While not hugely significant by itself, it is interesting to note that the DMI 30% Arctic extent has reached its highest number for this date, exceeding 2006. The refreeze has been very fast:
Here’s the zoom:
The JAXA 15% plot show it equal with 2006, and a steepening slope:
JAXA AMSR-E Sea Ice Extent -15% or greater – click to enlarge
Anthony,
Cheerleading for ice leaves me cold (pun intended).
It is kinda cool (pun intended) though.
Chill out (pun intended) and smile, it will only get colder/icey.
: )
John
And the next month is apparently the month of steepest ice growth. It looks like the “death spiral” is postponed.
But, what’s really happening over Greenland?
I was looking at that yesterday actually. I was wondering about the slope tapering off in November. I’m guessing this is about when it reaches land? Overall, 2010 fits right in with the data of the last decade. Unless there are several more years that go below 2007, this could mean a recovery. Have to wait and see. But of course, news reports always take a different starting point, so even during a recovery, the linear regression will still point downward.
That is a sign of warming.
Actually they can’t comment on this because it doesn’t follow the dogma.
Just a minor typo correction. The Arctic ice extent has reached its highest number, not it’s</em (that is, it is) highest number
Does this mean that the cuddly wuddly polar bears won’t have any sea left to catch the fish in? Or that they will drown because there’s no dry land and they can’t swim?
I find this all sooooooo confusing. 🙂
Does DMI data start in 2005?
MSM shouting from the rooftops? The silence is deafening.
AAAAGGGGHHHHH!!!!!! At this rate we will be going into another ice age!!!
Sorry, that was the scare in the 1970’s wasn’t it? And anyway, only climate alarmists are allowed to project current very short term trends into long term disasters.
“Reports of sea ice have been greatly exaggerated..”
Oh Great! Now I have to worry that Global Climate Disruption (is that the current term, I forget) is going to starve (cute little) Polar Bears because the seals won’t be able to get through the thick ice of the artic. It is my thought that we need expensive remedial UN action!
Right on the heels of this apparent cooling trend is news (in Nature) that there is now a link between reduced solar activity and warming. (Paper by Joanna Haigh, an atmospheric physicist at Imperial College London.)
It is increasing clear that it doesn’t matter if it is warming or cooling; more ice or less ice; more sun or less sun . . . it’s all about climate “change we can believe in” and devising some logical link to human activity as a premise to control that activity and impose a Progressive Collectivist ideology. That ideology is, of course, one of “environmental justice” and redistribution of resources and wealth.
This is the little fact that is always left out of the AGW panic propaganda – “the Arctic Icecap is Melting!!!” – ummm – yeah – and it also refreezes in the fall/winter.
“cuddly wuddly polar bears…”
Uhhhh…no.
Survive a Bear Attack
The Polar Bear:
The polar bear is the most deadly of all. While his normal food is seal, they have been known, for centuries, to attack humans. Until the introduction of firearms, the native people of the north have lived in fear of them. Many early explorers have told horror stories of polar bear attacks. These bears are known to stalk and hunt humans. If you are in polar bear country carry a firearm or avoid the area.
Definitively worse than we thought. Maybe Al Gore is planning to visit the North Pole.
Ahem, this is only weather, not climate!
This is the time of the year when you hear less and less about runaway melt and starving polar bears. Thank God for small mercies!
Mark Serreze and his lack of Death spiral consensus even in his own head!
http://tinyurl.com/2f228jp
Please replace “it’s” by its full form “it is” in your first sentence and see if it makes sense.
I’m pretty concerned with the ENSO numbers. I’ve never seen a drop that big, and compared with the gulf stream slowdown, this upcoming year may be colder than anything we’ve seen in 30 years.
Enjoy the warm weather while it lasts.
A bit OT, but I have a friend who has visited Polar Bear country a few times, and he says that you have to carry a tobacco tin with two pebbles in it. When a bear attacks, he says, you shake the tin and the rattling frightens the bear.
Anyone tried this?
Aaargh! It’s 2 days before the day after tomorrow! Why does the entire AGW scheme seem like it’s copying South Park?
If you take the data from the JAXA website and calculate an annual running average since 2002, you will find that, overall, the ice extent has actually declined by about 5% in the last 8 years. The thickness has also declined.
I bow to no one with respect to my scepticism on catastrophic man-made global warming but only because warmists cherry-pick the data and turn a blind eye to the counter-factuals which undermine their precious – not to say lucrative – hypothesis.
Sceptics should uphold higher standards. Not sure this is happening here.
And now to sports. Mother Nature took a 3 game to nothing lead over Crowd AWG when, in the bottom of the ninth with two outs, her potential “Closer of the Year” – Arctic, threw AWG’s rookie utility player 75/25% a fast raising ice ball for strike three! While the series is never over till it’s over, having never lost to fools who mess with her, this reporter can see the writing on the wall – Mother Nature is going to have to contract for a new trophy case!
As for the weather, yesterday we had some, we will again today and tomorrow looks about the same. Stay tuned for more ……
Poor dumb arctic ice, doesn’t know that its supposed to be disappeared.
Looks a frighteningly steep climb! Brrrr!
@frank K
Re ‘cuddly wuddly polar bears’
I am British. We do sarcasm/irony. And understatement.
I enjoy watching the ice grow as much as anyone, but I will argue that focusing on the rate of growth compared to the previous low ice years is not productive. As I have pointed out previously the arctic sea ice appears to be dependent on the AMO.
What is interesting is that the AMO was still strong in Sep with a 0.496C value. That the ice is climbing quickly while the AMO is strong is interesting and unexpected. The latest SST maps also show warmer than average waters around Greenland and the 30 day cryosphere agrees that ice is not forming there.
The main ice growth is the north of Russia where the cold water is. As long as the AMO is warm, the ice will be less. That is natural and expected. We should approach it in that manner.
John Kehr
@Oldseadog: ‘When a bear attacks, he says, you shake the tin and the rattling frightens the bear.’
Rather you than me shipmate! I think my preference would be for something of a bigger calibre.
oldseadog says: at 8:51 am “When a bear attacks, he says, you shake the tin and the rattling frightens the bear.”
A 357 Magnum works better. (Per Pt. Barrow whale biologists.)
Considering the graph and comparing years, 2010 looks to be squarely in the middle of the pack and possibly heading to the head of the class in ice formation.
So, where’s all that global warming which was predicted.
At least in terms of ice coverage, I just don’t see it.
This is starting to get interesting, but the acid test is NH snow cover this winter, not ice extent. The latter would have to do something spectacular to merit dancing in the streets. There will be no MSM coverage, no matter what it does, unless it’s something like “NINTH LOWEST ARCTIC ICE EXTENT SINCE 1979!”
Curious that the DMI 2005-2010 curves converge very tightly at the beginning of January (the left-hand edge of the graph). Coincidental artifact due to small sample size, or is there real physics or math involved?
oldseadog:
“When a bear attacks…you shake the tin and the rattling frightens the bear.”
I tried that once, except I gave the tin to my buddy. Sure enough, I was able to get away when the bear turned his attention to the noisemaker, God rest his soul.
John Kerr,
I agree that focusing year to year on the ice is not productive. The only reason I can’t get it off my mind is that every calving of ice is portrayed as impending doom by the media.
Personally, I don’t see how the pro or anti AGW crowd comes to their conclusions about sea ice extent with the limited data available.
Regarding the GFS 2m Temp Raw Anamolies chart in the Sea Ice Resources, it has shown an astoundingly warm anamoly over most of Greenland for a few days now. Anamolies of 20-30 degrees above normal. Can this be right?
It might be helpful for context if you added the longer-term average ice extent to the chart so we could see deviation from longer-term levels. Also, some commentary on sea ice age and thickness might lead to a richer discussion, too.
