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Arctic Sea Ice Discussion 2016: Melt Season


BornFromTheVoid

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Posted
  • Location: Morecambe
  • Location: Morecambe

There is a trend after the first significant warm up to hit Beaufort that the wind direction could change and cooler air could return once more but in turn, this seems to be helping for a pool of mild air to hit into the Chuckchi Sea so if its not one thing, its another! The sea ice is in big big trouble and I think already it will be a result if we land around the 2007 mark considering just how poor the winter was for sea ice growth and just how poor this Spring has been also. 

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

I think you can say that the Greenland ice sheet will see a lot of that soot!

As for the ice ? JAXA dropped 130.5 thousand km2 yesterday as the peripheral ice took a beating. May be more to come as the heat impacting peripheral ice continues through the next few days.

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Posted
  • Location: Ireland, probably South Tipperary
  • Weather Preferences: Cold, Snow, Windstorms and Thunderstorms
  • Location: Ireland, probably South Tipperary

Yep, ADS extent now lowest on record by 369k. It's also 506k below last year and 1.03 million below 2012.

If we stopped melting entirely, it would take 9 days for another year to catch up. Remarkable.

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Posted
  • Location: Ireland, probably South Tipperary
  • Weather Preferences: Cold, Snow, Windstorms and Thunderstorms
  • Location: Ireland, probably South Tipperary

Another big drop yesterday (99k), enough to make us lowest on record by 436k. We're also 523k below last year and 1.10 million below 2012.

2012 didn't reach this level of ice until May 28th!

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Posted
  • Location: Ireland, probably South Tipperary
  • Weather Preferences: Cold, Snow, Windstorms and Thunderstorms
  • Location: Ireland, probably South Tipperary

NSIDC are now publishing their uncalibrated concentration charts using the new sensors, and Wipneus on the sea ice forum is kindly providing the numerical values.

I will update the data and stats thread over the next few days but for now, the NSIDC extent with the 5 day mean is lowest on record by just over 400k, and is 1.06 million below 2012.
it's also been lowest on record for 25 days consecutive days, and in the bottom 3 for 47 consecutive days.

eadTJEk.png

I reckon I'll have to extent the graph down below 11.5 soon...

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

Well we did go below 11.5 as BFTV had alluded to. I know it is early on in the season but the poor ice we started with and this record low level of ice inside the basin is certainly not the way to start a season if you want lots of ice come Sept?

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Posted
  • Location: Ireland, probably South Tipperary
  • Weather Preferences: Cold, Snow, Windstorms and Thunderstorms
  • Location: Ireland, probably South Tipperary
4 minutes ago, Gray-Wolf said:

Well we did go below 11.5 as BFTV had alluded to. I know it is early on in the season but the poor ice we started with and this record low level of ice inside the basin is certainly not the way to start a season if you want lots of ice come Sept?

Well, below 11.5 million with ADS extent, which continues to plummet with another near century loss yesterday.

2016 still lowest on record by 495k and 1.05 million below 2012. 2012 didn't reach this level of coverage until May 31st.

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Posted
  • Location: Morecambe
  • Location: Morecambe
1 hour ago, Gray-Wolf said:

Well we did go below 11.5 as BFTV had alluded to. I know it is early on in the season but the poor ice we started with and this record low level of ice inside the basin is certainly not the way to start a season if you want lots of ice come Sept?

And nor is the upcoming weather pattern either, very strong dipole developing in the coming days, sea ice will surely move away from the Siberian coast which will develop open water in the East Siberian sea probably for the very first time in May. 

The sea ice is in massive trouble already and those extent figures are not going to get any better. The pacfic side of the Arctic already looks doomed and we are only in May. 

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Posted
  • Location: Ireland, probably South Tipperary
  • Weather Preferences: Cold, Snow, Windstorms and Thunderstorms
  • Location: Ireland, probably South Tipperary

NSIDC extent still plummeting. The 1 day extent is now 1.27 million below 2012 and lowest on record by 590k, while the 5 day mean is 1.11 million below 2012 and lowest on record by 475k.

