WUWT Arctic Sea Ice News #6

Artic is bipolar now (as many global warmers):
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/AT-GMF.gif

Interesting. It seems that on 3 indices out of 4 the ice extent is now lower than on the same day in the extreme year 2007. Does that mean that we hold the record for the lowest ice extent ever for todays date?

Here is what NSIDC’s Mark Serreze is now saying – –
“Could we break another record this year? I think it’s quite possible,” said Mark Serreze of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/arctic-sea-ice-heading-for-new-record-low/article1575212/
That is the same Mark Serreze of the famed “Death Spiral” quote.
I have a question –
If he is proven utterly wrong again and since the agency he supervises is responsible for data collection, not policy goals – – should one call for his resignation after September of 2010? Remember, I am one of the three liberals who come to this website – – but I feel that all federal agencies with the responsibility to collect data should refrain from partisan policy pronouncements – whether Bush’s Labor Department or Hansen’s NASA-GISS.

Just wait for R Gates to tell us how pleased he is that the extent is lowering. Me? I think its all nonsense and will wait for the new satellite to give us a better picture of the reality up there.

What is interesting is that NORSEX shows 2010 extent well above 2007, while NSIDC shows it below 2007.
Do you think we just hurt Walt’s feelings?

JAXA has posted an explanation for the change on their website:
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm

[Updated on May 18, 2010] Previous version of data processing had made an erroneous blip of sea ice extent on June 1st and October 15th which was seen in the graph of sea ice extent as a small peak on these dates. We improved the processing to make the graph much smoother. The apparent blip had arisen due to a switching of some parameters in the processing on both dates. The parameter switching is needed because the surface of the Arctic sea-ice becomes wet in summer due to the melting of ice which changes satellite-observed signatures of sea-ice drastically. By this improvement most of the sea ice extent values are not affected at all except for the period of May 20-June 11 and October 8-26 of each year.

All this excitement about melting ice. Did anyone ever check during the MWP on how much sea ice melted during the summer? Did anyone care? They were probably too busy trying to survive. Polar bears seem to have carried on through that era quite nicely. So who’s more intelligent, a polar bear or a WWF activist? Put both out naked on the frozen tundra and my money’s on the polar bear. The activist doesn’t stand a chance against reality; can only score guilt points against his fellow human beings.

The people with the most to lose if the ice doesn’t melt are reporting the most melt. Why didn’t you just say so? I wonder how long they can keep it up.
I am not happy with the lack of access to raw data. All you can get is these highly processed low resolution maps that are useless for checking on the differences of methodology & comparing it to reality. Suppose I wanted 100m resolution raw images and processed maps from NSIDC & JAXA. Where would I get them?

And this today from the NWS:
SXUS76 KMTR 231430
RERMTR
RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN SAN FRANCISCO
730 AM PDT SUN MAY 23 2010
…RECORD COLD THIS MORNING AT DOWNTOWN SAN FRANCISCO…
THE TEMPERATURE DROPPED TO 47 DEGREES THIS MORNING AT THE OFFICIAL
DOWNTOWN SAN FRANCISCO WEATHER OBSERVING SITE. THIS TIES THE RECORD
LOW FOR THIS DATE OF 47 DEGREES LAST SET IN 1909.
INTERMITTENT CLIMATE DATA FOR THIS SITE GOES ALL THE WAY BACK TO THE
GOLD RUSH DAYS OF 1849…BUT CONTINUOUS TEMPERATURE RECORDS AND DATA
FOR DOWNTOWN SAN FRANCISCO DIDNT START UNTIL AROUND 1871. HOWEVER
THIS IS ONE OF THE LONGEST RUNNING CLIMATE SITES IN THE WESTERN US.

O/T sorta
May be able to predict Enso 12-14 months in advance
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2010/02/study-el-nino-could-be-predicted-more-than-a-year-in-advance/1?csp=obinsite

blackswhitewash.com says:
May 23, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Nonsense is right. Nobody lives up there.
According to the Sacramento Bee, the coldest winter for N. Calif. in 50 years.
Wonder what the ice was doing in the Arctic in 1960?

etudiant:
The ice melts from the bottom up. Very roughly, it takes a certain air temperature to maintain a certain thickness of ice. We used to camp out on the ice starting when the sun came up in March and stay until the ice got too thin to land a DC-3 in May. The ice went from more than six feet to around two feet but you couldn’t tell it from the top of the ice. There was no sign of melting at all. The temperature was still well below freezing. I can remember a beautiful sunny day when the temperature went all the way up to minus 15 F. It was glorious, almost sunbathing weather.

It looks to me as if NSIDC ice data for the Baltic sea is lagging some weeks behind. Last week they still showed ice on the Gulf of Finland when there in reality was absolutely none. Now they show ice in the bay of Riga, where there is none. The only ice in the Baltic today is in the northernmost gulf of Bothnia. The Baltic has intense shipping all year and ice reports are available in great detail. Google Baltice or Finnish Meteorological Institute for example.
Have no clue why NSDIC seems to exaggerate our ice cover more often than not, this is just an observation from on site…

The SacBee report:
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/05/23/2771182/its-not-your-imagination-coldest.html
Now we’re messing with the brutality of the 1971 cold….and records are dropping.

OT:
“Climate change concern declines in poll
Only 62% of Britons interested in subject, down from 80% in 2006, according to YouGov survey”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/23/climate-change-interest-yougov-survey
No link to the actual questions but it was commissioned by EDF, a power company who slather every ad break in the UK with nauseating commercials banging on about how “green” they are. Lots of shots of happy families prancing under windmills et. al.
The other major point of the survey though, how people are becoming more relaxed about nuclear power is more potentially self-serving. It may well be true, but EDF, as front-runners for building any new stations are hardly unbiased.
Maybe they are hedging their bets for if/when the whole green power thing stalls.

