Arctic Sea ice the refreeze 2017/18

[Gray-Wolf]

Well that is both JAXA and NSIDC measures for extent finishing the year on a record low and not breaking through the 12 million mark.

Worrying.

[Geordiesnow]

On 12/31/2017 at 13:16, Gray-Wolf said:

Well that is both JAXA and NSIDC measures for extent finishing the year on a record low and not breaking through the 12 million mark.

Worrying.

Perhaps but I be more interested too see if the stall we have seen in extent during December has an impact on the volume figures as we are now at the stage where virtually all the basin is ice covered and now any extent gains will be in the peripheral seas. We had that very warm spell during the middle part of December so I am anticipating the volume will be closer to 2016 but we shall see.

My main worry is the pacific side of the Arctic, all that ice on the pacific side in Beaufort towards Bering looks very thin too me as air temps are way above average and continues to be the case for the foreseeable future.

[knocker]

 

[knocker]

PIOMAS January 2018

http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2018/01/piomas-january-2018.html

[knocker]

 

[knocker]

https://ads.nipr.ac.jp/vishop/#/extent/&time=2018-01-19 00:00:00

[Tracy Flick]

 

[Don]

8 minutes ago, meh said:

 

Oh dear oh dear.......

[knocker]

 

[Geordiesnow]

Its the recent trend of low extent in both the Atlantic and Pacific sectors of the Arctic and I can't see that changing anytime soon either as a huge southerly blast is forecast to hit the Atlantic side of the Arctic and there is the potential of a deep Arctic storm also.

Last year the PV was disrupted but this year, the PV seems even more disrupted, bar a few days here and there, I don't think there has been many time where the whole of the Arctic has been below -20hpa which is extraordinary really. 

Extent whilst concerning is not the be all and end all but less ice tends to lead to less ice and the lack of ice over the bering sea will no doubt have an affect and I suspect a very early opening of the bering stright is likely unless weather patterns favour ice.

The same goes for the kara sea, it grew here quickly during Autumn but stalled massively during winter, unless things change then an early retreat here is also possible and ice over Beaufort is nit thick either so an early opening could occur here also. Ice extent during May could actually be below 2016 and that was alarming in itself! 

[Gray-Wolf]

On our side of the basin we did well out of the WACCy snow over western Siberia in oct 2016 helping keep ice over the summer of 2017. We saw no such anomalous snow this autumn so we should expect there to be no 'helping hand' for our side come melt season this year?

Having open water in the peripheries of the basin impacts the ice withing the basin.

Since 2000 Barentsz/Kara had seen ice cover over winter dwindling, Since 2010 the Pacific side has joined in on this trend. This means early open water around the fringes of the basin come melt season and these water warm and form 'hostile regions' where good ice is drifted into and melts ( Beaufort gyre/Trans Arctic Drift).

We will see Bering straights open early this spring and the coastal ice break up and melt. On our side we will see ice drift into Barantsz/Greenland and also melt out. this will allow movement in the inner pack and further break up of the ice there and so easier transport into hostile regions.

The rest is down to the weather. We have not seen a 'good for melt/season' season in a decade. Does such a weather season no longer exist in the basin any more? Does open water lead to higher humidity and so a cloudier/foggier basin?

[Singularity]

Getting a nasty hunch that while 2016 was the Atlantic focused melt season, and 2017 the Pacific focused melt season, the preconditioning this year leans toward it being the Atlantic and Pacific not-focused melt season.

To soon to really be fearful of that I know but the influxes of warmer, saltier water through Bering etc. while the Atlantic side comes under multiple assaults from warm, moist air advection is looking likely to continue for the most part as far as the eye can see due to the alignment of the upcoming SSW and resultant daughter vortex positioning so the worry is growing stronger.

[Gray-Wolf]

I'm agreeing with you Singularity!

The noughties saw our side of the basin become seasonal and the teens has seen the Pacific side doing similar. The Geography of both Ocean entrances are different but the propensity to see melt out is now the same.

Last summer I feel the WACCy snowfall of the previous October ( in W.Siberia) helped slow the melt on our side of the basin? This year we do not have that established cold and snow cover to help us out so I feel we will be back to the high melt scenario in Barentsz/Kara/Greenland Sea?

We are now becoming used to a half empty Beaufort by sea ice min.

Any aggressive melt season will eat back from both entrances leaving only the central ice. With the denatured , young pack this central ice id far from safe as it fragments and drifts through the melt season. The ice free waters now become hostile places for the ice so any drifted out into it will rapidly melt.

Any low pressures roaming the basin will tumble and further break up the ice before the wind fields spread it out into the warmed open water.

We have been very fortunate since 2012 with ice levels not too different from one another ( compared to the 07' drop or volume drop of 2010 or all measure drop in 2012?) but we are now running into another low solar period and our last wrack of losses occurred over the last solar Min? Will we see the same again this min solar?

[knocker]

Global sea ice has made a new record low

[Gray-Wolf]

6 hours ago, knocker said:

Global sea ice has made a new record low

Had we seen this ten years ago folk would have been all over it but not today!

Folk are becoming so used to 'record this' and 'record that' that until we see damage they are not interested?

Look at the noise deniers used to make over the record highs of Antarctic Sea level 5 years ago?

Surely this is far more troubling than that and , with only a few days to global min, we will set another record low even though last years was such a departure from the average!

I do think that science is now accepting that we are back into an acceleration of warming around the globe?

Why should this worry us? Well it took us 100yrs to raise temps by 1c.

MetO are now warning us that by 2022 we will be seeing years regularly breaking 1.5C above pre-industrial so 10 years of warming gives us 50% the value that took 100yrs to amass!

