Take a right turn to Ice Station Zero

Seeing as 2010 shows, by satellite, the best ice concentration in the Arctic basin in the history of mankind (or satellite era, whichever…), and the arctic air temp is running at or below normal according to DMI, is it unreasonable to anticipate that barring a wind pattern similar to 2007 that this year could have the highest summer extent in the history of mankind (or the satellite era, whichever….) ????

You like ice, nobody doubts it by now, so these “jewels” about water will be a delightful read for you:
http://www.rexresearch.com/piccardi/piccardi.htm
http://www.rexresearch.com/piccardi/piccardi4.pdf

jmrSudbury
The flat line is for dates which haven’t yet happened ;^)

Now that Phil Jones has got his super new job (no doubt excellently paid and with a fine index – linked pension), perhaps the UEA might prise him away from his computer screen (not to mention his email account!) and give him a thermometer and a tape measure and parachute him into the North Pole!
After a good spell of gardening leave, a bit of REAL scientific investigation and measurement would surely do him a world of good!
It would also keep him out of mischief until Prince Chuckles has sorted out his richly deserved knighthood!

I laugh when people predict total meltdown within the next couple of years. If the ice is still there in a couple of years time then Gore et al will have some explaining to do. People like Serreze seem not to understand the work they do despite it being their job to understand.

Where’s R. Gates when you need him most?

Steve,
I’ve already applauded you for your correct forecast in the slowdown of melt, but certainly I have no problem doing so again…nice job.
I still do sense you reaching (or almost hoping) that the melt season would just end as quickly as possible, so that you and your skeptical friends could somehow claim that the Arctic Sea ice is recovering. You seem to hold on every little wiggle in the graphs, hoping some little bit of data might help you prove that the Arctic is returning to normal and that this would somehow be a final nail in the coffin of the AGW hypothesis, much like you did back in March when strong (negative AO index created) NE winds whipped down across the Bering Sea and created some late season thin ice that created the much bally-hooed “bump up”, which of course has just as quickly melted away.
I do think your short term analysis of the sea ice dynamics is actually pretty accurate (minus the PIPS 2.0 thickness data). But I think that you’re still missing the far bigger picture with the Arctic, though you’ve hinted at it in a sarcastic way, that nothing that will happen this year will change the longer term DOWNWARD trend in Arctic Sea ice, and yes, the NSIDC will, and must report this truthful fact later on this summer, whether we a get 4 million sq. km. minimum or a 6 million sq. km. minimum. As I stated on another post, we’d have to see the average minimum bounce back to the 7 to 8 million sq. km. range for several years for even a hint of any declaration that a real recovery is underway. Looking at this chart (originally a courtesy of Julienne), it is obvious why this is so:
http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/2009/stroeve.png
Again, I applaud you for the short-term call in forecasting that the 2010 melt would slow and begin to parallel 2006, but I think it is short-sighted to think that this is going to continue for the rest of July and August. On your post about “Concentration” I’ve posted links to plenty of data that shows warm water and warm air and a potent DA setting up later in July and into August. You seem to ignore that little beast called the Arctic Dipole Anomaly, which is just one reason why I am still more than comfortable with my 4.5 million sq. km. sea ice minimum forecast, though you’ve politely told me to forget it.

Actual measurements versus model simulations.
The North goes down and the South goes up.
Only the models show catastrophe looming. The measurements are mostly reassuring.

Am I reading that NCEP two week forecast map correct?
It appears that some peripheral areas are showing ice gain forecasted already. Makes sense to me from what I have deciphered using some other analysis lately. I just thought the re-freezing would occur more from the center outward generally and not from the edges in. Is that normal or just somewhat of a fluke for this year?

R Gates,
I too am quite certain that NSIDC will continue to report a long term downwards trend:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/25/the-trend/

R. Gates,
there is no evidence of your “long term down trend”, as we have only data of one downward half of a natural cycle. Only if you subtract the half cosine from the 1979ff data, (what nobody really can do), there may be something left or not.

You know, Gates, regarding hollow compliments, eventually you might have to stop praising Steve for his short-term analysis being spot on, especially after a couple years of that. And I mean to say that you might have to change your oft repeated second half of your post regarding long term trends. If you pile up enough short term accurate assessments of continued ice health, it becomes a long term trend of continued ice health.
And surely you jest about ice being able to suddenly bounce back to some predetermined (by whom?) level of ice indicating rebound. Are you saying that it must do that in order to show rebound or are you willing to consider a slower return to previous levels?
Other measures, for example El Nino measures, use a much better analysis of data to suggest pending conditions and that purposely shy away from linear statistics, as these have proven to be poor predictors of possible pending changes in oscillating systems. And would you agree that the cryosphere is an oscillating system?

BTW:
according to a recent press release from the the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), the thermosphere has experienced a tenfold decline in temperature since 2002.
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/00current.htm

Steve, I have to admit I made a mistake in 2008. I wasn’t aware that the ice age data I was working with uses a 30% ice concentration threshold instead of a 15% threshold. I had incorrectly assumed that a 15% cutoff was used as it’s a standard used by many of us in the sea ice community. But the ice tracking algorithm apparently needs to use a higher threshold to keep track of the sea ice. Thus, my prediction in 2008 was for ice extent using a 30% cutoff, which is quite a bit less than an extent using a 15% cutoff.

stevengoddard says:
July 7, 2010 at 1:53 pm
wayne
The NCEP map animation is a temperature anomaly forecast.
OK, I see the ‘ANOM’, rather blurred, went right by without my reading glasses.
But same question. If the anomaly is minus around the edges, compared to the center at the pole, will the tributaries tend to re-freeze first, whenever, as the minimum approaches? I could see that since deep currents would affect them less (but, the latitude is also less).
I haven’t been following this sea ice for multiple years so I have nothing upstairs on that matter. Thought you might remember from years past.

“long term down trend”
Imagine IF we had 250 years of satellite data. Would we see cycles? :o)
anecdotal suggests so.

If we’re crowing about past predictions, about 2-3 weeks ago (cant remember the post, there have been so many ice ones) I said something like:
When school finishes in July, so will the Arctic melt
I based this on the observation that 2010 was taking a similar shape to 2006. (Joe Bastardi posted on that thread.)

