In today’s report
- Arctic Sea Ice on the rise again, presently in the range of normal levels
- Antarctic Sea Ice is at slightly above normal levels
- Why is early satellite data for Arctic and Antarctic Ice extent referenced in the first IPCC report missing from today’s data?
- Is revisionism going on with the date of the famous USS Skate photo in the Arctic?
- Bonus – it seems NOAA is taking Arctic soot seriously
First the Arctic from NSIDC:
Source: http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png
After being out of the ±2 STD area since before peak melt last year, Arctic extent has spent most of March in near normal territory. After what looked like a maximum earlier this month, it was false peak, and ice is on the rise again.
NORSEX SSM/I shows the current value within ±1 STD
Source: http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_images/ssmi1_ice_area.png
A caution, as we saw in 2010, extent hugged the normal line for quite awhile, and that didn’t translate into a reduced or normal summer melt. So, forecasting based on this peak might not yield any skillful ice minimum forecasts.
Antarctic Sea Ice is at slightly above normal levels, as it has been for some time:
Source: http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_stddev_timeseries.png
Why is early satellite data for Arctic and Antarctic Ice extent referenced in the first IPCC report missing from today’s data?
In a post last week, Steve Goddard pointed out that in the original IPCC FAR in 1990, there was an interesting graph of satellite derived Arctic sea ice extent:
This is from page 224 of IPCC FAR WG1 which you can download from the IPCC here
And here is figure 7.20 (a) magnified:
The IPCC descriptive text for these figures reads:
Sea-ice conditions are now reported regularly in marine synoptic observations, as well as by special reconnaissance flights, and coastal radar. Especially importantly, satellite observations have been used to map sea-ice extent routinely since the early 1970s. The American Navy Joint Ice Center has produced weekly charts which have been digitised by NOAA. These data are summarized in Figure 7.20 which is based on analyses carried out on a 1° latitude x 2.5° longitude grid. Sea-ice is defined to be present when its concentration exceeds 10% (Ropelewski, 1983). Since about 1976 the areal extent of sea-ice in the Northern Hemisphere has varied about a constant climatological level but in 1972-1975 sea-ice extent was significantly less. In the Southern Hemisphere since about 1981, sea-ice extent has also varied about a constant level. Between 1973 and 1980 there were periods of several years when Southern Hemisphere sea-ice extent was either appreciably more than or less than that typical in the 1980s.
I find it interesting and perhaps somewhat troubling that pre-1979 satellite derived sea ice data was good enough to include in the first IPCC report in 1990, but for some reason not included in the current satellite derived sea ice data which all seems to start in 1979:
Since the extent variation anomalies in 1979 seem to match with both data sets at ~ +1 million sq km, it would seem they are compatible. Since I’m unable to find the data that the IPCC FAR WG1 report references so that I can plot it along with current data, I’ve resorted to a graphical splice to show what the two data sets together might look like.
I’ve cropped and scaled the IPCC FAR WG1 Figure (a) to match the UUIC Cryosphere Today Arctic extent anomaly graph so that the scales match, and extended the base canvas to give the extra room for the extended timeline:
Click image above to enlarge.
Gosh, all of the sudden it looks cyclic rather than linear, doesn’t it?
Of course there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth over my graphic, and the usual suspects will try to pooh-pooh it, but consider the following
- Per the IPCC reference, it is data from NOAA, gathered by the American Navy Joint Ice Center
- It is satellite derived extent data, like Cryosphere Today’s data
- The splice point at 1979 seems to match well in amplitude between the two data sets
- The data was good enough for the IPCC to publish in 1990 in the FAR WG1, so it really can’t be called into question
- If Mike Mann can get away with splicing two dissimilar data sets in an IPCC report (proxy temperature reconstructions and observations) surely, splicing two similar satellite observation data sets together can’t be viewed as some sort of data sacrilege.
Of course the big inconvenient question is: why has this data been removed from common use today if it was good enough for the IPCC to use in 1990? Is there some revisionism going on here or is there a valid reason that hasn’t been made known/used in current data sets?
If any readers know where to find this data in tabular form, I’ll happily update the plot to be as accurate as possible.
