The 2015 melting season

[F.Tnioli]

F. Tnioli, I was looking for a buoy in the Bering Strait a while back and couldn't find one. As it turns out I also saw the new NOAA Buoy yesterday. I hope it will give us data through freeze and thaw
2015/2016.  The wave chart you see on that site is in feet not meters. Here is another data set for the same buoy that is more clear about wave height and period as the chart in the link you gave isn't. 

http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=48114

Thank you, Bruce.

P.S. Possibly i erratically assumed meters for the buoy i mentioned, since they use Celcius for temperature; plead guilty of reckless reading. Wave height graph of the buoy i mentioned has its wave graph given in "C" - someone forgot to change it to either "m" or "ft", eh. Sigh... Ain't no oceanologist here.

[werther]

Hurt in the heart?

I had a copy of 2012 day 235 MODIS in my CAD. Thought it might be illustrative for today’s state of the ice.
This is what I found within a 150x150 km2 box in tile r04c03, some 500 km NW of Ellesmere/Axel Heiberg Islands:

First 2015, day 225:



Then 2012, day 235 (GAC-2012 had already passed by then):



In 2012, I counted most of the ice within the box as part of the ‘safe’ mesh-pattern structured central pack. That safe area had a surface just over 1 Mkm2, quite confidently knitted against the fast ice on the CAA and Greenland coastlines. You could make up from this that compaction was a driving aspect of the 2012 melt season. Thus the low extent.

For this year, honestly, I can hardly find any remnant of what I have approached as ‘safe’ mesh-pattern pack over the years. The wide, unstructured pool of broken-up, rather small floes extends for thousands of km2’s, only reaching compacted levels N of Svalbard and Frantsa Yosefa.

The lot ‘hangs loose’ from the CAA, leaving room for the channels to flush their broken fast ice into the Ocean.
If my favoured ‘mesh pattern’ has any meaning within the physical reality, I would say there’s a severe loss of volume and structural strength in the heart of what has been seen as the ‘last stand’.

[wili]

Thanks for that insight, werther.

I get the feeling that this is the kind of thing (though he doesn't quantify it so nicely) that drives Wadhams toward is low estimates. It looks like he will have a better chance of being right on those next year than this, though.

[F.Tnioli]

Thanks for that insight, werther.

I get the feeling that this is the kind of thing (though he doesn't quantify it so nicely) that drives Wadhams toward his low estimates. It looks like he will have a better chance of being right on those next year than this, though.

I have exactly same feeling, to the last word of it. "Better chance next year" is the way to say it; you spelt my feeling better than i probably could. Feeling grateful for that, i am. 

[Gonzo]

werther: For this year, honestly, I can hardly find any remnant of what I have approached as ‘safe’ mesh-pattern pack over the years.

I agree. See my screenshots at bottom of last page. That is just an obvious example, easier to demonstrate, but there are many more, when the clouds clear people here are going to be shocked. Everywhere I look this year, it is more broken up than 2012. There are huge areas of the icesheet that were neatly meshed together in a neat compact way. It is nothing like that this year.

[jplotinus]

Hurt in the heart?

I had a copy of 2012 day 235 MODIS in my CAD. Thought it might be illustrative for today’s state of the ice.
This is what I found within a 150x150 km2 box in tile r04c03, some 500 km NW of Ellesmere/Axel Heiberg Islands:

First 2015, day 225:



Then 2012, day 235 (GAC-2012 had already passed by then):

In 2012, I counted most of the ice within the box as part of the ‘safe’ mesh-pattern structured central pack. That safe area had a surface just over 1 Mkm2, quite confidently knitted against the fast ice on the CAA and Greenland coastlines. You could make up from this that compaction was a driving aspect of the 2012 melt season. Thus the low extent.

For this year, honestly, I can hardly find any remnant of what I have approached as ‘safe’ mesh-pattern pack over the years. The wide, unstructured pool of broken-up, rather small floes extends for thousands of km2’s, only reaching compacted levels N of Svalbard and Frantsa Yosefa.

