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.
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!!! 😉
Where did the Arctic ice go?
Maybe it has been transferred to Canada’s Prairies:
[ http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/storm_watch_stories3&stormfile=more_rain_batters_manitoba_110910?ref=ccbox_homepage_topstories ]
“Prairie frost is killing crops
September 14, 2010 — Harvest crops are still weeks behind schedule in the Prairies and the frosty conditions aren’t helping.
There’s signs of an early winter across the Prairies and that is spelling trouble for farmers.
First it was a wet and soggy spring and summer season and now single digit temperatures and frost are adding to the list of weather concerns.
The crop is already weeks behind schedule thanks to the persistent rain that’s left fields completely swamped and saturated with water. Some farmers left their fields unseeded as the ground was just too wet to get into. Others faced severe damage.”
(-by Andrea Stockton, staff writer )
James Sexton says:
September 14, 2010 at 4:49 pm
James, I’m pretty sure the data processing and graphical updates are all automated. I’m sure the problem will be fixed within a day or two.
-Scott
So is the SSMI satellite on the verge of failure, or is it simply a glitch?
I’ve posted several times to his site (Joe Romm) and he deletes everything I say …. it doesn’t even come up `waiting for moderation’ any more. If he is any indication of how the Team tried to keep papers from being published then I’m ashamed to be in the field of science!
I congratulate the moderators of this site for letting the wa#k jo*s post …. I don’t of course know how many get deleted but at least some come through.
Or as the folks say on Joe’s site, I’m AFRAID, very afraid (maybe of my wife but not AGW 🙂
When we demand instantaneous display of data obtained by technical wizardry we should expect a few glitches and not treat the providers harshly. This is rocket science, you know.
The Arctic (like our climate) is being treated like a very sick patient in an emergency room.
But if we look at the very regular and healthy “pulse”, well within a very safe range of utmost extremes, global glaciation and a completely ice free Arctic, this patient should be fired from the hospital immediately.
Scott says:
September 14, 2010 at 4:58 pm
James, I’m pretty sure the data processing and graphical updates are all automated. I’m sure the problem will be fixed within a day or two.
========================================================
I’m sure of that also. If I were the programmer that allowed this to be shown, I wouldn’t be much of a programmer. Were I the IT pro or net admin that allowed this to be shown, I wouldn’t much of either. Were I to be one of the scientists or technicians that deal with the data, which many look at on a daily basis, then I would have acquiesced my responsibility to some form of automation.
Scott, you know this is a flaw, I know this is a flaw, pretty much everybody that visits this blog knows it is a flaw. But dammit! We have politicians that think islands can capsize! Can’t the twits that bring us this continuous feed(of superfluous, immaterial data upon which laws are made and lives are affected) be conscientious enough to at least look at the stuff, maybe once a day? Is it too much to ask?
Sorry, my rant for the day, unless I grab another beer……..which, sounds pretty good right now.
The annual watch on the comings and goings of the Arctic sea ice is an entertaining pastime, not quite fantasy football, but fun never the less. But everyone would be well advised not to confuse these numerous graphics with reality. Even with the obvious error in the Nansen data, their sea ice area number is still nearly 3/4 MILLION km2 higher than CT’s and the range of values for SIA has been over a million km2 for weeks. The IJIS graph seems to have become the de facto gold standard but, though they always quote their data to the nearest km2, the bullet points beneath the graph include this
“In principle, SIC data could have errors of 10% at most, particularly for the area of thin sea ice seen around the edge of sea-ice cover and melted sea ice seen in summer. Also, SIC along coastal lines could also have errors due to sub-pixel contamination of land cover in an instantaneous field of view of AMSR-E data.”
