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.
Ok, so there was no recovery of sea ice extent this year, and thus the declining long-time trend is continuing. Will the WUWT policy be to continue waiting for the recovery in the coming year as well? I have a gut feeling some of the most keen observers here actually might want to move on with the discussion.
Seriously, the type of global warming denial that many of you (I will not give specific names) have resorted to is really starting to just sound really stupid. A few years ago, at least you could form coherent arguments, rather than just stating without fair analysis something to the effect of “Co2 has never driven temperature” after massive cherry-picking or the same old “temperature leads Co2” argument which has been debunked multiple times by many different scientists…
First growth on the 29th of August.
Very small, a few thousand k. But growth at 5.3. The downward trend will continue for another couple of weeks, but should slow considerably.
Martin Brumby says:
August 30, 2010 at 1:48 am
These Arctic sea ice posts are always interesting but I still can’t see quite what all the fuss is about.
…
blatantly cherry picked & fiddled data and corrupt methods
Martin,
You left out the part about “data” from computer models written for the purpose of “demonstrating the effects of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming” being offerd as “proof.”
Global warming is the war to extend the ranks of the poor, transfer as much power to government as possible, and concentrate wealth into the hands of an elite few.
RE: Policyguy August 29, 2010 at 11:38 pm, johnmcguire August 30, 2010 at 4:10 am:
Policyguy, I live in western Washington state. We’ve had a cooler summer interrupted by two spells of record heat, so things have averaged out here.
johnmcguire, I’m not trying to BS anything or anyone. I wasn’t trying to deny that it has been cooler than normal anywhere in the US (and I was not making any statements about Canada either). I said that a vast majority of the US is above or significantly above normal temperatures this month and backed up my claim with real data. I did not make any alarmist claims; I just stated a fact. I did not claim it was HOT everywhere, or that everywhere has been above normal every day this month. I am sorry for your troubles, especially given that I am such a fan of peaches, but I’d appreciate it if you did not accuse me of BSing things that I am clearly not making up.
http://www.hprcc.unl.edu/products/maps/acis/MonthTDeptUS.png
We now have the Great Heat Engines of the Atlantic pumping warm ocean heat into the upper atmosphere. Three maybe four hurricanes at the same time.
My thoughts are that the heat from the Atlantic will be directly moved to the cold of Space. This will have the result of lowering future Atlantic temperatures, and, therefore, decreasing the Arctic temperatures. This will cause increased ice buildup and a colder, wetter winter for North America and Europe.
In general, only the “open” ocean can easily give up heat; therefore, as the ice build increases, the evaporation zone(at the edge of the ice field) moves further south into warmer waters. Warmer water evaporation, more snow, cold rain, etc.
The final days of the 2010 melt season are here and the horse race is on.
2010 is the 9th year in the JAXA record. How will it place?
Today 2010 has the Goddard Minimum beat. Wow!!! I had no idea if Steve’s “Theory of Increasing Sea Ice” would be supported by the data or not when this all started but I am quite surprised that his theory was busted… in August!
Let’s look at the standing.
2003 Min.: 6,041,250: Busted 8/14/10
2004 Min.: 5,784,688: Busted 8/19/10
2006 Min.: 5,781,719: Busted 8/19/10
2002 Min: 5,646,875: Busted 8/22/10
Goddard Min: 5,500,000: Busted 8/26/10
2005 Min: 5,315,156: ????
This puts 2010 in the top five lowest sea ice extents in the JAXA record and it’s still August.
Steve: “It is much easier to disprove a theory than it is to prove it.”
So, who is doing the job then?
Paul J says:
August 30, 2010 at 4:08 am
I cannot understand why anyone should get excited even if ice extent falls to new lows.
During the winter the ice extent was above average and now it is maybe a bit below average. So over the year the average is – well pretty average!
———–
Paul,
The only problem with your post is that sea ice extent in the arctic never went above average in the winter of 2010. You may have gotten this misunderstanding from all the excitement earlier in the year when ice extent increased enough to come closer to the average than it has in quite some time but it never hit the average let alone exceeded it.
Well the warm southerly winds that are melting all the ice in the arctic have spelled the end to the pool of water I have been watching on the north pole web cam this summer. Its been gone for the last week , i expected to see it reappear again due to the warmer weather , but no , it is stubbornly frozen solid , this is the bit of north pole ice we can see with our own eyes , and its not doing what its supposed to be doing !! And by the way , its the last day of Summer here in the UK but warm summer weather stopped at least a month ago with many days cool enough for you could see your breath in the air , warming it aint !!
stevengoddard says:
August 29, 2010 at 9:44 pm
baffled,
Much of the Arctic is forecast to be between -5 and -10C during the next two weeks.
There is another behaviour of ice you are not mentioning – called freezing.
—
The melt will continue from below in the warmer water, any snowfall will act as a blanket, reducing ice growth from the air temperature.
“HR
All of the long term Greenland/Iceland plots show approximately the same pattern.”
“approximately” the same “pattern”. utterly precise.
Steven Mosher
Oddly enough, no two stations are exactly the same over a one hundred year period.
baffled
What do you think water temperatures are under the ice in the central Arctic?
Nightvid Cole says:
August 30, 2010 at 5:33 am (Edit)
Seriously, the type of global warming denial that many of you (I will not give specific names) have resorted to is really starting to just sound really stupid.”
Yes. More important is this. The important skeptical arguments ( about sensitivity) get drown out by the increasing cacophany of spurious chattering. All the bandwidth is sucked up by shallowest most misleading voices.
John Marshall,
“I keep saying- the theory of the greenhouse effect violates the laws of thermodynamics so that in itself disproves AGW.”
