Open Sea Ice Thread

Allright, shoot. I’ll shoot first.
I was looking at the Antarctic ice graph earlier, and the fact that the ice just doesn’t ever seem to extend beyond a certain point is interesting. Maybe the large amount of sea is a barrier to more ice without more continent to freeze over?
Hmm, that last sentence looks weird, but I can’t figure out a better way to write it. Brainfreeze. ;-D

Here’s a NASA photo comparison of the 50KM^2 Ellesmere Island shelf break-
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=45463
Look’s like the break was due to stress from encroaching ocean ice- not induced by global warming.

Dave F says:
September 1, 2010 at 9:14 pm
You might say that the Antarctic Sea Ice is operating within it’s natural climactic bounds.
The Antarctic Current is probably eating away at any higher ice extent, and in doing so, cooling itself off.
I have noted that as the La Nina waters poured into the Eastern Pacific this summer, they seem to emanate from the Antarctic Region. Perhaps part of the AAC is diverted upwards along S. America, some on the surface, some down under.

phlogiston says:
September 1, 2010 at 9:58 pm
DMI Arctic temperatures seem to be finally falling after a large above-average excursion to near zero. Was this partly latent heat release of freezing or just winds from a warm Russia-Siberia?
It’s global warming. 😉

It’s the 2 minute warning.

rbateman says:
September 1, 2010 at 10:30 pm
Get your tickets (gasp) while they are hot.
I think I’ll get some popcorn and watch for minimum, and maximum at the Antarctic. And I need to save some for next Thursday night to watch the Vikings (and #4) beat the Saints! I saw a show one time where Vikings robbed and beat some priests. Different Vikings though. The Vikings I’m watching next weeks were robbed by Saints.

Duke C. says:
September 1, 2010 at 9:30 pm
Here’s a NASA photo comparison of the 50KM^2 Ellesmere Island shelf break-
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=45463
“Look’s like the break was due to stress from encroaching ocean ice- not induced by global warming.”
Really? that’s not what NASA think is it?
“Driftwood and narwhal remains found along the coast of Ellesmere Island where the shelf is attached have radiocarbon dates from roughly 3,000 to 6,800 years ago, implying that the ice has been in place since those remains were deposited. Breakup along the Ward Hunt indicates a change in the conditions that previously allowed this ice shelf to persist for millennia.” http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=45463
Or do you think, that NASA thinks, the shelf is breaking up due to pressure from accumulating ice?
It’s not as if this wasn’t predicted either…http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/413677
” Pinned in place by islands and landfast ice, the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf is unlikely to drift out to sea, said Mueller. It’s more likely to become increasingly fractured and deteriorate where it sits.
The bottom line is the vast plain of ice is now on “life support,” he said. Ice shelves are not replenished by glaciers. Cracks in them are permanent.
“You can’t go back,” said Mueller( Derek Mueller of Trent University). “It’s broken.”

I’ll have another try at this question.
Does anybody know where there is a series of daily Antarctic sea ice extent or anomalies in a txt or csv file (something that can be read into Excel).
It’s easy to get NH data at JAXA but SH data nowhere to be found in that format.

[snip] lets’ leave the triple point discussion out of sea ice, this is why the previous thread was closed. – Anthony

rbateman
Amino Acids in Meteorites
Michael Schaefer
roger
Thanks for the replies.
Is it just me or do the Cryosphere today images show the ice firming up a bit in the last few days?

Duke C. says:
September 1, 2010 at 9:30 pm
Here’s a NASA photo comparison of the 50KM^2 Ellesmere Island shelf break-
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=45463
Look’s like the break was due to stress from encroaching ocean ice- not induced by global warming.
Interesting article. I didn’t take me long on a google search to find this old document about much larger ice islands breaking off Ward Hunt in the 1950’s.

Hmmmmm. R. Gates seems awfully quiet these days!

Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
September 1, 2010 at 10:20 pm
Interesting point. Actually only 2007 and 8 show major drops at this point in the season. All the other JAXA tracks are flat.

Last few days it has flattened with about 5.340, 5.351, 5.352, 5.320, 5.329. If you look at previous years it has flattened around here but dropped lower later in September so I wouldn’t conclude anything yet, but there’s still a chance of beating 2009, which would be powerful symbolically even if the years are a statistical wash, and it’s definitely pulling away further from 2008.
Clearly Steve and R Gates were both influenced
by their biases and we will end up somewhere between them. However, R Gates knowledge
about thin ice is not being validated, and the piomas volume model is looking increasingly ridiculous.

Mark/Roger – It was Steve Goddard’s posts that Gates apparently had the problem with, so I would imagine he will make his presence felt at his (Steve’s) new blog.

Have we reached the 2010 Arctic sea ice minimum yet?
Serious question.
I’ve been looking at the JAXA concentration imagery coupled with the PIPS 2.0 ice displacement (I have a lot of faith in Fleet Numerics global wind fields (been there, done that), but have little faith in PIPS 2.0 ice thickness/concentration model data considering it’s operational/navigational mode status and it’s older (two-to-three decades) software technologies) vector maps, coupled with the MODIS (Aqua/Terra) imagery;
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/cgi-bin/seaice-monitor.cgi?lang=e
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/pips2/archive/retrievepic.html?filetype=Displacement&year=2010&month=8&day=16
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/?calendar
And I’ve noticed a near continuous wind vector field (from left-to-right) since August 16th.
The JAXA concentration imagery confirms that significant sea ice has been moving into the Fram Strait, increasing the ice concentrations/areas there (in other words the ice there is diverging there at the moment).
So, I’m wondering that if this pattern will continue over the next two weeks, then it is doubtful that the minimum will be much less than what it already is.
Also, if this turns into a seasonal pattern, the majority of the ice lost through the Fram Strait, into/through the fall season, could be multi-year ice (> two years).
Finally, I’m expecting that PIOMAS will show a new record low in Arctic sea ice volume in the September time frame. So, at this time, I’ll SWAG an ice volume of 5E3 km^3 for the 2010 PIOMAS minimum sea ice volume.

Confirmed JAXA 15% extent for Sept 1st just in: 5332344. Updated charts, for what they’re worth …
15-day: http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/5715/15day20100901.png
7-day: http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/1295/7day20100901.png
Picking up too soon and too quickly for comfort IMHO, could do with shedding another 30-40K tomorrow. Interesting that DMI average temp above 80N is showing a sudden decline; it’s been going out on a limb recently. Not sure what to make of that, no past year back to 1958 seems remotely comparable.

