This month, we have nearly a perfect bell curve distribution of votes, except for a minority vote that says less than 4.5 million sq kilometers. 750 votes were cast.
PAN-ARCTIC OUTLOOK – WUWT (acronym for WattsUpWithThat.com)
1. Extent Projection: 5.0 million square kilometers
2. Methods/Techniques: web poll of readers
3. Rationale: Composite of projections by readers, projection bracket with the highest response is the one submitted.
4. 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:
18.27 % chose the value 5.0 to 5.1 Million sq km2 or greater, down from the previous month projection of 5.1-5.2 million square kilometers with 10.93% choosing 4.9 to 5.0 million square kilometers as the second highest vote. Over one third of all votes cast fell in the range of 4.9 to 5.2 million square kilometers, with 37.2% of all votes in that range.
A minority opinion emerged with 8.53% of votes cast for less than 4.5 million square kilometers.
5. Estimate of Forecast Skill: none
Outlook submission deadline: Sunday, 31 July 2011. All Outlooks should be sent to: Helen Wiggins, ARCUS
I voted for 4.5-4.6 the other day, but in view of today’s chart:
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent_L.png
my forecast may be off the mark……………
I choose 4.9 to 5.0 million square kilometers .
Well it does not mean a lot only that in 750 people you get a SD of guesses. I shall wait to November and see exactly how we all did.
Good work, Anthony. This is fun, and a nice gentle way to draw readers into one aspect of climate-related science.
OK… I see Al “Millions of Degrees Core” Gore showed up and voted 14 times…
5. Estimate of Forecast Skill: none
Sir, I take the greatest of umbrage at this scurrilous accusation! It took me ages to guess the level of ice-melt I voted for, I scanned the tea-leaves, anylised the seaweed, gazed into my crystal ball, read the tarrot cards, talked to a bloke down the pub who’s been on lots of Greenpeace demos who assured me the Inuit’s home was melting beneath them woe woe is me etc, & I even used a puter model!!!!! ;-))
When’s William Hill going to get a hold onto this?
I’m only a layman but do I detect a slight uptick (or perhaps more accurately a slight decline in the rate of decrease) on the WUWT Sea Ice graphs?
The melting has slowed remarkably in the past week. The cries of “worst year ever” are beginning to subside.
Jockdownsouth, indeed you do, particularly on some of the more promptly-updated measures and on the DMI 30% measure.
Of course, any ‘trends’ in the short term can be ephemeral, so I wouldn’t go extrapolating towards the 2002 minimum just yet, especially given the extent of less-than-90% concentrations on the CT chart that could be subject to melt or compression. However, the next 10 days could be key in determining which way the worms will turn.
Does anyone know WHY there was a sudden change in the rate of melt of Arctic sea ice on 19 July 2011?
Is Al Gore visiting the area?
Just checked NSIDC and SHAZAM!! The Arctic Ocean is still covered with ice. Imagine that.
Went with the 4.7-4.8 range. I did a robust analysis of how trend lines work and the result was 4.7324564
I agonized, er waffled, between the 4.9 to 5.0 and 5.0 to 5.1 categories, but wound up voting for the more conservative estimate. My best guess would be 5.0.
Jun: 5.5
Jul: 5.1
Aug: 5.0
The negative trend is clear even here. Anyone on Earth positive on Arctic sea ice?
Jim Cripwell said on August 1, 2011 at 3:25 am:
I’m blaming the North American “heat dome” “heat wave” effect. The warmth is down here, it’s not going up to the Arctic, therefore slower sea ice melting. Other people here can apply the technical terms and explain it better, if that’s what’s really happening.
And ABC’s Good Morning America just informed me the heat dome is reforming. Oh, and they’re also hoping that potential “tropical storm Emily” forms. How many hours does it have to be barely strong enough to qualify as a “tropical storm” these days?
Jim Cripwell says: August 1, 2011 at 3:25 am
Does anyone know WHY there was a sudden change in the rate of melt of Arctic sea ice on 19 July 2011?
One factor appears to be the Greenland Sea, where sea ice began to grow on July 15th and has been trending above average since then:
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02186/plots/r07_Greenland_Sea_ts.png
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.5.html
JAXA sea ice extent is taking an interesting turn. Greater than 5.5 possible?
‘The cries of “worst year ever” are beginning to subside.’
The alarmists cry to the public about “the worst year ever” and the public remembers that and not the facts when the prediction fails. It is this allowing the alarmists to make failed predictions over and over without loss of credibility that continues to drive this train.
