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:
If it lasts another 10 days it would be cool, he said. Urk. It would be chillin’, even! ;P
“The Nenana Ice Classic is a pretty good proxy for climate change in the 20th century.”
I think we can all say Aye Aye to that! The “science” has been unsettled!!
papiertigre says (May 15, 12:16 am )
Is wagering allowed?
I think you’ll find it’s the main purpose of the Classic (though I dunno whether they’d allow foreigners like me (and presumably you, monsieur) to chip in a few $ or not. Probably not a lot to do in Alaska when your river’s frozen over!
The late, great John Daly commented on this as a climate proxy here:
http://www.john-daly.com/nenana.htm
He noted that urban warming in Fairbanks had probably contaminated this record making it not such a pure measure of CO2-induced climate change after all. If he is right, getting close to a new record now is even more significant.
4:40AM EDT in Central Pennsylvania, still dark outside. With the pic timestamp at 00:38:39 AKDT, pic is showing brightly lit land and sky.
Wow, Nenana must be so far above the Arctic Circle, it’s actually right above Europe.
Just you wait,
Give it a couple of years and the misanthropic luddite environmentalists, given credibility by band-waggon-jumping snake-oil-selling university researchers will have found a way of ‘proving’ that carbon dioxide causes global cooling and the next ice age.
Switch off your heating or you will make it even colder.
“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. ”
Perhaps this alternation is a manifestation of the strong two year periodicity that I found in Arctic ice coverage:
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=216
A one-year anti-correlation has been reported in the literature as well. Though it seems no one has gone as far as examining the data with spectral analysis as I show above.
Very lousy warming in 100 years, in a place were the warming is supposed to be the strongest in the whole world??
goldminor says:
May 14, 2013 at 11:50 pm
I predict May 27, my birthday.
————————————————
I predict your birthday is June 19.
but that’s not fair……you’ve seen your driver’s licence.
cn
Through the wonders of Google Earth I found the tower at:
Latitude: 64.564687°
Longitude: -149.093438°
/Just in case anyone else is curious.
It would be useful to plot ice breakup date vs. year from 1919 through the present (and into 2020 and beyond, of course). As of today, a linear regression guesstimate would be about 10 days sooner per century (1 day sooner per decade). It would require a string of late thaws to modify that trend significantly. So this does indeed look like a reasonable proxy for warming over the 20th Century, making geophysicist Martin Jeffries was about right.
Of course, an average breakup date for multiple arctic and near-arctic rivers (in both the E. & W. Hemispheres) would be arguably better at identifying any long-term climate trends in the N. Hemisphere. It would also be beneficial to present correlation of breakup date with a PDO index as well as to highlight the river level at the time of freezeup the previous autumn (as the latter would offer better predictability of potential flooding damage upon breakup).
Note the tragic helicopter accident in Irkutsk last week:
http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_05_07/Two-bodies-found-after-Mi-8-chopper-crashes-in-Russia-s-Irkutsk-region-emergency-source-511/
An idea for a new reference page at WUWT?
“Spring Ice Breakup Dates for N. Hemisphere Rivers”
Kurt in Switzerland
IPCC AR4 covered studies on ice freeze and breakup dates on N. Hemisphere rivers:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch4s4-3-2.html
The majority of the rivers presented show a trend toward both later freeze dates and earlier breakup dates.
More recent, extensive studies show a trend toward earlier freeze dates in Canada and mixed results between E. and W. Siberia, however.
Kurt in Switzerland
I have a FlexiClime™ model which allows me, once ice-out occurs, to predict the date and time retroactively. It is truly marvelous.
The climate is wrong – it ain’t following da computa models.
The early ice breakup date in 1998 was the last hurrah for the warm phase of the PDO. Since then the trend has been towards later breakups, at the rate of 0.4 day per year. (The Excel linear calculation assumes this year’s breakup is today, May 15, which is not my prediction, but an assumption to use in the calculation.)
Meanwhile, it snowed in the UK last night.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-22536139
Just looking at the accumulated heating degree days over the last ten years vs the breakup time I see a correlation of sorts. Just eyeballing, I get a breakup time in the last week of may based on the current weather forecast.
Frostheave says:
“I live in Fairbanks and always wondered about the latest date the tripod went out, May 20, 1964.”
Don’t think earthquakes had much to do with it. However, the linked article (below) shows a plausible tie to long periods of temperature below 50 degrees and how late in the year the temperature stayed below 50 in Fairbanks. 1964 holds the recored of 230 days below 50 and did not get above 50 until May 23. This year was the 5th longest with 213 days and did get above 50 until May 8. All of the other three years with long periods belw 50 degrees had the ice break up in May (1982, May 10; 1971, May 8; 1931, May 10) but in thse years it got above 50 in April.
230 days — Oct. 6, 1963 to May 23, 1964
220 days — Sept. 16, 1981 to April 24, 1982
218 days — Sept. 16, 1970 to April 22, 1971
216 days — Sept. 15, 1930 to April 19, 1931
215 days — Oct. 4, 2012 to May 8, 2013
http://www.newsminer.com/news/local_news/temperature-hits-degrees-in-fairbanks-finally/article_766b94dc-b94b-11e2-9fd0-0019bb30f31a.html
Well for starters, there’s no such thing as global climate. Climate is a regional thing. California climate isn’t like Oregon climate or like London climate.
And as everyone knows, the SI unit of climate change interval is 30 years. So every 30 years or so is often enough to decide whether to sell your house and move to a better climate. Evidently, we didn’t like Africa, so we moved out; over to the next valley about every 30 years; ended up in Sunnyvale Ca.
So climate change we can handle; MOVE !
It’s weather that doesn’t give you time to move, and does all the damage. Some argue that climate is the average of weather. Not true; on average, nothing at all happens. Climate may be the sum total of all past weather; but it ain’t the average. Super storms on average don’t do much damage. Sandy for instance, on average didn’t do much; it’s only if you cherry pick the data, and talk about when this house, or that gambling casino, fell down that anybody notices anything happening. On average, it’ll all disappear eventually; and people only seem to remember when their house fell down. Most houses don’t fall down, and nobody seems to notice that they don’t.
And if the North pole is following one of Leif Svalgaard’s southern routes to the East on it’s way to Greenland, well pretty soon it will be in Nenana so that tower quits falling down.
According to the long range forecast, If the tripod doesn’t fall by tomorrow (Thursday, 16 May), the lows will be below freezing until Wednesday the 22nd) with a 50% chance of snow Friday & Saturday.
We could have a new Record!
Starting to move this morning, based on camera, should be long now.
I think the archives need revised to bring the prior dates more in line with the known global warming that has occured over the same time frame. Should we apply a linear correction or exponential? After correcting the historic data it will be pretty clear that the river won’t freeze at all in 2030. Wait no, 2300.
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).
…..40 inches of ice (just)…?? 3.33 feet thickness of ice is a LOT of ice on the river yet!
We just might have an all time winner here!
Nenana AK forecast: http://www.wunderground.com/q/zmw:99704.2.99999
MtK
What if the ice doesn’t completely melt? Who will be declared the winner?
I think it will break pretty soon sometime in the morning tomorrow or late evening I guess. What will happen if no one win this year does the pot will add for next year quess ing?