Gross Deception About MASIE and the Sea Ice Index

Extent, , , , , , , ,

Our title for today is a reference back to a 2015 article by Paul Homewood on his “Not A Lot Of People Know That” blog, in which he told a load of old porky pies about the National Snow and Ice Data Center’s graphs of Arctic sea ice extent. Only last week Mr. Homewood cooked up another pile of porky pies concerning the Danish Meteorolical Institute’s Arctic sea ice extent metric. Now he has turned his pie baking skills to the Multisensor Analyzed Sea Ice Extent (MASIE for short), which is “a prototype collaborative product of the National Ice Center and NSIDC”.

Mr. Homewood obviously hadn’t done a whole lot of homework on MASIE before firing up his porky pie production line, since he used the self same recipe posted on the so called “Science Matters” blog of Ron Clutz shortly before. In fact he just reprinted the first part of Ron’s article and added a handy link to Ron’s even bigger pile of porky pies beneath it. Hence both Paul and Ron’s web sites currently proudly proclaim that:

Something strange is happening in the reporting of sea ice extents in the Arctic. I am not suggesting that “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” That issue about a Danish graph seems to be subsiding, though there are unresolved questions. What if the 30% DMI graph is overestimating and the 15% DMI graph is underestimating?

The MASIE record from NIC shows an average year in progress, with new highs occurring well above the 2015 maximum:

Clutz-masie-2016-to-day-56r

While I am compelled to agree with Ron and Paul that “something strange is happening in the reporting of sea ice extents in the Arctic” we disagree about everything else! One reason for that is because only a few days ago I interviewed NASA scientist Walt Meier following a suggestion by Ron Clutz that I do precisely that. Please read the edited highlights of that interview, and note in addition that Walt assured me that he had not previously been contacted by either of Messrs. Clutz and Homewood. Having never previously contacted Mr. Meier, here’s what Ron Clutz would have his loyal readership believe this weekend:

NOAA Is Losing Arctic Ice

Why the Discrepancy between SII and MASIE?

The issue also concerns Walter Meier who is in charge of SII, and as a true scientist, he is looking to get the best measurements possible. He and several colleagues compared SII and MASIE and published their findings last October. The purpose of the analysis was stated thus:

Our comparison is not meant to be an extensive validation of either product, but to illustrate as guidance for future use how the two products behave in different regimes.

Here is what Dr. Meier’s peer reviewed paper from October last year concluded on the matter:

Operational modelers require timely data that are as accurate as possible to initialize forecast models. In particular, an accurate ice edge is important because of the influence of the interaction of sea ice and water with the overlying atmosphere on the model fluxes. Consistency of data is also desirable for operational models, but is a secondary concern because the models are regularly reinitialized for their synoptic forecasts. Operational observations like MASIE make the most sense for these applications. However, the quality and amount of information used to produce the operational analyses vary.

Climate modelers desire consistent long-term data to minimize model biases and better understand and potentially improve model physics. The passive microwave record is useful, but has limitations. Regions of thin ice are underestimated and if the ice cover is diffuse with low concentration, ice-covered regions may be detected as open water. Even thin ice modifies heat and moisture transfer and thus may affect atmospheric and oceanic coupling. Surface melt results in an underestimation of concentration. This should be considered when evaluating model concentrations with passive microwave data.

and here once again is what he told me a few short days ago:

Since the quantity and quality of [MASIE] data varies the time series will not be consistent over time.

For some strange reasom Mr. Clutz’s article mentions none of this. Needless to say I have attempted to bring this unfortunate oversight to the attention of Ron & Paul:

2016-02-28_1007-RonClutz

Even more unfortunately it seems that their joint acute snow blindness has got even worse over the last few days, since they still haven’t noticed my link to Walt Meier’s words waiting patiently in their WordPress.com “moderation queues”.

Whilst we wish them on their recovery from their painful ailment, here’s an alternative interpretation of the MASIE data:

MASIE-Min

Operational modellers for the use of! Here’s what the NSIDC’s Sea Ice Index currently reveals to climate scientists:

Charctic-20160226

NSIDC Arctic sea ice extent is evidently still currently lowest *ever for the date.

