I wrote this nine days ago :
stevengoddard says:
June 28, 2010 at 10:16 pm
In three days, the slope of the Arctic extent graph will begin to drop off.
Mark it on your calendar.
Anyone who doubts the correctness of the PIPS based methodology I have been using, should take a look for themselves.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
Close up below :
The modified NSIDC map below shows ice loss since the first of the month in red. Where’s Waldo?
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.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Area.png
The graph below of average ice thickness shows that 2010 is starting to follow a path more like 2006 than 2007. In 2006 the ice thinned vertically, but did not compress much horizontally. In 2007 the winds compressed the ice horizontally, which led to lots of incorrect news coverage (to this day) that the Arctic was having a meltdown. The average ice thickness actually increased through the summer of 2007.
The video below shows how the winds have changed since earlier in the summer. The ice is no longer being compressed inwards, it is now being stretched outwards by cold northerly winds.
The NCEP forecast for the next two weeks is shown below. Temperatures generally running well below normal in the Arctic. Note – I color shifted the images and scale to make them easier to differentiate. This does not change their data in any way, it just makes it easier to understand.
Temperatures in the high Arctic have been below normal this summer, and in a few days will start their decline towards winter. In 50 days, they will drop below freezing, and remain there.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
Meltwater ponds at the North Pole are starting to freeze over.
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/webphotos/noaa1.jpg
Julienne from NSIDC wrote this yesterday :
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).
This is the same point I raised questioning PIOMAS back in April.
The computer model is predicting that 3+ year old ice (which is probably in excess of 10 feet thick) is going to melt by early August. That seems rather far fetched. Below is an overlay of the NSIDC map and the U of W simulation for August 18. Note all the multi-year ice that needs to melt.
Like myself, Julienne has forecast 5.5 million km² for the summer minimum.
http://www.arcus.org/search/seaiceoutlook/2010/june
Not everyone at NSIDC agrees. Mark Serreze has been quoted as predicting a possible record low, like he does almost every year.
Mark Serreze of the center forecast the ice decline this year would even break 2007’s record.
Conclusion : There is nothing going on in the Arctic which hints of a repeat of 2007, other than the highly suspect PIOMAS graph.
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/images/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrent.png
stevengoddard says: “Casper: The minimum is controlled directly and indirectly by elevation of the sun, and there isn’t much opportunity for it to shift earlier or later.”
It’s also controlled by how much ice there is to start with, (plus clouds, currents, air temperature, plankton, etc.). Since the maximum was a month later than typical, it’s not a great stretch to hypothesize that the minimum will also be later by some amount. But not as much.
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?
Phil. says:
July 7, 2010 at 5:10 pm
Phil,
First, thanks for the correction, I should’ve checked my math for reasonability and looked at their graph again; 25 million cubic Km would be 15% of the Earth’s total volume. Obviously off by a factor of several orders.
Second; the point stands (with corrected math); beginning of June we had roughly 25,000 km^3 of arctic sea ice, vs. their average of about 25,000 km^3 of arctic sea ice. Am I wrong on that?
Again, thanks for the correction on where the decimal point goes!
Djon says: “An observation that I’m surprised no one else seems to have made…in the AMSR-E Sea Ice Area Chart…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)t clearly wouldn’t be unprecedented for the 2010 decline, having slowed down this last week, to speed up again.”
The 2007 “uptick” you mention doesn’t show in this post, above. The Nansen Sea Ice Area chart doesn’t show your 2007 uptick, either. Different filters? I guess it depends on whose chart you look at. But the mechanisms acting in 2007 and 2010 are so different (so far), I don’t think you can compare them in any meaningful way.
stevengoddard says:
July 8, 2010 at 4:41 am
EFS_Junior
You might want to learn a little bit about the Arctic before posting. NSIDC explained in their April 7, 2008 sea ice news why there was so little multi-year ice at the end of the winter. Your last post made it quite clear that you really have no idea what you are talking about.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2008/040708.html
Anomalous winds in winter can also flush thicker, older ice out of the Arctic, leaving the Arctic with a greater coverage of first-year ice. As noted by our colleague Ignatius Rigor of the University of Washington at Seattle, this winter saw a return of the Arctic Oscillation to its positive mode, an atmospheric pattern especially effective in flushing out thick, old ice.
_____________________________________________________________
Where’s the beef?
