Tag Archives: NOAA

The United States’ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Trump’s Climate Cuts Affect the NSIDC

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I frequently post a summary of the Arctic section of the United States’ National Snow and Ice Data Center’s monthly review of the current state of the cryosphere. Here is the most recent edition.

However, this month I have some additional bad news to report. According to a May 6th “Level of Service Update for Data Products” from the NSIDC:

Effective May 5, 2025, NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) will decommission its snow and ice data products from the Coasts, Oceans, and Geophysics Science Division (COGS).

As a result, the level of services for affected products below will be reduced to Basic—meaning they will remain accessible but may not be actively maintained, updated, or fully supported.

If you rely on these products in your work, research, education, or planning, we invite you to share your story at [email protected]. Your input can help us demonstrate the importance of these data sets and advocate for future support.

I will certainly share my story with the NSIDC. If you are a resident of the US you may also wish to contact your local friendly neighbourhood politician(s) about the matter?

[Update – May 9th]

Mark Serreze, Director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, replied to my email and told me that:

We are acutely aware of the importance of the SII and Sea Ice Today.  Millions of visits per year.  High priority. We’re in the middle of discussions about to make sure that we have continuity.

Thanks for your support.  Everything helps.

One of the less well known data products provided by the NSIDC is EASE-Grid Sea Ice Age.

I recently used that particular mine of essential cryospheric information to produce this educational YouTube video:

The video reveals the underlying reason for the “fast transition” of Arctic sea ice cover from thick multi-year ice to a reduced area of much more mobile young ice.

To be continued…

Clutz Clutches at Minimum Extent Straws

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On several previous occasions “Snow White” and I have documented Ron Clutz’s misuse of MASIE Arctic sea ice extent data on his “Science Matters” blog. We agree with Ron that science matters, so on several occasions we have attempted to direct his attention to my interview with NASA/NSIDC scientist Walt Meier. Walt’s words of wisdom included:

Year-to-year comparisons and trend estimates will be more accurate in the passive microwave data than in MASIE.

It will probably not surprise you to learn that Ron has not learned anything from our repeated efforts. In his article entitled “2024 Arctic Ice Beats 2007 by Half a Wadham” earlier today Ron proudly displays this graph:

You will note that Ron does not provide details of his data source. However I have recently noted a sudden lack of SSMIS passive microwave data emanating from NOAA. The OSI SAF reported it this way on September 12th:

Dear OSI SAF Sea Ice Concentration User,

Due to missing input data, we have not been able to generate L2 products, corresponding to F-16 / F-17 / F-18 since Sep 11 19:36 UTC.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

The NSIDC’s sea ice home page puts it this way today:

Now day 260 of 2024 is September 16th, so it seems safe to assume that Ron is erroneously using his favourite MASIE metric for year to year comparisons yet again. In his article Ron states that:

SII was reporting deficits as high as 0.5M km2 (half a Wadham) compared to  MASIE early in September.  For some reason, that dataset has not been updated for the last five days.

It appears as though Ron has also not yet learned how to find NSIDC’s sea ice home page on the world wide interweb!

I added this hopefully helpful comment below Ron’s article. For some strange reason it is yet to emerge from his moderation queue:

[Update – September 18th]

Our regular reader(s) will not be surprised to learn that my helpful comment yesterday is no longer in Ron’s moderation queue, but is now languishing underfoot on his cutting room floor.

Ron has written another Arctic article using the graph reproduced above. This one is entitled: “2024 Arctic Ice Abounds at Average Daily Minimum“. In it Ron assures his flock of faithful followers that:

We are close to the annual Arctic ice extent minimum, which typically occurs on or about day 260 (mid September). Some take any year’s slightly lower minimum as proof that Arctic ice is dying, but the image above shows the Arctic heart is beating clear and strong.

Over this decade, the Arctic ice minimum has not declined, but since 2007 looks like fluctuations around a plateau.

Ron has also changed his phraseology regarding the recent SSMIS data outage. This time it reads:

For some reason, apparently data access issues, that dataset has not been updated for the last five days.

“Snow White” felt compelled to leave Ron another helpful comment concerning his new words of Arctic wisdom:

Watch this space!

The 2023 Arctic Report Card

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The 2023 Arctic Report Card has been published by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). All sorts of things are discussed in the report, but sticking to Snow White’s speciality of sea ice here’s an extract:

This satellite record tracks long-term trends, variability, and seasonal changes from the annual extent maximum in late February or March and the annual extent minimum in September. Extents in recent years are ~50% lower than values in the 1980s. In 2023, March and September extents were lower than other recent years, and though not a new record low, they continue the long-term downward trends:

March 2023 was marked by low sea ice extent around most of the perimeter of the sea ice edge, with the exception of the East Greenland Sea where extent was near normal. At the beginning of the melt season, ice retreat was initially fairly slow through April. In May and June, retreat increased to a near-average rate, and then accelerated further through July and August. By mid-July, the ice had retreated from much of the Alaskan and eastern Siberian coast and Hudson Bay had nearly melted out completely. In August, sea ice retreat was particularly pronounced on the Pacific side, opening up vast areas of the Beaufort, Chukchi, and East Siberian Seas. Summer extent remained closer to average on the Atlantic side, in the Laptev, Kara, and Barents Seas

The Northern Sea Route, along the northern Russian coast, was relatively slow to open as sea ice extended to the coast in the eastern Kara Sea and the East Siberian Sea, but by late August, open water was found along the coast through the entire route. The Northwest Passage through the Canadian Archipelago became relatively clear of ice, though ice continued to largely block the western end of the northern route through M’Clure Strait through the melt season. Nonetheless, summer 2023 extent in the Passage was among the lowest observed in the satellite record, based on Canadian Ice Service ice charts.