and this
“Definition of sea-ice cover (extent and area)
The area of sea-ice cover is often defined in two ways, i.e., sea-ice “extent” and sea-ice “area.” These multiple definitions of sea-ice cover may sometimes confuse data users. The former is defined as the areal sum of sea ice covering the ocean (sea ice + open ocean), whereas the latter “area” definition counts only sea ice covering a fraction of the ocean (sea ice only). Thus, the sea-ice extent is always larger than the sea-ice area. Because of the possible errors in SIC mentioned above, satellite-derived sea-ice concentration can be underestimated, particularly in summer. In such a case, the sea-ice area is more susceptible to errors than the sea-ice extent. Thus, we adopt the definition of sea-ice extent to monitor the variation of the Arctic sea ice on this site. ”
For those who are wondering SIC is sea ice concentration. As with all graphics in “climate science” it pays to keep Korzypski’s injunction in mind when dealing with them. “The map is not the territory.”
Oops! Korzybski, of course
The “Glitch” is also affecting the Southern Hem. NSIDC data:
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_bm_extent_hires.png
Mayday, Mayday. This is Global.
Psych! Caught you napping! Next time it will be for real. Just don’t tempt me.
Kang
Ruler of Earth
rbateman said on September 14, 2010 at 5:01 pm
I want to know if it’ll be determined the SSM/I stuff has been going funky for awhile now, and previous readings aren’t totally reliable. NSIDC doesn’t archive daily numbers so it’s hard to do a check against the IARC-JAXA’s AMSR-E results.
Of course we could just trust NSIDC to know better and have correct numbers. It’s not like their director is pushing some alarmist propaganda like the idea of an Arctic Ice Death Spiral, right?
☺
I think it’s interesting that even with the big chunk of ice missing, the ice extent still remained above the 2007 level.
Philip Finck says:
September 14, 2010 at 5:06 pm
“…. I don’t of course know how many get deleted but at least some come through.”
I think they let most come through. I’ve often seen them taken to task about something they’ve said or not said. Here is a very good recent example of what they let in as far as dissenting opinions. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/13/my-towns-climate-action-plan/#more-24809 There are many other examples. Of course, I’ve yet to see where one didn’t get their azz handed back to them. The best debates are when they let us argue amongst ourselves!
I don’t buy it. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from the warmists, it’s that models and graphs are always right, but sometimes reality is wrong.
“The rent is in arrears
The dog hasn’t been fed in years
It’s even worse than it appears”.
– Grateful Dead, Touch of Grey
The ice was hit by an ocean liner and sank…
May I ask a silly question please?
Why is there very little variability in the data at the end of December?
Is this due to the geography? Or just our limited dataset? But then why does the variability increase once again after February?
Thanks.
“Where did the Arctic ice go?
Maybe it has been transferred to Canada’s Prairies:”
Yeah, in what is supposedly one of the warmest summers in Canada’s history, we’ve had the furnace on far more than the air conditioning.
Can someone please send some Global Warming out our way? Thanks.
Does this mean that before satelites there was no arctic ice?
Follow the adventures of the two ships attempting to circumnavigate the Arctic. The translation buttons are ify but it is still fun to follow their trips via the maps.
http://www.ousland.no/blog/
http://rusarc.ru/
captainfish says:
September 14, 2010 at 6:34 pm
One silly question (there’s really no such thing) deserves another:
Why does the temperature at 80N do the opposite of the Sea Ice Extent & Area?
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/TempGr/meanT_2010vs58-09.jpg
Its just a ‘rotten’ satellite…
waitaminute.
Polar bears *eat* satellites, don’t they?
Note the picture near the bottom of the page – after Nanook swatted his dinner out of the sky all that’s left is satellite bones…
OT sorry, but my gut split on this one.
http://climateaudit.org/2010/09/14/climategate-inquiries/#comment-241405
Where did the arctic ice go? It went to Alberta –
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/your_weather/details/620/3214945/3/caab0104/plpcities?ref=ugc_city_thumbs
It snowed west of me in Edson, Alberta yesterday. It has been so wet and cold I haven’t even started to get my hay off yet. Might have to wait till the ground freezes now. Won’t be the first time. Snow in the forecast in many places this week. Maybe the missing artic ice sublimated and is migrating south with the geese? (sarc off)
I don’t know where all that extra “world heat” was this summer but I know it wasn’t in Alberta. I am starting to winterize the farm already. It is looking like a cold winter and I have to get 8 cords of wood stacked before the snow gets too deep. Should be a good winter for skiing.