Flew back from Beijing to New York yesterday, which takes you within about 1,000 miles of the North Pole. Everything looked pretty solidly frozen up in the arctic, at least as much as I could see (there was a lot of cloud cover).
Also, WUWT appears to be blocked in China. I couldn’t raise the website at my hotel, although I was able to access most of those sites I usually visit.

Answered my own question, Antarctic sea ice extent up:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.antarctic.png

“harrywr2 says:
May 23, 2010 at 1:13 pm
OT
Humans caused global cooling 12,000 years ago by killing methane belching woolly mammoths.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2010/05/mammoth-extinction-triggered-climate-cooling/1
”
I expected onion style spoof news there but it’s written as if it were “real” research. What am i missing? Is it so that they just get away with anything these days? Is it the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker institution of climate research?

Etudiant, much of the Arctic melt is not melt so much as currents and wind pushing the ice out of the Arctic Basin into warmer waters in the North Atlantic.
Ice extent declines because the ice is no longer there. Usually, there are limited egress points for the ice, as the ice is in large enough pieces to block certain straits. In 2007, the ice was broken up enough from the Beaufort Gyre and other currents to pass through areas that in the past have been bottlenecks.

If you go to the satellite photos, pull down the calendar and click on the 23rd, you can see a beautiful clear image of Iceland, and can zoom into it.
http://ice-map.appspot.com/

John Egan says:
May 23, 2010 at 11:45 am …
Your post confuses me. Being a liberal, are you upset because he goes along with Mr. Bastardi? “I think it’s quite possible,” said Mark Serreze, making a very tentative statement – maybe because Joe is making a much more solid prediction that we will be very low?
Then again, what does he have to do with either “Bush’s Labor Department or Hansen’s NASA-GISS”?

NASA’s World Wind 1.4 shows an amazing amount of snow coverage above the 49th parallel in the Northern Hemisphere.
Commensurate with slow ICE loss in the Arctic.
Svensmark WILL be vindicated!

Before someone whips out the terrifying Arctic Ice Volume Anomaly chart that tells THE REAL STORY, please note the following:
Souce page of the chart:

Updates will be generated at 3-5 day intervals.

Home page, “News and Noteworthy” section:

Arctic Sea Ice Volume anomalies and trends from the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) will be continously updated here at 3-5 day intervals depending on data availability.

The actual chart was last updated May 13, now ten days ago, when it showed a sudden and steep decline. Since then they have missed about 2 to 4 updates per the posted scheduling (which depends on data availability).
So what happened with PIOMAS? Did the model break?

Joe Bastardi says the green (warmth) in the ocean temperature that is heading west of Africa all the way to the Caribbean is going to cause a couple of heavy hurricanes in the USA Gulf this year.

WABC Sunday Evening News, May 23, 2010, just ran a story comparing climate skeptics to white supremacists.
Climate Scientists Claim ‘McCarthy-Like Threats,’ Say They Face Intimidation, Ominous E-Mails
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Media/climate-scientists-threat-global-warming-proponents-face-intimidation/story
The story which broadcast this Sunday evening included screenshots from a racist website. We need to get this evening’s video recording. The above link is not quite the same story but many of the elements are the same. Start making backups of everything before they start rewriting history again. The number of lies in the report are truly unbelievable.
Michael Ronayne

Oops, almost forgot, here a link to an excellent (and very technical article) as to why warming temps may actually increase sea ice in Antarctica:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/zhang/Pubs/Zhang_Antarctic_20-11-2515.pdf
The nice thing about this arcticle is that is has nothing to do with the ozone depletion, as some other theories do. Feedback is most welcome!

