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.
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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?
Mycroft says:
September 13, 2011 at 12:08 pm
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…
___
Don’t know about other so-called “warmists” but as most here on WUWT painfully know, I never tire of talking about sea ice or glaciers, no matter what hemisphere they are part of…
Strange sort of Death Spiral, I thought spirals would go lower not stop at the same low as before. Maybe on a Flat Earth spirals are flat as well.
Looks like we are at a turning point in a long natural cylce and within the next decade we’d all be wishing that global warming was true and not just a wealth re-distribution scam brouhgt to us by the loony fringes.
Arguing over what modifier/intensifier ought to be in front of “bad year for Arctic sea ice” is really pretty pointless. It was a bad year.
This whole thing highlights the importance of proper perspective. Many skeptics (e.g. Lindzen) agree that global warming continues (as it has since the end of the little ice age) but that it isn’t accelerating and will not be a catastrophe. The Arctic sea ice is a perfect example of data that supports this point of view. The year-over-year fall in extent is linear. The dang thing is alarmingly unalarming.
People who scream about tipping points are slowly being proved wrong. People who scream that the warming has halted are slowly being proved wrong.
Expect slow, harmless, boring warming to continue for the rest of our lives. If we insist on staking out the position that the warming has ended, the warmists will win the public debate. If we stake out the position that the warming isn’t accelerating, we win.
“R. Gates says:
September 13, 2011 at 11:49 am
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…”
So maybe we are not seeing an increased Arctic summer ice melt from 2007 onwards because global ocean heat content stabilised around the same time http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/
But no doubt R Gates is putting his money on a resumption of increased ocean heat content in the near future.
R. Gates says:
September 13, 2011 at 12:07 pm
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
Uh, R. Gates –
You said “Glacial growth requires very cold summer of little melt.”
Please show where the ice core records never show any glacial growth during a year when the summers were not “very cold” and there was not “little melt”.
Summer ice – What’s it good for? It can neither be eaten nor drunk. Ice must first melt to be biologically useful. GK
“Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering ice sheet; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.”
Captain Ahab
Record low Arctic ice levels = Global Warming
Record high Antarctic ice levels = Global Warming.
Thus, the scam is sold, the gravy train rolls again and all is well in Goreland.
Mod – please correct my above to read:
“…when the summers were not “very cold” and there was not “little melt”.
Thanks.
[REPLY: Fixed. REP, mod]
“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.”
So R Gates is into judging the effect of CO2 in within a timespan of a couple of years when even “soul mates” such as Santer is now stating with great certainty that 17 years are needed to establish the effect of man made CO2 (or not). It is just silly to pick on such short time scales.
So I could say that the CO2 theory is definitely “sunk” because 1998 was the hottest year to date and we have had 13 years with lower temperatures than 1998 and (there is more) the ocean heat content has stabilised since 2003 http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/ and (not finished) global sea levels also stabilised around 2003. We have reached a tipping point and we are moving towards colder times. I could say that using the R Gates arguments. I would say that we are at a point where nobody can predict with any certainty what is going to happen over the next 10-20 years. We are approaching interesting times and the next 5 to 10 years could sink or confirm the AGW theory. If Trenberth finds his hidden heat and finds the release valve R Gates may feel vindicated. Problem is that the heat is neither in the atmosphere nor in the ocean if the NOAA measurements are to be believed.
http://oi56.tinypic.com/vfv70g.jpg
Since the Arctic was as “warm” in 40ties as today, current ice anomaly vs 79-00 is hardly exceptional. Remember that in 1942-44, NW Passage was open as well. Satellite data are available just for the rising tail at the end of the record. Like someone inventing thermometer at 8AM and claiming highest daily temperature measured evah at 2PM.
Even more important things from the record above: winter temperatures should be the first rising under increased “greenhouse effect”. However, they are exactly the same as in 40ties, effectively debunking the whole AGW theory. The whole record shows no correlation with CO2.
Now, see the Arctic playstation models:
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/IPCC/IMAGES/all.1900-2100.tas.timeseries.png
They do not model the reality at all even backwards. They are tuned to fit the warm phase of PDO/AMO since 1975 and do not fit the reality neither before nor after.
So either the whole radiative forcing pseudophysics is all wrong, or CO2 does not matter. Models are all trash based on unphysical and hypothetical painted arrows in K-T cartoons.
