Nothing definitive, but interesting. The area plot above is from NANSEN. The extent plot also shows a turn:
DMI also shows it…
Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) – Centre for Ocean and Ice – Click the pic to view at sourceBut JAXA does not….suggesting a difference in sensors/processes.
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) – International Arctic Research Center (IARC) – Click the pic to view at sourceOf course NSIDC has a 5 day average, so we won’t see a change for awhile. Time will tell if this is just a blip or a turn from the new record low for the satellite data set.
More at the WUWT Sea Ice reference page
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Now would you like to discuss how the data is collected? Perhaps we can then discuss the “adjustments” made to the data. The rationale for said adjustments, etc., etc.
James Abbott says:
September 5, 2012 at 2:55 pm
You also calim
“Global temperatures have been declining for the last 15 years”
No they have not. They have been flatlining for about the last 9 years, but not declining.
The above depends on the data set you are using. And for those sets below that are flat for over 15 years, they ARE slightly declining for the last 15 years. See the site below and note the yellow downward sloping line for RSS for example.
On all data sets, the different times for a slope that is flat for all practical purposes range from 10 years and 10 months to 15 years and 8 months. Following is the longest period of time (above 10 years) where each of the data sets is more or less flat. (*No slope is positive except UAH which is +0.0022 per year or +0.22/century up to July. So while it is not flat, the slope is not statistically significant either.)
1. UAH: since October 2001 or 10 years, 10 months (goes to July, but note * above)
2. GISS: since March 2001 or 11 years, 5 months (goes to July)
3. Combination of 4 global temperatures: since November 2000 or 11 years, 9 months (goes to July)
4. HadCrut3: since February 1997 or 15 years, 6 months (goes to July)
5. Sea surface temperatures: since January 1997 or 15 years, 7 months (goes to July)
6. RSS: since December 1996 or 15 years, 8 months (goes to July)
RSS is 188/204 or 92.2% of the way to Santer’s 17 years.
7. Hadcrut4: since December 2000 or 11 years, 8 months (goes to July using GISS. See below.)
See the graph below to show it all for #1 to #6.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997.08/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2001.16/trend/plot/rss/from:1996.9/trend/plot/wti/from:2000.8/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1997/trend/plot/uah/from:2001.75/trend/plot/rss/from:1997.58/trend
For #7: Hadcrut4 only goes to December 2010 so what I did was get the slope of GISS from December 2000 to the end of December 2010. Then I got the slope of GISS from December 2000 to the present. The DIFFERENCE in slope was that the slope was 0.0049 lower for the total period. The positive slope for Hadcrut4 was 0.0041 from December 2000. So IF Hadcrut4 were totally up to date, and IF it then were to trend like GISS, I conclude it would show no slope for at least 11 years and 8 months going back to December 2000. (By the way, doing the same thing with Hadcrut3 gives the same end result, but GISS comes out much sooner each month.) See:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2000/to/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2000.9/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2000/plot/gistemp/from:2000.9/to:2011/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2000.9/trend
justthefactswuwt:
While aiming to not repeat too much of what is in my last recent lengthy comment in the other thread ( http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/02/sea-ice-page-upgrades-observations-and-questions ), a couple notes:
1)
Thank you for posting the two most important graphs as images. While http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/ArcticIce/Images/arctic_temp_trends_rt.gif displayed correctly, actually I see the other did not. The way to get http://www.webcitation.org/6AKKakUIo to display would be to use http://iceagenow.info/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/NorthernHemisphereSeaIceAnomaly.png as the actual image link for it.
2)
With the continued emphasis on highlighting contradictory Cryosphere Today graphs most, though, I would to add once more a reminder that Cryosphere Today is known to publish false data on ice:
Look at the sheer BS in http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seasonal.extent.1900-2010.png . That is about worse than even Mann’s hockey stick in being one of the blatantly false and dishonest presentations of “data” I’ve ever seen, pretending ice extent trends were near-flat in each decade from 1900 to 1950 when that is utterly impossible, not only in sheer contrast to the temperature trends like http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/ArcticIce/Images/arctic_temp_trends_rt.gif but also to historical maps of sea ice directly itself like http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/02/cache-of-historical-arctic-sea-ice-maps-discovered/ — not to mention newspaper articles of the time and basically the entire non-dishonest historical record.
