by Javier
I have maintained since 2015 that in the 2006-2007 season the Arctic underwent a cyclical phase shift, and the rapid sea-ice melting observed over the previous decades ended. A few scientists predicted or explained this shift based on their study of multi-decadal oscillations (see bibliography). They were ignored by mainstream climatology and the press because the “anthropogenic” melting of the Arctic is one of the main selling points of the climate scare. See for example:
A devastating Arctic temperature rise that could submerge coastal cities and trigger species extinction is now locked in. Business Insider March 15, 2019
Year after year the data supports my view over the desperate scaremongers like Tamino. With the passing of time it is more and more difficult to defend the idea that Arctic melting is continuing, so alarmists keep changing the metric. First it was September sea-ice extent (SIE), then September sea-ice volume, and now annual average SIE. However, the reference measurements are September minimum SIE and March maximum SIE.
This article is more than a biannual update on the Arctic ice situation, as I will focus specifically on showing evidence for the trend change that took place in 2007. As 12 years have passed since the shift, the best way is to compare the 2007-2019 period with the previous 1994-2006 period of equal length to display the striking differences between both periods.
The supposed dangers of an ice-free Arctic appear to be decreasing. While the first period showed a September (minimum) SIE loss of 20%, the second has seen a gain of 10%.
March (maximum) SIE still shows a decreasing trend, although it is so small as to be negligible. While the first period showed a March SIE loss of 8%, the second period displays the same March SIE in 2019 as 12 years before.
Nowhere is the 2007 Arctic shift better seen than in SIE melting. This is the sea-ice surface melted every year from the March maximum to the September minimum. The 2007 melting season saw a jump from ~ 9 million km^2 to ~ 10.5 million km^2 melted, but accompanying this huge jump in melted surface came a trend inversion, so the surface melted has been decreasing since then. It will be interesting to see what happens to the annual melted surface over the next few years
We have been told repeatedly that our emissions are responsible for the melting of the Arctic. There is a problem with this hypothesis. Despite completely different melting profiles, both periods display the same percentage increase in CO₂. Changes in CO₂ levels do not explain the differences in sea-ice behavior for the two halves of the last 26 years. And this is also a problem because we have been told repeatedly that by reducing our CO₂ emissions we can save the Arctic. Yet Arctic sea-ice is unlikely to respond to changes in our CO₂ emissions given its lack of response to consistently increasing CO₂ levels.
The most common scientific explanation for Arctic sea-ice melting is the extraordinary warming taking place at high latitudes due to Arctic amplification. It is described as a positive feedback where the decrease in ice and snow cover reduces planetary albedo, thus increasing radiative warming. This, together with increased heat transport from lower latitudes drives further reductions in ice cover. This explanation is problematic, as Arctic amplification has continued unabated in the absence of SIE reduction and without producing further SIE reduction. The decrease in ice albedo from losing 40% of the September sea-ice cover between 1994 and 2007 has been unable to drive further loses since then, refuting the sea-ice “death spiral” proposed by Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
The climatic factor that explains sea-ice behavior and was the basis for the only correct prediction of the 2006-2007 Arctic shift is internal variability: The existence in the climate system of multi-decadal oceanic-atmospheric oscillations. The problem for the climate alarmists with this explanation is that if it explains why the ice is not melting now, it also explains in great part why it was melting before, greatly reducing the possible anthropogenic contribution. Another problem for them is that these oscillations are not part of the general circulation models, because their origin is unknown. Thus, making the general circulation models essentially useless to project changes. And these are all strong talking points for climate skeptics.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Årthun, M., et al. 2017. “Skillful prediction of northern climate provided by the ocean.” Nature Communications, 8, ncomms15875.
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15875
Divine, D.V. and Dick, C., 2006. Historical variability of sea ice edge position in the Nordic Seas. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 111 (C1).
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2004JC002851
Miles, M.W., et al. 2014. “A signal of persistent Atlantic multidecadal variability in Arctic sea ice.” Geophys. Res. Lett., 41, 463–469.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013GL058084/full
Wyatt, M.G. and Curry, J.A., 2014. Role for Eurasian Arctic shelf sea ice in a secularly varying hemispheric climate signal during the 20th century. Climate dynamics, 42 (9-10), pp.2763-2782.
https://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/stadium-wave1.pdf
DATA SOURCES:
Arctic Sea Ice extent
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/north/monthly/data/
Temperature reanalysis
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/data/testdap/timeseries.pl
CO₂
ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/products/trends/CO₂/CO₂_annmean_mlo.txt
PREVIOUS ARTICLES:
Evidence that multidecadal Arctic sea ice has turned the corner
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/10/07/evidence-that-multidecadal-arctic-sea-ice-has-turned-the-corner/
Arctic melt season changes and the Arctic regime shift
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/08/11/arctic-melt-season-changes-and-the-arctic-regime-shift/
I wish I could post an image on here but:
If you go to the National Snow and Ice center you can find spreadsheets with ice data for the arctic going back to about 1978. You can easily plot them in a spreadsheet. What is obvious, plotting max extent, min extent, and avg extent is that in about 2005, the loss of ice bottomed out.