Jim Cripwell says:
August 1, 2011 at 3:25 am
“Does anyone know WHY there was a sudden change in the rate of melt of Arctic sea ice on 19 July 2011?”
The AO had then just recently turned positive and first year ice was running low.
Sure. Mr. Gates’ dipole has not shown up. Nor has the AO turned strongly towards anything. The AO is in slumber at the moment. The temps up there are nearing 0 degrees, being more than half way through the above freezing temperature period, as it heads towards its freezeup. Wind, temperature, pressure systems, and daily ice movement appear stable and would argue for ice being retained in the Arctic Circle. Melt will continue but at a snail’s pace under these conditions.
Probably better to use the median than use the mode for the guess. Not different this time, but a slightly different bucketing scheme could have resulted in a mode that was the <4.5 million category.
The warm is turning.
Why the sudden change in Melt rate: In part, because there is a greater extent of thicker multi-year ice than in the past few years.
Jared says:
August 1, 2011 at 4:30 am
Went with the 4.7-4.8 range. I did a robust analysis of how trend lines work and the result was 4.7324564
######
From here on out it’s more about the weather. Put another way.. we enter the most variable part of the year where stats are not that big of a help.
At this stage you better be looking at weather charts and not trendlines
“Brian Johnson uk says:
August 1, 2011 at 3:51 am
Is Al Gore visiting the area?”
Not that I know of. However a week before July 19 , on July 12, Al Gore announced a “Climate Reality Project”. See
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/12/lipstick-on-a-pig-gore-rebrands-climate-outfit/
AW: A bit OT but I was there when this happened. THis guy Tim Flannery should be held to account for his forecast of drought conditions in Queensland. They QLD Govermenment acted upon this and this is now the consequence. Finally they can be held to account in court. THis sort of stuff that the warmists are doing are already costing lives and billions in loses
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/damages-to-flow-from-wivenhoe-dam-breach/story-fn59niix-1226106273775
When are the Australians going to wake up and get rid of these cretins!
IJIS/JAXA did take a comforting turn last week, but it may be temporary. Look at Cryosphere, both the 2007 vs 2011 comparision on WUWT’s own sea ice page, and the larger image at Cryosphere’s own site. It looks to me like a good chance of it crashing downwards below 2007 again in the next week or two.
This is possibly somewhat off topic, and if so, I apologize. In reference to NH sea ice, what effect is the Gakkel Ridge volcanic activity having on sea ice? It seems to me that if there are lava flows, and steam vents, that should have some effect on ice above. But I can’t find any studies on that, and I haven’t heard anything about the ridge in the past several years.
The AO is going positive again, so expect the Beaufort Gyre to go forwards again, and extent to pick up pace in its decline.
Sorry, I meant “going negative again”…
I am sticking to my June high estimate. But it is way too early to have any real idea. It is all about wind/currents in the last few days. To if you are going to take a guess, best take a guess that wins big. Folks are taking way too much attention to where we are today.
Is the estimating here? I vote for 4.63E6; but I’m not sure if I’m past deadline?
mccall
Based my 4.6 prediction on the cryosphere charts which showed a large area of 60 percent concentration above Alaska and Siberia-but the Canadian chart shows a 90 percent concentration in some of these same areas-so someone is not giving us the facts-tend to side with the Canadian-as the supply ships need an accurate report of the conditions on their routes to bring supplies to the northern ports. Also seems to be considerably more ice overall than 2007 despite the charts showing it neck and neck with that year-so again-do not entirely believe the charts-there is much more ice off Greenland and above Siberia than there was in 2007 at least so far. The melt may be slowing, because the flow of warm water in the Arctic basin may be beginning to shut down even sooner than I anticipated, and if that is true, there will not be much more of a melt this year, as the air temps. do not support much more melting.
The answer, my friends, is blowing in the wind.
tokyoboy
Because there is no El Nino warmth in the Northern Hemisphere this year Arctic ice loss over the summer should be slow. And it looks like, for now, a weak La Nina is forming. But the looping current of water on the equator in the Pacific, where El Nino and La Nina form, could bring warm water around to the surface from the east by the Galapagos Islands, and then head back west, to Niño 3.4, where it could make a weak El Nino.
