Arctic Sea Ice

Crowd-Source Prediction of Minimum Arctic Sea Ice

How does the collective wisdom of Arctic Sea Ice blog participants compare with expert scientific analysis in forecasting the September sea ice extent? This question seems worth exploring with a crowd-source experiment. You are all invited to submit, as comments to this post, your best guess for the mean September extent of Arctic sea ice (NSIDC). Your numerical prediction should be in the first line of the comment, followed by at least a sentence or two explaining the basis for your prediction — whether pure intuition, elaborate calculations, links to a web page, whatever you’ve got. General discussion is welcome too.

Springer science summary

Steve Bloom writes:

It looks like Springer [a company that publishes many science journals, N.] is providing a useful service in issuing open-access summaries of the state of the science within each Earth Science specialty (many, but not all, will pertain to climate science).

The new polar science one is further organized by sub-specialty, each containing a brief discussion of the science and (most valuable IMO) links to a number of papers comprising the state of the science. It's short enough so that someone unfamiliar with the field can acquire an overview in short order. Apparently the plan is to update annually.

Here's the intro to their Polar science news in brief summary:

The addition of the ‘‘News in Brief’’ series to our Views and News section will highlight recent significant research in the last year—from high-impact papers to emerging research fronts—and will include papers with both classic and new hot topics. This series will offer a rotating view among the major Earth Science areas, as various experts will be invited to provide a brief look around the recent research conducted in their area. This selection of research papers is left up to each expert and due to the broadness of each field is not intended to be a comprehensive overview. Links to the published work are provided in each section.

David Carlson, former Director of the International Programme Office for the International Polar Year, has been invited to provide a glimpse into the latest findings in polar science. Carlson outlines selected research of global relevance hoping that readers will discover the fascinating connections among and across these topics, and the unintended prominence of three restless partners: ocean, wind and ice.

The summary's summary is also well worth reading:

PIOMAS May 2013

Another month has passed and so here is the updated Arctic sea ice volume graph as calculated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) at the Polar Science Center:

According to the model data 2013 has peaked at a total volume of 21,823 km3 on April 17th, which is 100 km3 below last year's record. Since then, 2013 volume has dipped quite a bit below last year's number (295 km3 to be precise), but is still close to 2011 which has only 63 km3 more at this moment.

Here is Wipneus' version with the calculated "expected" 2013 values (dotted lines), based on the same date values of 1979-2011 and an exponential trend.
A caveat from Wipneus: "Note that the statistical error bars are quite large."

Survey measuring consensus in climate research

I received this request from Skeptical Science's John Cook:

As one of the more highly trafficked climate blogs on the web, I’m seeking your assistance in conducting a crowd-sourced online survey of peer-reviewed climate research. I have compiled a database of around 12,000 papers listed in the 'Web Of Science' between 1991 to 2011 matching the topic 'global warming' or 'global climate change'. I am now inviting readers from a diverse range of climate blogs to peruse the abstracts of these climate papers with the purpose of estimating the level of consensus in the literature regarding the proposition that humans are causing global warming. If you’re interested in having your readers participate in this survey, please post the following link to the survey:

http://survey.gci.uq.edu.au/survey.php?c=QQ5LENROSHQM

The survey involves rating 10 randomly selected abstracts and is expected to take 15 minutes. Participants may sign up to receive the final results of the survey (de-individuated so no individual's data will be published). No other personal information is required (and email is optional). Participants may elect to discontinue the survey at any point and results are only recorded if the survey is completed. Participant ratings are confidential and all data will be de-individuated in the final results so no individual ratings will be published.

The analysis is being conducted by the University of Queensland in collaboration with contributing authors of the website Skeptical Science. The research project is headed by John Cook, research fellow in climate communication for the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland.

As Cook explains on SkS:

Ch-ch-ch-changes

This one of the things I wanted to get done before the melting season started, because I won't have time for it then.

That big red arrow points to the biggest change on the Arctic Sea Ice Blog. In an effort to make it more visually appealing than just a bunch of links (I suck at graphic design), it may not be clear to all that in the top of the right hand bar there are actually links to the Arctic Sea Ice Graphs page, the Arctic Sea Ice Forum, the About moi page (Climate Disclaimer) and a new link to a Paypal donation page for anyone who wants to support the blog, or thank me or whatever.

I had been thinking about putting up a donation button for a while now (also because I received several e-mails requesting it), but you know, doing things like this for free makes you look more credible, and it makes you feel more independent, and you don't feel much of a responsibility. I'm also lucky that I have enough work as a free-lance translator. The pay isn't that great, but I can work as much as I want and I was born to do this work, so I'm not complaining (too much).

The downside, however, is that I'm spending a lot of time behind the computer working, blogging and distracting myself in between. And that's not too healthy in many respects, and also doesn't jive too well with this inner feeling I have of wanting to do something useful in the real world as well, like building an ecopassiveblahblah-house and gardening. So donations help, because I can step away from the boss/computer more, and that also makes my wife happier, which reduces stress for everyone.

I will occasionally write an update on donations received, but I can tell you in advance that some of it is used to cover blog hosting costs, software I use to track and make stuff, and if the forum keeps growing like it is, it might be wise to spend some money on that too (like a security certificate for instance).

Okay, with that out of the way, I can now also announce a couple of changes I made to the Arctic Sea Ice Graphs page:

2012/2013 Winter Analysis

The melting season is about to shift one gear higher, and so I thought it'd be useful to have a comprehensive look at this past winter (just like we did last year). As we saw in this recent PIOMAS update, it seems that this year's conditions for ice formation were better over on the Siberian side of the Arctic.

