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Gray-Wolf

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #600 on: April 27, 2016, 09:12:35 PM »
So , post 2007 how many 'good' summers has the Arctic basin seen. Now I'm using 'good' in the way I would for my part of the UK and do not mean "good for holding onto as much ice as possible" good.

07' was an 8 out of 10 on the scale of 'good summers' . So if 3 out of 10 is an 'average' summer and 1 out of ten is an 'ice retentive summer' how many 'good summers' has the basin seen since 07'?

In the UK the question would run from 06' but same sh1t!

To me we have not seen one 'good Summer' since 07'.

2008/2009/2013/2014 were '1's' or 2's and the rest were 3's

What if this summer is a 4 or a 5? If a '3' gives us 2010 or 2012 (from their individual 'start points') then where would a '4' or a '5' leave us in Sept?

Of course some years will be a '0' or a '10'.........
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seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #601 on: April 27, 2016, 09:48:33 PM »
Ok done with the Bering Strait, I hope.
Large extent of Kara ice might be wet due to rain, this MODIS 3-6-7 image from yesterday shows big area of darker red tone (which I believe can be a sign of wet surface). It has been there since the day before, at least. Today clouds hide the zone.

plinius

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #602 on: April 27, 2016, 10:04:38 PM »
Probably this is a bit BS, because it sounds very early for snow being removed and so, but I wonder if during this April a lot of snow over Beaufort has been swept away toward ESS. Just because I recently found this article that estimates a 40% of snow removal by sublimation and a 10% by wind blowing (and if some of that sublimation had happened during this dry sunny windy month, let alone the blowing :-| ),

http://goo.gl/u193G9

Where would the added humidity go? Slowly deposed with the blown snow as the air mass flows towards the ESS? I mean, it's been almost one month same pattern non-stop.

Anyway. A question blowing in the wind. I doubt snow models could capture such subtleties, if they happened.

Mass transport does not allow you to blow your entire snow cover into the ESS. Mass transport is <1kg/(ms), i.e. for a thousand km wide strip you could transport << 1.0e-6 kg/s and m^2 at maximum feasible windspeed, figuring bad angles, lower speeds, etc. you transport off <0.1 mg/s and m^2, or <8g/m^2 and day  (that is less than 8micrometers water equivalent). Doesn't work.

What their paper is about is dumping the snow into leads, which is a sizeable fraction of the annual budget.

Concerning sublimation - I am no expert, but due to the spring warming in action the capacity for water vapor increases continuously, so you will sublimate snow across the whole line, as rising temperatures keep the humidity down. In this case it is also more important where the surface divergence is: The air sinking near the centre of the high pressure system has the lowest humidity.

RoxTheGeologist

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #603 on: April 27, 2016, 10:25:21 PM »
As a beginner at this I was playing with climate reanalyzer and noticed that the whole of the Mackenzie river basin was going to have high heat anomalies for at least a couple of days, With the Great Slave lake seeing temperature highs of 25°C. Reading a review of 2012, the warm Mackenzie water is argued to have a big impact on the Beaufort Sea:
(http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013GL058956/full

Their analysis shows the landfast ice breaking up after the 14th of June, with what looks like a 'tiny' lead on the seaward side of the landfast ice, certainly compared to the images from this year.

I wondered if anybody had an idea of exactly how much heat and meltwater had to end up in the MacKenzie before it started flowing into the Beaufort sea and if there was any record of the dates in the past when it did so? Climate Reanalyzer also show that all the snow cover for much of the watershed melting by May 3rd.


A-Team

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #604 on: April 27, 2016, 10:39:59 PM »
Quote
BS chatter is soooo boring
Forum 'airheads' have a major role to play this season because to the extent that stationary air pressure patterns are foreseeable and the details fixable after the fact by reanalysis the wind patterns are as well, and so ice fragmentation, insolation access, and ice export. Meteorology thus rules, though oceanic currents, turbulence, turbidity, river inputs etc have substantial roles to play.

However for the Beaufort Gyre we are not so interested wind velocity resulting from highs and lows but rather in the instantaneous wind power density, which is what actually makes the ice move. Up to minor adjustments for air density, that's given by the cube of the wind speed on the area moved.

The third power comes in because power is rate of change of kinetic energy which is the integral of forces acting to change momentum which bring in mv and then 1/2mv2, with the mass flux dm/,dt is ~density x flow rate the 3rd power of v.

Eyeballing a predictive pressure chart or wind display doesn't work for a second reason: wind power averages play out non-linearly because of the cube. A floe seeing a steady wind speed of 20 km/hr will be dramatically less moved than if wind were flat half the time and 40 km/hr the other half.

Sea ice has another complexity missing in wind turbine blades: surface roughness, raised edges of floes and compression ridges. These disproportionately catch the wind compared to a uniform hard ice surface. This creates a vicious cycle in a stationary wind pattern: the longer the Beaufort gyrates, the more the ice cracks up, the more it is hit by the wind, the more it cracks up...

Fortunately for us the instantaneous wind power density WPD is a display option at nullschool calculated at 3 hour intervals. A sample of that is shown below. There is no forward WPD prediction at this site or Hycom though it could be instructive.