REPLY: Sure, next time I have a couple of extra hours when I don’t have to see me wife off to a doctors trip to the bay area, or rush my children to school and still make it to my office before 9AM sans shower and brushing my teeth, I’ll do that research for you. – Anthony
David Phillips:
“reached its highest number, not it’s (it is)…”
Alan says:
“…replace “it’s” by its full form “it is”…”
Newer grammer texts actually allow the optoinal use of the apostrophe for the posessive of “it”, m but I’m with you guys. I prefer to lump the posessive of “it” with the other pronouns (his, hers, ours, theirs, yours) and save the apostrophe for contractions. People tend to SO overwork the poor apostrophe, don’t you think?
oldseadog says:
October 12, 2010 at 8:51 am
A bit OT, but I have a friend who has visited Polar Bear country a few times, and he says that you have to carry a tobacco tin with two pebbles in it. When a bear attacks, he says, you shake the tin and the rattling frightens the bear.
Anyone tried this?
Here in bear country, we know that one facet of living successfully with bears is learning how to protect yourself. Carrying pepper spray and a walking stick with bells on it is one prescribed method of deterring bear attacks. Also learning about bear droppings is useful in identifying what type of bears may be about. Black bear scat is short and will contain the remnants of berries and leaves while Grizzly and Polar bear droppings smells like pepper and contains bells, bits of tin and a few small rocks.
Careful with the heading. As much as a ‘good’ ice year would help destroy AGW (and avert the waste of trillions of dollars fighting an imaginary problem), you don’t want to be seen rejoicing at the thought of a harsh winter… especially if it’s worse than the previous two winters. The MSM and alarmist blogs will jump on you for being insensitive to the suffering of the vulnerable.
Hiking in Alaska with our ‘always racing ahead of us grandchildren’ my wife used a bell laden walking stick “to warn the bears of our approach”. One evening at the prompting of the grandchildren a park ranger told my wife that continuous ring of the bells attracts the bears; they are curious creatures. Bettter to save the extra sounds when approaching a blind corner. For my self I carried a can of bear spray; if allowed I would also carry a large caliber firearm..
In Denali we saw 18 grizzles in four days, one stood up on two legs in front of a bus we were on, God I was happy I never had to try that spray. They are huge and fearsome; and polar bears even more scary. Forget the tobacco tin idea.
I enjoy the ROOS presentational graphs:
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/total-icearea-from-1978-2007
Yes, the long term trend is declining, but something appears to shifted in the Max Extent in 2006-2010 and Min Extent 2007-2010. The Min is a little more shallow in the recent up-tick than the Max, but something appears to be changing in the short term (especially with the warm AMO). Not straight-forward on the ice free Arctic summers by 2020.
A sea story about a Polar Bear attack:
http://www.jpattitude.com/101011.php
I agree a large caliber weapon would be my preferred
way of dealing with the Bear.
Something on the order of a .458 win…
may have to go around with a sore arm and shoulder for
a few days but better than getting eaten..
This is weather. And just because it is weather does not make it insignificant. To be more precise, this is weather pattern variation. Understanding these pattern variations is a very important endeavor thus every data point is significant. These longer term weather patterns can exist over decades and I am beginning to see several websites come to terms with this.
Even well-known AGW’ing sites are explaining this year’s ice loss and rapid re-freeze in terms of weather. See for example http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/. Not a word about CO2.
The past decade has seen a Polar weather pattern variation that is not related to CO2. Why? Because the Polar weather pattern variations that have been at play this past decade cannot mechanistically be tied to greenhouse gasses.
So this is not climate change. We already know the Arctic climate and why the climate is the way it is up there. The Köppen climate classification labels the climate as Polar. It will never be a temperate zone, unless some rogue planet knocks into ours and places the poles further into a steeper angle towards solar radiation. Or the plates continue to migrate around. But the climate will NOT change. The weather pattern variations will, but within the confines of a polar climate. And so far, every weather pattern variation that has been discovered so far cannot be mechanistically connected to increased CO2.
The null hypothesis still rules.
Hmmm…
The Globe is Warming
…yet…
Ice is Forming.
Hmmm…
Andrew
Anthony:
I don’t intend to make your work harder.
Perhaps these would speed things up a little:
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20101004_Figure2.png
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20101004_Figure6.jpg
Rattle the tin while I run ahead and slightly faster than you.
or
.45-70 loaded with 450 grains of lead per round. It’ll rattle the hungry bear.
On a serious note…
Should the arctic sea completely break up and allow for some warm (relative to “normal”) water to occur. Wouldn’t the end result in the fall be “sea effect” snowfall before the surface refreezes? If that’s the case the glaciation of the northern climes could increase, could it not? Would Greenland likely see net gains in its glaciation?
That’s a line of (potentially faulty) reasoning I come to as I read both sides of this debate. It seems to me that the logical reasoning is the feedback of precipitation would offset the warming, at least in the high lattitudes.
Is that because they ate the last few hikers who had bells on their walking sticks?
I spent a few summers up north, and the only noise-maker we used above the arctic circle in the North-West Territories was a 12-gauge shotgun.
(Further south, we carried “bear bangers”, which fire a small black powder firecracker. The trick is to get it to land BETWEEN you and the bear, because if it lands past the bear he runs as fast he can away from it, and toward you. But the consensus was that, while these would scare black bears, they would just make the polar bears a bit more ornery.)
Surely carrying of the tobacco tin is banned by law.
One wouldn’t want an endangered species like a polar bear to have its life ruined yet further by a whiff of nicotine. I recommend that the severest penalties be sentenced to any malefactor. Twenty years chokey would seem appropriate for a first or accidental offence.
@richard sharpe
Yes. That was the point of the story.
@ oldseadog says:
October 12, 2010 at 8:51 am
Sure it works. Tobacco tins with two pebbles in them are frequently found in polar bear scat. Where’s that link?…
@ Pamela Gray says:
October 12, 2010 at 9:53 am
So, by inference, it can be said that the “climate zone” of any point on earth is determined primarily by its angle of exposure to the sun?
Richard Sharpe says:
October 12, 2010 at 10:04 am
Well done, Richard. Got it in one.
As I recall, the pebbles in a tin can method was employed by a University of Alaska graduate student during some biological field work. It didn’t turn out well for him.
With polar bears you have to use three pebbles.
The MSM is wonderfully silent . Apparently they are only interested in bad news , because probably their readership , a lot of them Obama voters , wishes to experience how bad this world is . So the unhappy feelings are projected on a situation completely beyond their control . It is a signature on the wall that nothing about the french shale oil is reported in the meanstream medie , which is in the oil world one of the biggest
endeavours of this moment and may lead to an overabundance of relatively cheap european oil in the near future . Already Shell postponed an extension of its oil production from tarsands in canada for an unknown period of time and gasprom apprently is slowing up its siberian gas production . What came first the club of Rome or the belief in carbonfootprints ? Let us keep cool , the weather will be helping .
I think it is interesting how the ice has already connected to the shoreline in East Siberia, close to where the Russian heat wave’s south winds melted the ice so swiftly last July. I wonder if those warm south winds pushed the warm coastal waters towards the poles, contributing to the melting back in July, but also causing upwelling of the deep waters close to the coast, bringing cold water up from the depths to the surface and hurrying the freeze-up in the fall.
On another post someone theorized that the quicker the ice forms, the longer the ice has to get thick. Then, the following spring, the thicker the ice is, the longer it takes to break up to a degree where it can be flushed south by winds. Therefore, in theory, the earlier the ice freezes in the fall, the greater the next summer’s extent should be.
I thought that was an interesting theory to mull over.
There is plenty to wonder about, withoiut involving politics at all.
In the interest of evaluating scientific methodology, an important function of this blog, it should be pointed out that the request for evaluations of the pebbles in a can trick would tend to elicit empirically valid responses that are biased in its favor. As several comments have noted, a more valid proxy might be derived from the field of ursine scatology.
And yet, the standard drum beat goes on: http://news.discovery.com/earth/arctic-ice-is-younger-thinner-and-disappearing.html
You’d think that facts would eventually sink in. The ice isn’t younger, thinner, and disappearing. In fact, at the moment it is higher than it has been for the last five years.
