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seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1850 on: June 03, 2016, 08:53:17 AM »
Baffin, Hudson, Kara, and Barentz seas (and in much less extent Beaufort and Laptev) were the biggest extent losers in 2012 in the week to come.
The two first are in bad situation this years too. Kara is tricky: it was melting for weeks and then it did "poof" below the 15% threshold. This year state is similar, will happen similar if not this week. However Barentz (or its adjacent CAB sector) is not going to follow the same fate this week for sure since its ice is expanding now, which BTW is really bad for that ice eventually.

Compactness is going down at an even rate.

See Neven's ASIG, regional graphs courtesy of Wipneus
sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/regional

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1851 on: June 03, 2016, 09:01:44 AM »
So are we calling open water alone the North American coast on June 2nd? Because at this point a vessel could sail from Alaska to the Canadian Archipelago without an ice breaker. They SHOULD NOT but you know what I am saying.
I'll call it when the UB SIC map shows it.

Thanks Neven, for these (daily) snow cover images from the first days of June.
You're the reason I'm keeping an eye on it, so it's the least I could do.  :)
« Last Edit: June 03, 2016, 09:17:10 AM by Neven »
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1852 on: June 03, 2016, 09:48:42 AM »
Being early June I thought it was time to review MODIS false colour 3-6-7 images to look at melt onset.  I estimate that surface melt spread over nearly all of the pack by about 8th June in 2012.  Hard to be sure comparing current date vs 2012, but I'd say a slight lead in overall melt. 

To me it seems the current weather pattern is best described as volatile.  Its not really dominated by any particular pattern, and the most obvious melt favourable strong high pressure or dipole patterns are not really in evidence for any sustained period of time.  But plenty of short term troughs and ridges and mixing up of weather systems is resulting in a fair bit of transport of heat from outside the Arctic.
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F.Tnioli

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1853 on: June 03, 2016, 11:42:03 AM »
Gentlemen, I have moved your comments/essays to the Year-round ice-free Arctic thread. This took me almost 10 minutes. Next time I may not have the time.
Next time we (collective) may finally learn when to move out, ourselves. Hopefully. %)

I'll call it when the UB SIC map shows it.
Any moment now, eh. How wide the bottleneck will be in a week, what you think? A hundred kilometers, can it be? More? And then 4+ weeks of max insolation. Mode change starts pretty much now.
« Last Edit: June 03, 2016, 11:47:27 AM by F.Tnioli »
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Neven

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1854 on: June 03, 2016, 11:53:48 AM »
Next time we (collective) may finally learn when to move out, ourselves. Hopefully. %)

While there is life, there is hope.  ;)

Quote
Any moment now, eh. How wide the bottleneck will be in a week, what you think? A hundred kilometers, can it be? More? And then 4+ weeks of max insolation. Mode change starts pretty much now.

Winds would help, but I'm not seeing any big ones in the forecast, and most of the wind is going to blow towards the coast, not away from it. So, it's all down to melting now. I don't know if that piece of fast ice can block things a while longer by disintegrating.

Either way, shouldn't take long. I'll have a blog post up when things are open enough.
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F.Tnioli

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1855 on: June 03, 2016, 12:12:29 PM »
There is a substatial research station in the Lena Delta:
http://www.awi.de/en/expedition/stations/island-samoylov.html
 Involvement of the AWI seems to have ended? latest mention of german research there is from 2014.
Do the russian speakers have access to information on research there?
Some russian speakers surely do, but in my case, it's only what's available for general public (which is not much).

What i know for sure is that the station is alive and kicking as of April 2016, as you can see (few more photos - here). I also know that german scientists still work on at least some of Samoilovskiy's projects, together with russian collegues - the fact they stopped reporting about their involvement in no way stops the involvement itself. At least, this was still the case November 2015, as well as last ~15 years in general (the "new" station was in fact built to replace the older one). Source (ru).

As for their research, they sure do some pretty awesome science out there - the piece linked just above is about successful first usage of "method of frequency-based electro-magnetic probing, which allows to measure resistance of a sub-surface layer by measuring changes in electro-magnetic field which is created by impulses of AC current, directed into the soil" of their own design. They used it to find precise depth of permafrost for an area of 300 m2, and it took them only half an hour to get data for the entire area, using the method.

