A number of people have inquired about the deep red drop today in this graph:
Of course the concern is along the lines of wondering if the world famous Mark Serreze “death spiral” has suddenly kicked in. While people like Joe Romm would be tickled with “I told you so taunts” if in fact the graph represented reality today, it does not. It only represents a satellite data outage. For example see the missing grey sector areas in this NSIDC image derived from the same SSM/I data:
And of course, it doesn’t show up on the newer AQUA based AMSRE sensor, showing now ice extent up for the third day in a row.
Thanks to NSIDC’s Dr. Walt Meier for confirmation.
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Whew !
The polar bears just exhaled a huge sigh of relief….
What Trev said!
Hmmm … a satelite data issue. What?!! Again?!!
Which raises this point — if the ice in the Arctic isn’t detected or reported by the satellite, does the ice really exist?
We’re all gonna die!!!..no wait nevermind
MODERATION HOLD – I’m checking to see if an error has been made – Anthony
[UPDATE: 09/15/10 It has, see a new post about this, thanks Marty]
Here’s a scary flash presentation from noaa_dot_gov’s rss feed today:
http://www.nnvl.noaa.gov/MediaDetail.php?MediaID=521&MediaTypeID=2&MediaFileID=108
Ah, nuts… I was hoping for a warmer winter than last. Now, where did I put my investment portfolio? I must realign it towards winter clothing, heating oil, tire manufacturers, etc.; all the futures are bright for those.
Quick, it’s time to send up some more AMSR-equipped satellites before the dodgy old SSM/I ones give out completely!
What about those that already jumped?
OT
Andrew Montford (Bishop Hill) has today had his report on the various UK whitewash “enquiries” published.
Here is the press release on Montford’s report :
http://thegwpf.org/climategate/1532-damning-new-investigation-into-climategate-inquiries.html
Interesting to see that the foreword is by Lord Turnbull – a recent Cabinet Secretary (2002-2005), previously Head of the UK Treasury and earlier the PM’s Private Secretary. That might make people focus a bit, if the report is endorsed by such a 24-carat mandarin, MPs and civil servants might take it more seriously.
The whole global warming business is a major financial and economic scandal – as well as an academic scandal. And if today’s UK Treasury are urgently looking for savings all over the shop – they need to start with global warming funding, and carbon-tax policies. Turnbull recommends that the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology should now take evidence from Montford. Some members of that committee already feel they have been seriously misled.
Here is Andrew Montford’s brief account of the press launch :
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2010/9/14/the-press-conference.html#comments
This link gives a further link to the full Montford report :
http://www.thegwpf.org/gwpf-reports/1531-the-climategate-inquries.html
Here is the report by Fred Pierce – the Guardian’s most senior correspondent on this stuff – he says the report obviously comes from one side of the argument, but he appears to endorse Montford’s main findings and contradicts absolutely nothing. The comments are well worth reading:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/sep/14/montford-climategate-gwpf-review
The Financial Times’ take :
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2914e324-c019-11df-b77d-00144feab49a.html
Surprise, surprise – Roger Harrabin at the BBC evades – refuses to report – the key criticisms of the Montford review, but quotes in full the UEA response – to what ??? – and mainly goes off at a tangent about Patchouri :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11303686
That looks like deliberate obfuscation.
Unusually for her , a half-fair report by Louise Gray, Telegraph correspondent on the environment :
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8002466/Doubt-remains-over-climategate.html
……………………………….
The main thing is that the Montford review is already getting decent press coverage – and that should lead to much wider coverage in the UK and overseas when people realise how strong and well-founded is the Montford list of allegations about whitewashing.
ClimateGate takes on a new lease of life, methinks. “Truth’s a chiel that winnae die, and cannae be disputed”
REPLY: Thanks, it always helps to scroll down the main page of WUWT before posting. – Anthony
It’s a good thing that those graphs are there to tell to polar bears that there is still ice up there…
tarpon says:
September 14, 2010 at 3:32 pm
What about those that already jumped?
=========================================================
Natural selection!
Man the ice was vanishing faster than a skeptical comment on Open Mind and RC!
Whew! For a moment there I was thinking: Why’d I tempt fate yesterday? I just hadda watch part of The Day After Tomorrow in the middle of a lightning storm, why couldn’t I have found something else to do?
Surely the satellite software could easily do a simple melt rate calculation and discover that it is impossible for that much ice to melt that fast; short of a big meteor collision that we would have heard about.
Oh yeah? Then what about the poor WALRUSES! They’re going to start terrorizing the Ice Road Truckers!
http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2010/09/14/14climatewire-melting-ice-turns-10000-walruses-into-landlu-39557.html
Thanks for the great detective work here. I am always suspicious of any dramatic change like this. Even if it were somehow accurate, the worst case would have been some change in the winds that rapidly compressed (or diverged, if the area goes up) the ice. Regardless, these short term blips (either real or technical) one direction or another have no impact or importance to the longer term trend.
Phew. I had concerns about whether or not a polar bear would still want to hug me.
It looks that Al has visited the Arctic again. With blow torch
That death spiral looks like a flat spin by the Satellite…
A number of people have inquired about the deep red drop today in this graph
Are you sure the team doesn’t have a new Nature trick of “showing the decline”?
The trolls got it!
The polar bears were rejoicing for a moment there – no more cold feet.. 😉
I don’t understand, do people not view their own representation of their work? Were I to present a graphical representation of my view of reality for the entire world to see!!! and it looked like that, I would expect to be fired the next day.
Quick get the oil and gas drills up there and get all my Walmart stuff through the Northwest Passage before the ice reappears!!! 😉