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crandles

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #500 on: April 23, 2016, 12:39:01 PM »
Ran into a hitch because it seems the worldview photos don't export correctly for the 2013 and earlier data so I cropped it from a screen shot. And good catch - it was also one day off. I've reuploaded it.

Is it me or does the 2013 image look to have the land outline of the same spot but the ice image that contains entry to Nares Straight and Eastern end of North West Passage?

Nick_Naylor

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #501 on: April 23, 2016, 01:33:28 PM »
It's not you. The ice images changed on June 6 2013, so they don't line up with most of the other layers. They plan to "eventually" re-project the older images, but I'm not holding my breath. Here's the message from the WV site:

"On 2013-06-06 the polar projections for some layers changed as follows:

The Arctic projection changed from Arctic Polar Stereographic (EPSG:3995, "Greenwich down") to NSIDC Polar Stereographic North (EPSG:3413, "Greenland down"). Coastlines and Graticule in the older projection can be found in the Add Layer tab by searching for "EPSG:3995".

The Antarctic projection changed from being projected onto a sphere with radius of 6371007.181 meters to being projected onto the WGS84 ellipsoid. The projection is now the correct Antarctic Polar Stereographic (EPSG:3031). This change results in a shift of the imagery that ranges up to tens of kilometers, depending on the location.

Imagery before this transition date will eventually be reprocessed to be consistent with the imagery after it. In addition, the "Population Density" layer can no longer be displayed properly in the older projection.

Thanks for your patience as we improve and expand our imagery archive."

Laurent

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #502 on: April 23, 2016, 02:02:20 PM »
I did not notice that there is a strength animation in Hycom/arc, it does look even more dramatic than the thickness even thought it is already astounding.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/beaufortictn_nowcast_anim30d.gif
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/beaufortstrength_nowcast_anim30d.gif
« Last Edit: April 23, 2016, 02:10:10 PM by Laurent »

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #503 on: April 23, 2016, 02:17:55 PM »
I wasn't aware of the strength animation before, a good addition. Only the first frame loaded above, it won't animate. It is better just to crop off the white space and lat,lon to 700 pixels width on Hycom maps than to downsize them. The forum will display a 700x700 animation if it is below 5 MB in size.

The Beaufort Gyre movement of ice has been going on and off since late February. The ice cannot very well turn in a circle if that circle hits one of the Canadian islands; Banks Island is often limiting. On April 14th, the circle of cracking ice expanded to a crack out from the next one over, Prince Patrick. The overall motion of ice could get quite interesting over the next few days if the weather pattern persists. The animation shows developments during 16-22 April 16; the April 23rd tiles are still coming in.
« Last Edit: April 23, 2016, 02:39:02 PM by A-Team »

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #504 on: April 23, 2016, 03:36:24 PM »
I had to check the original when I saw that extraordinary  # grid on the strength animation, but it's on there too. Any ideas as to what that's about? http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/beaufortstrength_nowcast_anim30d.gif

Shared Humanity

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #505 on: April 23, 2016, 06:07:14 PM »


This seems pretty hard to overcome to me.

The growth rates will all be lower with milder temperatures but the shape remains. Also if there was a significant ocean warming effect, wouldn't we expect to see rapid ice extent growth delayed by more than about a week that we have seen so far?

With the graph shape above, losing a week so far and maybe another week over the next decade or two, isn't going to affect the maximum ice volume much. The main part of the volume loss in past decades has been thick multi-year ice. With that gone, any more ice melted in summer tends to mainly grow back in winter.

I am absolutely in your camp.

When I first started visiting here and learning from you guys, the idea of a year round ice free Arctic Ocean was being discussed and I expressed that I could not imagine any near term future where the Arctic night and the still brutal cold (although less brutal) would not cause the Arctic to freeze over. I still feel this way and your exposition on the effects of the cold temps and ocean heat escaping to the atmosphere has me convinced. One of the current trends that supports this is the increasing spread between the annual minimum and the annual maximum, this despite the fact that warm anomalies, north of 80 degrees, have been strongest in the winter refreeze.

I wondered if tracking this spread between annual min and max might be useful and, when the tendency for this spread to increase transitioned into a shrinking spread, it would signal a tipping point.

I, half in jest, suggested that this spread measure should be called the Bifurcated Intra-Annual Chryosphere Oscillation Trend or BICOT for short. It would also be known as "Baby, it's cold out there." as research scientists huddled in their shelters, warming themselves in the long polar night.

epiphyte

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #506 on: April 23, 2016, 06:30:31 PM »
Looking over the past few days posts I don't have much to add to the general consensus - but I did want to mention my appreciation of the great job that you guys are all doing of illustrating ongoing events in near real-time this year. There's so much happening all at once that it had occurred to me to take some time out to make a contribution... but between this thread and the Svalbard one it's hard to find an area of visible interest that one-or other of you hasn't already got covered!

