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Author Topic: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?  (Read 52699 times)

jai mitchell

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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #100 on: February 13, 2017, 05:57:26 PM »
I am expecting massive surges of tropical water vapor into the mid latitudes, coupled with extreme warm events as hadley cell expansion continues at the continental interiors.  This will lead to very unstable weather.

In the arctic I expect we will continue to see more water vapor moving up into the arctic and this may suppress melt season similar to what happened in 2013/2014.  However, there is also the chance that this tropical water vapor will be much warmer and could lead to rainfall. 

I expect much more wind and low-pressure storm events with the current weak sea ice, more rapid disintegration, probably similar sea ice extents as last year (a little lower) but piomas volumes dropping below the previous record low. 

(of course there is no way to know at this point).
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Avalonian

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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #101 on: February 13, 2017, 06:12:39 PM »
I'm anticipating a pretty chaotic melt season, with very strong melt in the early part that will begin to break up the CAB pack. As I've said previously, I also expect the increased Arctic cloudiness in the summer to be accepted as a real feedback effect of raised temperatures, but this will only result in a 2013-esque subdued melt season if it's a quiet, stable sort of cloudiness. I'm pretty sure it won't be. I reckon we'll see more of a roller-coaster of warm sunshine (breaking up the ice into a mosaic) and storms (swirling it down the plughole).  :o

In short, I keep trying to find a way to avert major cryo-carnage, but I don't think it's happening. I suspect that the bastion of old, cold, stable ice north of Greenland is going to have been, in retrospect, critical to maintaining the overall regime... and I don't think it's there any more, in any way that counts. We've seen how it responds to changes in wind direction, and how it seems to be pulled about all over the place. I fear that what's left is mainly going to be heading for the Fram.

End result? Not a blue Arctic, but closer to it than humans have ever seen.

Caveat: when it comes down to it, I know nothing.  ;)

DrTskoul

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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #102 on: February 13, 2017, 08:08:16 PM »
Stable summer cloudiness with a background temperature and humidity increase will produce a worse melt than 2013 ...  The signal will swamp the noise...

Avalonian

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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #103 on: February 13, 2017, 08:21:38 PM »
Stable summer cloudiness with a background temperature and humidity increase will produce a worse melt than 2013 ...  The signal will swamp the noise...

True, I'm sure... but it's a question of 'bad' versus 'really, really bad'.

Iceismylife

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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #104 on: February 13, 2017, 09:00:12 PM »
I think we are in the next melt season already so how it will play out from here?  Storms may push the ice around making extent bigger.  There is a bit of cold air up there, but the ice any what it use to be.  Not effective for freezing.  Volume flat or declining.  We are close to peek volume.

RoxTheGeologist

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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #105 on: February 13, 2017, 10:00:02 PM »
I think we are in the next melt season already so how it will play out from here?  Storms may push the ice around making extent bigger.  There is a bit of cold air up there, but the ice any what it use to be.  Not effective for freezing.  Volume flat or declining.  We are close to peek volume.

I thought that volume is still climbing pretty steadily or am I being stupid? My understanding was that volume only really starts to decline in April. The extent will bounce up and down with the weather, it's just a thin layer of ice on the peripheral seas.

cesium62

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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #106 on: February 14, 2017, 05:18:34 AM »
So what do folk expect to see this melt season?

In 2015, the Gyre carried thick ice from the CAB into the Beaufort leading to slow melting in the Beaufort.  In 2016, the Gyre carried the remnants of that thick ice into the ESS.  This year, that thick ice is mostly gone with a bit of a remnant over in the Laptev.

So I expect an easier melt around the periphery this year.  The strong flanks that protected parts of the CAA in 2015 and 2016 won't be there.  The ice will be mobile, and most weather patterns will easily disperse ice to the south.  But the weather in the form of winds still has a huge say in the final outcome.  This year won't need the big August storm that past years used to get the ice extent below 4.5MK2.  But if a big storm does come in August, expect a new minimum extent in September.

Tigertown

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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #107 on: February 14, 2017, 06:44:28 AM »
I think we are in the next melt season already so how it will play out from here?  Storms may push the ice around making extent bigger.  There is a bit of cold air up there, but the ice any what it use to be.  Not effective for freezing.  Volume flat or declining.  We are close to peek volume.

