By Steve Goddard
Last month, a number of well known web sites and commenters were getting themselves worked up with comments like “Arctic ice dropping at the fastest rate in history” and “Arctic ice is dropping like a rock.” I advised repeatedly that prior to July, looking at the extent graphs is pointless.
July is here now, and the rate of ice extent decline has dropped dramatically over the last week. To put this in perspective, according to JAXA data, the June 28-July 4 rate is -53361 km²/day. In 2007 during the same period, ice was lost at -123104 km²/day.
In other words, 2007 was losing ice 2.31X faster than 2010.
This can be seen most dramatically in the DMI graph, which measures only higher concentration ice (30%.)
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
Close up image below.
So why the dramatic difference in slope? One reason is that sea ice concentration is at the highest level in the satellite record. Compare below vs. 1980, when ice was considered very “healthy.” Current concentration is considerably higher.
Ice concentration is particularly important this time of year because the sun is relatively high in the sky. When the ice concentration is low, sun shines into the water in “Swiss Cheese” holes around the ice, warms it, and corrodes away the edges of the ice. This year, ice concentration has been close to 100% in most of the Arctic – which means very little sunlight is reaching the water in the Arctic Basin. As a result melt will occur more slowly than during low concentration years.
The videos below represent an exaggerated visualization of the process. The first video shows an idealized view of future Arctic Basin melt during 2010 – i.e. a single large circle of ice surrounded by water.
The next video shows what happens in years when the concentration is lower. The sun is heating the water between circles, and because of the smaller circles a much larger surface area of ice is exposed to warm water. Warmer water and more exposed surface area causes melt to proceed faster.
Conclusion : Cold temperatures, cloudy skies, favorable winds and high concentration ice – all point to continued slow melt over the next few days.
It won’t go below 2008 even 2006,then we watch the cooling..
Got Coal?…
” This year, ice concentration has been close to 100% in most of the Arctic – which means very little sunlight is reaching the water in the Arctic Basin”
ok, this can’t be good news for the Arctic krill
Lest all wait until July 25th. Then those who made predictions can fess up to being wrong, or crow about their predictive prowess. Until then (and maybe not until the middle of August) it’s all unknown. Gotta learn to live with a lot of that. I do, however enjoy watching the guessing and the angst. Sort of like watching a bad horror film from 1952.
Thanks for the oversimplified videos. It made the idea clear.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Either those who are continually pushing the PIOMAS graph are pushing a wrong interpretation of it or the PIOMAS graph is just flatly wrong.
“All they have is talking points that the commentators regurgitate from the teleprompter written by their corporate overlords.”
The corporate overlords write this stuff? They surely aren’t dumb enough to make as many mistakes as there are in the news scripts. No, I think it’s just low-paid script writers with no incentive to be accurate. How else could both CNN and CBS (Katy Couric’s show, no less) be reporting that the A Whale can gobble up 21,000,000 gallons (500,000 bbls) of oil a day. Anyone with common sense would know that number is wrong. It implies that one ship could clean all the oil off of the Gulf’s surface in less than two weeks. But no, they just blindly use what they read somewhere and compound the errors.
6/18/10 PIOMAS graph, divergent to reality:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/images/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrent.png
PIOMAS web site:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/IceVolume.php
REPLY: Gee. That looks like a sensor failure more than a real drop. I’ve identified this before, but was told it “wasn’t worth blogging about” by NSIDC. – A
Amino Acids in Meteorites
The PIOMAS forecasts are already breaking down badly in the Beaufort Sea, Greenland Sea, Baffin Bay, and several other regions of the Arctic.
If PIPS is correct, PIOMAS is looking like a major train wreck, similar to last year.
>i>”That looks like a sensor failure,,,:
It’s dead Jim.
Looking at how thick the ice is – and the rate of decline, it looks like we`ve almost reached minimum. I wonder how the lying MFM (MSM) will report it, if we reach minimum earlier than ever – of course, they`ll ignore it.
REPLY: Gee. That looks like a sensor failure more than a real drop. I’ve identified this before, but was told it “wasn’t worth blogging about” by NSIDC. – A
This is their graph from 5/24/10. It began a quick drop then.
http://climateinsiders.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/bpiomasicevolumeanomalycurrent.png?w=510&h=367
They had 25 days between graphs to catch that kind of thing. Maybe their computer model is just wrong? Or you could be right, it’s a sensor.
Steve,
Just a question: Why would you use the concentration data you did, and not this graph:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/NEWIMAGES/arctic.seaice.color.000.png
or this graph:
http://iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/arctic_AMSRE_nic.png
or even, (god forgive me for putting this out there) this PIP 2.0 concentraion image:
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/pips2/icon.html.
Each of them shows something far different than you are describing.
Just curious about your motivations for using the low res and low fidelity image you did, as such an image will seriously detract from your ability to see the kind of details you need to state the sort thing you’re stating about concentration.
Also, the high resolution satellite images don’t support your contention:
http://ice-map.appspot.com/?map=Arc&sat=aqa&lvl=6&lat=74.571668&lon=-139.120367&yir=2010&day=186
It seems to show quite a bit of “un” concentrated ice right smack dab in the middle of the Beaufort Sea and heading over into the Arctic Basin itself. Exactly where the above references high resolution concentration maps says it is, even though your low resolution map shows a much smaller area of low concentration, I happen to trust the satellite images and the higher resolution maps a bit more.
Having said all this, I would agree that winds over the past few days have favored pushing the ice together a bit more, but the concentration is not nearly as high as you are painting it to be, and you and I both know that winds change very quickly, and the forecast for SST’s and air temps over the Arctic for the rest of the melt season would favor continued higher melt rates, despite this slow down this week.
http://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/maproom/.Global/.Forecasts/.Temperature/
http://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/maproom/.Global/.Forecasts/.SST/index.html?map.S.plotvalue=0000+1+Jun+2010&map.L.plotvalue=2.5&map.Y.units=degree_north&map.Y.plotlast=89.25845N&map.url=+SOURCES+.IRI+.FD+.SSTA_FCST+.ASST+.version02+S+%280000+1+Jun+2010%29+VALUE+a%3A+.sst+L+3+0.0+runningAverage+%2Fpointwidth+3+def+L+%282.5%29+VALUE+temp_anomaly_colors_gcm+%3Aa%3A+.T+L+3+0.0+runningAverage+%2Fpointwidth+3+def+L+%282.5%29+VALUE+%3Aa+X+Y+fig-+colors+%7C+thinzero+contours+thinnish+grey+land+plotlabel+-fig&map.domain=+%7B+%2FL+2.5+plotvalue+%2FS+605.+plotvalue+%7D&map.domainparam=+%2Fplotaxislength+600+psdef+%2Fplotborder+72+psdef&map.zoom=Click+for+Info&map.Y.plotfirst=89.25845S&map.X.plotfirst=30E&map.X.units=degree_east&map.X.modulus=360&map.X.plotlast=30E&redraw.x=8&redraw.y=20
But we’ll just have to wait a few more weeks to see if your high concentration projection matches your 40% increase in thickness projection as well, giving us the higher summer minimum than what I have been forecasting. (albeit either of our forecasts show there has been no “recovery” in Arctic Sea ice, and the 2008-2009 upward trend will have been broken.
Anyone wishing to guess what the final ice extent will be is welcome to come to the Lounge and put their favorite number forward. We don’t have many skeptical entries this year, so come on down.
Just for fun how about a competition to predict lowest ice extent this year with a special mention of the person getting closest to the actual per the above JAXA graph.
There would need to be a deadline for posting.
Anthony/Mods – any chance of a “minimum ice extent prediction post 2010” along these lines?
I don’t mean to rock the boat, but why wasn’t the concentration just as high previously that led to the large drop. I would think it should be the same for both, more or less.
Throughout April, May and the first 4 weeks(!) of June the 2010 decline was as fast or faster that 2007, now for a period of a week we’ve seen the 2010 rate of decline as slower than for the same period in 2007.
Better write a blog post about it.
Gee. That looks like a sensor failure more than a real drop.
Where have we seen that movie before?
intrade.com is still taking bets on min arctic ice extent. I’m looking for some of that R. Gates money. The bet is still running about 50:50. Is there a more active site? It’s very surprising to me that more people aren’t betting on very little ice, given the rhetoric that’s out there.
R. Gates says:
July 5, 2010 at 8:18 pm
Do you even bother to look at the images you refer to??
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/pips2/archive/retrievepic.html?filetype=Concentration&year=2010&month=7&day=3
The forecast for July 3rd was buried by the microwave imager’s real data.
You have convinced me that Steve is right, and the forecast model is lost.
5 July: UK Tele: Gerald Warner: As third Climategate report is published, even computer models turn against AGW alarmists
Many of you, I know, will find it almost impossible to sleep tonight: the climactic excitement attending tomorrow’s publication of Sir Muir Russell’s vindication – sorry, investigation – of the scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit is too pulse-quickening…
But the most startling development was partially revealed at the tail-end of Hulme’s remarks, when he warned that greater openness would not ensure an easier time for climate scientists in future. He said this was because a new generation of more sophisticated computer models is not reducing the uncertainties in predicting future climate, but rather the reverse. “This is not what the public and politicians expect, so handling and explaining this will be difficult.”
Too right it will. Despite the known proclivity of computer models to come up with the findings they have been programmed to produce, Hulme is conceding that more sophisticated versions are refusing to record the desired result, but in fact the reverse. If even the alarmists’ own tame technology, due to improved accuracy, is refusing to comply with their wish list of global warming symptoms, then the game is well and truly up…
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geraldwarner/100046168/as-third-climategate-report-is-published-even-computer-models-turn-against-agw-alarmists/
R. Gates,
I just took a look at the map of the first link (the artic.atmos link), and compared it to the one in the article (from the University of Illinois). Although the colors are different relative to the concentration, and I was just looking at it visually, I don’t see a great difference.
The two areas in lighter pink in the U of I plot appear to be around 80% concentration. The artic.atmos shows something similar in my opinion. In the majority of the ‘darkest’ areas of the U of I plot, where it appears the concentrations are in the high 90s to 100%, the artic.atmos plot shows around 95 to 100%.
Yes, there are some other differences in various locations differences througout both plots that appear minor to me, but overall, I would judge them to be fairly close to each other.
Even comparing it to the IUP plot, much of the concentration is well over 905, with a lot between 95 adn 100%. Again, the are some differences, but I don’t think they are that great.
Thus, I think your comment about it being far different from what Steve is describing is VERY MISLEADING.
I would appreciate others doing the same and commenting. Please correct me if I am wrong. OR someone who can take the pictures and do ‘pixel’ counts to compare would be great.
Here’s a somewhat unusual proxy for recent winter temperatures in southern New Zealand:
http://www.odt.co.nz/regions/central-otago/114079/curlers-called-national-bonspiel
Check out the recent thick black-ice records.
