The 2016 melting season

[Andreas T]

.....

Interesting
given difference between

and


I was wondering if there were sensor issues with the latter as well as CT & NSIDC

Edit: Rutgers doesn't seem to show a dramatic change either see
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_daily.php?ui_year=2016&ui_day=100&ui_set=2

the links crandles has provided are live and now show currently good agreement between the two graphs (25 million sqare km)
or look at the data here https://www.ccin.ca/home/sites/default/files/snow/snow_tracker/nh_sce.png as crandles said browser refreh can be necessary to get latest version

[Jim Hunt]

As anticipated, sea ice area in the Chukchi Sea is now taking a premature nose dive:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2016/04/the-beaufort-gyre-goes-into-overdrive/#comment-214274

The area in the Beaufort Sea, on the other hand, has increased somewhat over the last 2 days.

[Frivolousz21]

The 00z gfs is amazing over the Western half of Eurasia.

Snow cover will continue to accelerate in its melt further and further East but also North pushing towards the shores of the Kara sea.

[Frivolousz21]

And the euro is pure epic LOL!


Goodbye Greenland

[Lord M Vader]

Friv just checked the EURO and have to agree!! It will be very interesting to see if the forecasts verifies! If so, there should be a good set up for an onslaught later in the season.

[Lord M Vader]

It is worth to notice that the GFS weakens the big Arctic high pressure system from in the first week of May with a return to normal conditions. If so, it might prevent a build up of strong melting momentum later this season as the temps are climbing up quite fast now.

See here:

[Jim Hunt]

Here's the overall effect of the Great Arctic Anticyclone of 2016 on the Pacific side so far:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2016/04/satellite-problems-with-arctic-sea-ice-measurement/#comment-214280

[pauldry600]

Never seen so many orange colours over Greenland on GFS

What will this do to the sea levels or is there a minimal effect

The past 3 Winters in Britain and Ireland we have had coastal flooding on an unprecedented scale.

Dont fancy it getting worse

[Laurent]

Orange appearing in Kara !
http://go.nasa.gov/1qyOUTW

[Laurent]

And some rain, just in case it wasn't enough over Kara monday 25th. That rain will go to Laptev and the remaining will head to the pole.
http://www.weather-forecast.com/maps/Arctic?symbols=none&type=prec

[Siffy]

And the euro is pure epic LOL!


Goodbye Greenland

Could you give more detail on what the forecast is suggesting will happen?

[Jim Hunt]

Orange appearing in Kara !

Since you mention it Laurent:

[Jim Hunt]

Laurent - Have you ever tried "squashing" the brightness temperature palette? Here's the Beaufort Sea currently:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2016/04/the-beaufort-gyre-goes-into-overdrive/#comment-214282

[Shared Humanity]

This is one of the scariest images (posted by Neven on ASIB) I have seen in a long time. The Canadian archipelago has been taking a beating the past couple of summers, including some fracturing events that ripped much of the remaining older ice away from the islands. This image suggests the last bit of 4 year and 5 year ice is set to get yanked into and crushed by the Beaufort Gyre. We need to see if those massive fractures that have recently appeared in the Beaufort continue to propagate towards that last remnant of 5 year old ice.

[Frivolousz21]

And the euro is pure epic LOL!


Goodbye Greenland

Could you give more detail on what the forecast is suggesting will happen?

Just huge snow melt over Eurasia and Western NA.

Relentless ridging over the arctic before a turn towards another huge and nasty GIS bad -NAO(dipole)

But it's really not of an arctic like omega block.

Just going to massively precondition things.

This solution would have GIS by far to it's worst start in the modern era.




Also looks looks thin ice formation over the Beaufort and Chuchki will be stopping by the 25th.

[Laurent]

I think the cracks will expand, it is the perfect timing and ice condition to go far, for the moment the ice is too strong on the central arctic basin so we may have to wait for the cracks to really expand.
For the palette, yes I already tried different things but I like the default one, it gives more information about what is going on I think.
The animation is from the 2nd to the 16th of april.

[Tor Bejnar]

I plan on watching the 'upside-down Ohio' shaped ice floe in the Beaufort Sea as it seems to be the most resilient hunk of ice in the region.  Will it crumble?  Will is survive the summer?

[jdallen]

Snow cover has started to rapidly decline.

As others have said the persistence of this ridge is amazing.

We can expect snow cover to decrease faster over the next 7 days.

