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Shared Humanity

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #900 on: November 20, 2016, 11:06:19 PM »
NeilT....

I come here for all of the info and insight that is available and enjoy a lively discussion. I only get discouraged when the debate becomes intensely personal. Even with the occasional troll, I prefer they be overwhelmed by the wealth of knowledge within this community then for them to be berated and insulted.

I go to other highly intelligent sites to engage in political discussions where newcomers are viewed with suspicion, the attacks can become quite personal and the troll is usually routed in a matter of days. Come visit, if you dare. Bring a thick skin and a sharp wit and you may stand a chance.

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2016/11/afternoon-thread_20.html#disqus_thread

A warning...this site is an acquired taste.
« Last Edit: November 20, 2016, 11:14:27 PM by Shared Humanity »

ktonine

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #901 on: November 20, 2016, 11:19:28 PM »

However, over and above all those cycles, I would find it totally incredible if the waxing and waning of our suns output did NOT impose some verifiable traits on the melting and freezing seasons. After all it is the only relevant input.  Without it we'd be a ball of ice.

Neil - this makes absolutely zero sense.  We are and have been in a period of solar minimum.  Yet we've been experiencing record global temperatures.  Obviously the sun is *not* the only relevant input.

Fourier figured out two centuries ago that solar insolation alone was not enough to keep the earth from being a frozen snowball.  It requires GHGs.    Basically you've thrown away two centuries of scientific study.

jdallen

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #902 on: November 21, 2016, 12:00:10 AM »
Speaking to temperatures - while GFS via Climate Reanalyzer is showing heat dropping off in the next week, it appears to be a matter of scale rather than absolute direction.  Instead of most of 80N being 15-20C above normal, it will merely be 5-10C higher.

I suppose we should be thankful for *some* change in the right direction that may facilitate enough heat loss that ice growth can resume?
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Ice Shieldz

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #903 on: November 21, 2016, 12:53:46 AM »
2015 vs 2016 – DMI Daily Mean Temperatures North of 80° North

Archimid

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #904 on: November 21, 2016, 01:13:40 AM »
On FDD's. The trend has been falling fast since 2015. It stopped falling during summer (as expected) and then resumed falling fast on fall 2016. I understand that things can turn around and still hit above 2015 levels, but my instinct tells me it won't. At least not to the extent needed to have a better ice pack at the end of this freezing season than at the end of 15/16. I think it will straighten up some, but it won't catch 2015 in time. I realize that the statistics are firmly against this, but I think the physics are likely.

On cycles. The sun is the #1 cycle no questions asked. The magnitude of the variance may be so insignificant as to be disregarded in most analyses. That said, it is the oldest cycle of all and as far as anyone can tell, remarkably steady. I think it is very likely that many multi scale cycles (Biologic, geologic, chemical, quantum mechanical, etc.) exist that are undetectable by modern science and are directly related to the sun cycles and have a significant impact on climate at different time scales.

But this incident is not directly related to total solar irradiance or its variability. At least not under any usable framework that I know about. In time, if enough GHG are released into the atmosphere by man or nature, all cycles will be slowly drowned by CO2 warming and solar cycles will become a much more dominating signal.


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ktonine

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #905 on: November 21, 2016, 02:21:46 AM »
In time, if enough GHG are released into the atmosphere by man or nature, all cycles will be slowly drowned by CO2 warming and solar cycles will become a much more dominating signal.

...all cycles will be slowly drowned by CO2 warming -- True
...solar cycles will become a much more dominating signal -- Contradicts the above

Venus has essentially no diurnal variation, no seasons, the poles are the same temperature as the equator.  GHGs on Venus have drowned *all* other cycles.  Solar is not an exception.

ktonine

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #906 on: November 21, 2016, 04:37:03 AM »

Freezing Degree Days for N80
Updated thru 20 Nov 2016




Aikimox

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #907 on: November 21, 2016, 05:24:11 AM »
In time, if enough GHG are released into the atmosphere by man or nature, all cycles will be slowly drowned by CO2 warming and solar cycles will become a much more dominating signal.

...all cycles will be slowly drowned by CO2 warming -- True
...solar cycles will become a much more dominating signal -- Contradicts the above

Venus has essentially no diurnal variation, no seasons, the poles are the same temperature as the equator.  GHGs on Venus have drowned *all* other cycles.  Solar is not an exception.

True. Having monitored solar activity for over two decades now, the only conclusion I can come to is -GHGs trump all. If solar cycles played major role in Earth's climate we would be heading towards an ice age full speed. Even prolonged geomagnetic activity and G1+  storms have virtually no direct impact on anything barring mild radio interference. There was one time in 2012 when we missed a Carrington class event by a very narrow margin. That could throw us back a few decades if not more.

