There have been a number of reports recently, in the blogosphere and elsewhere, about arctic sea ice. From the septic side come statements that arctic sea ice is on the increase, pointing to a cooling planet and contradicting the reality of global warming. From the supporting side there are statements that arctic sea ice loss has so accelerated due to storms in the frozen north that we’re sure (or nearly so) to break the record for lowest arctic sea ice extent again this year.
One of the most toxic innuendos is from Anthony Watts (surprise). This time he’s taken a simple press release about an expedition to service moorings with data-collection instruments in the Fram Straights (between Spitzbergen and Greenland) and twisted it to imply that sea ice in the arctic is on the rise. It starts with the title of his post, a quote (in translation) from the press release: “… this year, there was an exceptional amount of ice …” Here’s what Watts quotes from the report:
“… this year, there was an exceptional amount of ice - according to expedition leader Prof. Gerhard Kattner. The extent reached from the high North southward to 74 degrees latitude. The main objective of the research cruise was to check 17 moorings with instruments that monitor temperature, salinity and currents of the water masses. AWI has been carrying out these unique high-latitude investigations since 1999. Observed 2008 temperatures are slightly lower than 2006 measurements, and there are preliminary indications of a return of the pacific water mass signature, which has been absent since 2004.”
A great deal is left out of this “quotation,” but there’s no indication (not even appropriate ellipsis) of where the omissions are. Which is a pity, because the really interesting thing isn’t what Watts quotes from the translation of the press release, but what he doesn’t quote. For example:
The temperature of the Atlantic water became somewhat lower compared with the increased temperatures in the year 2006. This represents annual variability. Altogether the scientists stated that the temperature increased on the average annually in the Fram Straights since 1997 by approximately 0.1 °C.
Well! That’s different.
The increased ice mentioned is by comparison to recent years only, and for the Fram Straights only. But even that region hasn’t been immune to dramatic decrease of sea ice; the press release also says:
“For this purpose we had to move last year the devices embodied at the bottom of the sea further northward, in order to follow the retreating ice and guarantee that they at least temporarily stood in the sphere of influence of the edge of ice,” reports Ingo Schewe, biologist at the Alfred Wegner Institute.
So the instruments have only been in operation for about a decade, but already they’ve had to be moved — “to follow the retreating ice.“
Well! That’s different. That’s very different.
On the other hand, I’ve read reports that some researchers expect arctic sea ice to be gone in summer by 2013, and that we’re certain or near-certain to break the record for all-time low extent which was shattered (by a huge margin) just last year. This has propagated through the blogosphere, a typical example being a comment (from a reader) on RealClimate: “2008 sea ice extent is about to catch up with 2007.” I’ve been following the daily data provided by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and it doesn’t look like it to me. These daily data start in mid-2002:
We can compute sea ice extent anomaly (anomaly computed relative to the time span covered by the data, so it doesn’t match other anomaly numbers but shows identical changes and trend):
Even with this extremely short time span of data there’s a strong (and statistically significant) decline in arctic sea ice. This is a continuation of the long-term trend:
The summer of 2007 witnessed a truly dramatic decline, destroying the previous record minimum set in 2005. We can get a better idea of this year’s extent by comparing it to the two lowest previous years, 2007 and 2005:
Arctic sea ice extent is tracking very closely the 2nd-lowest year, 2005, but is not (as some believe) “about to catch up with 2007.”
I expect this year’s minimum extent to be less than that of 2005, making 2008 the 2nd-lowest summer on record, behind 2007. This is for two reasons: first, the decline has been ever so slightly more rapid recently than during 2005, and second, the ice is a lot thinner because last year’s super-melt eliminated so much multi-year ice that far more of what’s left is thinner, first-year ice.
But I don’t expect this year’s minimum to dip below 2007’s record low. It’s not impossible; the ice is a lot thinner. But there’s too much difference between 2007 and 2008, and the decline isn’t fast enough to warrant the conclusion that we’ll break last year’s record, so I’m expecting 2008 to come in 2nd-lowest all-time but not take 1st place. Minimum should occur in mid-to-late September, we won’t really know until then.
There’s no doubt whatever that the arctic climate is changing, far more rapidly than any other region of the world. But making unsubstantiated claims about imminent, even more dramatic changes is ill-advised. In my opinion, exaggerated claims from the supporting side are far more damaging to the public’s understanding of the reality and danger of global warming than any number of toxic claims from the denialosphere.
The most reliable internet sources have not participated in fanning the fires of hyperbole. Quite the opposite; RealClimate recently did a post about the unnecessary and mostly irrelevant hubbub surrounding claims that the north pole itself will be ice-free this year. But when so many news reports and blog posts/comments tout an immediate and sure-fire record-breaker to come this very summer, it damages the reputation of the scientific side of the “debate.” As for the other side, blatantly false and hyperbolic claims is their bread-and-butter.
It’s also completely unnecessary to exaggerate the dramatic changes soon to come from global warming. Contrary to what some believe, there’s no need to exaggerate the danger; reality will be plenty scary enough.
147 responses so far ↓
Lab Lemming // August 13, 2008 at 6:20 am
Has the date of minimum cover moved over time?
Gareth // August 13, 2008 at 7:11 am
Here’s the Physorg version: I assume an official translation.
Worth noting that the Polarstern’s next voyage is to the East Siberian Sea, and they plan to get there via the NW Passage… ;-)
Also: although I have a bet with Stoat on the outcome of this year’s melt, I have always put the odds at 50/50. Looking at the current ice cover, I think that’s moved out to 60/40 in favour of Stoat, but I am not confident that the varous metrics (area/extent) were designed to cope with the fragmented slushy mess evident in the sat pix.
Perhaps T, you could take a look at Scandinavian winters over the last three years…
Richard // August 13, 2008 at 7:59 am
Wasn’t it you who said that a single years observation has nothing to do with climate? You were quick to jump on bloggers that talked about the decline in temperatures over the last year or so. Now you are engaging in the same rhetoric with sea ice.
[Response: What a load of bull. I haven't claimed or even implied that a single year's change in sea ice is a harbinger of global warming. Instead I've emphasized that the long-term trend is the real story.
But in fact a single year's change could be a signal of climate change. If arctic sea ice were to completely disappear this year, that would be an unmistakable and undeniable sign, likewise if the annual average global temperature dropped 10 degrees. The problem with septics isn't that they make too much of a mountainous change in a single year (or over the long haul), but that take a molehill and make a mountain out of it.]
Your statement: “It’s also completely unnecessary to exaggerate the dramatic changes soon to come from global warming. Contrary to what some believe, there’s no need to exaggerate the danger; reality will be plenty scary enough.” is rather amusing.
We have been waiting for this “soon to come” for at least 20 years. Just tell me how soon will this “soon” be?
[Response: Europeans who endured the 2003 heat wave, Australians who struggle with the current severe drought in the southeast, the Inuit who've seen their way of life change with the environment, are already witnesses. And the long-term trends are undeniable except by those in denial.]
Nick Barnes // August 13, 2008 at 11:03 am
I completely agree with what you say here. Some blog commenters have clearly jumped the shark, and even the most recent update on the NSIDC site strikes me as somewhat alarmist.
There’s an interesting difference between sea ice area and sea ice extent, in how this year compares to the historical record. In area, this year is about to drop below the 2005 minimum number (any day now). In extent - depending slightly on whether one considers IJIS or NSIDC numbers - it’s slightly below this date in 2005 but has a fair way to go to reach the minimum. One can deduce that a significant part of the extent has quite low cover, and indeed that’s how it eyeballs at Bremen: there are large areas of 30-80% cover, which show up as ‘mushy’ on MODIS. This is presumably the effect of having so much first-year ice.
It would be interesting to graph area against cover (e.g. what area of sea has 50-60% cover), and to compare those graphs over the different years. I’m not sure what the data sources are like.
Nick Barnes // August 13, 2008 at 11:04 am
(I say all the above as someone who stands to gain money if this year’s area falls below 2005 - which I think it will - and again if it falls below 2008 - which seems very unlikely)
Robert Grumbine // August 13, 2008 at 11:16 am
I’ll be writing up at more length back at my blog, but in the mean time, a few thoughts.
As of the end of last year, my expectation was that we would not set a new record minimum this year. I haven’t seen reason to change that expectation. The recent storm didn’t improve my confidence, but I’ll stay with my first feeling.
On the other hand, my feeling about how fast we’d see the Arctic ice-free on a seasonal basis is also unchanged from last fall — and that’s on the closer side. The thing is, if you had run a straight line through the area curve (some years ago at least) you’d have arrived at a date like 2050-2060 for zero area. On the other hand, if you read the paper about Arctic ice thickness by Rothrock et al. in 1999, you could run a straight line through that and arrive at about 2030 for zero thickness ice cover.
Neither of those (and why use a straight line?) knows about the fact that we’ve observed warm (for the Arctic) Pacific water entering farther into the basin. Warmer water should equate to even faster melts and thinner winter formation of ice, even leaving aside the summer melting. So I favor a figure for first ice-free summer rather earlier than 2030, even if not 2010.
Petro // August 13, 2008 at 11:54 am
According to the Cryosphere Today, the anomaly today is over 1,5 million km2, not less than 0,5 million km2 of JAEA data. That’s the difference between the area and extent.
The ice this year is so different from the 2007 or any other year before that, much more fractured. To my mind no model can predict how large the actual sea ice will be, since we lack the data from the predecessors for projecting the current situation.
Nature will tell within two months.
[Response: It's not JAXA which computed the anomalies plotted here, I did. As I noted in the post, they're anomalies using a reference period mid-2000 to the present, whereas anomalies on Cryosphere Today are, I believe, computed using a reference period 1978-2000. Since the mid-2000-to-present average is so much less than the 1978-to-2000 average, the anomalies using my choice of reference period are numerically not nearly so negative as those using the Cryosphere Today reference. But also as noted in the post, the changes from one time to another and the trend are unaffected by the choice of reference period with which to define anomalies.]
