It’s Melting! It’s a Travesty! It’s Warm Up There! It’s… Uh… never mind. move along… nothing to see here…

So I just had to post the following picture from IJIS:

OK, so this is a linked image that will change. I am posting this on March 30, so take a look at the red line just before the April tick mark.

What do you see? Here, let me give you some options. Feel free to select more than one:

a) Joe, I see a tragic decline in Sea Ice, which is perfectly explained by the GISS super-duper increased temperature anomalies at the North Pole
b) Joe, I see Armageddon. The trend I see keeps me awake at night, as I picture a worldwide flood from all the melting ice.
c) Joe, I’m confused. Hansen and company tell me it’s really hot up there, but that red squiggly line is increasing. The graph is clearly wrong.
d) Joe, you and your denier friends are all the same. I will not address this chart because you’re obviously a denier hack who loved Bush and is more concerned with killing baby seals than getting to the truth about climate change.
e) Huh. I see the highest level of sea ice for this time of year on the chart. Looks like it’s increasing. Weird.
f) Joe, I’m scared. Does this mean we’re all going to be frozen in blocks of ice? If I do what climatologists do and extrapolate the trend of the last few days forward, it looks like the whole world will be covered in ice, I estimate, in about 13 weeks.

OK, I’m having fun here, but seriously… can the rebounding ice at the North Pole get a little mainstream media love? Isn’t this great news for Polar Bears and stuff?

We’ve done it, people! We’ve solved the climate crisis! Give yourselves a round of applause.

(Yes, I know the danger of a post like this is that the whole thing suddenly melts and it makes me look like a fool. I’ll take my chances.)

Arctic Ocean Oscillation Data Update – September 2009

It’s been nearly a year since I looked at the Arctic Oscillation data. One reason I haven’t paid closer attention to this is because it doesn’t show the cyclical patterns that AMO, PDO, and ENSO do. I haven’t run a correlation analysis on the data (yet) to determine whether or not it appears to depend more on regional temperature, or whether it seems to drive the regional temperature, but it doesn’t appear – at least in the short term – that there is a clear cycle that we can hang our hat on and say with any certainty that certain conditions can or cannot be expected over the next few years.

The same kind of analysis is done here as presented in my previous posts. I do have a correction to make on the long-term sine wave, however. In my previous post I made an observation that the long-term sine wave suggested a pattern for the Arctic on a 9500 year cycle. That calculation pulled the wrong values. The new fitting and corrected calculation indicates a sine wave with a full cycle completed in 368 years.

Even that number is nothing I’d hang my proverbial hat on. Trying to speak to the length of a cycle that is hundreds or thousands of years old on the basis of 60 years of data is a suspect exercise. I only point it out because I mentioned it as a point of interest in my previous post. I now see that the comparison is not apt and that particular point of interest is meaningless. I apologize for the confusion.

Arctic Oscillation Data as of 200908

Since the last update, we saw a stretch of positive anomalies in 7 of the next eight months. The last three anomalies have been negative. The anomalies for June and July were both less than -1.3000.

The best-fit curve itself is scaled by a factor of 2.929. Whereas the AMO, for example, ranged between +/-0.20, the Arctic ranges between +/-4.00, but mostly between +/-3.00. Thus, the higher scale factor. As mentioned, the curve itself is quite flat, fitted to reveal a 367 year cycle.

There is little vertical shift required, so the zero line is right about where it should be based on the dispersion of the data. The shift is a mere -0.0031, which is close enough to zero to call it that.

One interesting thing I noted in looking through the data was the average squared distance from the curve in different time periods – a variance of sorts, not from the overall mean, but from the best-fit curve. Here are the time-periods and the average variance value:

1950-1954: 0.6603
1955-1959: 1.0570
1960-1964: 0.9414
1965-1969: 1.2891
1970-1974: 0.5337
1975-1979: 1.1788
1980-1984: 0.7463
1985-1989: 1.2549
1990-1994: 1.1941
1995-1999: 0.7523
2000-2004: 0.7847
2005-current: 0.7929

I wish I could tell you if that has any deep meaning. But what I can tell you for sure is that the period-to-period deviations around the curve over the last 15 years shows the most consistent limited fluctuation values in the data. A couple periods were lower, but they are bookended by much higher values. I have no idea if this is an indicator of anything in particular, but I thought it to be an interesting observation.

Again, I present the smoothed charts. The longer-term averages have a lot of autocorrelation, and the spike in average is driven and sustained by 3 pretty high anomalies in the early-mid 1990s. The overall trend of the average is upward because of the combination of those anomalies and the dropping out of some lower anomalies in the 1970s. It’s kind of interesting to see that show up in the longer-period averages since the raw data chart doesn’t seem to show that as much. However, part of the reason for this is the scale. The scale on the longer-term average charts is much lower (+/-0.5 vs. +/-4.0) so the trend looks steeper than it probably is. That said, the 10-year average is what it is, and it is definitely higher now than it was 40 years ago, though it is quite a bit lower than the peak averages of a decade ago.