Speaking of Venus, there's been a few studies recently showing that our planet is actually on the very edge of the goldilocks zone, requiring a delicate balance to stay habitable. The possibility of turning into Venus is not that absurd after all.

Juan C. García

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #908 on: November 21, 2016, 06:27:27 AM »
I like this video about what has been happening on november at the Arctic.
I don't believe that some of you has put it in this Forum, because at this moment, it has just 28 views:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_2438190561&feature=iv&src_vid=nEkqjApx4mI&v=Z77QwK1LaQg
Which is the best answer to Sep-2012 ASI lost (compared to 1979-2000)?
50% [NSIDC Extent] or
73% [PIOMAS Volume]

Volume is harder to measure than extent, but 3-dimensional space is real, 2D's hide ~50% thickness gone.
-> IPCC/NSIDC trends [based on extent] underestimate the real speed of ASI lost.

seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #909 on: November 21, 2016, 06:33:15 AM »
Speaking to temperatures - while GFS via Climate Reanalyzer is showing heat dropping off in the next week, it appears to be a matter of scale rather than absolute direction.  Instead of most of 80N being 15-20C above normal, it will merely be 5-10C higher.

I suppose we should be thankful for *some* change in the right direction that may facilitate enough heat loss that ice growth can resume?
The cold coming with anticyclonic weather over Beaufort and the basin that may resume usual winter ice drift, something that, not being as spectacular as what is cheering people up lately, it can be really bad for a mostly FYI and second year ice Arctic in the summer should this come sunnier than last year.
And the AO going negative again. Seems the pack will keep being under compaction for a while while refreezing takes places along the edges. Who's in for a bet on a min max again (well hey not all at the same time ;) )
« Last Edit: November 21, 2016, 06:38:24 AM by seaicesailor »

meddoc

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #910 on: November 21, 2016, 08:29:42 AM »
2015 vs 2016 – DMI Daily Mean Temperatures North of 80° North

The difference between the areas under the two curves makes it virtually impossible to end up with a max. higher than 18.000 km3.
Which would mean an ice- free Arctic next summer, without any question.

jdallen

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #911 on: November 21, 2016, 08:52:56 AM »
2015 vs 2016 – DMI Daily Mean Temperatures North of 80° North

The difference between the areas under the two curves makes it virtually impossible to end up with a max. higher than 18.000 km3.
Which would mean an ice- free Arctic next summer, without any question.

I wouldn't go there yet.  I've been similarly impressed by low numbers, made extrapolations and then have them not play out.
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Peter Ellis

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #912 on: November 21, 2016, 10:26:10 AM »
Quote
there's no ongoing melt, the Arctic Ocean is freezing over like it always does this time of year.
Spare us this rubbish, we can see for ourselves that Arctic ice edge is still melting on 19 Nov 2016 along the Atlantic facing side.

No we can't.  We can see that the ice edge is moving northwards, which could be either due to melt or to ice movement.  Compaction can still take place via ridging even if the concentration is at 100%. At this time of year, melt is incredibly unlikely, and I'm happy to take the experts' word on it.

be cause

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #913 on: November 21, 2016, 11:06:30 AM »
Peter Ellis'..melt incredibly unlikely' .. I do not think there are any experts anymore .. however I would consider A-team @ the best we've got
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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #914 on: November 21, 2016, 11:34:00 AM »
At this time of year, melt is incredibly unlikely, and I'm happy to take the experts' word on it.

Read what the experts from NASA have to say Peter:

NASA Researches Storm Frank in the Arctic

Quote
A large cyclone that crossed the Arctic in December 2015 brought so much heat and humidity to this otherwise frigid and dry environment that it thinned and shrunk the sea ice cover during a time of the year when the ice should have been growing thicker and stronger.

The extremely warm and humid air mass associated with the cyclone caused an amount of energy equivalent to the power used in one year by half a million American homes to be transferred from the atmosphere to the surface of the sea ice in the Kara-Barents region. As a result, the area’s sea ice thinned by almost 4 inches (10 centimeters) on average.
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Tigertown

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #915 on: November 21, 2016, 12:43:54 PM »
Regarding Nov. 2016.
Actual damage occurred from what I can see, not just compaction.
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jdallen

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #916 on: November 21, 2016, 12:58:21 PM »
Quote
there's no ongoing melt, the Arctic Ocean is freezing over like it always does this time of year.
Spare us this rubbish, we can see for ourselves that Arctic ice edge is still melting on 19 Nov 2016 along the Atlantic facing side.

