By Steve Goddard
NCEP has changed their forecast, and it now appears there will be above normal temperatures over the Beaufort Sea for the next few days.
This will cause continued melt of the low concentration ice, and a downwards drift of the extent line. Daily loss has been declining steadily over the last month, but not enough to keep extent above my 5.5 million JAXA forecast.
Looks like it will be close at the finish line between 2009 and 2010 for JAXA 15%.
The DMI 30% concentration graph looks like 2010 will probably finish ahead of 2009.
Average ice thickness is highest since 2007 and 10% higher than 2009. Hinting at a 10% increase in ice volume next spring relative to 2010.
Barring 2007 style winds, next spring should see a third straight year of recovery since the winter of 2007-2008, when much of the thick ice blew out of the Arctic and melted in the North Atlantic.
Remember the “rotten ice” in 2008, which led to Mark Serreze betting on an ice free North Pole that summer? Looks like we have come a long way since then. Here is what the North Pole looks like today :
phlogiston says:
August 25, 2010 at 6:05 am
Please note the entire quote…and the fact that the Dipole Anomaly pattern did not continue for the entire summer as it did in 2007.
I do believe ice volume in spring 2010 was likely greater than in spring 2008. Radar altimetry data shows at least for the regions imaged that the thickness was greater. I am looking forward to seeing Cryosat results from this summer to further investigate the thickness.
Thank you everyone who has responded to my question, I appreciate you taking the time to answer. I don’t have time right now to address some of the responses/questions but I hope to be able to do that later today.
Caleb
You would be adsvised to read the Weather diary of such as Thomas Jefferson before investing too much in fruits that are unnatural to your region.
“A change in our climate however is taking place very sensibly. Both heats and colds are become much more moderate within the memory even of the middle-aged. Snows are less frequent and less deep. They do not often lie, below the mountains, more than one, two, or three days, and very rarely a week. They are remembered to have been formerly frequent, deep, and of long continuance. The elderly inform me the earth used to be covered with snow about three months in every year. The rivers, which then seldom failed to freeze over in the course of the winter, scarcely ever do so now. ”
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/JEFFERSON/ch07.html
As he-and many others knew 250 years ago climate fluctuates and you are taking a gamble in anything requiring a long time climate change.
Tonyb
“Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
August 25, 2010 at 7:25 am
Joe Bastardi said “2 steps forward 1 step” back in his Arctic ice prediction for this year. 2 steps forward since 2007, that is, 2008 was higher than 2007, and 2009 was higher than 2008. 1 step back meant 2010 would be lower than 2009. But then he continued by saying there would be a dramatic increase over 2010 in 2011.”
Damn. I was going to say that. The world is cooling a bit and the ice is thicker than last year, so we might have 5.8 next year. But I suggest that Steven Goddard first defines for WUWT what the rules are (and how does one take into consideration how far in advance a forecast was made).
Phil. says:
August 25, 2010 at 6:11 am
Thank you kind Sir, you are a scholar and a gentleman!
From: Phil. on August 25, 2010 at 6:46 am
Small problem with that, namely that a WUWT regular such as yourself should be well acquainted with how the moderators regularly check the spam filter. Thus while there is a remote, minuscule, microscopic possibility that said post was sent by you and subsequently lost, after all computers are involved and we all know how fallible they are, it “appears” that claiming such a post was lost, possibly among the spam, lacks credibility.
BTW, implying the moderators are being lax in their spam-filter checking duties, as in your post may have been lost in there since yesterday? Bad form, old chap.
kadaka,
In Phil.’s defense, I should point out that there are indeed several posts missing from yesterday. I’ve gotten several e-mails from this thread of ‘approved’ comments that no longer are showing up. Not sure if the spam filter is applied after the comment e-mails go out, or if the mods did a little house cleaning.
REPLY: Yes some comments that don’t meet the site policy have been removed. Everybody could do well to review it so that we don’t have to make judgment calls. I’ll point out the both comments from Steve Goddard and Phil. failed in this regard, equal opportunity snips. I’m pretty well tired of the petty arguments over he said/he said. There’s errors on both sides. – Anthony
Alexej Buergin
I don’t know what the “rules” are for extent, but hopefully by the close examination we have taken we are understanding the Arctic better.
