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Lord M Vader

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1700 on: June 02, 2017, 08:35:19 AM »
Melt ponds are clearly visible at Zack Labes photo from the Arctic.

https://twitter.com/ZLabe/status/870182657493274624

Anyone here who knows where Zack Labe et al are right now? Would be interesting to know where those melt ponds are located.

DavidR

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1701 on: June 02, 2017, 09:07:54 AM »
May's bizarrely low rate of extent decrease is shown very well in this NSIDC monthly average SIE graph:

Amazing, really, to see such a wild upward swing after many months of flat to falling averages. In fact, it appears to be the largest year-to-year same-month spike in nearly four years.

It looks like the rather 'cool' May (after many months of above-average temps) has at least slowed down melting in the periphery.

The next PIOMAS update (any day now) should give an indication of how much that affects overall ice volume, and thus what the status is of the Arctic going into the melting season.

And let it be noted that May 2016 was just off-the-chart low, which makes the year-to-year same-month spike look extra large.

Mays decline was the 7th largest in the last 15 years so not bizarre at all. It was slightly below average however due to some large drops in the past 8 years where it  is the third lowest decline.

The state of the ice above Ellesmere and Greenland is very similar to 2014.  With Nares open and overall low volume I expect 2017 to follow the June trajectory of 2012 and 2014 rather than 2016.  Either of these would place the extent around the lowest by the end of the month.
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Andreas T

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1702 on: June 02, 2017, 09:41:38 AM »
Melt ponds are clearly visible at Zack Labes photo from the Arctic.

https://twitter.com/ZLabe/status/870182657493274624

Anyone here who knows where Zack Labe et al are right now? Would be interesting to know where those melt ponds are located.
Norsk Polarinstitutt cruise plans say no more than what Zack states on Twitter: Framstrait
sailwx has no position of RV Lance since 2004 !
so all we know its somewhere west of Spitsbergen around 80N

Reallybigbunny

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1703 on: June 02, 2017, 10:03:32 AM »
Noticed this photo in Zack Labe's twitter account with general coordinates.
« Last Edit: June 02, 2017, 10:14:49 AM by Reallybigbunny »

Reallybigbunny

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1704 on: June 02, 2017, 11:26:19 AM »
I am guessing that put Zack Labe about where the blue dot is, so not surprising there is a lot of blue ice/melt ponding about. But I could be way out. Please let me know.
« Last Edit: June 03, 2017, 09:35:08 PM by Reallybigbunny »

Herfried

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1705 on: June 02, 2017, 11:47:37 AM »
This was one of the colder places in May, temperatures not too conductive for surface melting, quite some export therefore, and breakdown from the bottom, warm waters.

Most of the Arctic sea ice was under comditions petter promotive for surface melt....

Jim Pettit

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1706 on: June 02, 2017, 01:25:55 PM »
Mays decline was the 7th largest in the last 15 years so not bizarre at all. It was slightly below average however due to some large drops in the past 8 years where it  is the third lowest decline.

The state of the ice above Ellesmere and Greenland is very similar to 2014.  With Nares open and overall low volume I expect 2017 to follow the June trajectory of 2012 and 2014 rather than 2016.  Either of these would place the extent around the lowest by the end of the month.

Please note that I didn't say May's decline was bizarre; I said it's rate of decrease was. Those are, of course, two different things. The 2016-2017 NSIDC SIE monthly average saw the largest one-year May-to-May increase in the satellite record. In fact, it was the largest one-year month-to-month increase in average on record for any month from November through May--hence my use of the word "bizarre".

(I absolutely agree with you that this June and July will see 2012-like decreases that will, likely, catapult 2017 back into second place, if not first.)

At any rate, expect a largish decrease today, as the quickening melt will sit atop the typical NSIDC first-day-of-the-month mathematical anomaly.

F.Tnioli

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1707 on: June 02, 2017, 03:15:04 PM »
...
At any rate, expect a largish decrease today, as the quickening melt will sit atop the typical NSIDC first-day-of-the-month mathematical anomaly.
And it's not the only "anomaly" their mathematics are known to produce; nor the most damaging. "Synthetic biases" and all, like Notz et al put it (good reading, by the way). I'm firmly convinced this "bizarre" May rate is substantially of the sort, too.

