"Crackopalypse" Spectacle or spectre?

[Gray-Wolf]

So, it's been with us for over a month thus far and done massive damage across the Beaufort side of the basin allowing massive movements into our side of the basin into Fram. even today we now see the event spreading into the Canadian Archipelago deep channel.

Do you think this is just an interesting spectacle or do you think it is a signal of the melt season we are entering with consequences for ice melt extent and speed of the meltout of the bulk of the ice?

Edited March 22, 2013 by Gray-Wolf

[Gray-Wolf]

I wonder why only this forum's 'climate' section is not seemng to wish to contemplate this event?

Is it that some folk feel that this is a 'non-event'? if so it would be useful to hear why as I am fully unfamiliar with such a notion. Is it too far removed from folks own back yard to be of any possible significance?Do we not bother posting here but prefer to discuss on other forums and so do not wish to duplicate

To me this event is as significant as the 07' melt or the 80's Fram losses in the current evolution of the Arctic Basin.

To me I see implications both for summer ice levels but also for winter ice and a new move toward winter sea ice area losses.

I can not see any positives in the event and should sea ice play a role in Jet stream positioning then any move toward ice loss earlier in the season has massive implications for northern hermisphere weather (and so climate).

Come October ,when the sea ice season is reviewed, we might be surprised to see just what this event meant to the summer of 2013?

[Gray-Wolf]

With research now pointing to an influx of warmer ocean waters (where folks 'missing heat' went) now poised to enter the Arctic basin are we about to see both the fracture event and stored energy push us below 2 million sq km this summer?

[4wd]

Is this the 0.003°C warmer water or the 0.0003°C warmer water?

[BornFromTheVoid]

Is this the 0.003°C warmer water or the 0.0003°C warmer water?

 

Probably a different imaginary number related to surface water.

[Gray-Wolf]

 

 

From a quick look at current sst's I can see water near Bering and Fram? These SST's all appear to be real numbers and between 4 and 5c?

[BornFromTheVoid]

 

 

From a quick look at current sst's I can see water near Bering and Fram? These SST's all appear to be real numbers and between 4 and 5c?

 

They're anomalies GW!

 

Here are the actual temps

 

DMI might be better for the Arctic though http://ocean.dmi.dk/satellite/index.uk.php

[Gray-Wolf]

Just joshing with 4 BFTV but thanks for the reality check!

 

Nice to see anomalous warm where the PDO-ve cold horse shoe should be though? Maybe West coast Alaska will join the north slope with high temps this year?

[Gray-Wolf]

Something I had not thought about but was brought to my attention the other day is the albedo of the central pack? With a lot of late formed 'fill in' ice between the fractures we could see a lot of dark water suddenly open up throughout the basin as this ice skim melts out.

 

Will this make a difference?

[Gray-Wolf]

 

The above is an enhanced image from earlier in May that 'A-Team' (over on 'Nevens' Blog) posted.

 

Though every year leaves the pack scarred the amount of 'scar tissue' this year is very much an outlier over previous years. We are now entering the period of high loss from surface melt and the thin 'scar tissue' is not going to take long to melt out. This will then leave a very mobile ice pack with no stabilising contiguous ice cover over central regions.

 

Though we have seen a slow start (so far) to the melt season (cool temps and ice positioning?.....no extra ice in Bering but over Barentsz/Kara instead?) I am now holding my breath for the upcoming melt onslaught with hopes that weather will intervene and give us the 'rebound year' that many have decided must occur this summer. I cannot change my mind on the seasons outcome (new record low area/volume) so for me to have it right would suggest some serious melt days ahead?

[4wd]

Isn't that just a grossly adjusted shot of broken debris from last year frozen situ?

i.e. nothing to do with the supposed unusual new cracking.

[Gray-Wolf]

Do you imagine that any cracking event would 'follow thelines of least resistance ' Four or just plough through all and sundry?

 

In areas of 'ice survival' I think that pressures of the ice would tend to rupture the thinner 'infill ice' to produce those tens of km wide leads we all witnessed?

[4wd]

Was that yes or no...

It just looks like what you'd expect, chunks of last year's ice still locked in place by 1st year ice.

[Methuselah]

Isn't this just what goes on every year? And this simply the first time we are all able to witness it?

[Gray-Wolf]

This was why this 'event' was picked up Pete, it happened 40 days or so before 'normal' spring fracture events occur (do you remember I used to highlight them under 'spring tide' fracture events?) and was far,far more extensive (as the Feb(?) NSIDC sea ice update highlighted?