You’ve gone too far this time with claims that melt water ponds are freezing over with just one image to back it up. You’re starting to sound like the mainstream media. Original poster said
“Meltwater ponds at the North Pole are starting to freeze over.
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/webphotos/noaa1.jpg”
Really?
Or was it just snow filling it up? Here’s photo’s from the day before, that day when it snowed on the cherry picked 6th and the day after that, all from the other camera.
Sunny 5th
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/npole/2010/images/noaa2-2010-0705-074322.jpg
Snowy 6th
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/npole/2010/images/noaa2-2010-0706-073228.jpg
sunny 7th
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/npole/2010/images/noaa2-2010-0707-013805.jpg
Meltwater ponds do not start to freeze up in July, they get filled with snow that is all which quickly melts and then gets filled again till later in the year when they do refreeze over.
If you want to pack some punch with the big things, then don’t look silly with the little things.
Andy

Julienne says:
July 7, 2010 at 2:08 pm
Steve, I have to admit I made a mistake in 2008. I wasn’t aware that the ice age data I was working with uses a 30% ice concentration threshold instead of a 15% threshold. I had incorrectly assumed that a 15% cutoff was used as it’s a standard used by many of us in the sea ice community. But the ice tracking algorithm apparently needs to use a higher threshold to keep track of the sea ice. Thus, my prediction in 2008 was for ice extent using a 30% cutoff, which is quite a bit less than an extent using a 15% cutoff.
Sorry to jump in, that’s exactly why I kept harping on the “cutoff percentage” in past posts Julienne. This creates a rather ‘black hole’ in the maps and logic being applied by various data entities in this area of science. Especially when you bring in the aspects of wind reversals, as you have mentioned, this could end up being sizable. As long as the wind is pressing the ice against the edges, basically no affect occurs, however, when reversed, fragmented ice is blown out of the “cutoff” iso-lines. The ice is still there, it’s just suddenly no longer counted. In some aspects this could be seen as correct with caveats, on other aspects, this is incorrect and deems the data unusable.
Why is it so hard to just get the real ‘total’ sea ice data on a per cell basis? Who ever then used the data could form their own ‘cutoff’ point if it was deemed necessary. I can find no current data available, only historic up to 2008.
Some like me like to do the science, to understand and try to stay out of the way unless there should occur something that seems to add to the understanding, I just wish the data was more available in this area.

That’s quite a claim. I’ll believe it only when I hear from Lewis Pugh, the kayaker… I wonder if he’s set off yet?

wayne says:
July 7, 2010 at 3:02 pm
“Why is it so hard to just get the real ‘total’ sea ice data on a per cell basis? Who ever then used the data could form their own ‘cutoff’ point if it was deemed necessary.”
Wayne, the 15% threshold as applied to passive microwave-derived ice extents came from comparison studies of the ice edge from passive microwave at 25km spatial resolution with higher resolution data from higher resolution visible data (i.e. AVHRR) and also radar (SAR) data.
If you want the real sea ice data on a per cell basis, all you have to do is go to NSIDC’s website and register for the data. After that they give you a link to the ftp site that contains the gridded data (which is not thresholded). To read the data, you read it as a binary formatted array of 304×448 (which is the polar stereo (PS) grid for the NH). If you want to convert to extents, you will also need to download the area per pixel file since the PS grid is not an equal area grid. You can get started here for the near-real time data access: http://nsidc.org/data/nsidc-0081.html (and you can then link to earlier data as well)

AndyW says:
July 7, 2010 at 2:58 pm
Regarding refreezing melt ponds;
———————–
The pictures you show are from the other webcam. The instruments near the one Goddard was talking about show it below freezing and very cloudy for 15 straight hours. Why wouldn’t the ponds freeze?
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/PAWS_atmos_recent.html (newest at the top)

Pamela Gray says:
July 7, 2010 at 1:52 pm
“…Other measures, for example El Nino measures, use a much better analysis of data to suggest pending conditions and that purposely shy away from linear statistics, as these have proven to be poor predictors of possible pending changes in oscillating systems. And would you agree that the cryosphere is an oscillating system?”
_____________________________________________________________
Thank you Pamela, I think that is the “skeptic” point of view in a nut shell. Climate is an oscillating system with known cycles. – one with a period of about 88 years and the second with a period of about 200 years. not to mention all the long term Milankovitch cycles. Also identified are other 50-70 years fluctuations.
Nature just does not move in straight lines very often.
~ ~ ~ ~

AndyW says:
July 7, 2010 at 2:58 pm
Andy, why is it “going to far” indicating that some pond on the pole is frozen?
So when air temp is below zero it freeze, and above, it melts?
So another day its melted? up-down-up-down….soon it will be down,down down.
Is it that important to you? Why?

Enneagram says:
July 7, 2010 at 1:59 pm
BTW:
according to a recent press release from the the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), the thermosphere has experienced a tenfold decline in temperature since 2002.
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/00current.htm
__________________________________________________
That jives with the height of the atmosphere contracting.
“…A 12-year low in solar “irradiance”: Careful measurements by several NASA spacecraft show that the sun’s brightness has dropped by 0.02% at visible wavelengths and 6% at extreme UV wavelengths since the solar minimum of 1996. The changes so far are not enough to reverse the course of global warming, but there are some other significant side-effects: Earth’s upper atmosphere is heated less by the sun and it is therefore less “puffed up.” Satellites in low Earth orbit experience less atmospheric drag, extending their operational lifetimes….” http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2009/01apr_deepsolarminimum/

Jon P says:
July 7, 2010 at 1:14 pm
R. Gates says:
July 7, 2010 at 1:01 pm
Sounds like you are preparing your concession speech for September. “But but but but but but…”
VILLABOLO:
Listen closely Jon & company,
Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.
Proverbs 16:17-19 New International Version.

Villabolo, why should we listen to you quoting the “wisdom” of Palestinian peasants several thousand years ago? You ought not to go below the intellectual level of “Mein Kampf” as your sources!

ChrisZ says:
July 7, 2010 at 4:20 pm
“Villabolo, why should we listen to you quoting the “wisdom” of Palestinian peasants several thousand years ago? You ought not to go below the intellectual level of “Mein Kampf” as your sources!”
***********************
I quoted that Bible verse in the same way I would quote Santayana. If it’s appropriate, quote it.
You, however, seem to have an ANTI-SEMITIC character whose fuse was blown by a trivial quotation from ancient HEBREW literature.

Steve: just found this:
http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2010/06/a-correlation-.html
= Wayne Davidson’s prediction for the 2010 Summer melt:
(Wayne Davidson is a meteorological observer who has been stationed in Resolute Bay (or Qausuittuq, ‘the place with no dawn’ as the Inuit call it) for 25 years now, accorsing to Neven)
… In September 2009 he stated: “If El-Nino persists till the spring, and La-Nina follows, ships at the Pole will wander unobstructed in August 2010.”
Mr. Davidson believes the LA NINA brings sunny Skies.
Thus the ultimate Bad is a Strong El Nino & a quick transition as changes in the AIR, take less time to reach the Arctic than warm Ocean currents at their measely 3 knots. Thus 2007 = warm + Clear at the same time, because the Clearing came fast and the Warming, though created first, was Slow . (Or, remember: the East Coast last Winter: El Nino humid Air dumped into LaNina storms still moving up the east Coast = Super Snows – – so combined affects are common ).
His website http://www.eh2r.com/
Now as the La Nina (cold) is following LATER than in 2007 we can expect cloudy skies UNTIL it catches up.
from:
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ocean/index/heat_content_index.txt
Equtorial Heat Content (average temperature in the upper 300 meters, deg C)
MONTH 130E-80W 160E-80W 180W-100W
2006-12 + .51 + .68 + .86
2007–1 -.18 -.20 -.46
2007–2 -.48 -.58 -.77
– – – –
2010–3 + .41 + .65 + .97 El Nino
2010–4 -.06 -.01 -.06
2010–5 -.66 -.83 -1.00 La Nina
2010–6 -.83 -1.12 -1.34 POWERFUL La NINA !
Australian site http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/
Monthly sea surface temperatures:
________May___ Jun__Temperature change
Nino3___ +0.1__ −0.3 = 0.4°C cooler
Nino3.4__ 0.0__ −0.4 = 0.4°C cooler
Nino4___ +0.3__ 0.0 = 0.3°C cooler
The info seems lagged for both except the actual Sea temp charts … while the Aussies lead off with: “Trend towards La Niña continues” NOAA proclaims the Pacific is “ENSO-nuetral” http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/
with the rest of the report showing EVERY Nino area & over 2/3rds of the Equator is below norm..– but the New Rules require 5 months before declaring a La Nina. Their “ensemble” prediction has it crossing the critical -.5 mark on JUNE 1st.
However if the lag to the Arctic Skies is two months, it may not Clear till August.
And by August, Sunlight is plunging even if it is clear – – see: http://www.eoearth.org/image/Insolation_graph.gif
It would still kill the Ice, but not overheat the water = Reverse the currents = 300 mph Storms.
Daily 2007: 2010 JAXA EXTENT http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/plot.csv
Comparing ____2007____ to____2010
July 4-5 ___ – 89,844 _____- 99,541 km2
July 5-6 ___ – 93,125 _____- 33,740 … 2010 is only 151,406 ahead.
All 4 Norsex indexes now show 2007 ahead but Jaxa or Bremen AMSR-E, or NSIDC (barely).

