Arctic Ice Discussion 2013-14: the refreeze...

[thetonynator]

Well I'm thinking we just about 'peaked' yesterday and the float off is now placing ice into grids that do not register as ice. The only way now is down! Maybe time for Pete to open, and stickie, a new thread?

  You also said last week when there was a big extent jump that is was just the break up of ice, yet area took a massive leap also.  

As far as 'new ice' is concerned i suspect that march 6th was the maximum extent for ice growth this season with subsequent gains being nothing more than anomalies created by the measuring 'cut off' points of 15 and 30% ?

 For the record, area hit a new max on friday.  http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/arctic.sea.ice.interactive.html Edited March 23, 2014 by thetonynator

[Gray-Wolf]

I suppose we are talking about the difference between the max ice growth and the fiddly bit at the end of the winter when we have ice breakup and float off with thin ice growing in between and melting pretty soon after. The 'numbers' are sound but the sentiment is a tad desperate in the face of maxed out pack entering decline?

[4wd]

There are standard long-established definitions for area and extent, anyone would think you want to adjust things so the figures look lower?

[thetonynator]

I suppose we are talking about the difference between the max ice growth and the fiddly bit at the end of the winter when we have ice breakup and float off with thin ice growing in between and melting pretty soon after. The 'numbers' are sound but the sentiment is a tad desperate in the face of maxed out pack entering decline?

I don't see why you want to bring sentiment into it, the figures are objective, you don't need to bring sentiment into it at all. Area continued to grow while you tried to say it was ice breaking up and spreading out.

 

Another new area max yesterday for the record, 13.487 million. 

 

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/arctic.sea.ice.interactive.html

 

 

Also interesting to note that it's  only the second time since 2007 that the anomaly hasn't had its traditional 'near normal' period in late winter, although obviously a slow start to the melt season bring the extent and area temporarily a bit closer to normal.

Edited March 23, 2014 by thetonynator

[Gray-Wolf]

 

Buy extent shows the 3rd day of losses?

 

As far as 'sentiment' is concerned I have had 6 springs of folk trying to make a very dire situation into 'something normal' or even 'encouraging' so do excuse me for being impacted by that?

 

This is another year with sea ice levels unheard of 20 years ago and thickness never dreamt of back then. For the Arctic 20yrs are a mere blink of the eye and the folk trying to make ice levels into something they are not might do well to contemplate the scale of losses we have seen over these two decades? 

[BornFromTheVoid]

The 4th or 5th lowest max on record combined with probably the mildest winter on record doesn't need any sentiment to suggest a weak pack facing up to the coming melt season.

 

Having a tiny growth spurt at the end of March isn't much use. Going by the NSIDC data, the 79-00 average extent reached 14.9 millions km2 (this years maximum) around mid January, leaving 2 months of intense cold to thicken up and create even more ice as an added buffer.

The fact we had a few days growth spurt, thanks to both ice drift and couple of cm thin nilas, taking us up to 14.9 million, is not the same as being at that extent for 2 months of winter.

We've gone from having nearly 50% more volume than 2012 last October to being almost equal this February. I think that says quite a bit.

[knocker]

A Siberian Heat Wave is Breaking Kara Sea Ice In March, So is it Time to Start Thinking about Hot Arctic Rivers?

 

There’s a heatwave in Dickson, Russia today. But if you were standing on the shores of this port city on the Kara Sea in the far north, you might not realize it. The forecast high? 29 degrees Fahrenheit.

 

Dickson is located about 500 miles north of the Arctic Circle and 1,000 miles south of the North Pole. To its west is Novaya Zemlya, a sparely inhabited and typically frozen island between the Kara and Barents Seas. To its east is Siberian Khatanga and Severnaya Zemlya an island system that, until 2005, sat in a pack of Arctic sea ice so dense and resilient, it was once possible to ski from Severnaya all the way to the North Pole even at the height of Northern Hemisphere summer. No more. The sea ice is now but a thin and wrecked shadow of its former glory.