Here is the full text of the report as of 8:08PM EST May 23, 2010. Read the feedback to ABC News.
Climate Scientists Claim ‘McCarthy-Like Threats,’ Say They Face Intimidation, Ominous E-Mails
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Media/climate-scientists-threat-global-warming-proponents-face-intimidation/story?id=10723932
Global Warming Denier Says His Side Gets Threats, Too
By DAN HARRIS and CHRISTINE BROUWER
May 23, 2010 —
Climate scientist Michael Mann says he has received hundreds of them — threatening e-mails and phone calls calling him a criminal, a communist or worse.
“6 feet under, with the roots, is were you should be,” one e-mail reads. “How know 1 one has been the livin p*ss out of you yet, i was hopin i would see the news that you commited suicide, Do it.”
“I’ve been called just about everything in the book,” Mann, who runs of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University, told ABC News. “It’s an attempt to chill the discourse, and I think that’s what’s most disconcerting.”
Mann is not the only one. The FBI says it’s seeing an uptick in threatening communications to climate scientists. Recently, a white supremacist website posted Mann’s picture alongside several of his colleagues with the word “Jew” next to each image.
One climate scientist, who did not wish to be identified, told ABC News he’s had a dead animal left on his doorstep, and now sometimes travels with bodyguards.
“Human-caused climate change is a reality,” Mann said. “There are clearly some who find that message inconvenient, and unfortunately they appear willing to turn to just about any tactics to try to suppress that message.”
Scientists See Political Campaign by Senator
Many climate scientists, however, say the most disturbing recent example of what they call intimidation is not anonymous hate mail.
Rather, they point to a governmental report released in February by Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., one of the most vocal climate skeptics in office, which names 17 climate scientists and argues some of them may have engaged in “potentially criminal behavior.”
Inhofe’s report referred to an incident late last year known as “Climate Gate,” in which e-mails hacked from computers at the University of East Anglia in Britain gave the impression some climate scientists may have been trying to hide flaws in their research. Several subsequent investigations have exonerated the scientists’ work.
One section of Inhofe’s report outlined the laws the scientists may have violated, including the Federal False Statements Act, which the report noted could be punishable with imprisonment of “not more than five years.”
Climate Scientist: ‘Modern-Day McCarthyism’
“It’s reminiscent of other periods in American history,” Gavin Schmidt, a NASA climatologist named in Inhofe’s report, told ABC News. “People were smeared not on the basis of anything they did but just by powerful people seeming to … insinuate that they’ve somehow done something wrong.”
Mann agreed.
“Some of the attacks that are being made against climate scientists smack of modern-day McCarthyism,” he said.
Inhofe: ‘The Public Needs to Know’
Inhofe refused to grant ABC News an interview, citing the network’s previous coverage of climate change. But in a statement, he said: “One of the most basic principles of good science is openness and transparency. … As the climate e-mail controversy revealed, it appears some of the taxpayer-funded science used to advance cap-and-trade legislation is being hidden from public view. … The public needs to know whether the research they fund is reliable, objective, and easily accessible.”
Marc Morano, who used to be Inhofe’s spokesman and is now one of the most vocal climate skeptics in the country, told ABC News that the skeptics have been getting threats for years.
“No one is advocating violence,” Morano said, “but it is refreshing to see these scientists hear from the public. When you go to a used-car salesman and you get conned … you don’t go back to the used-car dealer all happy and pleasant. You have a lot of anger, and that’s what these scientists are appropriately feeling.”
Gavin Schmidt of NASA dismissed the idea that climate change is a hoax.
“It’s nonsense,” Schmidt said. “Scientists are hyper competitive. … The idea that you could fool all of these people or get them to just buy into some global conspiracy, is laughable.”
Many scientists say the harassment they endure stifles scientific discovery and progress.
“Good scientists just go where the evidence takes them,” said Peter Gleick, a hydro-climatologist and president of the Pacific Institute. “The idea that they would be limited by politicians in what they can evaluate or study or say, is anathema to them.”
Scientists Issue Public Letter
Gleick, along with 254 other members of the National Academy of Sciences, recently signed a public letter calling for an end to the intimidation of climate scientists.
“Many recent assaults on climate science, and, more disturbingly, on climate scientists by climate change deniers, are typically driven by special interests or dogma, not by an honest effort to provide an alternative theory,” read the letter, which was published in Science magazine earlier this month.
“We … call for an end to McCarthy-like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association, the harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distraction to avoid taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them,” the letter continued.
Gavin Schmidt of NASA said attacks are meant to keep scientists from speaking out about climate change in public.
“They’re trying to dissuade people from being involved in the public discussion about what this means and what we can do to prevent it,” he said. “I think people who care about the integrity of science in this country should find that worrying.”

Smokey says:
May 23, 2010 at 4:52 pm (Something about Antarctic ice volume)
Antarctic ice has a much larger melt/freeze cycle, with much less ice remaining at the end of the melt (and in about the same place), so volume really isn’t such an issue there.

R. Gates says:
May 23, 2010 at 5:07 pm
Oops, almost forgot, here a link to an excellent (and very technical article) as to why warming temps may actually increase sea ice in Antarctica:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/zhang/Pubs/Zhang_Antarctic_20-11-2515.pdf
The nice thing about this arcticle is that is has nothing to do with the ozone depletion, as some other theories do. Feedback is most welcome!
===============
Last I heard, the discussion was about CO2.

R. Gates,
You should just quit using the Polar Science Centre PIOMAS ice volume chart because the math does not work with it. You can figure out on your own why it doesn’t.
And your much touted Zhang Polar Science Centre researcher had one of the worst predictions for last year’s ice extent (along with the other PSC scientists which all tied for third worst – even the highest forecast from the Canadian Ice Service was low by 10% – Zhang by 30% .)
http://www.arcus.org/search/seaiceoutlook/2009_outlook/full_report_june.php

Bill, it’s’ curious that the PIOMAS model estimates did pretty well during the ICESat era. Given the in situ observations of the ice cover and the current rapid decline, it’s more likely than not that PIOMAS volume estimates are close to reality.
When the ice cover plummets again this summer perhaps then you’ll realize that the ice is indeed on “thin ice”

Just The Facts says:
May 23, 2010 at 5:58 pm Actually Zhang has been known to investigate sea ice links to natural variability. Just do a google search on his articles related to sea ice loss. Before you start spouting off, you may want to check your facts.

Back to the picture in Time Magazine, March 17, 1959. USS Skate in open waters at the North Pole.
Following is a cold winter. Up goes the winds to the Arctic, down goes the cold air to Western US.
Some things begin to make more sense.
Great for subs at the North Pole.

Smokey says:
May 23, 2010 at 7:06 pm
You don’t seem to realize what “global” means. If there is diminishing Arctic ice, but Antarctic ice is the same as usual, then the Arctic is simply showing local climate effects.
The question is about global warming [or cooling], not about local variability; that happens all the time, and in this case the Arctic will eventually revert to the mean, as it always does.
————-
Smokey you don’t seem to understand the different processes that control the Arctic and Antarctic climates. For starters, the Arctic is surrounded by land, whereas the Antarctic is surrounded by oceans. Thus, the ocean is a very important factor in Antarctic climate, which has a very large heat capacity. To assume that both poles will respond in the exactly same way is very naiiive of you. Remember, global warming does not mean warming everywhere. It is simply an average of the entire planet, but some regions may show pronounced warming such as the Arctic, whereas other regions may be showing little or reverse warming trends. Climate models have always predicted this to be the case, and observations agree..

