Support the Arctic Sea Ice Forum and Blog

Author Topic: The 2016/2017 freezing season  (Read 1468899 times)

Paddy

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1026
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 153
  • Likes Given: 151
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2100 on: January 23, 2017, 04:07:12 PM »
On a loosely related note, current temperature forecasts suggest warm conditions over most of the CAB all this week, with cold conditions over the Bering for the next few days followed by warmer conditions later in the week: https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/forecasts

Imho, looking at the long term, maximum extent may look misleadingly OK by the time it comes around this year between Bering + Okhotsk ice growth and ice export through Fram, but the long poor winter for ice formation in the CAB and the aforementioned Fram export won't be good for volume or summer extent.

Tigertown

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1678
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 24
  • Likes Given: 20
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2101 on: January 23, 2017, 04:38:00 PM »
@Darvince
Please don' take it personal but, I just checked literally 30 seconds ago and there are still 5 meter waves in the Bering Sea and in the heart of the sea the temperature at the surface is about 3.5oC. Smaller waves than that will keep warm water stirred up and melt water moved away from ice, allowing for continuous melt. As pointed out before, a goodly portion of what is being exported through the Bering Strait out into the Bering Sea has melted in the process. I don't know how anyone could claim to know how much ice is growing there in the middle of all that is being exported. How could you tell?

P.S. The storm is not the big deal, but the export through the Strait, pushing the ice into harm's
way is.

Edit: The waves are back up to 6,7, and 8 meters.
« Last Edit: January 23, 2017, 05:02:55 PM by Tigertown »
"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.

Sterks

  • Guest
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2102 on: January 23, 2017, 04:56:16 PM »
[.....]
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.
Yes, these are very good points. I stand by my vote that this year the maximum extent will surpass those of the years 2015 and 2016.
However what strikes me is the maps of ice in the Pacific Ocean in 2012 in winter and spring. The worst summer of the Arctic ice was preceded by a very cold winter in the Bering sea.
Correlation is not probable. Other factors will play in.

romett1

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 286
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 32
  • Likes Given: 2
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2103 on: January 23, 2017, 05:13:45 PM »
Danish site shows that we are in unchartered territory. If i am not mistaken it's about 800 km³ less ice than in 2016. I guess Fram export is starting to bite in.

Tigertown

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1678
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 24
  • Likes Given: 20
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2104 on: January 23, 2017, 05:27:58 PM »
JAXA is showing volume at roughly about 13,500 km3. Well, I guess it is Wipneus using JAXA data for his graph, actually.
"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.

crandles

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3379
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 239
  • Likes Given: 81
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2105 on: January 23, 2017, 05:28:57 PM »
Danish site shows that we are in unchartered territory. If i am not mistaken it's about 800 km³ less ice than in 2016. I guess Fram export is starting to bite in.

PIOMAS showed 840km3 diff at 31 December which wasn't much more than at end of November. Think people generally prefer PIOMAS to DMI volume. No idea how well either will handle upwelling heat as a result of storms.

Was 13.078 at 31 Dec 16
« Last Edit: January 23, 2017, 05:34:57 PM by crandles »

jdallen

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3410
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 650
  • Likes Given: 244
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2106 on: January 23, 2017, 05:36:25 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.
I posted a note regarding how far I think the Bering ice will go back in #2084, and Tigertown I think succinctly described the obstacles ice formation has in the Bering currently.

With earlier weather we missed fully 3 months of freezing which in previous years typically would have already pushed extent to or past the lines I drew.  By April that extent should have pushed significantly further. You can see that browsing through Cryposphere Today, which while is broken still gives us access to a substantial archive of extent imagery.

SST's across the Bering over all are fully 1.5C above average as a result.

Now to put that in context, if we were talking about September this actually would not be so alarming, as there is ample time with shrinking insolation for that heat to be dumped.  However where we stand now, with rapidly increasing insolation - Nome which is well north of my line is now getting the best part of 6 hours of sunlight - there will be no opportunity to dispose of that heat.  Much as hot air entering the Arctic in spring has less effect on the ice than insolation, the reverse is true as well.  Cold air flow out of the CAB will not be enough to significantly expand the ice.  Conductive loss out of the water will lose to the combination of turbulence and increasing insolation.  Clouds will not help, as they will buffer temperatures back to the ambient SST.  The only mechanism which significantly increase ice in the Bering is export south from the Chukchi.

As such, my conclusion is conditions at the start of the Bering and Chukchi melt season will be weeks if not a full month ahead of not just a typical melt season, but 2016's. 

Let us hope for a cool cloudy spring.

This space for Rent.

A-Team

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2977
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 944
  • Likes Given: 35
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2107 on: January 23, 2017, 05:41:13 PM »
The animations below are built from ADS-Jaxa thickness, SMOS thinness, Hycom thickness, AMSR2 sea ice concentration, and DTU Noaa Ellesmere-Nares-Greenland for the period 01-22 2017. They show recent developments in the Bering Sea, Chukchi, East Siberian Sea and Beaufort.

