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Arctic Sea Ice Melt Season 2021


BornFromTheVoid

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

The maximum has passed and the melt season is beginning. Will we see a repeat of last years Arctic heatwaves and rapid melt or a cooler, cloudy summer promoting a slight rebound?
Continue the discussion here!

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

Daily NSIDC extent is down 323k in the last 3 days, so it seems the melt season is well underway!

21min24Combo.thumb.png.021b305db4fd9909897f7f316b98408f.png

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Posted
  • Location: Morecambe
  • Location: Morecambe

Will it be deja vu to last year where we saw quite a bit of ice loss in the final 2 weeks of March. Apart from Baffin Bay, on the outer edges, it does look a little bit above average especially in the Barants sea. 

On the other hand, the main basin itself has been average to below average in parts and that is set to continue for the next few days at least, hints the PV may start to wobble a bit but in general, despite a positive AO tend to increase fram export, I think this March should be more positive for the ice volume but we shall see if that is the case when the figures come in. 

Also it must be noted, Siberian ice is much thicker this year due to high pressure being more dominant than last winter, much more fast ice so its far less likely we will see the rapid retreat that we saw in those regions like we did last year. 

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

Slow animation for the last week.

M27LQAnim.thumb.gif.aa5e2872dc23013f846628906fc5bbce.gif

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Posted
  • Location: Morecambe
  • Location: Morecambe

Potential is showing in the output of quite a major fram export event via a Greenland high. Still way in the medium term and subject to change but one to watch. Usually I probably would not want too see such an event come off but if it increases the chances of the UK to get quite a potant northerly then so be it as cold air over land at this time of year can lead to exciting convective weather(aslong as it sets up right and the centre of the low is not too close which means the fishes in the Atlantic gets the cold instead).

Apart from that potential, fairly quiet weather in the basin, quite cold also with temperatures slightly below average. We are starting too see the impacts of increasing daylight though when looking at the 2M temperatures with temperatures going up by 10C or so during the daytime. I also think the models underestimate the daytime warming so in the longer term, the temperatures are not likely to be as cold as shown even if the set up remains broadly similar. Kind of opposite affect to Autumn where in the longer term, temperatures stay too warm because the models are not forecasting refreeze and would assume a certain area would stay ice free. 

Word on snowcover also and its quite low at the moment however I like to think the below average conditions of the last 2 months over Siberia means the snow cover at the higher latitudes will be more reluctant to melt away. I guess what the snowcover is like in May is more important than it is now but will be interesting too see the progress. 

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Posted
  • Location: Morecambe
  • Location: Morecambe

To try and get some debate going in this thread, I'm just wondering what people's reasonings behind there predictions for this year sea ice minimum. 

My prediction for this year minimum is between 4.25 and 4.5 square miles, I think the winter season has been decent for refreeze and thickening but there is an awful lot of first year ice around after last years very low minimum. This year does remind me of 2018 with thicker ice in the Siberian regions but low ice amounts along the Atlantic front. I reckon like 2018, ice will be slow to melt in the Kara sea where it compacted against the Russian island. 

I do think we will finish below 2018 because there is less multi year ice than then but on the flip side, ice is more extensive in the Bering sea and may mean a slower melt in the Chukchi sea than then and the indications are the Beaufort sea is thicker this year than then thanks to cold temperatures and multi year ice in this region but will the weather be as favourable as it was then during the summer.

I also think the Atlantic side needs watching, this is the one area which has struggled to gain thickness and its kind of showing all ready. Temperatures here are set to be slightly above average so it could be difficult too see much extent increase and ice thickening. Get quite a few reverse dipoles and then that ice edge could well reach 85 degrees north again. 

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Posted
  • Location: Solihull, West Midlands. - 131 m asl
  • Weather Preferences: Sun, Snow and Storms
  • Location: Solihull, West Midlands. - 131 m asl

Geordie...I am accepting your offer...

 Hope BFTV doesn't mind...

I opted for the same range as yourself, and I am ashamed to admit for similar reasons.

Only a couple of points to make

1) It is also possible that we could end up with quite a bit more ice this summer, if the weather conditions that you admit above do mainly affect the ice,  turn into positive weather (Ie flat low pressure systems over the Arctic).  I do not disagree that the 'weather' will dictate the outcome this year. 

2) I do wonder (given the large amounts of ice created in the Arctic since end of Oct last year - nearly 10% above the average for the last decade) whether this is connected with the ENSO, which  has been negative for about 6 months now, and is now forecast to only slowly modify out.

