NOTE: This post has several images, including two animations. Those on slower connections, please be patient while they load.
This week, I suppose the best word to describe the status of Arctic sea ice would be “uncertainty”. I alluded to this uncertainty (due to weather) in Sea Ice News 22 saying:
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.
By all indications it certainly looked like we reached a minimum, the extent data went up for three days straight and NSIDC officially called the minimum on 9/15:
The Arctic sea ice cover appears to have reached its minimum extent for the year. It was the third-lowest extent recorded since satellites began measuring minimum sea ice extent in 1979. This year’s minimum extent fell below the 2009 minimum extent and above the minimum extents in 2008 and 2007.
Then defying even the experts, it started back down again.
The only thing that has gone down and stayed down this past week is Arctic temperature above 80°N as seen in this DMI plot:
Source: http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
The good news is that Arctic Ice extent has not gone below the 2008 value yet, and seems to be making a slight turn up again:
Here’s a zoomed view:
Here’s the most recent JAXA data, including the preliminary Sept 19th data, which will be updated again at 8AM PST Sept 20th.
Source: http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
09,01,2010,5332344
09,02,2010,5304219
09,03,2010,5245625
09,04,2010,5192188
09,05,2010,5136094
09,06,2010,5093281
09,07,2010,5027188
09,08,2010,4989375
09,09,2010,4972656
09,10,2010,4952813
09,11,2010,4986406
09,12,2010,5005000
09,13,2010,5008750
09,14,2010,4998594
09,15,2010,4948438
09,16,2010,4890938
09,17,2010,4842031
09,18,2010,4813594
09, 19,2010, 4822500
Source: http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/plot.csv
The US Navy Ice Thickness forecast plot shows that we still have a lot of 2 and 3 meter thick ice, but that it is mainly concentrated near Northern Canada and Greenland:
Source: http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/pips2/archive/
What I find most interesting though is the wind driven sea ice displacement plots. For example this one from the NAVY PIPS output:
The strongest vectors of the wind driven displacement are where the NAVY PIPS thickness plot show the greatest areas of thickness, Northern Canada near Ellesmere Island and Northern Greenland.
An overlay of the thickness and wind driven displacement vectors shows where the ice is being pushed to. The longest vectors show the greatest displacement in the direction of the arrow:
While the graphic overlay I made is not a perfect match, it is very close.
Since in the first temperature graphic from DMI, it is clear that average temperatures at 80°N and above are well below the freezing point of saltwater/seawater, which is approximately 271.15 kelvin (-2°C) See the line I’ve added below in magenta.
And that the majority of the remaining arctic ice is at 80°N or above in latitude, as seen in the PIPS map above and backed up by this map from UUIC/Cryosphere Today:
It suggests that like in 2007, wind is a more significant factor in sea ice depletion than from melting, especially this past week where the DMI temperature drop shows well below freezing point of sea ice temperature at 80°N and above.
WUWT regulars may recall I reported on this NASA JPL study that suggests winds may play a key role in pushing Arctic sea ice into lower latitudes where it melts. The author suggests winds may be the dominant factor in the 2007 record low ice extent:
Nghiem said the rapid decline in winter perennial ice the past two years was caused by unusual winds. “Unusual atmospheric conditions set up wind patterns that compressed the sea ice, loaded it into the Transpolar Drift Stream and then sped its flow out of the Arctic,” he said. When that sea ice reached lower latitudes, it rapidly melted in the warmer waters.
Interestingly we can now watch this actually happen thanks to an animation of AMSER-E satellite 89Ghz sounder images. Koji Shimada of JAMSTEC (Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology ). See the animation below (note- size is 7.1 MB, this may take awhile to fully load):
If you want more detail, a full sized Video animation is available here as a flash video or here as an AVI file (highest quality 7.3 MB) A hat tip to WUWT commenter Bill and to Thomas Homer-Dixon for this video.
What is interesting about this video is that you can watch sea ice being flushed out of the Arctic sea and pushed along Greenland’s east coast, where it then finds its way into warmer waters and melts. Also note how in the lower right, in the Beaufort sea, older multiyear ice gets fractured and broken up as winds and currents stress it.
While indeed we can watch some of the Arctic sea “melt in place” during this animation in the fall of 2007, we can also see that winds and currents are a significant contributor to breaking up the sea ice and transporting it to warmer latitudes.
I’m hoping JAXA will produce a similar video for the 2010 melt season.
UPDATE: Ron de Haan reports in comments this finding below. He says “sea ice has grown”. It sure looks like thickness has increased, doesn’t it?
