Now you see it…(09/14/2010)
Now you don’t…(09/15/2010)
In their zeal to get on the “death spiral” train of wild claims about Arctic sea ice, NOAA has made a major blunder, which they’ve now had to correct. Thanks to sharp eyed WUWT reader Marty yesterday who wrote:
I looked at it, it didn’t make sense. Where did they get “2nd Lowest Extent on Record” from? None of the datasets supported it.
Here’s the link to the page shown above, current and corrected today.
I dashed off an email to Dr. Walt Meier of NSIDC:
————————————————–
From: “Anthony Watts” <awatts@xxxxx.xxxxxx.xxx>
Date: Tuesday, September 14, 2010 3:40 PM
To: “Walt Meier” <walt@xxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: This NSIDC citation seems wrong
Hello Walt,
They are citing your NSIDC Sept 7th report which says “third lowest”
http://www.nnvl.noaa.gov/MediaDetail.php?MediaID=521&MediaTypeID=2&MediaFileID=108
Watching all of the values, I can’t see where they get this, AMSRE certainly doesn’t support it:
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent_L.png
Could they be fooled by the recent SSMI outage I just mentioned? Looking at the NANSEN graph I sent earlier, their claim would be valid if that data was valid.
Or have I missed something?
Best Regards,
Anthony Watts
While I was waiting for a response from Walt, I made a screencap that showed my computer date and time of 0914/2010 @4:30PM PST.
Walt wrote back about two hours later saying:
————————————————–
From: “Walt Meier” <walt@xxxxxxx.xxx>
Date: Tuesday, September 14, 2010 6:37 PM
To: “Anthony Watts” <awatts@xxxxx.xxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: This NSIDC citation seems wrong
Hi Anthony,
I don’t really know what this is. It is not related to the data outage we experienced today. It is an experimental product that looks like it is based on visual imagery, not passive microwave, so there could be problems with clouds. Also they may have a high concentration threshold – the “missing” areas of ice correspond to relatively low concentrations, but still well above the generally accepted cutoffs of 15% or 30%.
I didn’t actually see an NSIDC citation – was it in the animation (I can’t open it up on my laptop)?
Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I’ll check into it.
walt
I wrote back to point out that the citation was in the text link in the 0914/2010 NOAA article where they say: “the second lowest sea ice extent ever measured.” He responded:
————————————————–
From: “Walt Meier” <walt@xxxxxxx.xxx>
Date: Wednesday, September 15, 2010 5:46 AM
To: “Anthony Watts” <awatts@xxxxx.xxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: This NSIDC citation seems wrong
Ah, okay. Thanks. That links to our report on August conditions.
August 2010 was indeed the 2nd lowest. However, for the minimum we’re currently 3rd lowest and I don’t see us reaching 2nd lowest this year.
walt
Interestingly, as Walt points out, NOAA apparently never read (or perhaps comprehended if they did) the NSIDC Sept 7th Sea Ice News article that text links to because in that they clearly say:
On September 3, ice extent dropped below the seasonal minimum for 2009 to become the third lowest in the satellite record.
This morning, the NOAA sea ice page was corrected as you can see in the images above where the yellow highlight exists. I believe that was due to Walt’s “checking into it”. Their correction, with added “satellite record” on the end is word for word what NSIDC says.
I find it comical that ordinary citizens are the ones that keep catching NOAA in these basic errors in broad daylight. I’ve touched on these issues before here.
My thanks to WUWT reader “Marty”, and especially to Dr. Walt Meier of NSIDC for his continued willingness to communicate and to address accuracy in science reporting.
In other news, NSIDC now confirms what I said on Sunday 09/12/2010:
Sea Ice News #22 – melt season may have turned the corner
Here’s the NSIDC headline today:
September 15, 2010
Arctic sea ice reaches annual minimum extent
Arctic sea ice appears to have reached its annual minimum extent on 10 September. The minimum ice extent was the third-lowest in the satellite record, after 2007 and 2008, and continues the long-term trend of decreasing summer sea ice.
Northwest Passage; Sept 13th
http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/prods/WIS56CT/20100913180000_WIS56CT_0005190946.gif
‘So if increases melting is bad and increased freezing is also bad, exactly what would be good?’
A ball of rock in space, with no water, air or life to mess it up, or to imagine it is being messed up.
OT but does anyone have a reaction to the article by Dr. Gianluigi Zangari about the
Gulf Loop Current ‘stalling.’
