UPDATES: New NSIDC data and a press release from them added below.
While some folks (Joe Romm in particular) are touting the recent University of Bremen press release suggesting a new record low has been met, declaring record minimum Arctic extent was reached on Sept 8 at 4.24 million km2, (See http://iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/minimum2011-en.pdf) five other sources of sea ice data, NSIDC and JAXA, DMI, Cryosphere Today, and NANSEN don’t agree with that new record claim (at least not yet). While still far from certain, as weather, wind, and ocean currents could still force a turn downwards, the NSIDC graph suggests we may have turned the corner this year.
[UPDATE: This extent graph above (dated 9/12) was updated by NSIDC since posting this story ~ 6AM this morning, and it shows further deviation from 2007, compare to the NSIDC graph of 9/11 below.]
Below, I’ve added a vertical line to show the turning point for the 1979-2000 average (in red) and how it compares to the current NSIDC data.
The JAXA graph, which uses a different satellite sensor (AMSRE vs SSMI) also suggests that we didn’t yet reach a new record low and that we may have turned the corner.
For extent, only the University of Bremen (shown below) shows this year to be lower, and has no turn. It uses the same SSMI sensor as NANSEN and NSIDC, it uses the same AMSRE sensor as JAXA, which doesn’t show a record low, so the difference must be in processing of the data:
The wording from their press release hardly seems scientific and more than a bit over the top:
Alerting message from the Arctic: The extent the the Arctic sea ice has reached on Sep. 8 with 4.240 million km2 a new historic minimum (Figure 1). Physicists of the University of Bremen now confirm the apprehension existing since July 2011 that the ice melt in the Arctic could further proceed and even exceed the previous historic minimum of 2007. It seems to be clear that this is a further consequence of the man-made global warming with global consequences. Directly, the livehood of small animals, algae, fishes and mammals like polar bears and seals is more and more reduced.
The answer to why such language might be used, perhaps prematurely in the face of other datasets which presently disagree, may be found in the proximity of the upcoming Climate Reality Project (aka the Gore-a-thon) on September 14-15. Al needs something to hold up as an example of gloom, since sea ice didn’t repeat the 2007 low in 2008, 2009, or 2010, and the Antarctic has not been cooperative with the melt meme at all, remaining boringly “normal” and even above normal last year.
We’ll know the answer when we see if this Bremen missive is included in Al’s upcoming presentation.
As for whether or not Arctic sea ice extent turned the corner this year, note below that in the prime ice areas, surface air temperature is well below freezing. So. it is up to the wind and ocean currents and other vagaries of weather to determine if we have in fact bottomed out, or if there’s still some loss to come.
If it has turned the corner, it will be about a full week earlier than usual. There could still be another downward blip, as happened in 2010 and in 2007, so I’m not ready to call a turn for certain yet, but it does look encouraging.
Stay updated with all of the latest plots and maps at the WUWT Sea Ice Reference page. Readers may also be interested in the WUWT forecast submission to ARCUS and the notes with it.
==================================
UPDATE2: NSIDC has posted an update in their Sea Ice News section, which I’m reposting below in entirety for WUWT readers:
Overview of conditions
On September 10, Arctic sea ice extent was 4.34 million square kilometers (1.68 million square miles). This was 110,000 square kilometers (42,500 square miles) above the 2007 value on the same date. The record minimum Arctic sea ice extent, recorded in 2007, was 4.17* million square kilometers (1.61 million square miles).
The rate of decline has flattened considerably the last few days: Arctic sea ice is likely near its minimum value for the year. However, weather patterns could still push the ice extent lower. NSIDC scientists will make an announcement when ice extent has stopped declining and has expanded for several days in a row, indicating that the Arctic sea ice has reached its lowest extent for the year and has begun freezing over. During the first week of October, after data are processed and analyzed for the month of September, NSIDC scientists will issue a more detailed analysis of this year’s melt season and the state of the sea ice.
NSIDC’s sea ice data come from the Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder (SSMIS) sensor on the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) F17 satellite. This data record, using the NASA Team algorithm developed by scientists at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, is the longest time series of sea ice extent data, extending back to 1979.
Other sea ice data are available from other data providers, using different satellite sensors and sea ice algorithms. For example, data from the University of Bremen indicate that sea ice extent from their algorithm fell below the 2007 minimum. They employ an algorithm that uses high resolution information from the JAXA AMSR-E sensor on the NASA Aqua satellite. This resolution allows small ice and open water features to be detected that are not observed by other products. This year the ice cover is more dispersed than 2007 with many of these small open water areas within the ice pack. While the University of Bremen and other data may show slightly different numbers, all of the data agree that Arctic sea ice is continuing its long-term decline.