The “DMIGate” Dodo is Pushing up the Daisies

Extent, , , , ,

Our title this morning is but a brief extract from a conversation I started on Judith Curry’s “Climate Etc.” blog about (believe it or not!) the effects of large wind driven swells on the “Marginal Ice Zone” of sea ice in the Arctic:

2016-02-25_1159-Judy

Whilst “skeptics” like Pethewin keep on flogging that particular “dead parrot” the DMI have just published an explanation of the erroneously high readings on their now deceased 30% concentration threshold Arctic sea ice extent metric. Here’s an extract, together with a pretty picture for the benefit of those amongst we Cryospheric commenters who are hard of understanding:

The apparent elevated sea ice extent in the data from the old extent algorithm was an artifact, caused by a new and higher resolution coast mask.

Surely that’s easy enough for even the dumbest of all the armchair Arctic analysts scattered across the internet to comprehend?

Going into more detail, the DMI article explains that:

Most of our sea ice extent followers know that the old plot includes a coastal mask, inside which sea ice was is accounted for. In summer 2015 this mask was refined and the masked region was subsequently smaller, thus leaving more area for classified sea ice and open water. The difference in masked area, before and after summer 2015, is approximately 1.4 million km2. This corresponds to difference of the blue coast lines in figure 2, showing the old and new coastal masks in the left and right panels, respectively. The difference may be difficult to detect on the figure, but the area is quite significant. The increasing sea ice extent that is caused by the new coast mask is not great during summer, because sea ice has a relative short line of contact with land during summer. But the new and finer coast mask will result in increasingly more sea ice, compared to previous years during winter, as the coast line with sea ice contact is increasing. This is the reason for an increasing sea ice extent during current freeze-up period, relative to previous winters. A comparison of the 2015/2016 sea ice extent with previous years does therefore not make sense.

Note how the dark blue “coastal mask” in the left hand image from February 22nd 2015 is thicker than the one in the right hand image from the same date this year. DMI conclude with this apology:

Because of the deprecated status of the old plot in the past year, DMI has not been monitoring these irregularities. The old plot should, of cause, have been removed when the mask was replaced. DMI apologizes for the confusion and inconvenience this has caused.

Somehow I doubt that the assorted “skeptics” that have recently been making massive mountains out of this minor molehill will apologise for all “the confusion and inconvenience this has caused”. Causing confusion and inconvenience was probably the general idea.

Watts Up With DMI Arctic Sea Ice Extent?

Satire, , , , ,

When I pose that question I’m not referring to the Danish Meteorological Institute’s long “deprecated” 30% concentration threshold Arctic sea ice extent metric so much as the reaction to its demise amongst the more “skeptical” of we cryospheric bloggers. Here once again is the “controversial” graph in question, archived from the start of the year:

DMI-15-2016-01-04

No sooner had Paul Homewood moved on from that topic to finally reproduce on his blog an NSIDC Arctic sea ice graph I first brought to his attention last spring than across the Atlantic in the good ‘ol US of A a certain Mr. Anthony Watts suddenly loudly proclaims that he “tends to agree” with Mr. Homewood’s assertion that:

There has been so much skulduggery going on in the climate establishment in recent years that it is hard to avoid the conclusion that this graph has been withdrawn simply because it gives the “wrong” results.

Given the actual facts of the matter this is peculiar enough, but then things get positively surreal. Regular readers will realise that up here in the penthouse suite at the pinnacle of the tallest of the Great White Con Ivory Towers we pride ourselves on our surreal sensibilities. Today though, we are forced to admit that WUWT has beaten us at our own game. Whilst we were conducting a perfectly sane interview with one of the world’s top sea ice scientists Tony was concocting these perfectly formed surrealist fantasies.

In his update 1 to this already nonsensical story Anthony assures us that:

The typical haters, such as Neven Acropolis, are making claims in comments that I see this as some sort of “conspiracy”. I do not and any such claim is false and political in nature.

Mr. Watts is evidently a big fan of William Burroughs, and has used his celebrated “cut-up” technique to transform “Skulduggery going on in the climate establishment” into “magnets cued she got on the inimitably ginger skull” which is obviously not even slightly conspiratorial.

Let’s move swiftly on to update 2, wherein we are told:

DMI has an entire page dedicated to the use of the 30% concentration value that is still operational!