R. Gates, could you please propose some mechanism by which steadily increasing CO2 levels (and by steadily I mean nearly linear, and not chaotic like the climate) are causing all of “Wind, waves, water vapor levels,” and “ocean currents” to alter in such a way as to cause the arctic ice to head on a downward death spiral, all-the-while, Antarctic sea ice refuses to budge from “normal”. After all, it is “Global” warming is it not?
Heck, forget the Antarctic ice, and just propose a mechanism by which CO2 is altering wind, waves, water vapour levels and ocean currents.
Who knew that a trace gas can actually push ocean currents around, cause wind, and waves, etc…
£100 GBP says Arctic summer sea ice will not dissapear in the next ten years! Any takers?
@Paul_ 6.00am
A long post entitled “Historic Variation in Arctic Ice by Tony B” should give you more background from the famous quote from “The Royal Society to the Admiralty in 1817” to Amundsen’s voyage through the NW Passage in 1905 in a wooden sail boat.
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/historic-variation-in-arctic-ice-tony-b/
The Candian patrol vessel St Roch made the passage in 1942 and 1944
http://hnsa.org/ships/stroch.htm
livehood?
Can these alarmists not run a spell checker over their press release before releasing it?
Well, my WAG was 5.1-5.3m sq km for this year, but hey, what’s a million between friends? 😉
These last two Northern winters have been pretty severe, with a Snowball America in 2009-10 and Snowball Europe last winter, extreme cold that would normally stay up in the Arctic making ice.
Looking at the way that it melted, it strikes me that maybe the Gulf Stream shifted Westwards and instead of warming our coastline (Ireland had one of its coldest summers this summer), it passed unimpeded between Iceland and Norway straight into the Arctic, melting the ice away from the Russian coastline and exposing more edges.
Looking at the Sea Ice page and the Oceanic Oscillation Page (did I mention what a wonderful resource those pages are?), the sea ice extent went down pretty much in lock step with the rising North Atlantic temps, but that dog looks like it only has a couple of more years left in it.
jason says:
September 13, 2011 at 6:05 am (Edit)
Wait for it, R Gates will be along to represent the “lukewarmers” any minute now….
Me? Since the “record” is since 1979 I think this whole focus is insane.
#########
I’m not sure where R Gates will come down on this. But as far as Lukewarmers go I will say that this represents our position.
In a warming world, whatever causes that warming, we would expect and predict a decline in arctic ice. The shape of that decline will be irregular. it will be irregular for various reasons.
1. global warming itself is not monotonic
2. Ice melts for many reasons, not the least of which is the exact weather that occurs during the
season.
3. That decline may lag the actual temperature increases.
4. we will see ups and downs about the trendline.
But the trendline will be downward in a warming world. REGARDLESS of the cause of the warming. If the sun doubled its power, we’d expect the ice to melt.
The observed decline of ice since the advent of accurate measurements (1979) is entirely
inline with the theory. A warmer world will tend to have less arctic ice than a cooler world. there is
nothing surprising about this whatsoever.
The past: the “historic” value of today’s ice is a debate that doesnt make much sense in the context of the theory. It may very well be that there was less ice in the 40s or less ice 1000 years ago or 10K years ago. That fact has no bearing on the theory that a warmer world will have
generally speaking… less ice than a cooler world. It also says nothing about the physics that
explains, IN PART, why we are warming. We are warming, in part, because of changes to the
atmosphere. This explanation does not rule out other causes and the existence of other causes does not change radiative physics.
The future: If we continue in a warming regime, ice will diminish. It will not diminish in a straight line. it will not diminish monotonically. There will be up years ( thank you weather) and dramatic
plummets (thank you weather). during the up years some people will focus on the uptick. They will claim recovery. During the plummets, other will cry death spiral. Go figure. In any case, as the world continues to warm and warmer warmers cycle northward, summer ice will decline. When will summer ice reach zero? More specifically, when will the sept extent slip below 1M sq km?
Good question. Lukewarmers think this is an iconic question. It’s largely a distraction to focus on iconic issues. 5 years? 10? 30? 70? It’s not really a big issue for us. Its an issue that warmista and contras argue about.
