It’s October 3 and time for the official unveiling of the winner of the qualtoos for whoever was the most accurate in forecasting the September, 2011 7-day minimum for JAXA sea ice extent. Many of us knew we were close and in the running for winning– but had we won? Would we net any quatloos? Today we learn!
The minimum extent itself
While keeping us on pins and needles, threatening to set a record minimum, minimum extent halted suddenly. It occurred relatively early: this year is the earliest extent minimum in the JAXA record which started in 2002. (Earlier minimum dates have been recorded, but by other groups). In the end, this year’s 7 day average September minimum was 4.54703 millions square kilometers. (Excess digits are necessary for resolving some bets!) The minimum and the dates minimums were set are shown below:
What did everyone bet?
I’ve been showing people the distribution of bets, highlighting mine in yellow and also showing the current best estimate of the winning value. Today, the ‘best’ estimate is the winning value, shown in black:
Those reading the note can see based on numerical value of the bet, SteveT and Chris Brown tied!
Good going guys!
But, as many know, in the event of a time, the first to enter his bets is the winner. That was Chris Brown who nets 78.512 having bet 5 quatloos. That’s confidence.
So, win, place and show go to Chris Brown, Steve T and rc in a very tight pack!
Due to the complex algorithm to distribute bets (whose justification is lost in the mists of time) 10 bettors netted quatloos. I am one of them. Whooo hooo! (I don’t win any more often than anyone else. Except maybe Jay/Shoosh or feabqtcqy the adding enabled ‘bot.)
You can see if you won any qualtoos below:
| Rank | Name | Prediction (x 106 km2) | Bet | Won | |
| Gross | Net | ||||
| — | Observed | 4.54703 (x 106 km2) | |||
| 1 | Chris Brown | 4.55 | 5 | 83.512 | 78.512 |
| 2 | Steve T | 4.55 | 4 | 53.447 | 49.447 |
| 3 | rc | 4.54 | 3 | 32.068 | 29.068 |
| 4 | Anamoi | 4.557 | 5 | 42.758 | 37.758 |
| 5 | Boris | 4.563 | 5 | 34.206 | 29.206 |
| 6 | lucia | 4.569 | 5 | 27.365 | 22.365 |
| 7 | DeWitt Payne | 4.591 | 5 | 21.892 | 16.892 |
| 8 | ivp0 | 4.593 | 5 | 17.514 | 12.514 |
| 9 | AMac | 4.501 | 2 | 5.604 | 3.604 |
| 10 | RobB | 4.5 | 5 | 10.133 | 5.133 |
| 11 | David Jay | 4.61 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 12 | mccall | 4.64 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 13 | pdjakow | 4.44 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 14 | John F. Pittman | 4.661 | 3 | 0 | -3 |
| 15 | Geoff Cruickshank | 4.67 | 3 | 0 | -3 |
| 16 | George Tobin | 4.684 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 17 | Swift | 4.71 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 18 | Bob Z | 4.38 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 19 | Carl Szczerski | 4.355 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 20 | Gareth C | 4.74 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 21 | jeez | 4.74 | 3 | 0 | -3 |
| 22 | Arfur Bryant | 4.742 | 4 | 0 | -4 |
| 23 | denny | 4.35 | 3 | 0 | -3 |
| 24 | Roy Weiler | 4.75 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 25 | HaroldW | 4.341 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 26 | enSKog | 4.765 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 27 | Freezedried | 4.772 | 3 | 0 | -3 |
| 28 | torn8o | 4.781 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 29 | ob | 4.313 | 3 | 0 | -3 |
| 30 | Michael J | 4.27 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 31 | BenjaminG | 4.25 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 32 | Richard | 4.85 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 33 | julio | 4.86 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 34 | matthew | 4.867 | 4 | 0 | -4 |
| 35 | Randal | 4.87 | 3 | 0 | -3 |
| 36 | Paul Butler | 4.22 | 4 | 0 | -4 |
| 37 | Andrew Kennett | 4.885 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 38 | bob droege | 4.2 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 39 | Pavel Panenka | 4.9 | 3 | 0 | -3 |
| 40 | Golfgeek | 4.92 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 41 | DocMartyn | 4.922 | 2.5 | 0 | -2.5 |
| 42 | Falcon | 4.17 | 3 | 0 | -3 |
| 43 | Robert Leyland | 4.949 | 4 | 0 | -4 |
| 44 | Don B | 4.97 | 4 | 0 | -4 |
| 45 | moschops | 4.981 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 46 | Alan Betts | 4.11 | 1 | 0 | -1 |
| 47 | Sylvain | 5 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 48 | BobKC | 5.01 | 2 | 0 | -2 |
| 49 | Hal | 5.011 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 50 | Jon P | 5.02 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 51 | Joel Heinrich | 5.043 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 52 | BenfromMO | 5.05 | 4 | 0 | -4 |
| 53 | MDR | 5.05 | 2 | 0 | -2 |