While the Bering Strait situation is quite unusual, the focus below is really on subtle goings-on in the Beaufort. There appears to be a very weak patch of ice in approximately the center of the old gyre, offshore of the Mackenzie but well off the continental shelf. Presumably this will manifest itself later in the spring, possibly as the first region of the Beaufort to melt out.

While the satellite tools and processing algorithms are not fully independent of each other,  consistency between the various products over a period of three weeks suggests properties of surface ice are being observed here rather than atmospheric artifacts. Cryostat swaths and Sentinel-1AB scenes are also available though not as daily time series.

An earlier post showed that image-averaging of either UH AMSR2 or UB SMOS was very effective in delineating this region. Oddly glasbey indexed color also works well on the muddy Jaxa palette. (The glasbey palette by construction maximally separates consecutive colors in a conventionally metrized RGB color space, rather than just barely distinguishing them.)
« Last Edit: January 23, 2017, 05:59:23 PM by A-Team »

jdallen

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3410
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 650
  • Likes Given: 244
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2108 on: January 23, 2017, 05:50:00 PM »
While the Bering Strait situation is quite unusual, the focus below is really on subtle goings-on in the Beaufort. There appears to be a very weak patch of ice in approximately the center of the old gyre, offshore of the Mackenzie but well off the continental shelf. Presumably this will manifest itself later in the spring, possibly as the first region of the Beaufort to melt out.
That's really disturbing.  We're looking at sunrise there pretty shortly.  With ice clearing out of the Chukchi via the Bering, in a few weeks that will create opportunty for the ice to disperse creating leads which will not have a chance to freeze over.

We may see conditions in the Beaufort weeks ahead of last year as well as in the Chukchi and Bering.
This space for Rent.

Darvince

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 318
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 31
  • Likes Given: 7
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2109 on: January 23, 2017, 06:05:49 PM »
@Darvince
Please don' take it personal but, I just checked literally 30 seconds ago and there are still 5 meter waves in the Bering Sea and in the heart of the sea the temperature at the surface is about 3.5oC. Smaller waves than that will keep warm water stirred up and melt water moved away from ice, allowing for continuous melt. As pointed out before, a goodly portion of what is being exported through the Bering Strait out into the Bering Sea has melted in the process. I don't know how anyone could claim to know how much ice is growing there in the middle of all that is being exported. How could you tell?

P.S. The storm is not the big deal, but the export through the Strait, pushing the ice into harm's
way is.
You can tell that there is ice forming in the Bering Sea because this structure against the coast, where landfast ice is adjacent to black sea which changes in a gradient over to white ice is indicative of new ice forming, and it is visible along large regions of the Bering coast during the past days:
http://go.nasa.gov/2iWg4oF

Additionally, the main wave action is heading away from the ice, so little or no splashing against the ice is occurring:
https://earth.nullschool.net/#2017/01/23/1500Z/ocean/primary/waves/overlay=significant_wave_height/orthographic=-175.47,54.75,2067

The areas with the strongest waves would have only formed sea ice in the 1930s or earlier, an era long gone and in which we didn't document sea ice very well.

Additionally, the sea ice which is being exported out of the Bering Strait was thin already with thicker ice filling in behind it, and if HYCOM is correct, then there is a small chunk of thicker ice which was built by coastal compression that is set to exit through the Bering Strait.

Tigertown

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1678
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 24
  • Likes Given: 20
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2110 on: January 23, 2017, 06:34:56 PM »
@Darvince
I simply refer you to A-Team's animations. If you can demonstrate otherwise to backup what you are saying, please present your evidence. I think all those supporting export and melt have provided more than enough evidence. The simple fact that so much ice has been exported and not completely filled up the entire Bering Sea should be enough evidence.

P.S. I never said the waves were breakers that are splashing the ice. The waves simply keep the water mixed. The ice is pushing out; it just appears stationary because the front is melting as it goes. Don't be fooled by the illusion.
« Last Edit: January 23, 2017, 06:48:28 PM by Tigertown »
"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.

Jim Williams

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 398
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2111 on: January 23, 2017, 06:40:29 PM »
You can tell that there is ice forming in the Bering Sea because...

Um....given this graph, why are you so excited about the Bering?

romett1

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 286
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 32
  • Likes Given: 2
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2112 on: January 23, 2017, 07:07:55 PM »
Just a quick update - latest Hycom now shows strong Fram export continuing until at least Sunday Jan 29. Just 17 hours later and we have new animation of Cape Morris Jesup - Jan 23 vs Jan 22. All this ice is heading to Svalbard, but is melting before reaching there. It still needs to be clicked.

Darvince

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 318
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 31
  • Likes Given: 7
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2113 on: January 23, 2017, 07:08:47 PM »
@JW: I am stating that there is ice forming in the Bering Sea. That is all. There is no ulterior motive to "prove" that the Arctic is not in decline. The Atlantic side is in horrid shape. The Bering Sea is below average in extent and area (now only at the scale of recent years rather than record low Bering area/extent...). There is less ice than there used to be, and it is in weaker shape than any previous year going back thousands of years.

