Our one stop shopping Sea Ice Page has quickly become a world wide favorite, and Joe Bastardi of AccuWeather uses some of the graphics offered there.
To watch the AccuWeather broadcast go to:
http://www.accuweather.com/video.asp?channel=vbbastaj
=======================================
Steve Goddard writes that so far, “steady as a rock” and offers some interesting analysis:
At the beginning of June, I observed that the PIPS ice distribution in 2010 was very similar to 2006. The distributions were nearly identical, with 2010 average thickness a little lower than 2006.
Can we find another year with similar ice distribution as 2010? I can see Russian ice in my Windows. Note in the graph below that 2010 is very similar to 2006. 2006 had the highest minimum (and smallest maximum) in the DMI record. Like 2010, the ice was compressed and thick in 2006. Conclusion : Should we expect a nice recovery this summer due to the thicker ice? You bet ya.
Since then we have read seemingly endless hysterics by Joe Romm and government sources about record melt rates, and how clueless and ignorant my analysis has been. So let’s look at what has actually happened since June 1. The graph below shows JAXA extent since June 1 for 2006 and 2010.
Basically, they are two parallel lines. 2010 has tracked 2006 quite closely – just as PIPS said they should. There have been no major diversions from the pattern this summer. Summer 2010 has been almost a straight line. Apparently some bloggers “can’t see the forest for the trees.”
In the DMI record, 2010 has passed every year except 2005 and 2006. The only real question now is – will 2010 end up in the #2 or #3 spot?
Closeup below:
At the end of May, Mark Serreze and Joe Romm had a different take for 2010:
“Could we break another record this year? I think it’s quite possible,” said Mark Serreze of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo.
We are in the fourth quarter of the 2010 game. The score right now is :
Breathtakingly Ignorant* WUWT – 1
Experts – 0
Will the peer reviewed experts score at the last minute? What do you think?
* A term coined by Dr. Mark Serrezze
Don’t hold your breath waiting for an apology. If you do they will claim the reduction in expelled CO2 was responsible for the reduced ice melt.
Joe Romm is now naming it global boiling. This has to be a horrible summer.
Floods where droughts were to be permanent.
The sex poodle headlines
The cap and tax bill meltdown
A blockade on news of ice destruction in that other hemisphere.
I understand ole men like Joe and James hansen hang on and post pone retirement. They help us worry ’bout their grand kids and ours.
Maybe we should take some bets.
To me also it looks like a 2006 repeat. Look in Jaxa the 2002 plot, 2010 runs parallel and lower, and it gets a kink about now. If the kink happens, 2010 will cross 2008 and go for the green. Pooh sticks once more.
just had a quick peep at the Romm link and read some of the comments, good for a laugh it it wasn,t so sad. wonder if any of the commenters can remember what they put? If they can i bet they wished they hadn’t.
General question, if anybody knows: Where does Joe Bastardi’s “brutally cold N. Hemisphere winter” for this upcoming winter come from? What is the basis? I don’t follow him at all, but I’d be curious to find out his basis for forecasting. I’ve also heard others mention this before here on WUWT, but not heard the reasoning why in any detail.
It looks like Mark Serreze and Joe Romm have made a fundamental mistake for Climatologists – they have forecast something that will be validated not only in their life times but also within the current research funding cycle.
Breathtakinglingly ignorant.
More drama.
Now Joe Romm has a long list of objections and a corresponding list of rebuttals to memorize. If some one says one thing, they have a canned response for it.
I fart in your general direction! Come back and I shall taunt you a second time! You AGW kinigits!
A blast from the past…
North Pole Could Be Ice Free in 2008
By CATHERINE BRAHIC
April 27, 2008
“You know when climate change is biting hard when instead of a vast expanse of snow the North Pole is a vast expanse of water. This year, for the first time, Arctic scientists are preparing for that possibility.”
“The set-up for this summer is disturbing,” says Mark Serreze, of the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). A number of factors have this year led to most of the Arctic ice being thin and vulnerable as it enters its summer melting season.
Joe says brutal, and I say massive when talking about the next NH winter.
What do other people say?
You can put a vote in on this at: http://stip.inklingmarkets.com/markets/29529.
Joe Bastardi predicted the European cold last winter around the same time which the Met was calling for a “mild winter.
Serreze’s 3 scores behind with no timeouts remaining and less than a minute to play.
He’ll need more than a Hail Mary pass, more like a Hail Tunguska.
I think it’s astounding that in April, when the JAXA ice extent was at a 9 year high, the AGW enthusiasts were silent. Then, in July, when the ice extent was normal, they screamed about the “highest ever” rate of decrease. What does the rate of decrease matter, except as a predictor, and then only if you ignore the underlying physical phenomena? Now, they’re back to screaming about their prediction that it may drop to an all time low. Of course, if their prediction is wrong, they’ll just go find another microstatistic to spin into the world coming to an end. I recall last year when they were wringing their hands about the all-time minimum ice thickness, but now that’s recovering, and they are silent on that too.
I am reminded of Ptolemy’s cycles within cycles needed to explain Mars’ observed retrograde orbit while maintaining the planets revolved around the earth..
R. Gates says:
August 9, 2010 at 8:15 am
General question, if anybody knows: Where does Joe Bastardi’s “brutally cold N. Hemisphere winter” for this upcoming winter come from? What is the basis?
You still need to get out more. Try this link for some of his video’s
http://www.accuweather.com/video/96827541001/run-hide-the-sun-is-coming-to-get-you-%28if-you-trust-nasa%29.asp?channel=vbbastaj
Maybe you might learn something about ocean cycles such as the PDO in the process. If you watch his weekly ice update you might also discover the huge Antarctic ice extent as shown here every week.
I really am hoping for at least 5.75M/km2 (which is still very much in play, IMO), as that would make the establisment-approved panel of experts a breathtakingly ignorant 0-32 over two years so far as one of them, just once, managing to have predicted even slightly above “actual”.
The only bad side of 5.75M/km2 is I think we really would have to get up a collection for a Carnac the Magnificent hat for Anthony if he hits that close predicting almost a year in advance.
Very interesting indeed. I’m impressed especially after the low ice extent in June. I find the comment from Climate Progress typical of how the AGW arguments are increasingly using propoganda rather than science. To predict record lows this year just seems to show amazing ignorance, given the recovery already in progress and the recent peer reviewed paper from the Canadian polar researchers indicating the ice thickening up, even if it wasn’t statisitically siginificant, it was still thicker!. You’d think they’d at least be up to date on the latest peer reviewed research.
R. Gates says:
August 9, 2010 at 8:15 am
General question, if anybody knows: Where does Joe Bastardi’s “brutally cold N. Hemisphere winter” for this upcoming winter come from? What is the basis? I don’t follow him at all, but I’d be curious to find out his basis for forecasting. I’ve also heard others mention this before here on WUWT, but not heard the reasoning why in any detail.
==============================
The shift to the La Nina base state plus a very pronounced cold PDO.
I pulled this from their free site, where it shows the eastern USA, and especially the SE US, warmer and drier. Typical of a La Nina year.
But watch out Pacific rim!
Geoff Sharp says:
August 9, 2010 at 8:32 am
Joe says brutal, and I say massive when talking about the next NH winter.
What do other people say?
===========================
I like Australia-speak, so my vote is for “massive”.
I say buy long underwear and get heavy duty antifreeze for your car.
While you are at it, make sure your home heating system maintenance is done properly this year.
Think of the coming winter as a monkey with brass dangle bits.
R. Gates says:
August 9, 2010 at 8:15 am
General question, if anybody knows: Where does Joe Bastardi’s “brutally cold N. Hemisphere winter” for this upcoming winter come from? What is the basis?
Pay attention. That’s the price.
“Could we break another record this year? I think it’s quite possible,” said Mark Serreze of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo.
—-
It’s the worst 2010 evah!
Steve,
You persist in miscalculating the ice values from the PIPS 2.0 data. You need to include concentration as well as thickness in deriving both the total ice volume as well as the average thickness.
Area is straightforward enough, and just a case of pixel counting to within the accuracy of the projection. That’s a good approximation during the summer. Here’s the results for the last five years from the beginning of July:
http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/2053/aread.png
Ice area is evidently dependent on day-to-day conditions, with several changes in the order between years over this period.
Here’s average thickness for the same period, with the thickness properly weighted by concentration:
http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/5138/thickness.png
This year is notable in showing an overall thinning of the ice over the summer so far.
Finally, here’s the change in the total Arctic ice volume, again properly including ice concentration:
http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/2114/volumes.png
Volume is evidently less dependent on short-term conditions than area, with steady trends for each year. 2010 has shown the largest volume loss of the last five years over this period.
What this shows is that betting on minimum ice area or extent is rather a lottery. On ice volume, though, 2010 looks like being similar to or perhaps a little lower than last year, at least according to PIPS 2.0.
R Gates Says:
“Where does Joe Bastardi’s “brutally cold N. Hemisphere winter” for this upcoming winter come from? ”
His preliminary winter discussion, issued July 31, is on the Pro site, which you have to subscribe to. Essentially he is counting on a high impact of land falling hurricanes in the Gulf and Southeast this season along with a moderate to strong La Nina and a cold PDO. He then uses the old fashioned way of using analog years of similar patterns to come up with seasonal forecasts that are frequently much better than computer models.
I’m not sure but maybe these might help: click, click, click.
Joe Bastardi
“The recovery of the northern ice caps will become more obvious in a two-steps-up, one-step-back fashion, but the Southern Hemisphere ice will retreat back to near normal. Overall global ice is right on top of normal and has had no change in the past 30 years.”
savethesharks says:
August 9, 2010 at 9:05 am
The hopscotch is continuing unabated to the N. Hemisphere.
Here it comes. Make a roulette wheel with regions instead of red & black numbers.
Spin often.
R. Gates says:
August 9, 2010 at 8:15 am
General question, if anybody knows: Where does Joe Bastardi’s “brutally cold N. Hemisphere winter” for this upcoming winter come from? What is the basis?
Joe Bastardi has made reference to the NOAA forecast pointing out whilst doing so that he got there first. 🙂
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/images3/glbT2mSea.gif
Mick.
The new tree hugger is the ice hugger.
R. Gates says:
August 9, 2010 at 8:15 am
You should revisit all WUWT posts dealing with the “Solar Minimum” we are in and forget about reading anything from your prophet.
R. Gates:
As rbateman said, “pay attention”.
Watch his videos
http://www.accuweather.com/video.asp?channel=vbbastaj
“brutally cold N. Hemisphere winter” indeed. Nobody counting Sun spots?
The PDO has been moving into a cooler regime for the last 10 years, from the warm phase of 20 years prior and still this period is warmest in the relevant time frame. This seems to suggest the PDO is losing some influence, as Global temperatures should have been heading back towards late 1940’s temp’s when the PDO phase was similar.
R. Gates said;
“August 9, 2010 at 8:15 am
General question, if anybody knows: Where does Joe Bastardi’s “brutally cold N. Hemisphere winter” for this upcoming winter come from? What is the basis? I don’t follow him at all, but I’d be curious to find out his basis for forecasting. I’ve also heard others mention this before here on WUWT, but not heard the reasoning why in any detail.”
R Gates is right, a number of commentators have been forecasting a terrible NH winter but with limited explanation as to why they believe this.
Anthony, might this be the time for a ‘predictions’ thread, so those that think they know the severity of the forthcoming winter can post their predictions AND reasons for the world to see and judge come next March?
Tonyb
An interesting quote from Joe Bastardi:
That versus AGW prognosticators in government agencies who can say anything without fear as long as it agrees with the Team. If they’re wrong, they get promoted.
