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Quantum

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #150 on: March 10, 2017, 11:41:09 PM »
Plotted arctic wide temperature anomalies over the next 7 days from Climate Reanalyser as according to the GFS.

Incredibly warm conditions followed by a rather rapid decrease in average temperature, but still much above average.

Tigertown

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #151 on: March 11, 2017, 03:08:53 AM »
I stretched this out some, so that you can see the Bering Strait and Wrangel Island, for points of reference. March 7-10    Click Image Please
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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #152 on: March 11, 2017, 03:22:03 AM »
Still frame of ice around FJL. Night mode.
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cesium62

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #153 on: March 11, 2017, 05:18:19 AM »
The last six or seven comments don't belong in this thread. If there is no other place for a subject, try  the Open thread. PLEASE!

http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1884.250.html#lastPost

Seconded. This thread is to discuss the 2017 melt season which, given the current state of the ice, will be a barn burner. Let's stay on topic.

We can't talk about the effects of the melting season on Puffins in the melting season thread?

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #154 on: March 11, 2017, 05:46:57 AM »
The last six or seven comments don't belong in this thread. If there is no other place for a subject, try  the Open thread. PLEASE!

http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1884.250.html#lastPost

Seconded. This thread is to discuss the 2017 melt season which, given the current state of the ice, will be a barn burner. Let's stay on topic.

We can't talk about the effects of the melting season on Puffins in the melting season thread?

Let's move this to the appropriate thread.

http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1907.0.html
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Tigertown

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #155 on: March 11, 2017, 07:13:07 AM »
A follow up on the gif that I posted covering the 7th thru 10th. Wrangel Island was to the right side of the gif. The following is from today(3-11) and I am posting this pic with the Island more centered to illustrate how fast the ice has gone down in this area.
Go ahead and zoom in.
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romett1

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #156 on: March 11, 2017, 07:44:40 AM »
A follow up on the gif that I posted covering the 7th thru 10th. Wrangel Island was to the right side of the gif. The following is from today(3-11) and I am posting this pic with the Island more centered to illustrate how fast the ice has gone down in this area.
Go ahead and zoom in.


Even currently there is constant wind (12 m/s), that is pushing ice away from coast. Should calm down by the evening, but ESS (and CAB) remains quite windy for this weekend. Image from Earth.nullschool.net

Jim Hunt

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #157 on: March 11, 2017, 12:09:35 PM »
I reckon (with medium confidence!) the maximum is now behind us. So moving threads, here's the first glimpse of the Fram Strait at visible frequencies in 2017:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/resources/arctic-sea-ice-images/winter-201617-images/#GreenlandSea
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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #158 on: March 11, 2017, 06:10:55 PM »
I know that we'd see it as the destruction of ice Jim but those who look at every skip of the graph would cry you down if we see rapid break up of the ice over our side of the basin and float out into open waters?

To see Svalbard's north shore seeinmg ice now, when it has been clear all winter, might be a taste of the next couple of weeks as the FY 'glue' holding last years rubble together lets go and the pack relaxes out into open water prior to melt?
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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #159 on: March 11, 2017, 08:21:02 PM »
Those who look at every skip of the graph would cry you down if we see rapid break up of the ice over our side of the basin and float out into open waters?

A good reason to keep track of both area and extent?
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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #160 on: March 12, 2017, 05:26:55 AM »
Extent is likely to go up as there has been a lot of dispersion and export. I don't quite know exactly what is happening to the last glob of really thick ice, but it doesn't look good. 7th-11th
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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #161 on: March 12, 2017, 05:38:30 AM »
Another visual, but side by side. Comparing thickness from the 6th of March to the 11th. Unless this area is under attack from warm water below, I would think disperion to be the key factor.
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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #162 on: March 12, 2017, 06:16:16 AM »
I don't know what is going on everybody, but it doesn't look good. I knew it was going to be an exceptional season, but it wasn't supposed take off this fast. This was just updated on the University of Bremen site. I know there is a LP, but it's not that strong and could it really make the ice go down that fast? Warm wind attacked the Chukchi and ESS for a few hours on the 10th, and at just a few degrees over freezing. What's going on?
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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #163 on: March 12, 2017, 06:20:33 AM »
What's going on?

The same as in the nearby lake? That is, 1-2 mm of defrosted snow? Lucky watery reflection on the instrument on board?

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #164 on: March 12, 2017, 06:32:13 AM »
What's going on?