JDN says:
May 23, 2010 at 7:52 pm
“Thanks JK, but, those images have lots of cloud cover, no reference frame, and still not enough resolution. Are these really the images people use to determine ice cover?”
I believe they use microwave, not visible light, sensors. Reference is the land and islands. You can go to the calendar and pick different days with different cloud cover. You can zoom with the gadget in upper left corner. You can actually see the ice cover.
I think you can get the raw data and work it up yourself. I seem to recall someone doing that a few years ago. Since people can get confirmation from airplanes, satellite imagery, ships, etc., I find it doubtful all these various agencies around the world are fudging the data in unison. But that’s why I like to look at the pics.

jeff brown says:
May 23, 2010 at 6:48 pm
Bill, it’s’ curious that the PIOMAS model estimates did pretty well during the ICESat era. Given the in situ observations of the ice cover and the current rapid decline, it’s more likely than not that PIOMAS volume estimates are close to reality.
When the ice cover plummets again this summer perhaps then you’ll realize that the ice is indeed on “thin ice”
________________
Bill, I agree, but the proof will only come over time, but those who have called Dr. Zhang science “garbage” will not pay attention when his PIOMAS model is proven once more as very solid and they’ll have to figure out omething else to focus their “skepticism” on…

Smokey says:
May 23, 2010 at 7:06 pm
nedhead,
You don’t seem to realize what “global” means. If there is diminishing Arctic ice, but Antarctic ice is the same as usual, then the Arctic is simply showing local climate effects.
__________________
Nope, two vastly different climate dynamical systems in the Arctic and Antarctic. The alternative possibility to your assertion would be that the Arctic is responding differently to AGW than the Antarctic because it IS so different.

Very impressive, making an animation video showing ” the entire month of May”, especially since more than a week of it lies in the future.
And although smoothing out that little bump in
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
is indeed interesting, I think more interesting is the fact that 2010 dropped like a rock from being the highest sea ice extent in the IARC-JAXA 2002 to 2010 data to cutting across the curves for 2009, then 2008, then 2003, then 2005, then 2007. (The curve for 2002 started in June, so we’ll soon be below that one, too)
Next up: 2004, then 2006.
The Arctic is still running well below freezing, and as a result there just isn’t much happening,
I guess you haven’t been watching the “dropping like a rock” part.
More interesting is what is going at the South Pole.
What have you been Smokeying ?
This is WUWT Arctic Sea Ice News #6
Arctic. The pole that is melting.
Well, IARC-JAXA only started in 2002. What about satellite data back to 1972 ?
http://iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/ice_ext_n.png
Huh.
Looks like this summer melt season might be an eye opener.

Everything happening with Arctic ice is within normal variation. Nothing unusual is happening with it. But some people here sure are spending a lot of time drumming up ways to make it look like unusual things are happening there. Like the one guy that said the Arctic “enjoyed warm conditions” last winter. So because it was -57 F on some days instead of -60 F it was enjoyable weather. That’s “warm conditions” t-shirt weather! See how that goes?
The sky is always falling with them.
I wonder how they are explaining the unusually cold spring in Northern California, Oregon, and Washington? Oh wait, that’s just ‘weather’ in which case the sky isn’t falling. If it was unusually warm in the same area then the sky would be falling—just like the sky was falling because of the warm weather for the Olympics in Vancouver.

Mark Serrezes’ prediction for Arctic ice this summer:
Dr. Serreze said winds, cloud cover or other weather conditions could slow the melt, but he points out that the decline is likely to speed up even more in June and July.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/arctic-sea-ice-heading-for-new-record-low/article1575212/

The whole satellite era of polar ice concentration occurred during a period of highly positive Arctic Oscillation (AO) whilst at the same time the sun was more disturbed than previously observed over the past 500 years and the ocean surfaces were warmer than ever previously observed due to a run of powerful El Nino events during a 30 year warm phase of the PDO.
Now all three influences are trending in the opposite direction, namely a quiet sun, a negative PDO and a negative Arctic Oscillation.
Leaving aside for the moment the likelihood that all three phenomena are in some way linked the fact is we have no experience as to how the profile of the Arctic ice extent chart varies during a year with all three influences running opposite to the previous 30 years.
I suspect that larger intra annual variability would be a likely natural outcome simply because a negative Arctic Oscillation gives larger and longer latitudinal flows of air into and out of the Arctic region as compared to a positive Arctic Oscillation.
It has already been noted by many that when the AO is negative the air circulation systems move equatorward giving more ‘loopiness’ in the jets. The larger swings in Arctic ice cover would be a natural consequence.

Anu says:
May 23, 2010 at 10:18 pm
Yes, the summer melt might be an eye-opener, but not anywhere near as eye-opening as the continual stream of heat transferred to the poles while cold air rains down upon the Temperate Zone’s Agriculture.
What happens next year when there’s no El Nino to moderate?

Stephen Wilde says:
May 23, 2010 at 11:54 pm
“The whole satellite era of polar ice concentration occurred during a period of highly positive Arctic Oscillation (AO) whilst at the same time the sun was more disturbed than previously observed over the past 500 years and the ocean surfaces were warmer than ever previously observed due to a run of powerful El Nino events during a 30 year warm phase of the PDO.
Now all three influences are trending in the opposite direction, namely a quiet sun, a negative PDO and a negative Arctic Oscillation……
I suspect that larger intra annual variability would be a likely natural outcome simply because a negative Arctic Oscillation gives larger and longer latitudinal flows of air into and out of the Arctic region as compared to a positive Arctic Oscillation.
It has already been noted by many that when the AO is negative the air circulation systems move equatorward giving more ‘loopiness’ in the jets. The larger swings in Arctic ice cover would be a natural consequence.”
_________________________________________________________________________
There are natural cycles of about 60 yrs (ocean) and 200 yrs (sun), but we only have data for about 30 yrs so there is no way in heck we have a good handle on the natural variability or what the “true average is”. The whole darn subject and the graphs are very misleading and designed to cause alarm.
The graph uses data from 1979 to 2006 to compute the average. This is less than the thirty years that cover 1/2 an ocean cycle (In my numerous statistics classes I was taught to always use a minimum sample size of 30.) SO what part of the relevant ocean cycles does the average cover?
This Wiki graph PDO (1650 to 1991) shows the PDO was mainly in a warm phase for 1979 to 2006. A more recent graph from NOAA shows there were only three years with a strongly negative PDO included in the infamous “average”.
This article shows both the arctic oscillation and the atmospheric pressure over the north pole were mainly positive.
And again the North Atlantic Oscillation was also strongly positive through the period.
Wiki NAO graph
The AMO went from negative to positive during the time period. Wiki -AMO graph
The sun has also been in a more active phase during that time period sunspot proxy Here is a more complete look at the subject of the Sun’s activity and TSI over time
Not only is the “average” used for comparison a poor proxy for the “true mean” given it does not include a sampling of all the natural variability, but the gray area signifying “normal” is only one standard deviation from the average. Only 68% of data are within one standard deviation of the mean. So that is meant to cause alarm and mislead too.
The gray area should be 2.5 STD or at least 2 STD since 95% of individuals will have values within 2 standard deviations of the mean. I am sure those constructing the graph know this and that is why they chose to use only one standard deviation.
The “system” has been building “heat” for thirty years we are at the top of the sine curves starting on the downward slope. However just like you can not stop and turn an ocean liner like you can a quarter horse, you can not expect the “system” to change directions in a couple of years. I have no idea what the lag time is but given the changes we saw in the weather patterns last winter, I think the weather will be different (and colder) in the next thirty years than the last thirty.
To be complete the cosmic ray count during the period. Note how 2009 has the highest cosmic ray count during the time period shown (1965 to 2009).

