It looks like the Maslowski Countdown has ended early and there will be no “ice free Arctic” as predicted this year.
From NSIDC, which has a 5 day average in the plot. It looks like the minimum extent is ~5.0-5.1 million sq kilometers. NSIDC has yet to make an announcement on the turning point as of this writing. Note the minimum is within the standard deviation bounds (grey shading) that NSIDC provides.
Note also that it is still possible to see a drop again, as this has happened in years past, but given the colder temperatures this year, a reversal appears unlikely.
![N_stddev_timeseries[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/n_stddev_timeseries1.png?quality=75)
The JAXA plot concurs:
![AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent_L[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/amsre_sea_ice_extent_l1.png?quality=75)
The JAXA data says:
09-10 5084063 09-11 5029688 09-12 5000313 09-13 5031094 09-14 5055625 09-15 5063438
The NANSEN plot concurs as well:
More at the WUWT Sea Ice page: http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/
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With apologies to Orwell
On the sixth day of Warming Hate Week, after the processions, the speeches, the shouting, the singing, the banners, the posters of the Computer Models, massive screens continually running “An Inconvenient Truth” — after six days of this, when the great orgasm was quivering to its climax and the general hatred of Deniers had boiled up into such delirium that if the crowd could have got their hands on the 2,000 Denier criminals … Coolers … who were to be publicly hanged on the last day of the proceedings, they would unquestionably have torn them to pieces — at just this moment it had been announced that Warming was not after all happening. The World was Cooling, not Warming and Coolers were the allies.
There was, of course, no admission that any change had taken place. Merely it became known, with extreme suddenness and everywhere at once, that Warmists were the Deniers.
Cooling had been happening, Cooling had always been happening. A large part of the political literature of twenty-five years was now completely obsolete. Reports and records of all kinds, newspapers, books, pamphlets, films, sound-tracks, photographs, computer models — all had to be rectified at lightning speed.
… …
A mighty deed, which could never be mentioned, had been achieved. It was now impossible for any human being to prove by documentary evidence or by Computer Modeling that Warming had ever happened or ever was the Party’s Ideology.
Thankfully, due to the Wisdom of Big Brother Gore and the Party… the Slogan of “Climate Change” could still remain – unchanged – as the Bedrock.
The more positive AO and NAO made all the difference this summer compared to 2012. I forecast greater Arctic sea ice extent this for this summer, knowing that the AO and NAO would be more positive through July-August.
Ulric, I must ask, I assume you did that several years ago? I can be a devil can’t I.
Because wind-driven surface currents can be deflected by obstacles, and some is already deflected North into the Pacific anyway, I wonder if the degree of deflection significantly changes due to ice extent prior to entrance into the passage.
See the following for possible consideration in amount of surface current deflection that could increase with a more narrow passage.
http://oceanmotion.org/html/background/wind-driven-surface.htm
Love the graphics in this article on the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. Notice where the Polar Front is in Drake’s Passage. Now imagine ice extent pushing it northward. I am guessing some of that Polar Front cold current gets deflected (more or less depending on where the ice extent is at) into the Pacific where it could eventually find its way past the large South Pacific Gyre and into the equatorial region as a cold tongue?
http://www.ccpo.odu.edu/~klinck/Reprints/PDF/nowlinRevGeo86.pdf
Could this be a possible factor in El Nado/La Nada/Neutral ENSO conditions? Otherwise it swings wildly between El Nino’s and La Nina’s?
We have all been so brainwashed that increasing sea ice is being seen as a good thing. It isn’t. To the extent that it reflects a cooling planet, it indicates that winter deaths will increase, food production will decrease. The more it cools, the more miserable the world will become. Global warming was one of the most positive things ever to be forecast for the planet – and unfortunately it looks like it won’t happen.
We have all been so brainwashed that increasing sea ice is being seen as a good thing. It isn’t. To the extent that it reflects a cooling planet, it indicates that winter deaths will increase, food production will decrease. The more it cools, the more miserable the world will become. Global warming was one of the most positive things ever to be forecast for the planet – and unfortunately it looks like it won’t happen after all.
The wind is no longer pushing the pack into Fram. Now it’s curling it West along the Northern Shores. That’s all she wrote for this year. Some folk are going to enjoy over wintering.
