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A-Team

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2050 on: January 20, 2017, 09:44:19 PM »
Here is some foolishness I made using the excellent GISS portal, set at zonal mean monthly anomalies relative to a 1951-2000 baseline. The first animation just compares 2015 to 2016 anomalies at all latitudes (but with SOND above 60ºN boxed).

Someone asked very sensibly earlier about centering imagery around Jan 1st instead of around July 1st (gregorian calendar year centering: Y2K and 2100 NOT leap years), sort of like the water year we use here (Oct thru Sept) or the Old Persian equinox calendar.

This is a total mess at the GISS site because of all manner of pixel-level bugs in their gif generating. The second image shows where this was headed: (1) Arctic amplification is worse in fall and winter than the rest of the year, (2) it doesn't affect mid- or equatorial latitudes as the name suggests, (3) it doesn't have an Antarctic counterpart, (4) it's steadily getting worse, and (5) 2015 and 2016 might be the worst yet, and (5) arctic amplification is exhibiting mission creep into flanking seasons and lower latitudes.

The lower animation seeks to extend this winter out into melt season using, what else, the anomalies from last winter. It would not be surprising given these storms and trends if the temperature anomaly turns out to be worse.

https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/time_series.html

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2051 on: January 20, 2017, 10:25:38 PM »
Quote
another way of putting it, if we look at the DMI 80N the eyeball says the green line starts turning up about day 70
Nice method. Solar insolation is symmetric about the summer solstice but the 80+N graph is not, so it does not pick up onset of waning solar heat in the fall (Neven says forget it from late August on). Around here, it is not unusual when the sun is low for it to get under the cloud deck. The land can take up ~100% of the heat despite 90% cloud cover. However in the Arctic, calm water has a critical angle of ~22º (ice would be different). Below that angle, it's all reflected. But where is the final destination -- absorption by our favorite vaporous greenhouse gas or in a cloud or back out to space? Meanwhile SHEBS and N-ICE2015 were there actually measuring it all.

Quote
turn out gradient-delineated graphs of things like temperature that provide visual clues to the error
@ZLabe had some great examples of bad graphs on twitter the other day, both denier-type and bad-scientific. Most of these can be fixed by cropping out unused space and rescaling of uncoupled vertical and horizontal. We don't want to get into the miscommunication business here, deliberate (not even for a good cause) or unintentional.

On 2D and 2D+1T displays, ie maps and animations, the most common communication issue is a muddy palette arisng from lossy compression, resizing in bezier spline mode, re-projecting, or anti-aliasing text and legends.

Those can be fixed by passing from RGB to indexed color which crams all tens of thousands of colors into a dozen or two bins. Returning to RGB, you will find the map contoured without contour line dividers and easily countable map pixels corresponding to each palette bin, 2nd animation shows before and after.

A good place to do this, with sprites shut off, is at nullschool. The palettes there have to have global range which means for the Arctic, the palette spread is too small.

The only difference with time series is that all the frames have to be tiled up into a single image which in effect allows, after re-slicing, operations to be applied to each frame.
« Last Edit: January 20, 2017, 10:34:08 PM by A-Team »

Neven

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Re: Arctic Cyclone Trends
« Reply #2052 on: January 20, 2017, 10:45:52 PM »
Here's a comment from a new member that got buried (because I have to approve comments until a new member profile is released (done now, Pragma, welcome)):

Hello All,

Log time lurker on Neven's blog, but new here. I commend you all for the high signal/noise ratio of this forum.

I'm looking for some background information on Arctic weather. I know storms are not uncommon in the Arctic but is there a trend change in frequency, duration or intensity?

Storms are basically heat engines, so the increase in water temperatures and influx of heat due to much larger Rossby wave amplitudes should all have an effect, but has this been seen in the data?

I first became aware during the GAC 2012 how damaging they can be, but I am trying to tease out whether the impact on sea ice is due to a much weaker and thinner ice, or if the storms are simply a bigger force. I suspect it is both, but I look forward to some insight from those much more experienced.

