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RoxTheGeologist

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1050 on: November 27, 2016, 07:25:15 PM »
It always helps to do the accounting before reaching conclusions. Annual total precipitation amounts in the Arctic are low, so unless  a large source of stored ice, e.g. Greenland, is melting the water input to rivers per unit area of Arctic land is small. On the other hand on meter of sea ice melting in the summer over the Arctic ocean itself is a huge amount of fresh water because it's a large area times a meter of water thickness.


Note that the one year ice is likely to be somewhat briny.  The water from one year ice is by no means fresh.

https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/seaice/characteristics/multiyear.html

This might be one feed back mechanism (reduction of density delta of the halocline) that is being overlooked. The halocline is what is thought to stop the Barents see mixing (see below). On a quick review of scholar I didn't find anything that describes the current Barents' halocline, or how much concentrated brine one year sea ice contains.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016GL068421/full

 "Using observations, we found that interannual variability in Arctic layer salinity determines the heat flux from the Atlantic layer through its control of stratification and vertical mixing"



FishOutofWater

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1051 on: November 27, 2016, 08:18:46 PM »
There was a paper showing evidence of increasing intermediate-deep water forming along the continental shelf break in the Arctic ocean north of the Barents sea. Here is her blog post on the topic. I also attached the schematic diagram of Arctic ocean deep water formation on the shelf break
http://fromtheblueside.blogspot.com/2012/10/thousands-of-meters-below-ice.html

She has written a stunning paper on what's happened to heat, salinity and convection in the north Atlantic that I just skimmed. I need to read it in detail.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GL067254/epdf

FishOutofWater

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1052 on: November 27, 2016, 09:14:18 PM »
And here's the paper that goes with the blog post:
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 40, 4361–4366, doi:10.1002/grl.50775, 2013

ABSTRACT:
In the last three decades, deep convection has come to a halt in the Greenland Sea. Hydrographic data reveal that during this period, temperature and salinity in the deep Greenland Sea have increased at mean rates without precedent in the last 100 years, and these trends are among the highest in the global deep ocean. The origin of these changes is identified as the advection of Arctic Ocean deep waters and the necessary transports to explain them are calculated (0.44±0.09 Sv). Despite the fact that the deep Greenland Sea hardly covers 0.05% of the global surface, the resulting trends constitute 0.3% of the World Ocean heat content increase per unit area of earth's surface and 0.1% of the global sea level rise. These results suggest that changes of the deep Arctic Mediterranean and their contribution to the global budgets need to be addressed.

be cause

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1053 on: November 28, 2016, 01:52:17 AM »
If current forecasts are anything like reality , December looks like quickly becoming a very bad month for Arctic sea ice .. perhaps especially for volume . Mad temperature anomalies look to return combining with Fram export of multi-year ice , as lows deepen over water where ice should be ..
 I would like to be wrong but I feel Zack Labe will have another busy month . ;)
« Last Edit: November 28, 2016, 02:01:52 AM by be cause »
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jai mitchell

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1054 on: November 28, 2016, 03:44:29 AM »
If current forecasts are anything like reality , December looks like quickly becoming a very bad month for Arctic sea ice .. perhaps especially for volume . Mad temperature anomalies look to return combining with Fram export of multi-year ice , as lows deepen over water where ice should be ..
 I would like to be wrong but I feel Zack Labe will have another busy month . ;)

well, I can only hope that he does, as we must all.  The time for fence sitting is over and done.  Current MYI locations forebode massive volume exports over the next 2 years.
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Feeltheburn

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1055 on: November 28, 2016, 06:41:00 AM »
I know it's fashionable to proclaim doom and the end of the arctic as we know it. But the arctic just picked up 500,000 km2 of ice extent in 3 days according to NSIDC. 1 million km2 the past 14 days notwithstanding a cyclone and ice compaction, 2 million km2 in 23 days, 3 million km2 in 37 days, 4 million in a month and a half and 5.5 million km2 since the bottom. It would be refreshing to read more measured and nuanced posts. Then this project would appear to be something more than an alarmist echo chamber and appealing to people not yet convinced.
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budmantis

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1056 on: November 28, 2016, 06:54:13 AM »
Then this project would appear to be something more than an alarmist echo chamber and appealing to people not yet convinced.

This is not an alarmist echo chamber. Although there may be some members who are a bit overzealous, I believe the concern mentioned in the various posts and the cause for alarm is genuine. Considering the knowledge of some of our most experienced contributors, this Forum is providing a valuable service in educating people about the reality of climate change.

jdallen

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1057 on: November 28, 2016, 06:58:48 AM »
I know it's fashionable to proclaim doom and the end of the arctic as we know it. But the arctic just picked up 500,000 km2 of ice extent in 3 days according to NSIDC. 1 million km2 the past 14 days notwithstanding a cyclone and ice compaction, 2 million km2 in 23 days, 3 million km2 in 37 days, 4 million in a month and a half and 5.5 million km2 since the bottom. It would be refreshing to read more measured and nuanced posts. Then this project would appear to be something more than an alarmist echo chamber and appealing to people not yet convinced.
Nuanced?  Alarmist echo chamber?  We're not here to exchange platitudes and couched language - we're here to dissect hypotheses and data, and if the data supports it, it's not alarmist.