Tracking the motion of ice in passive microwave imagery using feature tracking algorithms can be used to infer sea ice age. Age is a proxy for ice thickness because multiyear ice generally grows thicker through successive winter periods. Multiyear ice extent has shown interannual oscillations but no clear trend since 2007, reflecting variability in the summer sea ice melt and export out of the Arctic. After a year when substantial multiyear ice is lost, a much larger area of first-year ice generally takes its place. Some of this first-year ice can persist through the following summer, contributing to the replenishment of the multiyear ice extent:

However, old ice (here defined as >4 years old) has remained consistently low since 2012. Thus, unlike in earlier decades, multiyear ice does not remain in the Arctic for many years. At the end of the summer 2023 melt season, multiyear ice extent was similar to 2022 values, far below multiyear extents in the 1980s and 1990s:

Estimates of sea ice thickness from satellite altimetry can be used to more directly track this important metric of sea ice conditions, although the data record is shorter than for extent and ice age. Data from ICESat-2 and CryoSat-2/SMOS satellite products tracking the seasonal October to April winter ice growth over the past four years (when all missions have been in operation) show a mean thickness generally thinner than the 2021/22 winter but with seasonal growth typical of recent winters:

April 2023 thickness from CryoSat-2/SMOS relative to the 2011-22 April mean shows that the eastern Beaufort Sea and the East Siberian Sea had relatively thinner sea ice than the 2011-22 mean, particularly near the Canadian Archipelago. Thickness was higher than average in much of the Laptev and Kara Seas and along the west and northwest coast of Alaska, extending northward toward the pole. The East Greenland Sea had a mixture of thicker and thinner than average ice:

An excellent analysis (IMHO!), but I do have one quibble. I was following events in the Northwest Passage very closely last summer, and according to the Canadian Ice Service on September 1st:

Tony Heller Denies Global Warming

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Apart from (presumably accidentally) empirically confirming global warming and Arctic sea ice volume decline, Tony Heller has also been frantically attempting to persuade his flock of faithful followers that the current value of the OSI SAF’s extent metric means that the impending series of “2023 has been the hottest year evah!” stories are all lies.

Here a few examples of his infamous oeuvre, together with “Snow White’s” responses:

Tony has also gleefully invoked the NSIDC’s annual minimum extent for his nefarious purposes, although he refers to it as “NOAA data”:

Switching swiftly to a cherry picked graph of the OSI SAF minimum extent, Tony invokes the spirit of a deceased parrot that went to meet its maker several decades ago. He remains blissfully unaware that I watched the Monty Python dead parrot sketch when it was first broadcast:

https://twitter.com/GreatWhiteCon/status/1741519999963935159

When do you suppose Tony will get around to implementing my suggestion of revealing the OSI SAF extent graph for December 8th to his flock of faithful followers?

Or a multi decade graph of NSIDC extent for that matter?

[Update – January 4th]

My prediction has come true in next to no time:

[Update – January 20th]

For some strange reason Tony has been silent about Arctic sea ice extent for a while, and has moved on to the Greenland ice sheet instead:

Presumably that’s in response to an article in The Guardian:

The Greenland ice cap is losing an average of 30m tonnes of ice an hour due to the climate crisis, a study has revealed, which is 20% more than was previously thought…

The study, published in the journal Nature, used artificial intelligence techniques to map more than 235,000 glacier end positions over the 38-year period, at a resolution of 120 metres. This showed the Greenland ice sheet had lost an area of about 5,000 sq km of ice at its margins since 1985, equivalent to a trillion tonnes of ice.


“Snow White” felt compelled to respond to Mr. Heller as follows:

“Snow” is now going to see if “she” can bring the latest “Shock News” from the Arctic Ocean to Tony’s attention. Wish “her” luck!

According to Tony’s current favourite metric, Arctic sea ice extent has reduced for 2 days in a row, and has reached the 10% percentile.

[Update – January 21st]

Tony has just pulled another one of his ageing rabbits out of his X rated climate scam hat:


“Snow White” responded with one of her own ageing replies:

Evidently Tony has still not learned that it’s impossible to compare 1990 apples with 2001 oranges, despite having the difference explained to him on numerous previous occasions.

Stop Press! Tony has suddenly discovered that he’s been comparing apples with oranges all these years!!

Of course he blames the IPCC rather than himself:

“Snow White’s” first thought?

Watch this space!

Facts About the Arctic in January 2024

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Happy New Year to one and all.

Whilst waiting for the all important thickness and volume data to arrive, we’ll start the new year in traditional fashion with a graph of JAXA extent:

The 2023 calendar year finished with this particular extent metric sitting at 15th lowest in the satellite era.

From Niall Dollard on the Arctic Sea Ice Forum comes evidence via the Sentinel 1A satellite that an arch formed in the Nares Strait between Greenland and Ellesmere Island in late December:

Since it’s a hot topic on (a)social media at the moment, here too is the Northern Hemisphere Multisensor Snow Extent at the end of 2023:

Please note the current record low NH snow extent. Matt predicts all that is about to change:

[Update – January 2nd]

Hot off the Scandinavian virtual printing presses, here is the official December Arctic sea ice extent trend graph from the OSI SAF:

That’s “Steve”/Tony’s current metric du jour. When do you suppose he will bring it to the attention of his horde of regular readers? It’s accompanied by this matching concentration map:

Here too is the CryoSat-2/SMOS thickness map for December 31st, in a different format to the one usually used here:

[Update – January 3rd]

The December PIOMAS modelled gridded thickness data has been released. The calculated volume is 6th lowest in the satellite era:

Here is the equivalent CS2/SMOS volume graph

Here too is the PIOMAS thickness map for December 31st:

This uses the same Greenland down orientation and 2.5 meter maximum scale value as the CS2/SMOS map above.