A-Team

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #507 on: April 23, 2016, 06:41:48 PM »
Quote
extraordinary #grid on the strength animation, but it's on there too. Any ideas as to what that's about?
Not sure what the question is here. The cross-hair grid artifacts in some frames? The long thin streamers jetting out more or less corresponding to new leads? The animation shows the Beaufort over to the Bering Straits with a few CAA islands thrown in, there may be a separate one for the whole Arctic Ocean (if not, why not?).

It makes some sense to see the lower Beaufort and Mackenzie River delta in purple and white, compressive strengths pushing zero. But why this giant expanding lobe of increasing compressive strength blowing out from Prince Patrick island out into the center?

The ice there is under compressed from the Beaufort Gyre but that is not quite the same as compressive strength. Unless by that is meant a dominating bulk property that more or less amounts to open areas (leads). Which might better fall under the term compaction (sometimes called convergence on forums).

I clipped off the scale units above - the multiplier of compression in newtons per meter is 104. Here ACNFS is explained at the link below. It seems unlike that the shift from 04.1b to 04.2 at frame 22 has any significance.

http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/SIF/docs/Arctic_Cap_Nowcast_Forecast_System_Rick_Allard.pdf

The two sets of date-like numbers step out of synch by units of 100. I have no idea what is being conveyed with this, the animation runs the standard 30 days.

Compressive strength in newtons/meter is explained well enough overall at wikipedia, that of ice at the link below (and its 145 citing articles). I don't know what data is observed that allows them to compute the compressive strength other than some black box assumptions in the model. It seems unlikely that anyone is out there measuring compressive strength of rapidly changing 2016 Arctic ice.

http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/9902/Schulson-9902.html

There is some potential confusion with units of stress (pascals):

Quote
The compressive strength of ice varies from 5–25 MPa over the temperature range −10°C to −20°C. The ice compressive strength increases with decreasing temperature and increasing strain rate. Here one pascal is one newton of force applied over an area of one square meter squared which has units kilogram per meter per second squared.

Quote
so much happening all at once
Yes, it seems like non-stop action for so early in the season. Quite a few people are posting good researches. The down side to that is trying to keep up with all that output!
« Last Edit: April 23, 2016, 06:48:48 PM by A-Team »

Frivolousz21

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #508 on: April 23, 2016, 09:08:33 PM »

The melt season is already well underway.

Soundings indicate that 0c+ temps have breached the arctic basin.



Pretty absurd pwats streaming into the Kara region



The surface temp anomalies are insane over the region with warm air advecting.

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #509 on: April 23, 2016, 09:12:37 PM »
The north/central Russian coast has been hammered with anomalous heat on and off all winter.  And for the next week gets more of it again.....not good.
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6roucho

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #510 on: April 24, 2016, 05:13:06 AM »


This seems pretty hard to overcome to me.

The growth rates will all be lower with milder temperatures but the shape remains. Also if there was a significant ocean warming effect, wouldn't we expect to see rapid ice extent growth delayed by more than about a week that we have seen so far?

With the graph shape above, losing a week so far and maybe another week over the next decade or two, isn't going to affect the maximum ice volume much. The main part of the volume loss in past decades has been thick multi-year ice. With that gone, any more ice melted in summer tends to mainly grow back in winter.

I am absolutely in your camp.

When I first started visiting here and learning from you guys, the idea of a year round ice free Arctic Ocean was being discussed and I expressed that I could not imagine any near term future where the Arctic night and the still brutal cold (although less brutal) would not cause the Arctic to freeze over. I still feel this way and your exposition on the effects of the cold temps and ocean heat escaping to the atmosphere has me convinced. One of the current trends that supports this is the increasing spread between the annual minimum and the annual maximum, this despite the fact that warm anomalies, north of 80 degrees, have been strongest in the winter refreeze.

I wondered if tracking this spread between annual min and max might be useful and, when the tendency for this spread to increase transitioned into a shrinking spread, it would signal a tipping point.

I, half in jest, suggested that this spread measure should be called the Bifurcated Intra-Annual Chryosphere Oscillation Trend or BICOT for short. It would also be known as "Baby, it's cold out there." as research scientists huddled in their shelters, warming themselves in the long polar night.

That seems obviously right. The medium- long-term future for the Arctic surely must be melting out in summer and freezing back in winter. For that not to happen would require > freezing conditions during the Arctic winter, which implies runaway global warming, and possibly a lack of any scientists left to observe it.
« Last Edit: April 25, 2016, 09:04:54 AM by 6roucho »

DavidR

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #511 on: April 24, 2016, 06:13:53 AM »


This seems pretty hard to overcome to me.

The growth rates will all be lower with milder temperatures but the shape remains. Also if there was a significant ocean warming effect, wouldn't we expect to see rapid ice extent growth delayed by more than about a week that we have seen so far?