I thought that volume is still climbing pretty steadily or am I being stupid? My understanding was that volume only really starts to decline in April. The extent will bounce up and down with the weather, it's just a thin layer of ice on the peripheral seas.
Volume has been through a rough patch lately and is not looking good as a foregleam of the melt season. The above chart doesn't show the day to day ups and downs.
This one does.
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Darvince

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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #108 on: February 15, 2017, 02:47:12 AM »
Sea ice volume doesn't behave like how the JAXA image shows. The "ups and downs" it is showing are mostly speeding up and slowing down of the freezing, as AMSR-2's method of obtaining thickness data is impossible during melt, which is why summer volume crashes so rapidly. If you look at the image to map the volume, there is also a rather suspect line of 0 thickness where the ice transitions from first-year to multi-year. Because of this, I don't trust JAXA thickness nearly as much as I do products and satellites designed to measure thickness, such as Cryosat, PIOMAS, and HYCOM.
« Last Edit: February 15, 2017, 02:58:42 AM by Darvince »

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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #109 on: February 15, 2017, 03:46:45 AM »
I only trust it because of the name in the lower right hand corner of the chart. The downs tend to match the storms date-wise. I would give more weight to PIOMAS for long term, but it is good to be able to watch what is happening in the mean time. It beats a blind guess anytime. Concentration maps are helpful to watch, so as to get an overall feel for what is happening in real time. Sometimes, everything is not what it appears to be, but just the ice getting moved around.
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Glenn Tamblyn

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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #110 on: February 15, 2017, 01:35:20 PM »
"Once a ship can sail to the north pole without encountering any sea ice, and once images of blue sea to the horizon are transmitted, I think the message will have been sent."

There is an additional dimension to this, as messaging. Most people don't grok the full Arctic story. So fully ice free vs 1 million km^2 is 'blah;. But an ice free north pole is visceral.

Simple message. 2017? The year Santa drowned?

FredBear

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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #111 on: February 15, 2017, 02:08:00 PM »
Not a lot of ice left, especially near the pole!

FWIW the old ice free = 1m km^2 or 20% old volume ice = alarm bells going off = do something/anything/everything. Some ostriches will keep their heads in the sand but they will get caught out by reality.
Now 1m km^2 is probably a 1 year warning?? It's not going to prop Greenland up much. The next year shipping will be able to choose their ice free routes?

Phil.

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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #112 on: February 15, 2017, 05:06:11 PM »
"Once a ship can sail to the north pole without encountering any sea ice, and once images of blue sea to the horizon are transmitted, I think the message will have been sent."

There is an additional dimension to this, as messaging. Most people don't grok the full Arctic story. So fully ice free vs 1 million km^2 is 'blah;. But an ice free north pole is visceral.

Simple message. 2017? The year Santa drowned?

Last August two research vessels moored next to a floe at the N Pole with plenty of open water behind them.  Had a pretty easy trip to get there too.

Gray-Wolf

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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #113 on: February 15, 2017, 05:30:23 PM »
Most folk have not been 'made' to see the losses the Arctic has suffered over the past century? I'm sure what prof Barber witnessed in 2012 with a giant floe collapsing in under 20 mins to completely cover the surface with slabs of calved floe. He might have got a new ice type named but this 'collapse and spread' of the paleocryistic ice must have been going on for decades as the Pack reduced in volume and gave room for such collapses?

Even 2007's record low will have been bolstered by this 'collapse and spread' and some of its rapid re-freeze must have also had an element of that to it?

I think by 2013 we had lost all the ice capable of that behaviour so the 'rotten ice' began to become the main pack with floes torn apart by 'Crackopalypse events' and then glued back together. Any floes surviving summer then end up with a keel of FY ice that might comprise half the floes depth yet it will be logged as being 'X' years old and so not reflect it composite nature?

We go into the Season with all of the ice either 'New' ice or a mix of older ice and young ice. All of the ice lacks the strength deep cold brings to the ice.

Maybe Hudson bay ice is normally the temp this year pack has managed and we all know where Huson's ice is by August!




