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?
@richard says:
September 13, 2011 at 8:39 am
Even if (a big if) this seasons extent minimum barely avoids breaking `07s minimum, it`s still been a disastrous melt season for the Arctic. And if there was any old ice left at the beginning of the melt, it`s surely gone by now,,,or very close to being gone. I dread what next summer will do to the ice cap.
Wasn’t everybody dreading what next summer was going to do with the ice back in 2007? This season proves nothing if it doesn’t prove there is no more decline going on? What we have, based on the current data, is whatever decline there was has now stopped for four years running.
Steven Mosher says:
September 13, 2011 at 1:18 pm
Steve, I would concur – in a generic sense. However, I would also add that one should remember that the arctic is only a ‘region’, and, like any other region will experience climatic variation for any number of direct and indirect reasons. No amount of bulldust will excuse the fact that 30 years of actual measurement data (accurate or otherwise) will displace the fact that a real climate based TREND of any value cannot be established in a meagre 30 years, we would need many decades, perhaps centuries, to distinguish a real signal from the climatic variablility noise.
Indeed, IMO, the skeptical view is to largely consider that the downward trend is by no means enough! – if, as claimed, CAGW is such a major issue, – because, logically, if the so called CAGW effects are so bad and so drastic (e.g. as per various past ‘predictions’) – our ice free arctic summers would already be here! Based on the simple fact that they are not, the predictions and likely the basic theory are plainly in error! It matters not why they are in error, but they clearly are – so the modelers and all the climate boys need to reassess. The AGW theory is weakened as each passing year of data shows flat line or no significant trend – CO2 emissions are still rising – where is the direct link to the temp data? – it simply isn’t there!
It is so funny to observe the warmists discounting climate variability in some aspects when it suits their argument and then claiming the same climate variability is actually present at other times! (vis-a-vis, the last warming period til the late 90’s was NOT climate variability, but the subsequent flatline/cooling IS down to climate variability!)
No one can get away from the fact that we still do not have enough robust data, robust observation and certainly, no robust UNDERSTANDING of a the ‘chaotic’ climate system and all the interacting earths processes – but yet the constant pushing of AGW continues……..
I am at the stage where I will not really read or ‘listen’ to anymore BS on AGW without clear indication of error bars and uncertainties by the protagonists – it’s pointless……..realistically, when their models are of the equivalent efficiency of being able to predict even half of the lottery numbers – then I will take notice! Until then – chaos rules! LOL
why are people so concerned by this one measure…what about all the others out there that no one ever reports…Antarctic ice, Himalayan ice, UK rainfall, UK temps….this ice-watching stuff is just infantile
Martin van Etten says:
September 13, 2011 at 5:32 am
>…while changing the linearity of the downward trend of minimal sea ice extent into an exponential curve to a sea ice free summer within a few years; that is the real worrying thing;
+++++
Worrying? What on earth for? The Arctic has been ice free in summer many times and it was far more habitable when it was. Did you read the article about the DNA of an Inuit man whose remains were found on the northern tip of Greenland? He died about 1000 years ago and that (now completely frozen) area was ice free at that time in summer.
There is simply no reason to think that the melting of floating sea ice is a bad thing. None. It amazes me that so much effort it put into generating faux horror about the stupid, completely stupid story about ‘drowning polar bears’.
The Canadian CBC slavishly reported today the ‘record melting’ of Arctic sea ice and its ‘new record’ and reiterated their worries about an ice-free summer Arctic, as if it was a bad thing. Only the desperate have to lie.
Happy Gorefest.
From the July survey page
Dermot O’Logical says:
June 27, 2011 at 1:55 am
Why no ‘precise’ options for below 4.5? I want to vote 4.3.
Well, I’m gratified.
My methodology was…. hold up…. peer review isn’t really in fashion anymore is it? Just take my word for it from now on.
Another Chicken Little moment just passed us by….
Just waiting for another idiot to bring us another one, he’ll be along any moment…
@richard says:
September 13, 2011 at 8:39 am
“Even if (a big if) this seasons extent minimum barely avoids breaking `07s minimum, it`s still been a disastrous melt season for the Arctic. And if there was any old ice left at the beginning of the melt, it`s surely gone by now,”
What is the oldest ice in the arctic? What should it be? Apart form there being significantly less ice than in recent history what is there that indicates it is disastrous? In every year the difference between max and min ice is greater than minimum, and that includes the ones with more summer ice. Currently the min ice extent still covers a vast area that is about twice the area of Greenland.
