From Walt Meier at NASA Goddard:
This year’s melt season in the Arctic Ocean and surrounding seas started with a bang, with a record low maximum extent in March and relatively rapid ice loss through May. The melt slowed down in June, however, making it highly unlikely that this year’s summertime sea ice minimum extent will set a new record.
“Even when it’s likely that we won’t have a record low, the sea ice is not showing any kind of recovery. It’s still in a continued decline over the long term,” said Walt Meier, a sea ice scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “It’s just not going to be as extreme as other years because the weather conditions in the Arctic were not as extreme as in other years.”
“A decade ago, this year’s sea ice extent would have set a new record low and by a fair amount. Now, we’re kind of used to these low levels of sea ice – it’s the new normal.”
This year’s sea ice cover of the Barents and Kara seas north of Russia opened up early, in April, exposing the surface ocean waters to the energy from the sun weeks ahead of schedule. By May 31, the extent of the Arctic sea ice cover was comparable to end-of-June average levels. But the Arctic weather changed in June and slowed the sea ice loss. A persistent area of low atmospheric pressure, accompanied by cloudiness, winds that dispersed ice and lower-than-average temperatures, didn’t favor melt.
The rate of ice loss picked up again during the first two weeks of August, and is now greater than average for this time of the year. A strong cyclone is moving through the Arctic, similar to one that occurred in early August 2012. Four years ago, the storm caused an accelerated loss of ice during a period when the decline in sea ice is normally slowing because the sun is setting in the Arctic. However, the current storm doesn’t appear to be as strong as the 2012 cyclone and ice conditions are less vulnerable than four years ago, Meier said.
“This year is a great case study in showing how important the weather conditions are during the summer, especially in June and July, when you have 24 hours of sunlight and the sun is high in the sky in the Arctic,” Meier said. “If you get the right atmospheric conditions during those two months, they can really accelerate the ice loss. If you don’t, they can slow down any melting momentum you had. So our predictive ability in May of the September minimum is limited, because the sea ice cover is so sensitive to the early-to-mid-summer atmospheric conditions, and you can’t foresee summer weather.”
As scientists are keeping an eye on the Arctic sea ice cover, NASA is also preparing for a new method to measure the thickness of sea ice – a difficult but key characteristic to track from orbit.
“We have a good handle on the sea ice area change,” said Thorsten Markus, Goddard’s cryosphere lab chief. “We have very limited knowledge how thick it is.”
Research vessels or submarines can measure ice thickness directly, and some airborne instruments have taken readings that can be used to calculate thickness. But satellites haven’t been able to provide a complete look at sea ice thickness in particular during melting conditions, Markus said. The radar instruments that penetrate the snow during winter to measure thickness don’t work once you add in the salty water of the melting sea ice, since the salinity interferes with the radar.
The Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2, or ICESat-2, will use lasers to try to get more complete answers of sea ice thickness. The satellite, slated to launch by 2018, will use a laser altimeter to measure the heights of Earth’s surface.
In the Arctic, it will measure the elevation of the ice floes, compared to the water level. However, only about one-tenth of sea ice is above the water surface; the other nine-tenths lie below.
To estimate the entire thickness of the ice floe, researchers will need to go beyond the above-water height measurements, and perform calculations to account for factors like the snow on top of the ice and the densities of the frozen layers. Scientists are eager to see the measurements turned into data on sea ice thickness, Markus said.
“If we want to estimate mass changes of sea ice, or increased melting, we need the sea ice thickness,” he said. “It’s critically important to understanding the changes in the Arctic.”
###
“Even when it’s likely that we won’t have a record low, the sea ice is not showing any kind of recovery.
If there were icebergs floating down the Thames, he still wouldn’t admit it.
yep…no signs of recovery
http://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/IceThickness-2012-2016.gif
Too funny.
Modelled data from a skeptic.
And whats even funnier is you picked a model that hasnt been validated.
There is a reason why they they launch a new satellite…
Current models of volume aint so great.
But typical skeptic, the science says these estimates of volume are not so great, so you IGNORE
the science and post the “data” as IF it were observations.
[just because you are a know-it-all doesn’t mean everybody else is, but typical Mosher rant, no links, no citations, just assertions with snark- you need to step up your own game. -Anthony]
Is he ignoring ice thickness,for the area extent only viewpoint?
Seems like a one sided view to me,since it is very clear there is an INCREASE in Ice thickness by area.That doesn’t sound like his no recovery in progress statement is correct.
With more area of continued thicker ice growth into the future,area extent should increase.later on.
Mosher,
Do you get a kick out of being obnoxious?
The arctic sea ice seems more stable than mosh at the moment. His drive-by rants anytime something “skeptical” is posted whuch has a basis in modeling is comical.
Too bad the DMI data is an almost exact match for the Russian data, hey dodgy Mosh. !!
You need to look at this:
http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr2/
And this, modelled from the same data as the MODEL you post above:
And especially this:
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/
The only ice data showing any ‘recovery’ is using the DMI thickness model comparing 2012 lowest against today – second/third lowest expected.
That’s misrepresentation.
How come in nearly 10 years after 2007 we are still getting a second lowest record and not recovered to pre-2007 levels?
The extent is only this high as the broken, thin ice is more dispersed this year… the area measure is already second lowest, the PIOMAS mass figure was 4th lowest at start of August
This ice is still declining…
Griff:
Good
Steve Mosher, we know it is a model using real numbers,it says so right at the website.
Meanwhile you didn’t point to a better one,probably because you don’t have one right?
Do better than this here as you are terrible elsewhere.
“Modelled data from a skeptic”
Elsewhere and when, Mosher has stated everything is a model.
{shoulder shrug}
Anderw
Bad Andrew,
The only models Mosh likes are those that contain data and have outcomes that he approves of and fit his preconceptions…
That Coast Guard and Navy ‘boots-on-the-ground” sourced data from severs countries shows a steady increase in multi year ice is of no consequence to a “we should adjust the data to the models” pseudo science buff like Mosh.
The “right” conditions accelerate melting but if you are really unlucky you will lose any momentum YOU had.
Errm, he actually WANTS the ice to melt and disappear?
So obviously this is really BAD news that we are losing all the nice momentum we had until 2007 and sadly we will not be seeing a now record low that we can scream about in in the media and create lots of hysteria from.
What a bummer.
Where are all the psychologists when you need them, this is becoming a wide spread mental illness.
So why is this ‘loss of momentum’ so disappointing to Dr Meyers? Why is he cheering on ice loss in the Arctic?
Is it because catastrophic melting is good for his career prospects and grant applications?
Is it because he really wants to prove the deenyerz wrong even if it the price is the end of life on Earth?
Is it because he’s part of a crusade to ‘save the planet’ and he does not the planet to save itself and kick the chair from under his crusade?
Comments like this are typical amongst alarmists and reveal their perverted aims to ‘save the planet’ which have morphed into wanting it to get a lot worse a lot quicker rather than for there to be some good news somewhere.
They have to be proved right and impose their dogma before they can be pleased about some measure being less “catastrophic” or improving.
Over interpretation of typically human imprecise speech.
“””””…..
Greg
August 19, 2016 at 1:21 pm
Where are all the psychologists when you need them, this is becoming a wide spread mental illness. …..”””””
Well I think you mean psychiatrists.
Psychology is a study of behavior; not mental illness.
Personally I like the way Ricky Ricardo says it when he talked about sykyatrists on the ” I Love Lucy” show.
He called them ” pee-sick-ee-uh-trists ” with the accent on the “sick ”
You have to be sick to get your jollies by charging people to tell you the most personal secrets of their lives, and of course the lives of others in their family, who thought they had a confidential relationship with the Quack’s victim.
I’m not aware of ANY physical process for reading out the current thoughts going on inside somebody (else’s) brain.
Pee-sick-ee-uh-tree is a pestilence without ANY psientific validity or redeeming social value.
g
Of course. The more melt, the more grant money. They are not REALLY afraid of any observed long time melt, though they may claim to do so.
