Arctic Refreeze Season: 2020/21

[BornFromTheVoid]

Extent in the peripheral Arctic seas has slowed recently, dropping from 13ᵗʰ down to 6ᵗʰ lowest on record. While ice cover in the Sea of Okhotsk remains extensive (15ᵗʰ highest) Baffin Bay is down to second lowest and the Gulf of St. Lawrence is now lowest on record.

[BornFromTheVoid]

Extent in the Sea of Okhotsk has climbed to the 10th highest position for January 27th. Conversely, Baffin Bay and the Gulf of St Lawrence on the opposite side of the Arctic are 2nd lowest and lowest on record respectively.

  

The effects of the -ve NOA are quite clear on the ice cover around Eastern Canada (red is 81-10 average).

[BornFromTheVoid]

Another look at the contrasting trends in the Sea of Okhotsk (right on animation, climbed to 10th largest extent up to Jan 28th) vs Baffin Bay and the Gulf of St. Lawrence (left on animation, down to 2nd and lowest on record, respectively).

[Geordiesnow]

Well in theory the weather conditions have been and still are favourable for sea ice thickening with another ever strengthening Arctic high forecast. Early indications on the charts I have seen seems to suggest there is more fast ice in the Siberian regions this year than there was last year which should not be surprising given the contrasting winters between this year and last. Can we get quite a bit of fast ice this year like we did in 13/14 and 18? I do hope so because whilst it by no means gurantee a higher extent, it does mean it will take more energy to get rid of that Siberian ice so less dark open water as a result early on. Last year there looked like to be record low fast ice and what did develop was breaking up quite early on and the ice in general melted at a record pace as a result of continuous heat. Hopefully the Kara sea ice will start to thicken more as temperatures are very cold there and winds compacting against the Islands around there. 

I do hope the forecasts for high pressure to continue as it means less fram export and in theory a thicker Siberian ice cover. 

[Snipper]

Is this true?

Earth Loses 1.2 Trillion Tons of Ice Per Year, a Nearly 60% Increase From 1994

APPLE.NEWS

---

A pair of studies paint a worrying picture of accelerating ice loss around the world, with serious consequences for projections of sea level rise

 

[BornFromTheVoid]

13 hours ago, Snipper said:

Is this true?

Earth Loses 1.2 Trillion Tons of Ice Per Year, a Nearly 60% Increase From 1994

APPLE.NEWS

---

A pair of studies paint a worrying picture of accelerating ice loss around the world, with serious consequences for projections of sea level rise

 

Yep, was posted in the new research section a few days back. The values comes from all forms of ice, so ice sheets, glaciers, sea ice, etc. 
Comes from a recently published study out of (primarily) Leeds uni.

[Snipper]

26 minutes ago, BornFromTheVoid said:

Yep, was posted in the new research section a few days back. The values comes from all forms of ice, so ice sheets, glaciers, sea ice, etc. 
Comes from a recently published study out of (primarily) Leeds uni.

The scary story continues. 

[cheeky_monkey]

On 30/01/2021 at 02:27, BornFromTheVoid said:

Yep, was posted in the new research section a few days back. The values comes from all forms of ice, so ice sheets, glaciers, sea ice, etc. 
Comes from a recently published study out of (primarily) Leeds uni.

Is that net loss each year? ..or the loss of ice has increased in the summers of the Arctic and Antarctic of which most is regained over the winter? wasn't clear in the article 

[BornFromTheVoid]

57 minutes ago, cheeky_monkey said:

Is that net loss each year? ..or the loss of ice has increased in the summers of the Arctic and Antarctic of which most is regained over the winter? wasn't clear in the article 

It's the change in ice mass from all sources, between 1994 and 2017, divided by the number of years. So the cumulative net change. Some years sea ice will experience a net increase, some years a decrease. But overall, all sources have lost mass over that time, aside from Antarctic sea ice which has largely maintained its mass
The animation shows it well

 

[BornFromTheVoid]

Volume is currently 3rd lowest on record, but it's essentially tied with 2013 and 2018 for 2nd lowest. 2017 has a large gap at the bottom of the rankings.
The Russian Arctic coastline is doing quite well, but at the expense of the central Arctic basin, which is now lowest on record.