Hmm, past days i have seen @ NOAA Webcam 2 heavy Snowfall with more than 20cm snow.. I think that is why the Temperature of DMI in past Weeks was high, but now its beginning to be cloudless and the Temperature going instant down, Webcam 2 shown that Temperature is falling above 2 Day about 5 Grad, most of it today..

AJB,
what software did you use to produce those graphs?
-bbttxu

Anthony,
Then “snip” all posts on the topic.
REPLY: didn’t see the earlier ones, as the comment moderation interface only shows new ones, done

Scientists forced to revice Arctic Sea Ice forecast projections upwards
http://notrickszone.com/2010/09/01/scientists-forced-to-revise-arctic-sea-ice-projections-upwards/

You absolutely can not have a serious discussion about the behaviour of the Arctic ice this time of year, without discussing the sensitivity of the phases to small changes in temperature.
That is what determines the inflection point in the area/extent graphs, normally in the first couple of weeks of September.
REPLY: yes, you absolutely can, and you did, many times on the blog have such serious discussions without mentioning the triple point of water. We won’t be discussing it here. You have your own blog, discuss it there all you want and anyone can join in. Here, everybody can go to this link: http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2010/09/02/a-banner-day-for-climate-censorship/
– Anthony

Its getting cold up at 84.6N!
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/POPS13_atmos_recent.html
Drifting “north pole” cam POPS 13 gave the following 24hr temps
Mo/Dy/Hr Latitude Longitude Temp Press
09/02/0800Z 84.604°N 4.990°E -11.3°C 1005.1mb
09/02/0700Z 84.604°N 4.979°E -11.5°C 1005.1mb
09/02/0600Z 84.605°N 4.980°E -11.4°C 1004.2mb
09/02/0500Z 84.605°N 4.994°E -12.6°C 1002.5mb
09/02/0400Z 84.606°N 5.018°E -15.5°C 1001.4mb
09/02/0300Z 84.609°N 5.045°E -15.3°C 1001.5mb
09/02/0100Z 84.619°N 5.080°E -14.2°C 1003.6mb
09/02/0000Z 84.625°N 5.074°E -13.2°C 1004.2mb
09/01/2300Z 84.631°N 5.052°E -13.2°C 1004.0mb
09/01/2200Z 84.635°N 5.019°E -13.5°C 1004.0mb
09/01/2100Z 84.639°N 4.985°E -13.9°C 1004.1mb
09/01/1900Z 84.642°N 4.942°E -13.0°C 1005.5mb
09/01/1800Z 84.644°N 4.948°E -12.4°C 1005.5mb
09/01/1700Z 84.647°N 4.971°E -11.7°C 1005.9mb
09/01/1600Z 84.652°N 5.002°E -12.1°C 1006.3mb
09/01/1500Z 84.659°N 5.037°E -11.9°C 1007.2mb
09/01/1400Z 84.668°N 5.061°E -11.4°C 1007.9mb
09/01/1300Z 84.678°N 5.070°E -11.1°C 1008.2mb
09/01/1200Z 84.687°N 5.066°E -10.7°C 1008.2mb
09/01/1100Z 84.696°N 5.055°E -10.6°C 1008.1mb
09/01/0700Z 84.718°N 5.018°E -10.4°C 1007.3mb

Looks like the arctic cap north of Svalbard is disintegrating, so spreading southwards and increasing the ice extent. It’ll probably re-freeze before much of it exits the chute.

I hope there isn’t any bad blood here over this triple point issue. It doesn’t appear that there is. It does look like some misunderstandings have happened. I hope that Steven Goddard will still be doing guest posts. His posts have been interesting. I know there have been flare ups from a few people over some of the things he has said. But flare ups are nothing new global warming.

This link to the Aqua Satellite Maps:
http://exploreourpla.net/explorer/?map=Arc&sat=ter&lon=0&lat=89,9&lvl=4&yir=2010&dag=245
It’s rather difficult to see what’s going on down there due to all the clouds.
And this link to the Ice in Canadian waters:
http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/Ice_Can/CMMBCTCA.gif
shows the NW passage getting iced up at key bottlenecks.

rbateman
The Canadian Ice Service shows the Northwest Passage almost closed in parts of the McClure Straits. There is evidence there is anywhere from 40% to 80 % concentration of ice in those places. There is talk by some that the Northwest Passage is open. But they don’t have evidence for it. And a boat is stuck in the Northwest Passage.

So, if I’m seeing this right, the reason Sea Ice #20 was closed is because of the heated argument that started. It is now over at Steven Goddard’s blog.
I remember Anthony said he wanted to lighten things up here at WUWT (my paraphrase). So with that in mind I could understand why he wanted the discussion to end here. And, contrary to what some have said, it looks like Steven Goddard is not ‘banned’ here but will still be posting here at WUWT.
So then, anytime a discussion that gets hot in a Steven Goddard post and is stopped because of it, which jeez, Mosher, Phil, and others turn them in to, it can always go over to his blog and continue there. It’s a quick click to get there. Wow! That works! 🙂 And I think there will be some good fruit come of it over there. It’s a win-win!
Great idea Anthony! Chalk one up for Anthony Watts!

Amino Acids, finally you are right about something being closed ! 🙂
The area at Cryosphere is very low,
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.arctic.png
and the anomaly in the Antarctic is now roughly 0,
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.antarctic.png
so how does that show up on rbateman’s black and white anomaly graph comparison?
Drop of 30 000 today, with area dropping and extent currently staying level it will be interesting to see what happens in the next week or so.
Andy

Scott says:
September 2, 2010 at 9:31 pm
DMI’s 30% extent seems to give the highest rating for 2010 of all the measures….. Overall, much of the ice does seem low concentration…
That is a contradiction.
The reason DMi is high compared to the others is because almost all of the ice is at a high concentration. 30% concentration being so different could be a sign of cooling in the earth.
Arctic ice is not rotted and alarmingly thin as some claim. Mostly the edge around the ice is at low concentration making it susceptible to winds and temperature. It’s normally like that. That makes it highly variable. And that will make the difference in the graphs.
There is the hypothesis that Arctic Ice in the Beaufort Sea is rotted by manmade emissions. But no evidence has been presented that proves ice in the Beaufort Sea is any different than it has been in the past, say 50, or 100 years ago. Until evidence come along that ice in the Beaufort Sea is different than it has been at other times the rotted ice hypothesis is just a hypothesis; just another one of many hypothesis’ about global warming that has no proof.

hey guys… I am commenting up a storm on Arctic ice over at Goddard’s place as Zinfan94. But I am the only one there! Come over, and join in.
He now claims the warm winds are melting the ice pack… he won’t accept any other explanation for ice melt except thermal energy carried into the ice pack by warm winds. This theory depends on air temperatures being significantly (10-15 deg F) above freezing, so it appears that Steven Goddard now believes that Arctic surface temperatures are much higher than freezing.
He seems to have bought into the GISS extrapolation of warmer surface air temperatures across the Arctic. Comments?