For more information about the Arctic sea ice minimum, see the NSIDC Icelights article, Heading Towards the Summer Minimum Ice Extent.
*Near-real-time data initially recorded the 2007 record low as 4.13 million square kilometers 1.59 million square miles). The final data, reprocessed by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center using slightly different processing and quality control procedures, record the number as 4.17 million square kilometers (1.61 million square miles). NSIDC reports daily extent as a 5-day average. For more about the data, see the FAQ, Do your data undergo quality control?
Martin van Etten says:
September 13, 2011 at 5:32 am
Martin, I’m willing to bet you $500 that your “worrying thing”, a “sea ice free [Arctic] summer”, will NOT occur within the next five years. Anthony can hold the stakes.
I’m tired of whiners making apocalyptic predictions and telling us how concerned and worried they are. Talk is cheap. You willing to back your claim by putting your money where your mouth is?
Time to put up or shut up.
w.
PS – My prediction? Martin will come back to tell us how he’s not a betting man, but if he were, by golly, I’d be in deep trouble …
Some pedantry: the average date of the minima for the years 2002 to 2010 is Sept 14th (actually 14.56) which is later than Anthony’s date of the minimum of the averages. So we need to wait until tomorrow.
Walt Meier says:
September 13, 2011 at 7:38 am
——————————————
Quality guy.
One of the most important things to realize from this year, isn’t whether it beat out 2007 in extents (though it certainly has in volume), but rather, it proves that:
1) There is no on-going Arctic Sea ice recovery
2) 2007 was not a freak “outlier” event. Even though 2007 and 2011 both had very different melt dynamics, based on how energy was flowing into and moving around the Arctic, 2011 has proven that 2007 was not a “freak” event, but rather, a new downward low mark, which this year proves as the future direction of Arctic sea ice.
The point is, when looking at the Arctic, measure simply water or air temps is not enough to see how the melt dynamics might progress for season. Wind, waves, water vapor levels, ocean currents are all part of the total energy of ocean and atmopshere, and so, even though the total energy profile mix of 2007 and 2011 were different…the results were similar as the total energy was similar.
Expect 2007 and 2011 low sea ice area, extent, and volume marks to be beat in the coming years. The downward spiral continues…
rbateman says:
September 13, 2011 at 10:40 am
Sea Ice is boring stuff.
____
You obviously have no idea how important sea ice is to weather and ecosystems.
Hoser says:
September 13, 2011 at 10:08 am
This disucssion seems to have fallen back into the old assumption that temperature is the only factor affecting arctic ice.
____
Temperature is only one component of the total energy content of the atmosphere and oceans. A large part of the energy reaching earth is converted to many other forms of energy besides sensible heat.
I have seen much peer-reviewed work discussed here on WUWT showing how much of the Arctic warming is attributable to soot (aka black carbon), up to perhaps half of it. Given the vagaries in the temperature record such as GISS basically guesstimating the Arctic temps from a single station, soot could conceivably account for ALL of the warming.
There is also the famous WUWT “zombie ice” post highlighting peer-reviewed work saying a “sea ice free summer” is nothing to worry about, it just means a longer period during which the Arctic Ocean will dump lots more heat to space until the insulating layer of ice is reformed. The negative feedback mechanism is revealed, more heat melting more ice simply means more heat gets removed from the oceans.
Now for the interesting part. The soot is causing an artificial Arctic warming, one not related to the normal expected effects of sea and air temperatures. The extra warmth would be leading to increased ice loss. Less ice means more heat dumped to space. Therefore the soot is causing an extra loss of Total Ocean Heat Content.
Is the net effect of the soot, in the Northern Hemisphere affecting the Arctic area, leading to global cooling, or just a reduction in the rate of global warming, which is primarily noticed in the temperature record in the NH? Could increasing soot from China and India (and others) be why global warming has essentially ceased, by the proposed mechanism (as opposed to “aerosol effect” solar shielding)?
Richard111 says:
September 13, 2011 at 9:50 am
If, (big if), all arctic sea ice melted in summer, wouldn’t this result in more water vapour in the arctic regions resulting in more precipitation to build up the glaciers?
____
Glacial growth requires very cold summer of little melt. Higher water vapor levels are normally associated with greater snowfall event, but ironically, the warmer temps of the summer associated with higher water vapor levels don’t allow that snowfall to stay around until the next winter.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
September 13, 2011 at 11:44 am
“Given the vagaries in the temperature record such as GISS basically guesstimating the Arctic temps from a single station, soot could conceivably account for ALL of the warming.”
