UPDATE: 3/5 8:30PM PST There’s a hilarious backstory on the sockpuppetry that went on yesterday from the founder of The Arctic Institute – read my comment on it here
It is that time again where attention turns to Arctic Sea Ice because it is approaching maximum extent. There’s really only two periods each year that garner intense interest, and that is the times of maximum and minimum extent. We are fast approaching maximum.
First, let’s start off with a tiff that has developed between Cleveland’s NewsNet5 meteorologist Mark Johnson and an outfit I’ve never heard of called the “Arctic Institute” which called him out a couple of days ago over his report “Ice, ice, baby: Arctic sea ice on the rebound“. They opined on his report:
Only two problems, when I queried him, Johnson stated he was referencing NORSEX SSM/I from the WUWT Sea Ice page, not NSIDC. And, since the Arctic Institute apparently doesn’t know how NSIDC graphs work, they’ve pwned themselves in the process of making their put-down counter claims. Have a look:
The NSIDC 3/3/12 chart looks well within ±2STD and pretty close to the ±1STD boundary to me. Source: http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png
NORSEX SSM/I extent for 3/4/12 is in fact within ±1STD:
Source: http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_images/ssmi1_ice_ext.png
Mark Johnson was right. You’d think an outfit that bills themselves as…
The Arctic Institute seeks to establish itself as an authoritative, interdisciplinary, and independent source for information and in-depth analysis about the developments in the High North. The Institute was founded in 2011 and currently aims to bring together scholars and researchers to build a growing stock of knowledge and expertise on the Arctic region. In contrast to existing platforms for Arctic affairs, The Arctic Institute is not affiliated with or sponsored by any of the Arctic states.
…would know that NSDIC graphs are on a five day average (and thus don’t reflect recent updates right away), and that daily graphs such as the NORSEX SSMI showed that there had been a dramatic surge in the last couple of days. I guess we know now that “authoritative” is just really their own self serving world view, and not based in actual evidence.
By itself, this peak doesn’t mean all that much. We saw a similar jump near the max in 2009 and 2010, and in 2010 the extent hugged the normal center line for several weeks. In the end though, most people are interested in the minimum in September, and since that event is so dependent on the short term vagaries of wind and weather, having a normal extent at maximum doesn’t guarantee a higher or even normal minimum in September.
One other thing I noted about the Arctic Institute is that they really didn’t show the current extent mapped out, so here it is:
I note that folks like the Arctic Institute just don’t like showing picture of reality, especially at maximum, since their entire existence is predicated on the Serreze “arctic death spiral” mentality and picture like this tend to make people wonder why there’s still ice in the Arctic when they have been told repeatedly it is disappearing at “unprecedented rates”.
So as to prevent the on cue wailing and gnashing of teeth from folks of that ilk, here is their favored presentation:
It sure would be nice if University of Illinois could learn to time stamp their images like I finally convinced NSIDC to do. That would be the scientific thing to do.
The offset right now is minus 726,000 square kilometers, an area slightly bigger than the state of Texas (695,621 sqkm). Most of that missing ice extent is in the Barentz and Greenland seas, as noted in this image from NSIDC I have annotated below:
Source: http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_bm_extent.png
And according the the Naval Research Lab, the extent loss in those areas appears to be entirely the result of wind patterns compacting the ice northward. There are strong northward drift vectors in the Barentz:
Source: http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticicespddrfnowcast.gif
And the air temperature in the Arctic is well below freezing, so air temperature induced melt is likely not a factor…
…but wind driven warmer sea water incursions into the Barentz sea from more southern latitudes seems to be happening in that area and may be contributing to some edge melt:
In other news.
The Antarctic continues along happy as a clam, above normal, with a positive 30+ year trend.
I await the usual condemnations from the excitable folks that are terrified that the world will lose the ice caps soon.
UPDATE: Now the Arctic Institute has added a caveat:
*** [edit: Even the latest available ice extent chart from the NSIDC released on March 3, 2012, one day after Mr. Johnson’s article was published, shows ice extent well outside the one standard deviation area.]
I wonder what they will say tomorrow when NSIDC updates again?
It seems that the original article at The Arctic Institute…
http://www.thearcticinstitute.org/2012/03/5601-new-nasa-study-says-thick-multi.html
…has been “disappeared”
UPDATE:…and now a half hour later, it has been put back, but the URL has changed…
http://www.thearcticinstitute.org/2012/03/thick-multi-year-ice-melting-rapidly.html
Some strange going’s on over there at AI. – Anthony
steve radner says:
March 4, 2012 at 7:01 pm
> oh great now you won’t even post my comments.
I was curious to see if you’re a climatologist, but the best I could come up with from a cursory search is:
I’m sure if you post under your real name Anthony will let reasonable comments through.