P.S. Sorry if i'm just too blunt about it. Bad mood today... ><
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Andreas T

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1708 on: June 02, 2017, 03:15:31 PM »
I am guessing that put Zack Labe about where the blue dot is, so not surprising there is a lot of blue ice about. But I could be way out. Please let me know.
The blue dot is in the right place, whether the RV Lance was there on the 1st June, same place as on the 26th is a question. Not sure Lance can operate into the more closely packed, moving ice further into the pack. I don't see signs of surface melting in 7,2,1 or 6,3,7 images, temperatures, as Herfried says cold there with wind blowing from north for a while. How long would it take for such meltponds to appear?. Another feature of the image are the substantial ridges on the floes with surface water. This makes me think that these are flooded depressions in the ice surface, when ice is pushed up other ice is pushed down. Bottom melt will reduce buoyancy, surface lowers, depression is first to go below water level. Break up of floes also can shift weight distribution, can produce slight tilt.
That could work?

PS for scale: length of RV Lance: 60m
attached image linked by LMV

sondreb

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1709 on: June 02, 2017, 03:24:24 PM »
I'm not very familiar with how NSIDC calculates sea ice extent, if it's based upon the pixel-map provided here or not.

But from what I can see of satellite imagery, and compare that to the sea ice extent graphics, it's clearly very wrong.

Probably reporting a lot more than actual extent?

Archimid

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1710 on: June 02, 2017, 03:34:10 PM »
That Zack Labe image is great. I don't think I have seen ice from this perspective. It seems much closer than what satellite resolution provides and maybe even closer than airplanes, but farther than typical ground images. 
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F.Tnioli

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1711 on: June 02, 2017, 03:37:54 PM »
I'm not very familiar with how NSIDC calculates sea ice extent, if it's based upon the pixel-map provided here or not.

But from what I can see of satellite imagery, and compare that to the sea ice extent graphics, it's clearly very wrong.

Probably reporting a lot more than actual extent?
No such thing as "actual" extent. The "extent" term itself is an artificial stat which is a subject for different interpretations. "Their" interpretation and math, they most likely do right (without any big error), so "NSIDC extent" they provide is most likely "not more than actual NSIDC extent" at any given time; doubt it means any much, though.

If you mean whether they report "more ice than there is", - why, of course they do. Obviously. For example, look at that NSIDC map showing solid white all over the place, then compare it to this wonderful view with lots of wave action over significantly large areas shown as "ice" by NSIDC. It'd be funny, if it wouldn't be too sad.
To everyone: before posting in a melting season topic, please be sure to know contents of this moderator's post: https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,3017.msg261893.html#msg261893 . Thanks!

iceman

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1712 on: June 02, 2017, 03:39:01 PM »
Totally agree with this. Watching what was for years stable MYI, now just drifting to oblivion. And, the uncorked effect spreading the discharge for 100s of miles into again what had been very stable pack ice. At first I didn't think the transport was going to be anything big (no frame of reference from prior years). But now watching the flushing, just insane.

Anyone else thinking:

Nares is to ASI as Thwaites is to WAIS?

Watching ice drain down through the Strait 1.5 to 2 months earlier than ever before, draining the bottom of the ASI like someone pulled the plug in a bathtub, as it were, is the most disconcerting thing I've seen since 2012.

I believe this is ripping the "backbone" out of the ASI pack, reducing the integrity of the whole thing. Lordy... if the transport via both Nares and Fram continue through the summer, God help us. Of course, the summers have tended to turn cool and transport to slow, especially in August, so no bets on the table just yet, but this is an entirely new phenomenon WRT to Nares opening so early and anything might happen.

With bated breath...

I get the feeling that there will not be much thick multi year ice left after this summer. A lot of it looks about to go down the drain. It is stunning to see how fast these vast and seemingly solid sheets of ice fall to pieces.

