Poll now closed. Results below will be submitted to ARCUS on Sept 1st.
Once again, I’m going to give WUWT readers an opportunity to make a forecast for submission, based on voting. See the poll at the end. I’m late getting this online this month as other things took precedence.
For reference, here’s last months forecast poll and the final submission with all other forecasts from other groups. The final forecast poll you can participate in follows.
The value used by ARCUS in the forecast is the NSIDC value as they say here:
The sea ice monthly extent for September 2010 was 4.9 million square kilometers, based on National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) estimates.
So don’t be using the JAXA graph to forecast minimums, though it it useful for determining short term trends as it is more responsive than the NSDIC graph below, which is averaged.
Right now the NSIDC value is about 5 million square kilometers.
[ UPDATE: NSIDC’s Julienne Strove from NSIDC writes in comments:
“Note, the NSIDC value today is 4.66 million sq-km.”
Of course NSDIC doesn’t publish the daily values like JAXA does, so we all have to guess since we aren’t privy to that information.
The 5 day average graph is all the public gets. And of course, any estimate is hampered not only by the average, but also by those coarseness of the Y axis. I’ve asked before for NSIDC to publish the daily value and the response has been that they have more important issues to attend to. However, clearly the ARCUS forecast group is watching this number and it is important to the final forecast done by over a dozen groups now. So you think it would be valuable to post the daily data. -Anthony]
Here’s the latest JAXA graph:
JAXA AMSR-E Sea Ice Extent -15% or greater – click to enlarge
Here’s the poll for the ARCUS August outlook, it will run until Sept 1st at midnight PST.
(NOTE/UPDATE: This poll was originally exactly like all the others done over the last several months, but one snarky commenter (the first one) complained that I was a “manipulator” because it didn’t have more lower values. Of course he never bother to ask why or look at the history of the other polls.
I had considered initially adding those lower values for this poll, but then figured I’d be derided for changing the poll and not being consistent with the other polls. In retrospect, I’ll be criticized no matter what I do, so within 20 minutes of it going online, I decided to extend this poll with 0.1 million km increments down to 4.0 million kilometers. I’ve also removed the options for voting 5.5 to 6.0 (which existed in prior polls) since they are outside the current bounds of possibility based on previous September history. – Anthony
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Regardless, compare with 2002 and what does all this speculation really mean? And where is the JB predicted uptick? And why such unreasonable empahsis on anecdotal cold when anecdotal heat as in Texas is virtually ignored?
Anthony, Can you help me with a discussion on a local blog. Someone made the comment that you have never been published either as an author or co-author. Can you set the record straight?
REPLY: In climate, I have two publications:
1. Watts, A. (2009), Is the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable?, 28 pp.,
Heartland Inst., Chicago, Ill. ISBN 13: 978-1-934791-29-5 ISBN 10: 1-934791-26-6 (PDF at this link http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/surfacestationsreport_spring09.pdf )
2. Fall, S., A. Watts, J. Nielsen-Gammon, E. Jones, D. Niyogi, J. Christy, and R.A. Pielke Sr., 2011: Analysis of the impacts of station exposure on the U.S. Historical Climatology Network temperatures and temperature trends. J. Geophys. Res., 116, D14120, doi:10.1029/2010JD015146.Copyright (2011) American Geophysical Union. (PDF at this link http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/r-367.pdf )
– Anthony
These threads usually contain a few requests for, or comments about, Sea Ice Volume. Perhaps it would be worthwhile adding the Arctic Sea Ice Volume Anomaly graph from the Polar Science Center website to your own Sea Ice Reference page.
Chris:
August 31, 2011 at 12:56 am
Sorry you don’t have a life.
To the alarmists:
Global warming alarmism is starting to make people yawn. That’s why there is less interest in Arctic ice.
Kevin MacDonald
You must have missed all the debate over PIOMAS. It’s not an interesting topic anymore. Add PIOMAS to the sea ice page? It’s like saying the Mann Hockey Stick graph should be added to the Global Climatic History Page.
My initial guess was high. Oh well. I have been watching where the ice is going. For the most part this summer, it has not been flushed out compared to 2007. It has been melting in place and also piling up against Canada. It is doing that now. Ice volume models were adjusted in June or July (can’t remember) and ended up demonstrating a slower trend than previous models. When they put in place modeled winds and pressure systems, I think the next version will reduce the volume loss trend even further.
Extent is now showing a turn up and we are solidly in the freeze up temperature period, so I think we are at or near the lowest now and will start to rebuild before the end of September. So I am going with 5.3 to 5.4. Even then, I don’t think this number reflects the overall amount of ice that did NOT melt compared to 2007 when it was clearly flushed out of the Arctic by pressure systems conducing to flushing out Fram Strait.
Overall, I continue to think that the baby is fine and behaving well within natural parameters.
DCA says:
August 31, 2011 at 6:03 am
Anthony, Can you help me with a discussion on a local blog. Someone made the comment that you have never been published either as an author or co-author. Can you set the record straight?
Are these people concerned if Bill Nye, Bill McKibben, or Al Gore have published?
meant to say “conducive”. Early morning grammer stammer.