[Update – January 6th]

Here are the NSIDC area numbers from Gerontocrat on the Arctic Sea Ice Forum that Tom mentions below:

Currently 9th lowest for the date. In the satellite era!

[Update – January 8th]

The National Snow and Ice Data Center has published the December edition of Arctic Sea Ice News:

The end of 2023 had above average sea ice growth, bringing the daily extent within the interdecile range, the range spanning 90 percent of past sea ice extents for the date. Rapid expansion of ice in the Chukchi and Bering Seas and across Hudson Bay was responsible.

Average Arctic sea ice extent for December 2023 was 12.00 million square kilometers, ninth lowest in the 45-year satellite record . Sea ice extent increased by an average of 87,400 square kilometers per day, markedly faster than the 1981 to 2010 average of 64,100 square kilometers per day.

After a delayed start to the freeze-up in Hudson Bay, sea ice formed quickly from west to east across the bay, leaving only a small area of open ocean near the Belcher Islands at month’s end. In the northern Atlantic, sea ice extent remained below average extent, as has been typical for the past decade.

For December overall, 2023 had the third highest monthly gain in the 45-year record at 2.71 million square kilometers, behind 2006 at 2.85 million square kilometers and 2016 at 2.78 million square kilometers.

Moving on to the “Conditions in context” section:

Warm conditions prevailed over the central Arctic Ocean and Beaufort Sea regions, as well as over Hudson Bay and much of northern Canada, with air temperatures at the 925 millibar level (around 2,500 feet above sea level) 8 to 9 degrees Celsius above the 1991 to 2020 average. Elsewhere, relatively cool conditions prevailed, with air temperatures 2 to 4 degrees Celsius below average in southwestern Alaska, easternmost Russia, Scandinavia, and southeast Greenland. Cool conditions in the Bering and southern Chukchi Seas explain the rapid ice growth there. By contrast, the warm conditions over Hudson Bay, continuing since November, explain its delayed start of ice formation there.

The atmospheric circulation pattern for December was marked by low sea level pressure over the Gulf of Alaska and northern Europe and high sea level pressure over central Russia. This pattern led to cold Arctic air flowing across the Chukchi Sea and into the Bering Sea as well as advection of relatively warm air across Canada into the Beaufort Sea:

[Update – January 10th]

NOAA have published the 2023 Arctic Report Card.

Here’s a taste, but there’s much more at the dedicated article linked to above:

[Update – January 12th]

A change is as good as a rest, so here’s the AWI “high resolution” AMSR2 Arctic wide sea ice extent graph

It’s currently highest for the date in the AMSR2 era by a significant margin.

Here too is the ice age map for the end of 2023:

[Update – January 19th]

Something seems to have gone wrong with the processing of the mid-month PIOMAS gridded thickness data. For the moment we’ll have to make do with just the CryoSat-2/SMOS thickness map:

and volume graph:

With the perennial caveat of a probable upward revision when the reanalysed data is released, Arctic sea ice volume is still close to the bottom of the range during the CryoSat-2 era.

In addition especially for Matt, “Steve”/Tony and numerous others of a “skeptical” persuasion, here are the latest Environment & Climate Change Canada snow extent and snow water equivalent graphs for the northern hemisphere:

Last but certainly not least is the Rutgers Global Snow Lab northern hemisphere snow cover anomaly chart for December:

[Update – January 29th]

A winter cyclone is stirring up the far North Atlantic. It’s currently forecast to bottom out later today with a minimum MSLP of 937 hPa:

The storm has been creating a long period swell directed at the ice edge in the Barents Sea. By midnight that swell will be battering the ice in the Fram Strait too:

[Update – January 30th]

According to Environment Canada the cyclone bottomed out with an MSLP of 939 hPa at 12 PM UTC yesterday:

Associated with the storm is a pulse of abnormally warm air reaching to the North Pole and beyond:

Here’s how JAXA extent looks as the big swell arrives:

And here’s the lead enhanced AWI AMSR2 concentration map of the Atlantic periphery:

Let’s see how things change over the next few days.

[Update – January 31st]

Here’s a preliminary look at the effect of the recent Arctic cyclone and other “weather” on the sea ice in the Fram Strait and Barents & Kara Seas:

There is also another cyclone heading for the Barents Sea. This one is forecast to bottom out at 936 hPa at around midnight tonight near the Norwegian coast:

P.S. The cyclone mentioned just above has been named Storm Ingunn by the Norwegian Meteorological Institute:

A yellow warning for wind has been issued for Scotland, and a red warning for Norway:

The conversation continues over on the February open thread.

Facts About the Arctic in December 2022

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A new month is upon us and Christmas is coming! Here’s another look at Lars Kaleschke’s high resolution AMSR2 area and extent graphs for the Arctic as a whole:

Extent increase stalled for the last few days of November, and as a result extent is now in a “statistical tie” with 2017 for 4th lowest extent for the date in the AMSR2 record.

Continue reading Facts About the Arctic in December 2022 →

Steve Koonin’s Unsettled Arctic Science

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Regular readers of this blog will no doubt have realised that way up here in the Great White Con Ivory Towers we concluded many moons ago that Arctic sea ice is the “canary in the climate coal mine”.

Unlike some others we have already mentioned we were not the beneficiaries of a review copy of Steven E. Koonin’s new book, catchily entitled “Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters”. Hence I was compelled to acquire my own review copy, and have just purchased the electronic version. I eagerly searched the virtual weighty tome for the term “Arctic sea ice”, and you may well be wondering what I discovered?

Nothing. Nada. Zilch. ничего такого. Nic.