Paul K2
Paul,
Relax. You’re breathless.

Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
September 2, 2010 at 10:33 pm
I suppose the NW Passage is open today if you are at the helm of an Icebreaker.
Can you imagine the nightmares that the Cruise Ship Captain gets over that close encounter with rocks last month in the NW Passage? That’s got to be one sickening crunch. No word on whether the crippled ship can be retrieved before the Ice claims it as another trophy ship.

… a NEW phenomena is running — or about to start up: low angle Sun / Oceanic REFRACTION. Or actually: two:
1. At the Ocean Surface, a very low angle ray can be even more likely to reflect off the SEA, than even bright white Ice.
2. Above the surface, Sunlight refracts over the Horizon even if it the Sun is technically Set. See: http://www.eh2r.com/
Either of these could be VERY significant. If, that is, the Sun ever returns !
… I have 3 new calculations of ___ THE DAY THE SUN RETURNS – –
the 5th, 12th or 19th, based on the time delay for High pressure to return – – times the strength of the El Nino relative to 2007’s.
This is because the 2010’s El Nino was 1.64 times the rating of 2007’s (1.8/1.1) so CLOUDS would be generated IN PROPORTION (& then take longer to get wiped out by the La Nina — again see Wayne Davidson’s site, above) . 2007 seems to have slowed melt in May/early June for 5-6 weeks – – this year’s El Nino was a “Modoki” which lasts ~ 2 months longer, so the CLOUDS arrived on June 28 … so I am “trying” 3 Methods: #1 = June 29 + 6 weeks times the El Nino ratio (1.8/1.1=1.64) … Method #2m = 5 weeks times the ratio, PLUS 33% for El Nino “Modoki” that last longer, … Method #3 = 6 weeks times (1.8/1.1) + 33%
– – it makes sense that if there are more Clouds, it takes longer for the New La Nina to dry them out.
MAYBE this will work for Upcoming years. AS you may know, the EXTREME Outlook [ = ZERO Ice ] came from Me – – BUT, as I said, If I am wrong, it will be the Clouds”. Not one of the Experts could tell me – – even STEVE – – what the Clouds would do. So I made up my Own theory … OK, I actually just Hijakked Wayne’s Theory – – & added two “tweaks” : his reasoning is fine, but he was unaware of “Modoki” – – which delayed the El NINO/La NINA switch to JULY, KILLING THE BEST MELTING MONTH, and, that there were more Clouds (1.64 times, or maybe +33% = 2.2 TIMES, though offset by the fact the La Nina is itself a kind of “rebound” effect, & as such, one after a Modoki should be STRONGER — & this one looks like FIMBUL WINTER is coming (La Ninas are COLD).
On the subject of Ice Area, there is a SECOND Area number Source, at Nansen, the Parent of the Arctic Roos/Norsex Quad of graphs.
Look on the Bottom of the Page. The number for All-time Minimum has apparently been increased 10% to account for a new Algorithm, if the NSIDC explanation that the new Algorithms may be better, yet invalidate comparisons to previous years, has been heard & provoked a re-calculation of the Old figures ( 2010 Norsex Daily Area seems to match the 2010 Nansen Daily number precisely).
Compare Nansen & JAXA/Cryosphere numbers:
(taking Older Nansen Numbers off the Arctic Roos graph)
Year: ___________ 2007 _____ 2008 _____ 2009 ______ 2010
Nansen/Norsex: ___ 3.62 ______ 3.90 ______ 4.27 _______ 4.350662
Cryo / ijis ______ 2.9194391 __ 3.0035558 __ 3.4265975 ___ 3.2508845
Last 4 days N. :___ +_ 9,124___ -29,380.0 ___ -33,505.7 ___ +45,367.4
Last 4 days Cry___-143,476___ – 29,903.9___ + _4,424____ -71,642.4
# to Min. Nansen = __ 1006 K ___450 K _____ 80 K__(K = 1,000km2)
# to Min (Cryo) = ___ 332 K ___ 245 K ____ -180 K _(Min=MINimum)
# To Go to Min(Na) =__17 % ____ 10 % _____ 2 %
# To Go ( Cryo )___=__10 % _____ 8 % _____ PASSED ( by 5 %)
– – Obviously, these are two SERIOUSLY DIFFERENT area measures.
Perhaps that is why, for the Extent numbers, only ONE (the Jaxa) is published
#ToGo EXTENT = __ 19.5% ____11.2% _____ 0.2 % (JAXA)
Nansen AREA at http://www.nersc.no/main/index2.php — note Link: to Norsex via SSMI
Cryo/ijis AREA at : http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/timeseries.anom.1979-2008
JAXA/ijis EXtent at: http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/plot.csv
Topex has the ONLY comparison of SSMI & AMSR-E data on the same Graph: on row #2 from the Top: http://arctic-roos.org/forecasting-services/topaz/topaz-model-forecast
DMI & Norsex use SSMI, AMSR-E is NSIDC, JAXA/CRYO, Bremen (Bremen’s graphs also look like previous years were adjusted); note NSIDC still uses the old Algorithm.

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 2005 beat leaving the Goddard Minimum far behind.
Let’s look at the standings.
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: Busted Today!!!
2009 Min:5,249,844: ???
This puts 2010 in the top four lowest sea ice extents in the JAXA record and there is still time on the clock.

Jeff P,
Compare my forecast vs. NSIDC
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adXkVq8aVUg&NR=1]
Mine is looking almost perfect.

stevengoddard says:
September 3, 2010 at 6:30 am
Mine is looking almost perfect.
—–
You’re desperation is palpable.

