By Steve Goddard and Anthony Watts
If you zoom in far enough, most anything looks scary, like this picture of a human head louse.
But when you look at it in the scale of our normal experience, not so much.
Be it lice or ice, the scale of presentation matters.
There is often criticism of cherry picking when it comes to time scales of climate data. In the case of satellite sea ice data presentation, both time scale and vertical scale are magnified. There’s only about 30 years of satellite ice data, whereas Arctic sea ice has been around for millions of years. Vertical scale is magnified to show the smallest fluctuations. Willis Eschenbach made and excellent point about scale when he comparatively demonstrated the scale of ice melt in Greenland in his essay: On Being the Wrong Size. When compared to the bulk volume of ice, the current Greenland melt is statistically insignificant.
There has been a lot of talk about commercial shipping opportunities through the “soon to be ice free” Arctic. These are normally based on highly magnified graphs published by organisations like NSIDC, similar to the one below.
A different view emerges when you take the raw data from NSIDC’s web site and plot it on graphs with a more appropriate vertical scale. Done that way, the downwards trend for April ice is 0.039 million km²/year.
The surprise of scale?
When you calculate the slope, it suggests that April sea ice extent won’t reach zero until the year 2385.
Oh, that can’t be right. How about May? May will be ice free in the year 2404, only 394 years from now. (The US is 234 years old. Copernicus was placed on the “Catholic Forbidden index” 394 years ago.)
June will be ice free in the year 2296.
July will be ice free by the year 2151.
August will be ice free by the year 2103
September will be ice free by the year 2065. (Note that September 2009 was right on the trend line.)
All of the data and plots are available here in this Google online spreadsheet.
September is the minimum and ice starts to freeze up again. No chance of an ice free Arctic in October. But something must be wrong. The experts said that the Arctic would be ice free by 2008, and that it would be ice free by 2013.
“Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer is not accounting for the last two minima, in 2005 and 2007,” the researcher from the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, explained to the BBC. “So given that fact, you can argue that may be our projection of 2013 is already too conservative.” “In the end, it will just melt away quite suddenly”
NSIDC director, Dr. Mark Serreze also says this in this 5/20/10 Globe and Mail article:
“We are going to lose the summer sea-ice cover. We can’t go back.”
Dr. Serreze is still on the ‘death spiral’. He hasn’t changed his tune.
While skeptics see cycles, by saying “we can’t go back” Dr. Serreze apparently assumes the linear trend will continue to zero.
You can see from the graphs above how ridiculous those claims are. Even if the current trends continue, there is no reason to expect an ice free Arctic anytime in the next 50 years. And even more interesting to me is the fact that September, 2007 was really not that interesting. It was only 1.5 standard deviations off the trend line, i.e. almost following the 30 year trend.
All of the the main Arctic ice experts underpredicted the 2009 minimum, except for WUWT – which predicted it correctly and early.
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Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts
-Richard Feynman
davidmhoffer says:
May 24, 2010 at 11:58 am
For gosh sakes folks this is just geometry.
Think of the ice as a wedge. During ice formation, the wedge extends outward at the thin end, but it gets thicker at the thick end. The faster the ice grows over a given period, the more the thin part extends.
When conditions reverse, the thin part retreats. The faster it grew, the greater the stretch of the thin part of the wedge, so the faster it retreats. The thick part gets thinner too, but we’re not measuring that with extent. However, since it is a wedge, as the thin part retreats it starts to get to a thicker part of the wedge, so the retreat has to slow down.
We just saw a very sharp advance in extent, meaning an out of proportion increases in the length of the tin edge of the wedge, so we should see a very sharp fall back now. Don’t forget however that the thick part got thicker, so as the retreat runs into that, the retreat will slow.
_____________
David, there is great usefulness in measuring the total volume of this “wedge” as you refer to it. If the total volume of the wedge is lower, then both the thin and the thick parts will melt faster. Also, your assumption that the “thick parts got thicker” has no basis to it, especially this past winter of a negative AO index when the arctic was so warm as the cold air was pushed south. The best model we currently have for arctic sea ice volume says just the opposite, that the thick parts of your wedge (i.e. multi-year ice) did not thicken up as much as they have in years past.
jeff brown,
You have described a chicken and egg problem, suggesting that you can’t get multi-year ice unless you already have multi-year ice.
