By Steve Goddard
In my previous PIOMAS verification piece I noted that PIOMAS volume trends don’t correlate with extent trends over the last three years. PIOMAS has gone down since 2007, while extents have increased.
The diverging trends themselves prove nothing, because it possible (but unlikely) for it to occur. This time I directly compared calculated volume measurements, which should be more definitive.
In their current graph (below) PIOMAS shows a record negative volume anomaly.
This appears to be incorrect, because we can see from the PIPS blink maps (below) that thicknesses were generally lower on this date in 2008. If the visual impression is correct, it would be impossible for the current anomaly to be greater in magnitude than the 2008 anomaly.
Quantifying this further, I numerically integrated May 31 pixel count vs. thickness since 2000.
As you can see, May 31, 2010 volume is currently higher than any year since 2006. It is also higher than 2003. Remember that 2003 had the highest minimum of any year in the JAXA record.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent.png
So why does PIOMAS show a record volume anomaly at present? Something is wrong either with PIPS maps or published PIOMAS volume data. PIOMAS trends are widely quoted and it is important for them to be correct.
Willis has also made some interesting observations.
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Well, Steve you were wrong about Venus, but do not let that stop you here.
http://books.google.com/books?id=EckCC-x6024C&pg=PA508&dq=What+makes+Venus+so+hot&ei=X2QFTO38MYT-lATW-6WdDQ&cd=3#v=onepage&q=What%20makes%20Venus%20so%20hot&f=false
I hope you’re saving all those PIOMAS graphs, Steve. I’m looking forward to their first calibration opportunity Cryosat 2. It’d be a shame if their historical graphs got lost somehow. 😉
Steve,
As I mentioned, you need to include ice concentration to get valid volume values. Yours don’t even agree with the numbers generated by the PIPS team, the red diamonds in this comparison, though you’ve omitted the units in your scale:
http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/2313/pipsvsgoddard.png
Their numbers are from:
http://www.nrl.navy.mil/content_images/09_Ocean_Posey.pdf
The CAGW forces MUST have declining ice (area, volume, or thickness or any other kind of numbers) declining to keep their religion (er, science) alive.
No other result can be presented.
Jacob Mack
Why are you so desperate to change the subject?
Well, the arctic sea ice may not have reached a tipping point, but today Al Gore reached the Tipper point…
Tom P
Concentration is also higher in 2010. Your argument works against you.
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=05&fd=31&fy=2008&sm=05&sd=31&sy=2010
Nice try though.
Tom P
Also, the PIPS link you provided was pre-2008, and agrees with the chart in this article. Why did you think that pre-2008 data would contradict my post-2008 claim?
Your article is titled “A Thinning Arctic Ice Cap as Simulated by the
Polar Ice Prediction System (PIPS): 2000–2008”
Jacob Mack says:
June 1, 2010 at 3:01 pm
BZZZT! Bad logic, Jacob. Whether or not Steve was right or wrong about some unrelated subject is immaterial and meaningless about whether Steve is right now. What, you’ve never been wrong about one thing and right about another? That’s why they don’t allow testimony about “prior acts” in trials.
All you have done is revealed your prejudice. Your puerile attempt to poison the well has failed, give it up.
However, you are welcome to present any scientific data or arguments to show that Steve is wrong. That’s how science works, not by personal accusations as you seem to think.
I don’t know why you can’t let the PIPS 2.0 maps go Steve. The data is unreliable and it is foolish at best to base any of your analysis on PIPS 2.0 maps. I even saw one post suggesting that PIPS 3.0 was never implemented, and so the Navy went back to using PIPS 2.0. Absurd! Here for example, is a direct link to a full (UNCLASSIFIED)training manual on PIPS 3.0:
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA489794&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf
PIPS 2.0 is inaccurate, period. You can’t compare it to th new version, 3.0, or to PIOMAS which rely on the far more robust modeling found using CICE. In fact, just for a point of comparison, if you go to this link:
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA489794&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf
And scroll down to page 34 (labelled as page 27 on the PDF) you’ll see a sample of PIPS 3.0 sea ice thickness for March 15, 2008. Now go here:
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/pips2/archive/retrievepic.html?filetype=Thickness&year=2008&month=3&day=15
And see a PIPS 2.0 version for the same date. Wow, a HUGE difference. Why? Well for one, PIPS 2.0 is defunct…inaccurate…and doesn’t use CICE (like PIOMAS does).