Thank you.
« Last Edit: January 20, 2017, 10:57:09 PM by Neven »
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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2053 on: January 21, 2017, 12:44:04 AM »
@Pragma

I would recommend starting in this thread http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1783.msg99642.html#top
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andy_t_roo

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Re: Arctic Cyclone Trends
« Reply #2054 on: January 21, 2017, 12:47:51 AM »
Hello All,
...
I'm looking for some background information on Arctic weather. I know storms are not uncommon in the Arctic but is there a trend change in frequency, duration or intensity?
...
Welcome to the forum Pragma.

Re: storms in the Arctic, storms with lightning are actually quite a new occurrence -- http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2016/07/iced-lightning.html . Although i'm not aware of any quantitative long term measures of storm strength, storms without lightning would have to have much less moisture and hence energy involved, and the substantial increase in lightning strikes would roughly correlate with the impact on the ice these storms could have.

That people here on the forum look at these storms getting to the arctic and invent terms like 'cyclone cannon' to describe the unusual train of storms getting to the arctic in the absence of strong blocking by the polar vortex/jet stream means that people more knowledgeable than me are also somewhat surprised.

Pragma

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2055 on: January 21, 2017, 02:56:02 AM »
Thank you Neven, TT & Andy.

Those links give me a lot to chew on and deserve re-reading; the paper by Dr. Cohen even more so.

The complexity of the system is much more than I can wrap my head around, but I can appreciate the vast amount of energy that is entering the Atlantic side of the Arctic.

I have been following the work of Dr. Jennifer Francis and the reduced temperature differentials between the higher and mid latitudes do not bode well for stable weather patterns.

I was shocked, but not surprised that lightning storms have arisen so suddenly. I fear that we are on the cusp of a new climate regime in the Arctic, but that conclusion can only be reached after much more data, and time.

That said, with the rapid changes in sea ice, how can not be the case?

aslan

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2056 on: January 21, 2017, 09:33:10 AM »

I am not sure how we translate past PDO behaviour with today's anomalies.

see: 


compare with today



While I do not disagree that the PDO is + and warm, the persistence of tropical water vapor is a much stronger signal than a normal El Nino year today.  Last year's El Nino was not acting like an El Nino.  Our current Atmospheric river in California has tropical water vapor translation stretching all the way to the pacific warm pool!  I have never observed this before, not during El Nino, NEVER.

We used to call atmospheric rivers 'pineapple express' because they originated from the region around hawaii.  This event is more accurately called a 'palm oil express'. 

https://earth.nullschool.net/#2017/01/17/1500Z/wind/surface/level/overlay=total_precipitable_water/equirectangular=-162.35,18.54,519

I am not disagreeing with you, but we must recognize that the earth systems are changing so rapidly now that our previous patterns/metrics are no longer communicating current system operations accurately.

Yeah, no problems, I fully understand your question and I agree with your point. How can you said that positive PDO is bringing a strong subtropical jet now, while it was not the case this past winter with an even stronger PDO and en El Niño ? I think the last winter, warmth was widespread. Even if the pattern was fitting pattern of ENSO and PDO, it was more like a huge toast of red about everywhere and the Hadley cell were not able to contract as it should be the case. We even saw a case of two hurricanes at the same time in the Atlantic and the Pacific... Currently, the pattern of SST are a bit more zonally oriented; and the transition to positive anomalies in the subtropical Pacific, to cold anomalies in subpolar Pacific, is more pronounced, and global temperatures are a bit lower, allowing a response which is more classical of positive PDO. But nonetheless I agree with your point, we should be really cautious when we use this "old" "rule of thumbs" if I may say. Atmospheric circulation is highly disturbed and nothing known about the climate of the 20th will go through the 21th century unscathed.

Quote
I'm looking for some background information on Arctic weather. I know storms are not uncommon in the Arctic but is there a trend change in frequency, duration or intensity?

Very, very difficult question to answer, but as everyone already said, it is quite possible. The regions with a gradient of temperature and humidity, the baroclinic zone, is changing rapidly and this can lead to more frequent storms for Arctic. This year, it is beyond doubt that it was the case. The baroclinic zone this year was totally broken, with a reverse gradient between Arctic and Russia during Automn -for the first time since at least 50 years according to the reanalysis-.

