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Frivolousz21

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2500 on: July 28, 2014, 03:49:27 AM »
As far as the sea ice.  I thought it might be Tuesday or Wednesday before a century drop on Jaxa. 

But the ice looks highly mobile already.  Most of the compression seen in the Laptev was from today.  Wind will continue to go downhill over the next few days.



The real fun begins over the next couple of days when the weak ice area in the CAB gets the hammer.

Not to downplay how hard the ESS is forecast to get hit either.  It won't be long before it goes down quickly as well.  There should eventually be some large area drops as well.

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2501 on: July 28, 2014, 04:31:43 AM »
Everyone, I don't mind the bickering, but please try to keep insults and motivation-guessing to a minimum. I want to keep both Peter Ellis and Friv on board. I want the exaggerations and the caveats. I want the torches and the cool numbers.

Diversity is healthy. Don't take it too personal. It's just a bloody forum.   8)

----

Thank you Neven, for adding some perspective.  Obviously, we are all passionate about the Arctic.  ;D
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Frivolousz21

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2502 on: July 28, 2014, 05:14:06 AM »
-88K on Jaxa.  Almost there.
I got a nickname for all my guns
a Desert Eagle that I call Big Pun
a two shot that I call Tupac
and a dirty pistol that love to crew hop
my TEC 9 Imma call T-Pain
my 3-8 snub Imma call Lil Wayne
machine gun named Missy so loud
it go e-e-e-e-ow e-e-e-e-e-e-blaow

F.Tnioli

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2503 on: July 28, 2014, 09:40:06 AM »
... From the conclusion:

Quote
...
It all comes down to insolation and wind now.
...
Everything ultimately comes down to insolation, sir... In terms of climate and life on Earth, i mean.

This year, though, there is something new (in geological terms, anyways), massive (i suspect it's more massive than in any previous year), which has a potential to amplify (in a sense) insolation much. Psst, http://www.su.se/english/research/leading-research-areas/science/swerus-c3-first-observations-of-methane-release-from-arctic-ocean-hydrates-1.198540 .
« Last Edit: July 28, 2014, 09:55:27 AM by F.Tnioli »
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Glenn Tamblyn

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2504 on: July 28, 2014, 10:05:57 AM »
"Just in case you blinked and missed it here's the latest (albeit not yet operational) thickness animation from HYCOM/CICE:"

So Jim, which version of HYCOM/CICE should we trust more? What is the navy's explanation for the roller coaster of their model over the last 12 months?

Neven

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2505 on: July 28, 2014, 12:38:23 PM »
Everything ultimately comes down to insolation, sir... In terms of climate and life on Earth, i mean.

Absolutely, but in terms of the final stage of the melting season it also comes down to open water between floes and melt ponds, and there's little of it at the moment.  Same goes for SSTs. And so my conclusion is that it will take a lot of insolation and wind, ie perfect melting conditions, for 2014 to go below 2013 and perhaps beyond. There is no momentum whatsoever like 2012 had.
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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2506 on: July 28, 2014, 01:10:14 PM »
Everything ultimately comes down to insolation, sir... In terms of climate and life on Earth, i mean.

Absolutely, but in terms of the final stage of the melting season it also comes down to open water between floes and melt ponds, and there's little of it at the moment.  Same goes for SSTs. And so my conclusion is that it will take a lot of insolation and wind, ie perfect melting conditions, for 2014 to go below 2013 and perhaps beyond. There is no momentum whatsoever like 2012 had.

I disagree here the Beaufort sea has a massive area of 50-60% concentration ice as per uni bremen which doesn't exist in the in the 2013 record. This ice will melt out.


2014 Julty 27th



VS

2013 August 1st



Where 2013 experienced a dramatic slow down at this time of year, we should see the reverse happening here with the forecasts projecting highs over Beaufort sea

Gray-Wolf

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2507 on: July 28, 2014, 01:24:10 PM »
I still think that the 'bottom melt' end of the season will be worse for the well shattered ice ( more surface area in contact with the waters than contiguous ice) than the post 07' years were? I know we had a similar situation last year but Aug kinda stoppered things? Should this Aug carry on as Forecast ( for the first weeks) then we may lose a lot of the 'rubble ice' that shows up as 100% concentration.