The poles are another part of the earths thermostat system, ice melt is a lag from previous heat input into the oceans. The heat from the last three rampant sun cycles pumped into the oceans is being dissipated rather quickly at the moment. Heat loss from the melting of ice is only a part of the system.
Ice acts as a blanket to keep the heat in, when it is lost the heat loss from the polar waters to space is huge. The lag time of heat in to heat out is a figure I do not know but appears to be less than a decade as the oceans are cooling with the quite sun cycle.
If the sun does not awaken soon a new setting on our thermostat will see a recovery of polar ice to keep the heat in.
“Where is Vinland”
“The summer climate in the North Atlantic about the year 1000”
“Roots of plants and deep Viking graves found in South Greenland in soil that is now tjaele (permafrost or permanently frozen ground) indicate that the annual mean temperature must have been 2-4°C warmer than now.”
“A cautious guess would be that the summer temperature would have been about 16°C on the average (almost as in Denmark) but with the significant difference that the summer there was shorter and that the spring was cold. The winter was probably a couple of degrees warmer than now.”
Read it all, there is lots there:-
http://www.canadianmysteries.ca/sites/vinland/othermysteries/climate/4157en.html
For extent, only the University of Bremen (shown below) shows this year to be lower, and has no turn. It uses the sameSSMI 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:
Bremen uses a higher resolution, 6.25×6.25 rather than the 12.5×12.5 that JAXA uses.
Record. Record for the past 30 years. Wow!
During a warming cycle, until it turns around and becomes a cooling /freezing trend, would one not expect a record level in many, if not most , of the years during that cycle?
Notably, since the referenced cycle does not include the cooling/freezing cycle which preceded.
I always find the seriousness of the arguments that arise in any of these Arctic sea ice threads fairly amusing. For those of you who may find that statement insulting I suggest a small research project. Go to what ever search engine is your favorite, of perhaps several. Enter search inquiries for the area of several well known landmasses, Australia, Antarctica, the lower 48 or any others that you prefer. Check enough of the resulting links to get three estimates that are independently derived. After you have done this for 3-4 separate landmasses, review what you have discovered and ask yourself this question. If I can’t find uncontroversial estimates for the areas of something as invariate as these locations, why should I have any faith in estimates of something as amorphous as sea ice which are quoted with much higher precision?
rednose says:
September 13, 2011 at 1:05 pm
@Paul_ 6.00am
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/
Well in fact it took 3 years, June 1903 to August 1906! Also it was built to withstand ice and relied on a motor rather than sail.
The Candian patrol vessel St Roch made the passage in 1942 and 1944
http://hnsa.org/ships/stroch.htm
The first journey by the St Roch took 28 months, from 1940-42.
Kev-in-Uk says:
September 13, 2011 at 9:14 am
I suppose, if you want to really really believe that AGW is the cause, thats a matter of personal opinion – but the only ‘dread’ I have is the one where all the warmists become like lemmings and throw themselves off cliffs as they cannot stand the guilt from their irresponsible earth damaging lives! (do I or should I really need to put /sarc here? :- )
I hope this does not occur, if only for the innocents walking on the beach below.
I read this on another site.
“I’ll predict that any numbers greater than the 2007 extent or area will be certain to be called a recovery at WUWT and if the numbers are worse they will be put down to a “natural cycle”.
Someone’s got you guy’s number.
Summer ice volume has declined from 16.8 cubic kilometers in 1979 to 4.3 cubic kilometers today – a new record – it bet last year’s record.
Kev-in-Uk says:
September 13, 2011 at 9:14 am
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I am not a believer in AGW. But the ice cap plays a big roll in stabilizing the climate for agriculture in North America. Too much disruption of the ice cap will play havoc with farming and food production. We import everything else we need,,,perhaps we can import all or most of our food, also?
Gareth Phillips says:
September 13, 2011 at 2:12 pm
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.
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Sorry….double negatives……. let me rephrase…….. We could be witnessing the pendulum swing the other way, but I’m not sure.
