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]
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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]
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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]
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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]
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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]
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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]
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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]
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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]
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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]
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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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barry,
What’s the big deal with these natural Arctic ice fluctuations? There is solid evidence that they happen regularly, going back to times when there were essentially zero human CO2 emissions.
Isn’t it about time you just admitted that your last and final scare — Arctic ice — is a natural occurrence? Or are you such a True Believer that you need something to blame people for?
RE: James at 48 says:
August 21, 2013 at 10:04 am
It is actually good to be skeptical about those satellite maps. The guys who devised them are more humble than you’d imagine, and are skeptical themselves about certain shortcomings their devises have. However they deserve a lot of credit, for, despite all the shortcomings, the devises are far better than what we had before, which was basically zero.
Men like Hansen and Mann are not the slightest bit humble, and have stained science in general, and scientists they’ve worked with in particular, through actions which seemingly placed their self-esteem above Truth. Seemingly they would rather fudge data than appear to have judged wrongly. However just because they seemingly put their own egos ahead of data, facts, truth and science is not proof their associates are the same.
I urge you not to paint with too broad a brush. Before you judge their associates as being the same, test them out.
I have found that it is often possible, if you have the time to click here and click there on the satellite sites and arctic-ice sites, to come across actual places you can send emails to. Furthermore, when I send questions, I am not threatened with a lawsuit for daring to question some egotistical idiot, but rather have the pleasure of receiving a polite response.
It turns out some of these guys (and gals) are thrilled to be asked questions. Most of the time they work in relative obscurity, dealing with dull columns of data and worrying about stuff most don’t worry about, (such as the “drift” of a satellite,) and their friends are worried they are such geeks and don’t care about important stuff, like the start of the football season. They are more than glad to meet a person who is also interested in geeky stuff, and if you ask questions they answer them as best they can.
Or at least that is my experience. Furthermore, I feel such people are well aware we are facing a mystery and stand on a frontier. They are willing to admit the shortcomings of satellite data (and other data) because they are so excited we have data we didn’t have before. They exude an enthusiasm that is infectious, and that is completely different from the feeling you get from Hansen and Mann.
In conclusion, yes, our data has flaws. For various reasons spots in the Arctic Sea may go, in the satellite view, from no ice to 40% ice in five minutes. But don’t let that make you bitter.
Why would anyone believe these models? These models are just junk science. Actually… forget the science … they’re just junk!
RACookPE1978 says:
August 20, 2013 at 1:43 pm
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Very good to read your detailed comment.
I made a similar point (but without the detail) at (richard verney says) August 19, 2013 at 2:06 am and (richard verney says) August 19, 2013 at 10:28 am above.
I think that people when discussing Arctic ice loss often overlook the fact that in the Arctic, the incidence of sunlight is low so much is reflected off from the open water and thereby does not go to warm the Arctic ocean and to the extent that the change in Albedo results in an increase in the absorption of energy, this is more than offset by the ability of the open ocean to dissipate its heat to space; the ice cap having previously acted as a lid on a sauspan, and as it melts the lid comes off allowing much energy from the now open ocean to be lost to space thereby acting as a negative feedback and helping to restore the energy budget towards its central position.
These are basic points, and if these basic points are not understood or not taken into account then there can be no prospect of getting a proper handle on what effect melting Arctic ice may have on the energy budget of planet Earth.
I consider that the adverse effects of the loss of Arctic ice are overplayed, and I do not consider that we need be concerned about an ice free Arctic in summer.
Anthony, shouldn’t your countdown widget have started counting in days by now?
REPLY: Yes, but it has a mind of its own and I have no control over it. IIRC it has to get within about 3 weeks to start counting days – Anthony
But it doesn’t radiate straight to space, it passes through the atmosphere, heating it on the way through.
AFAIK, no one has cited any studies or done the claculations themselves to verify this opinion. If exposed Arctic waters “more than offset” albedo changes, why is the Arctic one of the fastest warming places on Earth – 3 times faster than the global average over the satellite period? Doesn’t appear to be much off-setting occuring.
http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/t2lt/uahncdc_lt_5.6.txt
(decadal trends for global and North Pole at the bottom of the page – UAH data)