However if you read the small print on Anthony’s accompanying image it says that:

The maps are additionally overlayed with the corresponding multi-year monthly mean of the periods 1978-2014.

and if you click the accompanying link you will discover that there is no way on Earth to persuade the DMI web site to display “operational” data from 2015, let alone 2016.

Whilst we eagerly await the no doubt imminent arrival of What’s up with that Watts DMIgate update 3 we will leave you with some words of wisdom from Dr. Walt Meier of NASA, the aforementioned top sea ice scientist, who informed us earlier today that:

Regarding DMI, the issue seems quite simple. The 30% plot is an older version that they stopped supporting as they transitioned to the 15% plot.

DMI, MASIE and the Sea Ice Index – An Interview With Walt Meier

Extent, , , , , , , , , ,

For some reason best known to himself Anthony Watts has jumped on the “DMIGate” bandwagon started by Paul Homewood over on this side of the Atlantic a few days ago. In his latest article Mr. Watts quotes with approval the “Not A Lot Of People Know That” article which we have already covered in some depth.

Here yet again is one of my comments that recently ended up on the NALOPKT cutting room floor:

2016-02-21_1811-NALOPKT

You will note that I was suggesting that Ron Clutz’s extremely selectively interpretation of some of Walt Meier’s academic papers left a lot to be desired. Particularly given the additional fuel added to the “skulduggery” fire by the Watts Up With That article it seemed sensible to phone up NASA and ask Walt for his views on the second hottest Arctic sea ice topic on the planet at the moment, according to Messrs. Clutz and Homewood at least. That is the relative merits of Multisensor Analyzed Sea Ice Extent (MASIE for short) versus the National Snow and Ice Data Center’s Sea Ice Index (SII for short) for determining Arctic sea ice trends.

According to the NSIDC:

MASIE sea ice products are developed from National Ice Center (NIC for short) data with support from the U.S. Navy and from NOAA. MASIE is hosted by NOAA@NSIDC.

whereas:

The Sea Ice Index provides a quick look at Arctic- and Antarctic-wide changes in sea ice. It is a source for consistent, up-to-date sea ice extent and concentration images and data values from November 1978 to the present.

As luck would have I managed to get through to Walt on my second attempt, and he graciously agreed to be interviewed at extremely short notice. He told me that whilst he now worked at NASA he used to be at the NSIDC, and still collaborated with them. Here are the edited highlights of his thoughts on “MASIE v SII”:

MASIE repackages data from the NIC, and incorporates an ice edge hand drawn by analysts working with whatever satellite data they have available at the time. It is an “operational” product designed to produce a “best effort” ice edge each day, based on whatever data may be available at the time.

Visual data is obviously not available in winter, and the ice edge is often obscured by clouds in summer. Synthetic Aperture Radar can “see in the dark” and through clouds, but suffers from different limitations. The whole of the Arctic isn’t covered every day for example. In addition, and unlike the SII, data from different satellite sensors is incorporated which means there are inevitably inconsistencies from day to day and from year to year. There is also an element of “human subjectivity” because different analysts are working with different sources of data from one day to the next. Since the quantity and quality of data varies the time series will not be consistent over time.

On the other hand the SII was designed to use a consistent methodology over a long period of time using a single type of sensor. 100% automatically processed passive microwave data is the “gold standard” when it comes to determining sea ice trends. It is subject to some biases and thus is not necessarily as accurate on a given day as MASIE. However, the biases are consistent over time, so the time series will be consistent over time. This means that year-to-year comparisons and trend estimates will be more accurate in the passive microwave data than in MASIE.

So there you have it. If you’re on the bridge of a vessel sailing in Arctic waters then MASIE is the right tool for the job. If on the other hand you’re sat in front of a computer trying to get the best estimate of trends in Arctic sea ice extent then the Sea Ice Index is what you’ll grab from your toolkit.

Having had a chance to examine the “evidence” of DMI “skulduggery” presented by Messrs. Watts and Homewood, Walt sent me a follow up email. Here is what it says:

Regarding DMI, the issue seems quite simple. The 30% plot is an older version that they stopped supporting as they transitioned to the 15% plot. I don’t know specifically why the 30% plot went awry, but there is generally automatic quality control done to make sure the final results are accurate and consistent. If such QC is not done, a lot of incorrect values can occur. I suspect that since the older version was no longer supported, the QC wasn’t being watched and something went wrong that they didn’t bother to fix (or maybe didn’t even notice) because the new 15% version is the official DMI output.