No we can't.  We can see that the ice edge is moving northwards, which could be either due to melt or to ice movement.  Compaction can still take place via ridging even if the concentration is at 100%. At this time of year, melt is incredibly unlikely, and I'm happy to take the experts' word on it.

My interpretation of the visual aids we have available, It depends.  I think there was a lot of melt, *and* I think there was a lot of drift, and compaction. 

OTOH, To much of the ice around FJL just disappeared - it didn't get pushed back into the pack.  It disintegrated and disappeared in a combination of melt and dispersal of the remains.   I think there was no small amount of melt along the front that retreated away from Svalbard as well, but I think a greater fraction of that can be explained by compaction.  The AMSR 12K concentration maps I've been staring at on Worldview suggest there was a lot of room for that ice to move into, and plenty of wind to move it around.

There is an astonishing amount of heat in the Barents; quite enough I think to produce the kind of melting A-Team and I think we saw.  The same wind that pushed the pack would have without a doubt caused a lot of overturning.  That's the source of the heat for the melt, not the weather. 

It's going to take a significant stretch of cold weather to disperse it.

That I think is going to be the $64,000 question for next spring (on the Atlantic side); how soon does the ice return to Barents, and how long it takes for the Kara to freeze?  That's important mechanically almost more than anything else.  That ice helps anchor the pack against Svalbard, FJL and Severnaya Zemyla and resist weather.  If its weak or missing, the whole pack becomes more vulnerable next spring.

Quite possibly, the most important event in modern human history is unfolding in front of us, and we lack the ability to clearly pin down the exact detail of what is going on, in part because of how much research has been starved.  Infuriating.
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Peter Ellis

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #917 on: November 21, 2016, 01:16:40 PM »
I sit corrected.  From the actual paper (Note: BaKa = Barents/Kara):

Quote
2) Ice thermodynamics
To explore the potential thermodynamic response of the sea ice–covered BaKa region to the estimated SEB variability during the cyclone, we employ a simple approximate scaling of budgets to estimate the resultant sea ice thickness change in the region (see text S7 in the online supplemental material). We use the mean thickness of ice in the BaKa region on 28 December 2015 (~64 cm) from the Pan-Arctic Ice-Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System, version 2.1 (PIOMAS) to initialize the thickness change estimate and compare it with the estimated change from this more sophisticated model (Schweiger et al. 2011). Figure 6c shows that the budget scaling suggests ~8 cm of ice melt for the 10 days of SEB forcing (28 December–6 January). While this is far from sufficient to suggest a complete melt out of sea ice in the northern BaKa region, it does suggest the potential for melting out of the thinner sea ice toward the BaKa ice edge. The PIOMAS model estimates a mean decrease of ~8 cm over this same time period (Fig. 6c), while maps of the PIOMAS thickness change suggest decreases of up to 40–50 cm in some regions (Fig. 6d). The daily thickness changes/variability (Fig. 6c) estimated from the budget scaling method closely match PIOMAS, and areas where the SEB are large and positive (Fig. 4, top), are similar to those regions where PIOMAS indicates decreases in ice thickness (Fig. 6d). We further analyzed thin ice thickness estimates from ESA’s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite (Tian-Kunze et al. 2013) (see text S7 in the online supplemental material), which corroborates the potential regional decreases of up to 40–50 cm in some regions, as well as small regions of thickness increase (see Fig. S4 in the online supplemental material).

Gray-Wolf

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #918 on: November 21, 2016, 01:18:28 PM »
Hi jdallan!

I think we're also going to have to include the " Unknown Unknowns" as well as the lack of research in the basin over the period? If we are moving into a new system then some of those changes will be impossible to model as we do not yet have the data to model around. What we are seeing ( globally?) is that data beginning to trickle in ( Global Sea ice is at a 1 in 100 billion odds position currently???)?

We have to be careful when we meet a mind that says " It's never happened before so it can't"? I'm sure plenty of the QBO specialists were as bemused at Feb's reversal as many Arctic Experts were with the 07' Arctic melt?

We are entering into uncharted waters with our planet's climate and we should all try and remain open to unthinkable events occurring in front of our eyes?
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Archimid

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #919 on: November 21, 2016, 02:02:20 PM »
On GHG's drowning even solar cycles. You are right, even solar cycles will be drowned, my mistake. To be annoyingly fastidious,  I would say that GHG forcing may be so strong that it makes any impact of solar variation undetectable and irrelevant by modern science, just as it is today. The day we get a working theory of everything or a paradigm shift on climate science, it may be that Solar variation become much more significant.