Hmmmm. I find it both odd and rather unusual for Cryosphere Today to be contradicting themselves so much…The “Compare Daily Sea Ice” map for 5/23/2010 shows considerably more ice in the Sea of Okhotsk and the Bering Sea than their main page image. Of course, it’s really all moot what happens outside the Arctic Basin proper…we know that all of this will melt completely in the coming weeks…as it always has. Nevertheless, I watch it on a daily basis if for no other reason than the fact that I find it more entertaining than watching football!

R. Gates,
“The alternative possibility to your assertion would be that the Arctic is responding differently to AGW than the Antarctic because it IS so different.”
Let me see if I understand this. The Antarctic is responding differently to global warming by freezing up. And that of course, proves global warming all the better.

Just The Facts says:
May 23, 2010 at 10:43 pm
As you yourself state, Zhang talks about preconditioning from a warming world. The reality is that the Arctic has been warming and so have global temperatures. Regardless of what has caused those temperatures to rise, Zhang is correct that it’s a warming world at the moment. If he doesn’t explicitly state GHG-induced warming, then he isn’t explicitly stating that GHGs are the reason for the observed warmth. Best to stick with what is written and not bias it according to what you want to believe he has written.

I’d call it 5 weeks to the beginning of “interesting”.
May 1-July 1 just isn’t interesting. People are fretting that 2010 has gone below 2007. Yes, well take a closer look. 2007 was above 2006 at this point with clear daylight between them on the JAXA graph –how’d that work out in the end?
Also note that the great “death spiral is HERE!” year of 2007, shown loving as a comparison on NSIDCs current daily graphs, during this “bottleneck” period of May 1-July 1, is bumping along the bottom of their standard deviation bars. Compare that to April 1 where there is a large gap on 2007 vs the SD bars. More than anything that should tell you that May 1-July 1 just isn’t indicative of much of anything at all as to eventual extent minimum. I’ve been saying that since the middle of April, so no revisionist history there from me.
What matters during this May 1-July 1 period, as Steve pointed out, is what he called the Arctic basin, and what I usually call “the central core”. And the ice concentrations in it looks very good indeed right now compared to previous years. I could wish Steve had done that animation for 2008 as well for comparison purposes.
It’s worth remembering the compare tool at Crysophere uses a different color legend than the full scale pics. What is a light purple on the compare tool would be yellow or green on the large pics if you want to make that kind of translation. But for apples-to-apples comparisons of previous years that doesn’t matter –and those previous years have a lot more 80% or less concentration areas in the central core/arctic basin than 2010 does.

Gail writes:I suspect that larger intra annual variability would be a likely natural outcome simply because a negative Arctic Oscillation gives larger and longer latitudinal flows of air into and out of the Arctic region as compared to a positive Arctic Oscillation.
Gail, I suspect more interannual variability as the ice cover continues to thin. This is because when the ice is thin an anomalous summer can promote large ice loss, whereas when the ice is thicker you may have a lot of melt, but not much change in extent. Conversely, during atmospheric conditions that favor ice retention, all you need is a thin layer of sea ice to survive to cause the extent to tick back up. Eventually however, the ice becomes too thin to survive regardless of the summer weather patterns. You can see a change in variance of the September sea ice extent over time…

It is so obvious that what the world needs today is someone who can tell us all what is, and is not, true. There is just no other solution. Let us dumb together and agree once and for all time, that henseforth and evermore the UN Secretary General shall have the Power of Infallibility. If he says it’s raining, it’s raining. If he says it’s melting, it’s melting. If he says I’m wrong, you’re wrong, we’re all wrong, then by gumbo, we’re wrong. Of course, the reverse is also true; we have a chance of being right sometimes too. Life is just so complicated and people are just too greedy and out for their own gain. I tell you we must do this to save us from ourselves (especially the ourselves that have so much more than the rest of us have).
PS: We probably ought to make the UNSG position a lifetime appointment –you know like the Pope and Iran’s Supreme Iatola and the Queen and the Japanese Emperor. One day we can have Utopia. If we only believe!

geo says:
May 24, 2010 at 6:51 am
What matters during this May 1-July 1 period, as Steve pointed out, is what he called the Arctic basin, and what I usually call “the central core”. And the ice concentrations in it looks very good indeed right now compared to previous years. I could wish Steve had done that animation for 2008 as well for comparison purposes.
————
Geo, have you looked at the AMSR-E ice concentrations from today? Do you notice the numerous polynyas that have formed? Do you also notice the reduced ice concentrations in the interior of the icepack? Compare that with 2007 at this time, and then think about how thick the ice is this spring compared to what it was in 2007.
Given the thinner ice cover, having these numerous polynyas as the Arctic is about to head into peak solar insolation means more melt since those open water areas absorb the sun’s energy, fostering more lateral and basal melt. To me the situation looks worse than it did in 2007 at this time. But it’s true that there’s a lot that can change as the melt season progresses, but it’s not good to start out where it is right now.
BTW…the MYI picture didn’t improve. Export out of Fram Strait this winter was normal, and the old ice that was transported into the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas was transported further south than the typical Beaufort Gyre circulation, which means that ice is not returning northwards where it could survive the summer melt. Old ice still declined throughout winter in contrast to what Steve would have you believe.