“…while Grizzly and Polar bear droppings smells like pepper and contains bells, bits of tin and a few small rocks. ”
What, no blueberries?
I like only italian ice.
What is the ice on the pole for? I would certainly prefer it a bit warmer…
Anthony Thompson says:
October 12, 2010 at 8:57 am
If you take the data from the JAXA website and calculate an annual running average since 2002, you will find that, overall, the ice extent has actually declined by about 5% in the last 8 years. The thickness has also declined.
Reports in recent history indicate that this is not the first time for Arctic ice to reduce to low levels. It is the first time with satellites viewing it. The research that includes the pre-satellite reports indicates that there are cycles in Arctic ice and one of these appears to be ~60 years in length. We may be passing the lowest point of such a 60 year cycle. It follows that if you look back 8 years you will see a decline. Indeed if you look back 20 years you will see a decline. This apparent ‘decline’ will continue until the cycle climbs out of the lowest point. Your metrics approach should cover around 60 years and ideally 120 years before conclusions can be drawn.
Pamela Gray
The null has been challenged and not defended
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/01/the-ice-who-came-in-from-the-cold/
1. The ice is cycling like never before in the recorded era
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/01/the-ice-who-came-in-from-the-cold/#comment-401837
2. Willis Agrees it challenges the null
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/01/the-ice-who-came-in-from-the-cold/#comment-401862
and tries to blame the sensor, but gets the wrong plaform
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/01/the-ice-who-came-in-from-the-cold/#comment-402047
promises to contact the scientist,
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/01/the-ice-who-came-in-from-the-cold/#comment-402155
but we still havent heard back
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/01/the-ice-who-came-in-from-the-cold/#comment-407150
You were on the thread.
I’ll repeat what I said there : the annual pattern is clear in the data as Willis showed. That pattern challenges the Null, as willis agreed. The only defense is to challenge the intrument or the instruments algorithms. No answer there.
basically, the artic is acting differently. What to make of it? That’s a different question. But the Null hypothesis ( there nothing interesting going on that we havent seen before ) is challenged by Willis’ observation of new pattern in sea ice loss and recovery.
Djozar says:
[Snip]
What, no blueberries?
Maybe if you are carrying trail mix.
{One Grizzly bear to another}
“They’re smarter than pigs but just as good”.
I partially agree with Thompson, especially as it applied to ice ceverage.
Cherry picking should be avoided for a lot of good scientific reasons, but even more important it should avoided because it makes skeptics look like hypocrites.
Ice cover in the Arctic appears to be recovering from a 30 year low extent. It is a fact
that current ice extent is well below the 30 average. We know from anecdote that ice extent has fluctuated before, but do not have any idea of what maximum and minmum are for it natural variation.
“”” Ed Fix says:
October 12, 2010 at 9:42 am
David Phillips:
“reached its highest number, not it’s (it is)…”
Alan says:
“…replace “it’s” by its full form “it is”…”
Newer grammer texts actually allow the optoinal use of the apostrophe for the posessive of “it”, m but I’m with you guys. I prefer to lump the posessive of “it” with the other pronouns (his, hers, ours, theirs, yours) and save the apostrophe for contractions. People tend to SO overwork the poor apostrophe, don’t you think? “””
Well Dr Richard Lederer; the world’s foremost authority on the English language would disagree completely with any “newer grammar texts” that dare to offer an optional use of a possesssive apostrophe for it. And I would suggest that it is a spelling issue; not a grammar issue. But I’m sure some “newer grammar texts” might disagree on that too. So lets all hear it for hi’s, her’s, your’s, their’s, our’s.
Texting is going to destroy language. Imagine reading “Anna Karenina”, in texting speak.
Question for the brainiacs in the crowd – if we are currently seeing a very steep recovery in extent will things naturally tend to flatten out more than they might otherwise have later as the area of open water is covered with an insulating layer of ice? – OR all other things being equal, does an early steep refreeze tend to contribute significantly to maximum greater extent [or possibly thickness as well] later on down the road?
Just wondering,
~ your friend W^3
Douglas DC was absolutely correct!
For a poley bear I’d use the same as I’ve used on an African buffalo, nothing smaller than a .458. And I’d use THREE rounds, just to be sure.
James F. Evans says:
October 12, 2010 at 9:25 am
Where’s all that Global Warming?
It’s in the N.H. atmosphere, courtesy of El Nino 09/10. When it’s gone, it’s really gone, because the ocean heat is exhausted and doesn’t have a surplus to expend. The climactic ball rests squarely in the corner of La Nina, and to the level to which La Nina drops/is caused to drop. One would hope (you know what they say about wishful thinking) that the episode in S. America Winter was the peak of it. I wouldn’t want to bet on it, as the rapid refreeze in the Arctic is not the best of signs for adjacent areas.
Got wool?
Polar Bear proxy proof that the Arctic is melting.
The record low temps in the Arctic Summer 80N should have been the clue to this rapid refreeze.
Until just yesterday, this link : http://ice-map.appspot.com/ took me to the Google Arctic/Antarctic daily maps of Aqua/Terra and Band 367. It’s broken now, so don’t try it.
Does anyone know of an alternate link to these maps?
They were great to follow.
How many Manhattan’s in a California?
Eminent environmentalist predicts imminent disappearance of Arctic summer ice!
OMG
Already at a record high level in the satellite era, sea ice extent in the polar region is expanding at an enormous nearly unprecedented rate.
If not stopped in the next few months this great onslaught of ice could signal the end of the Holocene interglacial and an end to civilization as we know it. (Such as it is)
Or summer might be over… either one.
The null hypothesis is that Polar climates have, intrinsic to the parameters that make up a Polar climate, naturally occurring weather pattern variations that result in ice formation and melt patterns tied to those weather pattern variations. So far, no Polar weather pattern variation currently understood can be connected mechanistically to an increase in greenhouse gasses, and in particular, to fossil fuel CO2 increased emissions.
In response to another commenter, the Polar climate is directly tied to its angle of interaction with solar irradiation. Topography influences ice build-up and melt patterns, but solar irradiation is key to a Polar climate. Other climate types have both topography as well solar exposure parameters.
The null hypothesis stands. 1. The Polar climate is not changing. And 2. The Polar climate has within its definition, natural short and long-term weather pattern variations that influence ice build-up and melt, but that cannot change the Polar climate or the fact that it will continue to ice up, unless the angle at which Polar regions face solar irradiation changes.
In reply to R Bateman @ 11:52am
This link still works :
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?mosaic=Arctic
In ancient times, we had oracles and soothsayers who told us why calamity has befallen us, which gods were angry, and what sacrifices we had to make.
Today, we still have oracles (they have different job titles now) who tell us of calamities that have befallen us (or will do so real soon now), that humans (gods are sooo yesterday) are the cause and what sacrifices we have to make.
“plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”
For people who enjoy old maps including many of the Arctic by the U.S. Navy going back to 1898, google the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection. Someone posted this on Goddard’s site.
Steven, the known polar weather patterns in the Arctic system can produce what we have seen lately. Given the fact that major Arctic parameters (such as axial tilt and topography) have not changed, a reasonable argument can be made that the weather pattern variations we are currently seeing have happened before. Both the double melt, and the rapid re-freeze can and have been directly tied to weather pattern variation. On top of that, there is currently no mechanism that explains a proposed potential anthropogenic external driver such as increasing CO2 to ice melt and re-freeze behavior in Polar climates.
An Inquirer says:
October 12, 2010 at 8:17 am
Does DMI data start in 2005?
—…—…—
I’ve never been adequately given an answer to DMI ice extents (plotted graphic data) historical data. Supposedly, the “average” sea ice extents is based on a 1979 – 19?? average – but somehow the actual “plot” of that average is never presented.