With the graph shape above, losing a week so far and maybe another week over the next decade or two, isn't going to affect the maximum ice volume much. The main part of the volume loss in past decades has been thick multi-year ice. With that gone, any more ice melted in summer tends to mainly grow back in winter.
This growth rate is unlikely to change when the preconditions are met. What we are seeing is a rapid loss in area where the preconditions for this growth rate are met. 

Across the Arctic (67N+), this year has seen sea surface temperatures on average 2dC warmer than the previous record average, an average that has varied by only 7dC since 1948. In the high Arctic (80N+), the record has been broken by over 3dC where the previous range was only 10dC.

Only about 30% of the ice ever reaches the 2m level shown in this graph so the vast majority of the ice will be effected by these record sea temperatures and other changes consequent on the low area and extent levels.

This is not just an effect of El Nino, in 1998 SSTs did not come close to the record.  Even global  sea surface temperatures show a similar jump. After ranging from 12.8 to 13.6 since 1948 they  gave suddenly jumped to  a record 14.0.

We are truly in uncharted waters here and any  preconceptions based on previous years are suspect.
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Frivolousz21

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #512 on: April 24, 2016, 07:42:13 AM »
2009,10,14,15,16.

Geezus!!

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #513 on: April 24, 2016, 08:24:51 AM »
That's just epic.

If we don't see a major pattern change between say May 15th and June 15th for at least half that time we will be set up to challenge 2012.

If this pattern stays relentless into mid June. 

Wow just WOW

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my TEC 9 Imma call T-Pain
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Jim Hunt

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #514 on: April 24, 2016, 09:52:32 AM »
The Sea Ice Prediction Network is getting going earlier than usual this year:

https://www.arcus.org/sipn/sea-ice-outlook/2016/informal-contributions

Quote
SIPN is accepting pre-season and informal contributions to the 2016 Sea Ice Outlook (SIO). These contributions will be in addition to the regular SIO monthly reports in June, July, and August that synthesize predictions for the September monthly average extent of Arctic sea ice.

Pre-season and informal contributions provide a way to share information on sea ice parameters or time periods not included in the regular monthly reports as well as any early field observations, such as unusual early season conditions. These contributions are valuable for understanding initial conditions as well as sea ice dynamics throughout the season.

Questions and contributions should be sent to Betsy Turner-Bogren at ARCUS (betsy@arcus.org).
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A-Team

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #515 on: April 24, 2016, 03:11:31 PM »
When push comes to shove: the animation below for 20-23 April 16 shows the boundary between the rotating part of Beaufort Gyre and the central Arctic region to the east which is not (yet) part of the rotation and being displaced sideways (right edge of image) because the Gyre is slightly elliptical and the long axis is coming around with the clockwise rotation.

Some new cracks have appeared though the Gyre remains in its extended rotational mode (from April 14th on, delimited by Prince Patrick island rather than Banks). The area shown is north of Borden island at the outer edge of the rotation.

The overall rotation and shifting of the ice is complicated. However, for a big block that retained its corner feature from first light in 21 Feb 16 until today, a center of rotation exists over 20 days ending 23 April 16 during which the angular velocity of the big block was constant at 1.04 degrees per day at a radial distance of 349 km (from #486 animations run at 100 frames/sec).

If you watch other blocks 'ahead' of big block, they can be seen to be ejected from the top of the Gyre (bottom animation) in the direction of the Chukchi Sea / Wrangell Island where they are destined to melt out later in the season. If this keeps up, it will take out quite a bit of the thickest and oldest ice of the CAA. There is some independent fracturing along the Alaskan coast in the vicinity of Barrow. The big block's blue tip appears in the last frame.

This is a colossal amount of kinetic energy considering the mass of all this ice -- and this despite 'slipping the clutch' losses on the CAA block to the east. The Gyre may have reached its terminal configuration and velocity, in the sense that resistive forces grow so fast beyond this speed that even the ominous forecast (thx to friv above) won't have much overt effect other than to sustain.
« Last Edit: April 24, 2016, 06:16:58 PM by A-Team »

oren

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #516 on: April 24, 2016, 04:01:43 PM »
When push comes to shove: the animation below for 20-23 April 16 shows the boundary between the rotating part of Beaufort Gyre and the central Arctic region to the east which is not (yet) part of the rotation and being displaced sideways (right edge of image) because the Gyre is slightly elliptical and the long axis is coming around with the clockwise rotation.

Some new cracks have appeared though the Gyre remains in its extended rotational mode (as of April 14th, delimited by Prince Patrick island rather than Banks). The area shown is north of Borden island at the outer edge of the rotation.
Beautiful and instructive. The power of this.