The lot ‘hangs loose’ from the CAA, leaving room for the channels to flush their broken fast ice into the Ocean.
If my favoured ‘mesh pattern’ has any meaning within the physical reality, I would say there’s a severe loss of volume and structural strength in the heart of what has been seen as the ‘last stand’.

The data presented above are impressive and alarming.

Wow.

[F.Tnioli]

werther: For this year, honestly, I can hardly find any remnant of what I have approached as ‘safe’ mesh-pattern pack over the years.

I agree. See my screenshots at bottom of last page. That is just an obvious example, easier to demonstrate, but there are many more, when the clouds clear people here are going to be shocked. Everywhere I look this year, it is more broken up than 2012. There are huge areas of the icesheet that were neatly meshed together in a neat compact way. It is nothing like that this year.

You know, that made me wonder if we'll have some organisations listing September (might well be October, even) annual sea ice minimum massively different than others. If we'll have much of Arctic having minimum ice at some X concentration of 15%<X<30%, for example - you know, some big ones list "extent" as the sum of all areas with 15% or higher concentration, while others do as high as 30%, if memory serves. This year, it'd take very special weather to have big-time "no u!" clashes based on that 15%<X<30% thing, sure, but i'd say even 5 years ago, no weather could do things Werther mentioned few posts above, eh.

[Gonzo]

Here below is Aug 13 concentration 2012
Then, Aug 13 concentration, 2015.
To my eye, 2012 much more compact, locked solidly into the CAA, smaller in Beaufort, but less susceptible to any warmth from Pacific than 2015 is. And 2012 more robust at Fram, robust in Lincoln, and much less flimsy thoughout. That's just my take on it, could be wrong. What do you guys think?

[Jim Hunt]

Here below is Aug 13 concentration 2012
Then, Aug 13 concentration, 2015.

Then Aug 13 concentration, 2013:

[Buddy]

What do you guys think?

I think that it is "set up" to get "thumped" in 2016 and thereafter.  It is vulnerable... The last two years of "Watts recovery" have vanished (again....like other "recoveries").

[jdallen]

Here below is Aug 13 concentration 2012
Then, Aug 13 concentration, 2015.
To my eye, 2012 much more compact, locked solidly into the CAA, smaller in Beaufort, but less susceptible to any warmth from Pacific than 2015 is. And 2012 more robust at Fram, robust in Lincoln, and much less flimsy thoughout. That's just my take on it, could be wrong. What do you guys think?

My conclusion would be 2015 (and 2013, from Jim's post) both have much more dispersed less integrated packs, which are/were more susceptible to melt.  Given equivalent weather, they both would loose more ice than 2012.

Interesting reminder posting 2013, Jim.  I remember the collective "we" were morally certain the north pole was going to be open water as far as the eye could see.  We *actually* were not far off, as at the end of the season, most of that yellow was a huge extent of about 50% ice coverage.  All that saved it was favorable weather for preserving ice.

*Given* our experience in 2013, how much of that yellow will melt in 2015 is still a coin toss.  In favor of the ice disappearing is the fact that much more of it is *below* 80N; in 2013, much of that same yellow is as far north as we can go (edit: north of 85, in fact...).  The timing of the season meant that conditions changed there in the nick of of time to save the ice.  The ice south of 80 on the Pacific side in 2015 doesn't have as fortunate a location.  However, we shall see if it continues dodging cyclones.

[jdallen]

A bit more...

Looking at EOSDIS Worldview, I think DMI is underestimating coverage along the Atlantic margin.  I'm not seeing what I think is enough open water to justify those areas of low concentration they show.  The ice *is* torn up, but there's not a lot of open water than I can pick out.  I'd be hard pressed to call it more than 5%, 10% at most, and then, not consistent.  In *this* case, I'd lean towards that being an artifact of the modelling algorithm interpolating data.

[Greenbelt]

Looking at the weather, it looks like the models are predicting a very large high pressure to build on the Pacific side, which appears strong enough to shunt any storms to the peripheral coastlines. The remnant of the tropical storm appear to be headed for Alaska, between the big Arctic high and the Ridiculously Resilient northeast Pacific high. So the chance of an Arctic-wide late season storm seem to be diminished for this week.