Given the situation with ASI last decade, i am absolutely certain they do large amount of research devoted to processes directly affecting sea ice, directly affected by sea ice, and on sea ice itself. But much (at least "much") of results will remain strictly non-published (practically classified), i'm affraid.
« Last Edit: June 03, 2016, 01:08:27 PM by F.Tnioli »
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werther

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1856 on: June 03, 2016, 12:33:37 PM »
F.Tnioli, Andreas e.o., hi,

MODIS reveals the unfolding Lena Delta today in a scene of beauty that's the best that the sondes in space have to offer! Go look and enjoy!

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1857 on: June 03, 2016, 12:39:17 PM »
The Arctic sea ice summer melting season has officially begun (according to my own idiosyncratic criteria at least), so here's the latest info from the one remaining actively, if intermittently, reporting ERDC/CRREL ice mass balance buoy:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/resources/ice-mass-balance-buoys/summer-2016-imbs/#2015F-Temp

The official web site is still stuck on May 22nd, but the data file and my own calculations reveal for June 1st:

Pos: 81.96 N, 147.41 W
Air Temp: -4.4 C
Air Pres: 1020.03 mb
Snow depth: 22 cm
Ice thickness: 202 cm

FDD: 4924

P.S. The official web page seems to have just burst back into life too:

Current Buoy Data (06/03/2016):

Pos: 81.98 N, 147.51 W
Air Temp: -5.59 C
Air Pres: 1015.56 mb
Snow depth: 21 cm
Ice thickness: 202 cm
« Last Edit: June 03, 2016, 12:47:46 PM by Jim Hunt »
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F.Tnioli

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1858 on: June 03, 2016, 01:26:48 PM »
F.Tnioli, Andreas e.o., hi,

MODIS reveals the unfolding Lena Delta today in a scene of beauty that's the best that the sondes in space have to offer! Go look and enjoy!
Huh? This?



Yeah, you probably meant this, did you. Quite a view when zoomed in, for sure.

« Last Edit: June 03, 2016, 01:34:06 PM by F.Tnioli »
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iceman

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1859 on: June 03, 2016, 01:50:23 PM »

I'll call it when the UB SIC map shows it.
Any moment now, eh. How wide the bottleneck will be in a week, what you think? A hundred kilometers, can it be? More? And then 4+ weeks of max insolation. Mode change starts pretty much now.

Winds would help, but I'm not seeing any big ones in the forecast, and most of the wind is going to blow towards the coast, not away from it. So, it's all down to melting now. I don't know if that piece of fast ice can block things a while longer by disintegrating.

Either way, shouldn't take long. I'll have a blog post up when things are open enough.
Neven is applying a conservative criterion, as Wipneus' AMSR2-based animation indicates a temporary breach off Alaska on 31st May.  A gap according to UB SIC is possible around 5th June, and likely around the 10th.  Whether either proves more durable depends partly on the amount of melting from the Beaufort polynya, as winds look to be more favorable than not for the ice over the next week or so.

seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1860 on: June 03, 2016, 03:08:32 PM »

Neven is applying a conservative criterion, as Wipneus' AMSR2-based animation indicates a temporary breach off Alaska on 31st May.  A gap according to UB SIC is possible around 5th June, and likely around the 10th.  Whether either proves more durable depends partly on the amount of melting from the Beaufort polynya, as winds look to be more favorable than not for the ice over the next week or so.

We should apply a "less than 10 miles of ice isthmus witdth", same sort of "less than 1 m. km2 for ice-free Arctic" :P
Make it 10 km if you wish :)

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1861 on: June 03, 2016, 03:37:35 PM »
F.Tnioli, Andreas e.o., hi,

MODIS reveals the unfolding Lena Delta today in a scene of beauty that's the best that the sondes in space have to offer! Go look and enjoy!
Huh? This?