Not a lot of people know that, because Watts, Homewood et al. have developed the nasty habit of “snipping” comments to that effect as and when the mood takes them, which based on my own experience seems to be remarkably often in this day and age.

Gross Deception About DMI’s “Missing Graph”

Satire, , , , , , ,

For reasons that will take too long to explain just at the moment I answered a question asked by Ron Clutz over at Paul Homewood’s “Not A Lot Of People Know That” blog. Having done that I had a quick look round and discovered that unlike most of his “skeptical” friends Paul is writing almost as many posts per day about sea ice as I am! Needless to say he’s raking over the coals of his “Gross Deception” article from last year.

Yesterday he published another article on the topic of Arctic sea ice, entitled “DMI’s Missing Graph“, in which he claims:

For the last few months, there has been a widening divergence between the two Arctic sea ice extent graphs produced by DMI…

Now there may be good reasons for this difference, and it must be pointed out that DMI has never stated that there is any problem with the 30% version, or reason to doubt it…

But the real problem is that DMI has now withdrawn their 30% graph, offering this explanation:

“I have removed the old sea ice extent graphics and the new graphics (http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.php) is now our one and only official sea ice extent.

When I introduced the new graphics I also announced that the old graphics would be removed after some time – and now is the time, sorry.

I spend too much time explaining the differences and it was quite confusing for many – so, I decided to remove the old graphics. However, all the data are available here http://osisaf.met.no/p/ if you would like do the plotting your selves.”

The real problem would instead seem to be that Paul Homewood cannot read, and DMI have in fact been offering a good reason to anyone with eyes to see for many months. We explained all this only the other day, but nonetheless here is an example of the DMI’s 15% threshold extent graph from earlier this year, carefully preserved for posterity in a secure archive deep in the ice shelf underneath the Great White Con Ivory Towers:

DMI-15-2016-01-04

For those poor souls amongst us currently afflicted by acute snow blindness it says in bright red lettering, amongst other things:

The plot above replaces an earlier sea ice extent plot… The old plot can still be viewed here for a while.

For the moment at least the last word on the matter must come from the Danish Meteorological Institute, who report via the @PolarPortal on Twitter that:

[Edit – February 21st 2016 at 21:30 UTC]

The gross deception increases! Not a lot of people know that all my comments on Paul Homewood’s blog are now hidden from view, on the pretext that I’m a troll. Paul really must be blind if he thinks Snow White resembles a troll in any way shape or form. Here’s what some trolls actually look like:

KBT-Climate-Trolls

The thread about DMI’s deprecated graph has degenerated into a free for all about MASIE, when there’s already a thread over there for the discussion of that thorny topic. More on MASIE in due course, but let’s try and stick with DMI extent here. Unlike Paul Homewood and Ron Clutz, who no doubt welcome the distraction!

Them:

Jaime – With regard to the apparent ‘conundrum’ regarding the significant increase in 30% SIE and the lack of increase 15% SIE. It seems to me – and correct me if my logic is faulty – that the ‘at least 30% concentration’ increase tells us that the area of more consolidated ice has increased relative to previous years. The ‘at least 15% concentration’ lack of increase (or decrease) tells us that the less consolidated ice edge area has not increased significantly compared to previous years and may even be declining.

 

Us:

What “at least 30% concentration increase” would that be then Jaime?

[This is currently visible – mod]

 

Them:

Pethefin – “at least 30 % concentration” = minimum 30 % concentration = ice coverage with concentration equal to or higher than 30 %. Anyone with the slightest ability to think for themselves would be able to figure it out. Trolls however…

 

Us:

2016-02-21_1522-NALOPKT
[This is currently invisible – mod]

 

Them:

Jaime – Jim, that increase shown in comparison with earlier years by the discontinued DMI graph shown above, starting in September and culminating with the large difference notable right up to mid February.

 

Us:

2016-02-21_1735-NALOPKT
[This is currently invisible too – mod]

I’m sure you get the general idea by now. All of which means that not a lot of people know that if you were to follow the sound advice that DMI gave Paul Homewood and “do the plotting yourself” using the open source software and support made freely available on the Arctic Sea Ice Forum you would discover that (surprise, surprise!) 30% threshold Arctic sea ice extent on February 20th 2016 was significantly less than on the same date in 2015.