He notes this from Pierre Gosselin’s No Tricks Zone. Pierre writes:
But now take a look at the following chart that compares September 1 ice to September 18 ice. Which would you prefer to be standing on?
These charts are taken from: http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/cgi-bin/seaice-monitor.cgi
Which ice looks thicker?
Don’t sweat the ice area statistics. The thickness is much greater today, and we could even say the volume is likely more. Arctic temperatures above 80°N have been colder this summer and September. The ice area will rebound quickly, of course. I projected a 5.75 million sq km min. for 2011 a couple weeks back. I’m sticking to it.
BONUS:
Finally, WUWT readers may recall that earlier in the week, I caught NOAA saying that 2010 was the “second lowest extent on record” when it wasn’t, and with the help of Dr. Walt Meier of NSIDC got them to correct that blunder.
The screencap of the NOAA Environmental Visualization Laboratory also had another apparent error on it. Note the ice depicted withing the red “Average Extent 1979-2009” line below.
A number of WUWT readers pointed out that the presentation was biased and it appears that the ice edge was based on a 90% or greater extent, and not the 15% everyone else in the sea ice business uses. I fired off another letter to Walt Meier on the issue, but I never heard anything concrete back from him on the issue. But, it appears the message got through one way or another.
Now have a look at that web page today:
Notice anything different? Here’s the blink comparator of the before and after sea ice extent visualization image. NOTE: You may have to click on it if not blinking in your browser.
Looks like somebody at NOAA had to fess up to the fact that what they were presenting earlier in the week was grossly biased in the way it presented Arctic sea ice extent, making it look like there was far less ice than there actually is.
Again I ask, why is it us bloggers and members of the public are the ones that have to keep pointing these things out? Maybe we should be the ones getting compensated for our time.
To the credit of the NOAA Vizualation Lab, they fixed the problems we pointed out to them, and reasonably quickly. My thanks to Dr. Walt Meier of NSIDC for his help. Compare the response this week to that of Dr. Mike Mann with his still inverted Tiljander proxies and stations with messed up latitude and longitude that are still in his supplemental data years later, after numerous people have pointed it out.
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Scott writes, in response to Gandalf,
“I disagree here. One of the biggest mistakes (IMO) that people make when discussing topics such as these is that one year’s value is dependent on the previous year’s (and to a lesser extent, several years before that even). Your claim is that 5.75 wouldn’t be impressive because it’s still well below 7.0 million. I’m claiming the exact opposite – 5.75 million would be ridiculously impressive because it would need the largest single-year growth in the satellite history.”
The general point makes sense, that a rapid increase toward the last decade’s mean is physically unlikely.
The numbers here don’t work as an argument against Gandalf, though, because Gandalf referred to extent. If extent reached 5.75 in 2011, Gandalf is correct that should not be impressive. It’s well within the bounds of interannual variation around a downward trend.
Confirmed JAXA 15% extent for Sept 21st: 4915313. A gain of 37032. Now 101719 above the minimum reached on the 18th.
15-day: http://img810.imageshack.us/img810/9387/15day20100921.png
7-day: http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/3396/7day20100921.png
All over bar the shouting it seems.
Gneiss says:
September 22, 2010 at 6:51 am
I don’t have numbers for extent before 2002, when the JAXA record starts. Do you have a link where I can get these numbers? I want some sort of data confirmation to backup your claim that a single-year increase of 936406 km^2 is well within the bounds of interannual variation, where it might be in the 1979-2001 data that I don’t have (thus why I based my argument around area and an extent-to-area correlation).
Currently, the record single-year increase in JAXA is 542031 km^2 (2008-2009), so to beat the current record by a whopping 73% is pretty hard to spin as anything other than impressive. If you have pre-2002 data showing this conclusion to be in error, please provide it.
I completely agree that 5.75 e6 km^2 is more than likely not going to happen. However, I disagree that if it did happen that it wouldn’t be impressive, we’re talking a record level of growth here (again, to the best I can calculate with the data I have access to), and it would exhibit a one-year minimum extent increase of nearly 20%.
-Scott
Scott says:
September 21, 2010 at 5:58 pm
Your claim is that 5.75 wouldn’t be impressive because it’s still well below 7.0 million. I’m claiming the exact opposite – 5.75 million would be ridiculously impressive because it would need the largest single-year growth in the satellite history.
The problem here is that the sea ice does not _grow_ to the minimum. It shrinks from a much larger value, attaining and then descending below higher value as it does so. Therefore, it would not be so hard for a slower shrinkage to stop at 5.75m.