Jeff P says:
September 3, 2010 at 5:06 am
This puts 2010 in the top four lowest sea ice extents in the JAXA record and there is still time on the clock.
Or in the top 5 highest. It depends on how you want to look at it.
But 9 years of data is too short. Nothing important could be determined about Arctic ice with a short data set like that. If there was a data set 1000 years long then we could see what is really going on with Arctic ice and we could draw conclusions about 2010 that would carry weight.. But we only have 9 years in JAXA. Something that we can see though is that Arctic ice is not heading in the direction manmade global warming says it should be. It’s growing since 2007. Antarctic ice is also not doing what global warming ‘science’ says it should. The manmade global warming hypothesis continues to not have supporting evidence.

Jeff P says:
September 3, 2010 at 7:03 am
“You’re desperation is palpable.”
As is your obsession/stalking of Steven.

Confirmed JAXA 15% extent for Sept 2nd is in: 5304219. Updated charts …
15-day: http://img375.imageshack.us/img375/3153/15day20100902.png
7-day: http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/5168/7day20100902.png
Nice … now we need a couple of days at 15-30K melt. DMI above 80N average temp nudged down a little more again today too.

Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
September 2, 2010 at 10:14 pm

Scott says:
September 2, 2010 at 9:31 pm

DMI’s 30% extent seems to give the highest rating for 2010 of all the measures….. Overall, much of the ice does seem low concentration…

That is a contradiction.
The reason DMi is high compared to the others is because almost all of the ice is at a high concentration. 30% concentration being so different could be a sign of cooling in the earth.

Yes, that was part of the point of my post…that there is lot of contradicting information from the various databases right now. They all seem to agree that 15% extent for 2010 is at or below 2009’s level (though varying considerably). The also agree that area is below 2009’s level (again, varying considerably). Yet 30% extent from DMI has tracked 2009 well and is slightly above it now, whereas intuitively I’d assume that 30% would behave somewhere between area and 15%.
I guess I should revise my statement to something like “Much of the ice seems to be of intermediate concentration.” Presumably, there has to be a decent amount more ice in the 50% (roughly) range compared to last year for both area and 15% extent to be below 2009 while 30% is above.
That said, I really do think it’s too late in the season for Phil to be right about us losing a lot more extent. And though most people seemed to write it off nearly a week ago, I’m still rooting to out-extend 2009. However, if the recent slowdown in loss doesn’t hold, we could still see extent drop all the way to 5.oe6 km^2 (statistically we should be closer to 5.1e6 km^2, and I have a gut feeling that to 2 sig figs we’ll see 5.2e6 km^2…though that means nothing). A lot of it depends on how accurate the DMI graph is (and of course the weather :-).
The final JAXA number results in less loss than the initial number did, but we still only have 54375 km^2 to go to reach 2009’s minimum. The only year in JAXA that lost less than even 100000 km^2 from here to the minimum was 2004, but apparently several years back in the 80’s had their minimum extent in August, which is interesting.
-Scott

AndyM. September 2, 2010 at 10:04 pm
Hey, just trying to stay on message (and some!). Saves a dunking on the ducking-stool at the Village pond for herecy 😉
Just between you and me (don’t tell the Master or his toadies) – AMRS-E shows the Arctic sea ice is ravaged (again) this year. And why can’t somebody stop those imbeciles sailing backwards and forwards through tha NW passage – don’t they know it’s blocked with ice??

roger says:
September 2, 2010 at 4:47 am
“Hmmmmm. R. Gates seems awfully quiet these days!”
Hubris, nemesis, and hostages to fortune spring immediately to mind. As for catharsis we wonder what form that might take as the AGW brigade nudge gently up against reality.
Who are the denialists now?
________
This last week has been an interesting one in the Arctic and Antarctic as both are reaching critical extrema points. Globally of course, the total sea ice continues to be on the underside of the long term norm, related mostly to the Arctic continuing to be well below the 30 year running average, but of course we’ve seen the Antarctic now dip below the running 30 year average as well. A few things an objective observer would note in looking at this longer term Global sea ice anomaly graph:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
First, the graph has spent more time below the average than above over the past 10 years. If you took the definite intergral of the graph you’d see that it was negative over the past ten years. But something else that should become apparent is the high degree of variability that has been introduced in the graph in the past few years (a very high beta). A final thing that should be noted is the significance of this graph in terms of the the total sea ice related albedo of the planet. This graph can be thought of as a direct measure of sea ice albedo, meaning of course that we have seen some very low albedos being reached these past few season, and thus of course, more solar warming of ocean water. This has of course been primarily in the N. Hemipshere, but as I’ve pointed out many times, the S. Hemisphere sea ice has seen negative anomalies over the past few years (just this week in fact) when in fact the N. Hemisphere has not had a positive anomaly since 2004.
To those who would posit any sort of N. Hemisphere sea ice “recovery” I would ask you how there can be any recovery without a positive sea ice anomaly? From a mathematical or scientific point of view you can’t.
In regards specifically to the past few days of N. Hemisphere sea ice activity. We had s stunningly rapid “turn around” in sea ice extent earlier this week. After losing 70,000 sq. km or so for a few days, we saw a rapid halt to this, before a continued downward trend, those much less steep than was happing last weekend for example. This is exactly what wind can do during a period when a great deal of the ice is at such a low concentration. The slow down in the drop in extent was NOT caused by a sudden and rapid freezing of the Arctic, but rather by a shift in the winds that was once more causing divergence in the ice. This divergence, coming so late in the season is an interesting event in itself, that easily sets up the regions of the Beaufort and W. Arctic Basin for more of the “rotten ice” that David Barber reported last year when he visited the area.
Here’s a nice pic from our good and faithful friend the Ice Breaker Healy, on the western side of the Arctic Basin right now. Imagine this ice getting a nice thin layer of ice over the top. Guess what you’ll find here in month or so…rotten ice!
http://mgds.ldeo.columbia.edu/healy/reports/aloftcon/2010/20100903-1701.jpeg
But getting to the heart of the matter, which is what does this lasts weeks period of divergence mean for the final sea ice extent? It depends purely on water temps now, as I’ve been saying for several weeks. If the divergence has kept enough of the ice just a bit further south over warmer waters, then we might get a bit more actual melting. But just as we’ve seen the divergence come upon us quickly this week, the winds could shift and we might get another round of quick compactification. Again, the only thing that makes this kind of rapid change between divergence and compactification possible is the low over all extent in many areas of the N. Hemisphere sea ice. Also, as I point out in my last post, no one should be under the impression that sea ice extent changes right now are measuring primarily melt rates– as they are not. Sea ice extent changes at this point in the melt season (and with the concentration rates where they are) are primarily measuring changes in the wind. Earlier in summer the extent changes were a good measure of melting, but not now. There is a very small amount still going on, but it is occurring only in the areas at the southern most regions of the Arctic.
Continued high SST anomalies across much of the Arctic make me remain confident that we’ve got a few more weeks of decline in ice extent here in September (depending on winds of course), and am still calling for the final summer low to be set between Sept. 20 to Sept. 25.
Today of course we dropped below 2005’s low, and now the next point of interest is 2009’s low. With this year’s melt likely lasting several weeks longer than 2009’s, we should easily fall below that mark…again, though, depending on the timing of the winds and the periods of compactification and divergence.