I broadened my thus far vain search by removing the “Arctic” specifier, which revealed:

No mention of “sea ice” in the body of the book, merely a reference to the data underlying this graph of northern hemisphere snow cover:

I am forced to an unsettling conclusion. Evidently there are some areas of climate science that Dr. Koonin tells his eager readers nothing whatsoever about. It seems likely that he is also well aware that Arctic sea ice is the canary in the climate coal mine, which is why he has chosen to make no mention of it in his magnum opus.

Here is an informative video which will no doubt not appear in “Unsettled – The Movie”:

[Edit – May 8th]

Having now had time to read some of Steve Koonin’s “Unsettled Climate Science” at greater length I have discovered that it does contain one reference to Arctic sea ice, albeit using non-standard terminology. On page 40 of the Kindle version of the book I read:

Rising temperatures at the surface and in the ocean are not the only indicators of recent warming. The ice on the Arctic Ocean and in mountain glaciers has been in decline, and growing seasons have been lengthening slightly. Satellite observations show that the lower atmosphere is warming as well.

A paragraph I can broadly agree with, but I am compelled to ask why Dr. Koonin does not quantify the “decline of the ice on the Arctic Ocean” anywhere in the book? There are a wide variety of metrics used to quantify the “amount” of sea ice in the Arctic, but here is one readily available for download from the NASA web site. It is hard to believe that a scientist of Dr. Koonin’s experience, particularly one writing about climate change, has never previously come across a similar graph of Arctic sea ice extent:

Arctic sea ice reaches its minimum each September. September Arctic sea ice is now declining at a rate of 13.1 percent per decade, relative to the 1981 to 2010 average. This graph shows the average monthly Arctic sea ice extent each September since 1979, derived from satellite observations.

It seems safe to assume that Dr. Koonin has heard of NASA, since the organisation is mentioned several times in his list of references and once in the body of the book. However it seems that the United States’ National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC for short) is not very visible on his personal radar screen, meriting only a single reference which is to snow rather than ice data.

Here is the NSIDC’s version of the NASA graph above, which includes a handy trend line:

Monthly September ice extent for 1979 to 2020 shows a decline of 13.1 percent per decade.

Nearby Steve has penned another paragraph I can broadly agree with. On page 36 he states:

The warming of the past forty years on large scales hasn’t been uniform over the globe. That’s evident in Figure 1.5, reproduced from the US government’s 2017 CSSR (Climate Science Special Report, described earlier). As you can see, the land is warming more rapidly than the ocean surface, and the high latitudes near the poles are warming faster than the lower latitudes near the equator.

Here is the figure 1.5 referred to above:

Surface temperature change (in °F) for the period 1986–2015 relative to 1901–1960. Changes are generally significant over most land and ocean areas. Changes are not significant in parts of the North Atlantic Ocean, the South Pacific Ocean, and the southeastern United States. There is insufficient data in the Arctic Ocean and Antarctica to compute long-term changes there.

Once again I am compelled to ask some questions. Why not include a map that uses more recent data than 2015? And why not quantify how much faster the “high latitudes near the poles are warming than the lower latitudes near the equator”?

NASA helpfully provide an interface to their data which allows anybody who can click a mouse to produce their own global surface temperature maps. Here is the up to date answer to the first question:

NASA have also produced another informative video, which I suspect will also never make it into “Unsettled – The Movie”:

Another US scientific agency that provides publicly accessible climate data is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA for short). The abbreviation is referred to several times in Steve Koonin’s book, but for some reason he never expands the acronym in full. Like NASA they also provide a means to produce your own maps and time series. Albeit with a somewhat more complex user interface, the Web-based Reanalysis Intercomparison Tool (WRIT for short) allows the user to differentiate between different regions of Planet Earth, and hence answer the second question above.

Please compare and contrast the “non polar” temperature time series with the “Arctic” one. Note the change of scale of the X axis, and also the units. Degrees Kelvin rather than degrees Fahrenheit which are seemingly preferred by Dr. Koonin:

To summarise, you don’t need to wait for Steve Koonin to write another book or for the US government to produce another CSSR. Vast amounts of data and a plethora of visualisation tools are freely available to allow you to do your own research regarding a wide variety of climate metrics. Steve neglects to impart that information to his readers as well.

[Edit – May 9th]

As has been alluded to above, in the soon to be shipped hardcover edition of his new book Steve Koonin makes much mention of “snow cover” whilst ignoring “sea ice” entirely. There are also a grand total of 48 reference to the perhaps overly esoteric term “albedo“. On page 84 of the Kindle edition of “Unsettled” we are reliably informed that:

Among the most important things that a model has to get right are “feedbacks.”

Despite that the entire electronic volume makes no mention whatsoever of the phrase “ice-albedo feedback” or any synonym thereof. A brief course teaching the topic has recently been developed as part of the outreach activities of the MOSAiC Arctic drift expedition. Perhaps Dr. Koonin would be well advised to read it at his earliest convenience?

The ice-albedo feedback is an example of a positive feedback loop. A feedback loop is a cycle within a system that increases (positive) or decreases (negative) the effects on that system. In the Arctic, melting sea ice exposes more dark ocean (lower albedo), which in turn absorbs more heat and causes more ice to melt…the cycle continues.

Here’s another explanatory video which will also no doubt never make it into “Unsettled – The Movie”:

Watch this space for further revelations about the gigantic Arctic canary in the room!

The House Science Climate Model Show Trial

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The show is over, and it went pretty much as Alice F. predicted it would. Lamar Smith has passed his verdict on the morning’s proceedings in strangely untheatrical style:

https://twitter.com/jim_hunt/status/847123725963198464

My own mileage certainly varied from Lamar’s! Here’s a hasty summary of events via the distorting lens of Twitter:

 

A more detailed analysis of United States’ House Committee on Science, Space and Technology’s “show trial” of climate models will follow in due course, but for now if you so desire you can watch the entire event on YouTube:

I’ll have to at least watch the bit where my live feed cut out as Dana Rohrabacher slowly went ballistic with Mike Mann:

https://twitter.com/jim_hunt/status/847109097103216643

Please bear in mind that correlation does not necessarily imply causation!

