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.
oops, I meant the ice extent will fall below 2009
REPLY: Apparently you missed this post: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/28/giss-arctic-vs-dmi-arctic-differences-in-method/
…and it seems that the forecast model, using lots of near real time data, is borne out by this observation:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/webphotos/noaa2.jpg
The melt pond has refrozen.
The data from that station shows the temp slipping below 0C the last few days, currently -1.0°C
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/PAWS_atmos_recent.html
Seems spot on to me.
– Anthony
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No, I saw it, just don’t care to much about global average temperature, much more interested in temperature anomilies in the NH summer in the Arctic primary melt season zones, N80+ is not currently a primary melt zone AFAIK.
In fact N80+ may show lower air temperatures precisely because of the large amounts of ice melt these past few years, only time will tell for sure.
Anyways, they need to redo their hindcast at some point regardless, with a single model. with statistical error bars shown, to see if N80+ trendline is truly statistically significant at p = 0.xx TBD.
And yes, I know the NP is frozen over, it’s been mentioned severel times previously.
Later,
Frank
EFS_Junior
Do you prefer Hansen’s Arctic temperatures, which are based on little or no data north of 80N? I’ll bet you do, because he almost always paints the high Arctic red.
Steve,
In response: I got the gist from your posts a while ago (you know, where you started talking about pyramid shapes and such?) that the artic had seen a thickening toward the middle. Looking at these graphs I dont get that feeling. Go figure.
As to clearing 2005 in 10 days, I wouldn’t predict much further than that at this point, cuz I’m not a super predicty guy, but 2005 takes a little dip, and I suggest 2010 will likewise take a dip due to a compaction from winds heading toward the pole from russia, and will end up in a week or so starting to dip like 05 does, and thus finishing to the negative of ’05 in 10 days (like now.) As to the end of the melt season, I think the temperature effects will be surpassed by wind effects for the greater part of the thin sheet and most of the activity to be seen will happen in the next couple weeks.
But, to be honest, if there IS a prevailing wind from russia north, it will probably carry a great deal of soot from russias current spat of wildfires, which would probably contribute to cloud formation soon and a short stall of surface sublimation and edge melt, but precipitate and contribute to some late season extraneous melt on clear days.
stevengoddard says:
August 11, 2010 at 7:26 pm
EFS_Junior
One of the fundamental precepts of AGW is a longer Arctic melt season.
2010 is likely to be the shortest on record.
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Yes, I do think I stated as much in my first post in this thread.
But one year makes a decadal scale climate trend?
Also Arctic sea ice extent could be considered a proxy for Arctic temperatures, but perhaps not a very good temperature proxy since we need volume data to better define the melt season duration. I’m hoping that we will see some actual volume data sometime this fall from CRYOSAT-2.
Later,
Frank
I think everyone should look at the Arctic ice for themselves and today is fairly clear:
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?mosaic=Arctic.2010223.terra.4km
I think if we see any further extent losses this summer they are likely to come from Beaufort and east Siberian Seas. The only areas left with ice concentrations outside 80N are in the Beaufort, Chukchi, and East Siberian seas.
The ice on the Laptev side of the East Siberian seems to be compacting towards the East Siberian at the moment whilst the ice in the Beaufort seems to be drifting towards the east Siberian but as this being replaced by ice coming from the Canadian Archipelago side of the Arctic Basin so I dont expect too much of a loss in extent in the Beaufort.
What I would expect is extent in the Arctic Basin to start increasing very soon. There are areas within the basin on the Greenland and Barents Sea side that are showing less than 10% concentration on NSIDC maps at the moment. Given temps and the direction of ice drift above Greenland I dont see how those areas wont start showing an increased extent within days.
The more I look at the conditions, the more I see a very early minimum extent this year.
The other interesting thing is how well the rate of extent loss has tracked against the DMI temp data. Both the May/June high loss rate and the July low loss rate both correspond fairly well with what DMI says was occurring temp wise. I wonder how well the relationship will hold for the remainder of the melt season.