R. Gates says:
July 5, 2010 at 8:18 pm
…albeit either of our forecasts show there has been no “recovery” in Arctic Sea ice, and the 2008-2009 upward trend will have been broken.
Talk about damage control…
I would think that you as much as anyone, as often as you have castigated the oversimplification of Arctic ice loss dynamics, would avoid making such a nebulous claim. How are you defining “recovery”? Certainly it’s not extent. Wouldn’t the amount of multi-year ice be a better gauge? Either way, I’d like to hear how you can make such a claim at this point in the season.
As for your “broken” trend, I shouldn’t even touch that one…
…but, c’mon! You know trends don’t work that way. No one credibly believes the slope of arctic ice or any other climate variable will stay constant from year to year. So a decrease from one year to the next does not necessarily “break” a trend. Perhaps you might get some traction if Arctic ice dropped below the 2007 minimum.
R Gates believes in AGW and that its expression is Arctic sea ice… despite blaming it on wind patterns. And wind patterns do not favor AGW over the past 50 years… But hey, keep coming pal…
Martin C says:
July 5, 2010 at 9:18 pm
R. Gates,
“I just took a look at the map of the first link (the artic.atmos link), and compared it to the one in the article (from the University of Illinois). Although the colors are different relative to the concentration, and I was just looking at it visually, I don’t see a great difference.”
VILLABOLO:
Why is Climate Insiders being used as a source for all these graphs when the Primary sources are so easily available?
Yea but how much oil, by mass…measured in Courics, can A Whale consume? Katie you are the record!
Mr. R. Gates,
Calm yourself. Data is data is data. Perhaps some is better than others, but discrepancies in data can always be worked out. Let’s not get lathered up, yet. Let’s wait and see how these numbers work out as measured, not projected. It’s only a few months away.
It doesn’t seem like the wind can lift the ice lid any further. It gets stuck in the Canadian Archipelago, where ice extent has grown to above normal!
Wind and waves, time and tides?
We are no better at predicting the future now with our super computers than our forebears were with their casting of the bones and costly visits to the Delphic oracle.
Puny ignorant man makes bold assertions only to be foiled by majestic and untroubled nature?
We have allowed ourselves to be seduced by models and predictions based on limited knowledge combined with overblown unwarranted confidence.
Models lie and statistics lie because they are simply not real, they will never be real even if they happen to be accurate, our love affair with predictions stems from our longing as a species to know what the future brings, to control the destiny that has controlled and foiled our grand plans for so long on our difficult journey of evolution.
One thing is for certain, an absolute certainty and iron hard immutable law that humanity has faced since we first daubed pictures on cave walls, the future will never conform to our petty plans and dreams and fears. The grand procession of nature passes us by and tramples on the plans of men and his petty doings as if he didnt exist.
July is here now, and the rate of ice extent decline has dropped dramatically over the last week. To put this in perspective, according to JAXA data, the June 28-July 4 rate is -53361 km²/day. In 2007 during the same period, ice was lost at -123104 km²/day.
Cherry picking again, of the worse kind, a mere snapshot. This is pure nonsense. You picked a period in 2007 with 6 successive 100k+ drops, including a 200k+. What’s the importance of the coincidence? These melt periods are not time or date bound, they can occur any time when conditions suit, not the date. Anyhow, what a difference a day can make, today’s melt 111,000 KM2 (unrevised), average just went up to 79,000. Imagine what a few days could do.
Bold heading; “In other words, 2007 was losing ice 2.31X faster than 2010.”
??????????????????Shouldn’t that read, between 28 June and 4 July, 2007 was losing ice…..How do six days represent a whole year? It’s the bold headline that deceives, as intended I guess.
Curious Yellow,
And despite the massive drops in 2007 over those days, 2010 still remains at a lower extent than 2007 in the Jaxa data …
Daniel M says:
July 5, 2010 at 9:32 pm
R. Gates says:
July 5, 2010 at 8:18 pm
…albeit either of our forecasts show there has been no “recovery” in Arctic Sea ice, and the 2008-2009 upward trend will have been broken.
Talk about damage control…
I would think that you as much as anyone, as often as you have castigated the oversimplification of Arctic ice loss dynamics, would avoid making such a nebulous claim. How are you defining “recovery”? Certainly it’s not extent. Wouldn’t the amount of multi-year ice be a better gauge? Either way, I’d like to hear how you can make such a claim at this point in the season.
As for your “broken” trend, I shouldn’t even touch that one…
…but, c’mon! You know trends don’t work that way. No one credibly believes the slope of arctic ice or any other climate variable will stay constant from year to year. So a decrease from one year to the next does not necessarily “break” a trend. Perhaps you might get some traction if Arctic ice dropped below the 2007 minimum.
_________________
Well, let’s take a look at the actual “trend”, mapped against where even those “pessimistic” GCM models say that Arctic Sea ice should be headed:
http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/2009/stroeve.png
Steve’s 5.5 million sq. km, or my 4.5 million sq. km, still tracks Arctic Sea ice to disappear earlier than the most pessimistic GCM’s from just a few years ago. I guess we really need to define what a “recovery” is. I heard the term being thrown around this spring during the little “bump up”, and even heard such pundits as Rush Limbaugh talk about it, as though he really knew what he was talking about. One year, or even two or three years don’t equal recovery, and certainly, a few months of late season growth don’t amount to anything close to a recovery in my humble estimation.
By recovery do we mean the ice going back to the trend line that was leading to an ice free Arctic in the summer by 2100 instead of 2030? Or do we mean going back to having the ice bounce around on both sides of 7 or 8 million sq. km for the summer low each year, but not on the way to disappearing completely? What do you think a “recovery” of Arctic Sea ice means? I personally think it would be mean a stable mean summer minimum (maybe somwhere around 7 million to 8 million sq. km), that the ice bounces around both sides of from year to year. Instead, what we have is a chart that looks like this:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png
Where we’ve not had a positive anomaly since 2004. But as person who believes that it’s not the sun, nor the PDO, nor GCR’s, (those these may play a minor role) but rather, it is more likely that the 30% increase in CO2 since the start of the industrial revolution that is causing the changes in the Arctic, and each year these amounts are increasing, I think (going back to chaos theory) that it’s highly unlikely to see a long term recovery (based on my definition of recover given above) and its more likely to see a continued long term decline of summer Arctic Sea ice until a new point of equalilbrium is found, and that point is likely a seasonal ice free arctic ocean by the year 2030.
Drop for today was 100+ on JAXA, not sure if that is the final corrected amount. Looks sunny on the Canadian side until Wednesday with Eureka 18C yesterday. Resolute 17C today 14C Wednesday. Then cloudy and cold. At the northpole webcam it is sunny again, there have been a lot more sunny days there this year than last.
On the Siberian side it is still rather cool but getting warmer.
Andy
The north pole now:
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/npole/2010/images/noaa2-2010-0705-133452.jpg
and a further view
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/npole/2010/images/noaa1-2010-0706-025048.jpg
there are holes, they are growing. Lets play Pooh sticks.
Let us not loose the point that interesting though it would be if we are going into cooling and the next little ice age , the point is that even if it is melting, the melt is not anthropogenic. We have been coming out of the Little Ice Age, and coming out of an ice age means heating of the atmosphere and melting of the ice whether humans exist or not.
R. Gates
I have discussed the “high resolution” concentration graphs extensively. Their precision is much higher than their accuracy. The low res maps correlate much better with visible satellite imagery.
Curious Yellow
You must have missed the part about prior to July, the melt season extent maps are nearly meaningless.
I get 72 000 per day for those days in 2010 and 137 000 in 2007 or 1.9x as much ??? Perhaps my spreadsheet sums are wrong?
climatepatrol
Temperatures have been very warm in the Canadian Archipelago, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the NW Passage opens again this year.
I realize the University of Illinois has to use some ancient algorithm on modern data to get images “comparable” to what they were using in 1980:
http://climateinsiders.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/deetmp-13164.png
(stevengoddard’s image in the above article)
but isn’t it weird that this algorithm makes it seem like Hudson Bay is two-thirds filled with sea ice on 7/3/2010 ?
At least the 7/3/2010 blurry image shows the extensive melt in the Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea, Barents Sea and Baffin Bay.
Now compare to modern data processed with modern algorithms:
here’s 7/3/2010:
http://iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsredata/asi_daygrid_swath/l1a/n6250/2010/jul/asi-n6250-20100703-v5_nic.png
and 7/3/2009:
http://iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsredata/asi_daygrid_swath/l1a/n6250/2009/jul/asi-n6250-20090703-v5_nic.png
Wow, 2009 Arctic basin ice looked like a solid purple mass compared to 2010, which is speckled all over with 70% to 100% concentration pixels. Probably a lot of melt ponds, but still indicative of a much warmer summer than 2009.
How did things work out in 2009, with that concentrated Arctic Basin ice ?
http://iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsredata/asi_daygrid_swath/l1a/n6250/2009/sep/asi-n6250-20090913-v5_nic.png
Eaten away from the outside in, the warm water melting the ice shore like a cancer, until the end of summer saved the remaining ice. So much for “concentrated” ice.
And how much more warming Arctic water does 2010 have than 2009 ? 732,969 sq km
How much more warming water than in 2007 ? 222,813 sq km
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/plot.csv
How much sea ice was lost in 2010 from 7/4 to 7/5 ? 111,563 sq km
To put this in perspective, according to JAXA data, 2007 had a 89,844 sq km drop.
In other words, 2010 was losing ice 1.24X faster than 2007.
This can be seen most dramatically in the JAXA graph, which shows the little hump of 2007 flattening out as 2010 begins dropping faster again.
(if this all sounds vaguely familiar, re-read Steve’s article, above.)
Every year, the details are different, but the trend is clear:
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20091005_Figure3.png
villabolo
I have learned to make copies of images and graphs, rather than use the original source.
Two reasons 1. It keeps the context of the article correct in the future. 2. It doesn’t matter if the external web site goes down.
TomRude says:
July 5, 2010 at 9:37 pm
R Gates believes in AGW and that its expression is Arctic sea ice… despite blaming it on wind patterns. And wind patterns do not favor AGW over the past 50 years… But hey, keep coming pal…
________________
Tom, have you ever heard of the Arctic Dipole Anomaly? This is a curious little positive feeback loop that’s developed in the Arctic over the past 10 years or so. Quite unpredicted by any of the GCM’s, just as chaos theory would say such “attractors” would be out there as changes are made in the composition of the atmosphere.
Anyway, the DA is a wind event, caused by warming, the in turn, causes more, warming, and so forth. So all this nonsense put out by AGW skeptics pointing at the wind, as though the wind exists as some separate phenomenon from temperature, is quite in error. The DA is a self-reinforcing wind AND termperature event, unpredictable but quite determinstic. I suggest you Google it and read up on it. It’s of great interest to the experts who study the Arctic, as well it should be as it could be just one of the reasons that the GCM’s were so far off in not seeing the dramatic decline we’ve seen in Arctic Sea ice these past few years…
http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/2009/stroeve.png
This chart shows the GCM’s versus the actual sea ice extent. The two really start to diverage when the DA really started occurring on a more frequent basis. The DA is becoming a domiant player in the Arctic “regime”, and it is a wind/temperature self-reinforcing “attractor”.