Smokey says:
September 21, 2010 at 12:39 pm
jakers says:
“And in the 1820s- during the great Arctic warming, they thought it fantastic they could sight the east coast of Greenland, or get to Spitzbergen…”
So major Arctic warming has happened before in pre-SUV, low-CO2 times. Thanx for confirming natural climate variability.
Yeah, so for a short time they could do what is common and surpassed today, in one small area (the Greenland Sea), and that’s the best argument there is that this is just a recurrence of unknowable-cause natural climate variability?
Sorry to blah blah blah some more, but I just noted the oft-touted global sea ice area is closing in on a record low – http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
That’s it. The Norwegians and Russians sailed both Passages in one single season. Never before done in the history of humankind (or perhaps tonyb can surprise me). All thanks to you, you and you (and me).
It is, unfortunately, the dramatic changes in Arctic sea ice conditions in recent years that have made this trip possible. On the time of Roald Amundsen it took five to six years to complete the same distance, due to the extremely difficult and demanding ice conditions. Now we have proven that it is possible to make the voyage in a 31-foot fibreglass sailing boat, equipped with a 10 horsepower outboard motor for emergencies. This shows how dramatic and how fast these changes are happening. The changes that we are witnessing will influence climate on a global scale, in addition to the whole range of animal life in the Arctic – especially seals and polar bears, whose lives are dependent on the sea ice.
It is our hope that our voyage will be seen as a strong, visible symbol of the scale and the speed of these changes.
It is a huge milestone for us to have completed both passages, and the second phase of the expedition. However, our journey is not over yet; now we will start on the final leg back home to Oslo, to complete our circumnavigation of the Arctic.
You can congratulate them here.
Gneiss says:
September 21, 2010 at 8:26 pm
Smokey writes,
“Either we follow the scientific method, or it all becomes Lysenkoism.”
Posts like this give the impression that you don’t read any of the science, just web sites that support your views.
“REPLY: Careful, or the man will calibrate you. – A”
Very funny
jakers says:
September 22, 2010 at 11:41 am
Okay, so change my word “growth” to “increase”. And the approach your putting forth seems to pretty much throw effects from previous years out the window. Is consideration of multi-year ice worthless then? Sometimes I think it’s over-emphasized, but I think it definitely has merit. I argue that the previous year’s minimum is a more important reference point (and the one I’m using) than the previous winter’s maximum (the one you’re claiming). As evidence of this, I checked the correlation coefficients for 1980-2010 for minima with respect to maxima the previous winter and also with respect to minima the previous year (using CT’s area data). Previous winter maximum’s R^2 = 0.477. Previous year’s minimum = 0.659. Looks like evaluating the increase over the previous year’s minimum is reasonable after all.
What normal, natural mechanism do you propose to gain a million km^2 in one year? You must have one since it should be “not so hard”. Why have we not seen this often in the past (can’t use long-term decline excuse here, this is about year-to-year fluctuations)? From what I’ve seen, most anomalous weather events decrease extent, not increase it (I’m not saying clouds and proper winds can’t help the final extent, it’s just that there doesn’t seem to be mechanims to cause severe gains like there are methods for severe loss, such as severe winds pushing ice southward) . I see the year-to-year ice fluctuations being like the speed of average traffic on a highway. If the normal speed is 70 mph, no one is surprised to see it drop one day to 30-40 mph because there are tons of mechanisms for this (a wreck, traffic jam, construction, bad weather, etc), but people would be shocked to see the average speed at 100-110 mph one day. Why? Because there are no reasonable mechanisms.
And no, I don’t believe the long term drop in ice is from short-term weather events. That argument would be a red herring because I’m talking about year-to-year changes, not the long term decline.
-Scott
Scott says:
September 21, 2010 at 9:44 pm
AJB says:
September 21, 2010 at 8:09 pm
Preliminary JAXA 15% Extent for 21st = 4,901,406 a gain of 23, 125 on yesterday. Now 87, 812 in hand, still looking good!
After today’s preliminary extent, I’ll throw in the towel and say we’ve reached the minimum. I was a holdout on the early Sept apparent minimum, but this one looks to be pretty much in the books. I’m just glad I said the minimum would fall in the 18th-21st timespan before the 18th’s preliminary number was up. However, I did guess 4.79e6 km^2 for the value, so I was low even guessing just a day before the minimum, LOL.