  

[stewfox]

On 29/01/2021 at 19:46, Snipper said:

Is this true?

Earth Loses 1.2 Trillion Tons of Ice Per Year, a Nearly 60% Increase From 1994

APPLE.NEWS

---

A pair of studies paint a worrying picture of accelerating ice loss around the world, with serious consequences for projections of sea level rise

 

Its like saying  you have 100% increase chance of winning the lottery, statistically true but still close to 0 chance. The wonders of stats. total volume of the Antarctic ice is 30 million km3. Someone had fun calculating that this is equivalent to 9×1016 ice cubes. In terms of tons , thats 26,500,000 giga tons. One gigs ton = to 1,000,000 tons . So 26,500,000,000,000 tons of ice in Antarctica.  Ice loss 1,200,000,000 tons. so 0.00004 percent lost of Antartica ice or say 0.000035 of all ice.

So since 1994 we have lost 0.000035% of all ice !!!

 

[BornFromTheVoid]

38 minutes ago, stewfox said:

Its like saying  you have 100% increase chance of winning the lottery, statistically true but still close to 0 chance. The wonders of stats. total volume of the Antarctic ice is 30 million km3. Someone had fun calculating that this is equivalent to 9×1016 ice cubes. In terms of tons , thats 26,500,000 giga tons. One gigs ton = to 1,000,000 tons . So 26,500,000,000,000 tons of ice in Antarctica.  Ice loss 1,200,000,000 tons. so 0.00004 percent lost of Antartica ice or say 0.000035 of all ice.

So since 1994 we have lost 0.000035% of all ice !!!

 

Not quite, seems to be off by several orders of magnitude.
1 gigatonne (1 billion tonnes) is equal to 1 cubic km of ice. Try work on the calculations from there!

[Geordiesnow]

On 04/02/2021 at 12:39, BornFromTheVoid said:

Volume is currently 3rd lowest on record, but it's essentially tied with 2013 and 2018 for 2nd lowest. 2017 has a large gap at the bottom of the rankings.
The Russian Arctic coastline is doing quite well, but at the expense of the central Arctic basin, which is now lowest on record.

  

At least the good news would seem the Siberian ice will be thicker this year than last year so fingers crossed we don't see what we saw last year. Even as early as May last year, the state of the ice there suggested trouble ahead and sure enough that was the case. 

The CAB is more worrying, if ice remains that thin going into the melt season then I would not want a total dominating low pressure type summer otherwise we could end up with very diffused ice by September. 

Weather patterns has been favourable recently but whilst high pressure is set to remain, its forecast to head towards the Beaufort and a dipole developing so not something we want too see especially in the summer! 

[stewfox]

3 hours ago, BornFromTheVoid said:

Not quite, seems to be off by several orders of magnitude.
1 gigatonne (1 billion tonnes) is equal to 1 cubic km of ice. Try work on the calculations from there!

 

Aware of that data source, calcs appear correct happy to be corrected 

Antarctic ice sheet - Wikipedia

EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

 

[stewfox]

3 hours ago, BornFromTheVoid said:

Not quite, seems to be off by several orders of magnitude.
1 gigatonne (1 billion tonnes) is equal to 1 cubic km of ice. Try work on the calculations from there!

 

Apologues  So since 1994 we have lost 0.000000035% of all ice !!! so nothing or are clacs incorrect ?

[BornFromTheVoid]

13 hours ago, stewfox said:

 

Apologues  So since 1994 we have lost 0.000000035% of all ice !!! so nothing or are clacs incorrect ?

Not quite, but regardless, a small fraction of something incredibly large can still be a massive amount and still matters!