 
« Last Edit: February 15, 2017, 09:53:41 PM by Gray-Wolf »
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Iceismylife

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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #114 on: February 15, 2017, 09:44:40 PM »
I think we are in the next melt season already so how it will play out from here?  Storms may push the ice around making extent bigger.  There is a bit of cold air up there, but the ice any what it use to be.  Not effective for freezing.  Volume flat or declining.  We are close to peek volume.

I thought that volume is still climbing pretty steadily or am I being stupid? My understanding was that volume only really starts to decline in April. The extent will bounce up and down with the weather, it's just a thin layer of ice on the peripheral seas.
Here is the justification for my position.  And it may very well be flawed.

The edges of the ice pack are farther north than they use to be.  We have open water where it was normally ice covered. Open water adds moisture, open water allows fetch. Wave action brings heat to the ice from underneath.  Moisture helps stop radiation.

It will be an early peek.  There yet? maybe not yet.


crandles

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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #115 on: February 15, 2017, 11:39:14 PM »

The edges of the ice pack are farther north than they use to be.  We have open water where it was normally ice covered. Open water adds moisture, open water allows fetch. Wave action brings heat to the ice from underneath.  Moisture helps stop radiation.

To me this sounds like extra reasons why the extent may be close to its peak ie only small gains or losses, but the central basin away from its edges will still be gaining volume. (That farther north just means the sun is at a lower angle.)

Feeltheburn

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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #116 on: February 16, 2017, 05:48:17 AM »
Quote
With Beaufort having thicker ice this season, coupled with no gyre thus far

Wait... what? where do you get that from? Nothing I have seen indicate that, quite the contrary.  Can you please show a source?

I suppose it's open for interpretation, but according to DMI modelled thickness, there are some regions, particularly in the region between Alaska and Canadian Archipeligo, that have considerably thicker ice in 2017 than at the same time in 2016.

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icethickness/thk.uk.php
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Feeltheburn

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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #117 on: February 16, 2017, 05:53:03 AM »
Yeah. I think FTB's posts are correlated with the few spouts of recovery we have seen. Every time Arctic conditions seem to improve he makes a post. When things are bad he disappears.  I bet he is not even aware of it. I bet he filters out the bad and only keeps what is convenient for his peace of mind.

Actually, I have a hectic job and go weeks at a time without looking or posting. But thanks for psychoanalyzing my motives!
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Shared Humanity

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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #118 on: February 16, 2017, 03:10:09 PM »
Quote
With Beaufort having thicker ice this season, coupled with no gyre thus far

Wait... what? where do you get that from? Nothing I have seen indicate that, quite the contrary.  Can you please show a source?

I suppose it's open for interpretation, but according to DMI modelled thickness, there are some regions, particularly in the region between Alaska and Canadian Archipeligo, that have considerably thicker ice in 2017 than at the same time in 2016.

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icethickness/thk.uk.php

The Beaufort will be devoid of ice at the end of this melt season and will melt out early. This will allow us to be entertained by the slow demise of any of that thicker ice if it gets to the Beaufort, just like last year with "Big Block"

Shared Humanity

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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #119 on: February 16, 2017, 03:11:17 PM »
in fact, I think ice mobility is indicative a a new, very powerful, positive feedback.

Archimid

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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #120 on: February 16, 2017, 06:32:14 PM »
Volume has been through a rough patch lately and is not looking good as a foregleam of the melt season. The above chart doesn't show the day to day ups and downs.
This one does.


When I see that graph this is what I think:

You can argue an average max volume of about 23 thousand km3 and average minimum is somewhere around 5 thousand km3. 23 - 5 = 18 thousand km3 melted by the end of the melting season.  Right now we are somewhere around 15 thousand km3. If we do not make it to 18 by the end of April, then a BOE is highly likely. But from this day until the end of April there are typically about 7 thousand km3 of  ice created. If that happens the ice will face the beginning of the melting season with 22 thousand km3 of ice.
« Last Edit: February 17, 2017, 01:40:42 AM by Archimid »
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Tigertown

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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #121 on: February 17, 2017, 03:02:59 AM »
I think if what aslan drew attention to in the forecast regarding the PV proves true, we will be in the melt season, and freezing season will be gone.
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Gray-Wolf

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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #122 on: February 17, 2017, 04:25:09 PM »
So how do folk expect northern snow cover to react this spring? Will we see a rapid a retreat as we have become used to or will the WACCy snow, over West Siberia and the ice pack in the basin linger longer or will it just go as quickly as the rest of the pack?
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Pmt111500

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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #123 on: February 17, 2017, 04:43:53 PM »
will the WACCy snow, over West Siberia
stays farthr into spring

the ice pack in the basin linger longer or will it just go as quickly as the rest of the pack?
not AS quick but quick all the same.