Wren says:
May 24, 2010 at 8:48 am
“Since extent measures only the ice’s surface area, what do we know about changes in its thickness or volume that might suggest when it will become thin enough to disappear for part of the year?”
___________
I would refer you to:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/zhang/IDAO/multi.html
Go to the bottom of the page where several different volume based models are presented.
Volume based models are showing the Arctic ice free for the first time anywhere from 2020 to 2070.
I did a quick “google” for Beaufort Sea and Ice breakers.
Amazing how many ice breakers have been there in the past few years. Every thing from studying polar bears, to oil and gas, military, to even studying the Beaufort Gyre.
Wonder if that many ice breakers, breaking up that much ice, with the prevailing winds………
……..could have had any effect
Steve, you can get MYI either by not melting out the FYI during summer, or by transporting MYI into a region that previously didn’t have any MYI. The reality is the Arctic remains MYI poor…and some of what was there, was exported into the Chukchi where it can melt this summer.
Time to start paying attention to what is actually happening to the Arctic sea ice cover rather than trying to spin your belief system that it’s recovered and everything is fine.
R. Gates says:
May 24, 2010 at 11:31 am
“Gail, I really resent being accused of “twisting facts”, but I do appreciate you providing links to fables and stories of the past. There is nothing in any of what you gave me that proves or refutes the scientific claim that an Ice Free Arctic would be a unique event in recorded human history.”
___________________________________________________________________
First Norse is a written language similar to Icelandic and therefore can still be read. Second there were Catholic priests in Greenland and a church starting with Eric the Red the founder. “Erik’s farm, Brattahlid .. revealed the remains of a church…” That is why it can be stated “…24 boatloads of land-hungry settlers who set out from Iceland in the summer of 986 to colonize new territory explored several years earlier by the vagabond and outlaw, Erik the Red…” This could be stated because of the catholic calender and a WRITTEN language.
Here is the actual comment I orginally referred to.
L says:
October 26, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Back in the ’60′s when I studied Scandinavian literature, the whole first semester was spent on Icelandic sagas, not just Snorri Sturluson’s masterful “Njal’s Saga,” but on others like the sagas of “Eric the Red” and “Leif the Lucky.” It is in these that we find Vikings visiting North America proper and meeting with a hostile reception from the “Skraelings,” surely Amerinds. These are great ‘reads.’
Lest anyone think these are mere myths, recall that in the year 1000, Iceland was, by far, the most literate and democratic country in the world, hardly fertile ground for growing fairy tales. The Icelandic “Althing” (935?) is the oldest parliament on Earth.
Anyway, back then there was no question about the loss of Greenland. Very simply, climate change. As the colder climate crept southward, agriculture had to be abandoned. At the same time, increased sea ice cut off contact with Iceland and the project was finished. Whether most of the Greenlanders fled back to Iceland in time is an open question, but those who didn’t were thought to have been overwhelmed by Inuit, also fleeing the advancing cold.
Some of the Norse may have been absorbed by the incoming natives, some simply massacred. Back in the ’60′s the end was thought to have come in the late 15th Century, ironically just about the time Europeans were ‘discovering’ the Americas for what, they thought, was the first time.
What’s of value is that the entire Greenland saga illustrates the undeniable fact of natural climate change of a major amplitude well within historic times and well before CO2 had even been invented. Nothing new under the Sun.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/26/on-the-vikings-and-greenland/#comment-212035
Don E says:
October 26, 2009 at 10:16 pm
Also in the sagas are the routes taken to North America during a 300-year period to harvest lumber. They sailed north along the coast, crossed over in calmer waters and then headed south along the coast. The longer route was safer than the direct route with loaded cargo ships. That route would be very difficult today because of the ice. They could estimate latitude fairly well. Their description of the flora and fauna does not match estimated latitude in today’s terms. It was greener farther north 1,000 years ago.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/26/on-the-vikings-and-greenland/#comment-212368
This shows we still have copies of church entries from that area in the 1100’s
http://sacredtexts.gang.pk/neu/nda/nda09.htm
You might then like to look at the Dorset people. It is thought the remnants of the Greenland Norse fleeing the re-glaciation of Greenland crossbred with the Dorset people to produce the unique Thule people, ancestors of the modern Eskimo.
