Posted on 05/16/2016 7:27:10 PM PDT by Steve_Seattle
The University of Illinois maintains a website monitoring global sea ice. Recent data is unprecedented (in my experience) in its strangeness.
I am almost certain this explained in the movie The Day After Tomorrow.
In your posting comments you say this is “unprecedented, in my experience”. You have experience with ice cap data or watching the data? If you do then why would should anyone here has more or better experience than you? Now if you would provide some data analysis instead using words like “weird” and “experience” maybe we could take you seriously.
Or should we all just be concerned like you about what is probably either questionable or down right fraudulent data to start with?
Must be polar orbit. One satellite for Arctic and Antarctic. Off in opposite directions at both poles. Strange. If it was a satellite problem, you would think it would be off the same direction at both poles. Perhaps a planetary wide phenomenon is occurring ? Need to see if other polar SATs are affected. Microwave wavelengths?
What’s your best guess? Or guesses...
Not icebergs. John Wayne would sidle up to one carefully in his yacht, a converted navy ship, ‘The Wild Goose,’ and chip off enough ice for his buddies’ drinks.
“Bad Data” would be the best outcome...
We can assume other satellites are measuring the same effect, right? Someone needs to check..
It should be the equivalent of mid November in Antarctica so the ice may be on the increase now but nothing like it will be in about three months.
There might also be some subsurface volcanism heating the water.
It is not pining for the fjords, it is bereft of life, playing to the celestial choir, nailed to its perch, it is F---ing dead.
An insane sketch by the Monty Python Gang!
New ice age? Weren’t they mainly from the North Pole south?
Is sea water salty?
Why not?
And it was several sentences, not paragraphs.
Joe knows climate and weather. There is actually one way the satellite could be reading correct. If the main trend is colder, El Nino could be creating a false signal in the South. Ocean circulation slows. No heat getting to Arctic due to Bering Straits, but heat getting to South from El Nino surface heating. This might be the off switch for heating the deep Oceans. So Northern Hemisphere first goes into Ice Age, as it appears to be doing. Massive El Ninos, the source of the snow, keep the southern hemisphere lagging the Ice Age. As planet keeps cooling, El Ninos get weaker slowly. Then both hemispheres are in Ice Age. Just my 2 cents.
The very last thing the global warming crowd cares about is “long term data”
I can see that the website has some problems. The maps shown for 1980 and 2015 (back a few posts) have obviously erroneous snow cover for June 1, 2015 (and I found same for later dates in June). The website does note that land snow cover is not depicted in the 1980 map. However, there’s no way that large parts of North America and Europe would have that much snow cover in June last year or any other year since about the Ogg-Caveman presidency.
As to the problems with sea ice depictions, this seems to be explained earlier in the discussion.
Generally speaking, the peak of sea ice in each hemisphere can be expected around the spring equinox and the minimum is usually observed in the September of northern hemisphere and as late as April in the south because down there, it’s all ocean for the ice to conquer rather than enclosed basins like we have in the north (they chill faster thanks to contact with nearby frigid land masses).
And this may be widely known already around here, but northern sea ice has been in a general decline since 1980 while southern sea ice has been expanding its range at maximum. The hemispheres are often out of sync, but the circulation of the southern hemisphere prevents very much antarctic air from getting much beyond the ice margins so that more sea ice does not necessarily translate to colder spells in the populated parts of the southern hemisphere, whereas in the northern hemisphere, winter temperatures do tend to correlate with sea ice, especially in Europe with its maritime climate.
FWIW, I believe that we are in a steady-state climate era rather than any sort of plunge towards an ice age or runaway global warming. It’s warmer now than it was in most of the 18th and 19th centuries, and a little cooler in general than the peak of recent warming episodes. Nothing much is going on, despite all the hype, and it’s certainly not any real cause for alarm. The magnetic field is in a slow weakening cycle and trouble may lurk over the horizon there in terms of a reversal, but that could be hundreds of years away yet if not longer.
Yes. There are several problems with the University of Illinois Cryosphere outputs for Antarctic sea ice.
A few were sporadic - the output cycled wildly up and down, then seemed to stabilize for a few days.
The latest is a “functional” failure that is more serious. Since 5 May, the output of their program that “reports” Antarctic sea ice area is “stuck” reporting an area of 4.6884 million square kilometers of sea ice.
But, to understand what is going wrong on the various graphs and plots you see, you have to understand what is “measured”, was is “reported” and what is “calculated” and what is “plotted”.