The 1 day extent is currently at 12.04 million. The current earliest date to drop below 12 million is May 25th, last year.

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Posted
  • Location: New Forest (Western)
  • Weather Preferences: Fascinated by extreme weather. Despise drizzle.
  • Location: New Forest (Western)

Oh Lordy, the 12z GFS has a second strong dipole to follow the first! That is a hellish run for the sea ice extent.

Im starting to get the feeling this year is determined to send us way beyond charted territory.

Or at least, this month may prove to be the May equivalent of the perfect storm?

That I'm starting to sound like GW in my musings highlights the severity of what I've been seeing and reading of late. What I mean by that is, it's rare for me to talk about sensational things like perfect storms and uncharted territory. GW mentions that sort of thing a lot more, by no means to his discredit.

Edited by Singularity
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Posted
  • Location: Ireland, probably South Tipperary
  • Weather Preferences: Cold, Snow, Windstorms and Thunderstorms
  • Location: Ireland, probably South Tipperary
2 hours ago, Singularity said:

Oh Lordy, the 12z GFS has a second strong dipole to follow the first! That is a hellish run for the sea ice extent.

Im starting to get the feeling this year is determined to send us way beyond charted territory.

Or at least, this month may prove to be the May equivalent of the perfect storm?

That I'm starting to sound like GW in my musings highlights the severity of what I've been seeing and reading of late. What I mean by that is, it's rare for me to talk about sensational things like perfect storms and uncharted territory. GW mentions that sort of thing a lot more, by no means to his discredit.

Welcome to the fearmongering, lefty, alarmist club!

The ECM has joined the GFS in going for an unrelentingly poor pattern for the sea ice, with high pressure never really leaving the Beaufort sea and a variable strength dipole throughout the run. This feeds consistently mild air into the Pacific side of the Arctic.
At the same time, we see high pressure building over western Russia, steering very mild air up over Kara and Laptev.

On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being as bad as things could realistically get for the sea ice at this time of year, we're looking at a 7 or 8 for much of the next week to 10 days.

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Posted
  • Location: Morecambe
  • Location: Morecambe
5 minutes ago, BornFromTheVoid said:

Welcome to the fearmongering, lefty, alarmist club!

The ECM has joined the GFS in going for an unrelentingly poor pattern for the sea ice, with high pressure never really leaving the Beaufort sea and a variable strength dipole throughout the run. This feeds consistently mild air into the Pacific side of the Arctic.
At the same time, we see high pressure building over western Russia, steering very mild air up over Kara and Laptev.

On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being as bad as things could realistically get for the sea ice at this time of year, we're looking at a 7 or 8 for much of the next week to 10 days.

Its probably one of the worst patterns I have seen for  mid May if I have to be perfectly honest, the pacific side of the Arctic is looking very vulnable now, the only part of the Pacific side of the Arctic which has perhaps slightly better weather would actually be Beaufort with colder air and off shore winds hitting this area after a terrible start to the melt season here. 

I'll be very surprised if by the middle part of next week, we don't have open water appearing on the Siberian coast, the winds are very strong for the time of year and its quite persistent also with mild(for the time of year) too boot. 

If there is any comparisons, it would probably be 2011 which had a strong dipole pattern but in different positions. 

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Posted
  • Location: New Forest (Western)
  • Weather Preferences: Fascinated by extreme weather. Despise drizzle.
  • Location: New Forest (Western)
3 hours ago, BornFromTheVoid said:

Welcome to the fearmongering, lefty, alarmist club!

The ECM has joined the GFS in going for an unrelentingly poor pattern for the sea ice, with high pressure never really leaving the Beaufort sea and a variable strength dipole throughout the run. This feeds consistently mild air into the Pacific side of the Arctic.
At the same time, we see high pressure building over western Russia, steering very mild air up over Kara and Laptev.

On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being as bad as things could realistically get for the sea ice at this time of year, we're looking at a 7 or 8 for much of the next week to 10 days.