If Arctic temp average for 2010 is higher than usual, but ice extent is strong… what are we going to hear from the mainstream?
If temp average for 2010 is down, but ice extent is low…. what are we going to hear from the mainstream?
TheFlyingOrc says:
September 15, 2010 at 2:00 pm
“People only join organizations like the NOAA, or become climatologists, because they already believe in global warming and want to do some good about it. Seriously, nobody dreams of being a climate scientist when they grow up, and if it weren’t for global warming theory, there honestly wouldn’t be that many positions available. This should improve over the next few years as young scientists may want to become climatologists to combat AGW theory, but that takes time.
They’re honestly goodhearted people with a quasi-religious belief. Give them a little slack on the small stuff.
========================================================
I do understand their position. It is perfectly acceptable to have an opinion that is “cut and dried” regarding our climate. It is not acceptable to have advocates as arbiters of truth. Especially in administrative branches of our government. I can think of several reasons why people would want to become involved in weather, oceanianic, and climate tracking professions other than furtherance of their advocacy. NOAA isn’t a club someone joins, it is supposedly a group of professionals that have a mandate for truth and discovery. If someone in the employ of NOAA finds that they cannot, then that person should have the personal integrity to resign and go join the WWF, Greenpeace or some such advocacy group. It is the “small stuff” that exposes their biases. There are things we need them to be focused on other than trying to win one for the team. They are letting their organization down and their nation. I know it sounds harsh, but that’s not what we’re paying them for. And that isn’t why NOAA exists.
Like being shortchanged by a shopkeeper, it’s all right if it comes off.
Rest assured…
Should the Arctic ice suddenly cover the entire northern hemisphere next year, it will be described as the 33rd lowest extent on record.
Sorry to pop your bubble, but the Pic is Real – – it is clearly a Metop (usually 25% extent, but also a Satellite used by None of the “indexes” ). http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/ml/mspps/seaiceprd.html
I have been pointing this out as the extreme LOW of all extent Maps & that it looks Totally Different from all other Sea Ice maps … but Even the Anti-AGW should be happy with it as of last Night !
Now Metop is among the Largest. All those holes – – Much more extensive in the Past than in the pic shown – – just suddenly filled – – probably persuading them to announce “The” Minimum as this must be new Ice forming . However, the long “arm” going out diagonally to East Siberia has faded to only a tiny “island”.
(
– – as of the 13th ! As of Today (Spt 14): the arm is back, but so are the holes.
I’ll bet they posted the current Map, without looking to see if it was the same as last Night. (when their SSMI Sat had a fritzy day – – the Real reason the Arctic ROOS site went looney – – NSIDC must have put a Metop Map up instead. But that is like Batman handing the keys of the City … to the Joker ).
So much Area is SOOOOOOOOOOOOO close to the limits – – and for others, too: DMI is showing a 2nd minimum, Neven’s Blog has 2 Posts on the “North Hole” (s) near the pole – – about a fourth is open water ! – – all the Indexes ought to subtract 70-to-90 K from extents & Area … until … all the Open Areas above 85 degrees plate over with new Ice – – ? tomorrow ? ? weeks ? Metop itself has both (1) Open areas in the Middle, and (2) that half-million km2 “arm” appearing & dissappearing on a daily basis.
So all the different Sea Ice measures are going Crazy right now.
It is that Sea surface temps are Melting & Air temps are Freezing – – both by Over 10 degrees (F) ! – – this Yo-Yo could go on into October. Based on WetterCentrale, the next 3 Days look like Classic Melt … but the next week: that pesky “Anti-Dipole” returns, pushing the Ice back in, via Fram Strait.
At the same time the Anti-Dipole is a High-Pressure area & so is a good Test for which of my several calculations for “when Clear Skies Return”, is correct. I hope it is soon, or I will be looking for Clouds by Moonlight: the last week of Polar Sun has begun !
Alvin W says:
September 15, 2010 at 3:32 pm
OT but does anyone have a reaction to the article by Dr. Gianluigi Zangari about the Gulf Loop Current ‘stalling.’
===
Related August 1 news piece:
source: http://www.oilspillnews.net/bp-oil-spill-news/gulf-loop-current-stalls-due-to-bp-oil-leak-truth-is-treason/
“Zangari’s assessment is based on daily monitoring of real-time data oceanographic satellite public data feeds called “Real-Time Mesoscale Altimetry” from the Jason, Topex/Poseidon, Geosat, Follow-On, ERS-2 and Envisat satellites.”