I read Joe Bastardi to say the 2010-2011 USA winter wouldn’t be as bad as the last two, except maybe for some of the west. Even considered mild in the southern states. He said Europe was going to remain brutal, though.
Its flat warmed up considerably in my neck of the woods, compared to the last two summers. Its starting to dry out some, finally, still so humid. The sun is pushing, didn’t Ulrich predict a warm October?
I’m hoping for some rebound, the very unstable past few years has been costly for us. Long story…
Will the ‘The Komrades’ score at the last minute? Only The Shadow knows for sure!
This is like playing Mixed Rugby with the Ol’ Soviets, ya jus never knew where or when or who their 300lb females are going strike next.
During La Nina under a warm Atlantic, northern winters on both coasts become more severe temperature and snow wise.
If the AO goes negative under a warm Atlantic ocean, the impact is double for the East Coast (IE low temps and lots of snow). If the Atlantic goes cold, there would likely be bitter cold with less moisture.
If the Northern Pacific warm pool stays warm, we get a boat load of snow as the on shore flow first crosses over warm moist ocean before it crosses over cold waters and then dumps on land as snow. If that pool goes cold, the West Coast becomes bitterly cold with less moisture.
It’s all a matter of warm moisture sources mixing with cold air, with wind shear/pressure differences helping storms to develop.
FYI: My above post on weather pattern variations is my understanding, which is always in need of improvement.
Here’s a plot that fits with your analysis.
http://iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/ext_rates_n.png
The rate of ice loss is past the maximum for the various years plotted. 2010’s rate of ice loss was not as high as the other years. Only a couple more weeks of significant loss before in tapers quickly to the start of ice growth.
The persistently overcast sky from the north pole cam is likely a significant driver to the lower rate of ice loss over the last month or so. That cloud cover is also indicated in the lower than expected temperature.
Anyone want to speculate on the errors to the AMSR-E concentration and the calculated arctic ice area resulting from the assumption of ponding of water on the ice in cases where the earlier ponds are now actual frozen; e.g. the Northpole webcam?
tonyb says:
August 9, 2010 at 9:52 am
R Gates is right, a number of commentators have been forecasting a terrible NH winter but with limited explanation as to why they believe this.
===============================
Bastardi correctly forecast the past extremely snowy winter for the eastern USA and Europe, beginning July of 2009. He is a damn good long range forecaster, but sometimes gets hung out to dry because he wears all his weather emotions on his sleeve.
But, in July 2009, remember, back when the CFS and the UK Met was forecasting nothing of the sort, Bastardi was saying record snow….and sure enough it happened.
The difference this year is that because of the cold PDO and the extremely pronounced La Nina, will reverse the balmy Canadian, Pac NW and Arctic winter of last year.
So parts of the NH will NOT have an eventful winter at all (and he has said that).
He is forecasting “brutal” for the Arctic regions and the other areas such as the PAC NW which have direct correlations with La Nina base state.
The negative Arctic Oscillation of last winter will switch to more positive this year….and no doubt will have New Yorkers crying “global warming.”
Oh, right, the record snows of last year were global warming too.
The brutal winter conditions in the NH this year will be in the exact opposite places that they were the last, and then some.
Brutal winter (or “massive”)….against the means.
Will be interesting to see how it shakes out.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
jcrabb says:
August 9, 2010 at 9:49 am
If you were to say that the last 10 years is the warmest “adjusted” decade of the modern period, sure.
So too were the books of the many Wall St. financials, being the most profitable ‘adjusted’ years ever.
But, unlike the Too Big to Fail institutions, you cannot bail out the climate.
Think of this as a Bear Climate downturn.
Why haven’t we heard any forecasts from Hadley? Why is it that all the warmists have stopped making forecasts?
Just a couple of years ago they were all out there hollering them to the world.
Their silence is deafening.
These predictions of weather for the winter are general predictions and not made to be taken “X will happen”. But overall they are based on what we know, so unless something is really off, (like something with the climate that we have never seen before) they should be very close to the mark.
You can not predict weather to the extent that you know what will happen on day x, but we can make general predictions (like the farmer’s almanac tends to do) and be somewhat accurate just based on past weather patterns…
Of course, these predictions have a chance to be wrong, so as I like to say, let just wait and see what mother nature has in store for us this winter. I am very pessimistic for this winter when trees that I have watered are already having leaves change color and fall….this a month early. Early indications are for a very bad winter overall.
Quick question.
Does anyone know whether a climate scientist (pro AGW) has stated on the record giving an outline of what would falsify AGW theory?
Jimbo
Religions survive for thousands of years because people can always find a random occurrence which supports their belief system. Even a stopped clock is correct twice a day.
Jimbo says:
August 9, 2010 at 11:00 am
Answer to your quick question:
Yes, AL himself was the answer.
Jimbo says:
August 9, 2010 at 11:00 am
“Quick question.
Does anyone know whether a climate scientist (pro AGW) has stated on the record giving an outline of what would falsify AGW theory?”
According to Bart’s AGW blog, falsifying AGW is not that easy; it’s about as hard as falsifying gravity. No really, he says so.
http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2010/01/06/a-quick-n-dirty-guide-to-falsifying-agw/
See? You lose.
La Nina usually means cold but drier in the Sierra, El Nino sometimes means lots of snow in the Sierra as in 1982 or long lasting as in this past Spring.
Jimbo says:
August 9, 2010 at 11:00 am
Quick question.
Does anyone know whether a climate scientist (pro AGW) has stated on the record giving an outline of what would falsify AGW theory?
===========================================================
I don’t know how you could do it, considering that they have claimed everything as a result of AGW.
Since the whole “model” thing hinges on the tropical hot spot, and there isn’t, never had been, and doesn’t look like there ever will be one……
I’d say the whole thing is a farce.
As far as I’m concerned, everything we are seeing is noise and right in line with natural variability.
Since the question of how solar cycle 24 is progressing has come up, look at the latest development on
http://leif.org/research/F107%20at%20Minima%201954%20and%202008.png
F10.7 appears to be ramping up, just like it did early this year. Is this just another false alarm, or are we now seeing the actual cycle 24 ramp-up? Enquiring minds want to know!
SG on June 2: “Conclusion : Should we expect a nice recovery this summer due to the thicker ice? You bet ya. Even if all the ice less than 2.5 metres thick melted this summer, we would still see a record high minimum in the DMI charts.”
Mark Serreze on May 20: “Could we break another record this year? I think it’s quite possible.”
The results to date:
“Arctic sea ice extent averaged for July was the second lowest in the satellite record, after 2007. After a slowdown in the rate of ice loss, the old, thick ice that moved into the southern Beaufort Sea last winter is beginning to melt out.”
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
SG – 0.0
MS – 0.8
This is why we don’t let students grade themselves.
Up coming:
“Cool, stormy weather this July has made it less likely that the upcoming 2010 sea ice minimum will set a new record. It would take a very unusual set of conditions in August to create a new record low.”
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Side topic: Is Antarctica Melting?
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/20100108_Is_Antarctica_Melting.html
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/416685main_20100108_Climate_1.jpg
Arctic ice appears to be declining consistently, in every calendar month:
Jan: -3.2% per decade.
Feb: -2.9% per decade.
Mar: -2.6% per decade.
Apr: -2.6% per decade.
May: -2.41% per decade.
Jun: -3.5% per decade.
Jul: -6.1% per decade.
Aug: -8.7% per decade.
Sep: -11.2% per decade.
Oct: -5.9% per decade.
Nov: -4.5% per decade.
Dec: -3.3% per decade.
Where is there any evidence of a ‘recovery’?
The question R. Gates raises needs a better answer, perhaps one only Joe Bastardi can answer. However, the Northern Hemisphere is a very large place so maybe a little more geographical detail is called for. Are we talking about Cuba and the Yamal Peninsula or other parts of the N. Hemisphere?
Pamela Gray (in NE Oregon, I think) and I (in WA State east of the Cascades) have personal interest in the USA’s Pac. N. W. However, others might actually mean places farther north when asking about a “brutally cold N. Hemisphere winter.”
Also, where I live if we get a week of -15 F (-26 C) during January that would be considered brutally cold. If one lives in Ft. Nelson, B.C. that same temperature would not seem so extreme.
As Pamela indicates for the PNW the coming winter might be very snowy or less so with more cold, but “brutally cold” doesn’t seem to be on the way. That still leaves a lot of the N. Hemisphere not accounted for though.
So, to get these sorts of discussions to a more informative level there needs to be more concern for location and timing.
but..but..it’s all rotten ice. Yeah, that’s the ticket. (Must be at least 30 to understand the reference)
pgosselin says:
August 9, 2010 at 10:50 am
Why haven’t we heard any forecasts from Hadley? Why is it that all the warmists have stopped making forecasts?
Just a couple of years ago they were all out there hollering them to the world.
Their silence is deafening.
==============================
Yes.
Also, the silence from Hansen, Gore, and the whole AGW presbytery is deafening, for sure.
Reminds me of when the ultimate spin-doctor & bureaucrat, Ellsworth Toohey, in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, was asked why he did not speak up against his arch-enemy [the book’s protagonist and gifted architect], Howard Roark, Toohey replied, to the effect:
“No. I will not speak out against him. I simply will not acknowledge him.”
So that little game [of not acknowledging] is played over and over throughout history, between the people who have integrity, and who have an HONEST product [be it the design of a building, or good thorough science]…and between those who thrive on some sort of spin or political agenda.
In a similar vein….expect the prophets of AGW doom and gloom….such as Hansen and Gore….to keep silent and not ever, ever acknowledge that they were wrong.
Expect them to continue to use their Holdrens and Markeys to keep trying to marginalize and vilify those scientists who dare to speak out against the scam…each of those scientists at their own peril and risk of being ostracized from the political force of modern “peer review.”
And expect the Ellsworth Tooheys of the climate scare industry to turn up the deafening silence.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Pamela Gray says:
August 9, 2010 at 10:04 am
“During La Nina under a warm Atlantic, northern winters on both coasts become more severe temperature and snow wise. ……”
That is as good an explanation than any of the other prognosticators I’ve seen. Nice and to the point.
Warm water with cold temps = snow.
Cold water with cold temps = bitter cold.
La Nina and a cool PDO doesn’t bode well for upper latitudes of the NH, mix in an inactive sun, and we can easily see why we have all the dire predictions of a harsh winter. Then, factor in the AMO……Of course, the intervention of some otherwise unforeseen event could nix the whole fortune telling process.
What I find disconcerting is prior to the legislatures and bureaucracies attempt to govern these natural processes, I gave little thought or effort to understanding the weather/climate on anything other than a very local scale(that’s what we have meteorologists for). I have literally been forced to educate myself on matters of very little import to the personal improvement of myself or the improvement of my environment. I’m now familiar with terms and acronyms that should have never been part of the average person’s vernacular. I bitterly resent the hold on my life the alarmists have forced upon me and the people like me. Can one imagine the achievements of mankind had the world not paused to consider(out of necessity) the CAGW fabrication? The reason we don’t have a viable alternative to fossil fuels is because the alarmists have forced the areas of concentration to fit their world view/theology(what the hell ever happened to hydrogen?). The reason why world hunger is as prevalent today is because of the alarmists exasperation of land and fuel use and funds. While the world is forced to understand the multi-directional emissivity of CO2, the world waits for answers to the human condition. Text books are now written in direct conflict to basic and fundamental principles in mathematics. We haven’t just paused, we’ve taken several steps back and perhaps altered(thwarted) mankind’s progress forever. So, we wait for the cures of cancer and Alzheimer’s and the rest so we can settle this question of man’s control over the weather as our loved ones fall by the wayside. THANKS TO ALL CAGW/CC ALARMISTS Nero didn’t have sh*t on you guys.