Anyone with expertise in chaos theory care to comment?  This looks like a striking example of a system flipping from one state to another, where a large difference in conditions (multi-year ice in the core of the pack) follows from a binary occurrence (whether or not Nares arch forms).
    Of course it is possible for the system to flip back - perhaps next year - if an early or durable Nares arch helped begin the restoration of MYI in Lincoln Sea and beyond.

be cause

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1713 on: June 02, 2017, 03:50:34 PM »
An interesting fracture has appeared on the latest Worldview image .. running from the pole toward Beaufort .
Close examination of the conditions across the ocean appear to suggest that as the snow melts the Arctic is revealing the total lack of integrity of the ice below . 'Pineapple faced' would describe what I am seeing widely . I see nowhere with ice that could be considered 'safe' this season .. b.c.
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Dryland

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1714 on: June 02, 2017, 04:20:36 PM »
Anyone with expertise in chaos theory care to comment?  This looks like a striking example of a system flipping from one state to another, where a large difference in conditions (multi-year ice in the core of the pack) follows from a binary occurrence (whether or not Nares arch forms).
    Of course it is possible for the system to flip back - perhaps next year - if an early or durable Nares arch helped begin the restoration of MYI in Lincoln Sea and beyond.

It looks to me like there is a state change, but not one that requires chaos theory to explain. I think the change is in the mechanical properties of the ice, from a solid sheet to a sort of ice stew that is much easier to transport into harm's way. Some of the chunks may be relatively solid, but if they're not too big and they're bonded together by more recent and salty ice of low tensile/shear strength, the whole mass can flow almost like a viscous liquid.

I remember looking at satellite imagery of the Nares "arch" when it was deemed to have formed this season - it looked like non-reinforced concrete, an aggregate of various-sized chunks in a weaker matrix. It didn't look like it would hold.

Lord M Vader

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1715 on: June 02, 2017, 04:27:12 PM »
NSIDC reports a double century break. Down with -217K for June 1. But of course, it's the first in the month so not too much to get high on....

VeliAlbertKallio

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1716 on: June 02, 2017, 04:45:01 PM »
If anything is there to compare, I think the initial hopes of the return of North East Greenland tongue of sea ice that were cherished when it first disappeared, or the Ellesmere Island being ringed again by ice shelves. I think there is no hope for multiyear ice, it is now becoming seasonal ice cover. Period. It is just an extension what happened to Ellesmere Island that was ringed by ice shelves and the disappearance of sea ice tongue from North East Greenland. It obviously follows that similar damage is being made to the permafrost with it also adding greenhouse gases when it decomposes. Hard times to Paris, I don't know what planets the Trumpists are dancing on their corporate tables as the President turned the clock handles back to the coal age.

Totally agree with this. Watching what was for years stable MYI, now just drifting to oblivion. And, the uncorked effect spreading the discharge for 100s of miles into again what had been very stable pack ice. At first I didn't think the transport was going to be anything big (no frame of reference from prior years). But now watching the flushing, just insane.

Anyone else thinking:

Nares is to ASI as Thwaites is to WAIS?

Watching ice drain down through the Strait 1.5 to 2 months earlier than ever before, draining the bottom of the ASI like someone pulled the plug in a bathtub, as it were, is the most disconcerting thing I've seen since 2012.

I believe this is ripping the "backbone" out of the ASI pack, reducing the integrity of the whole thing. Lordy... if the transport via both Nares and Fram continue through the summer, God help us. Of course, the summers have tended to turn cool and transport to slow, especially in August, so no bets on the table just yet, but this is an entirely new phenomenon WRT to Nares opening so early and anything might happen.

With bated breath...

I get the feeling that there will not be much thick multi year ice left after this summer. A lot of it looks about to go down the drain. It is stunning to see how fast these vast and seemingly solid sheets of ice fall to pieces.