Now as to *your* numbers about ice growth - let me say that's whistling in the dark.  Yes the numbers have gone up.  Considering how low we ended the season, it would have been astonishing if they hadn't considering how much open water we had north of 75 degrees of latitude!  Extent and area have been hugely suppressed by the weather, and a rebound is neither surprising nor particularly reassuring in view of what's predicted, and how much open water was present when the refreeze started.  To wit - the DMI 80N temp has dropped significantly... to where it's only 10C above normal instead of 20C.  That's a huge improvement, but far from reassuring.

We are still below the lowest extent for this date by hundreds of thousands of KM2.  The ice that is there is thinner than even that which reformed in the wake of the 2012 minimum.  These two bits of fact are well documented and supported. That's very alarming.

I'm afraid your desire for something refreshing or optimistic here will go unfulfilled.  The data doesn't support it.
« Last Edit: November 28, 2016, 07:04:07 AM by jdallen »
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Andre

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1058 on: November 28, 2016, 07:06:44 AM »
I know it's fashionable to proclaim doom and the end of the arctic as we know it. But the arctic just picked up 500,000 km2 of ice extent in 3 days according to NSIDC. 1 million km2 the past 14 days notwithstanding a cyclone and ice compaction, 2 million km2 in 23 days, 3 million km2 in 37 days, 4 million in a month and a half and 5.5 million km2 since the bottom. It would be refreshing to read more measured and nuanced posts. Then this project would appear to be something more than an alarmist echo chamber and appealing to people not yet convinced.

You keep bringing up how much extent we have gained since the minimum, when what you should really be focusing on is the fact that there has never been a year since satellite measurements began, when there was as little ice extent as there is right now.

I cannot help but think that the only purpose your repeated posts about gains since the minimum serve is to try and confuse the issue to play into a denier narrative.

Unless you can explain to me, what a 5 million extent gain means to you and how that makes the current situation better in any way, it is increasingly difficult to take these comments seriously.

oren

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1059 on: November 28, 2016, 07:11:29 AM »
I know it's fashionable to proclaim doom and the end of the arctic as we know it. But the arctic just picked up 500,000 km2 of ice extent in 3 days according to NSIDC. 1 million km2 the past 14 days notwithstanding a cyclone and ice compaction, 2 million km2 in 23 days, 3 million km2 in 37 days, 4 million in a month and a half and 5.5 million km2 since the bottom. It would be refreshing to read more measured and nuanced posts. Then this project would appear to be something more than an alarmist echo chamber and appealing to people not yet convinced.
FTB I am tired of your repeating the same old "arguments" over and over. Yes extent has gone up over the last few months. What a surprise. Indeed it would be refreshing to read more measured and nuanced posts. How about comparing to the growth in other years, just as a small example? Why are we in record low teritory? What does it mean? Then this project would appear to be something more than a "not yet convinced but feeding off denialists" echo chamber.

6roucho

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1060 on: November 28, 2016, 08:09:54 AM »
I can't help but feel that's very good trolling by Feeltheburn. Area and extent both have the capability to increase by record amounts with so much open water, and any kind of return to seasonal temperatures.

As many have said on here before, water *will* freeze beneath the cold, dark skies of the Arctic winter, and will do so for many years to come. Once we have an ice-free Arctic, it seems inevitable that the re-freeze rates will be unprecedented, simply because the area to be re-frozen is unprecedented. To posit that as a 'recovery' is the kind of boldly misleading assertion that so-called climate skeptics like to make, with a sly wink to people who know better, and a straight face to the public gallery.

And of course that's how it will be spun, with 'recovery' after 'recovery'.

Neven

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1061 on: November 28, 2016, 08:47:17 AM »
Yes, winter still exists.   ;D

We have just witnessed a fascinating, unprecedented event (it still is with the current trend line 1 million km2 below the rest of the pack). We now have to wait and see what it means for next year's melting season. Let's hope things balance out somehow.
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6roucho

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1062 on: November 28, 2016, 12:40:20 PM »
Yes, winter still exists.   ;D
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A-Team

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1063 on: November 28, 2016, 12:49:46 PM »
It appears that the "event" is continuing. The winter season is becoming as important as the summer. It's never really been about the ice and shipping; it's about the planetary heat budget, extra moisture in the amplified Arctic atmosphere, and knock-on weather effects at mid-latitudes. Those have already begun.

The Chukchi, five months ago on 27 June 16, was 78% as open as today (bottom animation), ie it is "seasonally open" now, never mind the 2040 or 2100 nonsense.

Trend lines -- and their first or second order extensions -- may merely be providing a lid (upper bound) from here on out. Meanwhile scientific publications by necessity lag events by 18-24 months. So our niche of following real time developments is probably the best way of keeping up.

The Chukchi, as defined by the 150 m shelf break in Serreze Oct 2016 (which goes unread here, doi:10.1002/2016JC011977), has been losing open water at just below 3% per day so (if this pace keeps up) would close in 36 days from Nov 20th, so barely by year end.

The most instructive comparison to earlier years is probably ice extent in the Bering Sea, south of the Strait, below. Given the devastating tufted puffin die-off this fall, that sea may remain anomalously warm. Green indicates shows AMSR2 ice of 100% concentration. Note SMOS and AMSR2 (and other sources) give identical open water boundaries within limitations of resolution.

A quick way of gauging map resolution (~ nominal data resolution) is simply to look at the number of pixels allocated to the Little Diomede area. For example, 2 pixels in SMOS are all that is available for the entire 85 km wide Bering Strait. NOAA bathymetry has 318. AMSR2 has 42.5 and 2 for LD itself.

