Arctic Sea Ice

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The 11th Key Science Moment of 2016

Regular readers of the Arctic Sea Ice Blog will be aware that Neven has, not entirely successfully, been "on sabbatical" for a while. During that time assorted inaccuracies about Neven himself and about the state of sea ice in the Arctic have been propagating through both "social" and "mainstream" media.

In this guest post, reproduced from the Great White Con blog, I endeavour to set part of the Arctic sea ice record straight, whilst wondering "Why?" so many wires were apparently crossed.

A brief history of scientific "churnalism" in the age of social media. The "post-truth" of The Guardian's 11th Key Science Moment of 2016.

On November 7th 2016 we broke this astonishing news on Twitter:

Global #SeaIce area is at an astonishingly low level for the date: https://t.co/uhiBXcY8C8 pic.twitter.com/mCKkTGXYdO
— Snow White (@GreatWhiteCon) November 7, 2016

Nobody noticed! Then on November 16th 2016 Zack Labe did likewise:

This is not normal. Global #seaice area...

(via https://t.co/qwD3k8Ku3h) pic.twitter.com/LppEwpCidm
— Zack Labe (@ZLabe) November 16, 2016

The story got some legs. Zack got pushback from some "skeptics" and then the AGU blogged about the story:

My attention was called to this issue last week thanks to the Twitter feed of Zack Labe, a PhD student in Earth Systems Science at the University of California – Irvine. He makes great graphics showing the latest data on polar climate.

Then he got interviewed by the AGU. The AGU linked back to the graphic graphic in question in the clouds at Google, but there was no mention of our November 6th article or the real source of the story. The Arctic Sea Ice Forum (ASIF for short).

It's now December 18th, and as far as I'm aware that remains the case in the mainstream media (MSM for short). The Arctic Sea Ice Forum grew out the earlier Arctic Sea Ice Blog (ASIB for short). The proprietor of both the ASIB and ASIF has been revealed by CBC to be one Neven Curlin. They recently interviewed Neven, and even gave him top billing above Sir David Attenborough in the resulting podcast:

Continue reading "The 11th Key Science Moment of 2016" »

Posted by Jim Hunt on December 18, 2016 at 14:51 in Media, Science | Permalink | Comments (58)

PIOMAS December 2016

Another month has passed and so here is the updated Arctic sea ice volume graph as calculated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) at the Polar Science Center:

Well, November definitely was an Oh Jesus-month. Just like during October, the stall in sea ice extent has been reflected in the PIOMAS sea ice volume numbers. The Arctic amassed just 2904 km3 of sea ice, as compared to 3721 km3 for 2012 and 4054 km3 for 2011. The last time a November clocked in less than 3000 km3 was in 2006 (2567 km3), but right now 2016 is more than 4000 km3 lower than 2006, which means there should have been so much more opportunity for expansion. It's just crazy.

And so the differences with previous months have only become larger:

Yes, your eyes are seeing what you think they're seeing: 2016 is 749 km3 lower than 2012, a new record low. Look, here's another visual aid, the volume graph produced by sea ice data virtuoso Wipneus:

Of course, the trend line on the PIOMAS sea ice volume anomaly graph is now firmly lodged in the 2 standard deviation territory:

Continue reading "PIOMAS December 2016" »

Posted by Neven on December 07, 2016 at 00:08 in AGW, CryoSat, Ice thickness and volume, PIOMAS, Records, SMOS, SST | Permalink | Comments (232)

Sabbatical (I hope)

I've alluded to it a couple of times already, but I'm really going to take a break from blogging, as I have been struggling with an Arctic burn-out since 2012. On the one hand it's caused by everything that has been and still is going on in the Arctic. The learning curve, the excitement, but most of all the depression that comes with watching this steamroller just plough forward, is taking its toll.

On the other hand, for the past three years I've been trying hard to walk the walk as well by building a sustainable house with my wife and daughter, and we are now slowly entering the final phase. Just one more year to go to finish things and then fully focus on our garden (plant more trees, grow 50% of our food, etc). This also takes a lot of extra work to finance, and in this respect I want to thank everyone who contributed to the 17 thousand Euros in donations I have received over the years. It was a huge help.

Nevertheless, all this working, building and blogging has left me with little time do other things, and I feel I also need to reach out to my local community and do more things that help directly with dealing with AGW and other systemic problems our global society is facing. On top of that we are homeschooling our daughter, and as she enters puberty, I feel I need to jump in more to support my wife. In short: life.

