I’ve been watching the JAXA sea ice data on the WUWT sea ice page intently for the last few days. Click to enlarge.
I was ready to call the minimum this morning, but thought I’d get a second opinion, so I wrote to NSIDC’s Dr. Walt Meier
On 9/19/2012 8:34 AM, Anthony wrote:
> I think we’ve reached the turning point for Arctic Sea ice today, do
> you concur?
> Anthony
who responded with:
Yep: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
If you’re interested I could write up a guest post some time soon (maybe
this weekend); might be useful to expound a bit more on the differences
between NSIDC and MASIE/IMS (it’s still just a bit higher than us, but
as you’ve probably seen it did pass below its 2007 level). Nice
interview on PBS by the way.
walt
__________________________________________________________
Walt Meier Research Scientist
National Snow and Ice Data Center Univ. of Colorado
UCB 449, Boulder, CO 80309 walt@xxxx.xxx
Tel: 303-xxxx-xxxx Fax: 303-xxxx-xxxx
“If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be
called research, would it?” – Albert Einstein
__________________________________________________________
Walt, thanks for the compliment about my PBS interview. As for the guest post, I’ll trade you.
I’ll trade you a guest post on WUWT for making good on your promise of NSIDC “eventually” publishing your daily data like JAXA and other sea ice monitoring outlets do.
Quite a lot of time has passed since that promise was made. Thanks for your consideration – Anthony
Worth noting is this statement from the NSIDC today:
On September 16, 2012 sea ice extent dropped to 3.41 million square kilometers (1.32 million square miles). This appears to have been the lowest extent of the year. In response to the setting sun and falling temperatures, ice extent will
notnow climb through autumn and winter. However, a shift in wind patterns or a period of late season melt could still push the ice extent lower. The minimum extent was reached three days later than the 1979 to 2000 average minimum date of September 13.This year’s minimum was 760,000 square kilometers (293,000 square miles) below the previous record minimum extent in the satellite record, which occurred on September 18, 2007.
I think Walt meant to say “will” instead of “will not” here: In response to the setting sun and falling temperatures, ice extent will not climb through autumn and winter.
[update: he says its been fixed to read “will now”, I’ve corrected text here also. -A ]
At 3.41 million sq km, that means that in the ARCUS forecasting contest, everybody missed the forecast mark:
Download High Resolution Version of Figure 1.
Note that NSIDC’s Dr. Meier and WUWT had identical forecasts of 4.5 million sq km submitted to ARCUS, so we share the failure equally. That big storm in the Arctic really busted up the ice as well as the predictions.
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Before getting too concerned about this summer’s low ice extent, I suggest looking at how constant, over the years, the April-May ice extent has been. It would seem that we are entering a period of greater seasonal variation more than anything else.
For Phil: More info about why the whalers risked their lives. Much money was involved. Also this shows why it was good for whales that plastic was invented, (info for the anti-plastic, anti-crude-oil crowd.) Plastic replaced baleen, (though the first plastics were derived by chemists from wood and not crude oil, I think.)
“During the period of commercial whaling, the taking of baleen to be processed into corset stays. buttons, parasols, umbrellas. women’s hats, upholstery, frameworks for trunks and suitcases, fishing rods, buggy whips, and carriage wheels and springs was a profitable business (VanStone, 1958). Each whale contained several hundred pounds of baleen, which sold for $2 per pound in 1880 and $4.90 per pound in 1905, making a large whale worth up to $10,000. Values such as these led to an increase in the number of whalers and a corresponding reduction in the number of whales. In 1885, 441,400 pounds of baleen from the Arctic were marketed, and in 1887 and 1889, 561,694 and 219,400 pounds, respectively. were sold. By 1905. only 38.200 pounds were
taken despite a price of nearly $5 per pound (VanStone, 1962). Baleen was replaced by other products shortly thereafter and the market was eliminated.”
Barry the Believer says:
Seeing as you agree that burning fossil fuels is the primary cause of increased CO2 in the atmosphere since the IR, your argument about temperature change causing CO2 change was a complete and utter red herring…
See, barry, your conclusion doesn’t follow from your premise. I have provided irrefutable scientific evidence showing you that ΔCO2 follows ΔT, not vice-versa. I have challenged you to produce a chart showing the opposite cause and effect, but of course you cannot. Keep in mind that radiative physics is not the same as catastrophic AGW, as you want to believe.