However, next week we can watch two more typhoon remnant storms,  the easternmost with a decent chance of heading toward the Bering Sea. GFS has alternated between taking an amplified storm toward the Arctic and taking a weaker storm through the slot between the Arctic high and the NE Pacific high though Alaska. I'd bet on the latter case, but one never knows!

[Richard Rathbone]

Thanks for that insight, werther.

I get the feeling that this is the kind of thing (though he doesn't quantify it so nicely) that drives Wadhams toward is low estimates. It looks like he will have a better chance of being right on those next year than this, though.

Wadhams got his SIPN estimate by cherry picking data to fit a dodgy curve to. (He only used data up to 2012 and fit an exponential to it) It was defensible as a prediction made for 2015 in 2012, but its completely indefensible this year. Its WUWT level science. Ignore him.

[jai mitchell]

Richard,

I disagree.  having two years of extreme outlier behaviour does not invalidate 35 years of trends.

Wadhams has been consistently pushing against bad science and his earlier work in 2007 and 2010 showed just how correct he has been.  The volume loss from 2014 to 2015 will show just how much melt conditions have changed and the likelihood of the trend to reassert itself towards total sea ice failure. 

I have my own set of predictions and expect the trend to follow more closely to Wipneus' Gompertz' regression with an ice free state reached sometime within the next 4 years.



This due to the compounding effects of radical warming and ocean heat content gains associated with the reduction of Sulfur emissions from global power production.

[Richard Rathbone]

Richard,

I disagree.  having two years of extreme outlier behaviour does not invalidate 35 years of trends.

Wadhams has been consistently pushing against bad science and his earlier work in 2007 and 2010 showed just how correct he has been.  The volume loss from 2014 to 2015 will show just how much melt conditions have changed and the likelihood of the trend to reassert itself towards total sea ice failure. 

I have my own set of predictions and expect the trend to follow more closely to Wipneus' Gompertz' regression with an ice free state reached sometime within the next 4 years.



This due to the compounding effects of radical warming and ocean heat content gains associated with the reduction of Sulfur emissions from global power production.

Wadhams used the exponential fit, not the Gompertz and with a cherrypicked endpoint. Exponential fits are hugely sensitive to the most recent data, and cherrypicking an endpoint for fitting an exponential is indefensible. 2013 and 2014 show that the exponential fit ending in 2012 is not valid. He either had to refit using up to date data, or abandon the exponential, or lose his credibility.

[Jim Hunt]

I have my own set of predictions and expect the trend to follow more closely to Wipneus' Gompertz' regression with an ice free state reached sometime within the next 4 years.

Jai,

A commenter on my Great White Con blog would like to make a bet with you:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2015/08/arctic-sea-ice-approaching-normal/#comment-211346

i notice jai mitchell on the asif believes we will have an ice free arctic within the next 4 years jim. let him know i am willing to have a bet with him on that

FYI - Here's some details of my own £1000 wager with "Bit Chilly":

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2015/05/the-new-normal-in-the-arctic/#comment-209003

[NeilT]

Wadhams used the exponential fit, not the Gompertz and with a cherrypicked endpoint. Exponential fits are hugely sensitive to the most recent data, and cherrypicking an endpoint for fitting an exponential is indefensible. 2013 and 2014 show that the exponential fit ending in 2012 is not valid. He either had to refit using up to date data, or abandon the exponential, or lose his credibility.

Now this is where I differ significantly from the "purists" view of things.

Wadhams estimate is absolutely nothing like WUWT.  WUWT must use cherry picked figures to try and promote their fairyland viewpoint that the Arctic ice is neither melting nor diminishing, but is, in fact growing.

WUWT must keep changing their baselines and hoping that nothing will be noticed. They keep reducing their Search estimates and only in outlier years like 2013 and 2014 do they even come slightly close to reality.

Wadhams has chosen to ignore two years which, I'm sure, will be recorded as weather anomaly years in the decades to come.

Now here is the real test of what Wadhams has done in comparison to WUWT.