David W says:
July 7, 2010 at 4:26 pm
R. Gates says:
July 7, 2010 at 3:33 pm
“So back to the point of what a “recovery” would mean. If you look at the long term summer minimum, (from Julienne’s chart) you’ll see that a true long term recovery back to a point that we are not seeing a long term decline would put us somewhere around 7 or 8 million sq. km. for the summer minimum.”
Fair enough if your talking about a full recovery but a little unreasonable if were discussing what constitutes a clear trend towards recovery. I would say a return to a summer minimum in excess of 6 million sq km for several consecutive years would be indicative of a clear trend towards recovery. Particularly in light of the consistently downward trend.
I also find it perplexing that we had a result in 2007 that was so much worse than the “models” forecast and this does not appear to have had any consequences in the years that followed.
___________
If by consequences, you mean the Arctic sea ice disappearing completely by 2013?
You are right, why did we have the big drop in 2007 and then a leveling off (hardly a recovery, statistically speaking) in 2008 & 2009, but not follow on drops on 2008 & 2009? I must go back to chaos theory for this, and assume that we have a combination or group of chaotic oscillating attractors, that each are tugging at the Arctic in different ways. I find it most remarkable actually, that considering the depth and length of the solar minimum, that we did not see a more robust recovery. We saw very low total solar irradiance and very high GCR’s for an extended period in 2008-2009, as well as a La Nina, and in looking only at those, one would have thought that both those would provide even more of a lift to the Arctic sea ice. And I hate to keep “harping” on this, but the new chaotic attractor on the block in the Arctic is the Dipole Anomaly, which many experts would simply call “polar amplification” or positive feedback. They are correct, but I prefer to look at it more from a chaos theory standpoint, as I think it may set the stage for what could be ahead in the Arctic, and helps me to understand why the system didn’t spiral down more after 2007. In essence, we have competing chaotic attractors, each tugging the Arctic in directions that are often quite opposite.
With the solar minimum well passed us (yes, Virginia, we will have a Solar Max in 2013), and GCR’s decreasing and total solar irradiance increasing (though sluggishly), we are going to see these oscillating chaotic attractors become more entrained (as opposed to competing with) the Arctic Dipole Anomaly between now and 2013. Hence, while I haven’t forecast a new low this summer in sea ice (4.5 million sq. km) it will be lower than 2008 or 2009, as we have not quite pulled away from the lingering effects of the solar minimum or increased GCR’s. But I do see a new record (or several in a row) as total solar irradiance aligns more with the strengthening DA to send seasonal Arctic sea ice down to the 2.0 million sq. km. range by 2015.

David W says:
July 7, 2010 at 4:26 pm
David, climate models do show events like what happened in 2007.
And sometimes they show a recovery for a few years afterwards, and sometimes not.
The NCAR CCSM3 climate model performs best overall relative to the observational record, and this model shows evidence of rapid transitions towards a seasonally ice-free Arctic state under increased levels of atmospheric GHGs. The difference in the observed September ice extent between 2006 and 2007 was 1.59 million sq-km which is a similar order of magnitude of some of the ensemble runs from CCSM3 before such an abrupt transition occurs. But some of the model runs also indicate a recovery for a few or more years after a large drop, followed again by a more gradual decline.
In the models you can interpret it like this, sometimes natural variability is “in phase” with the forced change and dramatic ice loss occurs which can be further enhanced by natural feedback processes, and sometimes natural variability is “out of phase” with the forced change and a temporary recovery may occur. But eventually the natural variability will once again be in phase with the forced change and large ice loss will once again occur. When I look at what happened in 2007, I view it in that context. A thinning ice cover over the last few decades allowed the ice pack to be very vulnerable to forcing by an atmospheric/oceanic pattern conducive to ice loss. 2007 was not unique in terms of its atmospheric and oceanic forcing, but when you had thicker ice, you didn’t get such a large drop in ice extent since the ice was still thick enough to survive (even though volume loss was equivalent). But in a thinner ice regime, it’s not, and large drops in ice extent can occur.
I would point out though that in climate model simulations, there is no evidence of a tipping point, no value of ice thickness or ice concentration or ice extent that you have to reach before a rapid transition towards a seasonally ice-free Arctic state occurs. The only thing that appears obvious, is that the ice needs to be thin enough so that it cannot survive an anomalous atmospheric or oceanic forcing. When I compared ICESat derived ice thickness fields from March 2007 with those in CCSM3 before abrupt transitions occurred, the thickness fields were about the same.

Julienne says:
July 7, 2010 at 3:15 pm
Thank you so much for your return comment. From what I read from the link you gave I think that is exactly what I have been searching for on and off for months. I have experience in such type of projections, conical tangent at 70º N while to a standard ellipsoid, parameter given in the documentation. It also seems to pass through NSIDC brightness to concentration algorithms which is what I was after (don’t want to attempt to write that of course, shudder!).
When they say near-real-time as 3 to 6 month files, are those files then updated daily to today or yesterday? That was the only aspect not explicitly explained.
So, all of this seems to imply that the 850 MB file of 1870 to 2008 historic concentration file that I downloaded yesterday and wrote an interface program is but a translation of projections to a flat constant area grid and the readings converted from byte format to a text percentage. If I could hear from you again, is that correct? (could spend an hour digging for that statement but you might already know 🙂

I think this calls for a “Celebrity Ice Stunt” by the WUWT crew. First, you hotdog over an ice covered landscape with a tricked out Hummer dragging a giant rubber duck. (Or floatie Polar Bear) Your mission: to find open water for your tailgate party. Alas, finding none, you deploy a crane with a giant auger to cut a hole in the ice. Down 10 feet, you don’t find any water, only the frozen abandoned (color coordinated) fuel barrels from the Catlin expedition. Then the beer girls jump out and a bonfire appears, and everybody parties. The camera pans away to a scene of eternal white.
I think we could get Bud Ice to sponsor….. 🙂