The data can be downloaded here.
https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/sea-ice-tools/
It is worth looking around this web site to get some idea of the bonaza of Federal dollars that has flowed to researchers who believe in global warming.
Has anybody noticed:
A devastating Arctic temperature rise that could submerge coastal cities and trigger species extinction is now locked in. Business Insider March 15, 2019
Ups, the guy forgot Arhimedes? Arctic ice FLOATS on seawater, so no matter how much of it melts, the sea level does not rise (to be precise, it drops somewhat).
Not all the arctic Ice floats. Like the gletschers on Greenland.
We r talking abt arctic SEA ice only…
“Oops” was the word you were thinking of.
Just to add to my recent post above, I looked at the ice data again. 2019 is looking like a bad year for arctic ice with coverage falling off rapidly in April. As of April 22, 2019, the ice is 13.2 million sq miles, compared to the previous record low for that date last year of 13.55 million sq miles.
We should we be worried? Does anybody know what caused this?
Joel, it is early melting of Bering ice which had a low maximum to start with. Now Okhotsk is losing ice as usual (slightly above average for these days), and the combination show extents dropping faster than usual. Of course, this ice is always gone before September.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2019/04/16/bering-sea-ice-blues-mid-april-2019/
Continued ENSO El Nino warmed waters and air above it arriving poleward at the Bering Sea is my supposition.
Joel, don’t worry 2 much. The extent of April has only a very weak correlation to the September Extent. The gap in this April comes mostly from the Bering which melts out in May/June every year. So nobody can say if 2019 is a good or a bad year for the whole arctic at this time.
Javier, nice work. Your graphs make it easy to see the changes. It’s very obvious that increasing CO2 in the last decade has not been driving decreasing annual minimum ice extent in the Arctic as has been claimed by climate alarmists. In my view, water in all its phases (gas, liquid, solid) is the major driver of climate changes on scales of decades and possibly out to centuries. Global climate models are woefully inadequate in characterizing the complexities of the influences of water in its various forms. CO2 only plays a very minor role. Time will tell.
The idea that melting sea ice will cause a rise in sea levels involves an ignorance of the most basic school level physics. Land based ice melting and flowing into the sea, Greenland or Antarctica, would have an effect. The Arctic ice cap melting would have no effect on sea levels.
Since radiation impinging on the earth from the sun is related to the sin of the angle of incidence, it is hard or impossible to generate feedback warming at the poles with an 88 degree angle of incidence. There isn’t much radiation getting to the surface in the first place there.
Thanks Javier. It is interesting that the increase follows the step-function drop in the AP Index in 2005. At the same time, the AP Index dropped in 1998 during the El Nino warmth as well, but didn’t remain down as it has 2005-14. The most recent info I could lazily find on the AP is 2014.
Why the focus on the NSIDC extremes? Slight changes in the weather have a dramatic effect. A Month ago 2019 Arctic ice was much more extensive than the previous four years, now 2019 is less extensive. A more accurate measure of what is trending in ice extent is looking at The NSIDC Charctic graph for July 1 and December 1 (Observation: Although the last 10 year extents are below those for the 1980-2010 average they’ve been essentially unchanged year to year. A trend if any is so minimal as to be negligible. Nothing here move on.
Javier;
I would suggest that the point you are trying to make is a conflation of the appearance the exceptional melt year of 2007 made on the long-term trend …. and then a reversion back to it …. into a “shift” in trend.
Try drawing the following (Sept extent) graph 2007 and 2012 much nearer the average linear trend line.
“The 2007 melting season saw a jump from ~ 9 million km^2 to ~ 10.5 million km^2 melted, but accompanying this huge jump in melted surface came a trend inversion,”
But it didn’t, 2012 saw an even greater melt. And 2007 was an outlier low to boot (by >1 Million Km^2 from the trend).
You are making a reverse in trend from one exceptional year (aided by 2012), that could never have been continued.
On the basis that there is NV in melt years caused by that summer’s weather (especially the early part when melt-ponds are formed and so decreasing albedo early on), you cannot surmise a trend based on just a few years, and certainly not a change in one.
Take away 2007/2012 to something near the trend and your imagined “reversal” disappears.
IOW: the later years are perfectly consistent with a steady declining SIE with the that before.
In fact melt had been running well ahead of IPCC projections, and (physically) could never have been maintained….
