Over the past few years the Arctic expert, Professor Peter Wadhams, has strongly predicted an ‘ice-free’ Arctic no later than 2016. Late this year he changed it to 2020 without apparently giving an explanation.
Guest post by WUWT reader Jimbo
Peter Wadhams is a Professor of Ocean Physics at the University of Cambridge and an expert on Arctic sea ice and waves. He has studied the Arctic since 1970. In the last few years he has predicted that the Arctic will be ‘ice-free’ no later than September 2016. (It is generally accepted that an ‘ice-free’ Arctic is 1 million km2 or less, as it is very difficult to melt the thick multi-year ice in the Canadian Archipelago).
Late this year Prof. Wadhams changed his prediction of an ice-free Arctic to 2020.
Q) Has Professor Wadhams given the reason[s] for his changed prediction? As a ‘denier’ I just want to know so that I can have a better understanding of when we are likely to see an ‘ice-free’ Arctic.
Below are his repeated predictions of an ‘ice-free’ Arctic no later than 2016.
Daily Telegraph – 8 November 2011
Arctic sea ice ‘to melt by 2015’
Dr Maslowski’s model, along with his claim that the Arctic sea ice is in a “death spiral”, were controversial but Prof Wadhams, a leading authority on the polar regions, said the calculations had him “pretty much persuaded.”
Prof Wadhams said: “His [model] is the most extreme but he is also the best modeller around.
“It is really showing the fall-off in ice volume is so fast that it is going to bring us to zero very quickly. 2015 is a very serious prediction and I think I am pretty much persuaded that that’s when it will happen.”
—–
BBC News – 27 August 2012
Professor Peter Wadhams, from Cambridge University, told BBC News: “A number of scientists who have actually been working with sea ice measurement had predicted some years ago that the retreat would accelerate and that the summer Arctic would become ice-free by 2015 or 2016.
“I was one of those scientists – and of course bore my share of ridicule for daring to make such an alarmist prediction.”
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-19393075
—–
Guardian – 17 September 2012
Arctic expert predicts final collapse of sea ice within four years
“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”.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/sep/17/arctic-collapse-sea-ice
——-
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,” he said, pulling out a battered laptop to show a diagram explaining his calculations, which he calls “the Arctic death spiral”.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/4084c8ee-fa36-11e2-98e0-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2hozOJWog
——-
The Scotsman – 12 September 2013
Arctic sea ice will vanish within three years, says expert
“The entire ice cover is now on the point of collapse.
“The extra open water already created by the retreating ice allows bigger waves to be generated by storms, which are sweeping away the surviving ice. It is truly the case that it will be all gone by 2015. The consequences are enormous and represent a huge boost to global warming.”
——-
Arctic News – June 27, 2012
My own view of what will happen is: 1. Summer sea ice disappears, except perhaps for small multiyear remnant north of Greenland and Ellesmere Island, by 2015-16. 2. By 2020 the ice free season lasts at least a month and by 2030 has extended to 3 months…..
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2012/06/when-sea-ice-is-gone.html
——-
TheRealNews – 29 May 2014
Transcript [Youtube] http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11899
[Q] WORONCZUK: And, Peter, what’s your take? Do you think that we’ve already passed the point of no return in terms of controlling polar ice cap melting?
[A] WADHAMS: Yes, I think we have. A few years ago, I predicted that the summer sea ice–that’s the September minimum–would go to zero by about 2015. And at that stage, it was only really one model that agreed with me. My prediction was based on observations from satellites and from measurements from submarines of ice thickness, which I’ve been doing from British subs, and Americans have been doing the same from American subs. And the trend was so clear and so definite that it would go to zero by 2015 that I felt it was safe to make that prediction, and I still think it is, because next year, although this year we don’t expect things to retreat much further than last, next year will be an El Niño year, which is a warmer year, and I think it will go to zero.
I knew earlier this year he would change his mind. I was just waiting for the reason he would give, but I can’t find it.