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #517 on: April 24, 2016, 06:58:14 PM »
looking around for data on radiation balance I have found this:
https://ceres-tool.larc.nasa.gov/ord-tool/jsp/EBAFSFCSelection.jsp
CERES surface radiation values calculated to match TOA observations (if I understand correctly)
2015 seem to be the most recent available. Shown are monthly all sky averages. I hope you can recognize the north coast of Alaska and Beaufort sea

If any one has better information please let us know

What I think this shows is the role open water plays. just have a look at those net values where there was open water in June. The water absorbs SW like snowfree land does but emits less LW than land which has higher temperatures!
« Last Edit: April 24, 2016, 07:04:44 PM by Andreas T »

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #518 on: April 24, 2016, 07:22:18 PM »
T
Quote
his shows is the role open water plays. just have a look at those net values where there was open water in June. The water absorbs SW like snowfree land does but emits less LW than land which has higher temperatures!

you can recognize the north coast of Alaska and Beaufort sea
Very interesting. We have not done nearly enough with the observational side of radiation balance. I wonder why the lag time is so long with Ceres ... why not provide a rolling average out to the current date?

Hycom has all sorts of new products for the north coast of Alaska and Beaufort sea area. I trimmed down their open lead forecast to show their predictions out to 29 Apr 16 -- some interesting things coming around Prince Patrick and offshore if this is at all accurate.

http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/
« Last Edit: April 24, 2016, 07:58:52 PM by A-Team »

Lord M Vader

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #519 on: April 24, 2016, 08:11:32 PM »
GFS 12Z run is out. And the pic is clear: continued heat pressure at the Pacific side. The coldest air will be situated at Taimyr Peninsula. Main question is whether the ice in Kara Sea will benefit from the cold weather?

I'm sure Friv would say:this is epic and brutal! Relentless hammering of the sea ice! Just WOW :)

//LMV

A-Team

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #520 on: April 24, 2016, 11:18:08 PM »
Quote
i'm sure Friv would say:this is epic and brutal!
Did you try a text search for 'blowtorch' on the forums?

I looked to see if free high resolution imagery was available this far north. It is, Sentinel 2A 10 m color. That means the tiniest little patch, like the one shown below for an area off Prince Patrick, is already 10890 pixels on a side (118 MB). This is shown below at six levels of magnification, from 1/16th to 2x, as indicated by the nested boxes. These range from 5 m resolution to 160 m pixels (the worse resolution slightly better than WorldView Aqua 250 m).

These were processed as 8-bit rather than 16. Wipneus has a pipeline for color processing at 16 bit which would give better results. There might be some interest in this type of imagery for distinguishing ice from refrozen lead water from sea water from Mackenzie River fresh water (which is leaching out from under its ice already according to Hycom SSS (salinity).

I don't believe anyone uses this resolution imagery in figuring sea ice area or extent, first and foremost because coverage doesn't extend over the whole Arctic Ocean and if it did, wouldn't be cloud-free. However a tile like this could be used to spot-check some of the >15% stories.

http://sentinel-s2-l1c.s3-website.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/#tiles/9/X/WG/2016/4/19/0/

http://sentinel-pds.s3-website.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/
« Last Edit: April 25, 2016, 01:59:10 AM by A-Team »

Neven

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #521 on: April 24, 2016, 11:34:03 PM »
The enemy is within
Don't confuse me with him

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #522 on: April 24, 2016, 11:49:58 PM »
Quote
i'm sure Friv would say:this is epic and brutal!
Did you try a text search for 'blowtorch' on the forums?

I looked to see if free high resolution imagery was available this far north. It is, Sentinel 2A 10 m color. That means the tiniest little patch, like the one shown below for an area off Prince Patrick, is already 10890 pixels on a side (118 MB). This is shown below at six levels of magnification, from 1/16th to 2x, as indicated by the nested boxes. This ranges from 5 m resolution to 160 m pixels (similar to WorldView Aqua 250 m).

These were processed as 8-bit rather than 16. Wipneus has a pipeline for color processing at 16 bit which would give better results. There might be some interest in this type of imagery for distinguishing ice from refrozen lead water from sea water from Mackenzie River fresh water (which is leaching out from under its ice already according to Hycom SSS (salinity).

I don't believe anyone uses this resolution imagery in figuring sea ice area or extent, first and foremost because coverage doesn't extend over the whole Arctic Ocean and if it did, wouldn't be cloud-free. However a tile like this could be used to spot-check some of the >15% stories.

http://sentinel-s2-l1c.s3-website.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/#tiles/9/X/WG/2016/4/19/0/

http://sentinel-pds.s3-website.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/

The resolution is astounding. Definitely a good tool to do localized reality checks on the overall stats.

Frivolousz21

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #523 on: April 25, 2016, 01:32:14 AM »
GFS 12Z run is out. And the pic is clear: continued heat pressure at the Pacific side. The coldest air will be situated at Taimyr Peninsula. Main question is whether the ice in Kara Sea will benefit from the cold weather?

I'm sure Friv would say:this is epic and brutal! Relentless hammering of the sea ice! Just WOW :)

//LMV

The 18z is even more epic.

