JAXA AMSR-E Sea Ice Extent -15% or greater – click to enlarge
I submitted the WUWT ARCUS sea ice forecast today, based on votes received in our poll.
Here is what I submitted via email, and asked for an acknowledgment:
PAN-ARCTIC OUTLOOK – WUWT (acronym for WattsUpWithThat.com)
- Extent Projection: 5.5 million square kilometers
- Methods/Techniques: web poll of readers
- Rationale: Composite of projections by readers, projection bracket with the highest response is the one submitted.
- Executive Summary: Website devoted to climate and weather polled its readers for the best estimate of 2011 sea ice extent minimum by choosing bracketed values from a web poll which can be seen at: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/19/sea-ice-news-call-for-arctic-sea-ice-forecasts-plus-forecast-poll/15.64% chose 5.5 million km2 or greater, with 13.09% choosing 5.0 to 5.1 million sq km2 as the second highest vote.
- Estimate of Forecast Skill: none
Outlook submission deadline: Tuesday, 31 May 2011. All Outlooks should be sent to: Helen Wiggins, ARCUS Email: helen@arcus.org
submitted by Anthony Watts
==================================================================
My choice for my own personal vote was 4.9 to 5.0 million square kilometers.
Anthony, I agreed with you but can accept that 5.5 M km2 could be right. Will be interested in the outcome. Keep up the good work.
Interesting comments on sea ice predictions, along with many other failed CAGW predictions:
http://blogs.forbes.com/jamestaylor/2011/05/25/polar-ice-rapture-misses-its-deadline
If any other branch of science had so many wrong predictions, they would be a laughingstock…
…oh, wait…
Wish I had seen this earlier. My prediction is 3.5. The reason for the low extent is the particulate polution from China/India. It has added approx 4w/m2 to the melting of the ice. This is a huge amount and I don’t think it can be overcome.
Also, Fram is still looking like a wide open exit route and the movement of the monitoring stations is showing a quit rapid clip verses normal.
What’s happening with ice mass ? Area/extent is one thing, but the real measure is extent x mass = how much ice is really there.
If they’ll keep those dang ice breakers out of there, I’ll win…………………
I’m saying 5.65 +/-0.15
Just to be a bit contrary.
DaveE.
[Snip. You may not refer to others as “deniers.” Strike two. Read the site Policy. ~dbs, mod.]
Sorry mod, I was quoting. I’ll take that line out.
Smokey, here is the actual Shchneider prediction being quoted in the article you link:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/05/23/1979-ncar-forecast-sea-level-may-rise-15-25-feet-before-the-year-2000/
And this is what someone on that page commented on it:
As usual, when you check out the facts, it turns out that Schneider said absolutely no such thing. Not even close. Did any of you even bother to read the article. Obviously the author of the peice didn’t. Schneider said that the melting could START by the end of the century. Or to spell it out word for word: “..It’s INITIATION cannot be ruled out by the end of the century..”
While John B is arguing about something said by the reprehensible Steven Schneider [who openly advocated lying to acheive results], maybe John can address the numerous failed alarmist predictions in that same link. But he won’t, because he is engaging in misdirection: “Look over there, a kitten!”
Then he can start again here.
Any other branch of science with so many debunked claims, withholding of data, code and methods, fabricating temp data out of whole cloth, and endless failed predictions would be a public laughingstock among serious scientists. The CAGW crowd finds itself in that unenviable position, and that’s why they’re squealing like stuck pigs.
Reply to John B
he did say the initiation could start by the end of the century … let’s see, we are now 11 years into the new century – and your evidence that, AT THIS TIME, sea levels are reflecting this catastrophe which began 11 years ago are ? ?
looks like another alarmist with egg on his face !
why did you submit the mode and not the median, which was 5.2 MM? the distribution is clearly skewed high based on the bins chosen.
Smokey,
I’m not arguing about it, I’m just pointing your readers at the primary article that your article links to. How is that misdirection? But then you talk about “withholding of data, code and methods, fabricating temp data out of whole cloth”. What’s that got to do with the article on failed predictions? Who’s pointing at the kitten?
Skeptics shouldn’t misrepresent people, however reprehensible. When you get found out, it makes you look dishonest. If your case is good enough, make it without resorting to those tactics. Your argument will be the stronger for it.
John
Steptoe Fan,
Read the article and see what he was atually saying.
Is that big chunk of glacier ice still blocking the Nerez strait? If so, we might gain a bit from last year’s low. Even so, 5.0 would be optimistic.
John B says:
“How is that misdirection?”
It is misdirection to select one minor issue, and disregard the major issues: all of the failed predictions noted in the article.
