Julienne Forecasts An Ice-Free Arctic

“It seems like we’re starting to move towards this transition of a seasonally ice-free Arctic state”

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/10/05/3030213.htm?section=justin


 

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34 Responses to Julienne Forecasts An Ice-Free Arctic

  1. Jimash says:

    But… won’t the solar cycle pick up and cool off the earth before then ?
    My head is spinning.

  2. don penman says:

    I think that arctic roos has another glitch dropped to 2007 again today

  3. Leon Brozyna says:

    That ABC article has such a pretty, pretty picture.
    Look at that pretty picture,
    Pretty, pretty picture.

    One small detail — that big chunk of ice isn’t sea ice, it’s an iceberg. Talk about deceptive practices. Makes it seem that all that melt is so much worse than it really is. And as for sea ice age, how do these office jocks know the age of the sea ice? Do they spend half the year (in the winter) planting RFID chips in the ice so they can track the age of the ice?

    No? Let me guess. They run a model with yet another algorithm and — voila — after a summer of melt, three year old ice becomes two year old ice. How do we know it’s two year old ice? The computer told us so. Keep doing such playstation science and, before you know it, funding’ll get cut. Then where will such office jocks work? McDonald’s? I think they expect more from their employees.

    BTW, I see the satellite is screwed up … again. Take a quick gander at the latest image from NSIDC (Arctic & Antarctic) and the NANSEN graph. This rollie coaster ride is getting to be rather predictable.

    • Julienne Stroeve says:

      Leon, there is a swath of missing data from SSM/I in today’s data which is the reason why the Arctic Roos site shows such a dramatic decline in their graph today.
      As for the media showing an iceberg when discussing sea ice, I agree that is very misleading.

  4. Sandy Rham says:

    Are the Germans going to do more of their fly-by ice-depth surveys? Looked like a good technique.

  5. Julienne, does this agree with the ice age showed by Maslanik`s september map in that area? : http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/6923/warcticawsscsod20102010.png

    • Do you have a link for the source of that map?

    • Julienne Stroeve says:

      It’s a bit hard to do a complete comparison since the ice age data from Maslanik uses a 40% threshold on ice concentrations, but the data seem consistent.

      • Thank you very much, Julienne.

        In the maps of the Canadian Ice Service, there is few ice extent below 40% treshold (light green):
        http://img830.imageshack.us/img830/9697/concentra.gif

        And the map of the ice type (age): (brown is multiyear, and dark green, ice formed in the winter 2009-2010):
        http://img830.imageshack.us/img830/4600/30agocana.gif

        I think maybe Maslanik`s map understimates a bit the multiyear ice in that area (green and blue) and overstimates the frequency of pink pixels (first year ice, or ice below 40% concentration treshold): http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/5408/image009k.png

        Thanks again.

      • Peter Ellis says:

        Why are you looking at the August data? If you look at the data for 20th September, you get something a lot closer to the Maslanik picture.

        http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/www_archive/AOI_10/Charts/sc_a10_20100920_WIS56CT.gif (concentration)

        http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/www_archive/AOI_10/Charts/sc_a10_20100920_WIS56SD.gif (age)

        Note that the Canadian picture isn’t distinguishing between 2nd year ice and older ice in the way the Maslankik picture does, but has lumped them both under the umbrella category of “old ice”.

      • Peter Ellis says:

        Further comment: compare the 20th Sept and 27th Sept maps.

        http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/www_archive/AOI_10/Charts/sc_a10_20100920_WIS56CT.gif (20th, conc)

        http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/www_archive/AOI_10/Charts/sc_a10_20100920_WIS56SD.gif (20th, age)

        http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/www_archive/AOI_10/Charts/sc_a10_20100927_WIS56CT.gif (27th, conc)

        http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/www_archive/AOI_10/Charts/sc_a10_20100927_WIS56SD.gif (27th, age)

        ****************

        The ice is clearly growing back as expected, as we pass the equinox. However, the growing ice – which is by definition new ice – is getting incorrectly flagged as old ice by the Canadian maps. Look especially at the areas labelled yellow “PP” on the concentration map for the 20th. This is ~50% concentration old ice. On the concentration map for the 27th, these areas are now labelled red “GG” and “HH” and shown as 90-100% old ice.

        An extra 40-50% of old ice cannot just appear out of nowhere! This is a beautifully direct illustration of Dr Barber’s “rotten ice”. You have a region containing a low percentage of multi-year ice rubble, glued together by newly-forming first-year ice. It [i]appears[/i] superficially to be multi-year ice, but it doesn’t have the thickness or integrity of true multi-year ice.

        The only way to tell it apart is to go and look directly (as Dr Barber did) or to follow the ice movement / formation on a pixel by pixel basis (as the Maslanik maps do).

      • Hi Peter.