The Beaufort Sea had relatively little multi-year ice flowing in which should make the pack weaker there, as evidenced by the large cracking event of February and March. The image on the top right shows a map of the ice pack, where this year's thickness is compared to last year's (red = thicker, blue = thinner).

I want to look further into this by comparing the 2012/2013 winter with those of previous record years, such as 2006/2007, 2010/2011 and 2011/2012. Click on the images if you want a larger version.

Ice cube volume video

Andy Lee Robinson fired up his super computer to produce the video below, and during rendering composed the soundtrack to go with it:

I think it's his best one so far.

Sudden Stratospheric Warming: Causes & Effects

Introduction & Disclosure

My name is Randall Gates Simpson. There is no PhD after my name and I am not a PhD climate scientist. I don't consider myself a traditional "expert" on the subject of SSW's because of my lack of official credentials. I do however think I probably know quite a bit more on the subject than the average person might. I work as a television producer by day, and as a hobby, study climate
and weather on my nights and weekends and have for over 30 years.

In addition to the subject of anthropogenic climate change, I first became interested in SSW's a few years back when it became increasingly apparent to me the extreme effects that SSW's can have on Northern Hemisphere winter weather. It wasn't just their extreme effects that interested me, but rather, the fact that their specific causes were still a bit of a mystery-- and I've always loved a good mystery.  Isn't that what is (or should be) at the heart and soul of any good scientist?

In this post I reveal what I think is an original synthesis that gives the full picture of some of the main causes and effects of Northern Hemisphere Sudden Stratospheric Warming events based on my readings of many other papers along with hours of my own original research. For research material I relied heavily on the use of the amazing amount of satellite derived reanalysis data as well as ground based observations. I am heavily indebted to organizations such as NASA, NCAR and NOAA for the data they have made available at my fingertips through the web.

My research took me "virtually" to the other side of the world from where I live in Colorado, to discover some of the causes of SSW events. My research has also relied on men and women scientists who have physically travelled to extremely remote and desolate locations to gather data that I have relied on to create this synthesis. I hope perhaps one day to travel myself to these remote places to see first hand what I feel are the true birthplaces of Sudden Stratospheric Warming events.

Perception of the Arctic

There was a time, not too long ago, when I didn't know the Arctic existed. Sure, I knew there was a North Pole and that it was cold there, but somehow I always thought that the Arctic and the Antarctic were the same thing, that someone had forgotten to add the Ant-. And of course, polar bears were hunting penguins. Or vice versa. Whatever.

It was around 2006 when I started to get interested in global warming and the changes in climate it could cause, just before An Inconvenient Truth would shift the Climate PR war to higher gears. I vaguely noticed there is a place called 'the Arctic' - where the ocean is covered by a floating layer of ice of a few metres thick - when the perfect storm of 2007 annihilated the 2005 sea ice area and extent records. I remember reading about it on RealClimate and the comments there were the spark that would eventually fire my intention to start this blog.

In the meantime the 2012 melting season - not a perfect storm, even though it hosted a big one towards the end - annihilated all of the 2007 records. It's quite clear now that sea ice is melting much, much faster than anticipated, and the jaw-dropping sight of an ice-free Arctic that was projected to occur somewhere towards the end of this century, could be witnessed towards the end of this decade (if not earlier). The melting itself as well as potential consequences are getting more and more media attention, and lately I have been wondering how much of this news is actually seeping into the collective consciousness.

Met Office looks into Arctic link to weird weather

Commenter Steve Bloom always links to interesting stuff (if the new spam filter system lets him). This time it's about an article on the ITV website (and in the sensationalist Daily Mail) that links Arctic warming and sea ice loss to the late outburst of weird winter weather in the UK and the rest of Europe. This comes after a Chinese scientist linking extreme cold and snow to Arctic sea ice loss, and fake skeptics casually remarking that all the extra snow on the Northern Hemisphere (resulting in hundreds of victims) was due to "a record low amount of Arctic sea ice". And then there was Sandy's weird 90° curve to the left.

All in all it has been an decent harvest of winter weirdness events, and if the coming melting season is anything like the last one, it will be interesting to see if it's followed by more of the same extremeness. Because enquiring minds want to know. Society wants to know, or should want to know, if there's a link with Arctic sea ice loss.

Met Office investigating Arctic link
to record low temperatures in UK

A cyclist braves the snow near Reeth in the Yorkshire Dales in March 2013 Photo: John Giles/PA Wire

After some of the coldest temperatures in almost 100 years, the Met Office says it is "urgent" that we address the causes of our changing weather and the possibility that recent record melts in the Arctic are to blame.

The forecaster's top scientist, Dr Julia Slingo, has told ITV News that she will convene a meeting of top experts from around the world to look into this.

New figures out today show the temperature dropped to -11.2C in Aberdeenshire on April 2 - the lowest April temperature recorded nationally for almost a century. It follows the coldest March since 1962.

Some scientists believe that rapid warming in the Arctic, which saw sea ice shrink to its lowest ever level last September, could be influencing our weather in the UK.

ITV News' Science Editor Lawrence McGinty reports:

Go read the rest of the article and watch some interesting videos here. Also watch the short interview with Jennifer Francis here.

I think it bears repeating that I'm not saying that all of these weird weather events - you know, the really weird, extreme stuff, not every freezing temperature or random snowfall - are 100% certain to be caused by Arctic sea ice loss. But this is something we want to know, right? Or shouldn't this be looked into? If you want to deny the possibility that the extreme loss of Arctic sea ice could have a negative influence on Northern Hemisphere weather patterns, you will have to answer the question: How could it not? Good luck with that.

Again, not saying it's 100% certain, but definitely not ruling it out either.
We want to know.