Variability, trends, and predictability of seasonal sea ice retreat and advance in the Chukchi Sea
MC Serreze, AD Crawford, JC Stroeve, AP Barrett, RA. Woodgate

"... In situ results highlight the seasonal evolution of a >5 m thick MYI floe from late winter to summer when it eventually melted out along with the rest of the Beaufort ice pack by 22 August 2012. During 2012, we observed rapid bottom melt which peaked at 7.1 cm/d during late July and averaged 4.8 cm/d during the observed melting period (7 June and 31 July 2012).

Our work shows that solar absorption provided less than 78% of the energy required to satisfy our in situ point observations of bottom melt, indicating other sources of heat including solar transmission, oceanic upwelling or riverine inputs must have contributed heat to bottom melt. Evidence for other heat sources is also provided by the fact that bottom melt began 2 days prior to the local reduction in sea ice concentration."
« Last Edit: November 28, 2016, 03:49:22 PM by A-Team »

Archimid

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1064 on: November 28, 2016, 01:17:53 PM »
Feel the Burn. I think that what you characterize as good signs are only the expected behaviors of an almost record low extent. With record low ice you would expect record ice growth. What is worrisome is that the heat intrusion into the very thin arctic may not not allow a thick enough ice cover when the melting season comes around.   I'm sure you can understand why is that a worry. Thinner ice is easier to melt, which may speed up melting.

It is also worrisome that meteorological patterns are being affected by a warmer than usual arctic and vice versa.

I wish I could share your optimism, but that would require faith, not logic or data. Because logic and data dictate that there are very many reasons to worry.
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wili

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1065 on: November 28, 2016, 01:59:15 PM »
For someone who admits to hanging out at WUWT--and who seems to uncritically accept everything said there--to call this site an 'echo chamber' is a bit...rich.

Neven has indicated that this guy is acting as a troll, so we should all stop feeding it.
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meddoc

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1066 on: November 28, 2016, 03:50:02 PM »
No, Winter is already dead.
So as Autumn, Spring & normal Summer.

Earth is already beyond natural variablitiy regarding Seasons.

What You experience now is just redistribution of all the System due to all excess heat Humanity has accumulated.

FishOutofWater

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1067 on: November 28, 2016, 04:10:02 PM »
The sheer absurdity of the troll's post, presenting the record low sea ice extent data in a way that makes it sound like there is some great recovery, would be laughable but for the seriousness of the situation. His insults of the posters to this forum do not go unnoticed. We have a wide range of opinions here but the range is limited by the scientific evidence. I, for one, have repeatedly adjusted my opinions based on new evidence. The graphic images presented by A-Team have been especially informative as has Wipneus' fine work to fill in the gaps left when the satellite used by multiple groups to determine sea ice area failed.

The thing about science is that ideas are constantly challenged and only the theories that are consistent with the data survive. That's how it works around here. Discussions here revolve around new papers, new data and new imagery. Over at denier web sites papers, data and images are carefully cherry picked to support an ideology and preconceived conclusions.

As anyone can see there has been a massive loss of sea ice since the 1980's and it's reason to be alarmed.

Gray-Wolf

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1068 on: November 28, 2016, 04:39:33 PM »
I think we could be 'gentler' with Feeltheburn as he might just be young and trying to form his ideas? We have been through both 07' and 2012 and so we've already seen the re-animation of the Deniers come re-freeze and their "oooh look!!! RECOVERY cries?

We've already done the 'explaining for the Lurkers' as to why we should not be too surprised at the newly opened waters rapidly re-freezing ,come the loss of the sun and the dawning of the Arctic Night? We have done to death the "melt water making the surface skim a lot easier to freeze being less salty"

Feeltheburn cannot have been previously exposed to a 'low ice year' re-freeze never mind one that has, so far,  been as reluctant as this years to bloody re-freeze at all!!!?

The only other option is that they are not very capable? We are all different in our abilities and so  maybe we might be 'gentler' with folk that are not able to 'get up to speed' due to their Design and not their designs?
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Aikimox

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1069 on: November 28, 2016, 05:13:58 PM »
Meanwhile, if we look at SIE numbers, Nov 27th is still some 800k km^2 below the previous record low and 2 million below average. The region is slowly becoming more cold and stable but there's still some wind/wave action happening north of Greenland bringing warm air from the atlantic ocean.

Jim Pettit

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1070 on: November 28, 2016, 07:34:20 PM »
I think we could be 'gentler' with Feeltheburn as he might just be young and trying to form his ideas?

Possibly--though it's been my long experience that if it looks like a concern troll, swims like a concern troll, and quacks like a concern troll...

Meh. Just let him be to stew in his own crock of denial and lukewarmis. As for me, I'll stick with the evidence, TYVM.

JimboOmega

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1071 on: November 28, 2016, 08:24:56 PM »
Meanwhile, if we look at SIE numbers, Nov 27th is still some 800k km^2 below the previous record low and 2 million below average. The region is slowly becoming more cold and stable but there's still some wind/wave action happening north of Greenland bringing warm air from the atlantic ocean.

Well... the GFS-generated nowcast shows an arctic anomaly of "only" +2.7 C, dropping to 2.0C before heading back over 3.0C later (but not much higher than that!). Meanwhile, Andrew Slater's 2M temperature graph for 80N+ shows that the current average temperature is now within the 100th percentile for the first time in... a month or two?  And while ice extent is way behind where it should be, the rate of growth is at least typical for the time of year! Barrow looks mostly frozen over, at last!

