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.
(Scott:) “so there’s still a very slight possibility of it staying above 2009 ”
This chance would seem to me to be in the same league as the Petermann ice Island a.k.a “Deniersberg” reattaching itself to the glacier where it calved from. (Which S.G. told us would “probably” happen as well.)
There are folks who are more than happy to both dismiss 2007 as a huge “wind anomaly” and, at the same time, claim the very same year as a ma(r)ker of a huge “recovery” trend. Either one of these notions will have to yield within a single individual, I feel!
Virveli says:
August 30, 2010 at 11:02 am
(Scott:) “so there’s still a very slight possibility of it staying above 2009 ”
“This chance would seem to me to be in the same league as the Petermann ice Island a.k.a “Deniersberg” reattaching itself to the glacier where it calved from. (Which S.G. told us would “probably” happen as well.)”
___________
Or for the temperatures to go down in the 1930’s in the 2000’s
Or for the temperatures to go down in the 1890’s in the 2000’s
and so on…
Ecotretas said:
August 30, 2010 at 12:08 am
I would expect more news about the Northwest passage and the Northern Sea route. Baltica, a ship carrying natural gas, has made it through, with the help of 3 nuclear icebreakers. Check it out at http://ecotretas.blogspot.com/2010/08/scf-baltica-and-northern-sea-route.html
Ecotretas
____________________________
That’s quite a sceptical page but even so if you follow the links rather than the bluster your comment ” with the help of 3 nuclear icebreakers ” doesn’t seem to hold true. The links say that the ice breakers followed the ship, but the ship didn’t need them and it got through one day faster than expected. So no help. Whether they made much money on it having to pay for the atomic ducklings following is an interesting point though.
The NW passage northern direct route has less ice in it than in any of the last few years also.
Andy
Steven Mosher said:
August 30, 2010 at 9:10 am
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.
________________________________________
Totally agree, wheat and chaff and all that. On the pro AGW side the media has too much chaff and not enough wheat, and for the con AGW the great global layman does similar. It’s all black or white and the arguments that swing it one way or another are too clever for the majority to add any input on.
Being neither too far pro or con, but quite pro scientists in general, including Juliette and Walt and Mark, I have a nice backstop who will always pipe up if I am writing bollocks… not sure who fills that gap in the other camp??
You shouldn’t be posting non polar stuff like that here though… bad boy! 🙂
Andy
Virveli says:
August 30, 2010 at 11:02 am
Is it even possible to more selectively quote someone before ripping on their comment? To make it clear to those who didn’t read there earlier comment, here’s my sentence in whole:
Notice the actual numbers given as well as the admission that it’s possible to reach 2009’s minimum within just a couple days? Why were these not included in what you quoted? Hard to rip on the sentence when it was given in its entirety? Regarding what you said about this probability:
I don’t know anything about the probability of the Petermann Ice Island reattaching (nor do I know why it matters since it calved…not melted), but I calculate the probability of finishing above 2009 to be 2.9% currently (to be exact, the probability of exceeding 1.9 std deviations…using a method I outlined on the previous Sea Ice News). What number do you calculate for the glacier reattaching? Have you even calculated one? Please let me know your methods. If you BSed it, then please stop spewing garbage.
-Scott
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!
____________________________________
Gee, I think they should reap the Darwin Award instead. The Gene Pool could use a bit of cleaning.
Our failure to allow nature to clean the Gene Pool has resulted in idiots being elected to high public office, yes it is definitely time to let nature clean the Gene Pool.
Konrad: August 29, 2010 at 10:39 pm
Yes, some may infer that but I did indicate in my previous comment that the ship was grounded (as is ran aground). However having updated information on the ships location, I would consider that it is likely to be re-floated before any of this winters ice comes close.
On the plus side, there’s an icebreaker enroute to play tugboat to get Clipper Adventurer off the rock.
On the minus side, the ship was reported as listing, with no information on what the tide state was at the time of the observation.
Juliette Strive is wishing to be reaffirmed about mans influence . There are apparently no real machos in this blog . Anybody willing to accept the glove ?
Give her a real handshake and she may be more than willing to accept any offer she cannot refuse .
I found this interesting from the article about the ship that was grounded
“The increase in traffic is almost exponential, and we’re not prepared for that,” he said, noting there were 69 transits of the Northwest Passage in the 100 years up to and including 2006.Last year alone, there were 24.”
That seems to reflect a lag of resources behind the changing climate conditions up there.