So the ice is back to 2008 levels.
Gary Hladik says:
September 14, 2010 at 6:29 pm
The ice was hit by an ocean liner and sank…
Ok, that’s it. Tuesday Night Funnies.
Did you catch the name of the ship that tipped the ice over?
It was the SS Captain Trade.
Or, how’s about the ship that got floundered on the rocks?
The Jolly CruiseLiner SS Cap’n’Crunch, and the SOS call they sent out was “Breaker, Breaker”.
Gee, you mean there’s something wrong with knowingly posting inaccurate data which will be included in the historical record?
Even when there’s an important political agenda that needs to be advanced?
You guys need to start thinking more like journalists and social “scientists,” and less like “hard scientists.” It’s the ends that matter, not the means…
I thought satellite outages WERE data themselves?!
The absence of data doesn’t mean you can’t deduce anything. Haven’t we learnt anything out of this whole climo-religion phenomena?! Just look at what NOAA does on a monthly basis with its temperature record, where data from a third of the planet is unavailable, yet “modelled” to give global coverage……throwing in some good strong warming bias for good measure of course!!
Why has the Sea Ice Page been taken down?
I found it really useful every day .
MikeN says:
September 14, 2010 at 8:51 pm
So the ice is back to 2008 levels.
Depends on the volume? Hardly a recovery.
Large melting of ice in the critical areas such as the Fram strait may have an opposite effect on the the NW Atlantic.
The Fram Strait represents the unique deep water connection between the Arctic Ocean and the rest of the world oceans. Its bathymetry controls the exchange of water masses between the arctic basin and the North Atlantic. The significant heat flux through water mass exchange and sea ice transport, i.e. transport of fresh water and sea ice southwards and transport of warm saline waters northwards, influences the thermohaline circulation at a global scale. – Alfred Wegener Institute
http://acsys.npolar.no/introduction/impplan/images/MooringPositions.gif
Here cold currents are at the surface with ice cover as an obstacle. Less ice in the strait faster the cold current flows into the NW Atlantic. Negative feedback.
On a more serious (I hope) note: we can see extent and rate of change from the graph but what about the area under the curve? Max & min are interesting but the annual cyclical differences overall surely lie in the quantity of water that has experienced a phase change from max to min, vice versa and overall. Is this done anywhere?
Where did the sea ice go?
Walruses are asking the same question…apparantly.
From my local paper, the Brisbane Courier Mail, pp23
WALRUS OVERFLOW Seth Borenstein in Washington
Tens of thousands of walruses have come ashore in northwest Alaska because the sea ice they normally rest on has melted.
US Government scientists say the move ashore by walruses is unusual in the US. But it has happened at least twice before, in 2007 and 2009. In those years Arctic sea ice was also at, or near, record low levels….
….National Snow and Ice Data Center director Mark Serreze said loss of sea ice in the Chukchi Sea this northern summer had surprised scientists, as last winter plenty of old, established sea ice floated into the region. But that has disappeared.
Last year was a slight improvement, but Mr Serreze said there had been a long-term decline that he blamed on global warming.
“We’ll likely see more summers like this. There is no sign of Arctic recovery,” he said.
Associated Press
sorry no links. Emphasis mine.
From: Baa Humbug on September 15, 2010 at 2:57 am
Found it on Yahoo, “Melting sea ice forces walruses ashore in Alaska,” full version (I think).
Which makes me remember how many nature shows I’ve seen in the past showing the tight packing as the walruses are on land, not ice, all from before 2007 and (of course) 2009. Have these people never watched PBS before 2007? Ah heck, I might have seen that on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom!
Mark Serreze is mistaken, if that is what he said.