So. The Sea Ice anomaly is the difference between the measured value for that date and the averaged value for that date based on the average of 1979-2008 records. So the average for any given date will come frmo the program - NOT the daily measured value, right?
Now, the anomaly for any given date is the difference between the “measured” value (which should change every day if everything is working right between the satellite and the various computers) and the “average” for that date. If the “measured value” for a date is wrong - then everything else that is “reported” will be wrong.
But if the program fouls up, or the program fails to update the measured value, then everything downstream of that point “automatically” fouls up as well. And that is what has happened.
On 9 April, Antarctic sea ice area was apparently correctly reported at 4.732 million sq kilometers (Mkm^2 for short). The difference between the average for that date (4.4598) and the measured value (4.7320) was the correct anomaly 0.3471 Mkm^2. (And “excess” Antarctic sea ice area about 1/4 the size of Hudson Bay - just for comparison).
On 10 April the satellite reported an area of 5.8966 Mkm^2. Way toooo large. A difference overnight of 1.1646 An area the size of Hudson Bay had appeared overnight! Can’t happen = Bad satellite number.
On 11 April, the satellite reported an area of 3.1738 Mkm^2. Waaaaayyyy too small. A difference overnight of 2.7228 An area larger than that of Greenland disappearing overnight? Can’t happen = Bad satellite number.
On 12 April, the satellite apparently behanved itself and reported what “looks like” a rational number again of 4.6760.
On 14 April, it again reported a bad value of 4.8301. We think it is wrong, just not as obviously wrong as 10-11 April.
The next few days look valid. Then on 21-22-23 April, Hudson Bay disappeared again, then re-appeared magically.
29 April? We don’t know. The 6.1198 reported value, and sea ice area anomaly of -0.0813 from an average value of 6.2011 Mkm^2 “might be” correct.
But since 5 May, the “reported” Antarctic sea ice area has NOT CHANGED at all! It has been constant at 4.6884 Mkm^2. And - as you point out above - that is impossible. Today, 17 May, the “reported value” of 4.6884 is still the same.
Now, the Antarctic sea ice anomaly obviously is calculated larger and larger every day as the “average” sea ice area is routinely and regularly increased every day by the University of Illinois program in Cryosphere. Yes, the expensive Global Warming university computer is too stupid to know its output is wrong.
As an intelligent individual capable of thinking for yourself, you have to ignore the graphs and plots until their information is correct.
Links for all this information, and a whole lot that we at WhatUpWithThat maintain are at the following:
Sea Ice Areas, Extents, and Anomalies Arctic and Antarctic
https://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/
Discussions (and 1.7 million Comments) about the 3-4 Daily Threads:
https://wattsupwiththat.com
Generally speaking, the peak of sea ice in each hemisphere can be expected around the spring equinox and the minimum is usually observed in the September of northern hemisphere and as late as April in the south because down there, it’s all ocean for the ice to conquer rather than enclosed basins like we have in the north (they chill faster thanks to contact with nearby frigid land masses).
Going to slightly disagree with you there.
Arctic Sea Ice maximum occurs in late March - sometimes the first week in April, at an nominal latitude of 71-72 north.
Antarctic sea ice maximum occurs in mid-September at latitude much, much closer to the equator at -59 to -60 south.
Arctic sea ice minimum also occurs in mid-September - but at a nominal latitude of about 80 north.
Antarctic sea ice minimum is earlier that Arctic sea ice maximum - it normally is at its minimum extent in late February. Sometimes as early as Feb 12 though. At Antarctic sea ice minimum, the latitude of the edge of the sea ice is about 72 south altitude - right along the coast of Antarctica itself.
Since 1992, Antarctic sea ice has been increasing, and in June 2014, reached a record high “excess area” larger than that of Greenland’s entire ice cap.
Arctic sea ice minimums have been decreasing, but have not actually gotten any lower since 2011. They’ve been below average, but seem to be at a constant low point of -1.1 Mkm^2.
Arctic summer air temperatures at 80 north latitude during the summer have not changed since 1959. On the other hand, Arctic winter temperatures have gotten warmer.
No.
Over the entire year, the Antarctic sea ice reflects about 1.7 times the energy that the Arctic sea ice receives.
Now, if the two were equal, you could “almost” use the global sea ice to make some sort of year-to-year comparison.
But they are NOT equally effective at either receiving solar energy nor reflecting solar energy. The large continuing increase in Antarctic sea ice is much more important to the earth’s heat balance than the little bit of Arctic sea that everybody worries about and propagandizes about.
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