| 54 | Tim W | 4 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 55 | mb | 4 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 56 | sHx | 5.1 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 57 | Howard | 3.985 | 2 | 0 | -2 |
| 58 | Earle Williams | 5.11 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 59 | DR | 3.98 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 60 | Tamara | 5.115 | 4 | 0 | -4 |
| 61 | LC | 5.125 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 62 | Niels A Nielsen | 5.145 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 63 | TimTheToolMan | 5.155 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 64 | Pieter | 5.219 | 4 | 0 | -4 |
| 65 | KÃ¥re Kristiansen | 5.22 | 4 | 0 | -4 |
| 66 | Owen | 3.872 | 4 | 0 | -4 |
| 67 | dlb | 5.231 | 3 | 0 | -3 |
| 68 | BigBear | 5.235 | 3 | 0 | -3 |
| 69 | Ed Forbes | 5.25 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 70 | MikeP | 5.3 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 71 | Crashex | 5.31 | 4 | 0 | -4 |
| 72 | Richard Dupuis | 5.55 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 73 | MarcH | 5.65 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 74 | JeffF | 5.8 | 3 | 0 | -3 |
| 75 | suzanne | 8.566 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 76 | feabqtcqy | 8.69 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 77 | Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd. | 999999 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
The net winnings for each member of the ensemble will be added to their accounts.
Oh a podium finish, I get to pop the champagne right?
Didn’t seem to be too many surprises this year, I didn’t have any maths/statistics behind my guess.
I would have won if the burgeoning Polar Bear population had not torn down my giant parasol so they could embroider quilts.
How was I to know there were so many Polar Bears?
Doc–
Those darn polar bears! Take way their embroidery needles.
My highly scientific method to come up with the winning (tied) bet was to look at the previous graphs and the current trend, assume we’d be close to a record, but also assume we’d not quite reach 2007, which gave me a number of 4.5, but that seemed too “exact” so I rounded up a bit to make it more like something I’d calculated.
Same algorithm I use for the monthly temp guesses, and it seems to work fairly well.
I’m yet again reminded why I don’t normally bet — I’m really bad at it. 🙂
Hey, Lucia – I’d forward the dough but it seems that PayPay doesn’t have a conversion for Quatloos. What’s a guy to do?
Thanks for organising it!
Dr. Jay Cadbury PhD (999999) did you include Hell in your estimate?
Lucia, want to start a atmosphere/ocean ‘equilibrium’ thread?
I only as Keelings group have just revised the annual level of photosynthesis:-
“Our analysis suggests that current estimates of global gross primary production, of 120 petagrams of carbon per year, may be too low, and that a best guess of 150–175 petagrams of carbon per year better reflects the observed rapid cycling of CO2. Although still tentative, such a revision would present a new benchmark by which to evaluate global biospheric carbon cycling models.:
The box diagrams used by the climate modelers have underestimated the biotic sequestration rate by 30%.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110928222003.htm
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v477/n7366/full/nature10421.html
This actually means that at least more than 40 petagrams of carbon fall as organic ‘snow’ in the oceans than was initially estimated.
Now being out by 30% is quite a reasonable guesstimate for any complex biological process. Getting within one order of magnitude when measuring a rate is a ‘bullseye’.
It does however completely bugger up equilibrium box models.
Re: DocMartyn (Oct 4 05:40),
Nope. If 40 Pg carbon was lost to the sea floor every year, life on Earth would soon cease as the CO2 level in the atmosphere would drop below the level necessary to sustain life. The atmosphere contains only ~750 Pg carbon. If primary production is higher, then decay and release of CO2 back to the atmosphere must be higher as well. But I suspect that higher number is wrong because it would have a significant effect on the life time of a carbon atom in the atmosphere, which is well known from the inadvertent isotope dilution experiment caused by injection of 14C into the atmosphere from nuclear weapons testing.
The usual number quoted for loss to the sea floor is 0.2 PgC/year.
Doc–
Do you mean equilibrium for CO2 levels? I can make an general open thread, but I don’t want a specifically topical one on that issue because…. I don’t want to spend a week trying to expose myself to detailed literature on micro-issues related to CO2 balance. I prefer to be doing other things.
Like everyone, I have 24 hours in a day. Can’t stuff 72 hours worth of projects into a day.
