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Anthonywobrien
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3 +/- 1
I am so torn. Following the past numbers I would expect a dead cat bounce. Looking at the current numbers, I would expect a bounce.
However looking at peoples comments about the state of the ice a new record low looks likely.
I realy do not know, but much above 4 or less than 2 would be a surprise.
I doubt we will see zero this year, but it is not very far off. When it does happen I expect it will be earlier.
Crowd-Source Prediction of Mean September Sea Ice Extent (July update)
Each June, July and August, the SEARCH Sea Ice Outlook (SIO) collects predictions for the mean extent of Arctic sea ice in September. These predictions come mainly from scientists but also some other people, drawing on a variety of modeling, statistical or subjective methods that each contributo...
Around 2040 all of the winter sea ice will have gone, so ice to melt through spring and summer. So an upwards spike around then will not be at all surprising.
For all that we like smoothing trends, nature does seem to go for the steps. Although I do totally agree with the point you make.
The Four Charts That Really Matter
Guest post by R. Gates Recently on Judith Curry's blog, a guest post was submitted by DocMartyn which was a rather nicely (from a math perspective) done extrapolation of past tropospheric temperature trends and cycles out to 2040 and beyond. It was essentially a nice job of, as he put it, "gra...
3.25 million square km
Watching the numbers, we are due for a dead cat bounce. Looking at the ice it could be very low. Over 4 would surprise me, just under 2 would not.
Clearly I am putting too much faith in the bounce of numbers.
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...
Maslowski's 2016 looks better than ever for an ice free Arctic minimum. We can probably lop off 2013 and 2019 as possibilities.
So my two cents worth: record minimums every year from here on in. That includes this year.
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 s...
Re: Nevin and scientists.
Nevin is not subject to the sensitivities of the people he works with, he is free to say it how he sees it. Nevin does not have a reputation to protect (probably not true anymore) again freeing him to say it how he sees it.
To those actual scientists who comment here thank you too. Correcting our misunderstandings is valuable. Proviing those details is valuable.
The combination of very knowledgeable amatures and scientists makes this a come to site for up to the minute information on the ice. Thank you Nevin, thank you all.
The cracks of dawn
I was hesitating whether I should write about this (besides my personal combination of busy/lazy) for a couple of days, because the Arctic is such an amazing place that it's easy to get carried away. When you see something for the first time, it's tempting to go: "Oh my Gawd, that haz got to b...
How about some penetrometer readings. We are hearing so much about rotten ice some penetrometer readings could put some numbers to the rottenness.
The last ice expedition
Yesterday I received an e-mail from climate journalist, film maker and polar explorer Bernice Notenboom, the first Dutch woman to have reached the South Pole: I am a polar explorer and in the spring of 2013 we plan to ski from the North Pole to Ward Hunt Island on Ellesmere. We would love to ...
The sea ice is going and soon we will see a zero minimum. Even after this has happened we may still be arguing over what is the best fit and it may well be, that the answer is not at all clear.
What will be clear is that there will be consequences.
I am not at all sure that a Gompertz curve is the best fit. But I suspect that it may be. Regardless after we see a zero minimum a zero month and then a zero season will not be far behind.
Perhaps even more frightening is that a zero maximum may only be a few decades away. I do not want to believe that, but look at the fit.
Naive Predictions of 2013 Sea Ice
These predictions are naive in the sense that they are not based on a physical model, nor other measurements apart from the 30-odd year history of the index in question. Moreover, they are made a year in advance as winter freeze-up is just starting. The predictions are simply If ... Then stateme...
Perhaps I should have made myself clearer. When I say the refreeze will start earlier, this will happen when what is now late melting ice has gone earlier.
Presently the freeze up begins long before the melt has finished. As the ice melts out earlier further and further north, eventually the freeze will overtake the melt earlier.
In any one position the freeze up will not be earlier.
Remember the Arctic is huge and goes right to 90 degrees north, Although the North Pole sunset is not until September 24 it is so low on the horizon long before that that even tiny bumps of ice cast a huge shadow. So while the bigger lumps of ice may be still melting, large areas of surrounding sea are freezing.
