Arctic Ice Discussion (the Refreeze 2012-2013)

[Geordiesnow]

Surprised this hasn't been mentioned, but it looks like we've already got our first century increase on IJIS, with a jump of 120k

Will be interesting to see if NSIDC follow suit...

You say already as in that your surprised but should we really be shocked? The ice extent is much lower than previous years and with temperatures in the Arctic naturally cooling(although still very warm for the time of year it seems in parts) then a 100K+ increase is perhaps not all that surprising and infact should be expected because we are so low in terms of extent.

We'll see by tomorrow if that 100K+ increase is for real or not but we really need too see the ice starting to grow now, that warm plume heading into the Arctic if albeit looking brief is concerning considering its heading into an area where it must of had its warmest summer on record, I very rarely seen during the summer the Beaufort Sea not having positive upper air temperatures hence the SST's are so warm.

[Methuselah]

Yes. I think that a massive 'recovery' is just around the corner. Having said that, 1"-thick ice is going to disappear pretty fast, come next spring!

[BornFromTheVoid]

You say already as in that your surprised but should we really be shocked? The ice extent is much lower than previous years and with temperatures in the Arctic naturally cooling(although still very warm for the time of year it seems in parts) then a 100K+ increase is perhaps not all that surprising and infact should be expected because we are so low in terms of extent.

We'll see by tomorrow if that 100K+ increase is for real or not but we really need too see the ice starting to grow now, that warm plume heading into the Arctic if albeit looking brief is concerning considering its heading into an area where it must of had its warmest summer on record, I very rarely seen during the summer the Beaufort Sea not having positive upper air temperatures hence the SST's are so warm.

I was just surprised that nobody mentioned it, seeing as it would be a definite sign that we've passed the minimum! I actually thought we'd have the minimum during the first week.

The revisions on the IJIS extent have generally much smaller lately so I doubt it will drop below 100k, but ya never know.

I agree with much of what you say though.

[stewfox]

I was just surprised that nobody mentioned it, seeing as it would be a definite sign that we've passed the minimum! I actually thought we'd have the minimum during the first week.

The revisions on the IJIS extent have generally much smaller lately so I doubt it will drop below 100k, but ya never know.

I agree with much of what you say though.

Will the residual heat in the extended ocean open water delay a rapid refreeze ? We will see

[BornFromTheVoid]

Will the residual heat in the extended ocean open water delay a rapid refreeze ? We will see

You would think so. It probably will to a certain extent.

Saying that, the average daily gain for October based on the NSIDC extent is 89,000km2/day.

The average of the last few years though have been

2011 - 115k/day

2010 - 98k/day

2009 - 99k/day

2008 - 137k/day

2007 - 124k/day.

I guess the warmth from the seas is over-ridden by the fact that the ice growth now starts from a cooler higher latitude position, and perhaps a little help from the extra fresh water from the summers ice melt too, and a few other things too!

[cheeky_monkey]

i would assume gains would be much larger as previously large areas would have remained frozen..there is now open water esp late melt where the sea temperature would be very low anyway so would refreeze rapidly..if you get my drift?

[BornFromTheVoid]

i would assume gains would be much larger as previously large areas would have remained frozen..there is now open water esp late melt where the sea temperature would be very low anyway so would refreeze rapidly..if you get my drift?

I think I get you! It is kind of what I alluded to with the refreeze now starting at a higher latitude than before. More new cold high latitude space for the ice to refreeze, as well as the same places where the refreeze has always occurred in Autumn, which allows for more ice to form during Autumn than in previous years.

I guess we'll be in real trouble when the ocean warmth gets to such a level that it begins to slow that refreeze

[snowfluff]

I think I get you! It is kind of what I alluded to with the refreeze now starting at a higher latitude than before. More new cold high latitude space for the ice to refreeze, as well as the same places where the refreeze has always occurred in Autumn, which allows for more ice to form during Autumn than in previous years.

I guess we'll be in real trouble when the ocean warmth gets to such a level that it begins to slow that refreeze

What do you think will happen if we get into real trouble re refreeze?

[BornFromTheVoid]

What do you think will happen if we get into real trouble re refreeze?

