Joe Bastardi paid a visit today in Sea Ice News #30 and left a comment with a forecast.
Joe Bastardi says:
Keep in mind that while I forecasted a warm summer in the arctic, the forecast I make
is for NORTH of the arctic Circle. I was not forecasting for exclusively the area north of 80 north.
I think we will find that it was a warm summer overall north of the circle, but we had a nice [ice] cube in the middle!
In addition the sea ice forecast I made was for a min between 2008 and 2009, after a rapid spring melt, a leveling off, which is close to where it wound up. Remember I have been debating publicly and visibly the death spiral people on this matter.
My forecast for next year is for sea ice to melt only to levels we saw back in 2005, or 06. If I had to put a number on it, I think it would be around 5.5 at its lowest.
The ice is coming back, will do so in forward and back steps, with forward defeating the back steps. I am on record as saying we will be back to 1977 levels by 2030. The real problem would be is if there is no corresponding drop in the southern hemisphere sea ice. Like the 70s, cries of ice age will start again. So my forecast for next years melt is for 5.5.
Book it now Anthony.. cheers and Happy Thanksgiving JB
Pamela Gray said:
November 24, 2010 at 7:06 am
According to the “consensus”, there is supposed to be enough CO2 in the air above me to cause it to warm. I dare any “consensus” scientist to stop by my house and put their tongue on any metal surface today. I’ll even let you try the Sun-exposed ones. Hell, even the wood siding is cold enough to cause your tongue to stick to it.
If you respond by saying, “That’s just weather”, you have just proven my point. Weather kicks CO2 in the arse!
*******************************
That sums a lot of posts here which boil down to short term timscales and micro geographical extent.
Neither of which tell us much about the overal picture of what is happening and why.
Andy
But if we wait 2o years for actual model to work, think of all the alms the Gaia priests will miss out on!! Vinod Kosla/Al Gore et al at Kleiner Perkins won’t have any rent seeking argument if we wait for the results. They might not be the “right” results!!
Anyway, the answer is 42.
Go, Joe, GO!
I hope I can make it another 30 years to see the results. My first 68 have been up and down, hot and cold; a lot like the weather.
These factors ,which if they continue to phase toward a colder mode, will mean increase sea ice for the globe and colder,not warmer temperatures.
solar activity
volcanic activity
soi index
pdo/amo
ao,aao,nao indexes
I say all of these factors govern climate,and futher they are tied into solar activity to one degree to another. I say if solar activity stays quiet,the above will or should tend to phase towards a colder mode in the coming years,resulting in colder global temperatures.
When I look at past data in temp., and contrast that to co2 concentrations ,I see no correlations. Past history more then anything, tells me co2 does not cause climate change,rather the items I have mentioned above do.
As Joe Bastardi said we will have our answer, I say sooner rather then later.
Joe Bastardi says: November 24, 2010 at 4:18 am
“The warm PDO and AMO tandem warms the continents, of which most land mass is in the northern hemisphere. This means that the arctic ice cap, essentially land locked, has to shrink in response, because it is warming up around it for one, and for two, the AMO has a direct way, with warm water, to attack the cap where it is more open. The simple test, without billions of dollars of research money, is to simply allow the cold pdo ( just started in 2007 ) and the coming cold amo ( should start around 2020) have their chance .”