 

[Edit – February 21st 2016 at 22:30 UTC]

And here’s the coup de grace. Before and after the wielding of the NALOPKT red pencil:

 

Before:

2016-02-21_1811-NALOPKT

 

After:

[SNIP]

Jim

I have already warned you.

You have already posted eight comments on just one article, none of which had the slightest relevance to the original post, not to mention several more.

All you have done is disrupted the comment thread. I am aware that you have attempted to do exactly the same on other blogs. I am not prepared to allow you to do the same here.

If you want an argument, I suggest you decamp to Disqus, or better still go and argue with yourself on that pathetic little blog of yours, which very few people appear to read.

You are on your final chance. If you have any relevant comments to make, they will be welcome. But any more trolling, and you will be banned.

BTW – If you want to slag me off on your own rarely visited site, as you have before, perhaps you might at least have the decency to tell the truth

Paul

2016-02-21_2226-NALOPKT

 

[Edit – February 22nd 2016 at 10:00 UTC]

You will note from the comments below that Lawrence Martin has also now fallen foul of the “Not A Lot Of People Know That” censor red pencil. Next in line looks like it will be Neven Acropolis from the Arctic Sea Ice Blog, who is currently still permitted to valiantly fight the good fight:

Neven:

I’m not interested in why the DMI replaced their 30% SIE graph with a 15% SIE graph, because a switch from 30% to 15% isn’t all that exciting. Perhaps it is for someone who doesn’t understand the difference, but it isn’t for me.

And it’s not like they did it all of a sudden. The graph was replaced months ago, with the announcement that the old graph would be discontinued at some point.

I’m also not interested in why the graph was in error. What’s interesting about that? Why would I want DMI people who have lots of different stuff to do, to spend time and money on something that bears no relevance to anything, except to some guy who thinks it’s a all big conspiracy?

 

Them:

Notice how Neven The Gullible avoids answering or commenting any of these questions.

 

Us:
2016-02-22_0920-NALOPKT[This is also currently invisible – mod] 

 

Them:

We’ll keep you posted!

Global Sea Ice Extent at Lowest *Ever Level

Extent, , , , ,

A few days ago we reported that the Cryosphere Today global sea ice area metric had fallen to the “lowest *ever” level since their records began in 1979. CT area just fell to yet another all time low once again. Today we are able to bring you the news that NSIDC global sea ice extent also achieved “lowest *ever” status today, at 16.707 million square kilometers. Here’s the graph to prove it:

Global-Extent-2016-02-18

As we discussed when global sea ice area reached its all time low level:

This measure doesn’t tell us all that much about the health of either Arctic or Antarctic regions, if only because the seasons move in opposite directions (nevertheless, the global sea ice trend is down). It’s just an interesting statistical factoid.

Rest assured that nonetheless we will attempt to bring this “statistical factoid” to the attention of those who have been merrily claiming for the past few years that “the trend on the daily observations of global sea-ice extent by the satellites since 1979 is remarkably close to zero.”

To begin with, let’s see when (if?) this comment sees the cold light of day shall we?

2016-02-18_1911-WUWT

[Edit – 08:30 UTC February 19th 2016]

The comment shown above has now seen the light of day, whereas a number of others have not. Here’s the rest of the assorted conversations, so far:

Them:

I prefer this chart:

DMI_extent-30_20160217

That’s at 30%, which eliminates most of the wind-blown bergs. It measures the thicker ice cover, so it’s a more accurate representation.

You can see 2016 starting to move up after a strong 2015 finish.

 

Us:

This one is currently still invisible over there:

That’s the one which the Danish Meteorological Institute no longer even mention on their website because it’s been deprecated and unsupported for so long:

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php

Here’s the graph (of Arctic sea ice extent only) which they currently recommend, which shows broadly the same thing as the NSIDC’s version:

DMI_icecover_20160219

Can we get back to GLOBAL sea ice area/extent now?

I didn’t want to use up my limited allocation of links over at WUWT, but here is what the Arctic sea ice chart that WUWT mods (and “Steve Goddard“) prefer currently looks like:

DMI_extent-30_20160218

Maybe that’s why the WUWT moderator in question felt compelled to display Wednesday’s chart instead of Thursday’s?

