The 2016 melting season

[Nightvid Cole]

The sun is slowly returning to the Arctic, as we prepare for another melting season. The ice is thinner than last year on the Alaskan side, according to DMI, though there is less very thin ice around the North Pole:

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

[Neven]

You're too earlyyyyyy... 

[Jim Hunt]

You're too earlyyyyyy... 

Or maybe not?

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2016/02/the-2016-arctic-winter-sea-ice-puzzle/#comment-213802

[epiphyte]

Maybe not too early, maybe so. Either way, I think that given the uncertainties we should defer to neven on when to start the melting season thread - if only to put him on the spot >

[Laurent]

This 23-Second Video Shows Old Arctic Sea Ice’s Demise
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/video-old-arctic-sea-ice-20112?utm_content=buffer8e534&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

https://www.youtube.com/embed/fo1Boie7mtI

[Neven]

This 23-Second Video Shows Old Arctic Sea Ice’s Demise
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/video-old-arctic-sea-ice-20112?utm_content=buffer8e534&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

https://www.youtube.com/embed/fo1Boie7mtI

Unfortunately it stops after the 2015 minimum.

Maybe not too early, maybe so. Either way, I think that given the uncertainties we should defer to neven on when to start the melting season thread - if only to put him on the spot >

The Forum has a natural way of moving from one thread to another. 

I think in a week or two, when the max is well behind us (CT SIA seems to have turned the corner, or at least be on a plateau, but IJIS SIE has been going up sharply in the past two days and could top the preliminary peak in the next few days) everyone will continue the discussion here.

That's when I will put a sticky on this thread, and un-sticky the freezing thread.

[Lord M Vader]

I didn't know whether to put it here or in the freezing thread. Anyway, the Arctic may get a strong late season surge as "ADA" (ADA - "Arctic Dipole Anomaly") seems to make a return by next week. The question is whether this is just temporarily or if a more persistent set up with high pressure building over the Arctic in tandem with a low over nortwestern Russia will start to emerge?
If so, we should see a high transport of ice through Fram Strait. At the same time the SIE numbers should rise quite sharp for a short period.

The GFS 06z run had a very strong ADA by the time of equinox. But GFS is as we all know just like may politicians e.g changing their views many times (sorry for the ironic).

Otherwise than that, it seems to me that Okhotsk will see considerably warmer temps by next week which should start the death of all "fish ice" there.

[Nightvid Cole]

I didn't know whether to put it here or in the freezing thread. Anyway, the Arctic may get a strong late season surge as "ADA" (ADA - "Arctic Dipole Anomaly") seems to make a return by next week. The question is whether this is just temporarily or if a more persistent set up with high pressure building over the Arctic in tandem with a low over nortwestern Russia will start to emerge?
If so, we should see a high transport of ice through Fram Strait. At the same time the SIE numbers should rise quite sharp for a short period.

The GFS 06z run had a very strong ADA by the time of equinox. But GFS is as we all know just like may politicians e.g changing their views many times (sorry for the ironic).

Otherwise than that, it seems to me that Okhotsk will see considerably warmer temps by next week which should start the death of all "fish ice" there.

Is the wind also going to be out of the East, to push the ice edge Westward?

[ktonine]

Wayne Davidson reports the first signs of bottom melt on March 7th (South Cornwallis Island - 75N).

For comparison here are his past sightings:
2015 March 26 
2014 April 10 
2013 March 23 
2012 March 17
2011 April 15 
2010 March 19 

[Espen]

The sea ice off North East Greenland (Fram / Greenland Sea) looks very fragile this season?:

Click on image to enlarge!

[jdallen]

The sea ice off North East Greenland (Fram / Greenland Sea) looks very fragile this season?:

Ice cubes, don't you mean?

Actually, on the seaward edge, notice the pretty obvious melt margin with tendrils of disintegrating ice pulled away from the nearer-shore pack?   Highlights just how sharp the demarcation is between warmer water intruding from further south, and the cold surface flow along the Greenland margin out of the Fram.

NOAA sst anomalies attached for reference, but it appears the water warms up a full degree C warmer than normal within a couple hundred KM of the pack.  It's probably closer than that, but in the transition zone, that would be where the ice is disintegrating...

[Jim Hunt]

The sea ice off North East Greenland (Fram / Greenland Sea) looks very fragile this season?

Are you familiar with my idiosyncratic theory on that front Espen?

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2016/01/new-year-2016-arctic-meltdown-update/#Video

The ice edge did retreat in the immediate aftermath of what is referred to here in the United Kingdom as “Storm Frank“. Frank led to lots of flooding in the North of the nation, and also to some strong winds inside the Arctic Circle.