When the winds are from the north or calm, ice extent loss is minimal. When they blow from the south, ice is lost more rapidly, as we saw in June and since mid-August.
Probably the best measure is volume, but there doesn’t seem to be much consensus on that. PIOMAS has claimed record low volumes all year, while Julienne (NSIDC) seems to disagree.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/24/sewa-ice-news-arctic-mid-week-update/#comment-466360
PIPS also shows late summer volume gain since 2008.
Everyone involved in this discussion seems to agree that the wind is the key factor. So what controls the wind? Is it global warming?
”
Steven
There was extensive discussion in late 2007 and early 2008 about thin, “rotten” ice in the Arctic.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43803
Now even where there the Arctic ice looks largely intact, this thick multi-year ice is rotten inside,
#################################################
full quote:
“Warmer winter temperatures are driving the decline. The average winter temperature is now 5 degrees C higher than it was 40 years ago. Permanent ice needs long periods of intense cold below 40 degrees C but that doesn’t happen anymore, he said.
Now even where there the Arctic ice looks largely intact, this thick multi-year ice is rotten inside, and much more likely to crack and break. “It might look okay, but its not,” Copland explained. ”
Simple fact: You showed a picture of the pole. you drew attention to the lack of “rotten” ice. You claimed that “rotten” ice lead Serreze to make his comment:
“Remember the “rotten ice” in 2008, which led to Mark Serreze betting on an ice free North Pole that summer? Looks like we have come a long way since then. Here is what the North Pole looks like today :”
But the discussion you cite does not site serreze or his reasoning. If you want to prove yourself correct, you need to find text where serreze says these things. Your claim is that ‘rotten’ ice LEAD serreze to make the claim. Well the ice they ( Copeland) is discussing is not ice at the pole. So why show a picture at the pole to debunk what Copeland was talking about Who is copeland?
“Some of those chunks of ice will be ice islands 50 km sq and 10 stories high just like the ones that broke off from Ellesmere Island’s ice shelves this summer, said Luke Copland, an ice expert at Canada’s University of Ottawa. ”
sept 5, 2008. AFTER SERREZE made his comment. Kinda odd to throw this out there as support of what lead serreze to make his comments. A comment made by someone else, about something else, after Serreze talked about something different.?
NEXT:
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF18/1873.html
“Unusually thin, rotten ice” north of Alaska.
Who said that?
“Satellite measurements aren’t perfect, and Hutchings noticed that some areas the satellites revealed as ice-free were instead ice, with water ponded on top. But for the most part, she noticed an ice mass in bad shape.
“We were seeing unusually thin, rotten ice, all the way to 79 degrees north,” Hutchings said. “That’s where you would expect some of the heaviest ice, and we were having no trouble at all getting through.”
Not Serreze. And it wasnt said about the pole. So again, you show a picture of the pole. You claim that “rotten” ice lead serreze to make the claim that the artic would be ice free, and then you show a picture of the pole.
And Now you quote OTHER PEOPLE talking about Ice in other places and argue that what??? That because a person named hutchins taked about ice in alaska, That your claim about Serreze’s beliefs are justified?
Google is NOT your friend. The argument is not ” did somebody else refer to rotten ice” Your argument was this: Rotten ice LEAD SERREZE to make his comment. You then show a picture of the pole. Nobody has ever talked about rotten ice at the pole. Its like you showed a picture of ice in a cocktail glass and argued that it somehow contradicted what Serreze never said. Non sequitor maximus. It’s not libel to point out that your argument and now your defense makes no sense. If you want to talk about Serreze and what HE THOUGHT, and LEAD HIM to make certain statements, then quoting other people talking about different things is an amusing exercise.
NEXT:
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5j5pc5zD_AGm2eKbIuBAEGV5W0pqg
“It could be compared to a building in a movie: it looks OK, you see a building, but in fact it’s a set, and behind the facade there is nothing,” said Walter Meier, of the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
“In February, there was a slight recovery, surface area of ice was slightly higher than in the recent years, because of a colder than average winter, but ice area is only one parameter,” he told a joint press conference with National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) researchers.