Explain why each failed prediction wouldn’t falsify the CAGW claims. Or continue your misdirection by nitpicking minor points, which may or may not be accurate, but which do not address the central problem: the numerous inaccurate and falsified predictions made by the purveyors of runaway global warming.
Constantly nitpicking minor issues is the methodology of a crank.
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/popper_falsification.html
by Karl R. Popper
Popper hits the nail on the head:
I found that those of my friends who were admirers of Marx, Freud, and Adler, were impressed by a number of points common to these theories, and especially by their apparent explanatory power. These theories appear to be able to explain practically everything that happened within the fields to which they referred. The study of any of them seemed to have the effect of an intellectual conversion or revelation, open your eyes to a new truth hidden from those not yet initiated. Once your eyes were thus opened you saw confirmed instances everywhere: the world was full of verifications of the theory. Whatever happened always confirmed it. Thus its truth appeared manifest; and unbelievers were clearly people who did not want to see the manifest truth; who refuse to see it, either because it was against their class interest, or because of their repressions which were still “un-analyzed” and crying aloud for treatment.
…
These considerations led me in the winter of 1919-20 to conclusions which I may now reformulate as follows.
1. It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory — if we look for confirmations.
2. Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions; that is to say, if, unenlightened by the theory in question, we should have expected an event which was incompatible with the theory — an event which would have refuted the theory.
3. Every “good” scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is.
4. A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.
5. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testability: some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation, than others; they take, as it were, greater risks.
6. Confirming evidence should not count except when it is the result of a genuine test of the theory; and this means that it can be presented as a serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify the theory. (I now speak in such cases of “corroborating evidence.”)
7. Some genuinely testable theories, when found to be false, are still upheld by their admirers — for example by introducing ad hoc some auxiliary assumption, or by reinterpreting the theory ad hoc in such a way that it escapes refutation. Such a procedure is always possible, but it rescues the theory from refutation only at the price of destroying, or at least lowering, its scientific status. (I later described such a rescuing operation as a “conventionalist twist” or a “conventionalist stratagem.”)
One can sum up all this by saying that the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability.
“..It’s [sic] INITIATION cannot be ruled out by the end of the century..”
Never have so few said so little in such a short sentence. Zero content blathering, saying nothing more than: In all probability there’s a possibility we can’t rule out the evidence being consistent with it starting to initiate to commence by the end of the century. Nor can we rule out the possibility that there are pixies on Saturn. Absolute nonsense.
The most popular choice is actually greater than 5.5 and less than 6.0 as I read it therefore that choice had an advantage over 5.0-5.1, therefore I think 5.0-5.1 should have been submitted. I actually think that will be closer as well to the final figure, but not as low as my choice which is about 4.75.
Hopefully they will accept this entry.
Andy
A weighted average could be done, using the center of the brackets as the value for that bracket. (The table will probably lose all the formatting, but the numbers are below.)
votes extent VxE
27 6.25 168.75
86 5.75 494.5
51 5.45 277.95
38 5.35 203.3
50 5.25 262.5
47 5.15 242.05
72 5.05 363.6
37 4.95 183.15
21 4.85 101.85
17 4.75 80.75
19 4.65 88.35
16 4.55 72.8
42 4.45 186.9
27 4.35 117.45
TOTAL __ 2843.9
The average would be 2843.9 / 550 = 5.17. Personally I think either of these (5.5 – 6.0 for the mode, or 5.17 for teh weighted average) are too high.
My own estimate is 4.65 based on some multiple regression analysis for data up thru April ( since May is not over yet and I am working with monthly data). The fact that May seems to be holding to a low value might suggest that an analysis after May data is in might push the value lower.
Fred from Canuckistan, you can find an estimate of the trend in ice volume here:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/wordpress/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/
Can you differentiate between extent and volume? Will it matter? I suspect extent might be low but a greater volume will remain because of wind action during ice formation last year.
“Constantly nitpicking minor issues is the methodology of a crank.”
Couldn’t have put it better myself!
Sorry, got to go do some real work now…
Oh, but you were referring to me, weren’t you?
Funny how it seems an issue is “minor” only when you are in the wrong. Would Schneider’s “prediction” have been minor if he had actually made it? Would tropospheric hot spot (see other thread) have been minor if I hadn’t called you and Richard on it?
Bait and switch boys, bait and switch. And before you accuse me of that tactic, go back and check who introduced every single issue we have talked about. Clue: it wasn’t me.
L8r
“..It’s [sic] INITIATION cannot be ruled out by the end of the century..”