As http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/02/cache-of-historical-arctic-sea-ice-maps-discovered/ described and noted, for instance:
“The Sea ice decline documented year after year in DMI maps after 1921 apparently is not shown in Cryosphere data for some reason.”
“Some reason” is being polite; more bluntly, Cryosphere Today is twisted false propaganda junk.
The WUWT Sea Ice reference page currently has more long-term arctic ice trend charts from Cryosphere Today than any other source. There is no problem in itself with showing such *if* you show other data (less false) as well. Let people see the contradictions, for that is the real world and truly educational. Restricting the page *solely* to continuously updated graphs is not best (as it tends to rule out most sources, including scientific papers, practically in favor of exceptionally well-funded public education/propaganda sources almost alone, a problem when funding is highly slanted). Best would be having a historical archive subsection as well.
By other data, I mean such as http://iceagenow.info/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/NorthernHemisphereSeaIceAnomaly.png most of all, which is the webcitation one from the U.K. government originally.
Currently, in ice trend charts, the reference page does show http://www.climate4you.com/images/NSIDC%20GlobalArcticAntarctic%20SeaIceArea.gif which is relatively somewhat good in context, as in better than Cryosphere Today anyway. (If one draws lines on it, it illustrates, according to even NSIDC data, arctic peak ice in 1996, 2000, 2008, and 2012 was equal within 1 pixel on its scale, which would be within 0.1 million square kilometers). But adding the former as well would give readers more of the overall picture.
Henry Clark says: September 5, 2012 at 5:54 pm
Thank you for posting the two most important graphs as images. While http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/ArcticIce/Images/arctic_temp_trends_rt.gif displayed correctly, actually I see the other did not. The way to get http://www.webcitation.org/6AKKakUIo to display would be to use http://iceagenow.info/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/NorthernHemisphereSeaIceAnomaly.png as the actual image link for it.
Replaced with the iceage image above.
The WUWT Sea Ice reference page currently has more long-term arctic ice trend charts from Cryosphere Today than any other source. There is no problem in itself with showing such *if* you show other data (less false) as well. Let people see the contradictions, for that is the real world and truly educational. Restricting the page *solely* to continuously updated graphs is not best (as it tends to rule out most sources, including scientific papers, practically in favor of exceptionally well-funded public education/propaganda sources almost alone, a problem when funding is highly slanted). Best would be having a historical archive subsection as well.
Per my comment here;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/02/sea-ice-page-upgrades-observations-and-questions/#comment-1072062
“I am open to building a historical climatic reference page, post whatever references you’d like in [the linked] thread, and I will review and build the page in the coming weeks when I’ve got time.”
Smokey says:
September 5, 2012 at 4:35 pm
…
And what, exactly, is the problem if Arctic ice melts? It has happened before, repeatedly and routinely. It has happened during the past century
…
Say what? Let’s see you back that one up. Let me guess, a photo of a submarine…
Just The Facts says:
September 5, 2012 at 6:22 pm
“Replaced with the iceage image above.”
Indeed it does display now. Thank you.
Just The Facts says:
September 5, 2012 at 6:22 pm
Per my comment here;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/02/sea-ice-page-upgrades-observations-and-questions/#comment-1072062
“I am open to building a historical climatic reference page, post whatever references you’d like in [the linked] thread, and I will review and build the page in the coming weeks when I’ve got time.”
That would be good. I replied in the other thread. As noted there, a good start could be either http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/ArcticIce/Images/arctic_temp_trends_rt.gif and/or http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif .*
Both are very powerful, exceptionally informative graphs.
