There was a lot of controversy leading up to this moment, as we covered previously on WUWT where NSIDC put a new trailing average algorithm online with no notice, and bungled the climatology in the process, needing a fix. As has been the case before when NSIDC data goes wonky it was those bloggers of “breathtaking ignorance” who spotted the issue before NSIDC did and brought it to their attention.
Here’s today’s graph: (NSIDC publishes a day behind)
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
Now, it should be pointed out that it hasn’t crossed the normal line, and it only touches it because of the line width, it is still ever so slightly below normal according to Cryosphere Today.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png
I noted yesterday that the difference was -0.070, so it has nudged away from the normal line a bit. This is supported by the NORSEX data, enlarged here:
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_images/ssmi1_ice_ext.png
Clearly though, by the NORSEX data, Artic Sea Ice was briefly above the 1979-2006 monthly average, but is now headed back down. NSIDC’s trailing average will filter out this short above normal excursion, and I predict that it will turn slightly away from the normal line tomorrow or the next day.
Overall though, we have a pretty full north polar ice cap, especially in the Bering Sea, which has seen record high extents this year. This is encouraging:
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_bm_extent_hires.png
All of this bears watching at the WUWT Sea Ice Reference Page but we’ll soon be into the ho-hum period when all of the years data converge on the way to the minimum sometime in September. While we have near normal extent now, that doesn’t always translate into near normal minimums.
I offered to bet against anyone who thought the sea ice this summer wouldn’t be substantially less than normal. No luck so far:
Smokey says:> define it as below 2007 for the Summer months
So you’re only prepared to be that the ice won’t set a new record min? That doesn’t sound like a belief in a substantial recovery to me.
rogerknights> Intrade’s … That’s where WMC should go to get the best bang for the buck.
Thanks. But I’m not actually interested in making money off this, and I suspect if I went there I’d get fair odds. I don’t want that, I want unfair odds. You get unfair odds when two people have wildly different ideas about outcomes. From the language people use here, I’d hoped that someone might actually believe the “ice is recovering” stuff that people talk about, in which case we’d have a chance for a good bet that both sides would be happy with. No luck so far.
u.k.(us) says:> Define “substantially”
Well, I was hoping you folk who believe in the recovery might know what you believe in. I think the ice is likely to continue, roughly, on its long-term decline. From the top chart at http://gfspl.rootnode.net/index.php/arcticiceart, would you accept half-way between the long-term mean, and 2010, as the boundary? You believe this summers ice will be above that, I believe below?
@Ben Klijn Kellett
On the odd occasion that the current sea ice extent touches the normal line, everyone starts crowing that everything is normal. This is madness! The current sea ice needs to trend as much over the line as it does below it, over the course of a full year, for a true recovery to be declared. While this is encouraging, it’s still far from normal!
Since ‘normal’ is incorrectly defined as 1979-2000, and the ice dropped back a lot in 2007, we are actually WAY above normal if it is measured properly using the ‘last 30 years’.
Could someone with the statistical skills do an updated ‘average’ line to show us where the ice would be if the correct marker is used?
Silent cooling?
My paying job involves me teaching MAST (Maths and Science teaching) in a leading UK teaching university, but for my own pleasure I also study history. To the point where after my Science degree I carried on and took another in History. As part of this interest I must confess I love pouring over old maps and one of the cartographers that caught my eye recently was August Heinrich Peterman. I love the comments he, or his collaborators, added to his maps.
For example his map of the Arctic in 1852 reproduced here:
http://www.lindahall.org/events_exhib/exhibit/exhibits/ice/39_img1.shtml
(courtesy of the Linden Hall Library)
Note at the top of Baffin Bay around Parry Island it says “Open sailing ice March 1851.”
Or between the Laptev and Kara Seas it says “Open water March and April.”
There are more of these notes, pointing out open sea and no ice, dotted around the map.
Of course it could all be a set up by that well know skeptical institution the British Admiralty of the 1850s. Or it could be more historical evidence that the Arctic ice was not as thick and extensive as certain people would like us all to believe. But I’m sure they have a model somewhere that can explain it away.
Reasons here are clear, intensive industrial activity due to vast hidden factories, like the sort the Germans used to make in salt mines etc. in WW2, in the wake of strategic bombing by Allies, but this time in the ice itself, perhaps in north Greenland margins, have produced aerosol induced warming hole over entire Arctic. This warming hole, produced by Arctic Ruhr in as yet to be determined localities along north Greenland icesheet margins, has led to a relative incraese in ice mass balance due to its influence on solar heat budget in region. Simple really.
