IJIS

[bbr2314]

I wonder if we exceed previous recent maximums, for reasons that actually make melt season even more ominous... consider that both Baffin and Okhotsk are now running very strong + ice anomalies; all this will melt out in winter anyways. Both Baffin and Okhotsk have significantly more room to increase their extent as well, vs. Chukchi and Kara which are substantially more constrained by both geography and oceanic heat.

[Darvince]

Yep... It definitely just got more ominous for me too because 2005 and 2006 also had record low minimums for the time (with relatively "normal" (in the trend) minimums for the time)...

[Sterks]

I wonder if we exceed previous recent maximums, for reasons that actually make melt season even more ominous... consider that both Baffin and Okhotsk are now running very strong + ice anomalies; all this will melt out in winter anyways. Both Baffin and Okhotsk have significantly more room to increase their extent as well, vs. Chukchi and Kara which are substantially more constrained by both geography and oceanic heat.

It should be noted that, although Global and Northern Hemisphere temperatures are still running high, the anomaly has taken more moderate values in December than in past year 2016 and great part of 2015. It seems the direct effects of the last Niño have faded somewhat.
https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,445.msg97788.html#msg97788
Therefore, we may expect a maximum ice extent that is low, but perhaps not as low as 2015 & 2016
As for the fate of the Beaufort sea and Chukchi sea ice, it all depends on how warm the summer will come. This ice is ready for a very bad carnage but you will need the sun

[Meirion]

Can I be curmudgeonly and say can we stop the Antarctic cluttering up this thread and concentrate on Arctic IJIS. For many of us it is a first stop in the day along with DMI 80º.

Meirion

[budmantis]

Can I be curmudgeonly and say can we stop the Antarctic cluttering up this thread and concentrate on Arctic IJIS. For many of us it is a first stop in the day along with DMI 80º.

Meirion

Good point. Perhaps someone should start a separate thread for IJIS Antarctica.

[Gray-Wolf]

It is kind for Espen to put in the work but we do have an active Antarctic section where such data would be welcomed?

Apart from its novel 'freak show'ery' value the 'global ' Sea ice levels probably do not need a separate thread though?

[Tigertown]

We do have a thread that LMV started. He posts the NSIDC numbers on a regular basis and I keep up with the JAXA(IJIS).
http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1759.200.html#lastPost

[magnamentis]

It is kind for Espen to put in the work but we do have an active Antarctic section where such data would be welcomed?

Apart from its novel 'freak show'ery' value the 'global ' Sea ice levels probably do not need a separate thread though?

totally disagree, the more globally seen the more value the emerging "bigger picture" has. the more we narrow things down to regions that will be interesting for those affected but from "global warming" point of few which is after all what we are really dealing with here, global numbers have more to say in the long run.

further, however much opinions may differ and be prone to individual interests, there is never ever a good reason to be agains a thread for those who are interested as long as it's in one way or another related and/or on topic. while opinions are always valid for an individual i can't see why someone would vote AGAINST a thread ?

[Espen]

Can I be curmudgeonly and say can we stop the Antarctic cluttering up this thread and concentrate on Arctic IJIS. For many of us it is a first stop in the day along with DMI 80º.

Meirion

That was only an end of year service, sorry!

[Tigertown]

Can I be curmudgeonly and say can we stop the Antarctic cluttering up this thread and concentrate on Arctic IJIS. For many of us it is a first stop in the day along with DMI 80º.

Meirion

That was only an end of year service, sorry!

Don't even worry about it. You can't make everyone happy.

[Espen]

IJIS:

12,423,574 km²（January 5, 2017）2^nd lowest measured for the date.

[Meirion]

Espen - it is precisely because I value your unceasing work on charting Arctic sea ice decline that I made the point. Blewyddyn newydd dda to you and all the Nevenistas.

[Phil.]

Blwyddyn newydd dda i chi hefyd.  Cymru am byth!

[seaicesailor]

Well, that was... what the hell was that? 

[magnamentis]

elfish LOL, something norsk howerver a suppose :-)

[crandles]

elfish LOL, something norsk howerver a suppose :-)

Happy New Year to you too. Wales forever!
in... well, guess you can guess now

[magnamentis]

thank you, welsh? is that the correct name for what would be "walisisch" in german? learning every day, may guess was on something else though, thanks again.

sorry for OT, just taking the opportunity to learn something really new :-) nice weekend all 

[Juan C. García]

Well, a small twist to the downside. 2017 first on record, again! 

[Tigertown]

Culprit: Wind driven waves, bringing warm water through the Bering Strait into the Chukchi. Now the same is happening in the Barents and Kara. It Remains to see how much it hurts SIE, not to mention, all the other metrics.

P.S. The exported ice in the Labrador Sea is taking a beating and a good portion may not be there much longer, and will hurt extent even more.

[Espen]

IJIS:

12,389,576 km²（January 6, 2017）down 33,998 km² from previous and (again) lowest measured for the date.

[jdallen]

IJIS:

12,389,576 km²（January 6, 2017）down 33,998 km² from previous and (again) lowest measured for the date.