The only measurable scientific evidence that exists proves that changes in CO2 follow changes in temperature. There is no contrary evidence. Just because there is occasionally a coincidental rise in both temperature and CO2 means nothing. It is a spurious correlation, and it does not show cause and effect, as the chart I posted above does.
Your belief is so strong, barry, that you cannot accept the fact that you could very well be completely wrong, and so could the entire alarmist crowd. Your side has all the hallmarks of a cult, while scientific skeptics simply say: Prove it. Or at least provide solid, testable, measurable evidence, per the scientific method, showing that CO2=CAGW. You cannot, but your belief makes you absolutely certain that you could not possibly be wrong, no matter how much evidence to the contrary exists.
Countless cults have been completely wrong throughout history. The Jehovah’s Witnesses repeatedly gave specific dates for the end of the world. They were wrong every time. The planet has been falsifying your belief for a decade and a half now. Question: when, exactly, will you admit you are wrong, barry? In five more years? Ten? Twenty? Give us a number.
barry says
You mean you will never change your opinion, you will reckon in any event that you got the numbers wrong? No possibility of falsification, then?
Henry says
I measure (or others did for me), compile the results\ acc. to relevant sampling technigues, and the end result, provided it gives me a near to 100% correlation, is what makes me draw my conclusions….
If you understand stats you would know that it is an exact science, based on probability theory.
RE: HenryP: (September 23, 2012 at 11:38 am)
If you understand stats you would know that it is an exact science, based on probability theory
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle might be interpreted as saying there is no such thing as an ‘exact science.’
It is interesting that individual electrons going through a diffraction grating will eventually build an arrival pattern on the target wall representing cancellations and reinforcements of the probability wave functions of all electrons that went through the opening.
Francois?, ……….. lol.
yeah me too. No post from Francois.
I have seen a number of replies in the past that criticize AGW believers, or alarmists as they are referred to here, for not being willing to consider evidence that contravenes AGW. Yet I see the exact same behavior here. The Arctic ice extent dropped to half it’s 1979-2000 average, and was 900,000 km2 below the figure for 2011. Yet based on the reader comments here, it’s not particularly noteworthy, and in no way has caused any questioning of the position held by AGW skeptics.
Chris,
There is no scientific evidence supporting the AGW conjecture. By ‘evidence’ I mean testable, quantifiable, real world data, verifiable through the scientific method, showing definitively the amount of global warming per unit of anthropogenic CO2 emitted.
AGW may exist. But if it does, it is obviously a tiny effect; too tiny to measure. So without evidence, AGW remains a conjecture. An opinion. Or in your self-admitted case, a belief.
There is no evidence whatever that the fluctuations in Arctic ice are human caused. There is plenty of evidence that changing ocean currents, wind and storms are some of the main causes of ice decline. For example, currents in the Fram Strait have been warming substantially, and are now ≈3.5ºC warmer than a century ago.
I would be happy to consider evidence that human CO2 emissions cause Arctic ice decline, or global warming. But there is no such evidence. Do you suggest that we take action based on an evidence-free conjecture? Or would it be better to wait and see if declining Arctic ice is a problem? So far, less Arctic ice has caused no problems.
On balance, less ice appears to be a net benefit. Opening the Northwest Passage will save gigatons of fossil fuels. A permanently open Northwest Passage has been the dream of shippers and governments alike for centuries. But when it has opened, it has always subsequently iced over again. While it was open, there was no harm done. So why all the wild-eyed arm waving now? Do Believers always require something that frightens them? Seems so…
For some good reading on the same subject from 4.5 years ago, see this WUWT thread:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/03/16/you-ask-i-provide-november-2nd-1922-arctic-ocean-getting-warm-seals-vanish-and-icebergs-melt
A number of reasons for that Chris.
Appears to have varied considerably over the past – what is so magical about the 1979-2000 average.
The decline is at least partially due to storm activity, combined with the fact that the measurement of ice technique says that anything below 15% is classed as no ice. So ice more dispersed rather than melted. Expect a rapid refreeze.