Village Idiot says:
September 3, 2010 at 10:04 am
Just between you and me (don’t tell the Master or his toadies) – AMRS-E shows the Arctic sea ice is ravaged (again) this year. And why can’t somebody stop those imbeciles sailing backwards and forwards through tha NW passage – don’t they know it’s blocked with ice??
______________________________
They can’t stop sailing those Ice breakers back and forth because they have to ferry all those CAGW scientists up there so they can exclaim about all that broken up ice. They also have to rescue the ships trying to sail thru the passage or break a path for the ships trying to sail thru.

Gail Combs says:
September 3, 2010 at 12:32 pm
You know you are hitting close to the truth when the ad hominem attacks come fast and furious.
——
Oh, that’s why all the Super Skeptics are attacking my data driven posts by calling me names. Thanks for clearing that up Gail.
My post that generated all the heat:
Today 2010 has 2005 beat leaving the Goddard Minimum far behind.
Let’s look at the standings.
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: Busted Today!!!
2009 Min:5,249,844: ???
This puts 2010 in the top four lowest sea ice extents in the JAXA record and there is still time on the clock.

Jeff P.
“Oh, that’s why all the Super Skeptics are attacking my data driven posts by calling me names. Thanks for clearing that up Gail.”
Evidence please.

R. Gates says:
September 3, 2010 at 2:43 pm

The amount of warmer than normal water leads me to push the final low being set Sept. 20th to 25th.

How much warmer is the water (or how much more warm water is there) in 2010 at this time relative to 2008 (JAXA minimum on Sept 9) and 2009 (JAXA minimum on Sept 13)?
-Scott

AndyW says:
September 3, 2010 at 12:57 pm
I never said the Arctic and the Antarctic were correlated. Since they move in a mathematical relationship (like 3:2 eg) they would be poor candidates for a hypothesis such as AGW. And they should not be used as such in any short-term analysis. Even worse is to try and use one of them (Arctic) as a canary for Climate Change. Until enough time has passed to see 3 crossings of anomalies, it’s an exercise in futility, and the NULL hypothesis has to stand.

Don’t those who feel global warming is real have a blog of their own to dominate? Why do they feel they must talk and talk here? I think they are whistling past the cemetery.

Hey Idjut,
I saw it too! That ole co2 ravaging the ole sea ise. Sssshh! its herezy.
backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, ravaging, ravaging.
hell in a handbasket. ravaging,ravaging.

It’s might difficult to tell from an Anomaly reading, but the current Global Sea Ice is around 92% of the 30 year mean.
Seems that data is mighty hard to come by, especially when it comes to analysis that supports theory.
So I have decided to call attention to the origin of the analysis that leads to the claims of an Arctic Death Spiral:
Anomalopogenic

Jeff P says:
September 3, 2010 at 8:14 am
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
September 3, 2010 at 7:38 am
But 9 years of data is too short.
———–
Funny, I don’t recall this criticism of the JAXA data when Steve was using it in post after post to support his arctic sea ice recovery theory. Why didn’t you bring it up then?
You wouldn’t be biased, would you?
You are comparing things that are not the same. It seems that since you trolls think Steven Goddard is banned from WUWT you have turned your attention on me. I just don’t think you guys know what you are doing.
If you cannot see that Arctic ice is growing since 2007, if the data that is right in front of you isn’t showing you that, if it isn’t legible to you, then my arguments aren’t going to be legible to you either. So I’m not going to try to argue with you. I’m not in the business of trying to change the minds of people who don’t want to change their mind. All of you fellows can take your shots. Knock yourselves out. But the data will stay the same 🙂
Nothing out of the ordinary is happening in Arctic ice. Manmade influences are not changing the weather and the climate. There is no evidence that Arctic ice is in a death spiral, or that there is going to be ice free summers in the Arctic in 20 years. To claim either of these things from 30 years of data, i.e., 1979 until now, is wrong. The earth is 4.5 billion years old. Making predictions of doom from 30 years of data is the same as saying the sky is falling because an acorn fell onto your head.
People reading these comments can decide what to think of what they read from you and from me.

Phil
go ahead and nit pick, but why don’t you just admit he almost got it right. And why don’t you admit your Barber’s alarmism about rotted ice is wrong.
If you don’t want to that’s up to you. But agreeing with the truth will only help you. Not agreeing with what is plainly happening will be bad for you. It’s up to you. You determine what kind of person you will be.

So why don’t the Canadian, US, and Russian governments save tens/hundreds of millions of dollars by leaving their icebreakers dry-docked for the summer?
The Russians have special cargo that needs to get through and mineral resource staking to do.
The Canadians have territory issues to monitor and NW Passage mad-dashers to rescue.
The US is up there to keep an eye on everyone else and check out the mineral resources situation.

Latest JAXA 2010 is below 2009, not sure if it adjusted yet.
So the recovery stops, extent wise. The recovery from 2007 has also stopped area wise
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.arctic.png
Andy

AndyW says:
September 3, 2010 at 11:16 pm
You forgot the word ‘drift’, which in this case, is ice.

Amino writes:
If you cannot see that Arctic ice is growing since 2007, if the data that is right in front of you isn’t showing you that, if it isn’t legible to you, then my arguments aren’t going to be legible to you either. So I’m not going to try to argue with you. I’m not in the business of trying to change the minds of people who don’t want to change their mind. All of you fellows can take your shots. Knock yourselves out. But the data will stay the same 🙂
Amino, do you not agree that the 2007 ice extent was an anomaly triggered by an anomalous circulation pattern? I believe if that same circulation pattern would have occurred again this year, the ice extent would have dropped below that of 2007. The trend in sea ice continues downwards (and continues to accelerate, you can perform your own statistics on the time-series and see that for yourself). The ice is not recovering, this year will mark the 3rd lowest ice extent in the modern satellite data record and to at least 1953 when earlier satellite data, aircraft and ship observations made good measurements of the ice cover. Even more of the old ice was depleted this summer as the old ice that was transported into the Chukchi Sea under the strong negative AO this past winter has ALL disappeared.
What 2007 was not, was a tipping point. But that does not mean the sea ice is not still in a strong decline.