Two very recent Beaufort publications:

Recent changes in sea ice area flux through the Beaufort Sea during the summer
SEL Howell 2016
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015JC011464/full DOI: 10.1002/2015JC011464

Replacement of multiyear sea ice and changes in the open water season duration in the Beaufort Sea since 2004
RJ Galley 2016
J. Geophys. Res. Oceans, 121, 1806–1823, doi:10.1002/ 2015JC011583.

http://web.mit.edu/windenergy/windweek/Presentations/Wind%20Energy%20101.pdf  wind energy 101 at MIT
« Last Edit: April 27, 2016, 10:49:28 PM by A-Team »

Andreas T

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #605 on: April 27, 2016, 10:43:44 PM »
Probably this is a bit BS, because it sounds very early for snow being removed and so, but I wonder if during this April a lot of snow over Beaufort has been swept away toward ESS. Just because I recently found this article that estimates a 40% of snow removal by sublimation and a 10% by wind blowing (and if some of that sublimation had happened during this dry sunny windy month, let alone the blowing :-| ),

http://goo.gl/u193G9

Where would the added humidity go? Slowly deposed with the blown snow as the air mass flows towards the ESS? I mean, it's been almost one month same pattern non-stop.

Anyway. A question blowing in the wind. I doubt snow models could capture such subtleties, if they happened.
maybe something to discuss on another thread. I have been thinking about this since you posted that research. What I noticed is how relative humidity measured by Obuoys is lower in winter than in summer. That would suggest that there is a sink somewhere where water vapour is removed from air, i.e. deposited as frost? or precipitated as snow somewhere?
At low temperatures not a lot of water vapour is needed to saturate air so why isn't it? If the measured values are correct they are  down to around 70%

seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #606 on: April 28, 2016, 12:15:27 AM »
@plinius
So if I understood you, dry air mass will sublimate ice, increase its humidity and transport that vapor away from the high pressure center. It wont saturate if the high pressure system is strong enough to keep the air moving, and if temperatures are high enough... correct?

@Andreas From your graph, it seems humidity at that location has been steadily increasing during April but staying below 100% for the time being, no fog.
I dont understand what you meant about humidity in Winter though, why shouldnt make sense the lower humidity given the absence of heat sources in Winter? By the time humid air reaches the Central Arctic, it should have yielded most of its latent heat, so very low vapor content.

Michael Hauber

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #607 on: April 28, 2016, 12:23:33 AM »
So , post 2007 how many 'good' summers has the Arctic basin seen. Now I'm using 'good' in the way I would for my part of the UK and do not mean "good for holding onto as much ice as possible" good.

07' was an 8 out of 10 on the scale of 'good summers' . So if 3 out of 10 is an 'average' summer and 1 out of ten is an 'ice retentive summer' how many 'good summers' has the basin seen since 07'?

In the UK the question would run from 06' but same sh1t!

To me we have not seen one 'good Summer' since 07'.

2008/2009/2013/2014 were '1's' or 2's and the rest were 3's

What if this summer is a 4 or a 5? If a '3' gives us 2010 or 2012 (from their individual 'start points') then where would a '4' or a '5' leave us in Sept?

Of course some years will be a '0' or a '10'.........

I'd consider 5 to be average, and rate them:

2007: 10
2008: 7
2009: 4
2010: 7
2011: 8
2012: 9
2013: 2
2014: 4
2015: 6

Chris Reynolds showed that the pattern from 2007 to 2012 was unusual for the time period since 1980, so it is reasonable to score most of these years as above average melt years. 

The question is why did we get this pattern?  Was it some natural variation that is now over, or perhaps may reoccur in 2 or 5 or 50 years time?  Or is it somehow triggered by AGW, and the lack of this pattern since 2013 is a natural variation.  Which may now be over as the current pattern looks a bit like the 2007-2012 pattern.

The current run of above average temperatures shown in Andrew Slater's page is quite remarkable in its persistence.  I cannot find anything like it going back into recent years.  And consider that a good part of December was below average, and Oct to Nov was only a little above average and in my opinion would count as being 'cool' when compared to recent years.

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Jim Hunt

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #608 on: April 28, 2016, 12:26:43 AM »
I wondered if anybody had an idea of exactly how much heat and meltwater had to end up in the MacKenzie before it started flowing into the Beaufort sea and if there was any record of the dates in the past when it did so?

See: http://GreatWhiteCon.info/resources/arctic-regional-graphs/beaufort-sea-ice-graphs/#Mackenzie-Flow
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Neven

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #609 on: April 28, 2016, 12:28:18 AM »
As a beginner at this I was playing with climate reanalyzer and noticed that the whole of the Mackenzie river basin was going to have high heat anomalies for at least a couple of days, With the Great Slave lake seeing temperature highs of 25°C. Reading a review of 2012, the warm Mackenzie water is argued to have a big impact on the Beaufort Sea:
(http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013GL058956/full

Their analysis shows the landfast ice breaking up after the 14th of June, with what looks like a 'tiny' lead on the seaward side of the landfast ice, certainly compared to the images from this year.