No mention of multi-year ice melting in WINTER (12/21/2007 to 3/21/2008). Not a single word!
Your cherry picked quots tells us that sea ice moves around. Like there are wind, waves, and currents. D’oh! Go figure. Not exactly newsworthy. “Sea ice moves around because there are always winds, waves, and currents.” You heard it here first folks, Steven Goddard confirms the all too obvious.
This is the CORRECT quote that you SHOULD have cited;
“So what about the multi-year ice that remained after last year’s record ice loss? Jennifer Kay and colleagues at the National Center for Atmospheric Research found that last summer’s clear skies allowed for more intense melt of the multiyear ice, leaving it thinner than normal at summer’s end.”
So you see Steven Goddard, you clearly don’t know what you are talking about.
“Multi-year ice melting in WINTER.”
ROTFLMFAO!
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.
I found the AGW Artic Anthem Song!
Lyrics:
Momma loves her baby
And Daddy loves you too
And the sea may look warm to you Babe
And the sky may look blue
Ooooh Babe
Ooooh Baby Blue
Ooooh Babe
If you should go skating
On the thin ice of modern life
Dragging behind you the silent reproach
Of a million tear stained eyes
Don’t be surprised, when a crack in the ice
Appears under your feet
You slip out of your depth and out of your mind
With your fear flowing out behind you
As you claw the thin ice
Best Regards to Pink Floyd
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.
stevengoddard says:
July 8, 2010 at 9:43 am
To Rod Everson
“When the Hudson Bay and other areas outside of the Arctic Basin melt out, the slope drops off. This year they melted earlier than in previous years. I don’t think it provides much, if any, useful information about the summer minimum.”
Steven,
That doesn’t seem intuitive to me. I would assume (perhaps incorrectly) that those areas would typically melt out in roughly the same sequence, if not the same time of each summer. If so, the inflection point on each year’s graph would come at about the same level of extent, but the inflection points vary significantly in terms of the extent level at the time they occur. In 2007, for example, the extent was down around 6mm before the rate of melt started to decline much at all. Wouldn’t the Hudson Bay and other areas outside the Arctic basin have melted long before that?
To JorgeKafkazar,
Regarding the entire curve being shifted rightward one month because of the late spring start to the melt in 2010, again this doesn’t seem intuitive. If the weather is getting progressively colder you would expect the melt season to start later, and end earlier, rather than having the melt season be prolonged. Now, we might not be getting colder, but if we are, the melt season would shorten at both ends, all else equal, no? (And yes, after reading a lot of comments here over the past two months, I realize that all else is rarely equal.)
It well be interesting to see if this is indeed an inflection point and the melt rate continues well below 100k per day for the rest of the melt, or if it’s not and we return to the approximately 100k melt per day typical of the fast melt periods as Gates is now suggesting.
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?
Steven,
If you were right, the maximum should occur at the same time. But this year something must have happened. And it is not controlled by elevation of the sun. I mean a change of sea currents.
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 :
Don’t let the door hit you in the rear on the way out.
But Veli Kallio (an ice “expert”) was quoted on Climate Sanity as saying ALL arctic ice will be gone by August 8th !
http://climatesanity.wordpress.com/2010/07/03/entire-arctic-ocean-melted-as-early-as-august-8th-this-year/#comments
Note the robust trend line extrapolation !
;-}
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.
Casper
What I aid was that the minimum is controlled by the elevation of the sun, not the maximum.
Bob Kutz says:
July 8, 2010 at 1:21 pm
Phil. says:
July 7, 2010 at 5:10 pm
Phil,
First, thanks for the correction, I should’ve checked my math for reasonability and looked at their graph again; 25 million cubic Km would be 15% of the Earth’s total volume. Obviously off by a factor of several orders.
Second; the point stands (with corrected math); beginning of June we had roughly 25,000 km^3 of arctic sea ice, vs. their average of about 25,000 km^3 of arctic sea ice. Am I wrong on that?
Again, thanks for the correction on where the decimal point goes!
No problem. The problem I think with your number is that your average thickness is way too high, the area was about right.
From: EFS_Junior on July 7, 2010 at 2:29 pm
I have confirmed you must not be able to Google since I already told you how to find that info back at the “Ice Dancing” article using Google, way back on June 26, and you responded so I know you read it.
