The 2015 melting season

[Lord M Vader]

About 1-1½ month from now we should start to see slow reductions in the SIE. Being somewhat early I thought we should begin this thread and speculate in whether this melt season will be just as boring as the last one or if we'are going to see some action in the Arctic.

If you ask me I think we'll see a rather good melt on the Siberian side where the ice is thin while the Canadian side should melt slowly as the sea ice there has armored itself during the last two seasons. But in the whole I don't expect any huge melt this season either. One reason for that is for instance the Arctic Oscillation (AO) which have been mainly weak positive for about 2 years now. I think we'll see some years now with positive AO dominating with a more modest melting as low pressures will be in charge in the Arctic during the summers allowing the sea ice to rebuilding itself until next switch to negative AOs when we'll see a huge blow of the Arctic sea ice as the global warming continues.

Finally, I don't expect this years SIE minimum to be below 4 Mn km² per IARC-JAXA numbers. My guess is that we'll be somewhere in the range 4,2-5,1 Mn km².

[viddaloo]

Thanks for doing this, Lord!

An interesting development at the North Pole. Animation of 7–11 February. From Uni–Bremen:



What's happening up there? Any theories?

At any rate HYCOM got it right. Many polynyas opening up in the CAB.

ro4co4 from Lance Modis.

Vergent

The above quote is from early June 2013. February is early for this sort of break–up, right?

Edit: Another Open-water-in-June quote from June 2014:

Ok, previous discussion about open water aside, what disturbs me most right now is summarized well in this image:

http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr2/arctic_AMSR2_nic.png

In the quadrant between 80 N and 85N , between 150E and 165E, is an area of ice which is showing closer to 30% open water.

Considering that nothing lke that started showing up for closer to 30 days last year or the year before, I find that a bit disturbing.

I find that disturbing for two reasons.  First, I've found the DMI over all in two years of my following it, has tended to be more rather than less reliable. Second, it suggests profoundly unpleasant conclusions as to the state of the ice currently.

Add that to the various weather projections which have been getting discussed over the last week or so, it leads me to very pessimistic conclusions.

[Neven]

Thanks for opening this thread, LMV!

I've slightly altered the title, and will make it a sticky as soon as the maximum has been reached.

And wrt the coming melting season: haven't thought about it yet! But what you say, makes sense. 

[Nightvid Cole]

It seems we are again seeing a case of crumbling first-year ice. Compare the multi-year ice area on



to the region of 100% solid ice on




It seems they roughly line up. Much of the first year ice has dropped below 95% concentration - although this has not quite reached the North Pole yet.

[jdallen]

That "under 95%" figure is in line with what I thought I was seeing from the SAR image Jim Hunt posted on the refreeze thread.

In short, the ice *IS* "crunchy".  If HYCOM is to be believed, most of it is also well under 2M.  Here's their run for today (2/12/2015):

http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticictn/nowcast/ictn2015021118_2015021200_040_arcticictn.001.gif

I'll add that the distribution of thicknesses also lines up very nicely with the MYI locations on the images Nightvid's posted.  The constant pounding of storms from the fall onwards has never given the ice a chance to consolidate.  The "bowl of ice cubes" metaphor still appears to apply.

[jdallen]

2014, 2013 and 2012, same dates, for comparison.

http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticictn/nowcast/ictn2014021118_2014021200_038_arcticictn.001.gif

http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticictn/nowcast/ictn2013021118_2013021200_035_arcticictn.001.gif

http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticictn/nowcast/ictn2012021118_2012021200_035_arcticictn.001.gif

[viddaloo]

We may yet see an ice-free N pole in August.

Could be, JD. I'd say the numbers do not point that way, but this development in the top 85—90° sector is worrying (if you'd like N pole ice to prevail) or promising, depending on your perspective. As far as I can see, this 12th February 2015 state is the worst that sector has ever been in, regardless of month or time of the year. I'd love to be proven wrong!


uni–bremen 2015–02–12

[Neven]

As far as I can see, this 12th February 2015 state is the worst that sector has ever been in, regardless of month or time of the year. I'd love to be proven wrong!

Like Frank Zappa once sang: Love me now! 

[Jim Hunt]

I'd love to be proven wrong!

The pleasure is all mine Vid:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/resources/about/

When was your image produced Neven?

[viddaloo]

PS: Is there any way I can acquire AMSR* maps from the pre–2012 era online?

[Neven]

When was your image produced Neven?

September 2010, Jim, the first melting season I covered on the ASIB.