Scott says:
September 3, 2010 at 4:19 pm
R. Gates says:
September 3, 2010 at 2:43 pm
The amount of warmer than normal water leads me to push the final low being set Sept. 20th to 25th.
How much warmer is the water (or how much more warm water is there) in 2010 at this time relative to 2008 (JAXA minimum on Sept 9) and 2009 (JAXA minimum on Sept 13)?
-Scott
_____
Good questions Scott, and not only do I not have answers, I’m really not so sure I care about the anomaly over just a few years. I care about the longest term persepctive that we have hard data. We know the waters all around the Arctic are warmer than the longer term average, as can be seen in this chart:
http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/sst/ophi/color_anomaly_NPS_ophi0.png
Areas like the Beaufort have been warmer than the longer term average for most of the melt season, and these kinds of warmer waters than normal lead me to thinking we’ll see a later melt season than normal as all that warm water keeps the melt season going a bit longer as all that heat must be exhausted. This warm open water also has implications for general changes in Arctic weather and circulation patterns, but that’s for another post.
2009 saw it’s low come on September 13th and today it appears that we’ve already fallen below 2009. 2008 saw the low mark hit on Sept. 9, but I think this year’s melt looks more like we’ll see the low come somewhere between the 20th and 25th., which is more similar of to the timeframe we saw in 2005 and 2007.
As I’ve said for many months, I think the so-called “recovery” of the Arctic sea ice that AGW skeptics were so excited about during 2008-2009 was more related to the long and deep solar minimum and the La Nina. Of course, this was really not much of a true recovery as we never even saw a positive Artic sea ice anomaly during this period. We are entering a more active period of solar activity (even if it is lower than normal, it is still higher than 2008-2009), and with the activity will come higher total solar irradiance. By spring of 2011, the currently developing La Nina will be over with, and we’ll be inching closer to the next solar max, with even higher total solar irradiance.
It will be very interesting to see how close we come to falling below 5 million sq. km, and then approaching 2008’s record low in the next few weeks. Those are the final marks that I see as any kind of statistical interest, as at best, the AGW skeptics can now only talk about a “recovery spiral” – 2 steps forward and one step back, etc., though the same skeptics poked fun at the notion of a “death spiral”, where it woulld be a few steps down, and then one step up. The longer term trend strongly favors the “death spiral’ being the correct dance step.

So, if this NW Passage thing is going to be a mainstay permanent thing, why not make it into an annual event, with multimillion$ purse attached? Like the Iditarod or Breakup. The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.
Now, who’s the lucky dog that made it 1st this year?

http://www.natice.nooa.gov/pub/ims/ims_gif/ARCHIVE/EuAsia/2010/ims2010246_asiaeurope.gif
http://www.natice.nooa.gov/pub/ims/ims_gif/ARCHIVE/EuAsia/2007/ims2007246_asiaeurope.gif
The ice looks ok to me it is above 2007 I don’t Know what you self styled experts are going on about .
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic

R. Gates says:
September 4, 2010 at 9:39 am

Good questions Scott, and not only do I not have answers, I’m really not so sure I care about the anomaly over just a few years. I care about the longest term persepctive that we have hard data.

The reason I ask is that using positive SST anomalies based on a long time series to say the end of the melt season will be later (thus, saying it will cause a positive anomaly in end date) compared to more recent years is comparing apples and oranges. Now, if you say it’ll be later than the long-term (same length of time as the above) average end date, that I believe…but wasn’t the minimum in late August a few decades ago (I’m not sure if it was…can someone answer that)?
If we’re going to use SST anomalies to predict the end date, what if 2008 and 2009 showed similar positive SST anomalies? Would we then expect a similar minimum date? Or did the strong El Nino this year result in higher SSTs this year than the last two? If that’s the case, then finishing below last year’s minimum should have been expected (even if the Arctic is “recovering”). Isn’t this similar to what Charles Wilson has been saying all along?
On another note, it looks like Phil was right at least in the short term about a pickup in extent loss. At least I can be sure of my statistic now: the probability of finishing above 2009’s minimum in the JAXA record is 0.00000% now (unless there was some sort of processing error yesterday ;-).
-Scott

rbateman says:
September 4, 2010 at 9:50 am
http://www.arcticmariner.org/#thestory
http://www.arcticmariner.org/#support
All warmista trolls should also go here to support this admirable effort to inspire. Tip generously, think of it as a doom-and-gloom speader’s offset 🙂
http://www.arcticmariner.org/#help
… or if you prefer
http://www.helpforheroes.org.uk

Taking an aside for the moment from this years curve, I had often wondered about two dips from the normal curve, as per here
http://www.zen141854.zen.co.uk/dips.jpg
The reasons for these dips are as follows
“Sept. 2005 was largely wind-driven. The melt season was pretty much done, but freeze-up was slow to start. Then some winds pushed the ice together, which allowed the extent to go down more.”
“Nov. 2006 was probably due mainly to warm ocean waters. The ice grew for a while until it reached ocean waters that were above average and it couldn’t grow further until the ocean lost its heat. There may have also been some contribution by winds keeping the ice from expanding. ”
Not my own words of course, I’m too dumb, from one of well reknowned scientists who sometimes posts here.
Nice to fill in the knowledge gaps. Thanks mystery scientist !
Andy

Phil. says:
September 3, 2010 at 6:39 pm
“There’s been precious little ice there to break up this year, and a couple of Royal marines might take issue with you about following icebreakers, they just finished their ‘yomp’ from Gjoa Havn to Resolute by rowing the last 12 miles into port.”
Was Resolute their destination?
“After the success of completing two thirds of the passage last year, Kev and Tony are returning to Gjoa Haven on 11 August 2010 to meet up with their tiny boat and finish their epic journey. The ice looks thinner than last year and they have 750 miles to go to Pond Inlet, through some of the most dramatic scenery in this remote corner of the world.”
yet the website also claims
“The 2010 Arctic Mariner Expedition is now complete. Kev and Tony have arrived at Resolute Bay and are now preparing for the trip home.”
Pond Inlet is more than 500km from Resolute.
Last year they did not complete their journey after battling “worst ice conditions in over a decade”, and at one point had to haul their 17 foot rowboat over the ice for 10 miles.
http://www.arcticmariner.org/#thestory
Phil, you wouldn’t be using this example to show that the NW passage is open, would you?