That's the fast MODIS. Iceman is referring to the pretty LANCE-MODIS. Arctic is art:
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F.Tnioli

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1862 on: June 03, 2016, 05:14:06 PM »
That's the fast MODIS. Iceman is referring to the pretty LANCE-MODIS. Arctic is art:
Both are pretty spectacular, if you'd ask me! :)

P.S. It's just that i, personally, am used to Siberian displays of grandeur, seen them in total for 11 years of me life with my own eyes, in varying amounts. Most impressive when observing from helicopter, may i add. Like this:

The picture can't tell the actual feeling of being there, few tiny men somewhere in the middle of the huge, harsh, yet beautiful space. I dig it's much similar to any big desert, Arctic or say small-boat long ocean experience, though, so anyone who's been in such, will know the feeling quite well.
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JimboOmega

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1863 on: June 03, 2016, 08:51:32 PM »
I will try my best not to derail the thread with my vague theorizing and questioning, though responses have been helpful!

Anyway, looks like the east siberian sea heat wave is really having a huge impact. 

Compare ice two days ago to today. All along the coastline... in the false color, it looks like flames lapping at the ice.



werther

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1864 on: June 03, 2016, 09:27:23 PM »
Well, actually it's not just like a work of art, but like a symbol for the Arctic 'Tree of Life':


Pretty soon this pristine landscape will be home and breeding ground for thousands of wonderful birds. Question is, how long...

Espen

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1865 on: June 03, 2016, 09:42:03 PM »
Well, actually it's not just like a work of art, but like a symbol for the Arctic 'Tree of Life':


Pretty soon this pristine landscape will be home and breeding ground for thousands of wonderful birds. Question is, how long...
That is the very positive side of it, but how about real estate "developers"?
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1866 on: June 03, 2016, 09:58:08 PM »
That is the very positive side of it, but how about real estate "developers"?

Per the attached plot if/when the WAIS collapses (and the Arctic sea level rises about 1.2 times its GMSL rise contribution), maybe the real estate developer can sell houseboats.
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Neven

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1867 on: June 04, 2016, 12:15:07 AM »
Here's an animation I've made for a new blog post on the ASIB:

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1868 on: June 04, 2016, 04:13:59 AM »
Today's ice change in that same area... it's incredible.  Will it all be open in a few days?


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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1869 on: June 04, 2016, 05:06:05 AM »
Today's ice change in that same area... it's incredible.  Will it all be open in a few days?
As I recall, to some degree the concentration calculations can be thrown off by melt ponding.  I suspect some of what we see in this image is a result of that. 

High air temperatures not withstanding, there just hasn't been enough heat dumped into the ice in that area to tear through as much as 50% of it.  Simply not enough energy available.

However, there is plenty enough to put 10-20CM of melt pond over most of it, which I think may be what the satellite is picking up - and which has pretty serious implications for the ice's longevity (not good...).
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1870 on: June 04, 2016, 05:08:42 AM »
The ESRL - NOAA temperature data for May is out.

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/data/timeseries/timeseries1.pl

According to their figures May was the hottest year in the Arctic(67N+) and (80N+) since 2010.  Ranking between third and seventh overall on both SST and Air temperatues.

Globally as expected hottest  on  record. By about  0.2 degrees.
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1871 on: June 04, 2016, 05:33:25 AM »
Today's ice change in that same area... it's incredible.  Will it all be open in a few days?
As I recall, to some degree the concentration calculations can be thrown off by melt ponding.  I suspect some of what we see in this image is a result of that. 

High air temperatures not withstanding, there just hasn't been enough heat dumped into the ice in that area to tear through as much as 50% of it.  Simply not enough energy available.

However, there is plenty enough to put 10-20CM of melt pond over most of it, which I think may be what the satellite is picking up - and which has pretty serious implications for the ice's longevity (not good...).

I agree; MODIS imagery shows the ice is still solid up there, but tinted blue with melt ponds. 

https://lance.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?subset=Arctic_r05c04.2016155.terra


Csnavywx

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1872 on: June 04, 2016, 05:48:27 AM »
Today's ice change in that same area... it's incredible.  Will it all be open in a few days?
As I recall, to some degree the concentration calculations can be thrown off by melt ponding.  I suspect some of what we see in this image is a result of that. 

High air temperatures not withstanding, there just hasn't been enough heat dumped into the ice in that area to tear through as much as 50% of it.  Simply not enough energy available.