BTW, I was wrong. Zappa didn't sing 'love me now', but ''. 

Vid, there are probably more examples out there. Be careful when looking at UB SIC maps and thinking that something is unprecedented.

PS: Is there any way I can acquire AMSR* maps from the pre–2012 era online?

If you're referring to Uni Bremen sea ice concentration maps, links to the various archives are at the top of this ASIG page. I always go for the nic.png files. Sometimes I scroll down and go for the asi180 images, because of the different view. But it amounts to the same.

[viddaloo]

Thanks, Neven, that's a great resource hub!

Neven's top–sector candidate: Definitely proved me wrong.

uni–bremen 2010–09–04

Jim's top–sector candidate: Bone–crushingly proved me wrong.

uni–bremen 2013–08–28

I'll have a look through the archives for any February candidates, though, as this is still only February, after all.

All right, 2005 looks pretty torched:

uni–bremen 2005–02–24

But that's still about 2 weeks later in the year, and we don't know where this interesting/worrying/promising development could go by then.

[Peter Ellis]

Remember that thick cloud confuses the sensor, so unless these low concentrations are sustained for several days then they are just not believable unless you can confirm them via other wavelengths.  I think the chance of any significant open water near the Pole in February is so low as to not be worth contemplating.

Leads, yes.  Enough to give ~80 ice concentration over areas large enough to be visible at the coarse resolution of microwave sensing?  No way.

[LRC1962]

Not sure where the best place to post this as it is about present and past ice conditions, but based on what is said could be very helpful in drawing conclusions about the future. Found a . It is given by a scientist that explores the Arctic even in the winter. Some points made:
Very little MYI left most is brimy ice.
Satellites do not give a true picture even in'14.
Ice moving very fast, these include icebergs pushed into the Arctic, and brimy ice stacked 13m+. Would think even that ice still brimy as it does take time for ice to squeeze out the salt.
16 min long but very informative, current and wide ranging.

[Jim Hunt]

It is given by a scientist that explores the Arctic even in the winter.

David Barber writes papers on this stuff also, though most are paywalled:

http://www.arcticnet.ulaval.ca/pdf/compendium2011-12/3.6_sea-ice.pdf

To embed a YouTube video just copy/paste the URL from the "Share" option:

[jbatteen]

LRC that was a very informative video, thanks!

[LRC1962]

Will try that next time if I remember.

To embed a YouTube video just copy/paste the URL from the "Share" option:

Am able to get around the net fairly well, but still working in the dark ages as to how to do many things on it.
As noted on Home brew AMSR2 extent & area calculation

Well Fram has certainly been running 'within normal parameters' since mid december? Should this behaviour persist into melt season then we will see a very different outcome in Sept than the last couple of years. We also seem to have shed all the 'retained ice' we saved over those two years leaving the Atlantic side pretty much all FY ice now?

and on
According to IJIS, this latest daily delta of –58225 km² was the biggest February melt since 2010. Also, my PIOMAS estimate algorithm reports the first ever February volume drop since 2007.
[/quote]

2015 could be a very bad summer even if the weather is not great.

[viddaloo]

Written on 14th June, these are pretty amazing words:

Will we se the first 100 000 km2 next week? Will be interesting to watch!

So far this June (1-13), we've only lost 600 000 km2 of sea ice which is a quite small number.

You can say that again! Yesterday's February daily delta of –58225 km² would constitute a drop of 757 000 over 13 days. More than in June 2014. Is February the new June?   

[viddaloo]

Speaking of which... This is a *century*, guys. In February: 2015/48 -113505 (13883835/13770330).

That hasn't happened since, umm, forever, as far as I can see. Not in February, at least not in IJIS history.

[wili]

Vid, I'm not seeing that ice loss here: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.arctic.png

What am I missing? Are you just talking about loss on the Atlantic side?

[Jim Hunt]

What am I missing? Are you just talking about loss on the Atlantic side?

CT runs 2 days slow Wili. See my "Shock News!" and Wipneus' forecast at: http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1112.msg45592.html#msg45592 et. seq.

[viddaloo]

About 1-1½ month from now we should start to see slow reductions in the SIE. Being somewhat early I thought we should begin this thread and speculate in whether this melt season will be just as boring as the last one or if we're going to see some action in the Arctic.

