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Jim Hunt

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International Glaciological Society 2014 Sea Ice Symposium
« on: March 10, 2014, 12:09:38 PM »
I've just discovered through the wonders of Twitter that the International Glaciological Society is holding a symposium in Hobart this week on the topic of sea ice.  The programme looks very interesting.

Today's keynote speech was given by Don Perovich on the subject of "The mass balance of Arctic sea ice"

Apparently it was:

Quote
Given as a rap in the style of Puccini

so I am endeavouring to get hold of a recording!

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Jim Hunt

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Re: International Glaciological Society 2014 Sea Ice Symposium
« Reply #1 on: March 12, 2014, 12:35:20 PM »
I've not located any PDFs or PPTs yet. However a flavour of what's currently being discussed in the Antipodes can be gleaned via the #igsseaice14 hashtag on Twitter, largely populated by the sterling work of Angelika Renner.

One or two that caught my eye:

Quote
Summer ice thickness in Fram Strait down by 20-30 cm/yr over last decade consistent with story for central Arctic

Sea ice thickness contributes to predictability at lead times of several months to yrs, esp in summer

Need to look at sea ice kinematics and thickness simultaneously, observing that is a big challenge!

Also some reports in the mass media:

"Storms whip up differences in polar sea ice" on ABC Science

"What's going on with global warming and Antarctica's growing sea ice?" in The Guardian
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Jim Hunt

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Re: International Glaciological Society 2014 Sea Ice Symposium
« Reply #2 on: March 13, 2014, 09:34:38 AM »
Today, there's a podcast from The Wire in Australia. An interview with Dr Nerilie Abram from Australian National University on the topic of "Why sea ice is decreasing in the Arctic and increasing in the Antarctic"
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Re: International Glaciological Society 2014 Sea Ice Symposium
« Reply #3 on: March 13, 2014, 05:03:30 PM »

One or two that caught my eye:

Quote
Summer ice thickness in Fram Strait down by 20-30 cm/yr over last decade consistent with story for central Arctic

Sea ice thickness contributes to predictability at lead times of several months to yrs, esp in summer

Need to look at sea ice kinematics and thickness simultaneously, observing that is a big challenge!

Also some reports in the mass media:

Shorter quote:

"The ice is so thin, fragile and portable that we haven't a clue what will happen this summer"


We've have entered an entirely new regimen in the Arctic. Kinetics (sea ice movement) is, I believe, impossible to model as it is so dependent on the weather. We saw this last melt season as the ice was shoved about. This new ice regimen is the new normal, simultaneously unpredictable, confusing, exciting and frightening.

Jim Hunt

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Re: International Glaciological Society 2014 Sea Ice Symposium
« Reply #4 on: March 15, 2014, 02:49:10 PM »
Kinetics (sea ice movement) is, I believe, impossible to model as it is so dependent on the weather.

Perhaps as an anonymous sea ice modeller once put it to me:

Quote
The CICE model is much more sensitive to forcing data than to internal model parameters.

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Jim Hunt

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Re: International Glaciological Society 2014 Sea Ice Symposium
« Reply #5 on: March 26, 2014, 01:14:40 PM »
In the current absence of any formal public record of the recent proceedings in Hobart, here's a brief summary of events from a northern hemisphere perspective that I've just received from one of the attendees:

Quote
It was discussed if presentations could be put on the society website, but no conclusion was reached. I suspect it will eventually be done, but may require membership of the society to view them..

Don Perovich's talk had a short intro in rap, but he quickly dropped this style to give a normal talk.

It being a southern hemisphere based symposium it was biased towards Antarctic sea ice with multiple talks on reasons why the SH sea ice is advancing, with the main conclusion appearing to be that this advance is either (a) within natural variability or (b) due to ozone depletion.

There were also multiple talks on Fram Strait export of sea ice, with a general consensus that the volume of ice export has not increased during years of low sea ice extent. This implies that during these years the low ice extent is not due to changes in the winds forcing increased export.

Another interesting talk was from Alfred Wegener Institute, who are analysing Cryosat2 data over the last 3 years. They find that the different methods of analysing the radar altimeter echoes can lead to mean ice thicknesses different by one metre. Also that there is little evidence that Cryosat is in agreement with PIOMAS. Indeed, a paper on predictability of sea ice by Cecilia Bitz, which showed that thin ice is less predictable than thick ice, also showed that Ocean-ice models (such as PIOMAS) always produce thinner ice than a ocean-ice-atmosphere model. In seasonal predictions of sea ice, which almost always import the sea ice from an ocean-ice model into an ocean-ice-atmosphere model, there is a discrepancy in the mass balance and so forecasts are poor.

There is a meeting in Boulder (Colorado) next week to decide how to progress to a better more stable forecast system.

Here's the ARCUS 2014 Sea Ice Prediction Workshop in Boulder referred to:

http://www.arcus.org/sipn/meetings/workshops/april-2014

It seems there will be a webcast for this meeting!
« Last Edit: March 26, 2014, 01:56:36 PM by Jim Hunt »
"The most revolutionary thing one can do always is to proclaim loudly what is happening" - Rosa Luxemburg