-Scott
_____________________________________________________________
Well I predicted (on the 17th) 4.878E6 km^2 for the 18th, all my estimates (going back ~3 months) called for the minimum to occur on the 19th, so I missed the actual JAXA minimum by one whole day.
Over the past two months (61 days) of weekly estimates, the resulting RMS error was 148K km^2, while the average was 4.783E6 km^2 (~0.63% below the actual JAXA minimum).
So, I’m quit pleased and somewhat surprised, that the statistical approach I chose (pivot updating with a 15-day least squares moving average of the daily melt losses), appears to have some skill over the last two months of the (current) melt season.
Günther Kirschbaum says:
September 22, 2010 at 12:35 pm
The Norwegians and Russians sailed both Passages in one single season.
And you don’t think it might have become possible because of GPS and real-time knowledge of the whereabouts of the ice?
Nansen probably hardly knew where he was from one day to the next, let alone where the ice was and how many tenths there were and of what age and thickness.
Charles Wilson says:
September 22, 2010 at 3:32 am
PIOMAS changed its big chart back (dated Spt 20) to 8-31 but its little chart still shows the mini-reversal for 9-15.
… also changed the text to suggest Updates every 2 weeks or longer (was: 3 to 5 days).
Small & Big at: http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/images/
Main Page uses small: http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/IceVolume.php
If NSIDC drops just 1 more pixel, it’ll tie 2008. (4.54 to 4.52 million km2, at present). As it’s Graph uses a 5-day average, it should reflect the General Increase & level out and/or Rise, soon, but Spt 21 COULD drop & make NOAA out to be Prophets, not Dumpkopfs …
_____________________________________________________________
Will not happen, as of today’s NSIDC chart, the revised numbers for the past two days, both moved up by ~2.5 pixels, and today’s value is 1.5 pixels above yesterday’s value.
If it is truly a 5-day (centered) moving average, then 9/19 is set at ~4.6E6 km^2. In another ~2 days we’ll know pretty much if the 19th, 20th, or 21th is the actual minimum.
My current best estimate for NSIDC’s September monthly average extent is 4.77E6 km^2.
jakers says at 11:50 am:
“Yeah, so for a short time they could do what is common and surpassed today…”
Thanx again for confirming natural climate variability. However, you have your “short time” periods confused. The actual “short time” is the 1979 – 2010 satellite record.
So let’s look at a longer record, and see if there was any natural warming that exceeded the current minor Arctic blip: click
Keep digging. ☺
Anthony: Quite so.
I was just about to dash off a note that NSIDC went down — which it did — but, as you say, the revision UP of the 20th meant even the drop on the 21st, put it further behind than before.
There have been Startling Upward Jumps in Bremen & the Norsex/Nansen Group, & DMI (but not @ur momisugly Topex, whose areas continued a subtle rise, & whose Extents continue Down). These are not simple glitches as “Up” & “Down” Groups have both AMSR & SSMI-based indexes. And Topex, Norsex & Nansen are all out of the University of Bergen ! Yet they disagree That much. Cryo went down a bit:
… more important seems the Central Arctic Basin at Cryo, which had added 250,000 km3, just dropped 71 K. Is this a Leading Indicator ?
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.1.html
>>> The Ex-Hurricanes Approach: What will they do ???
Preliminary JAXA 15% Extent for 22nd = 4,954,844 a gain of 39, 531 on yesterday. Now 141, 250 in hand, a done deal.
EFS_Junior says:
September 22, 2010 at 2:12 pm
All statistical methods should have years of being spot on and in general at least get in the ballpark. I’m curious, do you think your method is inherently very accurate, or do you think it got lucky this year? Have you tried running it through previous years to see if it’s as accurate in those years? My own statistical methods did so-so this year until the double dip hit and lowered extent by over 100000 km^2, making my predictions very poor. 🙁
Hopefully I’ll learn and do better next year.
-Scott
Günther Kirschbaum says:
September 22, 2010 at 12:35 pm
“That’s it. The Norwegians and Russians sailed both Passages in one single season. Never before done in the history of humankind (or perhaps tonyb can surprise me). All thanks to you, you and you (and me).
It is, unfortunately, the dramatic changes in Arctic sea ice conditions in recent years that have made this trip possible. On the time of Roald Amundsen it took five to six years to complete the same distance, due to the extremely difficult and demanding ice conditions. Now we have proven that it is possible to make the voyage in a 31-foot fibreglass sailing boat, equipped with a 10 horsepower outboard motor for emergencies. This shows how dramatic and how fast these changes are happening. The changes that we are witnessing will influence climate on a global scale, in addition to the whole range of animal life in the Arctic – especially seals and polar bears, whose lives are dependent on the sea ice.