The other thing has to be Autumn. What if we see a stormy Autumn with high winds? Do we see a lot of 'good ice' exit ( as we did in the 80's) only for it to be replaced with FY ice? We might see rapid ice growth ( export ice and infill FY ice) yet have the basin slipping into a poorer condition?

As we saw last winter we appear to now need to look across the whole of the ice year to see how the next melt season might pan out?
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Neven

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2508 on: July 28, 2014, 01:26:48 PM »
Siffy, like I say, under the right conditions 2014 will go lower than 2013. If things stall like they did last year it most probably won't. Right now, perfect melting conditions are forecasted (although I haven't checked today yet), but we don't know what happens after that.

As far as momentum goes. This is momentum:



And this too:



A small patch of momentum in the Beaufort Sea doesn't guarantee anything.
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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2509 on: July 28, 2014, 01:30:03 PM »
Removing the "?attredirects=0" from links



And this too:



A small patch of momentum in the Beaufort Sea doesn't guarantee anything.

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2510 on: July 28, 2014, 01:38:00 PM »
Neven, the sea surface temperatures have just shot up in the Laptev, so doesn't that give a bit of momentum?

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/satellite/index.uk.php

F.Tnioli

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2511 on: July 28, 2014, 02:04:53 PM »
... And so my conclusion is that it will take a lot of insolation and wind, ie perfect melting conditions, for 2014 to go below 2013 and perhaps beyond. There is no momentum whatsoever like 2012 had.
Yep, i got it the 1st time, that's why i mentioned those recent reports about lots of newly discovered methane plumes - those can change the "requirement" from "a lot of insolation" to "a bit less than a lot of insolaiton", i hope you know what i mean.
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Neven

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2512 on: July 28, 2014, 02:08:02 PM »
Removing the "?attredirects=0" from links

Are those bothersome? Images show up for me.

Quote
Yep, i got it the 1st time, that's why i mentioned those recent reports about lots of newly discovered methane plumes - those can change the "requirement" from "a lot of insolation" to "a bit less than a lot of insolaiton", i hope you know what i mean.

I know what you mean and you're right, but I don't know how it can directly affect the outcome of this melting season.
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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2513 on: July 28, 2014, 02:09:38 PM »
Neven, the sea surface temperatures have just shot up in the Laptev, so doesn't that give a bit of momentum?

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/satellite/index.uk.php

Shot up, indeed. Yes, that would help.  The hole there has been one of the most interesting features of this melting season. :)
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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2514 on: July 28, 2014, 02:38:12 PM »
Removing the "?attredirects=0" from links

Quote
Are those bothersome? Images show up for me.

Didn't show up for me first time.


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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2515 on: July 28, 2014, 02:44:15 PM »
Neven, the sea surface temperatures have just shot up in the Laptev, so doesn't that give a bit of momentum?

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/satellite/index.uk.php

Shot up, indeed. Yes, that would help.  The hole there has been one of the most interesting features of this melting season. :)

How can that happen in 24h ?

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2516 on: July 28, 2014, 02:46:19 PM »
2D analysis can be very Mis-leading.  We will find out soon how durable this ice is.
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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2517 on: July 28, 2014, 02:47:06 PM »
So Jim, which version of HYCOM/CICE should we trust more? What is the navy's explanation for the roller coaster of their model over the last 12 months?

My own explanation begins with noting that neither version assimilates thickness. There seemed to be an overall increase in thickness in ACNFS with the change from NOGAPS to NAVGEM forcing last year. When GOFS 3.1 becomes "operational" it looks like overall thickness will decrease. According to AlanW:

Quote
1) The GOFS hindcast started from more realistic initial conditions (primarily a better ice thickness) than ACNFS
2) GOFS assimilates ice concentration data across the full Arctic domain (not just along the ice edge as in ACNFS)

Personally I don't trust any of the sea ice models! These days the ice is younger, thinner and more mobile than when the models were devised. I try and compare all sorts of information to get a handle on what's really happening in the Arctic. Here's a collection of my main sources of information:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/resources/