The Sea Ice was gone from the Chukchi Sea on Sept. 15, 1979, 1982, 1986, 1989, 1990, 1992, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 & 2010.
In fact, most years, the Chukchi Sea has been ice free on Sept. 15th.
What is he possibly going on about?
Data taken from visual Cyrosphere Today images.
Got pink slip?
For info this site and Steve Goddard in particular are the subject of this weeks “Crock of the Week” by Peter Sinclair. It is about the loss of Arctic ice. I viewed the vidoe on Little Green Footballs blog site. This is an anti-science site now. Hmm. I find it odd that as an engineer I am said to be anti-science.
REPLY: Peter Sinclair is one of Gore’s trained presenters, he’s the queen of anti, second only to Joe Romm. – Anthony
From Arctic ROOS
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic
!!!!!!!!Error in the satellite data on September 13th. 2010 result in a spurious drop in the values for the ice area and extent. The error will be corrected soon – meanwhile the plots are suspended!!!!!
@Mike sander
‘The polar bears just exhaled a huge sigh of relief….’
Disregarding the comedy of the statement, but the polar bears seem to sigh of relief every time there is less ice, and warmer winter weather (funny how some people have a hard problem understanding that having ones cubs freeze to death is considered to be bad). The only reason for why polar bears need ice way out to sea is to expend as little energy as possible while catching as much food as possible. That’s why they don’t really like multi year ice or any extending ice cover but rather patchy ice as close to land as possible. Polar bears go, just like all other animals, where the food goes and if there wasn’t any ice at all, where would all the polar bear food go to but closer to land because their food’s food apparently need, greedy goddamn bastards, some sort of nutritious environment to. :p
I love it when readers lament that polar bears have to swim long distances to find food. That is not their hunting style and they don’t much like the food they find after a long swim out to sea. They depend on nearby sea ice holes, not stretches of solid ice, love ringed seals best (and they just happen to have their pups in snow drift dens on land fast ice), and hunt most of the year near/on land.
http://www.seaworld.org/infobooks/polarbears/pbdiet.html
Note to the Moderator.
.
I was NOT attempting to troll you yesterday with that link to noaa. Just thought it was interesting propaganda from dot_gov in view of your post here on the subject (‘Where did the Arctic ice go?’)?
.
Anyway it looks to me look noaa’s ‘presentation’ of yesterday has been re-written some now? Wish I had taken a screenshot of the original before noaa did the re-write! Oh well.
.
REPLY: Marty, no worries, I didn’t see it as trolling at all, the moderation hold was to give me a chance to verify and get it corrected before some of the alarmist blogs jumped on it. Look for a post shortly, and thank you. – Anthony
Pamela Gray says:
September 15, 2010 at 8:46 am
I love it when readers lament that polar bears have to swim long distances to find food. That is not their hunting style and they don’t much like the food they find after a long swim out to sea. They depend on nearby sea ice holes, not stretches of solid ice, love ringed seals best (and they just happen to have their pups in snow drift dens on land fast ice), and hunt most of the year near/on land.
http://www.seaworld.org/infobooks/polarbears/pbdiet.html
Following your seaworld link you’ll find
http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/issues/threats/climate-change.html
The Polar bear specialist group.
They say “Polar bears are totally reliant on the sea ice as their primary habitat. If climate change alters the period of ice cover, bears may be forced on shore for extended periods and forced to rely on stored fat. If these periods become excessively long, mortality will increase. Such changes are thought to be occurring in western Hudson Bay. Further, if the ice changes in character such that there is more open water, young cubs which are unable to swim long distances may suffer greater mortality. Sea ice is also used for access to den areas and if ice patterns change, existing den areas may be unreachable. Another factor is that in some areas, warmer temperatures and higher winds may reduce ice thickness and increase ice drift. Because polar bears must walk against the moving ice (like walking the wrong way on an escalator) increased ice movements will increase energy use and reduce growth and reproduction.