Ray Ladbury // August 13, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Richard, did you even bother to read what Tamino wrote, because he was very careful to emphasize that 2007 was anomalous. Moreover, what he emphasized what the TREND over time, and that, Sir, is climate. The IPCC makes pretty clear that although we are beginning to feel the early effects of climate change, the severe effects are still likely decades off. Perhaps if you would care to familiarize yourself with what the science actually says, you could cut down considerably on your battles with straw men of your own devising.
caerbannog // August 13, 2008 at 3:34 pm
[Response: Europeans who endured the 2003 heat wave, Australians who struggle with the current severe drought in the southeast, the Inuit who've seen their way of life change with the environment, are already witnesses. And the long-term trends are undeniable except by those in denial.]
Here’s another (anecdotal) data point indicating the magnitude of the impacts. A couple of weeks ago, I had to fly to the East Coast on business. We flew directly over the Rockies on a cloudless day, and I was able to see the extent of the bark-beetle infestations in the lodgepole pine forests there. The extent of the damage was breathtaking — a couple of times, I caught myself saying, “holy s**t!”.
There were places where entire mountainsides of trees were the telltale red-rust color. In some cases, the dead/dying trees went on for mile after mile.
I’m used to seeing bark-beetle infestations in forests like that — but generally, the infestations are patchy — a few acres here, a few acres there, etc. But what I saw a couple of weeks ago was an entirely different animal — entire mountainsides with mostly dead/dying trees.
And it’s not just a matter of fire-suppression. The higher-elevation Rocky Mountain forests have not been all that affected by fire-suppression (fire-return intervals average a century or more for the higher elevation forests). Climate-change is driving this. It’s even worse in Canada (where there has been even less human interference in the fire regime). In British Columbia, lodgepole pines are dead/dying over an area on the order of half the size of California.
The bark-beetle problem in British Colombia dwarfs the problem in the Colorado Rockies. But what I saw when I flew over Colorado was breathtaking in its own right.
Petro // August 13, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Tamino, thanks for clarification!
No one is expecting the Artic sea to be essentially ice-free this year. Maslowski’s projections suggest 2013, which is 20-50 years earlier than by any other modeler.
The reason why so many people anxiously follow the diminishing Artic sea ice is that the last time the Artic was ice-free, human ancestors were climbing in the trees in Africa. Now we will experience such event during our lifetime, inevitably. This is something to awe and worry about, truly.
Also, there are no good estimations, what will happen when sea ice is no more. How does it affect to winds and jet stream? How does it affect to the sea currents? These main factors shape not only the climate of North Europe, but also the United States and all the globe.
Robert Grumbine // August 13, 2008 at 4:08 pm
All: you can get a visual idea of this year’s ice concentration versus the same day last year at http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/seaice/nh.html There are some artefacts in those images which are explained some at http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/seaice/support/ssmi.about.html
There is a bunch of other icy stuff there, so browse around.
Bob North // August 13, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Tamino wrote “From the septic side …”
I wonder if your typo above was just a slip of the fingers or a freudian slip. Either way, it’s pretty funny
Phil. // August 13, 2008 at 4:42 pm
“Since the mid-2000-to-present average is so much less than the 1978-to-2000 average, the anomalies using my choice of reference period are numerically not nearly so negative as those using the Cryosphere Today reference. ”
But the more important distinction is that CT is plotting ice area not extent, at 4.1Mm^2 the area is ~equal to the minimum of all previous years except 2007. Ice area for 08 is much closer to last year’s value than the extent figure, today the average ice concentration is ~66% whereas at the end of last year’s melt season it was ~75%.
[Response: I'd like to track both extent and area, but JAXA only provides daily data for extent. NSIDC provides both data but only monthly averages. I'll take a look at the latest numbers they've got.]
Hank Roberts // August 13, 2008 at 7:57 pm
> bark beetle
Is anyone keeping track of woodpeckers and flickers? We ought to see a big, albeit somewhat delayed, boom in these birds. And they’re the “basic bird” for forests because they clean up beetles and open up holes in snags that other birds and other animals use later, increase the access for decay organisms, and otherwise help put the forest back onto a good footing.
If we’re lucky with fires and get a boom in woodpeckers and flickers, the forests may recover rather well as the trees most adapted to changed conditions grow up to replace the dead ones.
With luck.
dhogaza // August 13, 2008 at 9:22 pm
It should favor black-backed and three-toed woodpeckers, however it will be detrimental to some other species.
This abstract is interesting, as the paper addresses the role of three-toed woodpeckers on bark beetle outbreaks.
A short quote from the abstract:
Dano // August 13, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Poor Richard tries hard:
We have been waiting for this “soon to come” for at least 20 years. Just tell me how soon will this “soon” be?
Come to the Intermountain West and look around. It’s now. Where have you been? Hiding your head? It’s already been in BC forests. Where have you been? Hiding your head? It shows now with earlier green-up and veg moving north. Where have you been? Hiding your head?
Fortunately, people parroting these lines don’t get access to decision-makers.
Best,
D
Nick Barnes // August 13, 2008 at 9:44 pm
Re daily data for area, you can always scrape it from CT. The charts there have daily resolution. I wrote a throwaway Python script to do this once.
Dano // August 13, 2008 at 9:53 pm
If we’re lucky with fires and get a boom in woodpeckers and flickers, the forests may recover rather well as the trees most adapted to changed conditions grow up to replace the dead ones.
Hank,
Many believe lodgepole forests are late seral and maybe climax forests. Regrowth in these forests is early successional, often overstory aspen and understory Douglas maple. Engelmann-x forests are a different animal, as they often are codominant with another species (fir-pine-another spruce), so depends what takes over.
That is: regrowth will be along the normal successional stages - which is normal ecological recovery, but for human needs - watershed storage, recreation, etc. - these uses will be slow to recover (read any story with a byline in Summit Co, Colo for examples of the growing concern up there) and thus the economies that depend on these forests will be negatively affected.
Best,
D
Hank Roberts // August 13, 2008 at 11:37 pm
> regrowth
Not saguaro? What’s south of y’all or lower down that might move in?
Richard // August 14, 2008 at 1:44 am
Tamino. What a load of Bull yourself. If the sea ice disappeard this summer it means nothing in the context of Anthropogenic Global Warming. If you think that a single years data can be a harbinger then the single years decline in temperature evident from the satellite data, HadCRUT and GISS must be viewed in the same context. That would be a harbinger of global cooling. If you cant accept that then cut the crap and accept weather for what it is. WEATHER.
[Response: Last year's temperature change is not outside the bounds of natural variation from the existing long-term trend. It's the dumbest, but one of the most common, denialist trick to suggest otherwise.
A complete disappearance of arctic sea ice is outside the bounds of natural variation -- so much so that if it happens, anyone who continues to deny global warming is delusional to the point of mental illness.
The level of ignorance, stupidity, dishonesty, or all three, required to think that there's any possible comparison between the two, boggles the mind. I'm flabbergasted.
You don't have your head buried in the sand ... it's way too far up your ass.]
[edit]
dhogaza // August 14, 2008 at 3:16 am
Certainly not, the “two springs” wet cycle isn’t expressed nearly so strongly to the north, and saguaro isn’t exactly adapted to freezing winters (I assume you’re talking in the nearer timeframe, a century or two from now cold winters might not be a factor, but do you have evidence that the SW “monsoon” will strengthen to the extent necessary to support saguaro? The “monsoon” pattern does extend northwards, but it’s much weakened by the time it reaches CO etc …)
Bishop Hill // August 14, 2008 at 7:24 am
There was a theory some months back that the first year ice would tend to melt more easily than the older ice. Given the partial recovery of ice area over the summer, is this theory now considered incorrect, or is it being masked by stronger factors tending to increase ice area (presumably, but not necessarily, including temperature) ?
george // August 14, 2008 at 11:51 am
Once again, thanks for adding perspective (”it’s the trend that matters, not what happens from year to year”) to the nonsensical claims made based on short term time spans (month to month, year to year, 7 year to 7 year)
I have not tallied up the results, but I suspect Watt’s may have the record* when it comes to “absurd claims based on short time spans.”
But Watt’s is hardly the only one who delves in such nonsense, and basing one’s claims on what happens from one year to the next is absurd no matter who makes the claim.
*for “magnitude” of individual outlandish claim and for the sheer number of outlandish claims made per unit time.
Here’s my prediction: Watt’s claims will get even more ridiculous in the future — based on the long-term trend, not his most recent outlandish claim, of course.
Richard // August 14, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Tamino. The disappearance of the sea ice will NOT be outside the bounds of what the Arctic has experienced in the past. It is well known that the polar regions were ice free in the earth’s geological history. It is only that it has not been ice free in our living memory. That is a pretty damn short period of time.
[Response: The arctic has had perennial ice cover for at least 700,000 years, and probably for 4 million years.
You've sunk to a level of stupidity that really does boggle the mind.]
[edit]
dhogaza // August 14, 2008 at 2:51 pm
It’s also true that the disappearance of all life on earth would leave the planet in a state not unknown in its geological history.
Not much comfort in such statements, I’m afraid.
Hank Roberts // August 14, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Tamino, he’s holding your attention and wasting your time by playing stupid.
Pharyngula has a tool for this, he calls it a ‘dungeon’ topic — he just moves the bait, trolling, and faux-stupid stuff to a separate thread where people can ignore it or chew on it if they want to waste their time, so the host doesn’t have to.
Recommended. You have people willing to learn and limited time.
Hank Roberts // August 14, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Bishop Hill wrote:
> there was a theory
Since your blog has an extensive list of climate postings and lots of references to your favorite sources, would you do us the favor of citing this theory?
