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.
NeilT says:
September 12, 2010 at 10:39 am
Fear alone will not turn a tide.
For that, you need to retain the services of a Cardinal. 🙂 +
Yeah I agree about wind compaction.
rbateman says:
September 12, 2010 at 10:38 am
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.
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Slushy? ROTFLMFAO!
250m pixel resolution and you can see slushies? ROTFLMFAO!
The Arctic is mostly cloud covered, that’s your slushy, the cloud cover looks slushy, like it always does.
I guess you have X-Ray Vision and can see through images at sub-pixel resolutions.
Hey, your Superman! ROTFLMFOA!
For the death-spiral folks, you have to admit you are settling for second best to what you believed was going to happen only a year or two ago. At least the most honest among you are going to have to admit the death-spiral is in remission and admit the patient’s recovery possibility is there (I admired Trenbreth for his statement to the effect that it was a travesty that there had been no warming for ten years in the climategate papers – where is the heat). If global warming is running away and with irreversible tipping points and all, I would have to say that what is happening still puts the sceptics on the winning side of the argument. I have stated my case on other occasions that if CAGW is going to be so drastic, there shouldn’t be any serious slow-ups or reversals of the kind that we have seen over the past 10 years. It shouldn’t be necessary to cook and homogenize temp data to several tenths of a degree and to proclaim the hottest year on record when it is only half way through if there is a serious problem. CAGW would by now have simply overwhelmed variations (isn’t that the claim?) – its had 40 years to do this. When you melt lead, you melt lead – micro differences from second to second are unimportant. All the believers have done in the last few years is to take the C off CAGW, lower their temp and sea level projections for 2100, fit in a temporary cooling period and next they may have to drop the A as well and then who knows where things will go? Champions like Ehrlich already have their anthropomorphic ice age prediction from 40 years ago to dust off and say “I told you so”. Soon the goal-posts will be so close together that you won’t be able to swing your leg at the ball.
Been on vacation last couple weeks. A few weeks back I noted that it appeared to be shaping up for “revenge of the establishment consensus” year. This now appears to be confirmed. The establishment panel of experts, 16 of them, had a median (which is a much better metric than mean for such things) of 4.9M km/2. So it appears after a few years of near total ineptness in predicting by the establishment (for solar as well), they finally just about nailed one. Optimally, that’s what you’d like to see from a large panel of so-called “experts” –that the “actual” is pretty close to the median prediction.
Last year, none of the 16 managed to be “over” the actual. This year the actual is right in the center.
So good one, at last, guys. Hat tip, etc.
My prediction, made in late March, was for 6.0-6.2M. Yeah, not so much. Back to the drawing board on basic algo questions for me. If it had been much worse than that and I’d have to stop mocking Mark Serreze (tho thankfully I didn’t do *that* badly in comparison) and the fellow who predicted in the establishement panel for a 1M minimum this year.
NeilT says:
September 12, 2010 at 10:39 am
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.
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It’s NSIDC’s extent for that day, as Anthony mentioned, NSIDC does a 5-day smoothing based on follow-up days, the NSIDC extent is currently ~4.73E6 km^2, that too may change ofer the next two days.
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.
Red herring alert. Serreze never forecasted this. He said it was a possibility. And it was possible. If it weren’t for the Beaufort Gyre and Transpolar Drift Stream stalling during July and the first half of August (because of low-pressure systems dominating the Arctic, bringing clouds and low temps), we’d now be discussing how far extent would go below 4 million square km.
Roger Knights says:
September 12, 2010 at 9:07 am
Looks like Bastardi nailed it.
It does.
Nightvid Cole says:
September 12, 2010 at 10:49 am
What happened to Steven Goddard?
REPLY: he has his own blog now at http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com
-Anthony
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So he is not guest posting here?
latitude says:
September 12, 2010 at 9:59 am
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.
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Well then, why did YOU mention May and December? Everyone knows it goes up, then it goes down, then it goes …
However all months do trend downward, long term, in the satellite era (1972). Before then (recorded history of the Arctic), it appears to have been a more or less a stationary random process.
Back in mid-August, I did some “technical analysis” on IARC-JAXA ice data in post http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/15/sea-ice-news-18/#comment-458213 The result was a prediction of Labour Day (September 6th) as the date of the minimum value. I missed by 4 days, assuming that the uptick from the 10th to the 11th continues.
Here’s another one. I call it the “August 28 Index”. I’m not offering any explanations, just pointing out interesting numbers, which may have some predictive value. The 5 columns of numbers are…
Year, Min value for the year, Rank of the year, Value on August 28, Rank amongst all August 28’s.
Note that the ranks are identical. This will be something to watch for next year.
Year Overall August 28
Year Min Value Rank Value Rank
2003 6032031 1 6353125 1
2004 5784688 2 5971563 2
2006 5781719 3 5966406 3
2002 5646875 4 5957656 4
2005 5315156 5 5771250 5
2009 5249844 6 5554219 6
2010 4952813 7 5342656 7
2008 4707813 8 5163125 8
2007 4254531 9 4724844 9
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
Including Mr Gates !!