____
Some yes, but not all. Higher water temperatures have been measured entering the Arctic from both the Pacific and Atlantic sides. Nothing to do with soot, but simply a higher ocean heat content that we’ve seen over the past 30+ years…
And right on cue, Real Climate has a post declaring that the ice extent is falling off the cliff! (for July anyway)
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/09/the-unnoticed-melt/#more-8778
Unless somebody knows with any certainty what the ice extent should be, I’m going to be content to accept that it should be what it is. In fact if it should be anything else than what it is then we need a new definition of “should”.
History is sufficiently full of melting ice cap stories that you’d think we would all accept it as a given that the volume of ice at the poles is what it is because that is what all the contributing conditions produce. That nobody knows what all the contributing conditions are is another given.
So what is the evidence to support what I’m suggesting? Look at the wide range of guestimates on the the extent maxima and minima will be from year to year. Look at the 1979 – 2008 average and notice it is rarely what any year as actually been.
Queue the ukulele. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DEoOdcYKbc
As I understand it, satellite observations of Arctic ice extent began in 1979. Prior to that time data is for the most part anecdotal. 32 years worth of data is insufficient to determine either what is average or normal beyond that time frame. Why is so much time spent discussing what amounts to a barely noticeable instant during the several billion years of Earth’s existence? As Sargent Schultz would say: “we know nothing”.
Dirty snow and ice melt in the sunshine… no surprise there… just glad this has finally been scientifically proven (think the article on that airborne soot research was here on W.U.W.T. recently). China, India, and S.E. Asia’s truly sooty industrial rise + lower stratosphere + the Hadley cell cycle is why polar ice has decreased around the edges at 75-85 north latitude where it is brought down to be dumped and snowed out just to increase melting the next summer.
Wonder when ol’ Al Gore will work on forcing these countries to clean up their act and get off the West’s back?
R. Gates says:
September 13, 2011 at 11:47 am
Not true at all. The necessary and sufficient condition for glacial growth is that accretion be greater than loss. It is immaterial how that occurs, whether by increased accretion or decreased loss. Depending on the location and the local climatic conditions, glacial growth can be due to either one.
w.
Steve from Rockwood says:
September 13, 2011 at 10:42 am
4. Why can’t we say that 1979 was an “historic” maximum for sea ice and that we’re back to more “normal” levels – despite increasing CO2 levels?
Mostly because the data don’t support an interpretation like that. From 1979 through the late 1990’s, the amount of ice held relatively close to steady (and 1979 was definitely not the maximum). So for two decades we have relatively stable data.
This past decade, the data show a clear declining trend arctic ice. I supposed you could say that since ~ 2006 there has been no more decline, and that perhaps we are leveling out. But there is no indication that the trend is stopping or reversing.
To say it your way, you would have to interpret 20 years of data as “historically unusual” and 5 years of data as “normal”. (Now it is certainly possible that this is the correct interpretation, but Occam’s razor would suggest the simpler conclusion that the majority of the data represents the natural situation and that the smaller set of data are the unusual points.)
I have noticed that certain skeptics have not seemed interested to comment about the overall Global Sea Ice Extent, which, when considering the southern hemisphere’s current negative anomaly in sea ice extent is pushing the Global Sea Ice extent very close, if not at a record low extent for any date, any time of year.
R Gates said
1) There is no on-going Arctic Sea ice recovery
Of ourse there is not, it will take time,probably the same amount of time it took for the ice pack to reach the state it is now..ie 30years, do really think it will reach record extent,area,volume etc in a couple of years. you warmist really crack me up,”no recovery because the ice pack has not jumped back to a record level”lol lol lolyou read the same thing on so many climate blogs it makes me smile
The trends in the sea ice extent indicate that there will still be 1.0M km2 of sea ice remaining even in the year 2100.
Not enough attention has been paid to how much ice starts out the year during the March Maximum and then how much Melts throughout the season (which is not changing by very much).
Using the average day of the Maximum sea ice on Day 67 (March 8th) and the Minimum sea ice on the average Day 255 (September 12th) – we find these trends …
– The Max has been declining by 32,261 km2 per year (or 0.2% from the average 14.77M km2).
– The Melt throughout the season has been increasing at 14,147 km2 per year (or 0.2% from the average 8.71M km2); and
– the Minimum has been declining by 46,408 km2 per year (or 0.8% from the average 6.06M km2).
http://img850.imageshack.us/im…..ds2011.png
Extending these (linear) trends out to the year 2100, results in about 1.0M km2 of ice still remaining in September, 2100.
http://img199.imageshack.us/im…..to2100.png
Maybe the trends are not linear (some have noted that the Minimum might be a polynomial) but the Max and the Melt certainly appear to be just a simple linear trend (and the residual of two linear trends is also linear).
