by Steve Goddard
In April, I pointed out that PIOMAS forecasts for the summer didn’t make much sense.
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.
It is now early August. Let us see how they did. They expected most of the ice to be gone in the Beaufort Sea by now, and much of the remaining ice to be very thin.
The most recent NSIDC newsletter included this map, showing that the thick multi-year ice is still present in the Beaufort Sea. This is in stark contrast to the PIOMAS prediction of thin ice in that region.
The image below shows in red where PIOMAS mispredicted the ice edge vs. NSIDC August 6 map. Green indicates areas where they overestimated the amount of ice.
This discrepancy will get worse through the remainder of the month. PIOMAS extent/thickness predictions are way off the mark, and their volume calculations are much too low.
As I forecast last week, DMI now shows 2010 ice extent highest since 2006.
Ice thickness remains between 2009 and 2006, just as PIPS data indicated it should back in May.
JAXA shows that divergence from 2007 continues steadily, and is now in excess of 700,000 km².
The JAXA area graph show that ice melt has dropped off dramatically.
NSIDC maps show little ice loss so far this month. There has been nearly as much gain (green) as loss (red.)
NCEP forecasts generally below normal temperatures for the next two weeks in the Arctic.
DMI shows that summer is just about done north of 80N, and has been the coldest on record (for that dataset starting in 1958). Average temperatures have fallen below freezing there.
Conclusion : There will probably be minimal ice loss during August. The minimum is likely to be the highest since 2006, and possibly higher than 2005. So far, my forecast of 5.5 million km² is looking very conservative. Ice extent is higher than I predicted for early August.
Meanwhile, down south. Antarctica continues gaining ice at a record pace. NSIDC showed it the highest on record for July.
Bremen shows it likely headed for a new record.
In Greenland, we are bombarded with stories about “losing Manhattan sized chunks of ice.” The BBC made it one of their lead stories yesterday. Yet the ice isn’t lost and the Greenland ice sheet has been having an exceptionally cold summer, as seen in the NOAA anomaly animation below.
Perhaps “some scientists” might want to actually check the Greenland temperature data before talking to the press? Under any circumstances, how would “abnormally warm” temperatures cause a 700 foot thick block of ice to fracture? The concept doesn’t make much sense from from an engineering point of view. A few months of (imagined) warm temperatures might cause a little surface melt, but the thermal conductivity of ice is much too low to alter the temperature and material strength of ice more than a few feet below the surface. I had this same discussion with Ted Scambos at NSIDC a few years ago about Antarctic Peninsula ice shelves.
The whole story is a complete ruse.
We are bombarded with misinformation about the state of polar ice. People’s brains have been programmed to believe that the last few ppm of CO2 have made a huge difference in the behaviour of the ice, and that belief makes their thought process irrational. People will find what they expect to find. It is human nature.
All extrusions, and that is what this ice island is, break off sooner or later. This was somewhat later so it was bigger.
QED
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
August 8, 2010 at 10:46 am
There are currently 3 Canadian icebreakers in the vicinity Resolute making sure the Barrow Strait ice is ‘rotten’. Or are they preparing the way for Bear Grylls?
Looks like PIOMAS needs a severe re-fudging of its fudge factors.
R. Gates
Six weeks of wind driven compaction in 2007 was enough to declare the imminent end of the Arctic. Doesn’t three years of recovery count for anything?
R. Gates says:
August 8, 2010 at 11:14 am
…”but I understand there may be other standards that have nothing to do with science.”
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Oh, you have made yourself crystal clear of your understanding of those ‘other standards’, many times over. 🙂
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
I was watching a Nature program on penguins last night and finally got fed up about its continued referrences to the Artic’s ice extent declining due to global warming. I wrote a comment in PBS’s Ombudsman site that basically informed them that either “Nature is grossly uninformed and thus has no credibility which they should value, or they are an activist organization.” I went on to say that as an “activist organization” their non-profit status under section 501(c) needs to be reconsidered.
Additionally, PBS’s biased choices in airing such “activist” programs of only one side of the argument, by proxy makes them an “activist organization”, and they too should have their non-profit status reconsidered.
Non-profit status is a pretty complex legal issue. However, I believe there is room for many challenges using this tactic. Additionally, such challenges are not limited to only the federal government. Non-profit status can be denied by a state, even if granted by the Fed. States AG’s could challenge such misinformation in court. I plan on writing mine if PBS doesn’t respond.
If any of these organizations loose their non-profit status, it would be quite a blow. In any event, it would keep them accountable to telling more truth, than continually publishing misinformation.
Rod Everson says:
August 8, 2010 at 11:07 am
The DMI page: http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php has an interesting feature. You can quickly click from year to year and get graphs of the data for each year starting in 1958. I did that and noticed something I found interesting.