Anyone with expertise in chaos theory care to comment?  This looks like a striking example of a system flipping from one state to another, where a large difference in conditions (multi-year ice in the core of the pack) follows from a binary occurrence (whether or not Nares arch forms).
    Of course it is possible for the system to flip back - perhaps next year - if an early or durable Nares arch helped begin the restoration of MYI in Lincoln Sea and beyond.
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jai mitchell

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1717 on: June 02, 2017, 04:53:19 PM »
Zack Labe has left the Arctic (h/t Elvis)

https://twitter.com/ZLabe/status/870350145208147968
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Juan C. García

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1718 on: June 02, 2017, 05:32:22 PM »
I'm not very familiar with how NSIDC calculates sea ice extent, if it's based upon the pixel-map provided here or not.

But from what I can see of satellite imagery, and compare that to the sea ice extent graphics, it's clearly very wrong.

Probably reporting a lot more than actual extent?

Yes, they make an average of the grid cells that have 15% average on the month, not an average of the daily values. That increase the monthly average extent a lot!
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.

woodstea

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1719 on: June 02, 2017, 06:35:14 PM »
That Zack Labe image is great. I don't think I have seen ice from this perspective. It seems much closer than what satellite resolution provides and maybe even closer than airplanes, but farther than typical ground images.

It was taken by a UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) -- a drone. It's a stunning image. I wish we had a lot more of this kind of thing.

Lord M Vader

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1720 on: June 02, 2017, 06:59:22 PM »
Yes, Zack Labes post is great! :) Here are two other pics in another tweet from Labe that also are important for the state of the Arctic sea ice. The third one shows the temperature profile (hard to see the details exactly but maybe someone here can get important info from the pic) while the fourth one give us a hint of the snow depth onto the ice.

https://twitter.com/ZLabe/status/867820525451698176



Lord M Vader

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1721 on: June 02, 2017, 09:04:18 PM »
ECMWF 12z op forecast run is more or less a nightmare if it's going to verify! HP at 1030-1040 hpa in about 4-5 days lasting for at least 5 days over CAB, Beaufort, Chukchi and ESS should be able to make a very severe damage! Main queston is if the HP has any potential to be a repeat of 2014 "cold" HP that was ice friendly?


pauldry600

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1722 on: June 02, 2017, 09:05:29 PM »
Zacks image IS great.

Plus Double century NSIDC

I go away for a day and this happens

Is it the Arctics response to DTs rebuke of Paris?

Cook

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1723 on: June 02, 2017, 09:30:56 PM »
Main queston is if the HP has any potential to be a repeat of 2014 "cold" HP that was ice friendly?

I doubt that HP this time of year can possibly be ice friendly. The insolation is just too strong.

romett1

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1724 on: June 02, 2017, 10:34:12 PM »

oren

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1725 on: June 02, 2017, 11:21:37 PM »
Weekly change (Jun 1 vs May 24).
Thanks. Barents, Kara, Laptev, several fronts suddenly opening up.

Neven

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1726 on: June 02, 2017, 11:55:27 PM »
Thanks. Barents, Kara, Laptev, several fronts suddenly opening up.

And there's more where that came from. At least, if these ECMWF weather forecasts from the old Wetterzentrale website are still accurate (I'm not sure, haven't checked). All this high pressure over the Pacific side of the Arctic, even intensifying up to 1030-1035 hPa. This is bound to cause massive melt ponding and pulling away of the ice from the Canadian/Alaskan coast. If correct, there is not a worse forecast I can imagine at this time of year:
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Neven

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1727 on: June 03, 2017, 12:05:56 AM »
Darn it, I was hoping those old Wetterzentrale ECMWF forecast maps were somehow inaccurate, so I checked those at Tropical Tidbits (I don't like the new Wetterzentrale forecast maps, not enough info on SLP) and unfortunately, they seem to be correct.