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2057 on: January 21, 2017, 10:22:00 AM »
Not sure if this is a sign of remission or a "dead cat bounce" but Nullschool has a high pressure area digging in over the CAB from tomorrow, with deep cold and fairly strong winds. Possibly a more normal state of affair for the Arctic in January (not that I would know), but presumably better for the ice than the recent barrage of storms. Image below is for 12:00 UTC on the 25th.
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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2058 on: January 21, 2017, 11:11:14 AM »
Hi Binntho ..

A high with a central pressure in the low 980's may be considered a low . None of the forecasting models suggest a high in the CAB ..
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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2059 on: January 21, 2017, 11:39:07 AM »
That's just me being stupid - I forgot whether a high rotates clockwise or counter-clockwise! But it's definitely very cold!
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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2060 on: January 21, 2017, 02:25:25 PM »
Thinning of the thickest ice above the CAA during the storm reached its minimum on Thurs Jan 19th and now may be thickening again according to rolling five-day contextual windows that precede from Jan 01-05 (with 5th on top) to Jan 16-20 (with 20th on top).

The newly updated 80º+N graphic from @ZLabe is also consistent with 'peak storm' having just passed by. It also shows the heterogeneity in late winter falling to a fairly consistent April 1st onset of warming.

The Hycom forecast to 27 Jan shows that the 'loop' in the Lincoln Sea was lost (flattened) during the storm and that export out the Bering Strait, Fram and Nares will continue. Older thick ice is shown crossing the Fram Strait from NE Greenland to Svalbard and thin ice will expand south of the Svalbard-FJI line.

Zachary Labe has a poster at the AMS meeting on improving Piomas that will interest many people here. The second animation applies posterization contouring to increasingly gaussian blurs of his monthly rank anomaly chart (which obliterates the ranking text in favor of patterning). the dotted green box marks July 2012, the minimum ice volume in this data set.

https://ams.confex.com/ams/97Annual/webprogram/Handout/Paper313445/ZLabeMagnusdottirStern_AMSposter_2017.pdf

http://sites.uci.edu/zlabe/publications/
« Last Edit: January 21, 2017, 03:01:09 PM by A-Team »

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2061 on: January 21, 2017, 04:00:37 PM »
A comparison of SSTs at this time of the year for 2015-2016-2017

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2062 on: January 21, 2017, 04:26:38 PM »
How can you said that positive PDO is bringing a strong subtropical jet now, while it was not the case this past winter with an even stronger PDO and en El Niño ?

at the risk of being too much off topic.  my observations show increased water vapor moving into the higher latitudes.  This appears to be operating well below the subtropical jet and is a function of reduced high-temp process/high altitude aerosol emissions from Asia.  These aerosols previously suppressed upper altitude water vapor buildup through strong precipitation signals.

lets move this to wierd weather (or another location if you prefer) to talk http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,323.1350.html
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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2063 on: January 21, 2017, 04:37:51 PM »
I think this is about the best visual of the damage that I have seen so far.
It helps if you can zoom in on it.
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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2064 on: January 21, 2017, 08:44:29 PM »
NOAA has finally given a clear picture at Kennedy - the top of Nares. See http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/kennedy.uk.php for the source of the images below.

First one is from 15th Jan at http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/images/MODIS/Kennedy/201701151220.NOAA.jpg

Second one is today (21st Jan) at http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/images/MODIS/Kennedy/201701211252.NOAA.jpg

First one shows most ice to the west of Greenland is solid. Second shows that it has fractured in the GAC as it has been forced out towards Fram.

The large floes in Nares, starting their journey in the first image, had made it quite a long way down the strait, but have been pushed back up the strait towards the mouth. The Lincoln Polynya at the head of Nares has filled up with the junk ice.

The main mass of ice moved along a line leaving a stationary mass between Ellesmere and Greenland.

When the winds are favourable there doesn't appear to be anything preventing export down Nares. It looks like the Lincoln Polynya will re-form and start eating away at the stationary mass again.


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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2065 on: January 21, 2017, 08:58:20 PM »
bairgon - This seems to be the visual evidence of what A-Team's thickness maps picked up?