The Dorset were wiped out because of the loss of sea ice. They hunted using holes in the ice and could not adapt to the warmer climate.
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Dorset_culture
So recorded history – CHECK
major loss of sea ice – CHECK
2010-986=1024 or
2010-1121=889 Against the year 1121 we find the entry: “Bishop Eric of Greenland went in search of Wineland
Looking at the graph we find during that time span the temperature in Greenland is a full 2C warmer than today.
You are saying we are about to have an ice free arctic summer eminently because of global warming, so how can you say a 2C warmer Greenland in 889 – 1121 did not have an ice free arctic for at least a few summers or more likely most of the time???
Therefore during recorded history, of which we have at least some remnants, the probability of at least one ice free arctic summer approaches certainty.
R. Gates says:
May 24, 2010 at 2:54 pm
It’s the model, the whole model, and nothing but the model.
Rice paper, balsam wood and glue.
Models that cannot show anything but warming amplifications and feedbacks are less than useless.
Just look at the blown forecasts from NOAA and the MET.
In a computerized dream world, all roads lead to warming.
Surely you realize how surreal that is.
wildred
What are you so frantic about? September will come soon enough and everyone’s cards are on the table.
skye says:
May 24, 2010 at 1:17 pm
“Anthony, I am surprised at your downgrading comments towards Neven. Why resort to such tactics? Can’t we just discuss the observations? And what those observations imply? The reality is that Steve was wrong in his earlier posts about this “grand” recovery. The negative AO did not bring about the recovery he had hoped for. Obviously we would all hope for a recovery, but that is not the direction the Arctic sea ice has taken in recent years, nor is it true for most climate state variables in the Arctic. The continued evidence of warming in the Arctic is clear, you see it in all the major climate variables. Why not focus on what is causing this warming instead of putting each other down.”
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It took twenty to thirty years to get to the “decline in sea ice” we see today. You expect a complete recovery in a year or two? I would expect it to take several years for the multi-year ice to build back up to the levels seen in the sixties and seventies. On the other hand I am not looking forward to frostbite again.
Anthony has info on the identity of people who post that we do not. Given the nasty trick played on him by so called reputable scientists who stole his data and published it, I am not surprised he might “resort to such tactics” Anthony at least publishes their comments instead of using censorship like others we know of do.
By “resorting to such tactics” Anthony gives us a clue to the ID of Neven. He is a “global warming…” I do not want to insult my less fortunate sisters who are forced to sell their bodies by comparison. My sisters at least are not knowingly trying to wreck the economies of several countries to line their pockets.
Steve Goddard: September will be ice free by the year 2065
Steve Goddard: (Note that September 2009 was right on the trend line.)
Steve Goddard: And even more interesting to me is the fact that September, 2007 was really not that interesting. It was only 1.5 standard deviations off the trend line, i.e. almost following the 30 year trend.
That is interesting. September 2009 was not interesting. Neither was September 2007. Both were within 2sd of a decreasing 30 year trend. Decreasing ice extent is the new normal
You heard it right here on WUWT.
“”” skye says:
May 24, 2010 at 9:56 am
George E. Smith says:
May 24, 2010 at 9:51 am
The real skinny is that indeed, there are earlier satellite observations and have been used in data sets such as the Had1SST data set. Basically observations from 1953 onwards are the most reliable. “””
I would hope so; specially since Sputnik only went up around 1957; so those 1953 satellite observations must have been ETs. I was actually around in time to make an orbit prediction; excuse me; projection for Sputnik; on about its third day in orbit; all based on nothing but timed radio observations of its beep signals. That was good enough to turn out half the population of Auckland that evening to watch it go straight overhead right on cue. I went out myself the next night and saw it; I was hedging my bets perhaps.
That’s why I don’t make predictions; excus4e me; projections about the future any more.
R. Gates;
Also, your assumption that the “thick parts got thicker” has no basis to it, especially this past winter of a negative AO index when the arctic was so warm as the cold air was pushed south>>
If its cold enough to make ice, then the thick parts got thicker. I’m talking close to the edge of the ice extent. Since sea water must fall to the freezing point right to the bottom before ice can form on top (unlike fresh water) the formation of ice on the surface implies that the water beneath and the air above were both at low enough temperature to support thickening. My point however stands. Rapidly increasing ice extent implies large grow of thin ice, and so we should expect that when the melt season begins we see rapid retreat that will slow as thicker ice is encountered. That’s why the JAXA graphs all seem to converge about this time of year. The real story won’t be told until months from now when we see how the combination of AO and falling OHC affect early winter ice formation.