As anticipated... the "easy" refreeze regions are covered save for the Okhotsk, and we now have storms assaulting both sides of the arctic with heat and moisture.  We may struggle to get past 13.5 million KM2.

[Pmt111500]

IJIS:

12,389,576 km²（January 6, 2017）down 33,998 km² from previous and (again) lowest measured for the date.

As anticipated... the "easy" refreeze regions are covered save for the Okhotsk, and we now have storms assaulting both sides of the arctic with heat and moisture.  We may struggle to get past 13.5 million KM2.

I'm counting on the last push late feb early march to get that final stretch.

[DavidR]

IJIS was just  checking to  see if we are awake and now its back to  its usual position at the bottom of the table.

[Sourabh]

IJIS down again today....

Antarctic is about to loose large portion of shelf.

Hurray !!!! 

[Espen]

IJIS:

12,336,453 km²（January 7, 2017）down 53,123 km² from previous and lowest measured for the date.

[jplotinus]

MAXIMUM ??  🤔

[magnamentis]

MAXIMUM ??  🤔

No way IMO, too much time left and then in about 7-10 days there will be something like normal winter conditions, at least that's how it looks right now but who knows :-) IMO is just that, an opinion, facts will tell :-)

[crandles]

I wondered if the square was meant to be a smily. or  or something like that to indicate joke

[Buddy]

No way IMO, too much time left and then in about 7-10 days there will be something like normal winter conditions, at least that's how it looks right now but who knows :-) IMO is just that, an opinion, facts will tell :-)

It is HIGHLY UNLIKELY that we have reached maximum.  But in this new world we have ALREADY entered....I would NOT rule it out completely.  Remember....the Antarctic reached its maximum in August.

Going forward....each year, and each decade will bring some incredible surprises.  And this year...as everyone knows, the Arctic is poised to surprise on the downside.

[Pmt111500]

I wondered if the square was meant to be a smily. or  or something like that to indicate joke

I'll start second guessing late february, if the proper high pressure over Arctic Ocean still hasn't formed. Keeping my 9th of March guess on this 

[Paddy]

I would second the No Way opinion. Although it does show just how fragile the Arctic sea ice is right now, and I might speculate that such ice as forms may not last very long once the sun returns to the Arctic.

[Tigertown]

I am afraid the Lows will keep coming through and stirring up ice killing waves between now and then and maybe even after the sun returns.

[Avalonian]

On the maximum prediction thread, I suggested that it would vacillate a bit, but not get very much higher. This was because a lot of the ice that has formed is very vulnerable due to its southerly position, and will become more so as the sun inches north; as we get freezing intervals that expand the ice in the CAB and environs, we may well lose some of the Okhotsk etc., making it a sort of buffer to one-way extent changes. For that reason, I very much doubt that the maximum will be late this year.

I really don't think this is close to the maximum, and it may well still be a long way short of it. But isn't it just a bit scary that we're semi-seriously entertaining it as a possibility..?

[Gray-Wolf]

If we stay low then it would be easy to see maximum spread on throughout March as the break up , and relaxation ,of the pack spreads ice out into the peripheries without falling foul of the 15% cover rule.

It would be easy, in such circumstances, to see Deniers claiming some faux recovery as we see a depleted, predispositioned to collapse, pack prior to April May and the first real solar forcings around the edges of the basin?

In reality I just do not know what to think. As our Sun , in lower lower lats, returns and gains strength then heat from even lower lats is less modified as it travels over us and so presents at higher temps as it enters the basin? In other words 'Spring comes early to the basin even before the sun there is that powerful'?

[magnamentis]

a lot of very good thoughts here and i agree to many of the possibilities and big question marks except that we could have seen max yet. concerning january max i lean out of the window ( not very risky with a huge safety net below LOL ) and say no to that as a real possibility.

further i share that thought alone the the fact that it's even become a topic that early speaks for itself :-)

[Espen]

IJIS:

12,328,881 km²（January 8, 2017）down 2,428 km² from previous and lowest measured for the date.

[Seumas]

I wondered if the square was meant to be a smily. or  or something like that to indicate joke

It's not a square, it's the "Thinking Face" Emoji: http://emojipedia.org/thinking-face/

If it's not showing properly for you, it's because you don't have a proper font that does Unicode right

[pauldry600]

For me theres no way wev reached Max. I think the arctic has some surge left yet and I still think 13.91 max in early March

[Buddy]

I think we are LIKELY to have an early max.

1)  Antarctic had an INCREDIBLY early max...
2)  Arctic remains warm...and the two gateways to the Arctic continue to get hammered with MUCH warmer temperatures than normal....especially on the Atlantic side week after week (including this whole week again)

I think we'll get a max sometime during week 2 or 3 of February.....

[budmantis]

It's also possible that we could see favorable weather for ice formation in March, which could end up resulting in a later than normal maximum. It's doubtful that will happen, but it would be great if it did.