The DMI data for daily temperatures at 80 deg north latitude – a circle (obviously!) crossing the small north tip of Greenland and the rest laying directly over the Arctic Ocean – is available from the link at right on WUWT.
DMI daily temperatures at 80 north for every day across the summer melting season shows a consistent and continuous decline in summer time temperatures since 1958. I cannot reconcile NASA-GISS-Hansen’s claims of the Arctic warming by 4 degrees over the same period when actual measurements by DMI shows it is consistently cooling.
Now – Remember, this cooling trend is ONLY for the summer months – the only time when Arctic temperatures are above freezing. Winter temperatures are very, very scattered and have a very large standard deviation. It is very possible that Hansen has deliberately averaged summer and spring/winter/fall temperatures – which may or may not be increasing slightly – to create his claim that the Arctic is warming. But we don’t know his methods, and he does not intend to tell us his raw data.
Q. why are the ice extent measurements tighlty bundled at 1/01 and 1/5.5 in all of the yearly data on the ? Could anyone explain why you would expect to see less ice extent variation at the end of the year and the middle of the year as opposed to the end of the 1st and 3rd quarters?
When you compare the shape of the ice extent graph over time to the DMI ERA 40 graph, again over time and consider the coresponding bone chilling surface temps at Q1 and Q3 then it seems to suggest that the ice extent may be related to variations in water temps. Are there any water temp data bases for north of 80 Degrees?
Caleb says:
October 12, 2010 at 10:47 am
I think it is interesting how the ice has already connected to the shoreline in East Siberia, close to where the Russian heat wave’s south winds melted the ice so swiftly last July. I wonder if those warm south winds pushed the warm coastal waters towards the poles, contributing to the melting back in July, but also causing upwelling of the deep waters close to the coast, bringing cold water up from the depths to the surface and hurrying the freeze-up in the fall.
This suggestion would be supported by the other image on the CT from 2007 – the ice had also reached Siberia by today’s date. And maybe for the same reason – sustained southerly winds compacted the ice in the summer of 2007 also.
The recent ice extent rise is certainly accelerating:
10-08-2010: 110000 km2
10-09-2010: 110782 km2
10-10-2010: 137656 km2
10-11-2010: 145469 km2
and is kind of exciting to skeptics like us – with a frissant of schadenfreude for the reaction of warmistas like Steve Mosher to such data. But how meaningful is it?
People speak of the “straits of June” – there are also the “straits of November” when all the extent curves bunch together. So a lower September minimum means faster rise inevitably until the November bunching.
What would be more significant would be for the ice extent curve to rise above the pack in November – although this might be hard due to land boundary starting to constrain growth (thus the September minimum is the most significant metric).
Dan Inesanto says:
October 12, 2010 at 10:53 am
And yet, the standard drum beat goes on: http://news.discovery.com/earth/arctic-ice-is-younger-thinner-and-disappearing.html
You’d think that facts would eventually sink in. The ice isn’t younger, thinner, and disappearing. In fact, at the moment it is higher than it has been for the last five years.
I love funny posts like these.
There are two animals that will routinely and normally hunt humans for food given the opportunity; saltwater crocodiles and polar bears. They won’t shun human prey for ‘normal’ prey . . . . humans are one of their normal prey.
There are other animals that normally shun humans as prey but that occasionally prey on humans for various reasons; sharks, tigers, lions, mountain lions, etc, etc.
Saltwater crocs and the big white bear . . . . do not lightly go into their habitats.
John
P.F. says:
October 12, 2010 at 9:20 am
oldseadog says: at 8:51 am “When a bear attacks, he says, you shake the tin and the rattling frightens the bear.”
A 357 Magnum works better. (Per Pt. Barrow whale biologists.)
The bigger the noise maker the better. Shooting the bear through the head with a large caliber bullet, usually deters it from mischief. The sound of the bullet passing so close to its very sensitive ears (it can hear the sound of a seal breathing beneath the ice) scares the bear so much that it drops to the ice and plays dead.
The amount 0f scat that the scientist carries back to base with them inside their pants is usually proportionate to the angular size of the bear – i.e. how big it is in absolute terms along with how close it was.
Will there be another Catlin Arctic Survey this year, I wonder. I’m sure they would love to get back there to collect more data and verify their findings.
Pamela Gray says:
October 12, 2010 at 12:11 pm
The null hypothesis stands. 1. The Polar climate is not changing. And 2. The Polar climate has within its definition, natural short and long-term weather pattern variations that influence ice build-up and melt, but that cannot change the Polar climate or the fact that it will continue to ice up, unless the angle at which Polar regions face solar irradiation changes.
There could also be a change in the various current flows (winds included), which would affect the creation and destuction of the ice. A long-term movement in the jet-streams, or the gulf stream (just examples, I’m not saying they have or will) would either bottle up the ice, leading to a loss of melt, or flush the ice out leading to a large loss.
“Long-term” is of course in comparison to a human lifetime – a blink of an eye in other timeframes.
I would actually recommend a correction (addition ?) to the primary thread statement: AMSR-E Sea Ice extents was also at a record high earlier this year: From March through May 2010 sea ice extents was higher than any other year since 2000.
Some “disappearing” ice problem! It done do be disappearin’ al right: Right into two record high amounts in both spring and fall of 2010!
Mpemba effect?
😉
Re: Anything is possible on October 12, 2010 at 12:19 pm
I see the “website” linked to your name is: http://deleted/
Offhand I think Phil. (Phil-dot) is the only commenter to use that particular address for a fake “website linked” name highlight.
Phil-dot, you changing handles?
☻
You are starting all over again in making yourself ridiculous. And people will fall for it again. It’s an easy job, but someone’s got to do it.
In other news, Arctic Ice Is Younger, Thinner, and Disappearing.
Can we get some journalism in here?
Cheering for ice is so deliciously silly it could give you brain freeze.
Pamela Gray says:
October 12, 2010 at 12:27 pm (Edit)
Steven, the known polar weather patterns in the Arctic system can produce what we have seen lately.
###########
saying so doesnt make it so.
Willis was pretty clear. So is your “null”
Its clear to me and clear to Willis that something has changed in the cycling of ice. That change requires explanation. Not arm waving, not blame the sensor. Its something that we havent seen before. Now we may have seen less total ice before, but we havent see what willis found.
In fact it was so interesting that Willis had to think it was some kind of data error.
So, there’s not “nothing going on” There is definately something going on.
it bears investigation.
it bears explanation.
it could be “caused” by the weather.
it could be gremlins
it could be a massive illusion
it could be a bad sensor ( prolly not)
it could be a pattern unique to the death spiral of ice.
But it most certainly challenges the Null hypothesis.
That null is falsifiable, right?
Chris B says:
October 12, 2010 at 12:08 pm
Eminent environmentalist predicts imminent disappearance of Arctic summer ice!
Extrapolating to absurdity is just so simple isn’t it?
Kath says:
October 12, 2010 at 12:19 pm
Today, we still have oracles…
We also have the ‘Goracle’! 😉
“Re: Anything is possible on October 12, 2010 at 12:19 pm
I see the “website” linked to your name is: http://deleted/”
I had no intention of posting a link to my (non-existant) web site, so somebody goofed.
I have no clue who Phil Dot is (:-
Question for Steven Mosher :
It always strikes me that everyone is so obsessed with surface conditions that we tend to forget that the ice sheet is three-dimensional.
Could not the ice also be being melted from beneath, either by warmer water and/or stronger currents?
I presume we have no observations that would support or refute this, but it seems like a plausible explanation to me.
Thoughts?
Dave Bob says: at 9:31 am
curves converge very tightly at . . .
If these curves represented actual equations they would have parts called “inflection points” as mentioned here:
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/InflectionPoint.html
There is rapid ice growth (steep slope) in the fall through the late year as ice fills the Arctic basin. Then ice (excluding thickness) can only grow on the edges or warmer margins beyond the basin. This is a more difficult growth period for ice and the curve changes shape. The reverse happens about mid-May when the easily melted ice is gone and the intra-basin ice is less easily destroyed. There is nothing special going on, just year to year variability partly controlled by the shape of the Arctic Basin and surroundings and the weather.