Back in the day I used to use a super tanker to explain climate change. The tanker is now moving so all the energy used in getting it going can now just go into warming?

As Global Sea ice is showing , responses to this warming are now also increasing.

[knocker]

 

[Geordiesnow]

As can be seen from that graph, extent across the Bering sea is getting serious now and could play a major part in the melt season as the nearby bering straight is breaking up now also and with the upcoming weather patterns of warm southerly winds then things could get ugly indeed.

Low extent across the Atlantic tends to be less of a concern as the retreat edge does not really change during the course of the melt season but we are entering unprecedented terrotory and with the Beaufort looking thin then extent figures on the Pacific side of the Arctic could look ugly indeed.

Sadly the suppose thicker ice on the Siberian side of the Arctic will count for little as the Laptev bite will form and starting eating into the ice there but this is the Arctic and things don't always go how you think they do like my prediction last year of the possibilty of an ice free North Pole! 

The only hope I got for the Bering region is as the landmass  warm up, the PV will retreat back to the Arctic basin and if weather patterns are favourable then we could see some delay in melt in this region. 

[Gray-Wolf]

Forecasts have a train of storms through Bering so there appears little chance of seeing ice reform before the first warmth of spring is onto the region?

Then we have our side of the basin and another year with Svalbard clear of the ice with nasty SST's and Salinity as the open water allows storms to mix out any layering that used to be there and let the North Atlantic waters rule the roost.

Then there is the fact that the last three years which broke records were all in the run down, bottom out and slow recovery from solar min......

We are in the run down to solar min.

Were 2007, 2010, 2012 all mere flukes due to the long term decline in basin ice ( 70% of volume lost since the 50's) or does solar min , and the High pressures it appears to augment in the far north, play a role?

Every year since 2012 has seen 'average' weather over melt season involving cloudy/cool conditions but no high melt ponding in the first phase of the melt season?

If low solar leads to 'blocking' then maybe we will see a residual of this leak over into the early melt season bringing clear skies and high melt potential? 

Also , is the 10 to 20 year 'repeat' of 'perfect melt storm' years tied to the low end of the solar cycle in some way?

 

 

[Gray-Wolf]

A little 'thought exercise' for folks.

With the SSW ongoing folk are hoping it drives certain responses.

How big is the SWW?

What is its duration?

Compared to its size how big will its impacts be on the N. Hemisphere?

For how long?

Now look at the size of the Arctic Ocean compared to the SSW and have it pumping warmth into the trop above for over 2 months.

How big an impact would this drive?

Over what area and for what duration?

Welcome to a blue ocean event!!!

[Geordiesnow]

Looks like after constant southerly winds from the Pacific,  things are set to cool down somewhat in the bering straight but perhaps not the bering sea itself but what we are seeing there at the moment is unprecedented and we should not see open water in the bering straightuntil at least May, we got huge amount of open water right now, will the upcoming change of wind direction make much difference? 

Unlike a region like the kara sea for example this early melting could have major implications on the sea ice in the basin itself, it really is one to watch and see and hope it can recover between now and until the end of the melt season. 

 

[Gray-Wolf]

Thanks to the ASIF and Uni Hamburg for the above view of Greenland from Feb 1st thru 23rd. The lift off of ice there which , according to Nullschool 2m temps, have seen above zero temps over the open water revealed.

This is on top of the retreat of ice over Bering we saw recently and the forecast pulse above above Zero temps flowing in from Fram , across the pole and into Chukchi!!!

I thought the Feb 'crackopalypse' events were troubling enough but this is just madness!!!

[knocker]

Talk about unprecedented

Quote

In the preceding post on Global sea ice minimum records getting broken for the third year in a row, I mentioned how the situation on the Pacific side of the Arctic was quite unprecedented, with the sea ice graph for the Bering Sea showing a sharp downturn (and even a small one for the Chukchi Sea). Well, there's an equally unprecedented event taking place on the Atlantic side of the Arctic as well. Yesterday, Prof. Dr. Lars Kaleschke from the University Hamburg tweeted out the following:

http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2018/02/talk-about-unprecedented.html

[stewfox]

On 13/02/2018 at 15:21, Gray-Wolf said:

Had we seen this ten years ago folk would have been all over it but not today!

Folk are becoming so used to 'record this' and 'record that' that until we see damage they are not interested?

Look at the noise deniers used to make over the record highs of Antarctic Sea level 5 years ago?

Surely this is far more troubling than that and , with only a few days to global min, we will set another record low even though last years was such a departure from the average!

 

I think your right GW the word 'record' as i have said before is so over used on such short time spans people do turn off

Record Antarctica sea ice levels one a year and a  few years later record lows. Record low arctic ice extent etc 

Maybe discussions on  'impact' should be the focus. Another 'record' for warmth so early on DMI 80N Arctic (records since 1958)

 

Edited February 26, 2018 by stewfox

[Geordiesnow]

Guess the good news for the ice is that the AO looks to be going positive so alot more deep cold widely in the basin, for how long though  who knows.

I suspect the large gap between svalbard and the ice edge will close up but I have never seen an Arctic ice concentration map with so much red on it, would not bode well for the coming melt season surely? 

The area to watch during Spring is surely the bering stright, just how early will it open up this year and what impacts that will have.

[Gray-Wolf]

If you look at the temp and salinity of those waters G.S. you might see that any ice headed that way will begin to melt. With the sun now rising over Svalbard we might also expect 'normal' melt season to begin over the coming weeks.

My worry is low solar?

If we are to see a propensity toward northern blocking then will we see a sunny start to melt season?