[Jim Hunt]

Since we're already contemplating melting sea ice (and the snow thereon), here's the current Topaz 4 Arctic snow depth map:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/resources/arctic-sea-ice-graphs/#Topaz4Snow

[seaicesailor]

Thx for reminding us that source Jim. And here is the comparison of the last three years. Still a lot of snow to fall before May, but worth noting the lack of snow depth at Beaufort (makes sense given the amount of recently frozen thin ice there) and the reduced numbers in CAB (better compare the years than trust the model 100% I assume). In 2014 snow protected the Arctic ice well, you may remember.

Beaufort looks so vulnerable this time. ESS better protected as in 2014

[Paddy]

It's far too early to predict, of course, but what are the chances all of this fragility may lead to new records being set at both maximum (area, if not extent) and minimum this year?

[wili]

We seem to have jumped the gun a bit starting this thread so early after all:

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/arctic.sea.ice.interactive.html

New high for the season on the 70th day--12.85256 m sq k

(still a record low for the date, though)

[jdallen]

Thx for reminding us that source Jim. And here is the comparison of the last three years. Still a lot of snow to fall before May, but worth noting the lack of snow depth at Beaufort (makes sense given the amount of recently frozen thin ice there) and the reduced numbers in CAB (better compare the years than trust the model 100% I assume). In 2014 snow protected the Arctic ice well, you may remember.

Beaufort looks so vulnerable this time. ESS better protected as in 2014

seaicesailor - while I like the screen captures, what's the link to the site you are using?

Looking at the images, I'm also reflecting on how they match up to the corresponding melt season.  The low cover over the Laptev comes to mind, and how we've seen the "Laptev Bite" play out over the last few seasons.

[seaicesailor]

Thx for reminding us that source Jim. And here is the comparison of the last three years. Still a lot of snow to fall before May, but worth noting the lack of snow depth at Beaufort (makes sense given the amount of recently frozen thin ice there) and the reduced numbers in CAB (better compare the years than trust the model 100% I assume). In 2014 snow protected the Arctic ice well, you may remember.

Beaufort looks so vulnerable this time. ESS better protected as in 2014

seaicesailor - while I like the screen captures, what's the link to the site you are using?

Looking at the images, I'm also reflecting on how they match up to the corresponding melt season.  The low cover over the Laptev comes to mind, and how we've seen the "Laptev Bite" play out over the last few seasons.

http://thredds.met.no/thredds/godiva2/godiva2.html?server=http://thredds.met.no/thredds/wms/topaz/dataset-topaz4-arc-myoceanv2-be

Play with layers of data, map types, scale etc.

[seaicesailor]

It's far too early to predict, of course, but what are the chances all of this fragility may lead to new records being set at both maximum (area, if not extent) and minimum this year?

Not too much IMO it very much depends on weather. Before Summer a lot of snow fell for example in 2014.

However a  bad start and a record warm year don"t help overall. I def find interesting how current condition are to follow the changes.

That weak Beaufort ice could not last much if Spring brings some warmth and sun. The ESS was cold last year too, weather changed in mid June IIRC and in a blink there was open water all along that coast.

I don't trust Summer CFSv2 predictions within the Arctic Ocean. When, how and how fast the ice starts to retreat is unpredictable and strongly dependent on weather locally, that much I learned. : - )

[Jim Hunt]

seaicesailor - while I like the screen captures, what's the link to the site you are using?

I'm slightly surprised that you, of all people, need to ask that question! Using Jing just for once, and starting from my previous link:

[Jim Hunt]

Starting from my previous link:

[jdallen]

seaicesailor - while I like the screen captures, what's the link to the site you are using?

I'm slightly surprised that you, of all people, need to ask that question! Using Jing just for once, and starting from my previous link:

<snerk>
I'm far from omniscient, Jim.  I succeed mostly by way of dogged persistence rather than brilliancy. 

I flailed around for a while trying to sort it, and rather than flail further, decided to actually *ask* and get a quick answer.

Thanks for the further explanation.

[seaicesailor]

Thx for reminding us that source Jim. And here is the comparison of the last three years. Still a lot of snow to fall before May, but worth noting the lack of snow depth at Beaufort (makes sense given the amount of recently frozen thin ice there) and the reduced numbers in CAB (better compare the years than trust the model 100% I assume). In 2014 snow protected the Arctic ice well, you may remember.

Beaufort looks so vulnerable this time. ESS better protected as in 2014

seaicesailor - while I like the screen captures, what's the link to the site you are using?

