Arctic Sea Ice

Use of graphs

Since the inception of this blog in 2010 a small community has developed of people who are interested in everything concerning Arctic sea ice and the science surrounding it. Though not climate scientists, a lot of these people have certain skills due to their work or education, and so it was hardly surprising that several of them, including myself, started playing around with data and make graphs based on them.

A couple of days ago an article on the BBC website appeared that discusses geoengineering to stave off a possible major methane release (we discussed this here). Based on written evidence by professor Peter Wadhams and the Arctic Methane Emergency Group for the Environmental Audit Committee of the British House of Commons that was published on February 24th (followed by oral evidence as delivered on February 21st, and published on March 8th), this graph appeared in the article:In the bottom right corner there was a caption saying 'PIOMAS project' (it has now been removed). Unfortunately the graph had nothing to do at all with PIOMAS or the Polar Science Center or its scientists, who decided to provide the data after popular request. The graph is made and regularly updated by ASI blog commenter Wipneus, who has a collection of graphs based on PIOMAS data and other sources on his ArctischePinguin site.

There are two things I'd like to make clear with regards to this:

The pitfalls of prediction

This is the last post on pseudo-skeptics for a while, I promise. I have written four in two melting seasons, out of approximately 250 posts.

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The Arctic sea ice, it can burn.

We all remember how Anthony Watts and Steven Goddard were a bit overconfident last year and predicted a nice recovery ('you bet ya'). Their prediction turned out to be just 1 million square km too high. Of course, it didn't matter much for their reputation.

Nevertheless, this year the bravado has magically disappeared and thus they didn't do any predictions, although Goddard still likes to imply that we are witnessing a recovery at every opportunity he gets (for example writing multiple posts at the start of the melting season about how well 2011 is tracking 2006).

Their colleague Joe Bastardi did much better, taking a conservative view and predicting that 2010 would go relatively low. As it did. This success instantly made him last man standing on the pseudo-skeptic side of the debate. Or at least with regards to the Arctic sea ice.

So what did he predict for the 2011 melting season?

 

One down, zero to go. Extent didn't set a new record low, but the credibility of pseudo-skeptics did. Bastardi was at least as wrong as Watts and Goddard (who got off lucky) last year.

Of course, this could happen to anyone (happens to me quite regularly). But most rational and honest people own up to their mistakes and learn from them. Or did I miss Bastardi's explanation for his miserably failed prediction?

Kafka, eat your heart out

This post blends in well with the previous one.

Eli Rabett has put his two little front teeth in the Charles Monnett story and is not letting go:

PEER on IG Pursuit of Dead Polar Bear

Who is this Eric May? Who made the original complaint? Inquiring auditors want to know (BTW, Monnett has the right to see the original complaint once the investigation is concluded).

and

David Brown, DOI IG Special Agent in Charge of Untruth, or the Trial of Charles M

At the end of the last interview of the Department of Interior's IG Office with Charles Monnett, David Brown, the Special Agent in Charge pin dances with Monnett's lawyer, Jeff Ruch from PEER:

Arctic scientist suspended

Following a comment in the latest SIE update comment section, I draw attention to this article on the Guardian website:

Arctic scientist who exposed climate threat to polar bear is suspended

US government conducts 'integrity inquiry' on federal biologist amid lobbying by oil firms for Arctic permits

Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent

It was seen as one of the most distressing effects of climate change ever recorded: polar bears dying of exhaustion after being stranded between melting patches of Arctic sea ice.

But now the government scientist who first warned of the threat to polar bears in a warming Arctic has been suspended and his work put under official investigation for possible scientific misconduct.

Read the rest of the article here.

I have to admit that I'm not really up-to-date when it comes to polar bear research, so I can't judge the accusation of scientific misconduct. Of course, the potential extinction of polar bears has been used by environmental organisations to keep the Arctic the pristine place that it is. And rightly so, in my opinion. I believe some organisations are a bit too eager to plunder the Arctic's mineral riches. But would they go as far as eliminating scientists in this way? I guess so, and I guess Barack 'Yes, we can' Obama is proving again he's nothing more than a puppet.

But first I'd like to know if there is any truth to these scientific misconduct charges. Does anyone here have a better overview of polar bear research?

UPDATE: In the Guardian article mention is made of a complaint filed by a group called Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility:

Inner Conflict

Whenever I visit Cryosphere Today I have a quick look at the main graph on the front page, sometimes play the 30-day animation, and then I'm off to the next Arctic sea ice graph or map. But since a few weeks I've been wondering about something else on the CT website, the images on the comparison page to be precise.

First of all when you compare current dates with those of previous years, you notice that practically the entire ice mass looks very concentrated compared to other years (as far back as the eighties). This has reinforced the pseudo-skeptic position that the ice in the Arctic Basin is so thick it will withstand most of the summer melting and continue its recovery.

But when I compare the comparison page map with the front page map I notice some differences:

Believe it or not, but there are some things I have already found out for myself. The front page map has a much better resolution and thus shows more detail. Both maps also use a different colour scheme to depict ice concentration. And thirdly, I have read somewhere that both maps use different satellite data. The front page map uses AMSR-E data (like Uni Bremen and JAXA do), the comparison page map uses SSM/I (like Arctic ROOS does).

But does that explain the big difference I seem to be seeing in the depiction of polynyas on the map? Look at the Beaufort Sea and the Laptev Sea, or at Hudson Bay and Nares Strait. Look, I say!

I decided to check out which date of the front page map matches the one on the comparison map better:

Should I challenge Steven Goddard to a bet?

