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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Just take a close read of this piece of deception.
I am not a climate scientist. I am not an Arctic specialist. I am a detector of BS. See my previous comment. Mr. Wadhams is a disgrace to the disgraceful art of Calamastrology.
Don’t forget Al Gore’s 2008 prediction that the “entire north polar ice cap will be gone in 5 years”. I guess he thought Greenland’s ice sheet would be gone as well.
Gary Pearse says:
August 18, 2013 at 5:41 pm
A certain viscount might chose this opportune moment to pay a visit to his alma mater.
“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]
This guy Beckwith is a real piece of work. Here’s the ultimate collection of doomsday scenarios, cherry picked weather stats, and all round well presented horror:
http://www.cmos.ca/Ottawa/SpeakersSlides/PaulBeckwith_19Jan2012.pdf
Fortunately, the louder they scream, the more reality bites.
You are correct. And if it does not “snow for a long stretch” then it affects.
“Never predict anything, especially about the future” (Yogi).
David Riser says:
Yes we know about these gents. Even now they are trying to decide whom among the “expert prognosticators” to sue first.
IMO “soot” is preferable to “black carbon soot”, which seems redundant, in as much as soot is a powdery form of amorphous carbon, possibly containing PAH contaminants, & is also black.
Nike Stokes,
They may as well be forecasting the future numbers of grains of sands on all the beaches of the world.
Just as they would be with global sand extent their sea ice extent forecasts are never accurate, they haven’t a clue what to correct and offer nothing but wild speculation for pondering.
So what’s your point in persisting with the perpetual yabuts?
Gail Combs says:
August 18, 2013 at 3:32 pm
Nick Stokes says: @ur momisugly August 18, 2013 at 2:40 pm
“Well, Maslowski did update his forecast. “
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That is not the point.
We are being told we HAVE to pay more taxes and forego cheap carbon based fuel sources to “SAVE the PLANET” from “CATASTROPHIC WARMING”
{{{snip}}}
And then not only do we have record snows but Some 7,800 people die [in the UK] during winter because they can’t afford to heat their homes properly
What the heck is it going to take? A mile high glacier sitting on Chicago? Or will you still be claiming CO2 is causing ‘Global Warming” How many more people have to DIE before you give up the nonsense?
If you think I am angry you are correct. It ceased to be a scientific argument after the first person died from these asinine policies.
Gail,
Nick like other warmists see this as an academic argument where he can make ‘nice’ distinctions in semantics and catch his ‘opponents’ out in their logic. He does not realize that as a result of the support for the failed AGW hypothesis people have died – as you state, in UK in March 2013 alone 5000 people died of cold in energy poverty. Nick does not care about this, if he can win the academic argument. People like him are being used by politicians with axes to grind, money to make and power to grab – who also do not care at all about their countrymen dying. (Not a single word has been said in the UK House of Commons about the death rates from cold – because the MPs do not care). This problem is only going to get worse. EPA acting on Obama’s Executive Order are closing down huge numbers of electricity generation plants, far more than even they expected are shutting down. This is guaranteed to lead to ‘prices necessarily sky rocketing’ (TM Obama) and people dying in energy poverty in the USA as they have done and will continue to in the UK. I guarantee that not one Democrat congressman or senator nor one warmist will consider people dying of cold to be a problem – nor will it be published in the main stream media. The ‘Common Purpose’ ™ is far too important to worry about old and poor people dying – they have a low QALYS score anyway.
And of course as FOIA pointed out in his climategate emails. A child is dying every 5 seconds from lack of food – while climate ‘scientists’ get fat on grants and politicians use ‘green energy’ projects to siphon huge funds to family, friends and supporters.
To quote you if you think I am angry you are correct. It ceased to be a scientific argument after the first person died from these asinine policies.
What was the median of the WUWT guesses? From a statistics point of view, I think the median is probably the best statistic to submit as the guess. It likely will not matter since you control outliers pretty well by limiting the choices. However, I still think a science blog should not introduce an such ad-hoc method (average of the top five choices by votes? why 5? why a method so potentially biased by outliers?)
Anyway, I do have fun submitting a guess and watching the ice. Thanks for running the blog.
James
Jimbo,
You may want to add David Barber to your list. A bit of web searching reveals several prognostications including “I’d say 2020, plus or minus five years” (2012), “We can expect a seasonally ice free arctic early in this century” (2010) and “[2015], according to David Barber of the University of Manitoba, will be the year when all of the region’s sea ice will be gone for the first time” (2008).
An honorable mention (though not related to the *total* loss of sea ice) must also go to David Phillips, Environment Canada Senior Climatologist, who stated in 2010 that “I would bet my pension that the Arctic ice will be the lowest ever this summer… The ice doesn’t have a chance”. He missed by about 600,000 square kilometres; I’m not sure if anybody took up his wager.
justsomeguy31167 says:
August 18, 2013 at 5:23 pm
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/?
They decided to go of their own volitiion to make money from books and/or films. I hope nothing happens to the Canadian SAR crews that will have to rescue them at Canadian tax payers’ expense.
Yes, the goal posts keep on movin’. In 2030, as the advancing ice encroaches on New York and Chicago and Denver the BloodyMesses of this world will still be crying wolf/AGW.