No, repeat no climate scientist wants to see the Arctic melting. To paint climatologist that way is some kind of desperate neurosis. Speaking of psychologists.
And trying to portray what looks like being the second lowest ice extent, which itself appears to be part of an accelerating loss, as something positive is frankly more crazy talk.
Richard O’Keefe
The way Meier expresses himself is in fact quite precise and internally coherent – a perfect example of a Freudian slip of the tongue that reveals his conceptual framework. A conceptual framework that, as is the case with many others in the climate science establishment, is increasingly at odds with the most recent empirical climate related data and an nice example of cognitive dissonance.
tony mccloud
I think you are indulging in wishful thinking. There is good evidence that there plenty of people in the environmentalist NGO business and their “climate science” shield bearers in the academic community who have crossed the proverbial Rubicon, and are so ideologically committed to their causes that they wouldn’t mind the world witnessing a “catastrophe” so they can say “told you so” – consequences be damned.
Quasi religious ideology is a powerful poison.
tony mcloud
Have another good look at the data: remove the 2012 Arctic cyclone driven outlier minimum from the series [Statistics 101: remove high/low outlier data from your series before doing your analysis] and you’ll find that 2007 is in fact the turning point. There is no evidence in the data for an “accelerating loss”.
Instead, the data appears to be showing 1] no further decline in ice extent and 2] probably a gain in ice volume.
But it IS something positive Tony. Access through the NW passage would be a boon for shipping, and less ice-coverage means easier access for drilling for fossil fuels in the Arctic.
As much fun as it would be to see the thermagedonsists getting their knickers in a twist if we had substantial ice-growth, we have to be honest and admit the world is a much better place when it isn’t covered in ice.
Humans die in the cold, but they thrive in the warmth.
I have to agree with you…..he used the term right condition indicating the is a right or wrong….more exactly he should have used certain conditions …it’s like using a statement like under the right conditions I will Achieve my best score….there the term right indicates a positive result. Also the use of accelerate which is a typical greens buzz word….when more appropriately an increase in the rate of ice loss…..and last the use of the word you….he’s refering to like us and how we lost our momentum…personally I don’t see how I could have any momentum about the ice. More appropriately it should be under other conditions the rate of ice loss will decrease is more neutral
Exactly!
The evidence over the last decade proves tetris’s point(s).
Ever since 1998, alarmists have been anticipating, predicting, harping on, and celebrating any increase in temperature.
Not withstanding alarmist’s persistent efforts at dodgy research allegedly proving or excusing temperature increase or lack thereof.
Alarmists hyped the 2012 drop in ice, even as research proved the storms were the major cause for ice reduction.
Alarmists have been chomping the CAGW bit since 2015 experienced the beginnings of an El Niño anticipating their ‘CAGW’ proof. Many alarmists jumper the thermometer and trumpeted multiple “warmest ever” claims almost every month since the summer of 2015.
Apparently, alarmists ignore their continual embarrassment for failed CAGW claims since 1988. Instead they absolutely lover their newborn daily belief that ‘today is the day’ when the Earth suffers and sceptics will believe…
Alarmists completely ignore the minor fact that El Niño is a regional effect and part of a ancient long term mysterious oceanic/atmospheric cycle. No matter what El Niño weather changes historians have recorded over time, alarmists treat every new El Niño as the hero of their CO2 hypothesis.
Stuff and nonsense.
Overall temperatures have been rising, globally, since the ‘Little Ice Age’; and hopefully, for humanity’s sake, will continue to rise as the Holocene Optimum continues.
If CO2 is helping, Great! All the alarmists have to provide is proof. Generally rising temperatures are Earth normal and not proof of CO2. Correlation has never been evidence of causation.
Nor are CAGW alarmist fake concerns about ‘rate’. CAGW alarmists have been whinging about ‘rate of increase’ and ‘accelerated rates’ for decades now, without evidence.
Sometimes I wonder if any alarmists understand what the word ‘accelerated’ actually means.
Yes, ice melt in the Arctic is desirable, for many reasons!
Only the extant Antarctic ice maximums are direct evidence that Arctic Polar ice melt is likely a regional phenomenon that are part of a larger global cycle. Cycle reversal will not bode well for the Northern Hemisphere.
Polar bear populations are frighteningly healthy.
Arctic creatures in general have healthy populations.
Penguins are thriving.
Seals are thriving.
Walruses are thriving.
Only the alarmists are in real danger of extirpation through education and real observations. Right now alarmists are subsisting on false news bulletins, bad research, false faith in consensus and lots of models. But only models programmed by alarmists or under the control of alarmists are useful…
The age of false science courtesy of climate devotions.
“A persistent area of low atmospheric pressure, accompanied by cloudiness”
Hmmm… Quiet sun, GCR, persistent cloudiness. It only takes 2.5% more cloud to make a big difference to the isolation reaching the surface.
Ice melt does not have and cannot have ‘momentum’. That contradicts several physical laws.
Crispin wrote, “Ice melt does not have and cannot have ‘momentum’. That contradicts several physical laws.”
+1 You make me regret not having a “Like” button.
So CO2-increase effects get overwhelmed by “other stuff”! And there was I being assured for most of the past decade that the science is settled!
…too much volume/thickness
Strange isn’t it, volume is the only thing that really says how much
Volume is interesting as measure the change in heat content ( latent heat ) . Area is also very importing in trying to understand forcings since the area of exposed water vs ice is what determines evaporation, albedo changes, absorbed and emitted radiation etc.
In many ways area is more important in attempting to understand what drives Arctic climate and volume is better measure of the energy going into freezing / melting ice.
Excellent comment.
By the time September rolls around, the sun is so low it can’t really heat the exposed water, and in fact the exposed water is losing heat more efficiently than water hidden by a sort of igloo if ice-cover.
Caleb wrote, “… the exposed water is losing heat more efficiently than water hidden by a sort of igloo if ice-cover.”
Correct. That is one of the rarely mentioned negative (stabilizing) climate feedback mechanisms:
Warmer temperatures => less ice cover => more evaporative heat loss => less warming
Walt almost seems upset that it isn’t going to set a record. Poor Walt.
You beat me to it. Sounds like he’s been crying in his beer.
Walt Meier – and NASA – makes me sick.
NASA:
“…highly unlikely that this year’s summertime sea ice minimum extent will set a new record’”
Plain language:
The amount of ice in the Arctic has increased
Al Gore is still wrong 🙂
the sea ice is not showing any kind of recovery…..
………. and ice conditions are less vulnerable than four years ago
They will just say anything
Statistics: Lies and damnable lies. How do they get away with this?
Clearly 2012 had less ice and the “Ship of Fools” is still trapped in the Arctic.
If you mean the Crystal Serenity, it’s berthed in Dutch Harbor, Aleutian Islands, Alaska. And not stuck, not yet.
Ed, the “Ship of Fools” refers to the Polar Ocean Challenge, which left Bristol on June 19:
http://polarocean.co.uk/
They are attempting to sail around the Arctic Sea but were stuck by “non-existent” sea ice for two weeks during August. So far they have achieved just over ¼ of their circumnavigation, and their objective of returning to Bristol by October appears to be unachievable given that they have yet to attempt the more ice-prevalent section of the NW passage around Canada.
Their daily blogs are humorous, if only by their continual amazement at the amount of sea ice that keeps hindering their progress. However, that progress appears to only be due to the shallow draft of their boat, their ability to retract its keel, and careful skirting of ice by sticking very close to shore as the following graphic of their course shows:
http://polarocean.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Screen-Shot-2016-08-13-at-23.47.13-1024×909.png
The Crystal Serenity is only attempting the NW Passage. Of course, with its somewhat larger hull, it will need to keep to deeper water. I hope they are being accompanied by an ice breaker, or have lots of fuel and food on board.
Given that there are several ships poking around the Arctic, It would be helpful if people would refer to them by their registered name or the name of the captain. “Ship of Fools” is not very specific. (Unless it’s referring to the ship in the Antarctic a couple years ago.)