Are you talking about some blog post? Something from one of the science journals?
You’re a very popular guy it appears. You should be able to find the sources for these things and provide them.
Else you’re asking us to do your homework.
Ray Ladbury // August 14, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Richard, think about this. Arctic sea ice has a very high albedo. Seawater does not. So the loss of the sea ice represents a significant turning point in how much energy gets absorbed in the summer. Now you may contend that we’ll get more ice in the winter before next summer, but one-year-old ice isn’t stable and is likely to be lost again soon. All in all, while it is the trend that matters in terms of climate change, the event of an ice-free Arctic is a very important feedback.
Ken // August 14, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Richard wrote: then the single years decline in temperature evident from the satellite data, HadCRUT and GISS must be viewed in the same context
What single “year” decline are you referring too? The GISS dataset shows 2007 tied as the 3rd warmest year on record. We won’t know the average SST of 2008 until January. You must be referring to individual months (not years), which have even less statistical significance. We did have a few cold months. While the GISS dataset shows Jan. 2008 the coldest in 19 years and Feb. 2008 the coldest in 14 years, it also shows March 2008 as the 4th warmest March on record, and July 2008 was the 5th warmest July on record.
That kind of natural monthly variability isn’t even close in statistical significance to an absence of Arctic Sea Ice. An event that hasn’t occurred in hundreds of millenniums, is a bit more significant than a couple months (still above the 1951 - 1980 averages) that were exceeded in coolness less than 2 decades ago.
Dano // August 14, 2008 at 4:15 pm
The disappearance of the sea ice will NOT be outside the bounds of what the Arctic has experienced in the past. It is well known that the polar regions were ice free in the earth’s geological history.
It would be outside the bounds of what modern human society has experienced. Of course, modern homo reallysmarticus will figure out what to do in, say, a day or two, cuz like we’re really smart and we’ve overcome big ecological disruptions hundreds of times in the past, so we know what to do, and everyone is on board with the adaptation.
Sure.
How do these people that say this stuff function throughout the day? Or do their mommies still make their beds for them?
Best,
D
nanny_govt_sucks // August 14, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Hank said:
Which was quickly followed by Ray who said:
Hank Roberts // August 14, 2008 at 5:31 pm
> saguaro?
Just kidding, haven’t a clue about the area. But I have inlaws near Denver and visit there so am increasingly curious about what’s happening.
In the N. Ca. coast range sites I visit most often we’re seeing plants move up the mountain as it gets warmer. Poison oak has a chance to overwinter now (shudder) at my favorite campsite.
Phil. // August 14, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Bishop Hill // August 14, 2008 at 7:24 am
There was a theory some months back that the first year ice would tend to melt more easily than the older ice. Given the partial recovery of ice area over the summer, is this theory now considered incorrect, or is it being masked by stronger factors tending to increase ice area (presumably, but not necessarily, including temperature) ?
I’m not sure what you’re referring to here, it’s clear that this year there will be a greater area of ice melt in the Arctic than last summer, consistent with the higher percentage of new ice in the spring.
dhogaza // August 14, 2008 at 6:34 pm
I’m not sure what he’s referring to, either, given that I know of no such recovery over the summer.
It didn’t melt as fast as it did last summer, but “melting slower” isn’t the same as “recovery”.
dhogaza // August 14, 2008 at 6:34 pm
I think he means extent, not area, though …
Hank Roberts // August 14, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Nanny — same question to Ray.
I’m an equal opportunity pest as far as asking people for citations to their beliefs goes, or I try to be evenhanded about it anyhow.
dhogaza // August 14, 2008 at 6:57 pm
This quote might be useful …
He appears to be a Real Scientist doing Relevant Research and therefore Qualified To Answer The Question.
sod // August 14, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Northwest Passage navigable, says federal ice authority
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=66e11c80-9593-4ea2-a1e5-10afcbc87d7d
we might get used to it…
Tom C // August 14, 2008 at 8:53 pm
If the precipitous 2007 decline was not accompanied by decreasing ocean or air temperatures in the preceding years, that would suggest that some other factor was in play, like a change in ocean currents or wind patterns. Seems pretty unlikely that 2007 can be assigned to GW.
[Response: The arctic has been warming faster than any other region of the planet. Other factors are in play also, but warmer temperature is the cause of the downward trend in arctic sea ice.]
Phil. // August 15, 2008 at 4:47 am
dhogaza // August 14, 2008 at 6:34 pm
I think he means extent, not area, though …
Then he shouldn’t be talking about ‘area’, but I don’t know why you’d talk about ‘extent’ in this context.
henry // August 15, 2008 at 4:49 am
Dano said: (August 13, 2008 at 9:32 pm)
“Fortunately, people parroting these lines don’t get access to decision-makers.”
But, unfortunately, people with your viewpoint do.
It would be nice if “your side” would publically archive their adverse results, data and code. Then maybe the decision makers would be able to make informed decisions.
andy // August 15, 2008 at 10:13 am
RSS shows also that “sub-antarctica” (regions between -60 … -70 latitudes have a cooling trend. I calculated this by simple Excel formula from the data of 1979 - 2008. But is this a typical fingerprint expected due to AGW?
Tenney Naumer // August 15, 2008 at 1:11 pm
There was a huge difference between last year and this year in that last year there were many, many hurricanes and typhoons whose storm tracks were diverted poleward by very strong winds that pulled all that heat to the Arctic. This year, none of that took place because the westerlies took over at the equator and those storms were not diverted to the pole. We are not getting a lot of hurricanes this year due to the strong westerlies and high altitude wind shear.
TCO // August 15, 2008 at 2:34 pm
I think Bishop has the nugget of a reasonable question. I also remember all the to-do about thinner (or is it more saline) ice because of loss of multi-year ice. This supposedly setting the stage for worse to come. Shouldn’t we see that now. (Perhaps not, especially if the inherent varaibility of ice melting from year to year is very high.) Still, I do remember a big deal being made of how first year ice rots easier…so we need to examine what goes down.
John L. McCormick // August 15, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Tenny, I know you are not linking fewer storms and stronger westerlies to the expanse of open Arctic ocean but, I keep asking eeryone the same question over and over and hear little or no feedback:
WHAT WILL BE THE IMPACT OF OPEN ARCTIC OCEAN ON TEMP AND PRECIP OF WESTERN NORTH AMERICA?
Clearly, that must be a more interesting topic than ‘record breaking meltback’.
Hank Roberts // August 15, 2008 at 2:52 pm
John, say a bit about what you find lacking in these articles? It would help to know why you don’t find anything in these various answers to be relevant:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=WHAT+WILL+BE+THE+IMPACT+OF+OPEN+ARCTIC+OCEAN+ON+TEMP+AND+PRECIP+OF+WESTERN+NORTH+AMERICA%3F&num=50&hl=en&lr=&newwindow=1&safe=off&scoring=r&as_ylo=2003
BillBodell // August 15, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Exactly so. The failure of the “alamist” camp to control exaggerated claims is one of the things that helped push me into the “denialist” camp. If this keeps up, you’ll improve you chances of bringing me back from the “dark side”.
dhogaza // August 15, 2008 at 4:30 pm
TCO, you’re a bright guy, I think you know that the answer is yes, depending on your definition of “very”. We’re looking at 2008 being the second lowest extent on record, rather than the first, though there’s a chance it will beat 2007 (a chance that diminishes each day, however). “very” doesn’t have to be all that “very”, does it?
Harold Brooks // August 15, 2008 at 5:48 pm
There was a huge difference between last year and this year in that last year there were many, many hurricanes and typhoons whose storm tracks were diverted poleward by very strong winds that pulled all that heat to the Arctic. This year, none of that took place because the westerlies took over at the equator and those storms were not diverted to the pole. We are not getting a lot of hurricanes this year due to the strong westerlies and high altitude wind shear.
Compared to middle of August 2007, there have been more tropical cyclones in all three of the northern hemisphere basins (the North Atlantic, the Eastern Pacific, and the Central/Western Pacific) in 2008. The first 2007 Atlantic hurricane (Dean) had just formed and wasn’t yet a hurricane on 15 August. We’ve had two already in the Atlantic this year, including Bertha, which reintensified very far to the north. Last year, in the EPac, we had had the F storm; this year, statements are being issued on I. Last year, in the WPac, the 8th numbered storm was active on 15 August. This year, statements are out on the 11th of the year.
dhogaza // August 15, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Exactly how are professional climate scientists supposed to “control exaggerated claims” by lay people, the press, etc?
And why, oh why, would such “exaggerated claims” affect your understanding of the science, or lead to your being pushed into the camp of those who Make Stuff Up and Generally Lie A Lot?
Makes no sense.
I mean, read what’s been said here:
News reports, blog posts, blog comments damages the reputation of the SCIENTIFIC side of the debate?
So if I start up a blog and start flooding the internet with stories that the (roughly) spherical shape of the earth will lead to our species being extinct by Christmas, this will undermine the SCIENTIFIC response to those who claim the earth is flat?
Again, makes no sense.
You should know better (even if millions of others don’t).
Dano // August 15, 2008 at 6:49 pm
The failure of the “alamist” camp to control exaggerated claims is one of the things that helped push me into the “denialist” camp.
Dhog,
remember, the right wing in Murrica has a well-oiled (ahem) message control and dissemination infrastructure. Of course he would be concerned about the lack of message discipline - there has been almost three decades of message discipline from the right, so it is second nature to expect it from others.
Best,
D
tamino // August 15, 2008 at 7:19 pm
One of the problems causing too much hype is journalistic. News services tend to take every statement from every scientist as representing “science.” Therefore if one scientist gives his opinion, whether it’s in harmony with the consensus or not it will be touted as authoritative in press reports. If you work in a scientific field, then you know what’s the consensus view and what’s speculation — but if you don’t, then of course you won’t know. And of course, journalists are keen to have an impressive story; “this is just a possibility, and doesn’t represent the consensus of scientists in the field” doesn’t make hard-hitting copy.