        The first reason of looking end of august data was for distinguish the multiyear ice (brown) from the ice formed in the previous winter (dark green).
        (In the following weeks they lumped all it under that brown umbrella)

        And the second reason was for avoid any new ice. In the first graph I posted is seen that at the end of august new ice began forming.

        And, in the september canadian map, I don´t see first year ice as in the map from NSIDC (pink pixels) .
        All the ice below 40% in the canadian map (light green) already doesn´t appear in Maslanik´s map: OK. The extent is OK in the area (in my opinion), but I continue seeing a problem in the age showed in that extent by Maslanik: I don´t understand the transition from green to blue/pink in that area.

        Only my opinion.

      • Peter Ellis says:

        Hi Diablo,

        Looking at the 20th / 27th September pictures, you’re wrong to say that the dark green (thick 1st year) and brown (old ice) are getting lumped together.

        For example, in both September images you can see the thick ridged 1st year ice alone the coast East of Point Barrow. Relative to the August image, the dark green patch in the Canadian Archipelago has simply melted out. It’s less clear what’s happened to the dark green patch at the top of the August image – most likely it’s just been carried out of frame by the Beaufort gyre.

        The main point is that the Maslanik map is a map from the September minimum, and you can’t just compare it directly to the data from 2-3 weeks previous. The Beaufort melt of MY ice continued strongly during that period.

        If you want even more detail, you can read the egg codes for each individual area. Instructions for decoding are given here:
        http://www.ec.gc.ca/glaces-ice/default.asp?lang=En&n=FE5C2688-1

        For example, take the area I highlighted in my previous post that was coloured as yellow/brown (50% conc old ice) on Sep. 20th and coloured as red/brown (90% conc old ice) on Sep 27th. This area is labelled “HH” on Sep. 27th. When you look up the egg code for HH on the map, you see the following:

        – 9 –
        4 1 4
        7 4. 1
        5 3 X

        * 90% overall concentration (top line = 9).

        * It falls into three thickness classes representing 40%/10%/40% of the total (second line = 4, 1, 4)

        * The thickest class is multiyear ice, the next class is thick first year ice, and the final class is thin 1st year ice (third line is 7, 4., 1).

        * These classes are respectively present as big floes, small floes and undetermined (final line is 5, 3, X)

        So, fully decoded, the “HH” area is 40% old ice in big floes, 10% thick 1st year ice in small floes and 40% thin 1st year ice that hasn’t formed distinct floes yet. It’s coloured brown because it has a plurality of old ice, but it’s not all old ice by a long chalk.

      • Peter Ellis says:

        Finally, compare the chart for Sept 20th in 2004
        http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/www_archive/AOI_10/Charts/sc_a10_20040920_WIS56CT.gif

        First observation is that much more of the area is covered in high concentration ice. When you dig down into the egg codes, it corresponds to 70%+ old ice across the board. Floe size is mostly “Vast”. It’s nothing like what you see there today.

      • Thank you very much for your complete answer.
        But, maybe, looking at HH and PP, you can be looking to the peryphery of the multiyear ice pack. We can name it “low concentration MYI areas” or “rotten MYI ice”.

        I bet that in the Maslanik´s map only appears the red fraction of the canadian sept. 20th map: http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/www_archive/AOI_10/Charts/sc_a10_20100920_WIS56CT.gif

        We can name it the MYI central pack in this area. Following the egg codes (thanks again) in this area the predominant ice type is multiyear ice, with 80-90% concentration. And 10-20% concentration of first year ice.

        In the north coast of Prince Patrick island, by example, Maslanik`s map seems to show more pink pixels (FYI) than the 10-20% of FYI that gives the canadian map for that area.

        I´m a little stubborn…

    • Regarding your final post: yes, there is no doubt that the situation is worst than in 2004.
      Indeed, from 2004 to 2008 we had a 40% drop in the overall amount of MYI in the Arctic. Since summer 2008, a more stable situation, including a recovery of the youngest MYI. (a recovery of the oldest [the yellow and red fractions in the most detailed version of the Maslanik&Fowler ice age maps – http://www.arcus.org/files/search/sea-ice-outlook/2010/09/images/pan-arctic/siofig5.png%5D is impossible in two years – to can see if it rebounds or dissappears, we need at least two or three years more of observations)

  6. Bibob says:

    “”It seems like we’re starting to move towards this transition of a seasonally ice-free Arctic state,” she said.”

    Do you have a probability with error bars for that prediction ?

    The 2nd thing I find most annoying / disgusting about warmists is their total lack of scientific rigor, after the proclivity to massage/create their data sets. You should be ashamed; certainly you leave this scientist feeling mentally soiled.

  7. Scarlet Pumpernickel says:
  8. P Gosselin says:

    Pretty lady – too bad she doesn’t have any brains.

    • Just a different point of view.

    • ChrisD says:

      That’s a cheap shot. She disagrees with you, therefore she doesn’t have any brains?