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Juan C. García

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #524 on: April 25, 2016, 02:48:57 AM »
We are starting to have above 0º C temperatures at Kara Sea.
Which is the best answer to Sep-2012 ASI lost (compared to 1979-2000)?
50% [NSIDC Extent] or
73% [PIOMAS Volume]

Volume is harder to measure than extent, but 3-dimensional space is real, 2D's hide ~50% thickness gone.
-> IPCC/NSIDC trends [based on extent] underestimate the real speed of ASI lost.

A-Team

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #525 on: April 25, 2016, 04:37:54 AM »
Quote
New ASIB blog post: CryoSat-2 confirms: sea ice volume is low.
I believe it. The animation allows some comparison of the six years. However the image I had to work with from ASIB was fairly low in resolution so it would not work to form yearly difference images. The second image uses full resolution images from http://www.meereisportal.de/en/  with the third frame showing the change between Jan and Feb 2016 sea ice thickness.

From the ASIB:

Quote
This sea ice portal (http://www.meereisportal.de/en.html) is quite well done and very effective at serving Cryosat-2 data either as graphic or as underlying data. The netCDF format can be opened in with free Panoply with no need for matlab or command line.

The originals for these graphics are quite generous, 3747 3747 pixel pngs. They crop quite nicely to a more manageable 1400x1400 for the Arctic Ocean. It is easy to make a black landmask by subtracting two images.

I would suggest to them an opt-out for the lat,lon graticule overlay. These are few people who do not already have access to a globe. Better to provide mouse-over lat,lon as done on so many other sites.

Erstaunlicherweise ist die Palette ganz falsch für wissenschaftliche Zwecke: the bins do not correspond to metric divisions and it does not drop to a linear grayscale. This is only 6-bit data (64 bins) after all.

It is far better to be able to explore time series data intuitively as graphics. Later you can go back and repeat the useful manipulations in netCDF numeric arrays.
« Last Edit: April 25, 2016, 02:04:22 PM by A-Team »

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #526 on: April 25, 2016, 05:24:39 AM »

Crosphere surface melt has started to spread much more quickly than in 2015. 

And the weather will continue to be incredibly anonymously warm. 




FREAKING EPIC. 


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Frivolousz21

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #527 on: April 25, 2016, 05:58:19 AM »


Damn, thickness outside the inner inner core is total shyt.

Its straight awful in the Chuchki and Beaufort.

Seriously, 1-1.5M?   No wonder it's being chopped up so easily.





So far everything is pointing towards a big chance for historic melt this summer.
I got a nickname for all my guns
a Desert Eagle that I call Big Pun
a two shot that I call Tupac
and a dirty pistol that love to crew hop
my TEC 9 Imma call T-Pain
my 3-8 snub Imma call Lil Wayne
machine gun named Missy so loud
it go e-e-e-e-ow e-e-e-e-e-e-blaow

Neven

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #528 on: April 25, 2016, 08:12:35 AM »
I believe it. The animation allows some comparison of the six years. However the image I had to work with from ASIB was fairly low in resolution so it would not work to form yearly difference images

Yes, I often make images smaller so that they load faster. You can get 800x800 PNGs at seaiceportal.de. And the purple ones at the top of the ASIB post are 3600x3600, downloadable at the AWI press release.

That gift of extreme SLP and SAT just keeps on giving, doesn't it? The Chukchi and Bering are next in line, it seems.
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #529 on: April 25, 2016, 08:34:21 AM »

These were processed as 8-bit rather than 16. Wipneus has a pipeline for color processing at 16 bit which would give better results.

Not too difficult. Here is the same animation in RGB, just using Imagemagick commands.

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #530 on: April 25, 2016, 01:23:26 PM »
Per graph Feb 2013 has less ice per cryosat with Feb 2012 second lowest and 2016 third lowest. (Piomas thinks 2011 lowest then 2016 then 2014. Should we prefer Cryosat data to a PIOMAS model? Maybe a combination and 2016 is the only year in lowest 3 of both? )

Anyway back to more volume than 2013 per Cryosat:

But look at the snow cover on land differences:


2013


2016

With above snow difference,
Warm water,
Beaufort cracking in April vs Feb,
Low extent & area to provide low albedo to help a rapid start to melt
... (got more factors to add, please do make suggestions)

it seems hard to imagine the weather could be so extremely good for retaining sea ice that we could have a 2013 sort of year.

seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #531 on: April 25, 2016, 02:04:02 PM »
Yes.
This year with all that, it is difficult not to believe Beaufort and Chukchi will be obliterated really early, MYI included (just see what is still to come during this week for more preconditioning!).

However ESS is much stronger than last year.

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #532 on: April 25, 2016, 02:58:52 PM »
For the last couple of years we appear to have dodged a bullet, but it seems that every year there are ever more bullets to dodge.
One year our luck will run out we'll get that 'poof' moment. This year may or may not be the one, but it's certainly doing more harm than good to the ice.

