This week was a true roller coaster ride with Arctic Sea Ice. It is best summed up by looking at the JAXA graph for extent, shown below:
Below, see the area of interest magnified.
I’ve added the 5 million square kilometer line for reference.
The roller coaster ride actually looked for a day like it might cross the 2009 line, but soon turned down again, ending this week at 5,142,813. Here’s the recent JAXA data
08,28,2010,5342656 08,29,2010,5352500 08,30,2010,5348281 08,31,2010,5329375 09,01,2010,5332344 09,02,2010,5304219 09,03,2010,5245625 09,04,2010,5192188 09,05,2010,5142813
Source: http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/plot.csv
JAXA sea ice area has dropped to 2008 levels:
JAXA AMSR-E Sea Ice Area – click to enlarge
Sea ice concentration from JAXA:
While JAXA shows extent now lower than 2009, DMI and NANSEN plots show it to be about even. The differences in observing sensor/platform AMSRE -vs-SSMI and methodologies at agencies are in play.
Above: Danish Meteorological Institute Arctic Sea Ice Extent – 30% or greater. Note that while this graph shows 30% concentration at the cutoff point, it is valuable to compare.
Above: NANSEN Artic ROOS- Sea ice extent 15% or greater – click for larger image
The differences appear to be in the low end of concentration, the 15% to 30% range. It suggests that the brief gains we saw may be wind related, blowing floating ice around, compacting it when winds are strong versus allowing expansion when winds are weak.
Temperature, after holding near freezing, now appears headed sharply downward.
Above: Danish Meteorological Institute – Mean Temperature above 80°N
Some light refreezing may take place before the end of September, which could minimize the ability of wind to sharply change extent like we saw recently.
With all these variables in play, choosing a winner will be as much a game of luck as of skill. Based on what we’ve seen, it seems probable that it will come from the middle of the pack between 2008 and 2009.
From SEARCH:
The estimates from the scientific community range from 4.0 to 5.6 million square kilometers, with 8 of the contributors suggesting a September minimum below 5.0 million square kilometers, 3 contributors suggesting a minimum of 5.0 million square kilometers, and 5 contributors suggesting a September minimum above 5.0 million square kilometers. Two contributors forecast a September minimum below that of 2007 at 4.0 million square kilometers and 3 contributors suggest a return to the long term downward linear trend for September sea ice loss (5.5 to 5.6 million square kilometers). None of the contributors indicate a return to the climatological sea ice extent of 6.7 million square kilometers.
Including all 18 contributions gives a September ice extent minimum of 4.8 +/- 0.77 million square kilometers, with a range of 2.5 to 5.6 million square kilometers.
Individual responses were based on a range of methods: statistical, numerical models, comparison with previous observations and rates of ice loss, or composites of several approaches.
Latitude-
I think that is a great point, for 80% of the year the ice extent has not changed. I think that deserves a post!
Espen,
There has been so much more melt, so much more open sea to absorb the sunlight and so much less ice in areas that should be solid pack ice in 2010 that it is just another step on the way.
I can’t see melt stopping short of the last week in september. Much of the lower lattitude ice is simply vanishing as we watch. Much more interesting is the patches (multiple) of 400 sq miles of open water all around the pole on the Rusisan/European borders. It’s still melting/FAST.
This is no regrowth. This is no summer magic to stop the advancing path of Global Warming. This is a disaster in the making. It might be slow, but it is irrevocable. We might watch a steamroller trundling along the road and muse on how easy it is to avoid it. The ant, on the other hand sees it in a very different way, much further off but much less time to get out of the way. In terms of Global Climate Change we are the ant.
Remember the Al Gore 10 x 10 rule still applies.
For ten years he has been telling us we only have ten years left before the Arctic ice melts.
Can’t wait to sit under a palm tree on some nice Arctic beach, sip on a frosty and watch the bikini clad hotties stroll by . . .
Back on August 18 Steve Goddard wrote:
“Ice thickness is an excellent predictor, and my PIPS based calculations are quite accurate. The only forecast I have made is 5.5, and see no reason to change it now.”
Steve’s miscalculations from PIPS, which left out the ice concentration, have turned out not to be so accurate. And he’s subsequently changed his “prediction” to 5.1 m km^2 on his new website. I wonder what changed his mind.
My June prediction (here & at the Blackboard) was 5.1 million, which looks to be pretty close.
But don’t ask me any questions. I’m completely at sea about this technical Arctic stuff. I just gave weight to Bastardi’s idea that there’d be a step backward this year, and then figured it would be only a small retreat (not the big one he envisaged), since that amount would leave both sides feeling unsatisfied. (This is what the Pranksters Above like to do.)
As evidenced by comments of hysterical Alarm-o-trolls, when ice melts it’s both a calamity in itself, as well as “proof” of CAGW/CC. Skeptic/Climate Realists, on the other hand watch the ice both because it is interesting, and because it does in fact show that there is nothing at all unusual going on.