I disagree. Even if you disregard the data from 2007 and 2012, there is no downward trend since 2008.
Quite simply a linear trend does not represent what Arctic sea ice has been doing. A polynomial fit shows periods of more rapid melting and periods of moderate growth.
The big mistake was the extrapolation made in 2008 that indicated the Arctic was going to melt in a few years.
Year after year those defending that the Arctic is melting rapidly are expecting a further decrease in sea ice. Year after year the decrease is not taking place.
Anthony Banton,
It is important to remember the original debate. Some of us have been at this for twenty years now.
The original debate expected an acceleration of melting. Open water would make water warmer, and warmer water would make more open water. This idea has not panned out.
Keep your eye on the pea. Alarmists are forever changing the subject.
Javier, your entire analysis is worthless/meaningless. The reason it is worthless is because you are comparing a 10 and a 11 year interval. You need to use longer time intervals to establish trends.
That’s your opinion. My opinion is that changes in climate take place all the time and some people that are good observers can notice them in a few years while bad observers require a lot more years. That’s what happened with the pause. Detected in 2006 by an skeptic it took to 2012 for most scientists to start publishing articles about it. If the pause in melting continues, in a few years some scientists will start saying what I am saying now.
Any and all climate parameters are defined to be a 30 year average of said parameter. So you are incorrect to say, “good observers can notice them in a few years.”
…
You need to learn about climate science and how it is done instead of wasting your time “cherry picking” 10 and 11 year intervals to grind your axe.
You are ill informed. The scientific literature is full of articles analyzing climate change over periods much shorter than 30 years. And the reviewers and editors agreed that climate change can be discussed over shorter periods.
You wait 30 years if you want. I won’t.
Clearly not from you, who appears to know little on the matter.
Any and all climate parameters are defined to be a 30 year average of said parameter. So you are incorrect to say, “good observers can notice them in a few years.”
And yet the whole CAGW nonsense basically kicked off in the 1980s when there was only a 10 year or so trend in rising temps after decades (40s to 70s) of declining temps that had previously prompted the “coming ice age” nonsense. Heck the pause ended up being longer than the warming trend that kicked off the CAGW scam. Perhaps you need to learn the history of “climate science” instead of wasting your time selectively being outraged in order to grind your own axe.
For example, if you look at NSIDC Arctic sea ice extents, http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png
.
You’ll note that the average is determined by a 30 year interval from 1981-2010
How can you call a record low a “pause”?
https://ads.nipr.ac.jp/vishop/#/extent
Arctic sea ice extent between March and September is highly variable, as the speed of melting is highly variable. If after 12 years September sea ice and March sea ice extents are the same or higher, how do you call that? I call that a pause. Particularly since we were told repeatedly that Arctic sea ice was doomed and had gone over a tipping point. Striking contrast between hypothesis and reality.
“Arctic sea ice extent between March and September is highly variable”
You no idea what you’re talking about. You’ve cherry-picked a date that confirms your bias.
Your headlind should have read:
“Big Arctic Sea-Ice melt-out, heading for a Blue Ocean Event as amplification ramps up”
or:
Sea-ice extent 100k square kilometers lower than previous record low.
Loydo needs time to digest what he’s been exposed to. I think further talk with him is fairly futile.
Thanks again for your efforts.
Thanks for your valuable input Caleb.
Javier
“My opinion is that changes in climate take place all the time and some people that are good observers can notice them in a few years while bad observers require a lot more years.”
Oh, how strange, Javier!
Every time somebody shows a bit of ice extent loss over a short period, there will soon be another one telling her/him: “Show me your confidence intervals!”.
And so I do with you. Here are the linear estimates with 2 sigma CI, in Mkm²/decade, for
(1) 1995-2018
– March: -0.46 ± 0.09
– Sept: -1.10 ± 0.16
(2) 1995-2006
– March: -0.59 ± 0.25
– Sept: -1.00 ± 0.36
(3) 2007-2018
– March: -0.64 ± 0.25
– Sept: 0.10 ± 0.41
The last estimate is absolutely meaningless because it is statistically insignificant.
The main reason for this september drop between 2007 and 2018 you will find in the very low extent years 2007 and 2012. Excluding these two moves your estimate from +0.1 down to -0.3 Mkm².
Coeur de Lion’s opinion:
“You need to use longer time intervals to establish trends.”
is absolutely correct.
“The last estimate is absolutely meaningless because it is statistically insignificant.”
That something is not statistically significant most definitely does not make the estimate meaningless. It means that there has not been any significant change.
By the way, did you determine whether your data is normally distributed. For it is only in that case that two sigma equals p=0.05.
I ask because most climate scientists seem to be unaware of this.
tty states: “It means that there has not been any significant change.”
..
EXACTLY, which is why you are agreeing with me that Javier’s entire post is garbage.
