By Steve Goddard
CIRES photo of an Arctic ice pressure ridge
I generated an animation of 2007 sea ice thickness from the US Navy’s PIP database, and noticed something remarkable. Watch the video below, particularly inside the red square – the animation runs from May through October, 2007. The color scale on the left indicates the thickness of the ice. Watch:
At the beginning of May, ice thickness was about three metres in the center of the red square. By mid-June it was getting thicker, and by early September it was close to five metres thick! During the notorious summer of “record melt” which we have been told about ad nauseum, the ice thickness near the most affected area increased by 60%. What could have caused this? Simple – the ice was compacting to the north as it was pushed by southerly winds. It lost area – while it gained thickness.
The NSIDC news from September, 2007 touched peripherally on this idea, without actually mentioning the critical point.
The region over Siberia experienced fairly low pressure during the same time period. Winds blow clockwise around high-pressure areas and anticlockwise around low-pressure areas. The combination of high- and low-pressure areas thus fostered fairly strong winds over coastal Siberia that were partly from the south, pumping warm air into the region and also contributing to a warming Arctic. At the same time, these winds from the south acted to push ice away from the coast and into the central Arctic Ocean, further reducing ice extent in the coastal areas
Ice thickness in May 2007 was ~3 metres
Ice thickness in September, 2007 was ~5 metres
Exaggerated animation of thickness gain from compression. For effect only.
A good analogy would be shoveling the snow off your driveway. As you push the shovel forwards, the area of snow decreases – but the thickness of the snow increases in front of the shovel.
Now on to 2010. Note in the images below that ice in the Chukchi and East Siberian seas is thicker this year than it was on this date in 2007. In some locations it is as much as 5 metres thick in 2010.
May 27, 2007 Ice inside the vulnerable square (where much of the anomalous 2007 “melt” occurred) was 0.5 to 3 metres thick
May 27, 2010 Ice inside the vulnerable square is 0.5 to 5 metres thick
The AGW chameleon changes it’s colours constantly. It complains about area and extent when convenient, and about thickness when convenient. I am coming to the conclusion that the 2007 melt was more of a marketing event than a climatological event. The graph below gives a feel for just how much of a non-event it was. 2007 was 1.5 standard deviations off the 30 year extent trend, but apparently a lot of the supposedly “melted” ice just crumpled up into more survivable thick ice.
One of the ice experts must have known this. Surprising that it took the “breathtakingly ignorant” WUWT to point it out.
ADDENDUM for clarity:
Currently the NIC uses the Polar Ice Prediction System (PIPS) version 2.0 as the basis for its “operational” short-term (24–120 h) sea ice forecasts. These forecasts are evaluated daily and amended by skilled analysts using reconnaissance data (if available), the most recent weather charts and data, and historical knowledge of the conditions in the area to provide the highest quality forecasts possible out to 120 h. Special emphasis in these forecasts is placed on the location of the ice edge and the conditions in the marginal ice zone (MIZ), as these are the most critical operational areas for marine transportation and safety.
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Disappearing ice is interesting to know about, but do I detect some desire to refute warming as such, as distinct from CAGW?
From my limited reading, there probably has been some warming, now plateaued, and ongoing lagged effects from that warmer position…. and maybe the earth is, or is about to cool, only time will tell. But these changes are run of the mill, no definite need to postulate CAGW via CO2 and speculative positive feedbacks such as via water vapour…
Steven,
There’s no need for you to calculate the arctic ice volume from PIPS – it’s already been done:
http://www.nrl.navy.mil/content_images/09_Ocean_Posey.pdf
The PIPS minimum ice volume in September show a fall of 35% from 2000 to 2008, which compares to the corresponding PIOMAS value I estimate to be 5/12 or 42%. That’s not bad agreement for two independently constructed models – looks like there has been a very considerable loss in arctic ice volume over the last decade.
I’m asking a question in ignorance here. When snow is being shoveled, it not only decreases in areal coverage, it decreases in volume (though not weight) simply by being scrunched into a denser mass. I realize that–unlike snow–ice is fairly noncompressible; but is there any room for thinking a relatively thin layer of ice could be pushed together, layer upon layer, in such a way as to push more weight into a given apparent volume?
Anu said at 8:42 am
Of course, models must be compared to measured ground truth to see how good they are doing. PIPS doesn’t attempt to show how good their “ice thickness” model works……
Why would or should they? It’s the US Navy! If I was in charge, I wouldn’t be telling anyone how good I am at predicting ice depth.