If this comes about, we'll have a Dipole from hell. Hopefully it won't last long. And I haven't checked temps yet.
« Last Edit: June 03, 2017, 12:12:51 AM by Neven »
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seaicesailor

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1728 on: June 03, 2017, 12:07:00 AM »
ECMWF 12z op forecast run is more or less a nightmare if it's going to verify! HP at 1030-1040 hpa in about 4-5 days lasting for at least 5 days over CAB, Beaufort, Chukchi and ESS should be able to make a very severe damage! Main queston is if the HP has any potential to be a repeat of 2014 "cold" HP that was ice friendly?
This post by BFTV
https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,778.msg29597.html#msg29597
already hinted on the relatively cold characteristics of the July 2014 high that was to come.
Digging in much later posts, got lost in speculations, but one reason mentioned often was the 1) snow cover on ice still surviving plenty in july that year which slow melting caused thermal inversion and protective fog. Other posts mention the total lack of advective flows from the continents and 3) that it was huge and flat hp not really driving much insolation (fog) nor warm air from continents.
The one you mention in the current forecast does not really look like it. The potential for it to become one is completely impossible to know for me and anyway seems op ECMWF is being growingly erratic beyond d7 as usual. But certainly the snow cover on ice in 2014 was anomalously high and I suspect it is not the case this year. Who knows.

What really looks is the possibility of setting some real melting after the preconditioning of the past lows that dragged warm moist air yesterday and today, interesting.

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1729 on: June 03, 2017, 12:09:52 AM »
Here's SAT for next week (but I've read that GFS wildly overestimates temperatures that far out, so there's hope), with most of the Arctic reaching 0 °C or higher:
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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1730 on: June 03, 2017, 12:20:40 AM »
Here's SAT for next week (but I've read that GFS wildly overestimates temperatures that far out, so there's hope), with most of the Arctic reaching 0 °C or higher:

The GFS (at least as cci-reanalyzer has it) has been wanting to make the whole arctic +0C a week out for a while. I don't know why, but I definitely have seen this before, with a few degrees C of positive anomaly that hasn't materialized.

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1731 on: June 03, 2017, 12:34:55 AM »
The gfs works for 72h, no more... The EC for 120h
The price one pays for having so many creationists around :-)

pauldry600

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1732 on: June 03, 2017, 12:40:03 AM »
I had a crazy notion of the largest ever floating iceberg as in the whole arctic slab a week ago

With all the coastal retreat the whole things becoming quite likely. Ive never seen anything like this. We are in irreversable climate change vicinity. This could be why US left the Paris accord

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1733 on: June 03, 2017, 03:13:11 AM »
Thanks. Barents, Kara, Laptev, several fronts suddenly opening up.

And there's more where that came from. At least, if these ECMWF weather forecasts from the old Wetterzentrale website are still accurate (I'm not sure, haven't checked). All this high pressure over the Pacific side of the Arctic, even intensifying up to 1030-1035 hPa. This is bound to cause massive melt ponding and pulling away of the ice from the Canadian/Alaskan coast. If correct, there is not a worse forecast I can imagine at this time of year:

That D4+ forecast (ensembles included) is ugly. The EPS is largely in agreement. Still some time for that to change back, which is a good thing considering how ugly it looks from D6 onwards.

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1734 on: June 03, 2017, 07:56:08 AM »
Worldwide Weather Patterns are already going Nuts. Baseball- sized hail, daily- weekly Tornadoes, where there hasn't been recorded before, Flash Floods...
I guess that's a better Indicator for the real State of Arctic Ice than PIOMAS (still, very, very bad- if not catastrophic), Extent (holding on, but that's no good Sign, either).
Based on what's already happening weather- wise and of course the Nuclear Standoff off the Coast of NK, I don't have any optimism at all, for this Summer.

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1735 on: June 03, 2017, 08:19:04 AM »
This is bound to cause massive melt ponding and pulling away of the ice from the Canadian/Alaskan coast. If correct, there is not a worse forecast I can imagine at this time of year:

Updated sea ice thickness chart (PIOMAS). Almost full month ahead of other years and given the weather forecast ...
Image: http://psc.apl.washington.edu/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/

romett1

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1736 on: June 03, 2017, 09:37:47 AM »
Clear skies over Chukchi Sea allowing good photos but also good insolation.
Images: Worldview, May 31 - Jun 02.

oren

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1737 on: June 03, 2017, 10:33:30 AM »
I highly recommend taking a good look at Wipneus' new PIOMAS animation at http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,119.msg115924.html#msg115924
Soon there will barely be any ice left in the arctic able to resist a good melt season. Most of the thick stuff is about to be washed down the Fram and Nares, with only some leftovers hanging north of Ellesmere and CAA. The peripherals - Beaufort, ESS, Laptev - have no ice left above 2m (PIOMAS average cell thickness). Should good melting weather come along in June/July, this year could be one to remember.