Anything is possible says:
October 12, 2010 at 12:19 pm
Many thanks for the link.
Watching the ice is fascinating.
DonS says:
October 12, 2010 at 10:15 am
@ Pamela Gray says:
October 12, 2010 at 9:53 am
No, that is not what she said. Read how the Köppen climate classification characterizes areas:
http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/climate.htm
These systems were initially based on areas delineated by selected plants that grow within certain areas and not others, say palms or sugar maple and so on. Plants “integrate” climate well. Only later were numerical limits added. I’ve not seen any based directly on sun angle as that will change daily and 46 degrees every six months.
Hi! I know squat about the mathematical reasoning about weather, climate and meteorology, but am trying to learn more about it. What I know is that where I live in southeast PA, we had a snowy winter, a hot summer, and I just read that in the 20-teens the northeast may have the coldest weather in 1,000 years. Unfortunately there was no explanation given as to why. Has anybody heard or read this and is it true or false? If true, can you give a layman explanation. Thought it was an interesting premise but with no information. Thanks if you can shed some light on this!
Steven Mosher says:
October 12, 2010 at 11:08
“I’ll repeat what I said there : the annual pattern is clear in the data as Willis showed. That pattern challenges the Null, as willis agreed. The only defense is to challenge the intrument or the instruments algorithms. No answer there.”
The CT graph for Arctic sea ice area for today shows 4.65 Mkm2, The Nansen ArticROOS graph, which AFAIK uses similar data, shows +5.9Mkm2 as their value
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.arctic.png
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic
To me that would indicate a certain reticence about ascribing confidence to any of this is more than justified. Something may definitely be happening with the ice, or not, but what it is and why it is happening are still very much open questions in my book.
Joanaroo says: at 5:46 pm 20-teens??
Really cold? Maybe, but those folks are just guessing. The main idea floating around is the less active sun. Search on things as the “Dalton Minimum” or the “Maunder Minimum”, “Sun Spots” and go from there. As there is no proven mechanism for the apparent correlation you, and everyone else, awaits the 20-teens with bated breath.
For a closer-to-now time period, go here:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf
SE PENNA is showing very normal temps (p. 39) and slightly below average precip (p. 38); these are for La Niña during Dec.-Feb.
At the bottom left is a note that these departures and frequency maps are based on 20 cases of La Niña events.
Douglas DC says:
October 12, 2010 at 9:52 am
A sea story about a Polar Bear attack:
http://www.jpattitude.com/101011.php
I agree a large caliber weapon would be my preferred
way of dealing with the Bear.
Something on the order of a .458 win…
may have to go around with a sore arm and shoulder for
a few days but better than getting eaten..
The two Royal Marines sailing on the Arctic Mariner through the NW Passage last year found a shotgun to be effective.
In polar climates, interseason variability is significant. Interseason for me is defined as ice peak and ice trough. The steep and narrow slopes of ice build-up and ice melt is predictable and squeezed into a narrow standard deviation slide. Why? Because of axial drivers related to solar irradiation. The months in-between are highly correlated to weather systems, including those driven by SST changes related to pools of warm or cool water circulating to the polar regions from the equatorial regions. This explains the larger standard deviation during these periods. Again, I see nothing but standard fare: weather pattern variation during the months of interseason variability.
This website, its sponsor, and the majority of those commenting are an embarassment and offsense to moral thought.
James Sexton says:
October 12, 2010 at 8:59 am
Poor dumb arctic ice, doesn’t know that its supposed to be disappeared.
That’s fine. That’s its personal choice. No pressure…….
;o)
doug says: October 12, 2010 at 7:26 pm
“This website, its sponsor, and the majority of those commenting are an embarassment and offsense to moral thought.”
Doug;
I tried to cut and paste your comment into klepticalscilence but it did not get posted?
Hmm…. “offsense to moral thought.”
PS. BBC did not take it either.
You may generalize to the level of you own intelect, no pressure here.
doug says:
October 12, 2010 at 7:26 pm
This website, its sponsor, and the majority of those commenting are an embarassment and offsense to moral thought.
Speaking of morals:
doug says:
October 12, 2010 at 7:26 pm
This website, its sponsor, and the majority of those commenting are an embarassment and offsense to moral thought.
What really is morality in this issue?
doug says:
October 12, 2010 at 7:26 pm
This website, its sponsor, and the majority of those commenting are an embarassment and offsense to moral thought.
Morals? By all means morals! The morals of using coal:
garhighway says:
October 12, 2010 at 9:42 am
It might be helpful for context if you added the longer-term average ice extent to the chart so we could see deviation from longer-term levels. Also, some commentary on sea ice age and thickness might lead to a richer discussion, too.
Ok, here’s some context on long term trend:
…..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/
Ben M says: “…if it’s worse than the previous two winters (,) the MSM and alarmist blogs will jump on you for being insensitive to the suffering of the vulnerable.”
The MSM haven’t the balls to report three bad winters in a row. The game would be up. They must continue to maintain absolute silence, lest their Socialist workers’ paradise evaporate.
Latimer Alder says:
October 12, 2010 at 9:10 am
@frank K
Re ‘cuddly wuddly polar bears’
I am British. We do sarcasm/irony. And understatement.
—
I know you were being sarcastic :^) My point is that our popular media now use the image of the snow white polar as a gentle creature whose habitat is being destroyed by you and I using incandescent light bulbs and not driving a Prius.
As evidence I give you (courtesy of my energy provider, and much to my chagrin): Floe
It would be interesting to find the natural weather pattern that has caused the summer ice extent to reduce more than the winter.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seasonal.extent.1900-2007.jpg
Andy
I believe that the refreezing – probably due to limited exchange of heat with warmer places on Earth – has a flip side: it allows the other (warmer) places on Earth to get warmer. That may be partly why the current temperatures are warmer than expected for a La Nina that is underway.
It may be that a combination of the sea ice area and the global mean temperature could behave in more stable ways than the two terms in separation.
Meh,
So I did a 7-day moving average than a 7-day linear fit to the 7-day moving average (to get km^2/day) and extracted the maximum growth day;
Maximum Growth Date, Growth (km^2/day))
10/3/2002,116
10/17/2003,134
10/9/2004,96
10/21/2005,159
10/14/2006,139
10/23/2007,171
10/12/2008,145
10/13/2009,93
Conclusions?
Maximum growth always occurs in the October time frame.
If 2010 follows 2005/2007/2008 (three highest growth years) I’d expect ~160K km^2/day maximum (using same smoothing).
Go, Arctic sea ice extent, go!
AndyW says: October 12, 2010 at 10:01 pm
………………….
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seasonal.extent.1900-2007.jpg
Could you please teach me on the following two?
1. Why aren’t the 2008 & 2009 data plotted? Even the spring data for 2010 can be plotted now.
2. How reliable are the pre-satellite (before 1979) data?
Correction to my last post;
Maximum Growth Date, Growth (km^2/day))
should be;
Maximum Growth Date, Growth (10^3 km^2/day))
Great posts. Enjoyable thread. Good early morning read. One suggestion: shouldn’t we be talking about blueberry-picking instead of cherry-picking nowadays?
Re local weather: thermom stuck on the outside of my kitchen window is showing lower maximum readings that those used at the nearest airport by weather predicters. Yesterday it was 4 degrees C lower than predicted max. Shall keep a tally and see what happens over the winter. Window is double glazed, house walls are two feet thick built of stone, aspect is north-west; no sunshine directly as there’s a hill in the way even when sun is over there in mid summer.
Was looking at this http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/ice_ext_s.png before knocking in here. I have not read any of the comments and I do not know if anyone has mention what’s up with the south pole, but according to this, the sea-ice cover down south is refusing to commence the annual melt. It has been static since mid-September. So its not that the global energy has shifted from the northern hemisphere to the southern one, but that it has been globally reduced, so it seems. Warmists are always looking at the N Pole during summer, while refusing to comment on what’s happening down south all year round.
