Lively Times at WUWT

November 24, 2010

We’ll never know how long Anthony Watts would have let the stench of his summer arctic ice predictions hang in the air, had I not prodded him with the most recent video.

Within 24 hours of the video upload, Watts finally found the time to admit that he and trusty sidekick Steve Goddard might have been a little too “ebullient” about the sea ice.

Anthony Watts and his Trusty Sidekick

There are some interesting comments, this one from “Bill the Frog” caught my eye.

It is intriguing to observe the continually developing meme that, prior to 1979, no reliable information was available relating to the extent of Arctic sea ice. This must certainly be perplexing for the scientists at the University of Illinois, many of whom have been at the forefront of polar research for decades.

As many readers will know, a considerable portion of the work done by the Polar Research Group at UIUC is publicly available on Cryosphere Today. One of the many datasets easily available from UIUC is the Walsh and Chapman Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice Data Set. This displays the extent of Arctic Sea Ice since 1870,(emphasis mine – Peter) and, at 141 years and counting, is certainly long enough to show up any significant multi-decadal trend.

Although virtually contiguous satellite coverage has been only available since 1979, navigators have been able to take pretty accurate readings of both latitude and longitude since, respectively, the invention of the sextant and the Harrison H4 watch.

The Walsh and Chapman dataset is a meta-analysis derived from 8 primary data sources, and spectacularly fails to support the claims that the 30+ years of decline in Arctic Sea Ice extent is merely the down-slope of a 60-70 year cycle. On the contrary, the figures suggest that, up to that time, 1979 had the lowest extent thus far recorded.

The figures from 1900 onward (seasonal and annual) are clearly shown in graphical format at the top of the CT homepage, but more extensive information is a mere 3 mouse clicks away. At the bottom of the CT page, click once to access the Polar Research Group, a second click accesses the archive page, and then one can select from the list.

Of course, if there is some valid reason to reject the Walsh Chapman data as wildly inaccurate, then that would be very interesting to learn. If it is “hoax” data, then they have been keeping a straight face for many decades, since at least one of the papers that constituted the body of work was written in 1978.”

Click for Larger Image

Update: Steve Goddard has joined in. I guess he’s mad at me, too.
Getting called a hack by Anthony Watts,
delicious.
Getting called a charlatan by Mark Morano,
delightful.
Getting called clueless by Steve Goddard.
Priceless.