As is, the 2007 IJIS extent maximum was the earliest on record at Feb 24th. When filtered weekly the max date adjusts to Feb 23rd. The rest of the 2004–2014 field when filtered is spread out rather narrowly from Mar 4th to Mar 18th, and centered around Mar 9–10th. Could 2015 be an even earlier outlier than 2007 with a Feb 15th extent maximum? Too early to tell, of course. But if we were to max out like 2007 on Feb 23rd, we would need daily delta gains of on average 33467 km² for the next 5 days. (If we were to max out like #2, 2009, on Mar 4th, we would need daily delta gains of on average 11952 km² for the next 14 days.

Is there at all any advantage to turning early for achieving brilliant melt during melt season? Hard to tell. We have not enough data, and 2012 that went lowest turned late (March 7th or 18th filtered), but lost 11.532 M km² during melt season, while earlybird 2007 lost 'only' 10.144 M km². At this point I'd say there's no connection between starting early and melting much.

[andy_t_roo]

Is there at all any advantage to turning early for achieving brilliant melt during melt season? Hard to tell. We have not enough data, and 2012 that went lowest turned late (March 7th or 18th filtered), but lost 11.532 M km² during melt season, while earlybird 2007 lost 'only' 10.144 M km². At this point I'd say there's no connection between starting early and melting much.

There was quite allot of discussion during the last few seasons on the relationship between early melt ponds and final melt amount. The warmth that causes the early max isnt would also result in more energy in the system earlier (the coldest ice is less cold, periphery water exposed to sun earlier), I can't see how this could be anything other than the start of a far melting season, unless a contacting cold weather event cones along. Even then it would have to correct the extra gains from the positive feedback of this early start.
With recent temp anomalies for Feb indicating unusual warmth, I don't see a reversal as likely.

[viddaloo]

Hi andy_t_roo,

I would agree with you that a good melt in the earliest 3rd of melt season, with bountiful early melt ponds, is of importance for the final melt amount. The amount of melt ponds, however, isn't directly measured by sea ice extent. I believe an early numerical max extent date is mainly a random feature, becoming a little less random using a weekly filter, but ultimately doesn't say much about whether or not there will be a good melt in the earliest 3rd of melt season, and therefore neither says much about final melt amount.

If you want to quantify this, March melt is generally lousy, with an average loss of 181 000 km². April has an average loss of 1 122 000 km², and the first 3rd of May a monthly equivalent of on average 1 529 000 km². Some of the best melt seasons have sported huge extent *increases* during March, like 2010 which put on almost half a million km². So March is generally undecided and indecisive for final melt (while a good melt in the earliest 3rd of melt season IS decisive).

PS: When talking about the earliest 3rd of the melt season, I'm in effect operating with three 70–day periods, the first of these going from Mar 1 to May 9.

[jdallen]

Much hinges on the weather system dynamics.

IF the current circulation dynamics continue, then conditions would be favorable for significant melt pond formation, possibly as early as mid May.

The return of insolation in March will significantly change the circulation Dynamics.  With increased heat delivered directly at high latitude, and resulting lower gradient in temperature extremes, I would expect it to become more chaotic.  The relatively steady flow of warm air may diminish, leaving us with more "typical" spring conditions.

If we continue to see strong flow of heat at lower latitudes, and related flushing of cold out of the arctic, all bets are off.

Considering the current pattern, and significantly warm water off of the eastern seaboard, one signal of this might be a spring storm following the same track as our winter storms, for much the same reason.  If it delivers early above freezing temperatures to the pack, that could be very serious.

[jdallen]

Interesting future view with climate reanalyzer.

I recommend having a look here -
http://cci-reanalyzer.org/Forecasts/

Set the region to Northern Hemisphere, the Parameter to Precipitation and Clouds, and then set it to a slow playback.

The warm water off of the North American coast is acting like a giant cyclone accelerator.  As you watch the projection, you can see the moisture get entrained, kicked north by a persistent High in the central Atlantic, and then get spun into explosive lows just as it hits the GIUK gap just SE of the tip of Greenland.

That pulls more heat north into Europe, and then past it via the Norwegian Sea into the Barents and Kara. You can watch the Lows then circulate into the central basin, and back down over northern Greenland where they finally peter out, or get absorbed into the new storm.

(Additional)  If you watch the other side, near the Bering Strait, you can see similar pumping of energy across the Bering Sea into the Chukchi.  It looks like our RRR in the North Pacific/Gulf of Alaska is doing the pumping there.

If accurate, I suspect that this pattern will put a crimp into ice creation.

[LRC1962]

As most of you well know. cold northeastern North America + warm Arctic (usually). As long as we continue to see that trough as far south as as it is now the Arctic will remain warm.
Site got image from ClimateAnalyzer Feb 19
(one of these days I will figure out how to show images)
A melting Arctic and weird weather: the plot thickensis an essay by Jennifer Francis about this winter.