Another problem is unusual warm spells during the period that females are on land in dens. If severe rain events occur during the den period, it is possible that snow banks slump and can kill mothers and their cubs. Such an event was observed in northern Canada and unusual rain events have been noted in western Hudson Bay and Svalbard with unknown consequences.
Polar bears are a keystone species in ice-covered Arctic marine ecosystems and alterations to the distribution, density or abundance of this top predator will likely have impacts throughout the arctic ecosystem. There is little doubt that polar bears and other ice-inhabiting marine mammals in the Arctic, are being, or will be, negatively affected by the effects of climate change via changes to their habitat”
Still, you’re the expert.
In the interior of BC there are many people grousing about their poor gardens this year due to the extended cool spring, short summer and cool fall temperatures upon us already.
This is obviously a simple mistake, right? The lines just happen to suddenly drop to EXACTLY that days ice extent value for 2007. They accidently retyped the 2007 value or a link got crossed.
From Tim Williams post above:
“drift dens on land fast ice), and hunt most of the year near/on land.
http://www.seaworld.org/infobooks/polarbears/pbdiet.html
Following your seaworld link you’ll find
http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/issues/threats/climate-change.html
The Polar bear specialist group.”
Tim, I looked all over Pamela Gray’s link and found no place anywhere in it that the PBSG is reference or linked to. Did you mispeak?
PBSG is NOT a neutral source for this information.
REPLY: Peter Sinclair is one of Gore’s trained presenters, he’s the queen of anti, second only to Joe Romm. – Anthony
————
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that if someone calls you anti-science the best rebuttal is clear evidence based arguments supported by data. Not calling someone a girl. I expect better than school yard taunts from you.
http://www.seaworld.org/infobooks/PolarBears/pbconservation.html
Referenced under ‘conservation’.
http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/members/
http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/guidelines.html
“The PBSG has no regulatory function. The main purpose of the PBSG is to promote co-operation between jurisdictions that share polar bear populations, facilitate communication on current research and management, and monitor compliance with the agreement. The PBSG is not an open forum for public participation. It is a group consisting of technical experts on polar bears and related issues that meets to discuss scientific and technical matters relevant to the Agreement. At their meeting in March 2009 the Countries party to the International Agreement, asked the PBSG to serve as the scientific advisory body to the Parties.”
“To qualify for membership of the PBSG one must be actively involved in research and/or management of polar bears.
Because of the relationship of the PBSG to the Agreement, membership must reflect not only technical expertise in polar bear research and management, but also equal representation of the nations signatory to the Agreement. For this reason, each signatory nation is entitled to designate three full members. Government-appointed members are proposed by their respective governments and must be considered for membership by the chairman.”
What exactly do you mean by neutral?
docattheautopsy says:
September 14, 2010 at 4:03 pm
Oh yeah? Then what about the poor WALRUSES! They’re going to start terrorizing the Ice Road Truckers!
________________________________________________
Don’t worry the polar bears can eat them now there are no ice bergs to hunt seals from.
Mike A. says:
September 14, 2010 at 4:56 pm
Where did the Arctic ice go?
Maybe it has been transferred to Canada’s Prairies:
[ http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/storm_watch_stories3&stormfile=more_rain_batters_manitoba_110910?ref=ccbox_homepage_topstories ]
“Prairie frost is killing crops…
_______________________________________________
Seems Russia is worried too.
“Wheat [prices] climbed after Russia, the third-largest grower last year, extended a ban on exports into next year after a drought destroyed crops, tightening global supplies….
Russia accounted for 14 percent of the global exports of wheat, flour and related products in the year to June 30, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Russia’s longer ban may contribute to higher global prices, raising concern there may be a rerun of the 2008 food crisis, when grains reached records and riots broke out in poorer states. Mozambique, at least seven people died this week in clashes between protesters and police after the government boosted bread and electricity prices. World food prices rose last month to the highest level since September 2008, the FAO has said….” http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-03/wheat-in-chicago-gains-as-russian-extends-export-ban-as-much-as-11-months.html
I sure hope American farmers are going to have a good harvest. With both Russia and Canada grain export future looking dim and the wiping out of the last of the US grain reserves in 2008 – Today, says USDA Undersecretary Mark Keenum, “Our cupboard is bare.” U.S. government food surpluses have evaporated… large U.S. reserves may be gone for a long time. We could see a repeat of the sharp rise in food prices and subsequent riots. In fact food riots have already started in Mozambique.