..
He needs to use longer time intervals than 10, or 11 years in length to gain signficance.
The abuse of linear regression and simple statistics in these pages and in climate science in general would be hilarious if it weren’t so sad. “Statistical significance” is only useful if applied correctly, and even then it does not say much about significance. Sorry your analysis says nothing. Javier is showing that observations do not match a prediction, your linear regression is irrelevant to that conclusion.
Andy
You could try to do something like I did here:
https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:42f86fb5-bd3a-4bce-a1d2-2e33fe3fa66b
doing the regressions over 4 different periods, use the derivatives and set the derivatives out against time.
The resulting graph shows the acceleration
(very much like setting the speed of a ball thrown in the air out against time in m/s. The curve is then in m/s2)
Andy May
I recommend you to process a review of all comments made in the last years by a huge amount of people (let me guess: mostly retired engineers with a lot of experience), concerning exactly the contrary of what you mean here.
Many of them correctly attacked other commenters trying to show warming effects based on spurious estimates for which the standard error was much higher than the estimate itself.
Bindidon, Coeur de Lion,
A lot of people have trouble understanding what statistics tells us about a phenomenon, and particularly with respect to statistical significance. Things are real or not regardless of their statistical significance. A change of trend in a periodical oscillation is real the moment it takes place and does not become real many years later when it finally achieves statistical significance. Statistics is a tool that helps us distinguish what can be due to chance and what it can’t and only if properly applied.
Could the Arctic sea-ice changes of the past 12 years be due to chance? Of course. Are they due to chance? No. We have plenty of information about the system and its relationship to AMO that supports the coincidence in the change in AMO trend and sea-ice trend as causally related. We know the temperature of the water and the strength of the current that pushes the ice south are very important factors.
Therefore it is your statistical analysis that is garbage because it ignores a lot of data and knowledge about sea-ice periodicity and Arctic conditions well reflected in the bibliography at the end of the article. Using a simple test on a series of numbers is not only uninformative, it is an ignorant way of approaching the problem.
By the time the Arctic shift becomes significant with your test I’ll be 20 years ahead in understanding what causes it. The Arctic shift is real whether it passes your significance test or not.
Javier, when the 30-year trend approaches, or becomes zero, then you rightfully can say there is a “pause.” Up until then, you are using time intervals that are way too short to may any substantive claim. When you do climate science, you can’t change the rules to suit the conclusions you wish to make. The rules of the game are 30-year intervals.
There are no such rules. Scientists have not agreed on that and if you were familiar with the scientific literature on climate you would know. A lot of climate-related phenomena manifests over periods of less than 30 years. I think you don’t know what you are talking about.
One complete solar cycle is 21 year.
“There are no such rules. Scientists have not agreed on that ”
…
Your ignorance of accepted science is showing…..
…
https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_the_best_period_to_define_a_climate
You are hilarious, Coeur de Lion,
Your link is not published science, but a posted question that gets different answers. The second post (Popular answers 1) totally contradicts what you are saying:
“Climate in a narrow sense is usually defined as the ‘average weather’, or more rigorously, as the statistical description in terms of the mean and variability of relevant quantities over a period of time ranging from months to thousands or millions of years…
there are also more fundamental reasons that relies on a possible separation between fast and slow variations, the fast variations being usually unpredictable climate variability, and the slow ones being deterministic climate change due for instance to external influence. Although it is not possible to specify exactly where this potential separation lies, there are suggestions that it is somewhere between 10 and 100 years.”
Good demonstration that:
a) You have no clue what is published science
b) You are wrong that there is a rule that says it must be a 30-years period
You just shot yourself in the foot with that link.
Show me the published science that defines the interval(s) over which climate is measured.
…
Do not include blog posts such as: “I have already published about this: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/10/05/arctic-ice-natural-variability/”
…
If you were doing real science, you’d know full well that your 10 and 11 year period of analysis is way too short to make any kind of meaningful conclusion.
As I am trying to tell you, there is no interval defined as climate. It is very difficult for scientists to agree on anything and they are free to publish what they want. Look for climatic effects of volcanic eruptions. They never go beyond 5 years yet they are called climatic effects, not weather effects. There are many thousands of articles refuting your silly idea that climate is only 30-years or more.
What you are talking about is a norm established by the WMO to define a baseline in climate variables. Scientists are free to follow it or not and most don’t. You are discussing about something you have little knowledge and don’t understand. You shouldn’t.
The funny thing is that alarmists use any phenomenon, a wildfire, a hurricane, a flood, as proof of global warming, yet they tell skeptics that climate is only 30-years to dismiss their evidence. Sorry, it isn’t going to work. The ice is not melting and IPCC experts have no explanation for it. The scientists that do have an explanation have been ignored.
