UPDATE: 8AM PST 9/13/10 JAXA has updated with their final Sept 12th data, up for the second straight day there’s been a gain:
The latest value : The latest value : 5,005,000 km2 (September 12, 2010 final data)
While the vagaries of wind and weather can still produce an about-face, indications are that the 2010 Arctic sea ice melt season may have turned the corner, earlier than last year.
In the JAXA data, there was a gain of 33,593 km2 in a single day on 9/11/10 and another gain of 18, 594 km2 on 09/12/10 (final data):
09,08,2010,4989375 09,09,2010,4972656 09,10,2010,4952813 09,11,2010,4986406 09,12,2010,5005000
Last year, when I correctly called the turn, it was September 14th:
Arctic sea ice melt appears to have turned the corner for 2009
I wrote:
That is a gain of almost 26,719 km2 from the Sept 13th value of 5, 249, 844 km2 which may very well turn out to be the minimum extent for 2009.
And it is not just the JAXA plot that indicates a turn the corner bump for 2010. The DMI 30% extent graph is showing a very sharp uptick.
Here is the relevant area zoomed and annotated:
ADDENDUM: Last year’s DMI graph about this time had similarly abrupt uptick:
Temperatures at 80°N and above are now dropping quickly, after some delay:
The annotations are mine, the current temperature is approximately -5.5° C. I say approximately, as DMI doesn’t make the data available here, only the graphical output, so I’ve had to draw a line and estimate based on the coarse scale they provide. Seawater freezes at a temperature of -1.9° C (source here) but varies with salinity. Call it -2° C, but clearly now air temperatures are cold enough above 80°N to expect some refreezing.
The NSIDC Arctic extent plot shows the beginning of a flattening, but since their smoothing algorithm adds a reporting delay, we won’t see the turn (if it holds) until about two days from now.
NSIDC Arctic Sea Ice Extent – 15% or greater – click to enlarge
If it is indeed the turn, then Arctic Sea Ice minimum for 2010 will end up at 4,952,813 km2
I may make a follow up post and have a look at all the forecast players mid to late week if the turn is confirmed. Of course my forecast has been proven incorrect already, but then, so have others.
Polar weather forecasts suggest colder weather ahead, and historically, the timing is right for a turn.
One such indicator is the Arctic Oscillation, shown below:
Source, NOAA Climate Prediction Center:
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/ao.sprd2.gif
The forecast shows a deepening AO in the next few days, which traditionally means colder temperatures and a refreeze.
So, we’ll watch and wait, and I’ll update if the turn is confirmed.
Looks like Bastardi nailed it.
I still say looking at the extremes is fun, but there’s too many things that can affect the extremes. I don’t think it’s a good place to look for a trend.
Looking at the middle, May and Dec, no matter what the extreme was, it all comes back together and there’s no trend at all.
But that’s just me………..
-AO means we cool off on the east coast. Can’t wait. We’ve had a hell of a summer here…
It’s possible that we’ve seen the low, but we’ll see if it can be confirmed in the next few days. The high pressure systems over the Arctic currently are more favorable for divergence and hence, we could still see a follow-up round of compaction before the final low freeze up.
I will be curious to see how AGW skeptics paint this year’s melt season. Early on there was talk of 6.0+ milllion sq. km. for the low, as all the supposed thick MY ice was just not going to melt. We suffered weeks on end with Steve Goddard talking about PIP 2.0 data showing how much MY ice was left and how it suredly was going to stay around. Rather, it got transported out into the open waters of the Beaufort sea and melted. This season, the fact is we saw either the greatest or second greatest loss of ice from the March high extent to the September minimum. (2008 was either #1 or #2) This is of course hardly any sort of “recovery” and of course, neither really was 2008 and 2009, as only a certain group (i.e. AGW skeptics) tried to paint it that way.
REPLY:Assuming the turn has occurred, I would say it will be equally interesting to see how NSIDC’s Mark Serreze “paints” his forecast of a new record low year. Like I said, others missed their forecasts too. -Anthony
May trend looks like this latitude
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20100608_Figure3.png
December looks like this
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20100105_Figure3.png
When I resided in Eureka in ’79, around this time, we had temps drop to -10 or colder and in 2 days the entire Fjord froze over, so it won’t take long for the Arctic to start freezing fast. As to tipping point etc. i have no time for these people. Scare stories are to sell time on TV. I predict it will freeze up this winter and start melting again next year. Repeat….
However, I enjoyed watching you’re articles this year Steve, keep up the good work.
Off topic, but I have a post up on what I think was the most pivotal testimony of Lord Oxburgh at the HOC Science and Technology Committee. He testified that there is not way to reconstruct global temperatures over 1000 years, that it is currently impossible! Therefore, there is no way to determine whether current climate is significantly different from past climate periods. The foundation of global warming theories have all been knocked to the ground if he admits the “massive” uncertainties in global temperature reconstructions exist and make comparisons inconclusive.
R Gates,
“I will be curious to see how AGW skeptics paint this year’s melt season.”
Well, can’t speak for others, but it’s an amusing diversion, a guessing game. It tells us nothing about CO2 forcings and feedbacks. For that we must seek many more decades of various satellite data.
AndyW says:
September 12, 2010 at 9:33 am
May trend looks like this latitude
==============================
Andy, I appreciate it, but I’m talking about the graphs Anthony put up, only.
Thank you. Fine update.
If there be a downturn in extent anomaly coming weeks, it will be because of wind packing and that must come from the East-Siberian side. But GFS for the coming week or more suggests opposite wind conditions on a blocking event up through the Bering Straight that starts about now, and anticyclonic conditions within 80° NL.