Anyway, Antarctic mass loss since 1992 is about 3,000 gigatonnes, while Antarctica has about 30 million gigatonnes of ice sheet.  As a percentage, that's 0.01%.
The annual rate of loss had quadrupled since from the 1990s to 2000s, so 2/3 of that total loss has happened in the last 10 years
Greenland has little less than 10% of Antarctica's volume but is losing ice even faster, so it's dropping roughly 0.01% per year currently having increased loss 7 times since the 90s.

[Methuselah]

I wonder whether, in the not-too-distant future (when there's no sea-ice left at all) some folks will still be in a state of denial? Or will 'Don't worry, there was never any ice there, in the first place' be the refrain?

Edited February 6, 2021 by General Cluster

[Gray-Wolf]

21 hours ago, stewfox said:

 

Apologues  So since 1994 we have lost 0.000000035% of all ice !!! so nothing or are calcs incorrect ?

I think you need remember that the first ice lost is cork in a very large bottle of bubbly?

It may need the blunt tool of 'temperature' alone to melt it/remove it but once it's gone? 

But the vast majority of the next phase of losses will be gravity driven and not need temp's help at all?

Though 'small', as a percentage of the total mass of contents , that there cork needs be removed before the real action can begin?

As we advance in our understanding of 'glaciation/de-glaciation' I've met with some head slapping realisations about just how rapidly an ice sheet can destabilize/disappear?

Just remove those corks eh?

 

Edited February 6, 2021 by Gray-Wolf

[Singularity]

Seen it reported that the net circulation this winter has been the reverse of last; anticyclonic instead of cyclonic. Makes sense given the predominantly negative AO this winter, positive last.

This circulation seems to be aiding a stronger Siberian side but at some expense to the Pacific side which would be left weak, were it not for imports from the CAB.

...but that’s left the CAB looking awfully fragile. Another opposite to last year!

So barring a dramatic pattern switch, it looks like the 2021 melting season will have very different starting ice configuration for the weather patterns to act on.

Speaking of pattern switch - without one by late April, snow depth on the ice will probably be considerably lacking.

Low snow cover aids thickening of ice in the freezing season but means less protection in the melting season. 

If a very cyclonic period were to occur within the next few months, that could give the best of both worlds; low snow cover in winter then average of above to start the freezing season. What a bonus that would be!

[Geordiesnow]

How much does snowcover protects the ice in anycase. People mention 2017 but that was a chilly summer and the ice did look pretty diffused by then. I think what might be more important is how cold the ice is as proper stone cold ice will be more resilient to melt than 'warmer' ice and given the amount of high pressure we have seen, I imagine the ice will be colder than it was then. 

The pole area is concerning though, still a bit more time left to thicken but if it remains thin, I actually think low pressure could be worse for the ice than high pressure.

The Siberian side being thicker should mean the ice should not look in the state it did in May 2020 where it looked in big trouble. We could end up with a melt season similar to 2018 but perhaps thicker ice in the Beaufort due to the multi year ice. Still don't want too see much in the way of a dipole weather pattern mind. 

[BornFromTheVoid]

Slow animation for the last week. Barents and Bering seeing good growth, opposite for Okhotsk and Baffin Bay. The opening at the exit of the Nares Strait is interesting.

[BornFromTheVoid]

The combined Baffin Bay and Gulf of St Lawrence extent is now the lowest on record for Feb 14th.

[BornFromTheVoid]

A comparison of the current extent with the previous maxima. Currently above four of the annual maxima (2015-2018) and within 250,000 km2 of another three years, 2006, 2007 and 2011.

[BornFromTheVoid]

A huge loss of ice cover in the Sea of Okhotsk in the last 2 days, due to a massive storm in the region.
The animation below shows the slow variability in the 10 days leading up to the storm, then the rapid sea ice decline

[BornFromTheVoid]

An update on the sea ice losses in Okhotsk, which continued yesterday.