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
August 11, 2010 at 7:20 pm
Frederick Michael says:
August 11, 2010 at 6:42 pm
In the winter, the radiative cooling effects would be dominant. Hmmmm; maybe that’s why the winter temps are so erratic here:
Richard Lindzen in the video I posted above says those large fluctuations are from eddies carrying warm air from lower latitudes to up higher latitudes.
Yes, yes, yes, but.
Are the eddies absent in the summer, or at least greater in the winter? The temperature difference of the air brought in by eddies is similar.
By the way, it hits me that my sunlight hypothesis would imply the lower fluctuations would be centered around summer solstice, not centered on the warmest months.
Melting ice must have a lot to do with it.
RE: AMSR-E Predictions:
When I look at my current unofficial AMSR-E anomaly curve, this year’s curve, after reaching a maximum negative extent that was below all other curves at the first of July, rose above the 2007 curve in early July and briefly touched the 2009 curve in late July. It now appears to be ready to intersect the 2008 curve, but this has not happened yet. If the current slope continues, the 2008 curve will be intersected in mid August, the 2009 curve would be intersected around the first of September and the 2005 curve would be intersected in early September.
Last year’s curve (2009) reached its maximum negative extent anomaly value in early October so we could have a double dip this year as well and that would obviate some of the predictions above.
According to the JAXA dataset, if we take the average melt of 2005-2009, we will reach a low of very close to but just above 5 million square kilometres. If this happens, we will unfortunately be smack bang between Steve’s projection and R Gates, which will put off the celebrations of either my alarmist side or the sceptical side for at least another year. 😉
David Gould says:
August 11, 2010 at 9:51 pm
But you have to take into account this year that there has been little melt. Loss in May was more from shear and compaction.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/27/shear-ice-decline/
July had the slowest melt for a July on JAXA record.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/01/sea-ice-news-16/
Ice is not thin and temperatures are below freezing. So the melt should be slower than you’re thinking.
“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.”
Am I being stupid because I don’t see anywhere where the ice is thicker in 2010 than 2005?
Looking at JAXA, for consistency, it’s tracking more 2008 than 2005
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent_L.png
So my guess would be that it will be lower than 2005.
As an aside, can people stop using the word “beat” , such as “I think 2008 will beat “2005” .. it doesn’t actually tell you whether the person is thinking higher or lower, unless you know what they favour.
Andy
David Gould said:-
August 11, 2010 at 9:51 pm
According to the JAXA dataset, if we take the average melt of 2005-2009, we will reach a low of very close to but just above 5 million square kilometres. If this happens, we will unfortunately be smack bang between Steve’s projection and R Gates, which will put off the celebrations of either my alarmist side or the sceptical side for at least another year. 😉
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No, that would be a celebration for one camp as they can say the recovery has stopped; if the extent is lower than 2009.
Andy
Frederick Michael says:
August 11, 2010 at 9:39 pm
Richard Lindzen talks about summer temps starting at 1:54 of video
I look at the ice loss every day on the national /navel ice centre images there seemed to be little ice loss yesterday.I think that the difference between nansen and others like jaxa could be in smoothing.nansen appears to track ice loss more closely.
David Gould says:
August 11, 2010 at 9:51 pm
According to the JAXA dataset, if we take the average melt of 2005-2009, we will reach a low of very close to but just above 5 million square kilometres. If this happens, we will unfortunately be smack bang between Steve’s projection and R Gates, which will put off the celebrations of either my alarmist side or the sceptical side for at least another year. ;)”
I like your sense of irony D Gould but I’m not sure your going to get satisfactin on this one. I really can’t see anything other than an early end to the melt season and a below average reduction in extent from this point forward.
Its interesting that the maximum rate of loss on a 15 day moving average occurred at its earliest point for entire JAXA dataset. Having said this, it was clearly due to the rapid melt in May/June which unlikely to be maintained when conditions in July became less favourable for a “big melt”.
May and June were interesting in that they showed an ice pack with a higher proportion of first year ice is likely to lead to a very high rate of ice loss early in the season if conditions are adverse. This can then be exacerbated when the melt season gets off to such a late start.
July showed that it doesnt matter how rapid the loss of extent of 1st year ice in warm conditions in May and June is, what really matters it what the conditions are in July and August when 1st year ice closer to the Arctic Basin and the multi-year ice are more in play. We saw conditions in July much cooler and prevailing currents much less likely to push 1st year ice out in to warmer waters.