 

Them:

[I don’t think any of [Monckton, Soon or Legates] with bother with your off-topic question. as said earlier, your entire m.o. is to launch a taunt, and it doesn’t merit a response since this isn’t any particularly noteworthy event. -mod]

 

Us:

This one is currently still invisible too:

Have you got something against Clive Best? Both my comments that link to our conversation about global area/extent are still invisible.

The “lowest EVAH!!” value of Christopher Monkton’s favourite sea ice metric doesn’t merit a response from him? On an article subtitled “killer questions that expose how wrong and ideologically driven they are”? Surely you jest?

Quoting from the ice cool Snow White:

On January 19th 2016 the Watts Up With That blog published an article by one “Christopher Monckton of Brenchley” entitled “20 false representations in one 10-minute video“. The 15th “false representation” read as follows:

That Arctic sea ice is declining, though Antarctic sea ice has been on a rising trend and reached a satellite-era record in early 2015, and though the decline in Arctic sea ice is chiefly only in a few late-summer weeks and is a small fraction of the seasonal variation in sea-ice extent, so that neither the extent nor the trend of global sea ice (from the University of Illinois) shows much change throughout the satellite era.

Where is the Good Lord when you need him? Where is Willie Soon for that matter?

 

Here are my other comments that have yet to catch the eagle eyes of the Watts Up With That band of merry moderators:

2016-02-18_1951-WUWT

2016-02-15_1800-WUWT

2016-02-12_2353-WUWT

 

* Since satellite records began

Explaining the Greenhouse Effect

Temperature, , , , , , ,

Prompted by my (no doubt vain?) attempt to hold a sensible discussion about the greenhouse effect in a rather hostile environment, we have just added a brand new page to the long list of Great White Con educational resources:

“Greenhouse Effect Explanations”

A very brief history of the science of the greenhouse effect, courtesy of Ed Hawkins:

In the 1820s, the French mathematician Joseph Fourier was trying to understand the various factors that affect Earth’s temperature. But he found a problem – according to his calculations, the Earth should have been a ball of ice.

In 1861, the Irish physicist John Tyndall performed an experiment which changed our view of the atmosphere. Tyndall demonstrated that gases such as methane and carbon dioxide absorbed infrared radiation, and could trap heat within the atmosphere.

Svante Arrhenius, a Swedish chemist, provided the first numerical estimates of “climate sensitivity” – defined as the temperature change corresponding to a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. He suggested a value around 4°C in 1896.

In 1938, Guy Stewart Callendar revealed evidence for a 0.3°C rise in global temperatures over the previous 50 years.

Much more recently “Tamino” has just penned an article on his Open Mind blog entitled:

“Global Warming Basics: Greenhouse Gas”

and Rasmus Benestad has written an article for RealClimate entitled

“What is the best description of the greenhouse effect?”

Intriguingly the supplementary materials accompanying Rasmus’ paper include ‘R’ source code!

If you have any constructive comments to make about efforts to explain the physics of the greenhouse effect to a lay audience and/or our new resource on that topic please feel free to do so in the space provided below.

For Life on Earth, Ice is not Generally a Good Thing!?

Censorship, , , , , , ,

Or so Viscount Christopher Monckton of Brenchley claims in answer to the question I recently put to him and his fellow authors in a comment below an article on the Watts Up With That blog entitled “The Profiteers of Climate Doom” and bylined “Christopher Monckton of Brenchley, Willie Soon and David R. Legates”. As I put it in my initial comment:

A “killer question” for you Christopher.

Were you previously aware that global sea ice area has recently reached its lowest ever level (since the Cryosphere Today satellite records began)?

The thing is, although Chris’s riposte to my gentle probing has just been published, my third explanatory comment has not. Here it is:

2016-02-12_2353-WUWT

and here is the good Viscount’s answer, quoted in full:

Mr Hunt, in his desperation to promote the purely political but now collapsing cause of shutting down fossil-fuel corporations that were once the major donors to his hated Republican opponents, displays a shameful disregard for, or ignorance of, elementary statistical method. He founds his case on a single data point, and one that is little different from similar data points in 2006 and 2011.