I think this my well be  a factor as the evidence of the Antarctic is also showing an increase of about 20% for the first few weeks of the refreeze season down there. 

It probably has the effect of deceasing slightly the Sea temperatures overlarge areas, and this would only show up at either pole..

MIA

Edited by Midlands Ice Age
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Posted
  • Location: Edmonton Alberta(via Chelmsford, Exeter & Calgary)
  • Weather Preferences: Sunshine and 15-25c
  • Location: Edmonton Alberta(via Chelmsford, Exeter & Calgary)

i went for 4.75-5.0 for this year..purley based on the Canadian side following the trend of colder than average temps of the last six months carrying on through the spring into summer.. Bearing sea ice seems thicker and more extensive this year which will shield Chucki somewhat from an early melt this also seems to have thicker ice than in previous years..there also seems to be lots of multi year ice hanging around the Canadian arctic as well  which will remain if a cooler summer prevails.

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Posted
  • Location: Morecambe
  • Location: Morecambe
6 hours ago, Midlands Ice Age said:

2) I do wonder (given the large amounts of ice created in the Arctic since end of Oct last year - nearly 10% above the average for the last decade) whether this is connected with the ENSO, which  has been negative for about 6 months now, and is now forecast to only slowly modify out.

I think this my well be  a factor as the evidence of the Antarctic is also showing an increase of about 20% for the first few weeks of the refreeze season down there. 

It probably has the effect of deceasing slightly the Sea temperatures overlarge areas, and this would only show up at either pole..

MIA

Stuff like the ENSO is well out of my league but I'm sure we are in a La Nina now which does promote cooler temperatures so that may of had an impact also? There certainly has been more blue in the polar regions in the last few months and whilst a large part of that is down to the SSW, we have not seen so far the ridiculas temperatures anaomolies over the basin that we have seen in previous years. 

2 hours ago, cheeky_monkey said:

i went for 4.75-5.0 for this year..purley based on the Canadian side following the trend of colder than average temps of the last six months carrying on through the spring into summer.. Bearing sea ice seems thicker and more extensive this year which will shield Chucki somewhat from an early melt this also seems to have thicker ice than in previous years..there also seems to be lots of multi year ice hanging around the Canadian arctic as well  which will remain if a cooler summer prevails.

Maybe I'm wrong but I'm sure I saw charts showing Arctic Canada being more warmer than normal, certainly around Greenland and Hudson Bay, the charts had above average anaomolies on them. Although whilst not classed as Arctic Canada, Alaska has been colder than normal more times than not. 

The Bering ice certainly looks more compact so like last year, we may get a slower melt here. Has been a right old mix of northerlies and southerlies in this area in recent weeks as low pressure systems coming from the Pacific move over the Bering. 

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

I've got a little blog piece that will hopefully be appearing here soon where I take a look at some of the important factors that influence melt season ice loss (both the starting factors and those that occur during the melt season). As a little hint, I'll add one image here from it, which is a simple linear extrapolation of the long term trendline to 2021.
Once the blog is out, it should show most of the reasoning behind my own guess.

Image8_SeaIceMinima.thumb.png.b9e12855008d41beb19d2d6237d50bfd.png

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

March overall was the 9th lowest extent on record, according to the NSIDC. Below is an animation showing the extent for each March and its corresponding spatial destruction.

MarchMonthAnimLQ.thumb.gif.80887390b69d4d1e16cd09b6e5c00717.gif

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

March overall was the 9th lowest extent on record, according to the NSIDC. Below is an animation showing the extent for each March and its corresponding spatial destruction.

MarchMonthAnimLQ.thumb.gif.80887390b69d4d1e16cd09b6e5c00717.gif

I wonder what has caused the Greenland sea to lose that extra bit of ice that grows towards the Norwegian sea. It seemed to stopped during the 2000s and has not happened since.

Back to the hear and now and perhaps the first test for the sea ice coming up in around 4-5 days as our much talked cold trough looks like it will have an impact on the weather on the Atlantic side of the basin as the low is forecast to perhaps deepen and smash right into the Barants sea and bringing above average temperatures towards the Kara sea. The Barants sea ice looks really thin this year so an early melt out looks likely regardless what the weather does but if this does come off, the process could be alot quicker? 

Conversely, the Chukchi and Beaufort seas are going to be well below average and the weather on the Pacific side looking quite uneventful, hopefully below average conditions can continue during May. 