The same as in the nearby lake? That is, 1-2 mm of defrosted snow? Lucky watery reflection on the instrument on board?
So, basically, the sat. sees a layer of melted snow, which is now water on top of the ice, instead of the ice underneath, and makes it appear to us that the ice is gone?
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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #165 on: March 12, 2017, 06:46:19 AM »
What's going on?

The same as in the nearby lake? That is, 1-2 mm of defrosted snow? Lucky watery reflection on the instrument on board?
So, basically, the sat. sees a layer of melted snow, which is now water on top of the ice, instead of the ice underneath, and makes it appear to us that the ice is gone?
That's my guess. It could be the angle of the sun has to be just right for this to happen, and the sat would have to pass in the right time of the day. Not sure. Fairly sure this isn't yet meltpooling, but would be the same thing that happens when frost on grass has melted just a bit.
« Last Edit: March 12, 2017, 07:03:55 AM by Pmt111500 »

Adam Ash

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #166 on: March 12, 2017, 09:06:40 AM »
I imagine the sats just detect the height of a reflective layer and multiply that by ten to give thickness. In the good old days that something was stacks of solid blocks of multi-year ice shoved up into huge ridges. But today that could just be rotten ice squeezed into a heap which disperses rapidly as soon as the edge restraint relaxes.  ???

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #167 on: March 12, 2017, 10:30:03 AM »
Tutored by Neven and others... I've come to understand that variations in the Bremen sea ice concentration numbers needs to be suspicious of short-term changes.  Wait to see if it persists for several days before becoming excite.
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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #168 on: March 12, 2017, 11:01:15 AM »
I don't see how this effect can be dispersion, since all of the bands in that area are reducing in thickness; surely, if it were lateral collapse of piled-up slush then some of the surrounding areas would show an increase in thickness away from the peak?

From what I've read on here, it's most likely that this is some artifact and will soon go away (maybe surface water film, but it's been operating over several days, and I thought this area on nullschool and other forecasts was to have been staying way below zero at the moment - am I wrong?). If not, and this is upwelling warm water, then I guess we're stuffed. I'm a little anxious  because it strikes me that this is the sort of mechanism that could explain Jim White's records of abrupt north Greenland warming in the ice core record.

At this stage, as jdallen says, we just have to wait and see if it holds up... nervously.

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #169 on: March 12, 2017, 11:02:57 AM »
Rapid changes on Bremen are probably water vapour in the air (either as clouds or just dispersed in the air column). 

The thickness measurements at NIPR are experimental and not believable except in very qualitative terms.  They fluctuate wildly from day to day. Moreover, if you watch videos of them at times when the Beaufort gyre is spinning you can often see the older ice getting mixed into the new ice - but on some days the older ice looks thicker than the new ice, and on some days thinner than the new ice!  Basically, that product is reading _something_ about the radiation characteristics and surface characteristics of the ice, but it's not clear to me exactly what.

Steven

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #170 on: March 12, 2017, 11:09:31 AM »
Another visual, but side by side. Comparing thickness from the 6th of March to the 11th. Unless this area is under attack from warm water below, I would think disperion to be the key factor.


Those JAXA sea ice thickness maps should be taken with a grain of salt.  They seem to be overly sensitive to changes in temperature, snow etc.

The sudden "thinning" event north of the Canadian Archipelago is clearly unphysical.  I don't think it's due to dispersion.  Perhaps the algorithm is affected by snowfall:  according to GFS there has been snowfall in that region yesterday:

http://i.imgur.com/Y3tIUUp.png


I imagine the sats just detect the height of a reflective layer and multiply that by ten to give thickness.

Some satellites (like CryoSat) measure the sea ice freeboard.  But the AMSR2/JAXA sea ice thickness product seems to be based on a completely different approach using brightness temperatures.  I cannot find much information about it,  but a quick google search gives this June 2016 presentation by Kazutaka Tateyama:

http://injapan.no/arctic2016-day2/files/2015/06/ASIW2016.06.03_Tateyama_%C3%B6z%C3%B2z%C3%B9p.pdf

which mentions as "possible error sources":  "low pressure, snow cover, melting".

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #171 on: March 12, 2017, 03:55:44 PM »
I am more than happy to give it some time myself, and will keep an open mind about it. I don't claim to know the answer for certain. I do remember a comment made by Hyperion back in Feb. in the Freezing thread.