Tigertown

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2066 on: January 21, 2017, 09:51:52 PM »
I feel like one of the long term results of this last storm will be in regard to how easy the ice will flow toward the Fram and turn so as to be exported.
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Pavel

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2067 on: January 21, 2017, 10:14:12 PM »
The thickest ice leaves out through the Fram. The huge  areas of new thin ice are opening along the Russian coast. Lack of FDD to build mature ice. Weak ice in Chukchi, Kara and even the Central arctic basin. That could be an exciting melting season

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2068 on: January 21, 2017, 11:27:14 PM »
Regarding fram export - check out how ice north of Greenland drifted past Cape Morris Jesup on the way into the Fram over the last 5 days.  I'm estimating that the area of ice identified on the top of the gif (in a red square) traveled around 45KM a day for the first four days. Note: there is no image for the 17th because it was too cloudy. (needs click)

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2069 on: January 22, 2017, 12:01:13 AM »
@ Cato Re: IJIS comment,
Quote
Regarding the recent JAXA extension increase, I maintain my opinion that with such low temperatures in Bering area, freezing is just what one should expect. There's -25C in Savoonga and -27C in Mekoryuk as we speak. Dispersion IMHO is in most cases associated with cold air advections and therefore it's a difficult and probably useless exercise to try separating the two issues which generally tend to act concurrently. For example, the LP currently forming in the Pacific will activate strong, and cold winds from Alaska to Russia, thus leading to extension increase for both advection of colder air, and dispersion of the existing ice offshore Alaska.

I don't mean anything personal by it Cato, but the storm that is developing in the Pacific as we speak will actually lap partially over into the Bering Sea. In less than 24 hours, there will be 7 meter waves there and over 9 meter waves the next day. These will both stir in warmer waters directly from the Pacific, but also from upwelling. Most likely, the ice that has been pushed through the Strait will be melted, much less new ice being formed. The warm waters have a more direct influence than the cold air, at least for the immediate few days or so and maybe longer. After that, it is possible for new ice to form maybe, at some point. Maybe.

Update: New forecast now calls for 9 and 10 meter waves in the Bering Sea within 24 hours.
« Last Edit: January 22, 2017, 12:20:01 AM by Tigertown »
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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2070 on: January 22, 2017, 12:11:10 AM »
NOAA has finally given a clear picture at Kennedy - the top of Nares. See ...
<low whistle>

Storm impact on the ice structure has exceeded my worst expectations.

Here's the same area from March 18th of 2016:

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/images/MODIS/Kennedy/201603181249.NOAA.jpg
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jai mitchell

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2071 on: January 22, 2017, 07:19:26 AM »
Update: New forecast now calls for 9 and 10 meter waves in the Bering Sea within 24 hours.

Central bearing sea buoy data
http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=46035
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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2072 on: January 22, 2017, 10:39:55 AM »
Update: New forecast now calls for 9 and 10 meter waves in the Bering Sea within 24 hours.

Central bearing sea buoy data
http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=46035
Not a lot of wave action there right now, but 37.4F/3C water temp at 1M depth?!?!  That's absurdly warm.
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seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2073 on: January 22, 2017, 12:08:08 PM »
ECMWF shows another strong storm affecting Kara, Barentz, Fram..., reaching about 950 hPa in four days. Really Kara is going to need a quiet time to get some solid ice pack before the melting season.
Bering looks really cold in the forecast once the other announced storm is gone.

seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2074 on: January 22, 2017, 12:48:33 PM »
This image is from Nullschool, mean sea level pressure, this Thursday. Not exactly as above since it is GFS, but very similar qualitatively (look at the succession of storms).
The visualization of the low pressure systems along the Atlantic Ocean is very interesting, it is almost like a single corridor of low pressure. The configuration probably is sustained in these events of moisture being pulled from the Gulf to the Arctic ocean.

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2075 on: January 22, 2017, 04:15:36 PM »
 @ jdallen
 
Quote
Not a lot of wave action there right now, but 37.4F/3C water temp at 1M depth?!?!  That's absurdly warm.

The MSLP is at about 954 hpa right now, but will peak at 944 hpa in about 9 hours. Also, it is in the Pacific and only partially laps over into the Bering Sea.
« Last Edit: January 22, 2017, 04:33:06 PM by Tigertown »
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oren

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2076 on: January 22, 2017, 04:25:53 PM »
@ jdallen

 
Quote
Not a lot of wave action there right now, but 37.4F/3C water temp at 1M depth?!?!  That's absurdly warm.