I'm wondering if we'll ever see the pack be detached from all the coastlines at once so that we have a skull-cap of ice. Probably not, but I keep hoping.

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #533 on: April 25, 2016, 03:14:36 PM »
Quote
Not too difficult. Here is the same animation in RGB, just using Imagemagick commands.
It looks like the S2A sensors are not compensated correctly at the swath edges, it is not too hard to see the artifactual green striping. That fellow from NASA helping us last summer said to correct red and blue for more/less atmospheric scattering for ice and water scenes, so that should maybe be added to the canned Imagemagick commands (if that is allowed).

I am not seeing any persuasive shades of blue that would distinguish the different states of ice, melt, and water that we are after. Maybe wayne or someone living way up north can lay out some really large brightly colored tarps so we can see what it takes to get them color corrected with bands 234?

The final image shows Worldview Aqua 250m for three consecutive days, on the northern edge of the Beaufort Gyre. The blue band (day 22) is narrower than the green (day 23) or red (day 24) in the large lead, indicating that the lead is widening faster on the latter two days.

Quote
seems that every year there are ever more bullets to dodge. One year our luck will run out we'll get that 'poof' moment... wondering if we'll ever see the pack be detached from all the coastlines

That is the way I see it too, playing with a very dangerous slot machine. One day it will stop with the 3 lemons showing: high pressure anomaly, heat anomaly, cyclone anomaly at just the wrong times in the same summer season following a preconditioning. If each were independently probablility 1/2, that is an expectancy of (1/2)3 or 8 years (for illustrative purposes only, no idea what the odds are, other than they appear to get worse with each passing emission year).

We've seen the ice pulled away from the entire CAA coastline, not that uncommon with an active Gyre. There is no question though that the off-center geometry of the bounding lands and north pole are very influential in constraining ice motion. For example, CAA ice can ground in the extensive shoals north of Greenland in the Kaffekluben area, a barrier to exiting the Fram Strait.
« Last Edit: October 12, 2016, 10:25:31 PM by A-Team »

Frivolousz21

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #534 on: April 25, 2016, 04:46:14 PM »
Per graph Feb 2013 has less ice per cryosat with Feb 2012 second lowest and 2016 third lowest. (Piomas thinks 2011 lowest then 2016 then 2014. Should we prefer Cryosat data to a PIOMAS model? Maybe a combination and 2016 is the only year in lowest 3 of both? )

Anyway back to more volume than 2013 per Cryosat:

But look at the snow cover on land differences:


2013


2016

With above snow difference,
Warm water,
Beaufort cracking in April vs Feb,
Low extent & area to provide low albedo to help a rapid start to melt
... (got more factors to add, please do make suggestions)

it seems hard to imagine the weather could be so extremely good for retaining sea ice that we could have a 2013 sort of year.

Almost no chance of that.

2013 was the second best year weather wise for ice retention since 1996.

In about one week snow cover next to the MacKenzie will almost. all be gone.
I got a nickname for all my guns
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a two shot that I call Tupac
and a dirty pistol that love to crew hop
my TEC 9 Imma call T-Pain
my 3-8 snub Imma call Lil Wayne
machine gun named Missy so loud
it go e-e-e-e-ow e-e-e-e-e-e-blaow

Neven

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #535 on: April 25, 2016, 04:49:51 PM »
Quote
2013 was the second best year weather wise for ice retention since 1996.

I still wonder if that was some kind of reaction to 2012, but if so, don't have a clue as to how that works mechanically. Maybe it was just a fluke.
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DoomInTheUK

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #536 on: April 25, 2016, 05:18:13 PM »
I imagine 2013 was a reaction to 2012. The balancing act that is the heat flow into and out of the Arctic will have times of imbalance and rebalance. 2013/14/15 may have swung the balance too far and now we start to get the backlash.

Regression to the mean is rarely a smooth path, especially in such a chaotic system as a full year in the Arctic. The problem we currently face is that the system is trying to rebalance but the fundamentals are changing too fast.

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #537 on: April 25, 2016, 07:04:35 PM »
Quote
2013 was the second best year weather wise for ice retention since 1996.

I still wonder if that was some kind of reaction to 2012, but if so, don't have a clue as to how that works mechanically. Maybe it was just a fluke.

Looking at the graph of September min extents, 2013 looks like just a normal relatively slightly cold year.  A bit colder (relatively) than 2009, about the same as 2006.  Nowhere near as cold as 1996.  2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, and 2012 were all warmer than trend.  2009, 2013, 2014 were a little bit colder than trend. 


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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #538 on: April 25, 2016, 07:14:01 PM »
I imagine 2013 was a reaction to 2012. The balancing act that is the heat flow into and out of the Arctic will have times of imbalance and rebalance. 2013/14/15 may have swung the balance too far and now we start to get the backlash.