That’s interesting -> what geo wrote about concentration numbers in the core, with 2010 looking much better than previous years.
Why does this picture from the University of Bremen show much lower ice concentration than the picture on CT where you can compare pictures of different dates with each other?
The picture on the front page of CT has similar ice concentrations to the picture of the University of Bremen, and also differs quite a lot from the pictures on the comparison page.

Re Serreze. Since NOAA describes their mission as “to understand and predict”, and NSIDC is part of NOAA, then if arctic yearly minimum is greater this year than last year, I think it would be entirely appropriate to say it is time for Serreze to go, as he will have once again faily abysmally at fulfilling their stated mission, and have done so over a multi-year period and in spite of contra-indicating evidence that had absolutely no impact on moderating his extreme views.
Now, understand, I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt by that standard –he’s telling people that this year could be lower than 2007. I’m not saying he should resign if that isn’t true –I’m giving him a much bigger, and kinder, rope than that by saying if 2010 minimum exceeds 2009 minimum then he should go. Because then he will not just have been “wrong again” three years running, but quite significantly wrong again.

Just The Facts says:
May 24, 2010 at 9:14 am
You don’t seem to understand that in fact the passive microwave estimates of ice concentration are in error during summer in the interior of the ice pack. This is because the dielectric properties of snow and ice, and therefore their emissivities, change drastically with ice and snow wetness. So when melt water forms at the surface, the emissivity increases to close to 1 causing the surface to appear as a blackbody at microwave wavelengths. This is why places like NSIDC focus on the overall extent rather than the ice concentrations, and why an adjusted is needed if Zhang et al. are going to incorporate daily sea ice concentration fields into their model. Otherwise, they would show much lower ice volume estimates.
BTW…the ice loss in 2007 was dramatic, it was a 26% decrease from the previous year. I don’t think Zhang et al. are incorrect for pointing that out.

We have now identified a new “Arctic Ice Death Spiral” -alarmist favorite map:
http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/ice_ext_n.png
Checking out the source, going by the English pages at IUP University of Bremen, the path goes to Data Products then High Resolution AMSR-E 89 GHz Sea Ice Images where we find THIS SHOCKING ADMISSION:

Sea ice concentrations are determined at IUP using the ARTIST Sea Ice algorithm (ASI) from the 89 GHz AMSR-E channels. The AMSR-E results are preliminary because AMSR-E is still in the calibration phase, and because they have been produced with the ASI algorithm fine tuned for the SSM/I frequencies. The algorithm uses the AMSR version of the Bootstrap Algorithm (Comiso, GSFC) to determine low-resolution ice concentrations from the 18 and 36 GHz channels.

You got that? “This is a work in progress. Use at your own risk. There is no warranty express or implied.”
Highly recommended, click on the “ARTIST” link above for a delightful and scientifically accurate animation. On that page is a “Sea Ice Outlook” link. “Educated Opinions” about the September minimum Arctic Sea Ice extent have been gathered from contributors using May data. Two completed reports are posted, 2008 and 2009. From 2008 we find:

How Well Did the Outlook Based on May and July Data Compare to September Observations?
The May Outlook responses had a median value of 4.2 million square kilometers, with a median of 4.9 million square kilometers for the July Outlook (Fig. 5); these compare to a 2008 September observed value of 4.7 million square kilometers. Both Outlook estimates are well below the 1979-2000 mean and below the linear trend line.

(Note that May figure is found by the “Full Report” tab. It is not in the initial “Overview and Key Highlights” tab that trumpets how well they did, or the flyer available for download…)
From 2009:

2009 Minimum Sea Ice Extent
The projections of the Sea Ice Outlook groups for the September 2009 mean minimum ice extent had a median value of 4.7 million square kilometers based on May data and 4.6 million square kilometers based on June data with a range of 4.2-5.2 million square kilometers (Figure 1). These estimates are below the observed value of 5.36 million square kilometers as provided by Walt Meier, NSIDC. (…)

What seems like a reasonable conclusion? The May numbers don’t mean much. Twice in a row “Educated Opinions” have yielded underestimations of the final results. Which is surprising considering how the contributors included esteemed experts on Arctic ice like Barber, Meier, Zhang… For interesting reading, at the bottom of both reports can be found statements from the esteemed experts about what happened. I especially like Zhang’s final sentence for 2009:

When the ice conditions in spring are used as an indicator of what may happen several months later in September, there is a need to significantly raise the error bar considering the significant variability of weather and climate.

Oh, general question. In both reports there is a long-term prediction graph of minimum extent going to 2100, here is the 2009 one, which each line being from a “single ensemble member.” Going by eyeball, everyone agrees in about five years there shall be rising amounts for about fifteen years, followed by a resumption of a falling trend. Can someone explain why there is a predicted Death Spiral Interruptus?
BTW, back at the new favorite alarming graph, note how all the recent curves (2003 to 2009) closely converge around the same point in June where the sine waves flip over. This year was a bit odd that ice extent was still going up somewhat late, to about the beginning of April. Doesn’t it make sense that we should see a fast decline so the 2010 curve “catches up” for the June convergence?