I think R gates is one of many AGW trolls who has been instructed to try to “overcome” the Climategate problem by “appearing” to really know what he is talking about LOL but the answers here are not helping his cause so let him continue please…LOL. As I mentioned in previous posting some warmistas are going to be very surprised at NH minima this summer,
[REPLY – I don’t think he is being “instructed” by anyone. I just think he’s probably wrong. If Brother Gates wishes to argue climategate, he’s welcome to; most of us here have actually read the emails, anyway. He’s duking it out in “enemy territory”, which I can respect. Of course when we try that we tend to get censored rather heavily. #B^1 But Anthony and we mods here allow a free and open debate inasmuch as we can. We snip every now and then, but we do so at a minimum and tend to confine it to what we consider to be unduly abusive posts. ~ Evan]
I realise that our R Gates has a narrative to stick to which he does as best he can but I wonder if his recent obssession with what he calls the “dipole anomoly’ is just another mechanism to reinforce his narrative and linking this ‘anomoly’ with the alarmists beloved ‘positve feedback’?
“unpredictable but quite deterministic” huuuh?
” the DA is a self reinforcing wind and TEMPERATURE event” I find this statement quite confusing and it seems to fly in the face of thermodynamics laws, we have enough evidence now to state with some confidence that the so called ‘positive feedback’ theory has not worked as advertised yet it is still being pimped on the back of every event that seems at first glance to fit the AGW narrative.
It seems the so called DA is simply another convenient vehicle to explain a short term unpredicted event as a long term mechanism and as a temporary vehicle my guess is when the vehicle has outlived its usefulness it will be discarded and another will take its place.
At the moment this dipole anomoly is the latest in climate science fashion and one can only wonder how long it will last? I suspect the the DA theory will last as long as the current melt cycle and no longer.
Our Mr Gates is painting himself into the mother of all corners at the moment, if the melt cycle does not comply with his obviously set beliefs then his reputation will be damaged beyond repair and that would be quite sad, I can predict that nobody will listen to him on this blog again. Much better to show doubt and hesitation and humility now than face ridicule later I think.
“Hulme is conceding that more sophisticated versions are refusing to record the desired result, but in fact the reverse. If even the alarmists’ own tame technology, due to improved accuracy, is refusing to comply with their wish list of global warming symptoms, then the game is well and truly up…”
It’s an admittance that further ‘tuning’ of the CGM is not working. Anyone who has backfit a model to the past and seen it fail in real time, and succumbed to tweaking the model to fit the newer data, and it still fails. Eventually we figure it out. We got it wrong from the git go.
You can see how dodgy the “high resolution” concentration maps are here:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3usmIjfz7gU]
OT
Planck unveils the Universe – now and then
ESA PR-15 2010 ESA’s Planck mission has delivered its first all-sky image. It not only provides new insight into the way stars and galaxies form but also tells us how the Universe itself came to life after the Big Bang.
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMF2FRZ5BG_index_0.html
There’s a particularly alarmist article by Overpeck and Udall in the current issue of Science 25 June 2010, “Dry Times Ahead”, p1642. I’m trying to figure out how much is exaggeration, how much true, and how much nonsense. Can anyone help?
R. Gates, @ 8.18,
of course you would think that! Any other thought might force you into the unomfortable region of seeing the truth. Of all the trolls on this blog, R.Gates has been the most persistenst, and obnoxious, in denying what the evidence clearly shows. Moderators, send him back under his bridge!
[REPLY – We shall continue to allow him to make his arguments. Time will tell who is correct. ~ Evan]
Wow, so much staked on a thing that nobody here can control.
Are the “modelers” and “anti-modelers” pitting their models against each other?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2003/07aug_southpole/
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1720024.ece
I am not saying any of you chaps are right or wrong about the future of the Arctic ice cap but I am saying that the proof of this pudding will be in the eating.
Steve
Bearing in mind the considerable margin of error of the satellites used for sea level rise, admitted to in AR4, I wondered the margin of error in sea ice readings, particularly as satellites seem to have trouble distinguishing between melt water lying on top of ice and sea water itself.
Should we take all the satellite era readings for ice with a large pinch of sea salt?
tonyb
Cassandra King says:
July 5, 2010 at 9:56 pm
casting of the bones…..seduced by models
It seems some people want to believe in the mystical. Maybe it’s more tantalizing than reality. Or maybe it’s a way they can fool others to gain a level of control over them.
I think Richard Lindzen put it well when he compared climate models to Ouija boards:
R. Gates
I didn’t make any claims about Arctic ice disappearing and would appreciate it if you didn’t imply that I did.
R. Gates says: July 5, 2010 at 10:42 pm
This is a curious little positive feeback loop that’s developed in the Arctic over the past 10 years or so.
According to what I found the Arctic is behaving as expected.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC1.htm
thethinkingman says:
July 5, 2010 at 11:43 pm
the proof of this pudding will be in the eating
We’ve already got a few bites: bad recipe coming from the ‘thinning ice’ crowd. Steven Goddard and Anthony seem to have a few good recipes though.
Stephan said
“2July 5, 2010 at 11:08 pm
I think R gates is one of many AGW trolls who has been instructed to try to “overcome” the Climategate problem by “appearing” to really know what he is talking about LOL but the answers here are not helping his cause so let him continue please…LOL. As I mentioned in previous posting some warmistas are going to be very surprised at NH minima this summer.”
I don’t think R Gates fits the definition of a troll at all, he is well informed and generally courteous and it is good to have another perspective to challenge us.
For his information I have previously posted on another thread historical references showing that todays warming is nothing new (1820 plus 1920, and at his request posted one showing the arctic was reckoned to be ice free some 6000 years ago).
It would be nice if he looked at the historic precedent a bit more instead of getting so excited about a thirty year record, but from that I guess he is relatively young himself and prefers computer models to history.
tonyb
vukcevic says:
July 5, 2010 at 11:52 pm
According to what I found the Arctic is behaving as expected.
vukcevic,
maybe it would help to get your ideas across if you made them into videos and post them on YouTube. It might take you 20-30 minutes to present findings in bite size pieces, making it 2 or 3 ten minute YouTube segments for each aspect of a finding. Video is mightier than the pen. It’s easy to attach a video in comments here. It could save you some repetitious typing. 🙂
“No, I think it’s just low-paid script writers with no incentive to be accurate. How else could both CNN and CBS (Katy Couric’s show, no less) be reporting that the A Whale can gobble up 21,000,000 gallons (500,000 bbls) of oil a day. Anyone with common sense would know that number is wrong.”
I agree. Someone else had worked out that the oil reservoir in the gulf that is gushing oil has a capacity of 4 quadrillion gallons, owing to a news anchor stating that it was the same size as Everest.
Surely that would make it a bigger stock of oil than Saudi Arabia and Iraq combined and therefore when the relief wells get into it, it would solve all Americas foreign oil problems for decades to come?
The news people were trying to scare people, but surely you would think that there would be the most basic level of fact checking?
R. Gates says:
July 5, 2010 at 10:42 pm
Your recursive DA feedback mechanism should have started in 2007, and by now there would be zero Arctic ice.
It would be a true hockey stick.
Run backwards, the Arctic in the 70’s should have grown exponentially and the Antarctic continued to shrink likewise.
That didn’t happen.
vukcevic,
I like how Joe Bastardi does video. His graphs are on one side of the screen and on the other you see him explaining. It’s easier after a day at work to come home and watch a video rather than read. Some times after work I don’t have the energy to open a PDF and start reading. And I think lots of people are the same. But it’s refreshing to watch a video.
Joe Bastardi on video:
http://www.accuweather.com/video/103968440001/major-cooling-on-the-way-worldwide.asp?channel=vbbastaj
Can you imagine the time and work it would have taken him to present what he says in 4:50 minutes of video on paper instead. And if he did present it on paper the reader may not have understood as much as they did from watching him on video.
Like I said: video is mightier than the pen!! 🙂
R. Gates, rbateman:
The difference between your posts is Mr. Gates talked about July 5 & the site rbateman specified refers to July 3
— BOY what a change.
But that’s CONCENTRATION for you.
Worthless ? … well, as I have said, LASER & other DIRECT MEASUREMENTS are the ONLY REAL THINGS.
Because the Piomas “models” are NOT some single fake thing, but a framework apparently derived from Zhang’s work on Pips 3.0, it ASSIMILATES such data. That’s “Add” in English.
That’s why it is used by many DIFFERENT Researchers with differing Ideas, they Plug things in.
And get different Results.
They even offer a site for YOU to plug in a future temp & project.
But since May there hasn’t been any new Laser Data – – – from the central Basin.
IceBridge Airplanes aren’t flying over the Sea Ice anymore.
SO – – Piomas is like a cripple — albeit there are more ship measurements now, but they are FAR FROM THE CENTER.
Anyway Steve:
… You want to LIVE BY THE DAILIES – – you FRY by the Dailies.
First it was LOOK at the Big Extent ! Then: they’re all LIES.
Up Pips !
Now: Pips is DEAD, long live Concentration.
Funny, they all were FINE until they reported what you didn’t want.
Then, you pick & choose – – and change, every few days.
As I have said, FORGET AGW
Anti-AGW too.
It’s about the El Nino.
That is WHY 2007 was different. That was a 1.1 & this year was a 1.8.
Yes, it is dissipating – – at the Equator – – but the HEAT will still be months working North via the Hot North Atlantic.
Therefore, this year will melt off.
Let’s look at the Dailies:
Comparing _____2007___ to___ 2010
Ahead July 5 _____ no_______ 222,813
Daily Loss in Extent:
July 3-4 ___ – 130,937 _____ – 82,969
July 4-5 ___ – 89,844 ____- 111,563
July 5-6 ___ – 93,125_____ ? ?
Note that since I posted on Update #12 there has been 8,594 km3 shifted from July 4 to 5. This is a Glitch, corrected the next day. These happen, as we saw above, courtesy Amino Acids: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/02/16/errors-in-publicly-presented-data-worth-blogging-about/
General:
Honest people MAKE Errors BUT thay also correct Errors, like Hansen when he accepted Steve MacIntyre’s correction.
Honest People get solicited by DISHONEST, which is what ClimateGate was about: CROOKED EAST ANGLIA ASKING Americans TO LIE.
But that PROVES Hansen & his people are Honest.
Steve is not in Cahoots with Zhang because both their estimates are FAR higher than mine.
They are both near “normal’ … because they are WRONG.
I picked REAL WEATHER to base My Projection on – –
– – these trend-associations are only slightly better than Numerology in my book.