However, as he will learn when he attends his first Statistics 101 course, to place undue weight on a single data point is to err. Grown-ups determine trends on multiple data points. As Mr Hunt will learn from the graph helpfully posted by Mr Stealey, to whom he is as churlishly ungrateful as most of his sort are, the trend on the daily observations of global sea-ice extent by the satellites since 1979 is remarkably close to zero.

There has, of course, been some global warming since 1979, though only one-third of what the IPCC predicted in 1990. Naturally, one consequence of the little warming that has occurred might be a very small loss of global sea ice.

For life on Earth, of course, ice is not generally a good thing. The less of it the better.

Messrs Soon and Legates are currently keeping any thoughts they may have on the matter close to their respective chests.

[Edit – 23:30 UTC on Saturday February 13th 2016]

Intriguingly my 4th comment @WUWT is now plain for all to see, whereas despite my plaintive calls on Twitter the third shown above is not! Time for a brief flashback. On January 13th 2016 Yale Climate Connections published this video:

You will note that at around 6 minutes 30 seconds Carl Mears of Remote Sensing systems says that:

Senator Cruz focusses on one data set, mine, from one type of instrument, satellites, and he ignores all the other evidence. For example the surface temperature record, things like the Arctic sea ice declining….

On January 19th 2016 the Watts Up With That blog published an article by one “Christopher Monckton of Brenchley” entitled “20 false representations in one 10-minute video“. The 15th “false representation” read as follows:

That Arctic sea ice is declining, though Antarctic sea ice has been on a rising trend and reached a satellite-era record in early 2015, and though the decline in Arctic sea ice is chiefly only in a few late-summer weeks and is a small fraction of the seasonal variation in sea-ice extent, so that neither the extent nor the trend of global sea ice (from the University of Illinois) shows much change throughout the satellite era:

Moncktom-Global-Area

Does that graph look at all familiar?

[Edit – 16:45 UTC on Tuesday February 16th 2016]

I have posted two comments on the Watts Up With That blog today, but at present neither of them is visible. In the most recent one I endeavoured to inform Monckton et al. about the news that today the Cryosphere Today global sea ice area metric posted a new “*all time low” value. Here’s my comment:

2016-02-16_1639-WUWT

We’ll keep you posted about if and when it appears over there as well.

The Great White Con 2016 “New Einstein” Award

Satire, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Our regular reader(s) will be already be all too familiar with the 2015 edition of our annual Great White Con 2016 “New Einstein” Award. The jury has now finished its deliberations in a smoke filled igloo just outside the Great White Con Ivory Towers. I am pleased to be able to announce that the first prize of the loan of a polar bear suit kindly donated by the Daily Telegraph plus a battered big board from Cotty’s quiver has been awarded to none other than Gail Combs with her:

Jim, How does it feel to be morally responsible for the deaths of thousands of people a year?

SurfBear

I’m not quite sure how we’ll get the good news to Gail in time for her to take part in the 2016 Great White Con Arctic Basin Big Wave (Fantasy?) Surfing Competition, since she abused us in her capacity as a regular commenter on “Steve Goddard’s” (un)RealScience blog, where imparting such messages is most certainly a non trivial task. Watch this space!

2016-02-13_1230-Goddard

You will no doubt be overjoyed to learn that we already have a couple of several candidates in the running for our 2016 award, the first of which is in similar vein to Gail’s winning 2015 entry. Here they are:

1) Gary P Jackson, who claims in his Twitter profile to be a “Texan, Palinista, Conservative Activist, DragRacer Editor & Publisher”, with:

2) Anthony Watts, who is the proprietor of what he claims is “The world’s most viewed site on global warming and climate change”, has of course already “blocked” the message he doesn’t care to hear:

2016-02-27_0904-WUWTwit

Without offering a single shred of evidence for his baseless assertions Anthony had this to say on the “Climate Etc.” blog of Professor Judith Curry:

You two guys are quite the pieces of work. You both operate under multiple identities. Jim Hunt has three I have been able to identify, Lawrence Martin/Martinez has two.

Both of you post off topic or disrupt threads with the sort of unsubstantiated nonsense you post above, and both demand to have these off topic comments heard and then play the “look Watts is censoring me!” game when your comments don’t meet our site comment policy and/or are abusive in nature.

Case in point- here you are making abusive off-topic comments on Dr. Curry’s site.