R. Gates says:
September 13, 2011 at 11:42 am
Uh, I think that was what I said. Implicitly. And your contribution to the discussion is….
Richard says:
September 13, 2011 at 4:11 pm
“I am not a believer in AGW. But the ice cap plays a big roll in stabilizing the climate for agriculture in North America. Too much disruption of the ice cap will play havoc with farming and food production. ……….”
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Richard, I’d really love to see the evidence of such an assertion. From the comment directly above yours…… “Summer ice volume has declined from 16.8 cubic kilometers in 1979 to 4.3 cubic kilometers today…………(and then more blathering about a new record) ”
Crop production, especially in North America has significantly increased during that time period. Richard, save your dread for something real and something significant. Worrying about an ice cube in the ocean is as about as useful as worrying about 1/2 degree rise in temps over an arbitrary period of time.
Dave Wendt says:
September 13, 2011 at 3:52 pm
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LOL…good one…and true
Mycroft says:
September 13, 2011 at 12:04 pm
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.
_____
I know, skeptics keep holding on to “there’s a recovery right around the corner” notion, but the paleoclimate record wouldn’t support it. The last time we had this much CO2 in the atmosphere, (i.e. the mid-Pliocene) we had ice-free Arctic ocean summers. Don’t see how this downward trend can be reversed.
Dave Wendt says:
September 13, 2011 at 3:52 pm
I always find the seriousness of the arguments that arise in any of these Arctic sea ice threads fairly amusing. For those of you who may find that statement insulting I suggest a small research project. Go to what ever search engine is your favorite, of perhaps several. Enter search inquiries for the area of several well known landmasses, Australia, Antarctica, the lower 48 or any others that you prefer. Check enough of the resulting links to get three estimates that are independently derived. After you have done this for 3-4 separate landmasses, review what you have discovered and ask yourself this question. If I can’t find uncontroversial estimates for the areas of something as invariate as these locations, why should I have any faith in estimates of something as amorphous as sea ice which are quoted with much higher precision?
____
It’s not the exact precision that matters but the trend. Errors would be consistent across measurements, but that would not affect the trend. Simple visual observation of satellite pictures from one year to the next and ground reports from those who’ve actually lived along the shores of the Arctic confirm the trends. Exact numbers to the nearest 1000 sq. km. are not important.
Latitude says:
September 13, 2011 at 4:51 pm
Dave Wendt says:
September 13, 2011 at 3:52 pm
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LOL…good one…and true
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Seconded, but then Dave, your statement leads us to some other questions that may actually have some bearing on the greater discussion.
I was involved in mapping the area my company covers to quit a bit of detail. Our mapping kept getting off a bit from what we knew was real. We bought high quality GPS machines and I double and triple checked the plotting. It drove me nuts! I asked an expert about why this was happening. He asked what data set I was using. ………. 😐 Huh? A GPS location is a GPS location! Nope. Holy crap! There are so many data sets one doesn’t know which one to choose. Well, we choose one and stuck with it. The maps are great and functional. Precise? To a point. I thought on this for a while. We share many satellites. How are the satellites calibrated to send information specific to the data set we chose? I really doubt they are programed with NAD27. I wonder how many others? In a county in Kansas, it doesn’t make that much difference, but some of our GPS locations put us on the wrong side of the road. But, we’re not talking about a county in Kansas when we’re talking ice caps. BTW, we ended up using NAD83.
Satellites…… they aren’t quite as advertised.
R. Gates says:
September 13, 2011 at 12:02 pm
OK, I’ll comment. Contrary to your claim, global sea ice is not close to a record low extent for “any date, any time”, that’s just the usual exaggeration so beloved by AGW folks. If there were to be a record, it could only be just for the last 30 years, which is less than half my lifetime and is a mere sneeze in geological time …
w.
Not that it matters but it is interesting that a lot of snow in the Rocky Mountains and the Coast Mountains up towards Alaska didn’t melt this year and it is already snowing again. It may be that arctic ice is near a 30 year low but the snow in the mountains is looking the opposite. And that makes more difference to me. Frost warnings are out in our area of Alberta now, it could be mixed rain and snow this weekend in the foothills of the Rockies and we haven’t even reached the equinox yet.