Kevin Vaughan
RACookPE1978
milodonharlani
Pamela Grey
Concerning ice cover to [Cape] Horn etc. It is believed that interruption of ocean currents by ice amd and ice rafting might play a role in glacial termination. Since the mid Pleistocene revolution interglacials have changed from 41000 year (obliquity) to 100000 year (eccentricity) periodicity. Glacial maxima have become colder and deeper but the end-glacial-reversals to warmer interglacials have been much sharper. There is a dissenting view from Maslin at Cambridge that current interglacials are not eccentricity forced. Instead deepening cooling means that obliquity triggers for interglacials are being missed, and the resulting longer and deeper glacials are only ended by some tipping point event. Leaving aside implausible CO2 explanations, the most rational is that increasing sea ice extent and rafting reach a point where ocean circulation currents – the true drivers of climate – are disrupted.
In this context an interruption of the circumpolar current is something that would work as major THC perturbation.
Sorry no link – posting from my mobile. Google scholar eccentricity myth and you will find the Maslin paper.
Pamela Gray says:
“I can be a devil can’t I.”
Me too but I like to keep it funny.
“Ulric, I must ask, I assume you did that several years ago?”
Not the sea ice forecast no, I didn’t notice that there is less (short term) sea ice during negative AO/NAO until last year. The long term shows the same, cold periods for the temperate zone during negative AO/NAO are warmer for the frigid zone:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/23/the-medieval-warm-period-in-the-arctic/#comment-1398577
(and following comments)
Ulric Lyons:
At September 18, 2013 at 3:24 am you quote Pamela Gray having asked
And you reply
That seemed strange because the link refers to 23 August THIS YEAR so I suspected it was similar to all your other claims of having made a forecast: i.e. baseless.
So, I checked the link “(and following comments)”.
None of your comments in that thread concern “sea ice”. None, not any, zilch, zip, nada.
Your comments pertain to proxy data for centuries ago and not to the present or future situation.
There is no evidence and/or indication that you made a prediction “last year”.
Your comments which come nearest to your fallacious claim are these.
I note that this concerns “Alaska ice” (specifically, “retreating-alaskan-glacier”) and not sea ice.
Again, no mention of sea ice.
Richard
Don’t you just love it when the AGW nuts get egg on their faces?
Arctic summers ice-free ‘by 2013’
By Jonathan Amos
Science reporter, BBC News, San Francisco (Suck it up, Beeb)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7139797.stm
Professor Peter Wadhams from Cambridge University, UK, is an expert on Arctic ice.
He has used sonar data collected by Royal Navy submarines to show that the volume loss is outstripping even area withdrawal, which is in agreement with the model result of Professor Maslowski.
Using supercomputers to crunch through possible future outcomes has become a standard part of climate science in recent years.
Professor Maslowski’s group, which includes co-workers at Nasa and the Institute of Oceanology, Polish Academy of Sciences (PAS), is well known for producing modelled dates that are in advance of other teams.
“Some models have not been taking proper account of the physical processes that go on,” he commented.
“The ice is thinning faster than it is shrinking; and some modellers have been assuming the ice was a rather thick slab.
“Wieslaw’s model is more efficient because it works with data and it takes account of processes that happen internally in the ice.”
Former US Vice President Al Gore cited Professor Maslowski’s analysis on Monday in his acceptance speech at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo.
Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk
—
August 31, 2009
“the Arctic will be ice-free in the summer of 2013”
“ … Once you accept the science, it’s clear that such massive environmental change will create dislocation, destruction, chaos, and conflict. And history teaches us that we are deluding ourselves if we think that we are insulated from world events … “
– John Kerry, US Secretary of State
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-kerry/we-cant-ignore-the-securi_b_272815.html
—
Sierra Club Canada predicted this spring that the Arctic would be ice-free in 2013
“Why Arctic sea ice will vanish in 2013”
By Paul Beckwith
On March 23, 2013, I made the following prediction:
Breaking: Arctic Ice Breaks Up in Beaufort Sea. {Video} ~ Paul Beckwith
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2013/03/breaking-arctic-ice-breaks-up-in-beaufort-sea-paul-beckwith/
“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.”
http://www.sierraclub.ca/en/AdultDiscussionPlease
I’ll put up a forecast for sea ice extent for next summer at some point soon, based on predictions for the AO/NAO.
Ulric Lyons:
At September 18, 2013 at 4:38 am you say
I will look forward in hope of seeing it.
The important point is that you on this thread – as previously on other WUWT threads – you have attempted to sell your forecasting system by making a false claim and trying to bluster it out when called on it.
Richard
richards courtney is being a tiresome fool, he’s hell bent on discrediting all my claims of making forecasts, and anything else now by the looks, but sadly keeps firing off blanks. The link to the 23rd August was merely to demonstrate that temperatures between the frigid and temperate zones do dot move in unison in the long term, just that only, it was not intended to demonstrate anything in particular about sea ice extent. I am not at all bothered if he doubts that I made a prediction in the slightest, it was a side issue to the facts that I presented about the differential temperature movement between the zones.