IPCC4 AR4 WG1 Summary for Policymakers
Interesting times when the skeptics and the alarmists are whistling the same tune.
Ron Broberg
Yes, it is very sad that Chicago and New York are no longer buried under a mile of ice.
rbateman says:
May 24, 2010 at 4:10 pm
R. Gates says:
May 24, 2010 at 2:54 pm
It’s the model, the whole model, and nothing but the model.
Rice paper, balsam wood and glue.
Models that cannot show anything but warming amplifications and feedbacks are less than useless.
Just look at the blown forecasts from NOAA and the MET.
In a computerized dream world, all roads lead to warming.
Surely you realize how surreal that is.
___________________
I fully realize the limitations of models, especially when they are dealing with chaotic elements, but being at 75% “warmist” I also realize that the basic physics behind the GH forcing of CO2 is also sound, though I know many skeptics would even doubt this.
I don’t expect models to predict little wiggles due to general climate variability, but they sure ought to predict general trends. AGW show a slow spiraling down of Arctic Sea ice, and even show years similar to 2008 and 2009 when the minimum goes up, but they just can’t tell you the specific years that we’ll see “bumps up” in the general trend down. Again, models are all about trends, not specifics, and these trends cover decades, not a few year stretch here and there. One of the most telling things for me is that AGW skeptics jumped all over the fact that 2008 and 2009 showed modest recovery of sorts in sea ice extent, as though it invalidated the models. The models were never meant to predict the sea ice extent in any specific season.
I currently think the models certainly can use more and more refinement, as additional positive and negative feedback factors need to be discovered and incorporated into them, but at least currently, I don’t think they are just a computerized dream world, as I think their general predictive value for long term trends seems valid. However, being a 25% skeptic, if we don’t see a new summer arctic sea minimum by 2015 at the latest, I’ll begin to doubt the basic validity of the AGW models, and my skepticism may go back up. I don’t currently believe that’s going to happen, as we could see a new summer minimum as early as this year, though my current projection calls for the minimum to hit just slightly more than 2007’s low at abouit 4.5 million sq. km based on JAXA data…but if the current early rapid melt continues, I may have to revise that projection downward…
Gail Combs said:
“What’s of value is that the entire Greenland saga illustrates the undeniable fact of natural climate change of a major amplitude well within historic times and well before CO2 had even been invented. Nothing new under the Sun.”
________
I certainly don’t dispute the fact of natural climate change of a major amplitude within historic times…i.e. the MWP. My original comment only referred to an ice free arctic. There is no solid evidence to support the notion that the MWP got warm enough to cause the whole of the arctic to be ice free. It would take a satellite image to prove that, as even Eric the Red, or Leif Ericson, or whomever, would have no way of knowing the condition of the ice across the whole of arctic. My point- that an ice free arctic would be unique in human recorded history is valid, and would be disputed by very very few experts, “warmist” or “skeptic”.
Steve, it is simply that you spent so much time in previous posts talking about recovery (that wasn’t based on an honest assessment of the conditions in the Arctic) that I am ‘frantic’ as you say. I don’t like biases and mis-information on either side of the debate.
Gail Combs, May 24, 2010 at 3:58 pm,
That was a fine post, and it ended with that great Jo Nova sine wave chart. Since all this has happened before, it reinforces the theory that what we see today is fully explained by natural climate variability. There is no need to add extraneous entities like CO2 trace gases to explain what we observe.
And re: the Neven comment. WUWT does not censor, but I would fully support banning those few commenters who say the vilest things about Anthony and WUWT on their own blogs, then come here all kissy-face to spread their globaloney. Being someone who wears his heart on his sleeve, I don’t think much of sycophants who smile ingratiatingly at you when you’re around, then slander you behind your back.
R. Gates says:
May 24, 2010 at 4:55 pm
Show me the model that can account for ‘cooling’ without killing all Life on Earth.
i.e. – stripping the planet of all forms of Carbon, or lowering C02 to the point where photosynthesis collapses.