Is revisionism going on with the date of the famous USS Skate photo in the Arctic?
It seems our favorite photo of the USS Skate has had it’s date revised.
Since yesterday was the anniversary of the March 17th surfacing of the USS Skate, WUWT contributor Ric Werme was interested in what the photographic conditions might look like on March 17th 1959 when the sun was just below the horizon, and so found a sub and attempted to recreate the photo conditions himself to see if the photograph was actually possible.
See: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/17/submarines-in-the-winter-twilight/
Turns out it was, but then he stumbled on something he didn’t expect to find. The date for the surfacing has been changed from March 17th, 1959 to August, 1958 (with no day given) in Wikipedia and in NAVSOURCE. He at first thought I’d made a mistake in citation, but it turns out dates have been changed since I wrote my original article on the USS Skate on April 26th, 2009.
I wrote about how the original date remains on NAVSOURCE in the Wayback machine
Anthony Watts says:
Navsource, in the Wayback machine, had it stated as March 17th 1959, just days before my original article. This is the April 18th 2009 snapshot from Wayback:
http://web.archive.org/web/20090418161606/http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/08578.htm
The caption then reads:
Skate (SSN-578), surfaced at the North Pole, 17 March 1959.
I remember checking NAVSOURCE for accuracy before publishing, my caption then says:
Skate (SSN-578), surfaced at the North Pole, 17 March 1959. Image from NAVSOURCE
History on that photo changed there at NAVSOURCE since then, probably due to alarmist pressure from Wiki etc. and other folks like Neven who went ballistic over the picture when I highlighted it. It is “inconvenient” in March (during peak ice season) but soothing for them in August (during near peak melt season).
The picture may have been taken a couple of days after the funeral photo in March alluded to upthread.
Se EM Smith comment in my original thread. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/26/ice-at-the-north-pole-in-1958-not-so-thick/#comment-122932
Oddly, NAVSOURCE now shows a caption of:
So what had been certain and unchallenged for years now all of the sudden is uncertain and may be in August 1958. Seems like a case of the tail wagging the dog.
Obviously there is a need to pin this date down, but I’m amused that so much attention has been brought to this photo since I first blogged on it.
BONUS: I’ve always said that the current drop in Arctic Ice Extent might have roots in soot from the industrialization of Asia causing an albedo change which really took off in the 1990’s, would show up in the summer melt season when solar irradiance is at a peak in the Arctic. Now it seems NOAA is taking Arctic soot seriously:
From the video description:
Small, new, remotely-operated, unmanned aircraft are being flown in the Arctic to measure black soot. The soot is produced by burning diesel fuel, agricultural fires, forest fires, and wood-burning stoves. It is transported by winds to the Arctic, where it darkens the surface of snow and ice, enhancing melting and solar warming. See http://saga.pmel.noaa.gov/ and http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/edd/manta.html
As always, check the latest sea ice conditions on the WUWT Sea Ice Reference page.
UPDATE: Robert Grumbine disputes some the the points related to the IPCC1 report and sea ice with EMMR equipped satellites here. – Anthony
Re pouncer says:
March 18, 2012 at 12:26 pm
“Why, in principle, CAN’T early records of one or more types (say, tree ring density, varve thickness, etc) be harmonized. . .”
Rainfall gage record can be “harmonized” for estimation of missing data, or to provide a consistent record over a period of time. See Section 4.4 Gage Consistency in Hydrologic Analysis and Design by Richard H. McCuen, 2nd ed., Prentice-Hall,1998 for examples. Perhaps this might provide guidance for the problem of discontinuous sea ice record.
The first on-line reference provides examples of infilling missing rainfall data and rain gage consistency analysis. The second reference illustrates some of the problems with rainfall records that are likely to be encountered in other records.
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-05242004-085649/unrestricted/080_Appendix.pdf
http://shop.willyweather.com.au/media/pdf/Rainfall.pdf
Hope this helps.
http://www.navalhistory.org/2011/08/11/uss-skate-ssn-578-becomes-the-first-submarine-to-surface-at-the-north-pole/ shows the sub at August 11 1958
There are more undated photos at http://ssn578.com/gallery/index.php?gallery=./Skate%20Photo%20Gallery/Historical%20Images
Now it seems NOAA is taking Arctic soot seriously
———-
And the message is:
Human activity, aka anthropogenic soot produced thousands of kilometers away, can have significant effects on arctic ice extent. Even though it is soot built up over just one year perhaps.