Steven Mosher says:
October 12, 2010 at 11:08 am
“1. The ice is cycling like never before in the recorded era”
This is exactly what you would expect with thinner ice. If you take 2 plates out of your freezer, one with 1 cm and another with 2 cm thick ice, the thinner ice melts much quicker, but if you put them back into the freezer they will refreeze at much closer speed.
Ice thickness is depending on previous years leftover and thus the September minimum is a lagging parameter and overestimated, refreezing depends on current temperatures.
We don’t have satellite measurements before 1978, but in the middle of the last century, a 50% decrease in ice volume was reported, and what has happened now may have happened as well 60 years ago or so.
Additionally, temepratures in the 40s may have been much warmer than currently thought. The bucket to inlet ocean temperature correction is proven false. This is probably the most influentual error in climate science and nobody cares. The size of this error is about the size the total assumed warming since the 1940s.
Re. oldseadog and his rattling tin. Yes people have tried it —- and were eaten.
A Franchi Spas with Breneck shells works as well.
Manfred says:
October 13, 2010 at 2:01 am
If you take 2 plates out of your freezer, one with 1 cm and another with 2 cm thick ice, the thinner ice melts much quicker, but if you put them back into the freezer they will refreeze at much closer speed.”
Surely you mean it melts SOONER and NOT FASTER when it is thinner? Whether ice is 1cm or 1m thick, in the same environment temperature and pressure etc, ice melts at the same rate. So yes, thicker ice will still be melting after the thinner ice has melted.
Luboš Motl says:
October 12, 2010 at 10:36 pm
If the S. Hem. Winter is any indication, watch out when the Arctic lets loose some of it’s air in the coming months.
Alex the skeptic says:
October 13, 2010 at 1:54 am
The Antarctic is an embarassment for the warmists, and has been so for quite some time.
It does not go unnoticed that the Antarctic Sea Ice is growing over time.
The warmists like to pick on the Antarctic Peninsula, which is the warmest place on the miserable continent, and project it all the way to the South Pole. A favorite GISS trick.
It’s worse than that, though. The Southern Oceans Sea Temps have very poor coverage and exist mostly as the subject of computer model output.
Correction to my previous postof October 13, 2010 at 1:54 am:
“It has been static since mid-September.” should have read “It has been static since mid-August”
My apologies.
Just a fun bit of trivia, but the revised JAXA 15% extent for Oct 12 has been posted and we are exactly tied with 2008 at 6664375 km^2. 2008 had marched up to this year quickly when this year’s growth slowed, and it even passed 2010 for a day (Oct 9). Now they seem to be running pretty evenly, but I’m guessing 2008 pulls ahead today or tomorrow and will stay ahead for at least several days. It also appears at first glance that we’re about to pass 2006 (we’ve already passed 2009 and 2005), but in the next 4 days 2006 has several large gains, so we won’t be passing it for another week or more presumably.
In terms of area, CT showed some funky behavior Oct 7-9th (showing almost no growth…even though their images didn’t indicate that kind of slowdown). I swear they skipped a day or something and added it back in later…I had to do some copying/pasting in my spreadsheet yesterday. Maybe I just missed a day in there myself and finally caught it yesterday. Anyway, 2010 is still ahead of 2008 in area, but I expect 2010 to be passed tomorrow.
-Scott
Günther Kirschbaum says:
October 12, 2010 at 3:35 pm
You are starting all over again in making yourself ridiculous. And people will fall for it again. It’s an easy job, but someone’s got to do it.
—…—
(Robt is confused. Who is the “you” that you believe is supposedly making “who” appear ridiculous? Twice this year sea ice extents has reached all time highs.
Yes, it is an easy job showing the flaws in the CAGW theories of catastrophic Mann-caused global warming.
By the way, is there any reason why the 30% ice plots don’t show a 1979-2008 mean? Is it because that data set doesn’t exist, or just because people don’t want to plot it?
doug,
I like the coinage “offsense”. But I’m having difficulty decoding the phrase, “offsense to moral thought”. (Or an “offense to moral thought”, for that matter.)
Scott says:
October 13, 2010 at 8:53 am
Just a fun bit of trivia, but the revised JAXA 15% extent for Oct 12 has been posted and we are exactly tied with 2008 at 6664375 km^2. 2008 had marched up to this year quickly when this year’s growth slowed, and it even passed 2010 for a day (Oct 9). Now they seem to be running pretty evenly, but I’m guessing 2008 pulls ahead today or tomorrow and will stay ahead for at least several days. It also appears at first glance that we’re about to pass 2006 (we’ve already passed 2009 and 2005), but in the next 4 days 2006 has several large gains, so we won’t be passing it for another week or more presumably.
In terms of area, CT showed some funky behavior Oct 7-9th (showing almost no growth…even though their images didn’t indicate that kind of slowdown). I swear they skipped a day or something and added it back in later…I had to do some copying/pasting in my spreadsheet yesterday. Maybe I just missed a day in there myself and finally caught it yesterday. Anyway, 2010 is still ahead of 2008 in area, but I expect 2010 to be passed tomorrow.
-Scott
_____________________________________________________________
UIUC did have an error in their area dataset a few days ago.
I and someone else emailed them of this error, here is their response;
“Everett,
Thanks so much for writing. Someone else noticed the missing data from a couple
days ago and alerted us about an hour ago.
We are working on rerunning the last few days and the corrected timeseries data
should be available in an hour, or so.
Thanks again.
Sincerely,
Bill Chapman”
Thank you, John F.Hultquist, for the info! I’ll look into that and if I can find the link again to the 1,000 year winter, I’ll post it. As a weather nut, I love to read up on precipitation events. I love snow and cold weather, so a cold winter is fine by me! As for global warming, a report of all Arctic ice being gone by 2030 scared the scat out of me, with the sea level rise stories, but then I wondered what if this is just a temporary melting of some ice (the 4x the size section breaking off of Greenland) and the ice is growing again below the surface. We math-incompetent (unfortunately, math and science didn’t agree with me) still love to learn, as long as it doesn’t involve us doing the calculations and computations! Scott (#63) and Z (#83) I love your bear logic! =)
Oops! John, the link you gave me comes up as not available. There are a variety of topics at http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov, so I’ll see what I can get from there in the general terminology. and I’ll look up the topics you gave me.
oldseadog says:
October 12, 2010 at 8:51 am
“A bit OT, but I have a friend who has visited Polar Bear country a few times, and he says that you have to carry a tobacco tin with two pebbles in it. When a bear attacks, he says, you shake the tin and the rattling frightens the bear.
Anyone tried this?”
If what I’ve heard is true, anyone who has tried it has only tried it once. Perhaps a better question would have been, “Does it work?” ;o)
EFS_Junior says:
October 13, 2010 at 12:05 pm
Thanks for the info EFS…I thought I was going crazy! I still don’t know if the numbers from those days make sense looking at the CT images (to me it looks like there should have been a slow, steady gain rather than a loss, some small gains, and then some bigger gains), but I figure with the uncertainty in area processing that could happen, and even if something is wrong, it’s just a day or two of slightly off data.
I’m just glad that I’m not scratching my head anymore trying to figure out what happened. 🙂 I’m still pretty swamped with work and some things at home, so I don’t have the time to dig into stuff like I’d like…following the numbers with my existing spreadsheets is the only time I have for this hobby right now.
-Scott
Well the ice behavior is certainly interesting; and I am sure we will know more as it gets into the main winter conditions.