      FYI, she is a PhD scientist with 38 published peer-reviewed papers through 2009; she’s served on NAS panels; she’s appeared in documentaries on both the Discovery and History channels; she’s been an invited speaker for scientific associations and meetings all over the world; her current projects include “Investigations of Sea Ice State using Multisensor Data, Time History and Lagrangian Tracking.”

      With all due respect, how does your resume stack up to that?

    • Peter Ellis says:

      Is there a moderator I can report this to? Personal abuse is one thing I thought would be off-limits for this blog.

  9. bbttxu says:

    This is good news for readers here, because we will be heralded with more stories about record-breaking freezes (and melts presumably) for the foreseeable future, as the seasonal extremes get larger. 🙂

  10. Bill Illis says:

    I think we can all agree that Julienne is clearly hotter than the Arctic ocean is, even when the ice has melted. [Is she hot enough to actually melt the ice when she is studying it on-site?]

    But I am bothered by the use of the Albedo estimates at 0.07 in open ocean/sea ice melted conditions (apparently in the total sky sense – including cloudiness) for the Arctic in summer conditions.

    Jennifer Kay (who I’m sure Julienne knows well) produced this paper of cloud conditions in the Arctic covering 2006-2008 (and especially the 2007 big melt) and the cloud fraction was found to be around 50% for the peak summer season and then a very high 75% level at the height of the melt in September. In addition, no change in clouds was observed in the summer period but there was an increase in the September period (presumably because of the lower ice coverage).

    http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cms/jenkay/papers/KayGettelman_JGR_2009.pdf

    The sea ice melt models are not going to work properly with improper assumptions of Albedo.

    • Jimash says:

      “I think we can all agree that Julienne is clearly hotter than the Arctic ocean is, ”

      I, for one would like to thank Dr. Stroeve for joining us so directly, I think that is quite big of her.
      But maybe she shouldn’t look at the ice directly.

  11. Aircraft Eng says:

    There is no legitimate scientific rationale to extrapolate this short period of data into a linear trend.

    And further, no legitimate scientist would attempt to do so.

    • Marcia, Marcia says:

      I agree, the time period is too short. It does not take into account past fluxuations which are likely almost identical to current occurrences.

  12. Marcia, Marcia says:

    Julienne Stroeve

    It is true she is hot. But, and I hope this is not offensive to say, she probably doesn’t have an attraction to women. 🙁

  13. Martin C says:

    Look at the graph about 1/3 of the way down on this NSIDC website:

    http://nsidc.org/sotc/sea_ice.html

    (the graph is titled Arctic Sea Ice Extent Anomalies Jan 1953 – Jan 2009). The caption talks to where the data came from ( and also who created the graph: Walt Meier, who has posted before on WUWT, and . . . Julienne ! )

    From looking at this graph alone, I find it somewhat astounding the prediction of an ice-free in the future. We know the past thirty plus years has been warming cycle, but the past few years have shown gains in arctic ice. And if the next several years may be cooling due to the sun cycles and PDO/AMO, the ice will generally grow year over year (see this site on temperature correlation of the sun, PDO/AMO:
    http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/01/climate-modeling-ocean-oscillations.html)

    I can’t understand why anyone would want to make a prediction of the arctic being ice-free in the next 10/20/30 years with consideration of the above . . .

    Other than they are convinced that the warming could have only been from CO2.

    And that is clearly short-sighted to me.

  14. Layne Blanchard says:

    We live on a spinning round object, covered in liquid, surrounded by other round objects, moving in a cyclical manner, oscillating about various centers of mass. (sloshing oceans?)

    We observe earth’s (and Solar) dynamic magnetic fields, charged solar wind, incoming cosmic rays, fluctuating solar radiation, Lunar tidal effects on oceans and atmosphere.

    We have dozens of solar cycles to measure from, and yet dozens of predictions about the cycle underway. Clearly, there is much we don’t understand. Yet here we have a prediction of amplitude (of arctic ice) with not even one cycle completed?

    No one questions the longer term (Milankovich) cycles. Yet the CAGW crowd refuses to even consider the myriad shorter cycles we are subjected to. We don’t fully understand these cycles or their impact on our climate.

    Yet in a collective myopathy, so many otherwise intelligent scientists have abandoned the scientific method, their honor and their dignity…. to support a collectivist ideology.

    CAGW is a fear of scarcity, melded with Marxist hatred of capitalism, infused with corrupt rent seekers plundering the public pot. Nothing about it has value, honor, or integrity. Julienne, why consign yourself with such corruption?

    Laymen are misguided by our complicit media, but how does a true scientist embrace this unproven, improbable theory?

    Have you noticed that ALL solutions are punitive to growth and consumption? No appreciation of (useless) carbon capture, nuclear fuels or abundant coal/Thorium?

    Why, oh why, oh why?

    We (honestly) don’t know what will happen here. But I would put my money on the effect created when both PDO and AMO are in (negative) phase.

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