Steve,
A couple of days ago, I had come to the conclusion that your arguments and evidence have been more persuasive than those of Gates. But now that you are congratulating yourself, I would caution you — Pride goes before the fall!
As you stated in previous posts, weather (winds) can turn on you. Concerning DMI’s temperatures, from June 10 to date, they have followed 2007’s track quite closely, so I doubt you should take comfort in those.
Gates,
Again, I commend you for your bravery in projecting early that 2010’s minimum would be close to 2007’s. However, I do object to your inference that the 1980 to 2000 level is normal. That is like looking at the MLB standings on April 15, noting that the Toronto Blue Jays lead the American League East, and declaring that leadership be normal. And your posts definitely made it a contest, so your protests otherwise seem disingenuous. Nevertheless, your declaration that you will be around in September speaks well of your integrity. And who knows? — the weather could turn toward your favor!

Sean Peake says:
July 7, 2010 at 3:05 pm

That’s quite a claim. I’ll believe it only when I hear from Lewis Pugh, the kayaker… I wonder if he’s set off yet?

Here’s his website:
http://www.lewispugh.com/pages/default.aspx
You’ll probably want to hold your nose while you read his self promotions.
He’s a P.T. Barnum of the 21st century.

An Inquirer
I am looking at much more than air temperatures for my analysis.

stevengoddard says:
July 7, 2010 at 7:44 pm
Yeah yeah. Wait till next year!
Um er four years!
I’m rooting for the Dutch, it’s the underdog thing. Hey wait a minute, maybe that’s why I’m a skeptic? Hmm Holy Great Insights Batman!
Keep up the good work (you and all commenters). Your posts are informative and fun. One of the few sites where you can read BOTH sides without the typical labels flying around. This site also avoids the other common configuration of the “dogpile”, where the regulars tee up and jump on the “one other guy” they let post.

Steven G
I like Holland.

stevengoddard says:
July 7, 2010 at 7:39 pm
Most of the loss of multi-year ice in 2007 occurred during the winter, not the summer.
_____________________________________________________________
And that’s exactly why your purported PIPS 2.0 analysis can’t be relied upon for much of anything at all.
“Oh look at my analysis, it shows thickness decreasing in the WINTER!”
“Therefore Arctic sea ice volume, particularly excluding first year ice, particularly excluding 2nd year ice, shows multi-year ice (three or more years old) dramatically shrinking in thickness.”
“Or not. How would I know. All I have is something in the units of pixel-metres. You’ll have to figure out what my pixels are, as even I don’t know.”
“But I can’t tell you the actual change in Arctic sea ice volume in engineering units (KM^3), the best I can do is not tell you explicitly what my self apppointed ROI is, not tell you what a SG self defined pixel is in relationship to a PIPS 2.0 pixel.”
“You’ll just have to believe me. What’s that you say about transparency?”

Amino Acids in Meteorites
Holland plays a similar style to Germany, and Germany didn’t get a clean shot off the entire game today.

Incidentally. When one begins looking for “recovery” of Arctic Ice extent, in the end its going to come down to an increase in the level of multi-year ice. This will logically first be seen in the Arctic Basin later in the season and so for the time being early season ice loss which is predominantly first year ice is going to be of less significant.
It is what will occur in the Arctic basin beyond mid-July that is more likely to point towards a long term trend.

I am very firmly in the steven goddard cheering section, but I would be sad to see R.Gates, Julienne, villabolo or Junior run off this blog through ungracious sniping.

Wayne, it sounds like you downloaded the Had1SST data set? You should probably be aware that prior to about 1953, most of the sea ice data is based on climatologies since there is very little observational data spanning the entire Arctic. Of course data from 1979 onwards is the most reliable since the same type of sensor/method (multichannel passive microwave of similar frequencies) is used. Data from 1953-1978 relies on ship observations, aircraft observations and some earlier satellite missions, including ESMR which was a 1-channel microwave sensor.
The Had1SST data is on a climate model grid (lat/lon grid) at a different spatial resolution (and grid) than the data I directed you to. I’ve only actually looked at the derived ice extent from the Had1SST product so I’m not familiar with the data format, but I’m a bit surprised it would be in ASCII format. You will want to keep in mind that the Had1SST data are at a coarser spatial resolution than the data I pointed you to when doing your analysis.
The near-real-time data currently contains data from 2008 onwards. Near-real-time (NRT) data is kept until the better calibrated/geolocated data from RSS comes in and then the “final” product is produced. You can link to NRT, final, and preliminary data products via the ftp site. They are all in the same grid (and hopefully the same format, but the final products should have a 300 byte header which I don’t think is the case for the NRT data).
If you have any questions on how to read/work with the data, contact user services at NSIDC. They tend to be very helpful.

stevengoddard said:
July 7, 2010 at 3:40 pm
AndyW,
Your communication style is remarkably abrasive.
When temperatures get below freezing, water freezes. You can see a layer of thin ice on the surface of the melt ponds.
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/webphotos/noaa1.jpg
Also, frost often forms on the ground even when the air temperature above is several degrees above freezing.
___________________
Apologies if you find it abrasive Steve, meant more as advice. Also, some of your comments to posters are not always the most gentlemanly are they?
Anyhow, as I mentioned above, the temps don’t seem low enough to cause freezing as I assume they are formed in ice formed from seawater so to freeze they must get down to about -2C or so, and the temps linked above by another poster showed -0.3C. What happened is that, like they did a few days ago, they got full of snow or sleet or a mixture of both and that has now melted.
As R Gates said, it’s just a weather related short term thing and didn’t belong in this otherwise excellent article. Also, the comment written “Meltwater ponds at the North Pole are starting to freeze over.” is trying to suggest something that it shouldn’t because it is not happening.
Andy

stevengoddard says:
July 7, 2010 at 9:50 pm
EFS_Junior
When doing relative year over year comparisons (essentially ratios) the units make no difference.
Ratios are dimensionless, like your comments.
_____________________________________________________________
Yet you still made the following patently absurd comment, with absolutely no foundation to speak of or quantative measurements (in engineering units, of course, not quess the Steve Goddard’s units) to back up this specious claim;
“Most of the loss of multi-year ice in 2007 occurred during the WINTER, not the summer.”
Really?
The WINTER?
REALLY?
ROTFLMFAO!

Anthony, whilst I get the same view on the DMI ice extent site, is there a reason the JAXA one you’re showing dated 6/7/10 looks like 🙁http://climateinsiders.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/amsre_sea_ice_area.png) and yet a day later 7/7/10 the right turn on the 2010 line and the bump on the 2007 line have both vanished? Seen here:http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent_L.png
The Arctic Roos version is also showing a right turn like you showed (but less dramatic) (http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_images/ssmi1_ice_area.png) . Yet NSIDC isn’t (http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png) Any thoughts?