I thought the NSIDC daily sea ice concentration map did a great job of showing the impact of that hot air intrusion. It was easier to make out some days ago but it still good.  Maybe someone has an archive image from the 17th that they would like to share.

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A-Team

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #920 on: November 21, 2016, 02:56:35 PM »
Quote
always defer to experts
Like Willie Song on sun cycles? Or Lindzen on clouds? Quite a few of these folks have very strong resumes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming

"Lindzen accepted that his paper included "some stupid mistakes". When interviewed, he said "It was just embarrassing", and added that "The technical details of satellite measurements are really sort of grotesque." Lindzen and Choi revised their paper and submitted it to PNAS. The four reviewers of the paper, two of whom had been selected by Lindzen, strongly criticized the paper and PNAS rejected it for publication. Lindzen and Choi then succeeded in getting a little known Korean journal to publish itAndrew Dessler published a paper which found errors in Lindzen and Choi 2011, and concluded that the observations it had presented "are not in fundamental disagreement with mainstream climate models, nor do they provide evidence that clouds are causing climate change."

Quote
much of the ice around FJL just disappeared - it didn't get pushed back into the pack.  It disintegrated and disappeared in a combination of melt and dispersal of the remains.
Right. It's still quite feasible to track individual 'floe' features. From the context in which they disappear, it can only be melt. And yes with a 83 kph wind from the south, thin ice is going to be swamped. And also under these conditions, compaction of the marginal ice zone and rigid body motion of the central ice pack are also significant.

Accurate quantitative allocation of observed daily change between these three is not so easy but none were insignificant during the storm. Dispersal is a case in point: sub-pixel ice would appear gone even though it is still there if only the resolution was higher.

However for all of a largish feature to abruptly fragment away literally under the radar at a time when the water and air are well above freezing is not plausible.

From tracking Big Block in the Beaufort (as supplemented by 10 m Sentinel resolution), AMSR2   will report single isolated pixels as low as 1% concentration (ie not quite water) as well as resolved small scattered groups of them. Using drift products, these sub-radar pixels can later re-emerge at their expected position after adding on some ice.

With rare exceptions like the flash freeze last week in the ESS, new ice is forming now only on the perimeter of previous ice, not in open water. It's no different than ice cubes becoming frozen together in a drink -- it's why we mix with swizzle sticks rather than pour back and forth.

The new paper [Boisvert 2016] provides overwhelming evidence of extensive melt in this region during a similar storm even deeper in the winter, on 27 Dec 15.

Binary thinking is deeply rooted in our very language: ice melts in summer and freezes in winter. Reality is far more nuanced: all the processes that jd mentions -- top, lateral and bottom melting and freezing, sublimation, ridging, over-rafting, compaction, leads, dispersion -- are all going on 24/7/365 to some extent somewhere in the Arctic Ocean.

On some days under some conditions, no doubt some are essentially zero, negligible, or currently unmeasurable. But don't let anyone ever tell you the ice can't significantly melt in the middle of winter -- it's proven, uncontroversial, and seems to be occurring with increasing frequency, adversely preconditioning ice for the following solar melt season.

At a practical level, the issue is observation-based daily allocation to these respective processes. How does one get at this with 25 km satellite pixels (that's 625 sq km of surface providing 1/72 of a monitor inch)? Drift camps, overwintering ships, buoys, moorings -- they don't remotely add up to whole ocean coverage at process-level resolution.
Quote
cycles
I too am finding this mush very tedious. You've been allowed a relief-valve forum; no one visits it, so you've come onto this forum and elsewhere many times to flog it. If you can make a case for your musings and move beyond re-serving the same word salad, your forum will develop a following on merit. This is the freezing season forum. Futuristic melt season posts are off-topic. Give it a rest.

Below is the action at the ice edges from 01-20 Nov 2016 via differencing methods of UHH Jaxa AMSR2. The central ice pack has been sliced out to allow higher resolution in the Chukchi and Barents areas.
« Last Edit: November 21, 2016, 05:23:49 PM by A-Team »

Archimid

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #921 on: November 21, 2016, 03:09:53 PM »
By looking at the multiyear videos around (like this one: ) it seems to me as if the area that suffered the most weakening will get mostly exported through the Fram. The vulnerability is limited.
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Pmt111500

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #922 on: November 21, 2016, 03:40:34 PM »
Gray-Wolf said:
Quote
What we are seeing ( globally?) is that data beginning to trickle in ( Global Sea ice is at a 1 in 100 billion odds position currently???