It's sad that these are the things we have to hold on to, but right now, things are looking like a lot more like a "normal" winter... just on a month delay.  It's kind of hard to figure out what is "normal" in a system that seems to set or nearly set shocking records every year, but it doesn't "feel" as shocking as it did a week or two ago.  That "feeling" won't bring back the ice, but it gives some hope it'll show up later?

It's a "feeling" of a continuation of a long gradual downward slope, and not a total collapse.  We still have 3 months before the normal peak ice, and a  months or two after that before the sun starts to shine down in earnest.  How much more open ocean will it be shining on?

Tigertown

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1072 on: November 28, 2016, 09:30:27 PM »
I had been noticing that the temp. anomaly is working in a downward trend, but Then I think maybe not so good just yet. If they are averaging out the whole Arctic circle, some areas like Siberia are going to really weigh down the overall average. In other words, the actual temp. in the middle of the Arctic can be over 10oC above normal expected temp. but not have the appearance of being that bad when you look at the average for the Arctic.
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effbeh

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1073 on: November 28, 2016, 10:42:43 PM »
It's sad that these are the things we have to hold on to, but right now, things are looking like a lot more like a "normal" winter... just on a month delay. 

I have the uneasy feeling that although the curves might appear more normal, the month
delay will show up sooner or later.

6roucho

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1074 on: November 28, 2016, 11:13:16 PM »
It's sad that these are the things we have to hold on to, but right now, things are looking like a lot more like a "normal" winter... just on a month delay. 

I have the uneasy feeling that although the curves might appear more normal, the month
delay will show up sooner or later.
800k km^2 is worth about ten extra August days of high-season melt.

Tigertown

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1075 on: November 28, 2016, 11:25:18 PM »
Don't forget the growth in thickness that has been lost. There probably won't be a chance for that to be made up for.
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NeilT

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1076 on: November 28, 2016, 11:38:50 PM »
As was pointed out to me last year, the onset of new FYI is very rapid up to the 1M to 1.5M thickness.  There will still be the 0.5M and less around the fringes.  It makes the charts look like RECOVERY because the ice grows so quickly.

However I like to think that the sea has no option, this decade, but to freeze because when the sun goes out the temperatures will finally hit -10 or -20 or more and the ice will grow.

The story is really in the lack of MYI, the lack of 2M FYI and the fringe 0.5M and less ice.  The first two keep shrinking and the last one keeps growing.

That nets us massively less volume and the only buffer we have to CO2 sequestrated heat is ice volume.

The only possible end result can be that volume continues to shrink.

But the thing is that the system is not in balance. Which means we're getting surges in both directions and a huge surge for melt allows so much heat into the system that it impacts the surge for freeze.  Causing a step change which we never move back from.

Personally I believe 16/17 will be a step change which will become most apparent around 21/22.  That's my thinking.  So I'm not bothered about the speed of re-freeze.  I don't expect to see ice free conditions in the Arctic, in winter, in my lifetime.  Although I do expect to see virtually 0% ice volume in summer before I die.

I've been watching this too many years now to become over excited about a step change.  They come and they leave their mark and they are followed by another.  It's more a matter of how much of it I will live to experience.
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Jim Williams

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1077 on: November 29, 2016, 02:47:02 AM »
Personally I believe 16/17 will be a step change which will become most apparent around 21/22.  That's my thinking.  So I'm not bothered about the speed of re-freeze.  I don't expect to see ice free conditions in the Arctic, in winter, in my lifetime.  Although I do expect to see virtually 0% ice volume in summer before I die.

My guess for next Summer is a rather cold and cloudy Arctic, and still a record low sea ice at the end.  Not clear to me if it is also stormy, though that seems to be the trend.

Basically, I think the Arctic switched from a desert climate to an ocean climate rather abruptly at the end of December 2015.  Lots of factors contributed to flicking the switch, and I don't think you can say any one of them was more important than the others -- it was just that the collection of factors finally pushed things over the edge of the catastrophe.

As for ice free conditions in your lifetime...how long do you intend to live?  I would not be too surprised to see ice free conditions in the middle of next WINTER.  I do think that the Summer-Winter expectations are being upended.  All it will take now is for the last of the ice to melt once and then the glass of water will start warming up.

Sarat

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1078 on: November 29, 2016, 04:54:54 AM »
I had been noticing that the temp. anomaly is working in a downward trend, but Then I think maybe not so good just yet. If they are averaging out the whole Arctic circle, some areas like Siberia are going to really weigh down the overall average. In other words, the actual temp. in the middle of the Arctic can be over 10oC above normal expected temp. but not have the appearance of being that bad when you look at the average for the Arctic.

Tigertown if you are referring to this graph:
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php

It only includes the N80 temperatures the smallest circle on this map:
http://www.athropolis.com/map2.htm

If you look at the anomaly forecast pages you can see there are some patches of averagely cold air infiltrating the N80 circle in the next few days however you are technically right about things not being so good, just for the opposite reason: the largest patches of above average air are currently outside of N80 over peripheral seas and even Hudson bay... unfortunately that's were we need the freeze to be happening and it can't be helping.
https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/forecasts

If you were talking about N66.5 average temperature, you should show me where to find that graph because it would be  interesting to look at :)... I'm new at this posting on the forum thing, probably will end up being wrong half the time, but hey that's the only way to learn.