From: stevengoddard on July 7, 2010 at 7:44 pm

Spain won Wimbledon, today’s leg of the Tour, and is about to win the World Cup. Pretty spectacular performance for one relatively small country.

The Spanish World Cup win against Germany was expected as it was predicted by Paul the German psychic octopus. One certainly can’t deny the sound scientific reasoning behind his successful prediction rate:

His keeper, Oliver Walenciak, said before the match: “We know that all octopus have nine brains so we know he has exceptional powers.”

Of course this octopus is not psychic, it must merely have extraordinary abilities to process vast amounts of data related to the playing of previous games and those involved in such to arrive at a forecast. With nine brains available it clearly has the processing power to “run” a model in its own… well, head or whatever is housing all those brains. I hope it’s not too focused on soccer (football), it would be interesting to show it lots of Arctic sea ice graphs and charts and have it make an extent minimum prediction. Ah heck, if we can provide it a better way of communicating with us, maybe a Stephen Hawking-type keypad, it could contribute to the next IPCC assesment report.
Of course with a string of successful predictions comes the detractors:

Paul’s unwavering accuracy this year has even seen him become a target for furious Argentinian fans, who blamed him for their side’s quarter final defeat against Germany and threatened to eat him.
Mr Walenciak said: “There are always people who want to eat our octopus but he is not shy and we are here to protect him as well. He will survive.”

People want to eat that octopus? After it has been demonstratively shown octopuses are likely more intelligent than humans? It is obvious that the WWF must immediately take action to protect these noble beings, since it is their sworn mission to protect all creatures from the unending ravages of evil mankind (except of course mankind itself since they are the violent aggressors). While they have decided their primary battle is against global climate change, since global climate change is a clear and present danger to octopuses worldwide they are already fighting for them thus this would be a mere extension of those ongoing efforts to save all life on Mother Earth (except humans).
I expect the protests outside sushi bars worldwide to commence shortly.

Here in Australia we are having a great many climate change stories all seeking to ensure we accept the man made version. Some “facts” reported in the Land newspaper.
NASA says the last 12 months were the warmest on record globally.
NOAA says the combined global land and ocean surface temp was the warmest on record for May, March-May and January-May.
In Australia the period June 2009-May 2010 has been the warmest on record (BoM)
The total volume of Artic ice is currently at it’s lowest point for at least the last few thousand years. ( Didn’t we see photos of a US submarine surfaced at the North Pole in 1958 in clear water?)
Artic sea ice is currently at its lowest recorded extent for June (USNSICDC).
Some of these claims seem specious and I would appreciate any help to answer them in a letter to the editor. I appreciate there are some specialists here who know far more than I. Thanks.
I can guarantee that BoM will get the answer it wants if the station adjustments we’ve seen so far are a guide.

Why is the AMSR-E sea ice extent graphic in the post different from the one you see at WUWT website? Both 2007 and 2010 curves are markedly different.

Melt ponds are freezing over at the other North Pole webcam as well.
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/webphotos/noaa2.jpg

Hi stevengoddard,
you keep saying that 2010 will be close to 2006, but at the same time “predict” a september extent of 5.5 km2. I suppose you’re not mentioning the minimum, here, are you? And to what database shall we compare this number? If we look at the JAXA extent chart, 5.5 looks much more like 2009 or 2008 than 2006.
BTW, how do you react to the NSIDC claim that PIPS is a very bad indicator of sea ice thickness, and that it should not be used for year-to-year comparisons nor predictions?

kadaka
Reading Romm’s site, it is easy to believe that Octopus are more intelligent than humans.

@Rob Vermeulen says:
July 8, 2010 at 5:43 am
Hmm, I wrote a longer post and it disappeared. Perhaps it will return later.
Take a look at JAXA for 2006 vs 2009, at August 5th and September 10th. What do you see? What caused it? What are its implications for 2010?
[Reply: for some reason it was in the spam folder. It’s posted now. ~db stealey, mod.]

Good catch, however other charts are less spectacular:
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent_L.png
From Shakespeare:
Caesar: “Soothsayer, the Ides of March have come!”
Soothsayer: “The Ides of March have come, Caesar, but they have not yet gone.”
2010 has come, but not yet gone. It may still have some surprises for all of us.

geo
The shape and behavior is tracking 2006, but 2010 has less ice than 2006. i.e. it is offset downwards.

It’s been fun following this slow motion horse race for the past couple of months and I appreciate the comments that help us to understand the various issues involved.
I’ve got a two questions and an observation. The first question: Why does the AMSRE Sea Ice Extent graph start in 2002? (I’m assuming a new satellite began taking pix, but am not sure.) The second question: How certain is it that there is not a discontinuity between 1979-2001 data and 2002-2010 AMSRE data? That is, are those two data sets reliably comparable?
The observation: Each year since 2002 the rapid melt season typically ends with an inflection point where the melt rate drops to a lower level that is generally sustained without reversion to the earlier higher melt rate. That inflection point occurred in 2006 starting about July 10th. This year, assuming the rather sudden drop off of the melt rate turns out to be the inflection point (I know, big if, but it’s gone on for 8 days already) then it will have occurred about 10 days earlier than 2006. This leads me to wonder if the minimum extent might exceed the 2006 figure and possibly even the 2004 figure and come in in the low 6mm’s. Any thoughts on whether this is at all likely?

Rob Vermeulen
I don’t care if the PIPS thickness numbers are absolutely correct. I am only using PIPS for relative comparisons, so as long as their methodology is fixed from year to year PIPS should do the job just fine. So far, it seems to be spot on.

An observation that I’m surprised no one else seems to have made (I could, of course, have missed it through not thoroughly reading all the comments thus far) – in the AMSR-E Sea Ice Area Chart Steven reproduced, there was a flattening in the 2007 curve in late June before it began declining precipitously. In fact, there even appears to have been a brief uptick. I don’t pretend to know how fast the melt is going to go through the rest of July and June but it clearly wouldn’t be unprecedented for the 2010 decline, having slowed down this last week, to speed up again.

Djon
So are you forecasting a rapid drop in ice area?

Steven,
No, I’m not forecasting a rapid drop in ice area. At the risk of being alleged to have an abrasive communications style, which part of “I don’t pretend to know how fast the melt is going to go through the rest of July and June…” (“June” being a case of insufficient editing on my part – I meant ‘August”) wasn’t clear enough to tell you I wasn’t making a prediction, only observing that people might be reading too much into a very short term trend?

Djon
At the risk of repeating everything I have written in the last few months, I will point out that my analysis has very little to do with the extent/area graphs.

Hi again stevengoddard,
I think you misunderstood my question. The NSIDC precisely states that PIPS thickness should NOT be used to make comparisons between years. And this is exactly what you are doing. So could you tell us why, and how, you believe that the point of view of the NSIDC that PIOMAS is much more relevant is not correct?