Plain and simple, if you comment under different identities, post off topic and/or thread disruptive comments you don’t get to participate. Mr. Hunt was warned months ago, yet he still persists in trying to get comments through under other identities such as V2G.

3) Chris Comber, who claims to be a “Mac User, ebay addict, Re-enactor & Designer” and who has of course already “blocked” the message (s)he doesn’t care to hear:

2016-02-13_1230-Comber

Chris is apparently keen on the #Brexit concept, and (s)he blasted out an extended sequence of (comparatively!) mild ad homs culminating in:

4) CatWeazle666, who is an expert emitter of ad hominem attacks on the blog of “Steve Goddard” and it now becomes apparent also on the blog of Roger Helmer MEP, the United Kingdom Independence Party’s spokesman on Energy & Industry. CatWeazle’s entry is a stream of invective which eventually culminated (for the moment at least) in:

2016-02-16_1125-CatWeazle

As you can see, there was no way I was going to take that lying down, and I in all the circumstances I felt compelled to bring the attention of Mr. Helmer and his merry minions to this link:

http://econnexus.org.uk/how-to-upset-a-global-warming-sceptic/

where many moons ago there appeared a well documented account of how “Steve Goddard” really is “the dumbest man on the internet” when it comes to analysing Arctic sea ice. Either that or he does have some idea of what he’s talking about but is nonetheless more than content to pull the wool over the eyes of his very own band of merry minions.

P.S. In response to my request for considered comment concerning 3 million deaths per annum due to outdoor air pollution CatWeazle666’s reply was:

What a sad little troll you are, Jim.

5) Ben Pile, whose Twitter profile tells us that he is a “Researcher, writer, blogger. Sceptical of environmentalism, environmental policy and the fashion for ‘evidence-based policy’. For science, against scientism”. Inevitably Ben is yet another “blocker” of scientific messages he doesn’t care to hear:

2016-03-12_1417-BenBan

Ben evidently has a high opinion of himself, and thinks he knows more about climate science than IPCC lead author Professor Richard Betts:

He concluded his avalanche of ad homs aimed at yours truly with yet another undeleted expletive:

Unfortunately Ben then departed without offering me a series of swift apologies for his barrage of abuse:

https://twitter.com/jim_hunt/status/708361665734156288

6) Gator69, who is yet another expert emitter of ad homs on the blog of Tony Heller (AKA “Steve Goddard”).

Over at (un)Real Climate Science I humbly suggested under an article alleging “More Arctic Fraud From Mark Serreze And NSIDC” that it is difficult to prove that Amundsen “could have gone through [the Northwest Passage] in a few weeks”. Gator’s response?

Jim “could have” helped save 21,000 innocent humans yesterday, but he didn’t did he?

Jim thinks that snuffing out 21,000 innocent humans every day for his agenda is ethical and laudable.

“Could have” is an interesting phrase. How do you intend to justify this genocide Jim?

Please feel free to provide feedback to our 2016 jury in the space provided below.

Global Sea Ice Area at Lowest *Ever Level

Area, , , , , ,

Regular readers will recall that we recently announced this “Shock News!” in a comment below our “Arctic Sea Ice Area and Extent Lowest ^Ever” article. Here is the graphic evidence again:

CT-Global-2016-02-08

 

And here is a story about what it takes to convince a “climate change skeptic” about the crysopheric facts of life:

 

There’s more on this sorry tale of woe over at Neven’s Arctic Sea Ice Blog.

This measure doesn’t tell us all that much about the health of either Arctic or Antarctic regions, if only because the seasons move in opposite directions (nevertheless, the Global sea ice trend is down). It’s just an interesting statistical factoid.

However, climate risk deniers often use the Global sea ice metric as an argument that nothing is wrong and AGW is a hoax. In other words, the recent growth in Antarctic sea ice offsets the loss of Arctic sea ice (it doesn’t), even though the poles are literally worlds apart and are pretty much incomparable (except for the sea ice bit).

Using this logic, it would seem that this new record minimum means there is something wrong with sea ice and AGW isn’t a hoax. I wonder how they will spin this one. If they report it to their loyal readers, that is.

So far none of the “climate risk deniers” I’ve pinged on Twitter have brought this “interesting statistical factoid” to the attention of “their loyal readers”.

* Since satellite records began
^ For the day of the year