 

http://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2014/03/20/a-siberian-heat-wave-is-breaking-kara-sea-ice-in-march-so-is-it-time-to-start-thinking-about-warm-arctic-rivers/

Edited March 24, 2014 by knocker

[oldsnowywizard]

The 4th or 5th lowest max on record combined with probably the mildest winter on record doesn't need any sentiment to suggest a weak pack facing up to the coming melt season.

 

Having a tiny growth spurt at the end of March isn't much use. Going by the NSIDC data, the 79-00 average extent reached 14.9 millions km2 (this years maximum) around mid January, leaving 2 months of intense cold to thicken up and create even more ice as an added buffer.

The fact we had a few days growth spurt, thanks to both ice drift and couple of cm thin nilas, taking us up to 14.9 million, is not the same as being at that extent for 2 months of winter.

We've gone from having nearly 50% more volume than 2012 last October to being almost equal this February. I think that says quite a bit.

does a milder winter up there really suggest a weak pack? ice will grow at anything lower than -2... ..it has been way below that for most of the last 4 months.. if you look at DMI the spikes went up to a positively balmy -13 degrees C still cold enough for ice...and down to -28 degrees but as we know temperature alone does not dictate the state of a pack of ice...  what have the weather conditions been like during this time? SSTs? radiation levels, sun spot activity, wind speed, wind direction, precipitation.. etc etc all of these have been left out. ..  Fact is i think we all thought after the cracktopolis event of last Feb that last summer and a record loss for 2012 we would have expected worse in 2013... i know i did... but hey even with factually the worst pack ever with lowest levels of multi year ice, thin ice everywhere and GW with his blow torch out ...we still had a recovery... so lets see what happens this year... it could be dire,. it could be ok.. it could be great... who knows but one thing we cant be is certain about anything up there and we shouldnt assume anything... there seems to be more multiyear ice up there so maybe that will keep us going for a little while longer..? ( cant post the images but look at multiyear charts on here..http://www.arctic.io/sea-ice-charts/

[BornFromTheVoid]

does a milder winter up there really suggest a weak pack? ice will grow at anything lower than -2... ..it has been way below that for most of the last 4 months.. if you look at DMI the spikes went up to a positively balmy -13 degrees C still cold enough for ice...and down to -28 degrees but as we know temperature alone does not dictate the state of a pack of ice...  what have the weather conditions been like during this time? SSTs? radiation levels, sun spot activity, wind speed, wind direction, precipitation.. etc etc all of these have been left out. ..  Fact is i think we all thought after the cracktopolis event of last Feb that last summer and a record loss for 2012 we would have expected worse in 2013... i know i did... but hey even with factually the worst pack ever with lowest levels of multi year ice, thin ice everywhere and GW with his blow torch out ...we still had a recovery... so lets see what happens this year... it could be dire,. it could be ok.. it could be great... who knows but one thing we cant be is certain about anything up there and we shouldnt assume anything... there seems to be more multiyear ice up there so maybe that will keep us going for a little while longer..? ( cant post the images but look at multiyear charts on here..http://www.arctic.io/sea-ice-charts/

 

A mild winter is putting it lightly don't you think?

 

 

I think the fact that we've had one of the lowest extent/area maxima on record, combined with one of the lowest February volume values on record (especially given the "recovery" last Autumn) suggests that the pack is in a weakened state. You will of course get some level of sea ice formation, whether it's -10C, -20C or -40C, but the thickness of the ice will be quite different and the volume will suffer, as we've seen.

 

 

Precipitation across the Arctic appears to have been largely close to average, while any of the buoy data I've seen suggests no extra deep snow cover to buffer the Spring melt.

Winds have been mostly southerly in the Pacific and Atlantic sectors, which helped drive the record/near record mild conditions. This helped reduce transport through Fram (one of the few positives), but doesn't appear to have helped the volume a great deal.

Have you any studies suggesting that sunspot activity on short times has a strong link with sea ice?

What do you mean by radiation levels?