I meant real trouble with regards to the ice itself. If the warmth starts to slow the refreeze and really cause the maxima to drop, the whole ice-albedo feedback system would become even stronger. Less ice - more open water - more heating - less ice - etc.

We already saw the Beaufort sea get into the mid-teens this summer by having the ice break up in early June. SSTs there are still mostly 4C above average.

If more of the Arctic was to lose it's ice early, or not refreeze at all during the Winter, it would leave it open to the sunlight for much longer, causing much more warming than even this summer saw.

[Interitus]

The refreeze is helped by an amount of ice being present, so ice cover which is too open to count as extent initially can fill in the holes fairly quickly. Expanses of open water take longer.

[simple68]

Would there be any chance that the Mpemba effect would have any impact on the re-freezing of the ice as the sea is warmer?

[BornFromTheVoid]

Another century increase on IJIS extent, while the 120k increase yesterday remains.

I think we can call the IJIS minimum now as 3,489,063km2 on the 16th.

[BornFromTheVoid]

Great video, thickness and concentration.

Was surprised by how thin the Antarctic sea ice is.

[Buzzit]

Hi All

Just sharing this link from Dr Jeff Masters Wunderblog (mainly tropical weather) I thought it was a useful read

http://www.wundergro...l?entrynum=2237

By the way : If you click on the tag link at the bottom of the blog entry you will find a lot of other interesting related posts from Dr Masters

Thanks

Edited September 21, 2012 by Buzzit

[BornFromTheVoid]

Currently seeing opposites in either hemisphere on CT.

The Arctic has seen an increase of ~130k over the last 2 days with a big up-tick in the Arctic Basin, while Antarctica has seen a drop of ~150k.

[Nights King]

If we get a later refreeze how would that contribute to the loss of albedo when there is little or no sun in those areas anyway into the autumn and winter?

Also with less ice on the water is there a faster rate of heat loss anyway without ice to insulate it? If so how much does this counter the whole process of a little more energy absorbed late summer into early autumn by open water?

[Methuselah]

As it's never happened before (at least, whilst we've been around to study it) empirical data are scant to non-existent, I think. Therefore, mullender83, I think that your questions, whilst being quite valid, are almost unanswerable...We can, however, all make 'predictions' based on the fundamentals of thermodynamics - I think!!

[BornFromTheVoid]

If we get a later refreeze how would that contribute to the loss of albedo when there is little or no sun in those areas anyway into the autumn and winter?

Also with less ice on the water is there a faster rate of heat loss anyway without ice to insulate it? If so how much does this counter the whole process of a little more energy absorbed late summer into early autumn by open water?

I might give a more detailed answer later if time allows

For your first question: The later the refreeze, the less time the ice has to thicken up, and can thus melt much quicker come next spring. Also, this ice doesn't do a whole lot insulation wise, which also helps it to melt earlier the following spring.

The second question. The open water does radiate the heat away quite quickly, but in a longer wavelength to what it received. This causes the air across the Arctic to to become anomalously warm during Autumn and early Winter, and so much of that heat loss will remain in the system, contributing to the overall heating of the planet

There's plenty more to it than that though!

[Gray-Wolf]

I think that folk of certain beliefs would try and persuade folk ,who have not any inkling on the process's involved, that this is the reason why we should not concern ourselves with ice loss and Albedo Flip as any energy accrued by land /open water is instantly lost back into space once the waters begin to shed heat to allow re-freeze to occur. To such persons the 'state change' in energy and the gasses that soak up such wavelengths appear to be of little interest (Hmmm?, really now?),even if they are an ever increasing fraction of the atmosphere able to grab this new energy?

For those who wish to 'belittle' the gasses aforementioned then 'water vapour is the first thing they seem to hold up as the 'main player' in holding onto energy in the atmosphere but then the heat lost from the ocean tends to raise the R.H. of the layer above the interface, between ocean and air, and saturated air-masses hold onto the heat far better than dry ones.

I think that we all need to accept that any 'new' forcing to the climate system will impart effects. If that 'new' forcing is one on the increase I would suspect we would see even larger impacts imparted by it presence in the climate system? Eventually it will be easy to tease these from any 'background' natural forcing but ,of course, by then it will be way to late to do anything about it at all?