However, there is plenty enough to put 10-20CM of melt pond over most of it, which I think may be what the satellite is picking up - and which has pretty serious implications for the ice's longevity (not good...).

I agree here. It's mostly ponding. MODIS makes that pretty clear. I would note that it's transitioning to "gray rot" stage much quicker than normal though (melt pond draining already evident in some spots). Another week of that and I'm sure we'll see the fast ice there start quickly disintegrating into smaller floes.

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1873 on: June 04, 2016, 06:02:52 AM »
Today's ice change in that same area... it's incredible.  Will it all be open in a few days?
As I recall, to some degree the concentration calculations can be thrown off by melt ponding.  I suspect some of what we see in this image is a result of that. 

High air temperatures not withstanding, there just hasn't been enough heat dumped into the ice in that area to tear through as much as 50% of it.  Simply not enough energy available.

However, there is plenty enough to put 10-20CM of melt pond over most of it, which I think may be what the satellite is picking up - and which has pretty serious implications for the ice's longevity (not good...).
I agree with jd (and csnavywx), looking at worldview which has had clear views the last three days confirms what he says. http://go.nasa.gov/1XXLZBd (linking to the source of the images you show helps others to follow up)
The water on the ice is best seen in 7-2-1 bands as a darker blue. Comparing the 3.6. with 29.5. shows that further east areas which were more blue then also were "low concentration" in the UB plots but are high concentration now. The ice has not "grown back" it has less water on its surface.
You could also look at last year when similar surface melt occurred in this area at 10.6. although concentrations seen by AMSR2 were not as low, they went up again and ice was still there at the beginning of July.
« Last Edit: June 04, 2016, 06:20:47 AM by Andreas T »

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1874 on: June 04, 2016, 06:04:16 AM »
Looking at the University of Bremen map - wow! Here comes the June cliff in Arctic sea ice area and extent!

Yes, the Russian side is showing water on top of the ice, but that won't be good for the ice.

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1875 on: June 04, 2016, 06:23:18 AM »
Today's ice change in that same area... it's incredible.  Will it all be open in a few days?

Incredible indeed.
Yet, jdallen is right. What we are looking at is mostly land-fast ice along the ESS shoreline, which is FYI and should be some 1.5 meter thick. It can handle some melt ponding, as it does every year.
 
The thing that worries me are a couple of things :

1) The air that blows over the ice is exceptionally hot; some 30 C when it leaves the land. That is devastating to the ice, and maybe even unprecedented.

There is little doubt that these extreme temperatures are caused by a combination of clear skies and virtually no snow on the ground in that area of eastern Siberia. Rutgers shows a massive snow anomaly there which developed over May :


2) If we are to trust the forecasts, this torching even will last a week, and stay close to these temperatures.
https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/forecasts

3) If the forecasts are right, winds will be off-shore for that week, which not only drives more of that 30 C heat over the ice, but also will get the ice moving, so polynias will widen and open up dark open ocean, which, as we know, will allow heat into the water and eat away at the bottom of that ice. Which will hasten its demise.

I am not sure how long that ice can withstand such torture...
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1876 on: June 04, 2016, 07:53:37 AM »
Here is what it looks like through the eyes of NASAs Worldview. The ESS coast, first four days of June 2016 ... it was a short spring  8)

PS: I don't know if it is related to the torching of the ESS but Dr. Slaters model is nosediving (hat tip to southseas over at the IJIS thread).
It predicts an extent of  6.72 x 10^6 km^2 for 22nd of July  ... (I think it is worth mentioning because in 2015 it was astonishingly accurate)
« Last Edit: June 04, 2016, 08:02:22 AM by S.Pansa »

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1877 on: June 04, 2016, 08:17:23 AM »
Rutgers did not post their snow numbers for May today, and I'm going to be OOT for a week, with little time to access internet, let alone run my regressions.

