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.
Gneiss says:
September 12, 2010 at 7:37 pm
“David W, about 10 or 15 years back, quite a few Arctic researchers considered that the Arctic changes widely noticed by research in the 1990s might be due to oscillations such as AO, NAO, or PDO. Most have abandoned that hypothesis because the evidence just didn’t support it. Oscillations were oscillating, sometimes affecting year-to-year variation, but they did not predict the longer-term warming trend.
If you think you’ve got a model that you can show fits past variation well and offers testable predictions for the future, start by reading up on what has already been tried. You might be surprised how much research has been done in this direction. But if you still believe you have something new, beyond what’s been tested and found wanting, by all means do the math, write it up, and send your best work in to one of the journals read by Arctic scientists.”
I would actually be surprised if any research was done in this area that wasnt tainted by pro-AGW views and research ethics. And the research your talking about by your own admission was done 10-15 years ago.
What about recent research? I can find plenty of links on the net discussing how the PDO and AMO impact Arctic Ice but am having a very difficult time finding anyone who says it doesnt.
Sometimes the most obvious solutions are the right ones. I can see very clear correlations between the AMO and PDO and Arctic Ice extent that don’t require a degree or a thesis to understand and observe and I see very clear and logical reasons why there would be a correlation given how the AMO and PDO impact SST’s.
Since I’ve never presented my views as being a scientists views I don’t necessarily feel the need to put a paper together and submit it through a sham peer review process in order to present my views on this blog.
But Gneiss, feel free to explain exactly why it is the AMO and PDO aren’t major contributing factors to Arctic Ice extent. Should be fairly simple for you given your knowlege of all the scientific papers on the subject.
(Preferably without simply saying “another scientist said so” as that sort of position doesnt quite cut it round here).
rbateman says:
September 12, 2010 at 7:57 pm
A most interesting picture is portrayed there.
Is interesting isn’t it. One thing to keep in mind on that graph is not only is the sine removed but the trend also, in other words there is an inherent downward slope within the graph itself. That missing slope is -168 km per day.
Therefore, see that big blob which was just before August? It hovered there from end of March to beginning of August. I thought it might actually stick there all summer. Well, you know way happened then. Next year should register in a bit above that zero line even above that poly tread (really hate poly trends, generally misleading) if recovering. It has to be slightly above zero and keep threading out to show this. If it just keeps “slipping threads” sideways it is still sliding down that very shallow slope. We’ll see.
Glad you said something, now I know these tinypic links really do work. Other times I wish I could just show someone what I was talking about, now I can.
Phil. says:
September 12, 2010 at 7:38 pm
“Amazingly accurate: lowest so far this year 3.0721295, 2007 2.9978635 about 2.5% above the record minimum.”
================
Nothing personal, but I think the party is over.
Nobody believes in Catastophic AGW anymore, it is too expensive.
Reality can overcome fantasy.
The hard part will be breaking the news to GE.
rbateman
One think i wonder if you would have any input. See those blue key lines? To me those lines represent the slope of the energy gain or loss in order for all of the arctic ice to have that given extent, not area, not volume. Right? But wind it is said to have a major influence. It just amazes me that those minimums are lining up that perfectly. To me they shouldn’t, too much physics going on with all of the variances, wind, water temperature, air temperature, cloud cover, on and on. Yet 2007 to 2008 to 2009 all fall on a straight line. Incredible!
Other minimums follow those same slopes, might have an offset but the slopes are the same.
What do you make of that?
The prediction in the News Headlines was Ice Free (No Ice, None) in 2013.
I wonder when the News Media will let us know that they realize how duped they were?
Ice Free in 2013, do not let the New Media forget their own Headlines.
The Headline was “Ice Free Arctic in 2013”.
wayne says:
September 12, 2010 at 6:34 pm
Are you sure that what you’re looking at here aren’t just periodic residuals from subtracting a sine wave function from a dataset that isn’t 100% sinusoidal? I would think that plotting anomalies instead would give you a clearer picture if what you’re seeing is real.
-Scott
I wonder if we have reached the lowest extent already given the current value?
It would have been interesting to watch the large iceberg hit Joe Island, talk about monumental forces at play.