It was sheer dumb luck that Arctic polar ice satellite data started in 1979, at the peak of a 30-yr AMO cool cycle, which contributed to Arctic Ice Extents being at peak levels.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_multidecadal_oscillation#/image/File:Atlantic_Multidecadal_Oscillation.svg
A 30-yr AMO warm cycle started in the early 90’s, at which time Arctic Ice started to decrease and reached a summer minimum in 2007. As the AMO warm cycle winds down and shifts to a 30-yr cool cycle in the 2020’s, Arctic ice will contine to recover.
A 30-yr PDO cool cycle started in 2005, which is already adding Arctic sea ice on the Pacific side of the Arctic.
CAGW Warmunists overplayed Arctic sea ice and the recovering ice extents are starting to crush their leaky boat. In 5 years, they’ll have a very hard time explaining why Arctic Ice extents are at late 1990’s levels instead of being ice-free in the summer as predicted.
It only gets worse for Warmunists from here….
Stupid is as stupid does.
Maybe we should call the modelers Gumpers
Sometimes I think academic tenure is good. Other times, when I see intellectually bankrupt rubbish from an aging professor, I know it has it’s downsides.
On the plus side of tenure: it let’s them say whatever they like.
On the down side: it doesn’t even have to have a shred of truth to it.
Well he is 66 years old and so another 6 years could be his retirement.
On the other hand he might have bought a new crystal ball which has been homogenised differently from his last one.
The El Nino explanation rivals anything I have seen for being out of touch. a) its not that strong b) Many stronger el ninos have not done it, why this one. Proof the lunatic fringe is out there
One of the funniest evah! 🙂
Freud would have been proud!
Some good quotes on Wadham’s 2020 prediction here (link below):
“Wadhams’ pronouncement was angrily challenged by one of the scientists modeling sea ice decline, but the elderly physicist stuck to his guns.
“The modelers, he told Alaska Dispatch News later, are very sensitive about their models. But he added that it’s hard to deny the actual data. He had plotted the ice decline as a graph curving steadily and increasingly downward since the 1970s and hitting zero in 2020.”
“No models here,” Peter Wadhams, told the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik, Iceland, on Sunday. “This is data.” [These are data?]
“This data shows ice volume “is accelerating downward,” Wadhams said. “There doesn’t seem to be anything to stop it from going down to zero.”
“Former Alaska North Slope Borough Mayor Edward Itta, liked the graph. “It made it easy to understand,” he said.
And how to define ‘ice free’?:
“Wadhams later clarified that by “ice-free” he didn’t exactly mean the Arctic was going to look like the Baltic Sea in summer. The scientific definition of “ice-free” is complicated. It is basically based on the amount of ice found in a number of grids when looking at the Arctic from space.”
An “ice-free” Arctic, as defined by scientists, would remain full of floating ice in the summer, but the ice would be broken up enough that a ship could push through it.
[‘Complicated’ is what Gore said about the relationship between temperature and CO2 concentrations in AIC. So some room for moving goalposts I think]
http://barentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2014/11/expert-predicts-ice-free-arctic-2020-un-releases-climate-report-04-11
Anyone else watching the Arctic ice volume?
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/schweiger/ice_volume/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrentV2.1.png
Yeah, it looks like it has been falling at a steady rate since 1979 with a couple of up surges, 1 starting in ~1982 and the other more recent with quite a sharp upturn at the end … but what was it doing before that? Say, in the 1930’s / 40s
See my comment above
Yup…nice graph. Looks like a pretty decent increase since roughly 2010?
We need to figure out a way to stop this increase, STAT. The repercussions of more ice will be a disaster for all life as we know it.
It certainly looks like an upturn since 2010. I will just love it if the Arctic continues its recovery, because there is absolutely no way that the warmistliars will be able to counter it. It would go against ALL they believe! The next few years is going to be soooo interesting.
one ‘interesting’ thing about that graph is that even though the more recent monthly values have been going up, the trend that they show at the bottom never changes from -3.0 km/decade
assuming this curve is correct it should give us reason for concern. the extent of the polar ice cap is one parameter but the total amount of ice is no joking matter. better come up with a reasonable explanation for that. saying that the trend was up since 2007 is not good enough. the same thing happened between roughly 1981-1988
Patrick Bols,
Relax. Polar ice is unimportant. When Arctic ice declines, Antarctic ice increases, and vice-versa. Total global ice is above it’s 30-year avearage [the red line].