The sea water would seem to need to drop to about -2.5 or so, to start freezing at normal salinity. I have in the past argued that once the surface water starts to freeze, the segregation coefficient for the salt species, causes massive amounts of salts to be expelled into the water at the growing interface; and this would have the effect of further lowering the freezing Temperature of salt water; so especially if calm water conditions prevailed, the start of ice growth would seem to hesitate; and further temperature drop would be necesaary to account for the higher interface salinity; so the atmospheric and water temperatures would have to continue to drop. Eventually, the temperature drop would be such as to nullify the smaller effect of lowering freezing point, and then freezing would be able to proceed apace; now with a much bigger temperature gradient between the sink (atmosphere) and the source (water) so the rate of conductive heat loss to the air cwould now be greater, so once the real freeze got going it would take off at a very fast clip; relative to what happens at the onset.
I imagine that if conditions were a bit stormier, so that the growth interface was cosntantly getting washed by water motion, that the salinity would not increase so much so growth would continue earlier but at a lesseer growth rate because of the smaller gradient. Well I haven’t worded that quite properly; but I think I have conveyed the concept.
So all of that dicking around, when this freeze started a while back may have assisted in theis somewhat wild regrowth rate.
It’s an interesting dynamical situation. And of course, I understand that thickness growth is slowed down by poor thermal conductivity of ice; but as far as ice extent, or area, I can see how it would take off so fast..
And I would still like to know more about the rejection of CO2 from the growing ice; which also ought to be rejected by the water per Henry’s law, and hence result in an increase in Atmospheric CO2 during the refreeze cycle.
I have asked Dr Steven Piper at San Diego; that oceanographic place there; aka Woods Hole west, who is a real CO2 expert about that; and he doesn’t like my conjecture; and says I need reprogramming; but he’s a very nice chap, who has been very helpful with atomic powered CO2 information.
Perhaps Ferdinand Englebeen could jump in with his thoughts; he seems to be very ice savvy to me.
Joanaroo,
That is odd about the link. I’ve been using Google Chrome. The site you show can be used to get to the one I show. On the left under Climate-Weather, click on El Niño/La Niña. Then in the list of links, click on Outlooks. Then under Expert Discussions/Assessments, click on the first link, which is the PDF suggested earlier. However, you might just try again or use a different browser.
For topics you can try the search box at the upper right on WUWT. Note under that is Ric Werme’s guide to WUWT (white letters on a blue background). That’s helpful. Also, near the bottom of Ric’s guide there are some formatting things of use to you if you want to post comments and have them show better.
Strange number for the 13th as it shows a drop of some 20,000+ (pre adjustment).
Grown rate plot updated to the 13th Oct 2010: http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/2447/13day20101013.png
The ice extent gain seems to have hit the buffers recently, perhaps the warm SST’s are putting a temporary brake on it?
Andy
AndyW says:
October 14, 2010 at 10:04 pm
Yep, the ice growth the last couple of days has been pretty pathetic. Yesterday’s growth was the third lowest in the JAXA record, the day before was the lowest ever, and three days ago also showed the third lowest ever for that day. In that 3-day span, only 2007 performed worse.
Unfortunately, CT’s area numbers haven’t updated the past couple days. Looking at their images, growth on most fronts seems to have severely slowed. Only the area on the far right north of Russia (sorry, I don’t know my polar geography to give a better description) has showed significant gains. The area on the left in the NW passage has frozen up quickly and solidly, but this has had little effect on extent because of the small areas involved (and most of those areas already had >15% coverage anyway). Don’t know when we’ll see a return to even average growth, but at this point 2008 has surpassed 2010 considerably, and 2005 passed 2010 back after 2010 was ahead of it for all of 4 days. Just 4 days ago 2010 was nipping at the heals of 2006, but now it’s nearly 1/2 a millions km^2 behind.
That’s what happens when you slow down in a time where the slopes on every year are steep.
-Scott
Good sumary Scott.
SST’s currently
ttp://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
Starting to cool off so so perhaps more gain soon
Andy
AndyW says:
October 15, 2010 at 1:07 pm
Thanks for the compliment. 🙂
And nice map…do you know where I can find something equivalent to that for every day in say, the last 5 years or more? Anomalies are very useful, but when the anomalies are based on older data and I’m comparing ice to the last several years, I’d like to know what the anomalies were in those other years too.
Also, anyone know why the CT numbers haven’t been updating in the last few days?
-Scott
Scott says:
October 15, 2010 at 11:24 am
AndyW says:
October 14, 2010 at 10:04 pm
Yep, the ice growth the last couple of days has been pretty pathetic. Yesterday’s growth was the third lowest in the JAXA record, the day before was the lowest ever, and three days ago also showed the third lowest ever for that day. In that 3-day span, only 2007 performed worse.
Unfortunately, CT’s area numbers haven’t updated the past couple days. Looking at their images, growth on most fronts seems to have severely slowed. Only the area on the far right north of Russia (sorry, I don’t know my polar geography to give a better description) has showed significant gains. The area on the left in the NW passage has frozen up quickly and solidly, but this has had little effect on extent because of the small areas involved (and most of those areas already had >15% coverage anyway). Don’t know when we’ll see a return to even average growth, but at this point 2008 has surpassed 2010 considerably, and 2005 passed 2010 back after 2010 was ahead of it for all of 4 days. Just 4 days ago 2010 was nipping at the heals of 2006, but now it’s nearly 1/2 a millions km^2 behind.
That’s what happens when you slow down in a time where the slopes on every year are steep.
-Scott
_____________________________________________________________
UIUC’s area data is now two days behind their normal posting updates. I think they must get their raw data from NSIDC. I say that because NSIDE is also two days behind their normal posting schedule. The NSIDC site has also been down quite a lot the past three days.
Makes you wonder if their satellite data is all fragged up at the moment or what all is going on.
I’m going through Arctic sea ice data withdrawal!
Arghh. When will people quit connecting a few days data to the long-term trend? Anthony understands the distinction:
But commenters still post that the ‘death spiral’ is false, that sea ice has recovered etc, when these concepts are referring to obs and projections on trends.
For the umpteenth time, you cannot derive meaningful information about sea ice trends from a few days, a few weeks, a few months, or even several years of data!
For instance, this year’s September minimum was lower than last year’s. Of course many of the ‘skeptics’ that visit this board were NOT posting that Arctic sea ice had returned to reducing. No, it’s only when bits of data fulfill the narrative they want that such people start cheering as if the trend has reversed.
Anthony, why do you not correct commenters on this error? It seems that, by omission, you are content to foster this false impression.
REPLY: Well I can’t spend all day policing the thousands of comments I get. Generally if something is wrong, other point it out like you have. – Anthony
For instance, the second comment in this thread;
Chris B says:
October 12, 2010 at 7:59 am
and others:
James F. Evans says:
October 12, 2010 at 9:25 am
and just what I was talking about re seasons….
Bad Andrew says:
October 12, 2010 at 9:58 am
It would take no time, Anthony, to clarify in the top post, or in an inline response to an early comment, that short-term data tells us nothing about long-term trends, and that the interesting-to-note data is weather variation, not climate. So little work is needed to head off such woeful suppositions as quoted above – assuming the interest here is fostering better understanding.
(I posted the last before seeing your inline comment, Anthony)
EFS_Junior says:
October 15, 2010 at 3:30 pm
Hi Junior,
I should have some time this weekend to finally put together my combination NSIDC/UIUC/JAXA spreadsheet, and I should be able to discuss some of the analysis you mentioned wanting to talk about in the comments on the last sea ice news. Are there any specific topics you wanted to cover? Also, are there any other interested people still reading this thread?
-Scott
Scott says:
October 15, 2010 at 7:04 pm
EFS_Junior says:
October 15, 2010 at 3:30 pm
I’m going through Arctic sea ice data withdrawal!
Hi Junior,
I should have some time this weekend to finally put together my combination NSIDC/UIUC/JAXA spreadsheet, and I should be able to discuss some of the analysis you mentioned wanting to talk about in the comments on the last sea ice news. Are there any specific topics you wanted to cover? Also, are there any other interested people still reading this thread?
-Scott
_____________________________________________________________
Yes, I’m still here.