To help you cope with your disability, here is the direct link:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/06/wuwt-arctic-sea-ice-news-8/
I have confirmed Steve already told you he zooms the ROI before counting, back at the “Ice Dancing” article.
I have confirmed that, given your track record, it may help if you provide your evidence for such statements, but given the usual quality of your evidence it may not help at all. But at least if you show your work there may be less people who think you’re a troll just throwing out false accusations.
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…
Two things. Gates, you bring up an interesting point that really needs some gold standard research to back up your point. Describe how an increase in CO2 has led to a more frequent DA, and please site references.
And let’s be clearer about increasing CO2. Report its actual ppm change so that we can remember our sense of proportion. The “30% increase” is a data rich information poor statistic. You might also want to report all the rest of the increased gasses and water vapor while you’re at it. I believe we were discussing, a few months ago, an article that clearly suggested that while CO2 has gone up, so have all the rest, so that the increase in CO2 compared to the other components of our atmosphere has been nil.
Are you sure it’s just CO2 that has caused what you say is a change in the DA? Explain how all the other possible causes are not it.
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…
Pamela Gray says:
July 8, 2010 at 3:29 pm
Two things. Gates, you bring up an interesting point that really needs some gold standard research to back up your point. Describe how an increase in CO2 has led to a more frequent DA, and please site references.
_____________
I shall do this gladly, but am off to an evening event, and shall post this later.
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.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
July 8, 2010 at 3:15 pm
From: EFS_Junior on July 7, 2010 at 2:29 pm
I have confirmed that Steven Goddard’s ROI (Region Of Interest) has never been defined or explained anywhere on WUWT to date.
I have confirmed you must not be able to Google since I already told you how to find that info back at the “Ice Dancing” article using Google, way back on June 26, and you responded so I know you read it.
To help you cope with your disability, here is the direct link:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/06/wuwt-arctic-sea-ice-news-8/
I have confirmed that a Steven Goddard “pixel” is NOT a PIPS 2.0 pixel per these thickness images (pixel-metres SG quotes are NOT PIPS 2.0 pixel-metres);
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/pips2/ithi.html
I have confirmed Steve already told you he zooms the ROI before counting, back at the “Ice Dancing” article.
I have confirmed that Steven Goddard is NOT cross-integrating the PIPS 2.0 thickness images with the PIPS 2.0 concentration images per these concentration images;
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/pips2/icon.html
I have confirmed that, given your track record, it may help if you provide your evidence for such statements, but given the usual quality of your evidence it may not help at all. But at least if you show your work there may be less people who think you’re a troll just throwing out false accusations.
____________________________________________________________
I stand corrected on your first point, the original ROI.
On the second point, “zooms in” is qualitative NOT quantitative, thus there is no way to convert from SG pixel-metres to actual engineering units (km^3).
Why do you suppose that is so?
I have reverse engineered the PIPS 2.0 map projection and know that a PIPS 2.0 pixel is ~1130 km^2. I have also reverse engineered most of SG area/thickness/volume plots from earlier installments.
The conversion from PIPS 2.0 pixels to km^2 is very easy and straight forward, yet SG refuses to do so, as this would let one compare his ice volume data directly against the PIOMAS ice volume data (which I have also reverse engineered, as these are allready in engineering units (KM^3).
So there is a direct and all too obvious reason SG refuses to present volume data in engineering units, although this is very easy to do.
Another reason the PIPS 2.0 data is not quantatative is that PIPS 2.0 is meant for navigation purposes only, this means that there is a factor of safety (FS) included in the thickness estimates, typical minimum FS is usually 5/3, so what this means is, that even doing relative comparisions the deltas are amplified by 5/3 also.
I know a lot more about Navy models than anyone else here on WUWT;
Navoceano;
https://oceanography.navy.mil/legacy/web/
Fleet Numerics;
https://www.fnmoc.navy.mil/public/
I’ve been directly involved with half a dozen military projects over my professional career (two of which were 6.2 monies).
I had a certain security clearance level.
I can walk in today and access the *.mil domain, because that’s where I spent my entire professional career.
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 ?
I just noticed the bill for their toys; can you believe it they want a billion dollars a pop for their toys.
Can you believe the first prototype Spitfire was built for about $5000 or maybe that was pounds Sterling; back when Pounds were Sterling.
Send the Catlin expedition up their with their core borer; and they can break up the ice for you.