You are a smart guy Steve…brilliant even, so why can’t you see that the PIPS 2.0 data is wrong? If it was so accurate, why would the Navy have moved on 5 years ago?
Just one more thing…at the bottom of the PIPS 2.0 page is this helpful hint:
“Note: This website best viewed with Internet Explorer 4.0 or better and screen size of 800 x 600 or better.”
Do you remember the closing scene from Indiana Jones when they’d finally brought the Ark of the Covenant back to the US and it was being put in that big warehouse with all the other old artifacts…I think the PIPS 2.0 site is just that…sitting on some Navy server, spitting out its inaccurate data, year after year…sort of out there in limbo land, probably forogotten as the Navy has long since move on…
Steve,
You claim that your columns (without numbers) agree with the published values from the Navy PIPS team:
http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/2313/pipsvsgoddard.png
I’ll let readers make their own assessment of your analytical abilities here.
Jacob Mack
‘Well, Steve you were wrong about Venus, but do not let that stop you here.’
Exactly how, or where, was he wrong again? Could you make a detailed explanation of where he is wrong instead of referencing a book with no text?
R. Gates
‘I don’t know why you can’t let the PIPS 2.0 maps go Steve.’
Maybe you should’ve read his entries a little more thoroughly instead of relying on your own capability of inference.
Jacob Mack says:
June 1, 2010 at 3:01 pm
<rant>
You may recognize me as one of Steve’s critics, and hopefully as someone who shies away from ad hominem comments.
However, I do have a few comments for you:
1) Just because something is on the web (from a book, even) doesn’t make it right. A while back, someone did that, referring to a little spot written by a scientist. I contacted the scientist about it and he fixed it the next day. Hard to do that with a book, so I won’t bother.
2) I find it really rude when a new post goes up and the first comment is some OT crap by someone who can’t get attention any other way. Congratulations, you are one.
3) At its best, a scientific argument relies one’s own data and understanding, and serves to increase respect for that person and his views. There’s nothing in your one line comment that does either.
4) Willis, paragraph 1
5) Willis, paragraph 2.
not 6) I don’t agree with Willis’ paragraph 3 – a Venus discussion doesn’t belong here. It belongs on a Venus thread. Therefore, I will have no more to say here.
It appears the controversy is over a discrepancy between what are really just two computer models? Perhaps we should wait until we can get some real data from CryoSat-2, unless there is some other reliable ice thickness record somewhere.
R. Gates said on June 1, 2010 at 4:51 pm:
Nah, what’s absurd is we were arguing this at an older article and you felt the need to restart it over here.
BTW, WILL YOU STOP TWISTING THINGS AROUND?
Back there:
Here:
Bud, stop warping things around. I never denied 3.0 was being developed, I said it wasn’t yet deployed, they were still using 2.0. THE FREAKING US NAVY SAYS 3.0 is in final development.
Fine. Keep calling the US Navy a liar. Keep up your little self-amusing war, twisting people’s words and moving your fight to new venues when you’ve lost the battle.
Keep on looking like EXACTLY what you really are. Wouldn’t have it any other way.
R. Gates, your comments appear to be wishful thinking. The truth is that ALL of the ice estimates are based on spotty data and none of them should be viewed as anything other than SWAGs. Even if one of the estimates of volume is better than another doesn’t mean the ice will behave in any particular way this year. Still another month before we begin to understand how the weather will control this years melt.
Since I started this PIOMAS stuff, let me first thank you for getting a Second VOLUME measurement – – albeit it seems to be ONLY, as I have said before, concentration presented as thickness. Technically this means it is a good measure of RELATIVE thickness, as where there is 99% concentration = open water of 1%, you can bet the ice is thicker than other areas. BUT 30 years of thinning Ice since 1980 did not reverse overnight: it IS VERY POOR to use it for the TOTAL of the whole Basin.
That is why the Navy never summed it up into a Volume … but it is STILL OK to use for an Icebreaker – – it tells you where the Ice is THINNER.
My “Doomsday” calculation was getting me down because it was the ONLY Volume calculation (Present El nino =1.8 over 2007’s = 1.1 … times 2007 loss of Ice over 2006 = 4000km3 …. thus we lose 6545 km3 which is more that last years’ minimum BY PIOMAS) – – at LEAST someone has finally seen we need SEVERAL Models, as the many for area.