Steven,
Did I claim my observation utterly destroyed your analysis? Your writings aren’t the only ones here for me to respond to. That said, if you think the ice area graph is so unimportant, perhaps you shouldn’t write things about it like “The decline in the slope of the area graph is even more dramatic. Area is a better indicator of melt, because it is not affected as much by wind shifting the ice around.”. People might justifiably think you believe sea ice area graphs matter.

jorgekafkazar,
Forgive me but I’d rather believe my eyes than you. There clearly was a point late in June at which the slope of the 2007 line briefly turned positive in the chart Steven posted at http://climateinsiders.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/amsre_sea_ice_area.png, the fourth image in this post. I’d be very surprised if that was an absolutely accurate reflection of physical reality but it’s clear to see in the graph.

R. Gates: “. . .the 2010 trend will make a final turn back down, paralleling 2010 down to the last days of August at least.”
I think there is a typo in your sentence, do you mean that the 2010 trend will parallel 2007?

EFS_Junior
You are going on ignore, because you are intentionally being dishonest. No one said the ice is “melting” during the winter. What I said was :

stevengoddard says:
July 7, 2010 at 7:39 pm
David W
Most of the loss of multi-year ice in 2007 occurred during the winter, not the summer. It had nothing to do with warm air temperatures.

Don’t let the door hit you in the rear on the way out.

Rob Vermeulen
NSIDC says all kinds of things. Mark Serreze predicted an ice free north pole in 2008. Some of their information is more useful than others.

An Inquirer says:
July 8, 2010 at 2:30 pm
R. Gates: “. . .the 2010 trend will make a final turn back down, paralleling 2010 down to the last days of August at least.”
I think there is a typo in your sentence, do you mean that the 2010 trend will parallel 2007?
__________
Yes, it was typing a bit too fast and proofing a bit too slow…2010 will begin to parallel 2007 later this month. Eastern Arctic Basin set for large melt. Thickest ice is in E. Siberian Sea, so we’ll see a “down the middle” melt in July and August, where there will be somewhat of a split-lobe effect. Meridonal DA winds setting this up…

stevengoddard says:
July 8, 2010 at 12:14 pm
R. Gates
The Arctic Basin area (not extent) map you linked is probably just reflecting problems with the sensors differentiating between surface meltwater and seawater.
______________
Could be, but I doubt it. We’ve had anomalous warmth for many months on the Atlantic side of the Arctic. I thinking I see a big melt setting up there (continuing on from the big early melt in the Barents Sea. This Barents sea early melt is one of the factors that Ron Lindsay talked about, and now has lowered his prediction to the predicted extent is 3.96 +/- 0.34 million square kilometers:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/lindsay/September_ice_extent.html
But you could be right and we could have faulty sensors, or errors, but it seems to make sense that the higher temps and early melt in the Barents would spill over into the Atlantic side of Arctic Basin with all that open water.
Be we shall see…

stevengoddard says:
July 8, 2010 at 2:59 pm
EFS_Junior
You are going on ignore, because you are intentionally being dishonest. No one said the ice is “melting” during the winter. What I said was :
stevengoddard says:
July 7, 2010 at 7:39 pm
David W
Most of the loss of multi-year ice in 2007 occurred during the winter, not the summer. It had nothing to do with warm air temperatures.
Don’t let the door hit you in the rear on the way out.
_____________________________________________________________
What you believe happened and what actually happened are two entirely different things.
You have, as of right now, not provided a shread of quantitative to support your specious claim.

This seems like a good place to deposit this from SCIENCE
Polar Research:
Broken-Down Icebreakers Hamstring U.S. Science
Jeffrey Mervis
Scientists’ access to the polar regions depends on an over-the-hill and increasingly fragile U.S. icebreaking fleet. A 2006 report from the National Academies called for building two new icebreakers, but Congress has so far been unwilling to pony up the estimated $2 billion or more that would be needed to upgrade the fleet. And the latest breakdown has scientists worried about the fate of future research cruises.
Full story at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/329/5988/128-b?sa_campaign=Email/sntw/9-July-2010/10.1126/science.329.5988.128-b
So now you know; without those icebreakers up there in the arctic; the ice wouldn’t be breaking up fastr enough for some of these ice scientists to get any work done.
I would think they would be the first to call for the removal of ALL icebreakers from the arctic; to prevent that from contributing to man made global warming; by the way; what the heck is CAGW ?
Acronyms are supposed to have three letters; not four, so why is that C in there ?

stevengoddard says:
July 8, 2010 at 8:30 am
geo
The shape and behavior is tracking 2006, but 2010 has less ice than 2006. i.e. it is offset downwards.
++++
Yes. I’ll still be interested to see the shape of the 2010 July/August “sag”, as one of the points I’m interested in, and I think this multi-year 2007-201x period should be illustrative of, is “when is it reasonable to call multi-year ice effect on July/August sag ‘mature’?” 3rd year ice? 4th? What? Clearly 2009 was not quite there yet on that point, tho much better than 2008. Will 2010 complete that, or still show a little more sag than 2006, but not so much as 2009?

Actually, Aug/Sep “sag” would be more accurate for what I’m pointing at, looking at JAXA.
The reason I’ve been pointing at July 1-15 since about the middle of April was a different point –as a pretty reliable indicator of whether another 2007 was potentially in the cards this year, as some were predicting. So far the answer seems a pretty credible ‘no’.

FergalR says:
July 8, 2010 at 4:56 pm
EFS_Junior says:
July 8, 2010 at 4:16 pm
[…]
“I have reverse engineered the PIPS 2.0 map projection and know that a PIPS 2.0 pixel is ~1130 km^2.”[…]
——————————–
But pixels closer to the pole will represent a larger area than those further south on that map projection. Do you talk about your security clearance in the past tense because it was revoked due to you wasting everybody’s time?
___________________________________________________________
1) Yes it’s not an equal area projection. However, it’s an easy projection to figure out, on my first try even, the difference between N70 and N90 is only a few percent (+/- 3%) if one assumes equal area vs actual transformation, certainly good enough for engineering purposes, and definitely good enough for SG.
2) I’m retired, I’ve done about four years of consultion with the USACE since retirement, but none of that required my past security clearance, which went away once I retired.

Well the, 15 day moving average for daily ice loss continues “dropping like a rock” (as Anu would put it. The average daily ice loss for the past 15 days now stands at 75,906 sq km per day. Here are the averages for the past 8 years for the period 24th June to 9th July (past 15 days).
2003 ~ 63,770
2004 ~ 51,812
2005 ~ 77,458
2006 ~ 89,166
2007 ~ 109,937
2008 ~ 76,864
2009 ~ 86,152
2010 ~ 75,906
You have to go back to 2003 and 2004 to find a lower rate of ice loss for the corresponding period. Comparisons to 2003 and 2004 should also take into account that both those years saw much lower levels of ice loss early in the season. So any assumption that we might see higher ice loss later in the season as we did in 2003 and 2004 do not necessarily hold.
Given the early season loss this year I remain confident that the rate of ice loss this season has already peaked and we are headed for a minimum extent similar or greater in extent than 2006.