I wondered if anybody had an idea of exactly how much heat and meltwater had to end up in the MacKenzie before it started flowing into the Beaufort sea and if there was any record of the dates in the past when it did so? Climate Reanalyzer also show that all the snow cover for much of the watershed melting by May 3rd.
I wrote about this paper back in 2014: Warm rivers and Arctic sea ice loss

What I found interesting at the time, was this quote by the lead author:

“When the Mackenzie River’s water is held back behind the sea ice barrier, it accumulates and gets warmer later in the summer,” said Nghiem. “So when it breaks through the barrier, it’s like a strong surge, unleashing warmer waters into the Arctic Ocean that are very effective at melting sea ice. Without this ice barrier, the warm river waters would trickle out little by little, and there would be more time for the heat to dissipate to the atmosphere and to the cooler, deeper ocean.”

Maybe you can find some more info in that blog post and the comments below, RTG.
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plinius

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #610 on: April 28, 2016, 12:33:40 AM »
@plinius
So if I understood you, dry air mass will sublimate ice, increase its humidity and transport that vapor away from the high pressure center. It wont saturate if the high pressure system is strong enough to keep the air moving, and if temperatures are high enough... correct?
Almost. You need the air to warm up, or you need fresh air dropping from above (adiabatic warming). Both keeps moisture levels significantly below 100%.

RoxTheGeologist

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #611 on: April 28, 2016, 01:53:48 AM »

Thanks Neven and Jim! So much to learn. There seems to be discrepancy in the timing between the flood of warm water into the Beaufort sea after June 14 2012, and the spike of flow at Red River (I believe at the head of the delta?), which is around the 30th May 2012. That's an awful lot of water to hold back for a few weeks! 

cesium62

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #612 on: April 28, 2016, 02:07:15 AM »
So , post 2007 how many 'good' summers has the Arctic basin seen. Now I'm using 'good' in the way I would for my part of the UK and do not mean "good for holding onto as much ice as possible" good.

07' was an 8 out of 10 on the scale of 'good summers' . So if 3 out of 10 is an 'average' summer and 1 out of ten is an 'ice retentive summer' how many 'good summers' has the basin seen since 07'?

In the UK the question would run from 06' but same sh1t!

To me we have not seen one 'good Summer' since 07'.

2008/2009/2013/2014 were '1's' or 2's and the rest were 3's

What if this summer is a 4 or a 5? If a '3' gives us 2010 or 2012 (from their individual 'start points') then where would a '4' or a '5' leave us in Sept?

Of course some years will be a '0' or a '10'.........

I'd consider 5 to be average, and rate them:

2007: 10
2008: 7
2009: 4
2010: 7
2011: 8
2012: 9
2013: 2
2014: 4
2015: 6

Chris Reynolds showed that the pattern from 2007 to 2012 was unusual for the time period since 1980, so it is reasonable to score most of these years as above average melt years. 

The question is why did we get this pattern?  Was it some natural variation that is now over, or perhaps may reoccur in 2 or 5 or 50 years time?  Or is it somehow triggered by AGW, and the lack of this pattern since 2013 is a natural variation.  Which may now be over as the current pattern looks a bit like the 2007-2012 pattern.

The current run of above average temperatures shown in Andrew Slater's page is quite remarkable in its persistence.  I cannot find anything like it going back into recent years.  And consider that a good part of December was below average, and Oct to Nov was only a little above average and in my opinion would count as being 'cool' when compared to recent years.

As perhaps a slightly different approach... Slater apparently also has monthly rankings for how hot each year is that month.   The Degree Day Thawing rankings from near the bottom of that page would tend to correspond to how amenable the summer is to basking.  From that chart, and splitting the ranks into 10 groups, I would get:

2007:  10
2008:    5
2009:    6
2010:    4
2011:  10
2012:    8
2013:    2
2014:    3
2015:    6

Michael Hauber

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #613 on: April 28, 2016, 04:58:07 AM »

As perhaps a slightly different approach... Slater apparently also has monthly rankings for how hot each year is that month.   The Degree Day Thawing rankings from near the bottom of that page would tend to correspond to how amenable the summer is to basking.  From that chart, and splitting the ranks into 10 groups, I would get:

2007:  10
2008:    5
2009:    6
2010:    4
2011:  10
2012:    8
2013:    2
2014:    3
2015:    6

A good approach.  Interesting that 2010 scores so low.  Conditions certainly slammed into a brick wall in summer after a screaming start, which saw 2010 500k lower than same day 2007 at the end of June.  But PIOMAS suggests a massive drop in volume during 2010 which was arguably as significant as the 2007 losses, and I've tended to think of 2010 as a strong melt year where the impact of the melt on volume was partially hidden by dispersion when considering extent and area.