Wadhams does not need to change anything.  He can just leave his estimate unchanged as each year goes by.  And as each year goes by, reality will come to his estimate and match it.  Within 5-10 years it is a virtual certainty, on the least optimistic trajectory, that he will be right.

WUWT is the total opposite.  So I believe that just because he doesn't choose to treat the very latest _TWO_ years in his estimate and because he chooses to base his estimate on the latest 2000's trajectory rather than a projection which includes the entire satellite record (which will always underestimate velocity of loss today), does not mean that he is acting like WUWT.

Stating that he is acting like WUWT, I personally believe, is insulting to his knowledge, skill and reputation.

He may very well have "gone emeritus". But that does not mean he'll be wrong in the short term, let alone the long term.  If I see any basis for instability in his prediction, it appears that he is no longer afraid of taking a position which might bring ridicule.

Note again. Virtually nobody on this site is betting on him being wrong in the next 10 years.  Just 10 years early.

Now we can choose to treat this as a pure science situation (which is quite humorous given that the science of the Arctic melt is far from settled), or we can choose to see it as a combination of scientific information which delivers a political message.

I choose the latter and in the latter situation, an early warning which is correct, is worth 10 late warnings.

[Neven]

Too bad WUWT didn't do a SIPN prediction poll this year. Watts tries to ignore Arctic sea ice as much as he can, if he isn't too busy ignoring the ongoing drought in his home state.

[Gonzo]

Neven:

if he isn't too busy ignoring the ongoing drought in his home state.

Ah ... yes ... the much bigger story of this year. There should be a "California Drought Forum" somewhere.

[Gonzo]

Jim Hunt

FYI - Here's some details of my own £1000 wager with "Bit Chilly"

A fasand pands ! ?  !
Dude, if it's under 1million KM square, a fasand pands won't be worth much anymore on this planet.

[cesium62]

Neven:

if he isn't too busy ignoring the ongoing drought in his home state.

Ah ... yes ... the much bigger story of this year. There should be a "California Drought Forum" somewhere.

No, no, I'm pretty sure the Arctic is still bigger than California...

;-)

Hmmm, so Watts and I have at least one thing in common...

[NeilT]

California drought or the 13 wildfires none of which were contained and most were either 0% contained or between 0 and 20 the last time I looked.

[Gonzo]

NeilT

California drought or the 13 wildfires none of which were contained and most were either 0% contained or between 0 and 20 the last time I looked.

Yes, and 20,000 exhausted firefighters fighting wildfires up and down the west coast and Alaska, and that doesn't count the at least 10,000 in British Columbia and Canadian provinces.
Ok, sorry, back to ice !

[jdallen]

Wildfire discussions might be continued Here:

http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1232.0.html

[NeilT]

thanks, worse than I had last seen.

Back to the ice. Most new activity on the pacific side seems now to be above 80N.  The rest is slowly consolidating down to open water with thicker floes bobbing around in it.

It's going to present a really messy picture come September.  Some are going to be cherry picking victory from it for sure.

[Nick_Naylor]

The rubblification on the Pacific side is now approaching the pole. This entire image from the 14th is above ~87N.

[Jim Hunt]

Further to previous enquiries regarding more data from the Siberian side of the Arctic, here's the new buoy on the block:

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

Ice mass balance buoy 2015F has been installed north of the East Siberian Sea, and is currently located at 80.82 N, 173.13 E.

Air Temp: 0.17 C
Air Pres: 1018.60 mb
Snow Depth: 1 cm
Ice Thickness: 93 cm

[iceman]

Here below is Aug 13 concentration 2012
Then, Aug 13 concentration, 2015.
To my eye, 2012 much more compact, locked solidly into the CAA, smaller in Beaufort, but less susceptible to any warmth from Pacific than 2015 is. And 2012 more robust at Fram, robust in Lincoln, and much less flimsy thoughout. That's just my take on it, could be wrong. What do you guys think?

My conclusion would be 2015 (and 2013, from Jim's post) both have much more dispersed less integrated packs, which are/were more susceptible to melt.  Given equivalent weather, they both would lose more ice than 2012.
   ....