Yeah well that's the maximum... As it still happened, we should likely settle for 'never before observed'... We might guess something similar happened when Kara sea last was open in November and that might be sometime during holocene optimum. Later cases may be. Of Antarctic, I can't say anything. The one image, i think Tigertown showed, of the high atmosphere winds at 60S would possibly show some sort of small breach of southern polar vortex though.

Then there's a possibility these aren't coupled well, but are totally separate events just happening by chance the same time. so the probability should be calculated separately for each... But still they're so far (Type: From) ordinary we'd be talking of them for long time. Come what may.
« Last Edit: November 21, 2016, 04:37:38 PM by Pmt111500 »

Gray-Wolf

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #923 on: November 21, 2016, 03:58:24 PM »
I wish I had your confidence in separating the two poles in the matter of the Stratospheric anoms?

 The 'stable' , 26 to 28 month QBO cycle busted this Feb past and I do not know enough to even imagine what was needed to propagate that forcing and whether that could have washback poleward from its Tropical start point?

Is it an 'antipole' where a forcing on one side of a sphere shows an interference peak on the opposite side? Whatever happened over the equatorial regions in Feb it might have some import into the mess we currently seeing?
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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #924 on: November 21, 2016, 04:08:27 PM »
Quote
But still they're so far ordinary we'd be talking of them for long time. Come what may.

I think Parkinson's law also apply to science. "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion". This event has already shortened the time allotted to get AGW under control. So it may be a long time but not as long as it used to be. As it get's worse, much more work will be done. Hopefully, the breakthrough rate beats the climate change rate.

 
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Pmt111500

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #925 on: November 21, 2016, 04:09:11 PM »
I wish I had your confidence in separating the two poles in the matter of the Stratospheric anoms?

 The 'stable' , 26 to 28 month QBO cycle busted this Feb past and I do not know enough to even imagine what was needed to propagate that forcing and whether that could have washback poleward from its Tropical start point?

<clip>


This has been an odd year in more than one way. I don't either know stratosphere well, I've thought the QBO area is some sort ofna barrier between the hemispheres but maybe i've thought wrong. At least the SSW-events look like being restricted to one hemisphere. And I don't know who to ask, really. QBO experts are likely still working out what actually happened.
« Last Edit: November 21, 2016, 04:39:09 PM by Pmt111500 »

Sarat

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #926 on: November 21, 2016, 05:09:13 PM »
Three? consecutive days of ice loss in peak freezing season, due to not only compaction but melting!, Neven has it right "Insane!".

Also weakening/shrinking of the cold anomaly over Siberia, it's warm everywhere now.

DoomInTheUK

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #927 on: November 21, 2016, 05:27:06 PM »
... I would say that GHG forcing may be so strong that it makes any impact of solar variation undetectable and irrelevant by modern science, just as it is today. ....

To be fair. Solar input would have a large impact in a balanced system, but at the moment the climate is warming to try and get back into balance. We're so far behind that solar differences don't amount to anything. Give it a few hundred years and we might be getting close again.

Tigertown

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #928 on: November 21, 2016, 05:34:13 PM »
I wish I had your confidence in separating the two poles in the matter of the Stratospheric anoms?

 The 'stable' , 26 to 28 month QBO cycle busted this Feb past and I do not know enough to even imagine what was needed to propagate that forcing and whether that could have washback poleward from its Tropical start point?

<clip>


This has been an odd year in more than one way. I don't either know stratosphere well, I've thought the QBO area is some sort ofna barrier between the hemispheres but maybe i've thought wrong. At least the SSW-events look like being restricted to one hemisphere. And I don't know who to ask, really. QBO experts are likely still working out what actually happened.
I too am always looking for more information on this subject. One thing I have gathered is that the actual heights of air currents and cells have been changed by the warming, the heights varying being one of the original barriers. Add to that, the loss of speed, which was a barrier.
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Pmt111500

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #929 on: November 21, 2016, 06:32:16 PM »

 I too am always looking for more information on this subject. One thing I have gathered is that the actual heights of air currents and cells have been changed by the warming, the heights varying being one of the original barriers. Add to that, the loss of speed, which was a barrier.

So, stratosphere has gone colder thus it's more dense than before and the winds slow down? Makes sense. I guess this whole conundrym will be solved in some time but i think this one is too difficult for me to speculate further now. The possible changes in ocean currents should also be accounted for. Getting late here, maybe something comes up in sleep (I don't hold my breath for that). Mild headache.