The problem as I see it is that the DMI modeling was never meant to be a long-time-scale comparison. Now, they get most of their input data from satellite measurements, and from buoys and a few shore stations outside the area. In the 1950s, 60s and 70s, they had hardly any data to input – so just what do you think the error bars would look like on that?
It may well be that there is minimal ice loss during August. But it is early to count chickens. We all know the ice is vulnerable to the weather and a week’s high pressure, or a quick cold snap, could make a tremendous difference.
The ice is vulnerable to weather because it is much thinner than in years gone by.
DMI differs from JAXA & Bremen so personally I tend to discount it – ice extent is at the second lowest ever at this time according to their charts
Piomas is not the issue here, because the coming year will tell all when comparisions with CryoSat-2 are made. The issue is whether the “Arctic Ice recovery” meme has any basis in reality.
From: Rod Everson on August 8, 2010 at 10:40 am
That’s just R. Gates pulling a “hide the decline” trick. He uses the anomaly map to argue how “warm” it is up there. The real map you want for comparison to the current DMI figure is:
http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/sst/ophi/color_sst_NPS_ophi0.png
Originating page for both (with lots of other SST maps and data):
http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/sst/ophi/
With that map you can see how nearly all of the Arctic basin is at or below 0°C with most of it at or below -1.5°C. With sea ice being mostly freshwater, most of the Arctic basin looks too cold for melting.
For the anomaly aspect, you have to know the baselines the anomalies were calculated from. The DMI page is rather direct, 1958 to 2002 is the green line on the graph. For that NOAA anomaly graph… If you can go from that originating page and figure out what the baseline is, please let me know and supply links as needed. Near as I can figure out the baseline started just in 2005, when they started using that analysis method, but I can’t tell if the upper end is a fixed date or it runs to the current values (which would make previous anomaly maps basically worthless for comparisons).
Reply to savethesharks:
August 8, 2010 at 11:11 am
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Chris,
As you know, I look at the trends to see the climate changes, not the AO or snow in Florida or any of that. On the same token, when I see skeptics looking at weather events (like snow in Florida) and claiming it proves that AGW is not happening, then I feel compelled to speak up and point out the truth of the situation.
During last winter’s snow in Florida and deep record snows along the East Coast, I pointed out AT THE TIME that it was combination of events (the negative AO + El Nino) bringing this about and received a great deal of scorn for this from some here on WUWT. Recently, of course, a study confirmed exactly what I was saying then:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=weather-or-not-last-winte
So, I think uninformed (or worse, unscrupulous) people on both sides of the AGW issue can use short term weather events to try and make their case. This isn’t scientific and isn’t honest. I always look at the longest term trends of RELIABLE DATA to make my own judgements. This is why, for example, no matter what happens this summer with Arctic Sea ice, it won’t change my mind about the accuracy or inaccuracy of the AGW hypothesis. I’ve stated all along that I’m waiting for a few more years to see what the ice does…and then I expect my own 75/25 split to change one way or another. I do expect to see a new summer low before 2015, and look at the flattening of 2007’s steep decline in 2008-2009 to be more a result of the long and deep solar minimum than anything. This chart:
http://www.climate4you.com/Sun.htm#Global temperature and sunspot number
Is one the most useful around as it shows the effects of ENSO, (look at 1998 for example in temps) and solar cycles all in one. These ride on top of the steady rise in temps we’ve seen for many decades. Just looking this chart for example, you can see why the rise in global temps flattened in the later 2000’s as the solar minimum began. Anyway, it is these longer term trends that I look at.
stevengoddard says:
August 8, 2010 at 11:38 am
R. Gates
Six weeks of wind driven compaction in 2007 was enough to declare the imminent end of the Arctic. Doesn’t three years of recovery count for anything?
If it was just compaction in 2007, then the ice didn’t melt, it stayed in the arctic. And if it stayed, then 2008 and 2009 weren’t a “recovery”, the had just as much, or just as little depending on perspective. The ice just wasn’t compacted as much in 2008 and 2009. Unless extent is the only parameter which has any value for arctic sea ice measurements…?
savethesharks says:
August 8, 2010 at 11:40 am
R. Gates says:
August 8, 2010 at 11:14 am
…”but I understand there may be other standards that have nothing to do with science.”
============================================
Oh, you have made yourself crystal clear of your understanding of those ‘other standards’, many times over. 🙂
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
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Ouch…and here I thought we were friends. Anyway, so you think that Steve’s pronouncement of an Arctic sea ice extent “recovery” is an honest and scientifically valid thing to do? Is like like stepping outside at one second past midnight and taking the temperature after seeing the warm day on the previous day and saying, “looks like today is cooler!”