This is the same Rutgers chart of snow anomalies during March. This year the daily charts have been dispaying this annular pattern (roughly latitude-constant) during Winter and early Spring. To me this is directly related to record global temps. Spring has been coming days, even weeks earlier than usual almost everywhere in the NH. If this continues until Summer it can be bad for the ice (not probable for this to stop given how warm the NH is, and now especially if albedo amplification plays its role in the Arctic regions).

Seattle, today 28C.  Our fruit trees were blooming at the end of February. Weeks.

[Frivolousz21]

The 12z euro was insane. Absolutely no exagerating.  Just nuts. 

If it happens there will be multiple open water areas of appreciable size by the 25th with albedo dropping over the Pacific side. 

[Csnavywx]

It is worth to notice that the GFS weakens the big Arctic high pressure system from in the first week of May with a return to normal conditions. If so, it might prevent a build up of strong melting momentum later this season as the temps are climbing up quite fast now.

See here:

Careful with W3 and W4 projections. There's very little run to run consistency (dprog/dt exhibits high variability on these products anyways -- check out today's run for comparison). The best avenue is using an ensemble or paying attention to anomaly persistence with each run.

El Nino still has a chokehold on the atmospheric pattern over the Pacific, so a continuation of an Aleutian negative height anomaly is likely, flanked to the east and north by positive height anomalies.

[Csnavywx]

The 12z euro was insane. Absolutely no exagerating.  Just nuts. 

If it happens there will be multiple open water areas of appreciable size by the 25th with albedo dropping over the Pacific side.

Yeah, it brings above freezing surface temps all the way into the Beaufort towards the end of the run and a nice plume of warm 850s into that developing block. The EPS is largely on board with the OP run too. The 18Z GFS basically agrees with the pattern but is slower in initiating it. Both the EC and GFS (ENS and OP) inundate Greenland with warm air and a +2-3 SD ridge (570+ dam!) starting at day 4 and more or less leave it there for days on end.

[Michael Hauber]

In my opinion 2008 is the year to beat for early Beaufort ice melt out.  Looking at Neven's past weather patterns (no longer updated) shows that May 2008 started with a massive high pressure similar to what we have now.  Early 2008 was notable for a rather large short term drop in global temperatures, in contrast to the rather large short term rise we have now.  So although I see little correlation between short term global temps and Arctic ice changes, the last couple of months are close to 1 degree warmer than early 2008, and that would seem to have to count for something.

[Frivolousz21]

The 12z euro was insane. Absolutely no exagerating.  Just nuts. 

If it happens there will be multiple open water areas of appreciable size by the 25th with albedo dropping over the Pacific side.

Yeah, it brings above freezing surface temps all the way into the Beaufort towards the end of the run and a nice plume of warm 850s into that developing block. The EPS is largely on board with the OP run too. The 18Z GFS basically agrees with the pattern but is slower in initiating it. Both the EC and GFS (ENS and OP) inundate Greenland with warm air and a +2-3 SD ridge (570+ dam!) starting at day 4 and more or less leave it there for days on end.

Gis is a 365 heat sink.

The earlier albedo is lowered and snow melts, and ssts warm the weaker it becomes since it will be absorbing that much more energy

[Frivolousz21]

The 00z gfs has an unprecedented WAA regime into the Kara, Barents, Nansen Basin and Laptev in the day 6-10 range . 

It's preceded by a week of straight torching of the snow cover over the Western half of Eurasia all the way to the arctic coastal regions.

This is an incredibly impressive setup. 


The gfs has full support of the gem and gefs.

[Lord M Vader]

Friv: the EURO is out. As GFS have notoriously unreliable skill forecasts I use to be sceptic against it. However, the EURO backs it and I think we can be rather confident that the snow melt will accelerate. If this weather pattern continues through May and June it will be an onslaught to the ice! The ooz EURO has temps at 850 hPa above 0 in Chukchi and ESS by the end of April

Also interesting is that we almost had a century break today. A drop of about 80K is not too bad to be in the middle of April.

Does anyone know why one no longer can see the anomalies and area numbers for Kara Sea at Cryosphere Today when you look at the regional area numbers? Have been so for a while now.

And, somewhat OT but is it really 32^oC in the Indian Ocean? Look at the area north of Madagascar! http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/cdas-sflux_sst_ind_1.png Soon, Tropical Tidbits have to extend the scale upward as the warming continues..

Best, LMV

[Frivolousz21]

The euro  is epic.
Comparing current heights to recent years.