I don’t think we can blame lay readers for being put off by overhyped statements that turn out to be mistaken.
kevin // August 15, 2008 at 7:30 pm
If one were interested in the validity of the notion that first year ice rots easier, the relevant question is not whether this year’s minimum ice area is more or less than last year’s, but rather whether first year ice and multi-year ice behave differently under the same external conditions. If this year’s minimum ice are is greater than last year’s, as looks likely, that doesn’t mean the first year ice was more resilient than expected. It probably just means that conditions were different this year. I strongly suspect that this year’s minimum ice area will be smaller than it would be if there were more multi-year ice out there. It does not require a new record for my suspicion to be correct.
BillBodell // August 15, 2008 at 8:39 pm
I’ll amend that to “attempt to control”. When Al Gore showed most of Florida under water, professional climate scientists could have pointed out that that was an improbable scenario. If they had, I believe it would have had an effect. Even if the attempt was ulimately ineffective, at least they’d be on record.
Those non-climate scientists (about 99.999% of the population) among us have to arrive at their initial opinions based on something other than a thourough review of the scientific literature. If there is a scientific debate about coffee (bad for you, not bad for you) and the “bad for you” side tells you things that are obviously exaggerated, one would tend to think that the “not bad for you” side is closer to the truth. If the “bad for you” Coffee Scientists say “that’s a big exaggeration”, one is more likely to be convinced of their position.
Clearly, if I thought it was the camp of those who “Make Stuff Up and Generally Lie a Lot”, I wouldn’t be in it. I know that you believe there is only one “truth” and that anyone who disagrees is stupid or evil. If so, it should be fairly easy to engage the other side in rational debate and clearly demonstrate their stupidity and/or bad intentions. Failing that, the only other viable strategy is to just call them “stupid” and “evil” and hope they go away. I don’t think that strategy is working very well, nor does it impress those on the sidelines.
Yes. They will effect the reputation of either side of the debate among the non-highly informed.
dhogaza // August 15, 2008 at 9:19 pm
What’s improbable about the scenario? If you specify a short timeframe, then, yes, it’s improbable, but Al Gore didn’t.
One can hope. However, you’ve apparently fallen for one lie, i.e. that Gore’s movie presented an improbable scenario when actually several meters of sea rise is what’s expected if we lose the Greenland ice sheet. I presume you’ve also fallen for the lies that claim Gore stated it would happen soon? Or do you believe that calculations of the rise in sea level that would follow from the melting of Greenland’s glaciers is exaggerated? Or is the elevation of south Florida underestimated?
Exactly what “exaggeration” are you claiming?
Nope, I’ve not said that. However there is one “truth” that’s undeniable - denialists continuously lie in this so-called debate, the first lie being the claim that there’s a legitimate scientific debate. That lie is simply a strategy to confuse laypeople like yourself. The tobacco industry and creationists perfected the “there’s a controversy in science” scam decades ago, so the climate science denialist community doesn’t even get credit for originality.
Actually, it’s demonstrably difficult to rationally debate people who willingly lie. Debates between scientists and creationists demonstrate this quite well.
Ian Forrester // August 15, 2008 at 10:50 pm
Bill Bodell said: “If so, it should be fairly easy to engage the other side in rational debate and clearly demonstrate their stupidity and/or bad intentions”.
Scientific debate takes place in the peer reviewed scientific literature. If you check there you will find that the “debate” is completely one sided because the deniers have no scientific evidence to back up their claims. Their claims are either dishonest nonsense or cherry picked data. Neither of these are useful in a scientific debate since they are not acceptable in the peer reviewed literature.
If the deniers had any scientific evidence it would appear in the journals. The fact that it doesn’t appear means that they have none.
Petro // August 15, 2008 at 10:52 pm
BillBodell tended to consider himself as a sceptic, but he has always give much greater value for FUD coming from the denialists’ side. F
In science, when it is settled, there exists truth. Science for climate change is unanimous, that it has happened and its impact to humanity is not beneficial. These are scientific facts, truths. Scientific facts are based on the observations from the reality and logic. These observations can be validated by anyone, who is skilled to carry out the experiments. Also logic need some skill.
The question “Should we do something about the minimize the impact of the climate change?” is a value question, not scientific question. Most of those, who are proponents of scientific truths also support the idea that it is good to try to do something, since the changes in climate bring more harm to humanity than benefits.
Those who respond that there is no reason to do anything to minimize the impacts of climate change, usually denies scientific facts. That is relativistic thinking letting moral values to block unwanted facts. Denying reality is living in delusion.
It is also a value question, is humanity worth of saving, if it lives in delusion.
Hank Roberts // August 15, 2008 at 10:58 pm
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93636633
Ray Ladbury // August 16, 2008 at 2:12 am
OK, Bill, help me out here. I’m trying to understand how bloviating by a washed up politician changes physical reality. I mean, it would seem that you were convinced the science was cogent prior to what you considered “alarmist” scenarios. How have the exaggerations of nonscientists ex cathedra of peer-reviewed journals changed the science?
Eli Rabett // August 16, 2008 at 3:38 am
One of the things about the anomalies is that the largest one last year was well into October, after the refreeze had started.
Also, if you look at the weather up north, while the Canadian/US side is now down around freezing, it is very warm on the Russian side. You can see this in the melt patterns, so we are in for at least a couple more weeks of increasing melt, and we are not so far from 2007.
henry // August 16, 2008 at 9:19 am
Ian Forrester said (August 15, 2008 at 10:50 pm)
“Scientific debate takes place in the peer reviewed scientific literature. If you check there you will find that the “debate” is completely one sided because the deniers have no scientific evidence to back up their claims. Their claims are either dishonest nonsense or cherry picked data. Neither of these are useful in a scientific debate since they are not acceptable in the peer reviewed literature.
If the deniers had any scientific evidence it would appear in the journals. The fact that it doesn’t appear means that they have none.”
And this is another part of the problem. The people who control the content of the “peer reviewed” journals have a major part in what is published.
When a paper comes in, it gets a rougher treatment if it goes against the grain. The fact that “denialist” papers don’t appear in the journals could mean that the “alarmist” publishers are doing their job.
[Response: You couldn't be more wrong. The paper that goes against the grain is the one most likely to be accepted for publication; the top journals don't stifle disagreement they *encourage* it. But it still has to meet quality standards.]
Ray Ladbury // August 16, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Henry, That is 100% horse puckey.
You clearly are not a scientist. To even suggest that minority viewpoints are suppressed is sheer ignorance. Any paper that advances understanding WILL get published. The problem with the denialists is that their ideas such as they are represent a dead end. Even those few papers they do publish are rarely cited. So these guys are reduced to a rear guard sniping at the science that is advancing understanding of climate. That’s the definition of scientific consensus–when your opponents run out of things to say in peer-reviewed journal. The last stage of the downward spiral for the denialists is when they resort to publishing these diatribes in the popular press–and that’s when they cease to be scientists.
Barton Paul Levenson // August 16, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Bill Bodell posts:
If the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps melt, that’s exactly what will happen. Clearly, it’s not going to happen tomorrow, but then he didn’t say it would.
John McCormick // August 16, 2008 at 2:59 pm
RE: Hank Roberts // August 15, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Hello Hank, thank you for the link to your search. I added Hadley cell and ITCZ to the search string and found a few more interesting titles.
I mean to emphasize the seeming lack of modeling of possible impacts in W NA of Arctic meltback and would include Amazon deforestation to the mix of impacts on the world’s grain basket.
I appreciate the difficulty the cryosphere community has trying to get their hands around what is happening in the Arctic but meteorologists and climatologists should be putting together aggressive modeling exercises to try to understand the possible impacts of Amazon-Arctic changes on the temp and precip in W NA.
Meanwhile, I am slowing going thru the many cites you offered.
John McCormick
TCO // August 16, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Getting back to the sea ice, the idea that I heard put forward was that multi-year ice is harder to melt….that there had been a dramatic loss of multi-year ice….and that thus recovery of the pole in winter was ephemeral, since it would rot so much more easily the next summer. What does it mean that it did not? How do the numbers work, what are the tipping points, how does variability (from winds, currents) interact with variability from year to year warmth with the single year/multiyear phenomenon of easier melting ice?
Hank Roberts // August 16, 2008 at 5:02 pm
> … recovery of the pole in winter was ephemeral, …. What does it mean that it did not?
Which “it” and which “did not” are you talking about? Are you comparing 2007 to 2008 for the whole Arctic Ocean? Wait til the results are in, like October or so.
TCO // August 16, 2008 at 5:31 pm
1. Sure. Let’s talk in October.
2. I’m talking the whole Arctic, not just the pole. Sorry, my bad.
3. The discussion of the danger of single year versus multi year ice (causing worse rot the next summer) was a general one. I don’t want to go back and compile some meta-review. But it was all over the net. Here’s one:
[quote] As discussed in our April analysis, the ice cover this spring shows an unusually large proportion of young, thin first-year ice; about 30% of first-year ice typically survives the summer melt season, while 75% of the older ice survives. For a simple estimate of the likelihood of breaking last year’s September record, we can apply survival rates from past years to this year’s April ice cover. This gives us 25 different estimates, one for each year that we have reliable ice-age data (see Figure 4). To avoid beating the September 2007 record low, more than 50% of this year’s first-year ice would have to survive; this has only happened once in the last 25 years, in 1996. If we apply the survival rates averaged over all years to current conditions, the end-of-summer extent would be 3.59 million square kilometers (1.39 million square miles). With survival rates similar to those in 2007, the minimum for the 2008 season would be only 2.22 million square kilometers (0.86 million square miles). By comparison the record low extent, set last September, was 4.28 million square kilometers (1.65 million square miles). [/quote]
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2008/050508.html (halfway down)
cce // August 16, 2008 at 6:04 pm
I suspect that the reason that 2008 is “catching up” to 2007 to some degree is that ordinarily the perennial ice is all that is left this time of year. Since there is essentially no perennial ice, melting is continuing at a greater rate. If it hadn’t started in such a weakened state, the ice would probably be in fairly good shape this summer.