Pam, obviously, that diatribe wasn’t directed towards you in any manner. I was merely trying to add to your thoughts and the flow of my thinking veered to the tangential. I loathe those SOBs.
R. Gates says:
August 9, 2010 at 8:15 am
General question, if anybody knows: Where does Joe Bastardi’s “brutally cold N. Hemisphere winter” for this upcoming winter come from? What is the basis? I don’t follow him at all, but I’d be curious to find out his basis for forecasting. I’ve also heard others mention this before here on WUWT, but not heard the reasoning why in any detail.
Email him and he will tell you and if you were not such a die hard agw religious fanatic you would have been taking in everybody’s opinion and would therefore know precisely where Joe gets his forecasts. He has explained it time and time again but you do have to read it to know it, of course.
Well I already knew I was a special baby; nobody in history, was ever born more ignorant than me; and wouldn’t you know it; I was breathtaking; pretty much from the moment of birth.
And since then I have had my ignorance challenged; discarding falsehood after falsehood; and quite often with teachers like Joe Romm; who seem to instruct in the “Andy Capp” mode:- “Forra me mate; (burp), I’ll gecha ‘ome (hick) in dis fog; I knows evry ditch in (hick) London; “splash !”; see deres one now (burp) ! ”
Yes many’s the time I learned something by not accepting carte blanche what “experts” proclaimed; but didn’t support with rational argument. So I had to map out my own drainage ditches; and yes like Andy; I have stepped in a few myself; but seldom twice in the same one. And I’ve had useful help from strangers who grabbed my arm before I went under.
I don’t think I know much about Arctic ice; or why it does what it does; but given the relatively short observational history; as well as anecdotal histories of Arctic events; I’m always amazed at how the “experts” are gung ho to sally forth, over the thin and often rotten ice; and peg their reputations to statements that will be sustained or falsified in our; and their lifetimes.
I’m too chicken; and still too ignorant to make any bets; but Steve Goddard and other WUWT denizens have been doing pretty well at it so far this season.
And 2010 ice does seem to be getting curiouser, and curiouser.
************
Tom P says:
August 9, 2010 at 9:29 am
Steve,
You persist in miscalculating the ice values from the PIPS 2.0 data. You need to include concentration as well as thickness in deriving both the total ice volume as well as the average thickness.
*********************
Sea ice concentration appears to compare the sea ice extent with some arbitrarily selected area. I’m not getting how this improves the presentation of trends given that it introduces an arbitrary component. How does use of sea ice concentration improve the data analysis? Why should it be used?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/09/bastardis-monday-sea-ice-report-plus-new-analysis-of-2010-ice-distribution/#comment-452460
That last uptick to 90+ flux is solely the result of a solar flare arriving at the exact moment the flux was measured. Even the NOAA SWPC acknowledged that and corrected the value to 85, closer to the few days before that.
http://leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-Latest.png
Icarus says:
August 9, 2010 at 11:50 am
If you were to suddenly wake up today from a 10-year sleep, look at the statistics for mortgage backed securities and nothing else, you would be then inclined to spend every last dime you had on them?
Note that the statistical trend blind to what is currently happening.
Icarus
Even if the summer minimum was 19 million, NSIDC could still claim a downwards trend from the unusually high ice conditions of the early 1980s.
____________
Is it here, here or you might very soon find it here.
Icarus why don’t you take a peek at the other end of the Earth and tell me whether or not you see a ‘recovery’ there. click
Why do I think it will be cold this winter? We have an astronomical society where I live and their spokesperson was talking on local radio about the solar minimum.The coldest weather in winter often happens after the shortest day when days are getting longer and it is the same with solar minimum as this sunspot cycle gets going winters will continue to be cold for some years to come. We will see if that is true.
James, no offense at all taken. I’ve always been interested in weather pattern variation (what AGWers mistakenly refer to as climate change) so I’m not upset that I have this strange way of talking. You should hear the folks here in NE Oregon talk “tractor speak”. They can say whole sentences about their favorite tractor and say it mostly in numbers. “1392-5?” Yep but not like the 1532-45. The 145569283-3298 is better than the 12482-=8i2w71 AND runs on that new 28743u9-$^&#@ing engine! One helluva tractor!
I made a mistake yesterday in saying I thought JAXA-IARC area on the chart had turned north overnight but I must have not been paying much attention. Today it’s apparent I was instead looking at NORSEX-ROOS sea ice area, it shows clearly a turn has been made and is now showing the re-freezing that is occuring.
Re: Tom P on August 9, 2010 at 9:29 am
Summary:
Got it. Thank you for playing. Come back for the results sometime in September.
George E. Smith
Your post reminded me of ….
While most in this blog seem to be worrying about what YOUR NH winter will be like, anecdotally South Australia (Adelaide Hills) is colder than a witches t??. For the hemispherically-challenged, the SH is in winter mode atm.
Several people in this area who have lived here for many (up to 50) years have mentioned how cold it is this year, our meteorologists keep teasing us with predictions/forecasts of 17C days then change within a day to lower temps and we have rarely seen the sun over the past 4-5 weeks.
Send some of your global warming this way guys.
Lets see:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=8074
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2008/091608.html
From: Icarus on August 9, 2010 at 11:50 am
If it has been consistently declining in every calendar month, then how can both the IARC-JAXA area and extent graphs be showing March 2010 above March 2009?
In what context was there ‘unusually high ice’? A recent study by the Northern Arizona University and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) finds that Arctic temperature has been rising for the last 100 years or so –
http://www2.ucar.edu/news/arctic-warming-overtakes-2000-years-natural-cooling
It seems counter-intuitive that there would be ‘unusually high ice’ after most of a century of warming. Do you have any evidence for this claim? Is there any reliable data on Arctic ice extent *before* the 1980s (i.e. before the satellite era)?
Tom P
I must have done something wrong, because I am getting all the right answers.
The experts do everything right, that is why they get the wrong answers.
Oh please. By all means explain to me how these graphs do *not* show a consistent decline. Arguing against a long-term decline by comparing two consecutive years is just arrant nonsense, and I’m sure Steven Goddard would agree with me on that.
Bastardi and Goddard, go go go!!!!
We are currently in a weird cool phase of the PDO (typically described as being cool off the west coast of Washington, Oregon, and Northern California, and warm in the central area and western edge – IE Japan- of the ocean). The difference is that the western part of the northern Pacific are not all that warm and the central part is not all that big. Japan’s coast is experiencing cool waters, not the typical warm waters of a cool PDO. I think that is because we recently came out of a moderate La Nina before going into El Nino. In other words we were not in extended neutral prior to the El Nino. There is left over cold waters in the western Pacific with the warm central area not that big, so we will not have as much moisture.
So I think we will see very cold temperatures due to the dryer air coming in from the Pacific in the NH fall and winter. If the NAO goes cold and the AO goes negative, we could all be in for bitterly cold, dry conditions that build up huge amounts of ice in rivers, lakes, and sea areas, coast to coast along the upper North American continent. Will this extreme setting happen? Don’t know. But I am fairly confident we will be colder than average, with average precip to dryer conditions in the NH. I don’t consider solar events to have much at all to do with this.
Icarus
Walt Meier has told me that Arctic ice in the early 1980s was unusually extensive. So the trend since 1980 is necessarily downwards.
Icarus, I believe that weather pattern variations from natural sources have both long and short term trends (daily; weekly – IE less than 4 weeks plus or minus; monthly – IE less than 1 year plus or minus; yearly – plus or minus a month or two; decadal – IE 10 years plus or minus, and multi-decadal – IE more than 10 years and up to 80 years plus or minus) without considering CO2 increases. These variations and oscillations come from a variety of potentially interacting and teleconnecting natural oceanic and atmospheric conditions.
Your graphs do not provide this information. Your graphs are data mathematically subjected to a long term statistical linear trend algorithm. That alone does not provide information, it is only another way of looking at data. Your graphs are data rich, information poor. Your graphs would be much improved if you would correlate conditions on the ground (IE the short and long term weather pattern variations mentioned above) for each one of these up ticks and downturns and to the short and long term trends your statistical analysis is showing. This information exists. If you can show that conditions on the ground have no correlation to your data points, you have a leg to stand on (only one mind you). Currently, without reasonable excluding CO2 mechanisms, you have no legs to stand on in presenting your graphs as a CO2 argument.
John Trigge
You are imagining the cold. Our top scientists say that this is the hottest year ever.
Icarus didn’t you look at the Bastardi video he explained perfectly why the arctic is shrinking and the antarctic is expanding. the overall sea ice extent is almost the same as 30 years ago.
“”” stevengoddard says:
August 9, 2010 at 12:57 pm
George E. Smith
Your post reminded me of ….
We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the class room
Teachers leave those kids alone
Hey, teachers! Leave those kids alone! “””
Well Steve we can’t have all those children trying to think for themselves; we have a party line that we have to get across to them.
I don’t know how your are making up your ice numbers Steve; but I might want you to make up some Lottery numbers for me !
“”” stevengoddard says:
August 9, 2010 at 1:38 pm
Icarus
Walt Meier has told me that Arctic ice in the early 1980s was unusually extensive. So the trend since 1980 is necessarily downwards. “””
Steve; I always had a feeling that those beautiful Arctic Ice photographs from 1979; that 2007 was always compared to, were not “on average” but were a snapshot of an unusual ice advance. Nice for Walt Meier to more or less confirm that.
Dave Springer says:
August 9, 2010 at 9:43 am
The new tree hugger is the ice hugger.
—————————————————
LOL! 😎
From: Icarus on August 9, 2010 at 1:23 pm
Well, he might agree it is errant nonsense, or maybe arrogant nonsense…
You said the Arctic ice appears to be declining consistently in every calendar month. For consistency, I would expect for any given month that there would be less ice than the previous year. I showed you a month where it did not decline, thus consistency does not exist.
Meanwhile you’re arguing consistency while pointing to trend lines.
Avoid managing the money of other people. If you promised a consistent return on investment every month, then came a month when your customers lost money, and you argued it was still a consistent return every month as the long term trend was still positive… Numerous law enforcement agents may want to have a word with you.
BTW, was that the best you could do? A link to an encrypted page, where there are some NSIDC thumbnails without links to the big graphs, and no proper links to or explanations of those percent decline numbers?
Ice concentration gives the percentage of any area covered by ice. Broken-up ice obviously has a lower volume than continuous ice of the same thickness.
Steve’s calculations ignore ice concentration and so give incorrect volumes, as well as average thicknesses. Only by including concentration do you get results consistent with the volumes published by the PIPS team.
kadaka (KD Knoebel): Can you demonstrate that any of those 12 cited graphs show data that is not consistent with a declining trend in Arctic sea ice extent?
I’m hurt. I thought that was not a bad effort for a few minutes’ work, done in a hurry after reading this post. Thanks for the tip though – you’re right, I should link the thumbnails to the full size graphs.
Steven Goddard:
Thanks for the pointer about Walter Meier (I hadn’t heard of him before). Here is the abstract of a 2007 paper he co-authored:
Whither Arctic sea ice? A clear signal of decline regionally, seasonally and extending beyond the satellite record
Authors: Meier, Walter N.; Stroeve, Julienne; Fetterer, Florence
Source: Annals of Glaciology, Volume 46, Number 1, October 2007 , pp. 428-434(7)
Publisher: International Glaciological Society
That doesn’t really sound to me like we’re seeing a “downwards trend from the unusually high ice conditions of the early 1980s”.
Pamela Gray: You make a fair point, climate is a lot more complicated than a few points on a graph, but nevertheless I think Arctic sea ice extent must give us at least *some* indication of long-term climate in the region, and since a number of previous contributors were talking of a ‘recovery’ it seemed reasonable to ask where there was any sign of such a recovery in the ice extent data. From what I can tell, there isn’t one. Given the scale of year-to-year variations I think it would probably take at least 15 years and probably more for any significant deviation from the long-term decline to become clear.