… not so bad for a simple 1990′s model….. but to be fair to the old Naval sea ice thickness computer model – models weren’t that good in the 1990′s.
Now who’s “disparaging” computer models? Could it be the Navy knows something about their model that YOU don’t? If I were a submarine Captain and I was going to “bet” my life and the lives of my crew on one of two models, the Navy’s or the Unv. of Washington’s, which do you think I would choose? And/or if I was the Navy why wouldn’t I just “deep six” PIPS and use that whiz-bang 21st century PIOMAS model?
Oh, and about that ….. plus other satellite, airplane, and field expedition data I don’t see it except for some summarized mostly 1990’s (phew, 20th century stuff!) sub data. Where is it? I’ve looked everywhere on the UW site.
And as for “our” criticizing of computer models here at WUWT, you couldn’t possibly be more inaccurate or disingenuous. I’ve been reading this blog almost daily from it’s first day and surfacestations.org before that and almost everyone that has pointed out deficiency’s in the GLOBAL ATMOSPHERIC MODELS (NOT computer models in general) has indicated an extensive knowledge of and familiarity with computers (hardware/software) AND strong conviction in what they CAN DO and a clear understanding of what they CAN NOT DO. I have no clue how old you are Anu, but I suspect I was programming computers before you even born. And while I have great respect for the power that sits before me in relation to its size and what it is connected to that gives you, where ever you are in the world, an almost instant view of my words, it is still grossly incapable of doing anything other than the simplest of functions, (but ever so much faster) so simple they can be taught to a monkey! And it’s NOT just GIGO. Digital computers (and the software therein) are simultaneously empowered AND limited by their simplistic design. To date, in their short history, increased processing speed (power, if you wish) is their only accomplishment. Yes, WE have improved the “input” to them by increased knowledge on our part. But the two should never be confused! The decade or century a piece of software is written in doesn’t make it any less vulnerable to the simplistic-ness of that which it is going to run on, nor the inadequacy of the software language ‘functions” to accurately “model” the real-world functions, nor the competence or incompetence of the programmer, nor the ability or inability of the end user to communicate to the programmer (even within the mind, if it’s the same person) what they “mean” by……. (fill in the blank)
When I go to the PIPS 2.0 archive in the source link (OP) I can’t pull up data from 1997 (it starts in 1998).
Where did the 1997 prediction data come from? PIPS 1.0? Where do I find it?
Thanks
MikeT says:
May 28, 2010 at 10:35 am
This one?
Bingo! I’ve now bookmarked it. Thanks!
Tom P
PIOMAS seems to have started having problems after 2007
Ice “extent” is picked because it conveniently trends in the desired direction. Or it has for the past 30 years or so. I believe that trend is going to reverse and we will see an increasing trend for the next 30 years or so. Then you will no longer hear about “extent” and a different proxy will be chosen. You will be told not to pay attention to the man behind the curtain. Ignore the ice extent when it is rising, that is normal cyclical behavior. Only pay attention when it is declining because decline in ice fits the meme.
Whenever anyone starts a post with “there is no need to think” I immediately assume that there is something interesting to be learned.
Brad says:
May 28, 2010 at 5:44 am
Carbon burp from ocean ended last ice age, very nice article:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100527141959.htm
The paper:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1183627
So, the earth has cycles and changes and it isn’t all our fault? What a surprise!
Seems to me like the “same old , same old”. A pet hypothesis of those who believe CO2 has a strong effect on global temperatures seems to be that while CO2 concentration increases lag temperature increases in the paleolithic records, Milankovic cycles may initiate the change from ice age state to interglacial state but CO2 releases are necessary to act as a strong amplifier to boost the climate to the warm state. This idea may be okay as an embryonic hypothesis, but it seems to have been promoted by “argument from ignorance” to a higher level of credibility by proponents of the “climate is exquisitely sensitive to CO2” camp. Caveat Emptor!
Might be interesting (or completely irrelevant…tbd) to overlay icebreaker activity/paths across the Arctic with the videos of ice movement/coverage. How much has icebreaker traffic (miles of icebreaking) grown/varied annually since 1979? Wind & water currents are immensely more powerful, certainly; but having a nudge from mankind *might* make a measurable difference. It sure seemed to on our inland Wisconsin lakes in the spring.
More ice talk, excellent!
Is there anyone actually out in the Arctic who is looking at the real world??
SG: Arctic ice extent is very close to normal.
Arctic ice extent is outside the 2 standard deviations range. And it is not above the line …
Definition of ‘near normal’ duly noted.