Petro // August 16, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Recently ice cracked to open a lead to the north of Greenland
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/single.php?2008229/crefl1_143.A2008229153001-2008229153500.1km.jpg
Soon, it is possible to go around Greenland by a boat.
dhogaza // August 16, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Continuing from the piece TCO quotes …
And also
(which appears to be correct, though we don’t know) and also
So, yes, TCO, they did say what you say, that if past relationships held it would be very unlikely that we would not exceed the 2007 minimum. But they also published a comment from a respected scientist in the field in which he cautions that those past relationships might not hold any more, which balances that statement.
Along with one prediction that gave slightly higher than even odds of exceeding the 2007 anomaly, and another that said we wouldn’t.
And note that at the moment it is not absolutely clear that 2008 will set a new record. It’s likely to be “only #2″.
Now, if the starting point in 2008 was the same as in 2007 (the ice extent was greater in 2008 when the melting season started), we probably would’ve set a new record.
Where is the contradiction between:
1. new ice typically melts more quickly
2. there was more ice altogether when the melt season started
So it doesn’t melt more quickly enough to make up for the additional extent due to our coldish winter … BFD.
dhogaza // August 16, 2008 at 8:09 pm
As Hank says, it’s not October yet …
These lines might cross again in September.
Not that it really matters …
Timothy Chase // August 16, 2008 at 8:51 pm
Tenney Naumer wrote:
It is believed that hurricanes play a fairly important role in the climate system, for example, in moving heat from the ocean into the atmosphere where it may be radiated away from the climate system:
However, you are suggesting that there is an important role in terms of oceanic poleward advection. For what it is worth, I tend to agree. One paper that recently suggested something along those lines is the following:
According to their calculations, hurricanes may be responsible for roughly half of the thermohaline circulation:
They end by suggesting that if hurricanes become considerably stronger as the result of global warming, then this may help to explain the so-called equable climates of the past, e.g., where the tropics were only two or three degrees warmer, but the Arctic was subtropical:
… but according to their more recent work, hurricanes would appear to be an even more powerful heat pump than they had originally proposed in their 2007 paper.
Please see:
Investigating tropical cyclone-climate feedbacks using the TRMM
Microwave Imager (TMI) and the Quick Scatterometer (QuikScat)
Ryan L. Sriver, Matthew Huber, and Jesse Nusbaumer
Revised Draft, April 27, 2008
http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~huberm/2007GC001842-pip.pdf
Regarding hurricanes and equable climates, commenters may also wish to check out the following…
Tropical Cyclone–Induced Upper-Ocean Mixing and Climate: Application to Equable Climates
Robert L. Korty, Kerry A. Emanuel, AND Jeffry R. Scott
15 FEBRUARY 2008
Journal of Climate, Vol 21
ftp://texmex.mit.edu/pub/emanuel/PAPERS/korty_etal_2008.pdf
John McCormick // August 16, 2008 at 9:07 pm
dhogaza,
an unscietific opinion:
extrapolating the 2008 curve has it crossing the Sept. 2007 curve by about Sept. 10…still time to go below the 2007 melt extent; and, given the season began with greater ice extent, more fresh water than last year entering the Arctic Ocean.
John McCormick
steven mosher // August 17, 2008 at 4:28 am
Ray you wrote:
“To even suggest that minority viewpoints are suppressed is sheer ignorance. Any paper that advances understanding WILL get published. ”
Seriously, provide the data to back this claim up.
Scientifically. If you are a scientist. I know you were overstating for effect
but it undermines your case and credibility
Paul Middents // August 17, 2008 at 5:02 am
Mosher,
What data should Ray provide? Do you have some counter examples?
Petro // August 17, 2008 at 7:51 am
steven mosher required:
“Seriously, provide the data to back this claim up.
Scientifically. If you are a scientist. I know you were overstating for effect
but it undermines your case and credibility”
No, it is the vice versa. It is you having these conspiracy theories, you show the evidence.
Could you give even one example of a denialist manuscrpit, which is not rejected due to obvious logical reasons? You are here challenging reality, the burden of proof is in your side of ballpark.
Gavin's Pussycat // August 17, 2008 at 10:04 am
Steven,
who claims should prove. Produce even one valid, suppressed paper presenting a non-mainstream viewpoint. With the stress on valid. Don’t bother us with junk that deservedly appears on the Syldavian Met Society’s toilet paper.
Non-mainstream papers get published all the time and in repectable journals. Remember Spencer et al., august 2007? Or Stephen Schwartz? Made it to a respectable journal in spite of flaws. Douglass et al? same thing.
dhogaza // August 17, 2008 at 10:56 am
Well, for one thing, Mosher, submissions standards for scientific journals don’t include the disclaimer that “papers expressing a minority viewpoint will be rejected”.
So, really, I’d say the burden of proof is on those who claim that the only reason why ID proponents don’t publish, why climate science denialists don’t publish, why HIV denialists don’t publish in established scientific journals is because of the suppression of the advancement of understanding by the scientific establishment .
Ray Ladbury // August 17, 2008 at 11:10 am
Steven, it is up to the researcher to show that work advances understanding. If the paper meets this standard, I know of not one instance where the work was suppressed for long. Since it is YOU who are alleging that journals are fraudulently suppressing valid research, I would suggest that it is incumbent upon you to provide evidence.
For God’s sake, how on Earth would it benefit a journal to suppress good research–particularly if it involved a revolutionary advance in understanding?
caerbannog // August 17, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Could you give even one example of a denialist manuscrpit, which is not rejected due to obvious logical reasons? You are here challenging reality, the burden of proof is in your side of ballpark.
Yeah, what Petro said.
And could any of you global-warming skeptics out there provide not only some examples of well-written, well-researched papers that were unfairly rejected, could you also provide the reviewers’ comments? Most journal submissions (whether accepted or rejected) leave quite a paper trail.
If climate-change skeptics are being unfairly excluded from journals, then certainly someone has set up a repository on-line somewhere with copies of the rejected papers, along with the reviewers’ comments.
Could someone on the skeptical side provide a link to such a repository (if it exists)? If such a repository does not exist, then why not?
A rejected paper certainly won’t fall under an copyright restrictions.
TCO // August 17, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Steve: proving some extreme claim like that is impossible. That’s a slow pitch though.
Moving on: Denialists have not even TIRED much to publish papers, they have not written clear white papers. They have just eggregious writing (bad axes, no footnotes, a mishmash of off topic accusations,) Ever see any of SM’s drafts for his poster sessions or talks at meetings. They SUCK! I mean how can anyone in the business world do such a crappy job of fashioning presentations?! Also, I’ve published a fair amount. You can easily get controversial material published by sending it to the right journal and by writing tight and just citing the key data and analyses (not overreaching). The MAN is NOT keeping SM down. He’s keeping himself down. In the past, he’s even admitted it.
Hank Roberts // August 17, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Steven, are you saying these supposedly suppressed works are so completely hidden that you can’t find them, you can’t find out the authors’ names, you just — know they must be exist, and so logically, because you can’t locate them, a conspiracy has to be hiding them?
OR can you actually point to even one such paper an actual person has written and submitted and had rejected? With the reviewer’s comments, and the rejection letter?
If not — have you checked under the bed?
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/612%2BaN91H9L._SL500_BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg
Gavin's Pussycat // August 17, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Hank, Hank, Hank… now that would be a conspiracy theory.
Where do you get those ideas?
(Sorry about being facetious… just tried to put a bonehead in his place who had presented, in his letter to the editor of a local rag, the Standard Gore-Hansen Climate Conspiracy Theory, with all the bells and whistles. Museum stuff as it were, like a pristine copy of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Problem was, also the editor is science illiterate. Ah well.)
steven mosher // August 17, 2008 at 7:39 pm
I didnt make any claims about views being suppressed. I didnt make the claim that
ANY paper that advances knowledge will be accepted. I make no claims. I make a request.
If Ray believes that ANY paper that advances knowledge will be accepted, then it is RAYS BURDEN, to make this case in a scientific way.
You all clearly understand that Ray spoke for effect. Rather unscientific. Good rhetoric.
I have no knowledge about all the papers that have ever been submitted. Perhaps Ray does.
Perhaps Ray has read every paper and determined that every rejected paper failed to advance knowledge. That’s why I asked him for evidence of his claim. Be scientific about it.
Gavin's Pussycat // August 17, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Doesn’t work that way Mosh. Ray posed a theory based on his experience with the scientific publication process. It matches my experience as a reviewer, as a “reviewee” (submitter of papers) and my own current practice as a journal editor. What’s your experience?
Falsify the theory, Mosh. Give counterexamples. That’s how this works.
P. Lewis // August 17, 2008 at 11:27 pm
Journalistically, rather than perhaps rigorously scientifically, there is this piece from Richard Black, amongst which are these nuggets (this narrows it down to climate science and “sceptical” research, but then that is what is at the heart of comments above):
And this
henry // August 17, 2008 at 11:50 pm
“Non-mainstream papers get published all the time and in repectable journals. Remember Spencer et al., august 2007? Or Stephen Schwartz? Made it to a respectable journal in spite of flaws. Douglass et al? same thing.”
And mainstream papers get included in the “respectable” journals despite obvious flaws, too…
Should journals insist in archiving of data?
Whenever a non-mainstream paper gets submitted, people go over the paper and the data with a fine-toothed comb.