I would be interested to know what effect wind direction and strength has on Arctic sea ice statistics. The 15% level means that there is plenty of opportunity for ice packing and dispersion, depending on wind direction, thereby modifying the extent, especially at the margins.
“The 15% level means that there is plenty of opportunity for ice packing and dispersion”
Quite a bit is the answer.
Javier’s last post on Arctic SIE trumpeted it being higher than recent years at the same time.
Then came a quite dramatic fall, to become the lowest for the time of year on the satellite record.
Almost certainly due to wind compaction.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/1999/04/Figure_2.png
That makes sense as the volume is stable over the last 12 years, … http://psc.apl.uw.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/schweiger/ice_volume/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrentV2.1.png
The wind is indeed very significant. The very low 2012 minimum was caused by a big storm in August, something that is very unusual at that time of year in the Arctic.
IMO sea ice extent is meaningless the way it is used for that very reason.
This video shows how ice extent can decrease while ice volume remains constant.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1120573391126323202
eh sorry, wrong link (that link was buffered)
Changes in Arctic sea ice extent affects me how?
‘A devastating Arctic temperature rise that could submerge coastal cities and trigger species extinction is now locked in.’
The ignorance is ASTOUNDING. It seems impossible that someone could be this badly informed.
And . . . as I have said a million times . . . an ice free Arctic is DESIRABLE. Shipping between Europe and the Orient will be profoundly cheaper.
“The ignorance is ASTOUNDING. It seems impossible that someone could be this badly informed.”
“Ups, the guy forgot Arhimedes? Arctic ice FLOATS on seawater”
“Ummm, Arctic ice is floating on water.”
It helps if you read the article that the quote comes from …..
In short: Greenland is in the Arctic…..
“Greenland’s ice is melting four times faster now than it was 16 years ago.”
And
“Roughly 1.7 million square kilometers (656,000 square miles) in size, the Greenland ice sheet covers an area almost three times the size of Texas. If the entire Greenland ice sheet were to melt — which would take place over centuries — it would mean a 23-foot rise in sea level, on average.”
Greenland is shaped like a bowl….
And..they were discussing “Sea Ice”….
that would be fine if true Anthony Banton.The last two years has seen mass gain on Greenland.
“Greenland’s ice is melting four times faster now than it was 16 years ago”
Which means that it will take only 10,000 years to melt rather than 40,000 years.
And as a matter of fact melting has ceased completely the last few years:
http://polarportal.dk/fileadmin/user_upload/polarportal-saesonrapport-2018-EN.pdf
“Which means that it will take only 10,000 years to melt rather than 40,000 years.”
Seems you are not cognisant of the term “acceleration”
When applied to a forcing that has +ve feed-backs.
(like it has accelerate up to now). Yes?
So it’s not going to any more?
“(like it has accelerate up to now). Yes?”
No.
It has been decelerating for the last decade or so and is now down to zero:
http://polarportal.dk/fileadmin/user_upload/polarportal-saesonrapport-2018-EN.pdf
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/04/16/1904242116
(though the latter managed to express that distressing fact rather delicately: “The acceleration in mass loss switched from positive in 2000–2010 to negative in 2010–2018 “)
In short: Greenland is in the Arctic…..
In short: The topic is “Arctic Sea-Ice”. Greenland is not artic sea ice. so claims about artic sea-ice melting have nothing to do with Greenland.
still clueless as to how the NSIDC shows the arctic 3-3.5 SD below mean for arctic ice, but the danes claim temps are stone cold normal up there.
Unless you look at their site where it shows nothing of the sort.
Except that it does. I notice that you fail to provide a link, so here is one:
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.php
What? You’re not expecting anyone to click on it and call you out?
It shows a temperature anomaly waay above average for 95% of the last 6 months. That means we now have ice waay thinner than otherwise.
But you knew that right?
It shows a temperature anomaly way above average for 95% of the last 6 months.
When temps were mostly 20 to 35 *below* zero C. Not much melting goes on at -20C to -35C, But you knew that right?
Tell me John, would you expect thicker ice to form at -20C or at -35C?
Thats why it makes a difference, thats right, thicker ice is going to last longer.
But you knew that didn’t you.
at -20C to -35c below. I don’t expect much if any difference, it’s called below freezing for a reason. whether it’s -20c or -35c its still frozen solid.
“Ice refuses to melt”
Except it is now at the lowest on record. Black is white too, right?
No, I believe Sept 2012 was the lowest on record. You’re doing exactly the same thing as someone mentioning a record in one city. It’s weather.
Its now lower Richard.
It is now April Loydo.
I suspect he means ‘lowest on record for the time of year’ during the satellite record.
Question then: how do we know (its not my idea, its mentioned in the blog) september 2019 will be higher then 2012 ?