Sorry, Mr. Zhang, but the Big jumps are Volcanos & El Nino s. Gee, a third of the total 30-year Drop is 1 year: 2007 !
And the Long-term trends are in line with the 60-year PDO (which, of course, is expressed by the Earth as: twice as many & stronger El Ninos in the “Hot” half of the Cycle, vs the Cold La Nina – – then reverse for 30 years ).
Zhang is honest enough to have graphs showing this (page past the Sub Data): http://psc.apl.washington.edu/zhang/IDAO/retro.html#Submarine_ice <http://psc.apl.washington.edu/zhang/IDAO/retro.html
Again, My theory: 2007's Ice loss times the strength of the El nino relative to 2007's = Ice Loss
4000 km3 loss (ICESAT) x 1.8/1.1 = -6545 km3
And ICESAT said 6000 was left (in November, so the minimum was maybe 5,050 ).
I do use Piomas a bit – – but only because 5800 for Last Year’s Minimum was during the time LASERS were pinning Piomas to reality …
when all the other concentration-based measures were just RELATIVE concentration, inferred from Heat-sensing Satellites.
Projection: still near ZERO, save for what is trapped between the islands & landfast Greenland Ice.
We better put Planes up there fast or your kids might be dead
… as: An early melt-off = Open Water: then the Pole’s “MIDNIGHT SUN” heats up the water = Ocean Currents reverse = in Winter warm water takes months to arrive, temps drop to near Air freezing temp, winds rise to 300 mph … but as it has to come off JUST RIGHT, I still give it 1-in-4 to 1-in-8.
Please write the Prez & your congresscritters.
I’m not sure I understand your theory… Heres what I think you’re saying:
1) lower concentration means more melting due to the larger surface area available for melt
2) higher concentration means less melting due to less surface area available for melt
If I have these right, then the comparison between 1980 and 2010 you show in your article doesn’t make sense. Why is the extent so much higher in 1980 given that the concentrations are much lower than in 2010? Given points 1 and 2, shouldn’t 1980 have the lower extent instead of 2010?
Amino Acids in Meteorites
Thanks for the suggestion, worth considering for someone having required skill and knowledge, not to mention charisma. In my case would turn out into an unmitigated disaster. Old doc Svalgaard would delight in a new opportunity for a public ridicule.
stevengoddard says:
July 5, 2010 at 10:34 pm
Curious Yellow
You must have missed the part about prior to July, the melt season extent maps are nearly meaningless.
———————–
It is your comparing of two June 28 to 4 July segments that is meaningless.
High-melt days don’t come by appointment. Just admit that it made for a false but attention grabbing headline;
“In other words, 2007 was losing ice 2.31X faster than 2010.”
No doubt it will fly around the bloggosphere for a while.
Loss of ice coverage in the arctic may be fully explained by wind direction change, not the temperature of the air, and by the temperature of sea currents arriving at the polar surface waters -which can be higher or lower in temperature without the average global sea temperature having risen.
It is the duty of AGWA’s to show that air temperature drives ice change and that CO2 drives air temperature.
DCC says:
July 5, 2010 at 7:27 pm
“All they have is talking points that the commentators regurgitate from the teleprompter written by their corporate overlords.”
____________________________________________________-
The corporate overlords write this stuff? They surely aren’t dumb enough to make as many mistakes as there are in the news scripts…..
_______________________________________________________
They do not write the stuff but the ” corporate overlords” own the presses and the advertising dollars so they can veto news that will keep money from filling their pockets. Most want to make a killing in the “carbon trading” racket or “green energy” subsidy racket and are intent on killing the golden goose (the tax payer)
You would think they would prefer a health economy, but if they know when the bankers are going to “crash” the economy, they can get out of the market before hand and then make a killing getting back in after the crash. It has been done before. Since 1913 and the creation of the Federal Reserve, depressions are now scientifically created. Using a central bank to create alternate periods of inflation and deflation, and thus whipsawing the public for vast profits, had been worked out by the international bankers to an exact science.
Bob Lawson,
of course air temperature drives ice change, as exemplified by the decline in ice extent around summer time in the Arctic every year.
Matt
There are many factors which affect the summer extent minimum. One of the more important ones is the average thickness of the ice at the start of the melt season. 1980 was not as concentrated as 2010, but the ice was generally thicker.
Me too (I’ve done my bit, bet-wise, on the lots-of-ice side). Here’s a clickable link: https://www.intrade.com
So you’re telling me that since 1980, the overall ice thickness has been reduced, in addition to the extent. So this would lead me to believe that there is less overall ice now. I’d imagine that this fact is well established in the scientific community. So the question would seem to be – what is causing this ice loss?
Curious Yellow
People can quote me out of context all they want. (The same people who cherry picked the “fastest decline ever” and then scream about me cherry-picking.)
The important thing is what happens over the next eight weeks.
“Conclusion : Cold temperatures, cloudy skies, favorable winds and high concentration ice – all point to continued slow melt over the next few days.” (By Steve Goddard)
____________________________
Sounds reasonable.
Matt
The ice loss has been driven primarily by winds over the last decade which have pushed older, thicker ice out into the North Atlantic. Most notably during the winter of 2007-2008.
I am not sure what the big concern on the variation in Arctic melting is all about. The Antarctic sea ice is increasing so that total sea ice is near constant. The change in Earth’s average albedo is thus not being changed by sea ice variation. That is the only reason sea ice is an issue at all.
jcrabb,
Air temperatures only slightly above freezing have very little to do with sea ice melt during the summer. Water currents under the ice, and to some (generally smaller) extent sunlight on the ice, result in almost all of the melting. The nearby open water, heated by absorbing sunlight, speeds up the process from the currents.
R. Gates says:
July 5, 2010 at 8:18 pm
You just have to look at the scales on each of the graphs. They all (including Steve’s) show the same result, the first one you show still shows all the ice in the central Arctic >80%, still a very high level for this time of the year. I think the Crysphere Today graphs that Steve shows have the benefit that they can be compared ton previous years. What Steve shows has been occuring for the whole of this year, the ice conc has been extraordinarily better than every other year on record.
Steve I don’t think it’s wrong that recent comment has focused on the recent fast extent drop. Afterall, like the concentration, it does represent a historical extreme and it did happen.
Bob Layson says:
July 6, 2010 at 2:13 am
Loss of ice coverage in the arctic may be fully explained by wind direction change, not the temperature of the air, and by the temperature of sea currents arriving at the polar surface waters -which can be higher or lower in temperature without the average global sea temperature having risen.
That’s why melt ponds don’t exist .. oh, they do.
As mentioned above, if it was only wind and sea temps it is strange how it’s always the summer that gets the maximum loss, when temperatures are highest. It’s 17C up in Resolute this week, does ice melt at 17C?
Andy
Leonard Weinstein
The ocean under the ice is stratified and undersea currents have little effect on the ice in the central Arctic. The amount of sunshine and temperature is the key factor. And jcrabb was correct, temperatures are limited by the melting ice in the summer.
NCEP is forecasting below normal temperatures for most of the Arctic over the next two weeks.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2Yin6EQcFk]
Steve,
The problem with your analysis is we need an explanation for the long term trend. Things don’t just happen. At present the favored explanation is GHGs. Chylek recently published “Twentieth century bipolar seesaw of the Arctic and Antarctic surface air temperatures” which suggests 2/3 of Arctic warming might be due to the AMO (1/3 GHGs).
The AMO index is going to remain positive for many years yet, which means that the best non-GHG explanation for the recent Arctic warming is going to continue. It looks unlikely sea ice will return to anything close to 1979 for many years (if at all). With the AMO index possibly at a maximum now the question might be is it going to get much worse over the coming decade.
You may win a small victory this year but your present analysis risks the next year of bad weather in the Arctic will generate the headlines seen in 2007. You’re actually playing the same game the alarmists played in 2007, short-termism.
Cassandra King says:
July 5, 2010 at 11:08 pm
Our Mr Gates is painting himself into the mother of all corners at the moment, if the melt cycle does not comply with his obviously set beliefs then his reputation will be damaged beyond repair and that would be quite sad, I can predict that nobody will listen to him on this blog again. Much better to show doubt and hesitation and humility now than face ridicule later I think.
I don’t see you predicting that “nobody will listen to him on this blog again” if stevengoddard gets his prediction wrong. Why is that ? Isn’t WUWT supposed to be the “real” science blog, as opposed to the politically motivated, hoaxy science of professional climatologists employed by NASA and other institutions ?
“Real” science has to make “real” predictions, not just hand wave about how wind is so hard to predict…
Does this sound like “doubt and hesitation and humility” to you ?
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png
“…if the melt cycle does not comply with his obviously set beliefs then his reputation will be damaged beyond repair”
Really ?
stevengoddard says:
July 6, 2010 at 4:59 am
Curious Yellow
People can quote me out of context all they want. (The same people who cherry picked the “fastest decline ever” and then scream about me cherry-picking.)
The important thing is what happens over the next eight weeks.
————————-
Comparing 6 days this year with 6 days in 2007 makes no sense, whichever way it is spun and remains what it is, cherry picking. Out of context? What context? Indeed, to the next 8 weeks, we are all subservient, but I take comfort from the fact that we are left with just speculation, wishful thinking if you like, nevertheless unable to influence.
Come mid September, the arctic will do its own talking.
By the way I wasn’t screaming, hardly ever raise my voice.
Curious Yellow
Comparing July from year to year makes perfect sense, because that is when the ice starts to shrink in the Arctic interior.
HR
I am not playing any game. I am just doing an analysis of what is happening in the Arctic this year, compared to previous years. I have no idea what will happen in future years and have never made any claims otherwise.
Leonard Weinstein
“The nearby open water, heated by absorbing sunlight, speeds up the process from the currents.”
Sir, one think’s you have nailled it, hence the prognostications of future decline, seems to me a pretty clear idea of ongoing decline, a ‘feedback’ if you will.
Once I get beyond the simple mechanisms of ice melting the ‘interesting’ rammifications come into play, my favorite Russian Scientist’s discoveries come into effect- Shakarova, her discoveries of Methane emissions from the East Siberian and Laptev seas take these discussions from the realm of the parlour to the sphere of extinction.
She proposes that the thin permafrost layer underneath the East Siberian and Laptev sea has sterted to become unstable, by that I mean simply it has cracked, leading to an increase in Methane release from subterranean resevoirs, formally contained by said barrier. She states there is a resevoir of 340 Gt of Methane ensconsed below the brine, of which 40 Gt is ready, willing and able to be released, ie gaseous, at a moments notice. Apparently a release of 40 Gt is quite sufficient to cause unfortunate effects on terrestrial beings, via a radical increase in the here-to-fore beneficiary Greenhouse effect.
L says:
July 5, 2010 at 11:36 pm
I really disagree with this statement. Although I don’t believe R. Gates’ predictions are correct, he is typically very courteous. I don’t believe he fits the definition of troll either, as he has been posting here for at least several months. He also made his prediction and has stuck with it. While I hope to see that his predictions are wrong, if they are right, then good for him. Whether he is correct or Steve is correct, one year’s ice extent really is not that important in the long run.