Quote
Are these thickness plots still being based on 10% freeboard or what ever similar figure is historically used for old fashioned firstyear ice? Eg/ where they are graphing 2m thick is it based on satellite measurements of  ~0.2m freeboard?
 I'm concerned that the real density might be significantly lower. if its mostly snow and  rotten honeycomb with thin ice crusts interleaved, it could be as low as 0.5 kg/litre which would make 0.2m freeboard actually ~0.4m thickness. And the blowtorch like melts in the killzone fram / svalbard / bering areas certainly look to me like what you would expect from thin and rubbish quality ice. Not solid 2m thick berg.

So I will also consider that the glob above the CAA made have not consisted of very great ice from the start. Time will tell.
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Andreas T

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #172 on: March 12, 2017, 04:48:43 PM »
I am more than happy to give it some time myself, and will keep an open mind about it. I don't claim to know the answer for certain. I do remember a comment made by Hyperion back in Feb. in the Freezing thread.
.....
 Time will tell.
Based on seeing the fluctuations in the JAXA thickness plot (thickening and thinning in unlikely ways) I agree with Steven who seems to have looked into this (always a good idea to check information rather than go with what some bloke on the forum says, including me of course)
I also think that Jaxa thickness plot is based on passive microwave sensors (AMSR) and works very differently from Cryosat. Previous commenters are mixing those up.
I recall reading that this does not work well in thicker ice, but it can give an indication where  there is probably thick ice due to thicker ice usually having low surface temperature.
 
Digging out information is a bit boring, especially when it often gets ignored by commenters which prefer to voice their opinions very frequently so I'm inclined to let someone else do that.

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #173 on: March 12, 2017, 07:33:19 PM »
I don't know what is going on everybody, but it doesn't look good. I knew it was going to be an exceptional season, but it wasn't supposed take off this fast. This was just updated on the University of Bremen site. I know there is a LP, but it's not that strong and could it really make the ice go down that fast? Warm wind attacked the Chukchi and ESS for a few hours on the 10th, and at just a few degrees over freezing. What's going on?


All FYI in the ESS and Chukchi, highly fractured, very mobile and, with the ridiculous FDD anomalies this year, not the cold hard ice we have come to expect. I expect a stormy melt season with a highly mobile ice pack and a continuation in the trend towards increased dispersion at minimum.

We saw how the big block, thick MYI, fared in the Beaufort last year. Given the location of the last remnant of MYI north of the CAA, I don't think we will see any transport of MYI into the Beaufort and we should see an early melt and wide open Pacific side of the CAB at min.
« Last Edit: March 12, 2017, 07:46:54 PM by Shared Humanity »

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #174 on: March 12, 2017, 07:54:21 PM »
Once melt season is properly underway I think some will be surprised at just how fast the ice disintegrates in small floes ( last years rubble)?

Open water is the issue we face. Open water over ever increasing areas for ever increasing amounts of time.

Look at the open water in 07' and how fragmented the pack remaining was. Do the same for the rest of the years and compare with how much open water we saw throughout 2016's melt season.

2016 is the new template for ice behaviour over summer with early breakup and open water throughout the basin by solastice.
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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #175 on: March 12, 2017, 09:20:29 PM »
On the Atlantic side, things are even worse. Expect a wide open Atlantic side of the CAB as well although the highly mobile ice could replenish the ice that melts in this area. The only question for me is whether (how much) of the 2m to 2.5 meter ice (the elephant trunk) will survive the melt season.

If most of it melts we will have new record minimums for SIA and SIE.
« Last Edit: March 12, 2017, 09:58:47 PM by Shared Humanity »

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #176 on: March 12, 2017, 09:35:06 PM »
Quote
On the Atlantic side, things are even worse.
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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #177 on: March 12, 2017, 09:56:49 PM »
None of that ice is more than 1.2 meters thick and much of it is under 1 meter.

Hyperion

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #178 on: March 12, 2017, 09:59:57 PM »
hmmm...
a few rough guesstimates calculated by various means are suggesting that with this constant motion and export of surface water and ice into a long polar basin kill zone with big wind and wave conditions mixing in with Gulfstream waters, we could have lost several metres of an arctic ocean wide fresher layer by export alone over the winter. And the constant refreezing of the exposed waters is of course releasing some brine but with so much motion I'd be surprized if this does anything but raise the salinity of the lens. Halocline collapse is looking likely. :'(
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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #179 on: March 12, 2017, 10:06:50 PM »
None of that ice is more than 1.2 meters thick and much of it is under 1 meter.

Summer storm fodder....