Air temperatures over Arctic not remarkable this year so ice “disappearance” not due directly to global warming.
Carbon particles affect albedo and can speed surface melt – anthropogenic melting but not global warming. Surface melt can also contribute to reduced ice extent reporting
Do you have any explanation as to why the ice extent has declined so rapidly in the last month or so despite unremarkable temperature conditions, especially given that global warming has not increased catastrophically lately (in fact never).
So Arctic sea ice is low. Antarctic sea ice is at a record high. There is a connection.
No problem!
Peter,
As I understand it, satellite data on the Arctic extent became available in 1979, it is for that reason that comparisons of that period are used. If you have evidence that the ice extent was smaller than what we are seeing this year in years prior to 1979, let me know the source and I’ll look at it. I agree that the severe storm this year caused increased ice loss – but that is in turn partially due to the almost complete disappearance of multi year ice due to prior warming! One article I read said the ratio used to be 80/20 multi year/new, and now it is almost the reversal of that. Thin ice will of course be far more susceptible to breaking up in a storm than thick ice.
You say: Air temperatures over Arctic not remarkable this year so ice “disappearance” not due directly to global warming. What’s your source for this point? Here is what NOAA says in their Arctic Report Card: “In 2011, annual near-surface air temperatures over much of the ocean were approximately +1.5 °C greater than the 1981-2010 baseline period and land temperatures were also above their baseline values. This continued a decade-long warm-bias of the Arctic relative to mid-latitudes.” In another section of the web site, they graph the increase in the Arctic surface air temperature (SAT) since 1900 – it has gone up by about 1.5C. See http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard/temperature_clouds.html for the graph.
So to answer your last question, this year’s substantially increased melt is a combination of continuing increase in the Arctic SAT (leading to less and less multiyear ice) exacerbated by a severe storm, which broke up already weakened ice.
Regarding carbon particles and albedo, please explain why carbon particles would cause increases in yearly ice loss. At the outer edges of the ice where it melts each year, the ice reforms, so there will not be carbon buildup on the surface. In the inner regions where multiyear ice occurs, there is snowfall each winter which will cover last year’s carbon, rendering it irrelevant to albedo effects for the following summer.
Chris says
If you have evidence that the ice extent was smaller than what we are seeing this year in years prior to 1979, let me know the source and I’ll look at it.
Henry says
As quoted earlier (also by others) :
For some good reading on the same subject from 4.5 years ago, see this WUWT thread:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/03/16/you-ask-i-provide-november-2nd-1922-arctic-ocean-getting-warm-seals-vanish-and-icebergs-m
read the whole original newspaper report from 1922. I gather we can trust it, seeing it came from the US embassy in Norway.
According to my calculations (natural) warming and cooling is on an 88 years cycle equally divided into 44 years of cooling and 44 years of warming. That means: 2012-88= 1924. Let us allow for an error margin of 2 years. From 1924, it took 2 decades to ice up again. That means we could still see 2 years of decline (maximum) before the (arctic) ice will gain again. (Antarctic ice is already gaining)
HenryP,
I’ve already read this article. I didn’t see any mention of the size of the Arctic extent then, so how do you know that it was less than what we are experiencing now? There may have been a warming trend then, perhaps due to the Gulf Stream taking a northward detour for several years, but that is far different than a steady decline over a 30 year period. Here is a paper (not a newspaper, but scientific publication) that states that today’s warming is greater than anything we have seen in the last 1450 years: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v479/n7374/full/nature10581.html
Also, I see postings over and over again that imply that since the earth has had warm periods in the past, that somehow negates AGW. Specifically why is that so? That’s like saying that because we’ve had lightning caused forest fires in the past, that man cannot cause forest fires. It makes absolutely no sense. Climate scientists do not say that only man can cause global warming, what they say is that after you subtract out the known natural effects on climate (orbital changes, solar cycles, volcanoes, the Gulf Stream current, etc) it is clear that there is an increase in temperature happening relating to CO2.
Henry@chris
So how do you know that ice is less now then it was in 1922?
