sea ice
illconsidered | December 6, 2011
No, this is not Steve McIntyre finally coming out with his own multi-century proxy temperature reconstruction. Nor is it Anthony Watt's release of his surfacestations.org temperature reanalysis.
It is the take away figure from a recent paper in Nature by Kinnard et al that reconstructs the extent of arctic sea ice over the last 1450 years.
Tamino has a discussion of it here.
There is not really much to add to the thousand words that image conveys.
illconsidered | September 27, 2011Well, it is that time of year again, the sea ice in the Arctic has reached its minimum extent.
(please note that the image above shows the August data, September's graphic is not yet available though it will look very similar)
So how's that "recovery" coming along? According to NSIDC, this year's September minimum is the second lowest in the satellite record.
Peter, over at Climate Crock of the Week, presents his latest video on that topic, a very sober and sobering placement of this year in its long term context:
Once again, the choice is between the "climate skeptics" and your lying…
stoat | August 31, 2011Every now and again I remember to look at this year's sea ice, and it is as depressing as looking at the share prices :-(
2011 is already #3, and will almost inevitably make #2, though probably not #1.
Refs
* Betting on sea ice: $10,000
* This year's sea ice
* Around Bee Rescue, Honey and Rancor
* RMG
* Arctic.io
* Neven
stoat | July 26, 2011Misc stuff. I think I'll press "publish" now to distract you. Oh look, there's a badger...
Early Warning with some interesting speculation and pointers re the possible US default. The "only someone batshit crazy would do that; oh f*ck, these teabaggers *are* batshit crazy" is fun. But I like the idea that even a brief default - assuming they came to their senses and caved afterwards - would add some tiny amount to US interest rates forever after. Are they really that crazy? Or will the big money have a quiet word in the right ears?
Timmy again, this time pointing out (well, it was the point…
stoat | June 26, 2011This year's story so far: in May, I accepted some bets but was still trying to come to terms with Rob Dekker. In the comments there we came to agreement on the following:
If both NSIDC and IARC-JAXA September 2016 monthly average sea ice extent report are above 4.80 million km^2, RD pays WMC US$ 10,000. If both are below 3.10 million km^2, WMC pays RD US$ 10,000. In all other cases the bet is null and void
The numbers are a bit of a compromise, and of course the large "null gap" in the middle means a no-payment result is quite likely. Now is a sort-of good time to announce this, because this…
stoat | May 10, 2011Or perhaps part 3. I've lost track. Sea ice - and now for something just a tiny bit different refers, as does the earlier This year's sea ice. Yes, it looks like being part 3.
The above is the IJIS sea ice. Nothing very exciting at the moment (NSIDC have some nice pix. April 2011 was bang-on trend). As you recall, we're trying to agree a bet or bets. I want to bet on monthly extent and some of the others want daily. After too much equivocation, I've decided to stick to my guns: monthly it is, and if you don't like that, you'll need to find someone else to bet with. Or, you can apply a handy…
stoat | March 31, 2011[Update: see comments. We're having some dispute about whether to bet on the monthly averages (the scientifically respectable thing to do) or daily min (the wildly exciting popular choice). I need to bother work out the numbers. Until then, you'll have to be patient (2011/3/31; I've adjusted the posting date from 2011-03-22 to push this to the head of the queue)]
But not very different. Neven reminds me, again, that I promised to put up a slightly longer-term bet; see This year's sea ice and in particular this comment and reply.
Neven offers:
I'd be willing to bet 50 euros on a record low…
stoat | February 28, 2011Time for another look at sea ice. Here is the familiar IARC-JAXA plot:
And we see: well, it is looking low, and has been consistently all winter. Not record-breakingly, like it was last December, but even so. Interesting.
This year, I'm not planning to run a book, unless anyone offers to make a worthwhile bet. I'll put up my "prediction", which is the same as ever: the mean prediction is for the trend amount, i.e. the same as last year minus a little bit (5.235, as I recall), and the "bet range" is that plus or minus interannual variation, which as I recall is around 0.5 units. If you happen…
stoat | December 20, 2010Since we're having this cold spell in the UK (which is just weather, and should not be mistaken for climate, much less global climate) now is perhaps a good time to look at the NH sea ice, which is at a record low for the time of year:
At the moment it is only low by a tiddly bit, and could well start to recover again. But it is also notable that it has been on the low edge of the pack all the time since the end of summer. It certainly bears watching [Thanks to C]. Roll on next years bets...
[Update:
When I wrote this, I should have mentioned No 'Tipping Point' for Sea Ice in Polar Bears'…
stoat | November 29, 2010On of the key parts of science is prediction. Or so we're told. So it is fun to watch various people rip Steve Goddard's predictions of sea ice to shreds. WUWT is the one boosting Goddard's worthless noise.
* RMG seems to be the most complete, prompted I think by:
* Tamino and
* Neven.
There's a video, too, if you're in the habit of watching moving pictures.