2012 is hard to assess.  Its a bit hard to tell how much of the strong record was due to strong melt conditions that year, and how much was due to preconditioning in 2011 and perhaps 2010.  I remember the comments at the time that despite cloudy conditions the ice continued to melt rapidly.  My assessment of ADS and MODIS images suggests that 2012 had the earliest start to widespread surface melt ponds of any year, and I suspect that a moderately strong but short lived low pressure system early in summer acted to spread out the ice to allow albedo effects in the open water between each floe.  And may have actually had more impact on the final result than the much more widely discussed record breaking cyclone late in the year which acted mostly to melt ice that would have melted out anyway - specifically a significant area of ice towards Siberia that had largely detached from the main pack.
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Frivolousz21

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #614 on: April 28, 2016, 05:18:15 AM »
So there is a huge correlation between big melt seasons and early snow cover loss.

In order 2005, 07, 11, 12, 15, 16



Unreal



Even more unreal.  It's COMPLETELY UNPRECEDENTED.

COULD BE A THOUSAND YEARS SINCE WE HAVE SEEN THIS.



The kara is already seeing sustained surface MELT.





IT'S APRIL 28th
« Last Edit: April 28, 2016, 05:37:11 AM by Frivolousz21 »
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jdallen

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #615 on: April 28, 2016, 06:36:25 AM »
So there is a huge correlation between big melt seasons and early snow cover loss.

In order 2005, 07, 11, 12, 15, 16
Unreal
Even more unreal.  It's COMPLETELY UNPRECEDENTED.
COULD BE A THOUSAND YEARS SINCE WE HAVE SEEN THIS.
The kara is already seeing sustained surface MELT.
IT'S APRIL 28th

Add... now under 12.5 million KM2 of extent (per IJIS).  Add... astonishing heat on top of the snow melt you point out.  Looking at the Beaufort, insolation in the water is already tearing up vulnerable lead ice formed in the last few weeks.

Export through the Fram of MYI is over 7000KM2/day.

The anti-cyclone is grinding ice across the basin into slush.

I think a system state change may be taking place before our eyes.

If things don't cool off as a result of feed backs in June, I'm not sure there's any way we can avoid beating 2012 by a large margin.
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Revillo

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #616 on: April 28, 2016, 08:58:34 AM »
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."

Ah that makes a lot of sense, I was wondering why 2013 looked so different form the others... I would take it down for the shame but perhaps it'll serve as a warning to others looking at the old worldview data.

Anyway, take a look at this gfs projection for May 3rd. Looks like siberia's gone ice fishing with a hook of high temperatures swirling into the arctic basin. Will the ice manage to avoid the bait and survive another season, or will our hero meet its untimely doom at the hands of anthropogenic warming and usher in a new clima(c)tic era for the denizens of earth? Stay tuned!



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6roucho

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #617 on: April 28, 2016, 09:12:42 AM »
That looks much more menacing than the March 2016 AARI sheep.

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #618 on: April 28, 2016, 09:18:18 AM »
The 00z EURO shows a blowtorch into the Beaufort more or less constantly through 240, with 850s hitting +8C or higher along the coast. I think the models have a hard time picking up on melt dynamics and as the repercussions from this are observed the extended-range outlook will likely turn even warmer as albedo feedback becomes involved re: open water.

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #619 on: April 28, 2016, 09:29:23 AM »
Ok, so as a major recap: looking at everything since circa 2005- arctic extent wise- it could be said that there has only been a few major blowouts from the mean.

Given the above: "What can be pointed to as rock solid evidence that climate change is an issue?"

 ** Feel free to add other metrics! Otherwise, simply point out what in the arctic extent metric needs focussing on!!
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #620 on: April 28, 2016, 09:32:35 AM »
I ask these questions as a conservative world needs real indicators ... :o
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #621 on: April 28, 2016, 09:48:28 AM »
So looking at the Kara sea on worldview it looks pretty vulnerable, what are the chances it melts out completely by the end of may?

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #622 on: April 28, 2016, 09:49:41 AM »

As perhaps a slightly different approach... Slater apparently also has monthly rankings for how hot each year is that month.   The Degree Day Thawing rankings from near the bottom of that page would tend to correspond to how amenable the summer is to basking.  From that chart, and splitting the ranks into 10 groups, I would get:

2007:  10
2008:    5
2009:    6
2010:    4
2011:  10
2012:    8
2013:    2
2014:    3
2015:    6

A good approach.  Interesting that 2010 scores so low.  Conditions certainly slammed into a brick wall in summer after a screaming start, which saw 2010 500k lower than same day 2007 at the end of June.  But PIOMAS suggests a massive drop in volume during 2010 which was arguably as significant as the 2007 losses, and I've tended to think of 2010 as a strong melt year where the impact of the melt on volume was partially hidden by dispersion when considering extent and area.

2012 is hard to assess.  Its a bit hard to tell how much of the strong record was due to strong melt conditions that year, and how much was due to preconditioning in 2011 and perhaps 2010.  I remember the comments at the time that despite cloudy conditions the ice continued to melt rapidly.  My assessment of ADS and MODIS images suggests that 2012 had the earliest start to widespread surface melt ponds of any year, and I suspect that a moderately strong but short lived low pressure system early in summer acted to spread out the ice to allow albedo effects in the open water between each floe.  And may have actually had more impact on the final result than the much more widely discussed record breaking cyclone late in the year which acted mostly to melt ice that would have melted out anyway - specifically a significant area of ice towards Siberia that had largely detached from the main pack.

