arctic (IE added warming temps to the natural variability Arctic system).
I noted that the explanations of statistical models were given a little “greenhouse gas” color commentary by the authors speculating that natural variability may be driven by greenhouse gasses. This is an unsupported statement and should have been made with proper references, which it was not.
Regardless, great site, and thanks for alerting us.
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/zhang/IDAO/index.html

Brightness Temperatures:
For those like myself who didn’t know what a brightness temperature was, I dug through some of my books and determined what it means. To wit:
– An object emitting thermal radiation follows the shape of Planck’s Law. If you integrate that over all frequencies, you get the Stefan-Boltzmann result with the T^4 dependence. If the object isn’t a blackbody (pretty much always the case), then the emissivity “e” enters the picture, and the total emitted intensity is given by I = eσT^4 (in W/m²).
– When only a segment of the frequency range is measured, as is the case with the microwave sounding units on the satellites, the emissions from the object still follow the shape of Planck’s Law, and the brightness temperature “Tb” is defined as the temperature a blackbody would have if it were producing that amount of intensity in that frequency range. This quantity and the actual temperature “T” are related by the following expression:
  1.00·[exp(hf/kT) – 1] = e·[exp(hf/kTb) – 1]
– In cases where the photon energies “hf” are much smaller than the thermal energies “kT”, which is the case with microwaves (where hf/kT is in the 1/100 range), the exponentials can be expanded in power series, and keeping only the first terms gives a much simpler expression:
  T = Tb/e
– The emissivity “e” is always less than 1.00, and thus the real temperature will be higher than the brightness temperature, which, as I interpret things, is what the satellites can measure (but I didn’t dig that far). The emissivity, however, appears to be the big “if factor”, since it will vary widely across the planet, depending on a host of geographical and time-dependent factors. I have no idea how they find those values, but the actual temperatures derived from the brightness temperatures depend critically on them.
/dr.bill

Phil,
OK I see that you did comment. Apparently you believe that it is problematic for UAH to infill from somewhere north of 82.5, but OK for GISS to infill from 70N? LOL
I can also see that you are having a tough time with the original video, which shows the extent of the measured satellite coverage.

R. Gates said on May 21, 2010 at 11:16 pm:

Steve, you do a great job creating nice looking graphics but I once more I think that you miss the mark in terms of relating what is really happening in the Arctic right now. Now even though 2010 Arctic Sea ice has fallen below even 2007 levels for this same date, this is not nearly as important as the Arctic sea ice volume anomaly, which is showing rapid negative declines. I would direct readers attentions to these two pages:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/images/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrent.png
and also here, to undestand how the sophisticated PIOMAS volume model is validated:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/zhang/IDAO/index.html
(…)

Well gee, you could have started at the Polar Science Center page that ties all of that together. There you can read interesting stuff like this from the “Purpose” section:

Total Arctic sea ice volume cannot currently be observed continuously. Observations from satellites, Navy submarines, moorings, and field measurements are limited in space or time. The assimilation of observations into numerical models, currently provides one way of estimating sea ice volume changes on a continuing basis. Volume estimates using age of sea ice as a proxy for ice thickness are another useful method (see here and here). Comparisons with observations help test our understanding of sea ice conditions in the Arctic.

The second “here” link goes to an ever-helpful paywall for Geophysical Research Letters where a 2007 paper exists. The first goes to an area the browser says is titled “Ignatius G. Rigor’s Home Page.” What immediately comes up is another paper from Geophysical Research Letters from 2004, “Variations in the Age of Arctic Sea-ice and Summer Sea-ice Extent.” The area has frames with a left-side page selector, from “Some Research Highlights” we can find “2008 Outlook for Arctic Sea Ice this Summer” which has:

Outlook
We expect that the minimum in summer sea ice extent in 2008 will break the record set during the summer of 2007 by about 1 million sq. km, and decrease from 4.1 million sq. km in September 2007 to 3.1 million sq. km in September 2008 (Fig. 1).

