In sea ice news this week, Arctic sea ice continues its inexorable climb toward the summit, to be reached sometime in March 2011. At present the ice growth is tracking just below the rate of 2007, but it should also be pointed out that according to JAXA’s AMSRE plot, we are still slightly ahead of this date last year.
The magnified view below shows just how close together all the past years are in the “choke point”:
2010 is just between 2007 and 2009 at present, and all three traces have a “knee bend” at this point, though 2010 is sharper.
Current data for JAXA:
10,31,2010,8075000 11,01,2010,8240938 11,02,2010,8403594 11,03,2010,8500000 11,04,2010,8621875 11,05,2010,8672500 11,06,2010,8693438 11,07,2010,8800781 11,08,2010,8908906 11,09,2010,8987031 11,10,2010,9056406 11,11,2010,9117656 11,12,2010,9164375 11,13,2010,9172969 11,14,2010,9183594
Over 1 million square kilometers of sea ice extent has been added in the past 15 days.
NSIDC’s plot shows 2010 compared to 2007, but has 5 day smoothing, so the knee bend is not visible.
But the NANSEN plot shows these bends clearly:
Overall, nearly the entire Arctic ocean is well filled with sea ice at this point. Only the Barents and Chukchi seas have ice free areas:
Temperature within 80°N is slightly below normal at present, thought= nothing out of the ordinary variance:
Antarctic sea ice extent remains above normal:
Could it be possible that the “choking points” are at least as interesting to measure and compare, from a scientific point of view, than max/min ice extent?
A big deviation there would indicate a fundamental change in how the climate system works?
Or does it represent the same mechanism, only less magnified?
In a related vein:
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_noib_global.jpg
Sealevel graph broached the 20mm level in 2003; broached the 30mm level in 2006 and it is about to broach the 20mm level again, this time coming down. There is a decided flattening of the curve – we should do a polynomial fit too.
To Tony B.,
I respect your research very much and it is this kind of anecdotal evidence for past warmings that do keep me partially in the AGW sceptics camp, but I think the current warming of the Arctic has not happened since at least the Holocene Optimum. I do not believe that the warming earlier in the 20th Century was on the same scale as now. I do believe there is a higher probability than not that the 40% rise in CO2 since the 1700’s is playing a role in the current warming of the Arctic, melting of Greenland, etc. I think those who would completely deny this possibility are being blind to the science. However, I am not a “catastrophic” believer in AGW, as it just could be that a warmer world (induced by CO2) will play out for the better in the long run for life, but I certainly wouldn’t bank on it…
CRS, Dr.P.H. says: November 14, 2010 at 11:10 pm
Once again, Minnesota is punished by climate disruption:
http://empowerednews.net/u-s-snowstorm-whips-midwest-causes-hundreds-of-car-crashes/183778/
Serves you right for Al Frankenstein.
Mike Jonas- well said! Information is the best response to emotion and fear.
Re the “knee bend”, isn’t that the flip side of the old knee bend on June 1 from the change in algo to reflect the puddle problem? I believe somewhere in November (1st? 15th?) they change back, causing a similar phenomenon, tho for whatever reason not as markedly pronounced as the spring one.
I believe they tried to smooth that out in the Spring this year. Don’t know if they bothered to do the same in the Fall. . .
I find it hard to believe that the 1979-2006 +/- 1SD is in fact part of the same data-set.
The last four years show a much greater amount of variation than would be supported by such a small SD. It would be nice to do a rolling n=7 mean, starting at 1979 (centered on 1983) and see what the plot of SD (n=7) is between 1983 and 2006.
Cryosat 2 is calibrated and due to provide data soon about the real issue; ice volume.