Rohrabacher-20170329-1

I wonder whether at this juncture Mike wishes he’d taken David Titley’s advice?

Nevertheless, given our long running campaign against the climate science misinformation frequently printed in the Mail on Sunday it gives us great pleasure to reprint in full the following extract from his written testimony today:

For proper context, we must consider the climate denial myth du jour that global warming has “stopped”. Like most climate denial talking points, the reality is pretty much the opposite of what is being claimed by the contrarians. All surface temperature products, including the controversial UAH satellite temperature record, show a clear long-term warming trend over the past several decades:

Mann-ExhibitA

We have now broken the all-time global temperature record for three consecutive years and a number of published articles have convincingly demonstrated that global warming has continued unabated despite when one properly accounts for the vagaries of natural short-term climate fluctuations. A prominent such study was published by Tom Karl and colleagues in 2015 in the leading journal Science. The article was widely viewed as the final nail in the “globe has stopped warming” talking point’s coffin.

Last month, opinion writer David Rose of the British tabloid the Daily Mail — known for his serial misrepresentations of climate change and his serial attacks on climate scientists, published a commentary online attacking Tom Karl, accusing him of having “manipulated global warming data” in the 2015 Karl et al article. This fake news story was built entirely on an interview with a single disgruntled former NOAA employee, John Bates, who had been demoted from a supervisory position at NOAA for his inability to work well with others.

Bates’ allegations were also published on the blog of climate science denier Judith Curry (I use the term carefully—reserving it for those who deny the most basic findings of the scientific community, which includes the fact that human activity is substantially or entirely responsible for the large-scale warming we have seen over the past century — something Judith Curry disputes). That blog post and the Daily Mail story have now been thoroughly debunked by the actual scientific community. The Daily Mail claim that data in the Karl et al. Science article had been manipulated was not supported by Bates. When the scientific community pushed back on the untenable “data manipulation” claim, noting that other groups of scientists had independently confirmed Karl et al’s findings, Bates clarified that the real problem was that data had not been properly archived and that the paper was rushed to publication. These claims too quickly fell apart.

Though Bates claimed that the data from the Karl et al study was “not in machine-readable form”, independent scientist Zeke Hausfather, lead author of a study that accessed the data and confirmed its validity, wrote in a commentary “…for the life of me I can’t figure out what that means. My computer can read it fine, and it’s the same format that other groups use to present their data.” As for the claim that the paper was rushed to publication, Editor-in-chief of Science Jeremy Berg says, “With regard to the ‘rush’ to publish, as of 2013, the median time from submission to online publication by Science was 109 days, or less than four months. The article by Karl et al. underwent handling and review for almost six months. Any suggestion that the review of this paper was ‘rushed’ is baseless and without merit. Science stands behind its handling of this paper, which underwent particularly rigorous peer review.”

Shortly after the Daily Mail article went live, a video attacking Karl (and NOAA and even NASA for good measure) was posted by the Wall Street Journal. Within hours, the Daily Mail story spread like a virus through the right-wing blogosphere, appearing on numerous right-wing websites and conservative news sites. It didn’t take long for the entire Murdoch media empire in the U.S, U.K. and elsewhere to join in, with the execrable Fox News for example alleging Tom Karl had “cooked” climate data and, with no sense of irony, for political reasons.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), chair of this committee has a history25 of launching attacks on climate science and climate scientists. He quickly posted a press release praising the Daily Mail article, placing it on the science committee website, and falsely alleging that government scientists had “falsified data”. Smith, it turns out, had been planning a congressional hearing timed to happen just days after this latest dustup, intended to call into question the basis for the EPA regulating carbon emissions. His accusations against Karl and NOAA of tampering with climate data was used in that hearing to claim that the entire case for concern over climate change was now undermined.

That’s pretty much the way we see things too Mike!

 

[Edit – March 31st]

In the aftermath of Wednesday’s hearing, the accusations are flying in all directions. By way of example:

https://twitter.com/jim_hunt/status/847443788880429057

No clarification has yet been forthcoming from Dr. Pielke.

The denialosphere is of course now spinning like crazy attempting to pin something, anything, on Michael Mann. Over at Climate Depot Marc Morano assures his loyal readers that:

Testifying before Congress, climate scientist Michael Mann denies any affiliation or association to the Climate Accountability Institute despite his apparent membership on the Institute’s Council of Advisors.

Whilst correctly quoting Dr. Mann as saying:

I can provide – I’ve submitted my CV you can see who I’m associated with and who I am not.

Here’s the video Marc uses to support his case:

Meanwhile over on Twitter:

 

[Edit – April 1st]

Today is All Fools’ Day, but this is no joke. Last night Judith Curry posted an article on her “Climate Etc.” blog entitled “‘Deniers,’ lies and politics“. Here is an extract from it:

Mann ‘denies’ being associated with the Climate Accountability Institute [link to above Marc Morano video]. Julie Kelly writes in an article Michael Mann Embarrasses Himself Before Congress:

“Turns out Mann appears to be a bit of a denier himself. Under questioning, Mann denied being involved with the Climate Accountability Institute even though he is featured on its website as a board member. CAI is one of the groups pushing a scorched-earth approach to climate deniers, urging lawmakers to employ the RICO statute against fossil-fuel corporations. When asked directly if he was either affiliated or associated with CAI, Mann answered “no.” [JC note: Mann also lists this affiliation on his CV]

Some additional ‘porkies’ are highlighted in an article by James Delingpole.