 

Apart for the temp/humidity issues over extensive leads that such fracturing presents we also have the loss of structural integrity that it beings to the pack.

 

If you recall the 'leads' spiked right through the older,more complete ice as well as the peripheral 'shattered ice' from last years melt.

 

Proof of the pudding will be the opening up of the pack as the younger 'infill ice' melts out through June (less than 30cm thick on average?) and what this mobility will do to export/ice flow over the rest of the season?

 

The Russian team who are now set to evacuate chose their floe very carefully but this has also failed 3 months before the end date for the mission.

 

Though melt season appears to be off to a slow start I have to believe that we face consequences from last years excessive melt. I think, to me, the different weather year we have seen in the UK so far (compared to the post 07' spring/early summers) confirms that we ought to expect 'difference' from the melt season this year compared to the other 'post 07'' years. This is also apparently being confirmed.

 

With ice apparently losing thickness now (well in advance of past years) I would suggest that June will prove to be an interesting month for ice loss?

 

Why not sit back and see what the current ,forecast, L.P. system does to the pack over the coming 7 days??

[songster]

GW, although that's indeed dramatic, as others have pointed out we really cannot compare to previous years since we don't have comparable satellite imagery (because the satellite with that wavelength only went up last year). If you look at the overall Arctic mosaics from this year and others (they have back to 2009 on record, I very much doubt that you or any of us would be able to put them all in order without knowing which was which in advance.

 

Yes, the cracking this February was unusual (but not completely unprecedented) - one can however argue both ways: potentially the cracking exposed further open water to the ferocious cold of an Arctic winter, allowing more​ ice to form, not less. That's certainly what the PIOMAS model shows, with this year gaining ground on 2012/2011 during the Beaufort breakout event. 

http://psc.apl.washington.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/schweiger/ice_volume/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrentV2_CY.png

 

We won't have a good idea what this year's melt will look like for at least another three weeks. Really.

[Gray-Wolf]

Of course the leads iced back over as the shattered ice spread out but do you think 2 month old FY ice is a good substitute for Sept born ice (or older?)?

 

To me it's a similar thing as looking at the Bering ice factory upping extent/area in late winter and crying 'recovery' as the numbers rival 'old' averages? This 'infill ice' is both thin and weak (and packed full of brine) and , as we are currently seeing, has no structural strength.

 

As such will we not see and disturbance , like the current low, play havoc with the pack leading to open waters much further north than we are accustomed to seeing this time of year?

 

Will such a change in albedo impact central ice further or will that open water allow for compaction events leading to area losses? Will the open water melt out the ice edges (esp. the 2 month ice)? Will open spaces lead to attrition and further reduction in floe size and the all important surface area to mass ratio?

 

I thought it was bad since 08' with folk holding up any slight change as 'recovery' but when we have even less volume than ever before haven't we seen enough to know what comes next (over an 'average summer')? 

 

What is most sad is that even a summer colder than the past 6 will still probably lead to a year sub 07's low and that 'low' was due to a 'perfect storm' of weather and export. It was bad enough 'average summers challenging ,and then breaking 07's low without now facing the prospect of a cold Arctic year still doing what 7 years ago took extreme favourable conditions???

[Gray-Wolf]

Well I think we are now seeing the combined impacts of the Feb fragmentation and then the re-opening of that shattered ice by the 'Persistent Arctic Cyclone'.

 

I believe that the weakening of the thin pack in Feb 'primed' the pack for the mangling it then took over the 5 or 6 weeks of near constant central basin Low Pressures?

 

The 'old Arctic' had ice thick enough not to have been troubled by the L.P.'s the way this years pack has and would have 'prospered' under the cold and cloud. this time I do not think this was the case and whilst 'extent/area' may have remained high and losses slow the ice was undergoing a transformation by mechanical weathering leaving us with this mix of well rounded floes set in a sea of 'mush'.

 

As the floes are degraded their surface area to mass ratio changes and we know that the larger the surface area is compared to it's mass the easier it takes up energy and melts. If we do now see a period of settled , sunny conditions across the pack I think losses will be rapid and we may find ourselves amongst the other high loss years in no time at all ( and not trailing them all)?

 

By early Aug we will then be looking at a basin with the ice quite differently arranged compared to the post 07' Aug Packs? Will this make a difference to the losses over the last phase of the melt season? I think it will.

[masheeuk]

Is it to early to call this as just a spectacle ?