Caleb says:
“It will, without doubt, have come to your Lordship’s knowledge that a considerable change of climate, inexplicable at present to us, must have taken place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of the cold that has for centuries past enclosed the seas in the high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice, has been during the last two years greatly abated.”
That quote dates from 1819, and Tamboro blew in 1815, and the summer of Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death was 1816.
Very interesting. I assume ‘abated’ refers to the ice.
I’ve argued that the recent Arctic sea ice retreat was caused by increased solar insolation combined with particulate deposition on the ice. There are several reasons for this, including the disproportionate melting of older ice. Older ice has more particulates embedded and these accumulate on the ice surface decreasing the albedo and accelerating the melt (or sublimation) from insolation.
It appears the particulate deposition had a similar effect post the Tambora eruption.
The reality as I see it currently is that, after a deviation toward lower ice extent, it appears that the first point of recovery is at annual maximum and perhaps the last place to recover is annual minimum.
What IS indisputable now is that for some months now, the total polar ice extent (arctic plus antarctic) has been above the long-term mean.
That’s the key number in my opinion.
Don’t tell me that this year we’ll be reaching that ‘tipping point’ AGAIN…..
Mr. Connolley, are you saying that skeptics believe in a catastrophic rise in ice? Seems to me, those that hung their hat on catastrophic ice decrease made a faulty assumption about how this whole thing works. What I see is a trend back up, roughly. It surprises me that you don’t. If you had no dog in this fight, you might have suggested that such a thing is occurring. I have no dog in this fight and have no qualms about saying there appears to be an extent anomally trend back the other way.
That said, betting on what the Earth will or will not throw at you is a fool’s bet. Are you such a fool?
Just me, Anthony, but anything away from ice-age conditions is encouraging. 🙂
> Pamela Gray says: Mr. Connolley, are you saying that skeptics believe in a catastrophic rise in ice? Seems to me, those that hung their hat on catastrophic ice decrease made a faulty assumption about how this whole thing works. What I see is a trend back up, roughly.
People here seem to keep saying they believe in sea ice “recovery”, whatever they mean by that. But oddly enough they – like you – whilst happy enough to *talk* about this recovery aren’t willing to put any money on it. Saying you “see” a trend back up is cheap.
The words average and normal are not synonyms.
How can anyone call the 1979 level normal when 79 was the year they started taking the satellite Data? Maybe the 70’s were abnormal high with area and extent??? Maybe the average is where we are today. the problem is we just don’t know but the warmists use the 79 average like it’s the holy grail !!!!
Nothing says that sea ice extent has a mean (normal). At least not a constant mean. A constant mean only exists for limited types of time series. Statistically, it would be abnormal for the sea ice extent to remain unchanged.
WmConnelly says: “Well, I was hoping you folk who believe in the recovery might know what you believe in…. You believe this summers ice will be above that, I believe below?”
People commenting in here generally don’t “believe”; they look at data and try to make sense of it. It’s you and your ilk, including the leaders of the IPCC, who have attempted to foist your “beliefs” upon the rest of us, with the clear intent of taxing the begeezus out of us in the process, for your own benefit. We’re called “skeptics” by your side because we remain skeptical of your beliefs, since thus far they seem unsupported by the science, so unsupported, in fact, that your side has had to resort to corruption of data, tainted studies, and outright propaganda, to maintain a following.
Fortunately, people are catching on to your game.
Arctic ice at near normal extent, Antarctic Ice exceeding normal extent, how the hell can that point to a death spiral, catastrophic warming or any of the other weird warmist claims is beyond me.
No instead warmists claim we have less ice mass, as though they have some magic crystal ball that they can look into to tell them how much ice there was hundreds of years ago. In the past there were no satellites, virtually no data or measurements. So it comes down to just guessing, interesting guessing but with very rough trends that could be way out in terms of accuracy. Then we get some dimwit who says, ‘if you don’t want to bet then you can’t play my game!’ get over yourself or don’t you have the cognitive capability to recognise when an argument is not only invalid but incredibly asinine?
I must confess if I hear about another ice core sample or sediment sample that somehow can magically give me data on temperatures or ice thickness, I’ll be very miffed I can tell you! We don’t know what CO2 does over thousands of years trapped in ice, we don’t know what sediment chemistry is over thousands of years or come to that influences on tree ring growth over decades. We calculate making assumptions that have huge errors built in. But do scientists admit this? Of course not, because it would threaten the filling of the funding trough. Because we as a society expect our scientist to have definitive answers down to the last place value and if they don’t play our game then they don’t get the grants. It’s about time our scientist started to admit the truth about much of their research and instead of trying to control the message via political machinations owned up and started being real scientists again. Because if they don’t, trends like this in the Arctic ice are just going to make them look irrelevant.