FishOutofWater

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #930 on: November 21, 2016, 07:34:48 PM »
Most of the stratosphere pretty much decouples from the troposphere during the summer months in terms of wave propagation. When the winter stratospheric polar vortex forms waves on the polar and subtropical jet streams can propagate upwards and break in the stratosphere. When a 2 wave pattern sends energy into the stratosphere, it can split the polar vortex. A 1 wave pattern can cause a sudden stratospheric warming and displace the polar vortex. These waves can release energy at the top of the stratosphere causing it to heat and expand upwards. Slowly, in the weeks following, the heat radiates to space and the air sinks. After 3 or 4 weeks the sinking air can cause subsidence over the Arctic in the troposphere.

I recently posted this "diary" on dailykos. I am trying to figure out how to make it post here and I haven't yet been successful at getting the images to post here. Note this "diary" is very simplified compared to the main source I link to. It's very hard to explain the complex physics of the stratosphere.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/11/16/1600223/-Arctic-Sea-Ice-Collapse-Has-Destabilized-the-Stratospheric-Lower-Atmospheric-Circulations


jai mitchell

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #931 on: November 21, 2016, 08:08:10 PM »
Most of the stratosphere pretty much decouples from the troposphere during the summer months in terms of wave propagation. When the winter stratospheric polar vortex forms waves on the polar and subtropical jet streams can propagate upwards and break in the stratosphere. When a 2 wave pattern sends energy into the stratosphere, it can split the polar vortex. A 1 wave pattern can cause a sudden stratospheric warming and displace the polar vortex. These waves can release energy at the top of the stratosphere causing it to heat and expand upwards. Slowly, in the weeks following, the heat radiates to space and the air sinks. After 3 or 4 weeks the sinking air can cause subsidence over the Arctic in the troposphere.

I recently posted this "diary" on dailykos. I am trying to figure out how to make it post here and I haven't yet been successful at getting the images to post here. Note this "diary" is very simplified compared to the main source I link to. It's very hard to explain the complex physics of the stratosphere.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/11/16/1600223/-Arctic-Sea-Ice-Collapse-Has-Destabilized-the-Stratospheric-Lower-Atmospheric-Circulations

If you can adequately show how loss of arctic sea ice has destabilized the Southern polar jet I will give you a cookie.

https://twitter.com/RisetoClimate/status/800590166637178880


we often post together there:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/2/28/1190587/-little-did-we-know

and

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/3/14/1501378/-This-is-why-Bernie-Sanders-MUST-be-our-nominee
« Last Edit: November 21, 2016, 08:16:20 PM by jai mitchell »
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jdallen

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #932 on: November 21, 2016, 08:44:56 PM »
Hi jdallan!

I think we're also going to have to include the " Unknown Unknowns"

<snippage>

We are entering into uncharted waters with our planet's climate and we should all try and remain open to unthinkable events occurring in front of our eyes?
I'm in consensus with you, GW.  The physical metaphors for the arctic that currently come to mind are a saucepan about to reach a boil, or a mug of water that's been superheated in a microwave.

With the first, it's a near impossibility to predict what the surface of the water will look like at any given moment due to the turbulence caused by thermal and phase changes taking place below it.

For the later, any subtle change in the system - a bump, touching the surface with a spoon, dropping in a few grains of sugar - can chaotically and near explosively disrupt and permanently change the state of the system.

In my youth, I wrote extensively about paradigm shifts in science - particularly the push and pull between incrementalism vs. catastrophism in the earth science - as exemplified by the study last century of the Channelled Scablands of eastern and central Washington state by J Harlan Bretz and others.  People had no context for the assertion he made - that rifts torn out of that land were the result of a massive lake (hundreds of KM3 of H2O) emptying in 24 hours.  It was incomprehensible to many scientists at the time.

We've similarly got no context for what's happening currently in the Arctic.  I'm not suggesting we have the equivalent of glacial lake Missoula lurking somewhere out of sight (though some of the folks worried about clathrates might disagree with me).  I am suggesting we have massive chaos in our systems play which will cripple our skillfulness at any mid-range (1-4 Month) predictions.  Oddly, I don't see short range predictions particularly affected, and it may actually give us more skill at understanding how things will change long term (multi-year scale).
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NeilT

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #933 on: November 21, 2016, 09:47:57 PM »
Neil - this makes absolutely zero sense.  We are and have been in a period of solar minimum.  Yet we've been experiencing record global temperatures.  Obviously the sun is *not* the only relevant input.

Actually ktonine we're not in a period of solar minimum. That was 2008/9 leading into 2010.  It was the lowest solar minimum of the last 100 years.  So much so that Hanson had to get involved and do the calculations for CO2 to see where our interference overwhelmed the solar minimum impact.  As I recall it was round 2025 when CO2 took over from the minimum.

Solar flux variation is only around 0.1% over each cycle.  However that is a one hell of a lot of energy and even at 0.1% it's relevant.  Otherwise Hansen would not have had to get involved in the debate, would he?