To put Phil Clarkes cherry-picking into global perspective:
click1
click2 [Global sea ice]
click3
click4
click5
click6
click7 [Read the conclusion, if nothing else]
So we see that what is happening in the Arctic is offset by the Antarctic, and that nothing is occurring beyond the parameters of past natural variability. What is happening now has happened repeatedly in the past. As we see it is not a global effect, but only regional in extent.
Finally, it should be remembered that the Earth’s equatorial temperature has remained within ±1°C during the past billion years. The equator is at the same temperature today that it was in Alexandria, Egypt, when Eratosthenes measured the planet’s circumference in 230 B.C.
But as one travels toward the higher latitudes, there is more and more cyclical variation. Thus, the Arctic and Antarctic, which are Polar opposites, are very often out of step as they are today.
What is being observed is simply natural climate variability, nothing more. Despite the frantic arm-waving over the Arctic by the alarmist crowd, no one has been able to provide any evidence showing the cyclical change in the Arctic ice extent is due to human activity. The income and employment of numerous government scientists is not sufficient reason to jettison the scientific method, and give in to fear mongering over these routine Arctic cycles.
stevengoddard says:
May 28, 2010 at 10:52 am
Brian D
Arctic ice extent is very close to normal. There is almost no year-over year variation at the end of May.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent.png
_____________________
Nonsense. The Arctic sea ice extent has been below normal continuously since 2004, though did almost but not quite get back to normal this April:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png
And in looking at this chart, the astute observer can detect the fact that the sea ice has been trending downward since the 1960’s:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seasonal.extent.1900-2007.jpg
And that 2-dimensional decline of the sea-ice on a year-to-year basis is also seen in the 3-dimensional (volume) decline, which really dictates the extent in the longer term:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/IceVolume.php
RR Kampen says: “…Ice extent remains important for albedo considerations….”
It’s of some importance, but not a “tipping point” parameter. The range of albedos of open water overlaps those for ice, given the high zenith angles of the Arctic. The emittance of sea water is about 0.993, almost a black body; thus sea water can shed heat faster without an ice layer on top of it. The reason we were all focusing on extent until recently was, as RR Kampen indicates, the net average albedo was believed related primarily to ice extent, not thickness, and a tipping point was assumed possible. Thickness is, as of this moment, a red herring–hard to measure and not available historically. There’s something rotten, all right, but it’s not Arctic ice.
Phil Clarke.
OMG ice extent is almost 6% below the thirty year mean.
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_images/ssmi1_ice_ext.png
“The sky is falling, the sky is falling”
– Chicken Licken
Steve,
PIPS shows a 20% loss in September Arctic ice volume from 2007 to 2008. Why do you think the UofW analysis, which shows a similar loss, is playing up?
R. Gates also cherry-picks by showing this graph of the Arctic.
To be objective, here is the same graph of the Antarctic.
I wonder why he omitted the Antarctic?
Arctic: -1.005
Antarctic: +1.063
Now everyone has the global facts, and can make an informed decision for themselves.
R Gates says that ice extent has been “below normal since 2004.”
I’m not sure what “normal” means, but it was above the mean a few weeks ago.
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_images/ssmi1_ice_ext.png
Feet2theFire says:
May 28, 2010 at 11:05 am
You are right on the mark. The average is not the mean. For predictive value, trends must assess the mean and sd. (x±sd) for it to have any value.
Looking at the GISS map, where they claim mean and sd, it is suspicious. The reason we can suspect that, is because the sd band is uniform, even when the variance should be high (during high melt or during high reconstitution seasons, the variance must be higher than at times of little or no change (i.e. dead of winter or dead of summer). What they have done here, is (IMO) a group s.d., that is, assessing the variance of all the measurements and applying this throughout. This is a bogus way of handling data. On Excel or Lotus graphs, you can choose between doing individual point variance, the right way, or assign an sd number based on overall variances for the whole record. I think that latter is what happened on the ice graphs I see.
If anyone wants to do it right, he has to assign error bars to each sampling point at every time. Then one will see the bars grow and recede during periods of high and low variance, i.e. when ice is growing and receding most rapidly. Right now, at period approaching steepest slope, the error bars should be highest, but they are not.
I’m a life scientist, not a statistician, so I would like a proper “Statsman” (as opposed to Statesman) to weigh in on this. (Statsperson?). Could you make that STAT, please?
I heard on our beloved (!) CBC radio that the number of “ice-free” weeks has increased in recent years. I don’t know what the “expert” (from Univ of Alberta) considered “ice-free”, for there seems to be ice over the north pole at all times, but is he onto anything useful in considering a supposedly increased period of time without ice? Or is this the successor to ice thickness as red herring of the month?