P.S. It seems the Navy have reorganised their web site(s) as well. Apologies for the missing images on my first link.
« Last Edit: July 28, 2014, 02:52:39 PM by Jim Hunt »
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Frivolousz21

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2518 on: July 28, 2014, 02:50:25 PM »

The sun warmed the Laptev backed by big time WAA.

http://lance-modis.eosdis.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?mosaic=Arctic


The ice North of that body of water looks terrible.
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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2519 on: July 28, 2014, 03:09:55 PM »
I posted this on another forum, I'd be interested to have some feedback. This is my intepretation of the weather conditions over the next few days and its effect on the ice:



Also I am well aware that the models are likely to change, so the blue area over the NW passage is somewhat bigger than a literal interpretation would allow, however I have found that positive dipoles, or 'positive dipole charactur' are always downgraded on the ECM and GFS, and certainly that has happened over the last couple of days. I do expect that we will revert to good conditions over the entire arctic, or at the very least a negative dipole.

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2520 on: July 28, 2014, 03:18:35 PM »
Neven. just to respond. your images are never showing for me.  others are fine.  the re-post by crandles was necessary in my case...

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2521 on: July 28, 2014, 03:22:18 PM »
Neven. just to respond. your images are never showing for me.  others are fine.  the re-post by crandles was necessary in my case...
same here
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F.Tnioli

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2522 on: July 28, 2014, 04:20:05 PM »
...
I know what you mean and you're right, but I don't know how it can directly affect the outcome of this melting season.
Why, via increased local greenhouse effect, i believe. Much increased local methane concentration in the air above those of those methane plumes initially exists directly above open water in which those plumes happen, however, part of such methane-rich air will most likely be transported (with some degree of methane dissipation, of course) over large ice-covered and semi-ice-covered areas, accelerating melt a little bit.

Much more importantly, i suspect, is methane effect within the ocean itself - its upper layers, - which get over-saturated with methane (levels can reach not just dozens or hundreds, but thousands times higher methane content of the seawater above background levels). Open water "lets in" most of solar radiation, which gets absorbed by the water column nearly completely within some ~200 meters or so (and it's "angled" column, too, - in the Arctic, the sun is not any high above the horizon). So, most of solar radiation end up heating water in quite thin - dozen meters or so for 50%+ absorbtion? - layer of ocean water. And then, if this layer has that oversaturated methane content, - then all that heat is somewhat better trapped within, methane has different IR emissivity peaks, plus it's just one more "sort" of impurity of ocean water, probably increasing photon scattering (which also dcreases thermal conductivity). Later on, some of such "extra warm" - because of methane, - water will end up melting ice, - ocean currents and all. Including during this very melt season.
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plinius

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2523 on: July 28, 2014, 04:37:39 PM »
I would consider this statement nonsensical and not properly backed up.
From this absorption spectrum:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Absorption_spectrum_of_liquid_water.png
We see that water blocks everything that is non-visible light. Further you would have to show that the resonances of methane still exist when dissolved in water, which imho is not at all clear.
Conclusion is rather: It just does not matter how much methane is trapped in water, apart from maybe heat from biological processes. And concerning the atmosphere there are measurements - show us that it is significantly higher than in the past years. I doubt that too.

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2524 on: July 28, 2014, 04:43:42 PM »
Just imagining if a dipole anomaly were to set up with a relatively strong wind field.....

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2525 on: July 28, 2014, 05:34:40 PM »
Ok, so what is WAA?  Glossary thread doesnt mention it. Thx

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2526 on: July 28, 2014, 05:41:49 PM »
Ok, so what is WAA?  Glossary thread doesnt mention it. Thx

I second this. I see this often and don't have a clue what it means.