Icarus
You must look beyond the satellite record in order to put the current arctic ice conditions into context.
Arctic ice melt is by no means a modern trait and the NSIDC and IPCC seem reluctant to accept the concept of natural cycles of cooling and warming. The start of Satellite measuring in 1979 coincided with something approaching peak ice, following a extended cooling period, which is why they always speak of subsequent decline; History suggests you should look at a much longer time scale than thirty years which will put the modern era into its proper context..
Link 1 Ice extent maximum- Depends if you are talking winter or summer but ‘decline’ starts around 1976/9 from a high point.
http://geology.com/articles/northwest-passage.shtml
Link 2 This also shows the same;
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.area.jpg
Link 3 The IPCC report confirms this p351/2 figures 4.8 4.9 4.10
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter4.pdf
Link 4 The concerns over ‘global cooling’ in the 70’s which caused the arctic ice peak did have some basis in fact. There were a series of low temperatures in many arctic areas during the 70’s which ice would have corresponded to by growing.
http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Scientific/Arctic.htm
Link 5 From the CIA further confirmation of the cold period during this time.
http://www.climatemonitor.it/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/1974.pdf
As the IPCC show, the start of the satellite period therefore roughly coincided with a period of peak ice-so it is not at all surprising that as part of its natural cycle it should subsequently decline.
Link 6: The IPCC are not very good at their historic reconstructions and generally view actual observations as ‘anecdotal.’ They seem to believe that history did not start before 1979. My article examines the arctic melting in the period 1810-1860 -see notes at bottom of article with additional references.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/20/historic-variation-in-arctic-ice/#comments
Link 7: The next two links are good studies showing the arctic melting from the 1920’s to 1940’s; The first shows a warm period during the 1930s and 1940s with temperatures as high as those of today ftp://ftp.whoi.edu/pub/users/mtimmermans/ArcticSymposiumTalks/Smolyanitsky.pdf
Link 8: The second link illustrates reduced sea ice extent during this period, which only later returned to the high levels measured at the start of the latest retreating cycle in 1979 (when satellite measurements started).
http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/Chylek/greenland_warming.html
Link 9: The melting in the period 1920-1940 is very well documented.
Expeditions to the arctic to view the melting ice became the equivalent of todays celebrity jaunts to the area. The most famous were those mounted by Bob Bartlett on the Morrissey. I have carried extracts from his diary before-amongst the observation are a description of a mile wide face of a glacier falling in to the sea. There are pathe news reels of his voyages dating from the era, as well as books on the subject. Here is a bibliography of material relating to him. The diaries are of particlar interest.
http://www.nlpubliclibraries.ca/nlcollection/pdf/guides/NL_Collection_Guide_11.pdf
Link 10 Bernaerts, A. (2007). Can the “Big Warming” at Spitsbergen from 1918 to 1940 be explained? PACON 2007 Proceedings 325-337.
http://www.arctic-heats-up.com/pdf/Submitted_conference_paper.pdf
Link 11 This comes from contemporary 1922 newspaper reports showing Arctic ice melting in 1922
http://www.examiner.com/x-32936-Seminole-County-Environmental-News-Examiner~y2010m3d2-Arctic-Ocean-is-warming-icebergs-growing-scarcer-reports-Washington-Post
i
Link 12 Apparent warming in 1969 Arctic
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/nyt_arctic_77442757.pdf
Link 13 This shows a variety of arctic warming events over the last 150 years
http://www.examiner.com/x-32936-Seminole-County-Environmental-News-Examiner~y2010m3d2-Arctic-Ocean-is-warming-icebergs-growing-scarcer-reports-Washington-Post
Link 14: Before we get to the Vikings let’s look at another Arctic culture that thrived 1000 years before them;
From the Eskimo Times Monday, Mar. 17, 1941
“The corner of Alaska nearest Siberia was probably man’s first threshold to the Western Hemisphere. So for years archeologists have dug there for a clue to America’s prehistoric past. Until last year, all the finds were obviously Eskimo. Then Anthropologists Froelich G. Rainey of the University of Alaska and two collaborators struck the remains of a town, of inciedible size and mysterious culture. Last week in Natural History Professor Rainey, still somewhat amazed, described this lost Arctic city.
It lies at Ipiutak on Point Hope, a bleak sandspit in the Arctic Ocean, where no trees and little grass survive endless gales at 30° below zero. But where houses lay more than 2,000 years ago, underlying refuse makes grass and moss grow greener. The scientists could easily discern traces of long avenues and hundreds of dwelling sites. A mile long, a quarter-mile wide, this ruined city was perhaps as big as any in Alaska today (biggest: Juneau, pop. 5,700).
On the Arctic coast today an Eskimo village of even 250 folk can catch scarcely enough seals, whales, caribou to live on. What these ancient Alaskans ate is all the more puzzling because they seem to have lacked such Arctic weapons as the Eskimo harpoon.
Yet they had enough leisure to make many purely artistic objects, some of no recognizable use. Their carvings are vaguely akin to Eskimo work but so sophisticated and elaborate as to indicate a relation with some centre of advanced culture — perhaps Japan or southern Siberia —certainly older than the Aztec or Mayan.
This link leads to the Academy of science report of the same year regarding the Ipiutak culture described above
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1078291
Link 15 A mention for the Vikings at last
“…The settlers found that the area to the north of the Western Settlement, called the Nordseta, was good for hunting, fishing and gathering driftwood. A stone inscribed with runes has been found telling that in 1333, three Greenlanders wintered on the island of Kingigtorssuaq just below 73 degrees north. There is also evidence of voyages to the Canadian arctic. Two cairns have been discovered in Jones Sound above 76 degrees North and two more have been found on Washington Irving Island at 79 degrees north….” http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/vikings/Greenland.html
This is situated on Eastern ellesmere island-Map here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Canada_geopolitical_map_trim.jpg
Link 16 This from the late John Daly has numerous references to previous periods of arctic warming.
http://www.john-daly.com/polar/arctic.htm
Link 17 We seem to have known more about dispersal of ice by wind and currents 150 years ago than we do now, factors which have a profound efect on extent, area, and melting. Many books date from the scientific expeditions mounted since 1820 that examined the ‘unprecdented ice melt in the arctic reported to the Royal Sociery. This book dates from 1870
http://www.archive.org/stream/arcticgeographye00roya#page/28/mode/2up
Certain of us seem reluctant to learn the lessons of history-in this case that there are periods of melting and refreeze of the Arctic area that appear to follow a roughly 60/70 year cycle. The satellite record coincided with one of the High spots of Arctic ice following a long cool period and we may or may not be at the low point in the cycle-that will become clearer over the next five years.
Tonyb
The term PDO is being slung around as though all know it as well as toilet paper. As it is not a simple number, say like an average of sea surface temperature readings, it may be time for a bit of reading. Try:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/04/misunderstandings-about-pdo-revised.html
Or this one:
http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/PDO.latest
Or this one:
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/PDO.htm
Quiz at 11:00.
I note that the Antarctic anomaly is positive and now larger than the Arctic negative anomaly. So total polar ice is back to average across the globe.
My guess is that the recent Arctic melts has more to do with a couple of warm winters and less snow, allowing an earlier detachment from land masses. This allowed the wind to play havoc in 2007. The recovery takes longer despite a return to normal temperatures/snow, because the arctic sheets are still detaching from landmasses during the melt season. This allows weather factors to cause compaction or drifting into warmer waters.
As the sheet recovers in thickness, the detachment from landmasses will be further delayed, until the sheet no longer is at risk from weather events. This is what has led to recent large oscillations between summer and winter extents. Assuming a recovery continues, this oscillation will diminish.
You bet ya.
It’s “Ya, you bet cha, eh” for the Yooper in everyone.
The only real question now is – will 2010 end up in the #2 or #3 spot?
I going with #2! I thought Texas could beat USC in the 2006 Rose Bowl too! 🙂
cross 2005 in DMi here:
http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/466/icecover20108910.png
cross 2005 in JAXA here:
http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/3798/amsreseaiceextentl8810.png
Tom P
PIPS factors concentration into their thickness maps.
Be a big boy and admit that I got it right.
“Could we break another record this year? I think it’s quite possible,” said Mark Serreze of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo.
With his short term prediction being this wrong there’s no reason to believe his long term prediction of the “death spiral”.
Reputation means a lot in this world. It seems to mean absolutely nothing in the ‘global warming’ world.
The vulnerable area for crossing to #2
http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/1073/dmicloseupaug82010.jpg
Breathtakingly Ignorant* WUWT – 1
Experts – 0
“An expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less, until eventually he knows everything about nothing.”
~unknown
Breathtakingly Ignorant* WUWT – 1
Experts – 0
“An expert is someone who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn’t happen today.”
~unknown
Breathtakingly Ignorant* WUWT – 1
Experts – 0
“Expert: Someone who brings confusion to simplicity”
~Gregory Nunn
Pamela Gray- one of my biggest fears, having grown up myself on a NE Oregon Wheat
and Cattle Ranch- is that Bitter cold/dry scenario. Happened a bit last Dec, when the
arctic air came down the Rockies and gave us here in NE Oregon a good cold, dry spell.
Happened back in the late ’40’s and early 50’s to the point that spring wheat was relpaced by barley by a lot of farmers. Yet the were some Hellacious snows then too.
Pop had to replace his truck with his and Granpa’s Clydesdale teams to get to town
with the Bobsled…
Don’t go no Clydesdale team now….
Breathtakingly Ignorant* WUWT – 1
Experts – 0
“What’s an expert? I read somewhere, that the more a man knows, the more he knows he doesn’t know. So I suppose one definition of an expert would be someone who doesn’t admit out loud that he knows enough about a subject to know he doesn’t really know how much.”
~Malcolm S. Forbes
Oh drat, it’s doing it again:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/seaice.anomaly.Ant_arctic.jpg
The horse refuses to be tamed.
tonyb: Thanks for that detailed information.
Arctic ice, like everything else in the climate system, will inevitably experience natural fluctuations. No-one’s disputing that. The fact that ice has increased and declined due to natural causes in the past doesn’t in itself mean that the current decline is natural. Agreed?
Link 1: The article doesn’t state that the decline started around 1976/9, nor that the decline from 1979 was from ‘a high point’.
Link 2: Same problem. The data only goes back to 1979.
Link 3: Same problem in the first two figures. Figure 4.10 actually shows that there was no ‘high point’ or ‘peak ice’ at 1979 (blue and red curves), disproving both you and Steven Goddard.
Link 4: The previously cited Figure 4.10 also shows that there was no significant growth in Arctic ice in the ’70s.
Link 5: Again, Figure 4.10 shows there was no ‘peak ice’ in the 1970s.
Link 6: You say “The IPCC are not very good at their historic reconstructions and generally view actual observations as ‘anecdotal.’ They seem to believe that history did not start before 1979”, whilst at the very same time citing a figure from IPCC AR4 which starts in the year 1860. Enough said on that I think.
Link 7: Again, we know that Arctic ice increased and declined in the past, but that doesn’t tell us much about why it’s declining now. What factors were in play in the 1920s – 1940s? Increasing TSI may have been involved then – it can’t be today, because TSI hasn’t increased in the last half century.
Link 8: Again, there was no ‘high level’ or ‘peak ice’ at the start of the satellite era. There is no evidence provided that this current long-term decline is a ‘cycle’ (by which I presume you mean non-anthropogenic).
Link 9: Again, melting in 1920 – 1940 doesn’t in itself tell us anything about the cause of the current long-term decline.