Some others likely disagree.

One of the problems of climate science has been that the verification of prognoses take quite a while. I'm glad that some researchers are trying to fit their models so they can be verified in 10-20 years nowadays. Of course the long period models based on prehistorical data (like ecs =high) are likely to be correct, but who's there to verify them then. But of course we must start the model building somewhere, biggest pieces in place first.

Gray-Wolf

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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #124 on: February 17, 2017, 05:09:45 PM »
The need for such chunks of time to verify anything leaves us in a bit of a quandary if we are looking at a system that is in a period of rapid change and the end results of that change have massive potential global impacts that could be mitigated against?

I'm thinking that both areas of snow will melt out in line with the recent melt out dates and that flooding might be an impact if the thaw is too rapid?

I have no data on the west siberian Snow other than it saw five months worth over the month of October. It may not have recieved much more than that over the rest of the season due to the cold it created for itself meaning the totals there will be not far off 'average'? With the land insulated from that later cold by the blanket of snow over it as soon as it is clear of snow the land will rapidly warm.

But what of the permafrost underneath that snow? Will it become water logged if there was excessive snow? Will this send heat deeper into the layer?
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Archimid

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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #125 on: February 17, 2017, 05:52:23 PM »

I have no data on the west siberian Snow other than it saw five months worth over the month of October. It may not have recieved much more than that over the rest of the season due to the cold it created for itself meaning the totals there will be not far off 'average'? With the land insulated from that later cold by the blanket of snow over it as soon as it is clear of snow the land will rapidly warm.


  https://www.ccin.ca/home/ccw/snow/current

I think figures 1a, 1b and 1c tell the story very clearly. In both continents the snow cover increased during fall and winter as illustrated by 1a. 1b reflects the rapid decline in North America snow cover as spring approaches. 1c over Eurasia is falling but not at the spectacular rate of North America.

The big loses over North America, can be easily made out with Climate Reanalyzer Sea ice and snow cover. Its relationship with the masses of anomalously hot air is readily apparent in the anomaly map.
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Gray-Wolf

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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #126 on: February 17, 2017, 06:07:39 PM »
Well things could have been a lot worse in Europe had the snow fallen somewhere it could stay and not in the mad or in Africa!!!
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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #127 on: February 17, 2017, 06:29:09 PM »
At the end of this melt Season, I am expecting to see:

1) some very heated discussion about the different locations of the Geographic North Pole, Geomagnetic Pole, and the North Magnetic Pole in certain sectors of the media. Namely because (I expect) the Geographic North Pole will be ice-free at some point thi syear, and there are no depths of obfuscation to which the said sectors of the media will not sink; and

2) some very heated discussion in the aforesaid sectors of the media about the definition of a 'seasonally ice-free arctic', in terms of i) extent, ii) area, iii) volume, and the location of i) to iii) for the same reason as given in 1) above.

I accept that 2) may not be highly likely, but I do believe (subject to weather) that it is a possibilitiy. As to the probability of 1) happening, the image below from 10 September 2016 and the current sea-ice volume metrics suggest to me that this is a signficicant probability.

[link to image source: https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/?p=arctic&l=MODIS_Aqua_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor(hidden),MODIS_Terra_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor,Graticule,Coastlines&t=2016-09-10&z=3&v=-414429.30533103633,-246228.5072633917,568610.6946689637,238635.4927366083 ]



magnamentis

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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #128 on: February 17, 2017, 06:48:34 PM »
the fact alone that there IS such a discussions would only underline what i'm saying from day one.

there is no interpretation of the term ice-free because ice-free is a precise enough language to describe a state which in this case is "free of" means "NO" ice, at least none that is big enough in extent to be distinguished as something else than small cubes/flows, something that would hinder navigation of normal vessels or anything like that.

as soon as we look out of a bulls eye and see ice of significance the place is NOT ice-free IMO.

those who seek to interpret are doing nothing else than bending the facts to their interests. Examples for such interests can be:

- to have a "headline"
- to make a point
- to cease financing or
- to get financing

-  etc. etc.

