Guest post by Willis Eschenbach

A few days ago, Steve Goddard put up a post called “Does PIOMAS Verify?” In it, he compared the PIOMAS computer model estimate of the Arctic ice volume with the SIDADS satellite measured Arctic ice area. He noted that from 2007 on, the two datasets diverge.

Intrigued by this, I decided to compare the PIOMAS ice volume dataset with the Cryosphere Today (CT) Arctic ice area dataset. Here is that data:

Figure 1. Arctic ice area (red line) from Cryosphere Today. Black line is a 6 year Gaussian average.

When I compared the two datasets, I expected to find something curious happening with the PIOMASS dataset. Instead, I found a puzzle regarding the CT dataset.

I compared the CT area dataset with the PIOMAS dataset, and I found the same thing that Steve Goddard had found. The datasets diverge at about 2007. So I took a hard look at the two datasets. Instead of an problem with the PIOMAS volume dataset, I found the CT area dataset contained something odd. Here is a plot of the CT daily data with the daily average variations removed:

Figure 2. Cryosphere Today daily ice area anomaly. Average daily variations have been removed.

The oddity about the data is what happens after 2007. Suddenly, there is a strong annual signal. I have put in vertical black lines to highlight this signal. The vertical lines show the end of September of each year. Before 2007, there is only a small variation in the data, and it does not have an annual signal. After 2007, the variation gets large, and there is a clear annual aspect to the signal. The area in September (the time of minimum ice) is smaller than we would expect. And the area in March (the time of maximum ice) is larger than we would expect.

I considered this for a while, and could only come to the conclusion that there was some kind of error in the CT dataset. So I decided to look at another dataset, the NOAA SIDADS dataset.

Again, I removed the monthly signal, leaving only the anomaly. Here is that result:

Figure 3. SIDADS monthly ice area anomaly. Monthly variations have been removed.

Again we see the same oddity after the start of 2007, with a large annual variation where none existed before 2007. In the SIDADS dataset the variation is even more pronounced than in the CT data.

So that is the puzzle. What has changed? Are they using a new satellite? If so, has the changeover been done properly? Since the smallest of the data has gotten smaller and the largest of the data has gotten larger, is the average data still valid? Just what the heck are we looking at here?

Despite searching, I have not been able to find the answer to this question. However, I have great faith that the assembled masses of the WUWT readership will find it very quickly. (And then some of the readers will likely tell me that this shows I am a layman and a fool, and that I should have been able to find the answer easily on my own … so sue me.)

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