Looks like you guys were wrong when you claimed that human activity can have no effect on the climate.
It also looks like you were wrong when you claimed over and over again that tiny quantities of some substance can have no effect on the climate
No surprises for me there.
On Wikipedia…though bound to change…
The Skate-class submarines were the United States Navy’s first production run of nuclear powered submarines. They were an evolution of the Tang class in everything but their propulsion plants, which were based on the experimental USS Nautilus. The four Skate class boats re-introduced stern torpedo tubes. Although among the smallest nuclear powered attack submarines ever built, the Skate class served for several decades, with the last being decommissioned in 1989. USS Skate was the first submarine to surface at the North Pole, on March 17, 1959.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skate_class_submarine
That splice by Kasuha (12:43pm) looks quite good, could be tweaked further. It does look like Anthony joined the 1972-78 data a bit too far down. William Connelly’s link shows an ftp to get the original data, but they are in binary files.
REPLY: Of course you would. I joined the data at the zero anomaly line, there’s no reference in Kashua’s version that says why the baselines should be offset from zero. If I’d joined them offset below, there’d be caterwauling, if I joined them high you’d be happy. There’s nothing to suggest that an offset is needed of than some anonymous commenter thinks it should look that way. – Anthony
About Sir Hubert Wilkins whose ashes were scattered on March 17, 1959
Being “second” in 1958, the USS SKATE was the first in 1959 (March 17), as marked by its own special on-board, one-day only fancy cancellation, documenting its being the first nuclear submarine to surface at the North Pole, where it conducted some scientific experiments and scattered the ashes of recently deceased Sir Hubert Wilkins. The special cancellation was only available to those who were on board.
See picture of letter with the March 17, 1959 stamp on it.
http://www.south-pole.com/aspp05.htm
And picture of crew on March 17, 1959 at the North Pole standing on ice next to the USS Skate while Wilkins’ ashes get scattered.
http://www.vintagehikingdepot.com/2012/02/scattering-sir-hubert-wilkins-ashes/
So, all in all, it looks like the USS Skate picture in open water as seen in WUWT is that of the sub taken in August of 1958…and not March 17, 1959 during winter.
William M. Connolley says:
March 18, 2012 at 10:45 am
> Why is early satellite data for Arctic and Antarctic Ice extent referenced in the first IPCC report missing from today’s data?
Because it became clear that the data from the different instruments can’t be merged; the ESMR stuff is incompatible with the SSMR. http://nsidc.org/data/nsidc-0077.html perhaps.
Who says the ESMR and SSMR data are incompatible? Your link to the NSIDC web site certainly doesn’t say that. I can’t find anything in IPCC AR4 that says that. Indeed, section 4.4.2.1 of AR4 WGI says “The most composite record of sea ice extent is provided by passive microwave data from satellites that are available since the early 1970s.” Yet actual data provided on Arctic sea ice extent in section 4 begins with 1978 satellite data? Why start with 1978 data when it is already acknowledged that satellite data from the early ’70s is available? If there is an explanation (such as your incompatibility between ESMR and SSMR), please provide a citation. Otherwise, I can only conclude that the 1972-1977 data was omitted because it was … inconvenient.
Still, from past news print showed that Northwest Passage was ice free several decades earlier.
Before 1969 six ships completed the Northwest Passage when it was ice free at the time. Earlier than that you had Roald Amundsen back in 1903 made his ice-free trip in the late summer month using his 70 foot long wooden fishing boat during his three year trip to find the “holy grail” Northwest Passage. That passage was ice free then when he discovered the route. It was also ice free in the 1940s.
“St. Roch had serviced RCMP posts and Inuit settlements in the western Arctic since 1928, but it is for her epic voyages through the Northwest Passage from west to east between 1940 and 1942, and the return voyage in 1944….”