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2527 on: July 28, 2014, 05:49:32 PM »
WAA = Warm Air Advection

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2528 on: July 28, 2014, 05:56:48 PM »
Yep, warm air advection, as Patrick said. It basically mean lots of warm air moving to somewhere colder, in this case, usually the Arctic. With WAA there is usually an area of C(old)AA moving south at the same time.
A little more on WAA and CAA
http://www.theweatherprediction.com/habyhints/254/
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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2529 on: July 28, 2014, 05:57:58 PM »

I got a nickname for all my guns
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a two shot that I call Tupac
and a dirty pistol that love to crew hop
my TEC 9 Imma call T-Pain
my 3-8 snub Imma call Lil Wayne
machine gun named Missy so loud
it go e-e-e-e-ow e-e-e-e-e-e-blaow

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2530 on: July 28, 2014, 07:53:59 PM »
[...]And concerning the atmosphere there are measurements - show us that it is significantly higher than in the past years. I doubt that too.
You're kidding, right? A simple google search on atmospheric methane concentration will demonstrate that methane has more than doubled in the atmosphere since pre-industrial times and appears to be on a renewed uptick in the last seven years or so (corresponding, interestingly, to the new regime of dramatically lower northern hemisphere snow and ice cover).

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/images/three_gases_historical.jpg
http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/pr_980_en.html

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2531 on: July 28, 2014, 07:57:10 PM »
That looks like a strong low coming up over Svalbard, Friv. Looks like Fram export could be kick started, compaction into the CAB, and major inputs of heat from lower latitudes.  Bet on near surface mixing bringing up considerable volumes of warmer water from depth.
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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2532 on: July 28, 2014, 08:58:16 PM »
seattlerocks "How can that happen in 24h ?" clicking through the days on the link I'm fairly sure this signals the arrival of fresh water from further west, which seems to build up then break through. Next it'll break out of Laptev and head north or east, whichever is the path of least resistance. If it heads east the Mackenzie anomoly should show it in a couple of days or so.
As methane rises from depth does it cool as it rises as it would in the atmosphere?

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2533 on: July 28, 2014, 09:57:04 PM »
Next it'll break out of Laptev and head north or east, whichever is the path of least resistance. If it heads east the Mackenzie anomoly should show it in a couple of days or so.
Just so I understand you, you're saying there is a patch of fresh water in the Laptev sea, which might make its way to the Mackenzie delta in "a couple of days or so"?

Edit to add:

I make that a distance of ~1500 miles.  If there were a direct current flowing from one to the other at the maximum rate recorded for the Gulf Stream (~2.5 m/s = 5.6 mph), you might get the water from A to B in about 11-12 days.  However, there's no such current. Average water flow speed in the Beaufort gyre is 2-10 cm/s, so it'd take a minimum of 9 months if going in a straight line.  Assuming a more circular trajectory (it's a gyre after all), then you'd be looking at another factor of pi/2.

So, water leaving the Laptev now might just make it to the Mackenzie delta in a year if it goes like the clappers.
« Last Edit: July 28, 2014, 10:10:09 PM by Peter Ellis »

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2534 on: July 28, 2014, 11:04:11 PM »
Next it'll break out of Laptev and head north or east, whichever is the path of least resistance. If it heads east the Mackenzie anomoly should show it in a couple of days or so.
Just so I understand you, you're saying there is a patch of fresh water in the Laptev sea, which might make its way to the Mackenzie delta in "a couple of days or so"?

Edit to add:

I make that a distance of ~1500 miles.  If there were a direct current flowing from one to the other at the maximum rate recorded for the Gulf Stream (~2.5 m/s = 5.6 mph), you might get the water from A to B in about 11-12 days.  However, there's no such current. Average water flow speed in the Beaufort gyre is 2-10 cm/s, so it'd take a minimum of 9 months if going in a straight line.  Assuming a more circular trajectory (it's a gyre after all), then you'd be looking at another factor of pi/2.

So, water leaving the Laptev now might just make it to the Mackenzie delta in a year if it goes like the clappers.

Concur, Peter.

Laptev to Mackenzie is an improbable trip, not possible in less than multi year time frames, and unlikely even then.
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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2535 on: July 28, 2014, 11:41:00 PM »
Very much do not concur. So easy to criticize, so difficult to be imaginative.
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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2536 on: July 28, 2014, 11:50:58 PM »
I've been watching this all year.  It's been a decidedly odd season in 2014 for very different reasons than 2013.  It's not a good year for melt.  But then when I look at this subset of the Uni Bremen AMSRE for yesterday, I don't think I've ever seen the ice in this shape, over the whole of the Arctic before.