“It is seasonal ice, thin, vulnerable which could melt very easily,” Meier added.
“huh?” Serreze and his rationale is NOWHERE in sight.
So did he talk about rotten ice at the pole? Did he use that word? about that place?
“”There is this thin first-year ice even at the North Pole at the moment,” says Serreze. “This raises the spectre – the possibility that you could become ice free at the North Pole this year.”
Despite its news value in the media, the North Pole being ice free is not in itself significant. To scientists, Serreze points out, “this is just another point on the globe”. What is worrying, though, is the fact that multi-year ice – the stuff that doesn’t melt in the summer – is not piling up as fast as Arctic ice generally is melting.”
Rotten ice, As serreze would know, is not thin first year ice at the pole. ESPECIALLY if Serreze read the articles you cite. You got him wrong. THAT DOESNT MAKE HIM RIGHT. that makes you, inaccurate in your attribution of beliefs to him. It’s easy to be wrong about what someone thought and why they thought it. Strawman arguments. Happens all the time.
And what drives him to his conclusion:
His words are probably best:
“Serreze: The downward trend in September sea ice extent seems to be accerating. That reflects the combination of three things:
Spring is increasingly dominated by thin, first-year ice prone to melting out in summer;
As the thin ice now starts to melt out earlier in summer, the albedo feedback is stronger meaning even more summer melt;
Arctic is warming in all seasons, meaning that recovery through a series of cold years is becoming less and les likely. Take these three together, and you are probably looking at ice-fee summers by 2030. I’d call that a death sprital.”
By the time we are done we actually may discuss what serreze actually said and why he said it.
THEN, people can attack the argument he actually made. In the end steven THAT is what this is ALL ABOUT for me. Accurately reprsenting what was said by whom, when they said it, and what they meant. You cannot disprove an argument WITHOUT proper explication FIRST. if you get the explication wrong, you are on thin.. nay rotten.. ice.
peace out.
To be clear,
When criticizing a SPECIFIC scientist about his views AND what LEAD HIM to hold those views it is vital to:
1. Quote what he actually said.
2. practice some measure of constraint in attributing mental states to them..
When you don’t, expect people who are sticklers for this kind of accuracy to take some notice. When I don’t see actual quotes, its like the raw data being missing. Homogenization of peoples words is right up there with homogenizing data. and cherry picking proxies. When we are criticizing the practices of others, it’s best to use best practices ourselves.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
August 25, 2010 at 8:36 am
From: Phil. on August 25, 2010 at 6:46 am
“I don’t believe that I did and I addressed your remarks in a post yesterday which appears have been ‘lost’, perhaps the moderators can fish it out of the spam?”
Small problem with that, namely that a WUWT regular such as yourself should be well acquainted with how the moderators regularly check the spam filter. Thus while there is a remote, minuscule, microscopic possibility that said post was sent by you and subsequently lost, after all computers are involved and we all know how fallible they are, it “appears” that claiming such a post was lost, possibly among the spam, lacks credibility.
Yes I am a regular here but one who is subject to additional moderating, apparently my posts are automatically sent to the spam folder for later scrutiny. As a result there is often a significant delay in my posts showing up, and frequently they don’t show up at all. All my posts except that one from yesterday showed up with various delays.
BTW, implying the moderators are being lax in their spam-filter checking duties, as in your post may have been lost in there since yesterday? Bad form, old chap.
Why, my posts go in the spam folder and have to be fished out, sometimes they’re delayed.
REPLY: Because you have resorted to name calling, been given time outs for it on more than one occasion, most recently a 24 hour one this weekend. Your posts merit special attention to ensure this doesn’t continue to happen. Clean up your act, stop name calling and other policy violations, and it won’t be a problem. Or, continue on your current path and go for the outright ban, I don’t care, but do stop wasting my time. – Anthony
Anyone who lives near a seasonally frozen body of water understands that the ice becomes rotten before it melts out completely. Ice that is not rotten will not melt out.
Why are we having this reprehensible discussion?