I think your PDO/AMO driven Arctic Sea Ice hypothesis has merit, but there are two other factors that deserve consideration. Atmospheric Oscillations appear to have a significant impact on sea ice. The Arctic Dipole Anomaly, which involves the Arctic Oscillation and the North Atlantic Oscillation, appears to have been a significant factor in the 2007 decline in Arctic Sea Ice:
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/quikscat-20071001.html
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2010/070610.html
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008AGUFM.C51A0538W
and the AAO Antarctic Oscillation appears to be associated with Antarctic Sea Ice, i.e. a positive anomaly is often associated with above average Antarctic Sea Ice and a negative anomaly with below average sea ice:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/aao/month_aao_index.shtml
http://curry.eas.gatech.edu/currydoc/Liu_GRL31.pdf
Here’s a good page including observations and forecasts for Atmospheric Oscillations from NOAA:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/teleconnections.shtml
The second factor that I think deserves consideration in evaluating Arctic Sea Ice is anthropogenic. In anthropogenic, I do not refer to CO2, but rather the rapidly increasing number of ice breakers, transport vessels, fishing boats and cruise ships that ply the Arctic during summer months, the black carbon they emit, the waste water they discharge and the structural impact they have on the ice from the channels that they carve. While I have not been able to find any studies addressing the potential magnitude of this impact, there is some interesting anecdotal evidence:
In this Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment 2009 Report: http://www.pame.is/images/stories/PDF_Files/AMSA_2009_Report_2nd_print.pdf
Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment 2009 Report Page 4;
“There were approximately 6,000 individual vessels, many making multiple voyages, in the Arctic region during the AMSA survey year; half of these were operating on the Great Circle Route in the North Pacific that crosses the Aleutian Islands. Of the 6,000 vessels reported, approximately 1,600 were fishing vessels.”
Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment 2009 Report Pages 141 – 142;
“The AMSA has developed the world’s first activity-based estimate of Arctic marine shipping emissions using empirical data for shipping reported by Arctic Council member states. Emissions were calculated for each vessel-trip for which data was available for the base year 2004. The 515,000 trips analyzed represent about 14.2 million km of distance traveled (or 7.7 million nautical miles) by transport vessels; fishing vessels represent over 15,000 fishing vessel days at sea for 2004. Some results could be an underestimation of current emissions, given potential underreporting bias and anecdotal reports of recent growth in international shipping and trade through the Arctic.”
Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment 2009 Report on Page 79;
“A specific example of where cruise ship traffic is increasing at a rapid rate is off the coast of Greenland. As Table 5.3 shows, cruise ship visits and the number of passengers visiting Greenland has increased significantly between 2003 and 2008. For example, between 2006 and 2007, port calls into Greenland increased from 157 to 222 cruise ships. The number of port calls in 2006 combined for a total of 22,051 passengers, a number that represents nearly half of Greenland’s total 2006 population of 56,901.
In 2008, approximately 375 cruise ship port calls were scheduled for Greenland ports and harbors, more than double the number of port calls seen in 2006.”
Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment 2009 Report Page 137;
“The 2004 U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy reported that, while at sea, the average cruise-ship passenger generates about eight gallons of sewage per day and an average cruise ship can generate a total of 532,000 to 798,000 liters of sewage and 3.8 million liters of wastewater from sinks, showers and laundries each week, as well as large amounts of solid waste (garbage). The average cruise ship will also produce more than 95,000 liters of oily bilge water from engines and machinery a week. Sewage, solid waste and oily bilge water release are regulated through MARPOL. There are no restrictions on the release of treated wastewater.”
Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment 2009 Report Page 84;
“During 2004-2008, there were 33 icebreaker transits to the North Pole for science and tourism. An increasing number of icebreakers and research vessels are conducting geological and geophysical research throughout the central Arctic Ocean related to establishing the limits of the extended continental shelf under UNCLOS.”
Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment 2009 Report Page 84;
“Map 5.6 demonstrates the surge in vessel activity in the summer season, when all of the community re-supply takes place and most bulk commodities are shipped out and supplies brought in for commercial operations. Summer is also the season when all of the passenger and cruise vessels travel to the region.”
and Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment 2009 Report Page 160;
“Spring break-up to mark the start of summer navigation will vary and, as happens now in more southerly seas, shippers eager to start work will test the limits of their vessels in ice.”
Here is a map with Arctic Summer Shipping Lanes in 2004;
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/srp-view.aspx?id=111609
and within the Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment 2009 Report Map 1.1 on Page 10 shows an Arctic map including shipping lanes and estimates of 2004 Number of Trips:
http://www.pame.is/images/stories/PDF_Files/AMSA_2009_Report_2nd_print.pdf
And here is the US Coast Guard Icebreaker Healy’s cruise track for 2007:
http://www.icefloe.net/cruisetrack.html
Owen says: at 5:23 am
. . . and good news for the world.