@Tigertown: Ice has only been exporting into the Bering Sea for around 10 days, so no, enough ice to fill the Bering Sea has not been exported. You can see here, from IR and a palette squeezed to 230K-290K, the approximate extent of ice in the Bering Sea which had its origins in the Arctic Ocean earlier this winter:
http://go.nasa.gov/2k9kAxj

Looking at the Alaskan side, the ice there is largely stationary while the ice on the Russian side of the Chukchi is readily exporting into the Bering, where it will melt in spring (probably would've melted in the Arctic too this summer anyway). The narrowness of the Bering Strait means that when it is actively exporting ice it acts more like the Nares than the Fram, but it also has several islands in it to tear the ice apart.

Also, I do not deny that the sea ice at the fringes in Bering are/may be melting. The coastal ice production is simply outweighing the melting right now. In fact, the Bering has caught up with the extent of 2015 and 2016 in the last week on JAXA and Wipneus's AMSR.

@All: One thing that I am very interested in is the state of the current north of Svalbard which is now almost reaching FJL, because it has never gotten this far before or been this warm. Now, even when storms are not melting FJL sea ice, its connection to the main pack is weaker than it has ever been.

Pavel

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 263
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 48
  • Likes Given: 9
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2114 on: January 23, 2017, 07:27:33 PM »
It's too warm and lack of ice in the south of the Barets sea and Beloe  sea. I guess those areas could have less SIE than 2015/16 when the annual maximun will occur

Barents sea SIE


Beloe sea SST


Ice Shieldz

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 249
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 59
  • Likes Given: 58
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2115 on: January 23, 2017, 07:42:27 PM »
@ romett1 - Yup, i'm seeing that significant motion north of Greenland, w/o significant winds. Seems like there's a charged up ocean current at play, and the fractured ice isn't putting up much of a fight? Over the next five days, GFS forecast maintains ~20km winds there while shifting the strongest winds north - likely causing a wide front of the CAB to drift into the anomalously warm waters of Barents, etc.

Edit: As others have noted, the amount of ongoing export due winds and associated amplified currents is very troubling both for the Pacific and Atlantic sides. I guess the best we can hope for is that extent numbers go up more dramatically than they have been.  Otherwise the ice is melting much too fast and building much too slow for the heart of winter.
« Last Edit: January 23, 2017, 08:16:41 PM by Ice Shieldz »

jai mitchell

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 2357
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 207
  • Likes Given: 60
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2116 on: January 23, 2017, 09:15:02 PM »
That's really disturbing.  We're looking at sunrise there pretty shortly.  With ice clearing out of the Chukchi via the Bering, in a few weeks that will create opportunty for the ice to disperse creating leads which will not have a chance to freeze over.

FYI Barrow got its first sunrise of the new year yesterday at 1:40 pm.
Haiku of Futures Passed
My "burning embers"
are not tri-color bar graphs
+3C today

jdallen

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3410
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 650
  • Likes Given: 244
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2117 on: January 23, 2017, 09:38:38 PM »
That's really disturbing.  We're looking at sunrise there pretty shortly.  With ice clearing out of the Chukchi via the Bering, in a few weeks that will create opportunty for the ice to disperse creating leads which will not have a chance to freeze over.

FYI Barrow got its first sunrise of the new year yesterday at 1:40 pm.
They'll hit 4KWH/M2/Day about March 12th.  That's my "dinner napkin" estimate for the energy level after subtracting for albedo at which incoming insolation will be high enough to balance outgoing radiative loss.  Nome will be there in about a week and change.

This is why I've been emphasizing how much more damaging the heat last fall was than the heat last spring.  By the time we got here last year, we'd only had about four weeks of truly exceptional heat; fall 2015 while it had spikes wasn't anything like 2016.  Things did not take off until after Christmas, by which time the pack had seen enough low temperatures to mostly reestablish itself.  2016 never gave it a chance, and the bowl of ice cubes we have now is pretty self documenting of that.

Above 80N, the ice may still have time to consolidate, but only if it isn't disrupted by storms, and is able to stay clear of the Atlantic side killing zone.

I think that reflects a key change in our thinking.  In stead of worrying over what weather events could go wrong to mangle the pack, this year we've started worrying if we'll get weather events which could save it.
This space for Rent.

Tigertown

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1678
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 24
  • Likes Given: 20
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2118 on: January 23, 2017, 09:54:14 PM »
  The GFS and the ECMWF both agree on a low forming and ending up somewhere around FJL in two days. The two vary on exact location and the ECMWF shows a stronger storm with LP around 952 hpa. There is pretty good agreement between the two models that this won't be the last storm of the season either.
"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.

Gray-Wolf

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 948
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 131
  • Likes Given: 458
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2119 on: January 23, 2017, 09:59:54 PM »
I'm still trying to get to grips with the realisation that all the years I worried about just what the next 'Perfect melt storm' would bring I missed the significance of the 'Crackopalypse' events each spring. Now we no longer need the thing I was fearing to bring about near ice free conditions. Now just 'weather' can do it.
The other thing is this early show of 'dark water' milking far more energy into the basin even without 'virtual melt out'?
I did not see the wood for the trees!
The pre-conditioning of the whole basin that we have been seeing since Sept is far worse than last year and now we approach 'Crackopalypse' time. With such a thin, warm, pack will we see such this year?
New moon on the 28th.
KOYAANISQATSI

ko.yaa.nis.katsi (from the Hopi language), n. 1. crazy life. 2. life in turmoil. 3. life disintegrating. 4. life out of balance. 5. a state of life that calls for another way of living.
 