Now the first thing to note is that I’d already explained the context of Mr. Mann’s “interrogation” by Rep. Clay Higgins on Judith’s blog several times:

At the risk of repeating myself Mann said, and I quote:

“I’ve submitted my CV. You can see who I’m ‘associated’ with”

His CV states, quoted by McIntyre:

McIntyreMannCV

Why on Earth Judith chose to repeat the “CAI” allegation is beyond me.

Secondly, Prof. Mann is NOT featured on the CAI website as a board member. He is instead listed as a member of their “Council of Advisors”.

Thirdly, quoting James Delingpole as a source of reliable information about anything “climate change” related is also beyond me. Needless to say Mr. Delingpole also repeats the CAI nonsense, whilst simultaneously plagiarising our long standing usage of the term “Porky pie“!

All of which brings me on to my next point. In the video clip above Rep. Higgins can be heard to say:

These two organisations [i.e the Union of Concerned Scientists & the Climate Accountability Institute], are they connected directly with organised efforts to prosecute man influenced climate sceptics via RICO statutes?

to which Dr. Mann replied:

The way you’ve phrased it, I would find it extremely surprising if what you said was true.

Higgins-20170329-1

Now please skip to the 1 hour 31:33 mark in the video of the full hearing to discover what Marc Morano left out. Rep. Higgins asks Dr. Mann:

Would you be able to at some future date provide to this committee evidence of your lack of association with the organisation Union of Concerned Scientists and lack of your association with the organisation called Climate Accountability Institute? Can you provide that documentation to this committee Sir?

This is, of course, a “when did you stop beating your wife” sort of a question. How on Earth do you prove a “lack of association with an organisation”. Supply a video of your entire life? Dr. Mann responded less pedantically:

You haven’t defined what “association” even means here, but it’s all in my CV which has already been provided to Committee.

So what on Earth are Rep. Higgins and ex. Prof. Curry on about with all this “RICO” business? With thanks to Nick Stokes on Judith’s blog, the document he refers to seems to be the only evidence for the insinuations:

It turns out that what the congressman was probably referring to was a workshop they mounted in 2012 (not attended by Mann), which explored the RICO civil lawsuit mounted against tobacco companies.

It does mention for example “the RICO case against the tobacco companies” but it never mentions anything that might conceivably be (mis)interpreted as “pushing a scorched-earth approach to climate deniers”.

That being the case, why on Earth do you suppose Judith Curry chose to mention that phrase on her blog last night and why did Clay Higgins choose to broach the subject on Wednesday?

 

[Edit – April 2nd]

Perhaps this really is an April Fools’ joke? Over on Twitter Stephen McIntyre continues to make my case for me. Take a look:

https://twitter.com/jim_hunt/status/848397908802248704

And he’s not the only one! Alice F.’s sixth sense tells her that another Storify slideshow will be required to do this saga justice!

Shock News! The Telegraph is Propagating Fake News About the Arctic!!

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

David Rose is mercifully quiet this weekend, but there’s no rest for the wicked! Christopher Booker in the Sunday Telegraph leads a bunch of the usual Alt-facts suspects in a barrage of fake news about our dearly beloved Arctic sea ice. According to Mr. Booker in the “Arctic Myths” section of his column today:

As the fake science of global warming continues to crumble, one scare story the zealots are determined to hold on to at all costs is their claim that ice in the Arctic is dangerously vanishing. Yet again lately we have been treated to a barrage of such headlines as “Hottest Arctic on record triggers massive ice melt”.

The nearest we got to such a headline here at the Great White Con was “Arctic Sea Ice News from AGU” in which article we showed images which said things like:

arctictemp_map_graph_2015-16_620

That’s because last year was the *hottest year on record in the Arctic! Undeterred by mere facts Mr. Booker continues:

Booker-NSIDC-20170226

But that ever-diligent blogger Paul Homewood has drawn on official sources such as the US National Snow and Ice Data Center to uncover what is actually happening. Under “Arctic Fake News”, on NotALotOfPeopleKnowThat, he posted a graph showing that last week the extent of sea ice was much the same as it has been at this date ever since 2001. Indeed, according to the Danish Meteorological Institute, there is even more of it today than in February 2006, and it is also significantly thicker. Back in 2008 much of the ice was only a metre thick. Today that has risen to two metres, and in some places four.

Mr. Booker appears to be more than somewhat confused, since this is what the DMI Arctic sea ice extent graph he links to reveals:

DMI_nh_iceextent_daily_5years_20170225

In addition the DMI thickness maps he refers to aren’t available at any of the places he mentions! Not a lot of people know that he was probably thinking of another recent article by Paul Homewood entitled “Arctic Ice Fake News“, which includes these two DMI thickness maps:

cice_combine_thick_sm_en_20080218

cice_combine_thick_sm_en_20170218

Even without considering other sources of Arctic thickness and/or volume data it is quite clear from the two volume graphs that according to the Danish Meteorological Institue Arctic sea ice volume is significantly lower this year than it was in 2008. If Arctic sea ice extent is greater this year and the volume is lower then the laws of physics (which not even the combined talents of Messrs Homewood and Booker can change) dictate that its average thickness must be LESS this year than in 2008!

Mr Booker blunders on:

The DMI data also show that the Greenland ice sheet, which we are told is melting at horrendous speed, is actually growing this year at a record rate, to a size way above its average for the past 26 years. And the most authoritative record of Northern Hemisphere snow cover shows this year’s ranking as one of the six highest since 1967.

He seems blissfully unaware that the “DMI data” to which he refers is the output of a DMI climate model that attempts to determine the “surface mass balance” of the Greenland ice sheet. He seems to think it’s a measurement of the mass of the Greenland ice sheet, which it isn’t. However this is, courtesy of NASA:

GreenlandGrace-20170213

In his bubble of astounding Arctic ignorance Mr. Booker continues:

The Deplorable Climate Science blog, run by US expert Tony Heller, gleefully reproduces a 2007 headline: “Scientists: ‘Arctic is screaming’, global warming may have passed tipping point”. As Heller comments: “The Arctic is indeed screaming at climate scientists – to shut up.”