Right now we're at the end of the lowest solar cycle in around the last 60 years, we're not there yet but flux and sunspots are down.  I know this because I usually watch it on a weekly, if not daily, basis.

We still have a little lower to go.

However.  If you go and look up the solar cycle spot and flux charts you will see that 06/7 happened just before the sudden end cycle 23 minimum where the sunspots dropped to 0 for most of 2 years.

You will also see that 11/12 happened on the upswing of Cycle 24, but, at around the same solar flux level.

We are now at around the same solar flux level as 06/07 and we're experiencing, as far as I can see, the same type of year in 2016 that we saw in 2006.  Plus 10 years of extra heat, 10 years more CO2 and less 10 years of catastrophic ice volume loss.

Why would I not suspect that the solar cycle has something to do with it?

I have ideas as to why it runs at these times but those are just ideas. What I observe is something else entirely.

If you go back and view those chartic images I posted and review what I said, then and replace the 2016 chartic with the current image.... Who was right?

I don't claim to know what is going on in any detail and I don't always try to reason it out, because there are so many variables you're going to be wrong unless you get every single one of them lined up and even the scientists, who study this, agree that they don't have all these data; because they don't have enough instruments to record what is going on.

But I will tell you this.  I watched the melt seasons and freezing seasons closely from 99.  I recall the press articles in 2005 and you can see from Chartic how out of the ordinary it was.  I remember how 2006 unfolded and what it did.  Followed by 2007 which was so dramatic everyone always tries to compare the current year with it.

When I saw 2016 start I had serious deja vu.  I saw 2006 style weather and melt all over again.  So I thought "why not use that as a template and make the predictions?".

Seems to have worked.

I'm just about done with 2016 now.  It will freeze eventually, 2017 will begin at the lowest ice we've ever seen.  It will grow till late March or even April, then we'll see the next melt season all over again.

At which point we can start the guessing game all over again. ;D
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magnamentis

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #934 on: November 21, 2016, 09:56:10 PM »
@NeilT

didn't know that one, very good and so true:

"Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.

Robert A. Heinlein"


cheers
« Last Edit: November 21, 2016, 10:15:29 PM by magnamentis »

DrTskoul

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #936 on: November 22, 2016, 01:17:39 AM »
Wipneus gets a mention in New Scientist:

Global sea ice has reached a record low – should we be worried?

Quote
It’s an internet sensation. An alarming graph showing the global area of sea ice falling to unprecedented lows for this time of year has gone viral.
"The most revolutionary thing one can do always is to proclaim loudly what is happening" - Rosa Luxemburg

FishOutofWater

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #937 on: November 22, 2016, 02:57:38 AM »
I certainly didn't write anything about the southern hemisphere. The subtropical jet I referred to is the NH subtropical jet that results from tropical convection and subtropical subsidence.
http://eesc.columbia.edu/courses/ees/climate/lectures/gen_circ/

The zonally symmetric structure of the atmospheric circulation is much more clearly depicted in the upper troposphere. The winds at the 300 mb level (about 9000 meters above ground) are shown in Fig. 6 . Here three belts can be discerned in each hemisphere: a region of weak flow in the tropics, a wide belt of westerlies in the midlatitudes, and a second region of weak flow in the polar latitudes. The westerlies are much stronger at this level than at the surface - evidence for strong geopotential height gradients and less friction. Around the latitude of 30°, north and south of the equator, is a narrow region of very strong westerlies known as the subtropical jet stream. The jet stream is strongest in the winter hemisphere. It is not uniform in longitude and presents several relatively localized maxima (for example, in the western North Pacific and North Atlantic Basins). These jet maxima are related to the location of the regions of strong tropical convection (see below - the Hadley Circulation).

Sea ice loss in the SH may be related to ocean heat that moved out of the tropics following El Niño. Changes in the SH jet stream may be related to increasing heat content of the subtropical oceans in the SH and the poleward movement of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.

If there is a connection between the missing sea ice in the Arctic and the SH at this time it would be the way the cooling of the north Pacific under the Aleutians is enhancing a jet stream pattern that enhances El Niño events and reduces La Niña. The strong polar jet and cold pool in the NPac may kill in the crib the La Niña event just announced by NOAA.

And the failure of La Niña may them affect the southern hemisphere.

Whatever... we'll see.

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FishOutofWater

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #938 on: November 22, 2016, 03:46:37 AM »
That water vapor graph is stunning. You shouldn't hide it behind a link. I've been looking for a graph like that for months because I know that precipitable water is up but I didn't know how much. Yes, that much more water vapor increases temperatures globally.

