IJIS SIE: 5 million km2 mark passed

Seke Rob has been treating us with fantastic graphs for many weeks now, and it's high time I picked one out for a highlight. IJIS sea ice extent broke through the 5 million km² barrier yesterday. This graph shows how many days it has taken to drop from one million to the next from the date of maximum extent onwards (click on the link above for a larger version):

Thanks, Seke Rob!

Comments

[Andrew Xnn]

Interesting; the 16 M mark went extinct 18 years ago and the 15 M mark has not be met for about 8 years.

[Lord Soth]

Thanks, Rob, you have provided a wealth of information in a nice compact chart.

Neven, it would be nice if this chart is added to a resource section, so it does not get buried. It will be very useful for a scorecard for future years.

[Seke Rob]

You're all welcome to use, and will keep them current, sometime noisily, mostly silently, so if someone stumbles on one, they'll see now and not 3 years ago. The work to build these charts takes time.

Neven, if you can leave the original link to the full-size bucket-pic intact, I'll be able to get viewing stats, plus folk have the latest without you having to repost.

cheers

P.S... lots more hidden in that bucket... templates library is growing. Ideas for presentational improvements always welcome. Me, prefer the glossed up stuff, in 3D if it can be done to give it more defenition :D

[Neven]

Better now, Seke Rob?

[Seke Rob]

Dandy :D

JAXA came up 10K for final; almost had to recall the chart :P

The data will be wobbly from here on as noted in SIE Chapter 18. Seen it for other years going back over and then below again of the lower threshold, in these run out phases. The maxima can also trundle along as many have previously observed... reading those maps twice daily, as Paul K. does [extreme well appreciated] and than also recognize the artifacts, would turn me a nerve wreck }:0)

[Twemoran]

Seke
An outstanding effort!

The only graphic that I'm aware of that spans the entire measured era while still retaining detailed information

[Chris Biscan]

UB prelim = going back above 5,000,000km2.

we will see. Gonna be close.

[Glacierchange.wordpress.com]

Great graph, olive green not needed and aqua blue and red now added.

[Hans Verbeek]

Hi, have you looked at the Global Weather Predition Models (NCEP GFS) on Ryan Maue's excellent website?
http://coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/weather/

The temperatures in the Arctic will drop in the coming week, especially in Siberia and Greenland: http://coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/temperature/gfs/arc_t2m.html

[Peter Ellis]

I have one query and one minor niggle.

Query first: why do the bars all start at day 40? Going by the legend I would expect each year's bar to start at the date of the maximum for that year, just like they end at the minimum for the year. That way it would indicate when a year had a particularly early or late start to the melt season, which is interesting to know.

Next, a minor niggle, if I may: I don't like using the pale olive / pale brown at the start/end of the year respectively. It makes it look like all years start and finish in the same "zone", as it were - so what is there to worry about? It would be far more effective to keep a single colour for each "zone" and show the whole banding pattern marching ineluctably leftwards.

I appreciate why it's been done: to distinguish "partial" zones from full zones. That could instead be done by putting a star next to the number, but I don't actually think that's a necessary distinction. It's inherent in the chart design that the first and last zones for every line will always be partial zones, while everything in between will be a full million.

[Andrew Xnn]

correcton; 16 Mkm2 hasn't been reached for 13 years.

[Seke Rob]

Re: Peter Ellis | August 28, 2011 at 19:58

The X-Axis actually starts at 1.1. of the year, except it's printed from the 40th day point, truncated & dictated by the 48th day of the earliest maximum on record... to fit the number in, cramming the maximum amount of information in, without loosing detail and exactness as Twemoran observed. Here the X-Axis / Y-Axis were swapped or you'd have to turn your head 90 degrees ;>). The colors are there for distinction of a new million start / end and not for interpretations or suggestiveness. Is it designed with lukers in mind? I've never presented this one to lukers or fake skeptics of the Watts's et al "that's true science, but don't understand anything of it" class. I'll take the comment on board though and see if I can let it not misdirect the misguided. Think they'd whine for sure if they'd get to see.

Obviously, not letting the bars start at the minimum point retains the visual correctness else the end points would not align with the day # in the year when such was reached.

One small change I made, seeing that Neven had to chop off the right minimum table to get it into the OP: The legend font was reduced a little so that the Min.label still is included without said table. The graph link will though open up the full, unadulterated chart.

A good example to understand the olive is 1993. At day 72 maximum was reached and 2 days later the SIE went below the 16M mark, which if you look down to the X-Axis equates to about mid March. On that note, I might replace the day numbers on there with a date in a standard year, or blot out the 40... I'd have to play if that works.

Yes, the years are kind of ending in the same zone. See also recent discussions v.v. the minimum extend start and matching days of year, not revealing any trend... not for maximum either.

Hope that clarifies and if not, maybe explain differently what I missed.