Edited September 21, 2012 by Gray-Wolf

[BornFromTheVoid]

The NSIDC extent is refusing the jump like the other measures and actually had a slight decline yesterday of 4k.

I would imagine that this is because of the low resolution of the sensors used (compared to IJIS using AMSR-2) and the fact that they're using extent (as opposed to CT's area). The uptick will probably occur quite rapidly over the weekend.

[BornFromTheVoid]

I don't often read Tamino, but his recent piece of the sceptics going on about Antarctica, while being his usual style, was quite good. Here's a excerpt

...The loss of Arctic sea ice has been nothing short of astounding.

How have the fake skeptics of global warming responded? By changing the subject, of course.

Perhaps the most ridiculous example (by which I mean, worthy of ridicule) is on hcubed’s blunderblog. And what does he change the subject to? This:

Antarctic sea ice set another record this past week, with the most amount of ice ever recorded on day 256 of the calendar year (September 12 of this leap year).

Wow! Stop the presses! Extra!!! Extra!!! Read all about it!!! Antarctic sea ice reaches record high for this day of the year!

What a shame for that poor, poor, unimpressive Arctic sea ice. All it managed to do this year was set the record for lowest sea ice extent for a single day of the year for every day since July 28th. Yes, that’s the last few days of July, the entire month of August, and the entire month of September — so far. All it did was break the all-time record. All it was able to do this year was go below the pre-2012 all-time record 26 times — so far.

Yeah. The previous paragraph is sarcasm.

Here's the link to the full piece http://tamino.wordpr...20/poles-apart/

I realise a lot of people generally don't like his style, but it's more moderate than the majority of sceptic blogs I've seen, and he does make a lot of sense. Lots of good graphs in there too.

[Nights King]

I might give a more detailed answer later if time allows

For your first question: The later the refreeze, the less time the ice has to thicken up, and can thus melt much quicker come next spring. Also, this ice doesn't do a whole lot insulation wise, which also helps it to melt earlier the following spring.

The second question. The open water does radiate the heat away quite quickly, but in a longer wavelength to what it received. This causes the air across the Arctic to to become anomalously warm during Autumn and early Winter, and so much of that heat loss will remain in the system, contributing to the overall heating of the planet

There's plenty more to it than that though!

Thanks for that bftv.

Another question though regarding albedo is surely a small increase in albedo at a lower latitude in the southern hemisphere may be quite important relative to a much larger decrease in albedo at very high latitudes at the end of our summer in the northern hemisphere?

Edited September 21, 2012 by mullender83

[Geordiesnow]

Unfortunately those large increases in the last 2 days have stopped and we dropped a tad by 16,000KM on this mornings update on the JAXA site.

Seems to me there is only one update now as yesterdays figure has not changed and I'm sure the others have not changed either or if they have, not by very much.

[BornFromTheVoid]

NSIDC extent finally beginning to climb, with a 57k jump yesterday.

Perhaps time to close the melt thread?

Thanks for that bftv.

Another question though regarding albedo is surely a small increase in albedo at a lower latitude in the southern hemisphere may be quite important relative to a much larger decrease in albedo at very high latitudes at the end of our summer in the northern hemisphere?

No worries m83

I posted this on another forum, but it should answer your question.

"Also what's important with regards to changes in the Earth's albedo, is the time of year when the +ve and -ve anomalies occur.

The Arctic shows only a small decline in Winter and Spring, when there is the least sunlight to reflect. The biggest losses occur during the summer and early Autumn, of which a large period has 24 hour daylight. This is when you need the ice to reflect that light away!

In Antarctica, it's kind of the opposite. Their winter has the +ve anomalies lately, when there is no sunlight, so it doesn't benefit the Earth's albedo or even offset the Arctic loss a bit. In the southern hemisphere summer, the ice almost entirely melts away, back down to the same level each year and so once again does not help or hinder the Earth's overall albedo. (the variation in SH ice minimum is only about 1.2 million km2, while the NH minimum variation is about 3.2 million km2)

Unfortunately, the only sea ice region and time largely changing the Earth's albedo is the Arctic during the summer/early Autumn."

Just to add to that, there may be a very slight albedo increase around the minimum for Antarctica, but it would be near negligible.

[Gavin Hannah]

That graph is starting to head in the right direction.