So I'm going to have to do my SIPN/Arcus September SIE projection based on an estimate of Northern Hemisphere snow cover over May. Moreover, because of the ongoing F17 issues, and calibration with F18 not yet complete, NSIDC is not posting extent and area numbers either.
So I've used Wipneus' "shadow NSIDC" extent and area numbers, which I attempted to calibrate against older NSIDC numbers. Only partially successful there, so in the end I feel that this SIPN projection is the least well grounded in facts of any projection I made since I started with this method in 2013.
http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2013/07/problematic-predictions-2.html

Yet here it is :
Depending on how the parameters are tuned, and the estimates are made (extent,area,snow cover), using my method of linear regression over the 1992 - 2015 period, I project 3.5 - 3.8 M km^2 extent of September 2016. Standard deviation on these projections is a rather poor 460 k km^2, which is just marginally better than using a "linear trend" analysis.

Let me add that I don't like the May-data projections. For starters, the standard deviation is the same as for April data regressions. And from the 3 variables, in May data only the 'snow-cover' has significant correlation with the amount of ice that will melt out between May and September.
I would love to discuss the details, but only if somebody is interested.

For everyone else, the June-data projections are much clearer, with a much smaller standard deviation (around 300 k km^2). Which means, in plain English, if you want a solid September extent projection, wait until the June numbers are in.
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Lord M Vader

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1878 on: June 04, 2016, 09:05:05 AM »
Both GFS and ECMWF foresees a more cyclonic weather pattern for the next 10 days. May be a gamechanger for the final outcome in September. In any csse, I still believe we will have a min about 3,7 to 3,9 mn km2.

Rob Dekker

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1879 on: June 04, 2016, 09:21:47 AM »
Here is what it looks like through the eyes of NASAs Worldview. The ESS coast, first four days of June 2016 ... it was a short spring  8)

PS: I don't know if it is related to the torching of the ESS but Dr. Slaters model is nosediving (hat tip to southseas over at the IJIS thread).
It predicts an extent of  6.72 x 10^6 km^2 for 22nd of July  ... (I think it is worth mentioning because in 2015 it was astonishingly accurate)

Slater's model is based on an assessment of melting ponds and a projection of how they develop over time. I like his model a lot, since it is grounded in the physics of albedo change and ice melt.
AFAIK, he uses a model for melting ponds that includes ice concentration.

If that is true, today's drop in his model may very well be related to the ongoing ESS torching event.
After all, Wipneus reported a whopping 150 k km^2 drop in ice "area" today, mostly due to reduced ice concentration along the ESS coast and the CAB :


Although Slater's low probability ice areas do not seem to correlate well with today's areas that dropped in ice concentration:


For example, I'm not sure why Slater projects a 70% chance of an ice-free area just north of Greenland at this point. There is no concentration drop in the AMSR2 data in that area.

Not to mention that Slater projects a 50% chance that that little ice bridge in the Beaufort that Neven has been talking about will survive until July 22.

So I'm not sure now what drives the spacial distribution in Slater's model exactly.

But overall, with his projection of 6.72 M km^2 on July 22, he is some 600 k km^2 below the 2012 extent graph, and 1.16 M km^2 below 2015. 2012 had the GAC in early August, so if we follow the (more conventional) 2015 line, then Slater is pointing at a 4.6 (2015) - 1.16 = 3.44 M km^2 September extent.

That projection is a bit more aggressive than mine, but given the uncertainties, and the fact that Slater's model is up-to-date daily, while my model is just 'clunky' based on average May data, it would be the second year in a row that Slater's and my SIPN projections agree.

Note that these projections (both Slater's and mine) are all based on an "average" summer melting season like 2015. If there is any sort of 2007 ice export event or a 2012 June drop, or a 2012 August GAC, then 2016 will fall right through the bottom...
« Last Edit: June 04, 2016, 10:01:20 AM by Rob Dekker »
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seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1880 on: June 04, 2016, 10:04:20 AM »
Rutgers did not post
 ...
I would love to discuss the details, but only if somebody is interested.

For everyone else, the June-data projections are much clearer, with a much smaller standard deviation (around 300 k km^2). Which means, in plain English, if you want a solid September extent projection, wait until the June numbers are in.