[anotheramethyst]

I don't think anyone's arguing that we are going to have a really low max.  With it this low, I wouldn't be surprised if it was very early OR very late.  Was it Shared Humanity that just graphed the nonexistent relationship between melt season length and ice loss?  I think weather will dominate the timing.  I'm more concerned about ice loss.  I'm personally not betting on a new record max, though I wouldn't be surprised, but I AM pretty convinced we are in for a new record minimum.  I know, it's still soon to tell, weather, etc.  But I am shocked by the state of the ice thus far and I think it would take a pretty powerful outlier for weather to preserve the ice in this state.  I think it would be easy to regrow a thin film of ice beyond the previous record to technically have more ice than the record (extent, area only) that melts out as soon as melting starts, leaving the arctic with record low ice in may and june, when it really counts. 

[Espen]

IJIS:

12,326,247 km²（January 9, 2017）down 2,634 km² from previous and lowest measured for the date.

[budmantis]

That's four straight days of losses at the height of the freezing season. Has this ever happened before? Although the last two days losses are minimal, it is highly unusual if not unprecedented.

[oren]

That's four straight days of losses at the height of the freezing season. Has this ever happened before? Although the last two days losses are minimal, it is highly unusual if not unprecedented.

You can see some examples in the chart. Look at the blue line.

[budmantis]

That's four straight days of losses at the height of the freezing season. Has this ever happened before? Although the last two days losses are minimal, it is highly unusual if not unprecedented.

You can see some examples in the chart. Look at the blue line.

Good point Oren and thanks for pointing out what should have been obvious! Looking at the graph, it seems 2002, (or 2003?) had a drop of close to 500k somewhere between January 20 and 24.

[DavidR]

That's four straight days of losses at the height of the freezing season. Has this ever happened before? Although the last two days losses are minimal, it is highly unusual if not unprecedented.

You can see some examples in the chart. Look at the blue line.

Good point Oren and thanks for pointing out what should have been obvious! Looking at the graph, it seems 2002, (or 2003?) had a drop of close to 500k somewhere between January 20 and 24.

The largest  fall since 2002 appears to  be 3 days in 2003 where the decline was 255K.  There was a 6 day fall in 2006 and a five day fall in 2012 both of around 200K, 2015 had a 4 day fall which was smaller than this one.  2009 also had six days with  one 3K rise in the middle. So  not that  unusual but  not something you  see every  year.  The smallest number of declines in January is 3 which occurred in 2008, 2014 & 2016

[Bill Fothergill]

Here are a few IJIS/JAXA/ADS numbers that might be of passing interest to some on the forum...

With the data for 9th Jan 2017 incorporated, the rolling 12-month average for Arctic SIE now stands at 9.725 million sq kms. At the same date in 2016, the rolling 12-month average was 10.108 million sq kms.

This represents a very impressive (although worrying is a better word) drop of ~ 383k sq kms in the space of a year. However, a bit more sobriety can be introduced by comparing the current rolling 12-month value to the equivalent on 9th Jan 2013. Following on from the stupendous summer/autumn losses in 2012, by that date, the rolling 12 was at 9.962 million sq kms. So another way to look at this is to say there has been a drop of ~ 237k sq kms in the rolling-12 month average over the last 4 years - or about 59k sq kms per annum.

To me at least, this is most assuredly NOT indicative of there being an entirely ice-free Arctic within the next decade - as has been suggested by some.

However, even without the ludicrous alarmism, there is still plenty in these numbers to worry about. The annual average extent for the decades 1980-89, 1990-1999 and 2000-2009 were (in millions of sq kms)...

11,957    11,440   10,773   respectively.

For the period 2010-2016, the equivalent figure has dropped to 10.132 million sq kms. Who knows what this will stand at by the end of the present decade?

Referring again to the aftermath of 2012, the rolling-12 month average reached a local minimum of ~9.915 million sq kms in mid-May of 2013. As at today's date, the rolling 24-month value stands at ~9.916 million sq kms.

The lowest rolling 12-month value associated with the 2007 melt season happened on mid November of that year, and clocked in at ~10.057 million sq kms. By comparison,  the rolling 36-month average currently stands at ~10.052 million sq kms.

The rolling 60-month average is presently ~10.107 million sq kms - or only 50k higher than the absolute lowest rolling 12-month figure recorded anytime before 2011.

What was once an outlier is gradually becoming commonplace.

[Jim Pettit]

What was once an outlier is gradually becoming commonplace.

That quote pretty much sums up not just the situation with Arctic sea ice extent, but nearly everything related to the climate. (And US politics.) (And UK politics.)

[Phil.]

thank you, welsh? is that the correct name for what would be "walisisch" in german? learning every day, may guess was on something else though, thanks again.

sorry for OT, just taking the opportunity to learn something really new :-) nice weekend all 

It's the english name equivalent to 'walisisch', it's derived from the anglo-saxon for 'foreigner'.  The correct name is 'cymraeg', the word for 'english' is 'saesneg' which comes from the welsh word for 'saxon'.

[DrTskoul]

Rolling average with 1 week ice free and max still at 10 million with a "normal" decrease to less than one  for just a week gives a rolling average of at least 6 - 7 million.