I will be posting PIOMAS updates and maybe some occasional stuff (that I don't put on my to-do-list to stay on there forever), but I won't be covering the next melting season like I've done since 2010. Don't worry, the Arctic Sea Ice Forum is still there (HTTPS version, ignore security warning) and it's rocking hard, with over 1000 members and traffic records getting broken almost as often as Arctic sea ice records. You can find all the latest data there, and lots of interesting analysis, maps and graphs to explain what is going on up North. And I will also be updating the Arctic Sea Ice Graphs website on an irregular basis.

So, yes, a sabbatical, it all sounds great in theory, but in practice there's this:
It's called reality, and it's kind of hard to ignore.

But I'm going to try. For a while.

To end on a positive note (end of the song):

If it's gonna get better, it starts with a feeling
If it's gonna get better, it's gonna take time
If it's gonna get better, we've gotta start now
'Cause I know everybody can feel it
And I know everybody will see it
'Cause it shows, and that shows I'm not dreaming
'Cause you know, I know, it's time for a change

Posted by Neven on November 20, 2016 at 21:09 in Donations | Permalink | Comments (171)

PIOMAS November 2016

Another month has passed and so here is the updated Arctic sea ice volume graph as calculated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) at the Polar Science Center:

Do you see that 2016 trend line simply refusing to go up, ending at the lowest level on record for this time of year? That's because of this:

The Arctic has stubbornly refused to refreeze before, but this is another event we can add to the unprecedented list. After ending second/third lowest on record around minimum time, there was a rapid refreeze that was traditionally touted as the End of Global Warming, but for the past weeks things have been at a figurative standstill. Whatever the respective roles of natural variability and AGW, these wild swings do not inspire confidence in a semi-stable system (and the same goes, unfortunately, for the Antarctic).

The slow refreeze inevitably has an effect on sea ice volume, as modelled by PIOMAS. As of November 1st, sea ice volume is lowest on record, but this post covers the month of October only, and at the end of that month, 2016 was just marginally behind 2012. But with an increase of just 1648 km3 during October (only 2007 managed to have an increase below 2 million in the past decade) 2016 has left all other years in the dust.

Here's how the differences with previous years have evolved from last month:

The 'flatline' can also clearly be seen on Wipneus' version of the PIOMAS volume graph:

Continue reading "PIOMAS November 2016" »

Posted by Neven on November 08, 2016 at 16:11 in Ice extent and area, Ice thickness and volume, JAXA (ADS-NIPR), PIOMAS, Records | Permalink | Comments (140)

Arctic sea ice minimum volume 1979-2016

Andy Lee Robinson has updated his PIOMAS sea ice volume minimum video:

Posted by Neven on October 15, 2016 at 12:47 in AGW, Ice thickness and volume, PIOMAS | Permalink | Comments (174)

PIOMAS October 2016

Another month has passed and so here is the updated Arctic sea ice volume graph as calculated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) at the Polar Science Center:

The minimum was reached in September for modelled sea ice volume as well, and 2016 came in third, just behind 2011 (99 km3 difference) and well behind 2012 (728 km3). In the meantime, despite the early date of minimum and the rapid increase in extent that followed it, 2016 caught up with 2011 a bit and they are practically at a par at the end of September. 2016 clearly belongs in the 2010-2012 group and is much lower than the years preceding that period and the rebound years that followed 2012.

Here's how the differences with previous years have evolved from last month:

And here are the numbers and bar graph that show how this year's total melt stacked up against other years. It is 5th highest, bearing in mind that maximum sea ice volume was second lowest on record back in April after a mild winter, with total accumulation being third lowest in the 2006-2016 record:

Wipneus' version of the PIOMAS volume graph also shows how this year's trend line almost dropped as low as 2011, and has been on a par ever since:

Continue reading "PIOMAS October 2016" »

Posted by Neven on October 11, 2016 at 15:51 in Air temperature, Canadian Archipelago, Ice thickness and volume, Minimum, PIOMAS | Permalink | Comments (13)

The 2016 melting season in images

The Arctic year started with the warmest January and February on record:

The mild winter led to one of the lowest maximums on record, lowest even on some graphs.

And then in April, just before the melting season started, things got exciting very early in the Beaufort Sea (animation shows March 30th to May 4th):