VIRESCIT VULNERE VIRTUS

Tealight

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 490
    • View Profile
    • CryosphereComputing
  • Liked: 176
  • Likes Given: 17
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2120 on: January 23, 2017, 10:20:00 PM »
4KWH/M2/Day about March 12th.  That's my "dinner napkin" estimate for the energy level after subtracting for albedo at which incoming insolation will be high enough to balance outgoing radiative losses.

Change March to April and you are pretty close. On the 12th of March Barrow has mostly a few hours of sunrise and sunset, but no real daylight intensity. Maybe you forgot the projection effect in your calculations.

jdallen

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3410
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 650
  • Likes Given: 244
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2121 on: January 23, 2017, 10:40:28 PM »
4KWH/M2/Day about March 12th.  That's my "dinner napkin" estimate for the energy level after subtracting for albedo at which incoming insolation will be high enough to balance outgoing radiative losses.

Change March to April and you are pretty close. On the 12th of March Barrow has mostly a few hours of sunrise and sunset, but no real daylight intensity. Maybe you forgot the projection effect in your calculations.
The PVE calculator I used disagrees with you. ;) ( I'll link it later when I'm not using a pad )

Estimate was for daily total insulation per M2 on a plane parallel to the ground, so projection effect is being accounted for.

With perfect 0% albedo, the daily energy required to balance radiative loss by my estimate is only just over 1.9KWH.  My 4KWH is a SWAG that takes into account a mix of snow ice and open water.

It is most assuredly an imprecise number.  It's primarily a guide to frame my understanding of how the changing forces in play will interact at a qualitative level.
This space for Rent.

romett1

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 286
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 32
  • Likes Given: 2
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2122 on: January 23, 2017, 10:48:48 PM »
Just a quick thought - on Feb 1 and Feb 2 Norwegian Yr.no shows only -5 Celsius for Barrow. Normal for February is -27.7 Celsius. Also Climate Reanalyzer shows 10 - 15 Celsius warmer than normal for large areas in Beaufort on Jan 27 - Jan 31. And February itself is a very short month, just 28 days. So January ends there with warm weather and February starts.

aslan

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 226
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 175
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2123 on: January 23, 2017, 11:20:49 PM »
Another view of the ongoing tectonic shift. Data from NCEP NCAR reanalysis is showing the end of the thermal inversion in Arctic... This is quite a change, and have huge implications for radiative equilibrium. We are now saying that at surface, clouds, water vapor and CO2 are now sufficient to break the thermal inversion :

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v4/n11/full/ngeo1285.html

To illustrate, the data from December. The map presents the difference between temperature at 850 hPa and at 1000 hPa for the month of December :



Positive : no or weak thermal inversion, surface warmer than lowest layer of free atmosphere. Negative : the reverse.

The situation is even worst than last year (so December 2015, speaking of December 2016 before) :



The trend of the difference between 1000 and 850 hPa is upward, to say the least. And December 2016 was the first month of December when the surface was warmer than the lowest layer of free atmosphere.



This imply that the warmth of Arctic is partly endogenous, and that Arctic is able to sustain itself trough the darkness of the polar night. This is also visible with the downward radiation flux, showing widspread high values. The map for 2016 :



And for the long term mean :



And this is a trend for January also. Despite a cooling at 850 hpa, and temperatures in free atmosphere being colder than in say 2012 or 2016, Ostrov Vize is still running for its warmest January and the highest temperature anomaly of any month. Record seems far from certain, but the point is still there (January 2017 is the last point, preliminary data up to the 23rd).



And at the other end, Ostrov Vrangela is way above normal, tough not near record, temperatures in altitude being really cold for January over Pacific side.
 
As one guy (I don't remember who ^^" ) said, Arctic is becoming an Ocean. More and more, humidity and clouds and CO2 are insulating the Arctic, to the point that we are now almost at the point where no matter how cold it is in free atmosphere, the open Ocean will help with a heavy coat. Of course, for the theoretical/universitary remark, it is probably not a tipping point in the sense that if we could cool enough Arctic, sea ice will probably recover. It is more like an hysteresis, to be precise with words. But in the end, Co2 building up and temperatures soaring, this is more or less equivalent to a "no comeback from here and onwards".
« Last Edit: January 23, 2017, 11:29:27 PM by aslan »

Neven

  • Administrator
  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 9470
    • View Profile
    • Arctic Sea Ice Blog
  • Liked: 1333
  • Likes Given: 617
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2124 on: January 23, 2017, 11:36:25 PM »
Great images, Aslan, thanks.
The enemy is within
Don't confuse me with him

E. Smith

DrTskoul

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1455
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 210
  • Likes Given: 60
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2125 on: January 24, 2017, 12:04:47 AM »
Thanks Aslan...

Tigertown

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1678
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 24
  • Likes Given: 20
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2126 on: January 24, 2017, 12:23:05 AM »
@Aslan

That may just explain what is happening to Hudson Bay.
"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.