Update
An update, but worth its own header. While we're on forecasting, I am reminded of something altogether more real: the Keenlyside fiasco. RC has a recent post pointing out how wrong K et al. were (but in a caring, consensual sort of…
stoat | October 2, 2010Hurrah. That saves lots of effort paying :-). Not long ago it was looking bad for the good guys (i.e., me) with a "douple dip" recession of sea ice. But a strong perforcance from the boys up north in the mushy white stuff stakes saw a sharp rebound at the end of the month, leading to a monthly average for september of 4.90 (thanks for C for vigilance). As a reminder, recent years have been:
2000 9 Goddard N 6.32 4.31
2001 9 Goddard N 6.75 4.55
2002 9 Goddard N 5.96 3.98
2003 9 Goddard N 6.15 4.01
2004 9 Goddard N 6.05…
gregladen | September 16, 2010Scientists have been measuring sea ice very carefully since 1979. Prior to that, there are estimates that are of varying degrees of usefulness. I know for a fact that many New England lighthouses were attached to land by winter-long ice in places that have not had sea ice in any living person's memory, and there are similar bits and pieces of historical data suggesting that sea ice was once much more extensive in the Northern Hemisphere than at present.
Since 1979 there have been three years in which Arctic sea ice reached a rather alarming minimum size prior to reforming. We are in one…
stoat | July 18, 2010No, not me, DC, who says I'm thinking of paying up - 2010 looks more and more like 2006, not 2007. And indeed the latest Jaxa stuff looks like good news for the good guys (that is me, in case you hadn't realised):
And TS said:
Monckton is a blatant fraud who even lies about his own parliamentary status (or lack of status). Who cares what he has to say on some denialist blog? I would be interested to hear what you think is happening to the Arctic melt season. There was a lot of ghoulish pessimism a month ago, predictions of a huge melt this season and another record set for low had extent…
stoat | July 9, 2010Just a quicky, since I'm here. The current sea ice extent has just become unexciting. There is hope for my money yet!
illconsidered | June 23, 2010No too long ago the usual suspects were all a-twitter about arctic sea ice, which was tracking very close to the long term average.
This was in late March, and though you would think a weather man would understand what weather is, this temporary upwards tic prompted the remarkable vapidity of this lead: "We've all seen that Arctic Sea ice area and extent has expanded and is back to normal".
Well, that was then, and this is now:
Now, not only have we left the long term average behind, the current seasonal extent has dipped below one standard deviation less than normal and is even well…
stoat | June 15, 2010Continuing from Three views of sea ice. Well, tis now mid-June, so the futurology aspect of the prediction is closing rapidly. Or so you would have thought. I've just taken £50 against CR for the ice being below 4.735 (he gets the low side) or above 4.935 (I get the high side). But my principal debt on sea ice is failing to write anything more about it. so, to remedy that!
I was going to suggest that the most interesting way of doing the pool was via Intrade. Unfortunately their Arctic sea ice pool doesn't look very interesting. The bet is "2010 greater than 2009" and is trading at around 43…
stoat | May 23, 2010The troops are getting restive. What wil happen to this year's sea ice? Rumours abound. Let's look at some pictures.
Probably the least interesting is this one from NSIDC. But it looks exciting, doesn't it. Woo-hoo, look, the sea ice now is lower than it was in 2007, that means it will be at minimum, too, doesn't it? Well no, of course not. Look at this one from AWI:
2006 was well below 2007 at this point, and turned out to be uninteresting. As far as I know, no-one believes in predicting the minimum (which, of course, is the only number anyone gives a toss about) based on previous months.…
stoat | March 22, 2010I doubt I'll be running the ever-exciting competition again this year, due to a lack of people who strongly disagree with me (i.e., the decline will be on the long term-trend, plus some error margin).
But While I'm here there appears to be some excitement from Romm over a Grauniad study about a GRL study about the role of wind forcing in sea ice loss, in particular in 2007.
The paper says
The unprecedented retreat of first-year ice during summer 2007 was enhanced by strong poleward drift over the western Arctic induced by anomalously high sea-level pressure (SLP) over the Beaufort Sea that…
stoat | January 28, 2010At some point I need to decide if I'll re-start the by-now-traditional sea ice bet for the summer. Before we start arguing over the details, remember that there is a lot of inter-annual variablity so we need to disagree *a lot* to have a meaningful bet. But at least one person has said in the comments that they feel "worried" by this years ice, so that suggests pessimism that I can exploit!
Any thoughts about what you might want to bet about, please leave a comment. My default position is going to be "will fit the 1979-2009 slope extrapolated to 2010". Bear in mind that this isn't a forecast…
tlambert | January 23, 2010After embracing Monckton's theory that Copenhagen was going to introduce a COMMUNIST WORLD GOVERMENT, Jane Albrechtsen seems to backing away from Monckton's conspiracy theories:
Unfortunately, while Monckton has mastered the best arts of persuasion, he also succumbs to the worst of them when he engages in his made-for-the-stage histrionics. In Copenhagen, when a group of young activists interrupted a meeting, he berated them as Nazis and Hitler Youth. Elsewhere he has called on people to rise up and fight off a "bureaucratic communistic world government monster". This extremist language…