Andy
wayne says:
September 12, 2010 at 9:53 pm
All those slopes are the very same slopes to be seen in the Antarctic Sea Ice timeseries.
They say to me that all the forces (wind, sea temps, air temps, etc.) are acting, but not necessarily one dominates all the time.
You could probably generate such slopes by having 3 or 4 cycles offset in both min/max and duration.
Like 3, 4, 5, 7 etc.
Nature has a funny way of mimicking itself in microcosm/macrocosm.
Like Galaxy Clusters resemble the forms of ordinary Star Clusters.
UPDATE: 8PM PST 9/12/10 JAXA has updated with their preliminary Sept 12th data, up for the second straight day:
And the satellite images are showing increasing signs of sea areas about to freeze over.
It came on quick.
Some people believe they will see ice-free Arctic in 2 years, others believe they can see canals on Mars, and others yet believe that when the Day of Resurrection comes, Allah shall pour molten lead into the ears of all who enjoyed listening to music.
Well, the haters of music are in the best position: nobody ever would be able to prove them wrong, since they can wait for the Day of Resurrection until Kingdom Come (pardon the pun).
The Mars-canal believers may have a three or four decades yet, judging by the retreating glacial pace of the governmental space exploration.
The worst fate awaits the climate-change scaremongers; 2013 isn’t far off, and it’s already obvious that the Arctic ice is not going anywhere.
So, Gneiss, close your eyes and repeat after me:
“The world is pink. The world is pink. The world is pink…”
AndyW says:
September 12, 2010 at 9:33 am
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
Do you have the equivalent graphs for the Antarctic?
Jimbo says:
quote
“So in addition to changing sea ice, we can kind of guess that something must be happening in the atmosphere over the Arctic, too.” Clouds are bright, too, and an increase in clouds could cancel out the impact of melting snow and ice on polar albedo.”
[]
“Although sea ice and snow cover had noticeably declined in the Arctic from 2000 to 2004, there had been no detectable change in the albedo measured at the top of the atmosphere: the proportion of light the Arctic reflected hadn’t changed. In other words, the ice albedo feedback that most climate models predict will ultimately amplify global warming apparently hadn’t yet kicked in.”
[]
“According to the MODIS observations, cloud fraction had increased at a rate of 0.65 percent per year between 2000 and 2004. If the trend continues, it will amount to a relative increase of about 6.5 percent per decade. At least during this short time period, says Kato, increased cloudiness in the Arctic appears to have offset the expected decline in albedo from melting sea ice and snow.”
[]
unquote
Who would have thought it?
Well, Robert Essenhigh, actually.
JF
Neil Jones says:
September 12, 2010 at 10:53 pm
Got March here:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/TempGr/MarExtentVSArea.JPG
and the whole kit & kaboodle here:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/TempGr/YearlySeaIceAv.GIF
Done in response many moons ago to RGates Arctic Trends based on PIOMASS and other things.
Neil Jones says:
September 12, 2010 at 10:53 pm
Do you have the equivalent graphs for the Antarctic?
___________________________________________
Afraid not, they are just what NSIDC puts up on their update. I would imagine the December one at least is increasing though.
Andy
Scott says:
September 12, 2010 at 9:57 pm
Are you sure that what you’re looking at here aren’t just periodic residuals from subtracting a sine wave function from a dataset that isn’t 100% sinusoidal? I would think that plotting anomalies instead would give you a clearer picture if what you’re seeing is real.
Hi Scott. Sure, they are residuals off the perfect sine form, that is why I made that graph in the first place to concentrate the variances, easier to compare to other years. The ‘base’ variances from zero were expected of course, no year of even the mean follow a sine perfectly. I’ll take the time soon to do that with anomaly offsets too.
My comments above were just that the graph held some other surprises, to me anyway, once I plotted it. The variances off of those ‘expected’ or ‘base’ variances seem to be too perfect in a certain sense. Probably just a coincidence but those constant slopes do tend to stand out. Maybe some else could help answer why or someone else knows exactly why it does this. Maybe it’s just be the way JAXA detects edges and computes concentrations, you know, an artifact. I just thought it curious and tend to ask why and after looking at it all summer, I can’t seem to answer that question. Though I might get some other possibilities.
