As I mentioned earlier, I held the WUWT Sea Ice News feature a day so that I could including an expected press release from NSDIC. I’m glad I did. Here it is, including yet another zinger from NSIDC director Mark Serreze. – Anthony
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Oct 4 2010 Arctic sea ice extent falls to third-lowest extent; downward trend persists
This is a press release from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), which is part of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
This September, Arctic sea ice extent was the third-lowest in the satellite record, falling below the extent reached last summer. The lowest- and second-lowest extents occurred in 2007 and 2008. Satellite data indicate that Arctic sea ice is continuing a long-term decline, and remains younger and thinner than it was in previous decades.
“All indications are that sea ice will continue to decline over the next several decades,” said NSIDC Director Mark Serreze. “We are still looking at a seasonally ice-free Arctic in twenty to thirty years.”
Over the summer of 2010, weather and ocean conditions in the Arctic ranged from warm and calm to stormy and cool. Overall, weather conditions were not extremely favorable to melt, but ice loss proceeded at a rapid pace. NSIDC Scientist Julienne Stroeve said, “Sea surface temperatures were warmer than normal this summer, but not as warm as the last three years. Even so, the 2010 minimum rivaled that in 2008—this suggests that other factors played a more dominant role.”
—Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center
The amount of old, thick ice in the Arctic continues to decline, making the ice pack increasingly vulnerable to melt in future summers. While there was an increase this year in second and third year ice, which could potentially thicken over the next few years, the oldest and generally thickest ice (five years or older) has now disappeared almost entirely from the Arctic. This September, less than 60,000 square kilometers (23,000 square miles) of five-year-old or older ice remained in the Arctic Basin. In the 1980s an average of 2 million square kilometers (722,000 square miles) of old ice remained at the end of summer. “While the total coverage of multiyear ice is the third lowest on record, the amount of younger multiyear ice has rebounded somewhat over the last two years. A key question is whether this ice will continue to survive over the next couple of summers, perhaps slowing the overall decline in multiyear ice area,” said James Maslanik, a research professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado, who provided the ice age data.
—Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center
Arctic sea ice extent on September 19, the lowest point this year, was 4.60 million square kilometers (1.78 million square miles). Averaged over the month of September, ice extent was 4.90 million square kilometers (1.89 million square miles) (Figure 1). This places 2010 as the third lowest ice extent both for the daily minimum extent and the monthly average. Ice extent fell below 2009 and was only slightly above 2008 (Figure 2).
After September 10, ice extent started to climb, apparently signaling the end of the melt season. However, uncharacteristically, it then declined again, until September 19. “The late-season turnaround indicates that the ice cover is thin and loosely packed—which makes the ice more vulnerable both to winds and to melting,” said Walt Meier, NSIDC research scientist.
Arctic sea ice follows an annual cycle of melting and refreezing, melting through the warm summer months and refreezing through autumn and winter. Sea ice reflects sunlight, keeping the Arctic region cool and moderating global climate. While Arctic sea ice extent varies from year to year because of changeable atmospheric and ocean conditions, ice extent at the end of the melt season has shown a significant overall decline over the past thirty years. During this time, September ice extent has declined at a rate of 11.5 percent per decade during September (relative to the 1979 to 2000 average) (Figure 3), and about 3 percent per decade in the winter months.
—Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Cente
More Information
For further analysis and images, please see the related October post on Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis Web site (http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/)
For a full listing of press resources concerning Arctic sea ice, including previous press releases and quick facts about why and how scientists study sea ice, please see “Press Resources” on the NSIDC Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis Web page.
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Source: http://nsidc.org/news/press/20101004_minimumpr.html
Well I hope I’m around in 30 years to look up Dr. Serreze.
Arctic Sea Ice is making a quick turnaround, the DMI 30% graph shows we are now at 2005 levels for 30% extent.