Shared Humanity

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1738 on: June 03, 2017, 01:26:23 PM »
Worldwide Weather Patterns are already going Nuts. Baseball- sized hail, daily- weekly Tornadoes, where there hasn't been recorded before, Flash Floods...
I guess that's a better Indicator for the real State of Arctic Ice than PIOMAS (still, very, very bad- if not catastrophic), Extent (holding on, but that's no good Sign, either).
Based on what's already happening weather- wise and of course the Nuclear Standoff off the Coast of NK, I don't have any optimism at all, for this Summer.

You get the prize for the most "off topic" comment of this still young melting season.

seaicesailor

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1739 on: June 03, 2017, 02:18:11 PM »
Something to take into account is how late the warmth is reaching the ESS and Laptev coasts. Whether this is caused by the anomalous snow cover on land, or everything is caused by another factor one cannot say. But truth is the combined albedo land snow/sea in this large region is much higher than 2016 or 2012 (for 2012, Worldview will refuse to create a snapshot, but it is similar to 2016).
See it yourself.

seaicesailor

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1740 on: June 03, 2017, 03:00:37 PM »
Clear skies over Chukchi Sea allowing good photos but also good insolation.
Images: Worldview, May 31 - Jun 02.
Warm air is in fact pouring fron the Pacific it seems, and gonna get more, rain included well into the CAB, in the next few days

Random_Weather

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1741 on: June 03, 2017, 03:23:35 PM »
@ seaicesailor

Y, melt-ponding is very weak in the ocean, only archipelago and hudson-bay show strong sign of melt-ponding. For me, it seem like a more normal to a weak start in melt saison

meddoc

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1742 on: June 03, 2017, 03:31:56 PM »


You get the prize for the most "off topic" comment of this still young melting season.

Off- topic is my Arse.

Everything is interconnected, Young Padavan.

Keep on specializing on Arctic Sea Ice vs the Rest of the World & Climate System.

Mozi

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1743 on: June 03, 2017, 03:38:45 PM »
Don't be patronizing; you're well aware this isn't the thread for it.

subgeometer

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1744 on: June 03, 2017, 03:41:33 PM »
Ice in the Laptev on 2 June near the New Siberian Islands. There appears to be a large amount/area of floes smaller than the 250m resolution if the imagery - the grey mush.

Also appears to be some melting around the 'mouth' in the silhouette between water and ice

be cause

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1745 on: June 03, 2017, 04:03:01 PM »
Hi SiS .. I would agree there is more snow @ ESS and Laptev this year .. but there seems to be less ice .. more open water .. and the ice is in poor condition . Yesterday was my first worldview day in a couple of weeks and seeing these areas in such bad condition made me even more sure this could (not yet 'will' ) be the year that the Arctic ocean bares all .   b.c.
Conflict is the root of all evil , for being blind it does not see whom it attacks . Yet it always attacks the Son Of God , and the Son of God is you .

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1746 on: June 03, 2017, 04:23:22 PM »
sailwx has no position of RV Lance since 2004 !

Not that it's much help, but I think you've misunderstood the SailWX report for Lance. The last recorded position was 20:04 on May 15th 2017.

However Polarstern's position is up to date, and an aerial photo is available:

 
« Last Edit: June 03, 2017, 04:35:45 PM by Jim Hunt »
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Andreas T

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1747 on: June 03, 2017, 04:52:04 PM »
doh  :-[
thanks Jim, some information on Polarsterns plans is here: https://www.awi.de/nc/en/expedition/ships/polarstern/weekly-reports.html
many questions to answer in that area
more photos from Mai https://acloud2017.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/
for example these ridged floes with plane shadow for size
« Last Edit: June 03, 2017, 05:17:33 PM by Andreas T »

Tor Bejnar

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1748 on: June 03, 2017, 06:26:25 PM »
Arctic melt ponds form when meltwater clogs ice pores
Date: January 23, 2017
Source: University of Utah
Summary: A team of researchers, including a mathematician, has determined how Arctic melt ponds form, solving a paradoxical mystery of how a pool of water actually sits atop highly porous ice.
Quote
... As part of their study they needed to measure the permeability of the ice. Permeability is a measure of how well interconnected voids and channels within a material allow fluid to flow through.