Wow thank you Rob for sharing!!
I wont bother except for asking how did you come up with a snow cover estimate yourself...
Slater's maps has natural fluctuations in area but I am more worried about the zones where it predicts marginal to none possibility of survival of ice. My feeling is that he is overpredicting amount of ice in Kara, Baffin, and North of Svalbard (maybe Beaufort), cannot find any underprediction.
Scary predictions.

werther

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1881 on: June 04, 2016, 10:08:48 AM »
Thanks, Rob.
Though I may seem excited by the progressing season, I'm still in the 3.75-4 Mkm2 box when guessing on average September minimum extent.
Actually there's not that much difference in the timing of phenomena. Like the Lena bursting out. Or extensive surface melt on the Laptev fast ice.
And I guessed some time ago extent numbers would get more in line with those of former years.

Next week, low level Lows will dominate the Arctic Basin (ECMWF), there may not be much change during that timeframe.

High pressure however will dominate Hudson Bay and force spring into the CAA. That might stimulate some growth in daily extent losses.
It seems to me that Kara and Laptev losses will come in at a 'normal' pace, even though NE Siberia is unusually warm. The way this works as visible on MODIS is well described by Csnavywx.

When there's no change into a consistent dipole and strong High over CAA/N Greenland, expect extent numbers to be near '12 and '15 numbers by the end of June.

Csnavywx

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1882 on: June 04, 2016, 10:16:56 AM »
After some flip-flopping the past few days, it appears that both the operational and ensemble ECMWF and GFS have settled on a 2013-esque pattern for a week or two and lock in a deep closed low pattern over/near the pole. It's not a perfect match, as some heat does leak in around the edges, but it's definitely a bellwether for a slowdown. If it lasts longer than a week, then it'll get pretty tough to secure a new record as this time of year is pretty critical.

Rob Dekker

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1883 on: June 04, 2016, 10:24:05 AM »
I wont bother except for asking how did you come up with a snow cover estimate yourself...

I came up with 16.1 M km^2.
Which is about the same as 2012 and 2013, but more than the May snow record holder 2010.
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_anom.php?ui_set=1&ui_region=nhland&ui_month=5
Long story how I got there, and I may very well be wrong.

Please check once Rutgers updates. Which should be soon (probably Monday, when I'm OOT).
« Last Edit: June 04, 2016, 10:51:07 AM by Rob Dekker »
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1884 on: June 04, 2016, 12:04:33 PM »
I'm not sure about Slater's prediction, but it looks like the Beaufort block may persist a while longer than I thought. That other block near Bering Strait is about to go, though.
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Jim Hunt

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1886 on: June 04, 2016, 02:23:27 PM »
One of numerous images from my introduction to the Arctic sea ice summer 2016 surface melting season:

Summer 2016 Surface Melt Takes Off

Quote
If you examine the extreme right hand edge of the charts carefully you will no doubt note that the water underneath the ice has recently become both warmer and saltier.

Watch this space!

Note that the profile dates from May 8th.

« Last Edit: June 04, 2016, 02:30:34 PM by Jim Hunt »
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A-Team

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1887 on: June 04, 2016, 04:21:04 PM »
Quote
ITP 89 measures the temperature and salinity of the water beneath the sea ice and revealed this the last time it managed to take a measurement, a month or so ago. Watch this space. If you examine the extreme right hand edge of the charts,  the water underneath the ice has recently become both warmer and saltier. The ITP is operating on a standard sampling schedule of 2 one-way profiles between 7 and 760 m depth each day.
If I am reading this right, it says the battery is in good shape, but the profiler has not made its daily run since May 8th and no longer worked at its design depth for salinity a month earlier. Does this mean it has made the daily runs but is yet to send its data up? Or is the profiler hopelessly broken down like all the other ITP buoys, with no explanation provided at the ITP site, no design lessons shared, and no prospects for any further 2016 melt season data?

It says the ice was a half meter thick at the time the profiler was installed but it does not start measuring until 7 meters below the surface, ie does not determine water properties near the bottom of the ice. How does it get at bottom melt?

The vertical axes are unlabelled in the original -- what do the two temperature and two salinity charts represent?

The data from 'day 450' (day 85 of 2016) on to day 495 (day 130 of 2016) are shown at 2x scale below. How are these to be interpreted for purposes of 2016 melt season?