Which is meaningless, as April isn’t when the ice reaches it’s lowest point. being a “record low” in April has little bearing on where it will be in September when it reaches it’s lowest point of the year.
Yes, lowest for the date, for weeks now.
2012 saw extreme weather on top of ambient warming. Even if that is not repeated this year September will be close to lowest if not the lowest.
Yes of course it has an impact on September. Everything else being equal, if there is less ice to thaw all the surplus latent heat of fusion has go somewhere else.
It shows you have not looked at the data from previous years.
The path from March ice to September ice is highly variable and has no predictive value. There is a panel for September Arctic sea-ice prediction that publishes reports in July and August and it is amazing how wrong they get it just a couple of months ahead.
Loydo, the only “melt” here is you. Loose pack ice extending and compacting at this time of year due to wind strength and direction is meaningless.what direction do you see ice extent summer and winter going in the next ten years ?
Lowest extent for 7 weeks now, depite “extending and compacting”.
How do you know the ice didn’t compact and then freeze solid so that it couldn’t expand? You don’t. There so many variables that can affect extent, but none of them are considered when estimating it. It’s a metric with little real value.
And volume is the highest in recent years:
http://www.cpom.ucl.ac.uk/csopr/seaice.html
The desperation of climate alarmists with Arctic sea-ice refusal to comply is hilarious. After claiming 30 years is climate and less weather they are reduced to cherry pick weekly data at any time in the middle of the season. Very scary. “Oh my God, sea-ice this week is really low! The Arctic is doomed, I tell you.”
No just pointing at all the overall data trend and the fact that the trend continues to today with a continuous month of lowest extent for the date, volume not far behind and temperatures rising faster than anywhere else.
Btw, didn’t you just cherry pick 2007?
Loydo, the PDO switched to negative in 2007. This marker is found in almost any Climate metric you want to measure. You are barking up the wrong tree with your claims of cherry picking.
“the PDO switched to negative in 2007”
Uh huh. Since then it has “switched” back to positive then back again to negative. In the mean time Arctic temperatures have rather steadily soared…
Javier
One factor not considered when comparing two periods of Arctic Sea Ice, is that the base thickness (read resilience) is not the same between the periods. Thickness reduced considerably.
Therefore, a known quantity of low latitude ocean convection atmospherically displaced entering the Arctic region between May and September annually in the first time period (1994-2006) compared to the second (2007-2018) will have a completely different SIE outcome purely from thickness of the residual.
The resilience or capacity to withstand the inflow of atmosphere that consolidates / beaks up sea ice is considerably different. The main contributor to ongoing SIE increases will be an increase in sea ice thickness, which is gradually occurring. Thickness provides resilience and must occur before longer term larger SIE can occur. I agree with your conclusions that the tide has turned on Arctic SI recovery, it is going through a transitional phase of vulnerability.
Folks stating Albedo or sea temperatures as the cause of historical Arctic SIE reductions need to seriously think about how the SIE can suddenly increase after the minimum occurs.
Regards
Correct, Martin.
We used to get ice age graphs from NSIDC showing how the old ice was disappearing, but after the Arctic shift the age of the ice started increasing so they stopped producing the graphs as they conveyed the opposite message to what they wanted to promote. Ice age and ice thickness are related as old ice is thicker.
Javier: This post appears to be nothing more than cherry picking of noisy data. I’ve tried to post a representative graph of Arctic Sea Ice change over the last forty years from the WUWT sea ice page. The long term trend is downward: about 3%/decade at the maximum, 9%/decade at the minimum, and 4%/decade on the average. In terms of area of sea ice, the change is roughly 0.5 million km2/decade. If you believe there has been a change, your job as a scientist was to perform an analysis looking for a statistically significant breakpoint or at least find the difference between the slopes for two different periods and determine if the 95% ci for this difference includes zero.
Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center (NERSC) – Arctic Regional Ocean Observing System (ROOS)
You can save yourself the trouble. OSI SAF already keeps one:
http://osisaf.met.no/p/new_ice_extent_graphs.php
You seem to think that statistical significance is the only valid criterion to demonstrate a change in the Arctic. You also seem to think that a linear trend adequately represents changes in sea-ice. A polynomial fit does a better job and shows a change of trend over the last decade.
My job is to try to explain the unexplained lack of melting in the Arctic for the past 12 years that is absolutely opposite to scientific expectations between 2008 and 2014, when a collapse or death spiral was being promoted by the most visible experts in Arctic sea ice. If statistical significance cannot tells us yet about the change that does not say that the change is due to chance as most people appear to believe. There is a satisfactory explanation based on multidecadal internal oscillations supported by other evidence as manifested in the scientific bibliography provided that:
a) Explains the shift.
b) Predicted the shift before it happened.