If any one of those was added, I would figure there would be significant odds of a significant portion of references I could submit having an impact, so then at that point I would be quite happy to spend substantial time in subsequent days and weeks on assembling a list of others of potential.
* As usual, data for the latter:
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/greenland/summit/gisp2/isotopes/gisp2_temp_accum_alley2000.txt
and
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/antarctica/epica_domec/edc-co2.txt
where if so it could be noted as 200 to 11000 years ago
JohnB,
I have posted numerous first-hand, eyewitness observations — the best available evidence. You, on the other hand, post only your unfounded beliefs.
No contest.
And you still will not answer my question: So what if the Arctic ice melts? BFD.
RACookPE1978 says, September 4, 2012 at 6:30 pm
Mosh answered your question hopefully. I was trying to point out that you can’t sensibly predict outcomes of cycles that are clearly hysteretic. Notice I did not say there isn’t a trend. You might get lucky; if there’s a regime shift you might not. And in this situation you’ll likely underestimate.
Here are a couple of changes reported in 2007, attributed to changes in atmospheric circulation at the time.
Spielhagen et al 2011 was aired here briefly. Despite the uncertainty, it seems from this and an arm full of other papers that Arctic ice decline is primarily driven by increased energy delivered via North Atlantic currents. However, that paper attempts to go back further and Fig 3c suggests this has been on-going since 1835 or so but with a distinct pause midway through the last century. There’s a similar temp gradient in either half [vague and says nothing about flow rates]. The question of course is why.
For me that doesn’t stack up against the ramp up of CO2, Knorr 2009 (Fig 1) for example. How did this additional energy get into the Atlantic in the first place and what’s significant about 1835? Why the pause and where’s the evidence?
It looks like the ices was just playing games with us. The area and extent are taking another downward turn.
In fact, the ice area just past below 1/2 of the 1979-2008 average!
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.arctic.png
Darn! Those changes are here:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2007-131
Smokey says: September 4, 2012 at 9:06 pm
“click3 [Antarctic has TEN TIMES more ice than the Arctic]”
Umm … the graph you link to says Arctic average area = 10 million km^2; Antarctic average area = 16 million km^2. Last time I checked, that is 1.6 times as much sea ice, not “TEN TIMES more”.
Or perhaps you are discussing LAND ice, but Antarctic land ice is not declining. I guess that doesn’t help your case, either.
Smokey also says:
“I have posted numerous first-hand, eyewitness observations [that the Arctic has melted repeatedly in the last century] … “
Yet some how from all that evidence, you cannot extract strong evidence from even ONE YEAR that there has been large-scale melting in the past century or two. Give it your best shot — which year and which specific eyewitness accounts support an Arctic-wide melting event similar to this year?
looks like the Watts effect is alive and well 🙂
As soon as Anthony calls it, it goes the other way!
We should hook him to a day trading machine, he’s peak or low picking abilities are uncanny, I propose as soon as he makes a prediction we short it the other way, sure as day follows night the watts effect will kick in, the stock will be jinxed and will do down not long after.
James Abbott says:
JJ said
“Actually, what that temp record shows is about 0.5C warming in the century to 1940, and a similar amount from 1980 to present. There is no change in acceleration.”
So JJ you conveniently miss out the period 1940 to 1980 to calculate a rate of change to suit your case ?
The period you refer to was called “cooling”. I left it out because doing so helps your case, and I didn’t want to be accused of cherry picking as you had done. If you would rather I not leave it out, that is OK with me.
Putting it back in leaves a trend of 0.015C/year from the beginning of the century to 1940, and a trend of only 0.009C/year for the period 1940 to present. Apparently, the net effect of “global warming” is to cut the natural warming rate by 60%.
That is the accounting that accrues when one cherry picks periods like you did, instead of making an honest comparison as I did.
The legitimate way to look at such processes over such short time periods is to look to see if the short term warming that we experienced starting approx 1980 has any precident in the past, before alleged CO2 effects could have had any effect. It does.