The good ship Northabout has battled across the Laptev Sea and is now entering the East Siberian Sea. They are doing a great job of honest reporting.
https://sunriseswansong.wordpress.com/2016/08/18/arctic-sea-ice-volga-i-mean-lena-boat-men/
You do understand Scott that people lied before statistics. Contrary to popular belief, lying wasn’t invented by statisticians, nor does the practice depend on it. It’s very possible to lie without statistics.
Statistics, being a branch of mathematics designed to allow truths not otherwise available to be recognized, is often confusing and beyond the intellectual abilities of some people. As a result it’s a science frequently abused by charlatans in an effort to “baffle with bullshit”.
As a statistician, I occasionally take these opportunities to point out the facts. No offense intended. 🙂
“You do understand Scott that people lied before statistics. ”
How do you know that? By definition we don’t have any statistics about who lying back then.
Besides I’m sure man has been using statistics ever since he learnt to speak: “hunting is much better this year, I did not catch a single deer last year” Statistics!
“Must be one of the benefits of living in a warming world. ” Trend projection and spurious correlation assumptions.
Greg asks, in the true spirit of science, “How do you know that? By definition we don’t have any statistics about who [was] lying back then”
Well Greg, this is how I know.
Before I was a statistician, I was twelve years old. When my mother asked me if I’d been in Mrs. Payne’s cumquat orchard with my best friend Arthur and got caught, I told her it wasn’t me. It was my evil twin and Arthur wasn’t there at all.
Being my mother, she had difficulty (empirical difficulty) with my explanation and I was grounded for a week.
I didn’t learn statistics for another 10 years. From this, I can conclude lying predates statistics.
[The mods remind Bartleby that, when talking to a mother-figure about one’s evil twin, that same mother-figure already accounted for all of the evil twins born that day. .mod]
“”””””….. Statistics, being a branch of mathematics designed to allow truths not otherwise available to be recognized, …..”””””
It’s numerical Origami.
The “truths” that are not otherwise available, are a direct consequence of the Origami folding prescription.
In other words the algorithms as defined in the art of mathematics are what determines those “truths”, and no new information about the real “data” values is “discovered”
The algorithms work whether the numbers in the data set (which need only be a finite set of finite exact real numbers) have any connection with each other or not. And the output may not even be a valid member of the data set, so it could be something nobody ever observed or measured.
They all work perfectly even on the set of real numbers to be found in tomorrow mornings news paper, reading from page 1 top left to the last page bottom right.
More importantly, there is not a single thing in the entire universe which responds in any way, or is even aware of the values that result from performing ANY statistical algorithm on anything real. (besides humans and statisticians.)
It’s simply a form of numerology that contains no information that the original numbers in the set don’t already tell.
G
How lucky you were Bartleby, to have a twin, evil or otherwise, to foist blame onto…
In my neighborhood, which was rife with children of similar age, I was always guilty till proven, rarely, innocent.
I often found myself grounded on rumor, before Mother learned any details. Father was only involved when corporeal punishment was needed. (Don’t ask, it would mean jailed parents in these days).
It wasn’t that I was a bad kid. Let’s just leave at one of those little wisdoms parents discover:
“An idle mind is the devil’s playground; and Lord knows, you don’t want that kid’s mind idle.”
Speaking of devils, or explicitly, the devil. Back in the Garden of Eden, the devil, allegedly in the form of a serpent, convinced Eve to eat a forbidden fruit.
Eve, all too glad to share her condition, convinced Adam to also eat the forbidden fruit.
Did Eve lie?
If so, why do we believe the tale about a devil serpent?
(warning, dangerous topic!)
Was Eve a redhead?
Actually the lady redheads I know are honest, that I know of. Gleefully, reveling, brutally honest in fact.
George claims: “It’s numerical Origami.”
Well that’s certainly somewhat apt, though we are allowed to slice and dice, a practice frowned upon in the ancient art.
It was particularly thoughtful of you to make a clear distinction between humans and statisticians… 🙂
“Some folks use statistics like a drunk uses a lamppost, for support rather than illumination.”
– author unknown, but related by UNC Statistics Professor Gordie Simons.
For some reason I was reminded of the way a dog uses a fire hydrant… 🙂
PS: It’s my experience that finding an honest statistician is much easier than finding an honest lawyer. As evidence I’ll offer the relative dearth of statistician jokes (Mark Twain accepted).
I would make a statistician joke about this, and I mean a really nasty one…but I like Bartleby, and also I cannot think of anything mean and funny. Which is a first.
🙂
(Believe it or not, people who actually know me mostly like me…I know, sounds unlikely, huh?)
M, who writes: “I would make a statistician joke about this…”
Unlikely also means “special” or “different” M. Something to be proud of. I’ve accidentally wandered into serious…
And thanks M. I truly appreciate your praise.
And in small part? M, you have a deep soul and are a person of substance. It’s been a pleasure knowing you.
But don’t let that go to your head. It happened to my dog and his knees gave out (head was too heavy). There you go.Always learn from the mistakes of other big dogs. Bud was a Rottwieler. Very pretty and everyone said he had a nice head. I rest my case?
@Bartleby – Not to mention politicians. If you are both a politician and a lawyer I guess that makes you a double-d*** liar (phrase from Spock from a decade past Star Trek movie). Hat tip to Mark Twain.
NASA is claiming “lower-than-average temperatures” in the arctic, but compare that statement to the map published here ( http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2016/07/20/june_2016_was_the_hottest_june_on_record.html ) declaring June the “hottest month EVER,” with a particularly warm arctic. Somebody isn’t telling the truth. But the ice doesn’t lie.
You have to have some lower than average temperatures or else the average would keep moving up.
So don’t sweat those lower than averages. It is the nature of averages that they are just sort of middling numbers.
g
But the average IS always moving up …. allegedly.
Most of the charts and graphs use a mean that cuts off some years back rather than an average. So you are not looking at a real average, but a mean established by cherry picking years. This sounds like a good idea until you realize we don’t know enough about the Arctic climate to be picking those years as a reference. Even if we had a couple dozen decades of really good data, thanks to science we know that the climate across the Holocene Epoch alone has been crazy by modern standards.
A popular DMI graph showing a year’s worth of data uses a mean green line derived from the ERA40 database which covers 1958 to 2002 (it says in the fine print). It is also a model, but the model is fed real world Arctic data. Air temperatures for the summer have been average in that model, against its mean. In recent years air temps have gone above freezing days earlier and gone below freezing about the same number of days earlier.
Joe Bastardi likes this chart, so I give it some credence.
For over a decade now, high global temperatures are dependent on a hot Arctic.
A fact that has been pointed out before that the estimating process NASA/NOAA uses allows smudging temperatures from stations 1200km distant.
It’s part of their repeated dismissal of satellite temperatures.
The other day, I spent some time searching for current satellite ice thickness measurements. It turns out that charts developed from the satellite that captures ice thickness are not updated frequently.
Much like the OCO-2 satellite capturing atmospheric CO2 measurements are not updated, except after substantial adjusting.
Inconvenient satellites, irritate the agency responsible for satellites. Lots and lots of money for models, so little funding for actual data.
“So our predictive ability in May of the September minimum is limited, because the sea ice cover is so sensitive to the early-to-mid-summer atmospheric conditions, and you can’t foresee summer weather.”
It seems unlikely that predictions of sea ice coverage 20 yrs in the future can be accurate if this is a valid statement.
“It seems unlikely that predictions of sea ice coverage 20 yrs in the future can be accurate if this is a valid statement.”
Wrong.
Felgercarb.
[???? .mod]
Yeah, thanks for that informative reply.
Steve I keep trying hard to take yo seriously but it just isn’t working for me. I understand your an English. Lit. guy who spent most of his life in marketing and so I’d expect you understand how to present a case?