I don’t think so. Are you paying attention?
Ironic, we may need every GHG we can muster in order to forestall the coming ice age, he he!
Joe, 30 years, are you trying to imply that the sun has something to do with the weather, shessh!
Richard Lindzen on the State of Climate Science
Pamela,
Did you even get to -2° F ?
Ellensburg, WA hit -8° F. Over in MT, it is even colder.
I’ll pass on the tongue on metal test. Thanks.
I was impressed by the accuracy of Joe’s ice-forecast last year. I was also impressed that he could say there would be more melt than the year before even while standing up to the Alarmist “death-spiral” camp. It seemed a sign of a person who was looking at the big picture.
Most seem utterly caught up in the smallest fluctuations. The graph that most use only shows the past few years, and last year the “current-ice-level” line was “highest ever” in March and yet “lowest ever” not many weeks later. It is great fun to listen to the cheering and howling that occurs on both sides, as the smallest blip occurs on the graph. However I don’t think it pays to take it all that seriously.
The wrench in the works may be the “quiet sun.” Joe uses a lot of painstaking research of weather patterns from the past, but a “quiet sun” is not something we have modern records of. It may cause unexpected fluctuations, both in terms of the cooling many seem to expect, and also in terms of back-lash warming which many don’t expect.
No major shock to the world’s weather systems can only include an action, without a reaction. A slosh in one direction always seems to also cause a rebounding slosh in the opposite direction. Volcanoes not only cause cooling, but also apparently cause the delayed reaction of a warming El Nino, a few years later.
What may really test Joe, and all forecasters, will be the actions and reactions caused by the “quiet sun.” You can’t go back and look at old maps, as much as you need to look hard at the current maps, and use all the painstakingly gleaned knowledge you own, about how the weather actually works.
Joe Bastardi posts:
“I made a forecast
for global temps returning to normal or a bit below by March of 2011. ”
What do you decribe as normal?
zero anomaly by this graph?
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/bams-state-of-the-climate/2009-time-series/?ts=troposphere
or zero anomaly by this one?
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/bams-state-of-the-climate/2009-time-series/?ts=land
Not exactly a fair question, but a more specific prediction of what you mean by normal temperature in march of 2011 is what I am asking for.
Short term cooling between now and march 2011 doesn’t mean the end of global warming.
As for the ice extent in the arctic, if the Beaufort gyre does in 2011 what it did last year, the multi-year ice will be essentially gone. Walt Meier’s video of the ice that Antony posted earlier shows the beaufort gyre stripping the multi-year ice from the area north of greenland and baffin islands where it accumulates and transporting it to open water where it melted.
I think that as the total volume of ice shrinks, there will be more ice movement, and a higher chance of ice moving to warmer waters where it can melt. And that is what I base my prediction for a record low next year.
Well “nice” cube works for me; bet the polar bears think so too; they don’t really like those silly sculptured ones that look like the kiddies’ playground jungle jim !
Anyway, we are living in “interesting times’…Now, we said, as the Chinese sage: “Wait at your front door and you’ll see the corpse of your enemy passing by”…….Cancun 🙂
“Omega Block” in effect apparently. Not sure if US readers can view this from BBC Weather: http://news.bbc.co.uk/weather/hi/news/newsid_9221000/9221616.stm
Atlantic still seems warmish. Can Bob give us some guidance on the latest AMO figures, seems to have spiked up again since his last report?
Enneagram says:
November 24, 2010 at 7:30 am
That is absolutely false!!, and I tell it from SA Millions would than God if it would be the contrary, but, unfortunately IT IS NOT!.
Enneagram,
Take a look at the last century of southern hemisphere warming: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3sh/from:1910/plot/hadcrut3sh/from:1910/trend
And this Science Daily report on Worldwide glacial melting: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080317154235.htm
Quote from above article: “Recent studies indicate that most of the South American glaciers from Colombia to Chile and Argentina (up to 25ºS) are drastically reducing their volume at an accelerated rate. Changes in temperature and humidity are the primary cause for the observed glacier retreat during the 2nd half of the 20th century in the tropical Andes. In the next 15 years inter-tropical glaciers are very likely to disappear, affecting water availability and hydropower generation.”
