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
Steven Mosher,
What kind of “weird weather” are you referring to? Things look pretty normal here.
And would you care to discuss ice — icluding the Antarctic? That is part of the planet’s ice cover, too. Including the Antarctic gives us a global metric. Over all, global ice is right at its long term average [the red line]. So why the wild-eyed arm waving over one specific region — a region that is also returning to it’s long term average?
Trying to fit a region like the Arctic to a global model run causes credibility problems, as we see here. It means that the model was wrong.
On one side, the spring has been colder than average, and the northern atlantic and northern pacific sea surface anomalies would let us think that the outlook should be quite positive this season.
But on the other side, last year has seen a record low sea ice area since satelite records began, and the reformed ice is rather thin in many places, despite the area is somewhat normal now. Furthemore, there are already melted pools of sea water within the ice shelf next to siberian coast, and in many places next to north pole the ice has shown already weaknesses. As a result i’m rather pessimistic (despite i’m a climate sceptic, yes) for the outlook this year.
3.7 – 3.8 km square is my vote.
What about the Antarctic ice? I was told that it was all heating up down there, but the sea ice page charts appear to show increasing sea ice. Odd that.
Like I predicted in the other thread, I feel the thin nature of the ice from last summer’s melt and then refreeze will allow for rapid meting this July/August for a Sept minimum of 3.55. I do think the next few years will see slightly increasing minimums bsck to the 2007 -09 period
Anthony,
I put this in Tips & Notes already, but I’ll repeat it here. On your Sea Ice Page would you consider changing the side-by-side Cryosphere Today images so that 2012 is on the left instead of 2007, since 2012 set a record low? That was the original purpose of the comparison in the first place, I assume, i.e., seeing how today’s extent compares with the record low year, so the change seems appropriate.
Based on the prediction of a cool Northern summer, I’m WAGing it will be around the 1990’s average–well above the 6.0 highest choice. So I went with that, but I think it will be much higher.
Well, I was wrong. Looks like some warmers aren’t waiting until September to weep — already starting in June.
Steven Mosher says:
June 6, 2013 at 7:43 pm
Richard,
Huh?
1. I dont have a any absolute beliefs
Of course not. Now, if you could really look objectively at the data you would realize just how wrong your statement is.
2. Its interesting (sic) data that one should consider. Judith Curry thinks its interesting, are you going to attack her ?
I don’ t care what she said, I was referencing what you have said. And, I said nothing about whether or not this data is interesting. Ask yourself why you are so defensive.
3. Who said PDO cannot? certainly not me. In fact It would surely play a role.
In the PDO thread you stated you didn’t think it could be a factor since it was just temperatures (which is wrong). You were happy to throw out any possible influence for the PDO on global changes in temperatures. Check your own words.
I dont know why people are so resistant (sic) to actually looking at data and seeing for themselves. Its far easier to say “I don’t (sic) like them, therefore they must be wrong” I know that attitude bugs skeptics, so why do they also do it?
Weird.
All I did is point out you happily accepted a conjecture about jet streams in one context while ignoring them in another. It demonstrates that you are looking for reasons to support preconceived beliefs. You may think you are open minded but your words tell a different story.
Sept avg 4.2, give or take.
I will make my prediction based upon the same sampling techniques used by Hansen and GISS in the Arctic:
There will less ice than when there was a lot, the average of three data points.
The poll is now closed. Thanks to everyone who voted, and especially thanks to all those trolls (and we both know who you are) who tried to skew the poll by voting for “6.0 or greater”, which happens every time. Got you covered though, since I anticipate such actions.
4.8 SWAG
Where on earcth do you do business such that 2pm EDT is after close of business?
I don’t think that all the ice will have gone by mid September but the amount left will be much smaller than what has accumulated at the south pole by mid September.The arctic sea ice minimum depends on many things such as oil drilling,icebreakers and even temperature it is much to hard to predict.
As the votes were skewed, I went through the thread here and listed all the serious estimates, taking the lower estimate if there were two with 0.1 m/sq/km between them, or the average if the spread was greater for an individual estimate.
Number of estimates: 35
Spread: 2.7 – 5.9
Average: 4.4
Last year: 3.61
As the September extent has recovered by 800 000 sq/km (+) only twice in the record, and considering the state of the ice, the average result is an unlikely proposition. The largest year to year recovery was 1.75 m/sq/km (1995 – 1996); the 2nd largest was 1 m/sq/km. Estimates above 5 m/sq/km (there were 7 of those) may be possible, but highly unlikey.
My guess is 3.9
4.815162342
“All I did is point out you happily accepted a conjecture about jet streams in one context while ignoring them in another.”
really? Personally I would say that the jury is still out. But when people ask the question as they did, “who cares about the arctic?” it would seem quite reasonable to point folks to some of the theories actively being persued. But of course anytime anybody points to anything that suggest the arctic may be important, people attack the reserchers rather than simply saying
” hmm, that’s interesting, I’ll have a look”
So. I accept no conjecture. Sorry no cookie for you.
Rod Everson says:June 7, 2013 at 6:53 am
Anthony,
I put this in Tips & Notes already, but I’ll repeat it here. On your Sea Ice Page would you consider changing the side-by-side Cryosphere Today images so that 2012 is on the left instead of 2007, since 2012 set a record low
I’m not speaking for Anthony, but I believe the arrangement of the side-by-side charts is done that way at Cryosphere Today. You can click on the image and change the dates at CT.
Looks like the day the competetion closed we lost 400K km of ice.
Just the facts,
You are still missing the point.
1. You need to compare august sept oct air temps ( you also have to look at mositure which is what they explicitily mention )
2. AVOID hadcrut. I’ve explained this over an over again. Its broken dont use it.
3. For this area and the variables you need to look at Reanalysis is the best source.
4. To test a claim somebody makes you have to actually test the claim.
A) When there is more open water in the melt season ( pick this data )
B) the air is warmer and moister than it would be otherwise ( like duh)
C) that can lead to higher amplitude jet stream.
So, to date you havent even some close to touching the analytical problem
When you do that you will be unfooled.
Steven Mosher says:June 8, 2013 at 7:37 am
Looks like the day the competetion closed we lost 400K km of ice.
Care to share which planet you are referring to?
It is odd.
5.4-5.5 gets 33 votes
5.5-5.6 gets 0
5.6-5.7 gets 24 votes.
Less than 2.0 is the only other zero.
A mean of 4.68 (throwing out the above 6)
A mean of at least 4.797 using a 6.05 centroid for the above 6.
P90 at 3.71 or 3.79 (second value includes the “Greater than 6”)
P75 at 4.19 or 4.24
P50 at 4.73 or 4.8
P25 at 5.21 or 5.45
P10 at 5.61 or 5.95
I just took a look at Cryospehere. Wow! Sadly, I’m guessing that we see another record low this summer, and this summers low will easily (and by a large margin) shatter last seasons low.
Icebreaker Yamal has reached the floating research station, NP-40, and is evacuating it as a result of the floe it is on breaking up.
http://www.n-tv.de/wissen/Atomeisbrecher-rettet-Forscher-article10813126.html
@Stephen Fisher Rasey June 8, 2013 at 9:51am
There was a good reason that the choice for 5.5-5.6 received zero votes.
There was no choice for 5.5-5.6.