Henry, the article I posted for you explains: “Here we use a network of high-resolution terrestrial proxies from the circum-Arctic region to reconstruct past extents of summer sea ice, and show that—although extensive uncertainties remain, especially before the sixteenth century—both the duration and magnitude of the current decline in sea ice seem to be unprecedented for the past 1,450 years.”
And in any case, once again, I’m not sure how that is relevant. To me the proper question is: Is the earth’s warming going to cause more adverse impacts than positive? If the answer is yes, we should take action.
D Boehm said: There is no scientific evidence supporting the AGW conjecture. By ‘evidence’ I mean testable, quantifiable, real world data, verifiable through the scientific method, showing definitively the amount of global warming per unit of anthropogenic CO2 emitted.
That is false, there is substantial evidence. In 1 minute of searching, I found this peer reviewed paper published in 2001: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/full/410355a0.html#B3
From the abstract: Here we analyse the difference between the spectra of the outgoing longwave radiation of the Earth as measured by orbiting spacecraft in 1970 and 1997. We find differences in the spectra that point to long-term changes in atmospheric CH4, CO2 and O3 as well as CFC-11 and CFC-12. Our results provide direct experimental evidence for a significant increase in the Earth’s greenhouse effect that is consistent with concerns over radiative forcing of climate.
You’ll note the use of real world, quantifiable data. There are no temperature loggers, no UHI issues, just a comparison of outgoing longwave radiation as measured by orbiting satellites 27 years apart.
Chris says
Here we use a network of high-resolution terrestrial proxies from the circum-Arctic region to reconstruct past extents of summer sea ice,
Henry asks
what proxies? Other than anecdotal, what do we have, in arctic ice extent, for the past? I would like to know? (but I m not going to pay for that BS – you pay for it and then you tell me)
A few of my (Dutch) ancestors like Willem Barentz were convinced that a northern passage must have existed in the past, (i.e. before they lived, @ur momisugly ca. 1500 AD) , hence they lost their live(s) trying to find it.
A northern passage would be great for the oil and gas industry up there, as well as for shipping things faster from certain places around the globe. But based on my calculations it is not going to happen. I would not bet a cent on that. I analysed the results from 47 weather stations balanced by latitude and 70/30 on sea/ inland (I figured longitude is not important). Unlike your so-called climate scientists who are all looking at means, I decided to look at maxima (as well).
Here are my end results on that, i.e. the change in degrees C or K per annum:
data are: 0.036 from 1974 (38 yrs), 0.029 from 1980 (32 yrs), 0.014 from 1990 (22 years) and -0.016 from 2000 (12 years)
Now just take the trouble to plot these results of the drop of maxima against time (= deceleration of warming) and tell me what you get?
If you have the scientific back round to figure out what these results mean you will eventually come to know:
Global warming and global cooling is on a natural cycle, of ca. 88 years, (Gleissberg?), of which 44 years is warming and 44 years is cooling, looking at energy-in. (remember: that is not the same as energy out)
I think there are only a few people who figured out what mechanisms in the upper atmospheres drive it.
Either way, you do not have to worry about it anymore, nor do you have to worry about driving a car or using a bit more electricity, because (you think) it will change the weather, because that just ain’t so.
Chris says
We find differences in the spectra that point to long-term changes in atmospheric CH4, CO2 and O3 as well as CFC-11 and CFC-12
Henry says
Chris, I have been there, done that. You must first try to understand the science before you believe that what is being “measured”, and then try to ask the questions, like I did, to which nobody can give me the answers…
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2011/08/11/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-Aug-2011/
HenryP,
With all respect, saying been there, done that does not pass muster as a scientific review and disproving of peer reviewed research. If you wish to write a paper and submit it for peer review, the please do so and post a link. You refer to an 88 year cycle, on another WUWT article a reader says there is a 35 year cycle, and yet another says a 5 year cycle. What all 3 conjectures have in common is no published research to back up their hypothesis. That’s the first step to gaining broader acceptance of your theories.
Chris, you strike me as being reasonable intelligent. In what scientific fields do you specialize?
You did not do the plot?
My work is published,
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/04/23/global-cooling-is-here/
unfortunately the new host of my blog cut my tables in half, but, even now, if you look at it, you will get my drift, and easily be able to repeat my results.Knowing something about statistics, especially sampling and sampling technigues is important. In my case, I considered longitiude as not being important (for my sample). Any idea why I say or think that?
