Sea Ice News Volume 4 number 4 – The Maslowski Countdown to an 'ice-free Arctic' begins

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 source

After 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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