Several, in fact. I showed you one. Ric showed you another, here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/04/sea-ice-news-volume-3-number-12-has-arctic-sea-ice-started-to-turn-the-corner/#comment-1071841
Looking at 1920-40 vs the recent warming period 1980-2000 is another. That one leaves out most of the flat spot that we have been in for the last decade or more. Leaving out that flat spot helps your case – let me know if you’d prefer I add it back in.
Of course, the better thing to do (as I stated earlier and you ran from like a frightened school girl) is to look at longer, more climatologically relevant periods. Smokey showed you one of those, here:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/compress:12/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1840/to:2010/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/trend/offset:0.15/detrend:-0.16/plot/hadcrut3vgl/trend/offset:-0.4/detrend:-0.18/plot/hadcrut3vgl/scale:0.00001/offset:1.5/plot/hadcrut3vnh/scale:0.00001/offset:-1.5
Your conclusions are the result of dishonest analysis. Feel free to lie to yourself, but we are under no obligation to accept such crap from you.
So here is the killer argument – if the amount of CO2 is increased substantially over natural levels, it will get warmer. How controversial is that ?
Quite. Because the incremental effect of CO2 declines as per a log function with increasing concentration, the potential effect of the second 300 ppm is much less than that of the first 300 ppm. It is perhaps 1C, if one accepts IPCC figurings. Too, that declining potential is not guaranteed to be realized, given that the Earth’s climate system is a complex beast with numerous recursive mechanisms that often manifest as negative feedbacks and swamping effects. How much warmer, if any? You don’t know. Be a dear and don’t pretend that you do.
It seems that with the sceptic community it all boils down pretty much to one basic argument …
Only in the minds of warmist bigots such as yourself.
tjfolkerts,
Compared to the EVIDENCE that you lack, anything I post trumps your… nothingburger.
But cling to your unscientific belief that the Arctic has always had ice cover that never melted. Beliefs are comfortable things, and I wouldn’t want you to be upset when reality intrudes.
James Abbott says:
This just published does not look like steady natural cyclical change:
Don’t be silly. Of course it does.
Robert says:
September 5, 2012 at 3:10 pm
I see a lot of comments here that although the Arctic sea ice area / extent minimums are dropping over time, the maximum area /extent is relatively unchanged. Several posters have noted that this is because more of the thicker / older ice is melting out over the passing years, but this thicker ice is being replaced by thinner ice in the frigid Arctic winters. So, although the ice area / extent returns to more or less the same value in the winter each year, because this ice is thinner, over time, more ice melts out in the summer, which leads to record low areas/extents as we are seeing this year.
Thinner ice doesn’t mean more ice melts in the summer it means less ice melts in order to produce the same ice free area.
You appear to be assuming that over time the ice formed over the winter (single year ice) is getting thinner. I have seen no evidence this is the case and the return to the same winter maximum extent indicates this is not the case. As I noted above, the amount of ice formed over the winter is increasing.
If the reduced summer ice minimum is solely caused by melting of older multi-year ice, and I have seen no evidence this isn’t the case, then clearly the decreasing minimum extent will stop when this ice has all melted out.
The $64K question is whether new multi-year ice will have the same propensity to melt disproportionately faster than single year ice. If it does then minimum ice extent will stabilise around the current extent.
However, if I am right and embedded black carbon is the cause of the faster melt of older ice, then new multi-year ice will have less embedded BC as atmospheric BC levels have declined over the Arctic and new multi-year will be less susceptible to melt.
Thus summer minimum ice extent will start to rise again in the near future. I predict in the next 2 or 3 years.
tjfolkerts,
http://drtimball.com/2011/another-climate-change-scare-is-on-thin-ice/
“None of what’s going on today is outside long term variations in ice cover and thickness. On November 20, 1817 the President of the Royal Society proposed a letter to the British Admiralty:
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 inclosed (sic) the seas in the high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice has been during the last two years greatly abated.