Never have so few said so little in such a short sentence. Zero content blathering, saying nothing more than: In all probability there’s a possibility we can’t rule out the evidence being consistent with it starting to initiate to commence by the end of the century. Nor can we rule out the possibility that there are pixies on Saturn. Absolute nonsense.”
And now he’s being criticized for NOT making a prediction. Too funny!
Joe Bastardi was thinking somewhere near the 6m mark, I think. Joe! Where are you?
The american models are showing a VERY cold Arctic starting September through December particularly in th Bearing area.
@John B
Most of these comments are not written by real people.
Companies like HB Gary write software for organising professional astroturfing campaigns such as these.
Facts don’t stand a chance when it comes to countering this misinformation.
What gives with the Cryosphere Today images? All of a sudden, the current ice picture looks a bit shaky in comparison to the 2007 picture.
Could they perhaps have changed the way they color the pixels?
John B:
Your comment May 31, 2011 at 7:03 pm gave me a good laugh. It says:
“Skeptics shouldn’t misrepresent people, however reprehensible. When you get found out, it makes you look dishonest. If your case is good enough, make it without resorting to those tactics. Your argument will be the stronger for it.”
My most recent post on the WUWT thread at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/27/camping-and-climate-change/
says to you;
“Indeed, your initial contributions to this thread were claims that people should read the IPCC Assessments. The first time you made this claim was at May 27, 2011 at 2:37 pm where you wrote;
“Go read the IPCC reports, not what bloggers have written about them.”
But when I cited and quoted statements from the IPCC that you do not like then (at May 29, 2011 at 3:28 am) you said the IPCC had been rebutted on the web, saying;
“Both of these arguments are, of course, well rehearsed on the Internet. Look it up for yourself, but don’t just stop at the rebuttal of the IPCC report; see what the counter arguments are, and then see what the rebutters have to say about the counter arguments, and so on.”
Go away you nasty little troll. Your lies and obfuscations are plain for all to see. You are a failed troll.”
Richard
‘Level of skill zero’
Are we that clever? 😉
My prediction is 5.9.
JimmyB says:
“@John B Most of these comments are not written by real people.”
I am a real person and I’m familiar with most of the others. Maybe it’s you & John B who are the sock puppets, eh?
John B’s constant nitpicking of minor issues and of debates that he has lost [eg: at 1:57, 1:03 & 1:08] indicates his continued misdirection, as he will not address the numerous failed alarmist predictions. He hides out from explaining why we should take seriously the always-wrong alarmist contingent. When a group of true believers is so continually off-base, their conjecture must be wrong, no?
Yes.
Here’s a comment I just submitted to the Forbes site:
Anthony, as I have tried to point out through tips and notes page, the current information on your Sea Ice Reference Page concerning the DMI sea ice data is not correct. Your information used to be correct, in other words it used to explain that the ice concentration filter of the DMI data is 30 % or higher (not 15 %) but has regrettably been changed at some point. At least to me this is important since it makes the data less affected by natural variations e.g. wind.
John B I thought you had some real work to do?
5.24 M^2 +/- 0.25
Roger Knights, interesting betting site. But I’m a little confused by it.
“Minimum Arctic ice extent for 2011 will be greater than 2007” is the bet.
Does this mean the extent will be greater (more ice) or the minimum will be greater (less ice). Also the voting is $4.27/shr for the event being true with one share offered but 15 shares at $3.85/shr against the event. This suggests to me, assuming they mean the minimum ice extent will be greater in 2011 than in 2007 (more ice), that more money is betting against this (15 x $3.85) than for it (1 x $4.27). I don’t gamble (i.e. bet with money) but what happens if a guy drops $60.00 on this thing and wins?
Anthony/
I voted for the 5.5 or higher. That to me means between 5.5 and 6.0 (6.0 or greater was the next option), so why did you write “Extent Projection: 5.5 million square kilometers” instead of “Extent Projection: 5.75 +- 0.25 million square kilometers” ?
ferd berple, I was discussing Popper and demarcation only today. So relevant to the climate debate, Mann et al.
“Estimate of Forecast Skill: none”
That’s an insult.
I forecast that I will never visit this blog again, so there.
First, I think the more logical entry would have been the average, a number very close to 5.1, not 5.5. The distribution has three peaks, but two of the peaks occurred simply because they involved wider ranges. That is, if the range “greater than 5.5” had been divided into five segments, as the segments surrounding 5.1 were, then 5.0-5.1 almost certainly would have been the mode. In any case, it’s very close to the average and should have been submitted.