Have a look at this interesting animation showing the quick turnaround in ice extent in September…
Steve Goddard writes:
Blink comparator showing ice growth over the past week. More than 5,000 Manhattans of new ice have formed – one new Manhattan of ice every two minutes.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/CT/animate.arctic.color.0.html
The JAXA 15% extent graph shows a similar sharp turnaround.
…and a close up view shows that we are now slightly ahead of this date last year:
And 80N+ temperature remains close to climatology:
The Northwest passage appears to be fully closed:
So, in a nutshell, things are icing up quickly. 2011 looks to be interesting!
Don’t forget to check status at the WUWT Sea Ice Page.
September ice extent from 1979 to 2009 shows a continued decline
To draw conclusions about future ice characteristics from such a short time period is categorically unscientific.
“All indications are”
“this suggests that other factors played a more dominant role.”
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Imply that they understand “all indications”
and then say they don’t understand it all……….
Then go on to make an outlandish prediction, based only on a trend……..
Exactly what happend to the hurricane predicitons this year.
This morning when I left for work at 7:30am it was 55F. At 11:30am it was 68F.
All indicators are that by Thursday at 7:30am it is going to be 289F.
since 1979 has now increased to 11.2 percent per decade
These folks are boringly predictable.
Arctic ice actually has been increasing over the last 1000 years.
A peer-reviewed paper published in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences finds that Arctic sea ice extent at the end of the 20th century was more extensive than most of the past 9000 years. The paper also finds that Arctic sea ice extent was on a declining trend over the past 9000 years, but recovered beginning sometime over the past 1000 years and has been relatively stable and extensive since.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/23/surprise-peer-reviewed-study-says-current-arctic-sea-ice-is-more-extensive-than-most-of-the-past-9000-years/
Just as with the erroneous calls of extinction for the Pacific Sockeye from the crack(ed) scientists at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans among others, Arctic sea ice confounds the experts and manages to make their pronouncements of doom appear little more than educated (?) guesses. Bad guesses too.
“All indications are that sea ice will continue to decline over the next several decades,” said NSIDC Director Mark Serreze.
Didn’t bother to list them all.
What about the cold PDO and the AMO turning in a few years time?
How exactly does science determine from the wiggling Sea Ice Minimums when a corner is turned and when the trend will continue out in a straight-line fall?
Time for some test cases. Just pick a couple of sets of cyclic data, making sure to catch the start of a decline, and cut it off somewhere before it changes back up. Have statistics attempt to predict which sets are about to turn, and which sets will continue on down.
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
October 4, 2010 at 4:55 pm
“Satellite data indicate that Arctic sea ice is continuing a long-term decline”
Satellite data goes back only 31 years. 31 years in not a long term time period. So long term forecasting cannot be made from it.
31 years is just about the time of a PDO phase. And satellite data also degrades along with the sensors it takes the data with. Indications are that QC of satellite data is not as stellar as some would have us believe.
“All indications are that sea ice will continue to decline over the next several decades”
Saying that after a rebound in the last few years tells me he’s lost the plot and needs to be replaced like Pachauri..
“The amount of old, thick ice in the Arctic continues to decline, making the ice pack increasingly vulnerable to melt in future summers”
And what the [snip] do we need this ice for? Frozen water is almost completely useless. It can’t be consumed or swum in. It’s only useful for scotch on the rocks or political ideals..
Lets just say for a minute that we have a large recovery next year….the spin will be:
2011 ice extent although higher this year, will continue to recede etc. etc…..
Stephan,
Thank you for sharing the link. I hope Cuccinelli and Russell are successful in their attempt to get money back for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Climate scientists should not be able to defraud the taxpayers and get away with it.
I might also add that the later Sept. minimum is not univerally shared across all reportings.
JAXA, NSIDC and DMI agree, but Bremen and NORSEX do not.
This throws some uncertainty into the mix, and thus the caveat that not all processes to determine the Sea Ice Extent and Areas work 100% all the time.
All are above 2007 levels, though some are also above 2008 levels while others are at 2008 levels, for the Minimum Extent.
