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]
__________________
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Since you say that “There’s no certainty and no unanimity” then tell them to stop making predictions. As for “no unanimity” I want to ask: Where is the consensus? Nick, give it up. These fools are doomed by their own words. Read and understand why they should NOT make predictions, especially about the future.
FAIL!
Jimbo says: August 18, 2013 at 4:23 pm
“Context does matter. Now open your eyes and read.”
Here’s some more context from your FT report:
There are a lot of different views. And Wadhams is an outlier. The IPCC is much more conservative.
It is interesting that there appears to be a trend change in Arctic sea ice and there has been a trend change in sea ice in the Antarctic sea ice. There are been two sigma record sea ice in the Antarctic. The Antarctic record sea ice is throughout the year which indicates colder temperatures for all months.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_stddev_timeseries.png
This is too funny. Last year, I noted that Stroeve and Meier (NSIDC) with their statistical modeling were about 0.1 Million Square Kilometers (Msk) of Ice lower than WUWT heuristic guessing (4.6 vs. 4.7Msk). So, I was curious how much lower July 2013 statistics would be. Guess what? They are now 5.07Msk.
https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.arcus.org/files/search/sea-ice-outlook/2013/07/pdf/pan-arctic/meier_et_al_nsidc.pdf&sa=U&ei=X1cRUtDAIa3sigKM4IGgCg&ved=0CBMQFjAF&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNFMiEeWCGKFeEsqnmsBbcG8I__8lQ
Apparently, their models can go in the other direction and what is more, they must have thrown out 2012 cyclonic ice loss as a non-climate issue.
William Astley says:
August 18, 2013 at 4:45 pm
SH winters are definitely getting colder.
Chile is suffering from a cold snap right now.
Ellesmere Island, Northern Greenland already covered in snow. Orange is ice or snow in this false color image. No ice export through the Nares Strait between Greenland and Ellesmere for the second year in a row. Today’s image.
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?subset=Arctic_r03c03.2013230.terra.367
Nick Stokes says:
August 18, 2013 at 4:25 pm
If they were honest, you included, none of these half baked forecasts and/or predictions should have been published after their first one was falsified. There is no room in science for dishonesty. Your dishonesty is dangerous to people who pay the taxes as well as poor people trying to keep warm or cool.
And your point is? Look, I have made my point about Mr. Wadhams and I am aware of the IPCC’s official forecasts. I will repeat, your attempts at defence are feeble. Try your arguments with someone else, they have failed with me. Will you tell these clowns to stop making predictions or not? “There’s no certainty and no unanimity.” Keep your own words in mind Nick.
Nick Stokes says:
August 18, 2013 at 4:43 pm
1) Arctic sea ice reached a satellite-era low in 2012 because of a weather event, the August cyclone. The 30-year decline may have bottomed out, but even if it hasn’t, no worries.
2) There is no reason to think that the Arctic will be almost entirely ice free in summers in the latter part of this century, but
3) If it did, that would not be a bad thing. The polar bears would survive, as they did the Arctic Ocean ice-free summers that were usual 5000 to 8000 years ago. Russian ballistic missile boomers would have no place to hide during the summer.
4) If burning fossil fuels could be shown to keep the next glaciation at bay, that alone would be reason enough to keep digging, pumping & keeping the big wheels turning.
cynical_scientist says: @ur momisugly August 18, 2013 at 3:46 pm
….. Where is all this rubbish coming from? Who thought up this spin? Why is this even news? The IPCC report was leaked a long time ago. So who fired the starting pistol on this obvious media campaign and why choose to do it now?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
WAG, The Arctic Summer seems over, the Arctic Ice could be “recovering” back to close to ‘normal’. The Weather has been rather cool so they want the coverage on the IPCC report NOW because the Arctic sea ice gain becomes solidified. (pun intended) And they will really look like fools if they wait much longer.
Here is Paul Beckwith’s Sierra Club blogpost on why sea ice will disappear this year. It would be hilarious if it werent so sad. He titles the post “Adult Discussion Please” – really, he titled it that.
http://www.sierraclub.ca/en/AdultDiscussionPlease
Why Arctic sea ice will vanish in 2013
Submitted by Paul Beckwith on Mon, 2013-06-10 23:18
By Paul Beckwith
On March 23, 2013, I made the following prediction:
“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.