REPLY: Ric, read upthread please. He’s a fake, a sockpuppet, and admitted it to me. – Anthony
As if by magic the graph has done exactly what you said it would 🙂
Anthony, he’s a fake, a sockpuppet, and maybe an infamous teller of fish stories. 🙂
john christie says:
March 4, 2012 at 4:23 pm
Reference, please! (Not the Skate, high resolution data of ice thickness in 1958.) Faked data okay, we have popcorn. BTW, you missed the obvious gambit – Lord Monckton has observed that the surfacing occurred before sunrise that year. I’ve been meaning to do a post on that for over a year – I even got a photograph of a submarine under similar lighting circumstances in February! I might have time this anniversary.
Hmm, if a typo constitutes lying, what should we accuse you and your altered egos of doing?
Reply to AJB:
You are correct. The Arctic Institute in the post is not the same Arctic Institute. The one I am referring to is associated with the U. of Calgary and has “of North America” in its name. I’m very sorry–I should have checked more closely.
I think the whole point of the “Institute” is revealed by the Donate button bottom right of their home page. Their mission statement should read “… to establish ourselves of worthy on investment by green leaning corporations – let’s face it, if Heartland Institute can get millions we ought to be able to get more”.
On a separate tack – isn’t it interesting how people’s writing style gives themselves away as I think it is likely that Gleick did in his alleged forgery, so it is with sock puppets, with Christie/Radnor’s/Williams grubby mitts inside them.
Finally, am illustration of how misleading 15% ice extent can be by considering the two limiting cases (ignoring ice piling on ice). Ice at minimum density of 15% evenly distributed covers say 15Mkm^2, when compacted (by wind and current) to 100% covers 2.25Mkm^2. That is a 6.67:1 ratio – simplistic, I know but easy to understand.
One thing caught my eye at http://www.thearcticinstitute.org/2011/12/45287-interactive-graphs-for-arctic-sea.html is a graph projecting/forecasting/predicting sea ice volume into the future. Sea ice volume continues to decline rapidly and has occurred at an exponential rate since 1979 according to the PIOMAS graphic to the right. If this trend persists over the coming years we could experience an ice free Arctic Ocean by the summer of 2015. The graph is “conveniently” located at http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nMQg7Pszm8g/TvEb7k6ESJI/AAAAAAAAMdk/QSUS0sKPMk0/s1600/6a0133f03a1e37970b015435379118970c.png
I don’t think this has had much coverage at WUWT, but a linear projection was discussed at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/28/piomas-arctic-sea-ice-volume-model-corrected-still-appears-suspect/
Which will melt first? The Arctic Institute or the Arctic Ice? At any rate, another prediction to keep in mind.
Gotta run….
Caught between a “rock and a hard place”. To prove the AGW is wrong, we must all suffer through a Global Cool Down. Increased Arctic Ice, Antarctic Ice, and Glaciation, producing COLD, and DEATH.
I embrace Global Warming for “what ever reason”. More crop land in Northern Canada, Siberia and other places. Crops grow better with increased CO2. More food, more well fed people, cows, pigs, etc.
Lack of water [HA HA]; build reservoirs, use energy to desalinate instead of making WAR equipment.
There used to be a graph at Cryosphere today which I think was quite illuminating.
That graph showed the historic Arctic sea ice grouped into four quarters, Winter (Jan-Mar), Spring (Apr-Jun, Summer (Jul-Sep) and Autumn (Oct-Dec). The striking thing about it was that, although the Summer ice has declined severely, the Winter ice shows much less decline. This means that the Arctic has been producing more and more ice each year (the difference or range between Smmer and Winter).
This probably does not bode well for the future as each ton of sea ice mens a ton of very cold brine as well. The life cycle time of the brine is very to very, very long.
P.S. Is in not interesting how the definition of, say, Winter differs as you travel to the poles? The largest figure for Acrtic sea ice is sometime in March usually. Just a few days before the Equinox.
> the extent loss in those areas appears to be entirely the result of wind patterns compacting the ice northward.
Yes, now sea ice concentration is 110% and above.
a reader says March 5, 2012 at 5:26 am,
Peter Plail says March 5, 2012 at 5:42 am
No need to be sorry, a. Odd though how this mob has suddenly appeared from nowhere in the void of Canadian funding withdrawal. Peter may be right but I’m getting a slight whiff of UN/EU money under the pavements of DC somehow. Overtly political, in it for the long game and little to do with ice. Try looking at the main man’s other WEB sites. For your free sockpuppetsRus guide, see here – no mention of house writing style though :-). Anyone into 503-c trail mining, where is the money coming from?