Halelujah, the ice cube will be proven an ice slice. There is nothing odd about the ‘choke point’, when the sea ice reaches land boundaries, the ice growth slows, limited by the Bering Strait to the Pacific and the Greenland Sea to the Atlantic. Maximum sea ice extent still decreases 3.4% per decade and Minimum extent 11.5% per decade. Ice volume (multi year ice) has decreased dramatically. This does not bode well for the next melt season, when there is much more one year ice to melt. Each summer more ocean is exposed collecting heat. Over the next decade we will see melt seasons become longer and freeze seasons shorted. The process is now unstoppable. As expected by scientists the sea ice extent recovered from the exceptionally low 2007 extent (-1.5 million sq km) It recovered one third (.5 million sq km) in 2008 and a similar amount in 2009. 2010 refused to oblige, so the ‘recovery’ is still 500,000 sq km short. If the next melt season combines with an El Nino, may well see the 2007 minimum surpassed. The presen La Nina is now (as expected) decaying, the SOI has dropped from +25 to +15. The ‘choke point’ reading on the graphs is irrelevant but expect the choke point to occur at increasingly lower sea ice extent levels.
Looking at the DMI temp graph above 80 sure gives a chilling view for this winter, we haven’t had this cold autumn since 2003-2004…
pethefin says:
November 16, 2010 at 2:11 am
Looking at the DMI temp graph above 80 sure gives a chilling view for this winter, we haven’t had this cold autumn since 2003-2004…???
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DMI chart heading;
“Temperature within 80°N is slightly below normal at present, thought= nothing out of the ordinary variance:”
What is the significance?
Forget the Bering Straits for a week or so because a storm system is pulling off the Russian coast & heading up north of Barrow sucking up warmth into the region with strong Southwest winds….This will start to shove some of that cold Canadian & Cold DMI temps Pethefin posted about down into the lower 48 which should bode well for hudson Bay ice development…
Take anything I post with a grain of Salt…On your Margarita!!
Smokey says:
November 15, 2010 at 11:28 am
R. Gates says:
“…3+ decades of decline and thinning of Arctic Sea Ice IS climate and not weather.”
Wrong. The Arctic is not the globe, it is a region. For example, Antarctic ice cover recently hit a 30-year high
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Wrong. It (antarctic) was below the 30 yr average from Jan. 2010 to May 2010. It was slightly above the 30 yr average from June to September 2010. Then fell to and below the 30 yr average between Sept. and Nov 2010. The arctic and antarctic are literally poles apart, different dynamics. Not tit-for-tat ice comparison, I have less ice but you have more. Antarctic sea ice grows in winter and melts in summer, no landmass boundaries. No thick multi-year ice, like the arctic used to have but is losing rapidly.
—–
Gates continues:
“As it stand, the state of the Arctic is the best indicator of the general state of the climate…”
Wrong again. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
—–
A clock maybe, a false argument remains, false. Why are models, predictions and assumptions invariably wrong when supporting global warming and always right when it supports no-warming or behold, cooling. Do models have one-way trustworthiness?
Predictions are just that, predictions, as applies to assumptions. There’s no moral high ground there.
R Gates : “the state of the Arctic is the best indicator of the general state of the climate”
Why the Arctic? Surely the Antarctic, which is bigger, is better. Particularly as it is surrounded by oceans, so (a) ice extent is not limited by nearby land masses, (b) it is generally agreed that ocean heat is a better indicator of global warmth than atmospheric heat. CO2 measurements at the S Pole are in line with the rest of the world, so there is no suggestion that it is isolated from AGW.
http://members.westnet.com.au/jonas1/CO2AtVariousStations.JPG
R Gates : “I do not believe that the warming earlier in the 20th Century was on the same scale as now”
You may be right, but is that significant? Please note that these temperatures closely match the ocean oscillations:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/30/amopdo-temperature-variation-one-graph-says-it-all/
R Gates : “. I do believe .. that the 40% rise in CO2 .. is playing a role… I think those who would completely deny this possibility are being blind to the science.”
My reading of WUWT, and of climate skeptics’ statements in general, is that not only is this possibility not usually denied, but it is mostly specifically accepted. But how important is this role of CO2? The main argument is that the role of CO2 and its predicted impacts on the planet have been grossly exaggerated, and that the “scientific” arguments put forward have been woefully unscientific.