I have often called the Arctic sea ice melt 'the slowest horse race in the world'. And what is the first thing people associate with horse races? That's right, betting. Every year numerous bets are set up between known and less known bloggers and commenters in the blogosphere. Which is only logical, because despite all the doom and gloom, it's a fun thing to be betting on.

This year for instance William Connolley, the man who controls Wikipedia, has challenged the readers of his blog to a bet. There is some heavy monthly betting going on over at Lucia's Blackboard. Robert Grumbine, the subject of my next 2010 SIE prediction (I hope), is also offering quatloos. And in the style of the biggest casino in the world, the stock market, you can even trade your bets on a website called Intrade (too complicated for my taste).

Even in a comment on my Alarmist's Dilemma blog post David Gould wrote he has been betting with Willis Eschenbach (I don't know the details). But how about WUWT's snow and sea ice expert?

Up till now Steven Goddard has confined himself mainly by replying his critics with very concise snark which prominently features the acronym FUD (which looks kind of funny on a site like WUWT), e.g.: "I expect a full apology from you in September for wasting everybody’s time with your perpetual FUD". Or just below it: "I continue to be astonished by the amount of BS being thrown around by some FUDsters here." It's quite interesting to read from a psychological point of view.

Lately Steven Goddard has been upping the ante in his WUWT articles on the Arctic sea ice. He's been challenging some of his regular critics by saying they should announce their firm belief that the record will be beaten this summer and that they even should be betting large sums of money on this happening in September.

He said this a few days ago:

If you really believe in PIOMAS, then you are going to have to get firmly behind the idea of shattering the record low this summer. You can’t have it both ways, though no doubt you will try.

And only yesterday he wrote:

I can’t imagine why anyone who trusts the experts, wouldn’t go out and bet a lot of money on a record minimum. Seems like a done deal, based on the wealth of informative comments coming from the leading experts.

To melt or not to melt: the Alarmist's Dilemma

I have said it before and I will keep on repeating it, as I believe transparency is one of the most important features that human society will need going forward: I am an alarmist. Although this term has been devised by pseudo-skeptics who wish to undermine the public's perception of Global Warming and thus delay any policy that might interfere with their ideology of unfettered capitalism based on the sociopathic economic concept of unlimited growth, I willingly embrace it as a 'geuzennaam' like it's called in the Netherlands. You see, I honestly believe there is a lot to be alarmed about, AGW just being one of many interconnected ingredients in what I like to call the crisis cocktail. By the way, pseudo-skeptics themselves are usually pretty alarmist themselves, but let's not go into that. And I won't go into explaining those ingredients either, as the subject matter is too complex for me and goes way beyond the scope of this blog.

You know, it's not easy being an alarmist, having to continually try to walk the fine line between living life in a normal, care-free way and worrying too much about the state of the world. If you worry too much you lose sleep and people find you either boring or too fanatical when you want to explain the current situation in the Arctic or want to discuss the implications of high oil prices for the economy. If you are sticking your head in the sand too much and get completely engulfed in day to day life, you've got that little voice in the back of your head, also known as 'conscience' or 'moral compass', that tells you your lifestyle is keeping you part of the problem, and not the solution.

In addition to this difficulty the alarmist faces a considerable dilemma and for me the Arctic sea ice is a great example of this. Like I've explained in the introduction to this blog, the increased melting of Arctic sea ice could be a first clearly emerging signal of Global Warming, and if the sea ice extent continues to decrease like it has, this will have a very big impact on the public's perception.

2010 SIE predictions: Goddard and Watts

In anticipation of the first SEARCH Sea Ice Outlook report for 2010 (a synthesis report that describes the September sea ice predictions by several teams of scientists) I'll be posting a few articles with summaries of predictions by scientists and knowledgeable laymen. In this second instalment I'll be discussing the prediction for the 2010 Arctic sea ice minimum extent of none other than Steven Goddard and Anthony Watts from one of the major blogs in the Climate PR war: Watts Up With That.

First off I'd like to stress that I haven't spoken mildly of both Goddard and Watts on other blogs. I'm an alarmist, not just with regards to AGW but to the whole 'crisis cocktail' as I like to call it, but let's stick to the subject at hand: As an alarmist I of course am not a great fan of WUWT and most of its contributors and commenters. Not just because they disagree with my views - I don't think my views are that important or objective - but much more because of the way they choose to impact the public's perception of Global Warming.

So I haven't said and am still not saying nice things about Watts (and to a lesser degree Goddard) on other blogs. But there's a difference between writing comments and writing posts. With writing blog posts come different responsibilities, and so I will try not to make this an inciting post full of snark. In fact, I'll start off with writing something nice about Steven Goddard.

Steven Goddard is a smart guy, infinitely much smarter than I am (I can barely make a graph in Excel). And he has guts. He will go out and write up controversial theories, sometimes he's right, sometimes not, but I commend him for going out on a limb. Steven Goddard's main flaw however is that he does all of that on the basis that Anthropogenic Global Warming isn't real, a hoax, a scam. It's almost as if every time he starts writing he's thinking: something is happening, it cannot possibly be AGW, so it must be this! That mentality gets him into trouble more often than not, even though his line of reasoning can be quite sound.

This time around it's more serious. It's too early to tell, but it could very easily turn out that the Arctic sea ice fooled Goddard and Watts into some premature thumping of chests which they might regret come September. If their prediction turns out to be wishful thinking of course. Perhaps a time line can illustrate the cocky stubbornness that is causing a recent flurry of WUWT blog articles on the Arctic, which appear almost every second day.

The increase, the decline and Goddard's next top model

Everything was just hunky dory on February 9th when Watts and Goddard issued their prediction for the minimum sea ice extent for 2010: another recovery of 500,000 square km, just like 2008 and 2009, no doubt about it.