R. Gates
I’d be happy to do historical comparisons using PIPS 3 – if they existed.
Wilky says: “Well, the arctic sea ice may not have reached a tipping point, but today Al Gore reached the Tipper point…”
Clever, but please, no ad hominem crap. I don’t see any relevance other than a lame pun. Try over at RealClimate.
Steve,
You have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that people with no training or experience in science have an awfully hard time doing science. Since you do have some journalistic background (don’t you?) why don’t you contact the nice people at the Polar Science Center and ask to interview them? Maybe you could even visit them for a few days. Just a thought.
PS: Have you read the several papers they reference to understand how they do their work?
PIOMAS References: http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/IceVolume.php
Zhang, J., and D.A. Rothrock: Modeling global sea ice with a thickness and enthalpy distribution model in generalized curvilinear coordinates, Mon. Wea. Rev., 131(5), 681–697, 2003. (pdf file)
Lindsay, R. W. and J. Zhang, Assimilation of ice concentration in an ice-ocean model, J. Atmos. Ocean. Tech., 23, 742–749, 2006.(pdf file)
Zhang, J., R. Lindsay, M. Steele, and A. Schweiger, 2008: What drove the dramatic retreat of arctic sea ice during summer 2007?, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L08502, doi:10.1029/2008GL034005. (pdf file)
Zhang, J., M. Steele, R. Lindsay, A. Schweiger, and J. Morison, 2008: Ensemble 1-Year predictions of Arctic sea ice for the spring and summer of 2008, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L08502, doi:10.1029/2008GL033244. (pdf file)
Lindsay, R. W., J. Zhang, A. J. Schweiger, and M. A. Steele, 2008: Seasonal predictions of ice extent in the Arctic Ocean, J. Geophys. Res., 113, C02023, doi:10.1029/2007JC004259. (pdf file)
Lindsay, R. W., J. Zhang, A. J. Schweiger, and M. A. Steele, and H. Stern, 2009: Arctic sea ice retreat in 2007 follows thinning trend. J. Clim., 22, 165-176, doi: 10.1175/2008JCLI2521. (pdf file)
Schweiger, A. J., J. Zhang, R. W. Lindsay, and M. Steele, 2008: Did unusually sunny skies help drive the record sea ice minimum of 2007? Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L10503, doi:10.1029/2008GL033463. (pdf_file)
Kwok, R., G. F. Cunningham, M. Wensnahan, I. Rigor, H. J. Zwally, and D. Yi, 2009: Thinning and volume loss of the Arctic Ocean sea ice cover: 2003-2008. J. Geophys. Res., 114.
Zhang, J. and _M. Steele_, 2007. The effect of vertical mixing on the Atlantic Water layer circulation in the Arctic Ocean, /J. Geophys. Res.,112, /C04S04, doi:10.1029/2006JC003732 (pdf_file)
—
Maybe, just maybe, they know some things you don’t.
The PIOMAS forecast this summer is here:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/zhang/IDAO/z.gif
In a few weeks it will become clear if their model is accurate.
Oh, July 1 can’t come quickly enuf. . .
I suppose the heartening thing about this furball is it is a 4-month furball, max. At least the skeptics are willing to stick their necks out with falsifiable predictions in the short-term. Good luck getting an AGWer to agree to falsification criteria for their predictions *at all*, even over decadal time-frames.
Is it even possible to estimate ice volume?
The AMSR-E graphs are pretty conclusive that minimum Arctic ice extent cannot be predicted. I liked the recent post that wind currents played a dominant role in summer ice extent. A very plausible theory.
Do we even know what the Arctic wind currents are/were/will be? Enough to predict summer ice extent? No – not even close.
Global temperature, ice extent, ice thickness? We have no idea.
Climate Science seems silly most days. Thanks for continuing to point this out.
Steve, I am not desperate to change the subject, this analysis of yours is wrong as well.
The comment I made about being wrong about Venus has to do with an issue of credibility. Steve has been consistently wrong about several issues relating to climate and the effects of greenhouse gases. In a court of law credibility is a very important issue.
The Google book reference I left does have text, so that is incorrect.
Venus developed closer to the sun and with less water there was less ability to absorb excess C02.