Regression to the mean is rarely a smooth path, especially in such a chaotic system as a full year in the Arctic. The problem we currently face is that the system is trying to rebalance but the fundamentals are changing too fast.
It may be that as the system becomes more energetic, it also becomes more volatile - with greater variation year over year. 

If this year follows 2012's trajectory, we'll be flirting with an "Ice free" state.  Next year, we could bounce back to 2007/2011/2015.  We may have several decades like that; one year satisfying our "Ice free" criteria, followed by a 2007, or somewhere in between.

Eventually, the 2007/2011/2015's become so infrequent that they are the black swan event, rather than the other way around.

Then we will start watching the winter refreeze instead, hoping for the greatest possible increases in volume and area, and watching them slowly diminish to very little or nothing, except perhaps  along the Siberian coast and the CAA.

How very depressing.
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #539 on: April 25, 2016, 07:30:17 PM »
"If this year follows 2012's trajectory..."

I would be interested in hearing your and others' opinions as to whether this melt season may be even faster and more thorough than 2012's trajectory.

Surely the ice is even weaker, thinner, etc.

We had a very warm winter up there, and we are likely heading into the first or second warmest years globally on record.

Last I checked, snow cover levels are very low in many places, another factor that correlates with low end-of-melt-season sea ice extent numbers, iirc.

Mostly, people talk about 2012 rate of ice melt as if it is some ultimate limit. Is that a well founded assumption, or just our own version of reticence??
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Neven

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #540 on: April 25, 2016, 07:59:52 PM »

Looking at the graph of September min extents, 2013 looks like just a normal relatively slightly cold year.  A bit colder (relatively) than 2009, about the same as 2006.  Nowhere near as cold as 1996.  2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, and 2012 were all warmer than trend.  2009, 2013, 2014 were a little bit colder than trend.

2013 wasn't just about being slightly colder than the trend. It was also a very cloudy year because of persistent cyclones (check the defunct SLP Patterns page on ASIG). This combination allowed it to rebound as much as it did.
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Frivolousz21

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #541 on: April 25, 2016, 08:16:57 PM »
Quote
2013 was the second best year weather wise for ice retention since 1996.

I still wonder if that was some kind of reaction to 2012, but if so, don't have a clue as to how that works mechanically. Maybe it was just a fluke.

Looking at the graph of September min extents, 2013 looks like just a normal relatively slightly cold year.  A bit colder (relatively) than 2009, about the same as 2006.  Nowhere near as cold as 1996.  2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, and 2012 were all warmer than trend.  2009, 2013, 2014 were a little bit colder than trend.

That's because the ice was already decimated.

The snow/ice albedo effect was severely weakened
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a two shot that I call Tupac
and a dirty pistol that love to crew hop
my TEC 9 Imma call T-Pain
my 3-8 snub Imma call Lil Wayne
machine gun named Missy so loud
it go e-e-e-e-ow e-e-e-e-e-e-blaow

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #542 on: April 25, 2016, 09:20:19 PM »
"If this year follows 2012's trajectory..."

I would be interested in hearing your and others' opinions as to whether this melt season may be even faster and more thorough than 2012's trajectory.

Surely the ice is even weaker, thinner, etc.

We had a very warm winter up there, and we are likely heading into the first or second warmest years globally on record.

Last I checked, snow cover levels are very low in many places, another factor that correlates with low end-of-melt-season sea ice extent numbers, iirc.

Mostly, people talk about 2012 rate of ice melt as if it is some ultimate limit. Is that a well founded assumption, or just our own version of reticence??
As I refer to it in my comment, 2012 is just one example of how a melt season can go, not a limit or a metric.  I'm just using one example for which we have direct observational experience; it has happened, so it could happen again. 

It is wholly possible that there could be greater melt than 2012.  In fact I think there is good probability for that happening this year. 
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #543 on: April 25, 2016, 09:22:09 PM »
The situation now is about in line with my expectations. Given the right combination of events, a crash in ice extent/volume is possible any year since ’10.

I remain with my point of view December ’14: a ’17 black swan-event putting extent < 1 Mkm2 initiating a bifurcation in the state of the Arctic Ocean, a series of ‘on/off’ summers, a first < 1Mkm3 volume year around ’23 and a 10 year decline into a perennial ice-free Arctic Ocean. And mind, some FYI will form even then in Hudson Bay, Foxe Basin, the CAA and other sheltered nooks.

ECS, rather sad, seems to be at the high end of what’s modelled. Some important carbon sinks are losing their once-reliable capacity. OHC continues to strengthen, in spite of the strong El Nino-event that is now fading.

I still think there’s reason to expect ’17 for larger odds in favour of this initiating black swan-event. The low ice formation during last winter was in my opinion dominated by atmospheric effects. The trend however in this low winter ice regrowth is influenced mostly by OHC creeping in. Both processes will precondition the ice pack volume this summer much like the ’10 and ’11 example.