What I’m wondering is whether the higher submission was chosen to avoid having the WUWT guess appear relatively low, thereby providing alarmists with a talking point? I hope not, as that could have been easily refuted by pointing out that both warmers and skeptics are allowed to post here without being banned, and hence plenty of warmers contributed data points.
For myself, the Cryosphere Today images available on the Sea Ice Page have been making me wonder for some time now whether this year is going to see a significant melt. In that regard, I chose less than 4.5, even though I very much question the global warming (climate change) position. But what about the earlier suggestion in the above comments that China/India pollutants are contributing 4w/m2 to the warming of the Arctic?
Steve,
The bet is clearly on the extent finishing higher than the 2007 extent. (It takes a lot of imagination to construe a higher minimum as being a lower number.)
Also, you can’t interpret a snapshot of the bid/ask as an indication that generally more money is betting one way or the other. At that instant, yes, but that can change hour by hour, or even second by second in an active market.
If you buy a share at the offered side of $4.27, and the minimum ends up higher than in 2007, the shares will expire at $10.00 so you will make $5.73 on each share you purchase. Your $60 will be worth $140.52 on expiration. If you’re wrong, they’ll expire at $0.00 and you’ll lose your $60. Of course, you could sell them at a profit or loss at any time along the way.
Sigurdur says:
May 31, 2011 at 5:01 pm
Wish I had seen this earlier. My prediction is 3.5. The reason for the low extent is the particulate pollution from China/India. It has added approx 4w/m2 to the melting of the ice. This is a huge amount and I don’t think it can be overcome.
Also, Fram is still looking like a wide open exit route and the movement of the monitoring stations is showing a quit rapid clip verses normal.
Just a thought. It appears to me that the ice melt is well ahead of “normal” when comparing Cryosphere Today images. Maybe this year will actually see a very significant melt due to the issue you raised about particulate pollution, rather than because of a warming trend that doesn’t seem to be happening worldwide any longer.
If that’s the case, I’d just as soon the entire Arctic melted. Then we could see if we enter the doomsday scenario envisioned by the warmists, who claim that the absence of any Arctic ice would have a feedback effect and accelerate the melting of the glaciers, etc.
Does this particulate pollution issue also affect Antarctica? And what’s the source of your 4w/m2 calculation?
A poll on future sea ice extent… Keep the sound science coming, Anthony!
Good question. It means the extent will be greater (more ice). This is explained under the “Rules” tab (the rightmost tab) on the site thusly:
Here’s another way to look at it. The phrase “Minimum Arctic ice extent” should be “evaluated” first (i.e., considered as a block), and then compared to 2007’s similar block (implicit in the proposition). So it should be parenthesized to indicate its order of evaluation, as is done with arithmetic expressions, thus:
“(Minimum Arctic ice extent) for 2011 will be greater than [(Minimum Arctic ice extent)] [for] 2007″
Correct–the “warmists” are putting their money where their mouth is. However, since trading on Intrade is typically “thin,” you need to look at the charts (click on “advanced charts”) of the past bet-levels to see the average over recent periods and get a better “handle” on sentiment. The most recently matched bet was at the 38% level. I.e., 62% of the money thinks there will be a new record low minimum this year. A month ago only 32% thought that way.
(This means there is money to be made in betting against excess swings in sentiment, because bettors aren’t locked in to their bets. They can exit them by “unwinding” them (selling their long positions or buying (i.e., “covering”) their short (negative) positions).
(Also, lots of bettors “lurk”–i.e., they don’t show their hand, but wait for someone on the other side to do so first, Then they swoop in and match the other side’s bid or ask. Thus “spreads” are often unrealistically wide. It’s typically best to put up an offer and wait for it to be matched than to “chase” the posted offers.)
Let’s say that you put in a bid to buy 15 shares at $4.00 (15 * $4 = $60) and your bet is matched by a bettor on the other side (who puts up $6 per share, or $90 total). If the proposition settles as True (there’s more ice this year on the day of its minimum extent than there was on the corresponding minimum-extent day in 2007), your shares are redeemed at $10 each (your $4 plus the other guy’s $6), so you’d get $150 back (15 * $10), which would also happen to be a 150% gain over a 5-month period.
I’m sorry you feel that way, Dave.
I can’t remember what I
predictedguessed but I have no evidence to change it. The real question should be ‘What colour will the 2012 curve be on the Sea Ice extent graph next year?’Awesome list Ferd Berple, and true indeed. More people should become familiar with the philosophy behind science, instead of just using the word as an authority itself.
Peter says:
June 1, 2011 at 2:25 am
What gives with the Cryosphere Today images? All of a sudden, the current ice picture looks a bit shaky in comparison to the 2007 picture.