Now as luck would have it I have been (vainly!) attempting to persuade Mr. Heller “to shut up” on the very article Mr. Booker references! Let’s take a quick look at a couple of highlights shall we?

February 22, 2017 at 12:01 am

At the risk of repeating myself, need I say more?

PIOMAS-Jan-19Years

It seems safe to assume that Mr. Booker wasn’t reading Mr Heller’s blog on or after February 22nd does it not? Otherwise he would surely have had second thoughts about writing such a ludicrous phrase as “there is even more of it today than in February 2006”?

Then of course there’s the burning question of the “Hottest Arctic on record”

February 22, 2017 at 5:59 pm

At the risk of (repeating myself)² AZ, here’s some “higher atmospheric air temperatures” for you:

DMI-FDD-20170218

If Mr. Booker had browsed Mr. Heller’s blog slightly more diligently he might even have seen this from the much maligned NOAA:

February 20, 2017 at 11:06 am

You seem to have forgotten about spring Gail? Here’s April:

NOAA-NH-Snow-April

Here’s the May graph from “the most authoritative record of Northern Hemisphere snow cover” for good measure:

Rutgers-NH-Snow-May

To summarise, Messrs Booker and Homewood could have confined their due diligence on their assorted Arctic articles to reading my comments on Mr. Heller’s blog. Having done so it would quickly have become apparent to them that every single point they made was in actual fact a “fake fact”.

The inevitable conclusion is that they have no interest whatsoever in establishing the actual facts about the Arctic. All they are interested in is propagating “fake news” about the Arctic as far and as wide as possible in pursuit of a common “agenda”. As is David Rose.

* Since satellite records began.

Shock News! 19 years without warming?

Temperature, , , , , ,

In the wake of the 2015/16 El Niño, recent weeks have seen the denialoblogosphere inundated with assorted attempts to proclaim yet again that there have been “19 years without warming”. In another of his intermittent articles Great White Con guest author Bill the Frog once again proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that all the would be emperors are in actual fact wearing no clothes. Without further preamble:

Ho-hum! So here we go again. The claim has just been made that the UAH data now shows no warming for about 19 years. A couple of recently Tweeted comments on Snow White’s Great White Con blog read as follows…

For the nth time, nearly 19 years with no significant warming. Not at all what was predicted!!

and

Just calculated UAH using jan: R^2 = 0.019 It’s PROVABLE NO DISCERNIBLE TREND. You’re talking complete bollocks!!!

Before one can properly examine this “no warming in 19 years” claim, not only is it necessary to establish the actual dataset upon which the claim is based, but one must also establish the actual period in question. A reasonable starting point within the various UAH datasets would be the Lower Troposphere product (TLT), as most of us do live in the lower troposphere – particularly at the very bottom of the lower troposphere.

However, one also has to consider which version of the TLT product is being considered. The formally released variant is Version 5.6, but Version 6 Beta 5 is the one that self-styled “climate change sceptics” have instantly and uncritically taken to their hearts.

The formally released variant (Ver 5.6) is the one currently used by NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) on their Microwave Sounding Unit climate monitoring page. As can be seen from the chart and the partial table (sorted on UAH values), the warmest seven years in the data include each of the four most recent years…

image002

 

The above chart clearly doesn’t fit the bill for the “no warming in 19 years claim”, so, instead we must look to the Version 6 Beta 5 data. Before doing so, a comparison of the two versions can be quite revealing…

image003

 

In terms of its impact on trend over the last 19 years or so, an obvious feature of the version change is that it boosts global temperatures in 1998 by just over 0.06° C, whilst lowering current temperatures by just over 0.08° C. Therefore, the net effect is to raise 1998 temperatures by about 0.15° C relative to today’s values. That is why some people refer to a mere 0.02° C difference between 1998 and 2016, whereas, NOAA NCEI shows this as 0.17° C.

(It is not difficult to imagine the hue and cry that would have gone up if one of the other datasets, such as NASA Gistemp, NOAA’s own Global Land & Ocean anomalies or the UK’s HadCRUT, had had a similar adjustment, but in the opposite direction.)

Anyway, it seemed pretty obvious which variant would have been used, so the task was merely to establish the exact start point. It transpires that if one ignores all the data before January 1998, and then superimposes a linear trend line, one does indeed get an R² value of ~ 0.019, as mentioned in one of the Tweets above. (The meaning of an R² value, as well as its use and misuse, will be discussed later in this piece.) In the interim, here is the chart…

image005

 

Those with some skill in dealing with such charts will recognise the gradient in the equation of the linear trend line,

Y = 0.0004X + 0.1119

As the data series is in terms of monthly anomalies, this value needs to be multiplied by 120 in order to convert it to the more familiar decadal trend form of +0.048° C/decade. Whilst this is certainly less than the trend using the full set of data, namely +0.123° C/decade, it is most assuredly non-zero.