Ken Finney says:
September 14, 2010 at 8:14 pm
waitaminute.
Polar bears *eat* satellites, don’t they?
Note the picture near the bottom of the page – after Nanook swatted his dinner out of the sky all that’s left is satellite bones…
______________________________________________
NAHhh Polar bears eat boats silly, well kayaks anyway. http://onkayaks.squarespace.com/journal/2010/8/4/tuesday-august-3rd-2010-kayakers-attacked-by-polar-bear-in-s.html
#
#
mkelly says:
September 15, 2010 at 6:53 am
For info this site and Steve Goddard in particular are the subject of this weeks “Crock of the Week” by Peter Sinclair. It is about the loss of Arctic ice. I viewed the vidoe on Little Green Footballs blog site. This is an anti-science site now. Hmm. I find it odd that as an engineer I am said to be anti-science.
______________________________________________
Con artists, especially when caught accuse YOU of their misdeeds. I have seen it happen many times. It is the hallmark of the conman and useful for identifying such.
Tim Williams says:
September 15, 2010 at 1:31 pm
….Because of the relationship of the PBSG to the Agreement, membership must reflect not only technical expertise in polar bear research and management, but also equal representation of the nations signatory to the Agreement. For this reason, each signatory nation is entitled to designate three full members. Government-appointed members are proposed by their respective governments and must be considered for membership by the chairman.”
What exactly do you mean by neutral?
____________________________________________________________
Scientists who are not dependent on the public trough for funding.
Carbon scare = Carbon tax = happy politicians since they can put in another tax without actually calling it a tax and so the people who finance their political campaigns can make lots of money in the carbon derivatives market.
http://economicedge.blogspot.com/2009/04/carbon-derivatives-to-become-worlds.html
“Wall Street has already hired 130 lobbyists?”…Seems to me they are creating a huge derivatives market for the sake of benefiting traders. Remember that Obama has more banking industry “advisors” than any president in history….”
Clinton and Obama adviser Franklin Raines owns a carbon-emissions patent that will allow him and his partners to make millions of dollars if it is used in any cap and trade law. In 2004 Franklin Raines , retired “early” from a position as Fannie Mae CEO during the Securities and Exchange Commission investigators inquiry into accounting “irregularities” under Raines’ management.
“British-born Masters was one of the financial engineers who invented credit derivatives. As we know now, credit derivatives were designed to remove risk from a company’s balance by creating artificial structures. Of course, all that did was encourage companies to take even bigger risks which helped create the mess we’re now in. In effect, she helped build a weapon of mass destruction.
Now we have Bloomberg reporting that the same woman is leading JP Morgan’s trade in carbon derivatives…” http://www.soxfirst.com/50226711/carbon_and_credit_derivatives_link.php
When Skeptics call it a “scam” we are talking about the big money that will be made in the carbon derivatives market by the wealthy while the poor and middle class who get the shaft just like we did in the credit (bank loan) derivatives market that just sank the world economy. This is where the big money is made without even bothering to manufacture a wind mill or a solar panel.
From: Jeff P on September 15, 2010 at 1:29 pm
I think it’s perfectly applicable if this “Peter Sinclair” person is going to go on like a girl…
Whoops! Wrong article!
☺
Jeff P says:
September 15, 2010 at 1:29 pm
I’m pretty sure the majority of objective people would equate the queen reference to being analogous to a “second in command” rather than “a girl” considering that Anthony said “second only to Romm”. I know it didn’t even cross my mind as a reference to being a girl, but maybe I’m not objective. 🙂
I guess I should let Anthony defend himself though…although that cheap a twist on wording might be too below him to even acknowledge.