Someone had just asked about which summers were balmy, which is why I focused on thawing degree days.  The freezing degree days on the same page seems interesting as well.  While the 90s have plenty of high thawing degree days, the low freezing degree day years are mostly recent years.

cesium62

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #623 on: April 28, 2016, 09:58:09 AM »
Ok, so as a major recap: looking at everything since circa 2005- arctic extent wise- it could be said that there has only been a few major blowouts from the mean.

Given the above: "What can be pointed to as rock solid evidence that climate change is an issue?"

 ** Feel free to add other metrics! Otherwise, simply point out what in the arctic extent metric needs focussing on!!

Um, yeah, 30% of recent years were huge blowout years.  The others were just typical new-normal years maintaining the low ice volumes created during the blow outs.

But I've just been watching _In the Heart of the Sea_ so I'm sympathetic to theories that whales are carting off the ice.

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #624 on: April 28, 2016, 10:10:22 AM »
Ok, so as a major recap: looking at everything since circa 2005- arctic extent wise- it could be said that there has only been a few major blowouts from the mean.

Given the above: "What can be pointed to as rock solid evidence that climate change is an issue?"

 ** Feel free to add other metrics! Otherwise, simply point out what in the arctic extent metric needs focussing on!!
The rapidly warming Arctic is itself rock-solid evidence that climate change is an issue. We don't need to see major blowouts from the mean since 2005: we can observe the trend over a much longer period than that.

F.Tnioli

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #625 on: April 28, 2016, 10:18:23 AM »
...
Add... now under 12.5 million KM2 of extent (per IJIS).  Add... astonishing heat on top of the snow melt you point out.  Looking at the Beaufort, insolation in the water is already tearing up vulnerable lead ice formed in the last few weeks.

Export through the Fram of MYI is over 7000KM2/day.

The anti-cyclone is grinding ice across the basin into slush.

I think a system state change may be taking place before our eyes.

If things don't cool off as a result of feed backs in June, I'm not sure there's any way we can avoid beating 2012 by a large margin.
Greetings, gentlemen.

There was massive acceleration of ice export through Fram this last 15/16 winter, as noted in the last paragraph of http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/NPEO2015_midwinter_warming.html .

System state change it is, but personally i think it'd take more than one (or even, few) seasons for said change to be completed. The loss of significant summer ice cover (<1M area minimum) would occur far before the change would be completed, of course.

If it'll be this year, then prof. Maslowski's prediction of 2016 +-3 years for nearly ice-free summer Arctic would be spot on. However so far i don't see the signs for 2016 to be _the_ year; not quite yet. Could be if the melt season will be one of most unfortunate for the ice, yes, but not very likely. 2017 is more likely to be, IMHO.

Oh, and today, i read that both DMI sea ice volume and Cryosphere Today sea ice area - are all-time-low for the date, and the trend is definitely for earlier development of melting this year.

I think it's quite likely to beat 2012 this year, but still more than 1M area would survive at the minimum.

P.S. And given the courage, knowledge and his own modelling research backing up his prediction, i think i may be forgiven for pasting the copy of Wieslaw Maslowski's prediction into this very post for the history. This quote: "Given the estimated trend and the volume estimate for October–November of 2007 at less than 9,000 km3, one can project that at this rate it would take only 9 more years or until 2016 ± 3 years to reach a nearly ice-free Arctic Ocean in summer. Regardless of high uncertainty associated with such an estimate, it does provide a lower bound of the time range for projections of seasonal sea ice cover." (c) Wieslaw Maslowski, ~2009 (iirc)
« Last Edit: April 28, 2016, 10:35:31 AM by F.Tnioli »
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #626 on: April 28, 2016, 10:52:14 AM »
Ok, so as a major recap: looking at everything since circa 2005- arctic extent wise- it could be said that there has only been a few major blowouts from the mean.

Given the above: "What can be pointed to as rock solid evidence that climate change is an issue?"

 ** Feel free to add other metrics! Otherwise, simply point out what in the arctic extent metric needs focussing on!!

Um, yeah, 30% of recent years were huge blowout years.  The others were just typical new-normal years maintaining the low ice volumes created during the blow outs.

But I've just been watching _In the Heart of the Sea_ so I'm sympathetic to theories that whales are carting off the ice.
I appreciate the response as a conservative world needs actionable rationale on which to act.

If you caveat the rationale with 'of recent years' then automatically you aren't talking about 30 year trends, and I would further say you aren't even talking about 11 year trends which is a single solar cycle.

How can a conservative world- interested in staving off anarchy by keeping people gainfully employed- be expected to act on such arguably unactionable advice?
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #627 on: April 28, 2016, 10:55:45 AM »
Ok, so as a major recap: looking at everything since circa 2005- arctic extent wise- it could be said that there has only been a few major blowouts from the mean.

Given the above: "What can be pointed to as rock solid evidence that climate change is an issue?"

