Is first year ice getting slushier?

[Nightvid Cole]

It used to be that the lower concentration red, orange, yellow, and green areas on the CT maps had more to do with weather during the summer, for instance:

http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=08&fd=21&fy=2008&sm=08&sd=21&sy=2009

Now, the past couple years, it seems you can almost "see through" the first-year ice, as the lower concentration areas line up with the first year ice:

http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=08&fd=21&fy=2013&sm=08&sd=21&sy=2014

Look carefully, in particular, at the large contiguous "purple" areas on these maps. It seems now they are virtually identical to the second-year and multi-year packs, cf. the Tschudi maps

http://ftp://ccar.colorado.edu/pub/tschudi/iceage/gifs/age2013_34.gif

and

http://ftp://ccar.colorado.edu/pub/tschudi/iceage/gifs/age2014_34.gif

. (Sorry for the problems with the links; using [img] did not work and you have to get rid of "http://" in the URL to access the last two images...)   This seems unprecedented in the CT record - earlier years had lots of "red" areas in late summer but never so well aligned with the first-year portion of the pack.

Have we reached a point where the Arctic simply cannot re-grow ice over the winter that can join the main pack and remain "fully solid" through the summer?

[johnm33]

If anyone missed this
from
Re: The 2015 melting season
« Reply #13 on: February 15, 2015, 01:50:58 AM
at about 7min in he talks about the ship going through 2m ice at 13knots, the ships top speed is 13.5 knots. Ice quality has changed.

[LRC1962]

If anyone missed this
from
Re: The 2015 melting season
« Reply #13 on: February 15, 2015, 01:50:58 AM
at about 7min in he talks about the ship going through 2m ice at 13knots, the ships top speed is 13.5 knots. Ice quality has changed.

At 2m that would have been MYI based on Arctic Sea Ice 'Thinning Dramatically,' Study Finds]http://youtu.be/ofaoiHYKtlc/url]
from
Re: The 2015 melting season
« Reply #13 on: February 15, 2015, 01:50:58 AM
at about 7min in he talks about the ship going through 2m ice at 13knots, the ships top speed is 13.5 knots. Ice quality has changed.
[/quote]
At 2m that would have been MYI based on [url=http://youtu.be/ofaoiHYKtlc]Arctic Sea Ice 'Thinning Dramatically,' Study Finds.
I think you will find 2 things are happening. A large percentage of ALL ice is being turned into slush being held together by thin layers FYI (Note: There was a study done on this that I read or heard about but can not seem to find it again), much like chocolate covered ice cream cones. What happened last 2 years is that conditions were such the the icecream did not melt out still disguised as solid ice. Not only that but all ice is getting thinned also.
So you have slushy thin ice pretending to be FYI, 2nd yr and MYI and unfortunately, because the nature of ice, satellite instruments can not tell the difference. If this indeed what is happening (granted one of many theories out there) then all it would take based on current conditions one or 2 bad melt years back to back and that ice would disappear. In my uneducated opinion, I hold to that position and feel the declines we have seen in Feb. are the first satellite evidence that this is the case. If this is true then I predict that we will have very little melt ponding because that will drain out just as fast as it is formed. Not only that, we have normal to high melt conditions within the next 2 summers, we will go into free fall as far as area and extent is concerned and that ice for the most part will vanish.
The argument has always been that the laws of physics preclude this amount of ice to disappear this fast, because of the amount of heat needed to melt it out. The presumption being that the volume of ice is solid ice. IMO that last statement is a false presumption. If the ice is disguised ice that is much thinner and slusher then it should be under 'normal' condition then the laws of physics still hold because it would take very little heat to melt it all out. The ice got lucky in the last 2 years because the amount of heat needed to melt it did not come. IMO it just got weaker still. I think this year could see a very bad year for ice and all you may be left with are the icebergs caught in the ice from Greenland.

[johnm33]

Thanks LRC that's the one, faulty memory

[helorime]

Yes.  Being that it is the end of the "refreeze" I would expect places like the Norht and Northwest of Greenland to be very very frozen.  In stead there appears to be a surprising amount of slushy looking stuff and even open water in channels and fjords in all the satellite images, and then there is a big hole that opened up in the border of the Kara and the CAB by the Franz Joseph islands.

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/image_container.php
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/image_container.php