“These satellite feeds are are captured and made publicly available by NASA, NOAA and by the Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research (CCAR) at the University of Colorado at Boulder.”
Maybe the oil obscured the current related data?
Current view: http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/ofs/viewer.shtml?-gulfmex-cur-100-large-rundate=latest
When ice melts in a bucket the temperature of the bucket stays at zero until the ice is all melted. While it melts the ice soaks up considerable heat. If you look at the response of the temperature of the bucket of ice to forcing (heat the bucket) then the ice in the bucket provides considerable buffering against changes in temperature. Similarly the melting of polar ice buffers the global temperature by soaking up heat.
In addition to buffering however we should ask whether melting ice contributes a positive or negative feedback to forcing – in other wards what effect does it have on the exchange of energy between the planet and space. Does it lead to more energy being absorbed or more energy radiated overall.
It is often claimed that melting ice provides a positive feedback since sea water is less reflective than ice and absorbs more of the suns rays. This is certainly the case, but right now (time of maximal melt) the angle of incidence of the sun at those latitudes is very slight so the size of this effect is likely to be small. Furthermore what is often overlooked is that the effect goes both ways.
Ice is not a good transmitter of heat. In fact it is a reasonably good insulator which is how igloos work. The cap of ice at the pole not only prevents the sea from absorbing sunlight, it also blocks the sea water from radiating heat to space – a process not subject to any angle of incidence effects. At this time of year I wouldn’t bet on the former effect outweighing the latter
Indeed in a few more weeks the pole will be in darkness and there is absolutely no doubt that under those conditions less ice at the pole will mean more heat radiated into space. However of course those conditions will not exist for long as the polar ice will quickly reform.
As the ice freezes the latent heat of its freezing will be radiated into space. How much ice is formed over winter should give some measure of how much heat is being released in this way.
It seems to me that the really important figure then is not the minimum or maximum extent or even the minimum or maximum volume, but rather the difference between the two. The total flux of ice between maximum and minimum; how much ice melts and reforms each season, measures how much heat the ice is soaking up and then radiating into space. I don’t know whether that seasonal ice flux is likely to increase or decrease as a response to warming. It isn’t something that people have talked about around here much. Does anybody know the answer?
“Would it be a good suggestion to ask an old and wise inuit about his experiences with the arctic icecap and ask his opinion about what has happened and how he views the past , the present and the future ? Anyway we have to live with a lot of overactive cagw believers willing to change the facts whenever possible as long as it supports their view on the scary future . The inuit will probably radiate more confidence than any of us is willing to show .”
How many of you all actually read every post?..asking an old wise Eskimo about his experience over many years in the SAME area has 0 to very low importance.
It’s a good thing you guys catch these errors. I’m off fishing so never would have noticed. I wonder if female fish are more prone to believing the consensus that fish hooks will disintegrate within just a few days if you catch and release. Come on girl, bite. It won’t hurt. And I’ll release you once I catch you.(quote by Miss gray)
You fish?…I’m falling in love with you miss gray! (sweet hugging funny face) I like to catch my fish & filet them for dinner…I don’t harras & torture fish with catch & release.
frederik wisse says: @ur momisugly September 15, 2010 at 12:10 pm
“The inuit will probably radiate more confidence than any of us is willing to show .”
OMG, has anyone calculated the contribution to AGW of a radiating Inuit?
Milwaukee Bob,
I think you may have misunderstood me. I was talking about another poster’s conception of satellite-produced data sets as “a direct measurement of ice volume”, which is incorrect, because like the current product, it requires a model and variables as input in order to generate sea ice volume. I’m not saying anything about intensities not being “data”, because the intensities are not the values being discussed.
If you ask me about sea ice volume and I tell you a list of intensities, what are you going to do with them? If the 17um channel shows an intensity of 5.5e-5 Wm-2um-1, what does that mean to you? You have to use some sort of model to interpret those intensities into data that is useful to you. Yes, you do have to use basic equations like the Schwarzchild equation, but you also have to have something which translates intensity data into ice volume. This does require a model of the relationship between certain intensities at certain wavelength versus the expected volume.
so the sea ice is the second highest at the minimum since 2007, that’s some decreasing trend I’ll admit….NOT. Also, the Antartic was reaching record HIGH sea ice extent earlier this summer, and global sea ice actually got above normal a little bit this summer. but of course noaa only reports on the Artic because that is where there is evidence for their manmade global warming, and ignore the Antartic setting it’s near record high because it doesn’t support the warming theory.
more evidence for Joe Bastardi being right about the shift of global temperatures with the PDO and AMO
Hide the decline, or where appropriate: Exaggerate the decline.