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,901369,00.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/ice/peopleevents/pandeAMEX87.html
Ice free even in the 1940s – http://www.cnrs-scrn.org/northern_mariner/vol03/tnm_3_4_63-107.pdf
Found these links in – http://kokonutpundits.blogspot.com/2011/11/gallaudet-universitys-quiet-climate_28.html
In the mid 60s I had a book covering the voyages of Skate and Nautilus. It was quite a large book (an imperial size a little smaller than A4) and it had many pictures. No doubt it would have contained caption dates which would have been a useful independent source of verification. Unfortunately, whilst I still have a few of my childhood books, I do not seem to have that book.
When discussing the surfacing of SKATE at the North Pole, are we talking about the magnetic pole?
If so, where was it in relation to the present magnetic pole?
Not sure if it’s mentioned here already, newsreel from March 59 on the surfacing at the NP.
Disclaimer: I haven’t viewed it myself (work firewall blocks the vids) but the caption indicates this could be real.
Good to see that polar ice is neither in decline nor in growth. Steady as she goes.
But if Anthony will indulge me as far as I can ascertain the photo of the Skate was not taken at the North pole in March 1959 but somewhere in the Arctic in the Summer of 1958
From my post yesterday:
The photo at Navsource is credited to Graham P. Davis and he had this to say about it Oct 30th 2011
“USS Skate did indeed surface at the North Pole but not until 17 March 1959. Ice conditions in August 1958 were too heavy at the Pole for the Skate to surface, as they were for the Nautilus some days earlier. The Skate did surface in several other leads and polynya that August, including one near Ice-station Alfa. The above picture may have been from one of those.
When the Skate sailed for the Arctic the following year, the sail had been strengthened to allow it to break through thin ice. At the Pole, they eventually found a small, refrozen lead, or skylight, and managed to break through it. Later, many of the crew gathered for a service at which the ashes of Sir Hubert Wilkins were sprinkled in the wind. The temperature during this service was -26F (-32C).”
http://www.navalhistory.org/2011/08/11/uss-skate-ssn-578-becomes-the-first-submarine-to-surface-at-the-north-pole/
>:( The entire sea ice issue has a sour taste of buying into the AGW agenda to me. Wassa matta with warmer, and who wouldn’t want an open summer Arctic Ocean? The “rising ocean” link is provable BS; the calcs on speed of land-ice melt needed prove it’s an issue for hundreds, or even thousands, of years. NOT urgent for the next few generations, even lifetimes.
Always remember to ask yourself: “How did the cameraman get to where the film is shot?”
In this case, it’s a serious problem. Barely thru, pop him out the conning tower to get set up, finish the surfacing? Possible, I guess.
No, rotational North Pole. I think the mag-pole was on land at the time, IAC.
Eric Flesch says:
March 18, 2012 at 3:29 pm
…
REPLY: I joined the data at the zero anomaly line, there’s no reference in Kashua’s version that says why the baselines should be offset from zero.
__________________
They are both anomalies.
Anomaly is “temperature difference from average” but the point is what is this average calculated from. For the IPCC graph the baseline is likely per-month average of 1974-1989 while for the UUIC graph it’s 1979-2008, you can’t expect these to be the same!
REPLY: “Likely” still doesn’t provide an absolute numerical value for the offset. The anomalies match at 1979 in my version, if there was a large baseline difference there would be a mismatch at that point. Your version just stuck it at an offset you guessed at. – Anthony
Other pictures of the USS Skate from August/September 1958 seem to show it with a whitish nose!
http://www.csp.navy.mil/asl/ScrapBook/Boats/Skate1958.jpg
http://warshipsresearch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/american-fast-attack-submarine-uss.html
So where did the white go?
Hi Anthony, you said: “I joined the data at the zero anomaly line”. However, the zero anomaly line for the 1971-1990 data (figure 7.20) is of course a different line than for the 1979-2008 data. The way to splice the two series is to equalize the data of the overlapping years 1979-1990. This was Kasuha’s method, which I said could be tweaked a bit but it looks like he got it broadly right.
I like that image from http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_images/ssmi1_ice_area.png, as it shows that every year since the record low of 2006-2007, both the melt (low) and the freeze (high), are getting closer to the average.