Spiral and helix:
In geometry a spiral is a figure in a plane (a bit like drawing a circle but with a radius that is continuously getting smaller (or bigger)).
A helix is a 3-dim figure (movement in a circle as seen from above, but with a continuous loss of height). Like the thread of a bolt.
When pilots practice “spirals”, the aim is to fly with constant radius, constant banking, constant speed and constant loss of altitude. All very controlled. Thus what they fly are helices.
“Amazingly accurate: lowest so far this year 3.0721295, 2007 2.9978635 about 2.5% above the record minimum.”
Even a Phool. should have noticed by now that we are talking JAXA here.
Latitude – Is the reason why May and Dec always come together in the graph because the Arctic is pretty well land-bound. and the ability of the ice to change its rate of decline or growth is very limited at about the time that it contracts or expands to its land boundaries – but at other times temperature, winds and currents can exercise greater yoy variability? A way to test it would be to see if the Antarctic follows the same pattern, because the Antarctic ice is not so constrained. If the Antarctic pattern is similar, then I am wrong (no time to look right now).
Alexej Buergin says:
September 13, 2010 at 1:40 am
“Amazingly accurate: lowest so far this year 3.0721295, 2007 2.9978635 about 2.5% above the record minimum.”
Even a Phool. should have noticed by now that we are talking JAXA here.
Clearly he was not since “2010 summer sea ice mimimum will come in right around 3 million sq. km, but a tiny bit above 2007′s summer minimum” must refer to CT area since the JAXA minimum was 4267656!
Alexander Feht writes,
“So, Gneiss, close your eyes and repeat after me:
‘The world is pink. The world is pink. The world is pink…'”
Doesn’t work for me. Does it work for you? Is Arctic ice on a pink upward trend?
NeilT says:
September 12, 2010 at 10:39 am
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.
I know the concept of natural climate variation is a difficult one for Chicken Littles (speaking of chicken). Newsflash for ya, as far as earths’ climate goes, there is no “normal”. What we have are cycles overlaid upon cycles, with a great deal of fluctuation, or noise thrown in to keep things interesting. You are waiting for the much-vaunted climate doomsday scenario, Serreze’s “death spiral of the Arctic ice. Sorry, aint gonna happen. As for your blind beggar, bad news; he’s too busy trying to survive to care or even know much about CAGW/CC. The thing is, the climate catastrophists are busy trying to make his survival that much harder, by forcing the cost of energy up. But, compared to “saving the planet” that is neither here nor there, is it?
Wayne, one trouble with a sine wave model is that it is systematically wrong, for the Arctic’s asymmetrical cycles. Ice extent declines in spring more steeply than it rises in fall, and the high-extent peaks tend to be broader than the low-extent troughs. A systematically wrong model can create residuals with systematic patterns as well.
Researchers often try to remove the main seasonal pattern by using anomalies, as seen for example in this Cryosphere Today graph:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png
What jumps out from the CT graph is that since 2007, even the anomalies show new seasonal structure, reflecting Arctic change.
” Phil. says:
September 13, 2010 at 4:37 am
Clearly he was not since “2010 summer sea ice mimimum will come in right around 3 million sq. km, but a tiny bit above 2007′s summer minimum” must refer to CT area since the JAXA minimum was 4267656!”
I thought the poor man was just mixing up the numbers 3 and 4.
So the worst forecast from February 2010 was yours, Phil. Nobody else stood so far beside their shoes.
(And we were and still are talking about JAXA here, with some DMI and some ArcticROOS thrown in. US numbers are not trustworthy, UAH excepted.)
Gneiss,
The sine wave model is fine, the issues you complain about that prevent perfect fit are a) an orbital issue whereas solstices and equinoxes are not in phase with Earth’s elliptical orbit.
b) a time delay issue relating to the thermal costs of phase change from liquid to solid water.
Once you account for these issues properly, the sine wave model fits perfectly, which it should.
mikelorrey says:
September 13, 2010 at 5:47 am
Yep, I’d pretty much go with that. Lots of little nuances to investigate that’ll keep the gravy express going and tooting its whistle for a while yet though 🙂