Mike Jonas says:
November 16, 2010 at 8:33 pm
R Gates : “the state of the Arctic is the best indicator of the general state of the climate”
Why the Arctic? Surely the Antarctic, which is bigger, is better.
______
There are numerous very good scientific reasons why the Arctic, more than the Antarctic has long been predicted to show the first and most extreme effects from global warming. Not that Antarctica is immune, and will not, over time show effects, but GCM’s have long projected the earliest and most extreme changes would be seen in the Arctic. These projections were made long before the extreme summer low of 2007, and in fact, that kind of low was not suppose to occur until 2020 or so, based on the GCM’s. But that is another story entirely, and gets into the whole issue of chaos theory and the unpredictability of systems that are at the edge of chaos, and specifically the unpredictability of positive feedback processes involved in such systems…and this gets back to the reasons why the Arctic is a better and stronger early indicator of a warming planet than the Antarctic…it is precisely because the Arctic is an ocean surrounded by land and warming in one can be amplified and lead to warming in the other. In the Antarctic, the surrounding ocean serves to buffer the warming as it serves as a much better heat sink than the land surrounding the Arctic.
R Gates : “.. These projections were made long before the extreme summer low of 2007, and in fact, that kind of low was not suppose to occur until 2020 or so, based on the GCM’s. But that is another story entirely, and gets into the whole issue of chaos theory and the unpredictability of systems that are at the edge of chaos, and specifically the unpredictability of positive feedback processes involved in such systems ..”
Let’s keep this simple, a la Ocham’s razor. The GCMs were wrong, yet again. Given the remarkable fit between temperatures and ocean oscillations,
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/30/amopdo-temperature-variation-one-graph-says-it-all/
it is most likely that the decline in Arctic sea-ice in the late 20thC (including 2007) had little to do with AGW but was caused by ocean oscillations (and hence ocean temperatures), winds and currents.
The IPCC report (SfPM) says “Sea ice is projected to shrink in both the Arctic and Antarctic under all SRES scenarios.“. But the Antarctic sea ice has been static or increasing for – how many years now?
I note that you made no reply to my last point : “My reading of WUWT, and of climate skeptics’ statements in general, is that not only is this possibility [that CO2 plays a role] not usually denied, but it is mostly specifically accepted. But how important is this role of CO2? The main argument is that the role of CO2 and its predicted impacts on the planet have been grossly exaggerated, and that the “scientific” arguments put forward have been woefully unscientific.“. If I have misrepresented WUWT or climate skeptics, then I trust that someone will step forward and correct me.
baffled24
Nov 16, 1:55 am
Hallelujah indeed! You really were in the zone, or in the spirit, to produce this extatic stream of AGW Arctic prophecy.
A few factual problems however. You state: “Each summer more ocean is exposed collecting heat.” This is the exact opposite of the case around the Arctic. Here exposed water loses rather than gains heat. This summer for instance the combination of above average sea temperatures (linked to the AMO) and well below average air temperatures resulted in greatly increased loss of heat from Arctic seawater. This fits into a pattern of global decline in ocean heat content over the last 5 years meticulously documented by Bob Tisdale; this OHC decline is sharpest in the Atlantic.
I think your report of the death of the current La Nina is exaggerated. The persistence of warm west Pacific water is linked to the rapid succession of La Nina systems from 2008 to now. The days of dominant and frequent el Nino’s are over – now it’s the turn of the little girl.
baffled24 says:
“Do models have one-way trustworthiness?”
Actually, models have one-way untrustworthiness. The GCMs [computer climate models] predicting AGW have been repeatedly falsified. They were all wrong. Every one of them.
There may be GCMs that predicted Anthropogenic Global Cooling, but I am unaware of any. If there are such models, please provide credible links, like I do.
Or, maybe you’re just “baffled” that reality debunks all the models predicting big time warming from small time CO2 [.00039 of the atmosphere].
Next, your attempt to argument that the poles are too different to compare is ridiculous. The model predictions were once again falsified. And your statement that Antarctica has “no land mass boundaries” ignores the fact that Antarctica is a continent. Best get up to speed on geography.