Joe Bastardi called it very well, and also calls for a big recovery next year as La Nina works it’s magic alongside the cold PDO.
Scott,
You bring up an interesting question (the differences between DMI and JAXA readings) and many others have scratched their heads on that one too.
Here was a previous discussion on this topic….
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/04/discrepancies-in-sea-ice-measurements/
It would be cool to see an in depth analysis between DMI, JAXA, and of course NSIDC, to see which is king.
On a related subject, recall this discussion on polar temperature readings and the differences with DMI and GISS, which might shed some light on the DMI approach, which appears to me like honest science:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/28/giss-arctic-vs-dmi-arctic-differences-in-method/
Also in that article, the DMI official discusses the affinity they have with the ECMWF, which is, hands down, the most reliable general circulation model in the world. That is a clue to me right there about DMI’s integrity [although I am a bit off subject from talking about sea ice extent lol].
Back to sea ice…you will hear the alarmists regularly using the JAXA and NSIDC graph howling “See, I told you! It’s a death spiral.”
Meanwhile….they are pushing the DMI graphs under the rug, hoping you won’t see them.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
rbateman says:
October 4, 2010 at 5:34 pm
“All indications are that sea ice will continue to decline over the next several decades,” said NSIDC Director Mark Serreze.
Didn’t bother to list them all.
What about the cold PDO and the AMO turning in a few years time?
How exactly does science determine from the wiggling Sea Ice Minimums when a corner is turned and when the trend will continue out in a straight-line fall?
Time for some test cases. Just pick a couple of sets of cyclic data, making sure to catch the start of a decline, and cut it off somewhere before it changes back up. Have statistics attempt to predict which sets are about to turn, and which sets will continue on down.
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You have hit the nail on that head and banged it flush into the wood.
-Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
“All indications are that sea ice will continue to decline over the next several decades,” said NSIDC Director Mark Serreze. “We are still looking at a seasonally ice-free Arctic in twenty to thirty years.”
Serreze almost nailed it, the last sentence should read;
“We are still looking at a seasonally ice-free Arctic in ten to twenty years.”
No Olaf, Scotch should be taken neat or with a wee bit of water, never on ice. (Well, good single malt anyway.) Ice, is very nice with Rye, however. Me thinks Mr. Serreze is drinking just a little to much of his own wine with this prediction.
I wonder how many years Mark Serreze had to go to college to figure out out to do a linear fit to a noise signal? Was this covered in his advanced calculus courses?
I believe there is a good reason why he didn’t do a multiple term curve fit… perhaps because that would show a trend reversal in recent years?
Interestingly enough, the Russians are predicting the coldest winter in 1000 years:
http://rt.com/prime-time/2010-10-04/coldest-winter-emergency-measures.html
They’re basing their prediction on a weaker than normal Gulf Stream. Is the Gulf Strean Current known to be weaker this year?
EFS Junior, I suspect there are a LOT of people who would love to take you up on that bet (that there will be seasonable ice free arctic in ten to twenty years). I don’t get why you like to keep ‘trolling’ here . . .
Rhoda R says:
October 4, 2010 at 9:34 pm
That article needs to be dug into. You take warnings of impending events seriously, rather than agendas meant to soak up your tax dollars or justify budget allocations.
Interesting to see that NSIDC, albeit unable to predict what will happen in the next month or so, know better what will happen in next decades and “are still looking at a seasonally ice-free Arctic in twenty to thirty years”.
But it seems that many of us envy their glory and even this blog focused on feasibility of predictions this summer. However the predicted low melting (with minimum at 5.5 million km²) did not come true. In contrast, I think that an interesting development this summer was the (unpredicted) very high rate at which the departure from mean of the Global Sea Ice Area dropped (as shown in the last graph in the WUWT Sea Ice Page, labelled “daily global sea ice anomaly”) reaching a (second?) record low a few days ago.