 ** Feel free to add other metrics! Otherwise, simply point out what in the arctic extent metric needs focussing on!!
The rapidly warming Arctic is itself rock-solid evidence that climate change is an issue. We don't need to see major blowouts from the mean since 2005: we can observe the trend over a much longer period than that.
What is the smoking gun?
..
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F.Tnioli

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #628 on: April 28, 2016, 11:08:22 AM »
...
How can a conservative world- interested in staving off anarchy by keeping people gainfully employed- be expected to act on such arguably unactionable advice?
This seems to be off-topic here, so i will not discuss this further (here) after completing this paragraph. You see, keeping people gainfully employed was, in general, possible so far - in terms of physical reality and resources required for people of the world to be (mostly) gainfully employed. But, this will change extremely very soon (in both geologic and historic terms) - present-day young adults are likely to see this change during their lifetime, and present-day kids - are very likely to see it. The time to act, in terms of any attempt to prevent this tragic event, is long gone - may be it was possible to prevent this if unprecedented, mankind-redefining action would be taken in 1970s and 1980s, but now it's too late. Now, it's only possible to delay the inevitable thermal maximum a little, but not for long and at the cost of creating much more rapid and damaging jump of temperature at a later point. Therefore, for both of said reasons, there is no actual meaning in either giving that sort of advice, nor acting on it, and this does not depend on whether one realizes it, or not (at least parts of conservative world certainly do, but are not willing to admit it in public).
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #629 on: April 28, 2016, 11:19:33 AM »
I agree, the forum is very large and covers many, many subjects. There's a whole category for AGW in general.

----

Normally, I'd be saying (like I did last year): As soon as the easy ice is gone, this year will slow down, and the other years will catch up.

But there is still so much easy ice to go!

The weather needs to switch big time to slow this monster down.
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #630 on: April 28, 2016, 11:23:47 AM »
I agree, the forum is very large and covers many, many subjects. There's a whole category for AGW in general.

----

Normally, I'd be saying (like I did last year): As soon as the easy ice is gone, this year will slow down, and the other years will catch up.

But there is still so much easy ice to go!

The weather needs to switch big time to slow this monster down.
Its also worth considering that both Hudson Bay and the Canadian Archipelago have been much  warmer than in recent years through Jan  - Mar.  We can expect an early onset of melt in those regions compared to recent years. 
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F.Tnioli

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #631 on: April 28, 2016, 11:35:53 AM »
Neven, about weather switching, it gets wild this year. In central Russia (Moscow region), this last 15/16 winter was insanely warm (see for yourself), but some time around late March, the weather switched indeed, and now they have rather cool April (by recent years standards). It is my understanding that right now lots of cold is going to mainland Russia, and the only source large enough to affect this much land i can imagine - is the Arctic. Looking at the Jet Stream and checking current temperature in London, Berlin, Moscow and Helsinki - i see that Arctic sends lots of air into UK, which then goes through continental Europe and into Russia, and then gets back to Arctic through Scandinavia, and with LOTS of those places lacking snow cover, air mass gets lots of warmth into it on its way. Which then melts Arctic. I suppose this configuration will remain for quite a while?
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #632 on: April 28, 2016, 11:38:12 AM »
I agree, the forum is very large and covers many, many subjects. There's a whole category for AGW in general.

----

Normally, I'd be saying (like I did last year): As soon as the easy ice is gone, this year will slow down, and the other years will catch up.

But there is still so much easy ice to go!

The weather needs to switch big time to slow this monster down.
Looking at the regional extent charts, the major one that stands out is the Beaufort, which shouldn't be easy ice at all in April.
Kara, Barents, Bering, Baffin are tracking low but not very low, and Okhotsk which should be the easiest is having a normal year. So plenty more to go before the hardcore ice is reached.

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #633 on: April 28, 2016, 11:44:51 AM »
The grinding machine is expanding his territories to the Pole area.

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #634 on: April 28, 2016, 12:37:54 PM »
I've rescaled my UH AMSR2 Beaufort Sea ice area closeup graph this morning:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2016/04/the-beaufort-gyre-goes-into-overdrive/#comment-214383
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #635 on: April 28, 2016, 12:44:37 PM »
Ok, so as a major recap: looking at everything since circa 2005- arctic extent wise- it could be said that there has only been a few major blowouts from the mean.

Given the above: "What can be pointed to as rock solid evidence that climate change is an issue?"

 ** Feel free to add other metrics! Otherwise, simply point out what in the arctic extent metric needs focussing on!!
The rapidly warming Arctic is itself rock-solid evidence that climate change is an issue. We don't need to see major blowouts from the mean since 2005: we can observe the trend over a much longer period than that.
What is the smoking gun?
That is the smoking gun. Are you requesting an argument from thermodynamics that when the temperature of water rises above the freezing point, ice starts to melt? Anyway, that's enough from me. I'm going to go back to reading about the science.

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #636 on: April 28, 2016, 12:46:03 PM »
Some motherf*cker left the fridgedoor open!