Could they perhaps have changed the way they color the pixels?
This is what’s worrying me as well…..currently 2011 doesn’t look in very good shape compared to 2007. Although it does have to be recognised that the steep 2007 decline started a little later than this, the current Cryosphere images do look a bit worrying….
Concerning the Cryosphere today image data:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
A couple of things are noticeable. First, there is weak correspondence between the images shown in the comparison with 2007, and the new higher resolution images at the Crosphere site. Second, if you view the 30 day animation of the Arctic ice concentration, the apparent regions of thinner ice come and go rapidly in different parts of the Arctic ice. Thus the appearance of a thinner patch does not seem to mean start of melt at that particular region – look at the same region in a few days time and it will recover back to normal. Are these fluctuations real? I dont know.
Slightly OT but looking at the WUWT ocean page, there looks like some sort of nascent cold water tongue growing along the west of South America from south to north and starting to extend westwards into the South tropical Pacific. (Or is it just me?)
Yet at the same time a larger warm wedge is extending westward from Central America along the equator.
WUWT? Simultaneous and competing el Nino and La Nina events? ENSO with a forked tongue? Or on the cusp not sure which way to go? (Where’s Bob Tisdale when you need him?)
Latitude says: May 31, 2011 at 5:30 pm
If they’ll keep those dang ice breakers out of there, I’ll win…………………
The Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) is working hard for you:
“The red and white ships of the Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) have been a familiar sight off the country’s shores since 1962. The specialized CCG fleet of 17 icebreakers helps ships navigate icy waters, clears harbours of ice, resupplies northern communities and government sites when commercial carriers can’t get through and controls possible floods caused by ice build-up.”
“What’s the difference between the different types of ice you break through?
There is first-year ice, which is ice that happens in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and freezes and thaws within a one-year period. Multi-year ice is ice leftover from previous years that has never melted and is harder than first-year ice. And then you have glacial ice, which is really hard stuff.
And you break all three types?
Well, we break through it, yes. In areas like Peel Sound, where you would find those three types of ice, the ship has been tasked to go through and break for a variety of different reasons. In 1999, we were in a really tough area where in about 24-hours the vessel made about 5.6 kilometres. It took us a couple of days to get through a ridge that was very hard. We had all five engines online and we burned about 100 tonnes of fuel. We can’t do that for an extended period. ”
http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/magazine/ma06/indepth/people.asp
phlogiston says: June 1, 2011 at 4:25 pm
Slightly OT but looking at the WUWT ocean page, there looks like some sort of nascent cold water tongue growing along the west of South America from south to north and starting to extend westwards into the South tropical Pacific. (Or is it just me?)
I think this is the remnants of the La Nina, e.g. if you look as it by month this year;
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/oisst/navy-anom-b-20110101.gif
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/oisst/navy-anom-b-20110201.gif
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/oisst/navy-anom-b-20110301.gif
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/oisst/navy-anom-b-20110401.gif
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/oisst/navy-anom-b-20110501.gif
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/oisst/navy-anom-b-20110601.gif
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/oisst/amsr-anom-bb.gif
you can see the genesis.
WUWT? Simultaneous and competing el Nino and La Nina events? ENSO with a forked tongue? Or on the cusp not sure which way to go?
In terms of a forked tongue, I find myself mesmerized by the dancing curls across the Equatorial Pacific as La Nina took hold last year;
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/global_ncom/anims/glb/sst12m.gif
and how they are mirrored on this Salinity animation:
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/global_ncom/anims/glb/sss12m.gif
Tim Folkerts – “A weighted average could be done.. 5.17 for the weighted average”
Bravo sir! I was about to do the same calculation. I think this is a better reflection of the result of the poll.
If we compare to, for example, tamino’s forecast of 4.63 +/- 0.9, then it lies well in the upper quartile of tamino’s forecast [assuming a uniform distribution], or above one standard deviation of his forecast [assuming a normal distribution with error bars given for a 90% confidence interval].
To make the above paragraph a bit clearer, I think tamino’s forecast implies an 84% probability of less than 5.17 million km^2 and roughly 95% probability of less than 5.5 million km^2.
So there’s a real divergence of opinion here, to be tested by this season’s data.
That said, Mr Watts has submitted the figure of “5.5”, rather than “greater than 5.5”, so he’s not simply taken the mode result either.
With the fast early pace for reduction of Sea Ice currently underway, we could easily beat the low of 2007 although I would guess we will finish very slightly ahead of that record low. With his prediction of a modest increase for 2011 in Arctic ice at the lowest point on record, I fear Joe Bastardi will miss the mark this year.