OK everybody, the “rotten ice” he said/he said discussion is OVER. Tired of the moderation load. Put it behind us and move on. – Anthony
I for one would like to thank Steven Goddard for the amazing amount of time he has spent compiling the Sea Ice News reports. It puts anything that NSIDC have put out to shame, and hopefully as a result, we’ll see more focus on the science than all the disasterbating we’ve seen to date in the future.
Other than his taste in football clubs (ex-Leeds United supporter here, when they used to be a team) :-)), I don’t think he has any lessons to learn from people who just six months ago, wouldn’t be seen dead on this site.
As Professor Easterbrook points out in his paper (http://myweb.wwu.edu/dbunny/research/global/glopubs.htm)
Arctic temperatures have been decreasing since 2005, and the polar ice will recover over the next 20 or 30 years.
I would strongly recommend anyone who is interested in climate change and effects on the arctic, and antarctic ice sheets to read his papers.
They are quite fascinating and are soundly based on scientific measuements taken from ice samples for example in Greenland.
Steve Goddard,
“Everyone involved in this discussion seems to agree that the wind is the key factor. So what controls the wind? Is it global warming?”
I don’t think everyone agrees wind is “the key factor”, which I would interpret as implying that there are no other factors of comparable importance. I’d say everyone agrees the winds are a key factor in how a given melt season proceeds, particularly in the short term. I don’t think there’s any consensus that changes in wind patterns explain the trend of decreasing northern hemisphere sea ice in the satellite record. I’m not even aware of anyone having advanced such a theory, but will, of course, be interested if anyone can point me to relevant research.
Djon
Julienne has spoken repeatedly about winds driving Arctic ice loss, and we have seen the same thing. On days when the wind blows from the south, extent goes down. On days when it doesn’t blow, extent remains more constant.
There is no question that winds are the key factor.
I live near a lake which freezes in the winter. It remained frozen solid until late March this year, and then two days of wind completely removed the ice. Same thing happens every year.
Alexej Buergin says:
August 25, 2010 at 8:25 am
“The world is cooling a bit…”
_____
? Compared to what and duirng what time period? 2010 will be either the #1 or #2
warmest year on instrument record. What data set are you looking at?
REPLY: Because you have resorted to name calling, been given time outs for it on more than one occasion, most recently a 24 hour one this weekend. Your posts merit special attention to ensure this doesn’t continue to happen. Clean up your act, stop name calling and other policy violations, and it won’t be a problem. Or, continue on your current path and go for the outright ban, I don’t care, but do stop wasting my time. – Anthony
Actually you told me it was because I have an ‘.edu’ name. I wasn’t complaining just explaining to the poster what the situation is, although it is frustrating to have posts disappear without any reason. Yesterday’s post was explaining why I didn’t consider using a surname was rude, I didn’t do any name-calling, it never showed up. I haven’t ‘resorted to name calling’ although I have on occasion out of frustration, whereas I am frequently called names without any action being taken against those posters. I’ve been called ‘vile’ and ‘intellectually dishonest’ in this post and am frequently called a ‘liar’.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/24/sewa-ice-news-arctic-mid-week-update/#comment-466027
What are the ‘other policy violations’ you refer to, I don’t recall being informed of any, is it like ‘double secret probation’?
REPLY: Phil, there’s lots of people that post here with a .edu email address, you aren’t special in that regard, except that you spend a lot of your work time here posting with what I consider boorish and condescending behavior. In the case of this thread, you started the fight with this comment:
Now if you’d phrased that differently, instead of calling it nonsense and raising hackles, choosing your words differently, it might have gone a lot different for you here. This weekend, you called Goddard “stupid”, directly. I snipped your entire post and gave you a time out, as you’ve been warned and given time outs before. I didn’t see yesterday’s post you mention, but it likely got deleted with other spam. If you want respect, earn it with respectful behavior. Otherwise you are just setting yourself up as another anonymous troll. We have plenty of those, so if you want to rise above that crowd, change something.
If you think that using surnames is OK, and doesn’t irritate the person, then I’ll start addressing you by yours. We’ll see how that goes if you want to press the issue. That being said, I think this entire argument has had mistakes on both sides, and I’m quite tired of playing referee to this gotcha match, so I’m closing the thread. – Anthony
Also, see TonyB’s reply below. It isn’t just me that sees your behaviour as problematic, but like him I welcome your technical input. – Anthony
R Gates,
Over the last week, UAH ch05 temperatures have been dropping at a rate of 1,200 degrees / century. I’m guessing that will not continue indefinitely. ;^)
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/data/amsu_daily_85N85S_ch05.r002.txt
stevengoddard says:
August 25, 2010 at 11:39 am
“There is no question that winds are the key factor.”