For years, we sceptics have been afraid to admit that there are signs the climate has changed because that would be immediately taken by the warmist as “yet more proof of catastrophic warming”.
For me, Svensmark & CERN has completely changed that. They do not have an answer to the solar activity – climate connection If you watch the following video, the connection is so well supported by correlation after correlation after correlation that I was literally shocked.
Lord Monckton has for me always had the right approach: to admit the truth. CO2 does cause some warming, but the climate models are wrong in the amount of warming because they include massive and unsupportable positive feedbacks which multiple lines of evidence disprove (failure to predict the present absence of warming, Spencer, Lindzen and Choi and many others.)
But, paradoxically I think we are approaching a consensus. CO2 warming of around 0.5-1C for a doubling. The rest contains a substantial chunk of solar activity, of instrumentation error and other “errors” (which we are going to have to forgive and forget if we are to move on) On the other hand, whilst we have won the argument against positive feedbacks, we have “lost” the argument about sea ice (although I don’t recall anyone saying sea ice wasn’t melting). Sea ice has diminished. It is beyond doubt that there has been a change – but what do we expect when its been the warmist decade of record?
The point I’m trying to make is that we are not helping our position even to give the impression we are trying to pretend things like ice melting is not happening, a warmer 20th century is a given, CO2 warming is a given, but sea ice does nothing to help the extreme warmist position as adopted by the IPCC, because we now have good evidence to show their models vastly overestimate the effect of CO2 and totally ignore patently obvious affects like solar activity.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1n2oq-XIxI&w=560&h=345%5D
Note, the NSIDC value today is 4.66 million sq-km.
As a non-expert, I’m going to make a prediction for next year that we’ll be below the 2007 Sea Ice Minimum, approx 4 x 10^6 km^2.
But that’s just me. What do I get if I win?
Somebody please help me understand what I seem to be missing.
We’re voting no the final minimum sea ice extent number, right? Or did I get that wrong?
And isn’t the current sea ice extent below 5 million km^2? So why are people still casting votes for over 5 million km^2?
I’m sure there’s something obvious I’m overlooking or misunderstanding and am hoping someone will point it out to me.
Thanks,
Here we go again with comments like Robbie’s at 3:10 AM. Beginning in 2007, the Serreze gang began predicting that Arctic summer ice extent would continue its downward spiral. Now, four years later, 2007 has proven to be a floor, not the ceiling they prophesied. To compensate for their failed predictions of a continued “death spiral, folks like Robbie now move the goalposts, bleating about volume, or MYI. They also point to sceptics failed predictions of an immediate and large recovery as if that somehow vindicates their four year failure of a continued decline. Well, as been pointed out here, it’s not clear anyone has a handle on an accurate volume measurement, so that’s kind of a red herring, and MYI seems to be stabilizing.
I’m a “denier”, and predicted 4-4.2 million sq. km. summer extent this year. That probably won’t verify, but i believe we’ll see a choppy summer extent rise over the next 20 years to 1970s extent levels. 2007 was a floor. Summer extent has been bottoming out, and as cycles of climate drivers change, we’ll see a recovery of Arctic ice. Bastardi and co. predicted it way too soon, but it will happen.
Like a true climatologist from the First Church of CAGW, I keep changing my numbers based upon emotion, whim and sheer guesswork!
My original 5.0 MKm2 went bye-bye a while back (same as Canadian Ice Service prediction, so I don’t feel so bad) and I’m sticking to my revised 4.5 MKm2.
If we hit a new Sea Ice Extent Minimum in 2011, will we hear the old “Arctic death spiral” stories in the media, or do we think folks are checked out on this? I haven’t really seen squat in the media about ongoing trends, but we can be sure that “Cool Hat” Hansen, “Fire-Breather” Al Gore and others will beat the drum.
4.6 – 4.7, same as the last times.
But it’s a crapshoot for all of us, considering how much weather affects the final coverage year to year.
I would like to repeat my request for a detailed look at sea ice during this later part of the melt season, like we had the last few years with a number of posts per week.
The north pole cam showed re-freezing yesterday. It may all be over bar the hystorisys.
Any ideas why NORSEC is showing more sea ice than NSIDC et al? Divergence is recent and appears to be widening.
Bill
DCA says:
August 31, 2011 at 6:03 am
Anthony, Can you help me with a discussion on a local blog. Someone made the comment that you have never been published either as an author or co-author. Can you set the record straight?
Anthony has published with Pielke et al on surface stations. So AT LEAST once.
That should be “recovery”, not “discovery” I need an editor
Hey Pamela…
My original guess was 49. to 5.0. I am dropping it to 4.7 to 4.8, although the winds seem to be pushing the ice away from the Fram strait. The ice could flatten out pretty quickly.
4.4 – 4.5
Sea Ice looks fine, simply at the lower end of the range.
What’s up with the August atmospheric anomaly over the Arctic?
I’m very puzzled everyone going on about the amount of arctic ice
in the meantime big oil in arctic Norway and Russia are going ahead with exploration
I mean how do the people think the oil got there in the first place?
Surely, there must not have been any ice at some stage in the past because oil is a product of (old) vegetation….
What is the state of our understanding of underwater volcanoes in the arctic? Do they exists? Are they active? Are there studies about their influence on arctic ice?