Jim Hunt

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1888 on: June 04, 2016, 05:07:11 PM »
Or is the profiler hopelessly broken down like all the other ITP buoys, with no explanation provided at the ITP site, no design lessons shared, and no prospects for any further 2016 melt season data?

That's my best guess at the moment. Does anybody else's mileage vary? The O-Buoy 14 video reveals the way in which the colocated ice mass balance buoy designed to measure (amongst other things) the water temperature immediately below the ice failed at a very early stage in proceedings.

Quote
The data from 'day 450' (day 85 of 2016) on to day 495 (day 130 of 2016) are shown at 2x scale below. How are these to be interpreted for purposes of 2016 melt season?

A very good question. Is that evidence for an unfortunate side effect of "The Beaufort Gyre in Overdrive", or merely evidence of a profiler on its last legs returning erroneous data?
"The most revolutionary thing one can do always is to proclaim loudly what is happening" - Rosa Luxemburg

A-Team

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1889 on: June 04, 2016, 05:25:54 PM »
Below is another experiment with WorldView layers. That site offers upper layer transparency choices which provide one type of composite. After capturing various layers into Gimp or ImageJ, it is feasible to experiment with a great many other ways of combining layers.

In the case here, the vertical and horizontal polarizations of 'Sea Ice Brightness Temperature 6km 89 AMSR2' differencing as |V-H| seemed to produce a more informative image than either alone, though how the product should be interpreted remains up in the air. Pink / white / faint blue seem to capture open water fairly well though significant cloud/fog interference can be seen in some frames.

Again forum software is refusing to upload a small within-bounds animation for unknown reasons, it has had to be cut down but seems to be running ok now.

The WV set-up (for adding more dates later) is http://go.nasa.gov/1X4aehU
« Last Edit: June 04, 2016, 05:41:29 PM by A-Team »

Bruce Steele

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1890 on: June 04, 2016, 05:28:43 PM »
A-Team. Having watched the WHOI ITP data for a few years I would say ITP-89 crashed over a month ago and it won't come back. There is one profiler ITP-93 still sliding down the Gakkel Ridge and sending out good data but all the other buoys have failed. On every other year I have watched more buoys are deployed during the summer but until that happens we are stuck with one buoy and no data for the Beaufort Gyre.
 The numbers on the bottom are days since the buoy was deployed . Both the temperature and salinity contours are represented in two charts zero to 200 meters and zero to 700 meters. You are correct that the first reading is below the zero line but having the profiler riding up and down it's cable  requires keeping it a few meters below the ice or it would tangle and fail sooner.
 If you look at a buoy like ITP-85 that finished last Sept. you can see what surface heating looks like but unless we get some new buoys we won't be able to see anything similar unless we do get open water near the pole.These buoys are designed to show the various water profiles for the Atlantic and
Pacific sides . On a good year with several buoys operating you can watch as surface warming appears in the Beaufort and when it does the ice retreats soon afterwards. Again the buoys are designed to monitor water profiles , Pacific warm water, Atlantic water, surface water but not bottom melt . You can assume there is bottom melt when the surface temperature readings get warm enough but the mass buoys that Jim watches are the best place for that info.   

A-Team

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1891 on: June 04, 2016, 06:00:56 PM »
The Beaufort Gyre has been changing in recent days, in the direction of more independent motion of the floes. Prior to this, the floes have largely maintained their distance relationships even as the gyre as a whole moved with the winds.

This suggests that the interstitial ice is melting out, becoming thinner and weaker and allowing these relationships to change. It is not so convenient to quantitate this development nor to compare  similar dates from different years. The floes shown are the ones Andreas T and I have been tracking since mid-February.

Bruce Steele

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1892 on: June 04, 2016, 06:25:31 PM »
Taylor columns in the Chukchi. The ice tongues that annually appear over the Hearld Shoals ,as the sea ice retreats around the shoals ,should appear fairly soon.

 
http://polar.ocean.washington.edu/taylor/chukchi_shoals.html

 

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1893 on: June 04, 2016, 06:32:16 PM »
The Beaufort Gyre has been changing in recent days, in the direction of more independent motion of the floes. Prior to this, the floes have largely maintained their distance relationships even as the gyre as a whole moved with the winds.