@Frederick Michael, you ar correct. The only scary thing is if the warming stops and it starts to get colder, now thats scary. The climate is always changeing and has never been static !!!
Tim Folkerts says:
September 13, 2011 at 12:01 pm
Tim, your argument seems logical. From 1979 until the 1990s the summer ice extent minimum was fairly stable. Then it progressively dropped and stabilized at a new “low” in 2006. From this I conclude that:
a) 20 years is not a long enough time period to establish a background value for Arctic sea ice extent and it is likely meaningless over a “climate” period of time – say 100 years or longer, and
b) invoking Occams razor, the fact that Arctic sea ice was stable until the 1990s and once again stabilized in 2006 to present, the relative low sea ice during 2007 has nothing to do with CO2 concentrations which have been linearly increasing every year since the 1950s so that CO2 is not warming the Arctic, and finally
c) scientists cannot seem to think in time periods that are longer than their career (with the exception of geologists and geochronologists), so that everything has to be explained within a 30 year time line.
Mosh said
“The past: the “historic” value of today’s ice is a debate that doesnt make much sense in the context of the theory.”
In theory you are right-the debate should be all about the changes (allegedly) wrought by man since around the 1970’s.
The fact that so many people continually reach into history-for example Dr Mann-suggests that the proponents of AGW are unsure of their ground and need to belittle past episodes of substantial climatic variation in order to be able to claim that todays conditions are unusual.
tonyb
Steven Mosher says:
September 13, 2011 at 1:18 pm
Lukewarmers think this is an iconic question. It’s largely a distraction to focus on iconic issues. 5 years? 10? 30? 70? It’s not really a big issue for us. Its an issue that warmista and contras argue about.
==========================================================
Well, I don’t consider myself a “lukewarmer”, but I do agree. Its not a big issue. and is largely a distraction. I’m actually anticipating a day when we can say: “See! I told ya so! The poley bears are still thriving, the world didn’t spontaneously combust, the melted ice created a vehicle to cool the oceans, and MYI is once again forming because the equilibrium is swinging the other way.”
That said, I’m not sure we’re going to get there. Warming has abated for a decade. I think the MYI will continue to increase. I’m not sure we’re not beginning to see the pendulum already start swinging the other way. We’re this (| | fingers that far apart) close to being able to empirically disprove many postulates that accompany the CAGW lunacy!
It would seem so then 😉
So Arctic ice was pretty stable in extent until about 1995, then began a more pronounced downward trend that pretty much continues but may be levelling off in recent years.
Could somebody please remind me when the AMO went positive? 1995 seems to be ringing bells, with the start of a pronounced upward trend that pretty much continues but may be levelling off (though still positive) in recent years.
DEATH SPIRAL.
That was the the description the warmists gave in 2007. That was the nonsense we were fed and which poor Prince Charles ill advisedly regurgitated at the time, predicting an ice free arctic next summer.
This is the nonsense still being spouted by R.Gates in this very thread.
There is no spiral and there is no death. Period.
Get over it. The projection was totally wrong, and Chuck needs to chose his friends much more carefully if he wishes to be king in the future.
Suyts says:
I’m not sure we’re not beginning to see the pendulum already start swinging the other way.
Garethman says:
I’m still trying to make sense of that one. Is it like my grandmother used to say, “I see no reason why young ladies should not wear liberty bodices if they do not feel the cold as I do.” ?
Archaic English is a bigger challenge than predicting ice levels.
Steven Mosher says:
September 13, 2011 at 1:18 pm
“When will summer ice reach zero? More specifically, when will the sept extent slip below 1M sq km?”
Looking at all the graphs and the general rate of melting, there doesn’t appear to be enough time to get to 1M sq km let alone ice free. The ice would have to melt precipitously and continue on down through the months when the melting slows. Quite a few of the graphs have a base line of 2 m sq k, which gives the impression that ‘ice free’ is closer than it is.
Separately, the arctic is said to be an important driver of global weather, or words to that effect. And yet minimum ice in the arctic happens when lower latitudes are already dropping in temperature. Conversely, maximum ice is reached when lower latitudes are moving towards warmer temps. I would say that the arctic is a follower rather than a leader and especially considering it’s completely surrounded by somewhere else that is warmer. Max and minimum ice is always about 3 months behind the longest and shortest days respectively.