Personally, as you must know, I look at the longer term and see no possibility of any scientifically valid assessment of a longer term recovery of Arctic Sea ice even possible for several years— and certainly nothing that has happened this year would give validity to that claim.
Retired Engineer says:
August 8, 2010 at 9:23 am
As usual, I’m confused.
So we have this really great graph of ice thickness, over the entire Arctic? If so, what was the purpose of the Catlin expedition? If we know the thickness and extent, we should know the volume, an issue of much contention on previous threads.
Will someone pound some information into my thick head?
No pounding needed. It’s just that you are looking into things for yourself. Anyone who looks into global warming for themselves finds that there’s a lot of running around in a panic over things that aren’t happening. And there’s some people making money while doing it. Catlin has sponsors. I think the only reason global warming has lasted for so long is that people in general just believe what tv, politicians, and environmentalists tell them without verifying it for themselves. That’s easier than looking things up i guess.
jakers
The ice compacted during the summer of 2007 and then blew out of the Arctic during the following winter.
There are some interesting insinuations in the comments that suggest this site or that site collects data one way or another (85% open water is ice! OMG) as if to suggest one method is better than another – perhaps silently suggesting they need to change what they count as ice or that they should be ignored for the way they track ice.
The moment that happens – the very instant any of these sites changes the way they collect and analyze date, they no longer have a trend regarding magnitude, but a new starting point. It matters not if the methods are wrong if they are consistent over time, and finally over a very long time, which none have, the truth will present itself. But if the methods change they should end the previous series and start anew.
We have a number of such sites to compare against to determine, to the extent it can, what the reality is.
It should come as no surprise that the long term trends for these sites are quite similar even if absolute numbers, which we can never know to my satisfaction, are different. Am I wrong to presume the magnitude is weather, and the trend is climate?
Steven Goddard says
“R. Gates
I’ll take that as a a “no.””
Have you figure out the rules yet Steve? If your prediction is correct, R.Gates has already said it won’t count since the ice is merely diverging.
stevengoddard said August 8, 2010 at 11:38 am
Maybe he doesn’t like the wording. Let’s just say the Arctic Ice Death Spiral is “in remission” and wait until the Arctic Ocean has been “spiral free” for five years. Sound good to you? 😉
The Great Circle of Life
Littlefoot,
This is how the game works. NSIDC makes a news release showing that ice is collapsing towards a record low and the MYI is disappearing. Joe Romm writes an hysterical piece based on the NSIDC newsletter. Romm’s fellow travelers in hysteria declare it as proof that Goddard/WUWT don’t know what they are talking about.
Three days later the NSIDC graph drastically changes shape and flatlines towards 2006 …. Will there be mea culpa? LOL
toby
Another possibility is that I actually analyzed the weather and wind forecasts for the next two weeks.
jakers
Given that the DMI temperatures match buoy temperatures on line, it is pretty easy to conclude that DMI knows what they are talking about.
Or do you prefer the Hansen methodology, which uses no actual temperature measurements? Hansen delivers the Arctic numbers needed to make 2010 #1.
dp
Walt Meier tells me that the amount of ice in the early 1980s was unusual. (This was right after the ice age scare of the 1970s.)
It should come as no surprise that ice has declined from those unusually high levels.
@R. Gates says: August 8, 2010 at 10:06 am
Martin Brumby says:
I’m still hoping our old chum R. Gates will stop by and let us know whether the “3xManhattan” ice chunk is a good thing or a bad thing.
________
Martin,
I try not to use the terms “good” and “bad” when talking about natural events. I’ve never for example, be an “alarmist” here on WUWT, as I try to approach AGW from an objective as possible perspective.
—————————–
Phew. That’s a relief.
Not about the Monster Ice Chunk or even about AGW.
But I’m glad you showed up again! These debates aren’t the same without your (somewhat patronising but certainly well informed) contributions. Even if I’m extremely sceptical about your claims.
What is genuinely “bad” is (nothing to do with natural events) the use of AGW scares to justify changing NOW to a “low carbon economy” despite clear evidence that the technology is unaffordable and simply doesn’t work. A war against the poor.
See, Anthony! Even I can play nice!
“either way, I win…”
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Reminds me of when I was a little tyke. There was this neighborhood kid who, in order to play in his sandbox, he would stack the game and the rules, so that he “won” every time.
Eventually, all the other kids caught on and quit playing with him.
So what did he do? Learn and change?
Nah….he just invented imaginary friends who would play by his “rules.”
Maybe Steve could you also give us a link to the wind forecasts, so that we can have the same information as you at our disposal?
R. Gates says:
Anyway, it is these longer term trends that I look at.
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I’m all about looking at longer-term trends, like on scales of hundreds and even thousands of years.
Seen from those high altitudes, the chicken-little “science” of CAGW, becomes meaningless and lost.