I’m not a science snob. I have a strong background in the subject but I also appreciate the efforts of self-educated scientists and there are a lot more of those than some people think. There are rules to the game though, and you’re not playing by them. I, for one, wouldn’t mind discussing some of these subjects with a person who holds a dissenting opinion, I believe it’s the way we learn. Earlier this week you criticized me for not looking at some data, I asked for your help finding it and that was an honest request; I really could use help on that. As I understand, you’re associated with the Berkley Earth project and I thought perhaps you might be in a position to assist.
Please correct me if I’m wrong. I have to say your propensity for snark and one line put downs doesn’t improve your public image in my opinion.
“Wrong.”
Wrong.
To offer an illustration. We have limited ability to predict the temperature next week, but we are pretty certain that it will be much cooler in December. Long term trends are sometimes much easier to predict than short term fluctuations.
felgercarb
An alternate spelling of feldergarb.
A euphemism for “crap” in the Colonial vernacular; also used to mean garbage or nonsense. This word originated in the Science Fiction series Battlestar Galactica (1978) and was one of the expletives created to get swearing past the censors.
Starbuck: You certainly have a way of cutting through the felgercarb.
Steven,
Alarmists have already shown repeatedly that they can’t predict sea ice coverage years to decades in advance:
http://climatechangedispatch.com/predictions-of-an-ice-free-arctic-ocean/
Laughable, epic fails!
Steven Mosher
“”
Wrong
https://youtu.be/kQFKtI6gn9Y
Jorge Kafkazar writes: “felgercarb” and is righteously questioned [???? .mod] by our moderator.
I don’t know either. I hope Jorge will clarify? Thank you in advance Jorge you old scoundrel 🙂
Steve there’s an old song my Grandfather used to sing to me when I was young. His friend was a sheep rancher in the N. Western US and had a little over 700,000 acres of sheep lands known as”The Frenchman Hills” (Paul was a Frenchman, no one knew why but almost everyone thought he was after my Grandmother and so qualified as a Frenchman).
It goes like this:
“Beans, Beans
The Magic Fruit.
The more you eat,
The more you toot.
The more you toot,
the better you feel.
So eat some beans
For every meal.”
Ha hahaha!
That’s the funniest Mosher comment yet!
Mosher is here claiming white is black and black is white…
So where are those accurate predictions from Twenty years ago Mosh? Is Hansen bang on with his predictions? Not forgetting that Hansen had trouble guessing next year’s climate and ice status.
So, the ability to learn from several billion years of seasonal cycles means that alarmists drinking Kool-Aid can predict the effects of catastrophic CO2 on Polar ice cover?
NOT!
Can the alarmists predict ice cover for both poles based on their CO2 models?
Do alarmists fully understand every component of Earth’s cycles?
Do alarmists even fully understand CO2’s proven effects?
Do alarmists even fully understand seasonal cycles?
No, to all four questions.
Alarmist predictions of ‘cooler’ in December is such a vague prediction that it can not be falsified.
Try telling us exactly what the temperatures will be for every day/week of December 2016?
You have to do better than the Farmer’s Almanac that has been successfully guessing temperatures for many decades.
I am a non-climate expert, non-statistician lurker but that statement jumped out at me as well. If there is so much uncertainty in predicting local temperatures in a few months, how can anyone credibly predict temperatures decades from now without propagating the errors?
“It’s just not going to be as extreme as other years because the weather conditions in the Arctic were not as extreme as in other years.”
Thanks for the million dollar “it’s the weather” non-explanation.
What a joke.
Andrew
The version I learned of “Beans, beans” had the second line “The musical fruit.”
What is he talking about, “The weather has been less extreme”. Didn’t we just have the 4th deepest low since 1979?
https://sunriseswansong.wordpress.com/2016/08/14/arctic-sea-ice-storm-after-storm/
Someone needs to hit the snooze button on the Arctic ice alarm.
What, and have it go off again in five minutes. How about take the frigging batteries out?
I guess the Arctic “canary in the coal mine” has turned out to be a hippo in the swimming pool.
He’s not dead yet ! He’s feeling better.
With apologies to Bruce – it’s a hippo in the bathtub, not the swimming pool:
Hippo in the Bathtub – going down the drain like Climate Change:
It may take a few years/decades, but the worm will eventually turn. That is the nature of “Climate”. Tempest in a teapot for the political masters to play High Tea with OPM.
So Meier is saying the ice will bottom out on the low side of normal and a new record is unlikely. That sounds like your safe, middle of the road forecast. A bit tame, but there is nothing wrong with that.
At least he is not screaming Death Spiral or other such nonsense.
Walt is a fairly dependable scientist, as these things go. I doubt he’d put his thumb on the scale.
Good to hear. But let’s wait and see so to speak.
No, Walt never claimed the Arctic was “screaming” and posited the Arctic ice “death spiral”. That was his former boss, Mark Serreze. Walt seems to be much more circumspect in his pronouncements. But he does work for NASA so he does have to genuflect to the proper narrative.
Anyway, they hardly ever scream “Death Spiral” in September. That is reserved for May. By September it is conveniently forgotten.
Speaking from a purely statistical perspective, it’s always more reliable to predict weather tomorrow being the same as the weather today. It works out; if you haven’t studied it I suggest doing so.
So in a potentially all-time record warm year how is it there is any ice at all? Must really frustrate Walt.
But they can foresee the rest of the century’s weather enough to declare catastrophe.
But the New York Times and Washington Post know.
Wasn’t all this settled a decade ago?
Which they don’t have. Since the New York Times and Washington Post know, NASA should ask them.
“especially in June and July, when you have 24 hours of sunlight and the sun is high in the sky in the Arctic,”
Is the Sun ever really “high in the sky” in the Arctic? Now here in my part of Florida in late June it certainly is high in the sky, just 5 degrees from being directly overhead. But the Arctic? C’mon man.
From NASA – June 21st: Arctic it will be noontime, the middle of a 6-month long day, as the Sun climbs to 23 1/2 degrees above the horizon.
That’s on the Pole itself. On the Arctic circle the Sun’s elevation varies during the day between 0 and 47 degrees at the summer stolstice.
Yes, but that 23.5 degree height ONLY occurs at the very few acres around the north pole itself. The rest of the arctic sea ice edge (which varies between 72 north and 78 north latitude that day of year) sees high solar elevation angles (modest solar heat radiation) only in the few hours each side of noon.
Further, the solar elevation angle at noon is only a momentary value, It is the total difference in solar energy absorbed over the entire 24 hour day on the horizonal sea surface at the edge of the sea ice that matters, not the radiation perpendicular to the sun’s rays at the pole. (Sea ice that melts at the pole, or anywhere away from the edge of the icecap, is covered again almost immediately as the winds blow the floating sea ice around.)
Mid-summer (5 July) the albedo of open ocean water at solar elevation angles below 10 degrees are nearly the same as the albedo of the sea ice.
At sea ice minimum in September, there is no longer even that low a solar elevation angles available to ANY of the remaining sea ice between 80 north and the pole.
Even at 47 degrees above the horizon that is barely half way up to directly overhead. So “high in the sky” is certainly a misstatement at the least.
And that figures out to be more than an Air Mass 2.5 situation as well, so won’t be able to barbecue a steak by sunlight.
g
This is fun video. Note – it’s mislabeled as it says it’s at the north pole, which it is not; but, it’s certainly somewhere within the Arctic Circle.
Do you see all of that solar energy being reflected (NOT ABSORBED!) from the exposed ocean at the sun gets lower and lower towards the horizon. Any light you see reflected from the arctic is energy that was not absorbed – even though the sea ice is melted.
I saw a bunch of clear sky – great for radiational cooling, especially given the area was above freezing (i.e. open water, not colder ice).
Yes, between mid-April and mid-August, the sun is high enough between 9:00 am and 15:00 pm each day to add solar heat to the ice surface. But, for the remaining 18 hours of the arctic 24-hour-day, the is very, very little heat energy available at the sea ice surface, and even less absorbed into any exposed ocean surface.
The “difference” in solar energy absorbed into sea ice through the 5 summer months at low solar elevation angles between 16:00 pm and 8:00 am, and that absorbed by the newly exposed arctic ocean water at low solar elevation angles between 16:00 pm and 8:00 am can be calculated: It is very, very little energy per square meter.
