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
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Sorry about the formatting last post.
The Wolf-Gleissberg cycle I’m familiar with is usually described as an 80 – 100 year cycle. Half the references you cited concur with that (~80 year cycle). For example:
http://virtualacademia.com/pdf/cli267_293.pdf (this is the full online version)
While the Nature paper you cited posits a well-known ~200-year cycle, there aren’t many references for it – but I did read up some on this (called the De Vries, or Suess cycle). Thanks for the references.
[edit while composing post]
I was a bit confused by your description of the PDO as a 60-year cycle. It’s normally described as a 30-year cycle, in line with the phase shifts.
As for the Wolf-Gleissberg cycle, the last minimum was around 1997 – in antiphase with 20 years of global warming – most of that confirmed by satellite data. It would appear to have a very weak influence on climate. I note that your references (two by the same author) posit a climatic influence at the point of phase shift. I can see no correlation to global temperatures. Wolf-Gleissberg is described as a ‘weak’ cycle. The ~11-year (or ~22-year) sun spot cycle is described as a ‘strong’ cycle.
It’s looking like the sea ice extent that was so high this past winter could end up the lowest in 10+ years come September.
To add to my previous point the Arctic Oscillation is negative too, isn’t it?
This is the most important part of Anthony’s reply to skye regarding NEVEN’s behavior: “because he has no honor. “
Ron Broberg
Yes, if the NSIDC 30 year linear trend continues, the Arctic will have brief periods free of sea ice by the end of the century.
However, I don’t that is realistic. In 2008, the North Pole started out with first year ice, and it never melted. It will be very difficult to make the ice north of 85 degrees completely melt.
stevengoddard says:
May 24, 2010 at 7:32 pm
wildred
I’m pretty sure the Arctic has recovered from the “death spiral” “ice free” conditions forecast by experts between 2008 and 2013.
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what on Earth are you talking about? No one said ice-free conditions in 2008 and there is only 1 out of many Arctic scientists who talk about ice-free in summers by 2013. Please try to keep your comments based in truth and reality.
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stevengoddard says:
May 24, 2010 at 8:55 pm
Ron Broberg
Yes, if the NSIDC 30 year linear trend continues, the Arctic will have brief periods free of sea ice by the end of the century.
However, I don’t that is realistic. In 2008, the North Pole started out with first year ice, and it never melted. It will be very difficult to make the ice north of 85 degrees completely melt.
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Not unless SSTs continue to warm together with air temperatures. Also remember thinner ice is more easily moved around the Arctic, so it could also be transported away from the pole by strong winds, transported to more southerly locations where it could melt out. To assume that the North Pole will never melt out, would imply that you don’t think the North Pole has ever been ice free. Is that what you believe?
skye says:
May 24, 2010 at 1:17 pm
I kinda agree – people usually think confidential info isn’t going to be exposed, and that’s what’s being used with either their IP or e-mail address… I guess Anthony feels people who disagree are the enemy and deserve it? I recall it happening once before too, and it bothered me then.
REPLY: There’s no confidential info here, he’s not even using a real name. – A
nedhead
Take a look at the SST map. Temperatures on the vulnerable Pacific side of the Arctic are running well below normal. Where is the energy going to come from to melt all that ice? The 2007 melt was fed by warm water coming through the Bering Strait.
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
Not going to happen this year.
nedhead,
You might try actually reading the article before you rant about it. The link is right in the text.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-03/01/content_7696460.htm
slightly OT but I was looking at cryosphere where they have sea ice extent graphed by season since 1900:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seasonal.extent.1900-2007.jpg
I expected the major NH temperature rise from 1920 to 1950 to show up as a decline in sea ice extent. Much to my surprise, fall and winter are both flat but sea ice from spring and summer appeared to have INCREASED year over year. Now I’d be really curious to know what processes made THAT happen!
Pamela Gray,
I believe that the main mechanism is albedo change, as suggested here:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v464/n7293/full/nature09051.html
This is one of the reasons why the phrase ‘death spiral’ seems to me to be an apt one.