-Scott
@Leonard Weinstein saying:
Somehow that’s true, on the other hand the sun isn’t shining at Antarctica in July. That’s why satellites fail to make pictures proving your theory:
http://ice-map.appspot.com/?map=Ant&sat=aqa&lvl=5&lat=-61&lon=-41
There is more sea ice on the dark side and less ice on the sunny side and despite a higher albedo Earth absorbs more energy.
I like the idea of using crowd wisdom and betting on the future. Anybody ready to anticipate algae bloom at higher latitudes than 71° as happened last year?
http://ice-map.appspot.com/?map=Arc&sat=aqa&lvl=6&lat=71.212001&lon=35.456950&yir=2009&day=231
Hopefully in my lifetime there will be never any algae bloom at 90°.
HR says:
July 6, 2010 at 6:30 am
Steve,
The problem with your analysis is we need an explanation for the long term trend. Things don’t just happen. At present the favored explanation is GHGs.
Favored by whom?
How about contemplating these plots from the past?
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/noaa_gisp2_icecore_anim_hi-def3.gif
Use your little gray cells too. This is the explanation nature has given us overhalf a million of years at least. CO2, one molecule in 150 is a trace gas has its appropriate contribution, not enough to melt anything . It certainly was not responsible for all the large changes recorded in the ice, and it certainly was not anthropogenic.
Anybody here ever stare at a can of frozen juice because the label said “concentrate?”
R Gates writes:
“Tom, have you ever heard of the Arctic Dipole Anomaly? This is a curious little positive feeback loop that’s developed in the Arctic over the past 10 years or so. Quite unpredicted by any of the GCM’s, just as chaos theory would say such “attractors” would be out there as changes are made in the composition of the atmosphere.
Anyway, the DA is a wind event, caused by warming, the in turn, causes more, warming, and so forth…”
Really your meteo skills are quite tainted by models, statistics and alarmism. Should you look at synoptic realities over the last 50 years, the picture is quite different and perfectly logical. But for this, you need to take off your AGW glasses…
noiv,
The positive Antarctic anomaly remains in the summer, and is at lower latitudes than Arctic ice, so it has much more impact on earth’s albedo that a September Arctic minimum – when the sun is very low in the sky.
“I’d imagine that this fact is well established in the scientific community. So the question would seem to be – what is causing this ice loss?”
Summer!
An excellent article on the difference between dynamic and thermodynamic causes of ice thickness. In my opinion, Gates, and the meat of most models, depends on an understanding of the thermodynamics of ice thickness, a rather stable entity relatively speaking and can be modeled. However, if too one-sided in model design, such a one note model runs the risk of underestimating volume.
Steven is asking us to consider the dynamic causes of ice thickness (the other half of ice volume consideration and damn hard to model). This is the variable elephant in the room and would likely require a super computer to model all the variations possible for predictive purposes.
It all comes down to which side of the fence you are on or are you sitting astraddle. If your model (or mind experiment) focuses on the thermodynamics of ice volume you will likely predict quite a melt. If you hold fast to the dynamics of ice volume you will likely predict not much melt. If you sit astraddle, you will likely be unimpressed with melting or recovery.
http://epic.awi.de/Publications/Haa2010a.pdf
For those that think R Gates should be sent away, I disagree. I find that his “skepticism” and counter discussion results in additional and clearer arguments for lay people like me from Steve Goddard and others. The exchange between them seems to be in the true spirit of scientific debate (with occasional equally spirited lapses) and I applaud Anthony for permitting it to take place on his blog.
vukcevic said
“July 6, 2010 at 1:28 am
Amino Acids in Meteorites
Thanks for the suggestion, worth considering for someone having required skill and knowledge, not to mention charisma. In my case would turn out into an unmitigated disaster. Old doc Svalgaard would delight in a new opportunity for a public ridicule.”
It’s a good idea to put stuff on You Tube etc but perhaps it needs to be presented by actors. I am willing to interview Elle Mcpherson for the job and see if she can wave the flag for us sceptics in a sincere and responsible manner.
Tonyb
Scott
I have also defended R Gates. He does not fit the definition of a troll and is invariably courteous. We need to debate with people who can put another point of view and show them the error of their ways.
tonyb
Anna
Nice graphs. Presumably it was a power point presentation but it goes much too fast for me and I can seee no way to go through each frame individually. Can you point me to the means to do that so I can examine each graph and keep as necessary?
tonyb
R. Gates has a few debating skills yet to learn (Gates, in scientific debate, don’t talk down to your opposition – bad form, that only works in political debate and then only in moderation) but I would not ever think of him as a troll.
Regarding talking down, here is an example. One of the more subtle ways of talking down to your opposition is giving them a “good job” comment. It is usually used to denote superiority upon the compliment giver, as in teacher to student. If one waits long enough, the compliment will likely become hollow as the speaker then delves into why the opposition is also all wet.
I thought it might be interesting to view the change in the sea ice extent (JAXA data) in a slightly different context.
stevengoddard says:
July 6, 2010 at 7:09 am
HR
I am just doing an analysis of what is happening in the Arctic this year, compared to previous years. I have no idea what will happen in future years and have never made any claims otherwise.
If you have no idea what will happen in future years, then you have no idea if Dr. Maslowski’s prediction of ice free Arctic summers by 2016 ± 3 years will be correct or not:
http://soa.arcus.org/sites/soa.arcus.org/files/sessions/1-1-advances-understanding-arctic-system-components/pdf/1-1-7-maslowski-wieslaw.pdf
It’s refreshing to hear such honesty from a “skeptic” – “I have no idea what will happen in future years.”
Maybe some scientists really do know something about what they have been working on for decades. Maybe the Arctic amplification, the thinning ice soon to be measured by Cryosat-2, and the Death Spiral really are taking place just as many scientists say.
I’m glad to see this new doubt and hesitation and humility in Steve. Hopefully it will inspire some of his readers.
Steve, it was mostly the Hudson Bay area that did this big drop in the past weeks, isn’t it? Northeast Canada had that warmer spot over it last winter.
Anu
I think we can say with a high degree of certainty that the Arctic will not be ice free in 2016, and your word games are a waste of everyone’s time.
Anu says:
July 6, 2010 at 9:53 am
Yes, but we can see no such humility on your part. We didnt expect it either.
Right, kwik.
See Dick run. See Jane run. See Anu project.
Project, project, project.
IARC-JAXA AMSR-E Sea Ice Area
Berényi Péter
Excellent link! I hadn’t seen that one before. Worthy of an article.
Berényi Péter says:
July 6, 2010 at 10:44 am
Aha! Someone’s doing science all on their own! Will probably soon be a crime.
dbleader61 says:
July 6, 2010 at 8:38 am
For those that think R Gates should be sent away, I disagree. I find that his “skepticism” and counter discussion results in additional and clearer arguments for lay people like me from Steve Goddard and others. The exchange between them seems to be in the true spirit of scientific debate (with occasional equally spirited lapses) and I applaud Anthony for permitting it to take place on his blog.
__________
There was some discussion about “sending me away”?!!! To where would I be sent? Is this coming from Anthony? Have I offended the Skeptical Gods? What pray tell have I missed?!
Very exciting, we’re finally at theory meets facts time of year. . . I’ve been a proponent of the “concentration in the central core” importance (I think the differences between Steve and I are pretty minor on theory), and look forward to seeing how that plays out.
Steven Goddard
As you say the Berenyi Peter graph is great. If you do intend to write an article perhaps you could delve a bit more into the weather circumstances in April/May where 2010 went from leader of the pack to bottom of the class.
tonyb
R Gates
It’s Ok, several of us have decided we quite like you for some strange reason and were defending you against the charge of being a troll.
tonyb
Ken Hall:
“Surely that would make it a bigger stock of oil than Saudi Arabia and Iraq combined and therefore when the relief wells get into it, it would solve all Americas foreign oil problems for decades to come?”
The average productivity from all oil wells in the United States in 2008 was less than 10 barrels of oil per day.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/aer/txt/ptb0502.html
Businesses are in business for the purpose of making profits. That this exporatory oil well is still producing the amount of crude oil (and don’t begin to forget the huge amount of natural gas which is not being captured at all. Typically, the amount of methane in producing oil wells is about 4% of the total flow, and for this well it is higher than 40%) after some 75 days is rather astounding.
The new well BP is in the process of drilling is not a “relief” well in the usual sense of the term. Rather, their new plan, as I understand it, is to drill a hole (and of course case it properly this time) near to and parallel to the existing well, and then slant it to intercept the existing well. Then they can pump like the dickens to end the flow through the existing well, and hopefully plug the existing well above the point of interception (and below the point where the existing bore hole is obviously comprimised).
Mind you, my knowledge of hydraulic flow is of water, not oil, and water wells, but the principles are the same.
No point in my stating more, other than how very interesting. Fits quite nicely with having a tiger by the tail.
Berényi Péter’s linked graph of of sea ice area, 7/05/2010
The JAXA graph of sea ice extent, 7/05/2010
JAXA’s definition of the difference between area and extent:
tonyb says:
July 6, 2010 at 11:37 am
R Gates
It’s Ok, several of us have decided we quite like you for some strange reason and were defending you against the charge of being a troll.
tonyb
_________
Thanks for the support. I honestly had to look up the term on Wiki to see what it meant in terms of internet blogging. It would appear that if I simply posted: “You’re spot on Steve. Keep up the great independent research.” I would not be a “troll” but to play the role of skeptic of the skeptic, casts me as a potential troll.
I appreciate those who see a value in me contributing my perspectives on the issues.
R Gates
You’re welcome.
For your future information, we get a lot of trolls over here who come in all guns blazing, mimic the Real Climate party line, assume we’re all idiots out to trash the planet then disappear after people have taken considerable time and effort to refute their claims.
Reasoned scientific (or historic) debate is what its all about and personally I like to hear another perspective. Having said that we’ve yet to see this 25% scepticism you claim to have 🙂
tonyb
Pamela Gray says:
July 6, 2010 at 9:24 am
Another good one is “thanks for sharing”.
I keep thinking that a data display of the sea ice extent, concentration, or volume by concentric areas (like every 2 1/2 degrees) around the pole and extending southward to ~50N would tell you much more what the arctic and sea ice is actually doing day by day.
However, to do such an analysis you would need up-to-date and fine cell-by-cell data such as the historic data found on NSIDC site for concentration with 1/10th of a percent per cell and by the day.
Have you ever considered that if the data is actually available?
stevengoddard says:
July 6, 2010 at 7:09 am
“I have no idea what will happen in future years and have never made any claims otherwise.”
Steven, dont be shy! I think you can make a prediction for next summer;
http://www.accuweather.com/video/68856143001/global-warmth-getting-ready-to-collapse.asp?channel=vblog_bastardi
What about a minimum of not less than 6.5 pluss-minus 0.5 in summer 2011?