Neven says:
May 24, 2010 at 8:09 am
That’s interesting -> what geo wrote about concentration numbers in the core, with 2010 looking much better than previous years.
Why does this picture from the University of Bremen show much lower ice concentration than the picture on CT where you can compare pictures of different dates with each other?
The picture on the front page of CT has similar ice concentrations to the picture of the University of Bremen, and also differs quite a lot from the pictures on the comparison page.
++++
Because the front page of CT uses a different color legend than the comparison page. Look at both closely. What is light purple on the comparison page (80%) would be yellow or green on the front page (still 80%). What is red on the comparison page (60%) would be blue on the front page (still 60%). If you make that translation then the comparison page does not look so different than the front page.
But what really matters is apples-to-apples –how do the comparison pages for same date of the year look across different years?

You can also look at any of the images for different days/years here: ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/pub/DATASETS/seaice/polar-stereo/nasateam/final-gsfc/browse/north/daily/ and
here: ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/pub/DATASETS/seaice/polar-stereo/nasateam/near-real-time/browse/north/
Pretty clear that the ice looks more rotten this year than during the past few years of extremely low ice extents….

AndyW said on May 24, 2010 at 12:27 pm:

geo said @ May 24, 2010 at 7:18 am
“Not a lot of “rotten ice” in the core right now vs 2008 or 2007 or 2006.”
Sorry but that is wishful thinking as shown by looking at any of the years here
http://www.iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsredata/asi_daygrid_swath/l1a/n6250/
Andy

Sorry, but the esteemed Dr. David Barber, noted educated Arctic Sea Ice expert, has stated the satellites get it wrong, namely they report as thick multi-year ice what is really thin “rotten” ice. Therefore the source for your rebuttal, as they are using satellite data, is unreliable for this discussion about “rotten” ice. You should supply a better source, or several better sources for a robust rebuttal.

kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
May 24, 2010 at 1:47 pm
Kadaka I think it’s important to understand why Dr. Barber reported as he did. It is well known that the sea ice algorithms applied to passive microwave brightness temperatures assume “tie points” representing first-year ice, multiyear ice and open water. These tend to be based on typical brightness temperatures for these types of surfaces. Yet it’s entirely possible that as the ice cover becomes more “rotten” that the brightness temperature signal that typically corresponds to multiyear ice no longer matches up to the typical values expected. Changes in the surface impact on changes in volume and surface scattering. That was the reason why the passive microwave observations were found to overestimate the “health” of the ice pack last fall. Passive microwave-derived sea ice concentrations are also subjected to a bias when the surface starts to melt (i.e. they “think” there is open water when in reality it is melting ice). So sometimes they underpredict and sometimes they overpredict the actual sea ice concentrations (extent is less affected by this however). The reality though is that the passive microwave sea ice concentration data record is the best data record out there since it’s often too cloudy to observe the ice with visible or thermal data. When you compare ice concentrations from different years, more reductions in ice concentrations in summer either implies more surface melt or more open water ares. 2010 certainly is seeing more areas of reduced ice concentrations at this time of year than in 2007.

For example, it shows no open water in the Hudson Bay region nor around Q.E Island area

Kadaka you seem to be missing the point that there is no long term in situ observation of the sea ice cover throughout the Arctic. David Barber is correct that the sea ice algorithms don’t tell you how thick the underlying ice cover actually is. Designating something as MYI versus FYI can be deceiving since that MYI may be very thin, rotten ice. So in reality, things are probably worse than we think.

Jeff Brown, if ice concentration is up in the basin (and it is as far as I can tell from side by side pictures) and it is windy, it stands to reason that compared to 2007 and 2008 (2009 is out of the picture because of the satellite problems in 2009), the ice will be thicker (compaction and ridging) and a heck of a lot more difficult to traverse.
Try using a mind experiment. Put into your mind-experiment ice that has a mix of concentrations (such as occurred in 2007 and 2008). Add wind. Compaction will occur but only after lower concentrations are filled first. Now put into your mind a fully concentrated basin. Add wind. Ridging should occur right away. You will likely get more immediate compaction and ridging under those conditions. You might also get slower movement of ice under the same wind conditions.
I wonder what would be the result if we measured amount and speed of ridging (pixel by pixel) as an indirect measure of thickness in any one year. A predominantly flat surface that moves rather quickly would indicate what? A ridgy, compacted surface that moves rather slowly would indicate what?
Or maybe ridging at the land edges might be instructive as to ice thickness. Just because one extent edge is less than it was last year may not mean the entire Arctic is about to melt like an ice cream sandwich on a hot summer day.
My point is that maybe there are other parameters that clue us into ice thickness better than extent edge? Discussion?

Pamela, first off, what do you mean by the 2009 satellite data problem? When a sensor shows degradation, NSIDC switches to the next one. They always do that, so that’s not a problem. How many sensors do you think are in the 1979-present time-series? I believe they use SMMR, SSM/I F8, SSM/I F11, SSM/I F13, SSM/I F15 and SSM/I F17.
Ice concentration is not up in the basin. If I knew how to attach an image that is not an html link, I would show you a plot of the ice concentration (or total ice area–which is a reflection of ice concentration since it multiplies the extent by the actual ice concentration per pixel) and you would see for yourself that the ice concentrations are not up.
But to get to your question. You are correct that thin ice ridges and compacts more easily than old, thick ice. Thus, in some ways during a thinner ice regime you would expect more ridging and rafting, so locally you could have some very thick ice. And yes you are correct that ice extent is not the full story, the ice volume is the metric you really want to get a handle on. It’s like the old sonar data from submarines that showed ice thinning in the Arctic Basin. They didn’t have Arctic-wide estimates so they couldn’t say with certainty that the ice volume had declined since it could have been exported elsewhere. ICESat and Cryosat are the first opportunities for wide-spread monitoring of ice thickness. Another way to try to get a handle could be through surface roughness estimates from MISR. I don’t think anyone has done that yet though, at least not on a large scale.
I would think a lot of ridging and rafting would occur near the coasts, and that ice has been melting more and more in recent years, so perhaps it doesn’t help the situation all that much.
Even though the real thing we want to know is ice volume, I still think trends in extent do give us some useful information as to what is happening to the ice cover.

jeff brown said on May 24, 2010 at 3:42 pm:

Kadaka you seem to be missing the point that there is no long term in situ observation of the sea ice cover throughout the Arctic. David Barber is correct that the sea ice algorithms don’t tell you how thick the underlying ice cover actually is. Designating something as MYI versus FYI can be deceiving since that MYI may be very thin, rotten ice. So in reality, things are probably worse than we think.