Willis Eschenbach says:
September 13, 2011 at 11:58 am
R. Gates says:
September 13, 2011 at 11:47 am
Glacial growth requires very cold summer of little melt.
Not true at all. The necessary and sufficient condition for glacial growth is that accretion be greater than loss. It is immaterial how that occurs, whether by increased accretion or decreased loss. Depending on the location and the local climatic conditions, glacial growth can be due to either one.
w.
_____
The ice core records would disagree with you Willis. The periods of greatest glacial growth were during cold periods on earth, that had lower humidity and colder summers. See:
http://rabbithole2.com/presentation/images2/ice_core/alley2000.gif
Sorry, the chart links should be:
http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/5617/nhseasonaltrends2011.png
http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/9575/nhseasonaltrendsto2100.png
Brian says:
September 13, 2011 at 7:05 am
“It’s so close that it really doesn’t matter if it does or doesn’t set a new low.”
I love your brand of dissembling! Try this:
‘It’s so close to a lie that it really doesn’t matter if it is or isn’t a new lie.’
The U of Bremen pushed this largely unsupported assertion out into the media to take advantage of the “primacy effect”. When learning things or hearing a list of items, people are more likely to remember the first item mentioned. Thus, even a falsehood can become secured as ‘fact’ in human memory, if the assertion is made boldly before any less memorable dissent or refutation can be brought forth. After that, ‘it really doesn’t matter if it is or isn’t the truth’, does it? At least, as experienced in The Life Of Brian….
R. Gates says:
September 13, 2011 at 12:02 pm
I have noticed that certain skeptics have not seemed interested to comment about the overall Global Sea Ice Extent, which, when considering the southern hemisphere’s current negative anomaly in sea ice extent is pushing the Global Sea Ice extent very close, if not at a record low extent for any date, any time of year.
yes and when the southern ice extent reached record levels a couple of years ago, the shrill
of warmists doom mogering was ever so conspicuous by its absence wasn’t it old chap
Here we go again-we have the same panic every year-good job there are cool heads like Anthony.
Claims of unprecedented warmth and abnormal melting of melting arctic ice are unfounded if we look at history;
1 The following link describes the ancient cultures of the warmer arctic 5000 to 1000 years ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Lithoderm/Inuit_culture
2 This relates to an Arctic culture thriving in warmer times 2000 years ago
From the Eskimo Times Monday, Mar. 17, 1941
“The corner of Alaska nearest Siberia was probably man’s first threshold to the Western Hemisphere. So for years archeologists have dug there for a clue to America’s prehistoric past. Until last year, all the finds were obviously Eskimo. Then Anthropologists Froelich G. Rainey of the University of Alaska and two collaborators struck the remains of a town, of inciedible size and mysterious culture. Last week in Natural History Professor Rainey, still somewhat amazed, described this lost Arctic city.
It lies at Ipiutak on Point Hope, a bleak sandspit in the Arctic Ocean, where no trees and little grass survive endless gales at 30° below zero. But where houses lay more than 2,000 years ago, underlying refuse makes grass and moss grow greener. The scientists could easily discern traces of long avenues and hundreds of dwelling sites. A mile long, a quarter-mile wide, this ruined city was perhaps as big as any in Alaska today (biggest: Juneau, pop. 5,700).
On the Arctic coast today an Eskimo village of even 250 folk can catch scarcely enough seals, whales, caribou to live on. What these ancient Alaskans ate is all the more puzzling because they seem to have lacked such Arctic weapons as the Eskimo harpoon.
Yet they had enough leisure to make many purely artistic objects, some of no recognizable use. Their carvings are vaguely akin to Eskimo work but so sophisticated and elaborate as to indicate a relation with some centre of advanced culture — perhaps Japan or southern Siberia —certainly older than the Aztec or Mayan”.
3 This link leads to the Academy of science report of the same year regarding the Ipiutak culture described above
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1078291
4 This interesting book refers to the Vikings living in a warmer arctic culture 1000 years ago
It is called ‘The Viking world’. It is a very scholarly and highly referenced book running to some 700 pages and deals with all aspects of the Vikings. It is good because it does not have an axe to grind, but deals matter of factly with all aspects of Viking culture and exploration.
There is a large section on their initial exploration of Greenland, the subsequent establishment of their farms there, everyday life, how they gradually lost access to the outside world as the sea lanes closed through ice, a record of the last wedding held In Greenland and how trade dried up. It also deals with Vinland/Newfoundland and it seems that it was wild grapes that helped give the area its name, it being somewhat warmer than today.