BOTH hemispheres are warming due an enhance greenhouse effect. Heat is accumulating in the ocean, land, and atmosphere causing both sea ice and land ice to melt.
“To think ocean cycles and other climate inducing natural cycles would not be effected (in a chaotic way) by this geologically speaking sudden rise in CO2 is illogical.”
who said they would not be effected by CO2? There is going to be an effect, but until you get rid of biases in climate science that favor warming, we will not have the slightest clue what effect CO2 has on the climate. It could be so close to nothing and over-powered by other processes that we do not understand well enough to make predictions on. Who knows, the science does not study the option: 1)some changes are caused by something other then CO2…..
There have been a lot of comments so far, some agreeing and some disagreeing with Joe B, but I believe this is the first to agree with him for the 20-year outlook but disagree for 2011. My prediction is 5.o and my reason is this. Bob Tisdale has published maps of lags between ENSO and northern sea temperatures. Using these, the El Nino of 2009/10 should still be affecting north polar seas in 2011 and the current La Nina won’t help until 2012 or 2013.
I have browsed Bob Tisdale’s site and searched on ‘lag’, but not found the image I was looking for. ‘Twould be nice if Bob would visit and give us a link. I’d need to see it again before I could refine my estimate of when this La Nina can help.
Rich.
Owen says:
November 24, 2010 at 10:22 am You have been fooled.:
Heat is accumulating in the ocean
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
Capisce?
Current weather, as seen from satellite:
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~ovens/loops/wxloop.cgi?wv_east_enhanced+48+-update+3600
bobbyj0708 says:
November 23, 2010 at 11:23 pm
“Just like you don’t know an economic bubble has occurred until it has popped.”
The only people who don’t know when we’re experiencing an economic bubble work for either the Fed or the executive branch.
_____________________________________________________
Yes this months “Men’s Mag had an article by a “Disappearer” he helps people vanish and place all their money in off shore accounts. He said this year almost all of his customers were financiers.
I wonder if they know something we don’t, rats deserting a sinking ship comes to mind….
R. Gates says:
November 24, 2010 at 7:49 am
The erroneous assumption by many is that the changes to climate caused by CO2 are linear or even logarithmic in nature– they are neither. The climate record shows clearly that the changes come in sudden shifts of regime, as one would except from a system pushed to edge of chaos. The earth has seen 800,000+ years of CO2 at levels 40% less than we have now. To think ocean cycles and other climate inducing natural cycles would not be effected (in a chaotic way) by this geologically speaking sudden rise in CO2 is illogical.
The two nonlinear attractors over the last million years or so have been glacial and interglacial. The next attractor switch will be the first abrupt fall to semi-glacial which precedes the long slide down to full glaciation.
CO2 is neither here nor there, it will no more influence the immiment return to glaciation than 2000 ppm CO2 prevented the Andean-Saharan ice age or the 5000 ppm CO2 averted the Sturtian-Marinoan ice age, let alone the ~50% CO2 not preventing the Huronian ice age more than 2 billion years ago. The next ice age is (in geological terms) imminent, and in the face of this CO2 is no more than a fart in a thunderstorm.
You are still bandying about chaos and attractor terminology without presenting any model or analogical experimental system – just invoking it as an article of faith.
Joe Bastardi:
The prediction of an exact amount for the 2011 summer minimum is a matter of luck and not science. There are too many annual variables to make an accurate one-year prediction. Admission of the impracticality of making such a prediction would be welcome and the use of a range of possible numbers would be more appropriate at this point. Hopefully Anthony Watts learned this lesson in predicting a 500,000 km2 rebound in 2010 which saw a new June minimum average and the third lowest September minimum.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/09/prediction-arctic-ice-will-continue-to-recover-this-summer/
The 2006 arctic summer minimum was 5.8 million km2 based on the JAXA information, so a prediction of 5.5 million km2 is certainly within a range of possibility; however, the 2006 minimum was followed by the 1.5 million km2 drop in 2007 to 4.25 million km2 so the significance of a single year measurement does not appear to mean much in assessing arctic ice conditions. This also indicates that predicting the summer minimum a year in advance is subject to considerable uncertainty and should be left to those with a crystal ball rather than those with a science background. Predicting the average ice extent minimum for a period of several years appears to have greater validity since it can average out some of the annual fluctuations.