Arctic Oscillation Data as of 200908 - 12-month smoothing

Arctic Oscillation Data as of 200908 - 60 month smoothing

Arctic Oscillation Data as of 200908 - 120 month smoothing

Arctic Temperatures Since the mid-90s – Climate Sanity

I ran across a recent post on Climate Sanity that I thought was an interesting follow-up to my Arctic update using the RSS anomaly data.

To summarize my post: one can plainly see that since 2001, the RSS anomalies have declined on an overall basis, with the rate of decline being steeper the shorter the time frame. Beyond that, the linear best-fit on all longer periods is increasing. My analysis was done on the RSS data from latitude 70-85, which should cover things pretty well (though there is that pesky 5 degrees that isn’t covered). It is based on a best-fit of the anomalies on a month-by-month basis through July 2009. The satellite data goes back to 1979.

Our friends at Climate Sanity have looked at the DMI data by going through a process of extracting data from graphs.

The overall conclusions seem pretty similar if you read the post (linked above in the first line – or click on the link under my blogroll. I have not asked permission to duplicate the post here, so I’ll provide reference links instead.) Fitting linear trends yields overall warming on longer periods, but the highest slope occurs from the mid-90s to current.

What Giveth in the Ice Debate? (Southern Hemisphere)

Maybe some of you intelligencia can shed some light on this for me… This post is nothing earth-shattering, not data driven, and is not particularly original. But I’ve been musing. And what I’ve been musing is that, whatever your personaly belief is about Anthropogenic Global Warming, Environmentalism, Stewardship of our Planet, or whatever else, there is also the need for honest assessment of the facts. Sometimes these facts are comfortable to our preconceived notions, and sometimes they are not.

Back to my analogy… the concern on my end is continually throwing stupid policy after stupid policy (tax and regulation, banning light bulbs, carbon trading, banning lamb meat from UK restaurants, and so on) to solve a non-existent problem. With each step we take, it centralizes more authority and control into the hands of a few, it creates inefficiency, and reduces freedoms, rights, and choices. Seriously… 20 years ago, did we ever imagine that we’d live in a country where the sale of incandescent light bulbs would be friggin’ illegal?

Suppose I think that a certain stock that has dropped will rebound. There are conflicting reports as to its outlook, but I’ve decided to ignore the negative ones. I invest in it. It drops again. I still believe in it, and despite the poor earnings and financial results, I continue to think it’s a winner, so I pour more money in. It drops some more. Damn it, it will come back. I know it will. So I pour everything I have into it. When the company declares bankruptcy, only then will I realize that believing in something in the face of contrary facts, and acting on that belief can have dire consequences.

So, this could be applied to a number of things in the climate debate. Some things seem less clear than others. For example, we have a 12-year flat trend line in global temperatures, using RSS data, but within that period, the last 10 years is actually upward sloped, as are the longer-term periods. Reasonable people on both sides can offer facts that support their opinions, while the honest person will acknowledge that the final answer is not clear. Is the current period a true flattening? The start of a reversal? Or simply a lull in the path of more warming to come?

But then there’s the Southern Hemisphere Ice. And it’s simply mind-boggling to me that the data is basically ignored. Not only is it ignored, but when one piece of the Antarctic shelf is cleaving or melting, it makes the news. Absent in the report is the overall picture. I won’t go into all that, especially since anything I could do would pale in comparison to the work that Jeff has done at the Air Vent (link to the right). Here’s one such example, but he has a plethora of work that he has done reconstructing and analyzing the reports that supposedly somehow showed Antarctic warming, despite increasing ice and decreasing temperatures over the last 30 years.

There are lies, damn lies, and statistics…

But all one has to do is look at the charts. Click on the chart to get a bigger version. Here they are (all charts come from http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu and are linked on the right of the page):

This chart shows the anomalies. For those of you in Palm Beach, a positive anomaly means more ice than typical (defined as the average from 1979-2000).

I asked my 3rd grader if this chart seems to be going up from left to right or down. He said up. My 3rd grader seems more astute in his observation skills than some scientists who don’t like that answer.

This chart shows the ice area over the last year. Again, there is an anomaly line below. That red part above the flat black line = higher.

I suppose you can quibble about the fact that, at this point this year, the ice level isn’t as high as it was last year.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to an Ice-Free North Pole

It would appear that the North Pole is not cooperating with the kayakers who want to go straight through from Canada to Russia.  This, according to IJIS:

Despite the hot air emanating from politicians who continue to tell us the ice cap is melting, the current level of ice is at a peak for this time of year based on recent history.

Data only goes back a few years, so I’m not claiming any records. But it’s worth pointing out in the context of the message of the day that the ice cap is melting.

Why can’t we just be honest about things?   A couple years ago, the ice extent most certainly hit a trough.  That was an accurate assessment.  And boy, did we hear about it.   Currently, ice extent is at a peak.   Crickets. I’m finding a lot of lack of integrity enters when it comes to this issue. (That cuts both ways at times. I have my own opinions about things, but let’s confront the data for what it is and not brush it under a rug.)