For disclosure, it says this at the bottom of the selector:

Acknowledgements: This research is funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Ice Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration through the JISAO, National Science Foundation, and the Office of Naval Research

Regular readers here know full well how fair and balanced NASA, NOAA, and the NSF are with regards to anything (C)AGW related, such as the Arctic Ice Death Spiral. Opinions about the NIC and ONR are welcomed.
The second link you provided, which is in the tie-together page I linked to in its “Model Validation” section, goes to a page headlined by:

Projections of an Ice-Diminished Arctic Ocean
– Retrospection and Future Projection

We find some interesting info at the bottom (emphasis added):

This NSF-funded project aims to:
(1) Examine the historical evolution of the arctic ice-ocean system to understand the large-scale changes that have occurred in sea ice and the upper Arctic Ocean.
(2) Project a diminished arctic sea-ice cover under multiple warming scenarios to understand key linkages among atmospheric forcing, sea-ice processes, and oceanic processes in an ice-diminished Arctic Ocean and the adjacent seas.

The goal was not to develop something that would compute ice volume period, but would project the loss of ice “under multiple warming scenarios”. At least that’s my take on it. And, surprise, the model likes to keep showing ice volume going down.
Back at the tie-together page under “Model Validation” we find:

PIOMAS has been extensively validated through comparisons with observations from US-Navy submarines, moorings, and satellites.

Yet it has been said before how spotty and unreliable the non-satellite measurements were and are. Does this mean PIOMAS was validated to statistical garbage? Well, they do provide this excellent graph showing it validated to IceSat. In one month of the year, November, from 2003 to 2007 (five points), the PIOMAS model did match a simple part of a curve, actually somewhat well for the first four points while not really missing it to the last one.
Obviously PIOMAS can be trusted to model both past and present Arctic ice volumes as it has been validated to observations previously declared unusable rubbish and several satellite data points. It does an excellent job showing declining ice, per project aim #2 shown above. I can clearly see why (C)AGW proponents like to continually promote that terrifying anomaly graph as showing THE REAL STORY about Arctic Ice. Why, even the 75% warmers love it.

R. Gates
I’m not sure what your conspiracy theory is, but for the record I do this for fun. I have no affiliations to any energy related industry, I don’t get paid, and have only met a couple of prominent skeptics for a total of about two hours.

John Galt II says:
May 22, 2010 at 12:25 am
“Another great post from Mr. Goddard!”
Agreed!

Phil,
Like I said, you will do anything to avoid discussing the problems with GISS coverage.

wayne
Stay tuned ;^)

All the GISS data, methods and code are freely downloadable. And their code has been independently rewritten by volunteers of the Clear Climate Code project to be clearer and better explained. And a number of independent individuals and teams have taken the data and produced their own versions of the analysis, showing essentially the same result.
If there is such distrust of the GISS and si milar products among the skeptic community, why have none produced and published their own alternative version?

Charles Wilson says:
May 22, 2010 at 7:02 pm
ZERO Ice at this years’ minimum. AND it’ll melt EARLY.
Fun.
Not long to wait. In the meanwhile, have a look at this camera from Greek Macedonia, a ski resort, note the date:
http://www.snowreport.gr/snowcam/kaimaktsalan/sarantovrisi.jpg
It is not often that in May in Greece one may choose between swimming and skiing.
Maybe all that ice tunneled quantum mechanically to Kaimaktsalan 🙂

Craig Allen said on May 22, 2010 at 9:31 pm:

All the GISS data, methods and code are freely downloadable. And their code has been independently rewritten by volunteers of the Clear Climate Code project to be clearer and better explained. And a number of independent individuals and teams have taken the data and produced their own versions of the analysis, showing essentially the same result.
(…)

Hansen wrote his paper detailing his method of mixing manure. Some have replicated the manure mixer he built, others have taken his concepts and made their own mixers. And sure enough, whether from Hansen’s own GISTemp or the recreations, manure gets shoveled in, and out comes smoothed homogenized manure. Which is still manure, smelling even more wonderful than usual.
Provided you are open to reason, please go read E.M. Smith’s in-depth analyzing of GISTemp, found here. If you don’t feel like diving into the code to see what GISTemp actually does, and taking notice where this differs from what is said that it does, at least read the “GIStemp – A Human View” page for a relatively simple description of just how much of a screwed-up mess it all is.