The PV anomaly is gone. 





Thats unreal.  That looks, liklife MAY 20th height fee field.




We can't overlook that the cold pools are being pushed out of the arctic where they inherently weaken date faster with stronger sun.


So albedo over the arctic basin will drop expecially on the Pacific side.

400w/m2 * .80 = 320.  So roughly 80 wm/2 gets absorbed which isn't Shit.

400wm/2 *.60 = 240.  So double is absorbed to 160w/m2.

Get some melt pics ponds or snow free flows and the albedo drops to .40-.50 and 200-240 is absorbed.


So by early May the arctic basin could be all things being equal absorbing more insolation by 5-20% above historical norms.


My point:  melt season could start a week real earlier.

Which is hell considering it Will be near peak insolation.

[Laurent]

1 : A long crack expanding the Beaufort strength, it is now the whole arctic ice that is connected in rotation. To have something similar last year it was at least 10 days later.
2 : An other crack aiming at the pole, the constraint goes out of Beaufort, let see how it goes...
http://go.nasa.gov/1Vd3g9F

[Jim Hunt]

Does anyone know why one no longer can see the anomalies and area numbers for Kara Sea at Cryosphere Today when you look at the regional area numbers? Have been so for a while now.

One can only assume it's in response to the recent satellite "gremlins"?

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2016/04/satellite-problems-with-arctic-sea-ice-measurement/

AMSR2 Kara update coming shortly!

[Stephen]

Never seen so many orange colours over Greenland on GFS

What will this do to the sea levels or is there a minimal effect

The past 3 Winters in Britain and Ireland we have had coastal flooding on an unprecedented scale.

Dont fancy it getting worse

A total melt of the Greenland ice sheet would actually lower the sea level around the British Isles (assuming Antarctica stays intact) because the gravitational attraction of the ice sheet sucks the water in.  I think that the sea level around Greenland itself will drop by ~100 metres.   But of course as Greenland melts that raises the sea level around Antarctica which accelerates the melt down there. And the north atlantic will get the full effect of that.

People tend to talk in worrying tones about "8 metres of sea-level rise in the GIS".  But to me that's like saying falling of a 100 storey building is a worry so falling off a 10 storey building should be a cinch.   That first metre of sea-level rise is more than the world's population can cope with anyway.  But maybe we should continue this topic over on the Greenland forum.

[Neven]

Speaking of snow cover, quite large changes in the past 8 days in western Siberia, joining western North America where open patches keep reaching further into Alaska:

[Jim Hunt]

Regular readers may be interested in this document, complete with many pretty pictures:

https://issuu.com/framcentre/docs/framforum-2016-issu

Turning swiftly to page 60 you will discover:

Highlights from the Fram Strait Arctic Outflow Observatory

Almost 90% of all sea ice export from the Arctic Ocean takes place through Fram Strait. Sea ice makes up about half the total freshwater outflow there. Moored, upward-looking sonars in Fram Strait have monitored sea ice thickness continuously since 1990. The measurements revealed that both thick, deformed, multi-year sea ice and level ice decreased in thickness by nearly half a metre per decade. Hence, the thickness of multi-year flat sea ice in Fram Strait is currently only 2 m, as opposed to 3 m in the 1990s.

Our time series also indicate that half of the warm Atlantic Water that flows towards the Arctic Ocean takes a short cut and recirculates in Fram Strait. This salty, “heavy” water contributes to the dense overflows further south that drive large scale circulation in the Atlantic Ocean. Monitoring the temperature of the Atlantic Water is also highly relevant because of its potential impact on the Greenland ice sheet: a warmer ocean might speed up the movement of calving glaciers in eastern Greenland.

[Laurent]

Will the ice melt or not before colliding Swalbard coast, what a suspense !!!

[seaicesailor]

Does the persistent High, and the higher 500 hpa geopotential altitude have to do with, apparently, a Sudden Stratorpheric Warming (SSW) that happened in March? FWIW:

https://www.aer.com/science-research/climate-weather/arctic-oscillation

explains impact of current conditions -AO -NAO at NH level

[Neven]

And how about the Bering Sea? It seems those winds causing the cracking event in the Beaufort are also pushing away the ice from the coast, leaving a large polynya behind that I'm not seeing anywhere on the SIC comparison page for April 19th. I'm expecting a Bering crash similar to last year, meaning all the ice gone within 4 weeks:

[marcel_g]

Will the ice melt or not before colliding Swalbard coast, what a suspense !!!