The cracks in the sea ice that I reported in my Sierra blog and elsewhere have spread. Worse news is at this very moment the entire sea ice sheet (or about 99 percent of it) covering the Arctic Ocean is on the move (clockwise), and the thin, weakened icecap has literally begun to tear apart.
This is abrupt climate change in real-time.
Humans have benefited greatly from a stable climate for the last 11,000 years (roughly 400 human generations). Not anymore. We now face an angry climate — one that we have poked in the eye with our fossil fuel stick — and have to deal with the consequences.
We must set aside our differences and prepare for what we can no longer avoid: massive disruption to our civilization.”
Serious stuff: Adult discussion time…
My prediction above was based on understanding of the inter-related Artic/climatic system obtained through in-depth research conducted as part of my Ph.D. studies on abrupt climate change, and through my academic work as part-time professor in climatology/meteorology at the University of Ottawa.
In March, when I made the prediction, NASA had just released a video of extensive sea ice cracking (at the time of year when the ice should’ve been at its strongest). Since then, I have become even more confident about my prediction of total Arctic sea ice destruction in 2013. The increased likelihood of this event arises from recent developments observed in U.S. Navy satellite data (which measure sea ice thickness alongside ice speed and drift direction from May 14th to June 10th). I generated an ANIMATION to help illustrate the significance of the new data.
In previous years, when cyclones (low pressure storm systems) moved over sea ice, there was little noticeable effect. However, last August (2012) — like a giant blender — a massive cyclone invaded the Arctic Ocean basin and smashed around sea ice for roughly 8 days. In the end, a staggering 0.8 million square kilometres of sea ice was lost (a roughly 20% reduction from the year before). By mid-September the icecap was at a record low volume (best illustrated in this YouTube video titled “Arctic sea ice minimum volumes 1979-2012”).
Within the last few weeks, cyclonic activity has returned and once again caused substantial thinning and weakening of the sea ice near the North Pole. Ice near the center of cyclonic activity, recently 2 to 2.5 metres thick (light blue in my animation), has thinned to roughly 1.25 metres (dark blue in my animation). This in less than 2 weeks: unprecedented so early in the melt season. More significantly, in the last few days a gaping “hole” has appeared in the much thicker ice just north of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Ice that was recently 3.5 to 4 metres thick (yellow in my animation) is now less than 2 metres thick in the hole.
The hole is likely due to a combination of divergence of the ice away from the rotating cyclone center, and the upwelling (churning up) of warm, salty sea water below. The most rapid melting and ice deterioration is occurring below the surface (where the cold surface air temperature can’t slow melting).
The magnitude of the most recent cyclonic activity is not unusual, although the persistence is. What is also new in the equation is the ability of these common cyclones to degrade the ice, and do so very early in the melt season. Also new is the substantial increase in amplitude, frequency and duration of cyclonic activity in the Arctic Ocean basin. The thinning ice cover not only breaks up easier now (even by relatively small and weak cyclones), more open water leads to an increase in melting and storm intensity.
It’s for all these reasons I find it extremely difficult to comprehend how any sea ice will be left after this year’s summer ‘melt season’. If you want to watch the car-crash in real-time just occasionally Google “Arctic sea ice graphs” and you can find satellite imagery and daily updates from experts and climatologists (like me) around the world.
Throw out the old model folks…
I acknowledge that my sea ice-collapse timeframe is considered ‘out-there’ when compared to mainstream climate models (predicting sea ice will remain until 2050’ish), but I’m not alone in challenging the old playbook. For example, the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) volume trends suggest 2015 or 2016 will be the first year of a sea ice-free Arctic.
I am just looking at the “big-picture” using all available data while considering feedbacks that have been incorrectly considered (or unidentified) and in the context of abrupt changes that are CLEARLY documented in climate paleorecords.
I really hope I’m wrong folks but I just don’t see it any other way. Time will tell…but, in any event, we need to have that ‘adult discussion’ ASAP. As you can see around you the times they are a-changin’ and, as I wrote in my last blog, oil profits won’t protect you from Climate 2.0.
Paul Beckwith is a Ph.D. student with the laboratory for paleoclimatology and climatology, department of geography, University of Ottawa.