So yes, science has a lot to say about a phenomenon being real or not regardless of insufficient data to determine statistical significance.
“My job is to try to explain the unexplained lack of melting in the Arctic for the past 12 years that is absolutely opposite to scientific expectations between 2008 and 2014”
Except that is simply not the case Javier.
As explained above, you overlook the long-term trend …. which is exactly on track.
You have been befuddled by the two exceptional melt years that were way below that trend.
The lowest minimum was in 2012.
That was 6 melt seasons ago.
Those 6 seasons have had mins both above and below the long term trend-line.
As seen here ….
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2018/10/Figure3.png
I don’t. In stocks technical analysis they have this issue clearly defined. There are primary trends, secondary trends, and minor trends. The secondary trends have a shorter span and oppose the primary trend. The question is nobody knows if a secondary trend is going to become a new opposite primary trend until it lasts long enough.
The primary trend in sea-ice for the last 40 years is still down, but the secondary trend for the last 12 years is slightly up. That’s what the data supports. If it lasts long enough it will confirm that it is a new primary trend.
What is clear about “stocks technical analysis” is that ultimately losses are produced by following all but the longest-term trend. Modern time-series analysis has far better tools for dealing with signal variation throughout a whole spectrum of frequencies than linear regression. Sole reliance upon the latter is the weak point of the presentation here.
“The primary trend in sea-ice for the last 40 years is still down, but the secondary trend for the last 12 years is slightly up. That’s what the data supports. If it lasts long enough it will confirm that it is a new primary trend.”
A. So why didn’t you say this in the first place it?
B. “If it lasts long enough it will confirm that it is a new primary trend”
Therefore if it doesn’t last that would put paid to any apparent secondary trend? And therefore also put paid to any postulated cause?
C. Having cherry-picked a start date and using only a dozen years is it possible what you’re depicting is a tertiary trend ie noise?
D. If that is true, given the primary trend, how many years to a blue ocean event?
1sky1,
This is a simplified article that people can understand to show that what we were promised (a death spiral) and what we are getting (over a decade without effective melting) is not the same, so it can be concluded that our emissions are not driving ice-melting, as it doesn’t show any acceleration.
Loydo,
One thing is what the data shows and another is what science knows about the system. Read the articles linked at the end of the post. We have good information about multidecadal oscillations and their effect on sea-ice, and that information is what supports my confidence on a shift in phase. If correct the data will eventually show it. That is why correct predictions are a very strong support to hypotheses in science. Official science was wrong in its prediction of a death spiral. His hypothesis is therefore not good.
My best guess is about 70,000 years. This interglacial is long in the tooth and the Little Ice Age was a warning sign. Modern warming will slow down and should end around 2100, and the Modern Warm Period should end around 2250. In 1500-4000 years we should reach glacial inception. There will be plenty of ice for ice-lovers afterwards.
Do you honestly believe that man does not have the technology (now) to stop an ice age?
What technological tools and what method do you propose man use to stop an ice age?
We might actually accelerate the coming of an ice age by fighting global warming using our technology on a system we don’t understand.
My faith in Homo sapiens is limited. I think the name is an oxymoron.
John
The ice age trap is – and was – that ice deflects light that otherwise would go into water and convert to heat. Obviously the more ice appears, the deeper the trap.
I would think that if you see the ice encroaching on around you, you could use some explosives to get it to melt again. I also heard that you could cover the ice with carbon dust – that will also prevent the light being deflected off from earth.
In fact, there are some – like me – that believe that the current melting of the arctic ice might not be due to global warming, mostly, but rather due to the soot propelled into the air by all burning of fuel, ships, aeroplanes and lorries. The Arctic might be more vulnerable to this because most human activity takes place in the NH.
Javier wrote: “You seem to think that statistical significance is the only valid criterion to demonstrate a change in the Arctic. You also seem to think that a linear trend adequately represents changes in sea-ice. A polynomial fit does a better job and shows a change of trend over the last decade.
Absolutely: Demonstrating that a change has occurred requires evidence of statistical significance.
If you want to suggest a polynomial model, then you need to show that the coefficients for higher order terms are statistically significant – that their confidence intervals don’t include zero. Then you need some kind of physical rational why you polynomial isn’t going to go + or – infinity many years in the future.
Javier wrote: “My job is to try to explain the unexplained lack of melting in the Arctic for the past 12 years that is absolutely opposite to scientific expectations between 2008 and 2014, when a collapse or death spiral was being promoted by the most visible experts in Arctic sea ice.”
There is nothing for you to explain if there is no statistically significant change from the previous trend. The previous data was a fairly linear but noisy decrease, but every time there was a downward spike, the alarmist said it was the first sign of collapse. Time proved those downward spikes were merely noise. Now you come along and say an upward spike is proof the downward trend has ended. The correct response is that upward spike are also noise – until you have evidence that rejects the noise hypothesis.