With some mainstream papers, people don’t get that chance…
dhogaza // August 18, 2008 at 12:25 am
You’re saying that journals hold non-mainstream papers to a higher standard of data availability etc than they do mainstream papers?
Got proof of that interesting claim?
tamino // August 18, 2008 at 4:53 am
Currently, sea ice area is closer to the 2007 record than sea ice extent, in fact it seems to have already moved into 2nd place with a few weeks of melt season remaining. And sea ice extent has lately taken a nosedive; it seems very likely to bottom out as the 2nd-lowest ever and just might match or pass 2007 for 1st place.
So it looks like summer 2008 is a stronger contender for the lowest amount of arctic sea ice than I thought.
But we’ll still have to wait and see.
Gavin's Pussycat // August 18, 2008 at 6:44 am
Re: henry, changing the subject is also a very typical denialist dishonesty, when a claim doesn’t hold up. I call that the ‘Cat & Mouse Fallacy’ and is what produces illegible 500+ comment threads on this site.
May I take this as an admission that you accept that Mosher’s original claim was BS? Now we’re getting somewhere.
Mosher’s demand for exhaustive proof was the usual BS too, by the way. It’s like demanding, when somebody claims “all objects fired upward, come done again”, that claimant study the history of all objects ever fired up since the Precambrian, rather than the nature of gravity.
There isn’t much left of the denialist ‘case’ if they must resort to lawyer tricks like that; the good news. The bad news, they will continue to fool innocent people.
Gavin's Pussycat // August 18, 2008 at 7:10 am
…and BTW henry, both the Schwartz and the Douglas paper were shown flawed based solely on the text itself, and publicly available data sources. I’m pretty sure this is typical. The supplementary material is indeed useful for ‘fishing expeditions’ and obfuscation.
But if you want to continue this nonsense I suggest you go dump it in one of the open threads where we can ignore it (poor tamino).
george // August 18, 2008 at 12:10 pm
That’s comparing an apple to an orange: a temperature change to a phase change.
Though obviously related, they are two completely different animals, especially from the standpoint of climate.
Under most circumstances, a relatively minor change in temperature does have a relatively minor effect, but if it is accompanied by a phase change — ie, melting of all sea ice in summer — it can have a profound effect because of the positive feedback involved. Absence of ice in summer has a significant effect on the amount of sunlight reflected back to space and hence on the earth’s energy budget — leading to more solar energy absorbed and further warming.
Ray Ladbury // August 18, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Henry asks whether data, etc. should be archived. This demonstrates ignorance of how science is done. Researchers need to verify each other’s work independently. In general, the methodology section of a peer-reviewed journal paper should be sufficient for an expert in the field to reproduce the work independently. Scientists are under no obligation to take amateurs or “auditors” by the hand and lead them through the analysis step by step.
Dano // August 18, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Scientists are under no obligation to take amateurs or “auditors” by the hand and lead them through the analysis step by step.
Ray, this is a key position of the denialist distraction.
You can’t take this “argument” away, because what will they have left? Shame on you, sir, for shining light on denialist’s hopes. For shame.
Best,
D
SunSword // August 18, 2008 at 2:54 pm
> In general, the methodology section of a peer-reviewed
> journal paper should be sufficient for an expert in the field to
> reproduce the work independently.
Correct. Fundamental to science is not only peer review — that just sets a low level “barrier to entry”. Absolutely key is that the paper itself MUST provide the methodology used to generate the results. If a paper does not provide sufficient material for another scientist to attempt to duplicate the results, it does not really matter whether it was peer reviewed or not.
Nick Barnes // August 18, 2008 at 3:54 pm
tamino: indeed, CT’s area number is now below in 2nd place, and the counterpart in my bet on that subject has graciously conceded. As I have been saying for months, I very much doubt whether I will win my more pessimistic bet (that this year will be worse than 2007). I basically wrote that off in June and see little reason to doubt that outcome.
However, looking at the ice pictures, graphs, and statistics on a daily basis, I’m struck by how unusual the ice is this year. It’s a giant slush puppy up there. The almost linear continuation of the melt this year - one can lay a ruler against either the extent or area graphs - might well be connected to this unusual nature of this year’s ice. So who knows where it might go over the next couple of months?
I think that a lot of current melting might be due to wave and wind action - that is, conduction from the water, not insolation or conduction from the air. The sun is low, there is a lot of cloud cover, and the air seems fairly cold. But the ice is so broken up that it is quite mobile and there is a good reach for wave formation. The waves also mix the layers of the ocean which I understand can affect melting by preventing the formation of thermohaline layers (e.g. a surface layer of fresher water from melting sea ice).
In addition, the mobility of the ice means that the extent depends a great deal on the direction and speed of the winds: if the winds compress the pack, the extent will decrease, whereas if the winds scatter the ice the extent will grow.
Although the melt season is drawing to a close, I guess that both these effects - the melting due to wind and waves and the wind effects on extent - might continue even into October.
swade016 // August 18, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Tamino, I think I mis-read Ray’s post, can you delete my previous one? He said the “methodology section” should be sufficient. I misread that. I took what he said to mean, don’t provide anything helpful to outsiders….clearly I was wrong.
Thanks!
Dano // August 18, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Absolutely key is that the paper itself MUST provide the methodology used to generate the results. If a paper does not provide sufficient material for another scientist to attempt to duplicate the results, it does not really matter whether it was peer reviewed or not.
This is part of why reviewers read papers. Does the description in the ‘Materials and Methods’ do the job for someone else?
Caveat: it is rare for any researcher to have the time or money to duplicate an experiment again.
The ‘Materials and Methods’ section is more geared toward someone thinking ‘that’s already been done this way. What about my idea instead being approached in this way?’
Best,
D
Hank Roberts // August 18, 2008 at 6:47 pm
> sea ice
> multiyear
How long does it take the brine to be forced out of sea ice, and the sea ice to harden into solid water ice? I vaguely recollect it may take several years, and that sea ice the first year (or two) is pretty mushy stuff for a while.
Hank Roberts // August 18, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Aha:
doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2007.12.021
Temporal evolution of decaying summer first-year sea ice in the Western Weddell Sea, Antarctica
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VGC-4SFR7MF-1&_user=10&_origUdi=B6V86-4N9P4HD-2&_fmt=high&_coverDate=05%2F31%2F2008&_rdoc=1&_orig=article&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=74373579027ccd8d469ef09da174351e
Bob North // August 18, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Tamino or anyone else - When discuss the Artic Ice, what exactly is the difference between area and extent? I have seen this mentioned a few times but have not be able to determine what the exact nature of the different definitions. Thanks in advance for your answers.
P. Lewis // August 18, 2008 at 9:39 pm
Sea ice extent is defined as the area with ice concentration of 15%. Sea ice area is the ocean area actually covered by ice.
Nick Barnes // August 18, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Bob North: See this answer in the NSIDC FAQ: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/faq.html#data_no_ice
That FAQ is indispensable to anyone first trying to understand sea ice observations.
David B. Benson // August 18, 2008 at 10:09 pm
In some areas of science, research results must be replicated elsewhere before being accepted. There are some well-known (and not so well-known) cases in which the effect was not replicatable. In those situations the orginal work is taken to be mistaken.
Phil. // August 18, 2008 at 10:17 pm
Bob North // August 18, 2008 at 7:46 pm
“Tamino or anyone else - When discuss the Artic Ice, what exactly is the difference between area and extent?”
The satellite data is stored as pixels which represent a certain surface area and have a representative ice concentration. The extent is the sum of pixel area which have a concentration greater than 15%, the area is the sum of (pixel area*concentration). Area will always be less than (or equal to) extent, last year at the end of the melt season the average concentration was ~70%, currently ~65%. So this year as much ice has melted as melted all last year but it’s more spread out so the extent lags last year’s value. Consistent wind could compact all the ice together and reduce the extent dramatically without any more melting.
Dano // August 18, 2008 at 10:59 pm
In some areas of science, research results must be replicated elsewhere before being accepted. There are some well-known (and not so well-known) cases in which the effect was not replicatable. In those situations the orginal work is taken to be mistaken.
Yes, almost always these are controlled lab experiments. Field-collected data, such as butterflies, spp. distribution, fish catch, are not conducive to exact replication. This is one reason why stats has the power it does.
Best,
D
Bob North // August 19, 2008 at 4:16 am
Thank you Nick, P. Lewis and Phil, that was exactly the info I was trying to understand.
WhiteBeard // August 19, 2008 at 6:23 am
George @ 12:10 pm,
“Absence of ice in summer has a significant effect on the amount of sunlight reflected back to space and hence on the earth’s energy budget — leading to more solar energy absorbed and further warming.”
I’ve been looking at the International Arctic Research Center (IARC-JAXA)’s plot of Arctic ice extent for 2002 (partial) through the current season at:
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
A thing I find rather striking is that during the majority of the period of highest insolation, mid April to about a week after the June solstice, the chart shows the smallest divergence in area covered by ice. Last year’s large excersion from previous seasons was not yet apparent in any way. Only about the 1st of July, did 2007 show less ice than any of the most recent years.
2007 and 2006, the years with the lowest extent when the tracks of this group began to spread, had separate themselves a bit from the 4 prior years by July 1st, but by the end of the 1st week of that month, 2006’s concentration numbers were heading back inside the range of the previous 4, where they remained for the remainder of the melt season. The nose of the reduced albedo camel stayed under the edge of the retreating ice for the rest of the 2007 melt season leading, in great part, to its very low ending value.
I used Cryosphere Today’s side by side comparison feature to try to determine whether my speculation about the narrow range of variation during the period I was interested in had much basis. I thought that the area available for ice to form and subsequently melt, being limited at more southern latitudes by encircling land, might be the key to this period of more uniform melt rates. That appears to be only partially true however. It seems there’s evidence of ice starting to recede most years of this decade from the shores of the Arctic during the first week in June. And of course, the snow cover on the land surrounding the Arctic Ocean, with respect to incoming solar radiation, acts in about the same fashion as the ice does. I haven’t looked for any temporal change on land, but the last 3 years from CT still show snow cover on quite a sizable area of the land bordering the Arctic Seas.