It's snowing in UK, Germany, Austria:

http://www.vezess.hu/hirek/2016/04/27/ausztriat-megbenitotta-a-havazas-tizezrek-aram-nelkul/



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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #637 on: April 28, 2016, 12:53:21 PM »
It may not be apparent from the area graph, but there is obviously some refreezing taking place in the Beaufort Sea:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/resources/arctic-sea-ice-images/winter-2015-16-images/#Beaufort

An intriguing optical illusion too, to my ageing eyes at least!
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #638 on: April 28, 2016, 01:00:24 PM »
Some motherf*cker left the fridgedoor open!

It's snowing in UK, Germany, Austria:

http://www.vezess.hu/hirek/2016/04/27/ausztriat-megbenitotta-a-havazas-tizezrek-aram-nelkul/
Farmers are crying in a 200-mile radius around me (except perhaps to the south). Hundreds of millions of euros of damage to fruit trees and other agricultural products. Arktis-Kälte they call it. I may join in the crying as the berry bushes had started to bloom already because it was 20-25 °C last week, and they've been hit hard by 3 nights of low temps/frost. Not to speak of the poor seedlings in the vegetable garden. I'm building a greenhouse next year.

Anyway, this is one for the Weird weather and Gardening threads.
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #639 on: April 28, 2016, 01:02:06 PM »
Beaufort Sea on April 13th, 20th and 27th:
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F.Tnioli

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #640 on: April 28, 2016, 02:02:21 PM »
Some motherf*cker left the fridgedoor open!

It's snowing in UK, Germany, Austria:

http://www.vezess.hu/hirek/2016/04/27/ausztriat-megbenitotta-a-havazas-tizezrek-aram-nelkul/
No wonder, considering my previous post. Jet Stream is nuts right now; more like Jet Streams, that is, if you'd ask me...

And i have the feeling that every snowflake dropping to gardens and fields of Europe now, a bit of cold is taken "out of" the Arctic to Europe, and the end result of that for the ice - average temperatures going higher and higher than normal. So right now farmers may well be crying about their dying crops and trees, and Neven may well end up rather angry about those berries, too, but if this would go on for any long, then we're also talking about sea ice arriving to melting point temperature even sooner than could be expected with everything else "the same" - probably (no concrete certainty in anything in Arctic, these days). Thus, likely more open water for more of max insolation period, with rather obvious consequences.

P.S. So i think, some temporary greenhouse would be just enough, it's for a few years anyway.
« Last Edit: April 28, 2016, 02:19:36 PM by F.Tnioli »
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #641 on: April 28, 2016, 02:16:43 PM »

An intriguing optical illusion too, to my ageing eyes at least!

That looks like very thick ice!!!

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #642 on: April 28, 2016, 02:18:53 PM »

An intriguing optical illusion too, to my ageing eyes at least!

That looks like very thick ice!!!
Yep. Very much so. Ironic it'd be, if not so cruel (in my book anyway).
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #643 on: April 28, 2016, 02:19:25 PM »
Some motherf*cker left the fridgedoor open!

It's snowing in UK, Germany, Austria:

http://www.vezess.hu/hirek/2016/04/27/ausztriat-megbenitotta-a-havazas-tizezrek-aram-nelkul/
No wonder, considering my previous post. Jet Stream is nuts right now; more like Jet Streams, that is, if you'd ask me...

As a cycling fan I was watching the Liege-Bastogne-Liege race last Sunday (Ardennes region of Belgium).  The poor riders started their ride at 1C and were continually riding through snow showers.  Great way to get frozen fingers.
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #644 on: April 28, 2016, 02:55:25 PM »
Quote
timing between the flood of warm water into the Beaufort sea and the spike of flow at Red River (at the head of the delta?), which is around the 30th May 2012. That's an awful lot of water to hold back for a few weeks! 
Rox was asking about the location of the main gauging station on the Mackenzie River. It is located at the confluence with the Tsiigèhnjik or Arctic Red River about 10 km upstream of the current delta  The main spike in flow occurs early in May as can be seen on the links to data and break-up video provided by Jim H above.

Quote
Of all the outstanding natural features of the river, its hydrology is the most fascinating. During the ice break-up in May, the level of the Arctic Red can rise 10 metres above winter levels. The Arctic Red typically clears itself of ice before the Mackenzie. When the Mackenzie ice breaks, it too will rise 10 metres or more. Mackenzie River ice is then pushed upriver along the smaller Arctic Red. In years of high water, Mackenzie River ice can be pushed 70 km up the Arctic Red. The flowing ice leaves scars on river bank trees, 5 m above the river surface. http://www.chrs.ca/Rivers/ArcticRed/ArcticRed-F_e.php
The best color coverage will be provided by Sentinel 2A and Landsat-8, the latter having better image previewing at adequate resolution but less frequent coverage. The 27 Apr 16 image is quite cloudy and the delta snowy; LC80640112016111LGN00 on the 20th shows the whole region nicely including old and new ice in the Beaufort Gyre (3rd image).

