Now you see it…(09/14/2010)

Now you don’t…(09/15/2010)

In their zeal to get on the “death spiral” train of wild claims about Arctic sea ice, NOAA has made a major blunder, which they’ve now had to correct. Thanks to sharp eyed WUWT reader Marty yesterday who wrote:

I looked at it, it didn’t make sense. Where did they get “2nd Lowest Extent on Record” from? None of the datasets supported it.

Here’s the link to the page shown above, current and corrected today.

I dashed off an email to Dr. Walt Meier of NSIDC:

————————————————– From: “Anthony Watts” <awatts@xxxxx.xxxxxx.xxx> Date: Tuesday, September 14, 2010 3:40 PM To: “Walt Meier” <walt@xxxxxxx.xxx> Subject: This NSIDC citation seems wrong Hello Walt, They are citing your NSIDC Sept 7th report which says “third lowest” http://www.nnvl.noaa.gov/MediaDetail.php?MediaID=521&MediaTypeID=2&MediaFileID=108 Watching all of the values, I can’t see where they get this, AMSRE certainly doesn’t support it: http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent_L.png Could they be fooled by the recent SSMI outage I just mentioned? Looking at the NANSEN graph I sent earlier, their claim would be valid if that data was valid. Or have I missed something? Best Regards, Anthony Watts

While I was waiting for a response from Walt, I made a screencap that showed my computer date and time of 0914/2010 @4:30PM PST.

Walt wrote back about two hours later saying:

————————————————– From: “Walt Meier” <walt@xxxxxxx.xxx> Date: Tuesday, September 14, 2010 6:37 PM To: “Anthony Watts” <awatts@xxxxx.xxxxxx.xxx> Subject: Re: This NSIDC citation seems wrong Hi Anthony, I don’t really know what this is. It is not related to the data outage we experienced today. It is an experimental product that looks like it is based on visual imagery, not passive microwave, so there could be problems with clouds. Also they may have a high concentration threshold – the “missing” areas of ice correspond to relatively low concentrations, but still well above the generally accepted cutoffs of 15% or 30%. I didn’t actually see an NSIDC citation – was it in the animation (I can’t open it up on my laptop)? Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I’ll check into it. walt

I wrote back to point out that the citation was in the text link in the 0914/2010 NOAA article where they say: “the second lowest sea ice extent ever measured.” He responded:

————————————————– From: “Walt Meier” <walt@xxxxxxx.xxx> Date: Wednesday, September 15, 2010 5:46 AM To: “Anthony Watts” <awatts@xxxxx.xxxxxx.xxx> Subject: Re: This NSIDC citation seems wrong Ah, okay. Thanks. That links to our report on August conditions. August 2010 was indeed the 2nd lowest. However, for the minimum we’re currently 3rd lowest and I don’t see us reaching 2nd lowest this year. walt

Interestingly, as Walt points out, NOAA apparently never read (or perhaps comprehended if they did) the NSIDC Sept 7th Sea Ice News article that text links to because in that they clearly say:

On September 3, ice extent dropped below the seasonal minimum for 2009 to become the third lowest in the satellite record.

This morning, the NOAA sea ice page was corrected as you can see in the images above where the yellow highlight exists. I believe that was due to Walt’s “checking into it”. Their correction, with added “satellite record” on the end is word for word what NSIDC says.

I find it comical that ordinary citizens are the ones that keep catching NOAA in these basic errors in broad daylight. I’ve touched on these issues before here.

My thanks to WUWT reader “Marty”, and especially to Dr. Walt Meier of NSIDC for his continued willingness to communicate and to address accuracy in science reporting.

In other news, NSIDC now confirms what I said on Sunday 09/12/2010:

Sea Ice News #22 – melt season may have turned the corner

Here’s the NSIDC headline today:

September 15, 2010

Arctic sea ice appears to have reached its annual minimum extent on 10 September. The minimum ice extent was the third-lowest in the satellite record, after 2007 and 2008, and continues the long-term trend of decreasing summer sea ice.

Share this: Print

Email

Twitter

Facebook

Pinterest

LinkedIn

Reddit



Like this: Like Loading...