“Ice” is the last gasp of the alarmist cult. They use bogus charts like PIOMAS, when in fact global ice cover is completely normal.
The alarmist crowd has been completely wrong about everything. Why would you believe anything they say?
Well, at the spring equinox, when Antarctic sea ice is recovering from its yearly low area in mid-February, and when Arctic sea ice is approaching its maximum yearly area in early April, both Arctic and Antarctic sea ice do both receive the same solar radiation at nearly the same solar elevation angles for the same number of hours each day.
But on September 22, when Arctic sea ice is at its yearly low, but Antarctic sea ice has yet to reach its yearly high on Oct 1, the edge of the ever-increasing Antarctic sea ice is receiving FIVE TIMES the solar energy than the edge of the Arctic sea ice does up at 79-80 north.
Antarctic sea ice is much more important than Arctic sea ice in the earth’s radiation and reflection budgets. One is up between 79-81 north, the other at 57-58 south.
true, true. A colder planet (due to increased heat loss if Arctic sea ever does resume declining from 2007-2012 levels) will be a terrible thing.
Oh. Do you think increased Arctic sea ice is a “good thing”?
Antarctic sea ice has been increasing since 1992, and has been rapidly increasing every season since 2011. Is that a “good thing” or a pending disaster?
I will continue to keep an eye on our good professor Wadhams. Rest assured that if it becomes obvious that there will be no ice free Arctic in 2020 he will change his predictions again. Can you imagine if Wadhams was a cancer expert. Warmists do ask us the medical analogy. The fact is that Climastrology and Oncology are not the same thing.
Yet another witch doctor doing his rain (or Arctic ice) dance for the sake of mankind.
Lost in his own imaginary world. If I were a professor, or one of his students, or the person funding him, I’d give him mouthful because as a professor he has to show his reasoning and calculations because he is nominating specific years – opinions are not what is wanted on this issue because so much hangs on it. Why don’t alarmists challenge this guy, or just tell him to shut up because in fact he is hurting the “cause”. Some of these guys never substantiate what they say – maybe they think that we’ll just accept their word for it despite being proved wrong year after year. His life long study and his major prophecies have been proved wrong, just like religious prophecies have been proved wrong. When is the world going to end, dear professor, please tell me? I have enough of people like this guy, he’s got to be put in his place in a big way. Rant finished.
Why don’t alarmists challenge this guy…..
Oh, they do. During Wadham’s recent presentation to the Royal Society they tweeted the following comments
– Gavin Schmidt
– Mark Brandon
– Sheldon Bacon
Wadhams has complained to the Royal Society. (worth a augh)
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2014/10/17/another-climate-bully.html
In the Financial Times quote linked in my post Wadhams expressed his frustration with the IPCC’s ice free forecast. Here is Wadhams.
Now I have to ask you, who did the ‘clanger’ now? Is the Arctic sea ice well understood? Who is the chicken? I will award bonus points to Wadhams for sticking his neck out. I will now deduct points for not explaining the science basis for his repeated prediction. Even if he did he changed his prediction so the ‘basis’ would be ‘wrong’ anyway.
4 eyes you are unfair to Prof Wadhams.
You wrote: “Lost in his own imaginary world. If I were a professor, or one of his students, or the person funding him, I’d give him mouthful because as a professor he has to show his reasoning and calculations because he is nominating specific years….”
Surely his reasonings and calculations are on the whiteboard in front of which he chose to be interviewed for the Real News?
4 eyes
You ask
I answer, because he is NOT hurting the “cause”: he is promoting it.
Whadhams is merely behaving as “climate scientists” typically do. I pointed this out above (i.e. here)with a list of examples (and Stephen Richards added another).
I am sure that if you try then you can add to the list.
Richard
Hubert Lamb ‘Climate History and the Modern World’
The thing about predictions is, they are always about the future. I know, someone has said this before.
I don’t think you got that quite right.
Here is one possible reason why he changed his mind. We will only know his reason[s] when he tells us.