It seems possible.
tonyb says:
July 6, 2010 at 9:18 am
Nice graphs. Presumably it was a power point presentation but it goes much too fast for me and I can seee no way to go through each frame individually. Can you point me to the means to do that so I can examine each graph and keep as necessary?
Hi Tony,
You can find simple plots in the original put up by Antony :
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/12/historical-video-perspective-our-current-unprecedented-global-warming-in-the-context-of-scale/
It is a .gif animation and I think if you have photoshop you could save the animation and manipulate it but the individual plots exist in the link above.
I find it a very useful set for general and scientific audiences. It really gives a rational perspective and goes over well in lectures.
R Gates:
There was some discussion about “sending me away”?!!! To where would I be sent? Is this coming from Anthony? Have I offended the Skeptical Gods? What pray tell have I missed?!
_______________________________________________________________
This:
And it got squashed in a hurry.
A Hat tip to the good moderators here at WUWT, I wish all blogs were run this well.
_____________________________________________________________________
This:
Stephan says:
July 5, 2010 at 11:08 pm
I think R gates is one of many AGW trolls who has been instructed to try to “overcome” the Climategate problem by “appearing” to really know what he is talking about LOL but the answers here are not helping his cause so let him continue please…LOL. As I mentioned in previous posting some warmistas are going to be very surprised at NH minima this summer,
[REPLY – I don’t think he is being “instructed” by anyone. I just think he’s probably wrong. If Brother Gates wishes to argue climategate, he’s welcome to; most of us here have actually read the emails, anyway. He’s duking it out in “enemy territory”, which I can respect. Of course when we try that we tend to get censored rather heavily. #B^1 But Anthony and we mods here allow a free and open debate inasmuch as we can. We snip every now and then, but we do so at a minimum and tend to confine it to what we consider to be unduly abusive posts. ~ Evan]
ice area and ice extent in one page:
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic
NSIDC July update is up, and offers some support to Steve’s ideas:
“However, it would not be surprising to see the rate of ice loss slow in coming weeks as the melt process starts to encounter thicker, second and third year ice in the central Arctic Ocean. Loss of ice has already slowed in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas due to the tongue of thicker, older ice in the region noted in our April update.”
But really their July update reads to me as a “have it all ways” update, rather than them having enough confidence to stick a pin in a graph and say “here’s our best guess from what we’re seeing up to today”. But, if they don’t feel it, they shouldn’t say it, so I respect that.
As I read them, however, it would be leaning a little bit more than 51% towards the 2006 model without being willing to rule out the 2007 model just yet.
kwik
Given the current wind and temperature forecasts, it seems possible that this summer will come in at higher extent than I forecast. I am going to wait a week or two before updating my predictions though.
geo
Last month NSIDC was pushing PIOMAS, and this month seems to be headed in the opposite direction. I wonder if Julienne’s time over here influenced her thinking?
Anna v
Thanks for the link
tonyb
A note of caution on comparing sea ice concentrations from one day to another: it is well known that weather effects can bias the sea ice concentration, so picking a day from two different years may not reflect “true” changes in ice concentration. In addition, the differences in ice concentration may simply imply a change in surface melt rather than any real change in ice concentration. This is why NSIDC reports on changes in ice extent rather than ice concentration.
I am not surprised that the rate of decline has slowed a bit during the last week. In the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, the ice has essentially melted back to the lobe of old ice that was transported there over the winter (under the negative AO phase). Thus, this is slowing the ice loss in this region. In the Kara Sea, temperatures have been colder than normal and the winds are causing ice divergence (also helping to slow loss of ice extent in that region).
There has been a lot of talk that the fast rate of ice loss in June was a result of Hudson Bay melting out. Well, here are ice loss rates for the month for different regions and recent years:
Region 2007 2008 2009 2010 (1979-2000)
Chukchi -7,380 -3,310 -4,830 -6,430 -1,370 sq-km/day
Beaufort -1,900 -7,230 -3,450 -6,760 -670
E. Siberian -5,280 0 -1,220 0 0
Laptev -2,330 -410 -5,160 -3,810 -660
Kara -7,130 -5,610 -3,380 -8,920 -6,910
As you can see from the above regions in the Arctic basin, ice loss rates have been faster than normal everywhere except the E. Siberian Sea in 2010 and for the Beaufort, Laptev and Kara seas, ice loss rates in 2010 were faster than in 2007, and for the Kara Sea, this year shows the fastest ice loss rates in the last few years.
tonyb says:
“…We’ve yet to see this 25% scepticism you claim to have :)…”
__________
Fair enough. From MWP to UHI effects, there’s lots of potential fodder for my skeptical side. In addition to these two, some other areas that I’m keen on getting some answer on:
1) Where is Dr. Trenberth’s “missing energy”? I don’t mean this in any mocking way toward him at all, for I highly respect him, but I’m skeptical that it will actually be found completely in the oceans. I think when the mystery is solved it will surprize both the “warmist” and skeptic alike. There is some missing piece– a negative feedback loop somewhere not yet accounted for. For example, how much heat can be transmitted from the ocean currents to the bottom sediments, i.e. in melting of clathrates?
2. The whole role of clouds and their place in GCM’s is quite poorly worked out. This is a bigger “travesty” to me than the missing heat.
Steve, my opinion hasn’t changed yet…:)
And geo, NSIDC doesn’t make predictions on their site, though scientists do contribute to the SEARCH outlook efforts. The reality is, weather remains very important in determining the end of summer extent, even though preconditioning by thin ice is playing an important role as well. Like I said in my earlier post, the ice in places like the Chukchi has melted back to the lobe of old ice and right where the ice has melted back to in that region is ice that is 5+ years old. So it’s not surprising that ice loss has slowed a bit recently.
Ok, but that doesn’t really answer my question. So the winds are driving the loss – where were these winds before? Whats causing the change in wind strength/direction/whatever?
Looking at the record (http://nsidc.org/sotc/images/arc_antarc_1979_2009.gif) the decline in arctic ice seems to be an ongoing trend. Based on this fact, and if, as you say, the change in winds is limited to the last decade, then I would have to guess there is more going to cause ice loss than just winds.
I must say, I’m a bit confused at the focus on the 2010 summer arctic minimum. So the extent might be greater than 2007, it might be less, so what? One year does not a trend make.
R Gates
Yes, two good sceptical points. As regards the second I suppose we”l get some answers when we get an update on the Cern cloud project. I read the Svensmark book last year and thought he was on to something.
As regards your first point I have increasingly come to believe that we know far less about the climate than we think, yet we act as if we know everything. The trouble is that computer models can look very convincing to ‘sponsors’ such as lay people in Governments but as the IPCC themselves admit that models should not be relied on perhaps we should take them at their word.
This is my web site-it contains pre 1850 instrumental temperature records-there are lots of articles there as well, some by me. If you are interested in UHI there is a good article there written by Prof Ole Humlum
http://climatereason.com/LittleIceAgeThermometers/
By the way, can I recommend ‘Chill’ by Peter Taylor and also ‘Climate, history and the Modern World’ by Hubert Lamb. Both illustrate that todays climate is nothing new whilst Chill has a distinctly green twist to it and shows the motivations behind the enthusiastic promotion of AGW by NGO’s.
(by the way do you have a first name or do you prefer ‘R Gates?’
Tonyb
Julienne,
I have a question for you as a professional in the business of studying the the cryosphere. How impressed are you so far with what you’ve seen from CryoSat 2, and how much general anticipation is there in the professional community for this data to really start rolling in? It seems to me that it will quickly become one the most important tools of your trade– not replacing other tools such as satellite imagery, but when used in combination, extremely powerful.
R. Gates, I haven’t seen any images from CryoSat over sea ice yet, but there is a lot of anticipation in the sea ice community that this data will be invaluable for our studies. And when ICESat-2 is launched, together the two instruments should provide very accurate estimates of ice thickness. So I for one am excited to start seeing the data roll in.
This:
Stephan says:
July 5, 2010 at 11:08 pm
I think R gates is one of many AGW trolls who has been instructed to try to “overcome” the Climategate problem by “appearing” to really know what he is talking about LOL but the answers here are not helping his cause so let him continue please…LOL. As I mentioned in previous posting some warmistas are going to be very surprised at NH minima this summer,
[REPLY – I don’t think he is being “instructed” by anyone. I just think he’s probably wrong. If Brother Gates wishes to argue climategate, he’s welcome to; most of us here have actually read the emails, anyway. He’s duking it out in “enemy territory”, which I can respect. Of course when we try that we tend to get censored rather heavily. #B^1 But Anthony and we mods here allow a free and open debate inasmuch as we can. We snip every now and then, but we do so at a minimum and tend to confine it to what we consider to be unduly abusive posts. ~ Evan]
___________
Please note: With little exception, I don’t think I’ve ever really talked politics here, nor have I sounded an “alarmist” trumpet, or talked about coming catastrophe. I have no agenda other to get at the truth of things. I put up with being called names like “warmista” or whatever because I really could care less. This is a great place to discuss with (mostly) well-informed people. It seems there is a tendency here to label those who think the general AGW hypothesis is likely correct as “trolls” or whatever, or think they have some “agenda”. As long as I play nice, don’t get personal, and try to contribute something related to the topic at hand I appreciate being “allowed” to remain.
We snip every now and then, but we do so at a minimum and tend to confine it to what we consider to be unduly abusive posts. ~ Evan
I think you guys don’t snip enough. But maybe I have shell shock from ClimateAudit.
TonyB,
Thanks for that link and other suggestions. I shall do a bit of studying, and spend some recently acquired gift cards to go shopping on Amazon.
Just curious, how do you size up data like this:
http://www.uni-koeln.de/math-nat-fak/geomet/meteo/Klimastatistik/baurtempfruehgross.gif
BTW, thanks for asking, but I do prefer to go by R. Gates (and so I’ve found out, others do as well from time to time).
Matt says:
“I must say, I’m a bit confused at the focus on the 2010 summer arctic minimum. So the extent might be greater than 2007, it might be less, so what? One year does not a trend make.”
__________
You are so right…unless that year happens to be so remarkably lower (like 2007) that is really shakes up even the most pessimistic assumptions as to when the Arctic will be seasonally ice free. Lot’s of the experts went scrambling for answers after 2007, looking at lots of different things. Some experts over-reacted and assumed that 2007 was the beginning of some very rapid decline to an ice free Arctic in 2013. Bottom line: none of the global climate models predicted it as such is the nature of a chaotic system. Now, the skeptics seem to looking for signs of a big recovery from 2007, (but didn’t really get it in 2008 or 2009) and those who think that AGW is likely the ultmate culprit and there will be no recovery, are looking for another data point to help more accurately spot the longer term trend to understand how steep the decline to a seasonably ice-free Arctic will actually be. Where will this curve displayed in this report by Julienne:
http://www.smithpa.demon.co.uk/GRL%20Arctic%20Ice.pdf
Actually wind up? 2020? 2030? 2050?