This is one of a number of similar books that record our warmer and cooler past throughout the Northern Hermisphere. Al Gore wrote a good book in 1992 called ‘Earth in the Balance’ in which he explored the changing climate that devastated the civilisations in the Southern Hemishpere.
The book ‘The Viking World’ is Edited by Stefan Brink with Neil Price Published by Routledge ISBN 978 0 415 33315-3
I suggest you borrow it from the local library as it costs $250!
5 I wrote about the The Great Arctic warming in the 19th Century a couple of years ago-it examines the period 1815-60 when the Arctic ice melted and the Royal Society mounted an expedition to investigate the causes.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/20/historic-variation-in-arctic-ice/#more-8688
6) This refers to a warmer arctic 75 years ago recorded on Pathe newsreel by Bob Bartlett on the Morrisey during his journeys there in the 1920’s and 1930’s and reported in all the media.
http://boothbayharborshipyard.blogspot.com/2008/08/arctic-explorer-on-ways.html
“Diary- Wednesday, 10th August 1932
The ship rolled heavily all night and continues to do so….
The glacier continues its disturbances. No real bergs break off but great sheets of ice slide down into the water and cause heavy seas. About noon, the entire face of the glacier, almost a mile in length and six or eight feet deep slid off with a roar and a rumble that must have been heard at some distance. We were on deck at the time for a preliminary report like a pistol shot had warned us what was coming. The Morrissey rolled until her boats at the davits almost scooped up the water and everything on board that was not firmly anchored in place crashed loose. But this was nothing to the pandemonium on shore. I watched it all through the glasses. The water receded leaving yards of beach bare and then returned with a terrific rush, bringing great chunks of ice with it. Up the beach it raced further and further, with the Eskimos fleeing before it. It covered all the carefully cherished piles of walrus meat, flowed across two of the tents with their contents, put out the fire over which the noonday meal for the sled drivers was being prepared, and stopped a matter of inches before it reached the pile of cement waiting to be taken up the mountain. Fortunately, in spite of heavy sea, which was running, the Captain had managed to be set shore this morning so he was there with them to help straighten out things and calm them down.”
7) This period was also recorded in a more scientific fashion in this free online book on the Arctic warming 1919-1939 written by my colleague Dr Arnd Bernaerts who examined the last great warming -prior to the modern one- in great detail.
http://www.arctic-heats-up.com/chapter_1.html
The arctic has periodically warmed to greater amounts than today. A reduction in ice extent in that brief moment in time since 1979 is of no consequence if you look at the historical record of this region.
tonyb
Willis Eschenbach says:
September 13, 2011 at 11:58 am
R. Gates says:
September 13, 2011 at 11:47 am
Glacial growth requires very cold summer of little melt.
Not true at all. The necessary and sufficient condition for glacial growth is that accretion be greater than loss. It is immaterial how that occurs, whether by increased accretion or decreased loss. Depending on the location and the local climatic conditions, glacial growth can be due to either one.
w.
Exactly see here
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=2&sqi=2&ved=0CCMQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailymail.co.uk%2Fsciencetech%2Farticle-1350994%2FGreenland-glaciers-flow-slower-hot-summers-adapting-climate-change.html&ei=iqpvTtHPD4KZhQeH7sDVCQ&usg=AFQjCNEHYVGpaiFntc5by84HFurevX_bOw
and here
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=6&sqi=2&ved=0CDwQFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencedaily.com%2Freleases%2F2011%2F07%2F110714141333.htm&ei=iqpvTtHPD4KZhQeH7sDVCQ&usg=AFQjCNH7rA38RkbESXPMZyOe3aHsCfdufQ
and here
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=7&sqi=2&ved=0CEIQFjAG&url=http%3A%2F%2Finspiringnews.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F04%2F02%2Fglaciers-growing-on-mount-shasta%2F&ei=iqpvTtHPD4KZhQeH7sDVCQ&usg=AFQjCNFoyCBvsFa2q42LblE2hmgyoUQecA
and all in warming world,who’d ever of thunk it!!!
Werner Brozek says:
September 13, 2011 at 9:00 am
According to Lubos:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/09/rss-amsu-jan-aug-2011-second-coldest-in.html
“According to RSS AMSU, the first 8 months were the 2nd coldest January-August period in this century so far (second among 11 candidate years).”
Then how can the lowest or second lowest ice extent this year be blamed on global warming? As others have pointed out, there are other things that are more important than global warming here.
Apart from Lubos not being the most reliable source, RSS doesn’t measure in the Arctic north of 82.5º, it also isn’t a surface measure.