George E. Smith says:
July 8, 2010 at 4:26 pm
CAGW =Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming
it fits. 🙂

In regards to the Dipole Anomaly, I find it most convenient to look at it from the perspective of being oscillating chaotic attractor, though it is not inaccurate to see it as simply polar amplfication of general AGW– the effects and dynamics are precisely the same, and it is only the perspective that differs. Though on a global basis we may have only seen .6 C or so of warming in the past century, the Arctic has seen far greater increases, just as predicted by AGW models. I’ll give a few references for this, of a broad nature, but these are just general background:
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/impacts/arctic-climate-impact.html
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/294036
But such broad studies, combined with on the ground reports of melting permafrost:
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/breakingnews/melting-permafrost-prompts-arctic-community-housing-developments-to-skip-town-96755194.html
Ought to be enough to convince some skeptics at least that there are some significant changes (i.e. warming) going on in the Arctic. True enough, this could be natural variation, cycles, etc., but none are known to exist that could have such a dramatic effect on the Arctic. Is it just a coincidence that AGW models have long stated that we’d see the first effects in the Arctic, and now we are? Still, there could be some other explanation, but if the warming is not from CO2 increases (30% in the past three hundred years or so) then what is the source?
So enter the Arctic DA. A nice broad background can be found here:
http://www.climatehq.com/2009/12/arctic-dipole.html
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/JCLI3619.1
Chaos theory when applied to climate would posit that we would expect to see unpredictable yet deterministic effects when threasholds were reached when adding the smallest changes to a system over time…exactly as is the case with the addition of a few parts per million of CO2 every year. The DA corresponds precisely with the general expectations for the arrival of new oscillating chaotic attractors, that would cause a sudden and unpredicted shift in the weather patterns (see this chart, to see the divergence of Arctic recent sea ice minimums from GCM’s):
http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/2009/stroeve.png
We’ve seen the frequency and strength of the DA increase, in a self-reinforcing manner, exactly as is the nature of chaotic attractors:
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard/atmosphere.html
If the Arctic Dipole Anomaly is a new oscillating chaotic attractor caused by CO2 induced Arctic warming, then here are some general expectations:
1) It will continue to strenghten, occurring even more frequently and become more intense, such that it will become the norm for the Arctic. All chaotic attractors appear virtually instantly and then grow rapidly. In the climate system, the DA’s arrival from a climatological perspective has been instantly.
2) GCM’s will have to be modified to account for the increasingly significant effects of the DA (indeed, they already are)
3) Other chaotic attractors are “out there” waiting for new tipping points to be crossed. We’ve seen this throughout the history of the climate, and in a period that we are going through with geologically speaking rapid increases in CO2, we must expect other chaotic attractors are close by.
I only know the basics of chaos theory, and I welcome the feedback from readers on WUWT who know it better than I do to give their thoughts, especially in the area of oscillating chaotic attractors and their growth and evolution.

my blog is still there Anthony, nothing hidden at all.
http://sod-iraq.blogspot.com/
i am pretty proud, as you seem to be my only reader. i am fine with any discussion about the success of the surge. shall i write a post on my blog?
REPLY: My mistake. I stand corrected. Last few times I checked it was AWOL. Not sure why, but it was. -A

Excerpt from: sod on July 8, 2010 at 10:44 pm

Steven has written a post, claiming that there was no change to land fast ice at barrow on the 26th of June. it turned out, that the ice was gone from Barrow the day BEFORE the post was written.
he also made strong claims about the break-up on NARL near Barrow. Steven talked about the latests break-up on record and was still saying I expect that the ice will last longer than July 8. in comments on the 5th of July, even though the ice broke on the 4th.

kadaka@wuwt:~$ reply -sod on
Misleading, wrong, potentially libelous; you certainly made sure to get all of that in there. My, aren’t you special?
First part:
From “Ice Dancing” posted June 25:

In order to better visualize what is happening in the Arctic this summer, I generated an animation of satellite photos over the area of open water west of Barrow, AK.

Animation runs June 18 to June 24. Later the observation is made:

The landfast ice is not showing any changes.

Next article “Latest Barrow Ice Breakup On Record?” posted on June 26 started with:

In my last post, we discussed how there has been no visible change in the landfast ice near Barrow, AK. during the last week.

By the Barrow Break-up site as found in the “Observations 2010” section, it was reported a break-out occurred at Barrow on June 25. Steve covered it in “Barrow Update” on July 3.
Summary:
On June 25, using satellite images going to June 24, Steve made his “landfast ice” statement, while asking readers “What do you see?” and giving that statement as one of his observations. On June 26 he made reference to the statement in his previous post. On the Barrow site, actual date the observation was posted unknown, the break-out on June 25 was noted, which Steve noted with a post.
You claim he made that statement on June 26. Thus you are wrong.
Second part:
As those of us watching the Barrow site knew, and as I had noted at the end of the “Barrow Update” comments, on July 5 they had actually increased the prediction from July 7 to July 8, then later on July 5 the prediction changed to July 5, the same day, and in “Observations 2010” the break-up or break-out on July 4 was noted.
Interestingly, I still can’t find on that site a confirmation that break-up has occurred. I would say I can’t see any change on the site since July 5, but the prediction graph was updated with July 7 being the last “actual measurement” with the 2010 line still not terminated.
So, you’re here harping about comments made on July 5 about ice that was actually lost on July 4 despite the loss not being reported until July 5 after Steve made his comments. And technically it appears that the break-up has yet to be confirmed.
Plus in you hideous comment above you are whining about Steve’s forecasting abilities when the experts of the Barrow site didn’t forecast the July 4th loss either. At the start of July 5 they were so confident the ice was going to stay around they even added a day to their prediction!
So basically, Steve was as good a forecaster as the experts.
So tell me, sod, did you actually read any of these articles and perhaps the comments here on WUWT, or did you just gulp down some obviously misleading and/or incorrect comments about them elsewhere then ran over here to regurgitate?
If you had a shred of honor you would retract your statements, especially that egregious claim about the “landfast ice” statement. As it stands, I certainly know better than to wait for you to do so.
kadaka@wuwt:~$ reply -sod off

Before we get too far into a discussion about some kind of new dipole pattern setting up, please read the following. It will serve to place things in perspective. As far as mother nature is concerned, there just aren’t too many things new under the sun.
http://www.frontier.iarc.uaf.edu/~igor/research/pdf/50yr_web.pdf

Today, July 9th, feels to me like a little microcosm of the frustration and fascination of trying to figure out Arctic ice trends. Look at JAXA –2006, 2007, and 2010 are basically right on top of each other today, more than three months into melt season.

oops for ice put salt in at the end of the sentence ” they might be less saline than the bottom but that ice will still have some ice in it.”
Doh

Pamela Gray says:
July 9, 2010 at 10:30 am
Many thanks for the link, reading and taking on board, I usually get there, I just never know when.
Thanks

Gates is the one that believes CO2 increases can affect the dipole. It will be up to him to explain how he thinks that happens. In the meantime, both the North Atlantic Oscillation and the Arctic Oscillation figure into the phenomenon called the Arctic Dipole. Read Polyakov’s article for starters. Then we can discuss what the dipole is, where it usually occurs, and how it contributes to melt when other oscillations are in sync with it.