Anyway, that’s why one year matters.
jcrabb says:
The warmth of the summer air is not the result of global warming. Being 0.7 centigrade higher on average globally can’t do much to melt the artic ice. But if the wind up there pushes ice to where water coming from somewhere else can get at it then some summer’s will have more melting ice than others – with or without global av. temps. having done much at all.
Cassandra King says:
July 5, 2010 at 11:08 pm
I realise that our R Gates has a narrative to stick to which he does as best he can but I wonder if his recent obssession with what he calls the “dipole anomoly’ is just another mechanism to reinforce his narrative and linking this ‘anomoly’ with the alarmists beloved ‘positve feedback’?
“unpredictable but quite deterministic” huuuh?
” the DA is a self reinforcing wind and TEMPERATURE event” I find this statement quite confusing and it seems to fly in the face of thermodynamics laws, we have enough evidence now to state with some confidence that the so called ‘positive feedback’ theory has not worked as advertised yet it is still being pimped on the back of every event that seems at first glance to fit the AGW narrative.
It seems the so called DA is simply another convenient vehicle to explain a short term unpredicted event as a long term mechanism and as a temporary vehicle my guess is when the vehicle has outlived its usefulness it will be discarded and another will take its place.
At the moment this dipole anomoly is the latest in climate science fashion and one can only wonder how long it will last? I suspect the the DA theory will last as long as the current melt cycle and no longer.
Our Mr Gates is painting himself into the mother of all corners at the moment, if the melt cycle does not comply with his obviously set beliefs then his reputation will be damaged beyond repair and that would be quite sad, I can predict that nobody will listen to him on this blog again. Much better to show doubt and hesitation and humility now than face ridicule later I think.
_________
Cassandra,
First, I will gladly face ridicule later on, but I think one suggestion that was made for us all to actually learn from the melt season is much better. I have very specific reasons for my belief in a 4.5 million sq. km. forecast for the summer minimum, and not much has changed to waiver me from this. I’ve had this forecast since March, and some things that have happened since then could force it higher, and some lower, so it still seems quite reasonable to me, and so when September comes, I would hope we’d all have a post-analysis as adults, rather than heaping “ridicule” on each other like a group of school-yard bullies.
In respect to the statement “unpredictable but quite determinstic”, means that the climate (as a chaotic) system is not random, but is subject to real and multiple causes and effects, and new effects can appear suddenly and upredictably from the seemingly smallest of inputs or changes as a new levels of equalibrium are sought. The Arctic Dipole anomaly could easily be one such effect that appeared (unpredictably but deterministically) as some threshold was passed with the geologically speaking rapid increase in CO2 that began several hundred years ago. The DA is a self-reinforcing event (or attracctor) with anomalous heat causing changes in wind patterns that leads to more heating and so on. Though starting out as a anomaly, as all new features of chaotic systems do, it’s become an increasingly non-anomalous condition in the Arctic as it creates the very conditions that insure its continuation.
R. Gates says:
July 6, 2010 at 4:47 pm
__________
You are so right…unless that year happens to be so remarkably lower (like 2007) that is really shakes up even the most pessimistic assumptions as to when the Arctic will be seasonally ice free. Lot’s of the experts went scrambling for answers after 2007, looking at lots of different things. Some experts over-reacted and assumed that 2007 was the beginning of some very rapid decline to an ice free Arctic in 2013. Bottom line: none of the global climate models predicted it as such is the nature of a chaotic system. Now, the skeptics seem to looking for signs of a big recovery from 2007, (but didn’t really get it in 2008 or 2009) and those who think that AGW is likely the ultmate culprit and there will be no recovery, are looking for another data point to help more accurately spot the longer term trend to understand how steep the decline to a seasonably ice-free Arctic will actually be.”
Wild predictions of an ice free Arctic by 2013 were made following the single year 2007 minimum ice extent. Alarmist predictions flew thick and fast. In this context, it is certainly reasonable to question what the 2008/9 increases in extent were telling us.
One question I would ask is whether the 2008 and 2009 results brought the trendline back to where it was in 2006. I would have expected this not to be the case as the 2007 result should have significantly dropped the trendline.
I guess the simplest way to put this, is given the 2007 result was extreme and probably more due to an unusual confluence of conditions (borne out by the fact the 2007 result was not repeated in 2008 or 2009), how much higher should the 2008 and 2009 minimums have been if Artic Ice is in its so called “death spiral” as opposed to 2007 being the bottom of the cycle and the ice being on its way to recovery.
R. Gates
You keep going on and on about 4.5 million. It isn’t going to happen.
stevengoddard says:
July 6, 2010 at 7:26 pm
R. Gates
You keep going on and on about 4.5 million. It isn’t going to happen.
____________
Wow, your certainty on this is impressive. I take it you’re basing this on this solid core of multi-year ice that you claim has built up, or do you know for certain that the Arctic Dipole meridonal winds will not persist into late August or September?
kwik says:
July 6, 2010 at 10:16 am
Anu says:
July 6, 2010 at 9:53 am
Yes, but we can see no such humility on your part. We didnt expect it either.
Good call – I don’t do humility.
But ominously pointing out that R. Gates making predictions that don’t come true might lead to “then his reputation will be damaged beyond repair” and he will “face ridicule” in late September does bring to mind Mr. Goddards predictions – Steve is the most prolific and opinionated writer at WUWT on the Arctic sea ice melt, and he has made concrete predictions. They are preserved on the Internet for all to see. This autumn is a good opportunity for everyone to compare predictions and results, and see what this might teach us. For all the defensive talk about R. Gates being such a nice, mild mannered non-troll, who will be allowed to continue to make his arguments in enemy territory and not sent away, nobody pointed out this important point – others should also be held to their predictions.
WUWT was the winner of “Best Science Blog” in 2008 – science strives to understand nature, and making predictions is an integral part of demonstrating that “understanding”, or at least, challenging it. Whatever standards are applied by the Commenters here to R. Gates or others who think that climatologists might be competent or not bought off, should be applied to the people more comfortable in R. Gates’ “enemy territory”.
Anything less would be hypocritical, something even Smokey understands (I presume).
stevengoddard says:
July 5, 2010 at 10:32 pm
R. Gates
I have discussed the “high resolution” concentration graphs extensively. Their precision is much higher than their accuracy. The low res maps correlate much better with visible satellite imagery.
And yet they are wrong wrt to Hudson Bay:
Anu says:
July 5, 2010 at 10:37 pm
I realize the University of Illinois has to use some ancient algorithm on modern data to get images “comparable” to what they were using in 1980:
http://climateinsiders.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/deetmp-13164.png
(stevengoddard’s image in the above article)
but isn’t it weird that this algorithm makes it seem like Hudson Bay is two-thirds filled with sea ice on 7/3/2010 ?
Hudson Bay is almost empty of sea ice:
http://iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsredata/asi_daygrid_swath/l1a/n6250/2010/jul/asi-n6250-20100703-v5_nic.png
Where else does “low res maps correlate much better with visible satellite imagery” not apply ? And how does this affect predictions based on this assumption ?
R. Gates says:
July 6, 2010 at 2:31
2. The whole role of clouds and their place in GCM’s is quite poorly worked out. This is a bigger “travesty” to me than the missing heat.
You evidently do not follow Lucia’s board. Have a look at the temperature plots from the GCM,
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2009/fact-6a-model-simulations-dont-match-average-surface-temperature-of-the-earth/
Neither do temperatures from the models match the measurements. That is why the mantra on the importance of “anomalies” dominates the chorus: absolutes do not matter if anomalies match.
(This is an evident fallacy since, for example, ice melts above 0C and is stable bellow. How could absolute temperature not matter in ice regions?)
Note that the differences of the model projections from the data are larger than the anomalies that agree with the anomalies of the data.
Going back over the past 8 years I’m now convinced we’ve seen the worst of this years ice loss. I.e The daily ice loss on a 15 day moving average may have peaked at 86,614 sq km on 2nd July.
If this is correct then it is still likely that the minimum for this year will be above the 2009 minimum (somewhere in the 5.4-5.7 million sq km range). Incidentally the peak ice loss on a 15 day moving average for the each of the years from 2003 to 2009 fell on the following days.
2003 – 25th July
2004 – 10th August
2005 – 30th July
2006 – 6th July
2007 – 14th July
2008 – 25th July
2009 – 27th July
2010 – 2nd July????
These dates are based on the IARC-JAXA data. Incidentally, the ice loss for the 6th July is now up on the site and it was a measeley 47,344 sq km (the previous day was adjusted down to under 100,000 too).
It is worth noting that on each of the past 7 years the rate of ice loss has fallen quite quickly once the peak was reached.
We live in interesting times. I wonder what the natural climate variation denialists would make of 3 consecutive years of higher September minimums. I also wonder where we might see the September minimum go next year if temps cool further on the back of a strong La-nina event.
R. Gates says:
July 6, 2010 at 6:12 pm
The Arctic Dipole anomaly could easily be one such effect that appeared (unpredictably but deterministically) as some threshold was passed with the geologically speaking rapid increase in CO2 that began several hundred years ago.
I hope this is a slip of the keyboard, several decades of increase is what the data show, including the infamous hockey stick. If you seriously contend that the CO2 rise started several hundred of years ago, you are so wrong it is not worth discussing with you.
David W says:
July 6, 2010 at 8:41 pm
“We live in interesting times. I wonder what the natural climate variation denialists would make of 3 consecutive years of higher September minimums.”
_______________
They will say it is simply walking back to the general reduction from the exceptional year of 2007 and then will start it’s downward march again. Certainly at the moment there have not been enough years with increasing summer minina to disprove that claim.
I’m still going for a 4.7-4.999999 extent on JAXA.
Andy
Anna V. said: (about R. Gates)
“If you seriously contend that the CO2 rise started several hundred of years ago, you are so wrong it is not worth discussing with you.”
_____________
Anna,
I like you, but I cannot lie…yes, I think that CO2 levels have been going up for several hundred years– since at least 1700. They were about 280 ppm at that time and now are close to 390 ppm. Very extensive ice core sampling would confirm this over many sites around the world, and of course we have direct measurements since the late 1950’s. I’m sure there are many honest skeptics on this site who would not deny these basic facts. Here’s a pretty good graph that would show you the general trend:
http://healthandenergy.com/images/carbon%20dioxide%201700-2000.jpg
If this is not worth discussing…then so be it.
R. Gates, if we accept your claim about 280ppm in 1700 as valid, this begs the question: is the climate of 1700 the sort of world you actually would want to live in?