Tealight

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 490
    • View Profile
    • CryosphereComputing
  • Liked: 176
  • Likes Given: 17
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2127 on: January 24, 2017, 01:27:36 AM »
The PVE calculator I used disagrees with you. ;) ...

No, the PVE calculator is just difficult to read or to understand  ;D  Most of my own model is based on the same equations so the values can't be very different.

I think you used this calculator:
http://pveducation.org/pvcdrom/calculation-of-solar-insolation

You used the first column which represents a solar panel always facing directly at the sun and casting a very long shadow. Power on a horizontal surface is in the second column and it needs about one month longer until it reaches 4 kWh/m2/day.

Day   Incident Power (kWh/m2/day)   Power on the Horizontal (kWh/m2/day) Module Power (kWh/m2/day)

75   3.856923341866521   1.100733999658897   1.100733999658897
80   4.605744543852684   1.4687667699512705   1.4687667699512705
85   5.35922353218696   1.886772712206999   1.886772712206999
90   6.115949541402507   2.3521579159398143   2.3521579159398143
95   6.864241115902642   2.857111468681582   2.857111468681582
100   7.592727383268329   3.3918631410856124   3.3918631410856124
105   8.303139265459384   3.9510724588132673   3.9510724588132673

FishOutofWater

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1088
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 696
  • Likes Given: 332
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2128 on: January 24, 2017, 01:44:43 AM »
Asian, if I didn't say it I certainly have been thinking it. Judah Cohen has been noting that the ocean ridges at 500mb have been linking up across the Arctic. So both ocean storm tracks and ocean ridges are penetrating further into the Arctic as the sea ice declines in extent, area and volume.  More water vapor is entrained into the Arctic atmosphere from both the Atlatic and Pacific side. Increasing water vapor and clouds block radiative cooling over the Arctic.

Excellent images. Thanks.

As for the ice export into the Bering sea...at this time of year it traps stored heat in the water below. It will melt out quickly when spring storms hit the Aleutians. It will have little net effect on the overall heat balance. That ice has gone there to die. A-Teams images show disturbingly thing ice across the Pacific side of the Arctic. Unless it gets cold soon and thickens rapidly it's going to be a long hot spring and summer in Alaska, and the Chukchi and the Beaufort seas

Tigertown

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1678
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 24
  • Likes Given: 20
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2129 on: January 24, 2017, 04:07:01 AM »
Re:Bering
I am sure it will be replaced, perhaps several times over, but this batch is on it's way to being liquefied. Hard to see the peripheries for cloud cover; will have to look later.
21st-23rd CLICK
"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.

seaicesailor

  • Guest
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2130 on: January 24, 2017, 07:39:21 AM »
Another view of the ongoing tectonic shift. Data from NCEP NCAR reanalysis is showing the end of the thermal inversion in Arctic... This is quite a change, and have huge implications for radiative equilibrium.
...
The trend of the difference between 1000 and 850 hPa is upward, to say the least. And December 2016 was the first month of December when the surface was warmer than the lowest layer of free atmosphere.



This imply that the warmth of Arctic is partly endogenous, and that Arctic is able to sustain itself trough the darkness of the polar night.

I am going off topic but this graph is really striking. It looks as if this change took a rather sharp step right when the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation changed phase to current positive. Also might have gotten the momentum from the 97 Niño. In long-trend Arctic extent graphs, a sharper downward tendency is observed starting precisely at the same years.
The AMO as explained in the internet does not imply what we are observing in the Arctic but perhaps it does in the new climate. Not an encouraging thought since in theory it won't change phase again until the 2030's at least.
Just a thought in view of the graph, in fact I don't know much why AMO and how could it be connected

RikW

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 244
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 44
  • Likes Given: 19
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2131 on: January 24, 2017, 09:42:08 AM »
I'm relative new here, and this is my first post. Though the climate and especially the (ant)arctic ice has always been one of my great interests, my job is something completely different. I have to say I love the graphs/ pictures you all post here.

Probably a stupid question, but isn't the last graph a great one to use for climate change deniers? "look, we are just in this climate period"

Cate

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 199
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2132 on: January 24, 2017, 01:24:20 PM »
https://eos.org/project-updates/the-balance-of-ice-waves-and-winds-in-the-arctic-autumn

A study conducted in the Bering and Chukchi in the autumn of 2015 sheds new light on refreeze processes, and in particular on the effects of wind and wave action. 

Published in EOS 23 Jan 2017.

Neven, please move this if it's in the wrong thread. :)

southseas

  • New ice
  • Posts: 15
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 0
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2133 on: January 24, 2017, 02:53:30 PM »
To all you imaging/gif specialists ... thanks :)

Not sure if it has been mentioned elsewhere but the imagery from the new Goes-16 weather satellite is/will be truly extraordinary;

https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/content/goes-16-image-gallery

nicibiene

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 103
    • View Profile
    • www.nicibiene.de
  • Liked: 1
  • Likes Given: 4
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2134 on: January 24, 2017, 03:44:15 PM »
I found a very interesting article about Polar Stratospheric Clouds and their impact on Polar Temperatures. It is about study regarding equable climates athmosphere. (Please ignore it, if it is already known  ;D - I´m not an expert in that, and yes, it is a kind of OT)

https://www.seas.harvard.edu/climate/eli/research/equable/psc.html

The study of Peters and Sloan compared two scenarios (ECOCONTROL+PCCLOUD):

CO2 both at 560 ppm
- ECOCONTROL with methane rates at 0,7 ppm
- PCCLOUD with 10 ppm (what is the actual concentration at northern hemisphere?-sure it is higher than the global average of 1,7 ppm (?) and we do have quite more of nice gases...