Now we get the final chapter for 2010. Can a pack that has spread a little thinly hold on if air temps get below normal in late August or early September. Is the ice vulnerable to warmer water below the ice. I guess we’ll have some answers very soon.
I’m going to be extremely bullish now and say we’ll lose no more than 600,000 sq km for the rest of the season (way below the average for the past 8 years). This will would put this years minimum in the 5.6-5.7 million range, well about the 2009 result and close to the 2006 figure of 5.78 million.
It would take a loss of 500,000 sq km from here on to match the 2006 minimum. In 2006, the ice loss from this point forward was 750,000 sq km.
Deanster,
No I don’t dismiss DMI. Just trying to give a little background, and encourage some legwork to give a bigger picture. Wotsup is putting all its eggs in the DMI basket because it suits.
Steve Goddard discover something to bring my house of cards down? I won’t hold my breath. As he says he’s busy focusing on the detail, that’s why the big picture passes him by.
A lot of energi is used here on WU to discover that elusive ’something’ which will prove the world isn’t warming. Havn’t found it yet.
CONFUSIONISTS (confused about climate and dedicated to confusing others) have been promising the big cooldown for years. Havn’t seen that either. Just ups and downs in global temps. – most ups it seems. I suppose the big freeze is still just around the corner!! And all the cold weather stories (another thing WotsU focuses on – forget the big picture) are just to encourage the faithful that the promised cooldown is imminent?
It will finish with less than 2005, and I will bet it to finish slightly under 2009 too. My reasons? Well… In all the record available since the beginning of satellite measurements, the arctic has never recovered ice 3 years in a row. We recovered ice in 2008 and in 2009. I don’t think we will do in 2010. Even though we are comming from an extraordinarily low minimum in 2007. So I am betting for a small pause this year, and then we will continue to recover ice in 2011.
What do you think? Will 2010 beat 2005? Please explain your reasoning.
Based on nothing more scientific than a CCWAG (Carefully-Calculated Wild-A$$ Guess): the lack of movement through the Fram, the actual water temperatures (and with the Pacific going into La Niña), and a nagging hunch that we’re going to see a southerly incursion by the jet stream, I predict 2010 will catch 2005 in early September and poke through the 2005 dip for a short distance.
Commence firing. Popcorn will be served.
A lot of energi is used here on WU to discover that elusive ’something’ which will prove the world isn’t warming.
A deep misunderstanding . But an expected one .
The world has been warming and cooling during several billions years with pseudocycles at every scale – from decades to millions of years .
Plenty of elusive somethings in our past that either warm or cool the world .
When it is not cooling , it is warming . And conversely. It never stops somewhere.
So what ?
It is apparently a shocking news for you that the Earth has a preference for warming during an interglacial and that the probability for warming periods (fast or slow) is bigger than for cooling periods .
Well it always happened , live with it and pray that it lasts as long as possible .
Because when it stops , it is going to get VERY ugly for everybody .
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
August 11, 2010 at 5:50 pm
Village Idiot says:
August 11, 2010 at 4:16 pm
Global warming rules:
1. Never discuss the science.
2. Attack the man. (or institution, agency, university, study, data, whatever is needed)
3. Repeat 1 & 2 until you feel you’ve won the argument and have distracted people from reality.
Reply; change heading to; No global warming rules
Looking at the 0-700m ocean heat content in Northern Atlantic, I cannot say how will 2010 end up, but the long-term trend has obviously reversed.
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/inodc_heat700_290-360E_0-60N_na.png
Next few decades–>more arctic ice.
DMI shows 2010 within a whisper of 2005 this morning.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
Idiot believes this can’t be true, because someone he doesn’t like lives in Denmark.
Considering:
– The current trends
– The current temperatures in the Arctic region
– The relatively small amount of thin ice (less than 2 m)
– The fact that it’s already 12 August (so there is only about a month left in which a decline is to be expected)
…there is a fair chance that there will still be only a small decline of the Arctic sea ice this year. So yes, if that happens, then 2010 could “beat” 2005.