R. Gates says:
“In respect to the statement “unpredictable but quite determinstic”, means that the climate (as a chaotic) system is not random, but is subject to real and multiple causes and effects, and new effects can appear suddenly and upredictably from the seemingly smallest of inputs or changes as a new levels of equalibrium are sought. The Arctic Dipole anomaly could easily be one such effect that appeared (unpredictably but deterministically) as some threshold was passed with the geologically speaking rapid increase in CO2 that began several hundred years ago. The DA is a self-reinforcing event (or attracctor) with anomalous heat causing changes in wind patterns that leads to more heating and so on. Though starting out as a anomaly, as all new features of chaotic systems do, it’s become an increasingly non-anomalous condition in the Arctic as it creates the very conditions that insure its continuation.”
I agree that the levels of Arctic sea ice are driven by deterministic chaos, however the system does not “seek new levels of equilibrium”, rather it oscillates around a different attractor until the next ‘kick’ pushes it back again. This is what causes the quasi-cyclic nature of Arctic sea ice levels we observe on multi-decadal time scales, with sea ice always increasing or decreasing and never stable.
It is also folly to assume that a change to the Arctic Dipole is caused increased levels of CO2, or indeed, that the Arctic Dipole is a major player in the system. There are a multitude of inter-related factors effecting climate the in Arctic region and at this early stage of climate science we do not understand enough to make even broadly correct predictions.
Looking at the current evidence, my money is on a 2010 minimum of 5.9m sq. km and it will be interesting to see how this stacks up against what others prophesy.
Here’s an interesting look at the fallibility of Arctic climate modelling from a 2007 paper ‘Is the Earth still recovering from the “Little Ice Age”? A possible cause of global warming’, by Syun-Ichi Akasofu, International Arctic Research Centre, University of Alaska Fairbanks.
“We asked the IPCC Arctic group (consisting of 14 sub-groups headed by V. Kattsov) to “hindcast” geographic distribution of the temperature change during the last half of the last century. To “hindcast” means to ask whether a model can produce results that match the known observations of the past; if a model can do this, we can be much more confident that the model is reliable for predicting future conditions … Ideally, the pattern of change modelled by the GCMs should be identical or very similar to the pattern seen in the measured data. We assumed that the present GCMs would reproduce the observed pattern with at least reasonable fidelity. However, we found that there was no resemblance at all.”
Graphic of result:
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/RS_Arctic_files/image069.gif
URL full paper:
http://www.iarc.uaf.edu/…/2007/akasofu…/Earth_recovering_from_LIA.pdf
anna v says:
July 6, 2010 at 8:41 pm
Anna v, you through up a ref to http://rankexploits.com/musings/2009/fact-6a-model-simulations-dont-match-average-surface-temperature-of-the-earth/ and I bet you already know a lot more than I could gather in an hour or more, so can I ask if you already know? What going on in this chart?
On that chart I see measured GISSTemp in ~1935 at 14.25 ºC and in 2010 at ~14.6 ºC. That’s just 0.35 ºC in 75 years and is about what I have always though the temperature rise actually was after any UHI influences have been removed. Also mostly matches the ocean rise over the same period. I gather the others are GCM (models) but that GISSTemp is actual data or am I missing something.
Many would be very interested to see this one.
This ought to be posted by Anthony or someone if it’s accurate, or, maybe that is already in progress.
R. Gates says:
July 6, 2010 at 10:31 pm
The plot you show, shows rapid increase after 1950s, and it is the main point of AGW to associate the temperature increases in the late 20th century, not to naturally coming out of the little ice age, but to excess CO2 from fuels.
The gradual rise coming out of the Little Ice Age is due to Henry’s law, that the oceans as they are being heated release CO2, as can be seen in the hundreds of thousands of years record from the ice cores:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/Vostok_Petit_data.svg
The cause is the rise in temperature, and the rise in CO2 is the effect. AGWmers do not dispute this response of the oceans to CO2 release.
They overlay the extra CO2 from fuels since the middle of the 20th century, to reverse the argument, and make CO2 the cause and temperature rise the effect. But rapid describes only the last part of the last century.
stevengoddard says:
July 6, 2010 at 7:26 pm
R. Gates
You keep going on and on about 4.5 million. It isn’t going to happen.
He seems to not want to accept data. I am trying to figure out why he is stubborn. Maybe he really is a religious, or environmentalist, or political zealot. Maybe the obvious is what is true. He clearly isn’t just an average, unbiased onlooker. He has too much energy toward one side for that.
~2 months to minimum. 🙂
R. Gates says:
July 6, 2010 at 6:12 pm
The Arctic Dipole anomaly could easily be one such effect that appeared (unpredictably but deterministically) as some threshold was passed with the geologically speaking rapid increase in CO2 that began several hundred years ago.
Only dipole in the Arctic is that one of the Earth’s magnetic pole. Perhaps you would be able to show a CO2 correlation to the recent Arctic temperature which is higher than shown here (R = 0.9434):
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC1.htm
That is a challenge, let’s see ‘colour of your money’.
I presume you may decide to side step this ‘little obstacle’, and go on running down the spiral of ever decreasing circles.
R. Gates said
“July 6, 2010 at 4:32 pm
TonyB,
Thanks for that link and other suggestions. I shall do a bit of studying, and spend some recently acquired gift cards to go shopping on Amazon.”
That link you provided shows exactly what I have been saying. Temperatures have been very gently rising (with advances and set backs) virtually throughout the instrumental record to 1660-long before the advent of man made CO2 in sufficient quantities to cause climate change.
The low point was in 1698. The following thirty year period showed an increase in temperature that is the largest and quickest in the record.
Your link plugs into the rising trend AFTER that date. In my web site I wrote of this here;
“Article: 18th Century Climate variability in Sweden. Author: Tony Brown
This short article was the genesis of my interest in long temperature records and the effects of UHI, through the examination of records from Uppsala, Stockholm and CET. It illustrates that even going back just another thirty years (as is possible with Uppsala) can put subsequent temperature rises into better context.”
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/10/09/how-long-is-a-long-temperature-history/
tonyb
Actually, the more I look at whats happened so far this year and compare it with whats happened in previous years, the more I’m convinced we are heading for a September minimum simlar to 2006 – around 6 million sq km.
If you compare this year with both 2006 and 2007, the patterns of ice loss are much more similar to what happened in 2006.
is the climate of 1700 the sort of world you actually would want to live in?
Wouldn’t it be great if the AGW believers could go and live in a 280 ppm world, and all the skeptics could go and live in a 650-900 ppm world?
stevengoddard says:
July 6, 2010 at 7:26 pm
R. Gates
You keep going on and on about 4.5 million. It isn’t going to happen.
And you keep going on about 5.5 million. Why don’t you wait and see, his estimate is as well founded as yours, in fact based on the ice loss between now and minimum for the recent years he’d appear to have a ~80% of being right, whereas you have a ~20% chance of being right.
Phil,
It will be remarkable if the ice retreats back to 5.5 million this summer. My forecast is almost undoubtedly too low.
Phil. says:
July 7, 2010 at 7:27 am
stevengoddard says:
July 6, 2010 at 7:26 pm
R. Gates
You keep going on and on about 4.5 million. It isn’t going to happen.
And you keep going on about 5.5 million. Why don’t you wait and see, his estimate is as well founded as yours,
R. Gates is based on computer models. Goddard’s is from observational data. To some people models must be equivalent to reality.
Phil. says:
July 7, 2010 at 7:27 am
he’d appear to have a ~80% of being right, whereas you have a ~20% chance of being right.
Arctic ice has been quickly increasing to pre 2007 level. That trend appears to continue. Some must be seeing the opposite. They must have a ‘rotten’ viewpoint.
My favorite phrase of the day…
“Natural climate variation denialist” or could we just say NCVD for short?
So, if you think the AGW hypothesis is likely correct, you are automatically a NCVD? Is that the black-and-white, all-or-nothing world that some skeptics want to paint? A person can’t both believe in long and short term natural variation, as well as AGW?
Also, in regards to the September minimum, look for a return to more rapid melting later in July and into August. The melt will appear to parallel 2006 for a few days here, but then turn down to parallel 2007 well into August. Warm meridonal winds with an intensified DA setting up later in the month…
Amino Acids, if we look at the observational data, it is hard to see that this year will see conditions back to pre-2007. For example, taking the average rates of decline for July and August (based on an average from 1979-2000) and applying those to the sea ice extent observed on July 1, you would get a minimum of 4.8 million sq-km.
Of course there is a lot of variability in rates of decline from year to year. If 2006 rates of decline are used the minimum would be 5.3 million sq-km. If 2007 rates are used, the minimum would be 3.7 million sq-km.
Warm meridonal winds with an intensified DA setting up later in the month…
R. Gates, do you have links for this? What is the DA doing at the moment?
Julienne said:
“If 2006 rates of decline are used the minimum would be 5.3 million sq-km. If 2007 rates are used, the minimum would be 3.7 million sq-km.”
___________
And coincidentally, the average right in the middle of the two is 4.5 million sq. km. Now where have I seen that number before?
Günther Kirschbaum says:
July 7, 2010 at 10:54 am
Warm meridonal winds with an intensified DA setting up later in the month…
R. Gates, do you have links for this? What is the DA doing at the moment?
______________
A forecast for the DA is based partially on running a projection of sea level pressure from the June mean, combined with forecasts for Arctic and sub-arctic SST’s, geo height anomalies, and forecasts for atmospheric tempertures for the period. See:
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20100706_Figure4.png
http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/sst/ophi/color_anomaly_NPS_ophi0.png
http://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/maproom/.Global/.Forecasts/.Temperature/
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/hgt.ao.cdas.gif
http://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/maproom/.Global/.Forecasts/.SST/index.html (click the July-Sept 2010 period)
The monthly mean seems more important than checking the daily sea level pressure for the DA.
Thank you for those links, R. Gates. Do you think this is a useful tool for forecasting SLP: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/forecasts/reforecast/maps.html
How does NSIDC make that nice-looking SLP Composite Mean map? Last week Julienne pointed me to a NOAA/ESRL webpage, but I didn’t know what to do with all those variables.
R. Gates says:
July 7, 2010 at 9:30 am
My favorite phrase of the day…
“Natural climate variation denialist” or could we just say NCVD for short?
……
How about we just say denialist.
Günther Kirschbaum says:
July 7, 2010 at 6:49 am
“Wouldn’t it be great if the AGW believers could go and live in a 280 ppm world, and all the skeptics could go and live in a 650-900 ppm world?”
Yes, I think that would be wonderful! Imagine all the plants growing.
Sahara gone! Great!
Of course, in the “Deniers of Natural Climate Change” World (the CAGW crowd) we would have to deny them the following;
-Cars.
-Coal Power Plants
-Nuclear Power
-Hydro Plants
-Airplaines
-Boats on fossil fuels
-Trailers
-Refrigerators
-TV
-IPhone and IPads, and MAC’s
-Sattelites
-Batteries
-DVD’s
-Tuppeware
-Any food from the green revolutions
-Paseurisation
-Anestethics
And on and on and on……
All results of Capitalism…..