Methane is taken because of its oxidization to form water vapor.

PCCLOUD led to a increase of winter temperatures of 25 °C in Northern Hemisphere (average? or North Pole ? -  isn´t that clear)

Quote:
Peters and Sloan in 2000 presented another paper that investigated the impact of large amounts of greenhouse gases combined with PSCs. In this study, they performed two model experiments, just as Sloan and Pollard did. Both scenarios had carbon dioxide levels set at 560 ppm, which is 2 times the preindustrial level. The first situation, ECONTROL, had an atmospheric methane concentration of 0.700 ppm, the preindustrial amount, and did not have any PSCs. In the second case, named PCLOUD, methane levels were 10 ppm, which is 14 times the amount of preindustrial levels, and PSCs were prescribed as in the Sloan and Pollard study. The results showed a globally averaged mean annual temperature (MAT) increase of 3.4°C, and MATs in PCLOUD were warmer than ECONTROL by 12°C in the Northern Hemisphere and by 9°C in the Southern Hemisphere. However, in the Tropics, the MATs of PCLOUD was only warmer than that of ECONTROL by 2°C. Additionally, the cold-month mean temperature increased by 25°C in the Northern Hemisphere and by 18°C in the Southern Hemisphere. As a result, the study shows that the combined effects of PSCs and higher levels of greenhouse gases could raise polar temperatures while not affecting the Tropics substantially. Specifically, it reveals the impact of more methane and more PSCs on the climate and demonstrates that these two factors could have caused equable climates

One question they rise is how the methane could be there over the entire Eocene of 10 million years:

Quote:
"Although the study produced results supporting the idea that higher methane concentrations and more PSCs could have caused equable climates, there are two major problems with this idea. First of all, in the modern atmosphere, methane has a lifetime of roughly 7 years, while the Eocene polar warmth existed for about 10 million years (Kirk-Davidoff, Schrag, and Anderson, 2002). This fact makes it seem unlikely that methane could have persisted long enough to have caused an equable climate. Even if methane's lifetime increased during the Eocene, it is doubtful that methane levels were sustained at concentrations suggested in the Peters and Sloan study throughout the duration of the Eocene."

But what if there was a BIG circle of methane, we now miss because of the freezed poles? - Methane is stored in the hydrates, we now loose... and there is already found methane based live on the former dead seafloor. Methane is built if organic material decays under anaerobic conditions. Warm water in a world full of flooded wetland would be not a problem if we look at the current tendencies...

I also ask myself if the building up of methane hydrates couldn´t be a result of binacles, underwater icicles, that grow under sea ice during a normal -cold and silent- polar winter. They could have been a engine for cold, salty water reaching deeper waters. Now, if the weather is getting stormy and warmer they will also disappear. (And that could have effects on thermoholine circulation a well...)

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/brinicles-what-icicles-death

Just some thought of a lurker watching a lot of material at the moment.  :P



« Last Edit: January 24, 2017, 03:49:30 PM by nicibiene »
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” –“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” Albert Einstein

A-Team

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2977
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 944
  • Likes Given: 35
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2135 on: January 24, 2017, 04:05:09 PM »
Quote
very interesting article Please ignore it
Yes, safe to ignore. Paleoclimate is a very complex interdisciplinary subject, the young author is not a college graduate.

The concept of 'equable climate' is a little fuzzy. It is almost exclusively applied to just two periods: the early Eocene (56–48 mya) and mid-Holocene climactic optimum. The main idea is elevated uniform warmth, which translates to a reduced temperature gradient between equator and poles with reduced seasonality, sometimes with reduced day/night differences and reduced sensitivity to forcing perturbations. Cold equable climates seem not in the picture despite snowball earth.

I could not locate an actual published quantitative definition that measures how close a given climate state is to equable; equable is perhaps approached to a greater or lesser degree at times but never attained. Paleo is invariably sketchy in observationally supported details; the farther back in time, the worse it gets. Even for the Holocene, there is no good record in the Greenland ice cores because ice of the relevant age is too brittle to retrieve unshattered.

http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/371/2001/20130123?ct=ct#ref-1 2013
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0012825283900016 1983 E Barton

The first animation takes the last 15 days of Jan 2017 hycom, of which the last 6 are forecasted, and extends the 'forecast' by appending the following 15 days of 2016. However this primarily just illustrates how different things were back in Jan/Feb 2015.