________
Winds are a key factor in causing ice to melt, move around, be diverged, be compacted, etc. but hardly THE key factor in terms of overall changes in the Arctic sea ice over the past decade or so. The stage has to be set with warmer air temps, warmer water temps, thinner ice, currents, etc. as well. Wind is only one of many key factors that all need to be considered as dynamical system. It hard, for example, to compact multi-year ice that is 3m thick to any great degree by wind alone. If the permafrost all around the Arctic wasn’t melting as well, I might be inclined to put more stock in your notions that wind alone was THE key factor in the region, but wind doesn’t blow undergound and move the permafrost around. The changes in the Arctic are system wide, and to put it all on the wind simply serves to further your AGW skeptical viewpoint.
Steve Goddard said:
“stevengoddard says:
August 25, 2010 at 11:39 am
Djon
Julienne has spoken repeatedly about winds driving Arctic ice loss, and we have seen the same thing.”
_____
Not sure which quote from Julienne you’re referring to, but I still think you either intentionally or by mistake interchange the notions of melt, ice loss, and extent loss. Wind can change extent very rapidly by compacting or diverging the ice. This however, has nothing to do necessarily with melting or ice loss. Melting is the physical change of state from solid to liquid. Ice loss on the other hand, could be melting, but it also could mean flushing out of the Arctic through the Fram Strait etc. I think as we get real thickness data from CryoSat 2, we can simply talk about total ice volume in the Arctic, and then we can hope to have more clarity on our terms.
R. Gates:
In terms of the next few days and weeks ahead in the Arctic Sea Ice extent, here are some highlights of events to be on the look out for.
. . .
4) The extent will begin to approach 5,000,000 sq. km. as we get into early September (causing Steve to perhaps get a bit nervous, as it is a statistical point of interest for him I should think).
Wishful thinking on Gates part. Either that or he’s terrible at math. If you extropolate the shrinkage rate for the last week forward 2 weeks taking you to the start of the second week of September (his reference point), you’d just reach the 5,000,000 mark Of course that totally ignores the fact that in all other years the shrinkage rate flattens out considerably over that 2 week time span. Gates must enjoy the taste of crow!
Phil
Can I give you a bit of friendly advice. I always enjoy your posts and will follow any links you give. You are obviously knowlegable and I for one think it is a thoroughly good thing to have people such as yourself and R Gates to put an alternative view. I miss Joel Shore and have corresponded personally with Scott Mandia so as far as I am concened all four of you are very welcome- although I rarely agree with any of your comments 🙂
However, with respect, your posts over the last few months have become more savage and unpleasant and this dilutes your interesting messages.
I think all that Anthony is asking is that you cut the sharp tone and name calling which is not conducive to an informed discussion on a medium such as this, that is not conducted in real time.
Sorry, didnt mean to lecture, but it would be a big loss to this blog if you were banned.
Tonyb
Back to discussing the ice, JAXA had the extent dropping 50000 km^2 when yesterday’s extent was posted, well above the average. It’s looking more and more likely that we’ll see a minimum in the 4.9-5.2e6 km^2 range. However, yesterday did transition 2010 to being closer to 2009 than 2008. With 2008 averaging >100000 km^2 loss the next two days, it’s doubtful that this year will switch back to being closer to 2008 anytime soon, if at all. However, 2009 doesn’t have any remaining days of even 50000 km^2 loss, so it will be very hard for 2010 to close in on it either.
-Scott
I Ck my Weather Stations that circumvent The Arctic at an ave Latitude of 77 north between 330 & 530 Pm Eastern time every day & the ave temp was 39 3 days ago & today they are at 36 degrees..What Temp at this latitude would the temps have to drop to to get the ice to quit melting?…Maybe I can get one of you to help me with that Question?…I’m just a small mind in a small town trying to get a Big Answer!