There's a detail in the detachment effect that runs counter to jdallen's reasoning about overall dispersion.  In 2012, both large detachments toward Siberia melted out fairly rapidly, probably owing to accelerated bottom melt after the cyclone disturbed the water column and brought more heat toward the surface.  In 2015 the Beaufort/Chukchi arm appears on the verge of detaching and is comparable in size, but likely to melt more slowly.  I expect to see scattered bones of thicker ice a month from now.
   Net: slower area/extent loss than in 2012 for the next few weeks, but probably a later-than-average minimum.

[Nick_Naylor]

Predicted minimum land-fast sea ice: 0

[crandles]

There's a detail in the detachment effect that runs counter to jdallen's reasoning about overall dispersion.  In 2012, both large detachments toward Siberia melted out fairly rapidly, probably owing to accelerated bottom melt after the cyclone disturbed the water column and brought more heat toward the surface.  In 2015 the Beaufort/Chukchi arm appears on the verge of detaching and is comparable in size, but likely to melt more slowly.  I expect to see scattered bones of thicker ice a month from now.
   Net: slower area/extent loss than in 2012 for the next few weeks, but probably a later-than-average minimum.

I am thinking there is more dispersed ice nearer the pole as well as further south like Beaufort. I therefore think we could get area increasing nearer the pole earlier so early minimum for area. However as there is also dispersed ice further south we could get a late minimum for extent.

Early area minimum and late extent minimum is probably quite an unlikely combination so I will probably be wrong about this. (Maybe this prediction will look good if it happens.)

I am even less sure about volume. Dispersed ice has relatively little volume but there are large areas of it and perhaps that can counteract more volume in the middle of the ice pack for longer. Perhaps the late decline will be at slow rate but last longer so there is a late minimum. Combining those I am thinking not much lower than you would predict given level and speed of loss occurring to now.

[Gonzo]

The ice looks nice and compact today, as clouds clear, about 200-500k out from the pole on the Barents sea/Atlantic side. The bad news is much of that ice is less than 1 metre thick.

[jdallen]

Further to previous enquiries regarding more data from the Siberian side of the Arctic, here's the new buoy on the block:

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

Ice mass balance buoy 2015F has been installed north of the East Siberian Sea, and is currently located at 80.82 N, 173.13 E.

Air Temp: 0.17 C
Air Pres: 1018.60 mb
Snow Depth: 1 cm
Ice Thickness: 93 cm

That looks like unfortunately warm water. However, it may be in line with the expected melting point based on salinity.

[Greenbelt]

GFS is now advertising a very strong low on the Siberian side, which coupled with the High in the Beaufort Sea would have the potential to pull lots of warm wet air from the Pacific over the pole. Of course, these model scenarios may not verify, but it's interesting to track the weather vs. the forecast. ECMWF has been toying with the similar ideas, but timing differences. The Euro has a similar but not as deep storm at hour 120, and also a whopper out in fantasy time at hour 216.

[Gonzo]

Someone has been reading your posts!

"Climate alarm bells are ringing, says Arctic-bound Obama"

[NeilT]

A few years back when I was quite constantly on Joe Romm's site, one of my phrases turned up in an Obama speech about two weeks after I wrote it.  I don't remember what it was, I have some vague recollection that it was about the way government functions and the expectations of the climate lobby and how action should be taken as opposed to what was being advocated.  Something like that.

So even if Obama himself is not reading the Climate Change blogs, his speechwriters certainly are....

[budmantis]

Predicted minimum land-fast sea ice: 0

IMHO I think its unlikely. There's landfast ice off NE Greenland that is probably going to outlast this melt season.

[Nick_Naylor]

You mean just south of 80 degrees North?

[budmantis]

Yes, there's an area of ice that each year seems to outlast the melt season, at least in part.

[Nick_Naylor]

True. If we have anything left, that's likely to be all though.

Edit: Although, 10% of that ice broke off right after our comments, and another 10% cracked and looks ready to go . . .

[Nick_Naylor]

On the Atlantic side North of 80 degrees, holes are starting to appear throughout.