This suggests that the interstitial ice is melting out, becoming thinner and weaker and allowing these relationships to change. It is not so convenient to quantitate this development nor to compare  similar dates from different years. The floes shown are the ones Andreas T and I have been tracking since mid-February.
The one I have tracked to the 27th is further east (see lat/ lon included in image) but the one you show has been measured by the Univ. of York overflights.
What is interesting is that (assuming the clouds don't mislead too much) the movement of its smaller southeastern neighbour towards the large floe is compressing the thin infill into something which looks more substantial in visible and 3-6-7 bands. The size and characteristic shape lets us track the large floe also on AMSR2 89GHz brightness temp. There the gap is also seen to be closing but shows up with a different brightness temp. But then if this compressed infill consists of  tilted and overriding floes, surface condition would be expected to be different. Unless another clue from the 3-6-7 bands is significant: the colour has changed from a patchy pattern of darker and lighter red to a uniformly light red which may indicate a fresh dusting of snow. Elsewhere in this area I think I can detect a disappearance of the darker lines within floes which indicate thinner, more transparent ice. 
edit: the word "unless" is probably misplaced, dry snow does not show up in the 89GHz frequency band, I have read.
« Last Edit: June 04, 2016, 06:51:45 PM by Andreas T »

epiphyte

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1894 on: June 04, 2016, 06:44:19 PM »
Close up of the "block".  That landfast ice is breaking up as it keeps banging into the coast.


Right. To my eyes the 'block' actually looks to have shifted W ~30-50km along the coast in the last week!

Laurent

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1895 on: June 05, 2016, 12:25:22 AM »
2016 is way in front of 2015 at least for this part of the Arctic 80°lat.
http://www.arctic.io/explorer/8-8/2016-06-04;2015-06-04/7-N80.50775-W150.23764

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1896 on: June 05, 2016, 04:33:05 AM »
Looking at the ASI Graphs extent page, I see that much of the impressive 2012 "June cliff" was associated with ice loss in the Bering and Kara Seas and in Hudson and Baffin Bays.  In 2016, the Bering Sea is all but melted out, so, in effect 1/3 of the potential fast loss this month is already gone.  If future melting progressed in the several regions 'exactly' as it had in 2012, then the 1,000,000 sq km lead 2016 has over 2012 will diminish by about 1/3.  Because (if I recall correctly what other posters wrote) 2012 had remarkably 'excellent' melting weather in June, the lead is likely to diminish by more than 1/3.  If horrible (for ice loss) weather sets in, of course, the gap could shrink much more than that.

Regardless of how June ends up, however, all the 'extra' open water in the Arctic absorbing heat during the two month before the solstice cannot be good for the ice's chances of survival during the three months after June 21st.
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1897 on: June 05, 2016, 05:34:06 AM »
Extent loss in June has varied from 1.653M (2015) to 3.049M 2012 over the past 10 years. Area loss has been much more consistent , only varying from 2.605 (2015) to 3.468 (2012). 2015 lost 2.911M km^2 in area despite having such a low extent loss.

This suggests that the area figures over June are a better indicator of loss than extent . The extent is heavily influenced by wind patterns. The Area/Extent ration drops significantly from 83% to 73% indicating how much more open water there is between the floes.
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Watching_from_Canberra

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1898 on: June 05, 2016, 05:49:16 AM »
Apparently sea ice extent INCREASED today.  10,350,720 for June 3 and 10,354,257 for June 4 = an increase of 3,537 km2.  Go figure.

Figures from the CSV file download:
https://ads.nipr.ac.jp/vishop/vishop-extent.html?N


Rob Dekker

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #1899 on: June 05, 2016, 07:14:33 AM »
Apparently sea ice extent INCREASED today.  10,350,720 for June 3 and 10,354,257 for June 4 = an increase of 3,537 km2.  Go figure.

Figures from the CSV file download:
https://ads.nipr.ac.jp/vishop/vishop-extent.html?N

Yes. up 17.4 k km^2 according to Wipneus' data. And sea ice area dropped 97.3 k km^2 according to the same report. Go figure.
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