A grand experiment is being conducted in the Arctic this year that may not only falsify a prediction made in 2007, but may also further distance a connection between Arctic air temperature and sea ice decline.
You may have noticed the countdown widget at the top of the right sidebar. I’ve been waiting for this event all summer, and now that we are just over a month away from the Autumnal Equinox at September 22, at 20:44 UTC., (4:44PM EDT) signifying the end of summer in the Northern Hemisphere, this seemed like a good time to start the countdown. If there is still significant ice (1 million square kilometers or more as defined by Zwally, see below) in place then, we can consider that this claim by Maslowski in 2007 to be falsified:
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7139797.stm
What is most interesting though, is that Arctic temperatures seem to be in early decline, ahead of schedule by about 30 days compared to last year’s record melt:
Figure 1A: Overlay of temperature plots for 2012 and 2013 from the Danish Meteorological Institute.
Note that in Figure 1A, for 2013 the temperature has fallen below that which is needed to freeze seawater (approximately -1.8°C according to Peter Wadhams) at 271°K (-2.15°C). It is also approximmately 30 days ahead of the date that the temperature fell to the same value last year, and so far, the current situation with early colder temperature seems to be unique in the DMI temperature record back to 1958. However, it is worth noting that DMI has a caveat not to take the actual temperatures too literally.
…since the model is gridded in a regular 0.5 degree grid, the mean temperature values are strongly biased towards the temperature in the most northern part of the Arctic! Therefore, do NOT use this measure as an actual physical mean temperature of the arctic. The ‘plus 80 North mean temperature’graphs can be used for comparing one year to an other.
As if on cue for that caveat, shortly after I prepared figure 1A, DMI updated their plot to show a bit of a rebound:
Figure 1B DMI plot for today.
But there are other indications, for example this plot from NOAA ESRL, showing air temperatures well below freezing in the region:
Figure 2: Surface air temperatures in C Source: NOAA ESRL – Click the pic to view at sourceAnd, extent this year is ahead of extent for this time last year and within the standard deviation range (grey shading):
Figure 3: Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) – Centre for Ocean and Ice – Click the pic to view at sourceAfter a new record low in Arctic sea ice extent in 2012, the phrase “Nature abhors a vaccum” comes to mind as indicators suggest this melt season may end earlier than usual. The earliest that a turn in Arctic melt season was recorded in the satellite record was on September 2nd, 1987. With 14 days to go, will we see an earlier turn?
If we do, it might suggest (as many believe) that sea ice melt is directly tied to air temperature and the effects of increased CO2 on air temperature via the polar amplification we are often told about where the Arctic is the fastest warming place in the world.
Figure 4: The map above shows global temperature anomalies for 2000 to 2009. It does not depict absolute temperature, but rather how much warmer or colder a region is compared to the norm for that region from 1951 to 1980. Global temperatures from 2000–2009 were on average about 0.6°C higher than they were from 1951–1980. The Arctic, however, was about 2°C warmer. Based on GISS surface temperature analysis data including ship and buoy data from the Hadley Centre.
Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_amplification
If the melt continues, and turns around the normal time, which is usually +/- 5 days of the Autumnal Equinox on September 22nd, then we can assume other forcings are dominant this year, such as ocean currents and cycles like the AMO, winds, and ocean temperature below the sea ice. There’s also the unanswered question of the effects of black carbon soot.
If in spite of the early drop in temperatures, the Arctic sea ice extent ice drops below 1 million square kilometers, as NASA’s Jay Zwally famously predicted (with an assist from AP’s Seth Borenstein): “…the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012″ then most certainly all bets are off.
But if we see an early turn, it will falsify Maslowski’s and Zwally’s forecasts. Also, if the melt marches on despite the colder temperatures, it will force a reconsideration of what is really driving Arctic melt patterns.
Interestingly, the final ARCUS sea ice forecast has been published on August 16th,and the ranges of predictions are quite broad, spanning 2.2 million square kilometers from the most optimistic NOAA’s Msadek et al. at 5.8 msq/km to the perennially gloomy “Neven” whose Artic Sea Ice blog poll predicts 3.6 msq/km.
See http://www.arcus.org/search/seaiceoutlook/2013/august
They write:
The Sea Ice Outlook organizers decided, with input from contributors and readers, to skip an August report this year in favor of a more thorough post-season report.
However, we provided this webpage to post and share individual contributors¹ August outlooks; the individual outlooks are below.
Since ARCUS didn’t plot them, I’ve plotted all the participant forecasts below.