-Scott
BBC is running the latest scary story:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11322310
“Its not as scary as we were saying it was going to be but its still very very scary, nearly the scariest ever, the 3rd scariest since records began, and although our predictions for the present day don’t hold up our predictions for 50 years from now are still good”… or some such rubbish.
Excerpt from: Scott on September 15, 2010 at 4:31 pm
Actually I took as “drama queen” which, I should note, is applicable to “queens” of either sex. I’m pretty sure I’ve only ever heard a theoretical male equivalent, “suicide king,” just once, in a pop music song.
Interesting. I’ve found out it was “Misery” by Soul Asylum, and it’s hard now to find a “lyrics” site that doesn’t throw up a “screen cover” over the site offering to download the ringtone to my cellphone.
Re: my previous comment
Sorry Scott, I was mistaken. I should have re-read the original comment rather than go by the “flow” of subsequent comments. While “drama queen” appears applicable, upon first reading I believe your impression was correct. My apologies.
Isn’t sea ice volume down? I see a lot of focus here on extent and everyone seems to be ignoring volume. How can the ice be “recovering” if volume continues to decline? Thinner ice means easier melt, all we need is the next warm cycle and we will see another 2007 record breaking year because the thinner ice is preconditioned for melt. Please explain what I am missing
Cliff says:
September 15, 2010 at 6:28 pm
[Emphasis Mine]
What you, and everyone else, are missing missing is a dependable volume data set. IIRC, there are 3 models that give volume information. Two of those show volume decreasing, whereas PIPS 2.0 had 2008 with minimum volume and now 2010’s volume is back up to 2007’s level.
Area is likely a better measure than extent, but data for area are noisier, especially in the summer, so extent is the preferred metric…both for accuracy and historical reasons.
In terms of only needing “the next warm cycle”, wouldn’t this year have been that? There was a pretty powerful El Nino this year that warmed up SSTs considerably.
If the volume really is dropping off a cliff, it should be clear in the area/extent numbers within just a few years. If so, it will be clear that the skeptics were/are wrong about the ice, though the cause may still be up in the air.
-Scott
Scott,
There appear to be problems with the PIPs 2.0 data as explained in posts by R. Gates in this thread,
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/29/arctic-ice-volume-has-increased-25-since-may-2008/
Sounds like the Navy has a more updated model but it’s classified. And the updated model uses some of the same data as the PIOMAS volume model that shows a pretty sharp and continuing decline in volume.
Scott,
This post as well explains the issues with using PIPS 2.0 for volume modeling –
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/13/nsidcs-dr-walt-meier-on-pips-vs-piomas/
Gail Combs says:
September 15, 2010 at 4:14 pm
Scientists who are not dependent on the public trough for funding.
____________________________________________________________
What a strange stance to take. Do you really insist that any publicly funded science research should be considered to be biased? Even if that research is a collaboration of experts from institutions representing the five nations of the polar range, all of which, as far as I’m aware, boast some semblance of democracy?
What if the research was carried out by publicly funded institutions and supported by finance from private (albeit heavily subsisised) enterprises such as Exxon, BP and Conoco-Phillips Alaska? Such as this report (http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2006/1337/pdf/ofr20061337.pdf)
Which states in it’s very first paragraph of the abstract that… “Polar bears depend entirely on sea ice for survival. In recent years, a warming climate has caused major changes in the Arctic sea ice environment, leading to concerns regarding the status of polar bear populations.”
and concludes… “The relationship between decreased availability of sea ice and declining population size in western Hudson Bay, which is near the southern extreme of polar bear range, is cause for concern regarding the future status of polar bears in more northern regions such as the SBS. (Southern Beaufort Sea)” (2006.)
Gail Combs says:
September 15, 2010 at 4:14 pm
Scientists who are not dependent on the public trough for funding.