The rest of the year, those seven months between 1 Sept and 31 March, less arctic sea ice means MORE open ocean cooling in the Arctic.
The Earth’s axial tilt causes more sunlight to reach the polar regions and this causes ice in the Arctic to melt during summer, show me evidence that it does not.
Sparks
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
Of course the arctic sea ice melts through the summer arctic months! When did I imply it did not melt?
Now, what I did say, to repeat, is that 7 months of the year, there is more heat lost from the newly open arctic ocean (from the open ocean that is exposed by loss of arctic sea ice, or a negative sea ice anomaly) by increased evaporation losses, increased radiation losses, increased convection losses and conduction differences than can be gained by absorption of the sun’s energy.
The other 5 months? April to August? Obviously more solar energy is absorbed than is reflected, and the only time significant excess solar energy is absorbed in during the time of maximum solar elevation before and after local noon.
Other times? When the sun is very low in the sky? The albedo of the “dirty” arctic sea ice during the summer is nearly the same as the albedo of sea water at the low solar elevation angles at the edges of the arctic ice pack. Little difference in albedo means little difference in heat absorbed by the open ocean.
Then wouldn’t albedo be neutral? except for UV as it is adsorbed more by snow and ice than open ocean.
Even if solar activity was a constant, basic physics of night and day are enough to explain Arctic ice melt during summer, the argument you’re raising is about the degree other factors have.
Tell me if you think atmospheric CO2 causes the Arctic sea ice to melt or not and stop beating about the bush.
BTW UV is absorbed by sea ice and snow not reflected by it.
Exactly. Emissions are 24/7 all year round, even during daylight in the short summer. Modellers seem to have assumed that the extra heat absorbed by exposed water will be more important than the increased cooling by evaporation.convection and LW radiation.
The evidence of the years following 2007 and 2012 clearly disproves this hypothesis. Their models are based on incorrect assumptions and ‘parameters’.
Sparks,
Most of the melting comes from beneath. After all, the water beneath is warmer than the ice, and constantly transferring warmth upwards. The only reason the ice gets thicker is because more heat is lost than is transferred upwards.
I’ve been watching ice melt for years, and the period melt-water pools form is actually fairly short. Then, quite often, the refreeze has already started at the top, but the melting from below is faster than the refreezing from the top, and the ice breaks up even though temperatures are below freezing.
A very good example can be seen in the time-lapse movie made of pictures from O-buoy 14 this year. You can see the melt-water pools refreeze and snow drift over the new ice, but that doesn’t keep the ice floe from falling apart due to warmth from below. (Slide the thingy at the bottom and watch from after the seven minute mark.)
http://obuoy.datatransport.org/monitor#buoy14/movie
> “A decade ago, this year’s sea ice extent would have set a new record low and by a fair amount. Now, we’re kind of used to these low levels of sea ice – it’s the new normal.”
The satellite record is about 60 years too short to even attempt a first cut at establishing modern normal even as an interglacial moving target.
You be just too bad dawg!
Better luck next year.
Well, history seems to disprove Meier’s favored “death spiral” theories about the Arctic ice feedback, while confirming his specific observation that the 2016 September sea ice extents cannot be predicted based on the “weather” in April-May.
Since the satellite record began in 1979, a HIGH sea ice extent at maximum sea ice in March-April has meant a LOW sea ice extent in Sept at sea ice minimums.
A LOW arctic sea ice extents in spring usually means a HIGH arctic sea ice extent in September.
Historically, a LOW sea ice minimum in September has meant very HIGH sea ice maximum the following spring in March.
Also, notice that the the low 2012 September minimum means that very little 2010-2011 sea ice was left in 2012 to become 3rd year and 2nd year sea ice in 2013. Thus, the supposedly thicker multi-year sea ice in 2013, 2014, and 2015 was “below average”. Notice that the PIOMASS arctic mass model shows a GAIN in sea ice mass during those years even with the low 2012 season thrown in; thus, in 2016 the sea ice mass will likely go up again. 2013-2014-2015 sea ice areas has been stable at -1.0 Mkm^2, and thus the multi-year ice remains higher than in the past 10 years.
A LOW arctic sea ice extents in spring usually means a HIGH arctic sea ice extent in September
This year we had very low extent in spring. That should mean a high extent in September. Yet we seem to be heading for the second lowest extent in the record. It seems stretch to call that a high sea ice extent.
seaice1
Not so. Arctic sea ice extents (now! Going through the middle of August) are running right near where they have been in the Augusts of 2013, 2014, and 2015. Earlier in the year (May and June) the levels were low. At maximum sea ice extents in March-early April, they were also right near the recent average for those dates.
IIn fact, this week’s arctic sea ice extents are actually only a few thousand square kilometers below the LONG-TERM 2 standard deviation line for August arctic sea ice! Thus, it is only a very small stretch to claim that today’s arctic sea ice extents are within the 2 std dev of “average sea ice” for this week. I won’t make that claim, but that’s just because of the accepted dictionary definition of 2 std dev’s.
The satellite record didn’t begin in 1979. 1979 was the beginning of sea ice measurements by the Nimbus 7 satellite’s scanning multichannel microwave radiometer (SMMR). But Nimbus 5 measured sea ice extent with a scanning single-channel microwave radiometer which could view ice through clouds from December 11, 1972 through May 16, 1977.
The first two IPCC Assessment Reports showed graphs of sea ice extent starting in 1973. Those graphs were not included in later Assessment Reports, but here’s what the First Assessment Report showed (I added the red circles):
http://www.sealevel.info/ipcc_far_pp224-225_sea_ice2_1979circled.png
I imagine that if you asked why the IPCC no longer uses sea ice data from prior to 1979 you’d be told that the Nimbus 7 multichannel instrument was superior to the earlier instrument aboard Nimbus 5. That is true, but, as you can see in the graph, above, it is also true that the 1979 starting point is very convenient to the alarmist narrative of steadily declining Arctic ice.
Beat me to the punch. The old data is too conveniently ignored.
There is some new study I haven’t looked at yet which “proves” the current levels are the lowest evah, so expect to see links to it.
Nimbus 5 provided good images:
Nimbus 1 from 1964:
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2014/07/Figure71.png
Nimbus-5 ESMR Polar Gridded Sea Ice Concentrations
https://nsidc.org/data/docs/daac/nsidc0009_esmr_seaice.gd.html
Resolution was 25 KM
Nimbus 7 resolution was also 25 KM
https://nsidc.org/data/docs/daac/nsidc0071_smmr_ease_tbs.gd.html
Thank you for those links and maps, Tommy!
I did tineye searches for those Nimbus 1 & 5 maps. I found the Nimbus 5 map, as well as a September (late winter) version, in an interesting 1976 National Geographic article, here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20100213075945/http://citynoise.org/article/10321
(Also copied here.)
The NSIDC appears to have gotten that Nimbus 1 map from Fig. 3 in this paper by Walt Meier:
http://www.the-cryosphere.net/7/699/2013/tc-7-699-2013.pdf
Can anyone show me a graph of 2016 sea ice using DMI data with a mean using 2 standard deviations (+/-) from 1970-2015?
Can anyone show me a graph of 2016 sea ice using DMI with a mean anomaly using 2 standard deviations (+/-) from 1980-2015?
Anyone?? why not? it’s been paid for, where is it?
Sparks, is this the graph you are looking for?
http://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/osisaf_nh_iceextent_daily_5years_en-3.png
It clearly shows that sea ice extent in 2016 is rapidly falling, closely tracking the results from 2012.
Except that, as the following ice thickness graphic shows, the thick sea ice extent this year is considerably greater than in 2012:
http://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/IceThickness-2012-2016.gif
So which data is right?
15% and 1.5 m thick ice are two different measures. DMI had a 30% graph which showed anomalous ice increase when they changed there screening and it was taken dwn last year. That 305 graph was more like the 1.5 m extent.