What the Climate Bedwetters don’t seem to understand, and don’t want to (apparently preferring a continual state of alarmism) is that what ice does is a poor proxy for what the overall climate does, except on a very long-term basis (centuries). Yes, there has been a decrease in Arctic ice extent, as well as some glacial ice retreat since the end of the LIA, which is to be expected. It won’t happen overnight certainly, but with cooling expected in the coming decades, possibly even rivaling LIA conditions by mid-century, the ice will grow again. The worry about some ice melting is an irrational one, even crazy. If anything, it is cold, and what that does to the ability to grow food, as well as resulting higher demands placed on energy we should be worried about.
NeilT,
Lie down, put a cold compress on your brow and try to relax. You’re frightening yourself.
Cassandra, you said:
“PIOMAS was utterly wrong and PIPS was fairly right”
PIOMAS predicted a JAXA minimum around 4.8 and PIPS about 5.5 (using Goddard’s method). It is now 5.14. So though we are still 2 weeks from the minimum the PIPS prediction is already further from the truth. In what sense was it fairly right?
People get so heated up over Arctic ice extent. So we saw a low in 2007 and a thickness minimum in 2008. In 2009 and 2010 there was a recovery. What is the natural variation in ice extent / thickness in the Arctic anyway? Probably just about what we are seeing. An ice-free Arctic? You would have to go from 4 million sq km to zero in just a few months. I’ll start to worry when that happens. I have an unscientific feeling that zero ice would require much lower levels of winter ice from which to melt and that isn’t happening either.
Oh and the Earth temperature remained constant for 1,000 yrs and then shot up uncontrollably in 1880, just 70 yrs before the serious increased use of fossil fuels. And still 4-5 million sq km of Arctic sea ice at the height of summer.
“There has been so much more melt, so much more open sea to absorb the sunlight and so much less ice in areas that should be solid pack ice in 2010 that it is just another step on the way.”
This type of thinking is what bothers me more than anything,
The fact of the matter is
WE DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT WE DON’T KNOW ABOUT THE PLANETS CLIMATE.
So haw can we say “There should be more ice”. We can not even understand the way climate varies according to the input energies, hell we are not even sure what the input energies are.
What is needed is a sitdown and really determine what we don’t know, and determine the best way to go about finding the answers.
Well, NeilT, even by your own estimations we’re too late to do anything about it, aren’t we? You claim that others are not facing climate facts, how about looking at some political facts: the right is taking over Congress in less than 60 days. There is not going to be any “Climate Change” legislation in the US, no “carbon cap”, no “green energy bill”. All that is dead for at least a decade now, and that’s too long for what you claim is happening, isn’t it? What’s more, there’s not going to be any Climate Bill in Australia no matter who ends up as PM, and given that these two have dropped out, China and India are dropping out of any remediation too, aren’t they? And this means that all of Europe’s efforts are pointless and will only hurt European Jobs, so they will drop their carbon caps pretty quickly too.
Kyoto is going to die and NOTHING is going to replace it. The IPCC is dying and nothing is going to replace IT, either. The whole international scheme is crashing to the ground, and no one can stop it.
So, if you really are a true believer, then you must admit that all the bad things you think will happen are going to happen and you can’t do anything about it. So I hope you’re wearing your sackcloth and ashes – maybe you can grow your hair long and carry a sign saying “THE END IS NEAR!” and hang out on a street corner somewhere.
Because that’s about the only option left for anyone who believes as you do.
NeilT-
LOOK! The ocean levels are rising steadily! What does this mean!
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_noib_global.jpg
Nothing. Look at the rate, even if we maintain this rate it will take 1,000 to 2,000 years for Al Gore to be right on his 10 year prediction.
NeilT, since you seem so sure that this melting is due to global warming, what matrices are you using that demonstrates this? Are you talking about ocean currents (there are naturally warm currents in the Arctic) in the Arctic that are “much warmer” due to AGW? Are you talking about atmospheric temperature systems (there are naturally warm atmospheric temperature systems in the Arctic) that were much more warm due to AGW? Are you talking about pressure systems, IE wind, (there are a variety of natural pressure system in the Arctic) that are somehow changed due to AGW? Please explain your alarmist opinion related to the Arctic in terms of mechanisms.
one other thought – watching the betting on sea ice extent has been fun, but now it’s time to watch the betting on my fantasy football league, a topic which has just as much deep meaning to it as this Sea Ice extent issue does and which is actually a good bit more entertaining.
The ice contracts, the ice expands. It always has, it always will. There’s really nothing more to it than that.
Brad says:
September 6, 2010 at 7:02 am
Latitude-
I think that is a great point, for 80% of the year the ice extent has not changed. I think that deserves a post!
==========================================================
I agree
If you don’t look at the extremes, and only look at May, June, July and Nov, Dec, Jan,
There’s nothing to get excited about.
No matter how extreme it was, either warm or cold, it seems to always end up back in the middle.
If you closely at the little lines, in the middle, they are crossing each other and all over the place. But all within a narrow margin of each other.
That just tells me it’s weather, no trend, no climate anything.