Complete nonsense.
(on a day when extent and area have been lowest for the date for 25 days running)
I thought you already lost a bet on Arctic sea ice and shouldn’t be here.
I understand that it doesn’t make sense to you. But the problem is on your side.
And weather is not climate. The ice extent today is irrelevant.
IIRC Griff didn’t make the bet. The bet was made by Tony McLeod, and he has stayed away. Griff however, predicted ice would be the lowest evah! And, of course, it wasn’t. But he still will not give in and admit he is wrong almost always.
“The ice extent today is irrelevant.”
There’s the rub. You’re not seeking the truth, you’re just trying (and failing) to justify your ideology. You’re in for a nasty surprise.
@ur momisugly Loydo …the surprise will be yours, and soon.
Since it is likely that Arctic melting is caused by dust and albedo, I might hazard a guess that China has reduced its emissions of industrial dust since 2007.
R
Nothing to do with the +0.28 C per decade warming since 1979 of the lower troposphere above the Arctic sea area (as recorded by UAH)?
Frank: Of course there is a downward long time trend due to the amplified warming in the Arctic. However, try to use a smoothing (i.e. a 9 year LOESS) and you’ll see that there is also much (multi) decadal internal variability (e.g. AMO and something else). The trend is also not self accelerating as I pointed out above.
Are there any small voolcanos or hot vents in the Artic, as there are in West Antarctica ?
MJE VK5ELL
There is an extensive hydrothermal field of NE Greenland, but this is unimportant due to the huge heat capacity of the ocean. Subglacial volcanism is a completely different matter since even quite limited warming can greatly affect glacial dynamics by changing cold-based glaciers (frozen to the ground) to warm-based (sliding on a water film). Warm-based glaciers move very much faster.
“No.
It has been decelerating for the last decade or so and is now down to zero:”
Yes, of course – there is NV.
Weather.
(actually 6 years deceleration)
More atmos WV brings more snow at altitude and the surface mass balance on the Greenland plateau will be +ve for a long time to come.
The melt is taking place at glacier noses (as yet).”
That link also says ….
“Greenland has raised sea level by 13.7 mm since 1972, half during the last 8 years.”
And
“due to a series of cold summers, which illustrates the difficulty of extrapolating short records into longer-term trends. ”
“Even in years of high SMB, enhanced glacier discharge has remained sufficiently high above equilibrium to maintain an annual mass loss every year since 1998.”
Interestingly, at the end of the 16th century, one of my forefathers, Willem Barentz, went looking for a passage to the east via the north. He must have read somewhere from ancient Norse writings that such a passage existed. Sadly, he and crew died trying to find it. Hence, we still have the Barentz Sea, up there in the Arctic. So, there is strong anecdotal evidence that a thousand years ago, the arctic was largely ice free, or almost ice free, or just like it is now. Willem would not have risked his own life and that of his crew unless he was sure about that passage.
Isn’t it funny, how the world changes in 400 years….meaning we now don’t want that passage to the east via the north anymore – not even just to discover it – like Willem wanted to find it
….how dumb is that, actually?
So, anyway, not to worry when you see less ice in the arctic. We have been there, done all that.
And you get some odd stats in April. As I recall, in 2007 the sea-ice was above normal in April, but very low by September. Yet in 2006 sea-ice was below average in April, but by September was one of the higher recent extents.
Barentz was exploring in the 1500’s. We even have some Eurasian arctic-coast history before that, involving the fur trade in Russia. But many Alarmists are reluctant to delve into such fascinating topics, because the very fact men were sailing up their so long ago makes them think too hard. When their mind is made up, any further thought causes cramps, I think.
I think it is very cool that you can trace your family tree back that far!
Javier
Perhaps you could provide a reference for this claim?
IPCC AR4 [WG1 SPM], which was published in 2007, only specifically references “annual average arctic sea ice extent” in its ‘Direct Observations of Recent Climate Change’ section.
In its ‘Projections of Future Changes in Climate’ section the SPM states: “Sea ice is projected to shrink in both the Arctic and Antarctic under all SRES scenarios.”
So the IPCC’s metric for Arctic sea ice in 2007 seems to have been ‘annual average sea ice extent’ and their projection was that this would continue on a downward trend. According to the NSIDC index, annual Arctic sea ice extent declined at a rate -0.41 m sq. km per decade between 2007 and 2018.
AR4 WG1 SPM available for upload here: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar4/wg1/
Ja, Ja, it is getting cooler.
Remember my name…
https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:42f86fb5-bd3a-4bce-a1d2-2e33fe3fa66b
(investigation done in 2015, results include 2014)