Towards the poles it is surfaces that tend towards the vertical that receive the most light.
Naive Predictions of 2013 Sea Ice
These predictions are naive in the sense that they are not based on a physical model, nor other measurements apart from the 30-odd year history of the index in question. Moreover, they are made a year in advance as winter freeze-up is just starting. The predictions are simply If ... Then stateme...
Why exponential rather than linear?
Because that is what is happening. The trend is so clearly non linear.
Why Gompertz? Because the refreeze starts well before the melting has finished, the refreeze is fast in extent and as the minimums get ever lower the refreeze gets faster.
If this is correct then we may see the minimums get even lower, but also get earlier. The eventual zero sea ice could be Early August.
The thinning of the ice will be even faster than the loss of extent. Huge areas of very thin ice are possible in the dark. As someone else here has already noted that is what the trends tell us.
In truth I am only guessing and know far less than many here. But do think of the geometry. (I can see no mechanism to discount an exponential fit of the July figures.)
Naive Predictions of 2013 Sea Ice
These predictions are naive in the sense that they are not based on a physical model, nor other measurements apart from the 30-odd year history of the index in question. Moreover, they are made a year in advance as winter freeze-up is just starting. The predictions are simply If ... Then stateme...
Slightly off topic.
Last year you did a post about the effect of rivers, at the time I thought you were overstating the case. But it looks pretty obvious this year.
Cyclone warning!
I have postponed this post until I was sure that what follows is going to happen. Remember the term 'flash melting'? That's when from one day to the next large swathes of ice disappear on the University of Bremen sea ice concentration maps. We witnessed one such instance last year when a relativ...
Any bets that in time will be held responsible for more than 100% of the ice loss? That we will work out that without an anthropogenic influence the ice would have grown.
Loss of Arctic sea ice '70% man-made'
Greenland has had its day in the Sun. Now it's back to the Arctic sea ice. The Guardian has more for me to copypaste today: Loss of Arctic sea ice '70% man-made' Study finds only 30% of radical loss of summer sea ice is due to natural variability in Atlantic – and it will probably get worse ...
I didn't put in an estimate as I thought I had missed the boat and it had already happened.
CT SIA: maximum reached (this time for real)
Update March 31st: It looks like the maximum has arrived even later. The peak from 11 days ago has been beaten by almost 8K square km. This isn't much, but those 11 days extra make it a super late maximum. And the Lord only knows if this is the final maximum. I'm not calling this one anymore, ev...
My two estimates (er guesses) were significantly different, but fell in the same bracket. Originally I thought about 4.1, now almost 4.5
Final poll results
The last poll from the widget in the right hand bar closed a week ago. I want to share the results with you before the final SEARCH Sea Ice Outlook comes out. Mind you, I preferred the Arctic Sea Ice blog's poll to be about IJIS daily minimum extent. The SEARCH SIO predictions are for NSIDC Sept...
The Healy is rated at 4 foot continuous or eight foot back up and ramming.
So if it maintaining a speed of more than three and a half knots that could suggest that the ice is less than four foot. Given the relatively direct couse there cannot be much ice over eight foot.
On a side note The Russians will have effective controll of the Arctic given the disparity in availability of icebreakers.
Through the eyes of Healy
This is a translation of a blog post on the excellent Spanish blog on Arctic sea ice called Diablobanquisa: Towards the North Pole aboard the Healy We go aboard the icebreaker USCGC Healy again... ...to travel from the Alaskan coast almost all the way to the North Pole. Its position and route ...
Great job Nevin, assuming 100% coverage was reasonable until now, (or maybe last year) I had thought of it as an upcomming issue, but you have put much more thought into it.
Tony
North Hole
This is a blog post in progress. I'm calling on all you commenters to think along, advise and correct wherever necessary. I vaguely remembered a short discussion about discrepancies between various area and extent datasets in the comment section of SIE update 21 (perhaps somewhere else too). ...
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Sep 5, 2010
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