Alexej Buergin says:
September 4, 2010 at 10:08 am
“R. Gates says:
September 4, 2010 at 9:39 am
It will be very interesting to see how close we come to falling below 5 million sq. km, and then approaching 2008′s record low in the next few weeks. Those are the final marks that I see as any kind of statistical interest, as at best, the AGW skeptics can now only talk about a “recovery spiral” – 2 steps forward and one step back”
The recovery does not depend on going forward every year, and my prognosis of 5 from last year was based on that fact (ice never went up 3 years in a row). And nobody calls “two steps forward, one step back” a spiral (look up what that is), but of “reculer pour mieux sauter” (look up what that is).
_____
Alex, neither does the death “spiral” of summer Arctic Sea ice extent depend on it going down every year, but the longest term trend is down. From the broadest perspective, a spiral is something that does not do a linear nose dive (or rise), but that fluctuates, but has an ultimate terminal point. “2 steps forward and one step back” is not an exact year by year description of what either a “recovery” spiral or “death” spiral will do, but is meant to convey exactly the same general point– an oscillation (though not specfically regular in frequency) that still is tending toward an ultimate destination. I think any clear minded person would know this term is meant in the broadest metaphorical sense. In this case of course AGW “warmists” would say that terminal point is a seasonal ice free arctic, and I suppose the AGW skeptics would see the summer ice extent returning to something near the longer term average of somewhere between 7 and 8 million sq. km. Since Arctic sea ice has not even poppped gone above the longer term average since 2004, I would say it looks like currently the death spiral is the correct spiral with the terminal point being a seasonal ice free arctic sometime in the next 20 years or so.

Julienne Stroeve,
Hi,
I’ve already said the data set from 1979 to 2007 is too short a data set to draw conclusions from. If there was a data set going back to the Medieval Warm Period for Arctic Ice then everyone would see the alarm over Arctic Ice now has political and environmental activist coloring, because people would see what is happening in the Arctic is within normal variability.
I understand what you are saying about cycles. I hope you understand what I am saying about short data sets.
The NSIDC forecast for Arctic Ice is wrong this year. The man that runs the NSIDC says Arctic Ice is in a death spiral. Walt Meier, and apparently you too, say the Arctic will have ice free summers within about 2 decades or so. If I thought that what the data from 1979 to 2007 shows was going to continue for decades more I would feel that may happen too. But the earth goes through natural warming and cooling phases. It has been far warmer in the past than it is now. And it has been far cooler in the past than it is now. Since 1976 the earth had been warming. And now since 1999 the earth is cooling. The trend seen from 1979 to 2007 is not going to continue. CO2 does not control climate.
The natural warming and cooling times in the earth are not going to stop. In the 70’s there was alarm over a coming ice age. Now there is alarm over unstoppable warming—unless we change our ways, that is. There was a time when some cultures thought man had an influence over eclipses of the sun, and if growing seasons were going to be long because they did things that made the sun pleased. There must be something in humans that makes them tend to think their actions can influence natural occurrences.
The earth has natural warming and cooling phases. That’s the answer I have given before when alarm over 2007 Arctic Ice comes up. It’s the answer I will give the next time it comes up.

rbateman
You’re right about them not attaching links about the boats supposedly passing through the Northwest Passage. For instance, what are the names of the boats? And, more importantly, what kind of boats? I’m sure there’s ice breakers getting through. What are these others we are being told about? And are they following in the path that an ice breaker made?
Is it Captain Stubing? 😉

AndyW,
I did not say ‘closed’ when referring to the Northwest Passage. In fact, I was careful to not use the word closed. Please be more careful to when referring to what other people are saying. You painted an image of me that is wrong.

Whew, with Steven Goddard not putting comments here today some people focused their attention on me instead. I think those people think Steven Goddard has been banned from here. That’s just so ridiculous of them. I’m looking forward to his next post. They get lots of comments in them because they create so much interest.

Latest scarey story on ice.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/sep/05/climate-change-ice-caps-antarctica
Seems that the Antarctic ice has melted before 150K years ago allowing 2 seas to cross contamiate their organisms. So instead of pointing out that that just shows climate change has been around for a long time and its been a lot warmer in the recent past it instead confirms todays danger. Must find out which drugs they are on and try it myself.
‘Nevertheless, the research indicates that the great ice sheet, once thought to be impregnable, is really highly vulnerable.’

Goddard’s “September 5 Sea Ice News” can be seen here:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2010/09/05/september-5-sea-ice-news/

Scott said:
“Looks like my excitement a few days ago was ill-advised.”
_____
Scott, why would you get excited about where the Arctic sea ice extent is going or not going? Is there some kind of emotional attachment you have to the final extent?
In the world of science, the best scientists are those that keep an open and objective mind, thereby more accurately observing what is actually happening. The general rule of the human psyche is especially applicable to the scientist– when we start to “want” things to happen, our ability to be objective diminishes very rapidly. Neither “warmist” nor “skeptic” is immune from this.

As we all know, sea ice extent, especially this late in the year is very much subject to the changes in the wind. This sea ice area chart more clearly shows how 2010 has behaved in terms of melt:
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Area.png
Note how close it is to 2008, and how different than 2009. Also of interest would be the fact that 2010’s total ice area loss as of today (the total from the March 31 peak to the trough) is very close to the record ice loss seen in 2008. Julienne has pointed out before how 2008 actually saw more total ice loss than 2007 as it started at a higher point, and now 2010 is coming close to matching or exceeding 2008’s record total loss and 2010 still has a bit to go before the lowest point.

Thanks a lot for the answer, Julienne. I hope we’ll see more of those figures in the coming NSIDC reports. Is the ice transport through the Queen Elizabeth Islands – that has been going on for a few weeks now – also having an effect on the amount of multi-year ice?
As we all know, sea ice extent, especially this late in the year is very much subject to the changes in the wind.
That’s true, but normally at this phase of the melting season one would expect wind influence to particularly express itself through compaction. In that sense 2010 has a very, very weird end of the melting season. Unlike anything we have seen in recent years.
I would venture to say there is not that much compaction going on – or in any case it is compensated by the spectacular divergence of the ice pack on the Atlantic side of the Arctic -, but that most of the extent decrease is due to melting. Of course, wind is still responsible for this, as it is transporting the ice towards (still) warmer waters. Melting, at this time of the year…
What this could mean, is that ice floes are not piling up on top of each other and the ice pack will thus be a bit thinner yet next year (barring an extraordinary cold winter, depending on La Niña). If we do see some serious compaction in these last few days of the melting season – and the ice pack has enormous compacting potential – extent could decrease further still. But that depends on the moment the water between all those scattered little ice floes starts to freeze up for real.
In any case, the extent seems artificially high, as low as it is nonetheless. There is no recovery, and I don’t think we can even be speaking of a stalemate. This year, despite of the six weeks of adverse-for-melting weather conditions and a reversal of the Beaufort Gyre during ‘peak insolation’, the Arctic ice pack has received another body blow. Bastardi better be right with his two-step theory, or else R. Gates is.