While global heat transport to the poles obviously plays a role, it is *reasonably* clear that the changes over time in that transport system have as yet had only a minor effect.
Vincent says:
May 24, 2010 at 5:00 am
…. So we’ll have to put up with alarmist bleatings for another 10-15 years? Groan!
We’ve been hearing “alarmist bleatings” since before civilization really got rolling. The “END OF THE WORLD” is a perennially popular motif in fiction and in forecasts and was since before writing was invented: Christian myth, Norse myth, Mahabharata, Mayan myth, Aztec myth, the clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists… Humanity has a naturally apocalyptic bent. Maybe it allows people to adapt to change more readily when they are imagining how much worse it will be in a little while.
#
Ulric Lyons says:
May 24, 2010 at 2:10 pm
@Gail Combs says:
May 24, 2010 at 12:09 pm
Gleissberg is more like 89.8yrs, but like the 179yr cycle, it has a slip, so it only runs typically a few steps before it fades, and pops up later on a longer cycle…..
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Ulric, Thanks. I used the “200” yr cycle since it includes the oscillation in the ” 90 “yr cycle and many authors lump them together. I was really surprised he did not have at least a passing acquaintance with the longer solar cycles given we maybe staring down the throat of a grand minimum.
latitude says:
May 24, 2010 at 3:23 pm
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
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Just what I was thinking. Sort of like the difference between crushed ice and ice cubes in a drink.
I actually did a thesis on a similar subject. The amount of surface area exposed to the water was the biggest factor according to my repeated lab experiments.
Juraj V. ‘s pictures show the ice is more intact this year than it was in 2007. It will be interesting to see if that makes any difference this year.
Best pray that we do not keep the entire arctic ice cap all summer. That is the necessary precursor for a plunge into the next glaciation of our present ice age. As soon as the ice does not melt in summer, we enter the only ‘tipping point’ we’ve got; and that’s the tip to cold.
R. Gates says:
May 24, 2010 at 5:06 pm
“….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”.”
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Gates, these were seafarers and they hunted on the seas, of course they were aware of the sea ice.
“…..When the Norsemen arrived in Greenland, they had the island and its waters to themselves. Now they had to contend with the Inuit, who were competing with them for animal resources. This was especially true in the Nordseta, the Greenlanders’ traditional summer hunting grounds 240 miles north of the Eastern Settlement. For years the Norsemen had been traveling to the area; they killed the walruses, narwahls, and polar bears they needed for trade with Europe and for payment of Church tithes and royal taxes. They also boiled seal blubber, filled skin bags with the oil, and gathered valuable driftwood……Upright stones divided the cow stalls; a whale shoulder blade (white partition on right) also served as a divider…” http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/greenland/
“…The settlers found that the area to the north of the Western Settlement, called the Nordseta, was good for hunting, fishing and gathering driftwood. A stone inscribed with runes has been found telling that in 1333, three Greenlanders wintered on the island of Kingigtorssuaq just below 73 degrees north. There is also evidence of voyages to the Canadian arctic. Two cairns have been discovered in Jones Sound above 76 degrees North and two more have been found on Washington Irving Island at 79 degrees north….” http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/vikings/Greenland.html
For you information Washington Irving Island is at the entrance to Dobbin Bay, eastern Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada See themap and notice this area is well within the arctic circle and not that far from the north pole and certainly within the Beaufort Sea Gyro.
barry says:
May 24, 2010 at 7:40 pm
Gail Combs says:
May 24, 2010 at 10:52 am
Can we get an update on whether it has recovered or not?….”
Barry it is a complex subject with a lot of factors.
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Barry, I do think the arctic ice will eventually recover. However right now it is a crap shoot for this year. I do not think you are going to see a real fast recovery because there is a heck of a lot of water on this planet.