When was the last time the data hit the average?
Well, it looks that the average line was hit in early May of 2009, again in early April of 2010, and appears to be on track to hit average again.
That looks like a trend. Watch to see if the average is hit again.
Anthony, I don’t think anyone has noted that an Arctic Sea Ice Anomaly chart for 1973 through 2000 was included in the 2001 IPCC TAR report. It is figure 2.14 at http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/. In stark contrast to figure 7.20(a) that you posted above from 1990, the early years (1973-1976) show a strong positive anomaly. It’s in section 2.2.5.2 at http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/.
What’s up with that?
Kasuha says:
March 18, 2012 at 4:04 pm
…
REPLY: “Likely” still doesn’t provide an absolute numerical value for the offset. The anomalies match at 1979 in my version, if there was a large baseline difference there would be a mismatch at that point. Your version just stuck it at an offset you guessed at. – Anthony
________
Sorry but I can’t provide you absolute numerical value from a picture and I am not willing to spend my time digitizing the graph or obtaining original data, it’s half past midnight and I gotta go sleep.
I am not saying my estimate is perfectly correct. I am just saying your estimate is plain wrong and am proposing better fit.
Please ask Dr. Roy Spencer for assistence with it if you don’t trust me.
Certain people will laugh at you very hard if you leave it as is.
Mike—why isn’t this figure 5 chart prominently appearing in the IPCC reports? It shows a negative anomaly in 1960 lower then 2007?
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0485%281979%29009%3C0580%3AAAOASI%3E2.0.CO%3B2
Anthony’s version of the graph is only about 0.05-0.1 million km2 difference between the older version (1971-1990) and the newer one for 1979. (1979-2008) It might be the same if numerical values were available for the data, but as it stands will not know. Therefore with so little difference the baseline between the two is the same or at least very little difference. Kasuha’s method is out of phase by about 0.4-0.5 million km2 for 1979 between old and new versions.’
LazyTeenager says:
March 18, 2012 at 3:19 pm
Now it seems NOAA is taking Arctic soot seriously
———-
“And the message is:
Human activity, aka anthropogenic soot produced thousands of kilometers away, can have significant effects on arctic ice extent. Even though it is soot built up over just one year perhaps.
Looks like you guys were wrong when you claimed that human activity can have no effect on the climate.
It also looks like you were wrong when you claimed over and over again that tiny quantities of some substance can have no effect on the climate
No surprises for me there.”
============================
Wow, the glee you’re feeling is palpable.
Yet, the source of said “soot” has not been determined.
Has the soot come from forest fires, evil human influences, weathering of rocks exposed since the last ice age ?, and what is the flush rate of the Arctic icecap ? , that sooty ice is constantly being driven out to its watery demise, when it meets warmer water.
Conning tower seems to be a popular nane but in the RN it is the fin and the very top is known as the bridge and a submarine is a boat, not a ship. Yes strengthened fins are fitted to boats going under the ice to help them surface but another major tool is air to fracture the ice from below.
I’ve always said that the current drop in Arctic Ice Extent might have roots in soot from the industrialization of Asia causing an albedo change which really took off in the 1990′s, would show up in the summer melt season when solar irradiance is at a peak in the Arctic.
I think the reverse is true. What happened in China is that, as it industrialized, coal burning in open hearths and domestic stoves was replaced by coal burning in power stations to produce electricity.
Coal burning in power stations is far more efficient than smoky inefficent open hearths and consequently far less particulate carbon gets into the air from each ton of coal burnt. Although China burns far more coal than it did 40 years ago.
The ‘culprit’ is far more likely to be sulphate emissions which (without scrubbers) aren’t greatly affected by how the coal is burnt and are much more widely distributed in the atmosphere.
World and China sulphate emissions peaked in the early 1990s, which would have led to decreased clouds and increased solar insolation in the Arctic, resulting in increased summer ice melt.
Then there is the de-industrialization of the Soviet Union after 1991.
All in all, a complex subject, where global indices are useless, because particulate and aerosol emissions are a local and regional phenomena. This is true even in China where there are large differences between cold northern China and warm southern China; the industralized coast and little changed rural interior.