It has been almost 3 months since I put up the poll widget in the right side bar. Now that the SEARCH Sea Ice Outlook has come out, containing the results of another poll conducted by Anthony Watts of the Wattsupwiththat blog, it seems to be a good time to do a first update on this our ASI blog poll.
The 300 votes mark has just been passed today and this is how the expectations break down in percentages:
According to my calculations this amounts to an average of 4.2 million km2. Mind you, this is a prediction for IJIS daily extent. The entries for the SEARCH Sea Ice Outlook are all based on NSIDC monthly extent (September average). If I remember correctly the difference is approximately 200K km2.
Method: I've calculated the number by multiplying the percentage number with the average of an option (for instance 'between 4.5 and 5 million' = 4.75). For 'more than 5.5 million km2' I've used 5.75 million km2, and for 'less than 4 million km2' I've used 3.75 million km2. I've added up all multiplications and divided the result by 100. This is the best statistical analysis you'll get from me!
What is interesting is that the result page also shows where voters come from:
For instance looking at New Zealand, we see that everyone there believes the minimum will be below 4.5 million square km. There used to be three green flags there for quite a while, and I figured this had to be Glenn and Gareth from the excellent Climate Show (the third one probably being Gareth's dog), but they have now been joined by some other Kiwis.
I would have expected some yellow flags (minimum will be over 5.5 million KM2) in Australia as it is part of the hardcore skeptical territory, but there are none.
Two of the yellow flags are in the UK, with the rest of Europe mainly showing green and red flags (proof that they are environmentalist and communists):
There's a yellow flag in Nuuk, Greenland, which I found pretty amazing, but of course the largest amount of yellow flags can be found in the land of the brave, the free and the big. Five in total. They could be right, of course, but quantity isn't quality.
A while ago there was another yellow flag in California, but he or she has recently re-voted and turned blue (between 5 and 5.5 million km2):
Coincidentally this is real close to Anthony Watts' office, but it probably isn't him as he has just stated on WUWT two weeks ago that "my choice for my own personal vote was 4.9 to 5.0 million square kilometers".
If you want to re-vote because you change your mind, you can do so. I'll have another look at poll results when the SEARCH SIO July report comes out. Right now the ASI blog community projects the IJIS daily sea ice extent minimum to be 4.2 million square km (or lower).
Hello, Nuuk! How's that BP Oil rig life!?
Posted by: Artful Dodger | June 17, 2011 at 15:34
Hi, Neven. Welcome back, and thanks for posting our opinion.
Since I assume you are going to repeat this for each month, I want to put two points out there:
1. Thanks for calculating the average of the statistics, as opposed to just looking for the most votes, as WUWT did. (Looking at their voting, I would have predicted 5.1 or so instead of 5.5)
2. On your graph, and especially on the map, it would be good if you used rainbow ordering (i.e. blue for the lowest estimate, followed by green, yellow, orange, and red for the highest).
Posted by: Bfraser | June 17, 2011 at 16:09
Neven, are you going to submit your results to SIO, since they appear to be taking WUWT (to my surprize).
Posted by: Lord Soth | June 17, 2011 at 17:12
Actually, submitting to SIO makes sense because part of the point of the SIO is a "wisdom of crowds" concept. Adding a couple of data points from amateur crowds to the "crowd" of 15-20 expert data points seems perfectly reasonable.
Posted by: Greg Wellman | June 17, 2011 at 17:19
Bfraser: thanks for the sensible colour suggestion. Unfortunately they have been picked out in advance by Vizu (the firm that offers the free poll widget).
Lord Soth: I won't submit them and I explain why towards the end of the SEARCH SIO post.
Unless a lot of you really want me to. But not through the poll. I don't see how polled WAGs contribute to wisdom or science, although it does contribute to the relationship between the scientific world and the public (which is probably the main reason they graciously let WUWT join the party, and of course to prevent incessant whining ;-) ).
Posted by: Neven | June 17, 2011 at 17:46
I agree with Neven on the Poll: it's unscientific, not based on any particular methodology, and would just contribute noise. Besides, Larry's submission already expresses the best methods yet developed on this site.
Neven, I think that the Median is the appropriate Stat to use in summarizing the Poll. That is, that value which half of observations are above and half are below. So 4.2 is reasonable. It's also good practice to provide a description of the kurtosis of the distribution, in this case a negative skew:
Did you notice that Larry's predicted value of 4.4 is also the MODE? haha little Stats humour *v.little*
Posted by: Artful Dodger | June 17, 2011 at 17:47
Kurtosis? Is that some affliction Nirvana-fans suffer from?
Posted by: Neven | June 17, 2011 at 18:05
... or 2010: a Space Odyssey fans:
Halitosis!
Posted by: Artful Dodger | June 17, 2011 at 18:17
One month later in the melt season it seem to me the odds for record low minimum values are getting lower by the day, and in my oppinion the poll ought to have at least one more category: Below 3,5 mill. km2...
Too early yet to predict an icefree North-Pole or Fram Strait, but ask me again in the end of July....
Excellent to have you back Neven, we were walking with lights off and now we're again prepared for the Icetosis!
Posted by: Christoffer Ladstein | June 17, 2011 at 19:40
Hi Christoffer,
Ice-toasties are usually referred to in English as "water".
Given that over 40% of the predictions are for below 4 million, and indeed this is the biggest response-band, I also think it could be better to have at least one more category; possibly three; including also below 3 million, and below 2.5.
Posted by: idunno | June 18, 2011 at 02:54
Hi Guys, I also would like to vote lower, in one of the three categories that idunno suggested. I also had the crazy idea that blue ice is caused by rain, is this possible?
Posted by: MikeAinOz | June 18, 2011 at 05:47
If things keep progressing like this for another month, I'll do another poll with more options below 4 million. But I wouldn't be surprised if heavy melting stalls at a certain point, like it did last year.
Posted by: Neven | June 18, 2011 at 08:43