(…)
If there is such distrust of the GISS and si milar products among the skeptic community, why have none produced and published their own alternative version?

Lovely idea. You providing the funding for that? Actually, the historical temperature records can be a complete mess, with many strange cases, documented here and elsewhere, where the “raw” data available already has been adjusted, and even the truly raw data is questionable. Thus if all we really have to start with is manure, is there a good reason why we should design and build our own manure mixers?

R. Gates

Today's State Extremes
State Highs:
Fairbanks	60°F
Fairbanks Eiels	59°F
Eagle	57°F
Big Delta	54°F
Tanana	53°F

Didn’t deniers learn to leave ice visualization, and other matters they don’t understand, alone back when Steve Goddard embarrassed himself counting pixels? Interesting that deniers still cite that Register url as proof of something or other. Apparently they never make it to the retraction added at the bottom.
http://scienceblogs.com/islandofdoubt/2008/08/how_to_admit_youre_wrong.php
That prediction that “Arctic Ice will Continue to Recover” was off the mark on 2 accounts, the first was that a recovery was occurring. The mass of ice in the arctic has continued to decline, year over year. The 1 month recovery in area was of great interest to deniers who don’t understand the difference between sq meters of ice and cubic meters, but NSIDC accurately predicted that the new thin ice would melt rapidly.
Heat Pumps and Air Conditioners are rated by tons of ice per hour (varies with volume), not by sq yards of ice. The reason for that is the difference between sq meters of ice and cubic meters.
Arctic Ice Area has declined at a rapid rate. It is not below the area for this time in 2007, despite the late start to the melting season.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png
Yet another folded bluff from the “global warming isn’t happening” theorists.

Got to have been “raw” data. How else to account for the rotten Easter Egg look?

Kelly Manning
Everyone counts pixels. NSIDC teaches pixel counting to their students for measuring ice. Instead of mindlessly repeating ad homs you read somewhere else, try using your brain.
Arctic ice is close to normal and above 2007.
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_images/ssmi1_ice_ext.png

kadaka (KD Knoebel)
The referenced Register article was correct. There was a discrepancy between NSIDC and UIUC. As a result of that article, UIUC made two changes.
1. They added this text “Sea ice concentrations less than 30% are not displayed in these images” because their legend was/is incorrect.
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh
2. They corrected the eye elevation of their ice maps.

From stevengoddard on May 23, 2010 at 10:41 am:

The referenced Register article was correct. There was a discrepancy between NSIDC and UIUC. As a result of that article, UIUC made two changes.
(…)

Yup, I see that now. Previous comment was during a break from cursing my way through yard work so it was a bit rushed. I saw a “gentleman’s disagreement” with your follow-up statement starting with “Dr. Walt Meier at NSIDC has convinced me…” I did find his words about “the rest of the article” to be a bit extreme. Does he normally get that touchy when anyone questions global warming? 😉
Here in central Pennsylvania I finally got the old lawn tractor running. Two small O-rings in the carburetor assembly apparently didn’t like the “up to” 10% ethanol in the gasoline and broke down, clogging some small passageways. The engine now runs in surges with some backfiring. It was designed for “factory set and owner forget” emissions with only the bare minimum of gasoline going into the engine for the speed lever setting. It seems the lower energy content in just that small amount of ethanol is throwing it off, the engine tries to speed up then acts like the gas supply is insufficient, the governor mechanism then closes the throttle plate on the slowdown but too much leaving the motor almost stalling. Another type of malfunctioning feedback system linked to (C)AGW has now been identified.
Did you finally get in a soccer practice, or did you run out of season first? I’m asking this on the off-chance you’ll read this as all attention is now on the new Arctic Ice report. 🙂

Anybody:
New at this. Once you turn the italics on, how do you switch them off?
[Reply: </i> ~dbs, mod.]

I guess I really know how to kill a thread??
Thanks for the HTML tip.

this web site suks it dosent answer any of my questions and it should be taken of the web!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!