The 2010 minimum was 4.8 million km2, so your forecast would require an increase in extent of .7 million km2 above the 2010 level. Predicting such a large annual change is certainly bold, but you have not provided a convincing analysis that this will occur and I doubt anyone can. Your analysis of southern Pacific water temperatures (ENSO events) is not convincing since it is Atlantic water temperatures that primarily influence Artic water temperatures. Additionaly, there are several studies indicating that wind patterns are as important as annual temperatures in determining the annual arctic ice extent minimum.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100427111449.htm
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2009/090809.html
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2007/10/03/nh-sea-ice-loss-its-the-wind-says-nasa/
There is no indication in the current sea ice extent numbers that the arctic ice is coming back. The November 23rd numbers are approximately 450,000 km2 and 765,000 km2 behind the 2009 and 20o8 levels respectively.
If you compare November 23, 2010 with November 23, 2005 you will see that we are already 643,000 km2 behind the level that produced the 2006 minimum of 5.8 million km2, which is not a very good start. We are 129,000 km2 ahead of the November 23, 2006 level, but since this was followed by the record low in 2007 there does not appear to be much significance that one can attach to these numbers. Again, what experience shows is that making predictions a year in advance has too much uncertainty to believe that anyone can make an accurate prediction.
While it is easy to reject the death spiral contingent and those predicting a nearly ice free summer arctic at some point during the years 20 13 to 2019, it does not follow that the rejection of these folks validates an opposite prediction.
As for the prediction that 2030 will resemble the arctic ice conditions of 1977, this prediction appears suspect in the face of monthly trend lines that consistently show a downward trend for all months during the satellite record and TSI currently at a minimum level. The ice volume and age estimates of arctic ice do not appear to support the contention that “the ice is coming back”. There may be some short term upticks from the current low levels, but there is no indication that we will get back to the pre-2000 average much less the 1977 level. (What are the ice numbers for volume and ice extent for 1977 that you are using?) It will take a great many years to restore the arctic ice to the quality that existed in 2000.
Can you provide the explanation of the specific factors that will cause this to happen? If you are going to rely on a cycle argument, please identify the specific forces that drive the cycle.
Made it over the frozen mountain pass. The ranch house is in good working order. No frozen pipes (I worked on prevention measures last week). The temperature is in the single digits at 1:00 PM. The Wallowa and Lostine rivers are about to freeze up along their entire length. Nothing but watery slurry coming down. There are spots here and there that also show freezing starting at the gravel bottom.
Two years ago the river froze at one of the numerous bends, raised the water level, and surrounded a house with a shallow lake of ice.
R. Gates, you are just talking out of your hat unless you can provide plausible mechanism for your theory.
The reason why ice should be greater next summer/autumn compared with this year is because of the recent and current strongish La Nina. There is a several month delay in cooler or warmer temperatures reaching the Arctic circle depending on whether it is a El Nino or La Nina. The recent El Nino warmed the the ocean around the Arctic circle during the summer just gone as this energy finally reached it’s destination. This caused no recovery from last year and the reason why areas further south of 80N had warmer pools, causing ice to melt more than usual.
The current La Nina that is recently starting to effect global temperatures will cause cooler pools to move towards the Arctic cricle in several months time, slowing melting down and another recovery by the end of next summer. (2011) With weather patterns in the Arctic the only other major influence in the short time, on ice is the ENSO cycle. My prediction is also an increase in the area/extent of ice next summer, especially between 65N to 80N.
Hey Guys! It looks like Interior has not been keeping abreast of the reporting on sea ice extent. Just off the presses…
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/11/24/US-designates-critical-polar-bear-areas/UPI-35951290630195/
OOPS! It looks like I wwent and sent my post twice!! Please delete my second attempt.
Thanks,
G.