DirkH says: @ur momisugly August 18, 2013 at 3:57 pm
nice synopsis.
The lack of ice melt in the arctic and the “goalpost” moving is reminding me too much of the escathological Millerite movement around 1850. Sell it all and move up to the mountain. Nuts, got the date wrong, refigure it, nuts got that one wrong, rinse, repeat. Little is new under the sun save new fools who do not remember what happened to the fools that went before them.
Well someone took the silly arctic will be free of ice seriously. There are 4 young men up in the northwest passage getting hammered trying to row through the pass in a single season. I hope nothing bad happens to them, they are true adventurers, they probably should have waited for a bit better year but o-well. Awesome photography, yall should check it out.
http://mainstreamlastfirst.com/
Over the next couple of weeks you will read crap about an ice free Arctic being unprecedented or not happened for a million years or so. Here is the counter evidence.
RE: Gail Combs says:
August 18, 2013 at 3:32 pm
Amen, sister.
David Riser says: @ur momisugly August 18, 2013 at 5:04 pm
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Sounds like polar bear bait trying to earn a Darwin Award by beating the last one.
If they are lucky they will hook up with a Russian Ice Breaker.
The Darwin Award winners should be hitting 100% ice soon according NSIDC. I also note they have been in partial ice for awhile and never posted a picture of it. Who is wrong? The satellites or the rowers?
” David Riser says:
August 18, 2013 at 5:04 pm
Well someone took the silly arctic will be free of ice seriously. There are 4 young men up in the northwest passage getting hammered trying to row through the pass in a single season. I hope nothing bad happens to them, they are true adventurers, they probably should have waited for a bit better year but o-well. Awesome photography, yall should check it out.
http://mainstreamlastfirst.com/?
OOPS! Looks like the rowers cheated. They put is south and east of the ice pack and are rowing east, away from the ice. It is most certainly not a Northwest passage trip if I understnad the map.
The ice could still catch them though.
From what I have read, the Arctic Ocean must have been almost completely ice free during the peak of the Medieval Warming period:
http://www.c3headlines.com/2012/08/natures-medieval-warming-melts-arctic-northwest-passage-sea-ice-but-modern-warming-does-not.html
So, I doubt there is any precedent here even if the Arctic becomes ice free. But then, the Medieval Warming period didn’t exist according Mann’s Hockey Stick, so what do we know, eh?
More predictions!
Al Gore told the UN ice free arctic by 2014!
http://www.psu.com/forums/showthread.php/218115-Al-Gore-Polar-Ice-Caps-will-melt-in-5-7-years (date – 2009)
“New computer modeling suggests the Arctic Ocean may be nearly ice-free in the summertime as early as 2014, Al Gore said Monday at the U.N. climate conference. This new projection, following several years of dramatic retreat by polar sea ice, suggests that the ice cap may nearly vanish in the summer much sooner than the year 2030, as was forecast by a U.S. government agency eight months ago.”
Al predicted terrible things in 2010. He also “knows” that the Gulf Stream creates STEAM over Europe. Yes, it is 212 degrees Fahrenheit somewhere in the North Atlantic. Who knew?
” Jimbo says:
August 18, 2013 at 3:52 pm
There’s also the unanswered question of the effects of black carbon soot.”
Soot works only if the ice is declining. If its going to snow for a long stretch in a cooling arctic, the soot is snugly buried under white.
You obviously don’t understand. He was using super-computers. Do I have to repeat myself? Super-computers!
I think this list of failures should now be sent back to the news organizations that put this stuff out there. There is a bit of a swing in the mass media away from CAGW and many are likely to print it. Can we also get a package to every congressman and senator to ensure that they are aware of this stuff. This Wadhams guy from Cambridge should get a little of the Mannian treatment. Have they got a student newspaper at Cambridge?
The important point is that their predictions are wrong because their assumed causes are wrong.
Then they simply ignore inconvenient data. For example, in recent years we have seen record Arctic sea ice formation in the winter measured by extent. The exact opposite of what greenhouse warming predicts. It predicts decreasing summer ice minimum, primarily because of reduced winter ice formation.
These professors should slink away in shame at their unscientific hucksterism.