There may still be a DMI product out there of 305 ice just not labelled as such..
You know that’s a model, right?
And that the HYCOM model from the same data shows a different picture?
And that the ice may be thick, but not in a solid lump – the concentration may be as low as 15% ice?
Funny how some people dislike some models, and worship others. As far as I’m concerned, they ALL are pretty lousy. You’d be amazed how often my lying eyes beg to differ with models “facts”.
The WMO specifies that climate averages are reset at the start of every decade to be the average of the previous three decades. It’s a rather arbitrary standard, and may have roots in the size of ledger books and available desk space, but 1981-2010 is the current climate average.
Thanks Ric, I would still like to see how the Mean would change, is there a specification from the WMO that sea ice should always be perceived as melting in relation to the Mean? obviously years that had low sea ice are not included, if they were the average would be lower and it would seem the Arctic sea ice was increasing.
That WMO rule is based on ignorance of what controls the ice cover. It is using a warming period to create a temperature average that is meaningless. I proved [E&E (22)8:1069-1083 (2011)] that Arctic warming is not greenhouse warming and is the result of a re-arrangement of North Atlantic current system at the turn of the twentieth century. After a quick start it was followed by thirty years of cooling in mid-century. Warming restarted in 1970 and has been active ever since. All The published data on Arctic warming begin after that date and the authors are ignorant of how it started. They are also amazed that the cooling rate observed is twice as fast as that predicted by the carbon dioxide greenhouse theory. The explanation is that the warming is caused by the warm water carried north by the Gulf Stream, not by any imaginary greenhouse effect. The authors are also entirely ignorant of the deep history of the Arctic. It was proven by Kaufman et al. in 2009 that the last two thousand years of Arctic history was a slow, linear cooling that came to an end with an abrupt warming at the turn of the twentieth century. One of the consequences of the rearrangement of North Atlantic current system that caused it was to direct the north-flowing Gulf Stream more directly into the Arctic Ocean. As result, Spielhagen et al. were able to report in 2011 that direct sampling of water temperature reaching the Arctic showed it to be higher than anything seen there for the last 2000 years. Since the rate of warming depends upon the warm water brought into the Arctic by the Gulf Stream it is reasonable to expect that after a while some sort of balance will be reached and the rate of warming will slow down. We often get people wondering how come that the Arctic is warming but the Antarctic is not. The answer lies in what is described above. Take away the warmth carried into the Arctic by the Gulf Stream and it will be just as cold as the Antarctic is now.
Your request for 1970-2015 data is unavailable because the satellite record doesn’t extend to 1970. It only goes back to the late 1970s. (This is another reason for using 1981-2010.)
daveburton posted above that satellite data of the Arctic sea Ice was being recorded in the 70’s, do you know if this data is available anywhere? or did it conveniently go missing?
But there are many other records, which show even in the 20s to 40s ice extent wasn’t this low…
https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-piecing-together-arctic-sea-ice-history-1850
Sparks, this is a copy/paste from http://www.sealevel.info/resources.html#seaice1979 …
This NASA page says, “This [Nimbus 5 sea ice] data set is available from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, (NSIDC).” On the NCIDC site, we find the Nimbus Data Rescue Project, which has recovered some previously lost data from Nimbus 1, 2 & 3… For Nimbus 5, NSIDC has sea-ice concentration data through December 1976 available for download, and associated documentation. I don’t know what happened to the 1977 data, and I don’t know why the last three IPCC Assessment Reports have not utilized the 1973-1976 data. ↑
Oops, a botched copy/paste. Sorry! Trying again…
This NASA page says, “This [Nimbus 5 sea ice] data set is available from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, (NSIDC).” On the NCIDC site, we find the Nimbus Data Rescue Project, which has recovered some previously lost data from Nimbus 1, 2 & 3… For Nimbus 5, NSIDC has sea-ice concentration data through December 1976 available for download, and associated documentation. I don’t know what happened to the 1977 data, and I don’t know why the last three IPCC Assessment Reports have not utilized the 1973-1976 data. ↑
This is that new study I referred to above. Send it to Climate Audit.
The paper I’m referring to is the one “Griff” linked to. I cannot claim to have given it proper attention, because it is hard to attend to something that strikes you as complete hornswaggle, right off the bat.
I’ll eventually take a deep breath, hold my nose, and read it.
I was not referring to Dave Burton’s links.
It’s still in a continued decline over the long term,
Now, we’re kind of used to these low levels of sea ice – it’s the new normal.”
Walt needs to understand the difference between WAS and IS
Is it not going to be refreshing when these posers have no more lies to tell?
Surely there must be some scientists left in NASA that squirm in their seats every time such a statement comes out? Just look at the language. Its a disgrace to a public funded institute founded on science and engineering
NOAA is a little better: salted with “3rd warmest!” “6th warmest!” then when they are able to write “new record!!” the glee jumps out of the computer screen
Children
“We have a good handle on the sea ice area change,”
Is he kidding, being sarcastic, or just plain lying? How can they have a good handle on sea ice area (and extent), when the major data sources disagree by at least 10% on the ice extent number? For example, DMI has it just a shade below 6 Million square kilometers, NSIDC has it around 5.3, MASIE (from the same outfit) has 5.6, and the rest (JAXA, etc.) are scattered somewhere in between. If I survey the various scientific measurements of pretty much anything, and find them to be off by more than 10%, then I wouldn’t be comfortable that I have a “handle” on anything. True, they all measure it different ways with different instruments, but that’s the point – who’s right? Why are they right and the rest are wrong? Why are the sometimes close (15%).
The only “handle” these guys have on sea ice is their “love handles”, formed by sitting too long in front of a computer screen – they should try getting out in the field and figuring out how to agree on what they all say is a critical metric. Mosher in one sense has it right – if they can’t measure or model sea ice extent correctly (using the same 15% coverage metric), then how are they supposed to model or measure sea ice volume?
I await with baited breath the day when this science is “settled”…
It’s my understanding that the unfortunate demise of the DMSP F17 & F19 satellites means sea ice extent data since March, 2016 is very degraded. Here’s the tail of the U. Illinois’ global sea-ice extent graph:
http://www.sealevel.info/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend_2015-08-19_last3yrs_annotated.png
Here’s their Arctic sea ice extent graph:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.arctic.png
Here’s their Southern Ocean sea ice extent graph:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.antarctic.png
As you can see, during the month of April the data becomes erratic, and after the month of April there’s no data at all.
So what data are DMI & NSIDC using for their sea ice extent graphs?
They switched satellites…
Switched to what?
Switched to what?
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2016/06/satellite-data-transition-complete/
Thank you, Toneb. Does anyone know why U.Illinois’ graphs still show no data?
Near as I can tell, the cryosphere group is a couple of scientists and whatever interns they can catch. If an intern has computer skills, computer stuff gets updated. Otherwise things just sit there.
Apparently, the DMSP F18 satellite, which was pressed into service after the failures of F19 & F17, isn’t all that healthy, either. It has only 10 of 24
SSMIS channels still functional. How much does that degrade it’s capabilities for measuring sea ice?
Too bad, and 2016 is the last chance for a long time to come.
I agree.
The only chance now is for a completely wacky meridional flow like they had in 1817, when a third of the sea-ice surged down into the North Atlantic, icebergs grounded on the beaches of Ireland, and Europe froze its socks off. “The Year with no Summer.” Even then some would be exclaiming, “Look! Look! The Arctic Ocean has a record low ice extent!”
“It’s the new normal” Just like snow being a thing of the past? There should be an annual WUWT award for this statement as well.
Well all that is very interesting, but lets see what that will mean for the cruise through the North West Passage. Apparently it is in Dutch Harbor now and I am very interested in progress, as I am sure some here are also. http://www.cruisin.me/cruise-ship-tracker/crystal-cruises/crystal-serenity.php
How many are on board the ship of fools?
So we are simultaneously in a death spiral and a steady ‘new normal’ cruising altitude.
More contradictory gobbledygook from NASA.