Finally, the “moral high ground” is held 100% by scientific skeptics, because the alarmist crowd refuses to abide by the scientific method. Their belief in [non-existent] CAGW has been debunked, but it is still causing immense economic disruptions based on a fake scare. $80 billion spent so far looking for AGW — and they still haven’t found it. Isn’t it time to turn off the money spigot?
The planet’s temperature is well within its natural parameters, and a change in a minor trace gas has not changed that fact. Nothing out of the ordinary is occurring. The false claim that “carbon” is evil is being pushed by folks who are more Scientologists than scientists. They’re doing it for the money. But why are you doing it? Because of your belief system? Follow the scientific method, and you’ll get on the right track.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/cgi-bin/seaice-monitor.cgi?lang=e
fishnski says:
November 16, 2010 at 4:02 am
Forget the Bering Straits for a week or so because a storm system is pulling off the Russian coast & heading up north of Barrow sucking up warmth into the region with strong Southwest winds
CK out how the hole in ice that had been closing has gotten blown back out..
Antarctic looks a lot more broken up on AMSR-E instrument than it does on NSIDC’s one
http://www.iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/antarctic_AMSRE_nic.png
so I expect the NSIDC values to lower considerably in the next month back to normal.
Andy
I recall three years ago your posting about NASA say it was wind that blew the ice out ot the arctic in 2007:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2007/10/03/nh-sea-ice-loss-its-the-wind-says-nasa/
Looking back at the iamages from Cryosphere Today, the ice by Svalbard island was very slow to develope in fall 2006.
Images of December 30, 2006 vs. November 15, 2010
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=12&fd=30&fy=2006&sm=11&sd=15&sy=2010
Fishnski Quote..
….”This will start to shove some of that cold Canadian & Cold DMI temps Pethefin posted about down into the lower 48 which should bode well for hudson Bay ice development”…
Hudson Bay air temps as of 6z this morn are from 28 to 30 on the eastern side to 6 above to 15 below 0 Farenheit on the western side…These are the coldest temps I have seen there this season so far.
Take anything I post with a grain of Salt…On your Margarita!!
Smokey says:
November 17, 2010 at 9:33 am
baffled24 says:
Next, your attempt to argument that the poles are too different to compare is ridiculous. The model predictions were once again falsified. And your statement that Antarctica has “no land mass boundaries” ignores the fact that Antarctica is a continent. Best get up to speed on geography.
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You’re ridiculous. We’re talking sea ice extent. It can only grow away from the continent. It has no landmass boundaries to restrict outward growth like the arctic. By trying to make me look dumb, you only succeeded in looking so yourself. I’ve been on Antarctica, have you?
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Actually, models have one-way untrustworthiness. The GCMs [computer climate models] predicting AGW have been repeatedly falsified. They were all wrong. Every one of them.
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Every one of them? Good grief! We shall overcome one day.
phlogiston says:
November 17, 2010 at 6:25 am
baffled24
Nov 16, 1:55 am
Your logic defies hmmm logic.
baffled24
Just a quick comment, you chose a brilliant name for yourself as you seem to be baffled by anything to do with climate, well done
For Tony B,
In your analysis of prior Arctic Warming periods, you use a 1922 Weather Review article about Spitsbergen that you claim suggests that in the 20’s the Arctic was warmer than today.
Stories from past expeditions and whalers are of course always anecdotal and should be considered with skepticism.
A picture speaks louder than words when it comes to comparing the past with the present, and in that regard I would like you to comment on the following photo comparisons of Spitsbergens glaciers between the 20’s and 2002, courtecy of Greenpeace.
http://www.svalbard-images.com/spitsbergen/global-warming-e.php
Oops. That hurts. Where did all that ice go since the ‘warm’ 1920’s ?
For R Gates : compliments on restoring some of the sanity in reasoning here.
It seems that WUWT readers tend to ignore evidence that does not fit with their agenda.