Julienne,
In an earlier post today I alluded to the total ice area loss from peak to trough this year as compared to 2007 or 2008. It appears that 2010 is approaching 2008’s record loss, but I can’t seem to find exact data on this. Do you know where I might look? (or perhaps you have it handy?) 🙂 It would be of interest I would think to see a side by side chart of the last 10 years or so displaying total ice loss from the March maximum to the September minimum.
Thanks in advance for any help you can give.

As of now, for 3 years in a row we will have had more ice than in 2007.
To be more precise, we have had 4 years in a row of (much) less ice than in 2006. And looking at volume…

Alexej Buergin says:
September 5, 2010 at 11:12 am
”…in 20 everybody will luckily have forgotten the prognosis of Ms Stroeve…”
___
I’m am 75% certain that it is more likely that in 20 years this general period of skepticsm toward AGW will be looked on an anomaly. Julienne seems to me to be a very objective scientist who is simply reporting what she sees and her “prognosis” is based on solid science and looking at the longest term trends.

R. Gates says:
September 5, 2010 at 7:47 am

Scott, why would you get excited about where the Arctic sea ice extent is going or not going? Is there some kind of emotional attachment you have to the final extent?
In the world of science, the best scientists are those that keep an open and objective mind, thereby more accurately observing what is actually happening. The general rule of the human psyche is especially applicable to the scientist– when we start to “want” things to happen, our ability to be objective diminishes very rapidly. Neither “warmist” nor “skeptic” is immune from this.

R. Gates, there is a big difference between having an emotional attachment and allowing an emotional attachment to interfere with the experiment and/or analysis. In the lab, I can’t recall the last time I wasn’t excited about an experiment I was running. Did that excitement interfere with my results and keep me from doing quality work? I suppose that’s impossible to answer with any certainty. But while still in grad school (in science) I have 7 first-author, peer-reviewed publications and am currently writing number 8 (with a few second-author papers to add to that). That number far exceeds anything any previous member of my advisor’s research group has accomplished (with my works also being published in higher-impact journals) even though I had more personal distractions than the average student in my lab (marriage, children, family deaths, etc). Thus, in the view of “the world of science” I am highly successful. Would that success be higher if I was an emotionless automaton? Possibly, but I would argue “no”. One example to support this is Sir Isaac Newton. He was driven by a variety of emotions and other factors, yet was one of the, and possibly the most, successful scientists ever.
Another thing that might be worth mentioning is that one can get excited over something without wanting a particular outcome. This will likely happen with me in terms of the World Series this year. My favorite team will almost certainly not make it this year, so I will likely be excited to watch the World Series even though I don’t want a specific outcome. I believe the same can be said of the Arctic Ice. Have you seen a change in my analysis methods over time to believe I’m changing them to support a viewpoint that I “want”? I have even mentioned several times that I don’t believe that one year’s minimum extent number means all that much…it’s just one data point in the larger scheme of things.
-Scott

Günther Kirschbaum says:
September 5, 2010 at 12:08 pm
Indeed, with 9.22 million square km of total melt (maximum-minimum extent)
______
Günther, I was more interested in maximum to minimum AREA loss, as we might gather from this graph:
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Area.png
In looking at sea ice AREA loss, it appears that 2010 already exceeds 2007 and is somewhere closer to 2008’s record loss. When considering the condition and status of sea ice in general I would say:
Total Extent data is more accurate than having no data or simple anecdotal information.
Total Area is more accurate than Total Extent.
Total Volume is more accurate than Total Area. (come on CryoSat 2 data!)
Total Mass is more accurate than Total Volume. (will we ever have this?)

R. Gates says various ad nauseam.
… definition of a metaphor … emotional attachment … general rule of the human psyche … passion in the act … expectations and prejudices … obscure and dull … etc.
And now we have … in 20 years this general period of skeptic[i]sm toward AGW will be looked on [as] an anomaly.
Careful now, your 75% underpants are showing again. Tell me, what manner of profession owns the freehold on the other 25% and why do you now choose to wear them inside out?
Please clean up your cheap, transparent propaganda act. Your pompous hectoring diatribes to imprecision and indefinite appropriation are becoming extremely boring. This is a blog, let’s at least leave out the desperate psyops mumbo-jumbo eh? We’re supposed to be guessing this year’s final JAXA 15% minimum extent number – a batty idea I’d agree but a bit of fun nonetheless.

Amino Acids in Meteorites said
September 5, 2010 at 1:26 am
AndyW,
I did not say ‘closed’ when referring to the Northwest Passage. In fact, I was careful to not use the word closed. Please be more careful to when referring to what other people are saying. You painted an image of me that is wrong.
__________________________________
What did you infer by this then?
“There is talk by some that the Northwest Passage is open. But they don’t have evidence for it. ”
To me that suggests that you take the opposite view to other people who think it open, as would anyone else reading it.
Andy

AndyW
I already asked that I did not want you to picture me as using the word ‘closed’. Please stop doing that. I never did say closed. It is you who is saying it.

The Arctic really is worth blogging about. But these arguments over words and motivations and whether boats are safe to try the Northwest Passage really aren’t worthy to be majored on.
The complexion of this blog has changed since Anthony isn’t around so much. I’m not diggin’ it.
REPLY: Well dig it now. See Sea Ice news #21 – Anthony

Today 2010 has 2009 beat leaving the Goddard Minimum way far behind.
Let’s look at the standings.
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: Busted 9/2/10
2009 Min:5,249,844: Busted 9/2/10
2008 Min:4,707,813: ???
This puts 2010 in the top three lowest sea ice extents in the JAXA record and there is still time on the clock.
FYI, Steve,
Maybe you shouldn’t brag about being accurate until the last bullet is shot.