The sliver of colder air forming over the Arctic basin for some reason reminded me of this video, enjoy:
« Last Edit: November 29, 2016, 05:20:15 AM by Sarat »

Tigertown

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1079 on: November 29, 2016, 05:41:40 AM »
Sarat, I was not really using a graph, but Climate Reanylzer . I think they use NCEP GFS. Their average for the Arctic  temp. anomaly has been on a downward trend, though still on the plus side. As you can see though areas in the middle of the Arctic are still very much above normal.
P.S. It seems to me if they were figuring only inside the N80 circle, the anomaly would be higher than +2.43 right now.
« Last Edit: November 29, 2016, 05:51:05 AM by Tigertown »
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Sarat

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1080 on: November 29, 2016, 05:46:19 AM »
As I said, wrong  :), thanks for the resource.

Tigertown

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1081 on: November 29, 2016, 05:58:46 AM »
As I said, wrong  :), thanks for the resource.
If anyone knows anything additional on how they figure this, I would like to know. The only thing I can find with NWS is that it is figured on 25 degree by 25 degree grid over 8 three hour intervals per day. Not much info on the area covered. I can only assume that it is the entire Arctic circle, but it would be good to know for certain.
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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1082 on: November 29, 2016, 06:04:58 AM »
Personally I believe 16/17 will be a step change which will become most apparent around 21/22.  That's my thinking.  So I'm not bothered about the speed of re-freeze.  I don't expect to see ice free conditions in the Arctic, in winter, in my lifetime.  Although I do expect to see virtually 0% ice volume in summer before I die.

My guess for next Summer is a rather cold and cloudy Arctic, and still a record low sea ice at the end.  Not clear to me if it is also stormy, though that seems to be the trend.

Basically, I think the Arctic switched from a desert climate to an ocean climate rather abruptly at the end of December 2015.  Lots of factors contributed to flicking the switch, and I don't think you can say any one of them was more important than the others -- it was just that the collection of factors finally pushed things over the edge of the catastrophe.

As for ice free conditions in your lifetime...how long do you intend to live?  I would not be too surprised to see ice free conditions in the middle of next WINTER.  I do think that the Summer-Winter expectations are being upended.  All it will take now is for the last of the ice to melt once and then the glass of water will start warming up.

Yes, an ice free summer means another, bigger phase change and I can't even imagine the temperature jump even though the physics is simple. The complexity of the system, however, makes the ice in a cup analogy almost irrelevant. We have a number (some estimates suggest somewhere between 40 and 60) of positive feedback mechanisms that together could increase the rate of change to the point of... resonance? At this point we should start looking outside of the arctic ice realm to better understand what's happening.

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1083 on: November 29, 2016, 08:30:21 AM »
Personally I believe 16/17 will be a step change which will become most apparent around 21/22.  That's my thinking.  So I'm not bothered about the speed of re-freeze.  I don't expect to see ice free conditions in the Arctic, in winter, in my lifetime.  Although I do expect to see virtually 0% ice volume in summer before I die.

As for ice free conditions in your lifetime...how long do you intend to live?  I would not be too surprised to see ice free conditions in the middle of next WINTER.  I do think that the Summer-Winter expectations are being upended.  All it will take now is for the last of the ice to melt once and then the glass of water will start warming up.
I doubt my great-grand-child will see an Arctic see ice free in Winter.
Just did the math some weeks ago. The required greenhouse warming is overwhelming, order of dozens of watt per sq meter in the Arctic.
Even in the most catastrophic scenario you get AGW imbalances of a few watt per sq meter in this century.
AGW effects are amplified in the Arctic. Maybe if by some incredible mechanism you could transfer all the trapped heat year-round globally to the Arctic ocean in winter,..., then we are entering into the science-fiction arena rather than science.

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1084 on: November 29, 2016, 09:12:32 AM »
Personally I believe 16/17 will be a step change which will become most apparent around 21/22.  That's my thinking.  So I'm not bothered about the speed of re-freeze.  I don't expect to see ice free conditions in the Arctic, in winter, in my lifetime.  Although I do expect to see virtually 0% ice volume in summer before I die.

As for ice free conditions in your lifetime...how long do you intend to live?  I would not be too surprised to see ice free conditions in the middle of next WINTER.  I do think that the Summer-Winter expectations are being upended.  All it will take now is for the last of the ice to melt once and then the glass of water will start warming up.
I doubt my great-grand-child will see an Arctic see ice free in Winter.
Just did the math some weeks ago. The required greenhouse warming is overwhelming, order of dozens of watt per sq meter in the Arctic.
Even in the most catastrophic scenario you get AGW imbalances of a few watt per sq meter in this century.
AGW effects are amplified in the Arctic. Maybe if by some incredible mechanism you could transfer all the trapped heat year-round globally to the Arctic ocean in winter,..., then we are entering into the science-fiction arena rather than science.
I'm afraid I don't share your optimism. A mechanism that we are perhaps already witnessing may bring on a near-icefree Arctic in winter. Is it too farfetched to think that an open Arctic in summer would cause a barrage of winter storms pumping heat and kinetic energy into the Arctic ocean, thereby stalling refreeze significantly, with a rapidly deteriorating ability of the Arctic to freeze in winter?

Arguing from W/m2 seems to me to imply that all other things remain equal - but that is clearly not what is happening.
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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1085 on: November 29, 2016, 11:51:28 AM »
I'm only expecting to live another 30 years or so.  40 would be nice but my cardio issues tend to mitigate against that.

Whilst I see a step change which moves us to an essential ice free arctic in summer, I've spent too many years (two decades now), watching the sheer inertia of Arctic with no sunlight, to believe we'll see ice free winters in my lifetime.