More than one commentator here has bemoaned the fact that NOAA ‘errors’ are always in the same direction. NOAA is awash in funding. Let them hire a small, thick-skinned ‘Red Team’ to catch the politically correct errors, before they’re trumpeted to the MSM. On second thought: No, that would be too sensible.
Why don’t they issue a press release on the status of Antarctic sea ice extent?
I’ve been watching the ” Cryosphere Today Arctic Sea ” map, and was impressed by how quickly the deep purple ice (90=100% concentration) faded, on the Russian side of the pole, in August. I was curious about the factors which caused the area to melt so swiftly.
I thought I’d toss out some ideas I’ve had, (for people more clever and learned than I am to shred, if they so chose.)
It seems the blocking pattern that led to the heat and drought over Moscow likely spilled some of that warmth north, warming the coastal surface waters of the Arctic Ocean north of Moscow, and shoving those warmed waters towards the pole, where it would significantly effect the ice-melt.
A side effect of shoving the warm surface water away from any coast is a cold upwelling right along the coast. If you look at the SST anomaly map you now see some strikingly cold water on the Siberian coast north of Moscow.
Thus, counter-intuitively, the warm south wind which led to ice melt has led to a situation which is quite conducive to a very rapid freeze-up, along the coast.
In other words, the more you wonder about this stuff the greater your wonder grows.
The most egregious part says:
To put it in perspective, a loss of 22% of the contiguous U.S. would be equivalent to losing all of the land area in the New Englan, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, and Appalachian states.
What kind of Alarmo excess is that?!?! Does the land mass of the U.S. wax and wane every year like sea ice?????
That’s the implication. How is that an equivalency? What kind of perspective is that???
It reminds me of the JR High joke: Want to lose 20 pounds of ugly fat? Cut off your head!
To put it in perspective…
I mean really!!!!!!!!
The NOAA Visualization Laboratory???????
Visualize THIS you chumps.
I ran a Polynomial 3rd order regression for the trend line and it is actually headed upwards now.
To put it in perspective…
—
According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)
(nsidc.org/data/seaice_index)
Arctic Sea Ice, just the numbers.
Towards the record low.
1980 minimum: 7.80 million square kilometers
2007 minimum: 4.28 million square kilometers (the record low)
A Decrease of 3.53 million square kilometers in 27 years.
(an average decrease of 131,000 square kilometers per year)
After the record low.
2007 minimum: 4.28 million square kilometers (the record low)
2010 minimum: 4.76 million square kilometers
An Increase of 480,000 square kilometers in 3 years.
(an average increase of 160,000 square kilometers per year)
—-
About 50% of people on MSM web sites ‘disagree’ with this ‘comment’.
I guess they don’t like real numbers, since I actually make no comment.
Nick said at 5:03 pm
Milwaukee Bob,
I think you may have misunderstood me.
No misunderstanding at all. I knew you were correcting Andrews misunderstanding of SI volume which IS a modeled sum derived FROM the DATA in wavelength intensity values per YOUR statement: …the actual satellite “data”, (is) a long list of wavelengths and their intensities. What I should have then so as not to confuse you was: To derive sea ice VOLUME, that “data” is then run through a formula….. and so on.
“The minimum ice extent was the third-lowest in the satellite record, after 2007 and 2008, and continues the long-term trend of decreasing summer sea ice. ”
If anything, this is a recovering trend. Where do they get off writing this garbage?
I’m back. Caught my limit so froze three and pan fried two with a splash of beer to deglaze the pan. Ate with crackers and mustard along with a veggie side and the rest of the bottle of beer.
The only bad thing about fishing is having one more worm in my tackle box and 5 fish in my creel. Funny thing, one fish had my hook in its throat from two days ago. Tip: to save the little fish you have to throw back, use the biggest hook you can. The hook tends to snag them around the mouth instead of going down the throat where it gets caught in vitals.
I’ve read all the posts. The mistake just doesn’t go down my gullet as an honest mistake made by well-meaning scientists. It tastes more like a stupid mistake by careless scientists who jumped the gun, thinking that the minimum would go lower so just called it the 2nd lowest, even though the article they were referring to said 3rd lowest.