Ulric, sorry that data won’t do for your forecasts. You must use planetary positions only. That is after all your area of expertise and the sole source of data used for your forecasts? Please correct me if I am wrong and that you use other indices for some of your forecasts.
phlogiston, I am aware of studies on the total blockage of Drake’s Passage and resultant warming. I am not referring to that phenomenon which has been studied using ocean circulation models (she said with a grain of salt). I am referring to more or less cold water being diverted into the Southern Pacific Gyre and subsequently other places in the Pacific. The cold Circumpolar Current sends some of its cold water into the Southern Pacific Gyre and other places in the Pacific. That happens all the time and I would guess there is a range of water volume that gets diverted into that gyre under typical circumstances.
I am speculating that The Polar Front (the inner portion of the Circumpolar Current) may move northward out of its usual snugged up against the continent location when ice extent is extreme prior to Drake’s Passage. Thus mixing with and cooling the Circumpolar Current prior to moving through Drake’s passage more than under typical circumstances. I don’t know if it does.
And so my question is, is it possible that, under more extreme ice extent prior to Drake’s Passage, the normal diversion of a piece of the Circumpolar Current into the Pacific would increase? And would it cool that gyre more than normal?
Ulric Lyons:
Your post at September 18, 2013 at 4:53 am says in full
NO! That is a series of falsehoods clearly intended to deflect from exposure of you having stated falsehoods.
At September 17, 2013 at 1:21 pm in this thread your post said in total
But you did NOT “forecast greater Arctic sea ice extent this for this summer”.
And when Pamela Gray asked when you had made that forecast in your post at September 18, 2013 at 3:24 am you said “last year” then cited the link to August of this year as evidence.
But in that link you say nothing – zilch, nada, bupkis – about sea ice.
And now you claim it was all me being nasty because you only presented “a side issue to the facts that I presented about the differential temperature movement between the zones”.
NO! You said you “forecast greater Arctic sea ice extent this for this summer” and that you made the forecast “last year”. Those statements seem to have the same basis as your every other claim to have made a successful forecast.
You say you intend to sell your forecasts for the UK. Alright, do that if you want. But you can expect to be called on it if you advertise your product by making false claims on WUWT.
Richard
Pamela Gray says:
September 18, 2013 at 8:54 am
I’m sure you are right about diversion of the circumpolar current into the South Pacific Gyre and variations thereof, this is an important phenomenon to point to for instance in discussion with those who consider that ENSO is a purely meteorological phenomenon, about winds only. Ocean currents play a big part and a poorly understood one.
Yes disruption of ocean circulation can cut both ways, to warming or cooling. Something has to trigger both the beginning and the end of interglacials, and this has to involve ocean circulation as a major or the major player. But the limitation is that most work on this is done with computer models.
The Drake’s passage scenario you describe could potentially be one mechanism of cooling that could have an element of positive feedback, possibly even with interglacial-ending effect. But the question as was raised by RACookPE1978 is – how much would surface ice affect the circulation? However it should be remembered that the Antarctic circumpolar current is a surface current, not part of the deeper THC circulation. One point I remember from my University oceanography lectures many moons ago is that the ocean surface and deep currents are different and weakly connected systems. This would add to the possible effect of Drake’s passage ice-up on diversion of the Polar Front/ ACC.
@Pamela Gray
You are very confused, the data shows what I explained it shows, nothing to do with forecasts.
richardscourtney says:
“And when Pamela Gray asked when you had made that forecast in your post at September 18, 2013 at 3:24 am you said “last year” then cited the link to August of this year as evidence.”
Not at all, it is evidence of the temperature differentials between the said zones, the forecast was a passing point and does not matter to the main point I am making in the slightest. And I did not say that I made the forecast last year, I said that I did not know about the ice loss being greater during negative AO/NAO conditions until last year, meaning that I did not make the several years ago as Pam inquired about. So it is obviously implied that I made the forecast since that realisation, but I did NOT say when! You excel at being a false witness richard, probably because you do not actually read my comments thoroughly, just like Willis.
“..making false claims on WUWT.”
That’s what you have just done about what I have said chap, and it’s not the first time either.
I was way off. I said, “zero” square kilometers. I am very disappointed. I have been all set to kayak up to the North Pole proper right about now.
Ulrich Lyons
To quote former French President Jacques Chirac, you have “missed a golden opportunity to keep quiet”.
“Predicting” the sea ice minimum in August is like predicting the Grand National winner when the horses are aready on the home strait.
Shhhh.