The second animation is a full year wrap-around, sped up by showing only every 10th day. The hycom web page provides a rolling every-day version which could in theory be downloaded viewed at 10 millisecond frame rate though few computers have graphic cards that could support this.

https://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/arctic.html
« Last Edit: January 24, 2017, 04:55:14 PM by A-Team »

Jim Hunt

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6268
  • Don't Vote NatC or PopCon, Save Lives!
    • View Profile
    • The Arctic sea ice Great White Con
  • Liked: 893
  • Likes Given: 87
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2136 on: January 24, 2017, 04:28:18 PM »
A study conducted in the Bering and Chukchi in the autumn of 2015 sheds new light on refreeze processes, and in particular on the effects of wind and wave action.

Thanks for the heads up Cate. See also:

Importance of waves in the Arctic

"The most revolutionary thing one can do always is to proclaim loudly what is happening" - Rosa Luxemburg

jai mitchell

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 2357
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 207
  • Likes Given: 60
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2137 on: January 24, 2017, 05:33:31 PM »
Quote
very interesting article Please ignore it
Yes, safe to ignore. Paleoclimate is a very complex interdisciplinary subject, the young author is not a college graduate.

The concept of 'equable climate' is a little fuzzy. It is almost exclusively applied to just two periods: the early Eocene (56–48 mya) and mid-Holocene climactic optimum.

Don't forget the Pliocene

http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/38/7/603.full

Significantly warmer Arctic surface temperatures during the Pliocene indicated by multiple independent proxies
A.P. Ballantyne et al.
PDF Here:  http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/38/7/603.full.pdf+html

Geology v. 38 no. 7 p. 603-606
doi: 10.1130/G30815.1

Abstract

Temperatures in the Arctic have increased by an astounding 1 °C in response to anthropogenic forcing over the past 20 years and are expected to rise further in the coming decades. The Pliocene (2.6–5.3 Ma) is of particular interest as an analog for future warming because global temperatures were significantly warmer than today for a sustained period of time, with continental configurations similar to present. Here, we estimate mean annual temperature (MAT) based upon three independent proxies from an early Pliocene peat deposit in the Canadian High Arctic. Our proxies, including oxygen isotopes and annual ring widths (MAT = –0.5 ± 1.9 °C), coexistence of paleovegetation (MAT = –0.4 ± 4.1 °C), and bacterial tetraether composition in paleosols (MAT = –0.6 ± 5.0 °C), yield estimates that are statistically indistinguishable. The consensus among these proxies suggests that Arctic temperatures were ∼19 °C warmer during the Pliocene than at present, while atmospheric CO2 concentrations were ∼390 ppmv. These elevated Arctic Pliocene temperatures result in a greatly reduced and asymmetrical latitudinal temperature gradient that is probably the result of increased poleward heat transport and decreased albedo. These results indicate that Arctic temperatures may be exceedingly sensitive to anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
Haiku of Futures Passed
My "burning embers"
are not tri-color bar graphs
+3C today

Jim Williams

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 398
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2138 on: January 24, 2017, 06:09:52 PM »
Edit: As others have noted, the amount of ongoing export due winds and associated amplified currents is very troubling both for the Pacific and Atlantic sides. I guess the best we can hope for is that extent numbers go up more dramatically than they have been.  Otherwise the ice is melting much too fast and building much too slow for the heart of winter.

Unless the temps drop back down to the long-term norm, I would not call any extent numbers this time of year good.  Maybe a lot of compaction and low extent would last longer.

Jim Williams

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 398
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2139 on: January 24, 2017, 06:15:38 PM »
This is why I've been emphasizing how much more damaging the heat last fall was than the heat last spring.  By the time we got here last year, we'd only had about four weeks of truly exceptional heat; fall 2015 while it had spikes wasn't anything like 2016.  Things did not take off until after Christmas, by which time the pack had seen enough low temperatures to mostly reestablish itself.  2016 never gave it a chance, and the bowl of ice cubes we have now is pretty self documenting of that.

That is it exactly.  The climate changed from desert to ocean on Dec 27th 2015 (20151217), and we are now watching what that means.

Ice Shieldz

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 249
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 59
  • Likes Given: 58
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2140 on: January 24, 2017, 06:25:38 PM »
Unless the temps drop back down to the long-term norm, I would not call any extent numbers this time of year good.  Maybe a lot of compaction and low extent would last longer.
Point well taken, but are we seeing any signs of meaningful compaction?  Haven't heard or seen any signs of that.

Jim Williams

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 398
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2141 on: January 24, 2017, 06:31:13 PM »
As one guy (I don't remember who ^^" ) said, Arctic is becoming an Ocean...
 

I'm going to try to claim that, since it was I who said that the climate had changed from desert to ocean in late 2015....A Team noted there was a storm on the 27th, and ever since I have been saying that 20151227 the climate changed.

Other people provide data and analysis...I try to grokk it and come up with words.

The Arctic is now basically an ocean.  I think next year I will be able to drop "basically" from the verbage.


Jim Williams

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 398
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2142 on: January 24, 2017, 06:45:37 PM »
Another view of the ongoing tectonic shift. Data from NCEP NCAR reanalysis is showing the end of the thermal inversion in Arctic... This is quite a change, and have huge implications for radiative equilibrium.
...
The trend of the difference between 1000 and 850 hPa is upward, to say the least. And December 2016 was the first month of December when the surface was warmer than the lowest layer of free atmosphere.