Link 10: Re-iterates my point about solar contribution to Arctic warming of 1920s – 1940s. Doesn’t in itself tell us anything about the cause of the current long-term decline.
Link 11: Adds nothing to the points you raised in earlier links.
Link 12: Seems to support the anthropogenic cause for current Arctic ice decline. Interesting that this was already well fleshed-out in 1969.
Link 13: Again, no-one’s disputing the fact that the Arctic ice has increased and declined in the past. This point seems to be what occupies most of the rest of your contribution.
My questions to you: What would the state of Arctic ice be in the last 30 years under purely natural conditions – i.e. with no anthropogenic influences? How would you know? You cited IPCC data when you thought it supported your position, so how about this IPCC graph?:
http://www.ipcc.ch/graphics/syr/fig2-5.jpg
It shows a clear divergence between models using only natural forcings, and models using both natural and anthropogenic forcings. Is there something similar for Arctic ice cover? It would be nice to know, wouldn’t it?
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts.”
~ Richard Feynman
Icarus says:
August 9, 2010 at 3:14 pm
Pamela Gray: You make a fair point, climate is a lot more complicated than a few points on a graph, but nevertheless I think Arctic sea ice extent must give us at least *some* indication of long-term climate in the region, and since a number of previous contributors were talking of a ‘recovery’ it seemed reasonable to ask where there was any sign of such a recovery in the ice extent data. From what I can tell, there isn’t one. Given the scale of year-to-year variations I think it would probably take at least 15 years and probably more for any significant deviation from the long-term decline to become clear.
Icarus, this post shows you are starting to increase your knowledge. Your silly decades comparison was proof that you know how to lie with statistics, nothing else.
I do believe just about everyone here already understands that Arctic sea ice has declined in the last 30 years. If that was your point then you have provided nothing that wasn’t already known. In addition, just about everyone here also knows the biggest part of that drop was due to the winds in 2007. Without that wind driven ice decrease it’s possible we’d being seeing much larger extents now.
The most interesting thing is that it appears we are going to see the 3rd straight year of recovery for an extremely weakened ice pack. That is also interesting since it demonstrates that the ice is not as easy to melt as many of the “experts” have obviously predicted. It also should tell you that something is happening. Once you open your eyes to ALL that is going around you may actually begin to learn something. Good luck.
@ rbateman
“Make a roulette wheel with regions instead of red & black numbers.”
The boys at MIT got a government grant to come up with their spinning wheel climate predictor, here you are giving away a similar idea for free.
Mike says:
August 9, 2010 at 11:44 am
SG on June 2: “Conclusion : Should we expect a nice recovery this summer due to the thicker ice? You bet ya. Even if all the ice less than 2.5 metres thick melted this summer, we would still see a record high minimum in the DMI charts.”
Mark Serreze on May 20: “Could we break another record this year? I think it’s quite possible.”
The results to date:
“Arctic sea ice extent averaged for July was the second lowest in the satellite record, after 2007. After a slowdown in the rate of ice loss, the old, thick ice that moved into the southern Beaufort Sea last winter is beginning to melt out.”
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
SG – 0.0
MS – 0.8
This is why we don’t let students grade themselves.”
And we shouldnt grade until the test is complete. Lets see where were at the minimum extent. Steve has predicted a minimum extent of 5.5 million sq km for most of the season and it looks like being quite accurate. He said the recovery would be due to thicker ice which is clearly only going to become evident as we move towards the end of the season. Steve also correctly predicted the slowdown in July.
Naturally the extent through July was going to be low after the rapid rates of FIRST YEAR ICE in warm conditions during May and June.
On the other hand Mark Sereeze has pushed the possiblity of a record low extent most of the season which I guess was pretty easy when he saw rapid rates of loss during May/June. It is now patently obvious were not going to get near the 2007 minimum. Thats a big fail in my books, even more so given the position Mark is in.
All I can say is I’m glad I didnt have you grading me whilst I was in school. I probably would have dropped out in frustration.
Today’s north-pole-camera picture is partly obscured by snow on lens, but seems to show melt-water pool near camera is completely covered by fresh snow.
Regarding coming winter:
Some anomaly maps show three degrees above normal in Northeast USA. A cozy rose color, on anomaly maps. Don’t be fooled. January’s average temperature in Boston is 29, and three degrees above normal is 32, still plenty cold enough for snow. In fact, warmer is often moister, so snow may be all the more likely.
The same maps show it colder than normal up near the pole. This may indicate the arctic air is trapped up there for long periods. However it also suggests that, although arctic outbreaks may be rare, when they do come charging down they are likely to be super cold. Therefore the “mild” winter in the northeast may get a couple of cold waves that stand out in people’s memories for years afterwards.
Icarus says:
August 9, 2010 at 1:17 pm
In what context was there ‘unusually high ice’? A recent study by the Northern Arizona University and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) finds that Arctic temperature has been rising for the last 100 years or so —-
2 points of interest. You rely on a biased, discredited Higher Authority. UCAR.
Last 100 years or so.. Industrialisation has not been linear. WW2 was the catalyst for most of what we take as heavy industry. Inclusive of home appliances, aircons, lighting etc. So if the warming has been going on for 100 years or so what was the warming factor caused by?? Natural??
regards
One thing Mr. Bastardi is aware of is that an anomaly of a degree at the poles represents far less energy than a degree at the equator.
For a rough example, it takes ten times as much energy to raise water from 60 to 61 as it does to raise water from 40 to 41. It takes a hundred times as much energy to raise water from 80 to 81 as it does to raise water from 40 to 41.
Most anomaly maps are based on temperature alone, and people get fooled by them. They see water is cherry red in the arctic, three degrees above the normal 32, and merely light pink at the equator, where water is merely a half degree above the normal 90, and people assume there is more energy in the arctic, “because it is redder.” In fact the half degree anomaly at the equator may represent a hundred times as much energy as the three degree anomaly up towards the poles.
What is needed is an anomaly map based on available energy, as opposed to mere temperature.
As Mr. Bastardi explains the patterns he sees, he seems to have a intuitive grasp of the actual energy involved, likely due to years of diligent work.
Mike
NSIDC had a little glitch last week in their ice measurements. ;^)
Hey, Cryosphere actually responded to me re their archives being down. First time I’ve accomplished a response from them in 3 or 4 tries.
One Bill Chapman writes:
“I hope to have some time to work on this next week. It is likely we will keep the coarse-resolution images from the SSMI source so that recent images can be readily compared with corresponding images back to the late 1970s. (apples vs. apples)
Thanks for writing.”
I had suggested/hoped that perhaps their down time was due to an upgrade in the archives to the newer higher-res images (at least as far back as they have them), which explains his comment re continuing with the older lower-res ones.
But still, good news nonetheless –it is a temporary issue that should be addressed soonish.
Anthony, I am using your wonderful site to make sure people can see the truth as measured by objective sources.. What you have done is wonderful
For those wondering about the very cold winter for much of polar regions of the northern hemisphere.. its my forecast. I think Alaska, much of Asia and the polar regions are in for a colder than normal winter with the second half worse than the first.. I think Alaska is in for a top 10 cold winter, and only a lag up front might stop it .. the cold PDO and what I see in the hemispheric pattern, the same thing by the way that had me call the La Nina in Feb and the hot summers in the US and much of europe and Asia… are evolving nicely for a global drop in temp to levels comparable to the post nino of 97-98 and in the extreme case, the post Pinitubo levels. But I do have model support, if not with the silly CFS, it is very cold Jan on, then Frontier research center modeling, which has been doing very well on the heat of the summer. Take a look at it, and scroll down to the winter season. You will see that it is in support of my ideas
http://www.jamstec.go.jp/frsgc/research/d1/iod/
In answer to Where do I see this? In the research I do to come up with forecasts. I work in the private sector, and if the long range forecast going out to clients who have to use it to make money were not of value, then I would not be in demand. These forecasts you see go out far in advance to people that are my clients. But I dont have a secret model..THERE ARE NO SHORT CUTS, only hard work and the willingness to take a stand and face the truth. from tomorrow, through the next decade and beyond, hence the AGW issue to me, a BIG FORECAST, which I am confident I am going to get right! . And again, no grants, no academia, if I am wrong, it means people drop me. I get no benefit for being a mouth piece for anything, unless I am right. So when winter is over, we shall see if it was cold in the areas I am forecasting it to be. I think this winter is very bad in Alaska and part of a package of cold that will engulf much of the arctic regions.
A cold PDO does not yield a warm winter in Alaska, though I think the second half is nastier than the first half. If you see Sarah Palin, make sure you warn her (lol)
Caleb,
You wrote :
“it takes ten times as much energy to raise water from 60 to 61 as it does to raise water from 40 to 41. It takes a hundred times as much energy to raise water from 80 to 81 as it does to raise water from 40 to 41.”
1 calorie will raise 1 gram 1 degree Celsius. 1 calorie = 4.186 joules
There is no component of absolute temperature.
Caleb says:
August 9, 2010 at 7:37 pm
One thing Mr. Bastardi is aware of is that an anomaly of a degree at the poles represents far less energy than a degree at the equator.
For a rough example, it takes ten times as much energy to raise water from 60 to 61 as it does to raise water from 40 to 41. It takes a hundred times as much energy to raise water from 80 to 81 as it does to raise water from 40 to 41.
Most anomaly maps are based on temperature alone, and people get fooled by them. They see water is cherry red in the arctic, three degrees above the normal 32, and merely light pink at the equator, where water is merely a half degree above the normal 90, and people assume there is more energy in the arctic, “because it is redder.” In fact the half degree anomaly at the equator may represent a hundred times as much energy as the three degree anomaly up towards the poles.
What is needed is an anomaly map based on available energy, as opposed to mere temperature.
======================================
Repeated here for effect.
Caleb. Outstanding post. Thank you.
Reminds me of how Hurricane Ike, when it absolutely flattened the Bolivar Peninsula in Texas in 2008 with a CAT-4 [at least] storm surge, but with only a CAT-2 Saffir-Simpson rating, as its winds were only 110 MPH.
But the total available energy of the storm, measured in joules, was much more than the normal “2” classification.
This was warned in advance, and so that was good.
But it also showed major weaknesses in the warning and classification system…and that a one-dimensional label will not suffice.
Same as in the case of your suggestions for improvement here.
They make total sense.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Icarus
Since you like looking at the longer term (which is a better metric of climate) take a look at these and tell me the trend or can you see a pattern?
Click, click, click, click, click, click, click and click
Icarus,
Here is a media perspective concerning climate fears about warming and cooling over the past 100 years plus:
http://www.businessandmedia.org/specialreports/2006/fireandice/fireandice.asp
http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/1895_cvr1_0.png
http://newsbusters.org/node/11640
http://anotherviewonclimate.wordpress.com/2010/01/15/time-announces-approaching-ice-age/
As you can clearly see there is nothing new here. :o)
Dan in California says:
August 9, 2010 at 8:47 am
I recall last year when they were wringing their hands about the all-time minimum ice thickness, but now that’s recovering, and they are silent on that too.
Some are still insisting there is rotted/alarmingly thin ice because the PIOMAS graph shows that. But, of course, the PIOMAS graph is based on a hypothesis. And, we know too, that when a hypothesis doesn’t have supporting evidence that hypothesis is wrong.
geo says:
August 9, 2010 at 8:53 am
a Carnac the Magnificent hat for Anthony if he hits that close predicting almost a year in advance.
He predicted that last year?
R. Gates says:
August 9, 2010 at 8:15 am
General question, if anybody knows: Where does Joe Bastardi’s “brutally cold N. Hemisphere winter” for this upcoming winter come from? What is the basis? I don’t follow him at all, but I’d be curious to find out his basis for forecasting.