[Shared Humanity]

Ice looks pretty solid there.

[seaicesailor]

It is interesting to note that Beaufort & Chukchi have kept extent going down, while CAB ESS and Laptev stalled. This week these three regions are going to get most of the blow of compacting winds.

[Nick_Naylor]

Ice looks pretty solid there.

Perhaps compared to the rest of the Arctic, but it's a significant deterioration from how it looked the last time it was visible.

[Gonzo]

North Pole on Russian side today.
Click and zoom in.
(I just saw Nick's image above. This is just a crop, slight sharpen, and zoom in of similar region)

[Gonzo]

Nick_Naylor

Perhaps compared to the rest of the Arctic, but it's a significant deterioration from how it looked the last time it was visible.

Yes. I just noticed your image posted. Same thing more or less, I just posted, just to zoom in on.
It is pretty broken up.  There are also thin semi-transparent clouds making the ice look more solid in places. If there was a completely clear day around there, the widespread deterioration would be much more obvious. 5-6 weeks more melting season.

[seaicesailor]

Nick_Naylor

Perhaps compared to the rest of the Arctic, but it's a significant deterioration from how it looked the last time it was visible.

Yes. I just noticed your image posted. Same thing more or less, I just posted, just to zoom in on.
It is pretty broken up.  There are also thin semi-transparent clouds making the ice look more solid in places. If there was a completely clear day around there, the widespread deterioration would be much more obvious. 5-6 weeks more melting season.

The openings close to the NP this time of the season IIRC are not uncommon.

Some digressing. But on topic.

I come back to the dark bands at NE Greenland, see below (August 11 pic for clear skies). My speculation is that these are borders between ice layers of different age (one-year-old outer layer, two-year-old middle layer, and three and more years old, inner layer closest to Greenland and CAA coasts). Of course the ice is not homogeneous in age, but let's assume that each band is composed mostly as I described.

Now, the interesting thing at second glance, is that the outer FYI layer seems more solid than the inner MYI. Many people have pointed out how broken this ice is compared to 2012.

This inner layer ice lost volume in 2007 and then in 2010, 2011, and 2012 practically disappeared, see this video:



In fact, what many observe as solid MYI in 2012 was probably very homogeneous FYI in its majority!

What happens then? By 2015 the inner layer has remained there for already three-four years, with some ice being older. This ice is so broken because we are just observing the effect of stretching and pushing against the coast, which breaks the MYI during winter. The main polar drift, not always the same in intensity and direction, grinds this ice against the coasts. This is neatly observed in the simulation above. Note also that this year the transpolar drift was very strong.

I think that we may be observing a normal state of MYI close to the Greenland and CAA. The abnormality was the homogeneous, compliant thin ice of 2012 over there. A pity there is no MODIS prior to 2012.

[Nick_Naylor]

Nick_Naylor

Perhaps compared to the rest of the Arctic, but it's a significant deterioration from how it looked the last time it was visible.

Yes. I just noticed your image posted. Same thing more or less, I just posted, just to zoom in on.
It is pretty broken up.  There are also thin semi-transparent clouds making the ice look more solid in places. If there was a completely clear day around there, the widespread deterioration would be much more obvious. 5-6 weeks more melting season.

The openings close to the NP this time of the season IIRC are not uncommon.

True - that portion of the Arctic has been more beaten up in prior years - especially 2013.
So far this year, they were the dogs that didn't bark. Not any more.

[Gonzo]

Seaicesailor:

The openings close to the NP this time of the season IIRC are not uncommon.

Not that common either. Out of the 2012-2015, only 2013 and this year show it. So that's 50% of the satellite photo years on MODIS, and those were bad years on the average, so likely only happens once every 5 years on average at mid-August.

[jr47]

I'm not sure if the melting season will be significantly longer than normal this year. The DMI graph seems to show a normal temperature track above 80 degrees north,and is not far from reaching the blue line.I acknowledge that the water surrounding the icepack is above normal temperature but will it make so much difference as to cause the refreeze to be 1 or 2 weeks later than 'normal'?

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/meanTarchive/meanT_2015.png

Phil.