A further factoid I haven’t seen mentioned (more properly, I don’t recall having seen it mentioned) comes from CT’s area measurement graph at:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.jpg
The Arctic Ocean’s ice area remained nearly constant for 4 to 5 weeks from about, or just after, mid August until the last week of September while extent continued to lose an additional 300,000 to 400,000 km^2. I understand that extent may be a metric more accurately derived from the orbiting microwave instrument readings, but area is the one most closely linked to albedo.
In any case, the point I’d like to make deals with the effect of ice going missing in the Arctic on the planet’s radiation budget. If the earlier part of the high isolation season really doesn’t show much deviation, things may be just a tad more optimistic for near term surface temperature trends, or, there may be just a bit more time available to get cracking on climate issues. I see the big problem of albedo reduction really starting when the increase in the rate of ice loss, that now occurs at or just after the solstice, moves forward in the year and increasing areas of the Arctic Ocean’s surface are exposed each summer to more acutely angled radiation. Then we’re really into the mug’s game of trading high albedo ice for warmth storing water.
george // August 19, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Whitebeard,
That makes perfect sense.
I looked into this a little more and research (Sea Ice Albedo-Feedback and Nonlinear Arctic Climate Change) supports your hunch.
The above paper indicates that sea-ice albedo feedback will probably not give rise to non-linear arctic climate change in the near future, partly for the reason that you give — that ice disappearance in September has a relatively small impact on albedo -feedback because the sun is low in the sky — and party because, as they say, “perturbations to the sea ice region climate are opposed by changes in the heat flux through the adjacent ice-free oceans conveyed by altered atmospheric heat transport into
the sea ice region”
From the above paper
“Sea Ice Albedo-Feedback and Nonlinear Arctic Climate Change (April, 2008)”
Michael Winton
Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory/NOAA
Of course, it is at least possible that the models have underestimated the non-linear effects, since most of them have an ice-free arctic in late summer happening well down the road (50+ years from now) and that could happen sooner.
Andrew // August 21, 2008 at 1:32 am
So I guess the NW passage is open again.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Didjeridust // August 21, 2008 at 6:50 am
…and by the looks of it…
http://iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/arctic_AMSRE_visual.png
http://iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/Arctichesky_visual.png
…the North East Passage as well. It is now possible to circumnavigate the Arctic
Phil. // August 22, 2008 at 6:52 am
About 7 yachts sailing through the southern passage of the NW passage (the Amundsen route) over the last week. Here’s a picture of three of them, Tyhina, Baloum Gwen and Southern Star, at Gjoa Havn on the 16th (heading W).
http://www.tyhina.com/Images/2008/1-8boatsGjoa.jpg
Tyhina’s progress shown here: http://www.tyhina.com/Images/Progress-Map.gif
Berrimilla and Amodino have cleared the NW passage and are sailing South in Baffin Bay past Pond Inlet.
tamino // August 23, 2008 at 11:01 am
A comment by “didjeridust” was trapped by the spam cue. When moderating, I accidentally hit “delete” instead of “not spam.” Please re-submit.
Didjeridust // August 23, 2008 at 11:51 am
What’s up down south?
We’ve all been watching the arctic closely lately with the passage opening and all that…
But what about this:
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/s_plot_daily.html
…well, I thought, maybe not dramatic at all: A quarter of a million square km decrease in sea ice extent in approx 1 week…maybe just wind packing the slush and thus making the extent go down…
But then I considered this:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.south.jpg
Here we have sea ice area going down three quarters of a million sq km in 1 week, anomaly dropping 1 million sq km in 1 week
According to my limited understanding, layman and all, of this, is that reduction in sea ice area exceeding the reduction of sea ice extent may indicate that the sea ice isn’t just reducing the amount of “widespreadness”(silly word, yeah), but that it is also getting thinner…in the antarctic winter?!?
Anyone got a comment on this?
Is there something noteworthy going on down there?
Or is it just me misinterpreting?(If so, please correct, instruct and educate me!)
Phil. // August 23, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Polarstern seems to be making rapid progress through the NWP.
http://iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/Polarstern_visual.png
David B. Benson // August 23, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Didjeridust // August 23, 2008 at 11:51 am — The Cicumpolar Vortex pulls up bottom water. That ancient water (buried about 200–600 years ago) may sometimes be warmer than average.
My amateur take on it.
Phil. // August 24, 2008 at 3:51 am
Polarstern has apparently cleared the strait now:
http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/shipposition.phtml?call=DBLK
Imran // August 24, 2008 at 2:41 pm
“You’ve sunk to a level of stupidity that really does boggle the mind.”
I don’t think there is any need to get so angry or aggressive. Just because someone has a different interpretation on the data, doesn’t make them stupid or even wrong…. and I’m not sure how you can know there was “perennial ice cover for at least 700,000 years, and probably for 4 million years”. “Probably” doesn’t sound very convincing. Even in living memory there is clear anecdotal evidence about less ice coverage eg. the trasit of the northwest passage in the very early 20th century. Clearly you should do some reading before throwing your anger about ….. and why are you so angry anyway ?
[Response: I suppose if someone commented here that 2 + 2 = 7, you'd call that "a different interpretation of the data"? I call it stupid.]
Hank Roberts // August 24, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Imran’s supporting Richard’s stupid affirmation of faith above, which is in its own turn stupid.
Imran, you say you have no idea how someone could know what Richard claims is “well known” — then you support his beliefs.
Are you familiar with this document?
http://www.justfuckinggoogleit.com/
It illustrates the problem of coming to a site proclaiming certainty about something while saying nobody can possibly know for sure.
Both statements are wrong.
Hint: open ocean supports a variety of living organisms that as they die make characteristic sediments on the ocean floor, accumulating over thousands and hundreds of thousands of years. Ice-covered ocean supports a very different variety of organisms, that also contribute their remains to sedimentary layers.
It’s certainly traditional to post one’s beliefs and await correction. It’s far more productive to ask questions the smart way.
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
Rather than applauding Richard for posting stupid beliefs and wasting the time of a busy man, ask a smart question yourself and be a good example for him. Help him find out how one finds these things out. It’s a rewarding habit to get into.
Read, say, the first one of these, and a few papers you can find by searching on the terms you find in it. That will make you puzzle over real science and give you something to ask that will be interesting:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?sourceid=Mozilla-search&q=TEX86+new+palaeothermometer+marine+plankton+Crenarchaeota
Hank Roberts // August 24, 2008 at 5:24 pm
PS, this is lovely, it’s about the edges, not the central Arctic:
http://64.233.179.104/scholar?num=100&hl=en&lr=&newwindow=1&safe=off&q=cache:Qw0CiCB7tzgJ:pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic49-3-235.pdf+%2Barctic+%2B%22sea+ice%22+%2Bthousand+years
Phil. // August 24, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Imran: Even in living memory there is clear anecdotal evidence about less ice coverage eg. the trasit of the northwest passage in the very early 20th century.
‘Less ice coverage’! Taking the route Amundsen used 7 yachts have sailed through this summer. A was frozen in Gjoa Haven for 2 years, note the picture I posted on the 22nd of three yachts anchored there a week or so ago (no ice)! This is the second year that it’s been clear, note that A got iced in again after clearing the passage and hiked across the ice to send a telegram to announce his success. This is ‘evidence about less ice coverage’? One of the yachts, Berrimilla, is a 33′ fibreglass hull, not ice reinforced at all, on 1st Aug they crossed from Alaskan waters into Canadian waters, today they’re zooming down Baffin Bay in ice free waters and will probably cross the AC tomorrow! The crossed it going N on 25 July so that’s an AC-AC transit in a month.
The anecdotal evidence thus supports the present situation being much less ice than the ‘very early 20th century’.
pough // August 25, 2008 at 3:51 am
Phil, I’d just like to thank you for your links. I now know there is a Fiji Island in the NWT! It doesn’t show up on Google Maps, possibly because it was assumed to be just ice. It shows up on the satellite version, but it’s all white.
http://maps.google.ca/?ie=UTF8&ll=70.171365,-125.06012&spn=0.148367,0.519791&t=h&z=11
Imran // August 25, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Response: I suppose if someone commented here that 2 + 2 = 7, you’d call that “a different interpretation of the data”? I call it stupid.
Actually …… what I might call “stupid” is someone who makes an analogy of trying to intepret incomplete historical data in extremely complex climate systems with trying to add 2 and 2.
What do you think ?
[Response: I think you don't have the slightest idea what the evidence is for perennial ice cover in the arctic or how strong it is, but in spite of total ignorance you're happy to accept the unfounded claims of any idiot who calls it into question and happy to insist that it's credible arctic sea ice has completely disappeared within the span of human civilization. You're just like someone who never learned to add, so when a fool drops by to say 2 + 2 = 7 you'll answer critics with talk about incomplete data for extremely complex mathematical systems. It amazes me how many people will argue endlessly about how much we can't possibly know when the relevant fact is how much *they* don't know. Get an education.
Argument from ignorance -- that's stupid. Go join Anthony Watts' blog, he loves that.]
Hank Roberts // August 25, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Say Tamino, have you looked at these?
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
There’s a little jog right at June each year in the charts, do you know if they do an annual correction or something?
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/plot.csv
[Response: It's not present in every year, but is prominent in 2003, 2006, and 2008. The JAXA algorithm is different from that used for NSIDC data, which don't show that blip in 2003 or 2006 (and I don't have NSIDC data for 2008), so I suspect it may indeed be an artifact of the processing of the data.]