Second, run the volume models backward to 1800 or even 1700 and let’s see how much Artic Ice there is.
Third, account for the current increase of Antarctic Ice. Is Antartic ice growing due to lack of C02?
It’s hard to back up a vehicle that only has a forward gear.
Last, are you familiar with the natural law of diminishing returns?
You see, R. Gates, when writing software, all contingencies must be accounted for. Models are software.
I see Climate as Event Based, just like Windows. You have to be able to handle all events that a user is apt to do, else the program crashes. I also see Weather as an instance of the Class of Climate with a vast collection of input variables: It can bore you to tears or knock you on your duff.
I don’t see Climate Models as being anything near the reality of Climate, and just barely Weather.
If an Arctic free scenario depends on increased longwave re-radiation happening somewhere, then for the Arctic to melt, you have three choices, one being in situ, the other 2 being externally sourced. 1) More re-radiation sourced IN THE ARCTIC itself from greater concentrations of CO2 THERE causing increasing atmospheric temperatures in situ thus melting the ice, 2) warmer ocean currents carrying warmer waters heated up by re-radiation from OTHER locations on the globe (IE stored heat) thus melting the ice, or 3) CO2 heated air circulating into the Arctic from OTHER locations thus melting the ice.
What is the mechanism for each of these and are the mechanisms plausible under Arctic conditions?
wildred
I’m pretty sure the Arctic has recovered from the “death spiral” “ice free” conditions forecast by experts between 2008 and 2013.
Please discuss only the mechanisms that would be more powerful than natural variations, such as natural changes in the PDO, AMO, and AO.
George E. Smith says:
May 24, 2010 at 9:51 am
I don’t have authoritative answers for you, but I do have some notes that might help other Googlers.
Tiros was a polar orbiter with an IR camera and video tape. Images were printed on paper at ground stations. 450 miles altitude. So 16 orbits per day (half looking at night view), 32 passes per day, it would need to see a 750 mile wide band to image the whole planet over the course of a day. Plausible. Launched April 1, 1960. Worked for 78 days. 3 wavelengths, in 1970 satellites had 5 wavelengths to sense.
http://www.space.com/news/spacehistory/tiros_anniversary_000330.html
Ah, good info at http://science.nasa.gov/missions/tiros/
TIROS-5: “TIROS-5 pictures were the best to date, including the observation of ice break-up at northern latitudes.
TIROS-6: “conducted the first satellite experiments to detect snow cover from space.” (1962)
TIROS-9: “The first photomosaic of the entire world’s cloud-cover was achieved via a composite of 450 photos taken on February 13, 1965.”
TIROS-N/NOAA Program — 1978-1986
“The TIROS-N/NOAA Program (Television InfraRed Operational Satellite – Next-generation) was NASA’s next step in improving the operational capability of the TIROS system first tried in the 1960’s and the ITOS/NOAA system of the 1970’s”
“TIROS-N was an experimental satellite which carried an Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) to provide day and night cloud top and sea surface temperatures, as well as ice and snow conditions; an atmospheric sounding system (TOVS – TIROS Operational Vertical Sounder) to provide vertical profiles of temperature and water vapor from the Earth’s surface to the top of the atmosphere….”
So, I’m still not sure if the pre TIROS-N satellites could image ice cover, and if they could, if anyone measured it. (Or transferred the data to digital files to be manipulated into something easy to work with.)
Given the amount and type of old data NASA has lost (e.g. good movie film
recordings of astronauts on the Moon), I would be very surprised if much of
the early TIROS images exist today.
Pamela Gray says:
May 24, 2010 at 7:32 pm
If an Arctic free scenario depends on increased longwave re-radiation happening somewhere, then for the Arctic to melt, you have three choices, one being in situ, the other 2 being externally sourced. 1) More re-radiation sourced IN THE ARCTIC itself from greater concentrations of CO2 THERE causing increasing atmospheric temperatures in situ thus melting the ice, 2) warmer ocean currents carrying warmer waters heated up by re-radiation from OTHER locations on the globe (IE stored heat) thus melting the ice, or 3) CO2 heated air circulating into the Arctic from OTHER locations thus melting the ice.
What is the mechanism for each of these and are the mechanisms plausible under Arctic conditions?
Measured downwelling longwave radiation in the vicinity of the N Pole from April to September is ~300W/m^2.