[JayW]

Much hinges on the weather system dynamics.

IF the current circulation dynamics continue, then conditions would be favorable for significant melt pond formation, possibly as early as mid May.

The return of insolation in March will significantly change the circulation Dynamics.  With increased heat delivered directly at high latitude, and resulting lower gradient in temperature extremes, I would expect it to become more chaotic.  The relatively steady flow of warm air may diminish, leaving us with more "typical" spring conditions.

If we continue to see strong flow of heat at lower latitudes, and related flushing of cold out of the arctic, all bets are off.

Considering the current pattern, and significantly warm water off of the eastern seaboard, one signal of this might be a spring storm following the same track as our winter storms, for much the same reason.  If it delivers early above freezing temperatures to the pack, that could be very serious.

I agree, the warm water off the US east coast is very significant, and persistent.  Especially in light of the constant northwest flow that has dominated winter in New England.

Living in Maine I have had an intimate look at these systems rolling up the eastern seaboard.  Basically I have seen above freezing temperatures a handful of times in the last 8 weeks, none in the past month.  There is a storm every 3-4 days, like clockwork.  As an avid winter storm tracker, it's been nothing short of amazing.  Almost 100" of snow for me, many places have far exceeded that mark.  And I have almost 2 months of winter left, until I see a pattern change that's imminent, like <48 hours away, I expect the status quo to continue.  As do the poor folks in Boston, who are snow battered already.

[deep octopus]

If the forecasts from CFS are correct, March should be a period of much warmer than average surface temps for the Arctic. Though I'd expect mostly below freezing temperatures for the highest latitudes in region in spite of this, some of the fringe areas like around Kara, Barents, and Bering could see above freezing temperatures for extended periods, I surmise.

[andy_t_roo]

With Arctic water at ~-2c, and air around 0, what refreezes early melt ponds is the thermal inertia of a metre of ice at -20c, left over from winter. With persistent +20c anomalies I would think that we are going to be working from warmer than normal ice, resulting in larger than expected ice responses to further warm anomalies.

The coldest ice with a bouy on it has ~80cm of ice cooler than -15c, with most of the others (aggregated at http://greatwhitecon.info/resources/ice-mass-balance-buoys/winter-201415-imbs/ ) showing much less.

Iirc there were patches of I've below -35 this time last year...

[jdallen]

If the forecasts from CFS are correct, March should be a period of much warmer than average surface temps for the Arctic. Though I'd expect mostly below freezing temperatures for the highest latitudes in region in spite of this, some of the fringe areas like around Kara, Barents, and Bering could see above freezing temperatures for extended periods, I surmise.

c

That forecast map looks very much like what I'd expect to see with the polar/Hadley/Ferrell cells breaking as a result of more energy in the environment.

Andy - I think you are on the right track; total enthalpy will rule the outcome. Every joule retained stacks up against the ice.  Balance that cold stored in the ice early, and it's one less barrier to melt pond formation and resulting dangerous decreases in albedo.

The start of the season is going to be fascinating, I have no doubt.

[Jim Hunt]

The coldest ice with a bouy on it has ~80cm of ice cooler than -15c, with most of the others showing much less.

Iirc there were patches of I've below -35 this time last year...

The ice mass balance buoy temperature profiles you were looking at haven't been (manually!) updated since January. I'll fix that now, but here's an up to date profile for 2013F, which survived last summer's melt in the Beaufort, together with the previous winter's version from:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/resources/ice-mass-balance-buoys/winter-201314-imbs/

I reckon things look much the same as last year?

[andy_t_roo]

Jim, thanks for updating those graphs. You're right, there isn't that much of a difference between this year and last year at that bouy (and the drift has actually brought it almost back to where it was also)... I guess the follow up question is, how much of a difference does the air temp actually make then?

[Sigmetnow]

February 2-meter temperature anomaly (23 day hindcast + 7 day forecast).
Who left the freezer door open?

[johnm33]

Regarding melt ponds, I don't expect them to be sustainable. The ice is rotten, like layer cake, and thus quite porous. So I anticipate short lived melt ponds soaking into the rotten ice below before refreezing, which is a likely explanation for the lack of them last year too. Just guessing.

[Shared Humanity]

Regarding this pattern that has locked in over North America which is driving horrific cold into the eastern half of the continent and record snows in the Northeast, I believe this pattern is setting up to be a semi-permanent pattern in northern hemisphere winters. I believe that what is driving it is the emergence of a cold pole over Greenland and the Canadian archipelago. The, for the time being, permanent Greenland ice sheet and loss of Arctic Ocean ice is causing this and will be a feature that locks in and causes entirely new behaviors of winter weather.