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #180 on: March 12, 2017, 10:35:03 PM »
hmmm...
a few rough guesstimates calculated by various means are suggesting that with this constant motion and export of surface water and ice into a long polar basin kill zone with big wind and wave conditions mixing in with Gulfstream waters, we could have lost several metres of an arctic ocean wide fresher layer by export alone over the winter. And the constant refreezing of the exposed waters is of course releasing some brine but with so much motion I'd be surprized if this does anything but raise the salinity of the lens. Halocline collapse is looking likely. :'(

The evidence of Halocline collapse is Atlantic waters penetrating out beyond the shelf and over the Nansen Basin on the surface. That phenomenon was observed by A-Team last year, a band of warm water extending from Svalbard and north of FJL. I think it's fair to assume that where that happens the halocline has broken down completely.


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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #181 on: March 13, 2017, 05:32:37 AM »
There have been no warm winds anywhere for two days. The up to about 3oC wind on the 10th was in a very isolated area, not over the whole Arctic. The average surface air temps. are between -20oC to -250C. There has been some wind, just no warmth in it. My only thoughts at this point are in regard to the water under the ice, as I do not know much about downward long wave radiation. Could it cause surface melt on the ice without heating the air? Either way, things are looking worse. I am trying to keep an open mind, but as each day goes by a fluke seems less likely.
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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #182 on: March 13, 2017, 05:47:04 AM »
My only thoughts at this point are in regard to the water under the ice, as I do not know much about downward long wave radiation. Could it cause surface melt on the ice without heating the air?
There'd have to be an awful lot of it, and it by nature would raise air temperatures as well, so no, I don't think you'd get surface melt without increasing air temperatures.

Bottom melt is a different issue, and with temperatures above -20c, we're looking at their being enough excess heat flow through the ice that some of it would get captured as phase change.  The ice won't disappear as surface temps are still well below freezing, but the balance of heat flow means any ice much over a meter thick may have to contend with dynamics that prevent enough heat passing through the ice to prevent it from melting.

The balance would get restored as you reduce the thickness and permit greater heat flow.  At this stage any melt would be measured in a handful of CM at most.
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Tigertown

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #183 on: March 13, 2017, 06:22:49 AM »
I am not big on the surface melt myself, but was considering it because a couple of people mentioned the possibility of a snow layer on top of the ice that may be melting and fooling the sat. instruments. And that's the thing; melting from what?

I think it a much stronger possibility that there is both dispersion and upwelling, and that these are breaking up the rotten ice. Some melting happening, maybe, but mostly breaking up.

P.S. Whether it be instruments or whatever, Wipneus' Volume chart based on JAXA data just took a nosedive. I am just observing this. I am not trying to dogmatically say that I understand it all. Perhaps it is some error, though it would be a confounding one.
« Last Edit: March 13, 2017, 06:32:46 AM by Tigertown »
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Adam Ash

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #184 on: March 13, 2017, 08:40:19 AM »
I cannot find ice pack snow thickness data, but I winder if the high air moisture content has led to these lower temperatures dropping snow over the pack, hence insulating it from the cold air and reducing ice thickness build?  That would allow bottom melt to continue apace, with thickness un-replenished by heat loss upwards to the air?

Jim Hunt

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #185 on: March 13, 2017, 09:15:13 AM »
According to Environment Canada the latest Arctic cyclone bottomed out at 971 hPa at 06:00 UTC yesterday. This morning MSLP has risen to all of 973 hPa:
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Hyperion

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #186 on: March 13, 2017, 10:43:27 AM »
The overall atmospheric circulations in both hemispheres are reminiscent of tropical cyclones with dual eyewalls. there only one significant low in each hemisphere right now. And they both seem to extend in height right up to near 10hPa - 30km altitude. The stratospheric set up over the nth atlantic seems to be dropping them like eggs to invade the arctic, and the helical infeed at high levels is beyond my ability to speculate on consequences. There seems very little cyclonic activity in either hemisphere outside of the big low pressure eyes in each. Im intrigued as to whether the high altitude east to west flow moving from the south, and now flirting with the equator is going to continue migrating north with the equinox passing and its twin u-turn outflows into the Nth hemisphere vortexes strengthen and consolidate.  Dumping southern summer energy on the northern polar system.
Anyone remember kansas? If this is a mode setting in solidly we might be in for desert zones from 35 sth to 35 nth latitudes. Looks like any tropical lows trying to form are getting their tops sheared off and stillborn. The Hadley cells losing the war.
We may have an explanation for why it was cosy for temperate climate critters, at least seasonally, in northern Europe, Siberia and Alaska after the big melt pulse 13KA BP. This sort of thing could have it very warm and wet in those places.
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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #187 on: March 13, 2017, 11:27:12 AM »
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Tigertown