S2 // August 25, 2008 at 7:18 pm
I don’t think it’s anything significant.
Antarctic sea ice was above average from October to the end of June, probably at least partly in response to the La Niña. We’re now ENSO neutral, and it looks like the ice is shrinking back to “normal”. Add in a bit of natural variation and it doesn’t look very out of the ordinary.
Philip Sutton // August 26, 2008 at 2:34 am
The main article says:
> But I don’t expect this year’s minimum to dip below 2007’s record low. It’s not
> impossible; the ice is a lot thinner. But there’s too much difference between
> 2007 and 2008, and the decline isn’t fast enough to warrant the conclusion that
> we’ll break last year’s record, so I’m expecting 2008 to come in 2nd-lowest
> all-time but not take 1st place. Minimum should occur in mid-to-late September,
> we won’t really know until then.
Have a look at:
http://www.green-innovations.asn.au/Arctic-watch.htm#comparison
I’ve taken the NSIDC data on 2005/2006 and overlayed the most recent data for 2008.
2008 pulled away from the 2005 Arctic melt level over a week ago (comparing the same day melt level in each year). The current melt rate is stronger than in 2007 at the same time. The most likely outcome at this moment in time is that the 2008 melt will come close to 2007 but will not exceed 2007. However, if the current high melt rate continues for another week then the 2008 melt may be neck and neck with 2007. According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre the surface melt has stopped this year but melting is still occurring driven by the ‘warm’ Arctic Ocean.
Philippe Chantreau // August 27, 2008 at 5:20 am
What NSIDC is showing is definitely interesting.
While the 79-00 average, 05 and even 07 all show a slowing of the melt by late August, 08 seems to be accelerating. If the slope does not change within days, extent will soon be below the 07 value for same date. It looks more likely now than in June or July that the 07 minimum could be reached or passed.
I have not read much from A. Wegener Inst. and other sources this year, but this seems impossible unless the water is significantly warmer in some places than just about ever before. The extent of single year ice is probably also a factor. Have time to spare to give us clues Hank?
dhogaza // August 27, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Yes, that graph is really interesting, along with this one which also shows 2005 and 2006, making the uniqueness of the accelerating melt being seen this august even more clear.
HankRoberts // August 27, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Philippe, I continue to suspect the best source of current actual data is whatever the various Navy groups are collecting. But we don’t see that except to whatever extent it influences public presentations, e.g.:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&scoring=r&q=Maslowski+arctic+%22sea+ice%22&as_ylo=2008
Gavin over at RC reminds us that Maslowski’s remarks aren’t based on published data and are rather more pessimistic than any of the other models. I remind him that only Maslowski has a nuclear submarine fleet collecting data for him (wry grin). I wish Gavin had the same sources or the Navy had the same level of ability to publish raw data.
Aside — I note that Russia has taken back their own nuclear icebreaker fleet (it had been privatized):
http://eng.expert.ru/news/2008/08/27/atomflot/
On Dr. Bitz’s Publications page there are several current papers with a lot of detail about the many factors affecting sea ice — there’s far more going on than discussed coherently on any of the blogs.
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~bitz/publications.html
I find her work fascinating. She wrote an excellent topic at RC (January 2007):
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/01/arctic-sea-ice-decline-in-the-21st-century/
“… In our paper (with co-author Bruno Tremblay), we examined the September Arctic sea ice cover in the 20th and 21st centuries in climate models, and found occasional decades of very rapid retreat. The most extreme case was a decrease from 6 to 2 million square kilometers in a decade (see Fig 1).
http://www.realclimate.org/images/bitz_fig1.jpg
This is about 4 times faster than the decline that has been observed in the past decade….”
Remember, that’s one example of a run, one of many, from a _model_ in January 2007.
I hope RC invites a revisit if she has time. I’d, er, suspect she’s rather busy. I’d really like to know what she and her peers are saying to one another this season.
John L. McCormick // August 27, 2008 at 7:11 pm
My August 16 post seems on track:
[extrapolating the 2008 curve has it crossing the Sept. 2007 curve by about Sept. 10…still time to go below the 2007 melt extent; and, given the season began with greater ice extent, more fresh water than last year entering the Arctic Ocean.]
John McCormick
dhogaza // August 27, 2008 at 8:13 pm
Actually, John, too optimistic? If the roughly linear trend continues - no sign of slacking off thus far - it’s going to cross by Labor Day …
This is like watching Bolt skate through the 100m final thus far. Will the trend slow up to grin at the crowd and therefore fail to break last year’s record? We’ll see :)
S2 // August 27, 2008 at 10:03 pm
Agreed, it is interesting.
However the unusual thing about last year was the melt during late August/September. Looking at CT’s Tale of the Tape illustrates how unusual the anomaly was in late 2007 (they had to expand the y-axis twice during the year).
There’s no guarantee that we’ll see this happen again this year.
Having said that, we’ve already overtaken 2005 (which is bad). Whether we pass the 2007 record or not isn’t really important. The fact that the three lowest extents ever recorded have happened in the last four years is probably more cause for concern, but the really important thing is the trend - and that is increasingly alarming.
Philippe Chantreau // August 28, 2008 at 6:03 am
Thanks for the pointers Hank. I had forgotten about Dr. Bitz’ RC post. Quite interesting, esp showing the variety of runs along with observations.
apolytongp // August 28, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Did the baby ice die?
Philippe Chantreau // August 29, 2008 at 2:05 am
You know apoly*, this is exactly why I’m so skeptical of the”skeptic” side. That 2.14 comment is idiotic, downright stupid, not funny at all. What’s the freaking point of the comment?
You seemed to be a fairly serious skeptic, then suddenly, you lost a bunch of credibility by stating that the loss of Arctic ice is not important/no big deal/ not significant to climate research/ not interesting/people studying it are wasting their time/whatever.
Go on, throw the baby ice with the Arctic water, I’ll know better than pay attention to your comments from now on.
Petro // August 31, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Aug 30:
Area (Cryosphere Today) nearly in last year’s minimum. Will break the record within a week.
Extent (JAXA) 1 million km2 over last year’s minimum. Do not look like the record is reached, however, would weather be supportive for melting all September, anything can happen.
Maslowski will be right, though he might have erred a year. In 2012, Arctic sea ice is floating freely, and then gone.
Gavin's Pussycat // August 31, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Everybody talks about the weather…
Seriously, does it matter if 2008 summer extent is a hair more or a hair
less than 2007 summer extent? Is 101% of an ongoing train wreck any
worse, realistically, than 99%?
Seems every one here has contracted denialist myopia. Go do something
useful.
Hank Roberts // August 31, 2008 at 9:04 pm
A useful pointer to actual data: http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/08/about_that_arctic_sea_ice.php#comment-1079877
dhogaza // August 31, 2008 at 11:14 pm
Hmmm … for myself, it’s just curiosity. Daily plots … it’s like watching a horse race.
Does it matter? Of course not. Is it fun to satisfy one’s daily curiosity? Sure.
Hank Roberts // September 1, 2008 at 12:48 am
I’ve been hoping Atmoz might do a little educational piece along the lines of the earlier “five year trends” for annual temp. numbers.
Ice would be much harder, as we have several metrics and an annual cycle instead of ’simple’ attempts to detect a trend over time.
But I wonder how many days of data points are needed to, say, compare a stretch of the daily numbers to a comparable stretch of the previous annual average smoothed curve.
Petro // September 1, 2008 at 4:17 am
GP: Well, these events happen for the first time in millions of years. We are witnessing something unique. It is a constant reminder we humans do affect to the climate.
Gavin's Pussycat // September 1, 2008 at 6:53 am
dhogaza, curiosity is a good thing, but if it’s daily, it’s not climate.
Go watch a horse race instead :-)
Tom G // September 1, 2008 at 7:02 am
dhogaza 11:14…
I’m with you on the daily curiosity thing…
I’m just a worker ant so I tend to keep my thoughts to myself, but…
The year 2008 just might satisfy this ant’s question of future happenings.
The year started with low solar activity (sun-spots) and has remained that way…
The year started with a strong La Nina which has faded to neutral conditions…
There have been no huge volcanic eruptions, no rocks from space, or anything else abnormal to influence the weather/climate…
A neutral year…
This ant’s opinion?
After watching this years ice melt in the Arctic and the so far somewhat below normal freeze in the Anarctic?
The earth is now warning us, not what might happen, but what will happen.
But what do I know…I’m just an ant…
dhogaza // September 1, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Have I ever suggested that I think it is? Ever?
I’m self-employed and have refused to work fulltime since 1988. I’ve got plenty of time to waste satisfying my curiosity about all sorts of things.
FredT34 // September 7, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Sorry I’m so late on this post… I think the big point with Maslowski is : “Remarkably, this stunning low point was not even incorporated into the model runs of Professor Maslowski and his team, which used data sets from 1979 to 2004 to constrain their future projections.
“Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer is not accounting for the last two minima, in 2005 and 2007,” the researcher from the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, explained to the BBC.
“So given that fact, you can argue that may be our projection of 2013 is already too conservative.”
Excerpt from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7139797.stm - 2007 interview during the AGU meeting.
twawki // September 10, 2008 at 12:34 pm
The way the sea ice is tracking doesnt look like its gonna go below last year. When you consider that there are reports the satellites didnt pick up areas of ice where water pooled on the surface guess that means theres even more ice. The alarmist paddling to the north pole got stuck because of ice as well. And when the melting that did happen is based on winds and not atmospheric temps going up it shows up the whole AGW pseudo science simply as a religion.
David B. Benson // September 10, 2008 at 9:39 pm
twawki // September 10, 2008 at 12:34 pm — You are certainly confused. Prehaps you’ll be less so after reading “The Discovery of Global Warming” by Spencer Weart:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html
Review of above:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F04E7DF153DF936A35753C1A9659C8B63
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