SSTs remain unfavourable, with the AMO generally in a +ve or neutral state, with the PDO having now shifted to a +ve state too.

 

Anywho, what these factors would have influenced are the area/extent and volume, which as we know, are near record low levels, despite the promise of last Autumn.

 

We may strike it lucky and have another cool, cloudy melt season and only end up with a bottom 10 minimum, or we could have a mild, dipole dominated melt season and see a new record. But there is little evidence that the winter has done much other than increase the likelihood of a strong melt IMO.

[Gray-Wolf]

With the temps over Dickson, Siberia Knocks linked to (28f above the norm for the time of year) set to drift out toward Svalbard expect Barentsz to take an early battering with the early drift off ice, and any infill ice, disappearing over the coming 2 weeks. If anyone needed confirmation that we are now into melt season this upcoming 'hit' may be convincing enough?

Edited March 24, 2014 by Gray-Wolf

[stewfox]

With the temps over Dickson, Siberia Knocks linked to (28f above the norm for the time of year) set to drift out toward Svalbard expect Barentsz to take an early battering with the early drift off ice, and any infill ice, disappearing over the coming 2 weeks. If anyone needed confirmation that we are now into melt season this upcoming 'hit' may be convincing enough?

 

Another melt season soon under way with all the fan fare.

 

I wonder if we will get additional cloud cover because of increase thawing ice , a positive feed back mechanism

 

Given the arctic has been warm this winter I predict another cool summer up there. Min 6m ???

[BornFromTheVoid]

I'm not sure if anyone has noticed here, but there seems to be a new feature on CT called "Arctic Weather Forecasts", just below the main Arctic concentration image. It has some very cool animations of temperature, wind, geopotential height and others, based off the GFS. http://globalweatherlogistics.com/seaiceforecasting/

[Interitus]

Nice find BFTV

[Gray-Wolf]

Since 07' I'd spent a number of years spotting a 'spring tide' break up event ( and extent surge) and this year is again no exception. Has low ice levels/thinner pack meant that we now have a new event in the yearly cycle?

 

The tidal bulge runs under the pack and this 'lift' could be enough to break the ice allowing for drift off event but preconditioning all the pack to melt by shattering it into smaller floes?

 

When the pack was riddled with massive paleocryistic floes then this event would have passed un noticed but in today's sub 2m pack?

 

When the basin was chock full of ice and the exits were sealed ( bering and fram) then ice could not 'expand' when fragmented. Now we have open water in the basin as well as the exits ( Barentsz, fram and bering) so is the 'late season spurt' part of a new phenomena in the yearly ice cycle.

[Gray-Wolf]

Well the initial breakup is on the way and levels are now floundering among the lowest recorded? As BFTV pointed out elsewhere the two recent winters as mild as the past one came before 07' and 2012 ....... are we about to see a pattern emerge?

[stewfox]

A mild winter is putting it lightly don't you think?

 

I think the fact that we've had one of the lowest extent/area maxima on record, combined with one of the lowest February volume values on record (especially given the "recovery" last Autumn) suggests that the pack is in a weakened state. You will of course get some level of sea ice formation, whether it's -10C, -20C or -40C, but the thickness of the ice will be quite different and the volume will suffer, as we've seen.

 

Anywho, what these factors would have influenced are the area/extent and volume, which as we know, are near record low levels, despite the promise of last Autumn.

 

We may strike it lucky and have another cool, cloudy melt season and only end up with a bottom 10 minimum, or we could have a mild, dipole dominated melt season and see a new record. But there is little evidence that the winter has done much other than increase the likelihood of a strong melt IMO.

 

Another great post

 

Volume very disappointing

 

Feb volume shows a continued decline as well as extent in winter months

 

Without favorable conditions in July and August , its going to end in tears.

Edited April 1, 2014 by stewfox

[reef]

New thread for the thaw:

 

http://forum.netweather.tv/topic/79928-arctic-ice-discussion-2014-the-thaw/

 

Closing this.