____________________________________________________________
What an extraordinary stance to take. So in your opinion any publicly funded scientific research is to be considered biased? Even if the research is conducted by experts from five separate polar range nations all of which have a vested interest in Artic resources?
How about research that is, at least in part, funded by Exxon, BP and Conoco-Phillips Alaska? Such as this 2006 report http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2006/1337/pdf/ofr20061337.pdf
Which states in the very first paragraph of the abstract that “Polar bears depend entirely on sea ice for survival. In recent years, a warming climate has caused major changes in the Arctic sea ice environment, leading to concerns regarding the status of polar bear populations”
and goes on to conclude that
“The relationship between decreased availability of sea ice and declining population size in western Hudson Bay, which is near the southern extreme of polar bear range, is cause for concern regarding the future status of polar bears in more northern regions such as the SBS (Soutern Beaufort Sea)”
Cliff says:
September 15, 2010 at 8:35 pm
And what evidence do you have that shows the other models to be superior? They’re excellent track record of predicting ice extent the last few years? If they’re indeed correct, we should know it soon enough via massive ice losses in extent and area, of which we have quality data on the last several decades. If those models are correct, I don’t see La Nina’s, changes in PDO or AMO, “good” weather, or low solar output saving the Arctic…it’s doomed. If they aren’t correct, we could still see a decline in sea ice, but at a slower pace (remember that PIOMAS led experts to predict an average Sept extent that ended up ~1 million km^2 lower than the Sept one-day minimum is likely to end up around).
You asked a question and I gave a reasonable and (IMO) unbiased answer and you respond by telling me my answer is crap?…why’d you ask in the first place, just to shoot down the answer you got unless it supported CAGW? Clearly you didn’t ask with an honest intent to gain knowledge. Just speculation on my part…go ahead and make your motives clear if I’ve misinterpreted them (I’m not a psychologist).
-Scott
Well, sitting here in Hong Kong, I can sure tell you where the Arctic Ice DIDN’T go to!! What a steamer!
More bad data, more bad science…..bleh!
From: Cliff on September 15, 2010 at 8:35 pm
And then there was the big debate spanning several articles where his “evidence” was debunked, shown as to what it was and what it really indicated, and R. Gates has since not spoken about “PIPS 3.0” for quite some time now. PIPS 2.0 is the US Navy’s operational system that they currently use, period.
Please don’t bring that mess back up again.
Gotta like the 5m+ thick ice north of Spitsbergen that PIPS2 has been showing for a couple of weeks, even when there’s been almost no ice there! Lots of other suspect areas too.
http://exploreourpla.net/explorer/?map=Arc&sat=ter&lon=27.37&lat=80.93,9&lvl=8&yir=2010&dag=254
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/pips2/archive/retrievepic.html?filetype=Thickness&year=2010&month=9&day=11
“In terms of only needing “the next warm cycle”, wouldn’t this year have been that?”
Actually, the high arctic was pretty cool this summer (http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php). It also had a lot of cloud cover, and winds due to AO were not very favorable for some of the summer.
jakers says:
September 16, 2010 at 3:45 pm
I’ve been hearing all summer how (a) water temperatures dominate melt, not air temperatures, and water temps were very warm this summer (this seems reasonable to me), and (b) how the DMI data isn’t that reliable (doesn’t seem reasonable to me, but that’s what we’ve heard). Isn’t GISS showing another extremely warm year in the Arctic this year?
So were warm waters supposed to be favorable towards losing the ice and thus cause large losses in extent/area this year, but when the losses didn’t happen it was due to cold air and not warm water? Seems contradictory. Given the strong El Nino and thus warmer water this year, I think the ice did pretty much like one would expect.
-Scott
Funky old weather variability currently has JAXA at the lowest extent after a sharpish drop for this time of year over the last few days. (posted Spetember 17).
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent_L.png
OTOH, sea ice area has been growing for the past few days. The end of the melt season appears to have arrived, but winds and currents are still fooling around with extent.