Do research on it. You’ll find out.
jcrabb says:
August 9, 2010 at 9:49 am
The PDO has been moving into a cooler regime for the last 10 years, from the warm phase of 20 years prior and still this period is warmest in the relevant time frame. This seems to suggest the PDO is losing some influence, as Global temperatures should have been heading back towards late 1940′s temp’s when the PDO phase was similar.
You have to take into account El Nino.
DR says:
August 9, 2010 at 9:54 am
An interesting quote from Joe Bastardi:
If you’re wrong you get fired; that’s what the private sector’s about.
If you’re a government global warming scientist and you’re wrong you get peer-review saying you’re right and a government whitewash pass saying you did ‘standard practice’.
Cool pics–
recent relevant–
http://solarcycle24com.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=globalwarming&thread=1179&page=88#52966
Icarus says:
August 9, 2010 at 11:50 am
Where is there any evidence of a ‘recovery’?
Lay off the kool aid. You’ll see it.
When I put in a Sea Ice Outlook, what was amazing to me was how little this strong El Nino/La Nina year impacted the other Outlooks.
Joe Bastardi: you should put in an Outlook.. As should Wayne Davidson. In September 2009 he stated, based on 25 years’ Arctic Experience: “If El-Nino persists till the spring, and La-Nina follows, ships at the Pole will wander unobstructed in August 2010”. http://www.eh2r.com/
El Nino = Hot = Me
La Nina = cold = Joe
Fast Nino/Nina Transition = Sunny skies = Wayne Davidson.
As this was an El Nino “Modoki” it faded more slowly than Normal, confounding Wayne, & the Indexes (CTI, ONI, etc) implied 6-to-9 weeks between the Clouds after June 26th & High Pressure = Clear Skies. The 6-week lagged High Pressure is here – – but so are the Clouds ! – – and the 10-day forecast suggests a return of the Low (but so STRONG it, oddly, ought to lose a lot of Ice through Fram Strait – – but the Cascade Melt I expected from the Sun heating the “Deep Blue Sea” – – a (9 week) delay till Aug 20 looks too late in the year to get Strong Sunlight.)
10-day forecast — click N. Hemis(phere) at http://www.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten/fsecmeur.html.
Daily JAXA:_______2007________ 2010_________(2009)__
Aug 7-8________- 75,625 _____ – 50,313 _______(-43,281)
Aug 8-9________- 83,750 _____ – 76,094prelim.__(-35,000)
Aug 9-10_______ -37,500 _____ – ?___ ? _______(-45,819)
As Steve predicted 2010 would “roll back” 2009, 2009 must make up 195,309 km2 real fast.
That looks as likely as my 1 million km2 Forecast.
OCEAN CURRENT STOP ? : RISK : net -3.5% = 6.5 % … and under 1% if the clouds hold 3 more weeks*.
* minus 0.1% if under 150K ice loss, .2 under 100K, 0.4% if under 50K//Add if Over 150K/day.
Richard M said:
August 9, 2010 at 6:20 pm
A lot of very patronising sounding comments unfairly aimed at Icarus. In there however there was a mention of the following
“I do believe just about everyone here already understands that Arctic sea ice has declined in the last 30 years. If that was your point then you have provided nothing that wasn’t already known.”
You need to tell Steve Goddard that because he has said twice in this thread that there was unusually high ice in the 1980s, so ice cannot been in decline for 30 years if you believe him. However I think you are both wrong, if you look at this
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seasonal.extent.1900-2007.jpg
it seems ice has been declining from before the 1980’s and the 1980’s doesn’t look too out of the ordinary.
Richard M also said:-
“In addition, just about everyone here also knows the biggest part of that drop was due to the winds in 2007.”
That’s because that claim keeps getting spouted here, it does not make it totally correct. True winds did play a part, but as they were warm southerly winds from Siberia ice loss was due to melt (or ablation if the word melt makes you feel you have become an AGW supporter) as well as compaction. Coinsidentally, 2007 was also a very sunny year in the Arctic, which helped also with even more mel…ablation 😉
Yikes! After reading all the above comments I put “ice free north pole” into Bing.
I got 53,200,000 hits! Surely we are doomed.
(ps. Gaurdian was best. First ice free north pole in 50 million years.)
AndyW says: August 9, 2010 at 10:48 pm
“it seems ice has been declining from before the 1980′s and the 1980′s doesn’t look too out of the ordinary.”
Actually the ice has been in decline for about 9000 years. Once it was over 1 km thick covering much of the northern hemisphere, most of it is gone, maybe all of it will go someday, but it will be back. So don’t worry.
A one km thick slab of ice covering all of Canada is just as normal and just as natural as fruit trees, grasses and furry woodland creatures on Elsmere Island.
It has all happened before and it will all happen again, it is normal, it is natural.
AndyW
It was Dr. Walt Meier at NSIDC who said that ice was unusually high in the early 80s. Why did you try to change attribution of that remark to me?
The 2007 event was primarily due to wind. I have written several articles detailing that topic.
RE: Icarus says: (August 9, 2010 at 11:50 am ) “Arctic ice appears to be declining consistently, in every calendar month:”
My best-fit, 5-line segment approximation of my unofficial calculated NSIDC anomaly plot still shows a strong recovery rate since 2007:
Segment-Dates Anomaly Seg-Slope Seg 1000 sq-km 1000 No. Start End Start End sq-km/yr 1 1978.875 1987.708 679.1 374.7 -34.5 2 1987.708 1990.466 374.7 189.8 -67.0 3 1990.466 2001.625 189.8 -117.1 -27.5 4 2001.625 2007.625 -117.1 -1029.2 -152.0 5 2007.625 2010.542 -1029.2 -593.4 149.4The internal break-point dates were automatically selected for best fit. All segments were required to have a minimum two-year duration.
I simplify my decimal dates for monthly data are as:
YearDate= [year] + ([month] – .5)/12
Steve,
What was the glitch last week in NSIDC’s ice measurements? I must have missed that one.
“Does anyone know whether a climate scientist (pro AGW) has stated on the record giving an outline of what would falsify AGW theory?”
http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2008/05/falsifiability-question.html
A good start would be to build a physics based climate model that does a better job at explaining not only the current warming but also climate changes in the past, with a very low climate sensitivity. Good luck!
Icarus says:
August 9, 2010 at 11:50 am
You just provided it in your link. I suggest you look at the slopes of how lines starting at 2007 would look. Only a few years, but how long does it take before it’s considered a recovery? Many would agree 1 year is not enough data. 2 years is more in between. But year 3 now?…I would definitely argue it’s (the start of) a recovery if we bottom out above 2009 this year (not convinced we will yet).
For a graphical illustration, I suggest plotting x^2 from -10 to, say, 4, or plot sin(x)+1 from pi/2 to 2*pi. Would you argue with those recoveries?
-Scott
Hi Icarus
Thanks for reading my 17 links. Firstly I said about the IPCC that;
“…generally they view actual observations as ‘anecdotal.’
The main point being made was that we have this tendancy to believe that everything post satellite is entirely factual and anything before that always needs to be treated with great circumspection. Computer models and linear projections are a poor substitute for actual observations
I think you have summed up the situation in your inital paragraphs;
“Arctic ice, like everything else in the climate system, will inevitably experience natural fluctuations. No-one’s disputing that. The fact that ice has increased and declined due to natural causes in the past doesn’t in itself mean that the current decline is natural. Agreed?”
The fact-which you don’t appear to dispute- is that arctic ice comes and goes with astonishing regularity, sometimes melting for decades-as with the period from 1820 and 1920- and sometimes for much longer, as with the Vikings and Ipiatuk.
The fact-which again I don’t think you dispute-is that during the 1970’s there was a especially cold period as noted by Hubert Lamb of CRU, the Russians and the CIA. Whether the high point of ice coincided exactly with the advent of satellites in 1979 or preceded it by a few years is by the by. Ice has been mostly declining from this high point ever since.
Bearing in mind that arctic ice has this tendency to wax and wane, it makes the current situation the ‘norm’ rather than unprecedented. Why then do you believe this modern episode is out of the ordinary and caused by man rather than by the natural causes that have been the case many times in the past?
Whilst our records are less extensive for the Antarctic, Hubet Lamb believed-as I have come to as well- that ice levels in one hemisphere will increase as the other decreases. We sem to have been seeing this in recent times. I do not pretend to know the cause, just that it means total global ice is kept in rough equilibrium.
By the way I do believe the earth has been warming, instrumental records show this rise dates back to 1698 rather than 1880. James Hansen merely plugged Giss figures into the latter stages of this long rise, which has had numerous setbacks and advances along the way, but has clearly been occurring for many hundreds of years.
tonyb
Spector: I’m skeptical of your claim of a ‘recovery’ of Arctic sea ice extent. I have aggregated all twelve of the monthly Arctic sea ice extent graphs here:
https://sites.google.com/site/europa62/climatechange/arctic-sea-ice-extent
Surely if there was a detectable recovery from the long term decline in progress, we would expect to see substantially more than half of the monthly values above the long-term declining trendline, for at least the last few years… but we don’t see that at all. Taking the last data point for each graph, for example, we actually have only 3 points above the trendlines and 9 on or below the trendlines. How many years of consistently above-trendline values would we have to see, in order to have some confidence that there was a change from the long-term declining trend? I don’t know how to calculate this but intuitively I would think at least 10 years. What do you think?
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
August 9, 2010 at 10:17 pm
You have to take into account El Nino.
El Nino has been occuring for thousands of years, why would it now start increasing global temperatures? also La Nina have been still occuring, countering the warming effect.
Steve,
You claim “PIPS factors concentration into their thickness maps.”
There are three good reasons to doubt your bald assertion:
1. There is absolutely nothing on the PIPS website to indicate this. There are separate thickness maps and concentration maps, but no map claims to be a combination of the two that can be used to derive volumes. But maybe you have an email from the PIPS team to support your assertion.
2. Only by using both concentration and thickness can you get good agreement with the data on ice volume published by Posey from the PIPS team.
3. It you were right, then to derive a true thickness you would need to divide the presented “thickness” maps by concentration. But that gives ice thicknesses off the PIPS scale, way thicker than 5 metres.
4. Deriving volumes using both the thickness and concentration maps gives the relatively smoothly varying plots I presented. This is to be expected. While area is strongly affected by wind and currents, volume is not.
You certainly are very reluctant to combine thickness and concentration to derive ice volumes. I’m unsure whether this stems from an inability to do image processing on more than one image at a time with your proprietary software, or a dislike of what a proper calculation indicates.
Scott: The ‘recovery’ you suggest from 2007 is a recovery from an even more precipitous decline back to the merely steady long-term decline since 1979. It’s not even a recovery back to a stable state, let alone a recovery back to increasing ice extent. Look at the 12 monthly graphs of Arctic sea ice extent and tell me honestly if you see any significant number of points *above* the declining trendline in recent years, rather than below. You can’t. If anything, there are more below the trendline in recent years than above, indicating that the decline may be accelerating. Agreed?
Tom P,
If you look at the PIPS maps, regions of low concentration ice are clearly shown as thin ice. Compare the PIPS map vs. satellite images. Particularly, note the region near the North Pole.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/pips2/ithi.html
Matt
On August 4 (the date of their last newsletter) NSIDC showed a downwards glitch in the ice which has since been corrected. Unfortunately that glitch is immortalized in their newsletter, and gives the wrong impression about the state of the ice.
The video below shows the changes since the newsletter came out.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg0EJ6z3qcA]
“Teacher! Leave them kids alone…”
Stevengoddard, I used to sing that song to my students in the eighties.
George E Smith: “So I had to map out my own drainage ditches…have stepped in a few myself, but seldom the same one.” Classic case of Karl Popper’s Searchlight Theory of Learning. No question it’s been effective in your case. Must say I’ve gleaned a bit from your musings these last couple of years.