Figure 5: plot of September Arctic Sea Ice Extent Mean forecasts submitted to ARCUS in August 2013.
Interestingly, I discovered that Robert Grumbine has participated in two forecasts (Wu and Wang) as a co-author, each with a different prediction, so that seems rather odd to me.
WUWT’s value is based on a weighted calculation of the top five vote getters in our poll here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/11/sea-ice-news-volume-4-3-2013-sea-ice-forecast-contest/
The most popular value picked by WUWT readers was 5.0 msq/km 8.9% (94 votes), though it wasn’t a runaway vote, hence I opted for a weighted average of the top 5 vote getters.
Most importantly, none of the ARCUS forecasts participants suggested an ice-free Arctic, which is bad news for Maslowski’s prediction.
No matter what happens, we live in interesting times.
As always the WUWT Sea Ice reference page has interesting plots of data at a glance: http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/
UPDATE: Commenter “jimbo” adds in comments –
Here is a compilation of ice-free Arctic Ocean / North Pole predictions / projections from scientists for the past, present and future.
Xinhua News Agency – 1 March 2008
“If Norway’s average temperature this year equals that in 2007, the ice cap in the Arctic will all melt away, which is highly possible judging from current conditions,” Orheim said.
[Dr. Olav Orheim – Norwegian International Polar Year Secretariat]
__________________
Canada.com – 16 November 2007
“According to these models, there will be no sea ice left in the summer in the Arctic Ocean somewhere between 2010 and 2015.
“And it’s probably going to happen even faster than that,” said Fortier,””
[Professor Louis Fortier – Université Laval, Director ArcticNet]
__________________
National Geographic – 12 December 2007
“NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally said: “At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions.” ”
[Dr. Jay Zwally – NASA]
__________________
BBC – 12 December 2007
“Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer is not accounting for the last two minima, in 2005 and 2007,”…….”So given that fact, you can argue that may be our projection of 2013 is already too conservative.”
[Professor Wieslaw Maslowski]
__________________
Independent – 27 June 2008
Exclusive: Scientists warn that there may be no ice at North Pole this summer
“…..It is quite likely that the North Pole will be exposed this summer – it’s not happened before,” Professor Wadhams said.”
[Professor Peter Wadhams – Cambridge University]
__________________
Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Vol. 40: 625-654 – May 2012
The Future of Arctic Sea Ice
“…..one can project that at this rate it would take only 9 more years or until 2016 ± 3 years to reach a nearly ice-free Arctic Ocean in summer. Regardless of high uncertainty associated with such an estimate, it does provide a lower bound of the time range for projections of seasonal sea ice cover…..”
[Professor Wieslaw Maslowski]
__________________
Yale Environment360 – 30 August 2012
“If this rate of melting [in 2012] is sustained in 2013, we are staring down the barrel and looking at a summer Arctic which is potentially free of sea ice within this decade,”
[Dr. Mark Drinkwater]
__________________
Guardian – 17 September 2012
“This collapse, I predicted would occur in 2015-16 at which time the summer Arctic (August to September) would become ice-free. The final collapse towards that state is now happening and will probably be complete by those dates“.
[Professor Peter Wadhams – Cambridge University]
__________________
Sierra Club – March 23, 2013
“For the record—I do not think that any sea ice will survive this summer. An event unprecedented in human history is today, this very moment, transpiring in the Arctic Ocean….”
[Paul Beckwith – PhD student paleoclimatology and climatology – part-time professor]
__________________
Financial Times Magazine – 2 August 2013
“It could even be this year or next year but not later than 2015 there won’t be any ice in the Arctic in the summer,”
[Professor Peter Wadhams – Cambridge University]
__________________
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winds coming out of the south…Canada….will change shortly
Arctic is the smallest ocean…..1 million sq km is the size of Egypt…that’s significant!
…and who in their right mind decided floating ice was an indication of anything other than wind??
Re BBC article leading this posting
I asked Jonathon Amos about this earlier in the year as it seemed unlikely that the prediction would come to pass.