This graph on the WattsUpWithThat “ENSO reference page” is the one to watch:
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/sub_surf_mon.gif
But what happens this summer in the Pacific won’t have an effect on what happens to Arctic ice this summer. That effect will show up in next summers Arctic ice melt. El Nino this summer will cause Arctic ice to melt quicker next summer. La Nina this summer will cause Arctic ice to melt slower next summer—in general that is.
The amount of ice on the polar caps has nothing to do with the phony GLOBAL warming. It only depends of the amount of raw material for replenishing itself every winter. When is less ice on Arctic – winter in Europe /USA are colder, with more snow = less raw material ends up to replenish the ice. If you want to know why and how, log on http://www.stefanmitich.com.au
Jared says:
August 1, 2011 at 4:30 am
Went with the 4.7-4.8 range. I did a robust analysis of how trend lines work and the result was 4.7324564
Hah. Little do you know. 4.7324565 is more like it. 8<)
Is it time to panic yet?
http://www.climate4you.com/images/NSIDC%20GlobalArcticAntarctic%20SeaIceArea.gif
“The melting has slowed remarkably in the past week. The cries of “worst year ever” are beginning to subside.”
Thats something to be thankful for, but it could also start nosediving again. Still a long way to go,,,maybe 7 weeks. I think last years minimum was recorded on Sept. 20th. That Arctic Dipole Anomoly just won`t go away.
“IJIS/JAXA did take a comforting turn last week, but it may be temporary. Look at Cryosphere, both the 2007 vs 2011 comparision on WUWT’s own sea ice page, and the larger image at Cryosphere’s own site. It looks to me like a good chance of it crashing downwards below 2007 again in the next week or two.”
Yup, looks like bad news at Cryosphere. Red (60%) is dominating with very little purple (100 %) left. Even last year had a lot more purple left at this date. Things could begin crashing again very quickly, despite the last few days leveling off. I still think there is a very good chance this years minimum will break `07s record.
Smokey says: August 2, 2011 at 12:58 pm
http://www.climate4you.com/images/NSIDC%20GlobalArcticAntarctic%20SeaIceArea.gif
Good one, added to the WUWT Sea Ice Page:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/
“Richard says:
August 2, 2011 at 2:38 pm
“IJIS/JAXA did take a comforting turn last week, but it may be temporary. Look at Cryosphere, both the 2007 vs 2011 comparision on WUWT’s own sea ice page, and the larger image at Cryosphere’s own site. It looks to me like a good chance of it crashing downwards below 2007 again in the next week or two.”
Yup, looks like bad news at Cryosphere. Red (60%) is dominating with very little purple (100 %) left. Even last year had a lot more purple left at this date. Things could begin crashing again very quickly, despite the last few days leveling off. I still think there is a very good chance this years minimum will break `07s record.”
Using the compare tool at Cryosphere, I cant see much change over the past week in the concentrations on the edge of the pack. Some areas, particularly in the Canadian archipelago and the Arctic Basin seemed to be showing an increased concentration over what they had a week ago. Certainly it appears the ice is drifting in a clockwise direction which is backed up by data being received from the buoys.
Another day of low extent loss for 2nd August and we are now within 200,000km2 of the 2010 result and 300,000km2 above 2007. We are also in a period where in 2007, we were seeing unprecented losses (for the JAXA data) in excess of 100,000km2 per day (the first week of August 2007 averaged over 102,000km2 per day).
Very hard to see us dipping below the 2007 result based on these figures. Although I do agree given the concentrations on the Atlantic side of the Arctic Basin it is likely we wont see the current slowdown continue.
If the slow melt keeps up for another 3 or 4 days, you can pretty much kiss any shot of breaking 2007’s record goodbye. Its already dwindled down to an extremely low probability.
The probability assigned to this eventuality is 14%, on the event-prediction site Intrade, here: https://www.intrade.com/v4/markets/contract/?contractId=744206
Catastrophe shills watching the JAXA chart have got to be having apoplexy by now. It appears that ice actually got thicker in the region of about 82N 105E over the last week.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/icecover/icecover_current.png
?
Well, according to NSIDC (I know), ice loss for July set a new record, beating out `07.
Let’s review:
5.6 mil km2 from June’s predictions: Massive Bust
5.1mil km2 from July’s predictions: Slightly less than a massive bust
5.0mil km2 from August’s predictions: busted 3-4 weeks before the end of the melt season.
I guess no one here does any legit study on the Arctic. Just a couple days looking at SST charts and Modis one could conclude a massive melt this year.
And that is with bad wind conditions for ice loss.
Always next year.