The MSLP is at about 954 hpa right now, but will peak at 944 hpa in about 9 hours. Also, it is in the Pacific and only partially laps over into the Bering Sea.
In any case, wave height has gone up significantly over the past few hours, now up to 15ft, and will probably go higher.

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2077 on: January 22, 2017, 05:01:59 PM »
                         One or two people, I think are not seeing the big picture. Most of us are. At first glance it looks like the the extent is growing real healthy like in the Bering Sea, but if you watch it on www.polarview.aq/sic/arctic/ and adjust the date back and forth, you can see the concentration going down in the ESS ( a little in the Chukchi) as it goes up on the other side of the Strait. So, really whether the storm melts this "new" ice or not by stirring things up, it is borrowed ice anyway; borrowed from where it was needed.

P.S. Hudson Bay looks terrible.
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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2078 on: January 22, 2017, 05:18:50 PM »
Quote
borrowed ice
Right. The exported thin ice, with thicker pieces of landfast ice coming soon, comes at the expense of Arctic Ocean ice.

Below the Bering Sea cyclone is shown for today 22 Jan 17 with nullschool sprites obtained using LiceCap freeware for timed screen captures and disappearing captioning. Thirteen days of hycom are inlaid to show ice export expected out the Bering Strait out to Jan 28th.
« Last Edit: January 22, 2017, 05:24:33 PM by A-Team »

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2079 on: January 22, 2017, 05:36:52 PM »
Thanks, A-Team. That shows it all in a nutshell, so to speak.

P.S. I did not quite realize myself how much ice had been exported through the Bering Strait. It looks like a good deal of what went first was sacrificed to make a cool spot for the rest to maintain a brief existence.
« Last Edit: January 22, 2017, 05:49:24 PM by Tigertown »
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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2080 on: January 22, 2017, 06:26:24 PM »
Winter is proving to be a most consequential season though it only becomes clear the following September what all has happened. Just another view (ADS-Jaxa) of the last 12 days with whole-Arctic context (hycom). Note the thicker (green) ice stacking up against St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea whereas the thinner ice works its way around on the sides to join up behind it.

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2081 on: January 22, 2017, 06:27:39 PM »
Oooohhh, Look!  Extents increasing!  It's a recovery! (insert sarcasm font)
(Nice to have daylight to see what happens with the storm this week, it doesn't look as strong to me as the hycom images above show)
« Last Edit: January 22, 2017, 06:37:41 PM by solartim27 »
FNORD

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2082 on: January 22, 2017, 07:09:06 PM »
it should also be noted that surface temperatures in the Bearing Strait region have been extremely condusive for new sea ice growth at <-15C for over 1 week.
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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2083 on: January 22, 2017, 07:55:36 PM »
Quote
[air] temperatures in the Bearing Strait region have been extremely condusive for new sea ice growth
Did you check out the temperature of the water as long as you were up at nullschool? It's two clicks.

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2084 on: January 22, 2017, 08:03:04 PM »
it should also be noted that surface temperatures in the Bearing Strait region have been extremely condusive for new sea ice growth at <-15C for over 1 week.
I have thoughts on that; I think the extent will reach right about the "0C" line in NOAA's SST maps.

Ice driven past that will survive only as long as cold circulation out of the arctic keeps temperatures at least 10C below freezing, and even then, I think it will get thinned out.

Interestingly, that also roughly parallel's the change in bathymetry.  (Crude graphics included below; both base images care of NOAA.).
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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2085 on: January 22, 2017, 09:57:37 PM »
As I said, Hudson Bay looks bad.
"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.

charles_oil

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2086 on: January 22, 2017, 10:31:42 PM »
I did wonder if it might get hit.....

From Climate Reanalyser.

oren

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2087 on: January 23, 2017, 12:08:13 AM »
@ jdallen

 
Quote
Not a lot of wave action there right now, but 37.4F/3C water temp at 1M depth?!?!  That's absurdly warm.

The MSLP is at about 954 hpa right now, but will peak at 944 hpa in about 9 hours. Also, it is in the Pacific and only partially laps over into the Bering Sea.
In any case, wave height has gone up significantly over the past few hours, now up to 15ft, and will probably go higher.
Significant wave height is up to 24ft and still growing. Admittedly this buoy is south of the ice area, but it might be representative of the conditions to its north, in that case I doubt any new thin ice can withstand such waves.