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #188 on: March 13, 2017, 11:29:08 AM »
@Hyperion
The circulation patterns over the Arctic match all the way up to 250 hpa, but change between there and 70 hpa.(If I am looking at it, wrong please correct me) If you have the mslp button on, while on Earth NS it makes it appear to match higher and will read wrong sometimes even after you turn it off. Still I find it pretty remarkable that the patterns match all the way up to jet stream height. Not saying that has never happened at all, but I don't recall seeing it. Anyone have a clue as to what this might mean?
"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.

Neven

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #189 on: March 13, 2017, 11:50:54 AM »
My only thoughts at this point are in regard to the water under the ice, as I do not know much about downward long wave radiation. Could it cause surface melt on the ice without heating the air?
There'd have to be an awful lot of it, and it by nature would raise air temperatures as well, so no, I don't think you'd get surface melt without increasing air temperatures.

Melt onset is determined by downwelling longwave radiation. From Mortin et al. (2016):

"The timing of melt onset affects the surface energy uptake throughout the melt season. Yet the processes triggering melt and causing its large interannual variability are not well understood. Here we show that melt onset over Arctic sea ice is initiated by positive anomalies of water vapor, clouds, and air temperatures that increase the downwelling longwave radiation (LWD) to the surface. The earlier melt onset occurs; the stronger are these anomalies. Downwelling shortwave radiation (SWD) is smaller than usual at melt onset, indicating that melt is not triggered by SWD. When melt occurs early, an anomalously opaque atmosphere with positive LWD anomalies preconditions the surface for weeks preceding melt. In contrast, when melt begins late, clearer than usual conditions are evident prior to melt. Hence, atmospheric processes are imperative for melt onset. It is also found that spring LWD increased during recent decades, consistent with trends toward an earlier melt onset."

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Peter Ellis

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #190 on: March 13, 2017, 11:51:18 AM »
Could it cause surface melt on the ice without heating the air? Either way, things are looking worse. I am trying to keep an open mind, but as each day goes by a fluke seems less likely.
Stop panicking.  It's clouds - water vapour in the air rather than surface meltwater or open ocean water.  From the standpoint of this satellite, it's all water. Rapid day-to-day fluctuations on the Bremen map are almost ALWAYS clouds - they try to algorithmically filter them out but it's not always possible. 

Bremen is a couple of days delayed relative to other sources.  Here are the Worldview images for the 10th March for Hudson Bay and the Arctic Ocean. Observe the thick white clouds concealing the ice (red) in the areas of apparent "low concentration" on the Bremen maps.  It's particularly convincing for Hudson Bay, where you can see the exact curved shape of the weather system.
http://go.nasa.gov/2mRMNwv
http://go.nasa.gov/2mirBfR


Peter Ellis

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #191 on: March 13, 2017, 11:52:44 AM »
I cannot find ice pack snow thickness data, but I winder if the high air moisture content has led to these lower temperatures dropping snow over the pack, hence insulating it from the cold air and reducing ice thickness build? 
So nearly correct.  High air moisture correct is directly (and erroneously) detected as lowered ice concentration.  It'll bounce back up again when the clouds pass.

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #192 on: March 13, 2017, 11:56:55 AM »
I've been looking at ASCAT radar images and saw some interesting features. Here's an animation for the past week, and those features are in the first frame (white circle and rectangle):



Usually, dark means thin in radar images, and these features have been there since November. The one in the circle looks especially interesting, but I don't know if it means these regions are  thinner. And I haven't compared to other years yet either, but I thought I'd throw it out here to see what you guys think.
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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #193 on: March 13, 2017, 12:02:46 PM »
Extent is likely to go up as there has been a lot of dispersion and export. I don't quite know exactly what is happening to the last glob of really thick ice, but it doesn't look good. 7th-11th

Look at your own animation.  And I mean really look, don't just see what you want to see.  The "arm" of ice sticking out into the East Siberian Sea is easily visible. We know this is older ice that survived from last year.  It must therefore be thicker than the immediately neighbouring first year ice, since as the new ice forms, the already-existing ice gets thicker.  One class of ice can't overtake the other in thickness.