For those with the time, click the Arctic air temperature dates going back to 1958.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/icecover/icecover_current_new.png
Jimbo says (amongst many other excellent things): “Why are they experts and I’m not?”
In my opinion, Jimbo, over the years you have skewered many warmists by exposing their previous claims, and changed predictions. You are definitely an expert in my view.
And further on this theme, elsewhere on this blog it has been pointed out that Peter Wadhams is a figure of fun, even among warmists : eg. : Entertaining break with Wadhams. Back to science now #RSArctic14” ho ho 😉
Recently Rob Wilson commented on a Bishophill Blog attempting to say that Steve McIntyre was cherry-picking because he showed that modern analysis confirms the decline of tree ring growth while air temperatures have increased since 1980 at Sheep Mountain. I suggested that he should be pushing for clean work in his own area of research rather than apologising for the hockey stick.
In the same way, why are mainstream alarmist scientists not distancing themselves from the likes of Peter Wadhams? Wadhams of course is not the only Arctic Death Spiral proponent. Think of Mark Serreze, present director of the National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC), or, as has been pointed out above, Wieslaw Maslowski.
Of course, from the skeptic viewpoint, it is great that mainstream scientists do not have the balls to call out their lunatic fringe. Skeptics just have more ammunition to ridicule warmista opinion.
Summer 2016 will be ice-free in the arctic? Does that mean they’ll have to postpone the big Arctic cruise until 2020? http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/16/cruising-the-northwest-passage-in-style/
Ack. I meant “Won’t” be ice free
Here are the rest of the gang. Some have failed like Professor Wieslaw Maslowski and some we need to wait until 2020 but most are careful to add caveats, unlike Wadhams, who rarely did.
Where is the media? They should be doing this work, not me. I’m not fossil fuel funded either, I’m just a concerned citizen. Concerned that we are being led astray to spend billions on garbage. If it was not for the internet we would be lost.
Sorry but the lead in describes Wadham’s as an expert. Because all his predictions have been wrong then it would be best to describe him as a buffoon.
The noble thing to have done would have been to say:
“I think I got it wrong. I will not make anymore predictions of an ice-free Arctic.”
Then continue your studies etc. But when he realised Arctic sea ice was a stubborn animal, he simply made another prediction. At least Dr Maslowski gave a reason for his failure before issuing a new, computer simulated, refined prediction. 😊
[my bold]
Paul Homewood reveals that some of Wadhams’ fellow climatologists make fun of him for his outrageous forecasts.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/11/06/ed-hawkins-mocks-peter-wadhams/
Apart from the graph the remark that I liked best was from James Annan of betting fame:
“Hasn’t Wadhams already predicted 4 of the last 0 ice-free summers?”
Actually, the ice already went to zero, once you correct for time of observation bias and homogeneity.
And UHI.
Oh…wait…
Arctic Ice extent will have a negative value in 2021. A negative value means it’s now Antarctic Ice extent.
These people must learn that outrageous forecasts should be aimed at a timeline beyond their lifespan. That way they can enjoy the grants before the truth emerges.
I always like to remind myself of this with these types of quotes…
What a pity these climate change charlatans, who keep making outrageous unscientific alarmist predictions, are not held accountable in some way.
Take the case of Australia’s former chief scientist, Professor Penny Sackett, who made outrageous claims 5 years ago, which influenced the climate change policy of the then Australian Labor government.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/archive/news/weve-got-5-years-to-save-world-says-australias-chief-scientist-professor-penny-sackett/story-e6frf7l6-1225806754392
Penny Sackett’s 5 years ended on 4 December 2014, and of course we know her comments were a load of bullshit. But she used the authority of her office, her position and her qualifications to present her outrageous fairy tale on climate. She should be held to account or disciplined or charged for engaging in misleading and deceptive conduct.
But won’t be, of course.
Clearly Wadhams isn’t good at listening. ‘Predicting the Future – 101’ repeatedly makes the point to the students studying the subject that predictions should always be only verifiable after your lifetime and, if that cannot be achieved, at least until after you retire. This guy’s a bit of a loose cannon in the ranks of The Cause.