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.
EFS_Junior says:
September 18, 2010 at 7:52 am
Yep, seems to be where we’re heading IMHO.
don’t get your lobe in an uproar…things are stabilizing…
91 K from 2008 .. and are my eyes decieving me or is the Sky CLEARING ?
Yeah, go to it: Ice/albedo effect: you got 2 days of Sun left.
Now 4,798,750 provisional. Not sure about death spiral, but we have some death steps at the moment on JAXA graph. Or should I say Petite Mort steps? 😉
Andy
Or should I say Petite Mort steps? 😉
=============================
No, just pretty much:
étapes variabilité naturelle.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
31 years of measuring this stuff and the AMSR-E since only 2002!
The Earth is 4.6 Billion years old and counting.
Excuse me but does anyone see the irony?
If we are going to be this chicken-little stupid [fight or flight! flight!] ….then natural selection will make sure we are not around much longer.
Sheeesh.
A species that can discover antibiotics and send people to the moon…can be this silly?
Yeah. It is a condition called cognitive dissonance.
It is real, very poorly understood condition, and might be the undoing of our august, but adolescent species.
[We’ve only been around for 200,000 years].
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
OMG OMG OMG the sky is falling!
Charles Wilson says September 18, 2010 at 10:04 pm
… you got 2 days of Sun left.
5 right at the pole, more elsewhere – http://www.athropolis.com/map8.htm
and may have just lost all credibility here with my extent vs avg area blunder
Scott, actually, your credibility went up a notch or two. Making blunders is healthy. To acknowledge them as such is even healthier.
(with Apologies to AJB for summarizing that the Sun’s disk dissappears ON the Equinox, when it takes several days to be gradually Eaten by the Earth-Demon … & thanx for the site. http://www.athropolis.com/sunrise/sun-sep.htm )
News:
+74,531.8 = Cryosphere Area Gain. So Throw in the Towel for Area ?
2009 Area Minimum Day for the Central Basin:
>>> October 8 << DMI just melted off most of the last 2 days’ Gain.
> Bremen new Min: beat 2008 (had tied before) !
> Pips’ “Fram Strait Express”: only a Narrow corridor left by the 20th..
What Next ??? ==>>
>> Clear Skies ? <<
Are you seeing what I am seeing? http://ice-map.appspot.com
Wayne Davidson’s Theory really does work ! Though it took a third longer for this La Nina to eat the clouds of the longer-lasting Modoki-type El Nino = more heat = more Clouds..
At LAST, the Clouds break.
3 whole days before Polar Sunset.
God loves his Jokes.
fishnski says:
September 16, 2010 at 2:38 pm
& amaturish Writing skills…thats my PROSPECTIVE….
…don’t you mean ‘amateurish’, and ‘perspective’? Although the second could be ‘prospectus’, if you’re offering amateurish corrections to amateurist writing…
(if you’re going to try to be the spelling police, be prepared to be policed! 😉
I also was amused by the southerly/northerly wind/direction discussion; the last comment had it right… if it’s a ‘southerly wind’ it is at least somewhat FROM the south; if it’s a ‘southerly direction’ it is at least somewhat TOWARDS the south. As a pilot, we face the same terminology confusion, and it *is* quite important for accurate communication!
Revised JAXA number for yesterday is 4813594 km^2. The losses in extent seem to be slowing. I’m confident we won’t go below 2008 now, and I even think we won’t even reach 4.75 e6 km^2. The reason for this is two-fold. First, I’m not convinced we’ll see the loss of the lobe-turned-island after all. The images from CT show that it may not be disappearing now…or at least it’s slowing. Second, even if it does melt away, it’s currently happening slow enough that gains elsewhere should soon overtake it. As Charles already mentioned, CT is showing a rapid area gain at this point, and this is very normal for this time of year. The core is freezing up and we should start to see refreezing in areas where it will actually affect the 15% extent value soon. A third point to make is that there’s not much more ice left to compress now…it’s either high-concentration or no concentration extent for the large peninsula pointing towards NE Russia.
No statistics involved with this guess (and that’s what it is), but I say we’ll see the extent minimum sometime between the 18th and the 21st, and my guess will be 4.79e6 km^2. How’s that for a long-range guess. 😉
In terms of September performance, this year correlates best with 2003 (though I haven’t run numbers to confirm that). The following table gives dates of minimum area/extent:
2003: 7th/18th
2004: 9th/11th
2005: 1st/22nd
2006: 17th/14th
2007: 8th/24th (though unlike 2005/2010, area stayed low and didn’t give a steady increase until the 21st)
2008: 9th/9th
2009: 10th/13th
2010: 9th/18th (or later)
Eyeballing it, only 2003 and 2005 showed large divergences in area vs extent performance, and 2010 looks to join the ranks.
-Scott
Yeh JPR..I skipped most of my senior year & don’t ask me how I graduated but with Hard work & doing the Jobs that.. thru the whimpyfacation of America.. only a few of us tough but Illiterate white boys could handle I have managed to build myself a very nice lifestyle..I have a ski chalet up in WV..A beach home in wrightsville beach,NC along with a 23 foot offshore boat & a 15 foot skiff that I just brought out of the water with a bushel & a half of the nicest blue crabs that you will ever see…. & a home on down at the clear water springs that feed into the gulf just north of Tampa.
As smart as everyone is here i’m sure it is no problem to figure out what i’m saying.
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday
43° F | 33° F
35° F | 27° F
34° F | 31° F
32° F | 31° F
32° F | 29° F
Fog Mostly Cloudy Mostly Cloudy Mostly Cloudy Partly Cloudy
Hourly Hourly Hourly Hourly Hourly
Today is forecast to be Much Cooler than yesterday.
There is my forecast validated from a few days ago that said we would be on the climb by mon/tue(ice growth) because of the weather system that has brought record to near record temps to AK & the waters & air that have been feeding into the area that has shown the most loss in the last 5 days….I might not be able to articulate but I can figure things out..you don’t have to be a rocket scientist..you only have to be a good “Rocket Surgeon”!!
Ok..Dodo brain here again…that F-cast is for Barrow,AK..
Oh, & the JAXA extent is now back up to 4813524…The “Lobe” is hanging tough..
As already reported by Scott, confirmed JAXA 15% extent for Sept 18th: 4813594. New low.
15-day: http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/2110/15day20100918.png
7-day: http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/4845/7day20100918.png
Sorry, busy today. Lobe looking like it may survive yet, touch and go.
Good to see that Arctic Sea Ice is in great shape, although WUWTs reports of “recovery” and “back to normal” over the past 12 months now kind of do look rather silly… Still, easy to mask it up by pointing at other people’s mistakes (like the title of this post).
Looking forward to next year’s “recovery” of Arctic Sea Ice minimum !
There is still another 4.9 million sq.km^2 of melting to go until the North Pole is ice free in summer, and after that happens we can always claim that it was not caused by AGW, but just natural variation.
Keep up the denial, Anthony ! You are doing great ! And your fanclub seems to love you for it.
REPLY: Ah yes, snark from drive by’s. Let’s revisit this conversation in a year, and please have a look at the latest sea ice news, #23, as that would be interesting too. – Anthony