The one thing I will say is the weather patterns have definitely changed. Normally I see snow once every five years, this year it snowed five times. April is normally very wet. This year April was a drought, I think it rained once. Normally May is hot. In 2004 twenty days were over 90F and at least three were 98F. This year we had a temp as low as 35F and the high so far is 91, yesterday the high for the day was 73F. This type of change from the norm is reported from all over. You are looking at a change in not only temperature patterns but also precipitation patterns. From what I have read a glacial age has wet, not particularly cold winters and cool summers. A change in precipitation is just as important as a change in temperature and that goes for arctic sea ice too.
Joe Bastardi has a better record than the Met so I suggest you look at what he says.
davidmhoffer says:
May 24, 2010 at 9:56 pm
slightly OT but I was looking at cryosphere where they have sea ice extent graphed by season since 1900:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seasonal.extent.1900-2007.jpg
I expected the major NH temperature rise from 1920 to 1950 to show up as a decline in sea ice extent. Much to my surprise, fall and winter are both flat but sea ice from spring and summer appeared to have INCREASED year over year. Now I’d be really curious to know what processes made THAT happen!
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That graph does looks a bit weird. You might want to look at the temperatures from this http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Scientific/Arctic.htm
Gail Combs,
Glacial ages are dryer, not wetter. This is because much more moisture is tied up in ice sheets and glaciers. It is the hotter periods that are wetter. This is why higher precipitation is predicted (for the globe in general; local effects will obviously vary) as the globe warms.
(Although as the earth moves into a glacial period, there is more precipitation at northern latitudes and at high altitude – this is what builds the glaciers and ice sheets, I guess.)
@Gail Combs says:
May 25, 2010 at 12:51 am
“the longer solar cycles given we maybe staring down the throat of a grand minimum.”
Don`t panic! The return of a Stuiver type minimum is from around 2120AD, and a stronger cluster of LIA type minmums from around 2450AD. This century will have some notable cold episodes, such as the 2014-2020/3 period aproaching, but some very warm episodes too. Using the periodicity of a Heinrich event look back (4627yrs), we are at the equivalent of the end of Maximum12:
http://www.geo.arizona.edu/palynology/geos462/holobib.html
it would then follow on this basis, that there are some very warm times happening over the next few hundred years. I can confirm any of this at monthly detail in any given year by the heliocentric planetary configurations which drive the solar variations, the look back method will give a general picture though.
David Gould
Glacial periods don’t have a huge impact on the surface area of the oceans. The fact that there is more water “tied up in glaciers” shouldn’t make a lot of difference to the amount of water in the atmosphere. However, lower temperatures will reduce humidity.
David Gould says:
May 25, 2010 at 3:11 am
Gail Combs,
Glacial ages are dryer, not wetter. This is because much more moisture is tied up in ice sheets and glaciers. It is the hotter periods that are wetter. This is why higher precipitation is predicted (for the globe in general; local effects will obviously vary) as the globe warms.
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Your are correct during full glaciation the water gets tied up and it is dryer. I am sorry I was not clear, I was only talking about the transition into a period of glaciation and not the time of full glaciation. http://www.nature.nps.gov/geology/usgsnps/glacier/glform1.html
Ulric Lyons says:
May 25, 2010 at 5:15 am
@Gail Combs says:
May 25, 2010 at 12:51 am
“the longer solar cycles given we maybe staring down the throat of a grand minimum.”
Don`t panic! The return of a Stuiver type minimum is from around 2120AD, and a stronger cluster of LIA type minmums from around 2450AD. ….
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I’m not I bought insurance, a farm in the south with a good water supply. (snicker) Actually after winters in upstate NY and NH, I just got sick of shoveling snow.
This by the way is a pretty good write up on the periods of NA glaciation and the climate for laymen NORTH AMERICA DURING THE LAST 150,000
YEARS
My farm was in a mixed forest area during glaciation 28,000-25,000 years ago.
Here is a really interesting find in Mexico they found ancient pollen inside the selenite crystals. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/11/crystal-giants/shea-text