Grr, I posted my initial thoughts on the Sept 11 JAXA number last night before this thread was created. It’s here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/06/sea-ice-news-21/#comment-480483
The revised JAXA number is considerably higher though, as Anthony said. This is actually the largest single-day “gain” in the JAXA record before Sept 12 (previous high was 21875 set on both Sept 10 & 11, 2008). I’d give Sept 10 of this year only a 50/50 chance of being the 2010 minimum though, as 2003 had a combined 139000 km^2 gain on Sept 12/13 and still managed to have its minimum after those days. Supporting evidence for being past or very near the minimum is that since Sept 8 Cryosphere Today shows a net 2962 km^2 gain in area and a net 1346 km^2 gain in extent…essentially a complete flatlining for four days. However, even if we’ve reached the area minimum, compaction could still yield a decrease in extent as much as two weeks from now.
With the revised JAXA number, current extent is predicting a minimum extent of 4.91e6 km^2. My preferred method gives 4.89e6 with a standard deviation of 112000 km^2. At this point, however, these numbers don’t mean much as the uncertainty now incorporates the current minimum (by a good margin).
I’d say it’s all up to the weather now. Good weather for the ice will mean we’ve passed the minimum, but bad weather could still lead to as much as 200000-300000 km^2 of loss in extent, putting us near 2008’s minimum (2005’s behavior exhibits this late loss).
-Scott
For the life of me I cannot understand why and how “compaction” is counted as “melting”! ! !
Surely we should discuss “volume”?
Serreze’s comments are reported here:
http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Another+Arctic+thaw+experts/3496268/story.html
Perhaps he has been misquoted, or perhaps as a director he is not required to have scientific integrity, but if he was accurately quoted and he claims to be a scientist, then he has lost my respect.
If it weren’t for natural forces operating on both sides of the Artic melt/freeze equation, we’d be discussing how the previous permanent open Arctic Sea or permanent Arctic Ice Cap managed to reverse itself 500 million years ago, and has remained to this day.
Richard111 says:
September 12, 2010 at 12:33 pm
Simple…there are no good sources of volume information. Cryo-Sat 2 will fix this, but we won’t have good volume data historically…it’ll start in 2010 (or 2011) and we’ll need several years of data to get an idea of baselines/trends.
-Scott
-Scott
The forecasts of February 2010:
Phil.: I’d be very surprised if the arctic sea ice minimum isn’t at or below 2007 levels.
R. Gates: Though I still think 2010 summer sea ice mimimum will come in right around 3 million sq. km
Alexej Buergin: Therefore the safest guess seems to me about 4.8 M sq km.
And from July 25:
Alexej Buergin says:
So everybody can still hope (my simpleminded prognosis from November 2009 was 5 Million sq-km because “minimum ice has never increased 3 years in a row”).
The next few days will be crucial.
Sea minimum was predicted here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/06/sea-ice-news-21/#comment-477810
I think we can conclude that this years minimum will be higher than 2008.
This year we had the an El Nino only seen stronger once in the last 25 years or so, as I remember, and still the Arctic has “survived”.
K.R. Frank
The longer term:
Forecast for 2011 by R. Gates: 2.5 Million sq km
Forecast 2012 by A. Gore: …when the Northpole is EXPECTED to be ice-free (his words).
About the ice-free NP by Phil.: … 2013 will be interesting.
Alexej Buergin says:
September 12, 2010 at 1:22 pm
The forecasts of February 2010:
Phil.: I’d be very surprised if the arctic sea ice minimum isn’t at or below 2007 levels.
R. Gates: Though I still think 2010 summer sea ice mimimum will come in right around 3 million sq. km
Alexej Buergin: Therefore the safest guess seems to me about 4.8 M sq km.
And from July 25:
Alexej Buergin says:
So everybody can still hope (my simpleminded prognosis from November 2009 was 5 Million sq-km because “minimum ice has never increased 3 years in a row”).
The next few days will be crucial.
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So the next time I go gambling at the Roulette wheel, I’ll take you with me, because you’re sure to guess the right numbers for the next seven months.
In other words if there are enough people at the table, all the numbers are likely to be covered.
And one of those numbers will, of course, be correct.
Folks, we have a weiner!
Here’s one for you, take JAXA minima (2002-9), throw out 2007, because, well it was an outlier, you know, and what do you get?
SG’s w-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-y over the top guesstimate of 5.5E6 km^2.
Please everyone, go visit SG’s new website, I kid you not, as of today SG’s still claiming 2010 as a “recovery” year.
He’s already predicting 2011 based on his already proven deeply flawed analyses.
Seriously funny stuff over there. Just needs to change the website name to Tumbleweed Science.
Now the seelevel will rise twice as faster, right?
But, no mention of U-know-what; nor, no mention of the other U-know-what. Tsk.
Just this: “The ice island hit Joe Island last week, and since then, combined forces of ocean currents and strong winds have weakened its structure.”
…-
“Huge Arctic ice island splits in two
A gigantic ice island floating in Arctic waters between Greenland and Canada has split in two”
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2010/09/12/15324371.html
Alexej Buergin said;
September 12, 2010 at 1:22 pm
The forecasts of February 2010:
“Phil.: I’d be very surprised if the arctic sea ice minimum isn’t at or below 2007 levels.
R. Gates: Though I still think 2010 summer sea ice mimimum will come in right around 3 million sq. km”
R Gates. Did you actually say that?
tonyb
R. Gates said, “I will be curious to see how AGW skeptics paint this year’s melt season.”
Do you assume that AGW is responsible for the Arctic sea ice melt? Quite an assumption.