Right that’s my weekly rant over with…
With the AMO sea surface temp falling along with the South Atlantic sea surface temp, I am not surprised by the Arctic ice measures turning up in relative terms. The question now is about further moves as the AMO rolls farther over and its impact on north Atlantc ice margins plays out. The big difference between a skeptic and an AGW priest in this era is the facsination with relationships emerging from the unknown by skeptics versus the shoehorning of observations by AGW rank and file. One approach leads to new discovery and the other side leads to wasted time—oh the humanity of it all! Where oh where is the Martin Luther of climate science, or does the need for change have to become so obvious to so many that it is more of a spark than a genius to set fire to change?
Temps are still pretty cold up in the Arctic, please check them at http://www.athropolis.com/map.htm
Chicago is nice & cool lately, we like this! Frost warning last night. Something tells me we are going to have a nice, white Arctic ice extent this summer. Polar bears are happily feasting on harp seals, I’m sure.
Willy Connolley says to Pamela Gray:
“People here seem to keep saying they believe in sea ice ‘recovery’, whatever they mean by that. But oddly enough they – like you – whilst happy enough to *talk* about this recovery aren’t willing to put any money on it.”
^This^ is the ultra hypocritical William Connolley, the Wikipedia censor who snivels like a spoiled child when one of his comments is occasionally snipped for violating site policy.
Connolley pretended to want to bet “real money”, so I took him up on it. Now he doesn’t have the trousers to accept. All hat ‘n’ no cattle. All *talk* and no action. Backing and filling. Had his fingers crossed. I made it crystal clear that I am willing to put money on it.
C’mon, Connolley, it’s only a hundred bucks. Grow a pair, you
chickenweasel.The Cryosphere Today anomaly is now -0.047. It’s playing with us!
The growing ice cover will cause a new trend. Climate “scientists” will start to embrace the Russian scientists who have long said the Arctic cap extent is much about wind patterns and cycles off northern Asia. Thus growing ice is not a falsifier of their CO2 and temperature claims-for their position’s sake.
And being “climate scientists,” upon embracing the old science they will congratulate themselves as progressive and on the cutting edge. Then they will search for a new “proxy” to show current warming, like decreasing glaciers, because those damn thermometers aren’t showing what the UN IPCC science says they should be showing!!
Yet, I am going to join this game and apply for a grant from the NAS for my study of rising women’s hemlines as a proxy for global warming. I will suggest semi-annual conferences on this important matter to be set in Paris and Tahiti.
So, the only bet offer I’ve had so far only pays out to me if there is a new record minimum. Since I don’t think that is particularly likely, the bet is unattractive. But its good to know that none of the folk here actually think that sea ice is likely to recover this summer. Reading your words would have given the opposite impression, but reading your money is clearer.
Rod Everson says:> People commenting in here generally don’t “believe”; they look at data and try to make sense of it…
For example, using past data to try to predict the future. That’s the essence of science, no? I’m looking at the past data, and I can see something. You’re saying that you look at all the past data and… you haven’t got the slightest idea what might happen in the future. You haven’t been thinking very hard in that case.
Yes, Mr.Connolley, we look at past data. For example, the data that shows insignificant warming for over a decade now, despite the earlier dire warnings by the “modelers” that such would not be the case.
Do the modelers consider their models to be disproven? No. They just change the name of the game from “global warming” to “climate change.” As for not having the “slightest idea what might happen in the future,” that would seem to describe your camp’s circa 1998 description of the future quite accurately.
I’ll give you this though. Our esteemed leader, President Obama, looks to make good on his promise to stop the seas from rising.
Caleb says:
April 26, 2012 at 8:53 pm
So, Caleb, just where were you for http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/15/missing-the-missing-summer/ ? Working on taxes? I coulda used some support!
William,
Actually, Smokey’s offer was perfectly justifiable. You originally said “So, who wants to bet that the summer minimum won’t be substantially below “normal” this summer?”
Since I don’t know what “substantially” means, let’s go with “significantly”.
I’ll define “significant” as deviation by more than 2 sigma, which is not outside the bounds of reasonableness.
I’ve estimated values from the following plot and calculated that in the 33 year history of satellite data, the average September area minimimum is 5.0 sq. km with a standard deviation of 0.75 sq km.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.area.arctic.png
So looks like an offer based on NH sea ice area falling below 3.5 sq. km, matches a criteria based on “significantly” lower than “normal.”