It is our hope that our voyage will be seen as a strong, visible symbol of the scale and the speed of these changes.
It is a huge milestone for us to have completed both passages, and the second phase of the expedition. However, our journey is not over yet; now we will start on the final leg back home to Oslo, to complete our circumnavigation of the Arctic.
You can congratulate them here.”
An amazing achievement without the use of modern navigational aids. Ooops wait a moment!! They did have modern naviagtional aids. I wonder if Roald Amundsen would have taken 3 years if he had access to those same aids?
Different achievements, different eras. Both to be admired but hardly relevant to the long term future of the Arctic Ice.
Scott says:
September 22, 2010 at 8:40 pm
EFS_Junior says:
September 22, 2010 at 2:12 pm
So, I’m quit pleased and somewhat surprised, that the statistical approach I chose (pivot updating with a 15-day least squares moving average of the daily melt losses), appears to have some skill over the last two months of the (current) melt season.
All statistical methods should have years of being spot on and in general at least get in the ballpark. I’m curious, do you think your method is inherently very accurate, or do you think it got lucky this year? Have you tried running it through previous years to see if it’s as accurate in those years? My own statistical methods did so-so this year until the double dip hit and lowered extent by over 100000 km^2, making my predictions very poor. 🙁
Hopefully I’ll learn and do better next year.
-Scott
_____________________________________________________________
I’m thinking more luck than skill.
As the method calculates the mean trend line curve (N = 7 for 2003-2009) and the standard deviation of the of the trend line slopes.
I had to pick (and stick with) a muliple of the standard deviation (or even a fractional amount) , and I chose -1 (thinking I’d be a little bit conservative as the daily loses are less than the mean loses (sigma 0)) column.
I need to do exactly what you suggest (I already knew I needed to do this (where N =7 (2003-2010 minus the year in question), or just go with N = 8 and redo this year plus all other years (much easier to do it this way)).
Next year I’ll also be using the UIUC area data as well as the PIOMAS model data (for the JAXA era). the Arctic sea ice has significant inertia (IMHO when an extreme event occurs), in that the 2007 minimum resulted in a large ice volume loss, that is still affecting the seasonal minimum three years later.
David W says:
September 22, 2010 at 11:59 pm
An amazing achievement without the use of modern navigational aids. Ooops wait a moment!! They did have modern naviagtional aids. I wonder if Roald Amundsen would have taken 3 years if he had access to those same aids?
Based on his account of the journey he certainly would have, navigation didn’t seem to be a problem.
Something we aren’t hearing much about in the past few Sea Ice News articles, but which looks like big news to me:
The sea ice in Antarctica is plummeting, leading to perhaps the lowest global sea ice area anomaly.
Has the Bastardi/Goddard theory of Arctic sea ice loss being compensated by Antarctic sea ice gain been invalidated so soon? Is it a sensor malfunctioning? WUWT, the no 1 news outlet with regards to Antarctic sea ice is not reporting on this, WUWT?
NSIDC also has an interesting graph.
Useful link to demonstrate the development of Sea Ice. This is a photo of “rotten ice”.
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/~eicken/he_teach/GEOS615icenom/iceglossary/iceglossary.htm
fishnski says:
September 21, 2010 at 3:40 pm
I’m hoping that there will be a correction to this drop…
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_timeseries.png
Too much cold energy left the area to give record cold to South America?
Yes mr. kirschbaum, I had the same question 2 days ago but no response.
The “lobe” everyone was so worried about has surrounding air temps between 12 & 24 degrees & everywhere else is good & cold except a small area poking up towards Svalbard,Norway.. & on the other side from the Bering Strait side of AK poking up due north outwards to about 77 north….all systems Go!!
That is a very large drop in Antarctic ice area. The global value is now low if there are no sensor problems. Will be interesting to watch.
Well done to both boats that have done the Northern and NW Passages this year. There was so little ice it seems they didn’t even have to wait for leads to open up etc.
Andy
Ok, last post from yours truly, until SIN #24 (kind of like that acronym for some odd reason).
I predict;
1) NSIDC will update the date of the minimum to the 19th at right around 4.60E6 km^2 (based off of today’s chart).
2) NSIDC will announce (in the early October time frame) the 2010 September monthly median Arctic sea ice extent as being right around 4.80E6 km^2 (based off of several different methods using NSIDC and JAXA data 2002-2010 inclusive).