NeilT

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2088 on: January 23, 2017, 12:49:50 AM »
The storms have had their expected impact and spread the ice increasing extent.

However we are still in winter and Arctic Night. That means we are in a reduced heat environment which will trend towards increasing ice and will continue to do so for at least another 6 weeks if not two months.

My personal view is to track whether the "winter" ice growth ends 400km^2 lower than 2007 or 2012, given that 2017 started the year 400km^2 below the 2004-2016 year start trend.  There is only one year end/year start like 2016/17 in the record and that was 2010/2011.

So I'm looking to see if it follows the 2007 trend of the 2012 trend and to see whether the storms keep it to a new extreme record maximum or not.

The zoom feature on Chartic tells the story in the attachment.

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Tigertown

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2089 on: January 23, 2017, 01:01:58 AM »
HYCOM shows export continuing through Nares and Fram and Bering Straits in vast amounts over the next week. The ice has lost the ability to resist flowing with the wind. The next storm per ECMWF will be in place by mid-week and will last two to three days before fading off. It does not exactly look like the storm of the century, but with the pack in the shape it is in, it doesn't have to be.
"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.

logicmanPatrick

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2090 on: January 23, 2017, 01:58:19 AM »
I normally don't comment......but I would like to take a moment to recognize A Team.

I hope i speak for many lurkers when I say; his/her contributions are invaluable to this. A Team, I want to thank you for your dedication.

Seconded, big time!
si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes

bbr2314

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2091 on: January 23, 2017, 03:34:32 AM »
HYCOM shows export continuing through Nares and Fram and Bering Straits in vast amounts over the next week. The ice has lost the ability to resist flowing with the wind. The next storm per ECMWF will be in place by mid-week and will last two to three days before fading off. It does not exactly look like the storm of the century, but with the pack in the shape it is in, it doesn't have to be.
More importantly it looks like lows ~950-955mb will exist in near perpetuity along the Atlantic front in one form or another through D10... the FRAM export is going to be severe/significant, seems like preconditioning could result in an Atlantic front that is far and away the worst ever this year.

Tigertown

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2092 on: January 23, 2017, 04:08:08 AM »
Currently, there are winds up to 98 km/hr (edit: 105 km/hr) in the Bering Sea and waves up to 11 meters.
The nearby buoy confirms wave heights but the wind is not as strong in that location.

Thanks to jai mitchell for that link given earlier.
« Last Edit: January 23, 2017, 04:18:32 AM by Tigertown »
"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.

epiphyte

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2093 on: January 23, 2017, 05:19:05 AM »
The use of a long-term climate mean has the effect of dramatizing the anomaly. Relative to say 2010-2015, the numbers would presumably be less dramatic (see above 80+N similarities to last year). Either way, the 2 m air has been way too warm so far this refreeze season.

On a related note, one wonders if the combination of new technical resources (viz: Sentinel) and extraordinarily expositive graphics (courtesy of A-Team et al) might of themselves be serving to cast the anomalies of the current freezing season in a more than usually dramatic light?

Not to suggest that temps this year aren't a frightening departure from the past - objectively, they are. But anomalies or no, over much of ESS, the pacific side of CAB, CAA, etc it's f...ing cold right now, and who knows? - high winds and airborne moisture might even increase the rate of ice creation in those regions, over what they otherwise would have been...

[...]

To reiterate, objectively this looks very bad. Don't be surprised though if by mid-June everyone has forgotten it happened. Probably they will remember again around the second or third week of August :-/

Apologies for following up on my own post - but the the most pertinent question w.r.t. the remainder of this freezing season is "Will there at the end of April be enough ice to maintain coverage through the Summer?

Over the past week much thin ice has been flushed out into the warm pacific, it's true.

The temporary blip in extent that this has caused is totally irrelevant. Also true.

...but this has had the effect of spreading thicker (albeit 1st year) ice from the CAB into Beaufort, ESS, where, to re-iterate, it is f-ing cold right now. Newly opened leads in these areas will freeze very quickly, the predominantly <1-1.5m thick sheet will have a least a chance of firming up enough for some of it to put up a fight over the summer, and the little remaining MYI is simultaneously migrating south and strengthening - possibly even enough to survive till next year.