One of the things I've learned in my life is that the ecosystem of this planet tends to trend towards balance.  Granted we're knocking it off balance constantly but it will use all it's resources to try and bring itself back into balance.

We already know that it takes an event the scale of an asteroid strike to rapidly change the climate of the planet and change it permanently. Whilst human CO2 will, eventually, reach that same level; it is slower and the step changes are smaller.  The end is not in doubt, just the path to that end.

I'm with Seaicesailor on that one.  Thermal inertia has to go a long way before it overcomes the dark Arctic night.
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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1086 on: November 29, 2016, 11:55:56 AM »
Quote
The required greenhouse warming is overwhelming, order of dozens of watt per sq meter in the Arctic.

I don't think GHG's will be the reason for a nearly ice free arctic during winter. Albedo changes, atmospheric changes and ocean current changes will. To me this season is either a preview or the beginning of step changes that lead to a year round ice free arctic. 

I think that the only reason the Arctic stays at around 0 during summer is the presence of ice. Without sea ice, summer temperature will rise well above freezing. The higher temperatures plus unprecedented wave action plus atmospheric hot air intrusions will cause a significant delay of the freezing season. I imagine there will eventually be ice growth around the arctic islands and around the arctic peripheral coasts but not a full ice sheet.  The thin dispersed ice will be gone at the very beginning of spring, and sun will accumulate in the arctic ocean very early on.


I don't think it is correct to use the arctic of the past to predict the behavior of an ice free arctic. It will be a different place with completely different thermodynamics.




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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1087 on: November 29, 2016, 12:47:28 PM »
I don't think GHG's will be the reason for a nearly ice free arctic during winter. Albedo changes, atmospheric changes and ocean current changes will. To me this season is either a preview or the beginning of step changes that lead to a year round ice free arctic.
That argument surely has merit? An ice-free Arctic could generally be delivered in one of two ways: by a continuous evolution of the heat budget as a result of greenhouse warming, and thus an extrapolation of business-as-usual, or by a step change in the way the available heat is applied to the surface, as a result of a change in the mechanics of weather. We won't know about the second one until it happens, however the current, persistent 3 sigma conditions must give pause for thought. There is enough heat in the system *now* to melt all the ice.

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1088 on: November 29, 2016, 01:38:34 PM »
Quote
we can snooze through the rest of the winter, everything's gone back to normal
The same could have been said on 27 Nov 2015 and probably was. However that missed the epic storm of 27 Dec 2015 which injected warm air and melted a lot of ice on the Atlantic side and contributed to precondition of the following melt seasons, per the detailed analyses of L Boisvert doi: 10.1002/2015GL063775 and doi: 10.1175/MWR-D-16-0234.1

The weather cannot be predicted even in major US cities more than a few days in advance, if that. Yesterday's NWS GFS ECMWF said bring the tomatoes in, hard frost coming, so why are our thermometers showing low of 47ºF (8.3ºC)? I can just watch the bird feeder and get a better prediction than that.

Quote
not enough heat out there to melt the ice
According to published calculations, enough heat enters in three years through the West Spitsbergen Current alone to melt ALL the ice. Right now, this Atlantic Water is poorly mixed with surface waters (for lack of wind fetch and turbulence) and currently, after circulating for a couple years, exits the Arctic Ocean still carrying a substantial amount of that heat.

Quote
the Arctic switched from a desert climate to an ocean climate rather abruptly at the end of December 2015
That is the best comment we've seen here since Random_Weather sliced up the Barents Sea with Occam's razor.

The graybody Arctic cannot effectively radiate its summer heat out to space in winter if a potent greenhouse gas is adsorbing that infrared, warming the air and re-radiating much of it back down.

The time series below integrates six hycom forecasts with 3 nullschools for 27 Nov to 05 Dec 2016. The idea here is to script a synchronized scientific working environment and stop wasting set-up time. The product per se does not draw any conclusions but sets the stage for an annotator or analyst to do so.

It does not involve a huge amount of web trawling to retrieve these nine displays for the nine days but to get them all cut down to the Arctic Ocean (or other relevant area), adjusted to the same scale, rotated to the same orientation, and viewed in the same projection is a nuisance if done on a daily basis. Even then, they would not be synchronized. That's the main technical issue in moving away from line graphs to maps to changing maps and their time derivatives.
« Last Edit: November 29, 2016, 02:14:38 PM by A-Team »

seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1089 on: November 29, 2016, 02:26:17 PM »

Quote
not enough heat out there to melt the ice
According to published calculations, enough heat enters in three years through the West Spitsbergen Current alone to melt ALL the ice. Right now, this Atlantic Water is poorly mixed with surface waters (for lack of wind fetch and turbulence) and currently, after circulating for a couple years, exits the Arctic Ocean still carrying a substantial amount of that heat.

Quote
the Arctic switched from a desert climate to an ocean climate rather abruptly at the end of December 2015
That is the best comment we've seen here since Random_Weather sliced up the Barents Sea with Occam's razor.

The graybody Arctic cannot effectively radiate its summer heat out to space in winter if a potent greenhouse gas is adsorbing that infrared, warming the air and re-radiating much of it back down.

...

All right, the heat is already there and curent event demonstrates the power of GHG but...

seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1090 on: November 29, 2016, 02:30:24 PM »
Personally I believe 16/17 will be a step change which will become most apparent around 21/22.  That's my thinking.  So I'm not bothered about the speed of re-freeze.  I don't expect to see ice free conditions in the Arctic, in winter, in my lifetime.  Although I do expect to see virtually 0% ice volume in summer before I die.