P.S. What ineluctably means I'd guess... not come across it in English though. Dutch use Luctor et Emergo in an emblem of one of their regions. Let's work we'll emerge on top and not have our children's children face Eocene sea levels.

[Seke Rob]

Re: Andrew Xnn | August 28, 2011 at 22:21

Yes, and being above 16M lasted 1 day and it took 1 day to drop back below the 16M mark again in 1998.

1998 55 15,960,536
1998 56 16,034,594
1998 57 15,993,923

Now that year went into the fav cherry pick record of when global cooling began ;>). Ever since the inter-annual variability seems not to have returned in full...[See Chart] Still looking to understand what happened before that year, in 1996, but for being close to the SC22 to SC23 transitional minimum, then SC23 spiking twice, in 2000 and 2002. Given the 0.1% solar variance, a practicle constant AFAIC. There was no large scale vulcanism, no monster fires, but remembering vaguely that Indonesia had them large scale, but not when... this bit hints as were it a routine procedure back then. Like volcanic eruptions, that equatorial event could have had rather immediate global weather impacts.

[Lord Soth]

Rob

Just to clarify, I assume you are counting the first date that the sea ice falls below every Million goal post before the seasonal min.

Likewise I assume you are counting the first date that the sea ice crosses above every Million goal post, after the seasonal min.

(i.e. if sea ice goes above 5m tonight, you will not re-issue a new graph)

[Lord Soth]

Scratch the second paragraph, as that would be a new graph anyways. But it would be interesting to see the delay in the onset of the freeze.

[Daniel Bailey]

Neven, there's an unclosed italic html tag in seke rob's comment above.

[Seke Rob]

Probably the easiest is to say that the 27th was the day that the JAXA SIE fell below 5M, and therefor is included in the bright-red bar. The lower than 5M bar, gray/white counter sits on 0. Not foreseen, but it works, that SIE goes back above 5M to never go below again. Then the gray/white bar will remain at zero. The zero is there, it's just not displaying well, where the far right table kind of gives a solid hind why there's no gray/white bar.

I'd have to ponder if a run out till real refreeze fits what the image intends to convey, should < 5M have lasted 1 day. Arbitrary... got doubts we'll not go down further to approach the 4M goal post, me Lord?

There's always chance of a chart that plots the days in 1M steps from minimum to maximum. Essentially with the developed pivot table and array algos, it's not too much effort, then link the template to the additional steps, but it will be a new chart too... Not sure if there's clientèle that sees value in that refreeze picture. I'll watch and when the time comes there thought on that will likely have evolved a bit.

[Seke Rob]

Sorry about that... it's the word ineluctably where that happened. May be an 'i' in the closing one is missing. Oddly my formatting helper bar refuses to put in the matching italic signs, so type them manually.

[Daniel Bailey]

Let's try to fix it the Olde School way by inserting a closing tag ourselves! (inserts tag)

[Artful Dodger]

Joe Romm writes today on his blog "Climate Progress at Five Years: Why I Blog":

In the event we don’t avert catastrophic global warming, I do hope that the reporting and analysis in this blog, which evolves over time, will be of use to those trying to understand just how it is that, as Elizabeth Kolbert put it, "a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself."

Which is precisely why I contribute to the permanent record which is this blog. Thanks for organizing this space Neven, and well said Joe!

[Chris Biscan]

http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/arctic_AMSRE_nic.png

The ice pack has separated from the land in many areas and faces a wind that might actually push the main pack off Greenland and only leave a small part in the NW territories attached. This would be a first.

[Seke Rob]

Lord Soth, might have worried for a nanosecond, but we have 1 day for the sub 5M count.

The latest value : 4,960,938 km2 (August 28, 2011)

Phew

[Seke Rob]

OK, as discussed above, I'd play with some and in a trial revision [See Chart], I've replaced the day numbers of the olive bars with the dates the maximum occurred, which of course extend out to where the actual point of year where it was set. Also the X-axis now shows the dates rather than the day of the year, so the number in the olive bar does not dis-funk with the '40' value from where the data was plotted.

If it's not displeasing, I'll leave this bit. (would at the present not know how to print the initial days also... it would get beyond crammed I think.

2 days now and counting for that final bar segment, building towards the minimum. As per the previous paragraph, it's either/or, can put the date in the last white bar if there are any takers, but as it is, look down and you'll have a pretty good date indicator.

[MikeAinOz]

Hi Neven, I think there is much to happen before the fat ladys sings. Could you do a post on what's happening with the icepack north of greenland and the separation from the land. You are on safe territory with opinion here as I feel this was unexpected and a new unique feature to the melt. But what does it mean? Over to you...

[Neven]

Hi Mike,

Are you referring to that widening gap north of Ellesmere Island? I thought that looked spectacular as well, but coincidentally while writing 2011 End Zone I noticed a similar thing happened in 2008.

Any way the wind blows...