BUT

In most of the frames, the old ice arm is a darker green, i.e. apparently "thinner" than this ice around it.  That alone is enough to tell you that this product is WRONG and is not correctly measuring ice thickness.  It's not even consistent from day to day: in some frames the old ice arm does indeed look thicker than its surroundings.

Stop trying to read more into these pictures than they will support.  They're a good way of getting a general overview of the boundaries between older and younger ice. No more.  They are not numerically accurate, and do not genuinely measure ice thickness and volume.

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #194 on: March 13, 2017, 12:18:18 PM »
@Peter Ellis
Don't mistake my enthusiasm for panicking. I am trying to observe what is happening. That is all.
I am looking at every available asset to evaluate the situation. I have stated several times that I don't have any preconceptions about it all. You are right about the moisture playing a role, but I think more along the line of Neven's quote from Mortin et al. Plus, I am not looking at a one or two day fluke, as more than one person has said. What I see has been going on a few days, and therefore deserves at least to be monitored. If it turns out one way or the other, that's that.

BTW
Hudson Bay ice is in bad shape. I have been looking at it all winter and it never really thickened like it should have. The clouds and storms and turbulence are hurting it, just as the sat. is showing.
« Last Edit: March 13, 2017, 12:24:09 PM by Tigertown »
"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #195 on: March 13, 2017, 02:11:31 PM »
I've been looking at ASCAT radar images and saw some interesting features. Here's an animation for the past week, and those features are in the first frame (white circle and rectangle):

Usually, dark means thin in radar images, and these features have been there since November. The one in the circle looks especially interesting, but I don't know if it means these regions are  thinner. And I haven't compared to other years yet either, but I thought I'd throw it out here to see what you guys think.

Whatever those two dark areas are, it is ice and not clouds. I'm inclined to think it is thin ice. The thin ice in the rectangle is interesting in that it appears to mimic the Laptev bite we often see at the end of a melt season. I am wondering if there is an ocean phenomena (upwelling of warm water) that is a persistent feature in this area of the ocean. When the ice was very thick, this feature was fully obscured during the winters and only became visible during aggressive melt seasons. Now, with wildly warm winters (FDD anomaly) this upwelling prevents the ice from thickening.

This is, of course, wild speculation on my part.

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #196 on: March 13, 2017, 02:19:10 PM »
As A-Team is missing, I try to operate with gif's. Latest Hycom forecast Mar 8 - Mar 12. Notice Fram export, Bering Strait and Chukchi Sea. Images from: https://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/arctic.html

If you look at this animation, there is a similar feature although it is not aligned exactly.

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #197 on: March 13, 2017, 03:47:03 PM »
Hyperion I don't often check the 2[1]  links below but have been for a couple of weeks or so, just to follow the highs/lows in the arctic, the weather systems have been flowing from the tropics to the arctic all that time, at least on the atlantic side.
http://synoptic.envsci.rutgers.edu/site/sat/sat.php?sat=nhem&url=../imgs/wv_nhem_anim.gif
http://synoptic.envsci.rutgers.edu/site/sat/sat.php?sat=nhem&url=../imgs/ir_nhem_anim.gif
I'm thinking the circle in Nevens animation closely coincides with the Laptev end of the Amundsen/Nansen basins, and that Atlantic currents are forced all the way across the north barents sea shelf, some fraction escapes to the NSI side of Lomonosov but the rest circulates venting heat/vapour into the area. The way that settles out depends on current weather, but snow or mist it conditions the ice.. The rectangle seems associated with the Alpha/Mendeleyev ridge and Makarov basin, so I suspect it's ice passing over the ridges, including Lomonosov, stirring the depths of Makarov.
It's worth clicking through from the 8th to see the added impetus the tides gives to the heat ingress
http://go.nasa.gov/2miRfkr

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #198 on: March 13, 2017, 03:53:52 PM »
I've been looking at ASCAT radar images and saw some interesting features. Here's an animation for the past week, and those features are in the first frame (white circle and rectangle):



Usually, dark means thin in radar images, and these features have been there since November. The one in the circle looks especially interesting, but I don't know if it means these regions are  thinner. And I haven't compared to other years yet either, but I thought I'd throw it out here to see what you guys think.
FYI and FYI according to the russian service that you point to in the ASIG, Neven. The elongated structure seems trapped FYI between the two surviving arms of ice in September, and the other region has been growing in extension as the surviving ice drifted northwards.

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #199 on: March 13, 2017, 04:32:57 PM »
Thanks, sis, that explains it.
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