A friend written me a couple of years ago “I have come to believe that Mother Nature is hard to predict … with many “unexpected” modes of behavior. I also sometimes wonder if she takes a small-minded pleasure in humbling over-confident scientists”.
My own explanation of why Nature is, and will be, hard to predict is in my “Random Walk on Water” paper (http://www.itia.ntua.gr/en/docinfo/923/).
Steve Goddard writes:
Blink comparator showing ice growth over the past week. More than 5,000 Manhattans of new ice have formed – one new Manhattan of ice every two minutes.
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Steve, thanks for that analogy!! That really puts the vast scale of the Arctic ice mass into some perspective. Amazing….
Wilky says:
October 4, 2010 at 8:54 pm
I wonder how many years Mark Serreze had to go to college to figure out out to do a linear fit to a noise signal? Was this covered in his advanced calculus courses?
I believe there is a good reason why he didn’t do a multiple term curve fit… perhaps because that would show a trend reversal in recent years?
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NOPE!
Quadratic or cubic fits give larger R^2 values, and all leading coefficients are negative (meaning that the leading term will dominate “if” extrapolated (concave down)).
The linear downward trend for Arctic sea ice extent (NSIDC monthly means) started in 1984 and all following years have also had a downward trend (1984-2010, N = 27 consecutive years), the last 15 years (1996-2010) show the rate of increase of the linear trend to be -0.0033E6 km^2/yr (R^0.95), current linear rate is -0.0813E6 km^2/yr (0.0033/0.0813 ~4% steeper each successive year).
The linear downward trend for Arctic sea ice area (NSIDC monthly means) started in 1981 (area) and all following years have also had a downward trend (1981-2010, N = 30 consecutive years), the last 15 years (1996-2010) show the rate of increase of the linear trend to be -0.0024E6 km^2/yr (R^0.93), current linear rate is -0.0739E6 km^2/yr (0.0024/0.0739 ~3% steeper each successive year (note this smaller value (3%) relative to the extent (4%) is consistent with high extent/area ratios (~1.6 for the past four years vs ~1.4 for the previous five years) that exist during the summer minimum).
This works for extent or area data, for the modern satellite era (1979-2010, N = 32 or 1972-2010, N = 39) or for the sea chart/satellite era (1953-2010, N = 58).
All show the same thing “if” one chooses to extrapolate the quadratic (2030-2040) or cubic (2010-2020) trendlines, and for the big “IF” linear extrapolations show 2066-2189 (of course extrapolations of 56-179 years are a BIT of a stretch compared to 10-20 years).
Rhoda R says:
October 4, 2010 at 9:34 pm
Interestingly enough, the Russians are predicting the coldest winter in 1000 years:
http://rt.com/prime-time/2010-10-04/coldest-winter-emergency-measures.html
They’re basing their prediction on a weaker than normal Gulf Stream. Is the Gulf Stream Current known to be weaker this year?
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Actually back in the NH winter of this year there was a flurry of reports “Gulf Stream Not Slowing Down.”
But that is an aggressive prediction by Russia. In 1000 years.
Needless to say their forecasts have not been affected by the CAGW orthodoxy coming from the likes of the UKMet and NOAA.
Will be interested to hear more.
I seem to recall that Russian researchers are more apt to look into extra-terrestrial cycles as being an issue here.
Is there something that they are not telling us?
In 1000 years. Wow.
Want to see the analysis here.
Even at the expense of errors of the bimbo American reporter who totally misses words and concepts… [Watch the video lol. That part is funny.]…this is serious.
Thanks to Rhoda R for the tip-off.
http://rt.com/prime-time/2010-10-04/coldest-winter-emergency-measures.html
-Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
As we all know that major oceanic oscillations (PDO, AMO) are a biphasic 70-odd year cycle, isn’t there a reasonable chance that something similar might be true for Arctic Ice?
Makes you wonder whether a 30 year linear plot will, in history, be the best way of monitoring the long-term state of the ice??