Gray-Wolf

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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #129 on: February 17, 2017, 07:34:37 PM »
I think we all saw last year that it is not the final figures that matter that much but how long we have open water once the Sun can impart energy. If folk get hung up on 'ice free' they will be missing the most important ( IMHO) part of what has occurred and that is the flip from a reflector of incoming solar to a harvester of that energy ?

Even if we have a poor high insolation summer open water early on keeps on acrueing energy ( and melting ice that strays into it?)

The lack of a big fracture event so far this end of winter has me puzzled though. Is it due to a lack of forcing or can the ice no longer deform that way ? Instead of it shattering down one line of weakness maybe it is so heavily fragmented already it can move like chain mail when pushed/pulled and so does not fragment any more?
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magnamentis

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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #130 on: February 17, 2017, 08:51:17 PM »
I think we all saw last year that it is not the final figures that matter that much but how long we have open water once the Sun can impart energy. If folk get hung up on 'ice free' they will be missing the most important ( IMHO) part of what has occurred and that is the flip from a reflector of incoming solar to a harvester of that energy ?

Even if we have a poor high insolation summer open water early on keeps on acrueing energy ( and melting ice that strays into it?)

The lack of a big fracture event so far this end of winter has me puzzled though. Is it due to a lack of forcing or can the ice no longer deform that way ? Instead of it shattering down one line of weakness maybe it is so heavily fragmented already it can move like chain mail when pushed/pulled and so does not fragment any more?

+1 good and important point among all the other important factors of course but i do agree that an open ocean in summer and hence several more months over the year will be the obvious and visible sudden game changer that will wake up some folks, hopefully enough to cross the critical mass line for public movements.

FredBear

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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #131 on: February 18, 2017, 01:15:11 AM »
the fact alone that there IS such a discussions would only underline what i'm saying from day one.

there is no interpretation of the term ice-free because ice-free is a precise enough language to describe a state which in this case is "free of" means "NO" ice, at least none that is big enough in extent to be distinguished as something else than small cubes/flows, something that would hinder navigation of normal vessels or anything like that.

as soon as we look out of a bulls eye and see ice of significance the place is NOT ice-free IMO.

those who seek to interpret are doing nothing else than bending the facts to their interests. Examples for such interests can be:

- to have a "headline"
- to make a point
- to cease financing or
- to get financing

-  etc. etc.
1m^2 ice has been used as virtually "ice Free" in the past as a warning - it is a historic definition used by the first scientists projecting extreme ice loss in the Arctic. It was not expected that all the ice would disappear simultaneously and some thicker ice might linger e.g. around the Canadian Islands for years. While there are glaciers up north there will be ice in the sea - someone will always nit-pick if they want to. Please use it as it was intended and put your caveats in if necessary.

magnamentis

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Re: What are you expecting to see this melt Season?
« Reply #132 on: February 18, 2017, 05:00:25 PM »
the fact alone that there IS such a discussions would only underline what i'm saying from day one.

there is no interpretation of the term ice-free because ice-free is a precise enough language to describe a state which in this case is "free of" means "NO" ice, at least none that is big enough in extent to be distinguished as something else than small cubes/flows, something that would hinder navigation of normal vessels or anything like that.

as soon as we look out of a bulls eye and see ice of significance the place is NOT ice-free IMO.

those who seek to interpret are doing nothing else than bending the facts to their interests. Examples for such interests can be:

- to have a "headline"
- to make a point
- to cease financing or
- to get financing

-  etc. etc.
1m^2 ice has been used as virtually "ice Free" in the past as a warning - it is a historic definition used by the first scientists projecting extreme ice loss in the Arctic. It was not expected that all the ice would disappear simultaneously and some thicker ice might linger e.g. around the Canadian Islands for years. While there are glaciers up north there will be ice in the sea - someone will always nit-pick if they want to. Please use it as it was intended and put your caveats in if necessary.

thanks for sharing your point while calving glaciers and the resulting ice-bergs do definitely not fall under the definition of sea-ice. we're talking sea-ice free not devoid of any kind of ice all year round no matter where it comes from. at least i mean that and if this is not the subject of this thread then i got that wrong and appologize for bringing that up.