Then if I take a look at the Lance Modis 250m for above Svalbard, it's even more poignant.  I would hardly call that an ice pack.  More like a flotilla.  Little wonder that this year continues to melt and surprise even when the weather says it should not.

Were this year truly a year of export and melt, we would see a "functionally" ice free Arctic this year.  After all, what is to stop it?  There is no full cover with all the sea blocked out over (from what I can see), 65% of the Arctic ocean.  There is no solid and integral pack with which to stop ice export anywhere other than over the top of the CAA.  And even that is cracked and fissuring.



One good El Nino with lots of forest fires, lots of soot, lots of sun and lots of storms to export the ice and it's sayonara the summer ice pack.

Well as far as I can see.
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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2537 on: July 29, 2014, 12:00:29 AM »
Very much do not concur. So easy to criticize, so difficult to be imaginative.

:/

Imagination is nice and all but what does that have to do with objective reality? What you can picture in your mind is hardly relevant to what is happening or not.

plinius

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2538 on: July 29, 2014, 12:08:26 AM »
@Bruce: I strongly recommend taming your anti-denialist reflexes and studying a conversation thread properly before engaging like that.

Upfront: I neither doubt that methane and CO2-levels are increasing, nor do I doubt any significant part of climate modelling (take out precipitation, which is a mess, and arctic sea ice, potentially also glaciers, where models seriously underestimate the collapse, since they do not have sufficient physics).
 
To the discussion: The whole thing was about (in my eyes unreasonable comments) that this year should see some particular melt due to methane levels. This has nothing to do with long-term trends. Your links are hence completely besides the point. The right thing to plot would have been the current local methane levels in the arctic; but as said, I cannot see a tremendous increase compared to the past few years that would make this year special compared to the past 5. Do better next time and save both our efforts. Thanks.

[...]And concerning the atmosphere there are measurements - show us that it is significantly higher than in the past years. I doubt that too.
You're kidding, right? A simple google search on atmospheric methane concentration will demonstrate that methane has more than doubled in the atmosphere since pre-industrial times and appears to be on a renewed uptick in the last seven years or so (corresponding, interestingly, to the new regime of dramatically lower northern hemisphere snow and ice cover).

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/images/three_gases_historical.jpg
http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/pr_980_en.html

Neven

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2539 on: July 29, 2014, 12:33:51 AM »
Neven, the sea surface temperatures have just shot up in the Laptev, so doesn't that give a bit of momentum?

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/satellite/index.uk.php

Shot up, indeed. Yes, that would help.  The hole there has been one of the most interesting features of this melting season. :)

How can that happen in 24h ?

The red colours can fluctuate a lot on the DMI SST anom map, is my experience. But generally it moves in a certain direction, if you keep an eye on it for a couple of days. I didn't do that, and only looked at the difference with two weeks ago. So the waters are probably warmer in the Laptev Sea than I showed in the latest ASI update.

And thanks for letting me know about the images, everyone. When linking images from the ASIG, I usually right-click and opt for 'copy link location', because 'copy image location' is such a long link full of numbers.

But let me try that, and then please tell me if you see the image now:

Momentum...



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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2540 on: July 29, 2014, 12:39:54 AM »
But then when I look at this subset of the Uni Bremen AMSRE for yesterday, I don't think I've ever seen the ice in this shape, over the whole of the Arctic before.

Are you sure you don't mean AMSR2? How about this time last year?



See also Worldview: http://1.usa.gov/1tUfbbA then flip to 2014
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seattlerocks

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2541 on: July 29, 2014, 12:54:07 AM »
Aint see nothing (meaning Neven's attached image :()
« Last Edit: July 29, 2014, 01:03:45 AM by seattlerocks »

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2542 on: July 29, 2014, 01:02:39 AM »
Neven:  Doesn't work.  The problem is the '&attredirects=0' at the end of the URL - I suspect they add it to try and dissuade people from hot-linking to the images.  If you remove that it works fine whether you use 'copy link location' or 'copy image location' .

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2543 on: July 29, 2014, 01:05:25 AM »
Neven:  Doesn't work.  The problem is the '&attredirects=0' at the end of the URL - I suspect they add it to try and dissuade people from hot-linking to the images.  If you remove that it works fine whether you use 'copy link location' or 'copy image location' .

