Reader Psalmon writes:
Nenana River ice breakup nears top three latest dates in 97 years of contest
It may have escaped notice, but this last Saturday the locals in Nanana, AK hooked up the clock to determine the breakup and winner of the annual Nenana Ice Classic. Further ice measurements were apparently suspended last Thursday with the last measurement of 40 inches (just).
If you think May 11 seems late for starting the countdown, it is.
After the fourth earliest breakup in 2012 (April 23), as of this afternoon on May 14th, the tripod still stands, making 2013 the fourth latest breakup in the 97 years of the contest. Only 1935 (May 15), 1945 (May 16), and 1964 (May 21) still rate longer.
It’s hard to forget geophysicist Martin Jeffries at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks saying in 2009,
The Nenana Ice Classic is a pretty good proxy for climate change in the 20th century.
Sage insight.
More here:
Weather is not climate but as long as the alarmists insist on treating it like it is when it allows them to fear monger, then it is fair game to throw it back in their faces.
But I’m sure this is just more proof of Global Warming…rubber?…glue?…I’m not sure who
I wonder how long it’s been taking between the time they hook up the clock and when they tend to see the breakup.
So we’ve gone from 4th earliest to 4th latest in one year. Wonder how the warmists will spin it? Climate Volatility vs Climate Change vs Global Warming?
climate is an human artifact. the longer the “climate period”, the larger the range of any particular climactic value and the greater it’s variance.
what humans need to learn is that weather is the product of chaos. random is as random does.
It’s only climate if its unusually warm, otherwise it’s just weather.
I see heat sources right next to the instrument. 😀
But don’t you see? Last year fourth earliest, and this year already fourth latest! Proof of increasing climate extremes!!!
/sarc off. Or proof that on average over two years, it is just average.
The NCDC is not in charge of this record, otherwise it would be the third earliest.
Coldest, longest, latest, most snow … These facts are not supposed to be possible in a warming world, especially one with polar amplification.
Obviously, we need to go to real actual climate records like this one and ignore the official NCDC records which are obviously distorted and need to be fixed by removing those in charge of the organization – write your elected representative).
They must be really happy to see the sun.
The heat from the water at the surface has obviously been absorbed by the deep waters of the Nenana, allowing the ice to freeze deeper.
When it warms it is due to climate change. When it cools it is due to climate change. When the climate doesn’t change, that is abnormal because climate normally changes, so no change is evidence of climate change as well. Only when the climate is neither warming, cooling nor staying the same can we be sure that climate change has ended.
Quite a pretty histogram of breakup dates/times on the official ice breakup page:
http://www.nenanaakiceclassic.com/Breakup%20Log.html
Only two more days to 2nd place, but the latest breakup was May 20, so a tough road to the top.
The climate variability ….is unprecedented!
I live in Fairbanks and always wondered about the latest date the tripod went out, May 20, 1964. That was the year of the Great Alaska Earthquake, March 27 (Good Friday), 1964, magnitude 9.2. I wondered if the earthquake in any way influenced the late date. No great quakes this year. I guess it is coincidental.
Popcorn’a popp’n !
Trendberth and company at NCAR must be near mass murder threshold so watch out when Kevin dons a black wet suite with the letters AGW and AK-47 and grenade bag and starts killing anyone in range.
But naw. Kevin has not clue about AK-47s or grenades or killing, he does like to kill butterflies and puppies though and he has been known to flush gold fish in a toilet.
Has no clue about meteorology, physics, chemistry, mathematics, or for goodness sake, the weather. Its all a Reanalysis (reoccurring anal cyst) Job to him.
Ha ha.
Predicted low for tonight is 18F, so it should make a little ice overnight, although daylight is up to almost 19 hours at this point. Possibility of snow on Friday and Saturday. The Ice Classic webcam seems to show there was some open water along the shoreline but it appears to have refrozen. I don’t know if it will go past the 20th, but it looks pretty good to at least get to No. 2.
In a sense we are already past the 1935 ice breakup time, which was May 15 13:32, local time. I do not know if there was daylight saving in Alaska back then, but it is only an hour, anyway. While calendar effect brings spring more than a full day earlier now, than 78 years ago.
For weather surely does not care about our calendar dates, it is governed by the phase relative to the tropical year, whose mean length is 365.242189 days in this epoch, which makes 78 tropical years 28488.89 days long. At the same time there were 20 leap years since then, and 78×365+20 makes 28490.
Tripod is still standing as of 2013-05-14 AKDT 22:21:00 (which corresponds to May 16, 1935, a few minutes past midnight). We have 9 more hours or so to surpass 1945 and make this year’s rank second.
All this shows is that high volatility is currently present in the data set.
What odds its closer to the median in 2014?
Here is the webcam…. http://www.nenanaakiceclassic.com/
Not sure why dates are not equal? Seems more dates than 4 are past today from past breakups. Seems others have figured it out… “Tripod is still standing as of 2013-05-14 AKDT 22:21:00 (which corresponds to May 16, 1935, “
I think peter above explained it for me. Sorry, missed that post.
Nah, calendar offset relative to 1945 is only 0.53 days, and 0.13 days to 1964, as opposed to 1.11 days to 1935. Therefore it does not help much once we have made it to the first three.
I predict May 27, my birthday.
I’d feel better about that tripod photo if someone can assure me that Gore, Trenberth, Romm, McKibben and Mann are not inside those warm parkas stomping down on that ice. 🙂
Is wagering allowed?
and 1964/65 winter saw a huge flood in the Pacific Northwest, No Cal to Washington