I think I still can take this work further by proving a link between the flooding of Nile, of which there are reasonable records, and the 88 year (Gleissberg) cycle.
I started this work because I wanted to check out Al Gore and his climbing up the ladder to show us how bad more CO2 is. At the time I considered (as a chemist) that there must be giga tons of bicarbonate in the oceans of which we know that
heat+ HCO3- => OH- + CO2 g
So how did he (they) figure out that “we did all of it”?
It turns out that the (complete) records of that table started only in or around 1956,
when I (and you) know that natural global warming had started….
PS
this is just a hobby of mine….
to be able to laugh with friends and family after dinner, at all the fools who call themselves “climate scientists” . None of them actually looked at the most important variable to evaluate energy-in…..
….and of which there are good records from the past.
.
Caleb says:
September 21, 2012 at 2:07 am
Another way of being distrustful and “eyeballing” is to compare what you see through the “North Pole Camera” with what is stated via the ice “extent” maps. That camera has drifted down to Fram Strait, and was at the “edge” of the ice, south of 82 degrees and more than 3 degrees east, before disappointing my curiosity by getting blown back to more than 1 degree west. It showed growing meltwater pools during the summer, and a few leads have appeared at times, but for the most part it has remained 100% ice. A couple weeks ago the temperatures dropped below minus ten, and the pools all froze and were covered by drifting snow, before they reappeared during a recent thaw (with much fog.) Now the temperatures are dropping below freezing again, and the meltwater pools are again vanishing.
Take another look Caleb, camera 2 appears to be showing a big lead at the moment.
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/NPEO2012/18.jpg
some of you guys/girls might be interested in these results
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
any comments?
@chris:
I’ve been reading the newer sea ice thread and missed your comment to me.
First, that link is not sufficient testable, falsifiable evidence. Cloud cover is changing, which skews the data points. Both specific and relative humidity are decreasing, which would tend to provide more IR transparency. But more importantly, I can show beyond any doubt that rising CO2 has no measurable effect on global temperature, and why the “carbon” scare is a false alarm:
We will start with a very long time period; about three and a half centuries. Let’s look at the natural global warming trend:
http://i35.tinypic.com/2db1d89.jpg
As we see, the long term trend is the same, whether CO2 is low or high. That is confirmed in this Wood For Trees chart. The naturally rising global temperature trend since the LIA has remained within its long term parameters. There is no acceleration in global warming; it is on the same trend line that it was on before the start of the industrial revolution, thus falsifying the CO2=CAGW conjecture.
The fact that CO2 has no measurable effect on global temperature is confirmed here. Notice that the two warming episodes — again, one when CO2 was low, and the other when CO2 was high — show conclusively that any effect from CO2 is so minuscule that it is not even measurable, since the rising temperature trends are exactly the same.
Empirical measurements also show conclusively that CO2 follows temperature on all time scales, from decades to hundreds of millennia.
That proves that the alarmist crowd has cause and effect reversed. Temperature changes cause CO2 changes; not vice-versa. There is no empirical, testable scientific evidence showing that rising CO2 causes rising temperatures (if you disagree, post a chart showing that changes in CO2 precede temperature changes). The false belief that CO2 leads temperature is based on an entirely coincidental, short-term correlation, which is now breaking down. There has been no global warming for 15 years, while CO2 has risen steadily. (I should point out that CO2 may cause an insignificant temperature rise; that is not ruled out by the logic of this argument. But since the effect is too minuscule to measure, it can be completely disregarded for all practical purposes).
Finally, the planet is starved of harmless, beneficial CO2. More is better. With added CO2 the biosphere will thrive, and there will be no global harm or damage. The “carbon” scare is a false alarm.
Using verifiable scientific facts based on empirical evidence, it is demonstrated here that CO2 has no measurable effect on temperature. None. The rising temperature trend since the LIA remains the same, whether CO2 is low or high. There are no testable measurements showing otherwise. Therefore, CO2 does not have the claimed effect.
The reason that the alarmist crowd cannot get anything right is because they are fixated on the false and disproven presumption that measurable temperature change is driven by CO2 — when, in fact, exactly the opposite is true.