Dr. Roy announces AMSR-E has shut down. What does this mean for next year’s ice contest?
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/10/amsr-e-ends-9-years-of-global-observations/
The most interesting thing is how the curve has flattened in the last week. What happened is that the areas of broken ice filled in, but the general shape did not expand much. Weird
Eli–
If this is “the most interesting thing”, it might be useful if you clarified so readers can know what you are talking about. Could you clarify:
1) Which curve are you referring too? I don’t see flattening in the past week in the curve in my post.
2) Why would it be “most interesting” that areas of broken ice filled in. Wouldn’t that just be something you would expect to happen?
3) Whatever graph you are talking about, why would anything that happens over a 1 week time scale be “the most interesting thing”?
‘If 40 Pg carbon was lost to the sea floor every year, life on Earth would soon cease as the CO2 level in the atmosphere would drop below the level necessary to sustain life’
DimWitt, in a steady state the concentration of species is a product of the sum of the various fluxes. For some strange reason you appear to be unable to grasp the notion.
Now, at the top of the ocean the oxygen levels are high and at the bottom they are low. At the bottom of the oceans the CO2 activity is high (as is methane) and at the top the CO2 activity is low.
Biotically generated -(CH2)-/-(CH2O)- is generated at the surface where sunlight reaches photosynthetic organisms. In the normal food chain a large fraction of the annual fixed biotic material is excreted; this falls as snow.
-(CH2)-/-(CH2O)- begins a fall to the depths, and along the way it is consumed by microorganisms. Initially they use O2 as their terminal oxygen acceptor. However, such is the abundance of -(CH2)-/-(CH2O)- that they completely denude the water of oxygen; hence the reason that oxygen in the oceans is not in equilibrium with the atmosphere is because it is being utilized by biotica. In the hypoxic zone they use nitrate/sulphate as their terminal electron acceptor. When there is no nitrate or sulphate left some of the little buggers reduce CO2 to methane.
Of course turning -(CH2)-/-(CH2O)- into CO2 and CH4 leads to a concentration gradient, bottom to the top, so the ocean bottom is bursting with carbon and the top layer denuded by photosynthesis. there is a slow movement of CO2/CH4 from the bottom to the top. Most of the CH4 never makes it, eaten up by microbes as it passes the hypoxic zone.
The upper surface CO2 levels, and so the atmospheric levels, are set by the biotica, not by equilibrium thermodynamics.
The difference between us Payne is that you live on a sterile dead plant. I live on a planet filled with opportunistic replicants whose whole purpose is to raise two fingers at entropy, a battle they will eventually lose, and dancing, screwing and defecating on equilibrium thermodynamics.
As long as there is an energy gradient, there will be a niche, and the replicants will exploit it. The replicants fingerprint is that they excrete steady state gradients; you only have to look.
Re: DocMartyn (Oct 4 08:44),
Wow, that’s really funny. Haven’t heard that variation since grade school.
The rest of your answer is totally irrelevant, as usual.
DocMartyn #84942,
The actual situation with available oxygen in the ocean is very much more complicated than you suggest. See for example: http://www.aslo.org/lo/toc/vol_10/issue_2/0215.pdf
.
A portion of the oceans do become ‘hypoxic’ at some depth, which is generally defined as available oxygen below ~2 PPM by weight, the oxygen level where higher organisms become oxygen stressed. But this appears to be only about half of less of the total area, and only a very small fraction of the total ocean volume. Much of the ocean area never becomes so depleted in oxygen at any depth. The minimum concentration of oxygen is in most places not close to the bottom, but instead usually reaches a minimum oxygen concentration at a much more shallow depth. Over most of the eastern equatorial Pacific (including relatively nutrient rich areas off South America with high biological production), the minimum oxygen level is at 500 meters or less, and rises with increasing depth below 500 meters. The rise in oxygen concentration with greater depth precludes local surface oxygen diffusion as a significant contributor to the oxygen balance below the minimum concentration level, and indicates that most oxygen at great depth was transported from high latitude (due to thermohaline circulation). Incidentally, the volume of the thermohaline flow and the solubility of oxygen in cold surface sea water (at ~2C, there is at most ~7.5 ml O2, or 10.5 PPM by weight) places an upper bound on how much organic carbon is being oxidized in the deep ocean.
.
All of which suggests that nearly all organic carbon is oxidized well above the ocean bottom, and that the vast majority of the very deep ocean is by no means completely depleted in oxygen (or even ‘hypoxic’) as you suggested :
.
I suggest that you do a bit more reading before making sweeping claims about carbon fluxes in the oceans.