... so all in all, I still have the feeling that even if the next few weeks deal the arctic ice a mortal blow, the truth of it won't be apparent before mid-august or thereabouts.

Tigertown

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2094 on: January 23, 2017, 06:04:00 AM »
If everything settled down and allowed some recovery time, sure. But the Bering Sea, where thicker ice is getting pushed to now, is going through a storm with mslp of 944 at one point today and the Barents has not really settled down for a while now. Even when there is no major storm around, there seems to be rough seas all the time. As seaicesailor pointed out there is another storm on the way in a couple days. HYCOM is forecasting  large amounts of ice being exported including thick ice, which there is little left of. There are streaks of low concentration already all over the place, including some in the Beaufort. There are actually leads in the ESS, where the water is not quite as cool as it needs to be. The Laptev has been infiltrated with warm water (see below). Hudson Bay looks terrible, along with everything in that general area. It will take a huge amount of FDD's to make a recovery. Sorry, as I don't mean to spoil anyone's day.
P.S. second chart for ESS
"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.

romett1

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2095 on: January 23, 2017, 10:52:24 AM »
Hycom model shows Fram export is continuing and is really strong until at least Jan 28. Latest look at Cape Morris Jesup - Jan 22 vs Jan 21 (Danish Meteo). We have to look that closely, because it's where the thickest ice is. I guess it needs to be clicked.

Paddy

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2096 on: January 23, 2017, 01:27:12 PM »
Does anyone have any figures that quantify export this year so far compared to previous years?

Phil.

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2097 on: January 23, 2017, 01:42:46 PM »
If everything settled down and allowed some recovery time, sure. But the Bering Sea, where thicker ice is getting pushed to now, is going through a storm with mslp of 944 at one point today and the Barents has not really settled down for a while now. Even when there is no major storm around, there seems to be rough seas all the time. As seaicesailor pointed out there is another storm on the way in a couple days. HYCOM is forecasting  large amounts of ice being exported including thick ice, which there is little left of. There are streaks of low concentration already all over the place, including some in the Beaufort. There are actually leads in the ESS, where the water is not quite as cool as it needs to be. The Laptev has been infiltrated with warm water (see below). Hudson Bay looks terrible, along with everything in that general area. It will take a huge amount of FDD's to make a recovery. Sorry, as I don't mean to spoil anyone's day.


Just took a look at the Barrow radar animation for the last 10 days, it shows a lot of mobile ice heading west in the first half of the period.

Paddy

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2098 on: January 23, 2017, 02:17:58 PM »
Given that the storms seem to be creating more dispersion and export, might we expect the volume graph here http://polarportal.dk/en/havisen-i-arktis/nbsp/sea-ice-extent/ to show poor growth this week, even if extent shows decent growth?

Darvince

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2099 on: January 23, 2017, 03:23:20 PM »
The storm south of the Bering Sea is not melting anything. It is allowing new ice to grow in the Bering Sea. The wind direction on the northern side of the cyclone is towards the west, or coming from Alaska. The strong winds are blowing away from the ice. This means that wave action is not affecting the ice. The ice will grow and expand in the Bering Sea, being pushed away from land with rapid ice formation at the coastline.

Storms that should have a fuss being made about them are those heading north into the Arctic. They are worrisome because the warm fronts pass over the ice, raising temperatures massively. This storm is not raising temperatures over any ice, land or sea. This storm is very well positioned to create large amounts of ice in the Bering Sea, where it is desperately needed. Making such a fuss about this storm is like if we were talking extensively about a storm passing near Iceland, heading east into Scandinavia.

Yes, it is thin, and yes, it will melt in summer. However, this storm increases the amount of buffering in summer for the sea ice as the 40cm ice that will exist at the end of this freezing season in the Bering Sea will take time and energy to melt. All ice takes time and energy to melt, even thin ice. Yes, it is (likely) thinner than previous years in the Bering. No, it will not vanish instantly when the sun begins shining. The sun shines every year, year-round in the Hudson Bay and it builds ice of a meter thick or more every year. You must look at local conditions to see if it will expand or shrink.