This imply that the warmth of Arctic is partly endogenous, and that Arctic is able to sustain itself trough the darkness of the polar night.

I am going off topic but this graph is really striking. It looks as if this change took a rather sharp step right when the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation changed phase to current positive. Also might have gotten the momentum from the 97 Niño. In long-trend Arctic extent graphs, a sharper downward tendency is observed starting precisely at the same years.
The AMO as explained in the internet does not imply what we are observing in the Arctic but perhaps it does in the new climate. Not an encouraging thought since in theory it won't change phase again until the 2030's at least.
Just a thought in view of the graph, in fact I don't know much why AMO and how could it be connected

Not so much off topic as a higher level topic.  So....anyone have an explanation why the end of December 2015 was the point when the climate switched?

Jim Williams

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 398
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2143 on: January 24, 2017, 06:49:52 PM »
Cold equable climates seem not in the picture despite snowball earth.

I don't quite how else to put this...

Giggle....yes.

Jim Williams

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 398
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2144 on: January 24, 2017, 06:53:47 PM »
Unless the temps drop back down to the long-term norm, I would not call any extent numbers this time of year good.  Maybe a lot of compaction and low extent would last longer.
Point well taken, but are we seeing any signs of meaningful compaction?  Haven't heard or seen any signs of that.

Not that I've noticed.....I think I will stay with temps and anomalous temps....extent might mean something in a cold era.

jdallen

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3410
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 650
  • Likes Given: 244
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2145 on: January 24, 2017, 07:14:41 PM »
Unless the temps drop back down to the long-term norm, I would not call any extent numbers this time of year good.  Maybe a lot of compaction and low extent would last longer.
Point well taken, but are we seeing any signs of meaningful compaction?  Haven't heard or seen any signs of that.

Not that I've noticed.....I think I will stay with temps and anomalous temps....extent might mean something in a cold era.
Watching the way the pack is reacting to storms this year vs previous ones I've watched, what strikes me is there isn't resistance for it to compact against.  The only places that is true is hard up against land masses. Now when the wind blows, the ice just moves.
This space for Rent.

Lord M Vader

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1406
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 60
  • Likes Given: 39
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2146 on: January 24, 2017, 07:30:50 PM »
Another "bomb cyclone" is scheduled to impact the Arctic with start tomorrow! The cyclone is forecasted to bottom out at about 950 hpa in the area around FJL and Severnaya Zemlya and last for at least 24-48 hours according to ECMWF. The cyclone should do some damage to the sea ice but also disperse the ice.

oren

  • Moderator
  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 9805
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 3584
  • Likes Given: 3922
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2147 on: January 24, 2017, 10:44:52 PM »
The first animation takes the last 15 days of Jan 2017 hycom, of which the last 6 are forecasted, and extends the 'forecast' by appending the following 15 days of 2016. However this primarily just illustrates how different things were back in Jan/Feb 2016.
The difference in the Beaufort between last year and this year is astounding. Last year the Beaufort saw a lot of early open water starting in late April, about a month earlier than previous record years. This led to soaking up of insolation and eventually caused the total meltout of the thick MYI in the Gyre, of which Big Block was the last to go. But that very same MYI in its rear-guard action delayed the melting season enough to save the CAB from potential annihilation. If this year starts the same in the Beaufort, there will be nothing at all to stop the melt progress through the summer, and the result could certainly be shock and awe in the numbers. I will be watching the Beaufort extent and area numbers closely from April and onward.

As a side-note, I suggest to post the questions and discussions about paleo climates and other longer-term stuff in other threads, as this thread focuses mainly on one season.

bbr2314

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1817
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 158
  • Likes Given: 53
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2148 on: January 24, 2017, 10:58:27 PM »
The first animation takes the last 15 days of Jan 2017 hycom, of which the last 6 are forecasted, and extends the 'forecast' by appending the following 15 days of 2016. However this primarily just illustrates how different things were back in Jan/Feb 2016.
The difference in the Beaufort between last year and this year is astounding. Last year the Beaufort saw a lot of early open water starting in late April, about a month earlier than previous record years. This led to soaking up of insolation and eventually caused the total meltout of the thick MYI in the Gyre, of which Big Block was the last to go. But that very same MYI in its rear-guard action delayed the melting season enough to save the CAB from potential annihilation. If this year starts the same in the Beaufort, there will be nothing at all to stop the melt progress through the summer, and the result could certainly be shock and awe in the numbers. I will be watching the Beaufort extent and area numbers closely from April and onward.

As a side-note, I suggest to post the questions and discussions about paleo climates and other longer-term stuff in other threads, as this thread focuses mainly on one season.
don't need summer to start melt process over Beaufort :o


Darvince

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 318
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 31
  • Likes Given: 7
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2149 on: January 24, 2017, 11:13:24 PM »
indeed, yikes, I was considering posting last run's maximal above freezing extent in the Bering+Chukchi but I decided against it because it was so far out in the run, but it seems to be consistent from run-to-run about a huge pulse of above freezing air to run into the Arctic Ocean on the Pacific side :-\