Theory is great and all, as are people who become experts.  But quite honestly, I trust the data and some simple analysis more than I trust all these complex uber-theoretical models.  They may have some assessment value, but their predictive value has time and time again been worthless.

Fastest Arctic Ice Growth…

Jeff at The Air Vent has done some work and noticed that something interesting has happened in the Arctic. You know how we heard all about that “Fastest ice melt ever” that sent the AGW proponents into a panic a while back? Well, interestingly (but not surprisingly), they seem to have neglected to inform us that the reverse has occurred in recent months.

Check out his post, Arctic Sea Ice Increases at Record Rate.

A Closer Look At Oceanic Oscillation Cycles

In the past, I’ve presented some charts on the different Oceanic Oscillations for PDO, AMO, and ENSO. I’ve started to take a look at these again with an eye towards running a correlation analysis. The initial work I’ve done today is something I considered somewhat interesting, so I thought I’d share it.

The first thing I’ll present is the chart for Arctic Ocean Oscillation Indices since 1950, smoothed at one year, 5 years, and 10 years. These are presented below:

The overall Arctic Oscillation index data since 1950 - 1 year smoothing.

The overall Arctic Oscillation index data since 1950 - 5 year smoothing.

The overall Arctic Oscillation index data since 1950 - 10 year smoothing.

Unlike the AMO, PDO, and ENSO charts, there is no apparent cyclicality showing up in the Arctic Oscillation chart. There does appear to be a trend upward overall, and there are certainly ups and downs within that. The 1-year chart looks much like an ENSO chart would be. Unlike ENSO, though, I’m not picking up a longer cycle.

Well, I wanted to show that chart to start, since the Arctic seems to be the focus of a lot of attention. I guess it bears musing whether or not the Oscillation has a root cause from the Ocean itself, or the sun, or melting ice, or freezing ice, or other factors that override any cyclical nature that would otherwise be apparent.

That’s all I really did on that piece. But I’d like to move on to some work I did with the AMO, PDO, and ENSO (as well as a look at those Arctic Oscillations).

November 2008 Update on Arctic Temperature – RSS

Arctic Region:

October Anomaly

• Anomaly value = 0.452, in degrees Celsius
• Of 358 total anomalies in the data, it ranks 120th
• Of 30 October anomalies, it ranks 10th.
• October’s anomaly is 0.45 degrees cooler than October 2007 and 0.155 degrees cooler than September 2008

Averages and trends

• 12-month average anomaly is 0.514, which – other than the 51.3 average at the end of August 2008 – is the lowest average since the period ending January 2005.
• The slope since inception (January 1979) is 0.27989 degrees Celsius per month, which corresponds to a warming rate per Century of 3.36 degrees. The most horrific global warming figures are extrapolated from the observed warming in the Arctic over the last few decades. And it surely has warmed fairly significantly. However, this is a regional phenomenon. The Antarctic has actually cooled slightly in the last 30 years and nobody seems to really care all that much about that. It is very obvious from the RSS data differentiation by latitude that global temperature changes are a little more complicated than the simplistic “global” notion we so often hear about.
• We can fit a negative trend line going as far back as March 2002. So, while the anomalies are still warm, they have stopped increasing in the last 6 and a half years.
• There is no significant recent streaks of consecutive cooling or warming stretches over previous year.
• Last 60-month slope = -0.0053. While negative, and while recent anomalies haven’t been real high, the trend line has increased because there is a dropping off of some very high anomalies on the front end of the trend line. Given the short line and the widely fluctuating anomalies in this region, the 60-month trend whips around quite a bit. In two months, I expect it to actually swing positive, but then it should flip back to a negative trend line.
• Last 120-month slope = 0.4589. This is a significant 10-year trend line. Since the last 5-years show a negative trend line, this still provides insight into the fact that the recent anomalies have still hovered higher than they were a decade ago. This helps explain the continued decline of ice mass through summer of 2007. Even though the Arctic was starting to cool down from its peak, it was still warm enough to continue increasing the melt. But we can now see, based on the 12-month average being the lowest in a while, that the overall anomalies have come down over the last 3 years, and we saw a higher ice mass at minimim in 2008 than 2007, and we saw a more rapid recovery into the winter. I have included a snapshot of the ice extent as of the end of November, from the IJIS site, below. You may view a current snapshot by clicking the IJIS link under “Resources” on the right of this page.


Arctic Ice Extent since 2002. The 2008 value is as of November 30, 2008.

• Last 180-month slope = 0.4222, the lowest such slope since the period ending February 2003.
• Last 240-month slope = 0.4725, – the value of this trend line has been relatively stable since December 2005.
• Last 300-month slope = 0.3895, – the value of this trend line has been relatively stable since December 2006.

Overall trend since 1979 for the Arctic shows significant warming. This level of warming has been unique to the Arctic, and has finally subsided, at least for now, over the last 6 years.