IanM
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This was related to a study of polar bears around Churchill, Manitoba, probably the most studied polar bears in the world. Researchers have been studying them for 40 years and many of the bears have GPS collars so they know their movements, many are captured and weighed to see what the effect of diminishing ice has on them. When the ice period is less, they come off the ice with lower weight.
Recently they did some studies using CLIMATE MODELS from the UK and the US to determine the impact on the CHURCHILL area – and of course they got 50 years of rising temperatures, sea ice declines of 7 days per decade which of course in 50 years would be disastrous for the polar bears of Churchill. But … its a MODEL.
This article is from 2004 but it essentially the same discussion that was on CBC last evening (May 27, 2010).
http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/National-Wildlife/Animals/Archives/2004/The-Incredible-Shrinking-Polar-Bears.aspx
Be interesting to compare 2004 – 2010 actual information to the 2004 projections that predicted a 3 to 5 degree increase in the region’s temperature over 50 years.
Historically, this is the increase in the area and in the IPCC report for some years prior to 2002. But it was warmer back in the days when the Hudson Bay Company was operating the fur trade back there, and it appears not to have warmed significantly since 2004.
http://www.john-daly.com/p-bears/index.htm
Harvard studied the trends and determined that the “warming trends” depended on picking of the start and end points of the records (have we heard that before):
An apparent tendency towards late spring warming can be
derived by examining the period from 1981 to 1999, illustrated
by the dashed trend curve in Fig. 1b. Clearly, the choice of end
points is very influential on the results. The trend fails to
persist when data through 2002 are included and we make no
inferences about any concurrent ecological responses. Thus,
although our independent results for temperature change and
variability over the WH do not contradict Stirling et al. (1999)
for the limited period from 1981 to 1999, the longer record
reveals a fuller range of air temperature variability that argues
against assuming a persistent warming trend.
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~wsoon/myownPapers-d/DyckSoonetal07-PBpaper.pdf
(It is interesting to note the Harvard study had issues with ice thickness and extent as well; AND they determined the AO was the primary driver of temperatures and not AGW. Also that the Polar Bears learned to land hunt seals in the absence of ice.)
The information presented on CBC last evening appears to be based on old studies and preconceived outcomes.
The concerns are real, but the future, as always, is unknown.
Anu
You are the one determined to prove pips wrong. Please come back when you have that proof.
Good luck.
In response to my note above saying that many published studies, including an NSIDC press release just a few days after the September 2007 ice minimum, have noted that multiple factors including wind patterns affect Arctic sea ice extent, “Amino Acids in Meteorites” wrote “If that is true then would you contact Mark Surreze and have a talk with him about how wrong he is about his ‘death spiral’?”
But there’s no need to tell Mark Serreze that news, he has been telling it to us for many years (and probably helped write that NSIDC press release). To pick just one article as an example,
Maslanik, Serreze & Barry (1996) “Recent decreases in Arctic summer ice cover and linkages to atmospheric circulation anomalies.” Geophysical Research Letters
“Sea ice data from November 1978 through September 1995 for the Arctic Ocean and peripheral seas indicate that summer ice coverage has been below normal in recent years, with extreme minima in 1990, 1993, and 1995. The net trend in summer ice cover over the 17‐year period is −0.6% per year, with the extent of the perennial ice pack reduced by 9% in 1990–1995 compared with 1979–1989. The reductions are greatest in the Siberian sector of the Arctic Ocean. Linkages are proposed between these ice anomalies and a sharp increase since 1989 in the frequency of low pressure systems over the central Arctic. ”
http://europa.agu.org/?uri=/journals/gl/96GL01426.xml&view=article
Serreze and other researchers have published many papers since then, examining the effects of wind and other forces on the ice.
So wind effects are hardly news. If you read through older Arctic research, you see a gradual shift away from the belief that seasonal variations and cycles such as the Arctic Oscillation, by themselves, could explain what we were seeing in the Arctic.
Mark’s “death spiral” colorfully referred to the possibility that positive feedbacks were leading towards a seasonally ice-free Arctic Ocean as early as 2030. That is decades sooner than the 2007 IPCC report suggested, but today I think many Arctic researchers consider even 2030 to be optimistic.
WUWT authors have made opposite predictions. The ice will decide, eh?
So this just proves what has been said for years: that neither size nor thickness alone really matter, it’s what you do with the combination of the two.