Looking at the images, I'm also reflecting on how they match up to the corresponding melt season.  The low cover over the Laptev comes to mind, and how we've seen the "Laptev Bite" play out over the last few seasons.

Yes there were webpages showing the same source. I googled around.

Laptev ice in 2015 was so thin and clean of snow because it was continuously generared during Winter by a strong sustained Polar drift. Just as Beaufort looks now thin and devoid of snow. But turned out last year that Laptev ice did not open up until very late compared to 2014. Who knows.

What really looks screwed without solution is Kara, looking back to the maps. Barentz too, but a change to North winds for a while can bring Svalbard ice back to it.

[Andreas T]

One place where deeper snow cover in 2014 compared to 2015 correlates with later melt is the coast of eastern Siberia. But I know this is just one place and could have other reasons, weather most of all. Snow cover on adjoining land does of course have a big influence on warming of air which can melt that snow, so all else being equal one would expect this correlation.
The picture as a whole shows that the inflows of air masses from the south which we have seen during the winter has not increased snow cover as a whole, something I have been wondering about. Thank you Jim for that information.

[Espen]

Sea Ice breakup is well underway and ahead of recent years in Wandel Sea and Fram Strait:

[Michael Hauber]

Snow might protect the ice from melting, but it also insulates the ice during winter and results in slower freezing.  Has anyone done any good analysis on which factor is more important? Do thickness measures include or exclude snow?  Can the sensors tell between thickly packed snow and ice?  What about when snow gets hit by water and then refreezes into a mix of snow and ocean ice?  Or does that not happen enough to matter?

[jdallen]

Snow might protect the ice from melting, but it also insulates the ice during winter and results in slower freezing.  Has anyone done any good analysis on which factor is more important? Do thickness measures include or exclude snow?  Can the sensors tell between thickly packed snow and ice?  What about when snow gets hit by water and then refreezes into a mix of snow and ocean ice?  Or does that not happen enough to matter?

My sense is... and what I think I've seen...  snow works out to be close to a zero sum effect.

[jdallen]

OK, compare and contrast.
2015-04-19 Beaufort with 2016-03-13 Beaufort.

[werther]

Thanks, JDAllen. Those pics enlighten my words below!

Sunlight has returned to the Arctic up to 690 km from the North Pole now.  As more than 90% of the surface of the Arctic Ocean is visible on MODIS now, it is possible to do a first assessment of the state of the ice.

The Chukchi Sea shows some interesting details. NE winds have driven the ice from the Alaskan coast. New ice formation is happening, but that cover looks very thin up to 160 km from the coast. In the Bering Strait, a sort of ice-arch has formed, further to the South in the Bering Sea there’s just shedded floes, no solid ice cover. The Arctic Basin boundary lies some 400 km to the North from Barrow and Wrangel Island. In that area, older ice floes are visible within the slightly darker mesh of first year ice. In the northwest, some broad leads rip through the ice.

The Beaufort Sea ice looks incredibly messy. More than a third of the surface consist of wrecking broad leads (up to 70 km wide), where new ice formation is happening. But this will remain very thin, I guess. The usual Mackenzie Polynia is visible and will form as open water as soon as first spring warmth arrives.

[Jim Hunt]

Here's the shiny new Great White Con Svalbard Sea Ice Graphs Page:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/resources/arctic-regional-graphs/svalbard-sea-ice-graphs/

and here's our exploration of the current state of Svalbard sea ice:

Vanishing Svalbard Sea Ice

Both sources reveal an unseasonable lack of solid sea ice around Svalbard. In fact an intrepid Northwest Passage navigator who didn’t mind the dark might well currently be able to circumnavigate Svalbard!

One handy map currently looks like this:

[wili]

More indications that this thread was started a bit...prematurely.

We have yet again a new high for the freeze season: 12.85966 m sq k for day 73, but still (barely) in record low territory for that date.

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/arctic.sea.ice.interactive.html

[Nightvid Cole]

More indications that this thread was started a bit...prematurely.

We have yet again a new high for the freeze season: 12.85966 m sq k for day 73, but still (barely) in record low territory for that date.

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/arctic.sea.ice.interactive.html

Meanwhile, NSIDC extent tells a different story...

[werther]

Sunlight has returned to the Arctic up to 690 km from the North Pole now.  As more than 90% of the surface of the Arctic Ocean is visible on MODIS, it is possible to do a first assessment of the state of the ice.
This is my interpretation for the ESS and Laptev Seas (13 March).

