Arctic Sea Ice - 2019/2020 Refreeze Season

[Singularity]

Low Euro snow cover could lead to exceptional heat transport into the Arctic basin if the weather patterns support that movement of air.

We saw that in 2007 & 2012, but who’s to say this year will see the negative summer NAO pattern with a trough situated across the UK and big northward heat advection to its east?

With this in mind, I hope CFSv2 is being too quick to develop a La Niña this year; it has a moderate event by the summer. It has a lot of HLB with that, which really hammers the sea ice - yesterday I noticed it going for a Sep extent below 4 million square km (can’t see just how low; plots I’ve seen don’t go below 4 for some reason).

The eQBO wont help matters this summer. We could do with a neutral to weakly positive ENSO state, as that shows some correspondence to a positive summer AO.

[Geordiesnow]

Been very quiet on this thread which I guess it means the Arctic has a more normal refreeze season if you can call it that. 

Extent is 12th lowest(would be nice if the extent was 12th lowest in September) after 2 days of losses but this may just be normal variation that we can get at this time of year, time will tell whether we have reached a maximum or not, maybe tomorrow's update will reveal more? 

As for the ice, clearly its been a more average winter with some regions being more below average at times but the current DMI temps are a great example how we can't always read into where that red line is as it does not always tell the full story. No doubt temperatures are a bit below normal around the pole and up towards the Beaufort sea but the ESS and Laptev are currently above normal so a huge contrast. It does seem in the next 3 days the colder temperatures should be a bit more widespread and then things start to get quite interesting...

Models have hinted quite strongly at the Basin getting quite stormy and a huge deep low could hit the Chuckchi Sea area, the low develops a ridge ahead of it which will bring very strong southerly winds into the Bering sea which no doubt will mean extent loss however we may see some compaction in the Bering Sea area. The strong southerlies are set to last only a day before they switch again as the low moves away but strong hints this could bring in another ridge in its place. Will be very interesting how the Bering sea ice reacts if this deep low occurs. Not only this, today's runs has really ramped up the Atlantic low heading into the basin into a very deep low and then the 2 lows dominate the basin with a very strong Positive AO. 

Now alot of talk has happened about the very cold stratosphere temperatures which in turned meant a strong PV over the pole and how this may benefit sea ice. Unfortunately one caveat to that is strong fram export and the upcoming set up shows very strong export which is not good for the ice. Also from the satalite images, 2020 seems to have the least fast ice across the ESS and Laptev and parts of the fast ice that is there looks broken up, what this means for the melt season is hard to speculate as it could look better in a month or two time but years with alot of fast ice like 2014 and 2018 tends to mean the ice over the ESS hangs on for longer and because there is no true high pressure forecast across the basin then the fast ice we do have could look even more broken up. 

[Gray-Wolf]

Hi Geordiesnow!

I suppose with the elevated temps we've been seeing across the Arctic trop the past 2 decades a super warm strat should not come as a surprise?

How this translates may be what we've watched over the past winter with a stable PNJ and Arctic Cold locked up in the Arctic?

Now we might be treated to a display of how this 'strong PNJ translates into 'early melt season'?

With the warmth that the lack of 'Polar Plunges' allowed across the hemisphere will we see a rapid spring warm up and so build 'A ring of Fire' around the basin Augmenting melt around coastal regions and leave the pack isolated in the central basin?

 

[Singularity]

I’ve written a blog on what the winter pattern temp pattern suggests for the upcoming melting season. The connection  is stronger than I had imagined.

Expanding on this - it appears that what goes on in N. Europe and the W. Half of N. Asia has more bearing on the sea ice minimum than what goes on across the Pacific side and Alaska.

Low Bering sea ice contributes to very low springtime sea ice but the advance of melt on the Central Arctic Basin tends to have a harder time than an advance from the Atlantic/Eurasia side. Could be to do with a greater possible influx of warmer, more saline ocean waters? 

There are ties with the snow albedo effect. Snow cover varies more across N Europe and NW Asia due to the proximity to the N Atlantic and resulting sensitivity to the AO. That being the main weather pattern feature that connects the winter temp patterns with melting season sea ice loss.

Last Winter’s Temperature Patterns Forebode Strong Arctic Sea Ice Melt - Metswift

WWW.METSWIFT.COM

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Our Head Met. demonstrates a startling connection between winter temperature patterns like we've just seen (2019-20) & strong Arctic sea ice melting seasons

 

[Gray-Wolf]

Thanks for that 'singularity'! well worth a read folks!

Late snowfall will also struggle from 'warm ground' (as we know to our peril here?) by the time the precipitation has 'chilled the ground' to accept the snow it's stopped snowing!!!!

[Geordiesnow]

That is a good read there, for me, the best conditions for winter sea ice growtj is an area of high pressure situated in the Arctic with no influx from southerly latitudes, February and March 2013 and a large part of winter 2017/18 saw that also. We have seen seen very little of that this winter and the fram export must be quite high. Also the East Siberian Sea fast ice looks the least extensive going from the satalite images and looks broken up in parts so be interesting too see what the situation is like come June time. 

Back to the hear and now, a good chance we have reached the maximum and with today(March 12th) being the start of what looks like a prolonged period of southerlies into the Bering sea we may start too see a steady decline in sea ice. It will be interesting how the Bering sea ice react to the warmer temperatures, maybe some compaction is not a bad thing as even though you lose the extent of the ice, it may in parts be harder to melt during April and delay any inroads into the Chuckchi where melt has been quick in the last 2 years especially.