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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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…
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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
#
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.