Weather effects the extremes….
NeilT says:
September 6, 2010 at 1:48 am
Can you cite evidence of the increased absorption being a greater factor than the increased heat loss due to a loss of ice cover?
I won’t bother asking for citation on the “will return many millions of us to dust much, much sooner than would normally be the case” idiocy, of course.
Neil T,
Surely sea ice, which reflects sunlight (which there isn’t much of by the time minima occur anyway), also considerably lowers the emissive temperature of that area by insulating the relatively warm water underneath and thus slowing heat loss to space? Not unlike the effect that extra CO2 has in the atmosphere, in fact.
So less sea ice will ultimately mean increased loss of heat to space from the warm exposed water and promote cooling of the climate. Ergo, less sea ice is a GOOD THING!
Now, how do I make a powerpoint of that and sell it to Holywood so it becomes incontrovertible scientific truth?
NeilT,
what is happening in Arctic ice is normal. The talk about ice free summers is alarmism based on poor science. I do care about the people of the world that’s why I want the alarmism over natural variation to end. Please stop scaring children so they can’t sleep good anymore.
So, Neil T, let’s assume for a moment that you are right, and the apocalypse is at hand. What do you propose we do to save those 6 or 7 billion souls whose future so haunts your days and nights? Stop generating electricity by burning fossil fuels? Right, that will make their last days and those of their children more comfortable. Waste time, money and resources covering the landscape with 17th century technology? Probably not going to work either, although it may make you feel better.
It might give you some comfort to look at history and see that humans are remarkably adaptive creatures. You should also recognize that that the advent of widely available inexpensive electricity has done more to improve the lives of billions than any other tehnological development in human history. It is you and your alarmist friends preaching doom and advocating a dramatic and rapid change in current practices based on potentially flawed data and dubious projections who will destroy humankind’s future. We can, and will, deal with the issues raised by climate change (assuming they require dealing with) if you and your ilk will calm down and let the genius that is human civilization system work the problem. Like all the other apocalyptic predictons made by you and your ilk over the past century, this too will pass.
Pamela Gray,
one thing that is not being acknowledged is the warmth put into the Atlantic by the El Nino that ended in May. La Nina is occurring now and it will have an effect on Arctic ice throughout this winter and next summer. That effect should cause rapid growth in Arctic ice.
But it will just be called an aberration by the alarmists. They will say rapid growth in one year doesn’t mean anything. They will say the Arctic will have ice free summers in 20 years regardless of what is happening in one year of rapid growth.
Some people say alarmists trust predictions of doom more than text book knowledge. That does seem to be the case.
NeilT says:
September 6, 2010 at 1:48 am
Mike, you are completely missing the point….
Or do you just not care about the other 6Billion 999 million 999thousand and 999 people in the world?
______________________________________________
Of course we care, that is why we are trying to stop. Pushing people into an anti-technology, anti-energy culture – the real purpose of CAGW – is guaranteed to kill off lots of people through poverty and starvation.
You may want to become a serf of the Corporate/Banksters totalitarian world government, I do not. To see what I am talking about I suggest you read all the comments at: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/06/sustainability-teaching-lack-of-ethical-dimension/
None of us are against better, cheaper, nonpolluting energy production like Thorium Nuclear. It is the activists who have kept the USA to polluting energy sources.
NeilT try to relax and read what I wrote: the arctic water’s ability to absorb sunlight is very low at this time of year. And I’ve cover in June is, as others have commented, remarkably stable.
Remember: submarines surfaced in open pools of water at the north pole in the late fifties. Varying arctic sea ice extent is nothing new.
I’ve cover -> ice cover in the last post – sorry!
[no attacks on other commenters ~ ctm]
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/icrutem3_hadsst2_0-360E_70-90N_na.png
NeilT says:
September 6, 2010 at 7:03 am
Espen,
There has been so much more melt, so much more open sea to absorb the sunlight and so much less ice in areas that should be solid pack ice in 2010 that it is just another step on the way.
I can’t see melt stopping short of the last week in september. Much of the lower lattitude ice is simply vanishing as we watch. Much more interesting is the patches (multiple) of 400 sq miles of open water all around the pole on the Rusisan/European borders. It’s still melting/FAST.
——-
I ‘ve seen the “much more open sea to absorb the sunlight” argument for a long time, but it wasn’t until I spent a significant amount of time checking satellite photos for the Jacobshavn glacier retreat when it was in the news, then the Northwest Passage, then the Petermann glacier calving, and lastly efforts to check aerially on the opening of the Northeast passage, that I noticed how extremely difficult it was using the MODIS site to find clear skies. Now I realize this effort using MODIS is only a daily snapshot and my method is limited by the scale, accuracy, and intent of the product I’m using, but I can’t leave unsaid my impression that a change in albedo from white ice to blue ocean may be only something like half the equation, in spite of the fact that the sun was always “shining” up there from June, when I started, through now.
I haven’t found any source that tracks the degree that the arctic is overcast, such that the change in albedo issue can be put into some better context. Does anyone know of such a product?