After all, if you have everything bassackwards, i.e., up is down, it’s perfectly reasonable to blame glaciation on global warming. /sarc
Most black carbon in the Arctic is deposited embedded in snow. So, until the melt starts, it has no (albedo) effect. Once surface melt commences, it accumulates on the surface of the ice progressively decreasing albedo and causing accelerated melt. Once the freeze starts again, a layer of black carbon becomes embedded in the ice ready to cause accelerated melt the next summer. This continues until the ice melts out completely and new ice without embedded black carbon forms.
This is what we have seen over the last 15 years with black carbon originating from Russia pre-2000 and a few years after. We have now reached the point where there is little sea ice left with high levels of embedded black carbon, and summer sea ice minimum extent increases, as I predicted earlier this year.
The sea ice in the Arctic has been weakened over the last decade. This makes it more prone to large swings based on the winds. That means just about anything is possible over the next few years. I’ve predicted the last two years correctly simply watching the AMO and winds. Natural variation is still king.
However, there’s a high probability the AMO will start down soon and the PDO will continue dropping. There will be less warm water to melt the ice. In addition, the overall global temperature should keep dropping slowly. The small warming from CO2 ( about .05C/decade) will not be able to compensate for the ENSO/PDO/AMO cooling of 3 times that amount. Hence we should see around a .3C drop in global temperatures by 2040. This is assuming the low activity sun has no impact. If it does …. Brrrrrrr.
I’m pretty confident we will be burning a lot less fossil fuel at that time. Too many technologies out there being researched.
Philip Bradley says:
August 18, 2013 at 6:16 pm
“Most black carbon in the Arctic is deposited embedded in snow. So, until the melt starts, it has no (albedo) effect. Once surface melt commences, it accumulates on the surface of the ice progressively decreasing albedo and causing accelerated melt.”
====================
She ain’t showed you nothing yet.
It is all in reserve,
Just to remind readers of the money grubber aspect of dire predictions of global warming, you may have noticed Bill Clinton beating the global warming drum this year. Now we know why. It is now public knowledge that the Clinton Foundation has been mismanaged recently and this probably presented the need for Bill to go work the crowds for new money to patch the crisis. Naturally, he picked global warming to raise funds from speaking fees and fundraising efforts.
From the Jonathon Amos response to SandyInLimousin, re http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7139797.stm, above: “…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.”
I read the “story” again. Amos’s response, above, is another “story.” His article has the word EXTENT on his very first figure, right at the top. Just below that figure, ice cover is mentioned in units of million sq km. That is EXTENT. Three other estimates in terms of sq km are listed in the body of the article.
NO measures of volume (such as cubic kms) appear in the “story” at all. The word “VOLUME,” itself, doesn’t occur until halfway down the page, and only once. Then another occurrence of EXTENT falls in the NSIDC discussion, about 3/4 of the way to the end. The word EXTENT is used three times, VOLUME just the once.
If the distinction between EXTENT and VOLUME were “very important,” wouldn’t Amos have made it crystal clear? Draw your own conclusions about Amos’s veracity.
Nick Stokes – During the last 20 years the climate experts you support have been making highly publicised predictions of impending catastrophe based on AGW. However these predictions of doom and gloom have simply failed to happen and the general public have largely moved on and are no longer listening. Your climate experts have cried wolf too often. Within the next few years the agencies funding science will follow suit and the CAGW/Climate change/climate disruption/climate weirdness – or whatever its called next (Climate Change Madness?) will end.
Nick Stokes says:
August 18, 2013 at 3:03 pm
‘ “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.” ‘
Let me make a related point. The beauty of having one’s theory falsified is that you have made contact with reality and have learned something new about where you are with your theory and with reality. Nota bene: you have learned something about the world that is not found in your theory or model. How liberating that can be. The big bonus is that you have identified a defective part of your theory and you can begin the work of replacing it with some new hypothesis.
No Alarmist has ever experienced the joy of falsification. No alarmist has ever learned something about the world that is not in their theory or model. None ever will. They hold their theories and models so tightly to their chests that they cannot take a peek and remind themselves of what is there. All they can do is bluff.
At Eureka on Ellesmere Island at 80 N latitude the temperature dropped below freezing on 13 August and has remained below freezing since then. The temperature reached a high this month of 47 F back on 6 August. The max/min temperatures since then in degrees F:
6 Aug 47 36
7 Aug 37 29
8 Aug 42 31
9 Aug 41 36
10 Aug 45 34
11 Aug 44 31
12 Aug 36 31
13 Aug 36 29
14 Aug 32 28
15 Aug 31 25
16 Aug 30 24
17 Aug 29 24
“In the end, it will just melt away quite suddenly.” — Professor Wadhams
[snip – unnecessary – Anthony].
Nick Stokes says:
August 18, 2013 at 4:25 pm
“The thing is, they are trying to work it out, and say what they currently know. There’s no certainty and no unanimity.”
And no scientific method. Not even a scrap of it. None of these people even use the word ‘hypothesis’ any longer.
No one would even be having this conversation in the first place….
…if the wind hadn’t blown the ice out
It’s a 1/2 degree…..that’s it