SteveF, you will find that the source of the oxygen at depth tends to be the result of polar currents, where sinking cold water punches into the tropics. You could also look at the amount of POP found in the areas where we know we have oxygen rich water. You will find that they are very low indeed. Hawaii is a very good example of this. These polar currents are very good at mobilizing organic matter.
However, in general, carbon rich/oxygen poor at bottom and carbon poor/oxygen rich at top. Hell, if you can use box models of averages for radiative transfer why can’t I?
Time to make it rain in da thread.
A win! I would like to claim the use of some highly complicated scientific method but actually I just “eyeballed” the trend, knew we would be close to a record but guessed that ENSO neutral/La Nina conditions might just keep the final number above the last minimum. As an aside, I notice the ice is recovering at quite a rate now.
Re: RobB (Oct 4 12:47),
Same, plus 1,000 km^2 just to keep you guessing!
Perhaps we should pool our meager quatloos and… er… um…
RobB, don’t say you just “eyeballed†the trend, say
I used a multivectorial, state of the art, adaptive, 390 Exa-byte (3.9*10^18) parallel processing computer that used a Bayesian statistics reactive algorithm, programmed by myself.
DocMartyn,
Because “carbon rich/oxygen poor at bottom and carbon poor/oxygen rich at top” just isn’t close to reality, box model or not.
.
The lowest oxygen content is almost NEVER anywhere near the bottom; the oxygen content is on average much lower much higher up in the water column, and the minimum oxygen content in the water column is as close to the surface as 500 meters or less over large ocean areas, even while the underlying water has quite a bit more oxygen. The suggestion that organic carbon “completely denudes” the water of oxygen near the bottom is simply incorrect.
Steve T used almost exactly the same method as me, except my reasoning for not choosing 4.5 was because I was worried it’d look like I wasn’t really trying if I didn’t have two decimal places.
Thanks for the Quatloos, i’m off to Vegas.
Chris–
The fewer decimal places you use, the more likely you are to tie.
NSIDC has declared the September average ice extent at 4.61M km2.
lucia’s August estimate was right on. The September estimate was a little low though.
http://nsidc.org/news/press/20111004_MinimumPR.html
Bill– Really? Wow! In early Sept, I was worried both guestimates would be high. But then the extent loss stopped. Amazing!
Looks like no more JAXA ice bets since they’ve stopped updating due to the AMSR-E shutdown.
Re: Fred N. (Oct 5 07:07),
MASIE is still updating since they didn’t rely on AMSR-E data. But they don’t have a historical database and the overlap between MASIE and JAXA is pretty short. Cryosphere Today hasn’t updated yet today. Their last images are dated 9/30/11.
Fred N. we can still have NH ice bets. However, we may lose the fun element of being able to track the ice extent as quickly and easily. We’ll consider which agency to bet on next spring when we can survey what’s available.
My two bits: use DMI if we can get the data. It seems to mirror JAXA pretty closely
Fred N.–
That will be an option in spring. Was DMI the one that looked like it hit a record this year? If yes, then the “noise” factor means it’s slightly less likely to hit one next year. That’s sort of an oddity of changing agencies.
The “record” was from University of Bremen.
Fred, it also looks to me like Bremen changed their algorithm this year, there appears to be more high frequency noise in it.
Of course, because they don’t publish their numerical values, it’s impossible to test things like this.
Fred– Ok. That’s right. So may agencies. So many opportunities for records in tight years. 🙂
Re: Carrick (Oct 5 11:19),
They do publish their numerical values, just not on the Uni-Bremen site but at the Uni-Hamburg site of the co-authors of the algorithm. And yes, the algorithm was changed in May, 2010.
I couldn’t access the site this morning, it was asking for a username and password.
DeWitt:
Thanks.
I had the same problem.
Re: Carrick (Oct 11 09:44),
Needless to say, I have the data in my spreadsheet. It’s through the 9/30/2011. I could send you a text file or something.
DeWitt, let’s see if they fix the problem. I sent the site admin an email alerting him of the problem.
Carrick,
I could get to the home page today, but not to the FTP server storing the data.
Carrick,
Everything is working again at the Uni-Hamburg site. Go the the ftp server and open the area-extent folder. Scroll to the bottom to find the text files for area and extent for Arctic and Antarctic sea ice.
DeWitt Payne (Comment #83056)
October 5th, 2011 at 8:53 am
Re: Fred N. (Oct 5 07:07),
MASIE is still updating since they didn’t rely on AMSR-E data. But they don’t have a historical database and the overlap between MASIE and JAXA is pretty short. Cryosphere Today hasn’t updated yet today. Their last images are dated 9/30/11.
However they are updating their numerical data.
Phil.