Mr. Scoresby, a very intelligent young man who commands a whaling vessel from Whitby observed last year that 2000 square leagues of ice with which the Greenland Seas between the latitudes of 74° and 80°N have been hitherto covered, has in the last two years entirely disappeared. The change in circulation was triggered by the eruption of Tambora in 1815.
In the heat of Cancun, Mexico, everyone is learning that the fallacies of climate science – and especially attempts to exploit fear and lack of knowledge or understanding – are on very thin ice because they are totally politically motivated.”
Smokey
I am going to build a Long-Range Climatic History Reference Page, to contain long-range and and non-current graphs, in order to supplement what’s in the current Climatic History Reference Page;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/global-climatic-history/
which I’ll rename the Mid-Range Climatic History page or something.
You have a ton of good graphs at your disposal. Would you mind posting some of them here or elsewhere, when you get around to it? I’ll probably strawman out page in the next couple weeks and then do a thread to capture additional content, and accurate descriptions for each chart.
Thanks
JTF
Smokey, evidence:
http://nsidc.org/icelights/2011/01/31/arctic-sea-ice-before-satellites/
“Scientists have pieced together historical ice conditions to determine that Arctic sea ice could have been much lower in summer as recently as 5,500 years ago. Before then, scientists think it possible that Arctic sea ice cover melted completely during summers about 125,000 years ago, during a warm period between ice ages.
To look back into the past, researchers combine data and records from indirect sources known as proxy records. Researchers delved into shipping charts going back to the 1950s, which noted sea ice conditions. The data gleaned from those records, called the Hadley data set, show that Arctic sea ice has declined since at least the mid-1950s. Shipping records exist back to the 1700s, but do not provide complete coverage of the Arctic Ocean. However, taken together these records indicate that the current decline is unprecedented in the last several hundred years,”
And from there, follow the links to the primary sources. Note, it says possibly much lower 5,500 years ago, and ice-free 125,000 years ago. That’s what the evidence says. Now, if it was cherry-picked PR, why would it say that? Because it’s not, it is the honest result of real science. And it also says the current decline is unprecedented in the last few hundred years.
Now, if you want evidence it its anthropogenic, you have to look elsewhere. But you can Google as easily as I can. Only you don’t want to.
In fact, one would think the Royal Society would read their own records, ……
And of course it will be dismissed as “anecdotal”,….3,2,1,…….
Nope.
Incidentally, a particularly good plot from a Russian source:
A depiction covering from the 1920s through the end of the 20th century:
http://nwpi.krc.karelia.ru/e/climas/Ice/Ice_no_sat/fig2.gif
As can be seen in the plot for the Siberian Arctic basin, there was major rapid loss of ice during the late 1920s through until the early 1940s. Then mostly ice grew until the late 1980s.
Particularly by the 1990s, ice extent went down again, but, as a multi-year average, ice loss then was not impressive at all compared to the how little ice there was in the early 1940s.
Unlike the prior Siberian Arctic basin data, the North-European basin data from that source unfortunately has a data gap about right exactly on the most interesting spot of comparison, the early 1940s:
http://nwpi.krc.karelia.ru/e/climas/Ice/Ice_no_sat/fig3.gif
(The data gap is understandable considering the war at the time).
Still, even with the gap, one sees more relative loss of ice during the first half of the 20th century than during the second half, relative to their start points in each case.
That is not surprising in the context of, for example, cross-checking with other data from non-dishonest sources like http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2006GL028492.shtml which notes global sea level rise was slower in the latter half of the 20th century than the first half:
“1.45 ± 0.34 mm/yr 1954–2003″ versus “2.03 ± 0.35 mm/yr 1904–1953″
Anyway, those and some other plots from Russian sources are at:
http://nwpi.krc.karelia.ru/e/climas/Ice/Ice_no_sat/XX_Arctic.htm
This adds additional info to the last article:
http://drtimball.com/2012/2012-arctic-ice-melt-claims-distorted-and-inaccurate-its-the-wind-stupid/