CalamityCountdown

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #939 on: November 22, 2016, 04:50:04 AM »
Will 2018 be a bounce back year for Arctic Sea Ice? Will reversion to mean come back into play or has a reinforcing feedback loop leading to annual declines in SIE come into effect. In looking at a previous prediction based on reversion to the mean, the February 20, 2013 prediction by Gavin Cawley of a 2013 September Arctic sea ice extent of 4.1 ± 1.1 million square kilometers was dead on, if you allow for the very wide margin of error  (I think the actual NSICD minimum was 5.055 million square kilometers). For a blast from the past, check out this 2013 article http://www.skepticalscience.com/2013-arctic-sea-ice-prediction.html
« Last Edit: November 22, 2016, 05:01:36 AM by CalamityCountdown »

jai mitchell

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #940 on: November 22, 2016, 08:10:29 AM »
no cookie won.

there is no link

The strength of the southern hemisphere polar jet is being impacted by an expanding Hadely Cell, just as it is in the north, the expansion is being caused by reductions in regional upper tropospheric SO2 from southeast asia and the increase in water vapor from the last El Nino. 

It will be interesting to see if this next melt season is more cloudy and stormy (and colder) than even 2013 and 2014.
« Last Edit: November 22, 2016, 08:46:28 AM by jai mitchell »
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6roucho

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #941 on: November 22, 2016, 09:14:17 AM »
That water vapor graph is stunning. You shouldn't hide it behind a link. I've been looking for a graph like that for months because I know that precipitable water is up but I didn't know how much. Yes, that much more water vapor increases temperatures globally.
And it's the largest of all the direct physical feedbacks.

charles_oil

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #942 on: November 22, 2016, 11:46:34 AM »
At last - the weird weather and warming Arctic / Antarctic reaches CNN mainstream....

http://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2016/11/21/iaw-amanpour-alaska-moose.cnn/video/playlists/amanpour/

NeilT

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #943 on: November 22, 2016, 02:04:24 PM »
Solar variation effect : 0.2oC

I used Wikipedia. But I guess if you factor in cycle24 it would shift the figures just enough.  I assume Wikipedia is not that fast.
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NeilT

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #944 on: November 22, 2016, 02:09:24 PM »
And it's the largest of all the direct physical feedbacks.

True, but without the sola input in the first place there would be no feedback....  ;D

It's complicated when you have inputs, sequestration, feedbacks and a shrinking cooling budget.

Stick a big enough solar shield up there and all the feedbacks in the world won't replace the lost energy. 
Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.

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idunno

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #945 on: November 22, 2016, 02:17:48 PM »

6roucho

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #946 on: November 22, 2016, 02:26:36 PM »
And it's the largest of all the direct physical feedbacks.

True, but without the sola input in the first place there would be no feedback....  ;D

It's complicated when you have inputs, sequestration, feedbacks and a shrinking cooling budget.

Stick a big enough solar shield up there and all the feedbacks in the world won't replace the lost energy.
True. Insolation is by far the largest forcing, being by far the largest provider of energy to the system.

Sigmetnow

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #947 on: November 22, 2016, 03:19:46 PM »
Meteorologist/journalist Eric Holthaus gives a shout-out to the Forum as "a fairly obscure message board of sea ice enthusiasts" ;D in his post detailing the state of global sea ice.  He's been sounding the alarm to his followers on weather-twitter. ( @EricHolthaus )

Today in Weather & Climate: Sea ice tipping point edition (Monday, November 21th)
http://tinyletter.com/sciencebyericholthaus/letters/today-in-weather-climate-sea-ice-tipping-point-edition-monday-november-21th
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Tigertown

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #948 on: November 22, 2016, 03:44:54 PM »
no cookie won.

there is no link

The strength of the southern hemisphere polar jet is being impacted by an expanding Hadely Cell, just as it is in the north, the expansion is being caused by reductions in regional upper tropospheric SO2 from southeast asia and the increase in water vapor from the last El Nino. 

It will be interesting to see if this next melt season is more cloudy and stormy (and colder) than even 2013 and 2014.

Would you happen to know where to get a diagram of the expanded Hadley cell? I know what a normal Hadley cell looks like. I have been trying to understand these for a while now, but find very little info on them. Especially curious as to how these transport tropical air so far; are they connecting to the jet streams or are they taking the air directly to the Polar Regions?


« Last Edit: November 22, 2016, 03:50:14 PM by Tigertown »
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Archimid

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #949 on: November 22, 2016, 04:34:16 PM »
This video helped me understand Global Atmospheric Circulation better.

 
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