——————————–
R. Gates,
There is no need to “paint” anything. It is obvious to any unbiased observer that the Arctic ice is not going to disappear, as predicted by Gore and other anti-scientific prophets of doom by 2012. And that’s what counts: you lose, we win.
” This is of course hardly any sort of “recovery” and of course, neither really was 2008 and 2009, as only a certain group (i.e. AGW skeptics) tried to paint it that way.”
Mr Gates, please share with us how a recovery or not is relevant to anything? How long is the cycle of arctic ice? Do we know? Is there one?
Is the current melt unprecedented? Is is nailed down as due to agw rather than natural variation?
Bremen also has shown an uptick over the past ~3 days.
So we have JAXA, NSIDC, and Bremen all either slowing down in slope or bottoming out.
If this is the low (or nearly so), it will be interesting to see how rapid (or slow) the uptick rates continue through to the end of September.
I’m thinking (call it a SWAG) that it might be a slow rise as there is that pronounced lobe sticking out that happens to be furthest from the NP and exposed on three sides.
The month of September 2010 may still beat September 2008, on a monthly average basis per NSIDC data analysis/reporting.
Thank you Mr. Goddard for your very interesting postins on the Arctic.
I have learned a lot. I think we will see in the times ahead that it will get colder again.
The natural cycles will become obvious for everyone to see. Those who are in denial regarding natural cycles might have to accept that we are just dust in the wind.
REPLY: Mr. Goddard was not the author of this article, I am. – Anthony
“I will be curious to see how AGW skeptics paint this year’s melt season.”
First, whatever happens with the ice in the Arctic, that does not have anything to do with AGW. Please stop that misinformation. The ice melt in the Arctic proves only that ice melts in the Arctic, to some extent caused by warming (just “warming”, not AGW, notice that!) and to some extent by the wind patterns and ocean currents changes.
Further, even if we assume a direct link between the polar ice melt and AGW, why do you think that AGW skeptics (or for that matter anyone else) should be looking only at the Arctic sea ice extent, and not e.g. at the global Sea Ice trend, which is approximately flat in the last 30 years. Maybe, because the data for the Antarctic don’t look good for your thesis? And actually are at the record high levels in the last couple years?
“However, I enjoyed watching you’re articles this year Steve, Anthonykeep up the good work.”
You do realise that over the next few days the media will say
“It’s worse than we thought. It is the second lowest ice extent on the record.”
————-
Joe Bastardi
click, click.
Joe Bastardi
“The recovery of the northern ice caps will become more obvious in a two-steps-up, one-step-back fashion, but the Southern Hemisphere ice will retreat back to near normal. Overall global ice is right on top of normal and has had no change in the past 30 years.”
Clearly a robust recovery to arctic sea ice this year.
@R. Gates says: September 12, 2010 at 9:33 am
“Rather, it got transported out into the open waters of the Beaufort sea and melted.”
Are you suggesting that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are responsible for “transporting ice”? How does that work, then?
Personally, I’d “paint this year’s melt season” as well within the variability that we can expect. Interesting in a geekish way but basically a bit boring.
But I wouldn’t think it was a very big deal if it had all melted. It will freeze again in due course. I promise to get excited if it remains melted all winter. Will you do the same if the Irish Sea freezes over?
This is of course hardly any sort of “death spiral”.
Not only is the DMI 80N indicating well below freezing temps, but this satellite photo mosaic:
http://exploreourpla.net/explorer/?map=Arc&sat=ter&lon=0&lat=89,9&lvl=4&yir=2010&dag=254
shows the rest of the Arctic Ocean turning into a slushy very rapidly.
Yes, it is freezing up, currently.
Andrew, I copied a snip from Joe Romm’s site where he posted:
“An unexpected source suggested I ask NSIDC scientist Julienne Stroeve to explain what is going on. I did, and she replied:
We’ve dropped to 4.76 today.”
So it would be interesting to know where the 4.9 figures came from??? This was on Sep 9th and I know it’s not area because we’ve been bumping around 3.0xxxM on area for a while.
Vince,
I hear that children in the EU like to play “chicken” with high speed (150mph) passenger trains. At least once a year one of them gets smeared on the side when they get it wrong.
Whilst you are free to believe whatever you want and play whatever chicken you want, there are an awful lot of other people on this planet with you.
Personally I didn’t expect a 2007 or even 2008 event this year. Whilst I was aware of the impact of shrinking volume I was also aware of the drop in output of the sun this solar minimum. I was expecting that any startling event would coincide with the increase of Solar output to the dying days of cycle 11 (2006/7).
I was wrong. This year was pretty dramatic in terms of ice pack breakup and open water in the arctic basin.
Just goes to show you that the planet can surprise us every time. The only difference between my point of view and the POV on this site is that everyone here is waiting for it all to return to normal, whilst I’m just waiting for things to build up to the point where a blind beggar on the streets of Naples will know that it’s AGw that’s causing the Arctic Ice to vanish.
At that point I expect WUWT to be ranting on about short term effects and the onset of “global winter” RSN.
What happened to Steven Goddard?
REPLY: he has his own blog now at http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com
-Anthony
R. Gates,
“It’s possible that we’ve seen the low, but we’ll see if it can be confirmed in the next few days. The high pressure systems over the Arctic currently are more favorable for divergence and hence, we could still see a follow-up round of compaction before the final low freeze up.”
Come on!
Anthony showed that it is already cooling down and at the MINUS 5.5C level.That means it is already freezing back.
Then we have the now feeble solar radiation effect dwindling down, since it is barely above the horizon now.
Try this simple sunlight map and see for yourself:
http://www.globalwarmingskeptics.info/forums/thread-49-post-5096.html#pid5096
REPLY: We could still have a wind compaction event, even with dropping temperatures. Extent with winds and 15% sea ice is highly variable. – Anthony