As for ice free conditions in your lifetime...how long do you intend to live?  I would not be too surprised to see ice free conditions in the middle of next WINTER.  I do think that the Summer-Winter expectations are being upended.  All it will take now is for the last of the ice to melt once and then the glass of water will start warming up.
I doubt my great-grand-child will see an Arctic see ice free in Winter.
Just did the math some weeks ago. The required greenhouse warming is overwhelming, order of dozens of watt per sq meter in the Arctic.
Even in the most catastrophic scenario you get AGW imbalances of a few watt per sq meter in this century.
AGW effects are amplified in the Arctic. Maybe if by some incredible mechanism you could transfer all the trapped heat year-round globally to the Arctic ocean in winter,..., then we are entering into the science-fiction arena rather than science.
I'm afraid I don't share your optimism. A mechanism that we are perhaps already witnessing may bring on a near-icefree Arctic in winter. Is it too farfetched to think that an open Arctic in summer would cause a barrage of winter storms pumping heat and kinetic energy into the Arctic ocean, thereby stalling refreeze significantly, with a rapidly deteriorating ability of the Arctic to freeze in winter?

Arguing from W/m2 seems to me to imply that all other things remain equal - but that is clearly not what is happening.

... notice that precisely because a winter ice free Arctic is different, it is a water surface that has to be kept liquid at ~ -1.8C and that implies a massive amount of heat having to stay trapped, otherwise being released during Winter:

Extra energy needed by a 20C ~25C warmer Arctic in winter to stay at melting temp 271.5 K, black body Stefan-Boltzmann Law
E = 0.5 * sigma * (271.5^4 - 246.5^4) ~ 50 watt / m^2 approximately (taking emissivity of ocean water ~ 0.5 to be fair)

Heat excess per unit time and area being trapped by AGW: 0.58 ~ 1 watt / m^2 (since 0.58 w/m^2 was determined during solar minimum years).

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_16/


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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1091 on: November 29, 2016, 03:17:50 PM »
Personally I believe 16/17 will be a step change which will become most apparent around 21/22.  That's my thinking.  So I'm not bothered about the speed of re-freeze.  I don't expect to see ice free conditions in the Arctic, in winter, in my lifetime.  Although I do expect to see virtually 0% ice volume in summer before I die.

As for ice free conditions in your lifetime...how long do you intend to live?  I would not be too surprised to see ice free conditions in the middle of next WINTER.  I do think that the Summer-Winter expectations are being upended.  All it will take now is for the last of the ice to melt once and then the glass of water will start warming up.
I doubt my great-grand-child will see an Arctic see ice free in Winter.
Just did the math some weeks ago. The required greenhouse warming is overwhelming, order of dozens of watt per sq meter in the Arctic.
Even in the most catastrophic scenario you get AGW imbalances of a few watt per sq meter in this century.
AGW effects are amplified in the Arctic. Maybe if by some incredible mechanism you could transfer all the trapped heat year-round globally to the Arctic ocean in winter,..., then we are entering into the science-fiction arena rather than science.
I'm afraid I don't share your optimism. A mechanism that we are perhaps already witnessing may bring on a near-icefree Arctic in winter. Is it too farfetched to think that an open Arctic in summer would cause a barrage of winter storms pumping heat and kinetic energy into the Arctic ocean, thereby stalling refreeze significantly, with a rapidly deteriorating ability of the Arctic to freeze in winter?

Arguing from W/m2 seems to me to imply that all other things remain equal - but that is clearly not what is happening.

... notice that precisely because a winter ice free Arctic is different, it is a water surface that has to be kept liquid at ~ -1.8C and that implies a massive amount of heat having to stay trapped, otherwise being released during Winter:

Extra energy needed by a 20C ~25C warmer Arctic in winter to stay at melting temp 271.5 K, black body Stefan-Boltzmann Law
E = 0.5 * sigma * (271.5^4 - 246.5^4) ~ 50 watt / m^2 approximately (taking emissivity of ocean water ~ 0.5 to be fair)

Heat excess per unit time and area being trapped by AGW: 0.58 ~ 1 watt / m^2 (since 0.58 w/m^2 was determined during solar minimum years).

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_16/

It also implies a massive source of water vapor to act like a blanket.  Stay outside one night in the desert verses one night in a temperate rain forest to know the difference.

binntho

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1092 on: November 29, 2016, 03:44:58 PM »
I'm afraid I don't share your optimism. A mechanism that we are perhaps already witnessing may bring on a near-icefree Arctic in winter. Is it too farfetched to think that an open Arctic in summer would cause a barrage of winter storms pumping heat and kinetic energy into the Arctic ocean, thereby stalling refreeze significantly, with a rapidly deteriorating ability of the Arctic to freeze in winter?

Arguing from W/m2 seems to me to imply that all other things remain equal - but that is clearly not what is happening.

... notice that precisely because a winter ice free Arctic is different, it is a water surface that has to be kept liquid at ~ -1.8C and that implies a massive amount of heat having to stay trapped, otherwise being released during Winter:

Extra energy needed by a 20C ~25C warmer Arctic in winter to stay at melting temp 271.5 K, black body Stefan-Boltzmann Law ...