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

Slow animation for the last week. Seems like might see a switch in the main areas of loss next week, as things look set to warm up a lot across the Atlantic side

AnimationA3LQ.thumb.gif.9546e231f0da261b52f242907a027906.gif

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

Latest PIOMAS  volume is out to the end of March.
2021 is 6th lowest on record, above 2011, 2016 2017, 2018 and 2019. It's also:
8,000 km³ below 1980s
6,700 km³ below 1990s
3,300 km³ below 2000s
100 km³ below the 2010s average

EndMarchAll.thumb.png.490ca066c7a9e6ba9d2712d5f097787d.png

Regionally, volume continues to do well along the Russian Arctic coastline, 5th most volume since 2000.
For the central Arctic, 2021 has dropped back to 2nd lowest on record.

EndMarchSiberianSeas.thumb.png.4ba32e5fbbc79b743f598a3ad9e1125d.png EndMarch_CAB.thumb.png.d13523af7788690b511899b0a0b9498e.png

Here are all the regional comparisons, for 2021, 2020 and the 3 lowest years.

EndMarch_Regional.thumb.png.a88f686e2b2533398dd45650ceaff723.png

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Posted
  • Location: on a canal , probably near Northampton...
  • Weather Preferences: extremes n snow
  • Location: on a canal , probably near Northampton...

Doesnt quite fit in this thread but I will post it anyway as some interesting pictures.

1379471499250311169.jpg
THREADREADERAPP.COM

Thread by @NASA_ICE: These images may look otherworldly, but they don’t show icy exoplanets. These gorgeous photos of Earth’s polar ice come from NASA's Operation #IceBridge—and...

 

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

The Atlantic sector of the Arctic showing lots of sea ice dynamics this last week. Loads of ice being exported through the Fram Strait. Melting and movement of ice in the Barents sea and a sudden massive opening north of Franz Joseph Land under recent southerly winds.

FJLAnim.thumb.gif.70713cfc2966b80cebe0a0e93dfea7e6.gif

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

The Atlantic sector of the Arctic showing lots of sea ice dynamics this last week. Loads of ice being exported through the Fram Strait. Melting and movement of ice in the Barents sea and a sudden massive opening north of Franz Joseph Land under recent southerly winds.

FJLAnim.thumb.gif.70713cfc2966b80cebe0a0e93dfea7e6.gif

Pretty dramatic stuff, does look like some melting going on but it's always a catch 22 in these situations, of course pushing the ice further northwards will compact it but more and more open water gets left behind and there is the concern of the ice on the Atlantic side being thinner than normal so atlantification could be quite extreme this year. Early days of course though. 

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

Here's the slow animation for the week.

AnimApr10LQ.thumb.gif.42763ae682e6f2a755deb7050ab88fc8.gif

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

With open water north of both Svalbard & Franz Joseph Land, the 5 day running sea ice extent is now lowest on record for the central Arctic. As winds shift, it's likely that this will change, but it also highlights how unusual large areas of open water this far north are atm.

CAB_4_11.thumb.png.2f47477d762fc1621a09bca0d9e0bcb6.png 

Apr11Extent.thumb.jpg.e96fd0630a9df54cdb3be3a594753a29.jpg

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Posted
  • Location: Morecambe
  • Location: Morecambe
On 12/04/2021 at 15:18, BornFromTheVoid said:

With open water north of both Svalbard & Franz Joseph Land, the 5 day running sea ice extent is now lowest on record for the central Arctic. As winds shift, it's likely that this will change, but it also highlights how unusual large areas of open water this far north are atm.

CAB_4_11.thumb.png.2f47477d762fc1621a09bca0d9e0bcb6.png 

Apr11Extent.thumb.jpg.e96fd0630a9df54cdb3be3a594753a29.jpg

It is unusual but holes do tend to develop there when the winds come from the Atlantic. In fact if the winds persistently come from the North, a polyna tends to develop to the south of those islands even in colder temperatures but I think what happened here is a combination of thin ice(as the Barants sea did not get too much northerly winds this winter) and a strong storm. Winds may drift the ice back southwards again but l think this could be more worse long term but a short term gain in extent perhaps. 

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Posted
  • Location: Ireland, probably South Tipperary
  • Weather Preferences: Cold, Snow, Windstorms and Thunderstorms
  • Location: Ireland, probably South Tipperary
14 minutes ago, Geordiesnow said:

It is unusual but holes do tend to develop there when the winds come from the Atlantic. In fact if the winds persistently come from the North, a polyna tends to develop to the south of those islands even in colder temperatures but I think what happened here is a combination of thin ice(as the Barants sea did not get too much northerly winds this winter) and a strong storm. Winds may drift the ice back southwards again but l think this could be more worse long term but a short term gain in extent perhaps. 