Andy
Over 100 comments & no R Gately (Or was it Gates?)
frederik wisse,
You misunderstand, as does Juliette Strove: the burden of showing that human action causes measurable global warming is entirely on those who push the CO2=CAGW hypothesis. Scientific skeptics simply ask: where is the empirical evidence showing that human CO2 emissions will cause runaway global warming?
So far the climate alarmists have failed to provide testable, empirical evidence and observations to back their hypothesis. Instead, they use computer models and pal reviewed papers.
You have the scientific method backwards; you should be demanding solid, testable evidence measuring the effect of human emitted CO2 on temperature. So far, the evidence shows that CO2 has negligible effect, based on the real world evidence and verifiable observation.
When you jettison the scientific method, you enter the realm of conjecture, and you’re left with impotent complaints like: “There are apparently no real machos in this blog.”
Next, you’ll be saying, “My dad can beat up your dad.” Instead, you would do well to learn how the scientific method works. Based on your post above, you simply do not understand why the CO2=CAGW hypothesis fails.
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.
Hi Martin. Some 60+ studies show doubling CO2 will raise global temps. The results cluster around +3C (+/-1C). These arise from basic research, not GCMs. Please read Mark Lynas’ excellent book “Six Degrees”. It details what might be anticipated from a +1C, +2C etc rises. Before WUWT regulars jump down my throat it is made clear in the book and by interviews with the author that the +5C, +6C chapters in particular are speculative and supported by sparse data sets at best. The many potential effects of +3C are sobering enough – no need to read further. One simple example; for England, I anticipate “1 in 100 year” flood events to become far more frequent.
Arctic ice is fighting a losing battle against rising ocean heat content – a consequence of GW. Paradoxically, in its current phase, the final extent is now more sensitive to weather events than before, but the variation is about a much lower mean.
it is so good that we finally have someone who is qualified to tell everyone else what is the correct way to think.
“Hi Martin. Some 60+ studies show doubling CO2 will raise global temps. The results cluster around +3C (+/-1C).”
I thought the physical properties of CO2 as a GHG were a 1C for a doubling of pre-industrial levels (280 x 2=560ppm) and that to get to 3C for that same doubling all the feedbacks were of the warming category. They get the 3C+ from the MODELS that they run, because they program the feedbacks to be of the warm variety.
Ammonite
August 30, 2010 at 2:10 pm
“Some 60+ studies show doubling CO2 will raise global temps. The results cluster around +3C (+/-1C).”
Doubling from what level to what level?
Ammonite says: “The many potential effects of +3C are sobering enough – no need to read further. One simple example; for England, I anticipate “1 in 100 year” flood events to become far more frequent.”
Forgive me, but taking all of this as stipulated, I still think you are going to have a hard time “sobering” the people of England with tales of their climate becoming almost, but not quite, bearable to a tropical species.
Rather than tales of floods several times a century I think it best that you revert to the former tactic; tales of ubiquitous glacier.
Bill Tuttle says:
August 30, 2010 at 1:23 pm
On the plus side, there’s an icebreaker enroute to play tugboat to get Clipper Adventurer off the rock.
On the minus side, the ship was reported as listing, with no information on what the tide state was at the time of the observation.
Oh, I’m sure their passengers are convinced that the rapid sea level rise will get the cruise ship back afloat soon.
Updated 15-day chart:
http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/9426/15day20100829.png
Updated 7-day chart. 2009 added for comparison:
http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/1576/7day20100829.png
I think we’re now past the point of undershoot and a latent dip as in 2005/6, despite JAXA having just confirmed an unnerving early gain. It’s taken a bit of a knock in the past week but the 7-day average still looks on track to cross stasis on 11th, two days ahead of 2009. I’ve revised my estimate down slightly from to 5.19 x 10^6 +/- 0.10 to 5.15 x 10^6 +/- 0.10. I expect the variance to reduce significantly now as we close in. If it doesn’t +/- 0.10 may not be wide enough.
5249844 was the lowest 15% extent posted for Jaxa in 2009, on Sept 13th. 5352500 has just been posted for Aug 29th 2010 (provisional was 5345156). Here is what would happen if melt continued to decline in a straight line at the same rate as it did in 2009 (about 19,000/day), which it won’t of course.
I’m expecting it to stick fairly closely to the 7-day mean but head north slightly early due to what by most accounts seem to be colder conditions. As Steve says, at the end of the day it’s a crap shoot – even at this eleventh hour.