Sorry, you’re not a good enough magician to pull off such misdirection while performing sleight-of-hand switches.
“Rotten” ice is being discussed. Satellite data has been referenced for “rotten” ice info. Barber said satellites get it wrong and report thin “rotten” ice as thick multi-year ice. Therefore if you accept Barber’s conclusions then you cannot trust satellite data for “rotten” ice info. If you are supplying satellite data as trustworthy for “rotten” ice info then then it is implied you reject Barber’s conclusions.
That’s all there is to it. One side of your mouth cannot agree the satellites are not trustworthy for “rotten” ice amounts while the other says the satellites provide good data for your conclusions about “rotten” ice amounts. Are the satellites yielding good or bad “rotten” ice numbers, YES or NO? Pick one.
BTW, you’ve essentially just said you disagree with the PIOMAS Ice Volume model, to wit: “Volume estimates using age of sea ice as a proxy for ice thickness are another useful method…” As you are stating it, if MYI can actually be very thin “rotten” ice then you have identified a major flaw, age as a proxy for thickness cannot be relied on.
Good job pointing out a serious issue with that terrifying Arctic Ice Volume anomaly chart!

AndyW said on May 24, 2010 at 10:30 pm:

Kadaka, it is not me missing the point.
Geo made a claim based on satellite data, I produced other satellite evidence to counter his position. So why did you then butt in saying I couldn’t make that claim as satellite data is wrong? Why didn’t you pick geo up also? Like I said this whole blog post resolves around satellite data.
Andy

Now it is confirmed that you are deliberately dodging my point, as you have just asserted “What’s fair is fair” with regards to the point.
Fine then, I agree. geo can use satellite data for discussions involving “rotten” ice amounts if he disagrees with Barber, and you can use satellite data for discussions involving “rotten” ice amounts if you disagree with Barber. Yup, that sounds fair to me.
A lovely exchange resulting in mutual agreement. Thank you for your time!

kadaka, I’ll put it another way. We are comparing several years using one technique, now as it is only one technique being compared over several years and not multiple techniques then it does not matter on if it is not 100% accurate. It is the relativeness and not the absoluteness that matters here.
That’s the point you’ve missed and that’s why I don’t care about the validity or not of David Barbers thoughts, it is not relevant here to my counter argument to geo’s position.
Andy

Just The Facts says: “It appears that Dr. Jinlun Zhang is one of the Warmist’s point people for producing misleading research reports on sea ice. I wonder if Dr. Zhang has received any public funds that would justify an investigation into his methods…”

Dear me! Conspiracy, dishonesty, criminality—bad, BAD Dr. Zhang! Just wait ’til the end of this season, when the world will see how fakey-hoaxy his model is!

AndyW said on May 25, 2010 at 6:47 am:

kadaka, I’ll put it another way. We are comparing several years using one technique, now as it is only one technique being compared over several years and not multiple techniques then it does not matter on if it is not 100% accurate. It is the relativeness and not the absoluteness that matters here.
That’s the point you’ve missed and that’s why I don’t care about the validity or not of David Barbers thoughts, it is not relevant here to my counter argument to geo’s position.
Andy

Now you are talking about known errors with measuring instruments, which ain’t the same thing. These are metrology issues. One type of error is a fixed initial offset, such as an analog voltmeter that should be reading zero but actually shows 0.1V. If it cannot be zeroed, such as with a fixed meter in a process equipment panel, then the adjustment is to subtract 0.1V from all measurements. Another involves a rate of error shown against a reference standard. A voltmeter reads 12.2V with a 12.0V reference, 6.1V with 6.0V, and is zeroed. The adjustment is to subtract 0.1V for every 6.1V displayed. Between the two adjustment methods, good numbers may still be obtained, IF the errors are consistent and repeatable.
That’s the crux of the issue, if the errors are consistent and repeatable. If Barber had established with several years of extensive accurate measurements of Arctic sea ice that the satellites gave a consistent error continually, say that 25% of reported thick MYI was repeatedly shown to be thin “rotten” ice, then adjustments could be made and reliable measurements could be obtained. He didn’t.
If the same instrument was used for all measurements, perhaps good trend information can be obtained without knowing the exact error. If we assume Satellite X has a consistent rate of error and/or a fixed initial offset, then we can analyze its measurements. If it shows less “rotten” ice then there is less “rotten” ice. But until the amounts of errors are known, its data cannot be compared to another satellite, and it can’t be trusted much beyond general trends.
Also with satellites there is a measure of “observational error.” The information needs to be processed. Different algorithms yield different results. So before you can look at the results from the same satellite, you have to have all the data processed by the same algorithm using the same parameters.
Barber said the satellites get it wrong. Calibration is indicated, we need to know what errors are present in what amounts. Until that is done, you cannot significantly compare data between satellites, or even use the same satellite without using the same processing algorithm with the same parameters for all the data and even then the results are of limited value. And this would be with consistent and repeatable errors. Until it is established that is indeed the case, you cannot trust the satellite data. So don’t use it.
Unless, of course, you disagree with Barber and will assert the satellites do get it right, Barber is wrong. In that case you are free to use satellite data for “rotten” ice studies.