OK, thanks, Peter (although, strangely enough, I do see the images). I will remove that &attredirects thing from now on.
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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2544 on: July 29, 2014, 01:07:31 AM »
Very much do not concur. So easy to criticize, so difficult to be imaginative.
You are free to imagine a current 5 times the speed of the Gulf Stream, flowing directly across the Pole from the Laptev Sea to the Mackenzie Delta.  There is nothing to stop you.

However, you should be aware that that is in fact what you are imagining when you talk about freshwater making its way from one to the other in the space of a couple of days.  That's simple arithmetic, and no amount of imagination will change it.

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2545 on: July 29, 2014, 01:08:26 AM »
Neven:  Doesn't work.  The problem is the '&attredirects=0' at the end of the URL - I suspect they add it to try and dissuade people from hot-linking to the images.  If you remove that it works fine whether you use 'copy link location' or 'copy image location' .

OK, thanks, Peter (although, strangely enough, I do see the images). I will remove that &attredirects thing from now on.
It works for you because you have a cached copy of the image in your browser from when you copied the link - if you clear your cache it'll stop working.

Neven

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2546 on: July 29, 2014, 01:11:47 AM »
That makes sense, Peter. Why don't you all just synchronize with my cache? Isn't there some app or add-on for that?  ;D
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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2547 on: July 29, 2014, 01:36:13 AM »
Very much do not concur. So easy to criticize, so difficult to be imaginative.

:/

Imagination is nice and all but what does that have to do with objective reality? What you can picture in your mind is hardly relevant to what is happening or not.

Do you really believe you hold the key to "objective" reality, and why?

Case in point: What do so-called ice 'area' and 'extent' (and 'volume'??) -- measured by various sensors, computed by various algorithms and models -- have to do with "objective" reality, exactly? What correlation is there with those measurements and what is really happening in the Arctic? If 2014 has identical area and extent (and ?) to some other year (take your pick), do you believe that nothing has changed since then? Or maybe it has changed from on the rocks to slushy? How confident are you in your knowledge?

To answer your question, this is the role of imagination: to think beyond what is currently understood, to see what might be, or at least have some chance to do so. But of course imagination often turns out to be wrong, so it takes some courage to voice it (unlike simply repeating accepted memes), which is why I made my comment. We need as much imagination as we can get, because we are entering, so to speak, uncharted waters... 

Imho, There is a lot of backward-looking analysis here. Faux-science, I would call it. 99% of "scientists" just take measurements. But even in established scientific disciplines, those areas with well understood theories and methods -- unlike climate research -- even there the major advances are usually made by creative, outlandish people.

We are trying to assess a rapidly changing system, one which has repeatedly surprised even the most knowledgable observers. Is it then wise to rely on opaque measurements with poorly understood assumptions and limitations. Is that objective or is is simply conservative?

I am merely saying that perhaps we should not be too confident in anything and not be too quick to scoff at ideas that may be outside the box. But I've already said too much on a topic that perhaps does not fit this thread. I can almost feel the disdainful glare... (jk?).  :-X
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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2548 on: July 29, 2014, 01:48:01 AM »
Very much do not concur. So easy to criticize, so difficult to be imaginative.
You are free to imagine a current 5 times the speed of the Gulf Stream, flowing directly across the Pole from the Laptev Sea to the Mackenzie Delta.  There is nothing to stop you.

However, you should be aware that that is in fact what you are imagining when you talk about freshwater making its way from one to the other in the space of a couple of days.  That's simple arithmetic, and no amount of imagination will change it.
Actually, that wasn't my point at all. Perhaps the same line of thinking may eventually lead to more plausible and useful scenarios. Shooting down a newbie will certainly lead nowhere, other than maybe silencing a new voice.
The Permian–Triassic extinction event, a.k.a. the Great Dying, occurred about 250 million years ago and is the most severe known extinction event. Up to 96% of all marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species became extinct; it is also the only known mass extinction of insects.

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2549 on: July 29, 2014, 02:49:27 AM »
Very much do not concur. So easy to criticize, so difficult to be imaginative.

   ???

Imagination has little to do with it. Physics and Geography, however, do seem to apply.
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