“Even when it’s likely that we won’t have a record low, the sea ice is not showing any kind of recovery.”
” ice conditions are less vulnerable than four years ago, Meier said.”
How can ice conditions be *less* vulnerable if there’s been no kind of recovery?
The Arctic is cooling quite fast right now and this is going to have a positive impact on the Arctic Ice.
The so-called “decline” in Arctic sea ice from the 1970’s, when the Arctic sea ice levels were pretty much the same as at the end of the LIA, the COLDEST period in the last 10,000.
The Icelandic sea ice index shows why the Arctic Worriers always like to work from that period.
Furthermore, there is a lot of biodata that shows the current Arctic Sea Ice level is anomalously HIGH compared to the often zero summer sea ice of most of the first 3/4 of the Holocene.
I note the sea ice looks very low during the extreme hot weather of the 1930’s.
But not as low as now… check out the whole record from 1850 from this article:
https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-piecing-together-arctic-sea-ice-history-1850
Yeah, well it is “almost” as hot now as it was in the 1930’s, or 1998, for that matter, so it could be expected that ice would be lower than when the weather is cooler.
The problem with such studies is that they rely on very sketchy data for sea ice extent numbers prior to the 1970s, and they don’t even try to calculate any confidence intervals.
In truth, there are insufficient data to support a claim that current sea ice levels are either anomalously high or anomalously low, compared to the first 2/3 of the 20th century, and before. If reasonable confidence intervals were included in the graph at the end of the CarbonBrief article, that fact would be very obvious.
Have you noticed how widely the various sea ice indices differ from one another, even now, with modern passive microwave satellite measurements, which can view ice through clouds? Well, the data is orders of magnitude worse for years prior to the 1970s.
Starting in the mid-1960s, we had visible-wavelength satellite photography, which represented an enormous improvement in sea ice data, though the ice was very often obscured by clouds. Before that there is very little data. There were spotty aerial surveys of small portions of the Arctic periphery, occasional upward-sonar measurements of ice draft above submarine tracks starting in 1958, and some ship reports, from ships which prudently tried to stay well away from anything approaching the 15% ice coverage threshold.
Considering how varying weather patterns in the Arctic can push ice around, from one side to another, such spotty information is nearly useless for estimating total ice extent or volume.
“The most elementary and valuable statement in science, the beginning of wisdom, is, ‘I do not know.’” Jack B. Sowards (screenwriter), voiced by Lt Cdr Data (Brent Spiner).
What these scammers have done is INVENT a story that low Arctic sea ice is somehow BAD.
Where in actual fact, lower sea ice levels are actually the NORM,
its just that it was EXTYREMELY HIGH in the 1970’s.
It is my understanding that 2012 lows were caused by strong gale force winds that packed the ice.
That could happen again and the alarmists would be jumping up and down thinking it was AGW.
Edmonton Al
Let them think that. It would have the truthiness they already believe. In the long run run will make no difference.
I have just been kicked off the Guardian website for pointing out the following:
AMO = average of HADCRUT3, GISTEMP, UAH and RSS = same.
Global temperature anomaly is AMO:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-amo/from:1979/plot/wti
Global climate change crisis over!
I can see why they wouldn’t want you around, doc. That’s a very compelling graph. A little too compelling, obviously.
Here’s Dr Flange’s graph, in-lined. (For better resolution, click his woodfortrees link.)
http://www.sealevel.info/AMO_vs_temp_since_1979.png
of course the AMO does or did the global warmists build a huge barrier to prevent the warm AMO phase waters to enter the arctic?
(do i need sarc tags?)
The interesting and surprising thing, Frederik, is that the green trace is not an Arctic sea ice graph, it’s a global temperature graph.
The Guardian hate scientific facts against their agenda crusade.
The AMO controls global temperatures on the scale detected during our short satellite lifetime.
http://s772.photobucket.com/user/SciMattG/media/RSS%20Global_v_RemovedAMO2_zpsssrgab0r.png.
Link above doesn’t work, hopefully this will.
http://i772.photobucket.com/albums/yy8/SciMattG/RSS%20Global_v_RemovedAMO2_zpsssrgab0r.png~original
Here’s Matt G’s graph, in-lined, showing the same thing as Dr. Flange’s graph, in a different way:
http://www.sealevel.info/RSS Global_v_RemovedAMO2_zpsssrgab0r.png
Oops, I overlooked the space in the name. Fixed here:
http://www.sealevel.info/RSS_Global_v_RemovedAMO2_zpsssrgab0r.png
“This year is a great case study in showing how important the weather conditions are during the summer, especially in June and July, when you have 24 hours of sunlight and the sun is high in the sky in the Arctic,” Meier said. “
I have a feeling that something is wrong with this statement. Summer solstice occurs on 22nd of June each year and on this day sunlight is hitting the North Pole from 23.5 degrees above the horizon. On 80th parallel north latitude, where, as far as I know most of the seasonally melt and refreeze takes place, the maximum observable angle of the Sun would be about 33.5 degrees at local noon. At midnight, the Sun is still above the horizon if we are observing it from 80°deg North but its angle is only 13.5° above the icy surface of the Arctic Ocean during summer solstice. After a few weeks, during the second half of July the Sun’s angle begins to shrink considerably.
So anything like “the sun is high in the sky in the Arctic” sounds pretty weird for me. I live in Eastern Europe on 47.5N, it allows a maximum angle of 66° for incoming sunlight. I wouldn’t call it high in the sky either.
So it sounds like the error on this new satellite measurement could be quite large, unless they have lots of land based survey tie-ins up there. A typical areoplane based LiDAR survey with good ground control survey tie in would have accuracy of +\- 150mm. Given 9/10 of the thickness is below the surface, this means the error on that accuracy could be in the order of 1.5m, IF they achieve same level of accuracy, unless I am missing something.
“It’s the new normal.” Well, isn’t the meteorological ‘normal’ defined in ranges of the last 30 years? Not really that remarkable in that context given the cycles involved are 30-60 years long and we only have data since ’79.
Heaven for me, would be a place where I could watch among other things, so many predictions flame out 🙂
Yes. In all honesty what the world needs is a White knight who saves all the predictions in one database so future generations can see our folly and learn something. In the old days one could create a scrap book of newspaper clippings. Those days have gone Any chance of WUWT filing all published predictions it locates in one location? . Its a thankless task but will turn out invaluable
Meantime I am investing in a laying chicken farm. Odds are there will be a lot of egg on a lot of faces somewhere down the track 🙂
With great interest I read the latest paper of the NSIDC fellows http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016JD025161/abstract about arctic summer weather and it’s “predictive skill” ( in the headline: it’s a ” cautionary tale”). In the cited paper there are some remarkable conclusions:
” Summer atmospheric circulation anomalies for years preceding Septembers with ice extent close to (within 250,000 km2 ) of the trend line are highly variable; one can identify summers for which the circulation pattern arguably should have favored a September extent well below the trend line or well above the trend line”…”All of these factors contribute to the observation that similar summer atmospheric anomaly patterns can be followed by a wide range of September sea ice extent, and that very different patterns can result in similar total extent. ”
Anyway, in the latest NSIDC- report with a retrospective review of the weather in July is written:
…”attended by persistent low pressure systems in the same region, led to slightly slower than average sea ice decline through the month. The stormy pattern contributed to a dispersed and ragged western Arctic ice pack for July, with several polynyas beginning to form late in the month. A new record low September ice extent now appears to be unlikely.”
It’s my understanding that the september-forecast ( no new minimum) in the press release is deduced vastly from the weather conditions of July. The authors are the same as these of the cited paper and there is in my eyes some kind of discrepancy: The paper says: The predictive skill of the summer-weather in the arctic for the september SIE is a “tale” and in the press release there is a great analysis of the weather in July with a resulting forecast for September from the same authors.
Yes, but a second or third lowest record is absolutely certain now – and a second lowest area…
There were poor melt conditions and we still are at a near record level…
Record lows…compared to WHEN ???