Those circulating lows that seem to want circle Greenland are a feature of this.

My biggest fear is the "Ridiculously Resilient Ridge" in the Pacific and the Terrifically Tenacious Trough" in the Northern Atlantic are here to stay as a phenomena. I hope I am wrong as this feature is driving the drought in the western U.S. and could very well wash southern England into the seas.

[Jim Hunt]

I guess the follow up question is, how much of a difference does the air temp actually make then?

I think it does make a difference. Last winter was warm! See these Nov-Jan surface temperature anomaly plots for the last three years:

[jdallen]

Regarding melt ponds, I don't expect them to be sustainable. The ice is rotten, like layer cake, and thus quite porous. So I anticipate short lived melt ponds soaking into the rotten ice below before refreezing, which is a likely explanation for the lack of them last year too. Just guessing.

d

Possible relevant, and does expose a variable we really can't see from the thermistors - the quality of the ice. The profiles may be similar, but with those major temp anomalies, is the ice really the same?

Myself, I think melt ponds will still be a factor; they just won't be as large,

[andy_t_roo]

Attempting to estimate "most rotten ice possible" leads to some interesting conclusions:

water is about 3% salt (32 grams/l)

25% frozen, salt retained -> remaining water 10% salt, freezing temp of the remaining -6c
40% frozen, salt retained -> remaining water 20% salt, freezing temp of the remaining water -16c.
60% frozen, -> remaining water is 45%, probably never frozen in the arctic ...

(if you assume only 50% of the salt is retained within the ice, half the unfrozen % of the above calculations. ie, 50/80% frozen)
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/chemical/meltpt.html
 10% salt solution was said to lower the melting point to -6°C  and a 20% salt solution was said to lower it to -16°C

[viddaloo]

What are the odds there will be an OSM this season? (And is it in the Glossary yet?  )

[Gray-Wolf]

Not in mine Vids! So what is your OSM?

[viddaloo]

Not in mine Vids! So what is your OSM?

The OSM is the infamous 'Oh Sh!t Moment' covered extensively in the last melt season thread. It's when even the oilheads and polluticians realise this sh!t is for real.

[Gray-Wolf]

LOL!

Yup! coming soon in a province/country near You!!!

Yup, PDO swinging positive is a real game changer (IMHO) whether driven by low ice or by nature!!!

[Nightvid Cole]

The North Pole is now covered with first-year ice:

[Jim Hunt]

The North Pole is now covered with first-year ice:

Yup - There's far too many threads in here! Cross posting from elsewhere:

What do you make of the current ASCAT?



The Pole itself looks vulnerable this year?

[Nightvid Cole]

The North Pole is now covered with first-year ice:

Yup - There's far too many threads in here! Cross posting from elsewhere:

What do you make of the current ASCAT?



The Pole itself looks vulnerable this year?

It's at least on par to look like in Reply #9 this year. In that case the ice looks sufficiently broken up that you might be able to make it in only a light icebreaker, as you could simply go around the big floes.

Does Santa Claus have floe insurance?

[Jim Hunt]

Does Santa Claus have floe insurance?

No, but he does have a very spacious seasonal swimming pool:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2014/03/how-many-subs-in-santas-swimming-pool/

[Neven]

The North Pole is now covered with first-year ice:

Yup - There's far too many threads in here! Cross posting from elsewhere:

What do you make of the current ASCAT?



The Pole itself looks vulnerable this year?

Here's a comparison with previous years (mind you, April 19th):



2013 had the Goat's Head near the pole, but other than that this year looks different. Ice in the Beaufort doesn't look all that homogeneous either, but I believe someone had already remarked on that last week.

[viddaloo]

In case anyone's looking: The new URL for daily IJIS extent update CSVs.

(And yes, we were down 2659 km² yesterday.)

[viddaloo]

A low–bandwidth alternative to the above download link for the CSV file, is this nifty 10–line text file:

Code: [Select]

var jMonth, jDay, jYear, eMonth, eDay, eYear, siExtent;

jMonth   = 02;
jDay     = 27;
jYear    = 2015;
eMonth   = "February";
eDay     = 27;
eYear    = 2015;
siExtentN = "13,835,558";
siExtentS = "3,772,043";
A tip is to simply include this file in your scripts if you only need the latest daily value. As you can see, it also has Antarctic sea ice extent.