I’m sure you do. But you would have to do prove it in a peer reviewed paper and get everyone else to agree with you. Merely saying it does not disprove anything.
Steven Mosher says:
August 30, 2010 at 9:10 am
“Yes. More important is this. The important skeptical arguments ( about sensitivity) get drown out by the increasing cacophany of spurious chattering. All the bandwidth is sucked up by shallowest most misleading voices.”
One of the lamest arguements I have read in awhile. Please describe how much “bandwidth” there is and how much the “spurious chattering” is using so I may evaluate if any remains. I would label your arguement more of a whine or an excuse rather than anything constructive or responsible.
Dr A Burns says: “. . . evidence . . .”
This is the only complete and correct answer to the question; which is what makes the question ridiculous. In point of fact, however, what Ms. Strove is actually looking for as an answer is predictive specificity of the evidence to convince, so that she can go data mining for it – which is what makes it a trap. A very old and very well understood trap.
A complete collection of such traps can be found in the tool bag of – Apologetics.
Steven Mosher says: “All the bandwidth is sucked up by shallowest most misleading voices.”
This is why God invented peer review.
Policyguy says:
August 29, 2010 at 11:38 pm
Travis says:
August 29, 2010 at 10:46 pm
Policyguy at 10:28pm August 29th said:
“You might also ask her why its so cold in the US in August?”
Where do you live? HPRCC shows an overwhelming majority of the US at above normal temps for the month of August to date. Roughly half the US has seen temps >2F above normal.
—————
Travis
I’m in northern California. Normally we have a dozen or more plus 100 days.
This year we had about four. This last week end we went to soccer tournaments in blankets with morning temps in the low 60′s.
===========================================================
I’ve got to say I agree with this. Kansas City is well below our “normal” number of 100 or even 90 degree days. I’ve lived within 20 miles of where I do now for the past 40 years, and there’s no way we are 2-4 degrees above “normal” as suggested by the link Travis supplied to the HPRCC data.
A coworker at the office was commenting on having to wear a jacket during his morning motorcycle ride in, in August! Unheard of.
Anecdotal, I know. A small sample area, I know.
That reminds me of another one that I would have posted when Julienne Strove asked about what it would take to be convinced of man’s influence.
If scientists could accurately model the climate of the PAST, I would be more inclined to believe convinced of their arguments in general
Virveli says:
August 30, 2010 at 5:30 am
Again, people are assuming this year is going to finish below 2009 and are asking these questions. Yes, 2010 is trailing 2009 by ~180000 km^2 as of Aug 29, but it’s still above 2009’s minimum by ~103000 km^2, so there’s still a very slight possibility of it staying above 2009 (there’s also the possibility of it going below it in just a couple days too, LOL).
Given the strong El Nino this year coupled with the fact that 3 consecutive years of extent growth have not been previously recorded, I’d say that staying above 5e6 km^2 isn’t so bad (and there’s roughly a 50% of this still happening). I’m sure many people will disagree with me there.
On the other hand, where are these massive losses that the CAGW experts have been predicting? Shouldn’t we be lower than 2007 by now…we’ve had 3 years to go below it, right? Instead, we may still end up with 20% more extent than 2007’s minimum.
At this point, it looks like the 2010 ice extent is going to fall into an uncomfortable middle ground where neither camp can declare victory. It’ll be funny though because parts of both camps will likely try to claim victory. 🙂
-Scott
Scott Ramsdell says:
August 30, 2010 at 9:50 am
Add in San Diego County to the list of having a cool summer in 2010 (before adjustments ;-).
JAXA just Revised their 1st rise in extent by another 7 or 8 mill sq k’s..the Arctic just saw a 10,000 sq K rebound!! I can’t wait to see if the refreeze can pass up 09 down the road which would make up for any extent loss from last year although we still have a hundred million sq k’s to go to get to 09’s min…Sorry for the interuption…..ok back to the good stuff!
Sorry..as you’all can see i’m no Rocket Surgeon…thats 10,000 km^2…Just humor me please..
baffled24 said at 8:19 am
The melt will continue from below in the warmer water,
Right, not the colder water, just the “warmer water” because that’s the water on the plus side of the “tipping point” temp. and NO other environmental conditions have any effect…. opps, except for snowfall – – I guess;
any snowfall will act as a blanket,
Right, holding in all that heat within the ICE….
reducing ice growth from the air temperature.
Right, that air temperature that can ONLY freeze/chill water/ice as it has no effect on snow once on the ground, or in this case on the ice…. What is that again? Thermodynamics Law 1,021?
/sarc
I couldn’t resist it. This whole discussion of the – additional 100PPM CO2 at 14k Ft above the tropics prevents Arctic water to freeze, in time causing the doom of mankind on Earth theory is getting just a little wacky. Well, as wacky as the theory itself. There would NEVER be any ice fishing if water ITSELF prevented ITSELF from forming its solid state. Question: What’s the temperature of the water BELOW the ice in a spring fed lake in Wisconsin in the dead of winter? Exactly! It’s ABOVE the “tipping point”. So how is there ice above it?
And where
Martin Brumby said at 1:48 am
The “war against global warming” is actually a “war against the poor”.
Not trying to put words in your mouth Martin, but I think you meant: The war (argument) FOR (human caused) GW is a war against the poor and I agree but specifically in that it is a war against the INDIVIDUAL, expressly the inalienable rights of individuals AND thereby the cause for acknowledging those rights and the elevation of the individual ABOVE any group no matter the economic status of either.
That is why this “theory” is being driven (mostly) by the group thinkers at the UN. The construct of the UN is diametrically opposed to the construct of the US. That is why this “theory” is being opposed (mostly) by the individual thinkers in the US. I have never encountered a group thought worth anything….