“since records began” right?? lol
A sure sign of a cooling earth. What do you think happens with open water in six months of darkness?
Poor melt conditions? With storm after storm shattering the ice and stirring it like a mixed drink?
Earlier this summer I saw some Alarmists commenting, “If only, if only, if ONLY we had a storm like 2012, that would show them.” Well, be careful what you wish for. There have been several, and the bleeping stuff refuses to melt (though the sea-ice is looking pretty pulverized).
“A persistent area of low atmospheric pressure, accompanied by cloudiness”
Hmmm… Quiet sun, GCR, persistent cloudiness. It only takes 2.5% more cloud to make a big difference to the isolation reaching the surface.
Now, we’re kind of used to these low levels of sea ice – it’s the new normal
Something that becomes the new normal is something that is not changing anymore.
i wonder do any of these global warming “scientists” even understand what the “climate” is? i ask because the climate is simply a statistic derived from the previous 30 years of weather for a given area…..the climate exerts NO CONTROL at all over the weather, just like a batter in baseball and their batting average, their average(climate) exerts ZERO control over their next at bat………
Sheesh, Google Dunning–Kruger effect before you post more stuff like this.
ty for your very lame attempt at insult……IF you disagree with the accuracy of exactly what “climate” is then i suggest you read your own link.
Looks likely that Arctic sea ice extent minimum in 2016 will be either the 2nd or 3rd lowest on the instrument record, with the previous 2 record minimum extent setters occurring since 2007. Even though it probably won’t set a new minimum (Sept) record, 2016 will very likely set a new annual average (Jan-Dec) low record Arctic sea ice extent.
Not so long ago Joe Bastardi and others were forecasting that 2007 had probably marked the trough of Arctic minimum sea ice extent and that future years (from 2011 onwards) would ultimately see a return to 1970s-type extents: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-G-ozEvSFVg
2011 came in way below Joe’s forecast and 2012 smashed the the 2007 minimum extent record. There was no recovery in the long term (30-year) trend at all, despite increased extents in 2013 and 2014. 2015 saw another downturn. The 30 year minimum extent trend as of 2015 was the same as it was at 2012 (-1.05 million km per decade reduction – NSIDC).
Alas, Arctic sea ice continues its long term rapid decline.
… and accelerating. It makes it ever more likely of massive methane release. God help us.
You can’t have, ”long term rapid decline” forever.
People were sailing around in the arctic, where they’re sailing around now in the arctic, in the 1800s.
People were surfacing submarines at the North Pole – in the mid 1900s.
The direction of the wind is the main force creating Arctic ice extents, and it’s going to continue to do that forever. When the winds spread the ice, the ice extent is far larger and repeatedly, attempts to characterize arctic ice as ”frightening” to soft sciences soothsayers have proven worse than worthless; it’s repudiation there’s any science in them.
Climate is what’s called a soft science. People looking for ghosts in houses use spectrum analyzers. They use wind detection instruments, if they could, they’d get grants and harness N.A.S.A. super-computer bandwidth to loop endless ghost ‘para-information” and predict where the next spooky edition was going to pop up.
Climatology with it’s ”It’s real math, Ya’ll!” hockey stick generators.
The ”six trees out in a stand of mud in Norway said the world never was this hot!” tree ring fraud.
The crazy as antifreeze drinking end-times groupies behavior in committing peer review fraud till your church’s adherents are the only people even mentioned any more in regard to quackery. Folks don’t refer to Bigfoot first in the kook science department any more, they refer to ‘climatology’ and ‘Area 51.’
And here comes you, DWR54 with news that the trauma just got bigger. It’s apocalyptic hellfire shooting rays of befuddlingly backerdistical boiling. Your religion’s claim is that the heat in boiling water, makes the pan hot instead of the fire the water’s cooling.
Earth’s atmosphere is a fluid that’s colder than the earth. The earth is doing the main heating of the planet/atmosphere complex. The atmosphere is doing the cooling. You don’t put water into a pan you’re heating with an infrared light and claim the water, soaking heat from that pot, is the heater,
but climatology tells the world a swirling, cold bath of atmospheric air, is a heater.
And that the ice which maintains it’s historically known norms, keeps cycling through each year, till now,
your church is facing the fact that every single major math-set used to predict coming temperature oscillation around the well known 30 year half-cycles
says it’s cooling time again, just like every time before, and the unwashed records still don’t show anything different about today’s climate than the past 100 plus years.
Your scientists got caught passing hockey stick fraud as fake math.
They thought it was going to continue warming so they faked warming till at least, when Phil Jones admitted he faked warming for 10 years. He admitted it had actually cooled since 1998, in February of 2010 to the BBC.
You’re the classical alarmist – that is,that you don’t appear to have worked in the metrics fields. Programming for my skyscraper elevator isn’t wrong often. Neither is the programming for my wide body jumbo jet. The computer programming for my space orbits isn’t questionable and ‘iffy’.
All this is,
is a single body of gas on one small planet and the thing modern ”climatology” brought it is that people go find, and ridicule, people who believe in it, even if they’re college professors.
Working scientists in the world’s real programming fields don’t touch climatology because the universally deplorable lack of any standard for data and even criminal behavior on behalf of it’s adherents is so high.
Insiders to your field wrote the ”HarryReadMe.txt file, not skeptics of your religion’s pseudo-science and pseudo-scientific methodologies.
Insiders to your field refuse to even use proper atmospheric gas equations to analyze the atmosphere; claiming the fact they can’t predict the temperature at all, and are legendary for being wrong,
has nothing to do with refusing to use proper gas equations for calculation of atmospheric gas properties.
The Arctic is not only still very much alive and kicking, there are more polar bears than in recorded history when ”climatologists” told the entire planet they were diminishing and in grave danger.
The Arctic isn’t any different today than it was many, many years ago, when wooden ships were plying the waters of the North Atlantic and beyond the Arctic Circle just like ships do today.
So your teen blog alarmism might go well wherever they ban people for telling the truth about your religion but here the religious is less,
the ”you repeat that and explain every aspect of it, or you’re running a fake” is more.
This site was founded on having people mail in photographic proof of the deplorable state of the earth sensing stations and how those data didn’t agree with reality. At all.
This site was also founded on having caught your religion’s major founders in several scientific errors regarding their altering U.S. temperature records without reason.
This site also has members who come from around the world having checked the records and statements of pseud-science and there’s no indicator to anyone, not involved in government employ or the alarmism field, that temperatures are, or have been rising, really.
As noted, your own #1 climatologist admitted as recently as 2010 that he checked – and it was colder then than 1998. (The Phil Jones BBC interview)
If you sound so sure of Arctic Apocalypse then you probably also, didn’t get the news about that. Or when the Met Office issued the press release ”The Recent Pause In Warming” in 2013 where they laid out their 3 papers detailing how they just forgot about how there had been a pause in global warming since 1998. (They were about to be sued for their refusal to tell the truth to insurers so they came clean: temperatures flat since the late 90s).
And nobody ever went back and corrected their records on that, after those confessions there’s been no warming since the late 90s, either, come to think of it. So you’re way behind the real story it sounds like. It’s not actually boiling worldwide like you’re being told.
If it were, the world’s #1 climatologist wouldn’t have admitted it had cooled since 1998 and the world’s #1 climatology organization wouldn’t have posted three papers detailing how they knew it hadn’t warmed since 1998.
Those aren’t skeptical organizations that were hedged and forced through legal means, to admit it hadn’t warmed, those are the very organizations issuing the press releases claiming warming.
what strikes me in all this is that seen the record low maximum the melt was pretty “average” except for the month of May.
it was a bit below or near the standard -2 deviation at it’s maximum, and not far from the same point right now.
now i wouldn’t be surprised to see this is the new “normal” After all except for the 2012 dip the ice remained “stable” around the -1 million km² mark on cryosphere.
The great ice pile up on the north coasts of Greenland and North America thickens the ice. It does this via mechanical processes. The meta message in all this is, volume is a more interesting metric than area.