Thank you for your mail and interest in my story. The comparison between what is happening in the Arctic and the Antarctic is, on the face of it, a very interesting one. But I spend a lot of time talking to the scientists who study the cryosphere in depth, at both ends of the globe, and have my head in the literature. And I can assure you the analysis is a pretty uniform one. The Arctic and the Antarctic are behaving exactly as you would expect in response to forcing, with the former experiencing much more rapid warming with the consequent implications for its marine ice cover. This can be explained by the different geography in the two regions. If these scientists express any surprise to me it is that the changes in the north are happening far faster than they expected. The US NSIDC has a good explainer on why sea ice in the Arctic behaves differently to sea ice in the Antarctic. http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/seaice/characteristics/difference.html As regards the very latest Arctic sea ice figures, first please bear in mind the topic of my article was about ICE VOLUME, not the daily reports that concern ICE AREA/EXTENT. The distinction is very important. I urge you to go and read the story again. Strong regrowth is entirely what you would expect in the Arctic in response to very thin ice or a lot of open water. This negative feedback is the result of some very simple physics. So from a very deep September-low to a March-high, you are going to make a lot of new ice, very fast. But even if you look at the latest NSIDC daily bulletin (see “daily image update” at http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/), this AREA/EXTENT is still tracking below the long-term mean. And again, this says nothing about VOLUME trends. Cryosat is the only means we have currently of measuring this.
How will the eco-zealots explain a rebounding arctic? Perhaps all the ice is due to ocean acidification?
Its going to be an interesting month 🙂
Arctic sea ice is the last refuge of CACCA scoundrels still hoping against hope to practice their con using actual data. Prince Albert has asked, “If it’s not CO2, what is causing the Arctic sea ice to melt?”, echoing his fellow travelers who refuse to try to find better explanations for observations. Rather, they prefer to change the data rather than the models when the GCMs fail so miserably.
If, as is likely, Arctic sea ice expands in coming years, following the already well-established Antarctic trend, CACCA won’t have an observational leg upon which to stand. It’s the water, not the carbon dioxide.
As you know, “May you live in interesting times” is just one of the three subtle, allegedly ancient Chinese curses. The other two, in order of increasing severity, are supposed to be, “May you come to the attention of those in authority” & “May your wishes be granted”, or words to that effect.
I was happily surprised to see my guess (4.8) was the WUWT entry. We should win this year. 🙂
And all this ice guessing is fun, but what does floating ice at the north pole have to do with anything really? If it all melts, so what? I mean really; would there not be ice created during the winter?
As I understand it, we are setting records on total ice if we include the south pole. Does the south pole not count any? And even if it does not, what is all the fuss over ice?
Speaking to the ten points of doubt about global warming – specifically the urban heat island, I think its effects are way underestimated. In my case, I live on the edge of a Minnesota city of 100,000 population. Often at 10 pm at night, the temperature in the middle of the city is a full 8 degrees warmer than it is is on either side of the city , just a couple miles out of town and away from the bricks and blacktop. FYI, our rural airport shows no increase in temperature comparing the most recent 25 years to the 25 years starting in 1900, (obviously not an airport in 1900). In fact it was 2 tenths of a degree colder in the most recent 25 years. WHERE IS THE PROBLEM!!!!???!!! Ain’t one. John late Daly found the same – rural weather stations see no warming.
I’d suggest using median of all votes in the arctic poll next time, i.e. the value for which half of voters went at or above and half went at or below, I believe it’s statistically more correct than the currently used method.
“If there is still significant ice (1 million square kilometers or more as defined by Zwally, see below) in place then, we can consider that this claim by Maslowski in 2007 to be falsified:”
Well, Maslowski did update his forecast. As the BBC report of that says,
“The original prediction, made in 2007, gained Wieslaw Maslowski’s team a deal of criticism from some of their peers.”
REPLY: Right, moving of the goalposts, a typical tactic. Now it’s a vague “end of the decade” while others are saying 2030, 2040, 2050, etc. The point here is that none of these self proclaimed expert prognosticators has a clue. – Anthony
What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
Ecclesiastes 1:9
It may not apply to mankind but as to nature 😉
as to mankind
For the wisdom of this world is foolishness
Never has a truer word been spoken.
Things that I learn’t as a young computer programmer and went out of fashion (only 30 years ago) are suddenly being rediscovered as if they are some sort of revelation yet the giants of computing that I was taught by knew all these things. Modern fashions lose the wisdom of previous generations and replace it with recent views (rather than testing them first).
We live in an age of fools where learning is disregarded, Marshall McLuhan warned that this would happen 🙁
Sandy, thanks
But that doesn’t seem to be where Jonathon’s head is………”and have my head in the literature”
SandyInLimousin
I’m not sure exactly what you asked him, but it might be worth asking him again. His article indicated the ice should be gone, period.
It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking area extent or volume.
“Well, Maslowski did update his forecast.”
I guess he got himself a Hansen…er…Mulligan.
“The Arctic and the Antarctic are behaving exactly as you would expect in response to forcing”
Uh uh.