I'm not expecting the heat to be "trapped", simply refurnished by ocean currents and storms. An ice-free arctic will, I assume, be quite a lot warmer going into the freezing season, and a decent supply of storms like we have seen recently would keep temperatures higher than "normal". A surge of storms like the ones that recently warmed >80N temparatures to more than 20 degrees C above average would hold refreezing significantly back. A lull in storms, like we are now experiencing, would obviously lead to ice forming, but from a much lower starting point, ready to be blown apart by the next series of storms and waves.

Heat is not evenly distributed along the latitudes, two archipelagos facing the Atlantic on 68N (Lofoten, Norway and Aasiaat, Greenland) have a ~15 degree C difference in average winter tempereatures. The difference lies not in radiative forcing but in distribution of heat, from ocean currents and storms.

The two coldest months in the Arctic have average temperatures of ~-30C and temparatures will continue to fall that low and lower for the foreseeable future. But is it unrealistic to expect that if heat and kinetic energy is pumped into the Arctic during the winter months at a similar, if extended, scale to what we have seen happen repeatedly this year, that growth of ice from an ice free Arctic in summer would be severely hindered and even, to all extents and purposes, stopped as far as the central Arctic ocean is concerned?
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FishOutofWater

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1093 on: November 29, 2016, 03:58:59 PM »
The Barents and Kara seas have lost ice, storminess has increased, stratification has decreased and total precipitable water has increased. These changes are not only reducing sea ice but they are increasing the formation of Arctic deep water on the slope of the continental shelf.

Thus the rate of influx of warm, salty Atlantic water to the Arctic is increasing. This may not bring on an ice free Arctic in the winter but it will reduce the ice cover and drastically change the climate of the central Arctic, and the European side of the Arctic towards a maritime climate.

There's no point in arguing over the words "ice free". We are already seeing the effects of sea ice loss on the northern hemisphere's climate especially in fall and winter.

RoxTheGeologist

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1094 on: November 29, 2016, 04:31:01 PM »

Quote
not enough heat out there to melt the ice

According to published calculations, enough heat enters in three years through the West Spitsbergen Current alone to melt ALL the ice. Right now, this Atlantic Water is poorly mixed with surface waters (for lack of wind fetch and turbulence) and currently, after circulating for a couple years, exits the Arctic Ocean still carrying a substantial amount of that heat.

It's the halocline that preserves the ice; that prevents mixing, that allows new ice to form. The halocline is dependent on both fresh water input and the previous year's ice. Without the halocline it will require a much greater loss of energy to refreeze. Imagine trying to form ice in a mixed 10m layer, especially when the saltwater becomes denser as it becomes colder rather than less dense as freshwater does.

jai mitchell

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1095 on: November 29, 2016, 06:14:44 PM »
It's sad that these are the things we have to hold on to, but right now, things are looking like a lot more like a "normal" winter... just on a month delay. 

I have the uneasy feeling that although the curves might appear more normal, the month
delay will show up sooner or later.
800k km^2 is worth about ten extra August days of high-season melt.

It also happens to be the amount of total difference between the record 2012 sea ice extent minimum and this year's tie for the second lowest minimum September value.

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/
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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1096 on: November 29, 2016, 06:23:20 PM »
...

... notice that precisely because a winter ice free Arctic is different, it is a water surface that has to be kept liquid at ~ -1.8C and that implies a massive amount of heat having to stay trapped, otherwise being released during Winter:

...
If heat input exceeds heat loss then the system heats up.

Looking just at heat loss is only 1/2 of the equation.

How much heat can be added from the water column?

An arctic sea ice free in summer would let turbulent mixing happen on a large scale.  If you assume zero heat trapping how much water needs to be circulated to keep the arctic sea ice free?

How much water vapor gets added from an open area of water?

How much better is water vapor than CO2 as a green house gas? 

How much more cloud cover will we see from the increased free water surface area?

CO2 is playing second fiddle to other factors in the swansong.   

seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1097 on: November 29, 2016, 08:17:55 PM »
All right. The problem I see is that the scientific understanding of the very complex Arctic ocean circulation system is poor, poor enough to not being able to explain what is going on in the current Arctic.
So how can anybody predict a major change in the actual ocean structure and circulation if nobody can yet explain what happens with the ocean heat budget from one year to the next? Because almost all arguments I read here to support the possibility of ice free Arctic in Winter require a complete disruption of the current ocean structure.
But as I said, not even the scientists specialized on it can really explain how the actual structure of oceanic currents in the Arctic ocean works, how it evolves, how it is being affected by climate change.
So as long as the leader scientists cannot explain how the system works, at all, nobody can really predict such dramatic changes as the ones mentioned above so happily.
« Last Edit: November 29, 2016, 08:49:20 PM by seaicesailor »

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1098 on: November 29, 2016, 08:48:57 PM »
Hi S.i.S.!

I agree that until we know more we are just guessing blind?

Did the Halocline disappear during the alleged 'ice free' climate optimum or did it just further erode the Halocline that built under glaciation?

Are we looking at 8,000 yrs of 'building up'of the Halocline or are we looking at the remnants of millions of years of Glaciation upon Glaciation building up the unique stratification of this Ocean?

Do you see how the answer to the above might be important?
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seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1099 on: November 29, 2016, 08:58:29 PM »
I don't deny the possibilities Gray Wolf. All I can say (and I am way off topic now) is that the case for summer ice free Arctic as soon as 2020 is very strong based on what we ourselves are witnessing every summer, the case for year round ice free Arctic in this century, well not so much because of the required absurdly large heat anomaly, the dramatic change in ocean (and atmospheric) structure, et cetera
« Last Edit: November 29, 2016, 09:05:48 PM by seaicesailor »