They do occur (2006 was the closest to this year) but they've never been quite this big in early April before. Agreed though, winds are shifting at the moment so it's likely to close up again.
Something else interesting, is that the Central Arctic hasn't yet fully frozen over this year. This has happened only twice before up to this point, in 2018 and 2016.

Anywho, on a separate note, different things going on around the Arctic.

On the Pacific side, ice melt in the Sea of Okhotsk is slower than normal, with the current the rank rising from 16th to 21st lowest in the last 7 days. The Bering Sea has even increased ice cover, going from 8th to 12th lowest.

SoO_4_12.thumb.png.e9e1db98902aa42a8d40f0f6dce25d26.png BerS_4_12.thumb.png.582fca5099125b8372077dbdece06ef2.png

Meanwhile, on the Atlantic side, sea ice cover in the Barents sea is plummeting, going from 10th to 4th lowest in 7 days. Melt in the Kara Sea has started early too, going from fully frozen to 4th lowest extent.

BarS_4_12.thumb.png.31c40cc03c053f375a60b99663bbf0c5.png KarS_4_12.thumb.png.fd4543a19472d18745a7ee55de7eea36.png

Finally, extent in the Central Arctic continues to drop, remaining lowest on record for the time of year & the lowest ever recorded in the first half of April.  Overall were 5th lowest on the 5 day average too, and essentially joint 2nd lowest (with 2020 and 2018) in the single day extent values.
CAB_4_12.thumb.png.7c5e60b433438f6fc91dc9898ec8a9c7.png

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

Here's the blog post mentioned earlier where I take a look at the upcoming melt season.

arctic-ice.jpeg
WWW.NETWEATHER.TV

Samual Hayes explores the trends and the main influencing factors as the Arctic Sea Ice Melt season for 2021 gets underway.

Obviously it's a little shortened and leaves out some features (such as the uncertainty in volume derived from models vs observations which may be very important this year) but as an basic overview it's hopefully ok.

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Posted
  • Location: Morecambe
  • Location: Morecambe

Interesting read, it certainly is going to be yet another interesting melt season and the weather has been interesting and continues to be. The 2nd half of April looks like it will be  a complete and utter contrast to the first half of April and most of March on the Pacific side with way above average temperatures. Temperatures are forecast to reach the freezing point quite widely across the Chukchi sea in particular, I don't think we will see melt ponds as I imagine the temperatures reaching that point will be fairly brief and temperatures will drop below freezing at night time but too me, this seems exceptionally early seeing these type of temperatures and with a Alaskan ridge developing, snowcover will probably reduce quite rapidly too. 

It's such ashame we have seemingly lost the charts from recent years over the Northern hemisphere for good from meteociel. It really does look like temperatures across the Pacific side are perhaps unprecedently high? I'm pretty sure it's usually see mid May before we start seeing temperatures reaching the freezing point. 

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Posted
  • Location: Lincoln, Lincolnshire
  • Weather Preferences: Sunshine, convective precipitation, snow, thunderstorms, "episodic" months.
  • Location: Lincoln, Lincolnshire
21 hours ago, Geordiesnow said:

It's such ashame we have seemingly lost the charts from recent years over the Northern hemisphere for good from meteociel. 

Yes, I think the best we can get now is probably the "GFS analyse" from Wetterzentrale (WZ's archive for the 20th century reanalysis only goes to 2015).

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Posted
  • Location: Morecambe
  • Location: Morecambe
On 15/04/2021 at 21:28, Thundery wintry showers said:

Yes, I think the best we can get now is probably the "GFS analyse" from Wetterzentrale (WZ's archive for the 20th century reanalysis only goes to 2015).

Where you get those TWS? The only historic charts I get is from wetterzentrale but not a northern hemisphere point of view. If you got a link that will be great. 

As for the weather, it does seem after this brief dipole, its mostly low pressure dominated weather with a strong low potentially for the Beaufort sea. The way its positioned means we should not see the repeats of 2016/19 where winds created huge areas of open water(but perhaps compacting more of the CAB ice?), at least in the short to medium term. Temperature do get around the freezing point in the short term but I think its far too early for meltponds and any snow melt on the ice will refreeze as temperatures drop. 

I do think the ice in the bering straight on the Siberian side could look totally different in the next few days as ice will be pulling away from the coastline and temperatures not low enough for much refreeze. That will be one to watch and see how that develops. 

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