But I don’t expect a combination of woeful events will be strong enough in ’16 already to “do the job”.

Nothing in weather/climate works by now as it did just a couple of years ago. That’s why I think whatever weather will be predominant, summer ’16 will bring back volume near the low ’12 level combined with even worse physical conditions. Next winter will set the hazards. Will the Arctic experience a strong La Nina atmospheric set-up or will neutral/slightly positive ONI-circumstances prevail?

Anyway, positive PDO conditions will remain, so there’s a big chance atmospheric winter-warming will continue.
After that, during ’17, odds for a combination of high-impact melt events will be very high.

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #544 on: April 25, 2016, 10:38:02 PM »
Strong correlation of melt out years to exceptionally dry (non cloudy, snowy) spring times as evidenced by the Pacific North American Index.  Currently the ensemble mean shows a positive through the first week of May. 

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/pna_index_mrf.shtml

as you can see, from the monthly average graphic below, the years with a strong positive in spring (2007, 2012) had exceptional melt and those that had strong negatives in spring (2013,2014) have record low melts.



The PNA index is a measure of the relative high/low pressure density zones near the Aleutian Islands and the Bearing Straight.  A strong negative over an extended period of time, caused by an atmospheric blocking mechanism forces mid-latitude moisture into the arctic cell, creating clouds and precipitation in the spring months.

High cloudiness, lower temperatures and precipitation in the spring months suppresses melt pond formation and is the primary indicator of later season ice melt extents.

« Last Edit: April 26, 2016, 07:27:56 AM by jai mitchell »
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Neven

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #545 on: April 25, 2016, 11:46:14 PM »
Above freezing temps forecast for Beaufort:  :-X
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #546 on: April 26, 2016, 12:19:00 AM »
Those predicted above-freezing temps in the Beaufort would get close to http://obuoy.datatransport.org/monitor#buoy14/camera if they verify.

I know May melt ponds are associated with low September minima, but April melt ponds?

seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #547 on: April 26, 2016, 12:31:53 AM »
Above freezing temps forecast for Beaufort:  :-X

I noticed that and the further drift, as well as the cold air displaced to ESS/Laptev including storms weather. Will be extremely interesting May start
« Last Edit: April 26, 2016, 12:37:06 AM by seaicesailor »

seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #548 on: April 26, 2016, 12:45:42 AM »
I know May melt ponds are associated with low September minima, but April melt ponds?

Even worse!
Very early Spring in almost everywhere of the NH in the warmest year on record, maybe the Arctic Ocean is headed to be no exception.


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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #549 on: April 26, 2016, 02:10:58 AM »
"If this year follows 2012's trajectory..."

I would be interested in hearing your and others' opinions as to whether this melt season may be even faster and more thorough than 2012's trajectory.

Surely the ice is even weaker, thinner, etc.

We had a very warm winter up there, and we are likely heading into the first or second warmest years globally on record.

Last I checked, snow cover levels are very low in many places, another factor that correlates with low end-of-melt-season sea ice extent numbers, iirc.

Mostly, people talk about 2012 rate of ice melt as if it is some ultimate limit. Is that a well founded assumption, or just our own version of reticence??
As I refer to it in my comment, 2012 is just one example of how a melt season can go, not a limit or a metric.  I'm just using one example for which we have direct observational experience; it has happened, so it could happen again. 

It is wholly possible that there could be greater melt than 2012.  In fact I think there is good probability for that happening this year.

I'll respond to both Wili's and JD's comments (highlighted above) regarding using the losses of 2012 as a "Gold Standard" that seldom, if ever, would be matched or exceeded.  My rebuttal to that way of thinking is to remind everyone that the earth's climate is NOT currently in a state of equilibrium.  When recent statistics and deviations from the norm are used, it implies that the occurrence of any given event had a likelihood of happening within a given time frame. Typically, 2 Standard Deviations (2 STDs) from  the norm are considered within the realm of normal random occurrences, 3 STDs are considered rare.  Unfortunately, this assumes some semblence of normalcy in the major variables which can result in being either positive or negative feedbacks.

Among some most prominent variables, that are no longer in equilibrium, that can have an impact on Arctic  ice loss are GHG levels (elevated),SSTs (elevated globally and more so in the Arctic), Surface Temperatures (record high globally and well above normal in the Arctic), NH snow cover very low and that pesky Jet Stream that hasn't learned how to respond to Arctic  Amplification.

Given that situation, there is  nothing to prevent any given year not to have ice losses greater than 2012.

Well, that last statement is not entirely true.  Some year, in the not too distant future,there will not be enough ice in the Arctic, as measured by any metric, to permit losses greater thatn those that occurred in 2012.

Sadly, that may well occur in my lifetime.....and I'm fast approaching my 70th birthday!!
 
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