The full dataset (shown below) gives a far more complete picture, as well as demonstrating just how egregious the selection of the start point had been. Additionally, this also highlights just how much of an outlier the 1998 spike represents. Compare the size of the upward 1998 spike with the less impressive downward excursion shown around 1991/92. This downward excursion was caused by the spectacular Mt Pinatubo eruption(s) in June 1991. The Pinatubo eruption(s) did indeed have a temporary effect upon the planet’s energy imbalance, owing, in no small measure, to the increase in planetary albedo caused by the ~ 20 million tons of sulphur dioxide blasted into the stratosphere. On the other hand, the 1997/98 El Nino was more of an energy-redistribution between the ocean and the atmosphere. (The distinction between these types of event is sadly lost on some.)

image007

 

The approach whereby inconvenient chunks of a dataset are conveniently ignored is a cherry-picking technique known as “end point selection”. It can also be used to actually identify those areas of the data which are most in line with the “climate change is a hoax” narrative. Once again, it is extremely easy to identify such regions of the data. A simple technique is to calculate the trend from every single starting date up until the present, and to then only focus on those which match the narrative. Doing this for the above dataset gives the following chart…

image009

 

It can clearly be seen that the trend value becomes increasingly stable (at ~ +0.12° C/decade) as one utilises more and more of the available data. The trend also clearly reaches a low point – albeit briefly – at 1998. This is entirely due to the impact that the massive 1997/98 El Nino had on global temperatures – in particular on satellite derived temperatures.

The observant reader will have undoubtedly noticed that the above chart ends at ~ 2006. The reason is simply because trend measurements become increasingly unstable as the length of the measurement period shortens. Not only do “short” trend values become extreme and meaningless, they also serve to compress the scale in areas of genuine interest. To demonstrate, here is the remainder of the data. Note the difference in the scale of the Y-axis…

image011

 

Now, what about this thing referred to as the R² value? It is also known as the Coefficient of Determination, and can be a trap for the unwary. First of all, what does it actually mean? One description reads as follows…

It is a statistic used in the context of statistical models whose main purpose is either the prediction of future outcomes or the testing of hypotheses, on the basis of other related information. It provides a measure of how well observed outcomes are replicated by the model, based on the proportion of total variation of outcomes explained by the model.

In their online statistics course, Penn State feel obliged to offer the following warning…

Unfortunately, the coefficient of determination r² and the correlation coefficient r have to be the most often misused and misunderstood measures in the field of statistics.
…
The coefficient of determination r² and the correlation coefficient r quantify the strength of a linear relationship. It is possible that r² = 0% and r = 0, suggesting there is no linear relation between x and y, and yet a perfect curved (or “curvilinear” relationship) exists.

Here is an example of what that means. Consider a data series in which the dependent variable is comprised of two distinct signals. The first of these is a pure Sine-wave and the second is a slowly rising perfectly linear function.

The formula I used to create such a beast was simply… Y = SinX + 0.00005X (where x is simply angular degrees)

The chart, with its accompanying R² value, is shown below, and, coincidentally, does indeed bear quite a striking resemblance to the Keeling Curve…

image013

 

The function displayed is 100% predictable in its nature, and therefore it would be easy to project this further along the X-axis with 100% certainty of the prediction. If one were to select ANY point on the curve, moving one complete cycle to the right would result in the Y-value incrementing by EXACTLY +0.018 (360 degrees x 0.00005 = 0.018 per cycle). A similar single-cycle displacement to the left would result in a -0.018 change in the Y-value. In other words, the pattern is entirely deterministic. Despite this, the R² value is only 0.0139 – considerably less than the value of 0.0196 derived from the UAH data.

(NB There is a subtlety in the gradient which might require explanation. Although the generating formula clearly adds 0.00005 for each degree, the graph shows this as 0.00004 – or, more accurately as 0.000038. The reason is because the Sine function itself introduces a slight negative bias. Even after 21 full cycles, this bias is still -0.000012. Intuitively, one can visualise this as being due to the fact that the Sine function is positive over the 0 – 180 degree range, but then goes negative for the second half of each cycle. As the number of complete cycles rises, this bias tends towards zero. However, when one is working with such functions in earnest, this “seasonal” bias would have to be removed.)

Summing this up, trying to fit a linear trend to the simple (sine + ramp) function is certain to produce an extremely low R² value, as, except for the two crossover points each cycle, the difference between the actual value and the trend leaves large unaccounted-for residuals. To be in any way surprised by such an outcome is roughly akin to being surprised that London has more daylight hours in June than it does in December.

So what is the paradox with the low R² value for the UAH data? There isn’t one. Just as it would be daft to expect a linear trend line to map onto the future outcomes on the simple (sine + ramp) graph above, it would be equally daft to expect a linear trend line to be in any way an accurate predictor for the UAH monthly anomalies over the months and years to come.

Nevertheless, even although a linear trend produces such a low R² value when applied to the (sine + ramp), how does it fare as regards calculating the actual trend? Once the “seasonal” bias introduced by the presence of the sine function is removed, the calculated trend is EXACTLY equal to the actual trend embedded in the generating function.

Anyway, even if the period from January 1998 until January 2017 did indeed comprise the entirety of the available data, why would anyone try to use a linear trend line? If someone genuinely believed that the mere fact of a relatively higher R² value provided a better predictor, then surely that person might play around with some of the other types of trend line instantly available to anyone with Excel? (Indeed, any application possessing even rudimentary charting features would be suitable.) For example, a far better fit to the data is obtained by using a 5th order polynomial trend line, as shown below…

image015

 

Although this is something of a “curve fitting” exercise, it seems difficult to argue with the case that this polynomial trend line looks a far better “fit” to the data than the simplistic linear trend. So, when someone strenuously claims that a linear trend line applied to a noisy dataset producing an R² value of 0.0196 means there had been no warming, then there are some questions which need to be asked and adequately answered:

Does that person genuinely not know what they’re talking about, or is their intention to deliberately mislead? (NB It should be obvious that these two options are not mutually exclusive, and therefore both could apply.)

Given that measurements of surface temperature, oceanic heat content, sea level rise, glacial mass balance, ice-sheet mass balance, sea ice coverage and multiple studies from the field of phenology all confirm global warming, why, one wonders, would somebody concentrate on an egregiously selected subset of a single carefully selected variant of a single carefully selected dataset?