Steve you wrote :-
“unusually high ice conditions of the early 1980s.”
so I thought you agreed with him? ie the downward trend we see on NSIDC’s graphs is not due to a deathspiral but actually just return from very high values in the 1980’s. But I guess you don’t agree with that like I don’t.
Andy
From: Tom P on August 10, 2010 at 5:34 am
Reality check.
Your “summary” graph:
http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/2114/volumes.png
It shows volume increases during the melt season. If you have properly accounted for concentration etc as you have claimed, then there must be some reason why the Arctic gained sea ice during the melt season. Please supply additional info as to how such volume increases occurred.
Steve,
You claim “If you look at the PIPS maps, regions of low concentration ice are clearly shown as thin ice.”
Areas of thin ice are to be expected to be more prone to breakup in open conditions, and hence tend to have low concentration. But look at NW of Baffin Island which has concentrations above 80% of the thinnest ice in a nearly landlocked sea.
This all hardly implies that PIPS ice-thickness maps somehow incorporate concentration while for some reason not mentioning this anywhere.
The video below shows the changes since the newsletter came out.</i?
Must be that new fade cream.
AndyW says:
August 10, 2010 at 6:55 am
Steve you wrote :-
“unusually high ice conditions of the early 1980s.”
so I thought you agreed with him? ie the downward trend we see on NSIDC’s graphs is not due to a deathspiral but actually just return from very high values in the 1980′s. But I guess you don’t agree with that like I don’t.
Andy
———————————————————————————————
I certainly won’t try to speak for Steven Goddard.
But I’ll say that to say “unusually high ice conditions” isn’t right. It wasn’t unusually high. The earth had cooled from ~1945 to ~1976 and that created a larger ice mass at the Arctic that lasted into the 80’s. It wasn’t unusual because the earth always warms and cools and the mass of Arctic ice always increase and decreases. So the early 80’s weren’t unusual. It was usual.
There is a problem though, something that really is unusual, with comparing Arctic ice today after a natural warming time from ~1976 to ~1999 that caused Arctic ice mass to decrease to a time when it had increased and then concluding the difference is from ‘global warming’.
Icarus says: (August 10, 2010 at 3:55 am) “Spector: I’m skeptical of your claim of a ‘recovery’ of Arctic sea ice extent. I have aggregated all twelve of the monthly Arctic sea ice extent graphs here:”
Recovery, per se, is yet to occur. My curve indicates that a line with a relatively high positive slope or recovery *rate* best fits my reduced data since 2007.625 and that a break-point at that date provides the best fit of recent data.
I have taken the NSIDC monthly arctic sea-ice data and re-ordered it to create a simple sequential time record. My unofficial anomalies are calculated by subtracting a calculated Fourier series approximation of the annual melt-freeze cycle automatically averaged over the largest available central integer year period.
kadaka (KD Knoebel)
The underlying data input into PIPS 2.0 is from microwave satellite observations of the Arctic. These are bound to have day-to-day variations irrespective of any changes in the ice due to weather conditions that interfere with the measurements. Hence some jitter is always to be expected. On top of that, there are variations in the ice extent itself which depend on winds and current as well as melt. JAXA average over five days to reduce these effects. The ice volume calculations show much less variation, although they will still be prone to noise in the measurements.
Therefore it’s hardly surprising that the volume plots don’t decrease each and every day, but it is notable that they are much smoother than the corresponding plots of ice area.
Tom P
PIPS has been an incredibly valuable data source for forecasting ice behaviour. My short and long term forecasts have been almost perfect this year as a result.
Compare the accuracy of my forecasts to those of the experts.
Icarus says:
August 10, 2010 at 5:35 am
You sure do like straight lines. Given how much you like them, how far back do you think they go from before 1979? 10 years? 50 years? 1000 years? Clearly, these straight lines are just a way to visualize data and aren’t based on fundamental laws of physics, so why is your analysis so focused on it?
Can you define what is significant here? March, April, and May ALL have 3 years in a row well above your magical line. I don’t know what you consider significant, but if the number 10 you present here
Icarus says:
August 10, 2010 at 3:55 am
is any indication, you have impossibly high standards. In fact, looking at the graphs you link to, none of the months have exhibit data with more than the last three years BELOW the trendline either. Using your number of 10, there’s no way in the world you can back up your statement that the decline is accelerating, correct? Especially considering that 3 years is the most either of us can do in number of adjacent points on a side of a trendline? So why do the skeptics need 10 years on one side of the trendline, and you only need three for your claims? I guess recovery is weather, but decline is climate (with a line that has the oceans completely covered in ice not too long ago).
-Scott
RE: stevengoddard says:
August 9, 2010 at 8:30 pm
Thanks for stating the rule about calories.
I was trying to describe a dynamic but doing a lousy job. Will try again later, but no time now.
Scott: You’re right, it can’t be legitimately claimed that the decline in Arctic sea ice extent is accelerating, based on a majority of recent data points being below the trendlines, because the time period is too short to draw that conclusion – that was really my point. For that reason, which you highlighted in your reply, you certainly have to withdraw your claim that there is evidence of a ‘recovery’ based on the last 3 years of data. Agreed? All we can say *at the moment*, based on that data, is that there is no evidence of any significant deviation from that long-term decline.
I agree.
Steve,
You say “PIPS has been an incredibly valuable data source for forecasting ice behaviour. My short and long term forecasts have been almost perfect this year as a result.”
You’ve changed your tune from June when you said “I’m not interested in the ability of PIPS to forecast into the future.”
Going back to your first forecast, again in June: “Based on current ice thickness, we should expect September extent/area to come in near the top of the JAXA rankings (near 2003 and 2006.)”
Not many days left until your first prediction strikes out.
But as Groucho Marx nearly said, “If you don’t like my predictions, I have others”…
But this new prediction of yours actually overestimated the melt by quite a margin for the last two months: http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/4500/goddardpredict.png
I’ve a new prediction, that like a stopped clock that is right twice a day, sometime in in the next month your dotted line will intersect the JAXA plot. But I’m also sticking with what I wrote at the beginning of June: “I think it’s very likely that this year’s minimum ice volume will be lower than the 2007 value, as calculated by either PIPS or PIOMAS.”
“”” Beth Cooper says:
August 10, 2010 at 6:55 am
“Teacher! Leave them kids alone…”
Stevengoddard, I used to sing that song to my students in the eighties.
George E Smith: “So I had to map out my own drainage ditches…have stepped in a few myself, but seldom the same one.” Classic case of Karl Popper’s Searchlight Theory of Learning. No question it’s been effective in your case. Must say I’ve gleaned a bit from your musings these last couple of years. “””
Beth, It only takes a single post such as yours to convince me that it is well worth putting in the effort here at this wonderful forum.
And if we can have some laughs at ourselves at the same time; that is always good. I came here to learn like I suspect most do; and I didn’t set out to try and convince folks who probably know a whole lot more about this stuff than I do.
If I can help just one person to see some of these issues in a clearer light; then it is well worth the time it takes.
As I have said quite often:- Ignorance is NOT a disease; we are all born with it. But stupidity has to be taught; and there are plenty who for their own ends are willing to teach stupidity. And I have only contempt for those who do have special knowledge; but choose to use that to obfuscate; often for some agenda they prefer we don’t discover.
George
From the looks of things, I would suppose that the AGW skeptics will be needed to find a term for their sea ice “recovery” which is really of course a non-recovery from the longer term decline it has been in…perhaps…um, “recovery spiral”?
Excerpt from: Tom P on August 10, 2010 at 9:41 am
Since PIOMAS exists to show declining Arctic sea ice, which it does quite faithfully, and you only will accept a PIPS volume calculation done your way, your ice volume prediction has about as much value as predicting it won’t snow in central Pennsylvania tomorrow.
Which is a shame, as we could really use some precipitation. Stupid
Anthropogenic Global Warming based long term climatic shiftweather!Amino Acids in Meteorites said:
August 10, 2010 at 7:24 am
” The earth had cooled from ~1945 to ~1976 and that created a larger ice mass at the Arctic that lasted into the 80′s.”
But that doesn’t tally with what Crysosphere are suggesting on the graphs
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seasonal.extent.1900-2007.jpg
Fom 1945 to 1976 there is no increase at all. Indeed the drop off seems to have started before the 1980’s and the satellite record.
Or is that graph just completely wrong?
Andy
Icarus says:
August 10, 2010 at 9:17 am
You’re sort of comparing apples and oranges here because you’re making your claims based on positioning of points relative to a ~30-year trendline, whereas my claims were based on starting the measurements at 2007 instead of a possible high point of ~1980. However, I do agree that claiming recovery this early should not be done, but nor should there be claims of “no recovery”, as the trendlines since 2007 look to me to be positive, and that’s what initially aggravated me. That and using a 30-year trend to ensure that any recent upticks were ignored.
I agree with this statement only if the line “long-term decline” is replaced with “last 30 years”. We simply don’t know enough about the ice status before then, particularly LIA versus MWP. That was my point. If warmists want to claim a 30-year trend as being representative, what’s wrong with me choosing a 3- or 4-year trend? I’d much prefer at least hundreds of years of data to see how significant an effect humans are having.
-Scott
Bart says:
August 10, 2010 at 1:06 am
“Does anyone know whether a climate scientist (pro AGW) has stated on the record giving an outline of what would falsify AGW theory?”
—————————————————–
Data can falsify the AGW theory, nothing else. There is no need for AGW sceptics to come with a better theory. The data can falsify the AGW theory in two ways. A) The warming turns out to be predominantly not negative. B) The warming as predicted does not take place in a significant way.
So maybe someone else has commented on this, but Dr. Serreze terms WUWT as “breathtakingly ignorant” when it makes the same prediction as his own NSIDC? I find that interesting…
-Scott
RE: Icarus says: (August 10, 2010 at 9:17 am) “All we can say *at the moment*, based on that data, is that there is no evidence of any significant deviation from that long-term decline.”
That is quite true; however, there is also no proven reason to expect that any such decline should continue indefinitely. Recently there has been a strong positive signal that may be the first sign of a reversal of the old trend.
As the combination of Arctic and Antarctic sea-ice extent seems to have remained relatively constant over the last thirty years, perhaps, one day, the lexicon of meteorology will contain a term like ‘Trans-Arctic Oscillation’ to describe the shared activity of the Arctic and Antarctic regions.
More from: Tom P on August 10, 2010 at 9:41 am
Minimum extents per IARC-JAXA:
2003 September 18: 6,032,031 km^2
2006 September 14: 5,781,719 km^2
And to toss it out there,
2004 September 11: 5,784,688 km^2
2005 September 22: 5,315,156 km^2
2002 September 09: 5,646,875 km^2 <- short year, start of record
Those are the highest minimums, and 2010 sure looks like it'll be near or in that group. Also looks like it'll be more than a month until we know.
Whoa, what’d you pull that graph out of? Not to comment much on your graph doctoring skills, but Steve’s down for 5.5×10^6 km^2, with yours it looks closer to 5.7. Also at 200% zoom your graph is “dirty,” I can see the pasted-in section and by the way the y-axis lines don’t match up I can see some scaling was done.
Back at the
ArcticSea Ice News #17 Steve said:At this point, barring anything miraculously terrible, it will be the highest since 2006 and will beat 2005 as well.
With the new prediction, it sure looks like he’s admitted he overestimated the melt, or to put it properly he overestimated the amount of extent loss. But he’ll likely be off in the -0.2 to 0.0 million km^2 range. Going by the amounts the professionals blow it in the SEARCH Sea Ice Outlooks, that’s actually quite good. Besides, since he overestimated then there is more ice extent than he thought there’d be. What’s wrong with there being more ice than expected?