Yes, it really is very interesting. Andreas T posted some images on the Svalbard thread tracking floes in this area showing that they were indeed melting out before hitting land.

http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1504.msg73989.html#msg73989

[jdallen]

And how about the Bering Sea? It seems those winds causing the cracking event in the Beaufort are also pushing away the ice from the coast, leaving a large polynya behind that I'm not seeing anywhere on the SIC comparison page for April 19th. I'm expecting a Bering crash similar to last year, meaning all the ice gone within 4 weeks:

Concur. Similar openings are forming in the Chukchi. It may be significantly open by June 1.  It may rapidly turn into an abattoir for ice swept into it.

[jdallen]

Another potential ice graveyard.

Laptev and eastern Kara, showing the impact of the anti cyclone.  This is EOSDIS TERRA/Modis overlain by band-31 night using a blue palatte at 65% opacity with a temp range of 235-268.5K to bring out cracking under the clouds.

The whole Arctic is undoubtedly in motion and large expanses of water are opening up around the edges of the central basin proper.  Highly unlikely at this juncture they will get covered in more than slush, if that.

[click to enlarge]

[Lord M Vader]

ECMWF 12z operational run somewhat better for the ice by developing a more cyclonic pattern by the end of the forecast period. Unfortunely, for the Arctic sea ice the ECMWF ensemble 12z run shows a continued high pressure dominated Arctic.

Will wait to see what Friv says

//LMV

[Laurent]

The forecast is not good indeed !
http://cci-reanalyzer.org/WeeklySummary/

[Shared Humanity]

Will the ice melt or not before colliding Swalbard coast, what a suspense !!!

There is visible melt along the ice edge but it's moving so fast it might still hit the shoreline.

[NeilT]

And, somewhat OT but is it really 32^oC in the Indian Ocean

Nope, it actually looks like it's 34C

https://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/

I noticed that the wunderground chart had to increase the temp range up to 34> from 32> a few years ago...

[jdallen]

And, somewhat OT but is it really 32^oC in the Indian Ocean

Nope, it actually looks like it's 34C

https://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/

I noticed that the wunderground chart had to increase the temp range up to 34> from 32> a few years ago...

And Bonus!  There's a Cat 5 cyclone getting spun up by it.  Joyus.

[Neven]

I thought the forecast had improved somewhat, but those winds keep blowing over the Beaufort, and then pushing away that ice into the Bering Sea, with 'heat waves' hitting Baffin Bay and the Kara Sea (above freezing temps). If the forecast comes about, we can expect this year's trend line to stay lowest for at least 10 more days.

[Jim Hunt]

Whilst the distribution of the ice in the Bering Sea is rather different, the overall area is currently similar to recent years:

[jdallen]

Whilst the distribution of the ice in the Bering Sea is rather different, the overall area is currently similar to recent years:

The humorous thought going through my head reading this... Feels like saying it looks like two cows are still the same meat after putting one through a grinder

[seaicesailor]

This study (2002, Journal of Geophysical Research) estimates that about 50% of snowfall during Winter and Spring are removed by snow sublimation and blowing snow. This is a full paper open for reading.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2001JD001251/full

I think this is interesting for current conditions at parts of Beaufort, CAB, Chukchi and ESS under the huge sustained high pressure system (cold, dry?, windy, sunny for weeks)

Snowfall can happen until May except for the coldest areas adjacent to North of Greenland and Canada where it can go on until June. Given the predictions, it seems there won't be much precipitation until May, but isolated snowfalls can happen during Summer as we could see all these past years.

[Jim Hunt]

The view of the sun rising above the horizon from the O-Buoy 14 webcam:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/resources/arctic-sea-ice-images/winter-2015-16-images/#OBuoy14

[epiphyte]

The humorous thought going through my head reading this... Feels like saying it looks like two cows are still the same meat after putting one through a grinder

...is this an allusion to the fact that one of them is dead? 

[Jim Hunt]

DMI have just announced that their extent graph is updating again:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2016/04/satellite-problems-with-arctic-sea-ice-measurement/#comment-214292

[Frivolousz21]

ECMWF 12z operational run somewhat better for the ice by developing a more cyclonic pattern by the end of the forecast period. Unfortunely, for the Arctic sea ice the ECMWF ensemble 12z run shows a continued high pressure dominated Arctic.

Will wait to see what Friv says

//LMV

Haven't been able to check today.


But:

Snow cover is plummeting