Anthony, the use of the slang term ‘pwn’ in your article is incorrect. It appears that you’ve interpreted as meaning embarrassing one’s self. That’s not correct. It’s meaning is “to dominate or defeat in an extremely one-sided contest.” It has a cocky, trash-talking connotation. Black holes pwn the fabric of space-time surrounding them. Tom Brady pwned Tim Tebow during the past season. The Artic Institute tried to pwn Johnson, but failed.
Consider editing the article headline and in the third paragraph, the sentence where you say The Arctic Institute pwned themselves.
REPLY: Wait till you see the update over what transpired behind the scenes with the sockpuppet, and I think the headline will have much more relevance – Anthony
I don’t really like ice, I am not a fan of being cold. I vote we get rid of the ice, then we can drill for oil and also go get the fish. According to the warmistas, 2015 is going to be the year.
Great post Anthony — Cryosphere Today also recently added this interactive chart showing the complete satellite record. It might make for a nice addition to the Sea Ice page.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/arctic.sea.ice.interactive.html
Some odd connections here. Need a shower after reading some of the stuff at the second link. Must order in more Prozac.
The USS Skate found the same conditions in 1958 as they did in 1959. The photo was from 1959.
http://www.john-daly.com/polar/artic.html
Roger Knights says:
March 4, 2012 at 7:57 pm
R. Shearer says:
March 4, 2012 at 11:25 am
It’s too bad our satellite records don’t go back to the days when hurricanes were ravishing…
Maybe they were incredibly good-looking hurricanes,…
Mickey Reno says:
March 5, 2012 at 8:10 am
I don’ know, I think the concept of pnwing yourself fits nicely,…
CodeTech says:
“Myself, I’ll consider Arctic ice charts to have some sort of meaning when they stop using a “baseline” (ie. 1979-2000) and start including the last decade in the “average”.”
That seems to be the elephant in the room that neither Mark Johnson nor the “Arctic Institute” address. They both bandy about the term: “30 year average”; when, in fact, neither the ice charts from NSIDC nor NORSEX have a line that represents a “30 year average”.
NSDIC uses an average, from 1979 to 2000. NORSEX uses an average from 1979 to 2006. This leaves out significant data (especially ice data for year 2007) with no valid explanation. The term “cherrypicking” comes to mind for such manipulations as the different periods averaged conveniently leave out significant recent data. If these recent data were included in the averages, the current ice area or extent would plot much closer to the average.
I like the fact you have identified a sockpuppet and not just disappeared him silently. Rather than block him, it would be better to transform the name to “sockpuppet.” or add the label “suspected puppet/ flamer” at the level of the name.
In this case the graph Mr Puppet linked only allows you to compare maxima and minima as it does not superimpose the cycles. But as we are not a a maxima, It does not talk to the claim that today we a higher /lower than the same day in other cycles.
I note the date and location of the sub photo is disputed – It supplied and identified by Grapham P Davis as being 1958 on some sites, and by him as in 1959 in other sites.
NSDIC and NORSEX very much need to be called out on why they are not using the full satellite era data (or at least 30 years of it now that its available) for their ‘baseline.’
Observing Ice did not start with satellites Marco. 15% coverage used in calculating extent about as much ice as you want to observe from a ship close up if you plan not to stay. So the extent from satellites and ship/subs can be spliced. Then the key arguement is dealing with the record around the early part of the 20 century.
The recent uptick in the daily ice extent comes primarily from growth in the Bering Sea and Baffin Bay/Davis strait that both gained more than 80,000 sq-km of ice between 2/29/12 and 3/4/12. The February monthly mean ice extent was the 4th lowest in the modern satellite record, and since 2004, every year has had a February monthly mean ice extent below 15 million sq-km except for 2008 (15.01 million sq-km). The trend in winter sea ice extent is small (-3% per decade), but it is statistically significant. Regionally, there are statistically significant (95% confidence) negative trends in winter ice extent everywhere except the Bering Sea which has a positive trend (though not statistically significant).
Regardless of February being the 4th lowest during the 1979-present data record, or the recent uptick in extent, Mr. Johnson should know that it has little to no bearing on what will happen this summer as these southerly regions melt out every summer anyway. More interesting is the distribution of the perennial ice and its thickness. Given the positive AO throughout most of this winter, there was good export of mulityear ice out of Fram Strait, such that this winter there was a larger amount of 3+ year old ice exported than in the last 4 winters (the amount was similar to the amount exported during the 2006/2007 winter). This helps to precondition the Arctic Basin to ice loss, since thinner ice melts out easier.
As much as anything, it’s where the ice isn’t that’s important.
There seem to be big gaps near the North pole. This would indicate to me huge areas of sea dissipating energy to space. This is not good!
DaveE.