Spector said:
“Recently there has been a strong positive signal that may be the first sign of a reversal of the old trend.”
______
Define “strong positive signal” please. We’ve not seen a positive Arctic Sea ice anomaly since 2004, so how can there be a sign of reversal in a multi-decadal downtrend in Arctic sea ice without even having a positive Arctic sea ice anomaly?
stevengoddard,
From someone whose prediction for the sea ice extent minimum is higher (admittedly, in some cases only very slightly) than the minimum that will result if the remaining melt from this date to the minimum is the same as in any year since 2002 inclusive (based on JAXA extent data), that’s a lot of premature triumphalism. I think you were on safer ground in July when were saying it was all about the winds. If, as you’ve written, 2007 was mostly about compaction of the ice pack rather than melt, can you really rule out that the weather will shift to favour compaction again between now and the end of the melt season? If so, on what basis? I wasn’t aware long range weather forecasting was quite that good yet.
From: AndyW on August 10, 2010 at 12:23 pm
For one thing that graph is “Northern Hemisphere” not “Arctic” sea ice…
Looks like everything was going fine and level, then things started going haywire in 1952. You got an explanation for that?
Scott: On the whole I applaud your reply. More than 30 years’ worth of reliable data would be nice – It was interesting to see the section in IPCC AR4 cited by tonyb earlier –
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter4.pdf
Page 352, Fig 4.10 shows data back to 1860 but I presume the data is much less reliable the further back you go. I wouldn’t rely too much on the ‘uptick’ from the dramatically low ice extent of 2007 as a hint of good news to come, but only time will tell, eh?
R. Gates says:
August 10, 2010 at 2:40 pm
I suggest plotting x^2 from -10 to 4, or plot sin(x) from pi/10 to 2*pi. The linear trend is still downward for those plots and the last sections of their plots show negative anomalies, yet clearly they show a strong positive signal at the end of their plots. Do the final upticks reverse the sign on the linear trends? No (and the sinusoidal one will never go positive). Of course, Spector never said it did, he said “may be the first sign of reversal of the old trend”.
-Scott
RE: AndyW says:
August 10, 2010 at 12:23 pm
Amino Acids in Meteorites said:
August 10, 2010 at 7:24 am
” The earth had cooled from ~1945 to ~1976 and that created a larger ice mass at the Arctic that lasted into the 80′s.”
But that doesn’t tally with what Crysosphere are suggesting on the graphs
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seasonal.extent.1900-2007.jpg
Fom 1945 to 1976 there is no increase at all. Indeed the drop off seems to have started before the 1980′s and the satellite record.
Or is that graph just completely wrong?
_______________
We went through this at Climateaudit a couple of years ago. The originators of that graph had a statement cautioning the use of the graph as a lot was interpolating and estimation. Bottom line – do not use. Someone else posted other info (do not recall now, but some may have been from Russia) which had a lot more variability and was more consistent with previous warm periods.
RE: R. Gates: (August 10, 2010 at 2:40 pm) “Define ‘strong positive signal’ please. We’ve not seen a positive Arctic Sea ice anomaly since 2004, so how can there be a sign of reversal in a multi-decadal downtrend in Arctic sea ice without even having a positive Arctic sea ice anomaly?”
The signal I was referring to the net increase at a rate of 149,390 sq-km per year over the last three years as opposed net decrease rates of 152,040, 27,500, 67,050, and 34,460 sq-km per year in the other segments of an optimized, five-segment, poly-line approximation. As the Arctic has not even repaired the loss created in the previous line segment, there would be no positive anomalies in this data.
Richard M says:
“I do believe just about everyone here already understands that Arctic sea ice has declined in the last 30 years. If that was your point then you have provided nothing that wasn’t already known. In addition, just about everyone here also knows the biggest part of that drop was due to the winds in 2007.”
_____
Hmm…we’ve got the famous “winds in 2007” now going back in time and causing the slow decline in Arctic Sea Ice extent that was seen for decades before that? Really? Wow, those really were some powerful winds that can blow backward in time…
Spector says:
August 10, 2010 at 6:07 pm
RE: R. Gates: (August 10, 2010 at 2:40 pm) “Define ‘strong positive signal’ please. We’ve not seen a positive Arctic Sea ice anomaly since 2004, so how can there be a sign of reversal in a multi-decadal downtrend in Arctic sea ice without even having a positive Arctic sea ice anomaly?”
The signal I was referring to the net increase at a rate of 149,390 sq-km per year over the last three years as opposed net decrease rates of 152,040, 27,500, 67,050, and 34,460 sq-km per year in the other segments of an optimized, five-segment, poly-line approximation. As the Arctic has not even repaired the loss created in the previous line segment, there would be no positive anomalies in this data.
______
So your idea of a signal is sort of like a “recovery spiral” upward, never quite getting back to the longer term average, but making a sort of spiral-like good faith attempt? I am glad you don’t manage my finances…
Scott says:
August 10, 2010 at 4:28 pm
R. Gates says:
August 10, 2010 at 2:40 pm
We’ve not seen a positive Arctic Sea ice anomaly since 2004, so how can there be a sign of reversal in a multi-decadal downtrend in Arctic sea ice without even having a positive Arctic sea ice anomaly?
I suggest plotting x^2 from -10 to 4, or plot sin(x) from pi/10 to 2*pi. The linear trend is still downward for those plots and the last sections of their plots show negative anomalies, yet clearly they show a strong positive signal at the end of their plots. Do the final upticks reverse the sign on the linear trends? No (and the sinusoidal one will never go positive). Of course, Spector never said it did, he said “may be the first sign of reversal of the old trend”.
-Scott
______
Both you and Spector make a valid point about the past two years. The minimum extent increased a bit each year– that much is obvious. But the question is quite open as to whether we are going in a spiral up, or a spiral down, for the nature of the “spiral” is just that, an oscillation. The whole point being, and the reason that I study the Arctic sea ice so closely is that over the longer term (more than 1,2. or even 10 years) GCM’s predict it will decline to an ice free summer Arctic. There will be natural oscillations (spiral type behavior) that will cause it not be a straight drop…a solar minimum here, a La Nina there, changes in in the PDO, etc. These natural fluctuations will cause the spiral behavior…but the longer term trend will be down, according to GCM’s.
Now then, I have posited a very specific hypothesis…that the past two years of 2008 & 2009 saw a modest recover (very very modest) in the minimum for two primary reasons (and no doubt a whole host of other reasons as well). These primary reasons are:
1) The long and deep solar minimum that we’ve just passed through in 2008-2009
2) The La Nina of 2008 with continued cooler near La Nina SST’s into early 2009.
If my hypothesis is correct, then as we approach the next solar max in 2013, we ought to see an continuation of the accelerated drop in Arctic Sea ice, that will coincide with the accelerated drop that preceded 2007, and really began around 2000. (see http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png) 2007 was simply the most extreme drop during that period. Should we get an El Nino during this uptrend in the solar cycle (as we did during the uptrend in solar cycle 23 in 1998), then this could even add to the rate of decline.
Finally, there are some who think I ignore longer term cycles such as the PDO or longer term solar cycles (especially issues such as magnetic field strength of sun spots), which some say might be appearing to be the AGW signal. The potential for these longer term ocean or solar cycles to be mistaken for AGW is real enough (at least to me) that it is one reason that I am only 75% convinced that AGW is happening. But regardless, two or three years of only a very weak uptick in Arctic sea ice is far to short a time (both scientifically and mathmatically) to call any sort of a recovery to a much longer term trend, and I suggest that this “recovery” is only the natural variabilty (caused by short term solar and ocean cycles) riding on top of a longer term downward…dare I say it…spiral.
These natural fluctuations will cause the spiral behavior…but the longer term trend will be down, according to GCM’s.
====================================
At least you finally made the switch to calling them GCM’s as opposed to “AGW models”.
Really doesn’t matter.
Your predictions are meaningless, because you 1) don’t understand the data in the first place and 2) even if you did understand it, make no attempt to reconcile your preconceived notions on how climate should go (the 75% certain thing).
But thanks for giving continuous (yet rather monotonous) fodder and fuel to the fire as to why you are wrong.
Prove me wrong, here. But you are really just a fool who has nothing better to do with his time but to rehash and rehash and regurgitate again and AGAIN as to why you are right.
It is called NPD.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
You think it’s possible for 2010 to cross 2006 here to go to #1?
http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/525/icecover2010810.png
One can wish, can’t he? 🙂
The plot thickens!
from “Sea Ice News #17”
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.
North of 80N has gone below freezing again:
http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/9537/810x.png
Could the summer of 2010 end up the coldest on DMi record?
Could 2010 end up higher than 2006?
For answers to these questions, and more, stayed tuned and get some popcorn! 😉
There should be a pretty darn slow melt period coming up as the Arctic ROOS, DMI 30%, and JAXA area graphs all have really halted in any downward trend. Once the “easy pickings” are finally gone, we should see quite a flattish looking line akin to 2006. It will probably not match 2006 but it might be enough to make this year finish higher than 2009 or 2005. 2008 and 2007 are long gone unless a major event occurs such as a meteor fracturing the ice and vaporizing it.
R. Gates says:
August 10, 2010 at 9:49 pm
I don’t know if the sun has picked up enough to test reason #1 this year, but clearly we should be able to test reason #2 this year. I await the September minimum with much anticipation (though I doubt as much as most of you here, as it is still just 1 year, [modest] recovery or no).
-Scott
RE: R. Gates says: (August 10, 2010 at 9:16 pm) “So your idea of a signal is sort of like a “recovery spiral” upward, never quite getting back to the longer term average, but making a sort of spiral-like good faith attempt? I am glad you don’t manage my finances…”
Perhaps, after a long drop, one should be encouraged by the fact that the plane finally appears be gaining altitude over the ocean at a very good clip and not be quite so outraged that the pilot is still far below his normal assigned flight level. These downdrafts can be very tricky.
Thrasher says:
August 10, 2010 at 11:27 pm
unless a major event occurs such as a meteor fracturing the ice and vaporizing it.
That would happen due to global warming. There’s probably a paper somewhere that says extra co2 attracts meteors.
savethesharks said:
(about R. Gates)
“But you are really just a fool who has nothing better to do with his time but to rehash and rehash and regurgitate again and AGAIN as to why you are right.”
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
________
Thank you for the kind words…and with this ad hominem attack, I shall not waste my time with any further replys to your posts. You can disagree with me, but there are some lines that ought not be crossed.
Spector said:
“Perhaps, after a long drop, one should be encouraged by the fact that the plane finally appears be gaining altitude over the ocean at a very good clip…”
_____
If that were the case, I might be “encouraged”, but that not the case.
From: Amino Acids in Meteorites on August 11, 2010 at 7:38 am
Well the CO2 causes warming which causes expansion of the atmosphere which increases drag on meteors passing close by thus increasing the possibility of one impacting in the Arctic basin or New York City….
🙂
“”” Dan in California says:
August 9, 2010 at 8:47 am
……………………………………….
I am reminded of Ptolemy’s cycles within cycles needed to explain Mars’ observed retrograde orbit while maintaining the planets revolved around the earth.. “””
You mean they don’t ??
I once found a book in the library that had very complete diagrams of all of those planetary epicyclic orbits. I thought it was very clever of somebody to be able to figure all that out for all the (then known) planets.
R. Gates says: (August 11, 2010 at 9:47 am) “If that were the case, I might be “encouraged”, but that not the case.”
As the sum of the Arctic and Antarctic sea-ice seems to have remained relatively constant over the last thirty years or so, I think we may now be at or just past the peak Antarctic phase of a seesaw ‘Trans-Arctic Oscillation.’