By Steve Goddard
I need help from the readers to determine if 2010 will finish ahead or below 2005 – the red line in the DMI graph.
2010 is currently tracking just below 2005, but note there was a downwards dip in mid-September, 2005. What caused this?
The PIPS video below shows what happened in September, 2005.
In mid-September, strong winds started blowing off the East Siberian and Laptev Seas, which compressed the ice towards the North Pole. This caused the dip seen in the DMI graph.
The images below show the current date in 2005 and 2010 respectively. Note that 2005 had a lot of thin/low concentration ice in the Laptev/Kara Seas which was vulnerable to being blown around by the wind in September. The ice is less extensive, but thicker in that region in 2010.
What do you think? Will 2010 beat 2005? Please explain your reasoning.
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R. Gates
The vast majority of the Arctic is covered with ice and the other areas generally have below normal SSTs. Where do you get your ideas from?
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
This is fairly tough. I don’t think you can talk about the job downwards in late September of 2005 without talking about the jog upwards in early September of 2005 as well. Smooth them both out and see what you see. I suspect if you smooth out the anomalous jog up in early September that the jog down doesn’t really look like a jog down anymore.
Which leads me to believe a likely scenario is that a short cold-snap in early September somewhere around the rim of the central core got some ice reforming in that area, and when it passed that babiest of baby ice disappeared in days.
If you analyze everything there is –which we know of and about– then determining what happens next isn’t such a big deal.
The ‘warmist–propagandists’ will crow, but in the end they will freeze to death.
Call it ‘cold comfort.’
According to the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center ice extent is now increasing:
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic
Village Idiot says:
August 11, 2010 at 2:42 pm
DMI have spawned none other than Eigil Friis-Christensen, Henrik Svensmark, and K. Lassen, whose ‘research’ has crashed and burned!
You were serious? Or joking? If you were serious would you provide the science, meaning data, that shows their work is in this state? I have never heard one shred of what you said here. So I hope you are not one of those who reads something on a blog of poor reputaion for science, or worse yet, just makes things up, and then comes to blogs like this one and types it out in a comment what they found at that blog or made up on their own.
Please give proof for your claim. Then I will know you were right.
stevengoddard says:
August 11, 2010 at 3:27 pm
R. Gates
The vast majority of the Arctic is covered with ice and the other areas generally have below normal SSTs. Where do you get your ideas from?
_______
Hmmm….at the peak NH ice extent this year we had over 14 million sq. km, and now we’re down to close to 6….by my vast math skills, that would mean we have 8 million sq. km. or so of open water. Last I checked, 8 was more than 6, but if you want to say the vast majority of the Arctic is covered with ice with below normal SST’s, despite graphs like this that say differently:
http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/sst/ophi/color_anomaly_NPS_ophi0.png
You go right ahead. Call me old fashioned, but I’ll stick with real data and my simple math, thanks.
geo
Normally the minimum occurs in early-mid September. That happened in 2005, but strong winds (visible in the video) caused some unusual compression late in the month.
Invariant
What you see in the Nansen graphs is meltponds freezing up, which reduces the error in the summer ice measurements.It is not an actual gain in extent.
R. Gates
You seem to have forgotten where the ice loss has occurred – outside of the Arctic Basin.
http://climateinsiders.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/nsidcapril052010vsjuly1620101.jpg
R. Gates, you are constantly bringing up the Arctic Dipole. You seem to think it is very possible it is becoming more frequent. I am of the opinion you have precious little evidence of such a trend and no hypothesized mechanism related to CO2 enhanced warming leading to your suggested increase. You are reaching for straws the way some reach for the Sun and outer planets.
This is about the only evidence I have found so far and it supports my contention that you have not a leg to stand on.
“James Overland of the NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, Washington has taken a close look at patterns of atmospheric circulation in recent summers. Overland notes that the periods June through August 2007 and June and July 2009 both saw an unusual atmospheric pattern of sea level pressure, with higher pressure on the Alaskan side of the Arctic and lower pressure on the Eurasian side. This pressure difference brought warm air into the central Arctic and transported sea ice towards the Atlantic. Historically, such a pattern is a rare event—before 2007, it only occurred twice in 30 years. Normally there is little difference in pressure across the Arctic during summer, and winds are slack.