I’d still like to discuss things and put up a few plots via Picasa, JAXA vs NSIDC (monthly), area vs extent, and area vs rate of change of area. Plus let me go back to that last post to remind myself of what I said then. As usual there are more things, but it will take some time to push the numbers (UIUC vs JAXA is mostly done, NSIDC vs UIUC is ongoing/backlogged for now).
I’d like to cover “biases” between the various datasets, that includes Norsex and DMI (qualitatively as I have not extracted any data from either, mainly min.max values vs other datasets).
But first a little homework is needed on my part, to make sure I understand what sensor/satellite each dataset is derived from, I’ll chase that one down first thing in the morning.
Regards,
Junior
EFS_Junior says:
October 15, 2010 at 9:16 pm
Sounds good. Please let me know if you find some good sources of data. Also, do you know of a source with catalogued polar SST anomalies? I think a multiparameter regression with both sea ice area and SSTs would do excellent in predicting the sea ice. For a multiparameter regression, I’d guess we’d need to use the full CT data set b/c JAXA simply isn’t big enough. If we could combine it with thickness estimates (PIOMAS or PIPS, either is better than nothing), we might end up with something pretty robust.
Anyone else want to discuss this too? AJB? fishnski? Andy? I’ve seen you all post good stuff in the past, and I think we all have somewhat different views on the “state of the Arctic” as well as AGW, but you all seem like pretty reasonable guys/gals that can discuss the numbers pretty objectively.
-Scott
Scott,
Here is a link to my previous post;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/04/sea-ice-news-25-nsidc-says-2010-3rd-lowest-for-arctic-sea-ice/#comment-500490
and a link to my correction of (2);
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/04/sea-ice-news-25-nsidc-says-2010-3rd-lowest-for-arctic-sea-ice/#comment-500642
So, one basic question is;
Can we mix and match between the six known datasets: JAXA (15%), NSIDC (15%, monthly, or daily from chart), Bremen (15%, daily from chart), UIUC (100%, areas), Norsex (15%/100%), and DMI (30%)?
The answer seems to be yes, maybe, and no.
For example, I’ve captured the daily values from NSIDC (15% from graph), JAXA (15% digital), and Bremen (15% from graph) for the past 52 days and produced three graphs;
http://picasaweb.google.com/117077348819630829996/ArcticSeaIce#
From each original raw time series the means and standard deviations (10E6 km^2 for both) are;
NSIDC, Bremen, JAXA, Bremen – NSIDC, JAXA – NSIDC
5.295, 5.338, 5.468, 0.043, 0.173
0.638, 0.613, 0.576, -0.025, -0.062
NSIDC is the lowest, followed by Bremen, then JAXA.
The three graphs (in order) are; (1) Raw time series, (2) demeaned time series with the common mean from all three added back in, and (3) all three combined into an ensemble dataset, with a 5-day composite moving average added in (NSIDC as is, JAXA with a 0.5,1,1,1,0.5 weighting, and Bremen with a 0.2,0.2,0.2,0.2,0.2 weighting).
This appears to work reasonably well for short duration time series, but may not hold true if several years of data were used as the differences in standard deviation, min, max, mean, and median may have some temporal seasonal differences.
And I’ll leave it just at that point for possible discussion.
In my next post, I’ll compare NSIDC and JAXA monthly values for their common time period of 2002-2010.
EFS_Junior says:
October 16, 2010 at 1:06 pm
Looks like you’ve put a lot of work into this. One question – where do you get your daily values for NSIDC (I have only monthly averages) and Bremen (I only see images here: http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/)?
Also, why do you weight the 5-day average differently for JAXA and Bremen?
-Scott
Scott says:
October 16, 2010 at 2:43 pm
EFS_Junior says:
October 16, 2010 at 1:06 pm
Looks like you’ve put a lot of work into this. One question – where do you get your daily values for NSIDC (I have only monthly averages) and Bremen (I only see images here: http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/)?
Also, why do you weight the 5-day average differently for JAXA and Bremen?
-Scott
_____________________________________________________________
I’m retired.
I’ve always done a lot of data analyses, it keeps me occupied, call it a life long hobby.
The NSIDC and Bremen dailies are pulled straight from their daily graphs.
NSIDC is fairly easy to read, but you must always check the previous two days and adjust accordingly due to their 5-day moving average.
I scale from two known y-axis values from their graph, and believe that I can read their daily value to a quarter pixel, assuming that I’m within half a pixel of the true value, gives me an error estimate of ~10K km^2, based on the pixel resolution.
NSIDC is stated to be a 5-day moving average, so I wanted to adjust the other two datasets to the same 5-day NSIDC moving average, thus NSIDC is given a weight of one for that current daily average.
JAXA is a 2-day moving average, using current and previous days. I went with 0.5,1,1,1,0.5 to get their moving average. But there is no “right” way to weigh JAXA. For example, since JAXA uses current/previous days, I could backshift the date axis by 0.5, and go with the following 6-day centered moving average, 0.5,1,1,1,1,0.5.
Bremen, to be honest, I’d have to look into their description of their graphical time series, I have assumed that it is a 1-day value, as their graph appears to be more jagged (it also doesn’t help that their current year is ~6 pixels in width (other years are ~3 pixels in width) and it can be fairly hard to see when it zigs when it actually zags), as the previous days are never updated (I’ve flipped through a series and only new pixels are added for the newest date), and their current date on their graph is today’s date (e. g. today’s graph is labeled “Version 2010.10.16”), so I’ve backdated their entire timeline by one day.
My error estimate for Bremen is one pixel or ~20K km^2.
Lots of details, I know.
I’d really like to see more transparancy from all sea ice data websites, just like JAXA and UIUC, daily numerical values.
For example, you can find NSIDC daily’s up through 2007, but after that, nothing that I’ve been able to find, and I’m not up to downloading their gridded dataset, as I don’t know if I’d be able to reproduce their time series as is.
Oops, I forgot to mention that my assumption of one day for Bremen, means that I use a “boxcar” moving average (e. g. 5-day moving average is 1/5 for each day’s sea ice value, or 0.2,0.2,0.2,0.2,0.2).
Oops Part Deux!
For JAXA 5-day window it’s divided by the sum of the individual weights, in that case 4.
For JAXA 6-day window it’s divided by the sum of the individual weights, in that case 5.
All weighting is divided by the sum of the individual weights, NSIDC, Bremen, and JAXA are summed (weight =1), then the total is divided by N, in that case N = 3.
So, your point being what, Mr. Watt? This “fast refreeze” from the 3rd lowest ice extent recorded will trend exactly how? Nice sleight of hand. It does have the desired effect on your adoring followers, but the reality of the situation is…….
The trend for Arctic sea ice over the past 30 years of satellite scrutiny and possibly longer (we’ll see what Tamino comes up with), has been going down.
David W. Walters says:
October 19, 2010 at 6:39 pm
Nice trick yourself to post so late on a thread no one was posting on anymore.
Anyway, Anthony never said that the trend wasn’t going down, and he even started off the post with saying it was likely insignificant. Why can’t people (e.g. Tamino) understand this?
As for the downward trend, want to guess how many consecutive years of record high summer minimum ice areas, starting in 2011, it would take to make the long-term trend positive? Try 12 (assuming they just barely beat the previous record). I would think that two in a row would indicate a very strong recovery, and almost a complete one (implies large amounts of thick ice by that point), so looking for the long-term trend to reverse is a silly argument, and anyone plotting a line for a fit of a sine wave when it starts at a value of 1 can tell you that. A positive trend line would imply that the ice has more than recovered and that the recovery began long before then.
-Scott
Scott, just stumbled upon this, sorry i didn’t post sooner.
David,
Sorry for the aggressive post and misunderstanding.
I just saw your post and assumed you were just trying to score a cheap shot. If you’re interested, Tamino did post on the pre-satellite era here:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/10/16/history-of-arctic-and-antarctic-sea-ice-part-1/
-Scott