Why thank you very much, BFTV :crazy:

It is somewhat eerie how the models have moved so sharply toward prolonging the 'Arctic blowtorch' setup (there I go again with the sensational terms!). Just what has fed through the system to produce these large changes starting just 5 days from now?

Accompanying the alarm - and concern for the native polar bears in particular - is an inevitable fascination over what might unfold during the next few months. With anomalous heat an moisture comes much enhanced storm potential and it seems this could be a positive feedback with respect to ice melt due to intense storms potentially setting up strong dipole situations such as we see in the current NWP modelling. Yet this need not always be the case, as the ridge/storm locations could - with any luck - be the reverse at some point. Trouble is, the area north of Greenland typically holds on to ice for the longest due to the protection on the south side under all but a southerly wind (when I imagine Foehn effects cause a lot of melt?), so I can see how that could mean that getting a storm on that side is relatively unlikely.

Let's say the Arctic became largely cloudy for much of this summer thanks to all the excess moisture. I don't suppose that would be enough to offset the impact of strong dipole patterns? I'm trying to find a straw to clutch onto here!

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Posted
  • Location: Ireland, probably South Tipperary
  • Weather Preferences: Cold, Snow, Windstorms and Thunderstorms
  • Location: Ireland, probably South Tipperary

No sign of a downgrade from this mornings models.

Meanwhile, the ADS extent sees a very large 117k drop yesterday. So we're now lowest on record by 560k, and 1.14 million below 2012.

If we lost extent at the rate of the 2007-2015 average, we'd end up just 250k above the 2012 minimum. Even following the slowest reduction of 2014 would leave us at 3rd lowest on record by September.

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Posted
  • Location: Upper Tweeddale, Scottish Borders 240m ASL
  • Location: Upper Tweeddale, Scottish Borders 240m ASL

HOORAY!  The graphs are back - cheers BFTV :D

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Posted
  • Location: Camborne
  • Location: Camborne
Quote

We’ve never seen May heat like what’s being predicted in the Arctic over the next seven days. A shot of warm airs blowing northward over Siberia that are expected to generate a warm front that takes in nearly the entire Arctic Ocean. A weather pattern that, if it emerges, will completely compromise the central region of polar cold that has traditionally driven Northern Hemisphere weather patterns.

https://robertscribbler.com/

35.png

Edited by knocker
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Posted
  • Location: Ireland, probably South Tipperary
  • Weather Preferences: Cold, Snow, Windstorms and Thunderstorms
  • Location: Ireland, probably South Tipperary

With the ADS extent: after yesterdays drop, if we followed the extent loss from now til minimum of any of the last 11 years, we'd be at least 2nd lowest on record.

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

Hi BFTV!

We've been around melt seasons since at least 07' so I'd ask if you had ever seen a melt season that tempted you into serious discussion of minimums as early as May before?

For my part I have been fully aware that a Bad summer ( like 07') was bound to return and play merry heck with the ice but then the past winter has left the pack in such an extreme state of preconditioning I really do not know what to think! Should we see a June like last year will it provide enough melt momentum to carry a low figure into Sept even without further major melt forcing?

 

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Posted
  • Location: Ireland, probably South Tipperary
  • Weather Preferences: Cold, Snow, Windstorms and Thunderstorms
  • Location: Ireland, probably South Tipperary

G'mornin GW.

Yeah, this year has been something else. The pattern over the next week is almost identical to 2007 actually, just warmer. It wasn't until June 2007 that things got really bad though, with uppers of over 15C getting pulled into Beaufort. If we see anything like that this year, the thin and mobile ice will be decimated.

Given what little is required to get this year into the bottom 2 on record, and the continually poor weather for ice retention, I really can't help but speculate about where the minimum will end up.

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

I think my take away has to be we are getting ever closer to a time that Sea ice is so impacted that weather will matter less and less as every year hits levels that would be a 'record', by todays standards, purely due to its inability to withstand all but the most ice retentive of years? When I look at Hudson Bay and watch that 2m ice melt out each year I see the type of Arctic we are approaching! 

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