Steve was completely off on his predictions about the breakup at Barrow, which is no big deal except for his persistent refusal to accept contradictory data and to attack anyone who points out his errors.
Phil is right.
getting a forecast wrong, is not that bad.
getting a forecast wrong, when the ice was gone already, was a little funny, but also not such a big thing.
ignoring the evidence that was presented, was pretty bad.
but the worst part is this: Steven was drawing wild conclusions about the arctic from the thickness of barrow ice, when that ice was no longer there!

Pips Ice DISPLACEMENT ! Look at the Differences: Strong Clockwise Flow June 25, changes to Random & almost no velocity July 9, but by now may be sorting out almost to CONTERclockwise:
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/pips2/archive/retrievepic.html?filetype=Displacement&year=2010&month=6&day=25
(just subtitute day & month e.g at the end 7 & 11 for 6 & 25).
This may be the La Nina AIR patterns kicking in – – I think the earlier slow-down followed by no-motion was the End of the El Nino.
R. Gates is quite perspicatious: the area between 90 & 120 degrees East (off Central Siberia) seems ready to dissappear right up to about 200 miles short of the Pole. Meanwhile that “swinging scythe” of heavy Ice has stalled more-or-less across the area warmed by the Open Lane in 2007.
From my point of view this opens up a Unique danger:
In 2007 a ridge of ice just East of that, kept the 40 degree (F) water away from the terminus of the Gulf Stream: this time the Warm current may be heading right into an area WARMER THAN IT IS, as much as 50 degrees (F) – – that would REVERSE IT, even if 75% of the Basin remains Ice-bound.
… 300 mph winds is what I fear, & I had so hoped the Threat was shrinking.
Instead it is just changing.
… And … The Arctic’s Meteorologist’s idea of the La Nina leading to Clear Skies – – that could be a month away or, if Less – – it could hardly come at a WORSE time.
Note that the possibly soon-to-disintegrate area – – is the part towards Europe, that is: the part covered with BLACK DIESEL SOOT FROM EUROPEAN DIESELS “forgiven” their Soot by the wacky argument that they reduce CO2 slightly – – when the soot is 1000s of times more dangerous & the USA has cut diesel soot 93% on engines built since 1995.

charles wilson says:
July 10, 2010 at 1:35 pm
“[…]Note that the possibly soon-to-disintegrate area – – is the part towards Europe, that is: the part covered with BLACK DIESEL SOOT FROM EUROPEAN DIESELS […]”
Yeah, Charles, your medication is in the fridge, ok, open the door, there’s the pill box, ok, now take one, and some tap water, and just down it, o.k.?

However, on a more Hopefull side, 2007 extent just regained the lead from 2010:
Comparing _____2007___ to___ 2010
Ahead June 30____ no______by 569,532 km2
Ahead July 10___by 24,688______ no____
Change:
July 7-8 ___ – 74,844 ____ – 33,125 km2
July 8-9 ___ – 85,937 ____ – 71,094
July 9-10 __ – 135.157 ____ – 66,250
July10-11 __ – 106.750 ____ ? ?
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/plot.csv
If anyone has another site that gives Numeric Data: please share.

From: Phil. on July 9, 2010 at 9:23 pm

Utter rubbish, Steve had his fixation about the ‘record lateness’ of the breakout and couldn’t see beyond that. The ‘experts’ you talk about was a ‘bot’ projecting based on a projection of the cumulative shortwave since June 5th. When the data went down on the 5th losing the real data for about 20 days it erroneously increased its projection, when the real data was replaced the projection went to the 5th!

So when experts set up an automated system to do a job, the system’s results are not their work and they have no responsibility for the outcome? This concept would work well in medicine. “We’re sorry ma’am, but the machine failed to notice the change in your husband’s condition and administer the proper medicines to save him. Since the machine was at fault the staff and hospital are thus blameless therefore you have no grounds for legal action against us.”

I told him he was wrong and the landfast ice was showing changes on June 25, 2010 at 11:04 am. Which resulted in the usual abuse from Steve (June 25, 2010 at 12:14 pm).

Phil-dot, will you get a freaking clue already about what your problem is? You keep coming off as that oblivious self-absorbed abusive professor everybody hates and you treat Steve worse than a freshman. ‘You are wrong Goddard! You are wrong again, Goddard! You are always wrong, Goddard! Why couldn’t you find the answer in that 500 page reference book I told you to read last night, Goddard?! It’s clearly in there, Goddard! Why can’t you just accept my obvious superiority, Goddard?! Can’t you tell that I’m always right and you’re always wrong, Goddard?!’
Bud, I have learned to shrug off a lot of abuse in my life. I’m a pretty easygoing fellow. But if you were standing in front of me pulling the same cr** you do to Steve all the time, I’d be really tempted to take a swing at you. Most likely I’d call security or the cops to get this raving lunatic out of my face before I give in and take you down. Don’t you know as an adult how to talk to other adults? Here you are whining because Steve doesn’t carefully examine every piece of “evidence” you throw at him and give you long thoughtful replies. You’re complaining he gives you short dismissive “whatever” replies, and I’m amazed he even bothers at all.
Look what you just did in your post. You quoted Steve as saying: “The satellite photos which I already provided you from July 1-July 4 show no change in the ice.” Then you say: “Of course he was unable (or unwilling) to give the date and time for those images…” He just told you the dates, again, and you slandered him. You slander him, accuse him of hoaxes and lying, show him no respect, and still insist he should give thoughtful consideration to your histrionic rants.
Wake up and smell the coffee, Phil-dot of website http://deleted/. And that ain’t no decaf either, sunshine.

You even deigned to chip about how solid the ice was at the former mass balance site this year, well it’s gone already:
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/single.php?2010190/crefl2_143.A2010190140000-2010190140500.250m.jpg

Yes I did, that is I think I did if I accept you don’t know the correct definition and usage of “deigned” and consider “deigned to chip” to actually mean “decided to chip in.” Otherwise what you said doesn’t make sense.
One, my comment relayed what the researchers noted about that ice on June 14. As I said at that other post, “Thus about three weeks ago the ice was observed at that point to be of better quality than last year.” And it lasted until July 9, after the thing at NARL on July 4, and that chunk near Barrow giving way on June 25? That must have been some pretty good ice!
Two, you can call up satellite images yet couldn’t verify for yourself that Steve’s satellite images were from July 1 to 4 just as he said?

Steve on July 5, 2010 at 9:18 am reassured you:

Stop right there. Steve thought the ice was good, I thought the ice was good. We both were going by the site data, Steve was also looking at the satellite imagery. Why did you feel the need to ascribe the motive “reassurance” to a simple agreeing?

Unfortunately for Steve it had already broken up by then, and the evidence had been on the Barrow site for 24hrs.

Phil-dot, I’ve actually looked at the July 4 archived webcam images, all 400+ of them, and on dial up it took a while to download the set. Eventually, yes, despite the fog, you do see lots of ice moving. But it moves left to right. Per the webcam site “The camera is looking approximately NNW.” So I’m looking at ice moving from roughly the south to the north. NARL is north of Barrow. Thus far as I can tell, the webcam on July 4 is showing some ice had broken up south of Barrow and was moving northward, not that the ice at NARL had broken up. Thus to me what you cite as “evidence” is lacking.