The race to forecast the minimum is on again. Will it be another Serreze death spiral media opportunity? Or will it be ho-hum- nothing to see here, move along?
Once again I’m inviting readers to submit their best guess, best SWAG, or best dartboard result to the poll for the SEARCH Sea Ice Outlook. Deadline, according to the recent announcement I posted on WUWT from ARCUS is close of business Friday June 7th.
Of recent interest has been the recent tendency for the current data to hang between the 1990’s and the 2000 normal line.
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) – International Arctic Research Center (IARC) – Click the pic to view at sourceWe are in that time of year when all of the years converge into a tighter grouping. This makes judging where the current year is going to be a tough challenge at this stage.
I’m going to give WUWT readers an opportunity to make a forecast for the ARCUS SEARCH sea ice contest submission, based on voting. See the poll at the end.
I’ll run this poll each month in the week before the deadline, and we’ll see how we do as the minimum approaches. The value used by ARCUS for judging the contest is the NSIDC value in square kilometers. The object is to guess what the September minimum will be.
I suggest that you should not be using the JAXA graph to forecast minimums, though it it useful for determining short term trends as it is more responsive than the NSDIC graph below, which is averaged.
Here is what the June 2012 forecast submission reports looked like:
The archive of the 2012 contest is available here: http://www.arcus.org/search/seaiceoutlook/2012/summary
For a complete overview of Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice, see the WUWT Sea Ice Reference page: http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/
Here is the forecast poll, deadline is Friday June 7th. Bear in mind that traditionally, forecasts in June have been too high. Last year’s minimum was 3.41 million square kilometers (1.32 million square miles) at its lowest point on 16 September, and in June, WUWT readers forecast 4.9 million sq kilometers.
Note: The mean is the monthly average in sq km2 for September, which is what the contest is looking for. It is not really as interesting as the minimum, but that’s the number ARCUS is looking for. Given that many of the June forecasts are too high anyway, shooting for the minimum rather than the mean might be just as good.
Note: The POLL HAS CLOSED, and I’ll be submitting the forecast to ARCUS – Anthony
UIUC interactive chart provides a good means of tracking the progress of the predictions. If the chart is accurate, then I’m leaning towards considerable increase over last year’s average. Notice that the current area approximates the mean for all years recorded and that at this period last year the extent was considerably smaller.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/arctic.sea.ice.interactive.html
3.6 Arctic
Antactic will break existing record for the same period.
I’m thinking that North Atlantic water temperatures will have a lot to do with this
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom_new.gif
Sea temperatures dropping to the south of the bearing straight may have influence
5.17 sq. km. Here’s to a big recovery from last year! That’s my guess and am sticking to it!
Doh! 5.17 million sq. km.
Tim says:
June 6, 2013 at 10:19 am
Please could someone explain to me why we are worrying about how much ice there is on an uninhabited part of the world for two months of the year?
Simple.
The changes in ice may be driving the changes in jet stream which could explain some of the weirdness seen recently.
once you get past the garbage in the first 30 seconds, you’ll see an interesting explanation
Number of comments referred to the last summer Arctic storm, however Richard M’s comment appears to be very relevant:
People should keep in mind that the storm last year had a couple of effects. It piled up ice on top of itself making it thicker in some places.
After look at data for North Atlantic currents, I am also inclined to think that the summer storm’s effect was neutral, and Richard has provided good explanation.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/ArcticSeaIce.htm
As it can be seen the last September’s ice extent was predetermined by the N. Atlantic currents some 4-5 years earlier.
Year over year the ice is getting thinner. Arctic cyclones which used to have no effect on thick ice are now having a field day kicking the butt of thinner ice.
This should be a very interesting year.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticice_nowcast_anim30d.gif
“Year over year the ice is getting thinner“??
Really?
4.95 arctic
Somewhere between the 2000’s avg and the 2011 number, I think I selected 5.7-5.8
Put my hat in the ring for 4.1 – 4.2.
4.1 to 4.0, but I’d better play Lotto on Saturday 😉
With 491 votes in the can, and a (1,2,1)/4 triangular filter, I see 6 modes.
The top four are:
Above 6.0 (31) (1,2)/3 filter
5.0-5.1 (29)
4.7-4.8 (25.75)
4.0-4.1 (20)
and a broad 5th mode between 5.2-5.5 (12.75)
Mean is greater than 4.78 (minimum centroid for “above 6.0”
and at least 4.69 ignoring “above 6.0”
These people voting for 6+ have to be people trying to sabotage the voting. I’m going with 4.3 and I think I might be high.
I made a graph of the low point of extent over the years and common sense tells one that a rebound of 5.0 is probably the best that could happen.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm3/arketebel/Untitled.jpg
Some guidance on Arctic sea current temperatures for both this time last year and current temperatures would be appreciated, since I think that warm water melts Arctic ice faster than co2.
4.1 was my vote.
Tim says:
June 6, 2013 at 10:19 am
Please could someone explain to me why we are worrying about how much ice there is on an uninhabited part of the world for two months of the year?
Simple.
Actually we aren’t worried, but the Climatists are, as they need to have Arctic ice melt to point to and say “See”? “The Arctic ice is disappearing which spells climate disaster, as predicted by our sacred models”. But sadly for them, as with all things climate, reality doesn’t seem to be playing along with their most ardent wishes.
The reason alarmists want everyone to focus on the minimum and not the annual average can be seen from this plot:
http://www.webcitation.org/6AKKakUIo
(which is in the context of longer-term history like http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/ArcticIce/Images/arctic_temp_trends_rt.gif )
Dave Wendt: 2.8571428, 4.2857142, 5.7142857 are 20/7, 30/7, 40/7. I’m good at spotting sevenths.
Rich.
Just The Facts: yes, I agree with you, some sort of mean should be used this year, rather than the biggest mode. But I think it is wise to use what is called a “censored” mean, where say 10% of the votes are removed from either end. This is so that (possible) cranks do not affect the result – but the sane majority do!
Steven Mosher: do you really fall for this low-sea-ice-affects-the-jet-stream BS? You really fall for what the warmists spout at you with AFAICT no scientific justification. In fact southerly jet streams have been prominent since solar Cycle 23 went low and 24 never came up high.
Rich.
Oh, P.S. 4.3 is my guess.
Rich.
Might be worth looking again in a couple of days. The last seven days of the animation are a forecast, and the ‘hole’ isn’t thereat the moment (i.e. up to June 5th).
4.7 to 4.8 by the way. Looking like a decent recovery if the Transpolar Drift remains fairly becalmed. Plenty of thin ice subject to the whims of the weather though…
@Mosher “this video does not exist”
Maybe a bad URL?
I think we might see a similar number to last year, but that is not cause for alarm but celebration since it means freer trade up north and it might even mean a bonanza for some people. It has happened in the past so why are we worried about it now?
Since the neutron monitor first caught my eye, I see that it is now showing a steady decline. This should mean a drop in sst, if it follows the past pattern. The monitor should read close to 40 by mid September. Taking into account the current sea ice conditions I voted 5.3-5.4. This year should be similar to 2009.