Paul Homewood: “this work not only debunks some of the fanciful arguments of warmists, it also suggests that temperatures in Antarctica have been falling since satellites started to monitor sea ice levels in 1979.”
http://sunshinehours.wordpress.com/2013/08/18/antarctic-sea-ice-increases-when-it-gets-colder/
OMG! THE NEXT GLACIATION HAS BEGUN! WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!
Too alarmist? Sorry. Maybe the Warmists will see that and realize how silly they sound.
You know, I kinda wish all the Arctic sea ice would go ahead and melt, and when there’s no concurrent catastrophe, we can all watch the “scientists” “predicting” this nonsense grasp at even more straws. Watching these little blips is pretty silly.
That’s what happens when you deviate from “Play It Safe” guidelines: Predict for year 2100 or later. Of course, Prof. Maslowski may be safely retired now…
I love it when Anthony pulls out all the stops 🙂
Not that He does.
Normal people look at climate and weather charts and see cycles.
People with some sort of mental issues, or an agenda, look at short term trends and see straight lines they can extend to their “worst possible case”.
The entire concept of an “ice free arctic” is, historically and logically, ridiculous. And even if ice extent were to be very low at the minima, it makes absolutely NO DIFFERENCE… unless you have some sort of mental issues. Or an agenda. Or a serious lack of knowledge about how heat is transferred around the planet.
Of course, starting accurate records at a time when ice extent was at a historic high makes everything seem so much worse… It’s not a contest, and we have NO INTEREST in seeing a repeat of the cold experienced in the 70s any time soon.
The uptick may be the water giving up a bunch of heat/energy to the atmosphere before re-freezing. This is early – but there’s generally a pretty good uptick in air temp before re-freezing sets in in earnest. That said it could also be a warm air mass pushing across the pole too. Interesting (to me) that the temps have stayed below (sometimes touching at) average since the beginning of May. Cold summer above 80 degrees lat.
I predict the Arctic will be ice-free at some point in the next billion years.
There I go. Didn’t realize how easy it was to become a Professor nowadays.
“Now it’s a vague “end of the decade” while others are saying 2030, 2040, 2050, etc. The point here is that none of these self proclaimed expert prognosticators has a clue.”
Seems to me you’re simultaneously criticising them for being vague and for being “self proclaimed expert prognosticators”. I think they are just saying they are not in a position to expertly prognosticate. Here’s what Walt Meier said:
“”[Maslowski’s] is quite a good model, one thing it has is really high resolution, it can capture details that are lost in global climate models,” he said.
“But 2019 is only eight years away; there’s been modelling showing that [likely dates are around] 2040/50, and I’d still lean towards that.
“I’d be very surprised if it’s 2013 – I wouldn’t be totally surprised if it’s 2019.””
Doesn’t sound like a claim to prognostication.
REPLY: Ah Racehorse Stokes, defender of the indefensible, purveyor of FUD. Nobody knows, nobody has a good handle on it, and even with the “good models” that purport to prognosticate what Earth’s complex systems will do, they are still reduced to guessing.
20122013? 2019? 2030?http://nsidc.org/news/press/2007_seaiceminimum/20071001_pressrelease.html
Wake me up when something one of these guys predicts comes true. Not one of these alarming media tailored claims of disappearance of Arctic sea ice has come true yet. – Anthony
From Jonathan Amos’ article –
“Real World
Using supercomputers to crunch through possible future outcomes has become a standard part of climate science in recent years.”
Real World? What a BBC muppet!
“Doesn’t sound like a claim to prognostication.”
It also sounds like Maslowski’s model isn’t good at all.
NSIDC’s September average will be 5.27 million sq kms if it continues to follow their average change over the period (which it more-or-less has for the last 40 days and given the cooler-than-normal temps in the Arctic, one wouldn’t expect it to be much lower than that). 26 days to the average minimum.
and I predict somewhere around 2178…….I would be very surprised if it’s 2013 – I wouldn’t be totally surprised if it happened last week
In other words….I don’t have a friggin clue
Nick Stokes says:
August 18, 2013 at 2:40 pm
Re: NSIDC prediction.
Arctic sea ice IMO is just as likely to be more extensive & thicker than now in 2040-50 than effectively gone in summer, the PDO turning cool as it is.
Climatic forecasts like that are worse than worthless GIGO, at best busy work for underemployed bureaucrats & at worst purposeful participation in perpetrating tyranny. In any case, the tax money-grubbing modelers will be long retired if not dead by then.