First, two images, 100x100 km:



Around Ostrov Zhokhova, De long Islands



NE of Vilkitsky Strait in the Laptev Sea

The enormous 500K square km fast ice stretch in the East Siberian Sea looks great. But there’s detail, a bit like in the Beaufort Sea, in there too. White floes mingle with darker leads. To the North, heavy break-up and movement is visible around the De Long Islands. The stress stretches along the Arctic Basin boundary up to the Chukchi Sea, accentuated by numerous broad leads. At this stage, those still fill up with new ice.

The Laptev Sea shows some of the most worrying signs. The ice over there hasn’t thickened much during  winter for a couple of years now. In ’14 it was just 40 cm over a large part. It doesn’t look better now. Heavily shredded and run through with leads, it might melt out very rapidly in May and June. NE of Severnaya Zemlya 30 km broad windstress leads seem hardly to promote new ice formation. As noticed before, Vilkitsky Strait is largely run through with crunched floes.

[DavidR]

More indications that this thread was started a bit...prematurely.

We have yet again a new high for the freeze season: 12.85966 m sq k for day 73, but still (barely) in record low territory for that date.

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/arctic.sea.ice.interactive.html

Meanwhile, NSIDC extent tells a different story...

I  think we can safely assume that the melting season and the freezing season overlap by about a month so there should be no problem running the two  threads until the maximum has been accepted.

[werther]

David, hi.
I think most of us are on this thread to assess the coming season from what is known/visible by now. Winter has had it's best time.

[Frivolousz21]

A large scale dipole anomaly is taking shape with very long fetch winds between a strong ridge over the pacific side and a large PV anomaly over the Kara.

The biggest impact will be ice export out the from and ice export towards the Barents.

Thicker ice as seen on cryosat 2 will be jettisoned out the arctic between NNE Greenland and the pole.

Replaced with essentially thin and mostly snow free fyi.

On the positive side older ice will be slowly pushed towards the CAB and Beaufort sees from the East.

If this is a prelude to the May/June pattern it would be pretty awful.

The most effective ice killer is a sunny ridge over the Beaufort, Western CAB, chuchki, and ESS while the laptev, Nansen basin and Kara see ice exported towards the pole/Barents.

[Frivolousz21]

That's pretty ugly.

75% of the arctic basin is around 1.5M or thinner.

Large areas barely over 1M. Well into the 73-77N range along the entire ring of the basin

[werther]

Sunlight has returned to the Arctic up to 690 km from the North Pole now.  As more than 90% of the surface of the Arctic Ocean is visible on MODIS now, it is possible to do a first assessment of the state of the ice. This is about Kara and Barentsz Seas.

The Kara Sea looks bad enough, like the Laptev, but that’s been the case for a lot of years now. Nevertheless, the +8dC anomaly for all winter has left its mark in a almost 80K sq km of open water. There’s still new ice formation in leads and stress leads elsewhere and given the weather forecast, there might be some ice strengthening in the coming period.

The Barentsz Sea is essentially ice free. There’s some light, mobile ice cover in the Pechora Sea and around Frantsa Yosefa. Won’t last long.

And a look forward into the Arctic Basin in this sector (special thanks to Friv for introducing Cryosat Mar 16!):



There´s a 220K mostly open water region North of Svalbard and Frantsa Yosefa. What is visible further to the North looks pretty broken up, just like ice in Wandel Sea North of Greenland. This region is what is producing low extent all winter. This is also where spectacular melt out might start spreading if weather conditions get ´bad´.
Cryosat confirms this; the ice looks almost predestined to melt out into the 85dg North circle, whatever weather this summer may bring!

[Jim Hunt]

Based solely on her "feminine" intuition Snow White has very publicly called the CT area maximum:

https://twitter.com/GreatWhiteCon/status/709898232676147200

When Neven chooses to "sticky" this thread is of course entirely up to him 

[seaicesailor]

Based solely on her "feminine" intuition Snow White has very publicly called the CT area maximum:

https://twitter.com/GreatWhiteCon/status/709898232676147200

When Neven chooses to "sticky" this thread is of course entirely up to him 

We goes to ASIB, ctrl-F 'Wipneus', then he tweets and goes to bed

[Espen]

The break up of sea ice almost reached Île-de-France of Jøkelbugt and that is pretty early:

[Lord M Vader]

Holy crap!! Is ECMWF 12z run an ominous sign of the return of "RRR"? In any case, it looks like a massive warm and moisty air intrusion might invade the Arctic by Easter.

My impression for now is that the atmosphere is trying to move into a full -AO configuration but being delayed by the fading El Niño. Including a modified return of RRR. If this idea holds we might see a very bad season in either 2016, 2017 or both years.