This rare condition may result from the convergence of the three main patterns of climate variability: the Arctic Oscillation (AO) climate pattern, which features either high or low pressure over most of the Arctic; the positive phase of the Pacific North American (PNA) pattern, which is characterized by low pressure over the Bering Sea and high pressure over the Canadian Rockies; and the Arctic dipole pattern, which features high pressure on one side of the Arctic and low pressure on the other. In 2007 and 2009 all three patterns have been in play. A clue to the cause of these unusual conditions comes from the wind flow in the middle atmosphere. Normally winds flow in a counter-clockwise direction around the central Arctic Ocean, a flow known as the polar vortex. In the summers of 2007 and 2009 the polar vortex shifted to mostly to the Eurasian side of the Arctic, allowing higher pressures to develop on the Alaskan side. Scientists are now studying whether this dipole pattern will become more common in the future and whether the loss of summer sea ice itself is helping to make this pattern more frequent.”
From: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2009/081809.html
above 2005 and 2006 for various reasons mainly initial ice concentration and sun activity etc….
“”” R. Gates says:
August 11, 2010 at 3:40 pm
stevengoddard says:
August 11, 2010 at 3:27 pm
R. Gates
The vast majority of the Arctic is covered with ice and the other areas generally have below normal SSTs. Where do you get your ideas from?
_______
……………………..
You go right ahead. Call me old fashioned, but I’ll stick with real data and my simple math, thanks. “””
Well I wouldn’t be in so much of a hurry to diss Steve’s comment.
For a start; all the literature I have been reading about earth climate lists “The Arctic as being everything North or +60 deg; and the Antarctic as being everything South of -60 deg.
And apparently back in the 1850s till about the turn of the century; I seem to recall that there were a whopping 12 “weather” stations in the Arctic; and that number grew to something like 86 over the years; and then apparently they started to 86 some of those stations so the number is now something like 72; maybe due to the Soviet implosion.
But in any case; that results in there being more land in the Arctic than ocean; so even with an ice free Arctic ocean; there is more land to capture snow and ice from all of that evaporation from the open sea; so I don’t have any problem with there being more ice or snow in the Arctic that open water.
The Antarctic on the other hand contains more water than Land.
Marcia obviously hasn’t checked her background, and hasn’t a clue.
Steve Goddard,
Denmark is a small, insignificant country. DMI is part of that. They are holed up just over the tracks from my mother-in-law for goodness sake (check g. earth).
How do you make an impact? Be different. Go against the flow, then you get noticed! Lomborg has cottened onto it! You just don’t get the Danish psyche, but you lap up their stats. because they reinforce your agenda.
Its a strange little parallel world you’re constucting here where everything is getting just colder and colder.
Things look different out here..
“”” R. Gates says:
August 11, 2010 at 3:14 pm
stevengoddard says:
August 11, 2010 at 1:55 pm
R. Gates
In order for clouds to produce downwelling LW radiation, they had to have been first warmed by upwelling LW radiation. Not much of that over the ice, is there?
________
Plenty of heat coming off th warmer than normal water temps. There is a potential link to this warmer open water and general changes in Arctic weather patterns, from storminess to changes in the Arctic Dipole Anomaly. I believe Julienne is studying this, and many others are as well. You might even want to look into it yourself. Lot’s of links out there…
So I know all about dipoles; studied a lot of that during my Radio-Physics Days.
So just what is “The Arctic Dipole” ; and then what would the “Arctic Dipole Anomaly” be; other than something wrong with the Arctic Dipole.
Two “whats” comprise an Arctic Dipole ?
stevengoddard says:
August 11, 2010 at 3:59 pm
R. Gates
You seem to have forgotten where the ice loss has occurred – outside of the Arctic Basin.
http://climateinsiders.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/nsidcapril052010vsjuly1620101.jpg”
You beat me to it Steven.
And R Gates, I am not misunderstanding what is happening in the East Siberian and Kara Seas. I am also looking at the NSIDC sea ice concentrations. If the ice is spread out and thin in those areas it certainly isnt particularly showing on the NSIDC concentration maps.
If anything, looking at the buoy movements, I would potentially be expecing to see some compaction of the ice in the East Siberian. The Kara Sea has already lost its ice so will be contributing no further to ice loss. The Laptev Sea is probably a big question mark due to the absence of any buoys there.
I would say given prevailing conditions, including ice drift and concentrations, the only real area that may still see signifcant loss is in the Beaufort Sea. The strange thing is the NSIDC concentration map still has a fair bit of ice left there whilst Cryosphere Today seem to indicate only about 100,000 sq km.
So, no I don’t think divergence will play a major part in what we see happeing for the remainder of the melt.
Idiot
You argue with straw men and generalities. I focus on specific details.