Thanks Steve for pricking my interest enough to look at the numbers for myself. It’s convinced me the cycle is strongly hysteretic and therefore that year to year trends are pretty much meaningless and drawing a linear trend across even 30 years of data is for the most part, complete nonsense. Joe Bastardi has the right idea with his “two steps forward one step back” statement. The Arctic is like a 100watt Marshal stack fed with weather signals through a fuzz-box with sustain set to 10. A pair of ear muffs might be a good idea in the next few years (but not for the noise).
Konrad says:
August 29, 2010 at 4:00 pm
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
I can’t believe this kind of thing happened again. So much for the claim “the Northwest Passage is open”.
Wait, maybe i can believe it happened again. What does that proverb say, “what has been is what will be”.
AndyW says:
August 30, 2010 at 11:45 am
> That’s quite a sceptical page but even so if you follow the
> links rather than the bluster your comment ” with the help
> of 3 nuclear icebreakers ” doesn’t seem to hold true. The
> links say that the ice breakers followed the ship, but the
> ship didn’t need them and it got through one day faster
> than expected. So no help.
Are you reading the same page that I’m reading? One of the links points to http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i0qfFIMLHvqlM-5R3Zlkg5l-l52w which says… “Russian television has shown the tanker making cautious progress through chunky sheets of ice ***IN THE WAKE OF THE STEEL-RIMMED ICE BREAKERS***, as a polar bear loped across ice floes within shouting distance of the ships”. Yes, the tanker was following the ice breakers.
And this isn’t the first navigation of the northeast passage, either. Wikipedia is run by AGW true-beleievers. But even they don’t deny the saga of the Komet. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_auxiliary_cruiser_Komet for the details. Note that until the launch of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, “Uncle Joe” and “Uncle Adolf” were still buddy-buddies. I quote from the Wikipedia article…
> Under the command of Kapitän zur See (later Konteradmiral)
> Robert Eyssen, HSK7 departed for her first raiding voyage from
> Gotenhafen on 3 July 1940 with a crew of 270.[3] With the
> consent of the then neutral Soviet Union, Komet initially made
> its way along the Norwegian coast disguised as the Soviet
> icebreaker Semyon Dezhnev.[3] While waiting in Teriberka Bay
> in July and August because of Soviet security concerns, she took
> the fake name the Donau.[3] With assistance from Soviet
> icebreaker Lenin, she passed through the several Arctic Ocean
> passages in August.[4] She later also received help from Joseph
> Stalin.[4] In early September, the Komet crossed the Bering
> Straits into the Pacific Ocean.
And let me also point out that in 1940, Russia did not have nuclear-powered ice-breakers. And there were no polar orbiting satellites taking photos to tell you where the openings and leads were in the ice pack. Not that it would’ve helped that much without a constellation of GPS satellites enabling you to know where you are on earth to within a few feet. I also wonder how many of those “single-handed voyages through the Northwest Passge” would’ve succeeded with 1940’s navigation charts, no satellite ice maps, no GPS and no radio contact with the rest of the world.
On the other hand, where are these massive losses that the CAGW experts have been predicting?
Well, the massive losses were there in May and June. But then the weather turned and six weeks of low-pressure areas dominating the Arctic made the Beaufort Gyre and Transpolar Drift Stream stall (much less transport through Fram Strait), increased cloudiness (less insolation) and lowered temperatures.
In 2007, the year of the perfect storm, the atmospheric pattern that is very conducive to decreasing extent called the Arctic Dipole Anomaly (which we saw in May and June this year) was greatly influencing the melt all the way to the end of the melting season.
Consider the fact that 2010 missed out on this big factor during much of the most important time of the melting season when extent decrease rates are highest. 2007 clocked almost 100K a day during July, 2010 had a little bit more than 60K. During the first 2 weeks of August 2007’s extent melt rate was still 10K above 2010’s. This makes a great difference.
But 2010 is still in third place and with a bit of luck might go below 5 million square km. Imagine what would have happened if 3 of those 6 weeks during July and the first half of August would have been similar to those of 2007.
If you look at the MODIS satellite images and zoom in on specific regions you can clearly see the ice is not recovering (yet, perhaps next year). Also compare the Uni Bremen sea ice concentration map to previous years. Look at all those holes in the central ice pack.
The behaviour of the ice in September will not be a statistics problem. It will be determined by the specifics of the weather.
8/30/10, today’s image of the Northwest Passage from the Canadian Ice Service (names added by me)
http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/6448/83010zzcmmbctcacrop.jpg
stevengoddard says:
August 30, 2010 at 5:34 pm
Yep, and ultimately affect what happens next March.
Amino, there was a pretty clear satellite image from the NWP yesterday as well.