//LMV

[jai mitchell]

Holy crap!! Is ECMWF 12z run an ominous sign of the return of "RRR"? In any case, it looks like a massive warm and moisty air intrusion might invade the Arctic by Easter.

My impression for now is that the atmosphere is trying to move into a full -AO configuration but being delayed by the fading El Niño. Including a modified return of RRR. If this idea holds we might see a very bad season in either 2016, 2017 or both years.

//LMV

PNA Index models show a slight dip, nothing too lasting



The RRR is associated with a long-term very negative PNA index value

[jdallen]

A bit earlier, Wipneus took me to task pretty much telling me that I was wrong to assume heat from warm currents into the Barents/CAB were not causing significant melt in the Atlantic side of the Arctic.

With due meditation on the topic, I find myself having to agree with him.  I think I was underestimating the influence of heat being imported.

Now let's consider the SIE map from Bremen.

The Bering, Okhotsk and Barents are thrashed. I think that's a good descriptor.  We get some  good blasts of heat and 3-400K of SIA/SIE will just vanish.  And I think it will happen before June; possibly before May.

I think what's happening in the Barents will spill over rapidly to the Kara; almost none of that ice is thicker than 2 meters, and a whole bunch of it is less than 1.

If we end up with substantial melt ponds on the Pacific side (Beaufort, Chukchi, ESS...) there will be hell to pay.

[Lord M Vader]

Jdallen: in about 48 hours or so ECMWF have a quite powerful cyclone to hammer Okhotsk. Should mean a decent loss of sea ice there. OTOH, northerly winds will be quite dominating in Berings Sea which might offset some of the SIE loss in Okhotsk.

//LMV

[seaicesailor]

Jdallen: in about 48 hours or so ECMWF have a quite powerful cyclone to hammer Okhotsk. Should mean a decent loss of sea ice there. OTOH, northerly winds will be quite dominating in Berings Sea which might offset some of the SIE loss in Okhotsk.

//LMV

Doesn't seem the Bering ice is going to expand much anymore (not much ice left) and SSTs are not so cold as to maintain ice or refreeze. If so, will be little and temporary. The offset may come from Barentz looking at the drift maps. Wasn't 2013 or 2014 when there was no ice in Svalbard North shores in February and it came back in April to stay until the Summer was past? The sea temperature at Barentz is colder and can maintain ice frozen for months

PS To be strick, North of Svalbard is still the Arctic Ocean, not the Barentz sea, but I tend to include Svalbard on it wrongly. Regardless.

[Lord M Vader]

Interestingly, the minimumtemperatures at Svalbard have been slightly below normal during the last two days after being much above normal for about 2½ months. See: http://www.yr.no/place/Norway/Svalbard/Longyearbyen/statistics.html

The anomalies in Berings Sea are much less pronounced than in Barentz Sea. I won't be surprised if the ice edge will be pushed south.

I think it was in 2014 as the sea ice was pushed south but I honestly don't remember.

[Neven]

You can check the concentration maps on the ASIG, as I've recently updated them (and added back in 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2009).

[epiphyte]

You can check the concentration maps on the ASIG, as I've recently updated them (and added back in 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2009).

These are really interesting to look at - Many thanks for taking the trouble.

Probably should mention though that the comparisons for march all show the same date (March 18th) for 2016...

[Andreas T]

Interestingly, the minimumtemperatures at Svalbard have been slightly below normal during the last two days after being much above normal for about 2½ months. See: http://www.yr.no/place/Norway/Svalbard/Longyearbyen/statistics.html

The anomalies in Berings Sea are much less pronounced than in Barentz Sea. I won't be surprised if the ice edge will be pushed south.

I think it was in 2014 as the sea ice was pushed south but I honestly don't remember.

this terra image from today https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/?p=arctic&l=VIIRS_SNPP_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor%28hidden%29,MODIS_Aqua_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor%28hidden%29,MODIS_Terra_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor,MODIS_Terra_Brightness_Temp_Band31_Night%28hidden%29,MODIS_Terra_Brightness_Temp_Band31_Day%28hidden,palette=rainbow_1,min=220.5,max=280.6,squash%29,Reference_Labels%28hidden%29,Reference_Features%28hidden%29,Coastlines&t=2016-03-19&v=243919.62215679046,-916030.8769843376,1525967.6221567905,-297534.8769843376
shows cold air from the ice blowing over warm water north of svalbard. There is some movement of the edge to the south but to bring ice near to svalbard would require a more sustained push and probably change in the ocean current there. Sea water there is at least 0 degC I think.