Their first attempt involved drilling a hole in the ice down below the "freeboard level," or water table, to see how quickly the water filled the hole back in.

"It filled up to the freeboard level in about a second and a half," Golden says, indicating the ice was too permeable to make a measurement. Next, the team tried to add water to the hole to see how quickly the water level re-equilibrated to the freeboard level. They planned several attempts, and noticed that in the second attempt, the water level fell much more slowly than in the first attempt.

"And then the third time was the charm," Golden says. The team poured water into the hole and the level didn't go down at all. "We formed a melt pond!" he says. Intrigued, the team tested different levels of water salinity in boreholes and used dyes to trace the progress of the water through the ice. (The team used red and green food coloring from the Healy's kitchen, Golden says). All of their experimentation pointed to a clear mechanism for melt pond formation.

"The freezing point of the fresh meltwater from snow is zero Celsius," Golden says. "But the ice itself is maybe -1 or -1.5. The freezing point of seawater is -1.8. So basically, you're getting this infusion of fresh water and there's enough cold there to clog up the pores. You're lowering the permeability of the ice by this process of freezing freshwater plugs into the porous microstructure." With lowered permeability, the meltwater can form a pool on top of the ice.

Others, including Polashenski, had speculated that such a process might be behind melt pond formation, Golden says, but that his team was in the right place at the right time with the right equipment to put the story together in the field.
...

The "news" for me is the description of sea ice having high permeability. (I knew it was at least a little porous.) [I know there is a difference between porosity and permeability: bubble wrap vs. a sponge.]

Phys.org has pictures (one copied):
« Last Edit: June 03, 2017, 06:48:29 PM by Tor Bejnar »
Arctic ice is healthy for children and other living things because "we cannot negotiate with the melting point of ice"

Martin Gisser

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Re: The 2017 melting season
« Reply #1749 on: June 03, 2017, 07:26:30 PM »
Anyone with expertise in chaos theory care to comment?  This looks like a striking example of a system flipping from one state to another, where a large difference in conditions (multi-year ice in the core of the pack) follows from a binary occurrence (whether or not Nares arch forms).
    Of course it is possible for the system to flip back - perhaps next year - if an early or durable Nares arch helped begin the restoration of MYI in Lincoln Sea and beyond.

It looks to me like there is a state change, but not one that requires chaos theory to explain. I think the change is in the mechanical properties of the ice, from a solid sheet to a sort of ice stew that is much easier to transport into harm's way. Some of the chunks may be relatively solid, but if they're not too big and they're bonded together by more recent and salty ice of low tensile/shear strength, the whole mass can flow almost like a viscous liquid.

I remember looking at satellite imagery of the Nares "arch" when it was deemed to have formed this season - it looked like non-reinforced concrete, an aggregate of various-sized chunks in a weaker matrix. It didn't look like it would hold.
Good question, good answer, thanks! Trying to spin this away from the Off Topic greyzone... methinks chaos theory expertise is less valuable here than concrete (sorry the pun) materials engineering eye training, each melting season.

Methinks the ASI looks more like a simple linear system, less than a nonlinear complex thing that can easily blow up or flip a switch. (Maybe we bend the system into nonlinear behaviour, if it has such a regime. But how to know that?) I can just look at the longterm ice volume graph, trend still linear. The chaos I see is mostly natural variations, and the system growing less rigid against them. So, any "chaotic phase transition" of the ASI may mostly be weather... if only... there weren't this other truely complex system, atmosphere+ocean, coupled to the whole thing...
« Last Edit: June 05, 2017, 01:15:56 AM by Martin Gisser »