This is why it will go above 2005 and 2006
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
stevengoddard says:
August 11, 2010 at 3:59 pm
R. Gates
You seem to have forgotten where the ice loss has occurred – outside of the Arctic Basin.
_______
Very slippery of you Steve…your first post said the “Arctic” and now you’ve changed it to the Arctic BASIN, which has a very specfic meaning very different that just Arctic. I see, very clever. I hope the more astute reader will pick up on the significance of that little extra word. We were never talking about the Arctic Basin, but about the Arctic.
Idiot: You’re using classic alarmist propaganda techniques. Speak in unsubstantiated generalities and dismiss requests for specifics with a “go find it yourself” response. Are you a sock puppet for JRomm, Tamino, WMConnolley, GASchmidt, or KDPetersen, perhaps?
David W says:
August 11, 2010 at 3:02 pm
Certainly, neither the East Siberian or Kara Seas are showing ice loss, in fact the East Siberian is showing a slight increase. I would anticipate we’ll be seeing losses as low as 30k within days and potentially even an extent gain within 1 week.
Hmmm, that would be interesting. That would mean 2010 would end up #1 in DMi. Is the dark horse going to sprint to first down the final stretch? It would be awesome. But I’ll be very happy with passing 2005 into #2.
stevengoddard says:
August 11, 2010 at 3:12 pm
Deanster
I tend to agree with you. It looks like 2010 may be the shortest melt season on record. It had the latest maximum and may well also have the earliest minimum.
What sublime happiness it would be if 2010 even passed 2006. ;-)!!!!
But I know it’s a long shot.
Village Idiot
You diss DMI … so then … what proof do you have that whoever you call the authority is any more pure?? We KNOW that anything from the US Government Groups is as bad or even worse than anything from DMI … and they are not from a dinky insignificant country. As I see it, everyone hangs on the data that most supports their perspective … and that most certainly applies to the IPCC, who, btw, are the most agenda driven of anyone.
I look at all the data. I look at Cryo, DMI, Norsex, etc etc etc. IMO, the truth lies somewhere in between all the flawed data that is agenda driven. I’m really thankfull for people like Steve Goddard, who dares to look at things differently. Are you afraid he might actually discover something???? .. and thus bring your house of cards to the ground?
IMO, we live in Extrordinary Times with regards to Climate Studie. For 30 years we’ve studied modern climate from a one dimensional perspective, with high solar activity and a positive PDO. We are just now collecting the DATA associated with different Natural Conditions, low solar, and a negative PDO. I’m particularly interested in the impact of the A-Index .. for whatever impact it may have. I’ve asked Anthony to do an update on it, as while I visit Solarcycle24.com daily, I don’t really understand much of it without some Svalguard or somebody who actually knows what a fricken A-index is.
Anyway … I’m sticking to my prediction, According to Norsex, Cryosphere, as well as the “dinky” little DMI data, the point of refreeze and end of melt has moved earlier each year since 2007, progressively from 2008 to 2009. The Mnimum has progressively been greater as well.. Baring the massive wind driven blowout of 2007, we see that 2006 refreeze started earlier than 2005 as well, and it beat 2005 on every metric. Couple that with the early drop in temp on DMI …..
As in my earlier post, I predict an even earlier refreeze, which will ultimately allow 2010 to surpass 2005, and possibly 2006.
Goodness. Dismissing an entire country is pretty hubristic in my book and is a terrible example of scientific debate technique.
As for my “here”, La Nina has turned our normal Summer into a “not Summer”. We are sitting in what seems like more Autumn or Spring weather than Summer. This is now 4 summers in a row of crops struggling to mature. Weather can do that. It’s pattern variations can last quite a few years before another pattern emerges.
The pattern of ice loss in the Arctic has not gotten beyond what I consider to be a weather-related length of time. And besides, each Summer’s ice loss has correlated weather pattern variations that explain it quite well.
Are you saying that the weather pattern variations on the ground do not and that something else does? You won’t convince me of your position until you explain to me how the weather pattern variations clearly documented and readily available to the public could not have been the cause of the last 10 years worth of ice behavior.
Invariant says:
August 11, 2010 at 3:32 pm
According to the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center ice extent is now increasing:
There has been a turn upward each year since 2007. But it happens earlier each year.
http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/6673/ssmiicearea.png
I may not have used the specific graph you were referring to. Did I?
stevengoddard says:
August 11, 2010 at 3:59 pm
R. Gates
You seem to have forgotten where the ice loss has occurred – outside of the Arctic Basin
It may not be that he has forgotten but just that he doesn’t understand.