By Steve Goddard
Arctic Ice (red line above) has dropped just below my June forecast (dashed line.) Over the last two weeks, strong southerly winds reminiscent of 2007 have compacted and melted significant amounts of ice. The modified NSIDC image below shows ice loss over the last week, in red.
The break in the weather can be easily seen in the DMI temperature graph, as a sharp upwards spike two weeks ago.
The NCEP forecast calls for colder and calmer weather during the next two weeks, so ice loss should drop off quickly.
The DMI 30% concentration graph has already flattened, and is running even with 2009.
The modified NSIDC image below shows ice gain over 2007 in green, and loss in red.
PIOMAS continues to overestimate (red) ice loss by a substantial margin. Green shows areas where they underestimated ice loss.
It continues to look like my June forecast will be close to correct, though as we have seen – this contest is a crap shoot. It all depends on the wind.
Julienne Strove from NSIDC asked last week what it would take to be convinced of man’s influence. I will respond with a question of my own. What does it take to prove that changes in the wind are driven by changes in CO2?
Extra bonus : Does anyone see a familiar pattern (below) in Greenland temperatures? What year did satellites monitoring the Arctic come on line?
Enquiring minds want to know.
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Well, your forecast won’t be perfect, but it may still be the best !!
To paraphrase Kansas
CO2 in the wind
all we are is CO2 in the wind
CO2 in the wind
everything is CO2 in the wind
Your questions?
1. The Atlantic Multidecadel Oscillation.
2. 1979
While the extent of melt in 2010 looks similar to 2009, the re-freeze will likely be quite dramatic. If the cruise ship Clipper Adventurer now grounded in the north west passage cannot be freed soon, it may be there for some time. Ice breakers are apparently on route to free passengers, but is the ship itself is not freed it could become a semi permanent monument to AGW alarmism.
What does it take to prove that changes in the wind are driven by changes in CO2?
That depends on the agility of measuring ability to discern the trace effects of a trace gas.
The bigger, and more important processes, are taking a back seat to pulling a signal rabbit out of a noisy hat.
Right now the efforts directed at this trace gas amount to jumping over a suitcase full of money to get at a dime.
The next Catlin expedition can base itself at the Clipper Adventurer winter resort, Konrad!
Interesting following this particular year’s weather cycle, anyhow.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Cruise+ship+runs+aground+Canadian+Arctic/3457291/story.html
Maybe that’s what happened to the 2 mapping ships never seen again, for which the Investigaor & crew paid a similar price.
The NW passage is not charted for safe passage, nor is it open for long, when it is open.
Caveat Emptor on the sport of NW Passage dashing.
During the last month both Polar Vortexes have broken down;
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/intraseasonal/z500_nh_anim.shtml
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/intraseasonal/z500_sh_anim.shtml
and both poles have been taken over by High Pressure Areas:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/intraseasonal/z200anim.shtml
In addition, a large positive temperature anomaly formed in the upper atmosphere over the Southern Hemisphere, which is now dissipating:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/intraseasonal/temp10anim.shtml
Can anyone offer explanations for these phenomena?
“Julienne Strove from NSIDC asked last week what it would take to be convinced of man’s influence.”
Shouldn’t we have a better understanding of the basic mechanics of Earth’s climate system before assigning human influence to potentially natural occurrences?
mrpkw says:
August 29, 2010 at 3:31 pm
Well, your forecast won’t be perfect, but it may still be the best !!
mrpkw,
Joe Bastardi accurately predicted a level between 2008-2009. I think he had the best forecast overall. Sorry Steve! 🙂
Very similar to 2009 and 2010 is an El Nino year…
Steve,
in all your sea ice discussions you never mentioned (as far as I recall) that we had last winter a very strongly negative arctic oscillation (shift of the polar vortex). Such strongly negative values have not been shown up since those cold years of the sixties. See http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/month_ao_index.shtml
The negative arctic oscillation has given to Eurasia a very cold winter, but not to North America. There, temperatures were not that cold, as a consequence the ice coverage on the Great Lakes was small, and Hudson Bay sea ice was thin. As a further consequence, Hudson bay sea ice was gone in June, not in July as in the year before, and as usual in summers following positive arctic oscillations in winter. Even ice of the Arctic Sea may have been thinner than usual at some places. I recall weeks last winter where West Greenland coastal temperatures have been higher than those in Germany.
So you should ask Ms Strove from NSIDC, whether she thinks that strongly negative arctic oscillations will occur more frequently again, inspite of many claims that they where gone with the coming of the age of climate change.
Steve,
First you tell us it’s all down to wind then you show us a graph of temperature, which is it?
Godthab Nuuk is at 64 degrees north is south Greenland, hardly representative.
Stevengoddard,
Is thin ice more easily pushed around by the wind than thick ice?
Extra bonus : Does anyone see a familiar pattern (below) in Greenland temperatures?
Heavy upslope, slow downtrend, crash, heavy uplope (slow downtrend , crash?).
Hmm.
A drop of 50k yesterday. Given there are probably 15 days left in the melt, I still think 5.0 to 5.1. But if the melt season lasts a little longer this year 4.9 looks possible.
The big news is the lack of ice pushed out the Fram Strait. That is where multi-year ice is lost and this year less was lost — a lot less.
This has nothing to do with global warming and everything to do with wind and currents.
Here is Joe’s forecast:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/24/the-sea-ice-monster-its-a-scaly-thing/#comment-395961
rbateman says:
August 29, 2010 at 4:22 pm
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Cruise+ship+runs+aground+Canadian+Arctic/3457291/story.html
Maybe that’s what happened to the 2 mapping ships never seen again, for which the Investigaor & crew paid a similar price.
The NW passage is not charted for safe passage, nor is it open for long, when it is open.
Caveat Emptor on the sport of NW Passage dashing.
======================
“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”
Alexander Pope
u.k.(us) says:
August 29, 2010 at 4:59 pm
The cruise ship operators are insisting that Canada supply a permanently stationed helicopter for rescue purposes. Supplied by Canada, of course! A sense of entitlement becomes swagger…then hubris!
Steve,
Your Greenland temperature plot doesn’t seem to have had all the appropriate adjustments made to it. How unscientific of you.
Mike
Jim Barker says:
August 29, 2010 at 3:38 pm
HEY! Shouldn’t that be “(coal)dust in the wind”?
bubbagyro says:
August 29, 2010 at 5:12 pm
u.k.(us) says:
August 29, 2010 at 4:59 pm
“The cruise ship operators are insisting that Canada supply a permanently stationed helicopter for rescue purposes. Supplied by Canada, of course! A sense of entitlement becomes swagger…then hubris!”
Hope all those fools get charged $10,000 each for the rescue and trouble to the government to save them on that unnecessary cruise into danger.
More about the Clipper Adventurer:
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Stranded+cruise+ship+passengers+evacuated+Edmonton/3457419/story.html
“About 200 guests and crew members were on the trip called ‘Into the Northwest Passage.’” LOL, they got their money’s worth!!
“The Clipper Adventurer operated by Mississauga, Ont.-based Adventure Canada became grounded on an uncharted rock shortly after 7 p.m. local time Friday. The ship ran aground in three metres of water just a day before the Arctic expedition was to come to an end in Edmonton.”
3 METERS OF WATER?? Who was the captain, Hazelwood??
Mike G
Actually the Greenland plots have been adjusted by GISS, and they still come up short of the 1930s.
HR
All of the long term Greenland/Iceland plots show approximately the same pattern.