It should not be assumed just because the river surface is frozen that water does not continue to flow to a certain extent  beneath, perhaps through subsurface gravels. Indeed, looking closely at sea surface salinity, Hycom shows a consistent dilution off the delta (attached animation, yellow arrow).

http://sentinel-pds.s3-website.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/#ImagerySearch
http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/
« Last Edit: April 28, 2016, 03:18:32 PM by A-Team »

F.Tnioli

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #645 on: April 28, 2016, 03:26:02 PM »
edit: ah, two days difference, i see now. Striking out this one. ><

Rather strange thing i see about SST anomaly next to Novaya Zemlya. According to this, we have Novaya Zemlya's western tip touched by above-zero Celcius water, the rest of its western shore washed by some -1.5...0C water. Ok, but then according to this one, we have some +1...+2.5C SST anomaly in the same region - near western shore of Novaya Zemlya and large part of the ocean next ot it, but this large "yellow" part of the ocean then has that "light-blue" thin stripe around it, which is a _negative_ SST anomaly of -1...-1.5C. And i don't see anything resembling such a "cold stripe around big warmer part" on the former map.

What gives?
« Last Edit: April 28, 2016, 03:32:54 PM by F.Tnioli »
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #646 on: April 28, 2016, 03:38:39 PM »
Quote
SST anomaly next to Novaya Zemlya. What gives?
The linked image has terrible resolution and distortion in the Arctic Ocean. Maybe look at the Arctic SST or nullschool anomaly zooms? http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticsst_nowcast_anim30d.gif The nullschool color palettes are unfortunate for many of the views so it's necessary to experiment with variations to see what was in the data. (The palette should be embedded so it co-varies.

More adventures with Landsat color of the Beaufort Gyre. The image below used bands 235 for RGB except ImageJ loaded them backwards as 532 RGB, giving fairly decent color despite being all wrong. It's feasible to measure the area of open water in leads using a color picker.
« Last Edit: April 28, 2016, 03:53:40 PM by A-Team »

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #647 on: April 28, 2016, 03:39:12 PM »
So , post 2007 how many 'good' summers has the Arctic basin seen. Now I'm using 'good' in the way I would for my part of the UK and do not mean "good for holding onto as much ice as possible" good.

07' was an 8 out of 10 on the scale of 'good summers' . So if 3 out of 10 is an 'average' summer and 1 out of ten is an 'ice retentive summer' how many 'good summers' has the basin seen since 07'?

In the UK the question would run from 06' but same sh1t!

To me we have not seen one 'good Summer' since 07'.

2008/2009/2013/2014 were '1's' or 2's and the rest were 3's

What if this summer is a 4 or a 5? If a '3' gives us 2010 or 2012 (from their individual 'start points') then where would a '4' or a '5' leave us in Sept?

Of course some years will be a '0' or a '10'.........

I'd consider 5 to be average, and rate them:

2007: 10
2008: 7
2009: 4
2010: 7
2011: 8
2012: 9
2013: 2
2014: 4
2015: 6

Chris Reynolds showed that the pattern from 2007 to 2012 was unusual for the time period since 1980, so it is reasonable to score most of these years as above average melt years. 

The question is why did we get this pattern?  Was it some natural variation that is now over, or perhaps may reoccur in 2 or 5 or 50 years time?  Or is it somehow triggered by AGW, and the lack of this pattern since 2013 is a natural variation.  Which may now be over as the current pattern looks a bit like the 2007-2012 pattern.

The current run of above average temperatures shown in Andrew Slater's page is quite remarkable in its persistence.  I cannot find anything like it going back into recent years.  And consider that a good part of December was below average, and Oct to Nov was only a little above average and in my opinion would count as being 'cool' when compared to recent years.
If  2007  was a 10 we are going to have to change the scale this year.  Based on esrl-noaa data 2007 rated between 11 - 18th on the Air and SST temperatures for the Arctic and for 80N+ from January to March.  It  was however closer to the second place year, on all four measures, than 2016 the current record holder. Thats why we are seeing the melt season off to a flying start and with an El Nino in the air nothing is likely to hold the temperature back. 

In the summer 2007 rated third behind 2012 and 2011, with  2015 and 2010 rounding up the top 5. In the May 2007 like 2015 failed to make it to the 20 warmest. 

So we can go a whole lot higher than a 10.
« Last Edit: April 28, 2016, 03:46:44 PM by DavidR »
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #648 on: April 28, 2016, 04:05:10 PM »
If  2007  was a 10 we are going to have to change the scale this year.  Based on esrl-noaa data 2007 rated between 11 - 18th on the Air and SST temperatures for the Arctic and for 80N+ from January to March.  It  was however closer to the second place year, on all four measures, than 2016 the current record holder. Thats why we are seeing the melt season off to a flying start and with an El Nino in the air nothing is likely to hold the temperature back. 

In the summer 2007 rated third behind 2012 and 2011, with  2015 and 2010 rounding up the top 5. In the May 2007 like 2015 failed to make it to the 20 warmest. 

So we can go a whole lot higher than a 10.
You can't just focus on temperature. You also need to take atmospheric pressure into account (Dipole etc). 2007 was exceptional in this respect. Weeks on end a strong Beaufort Gyre was pushing out ice through Fram Strait, compressing the rest of the ice pack, with the Sun beating down incessantly.

If we get a 10 like this again, extent will go much, much lower because ice has become so much thinner since then.

Quote
I'd consider 5 to be average, and rate them:

2007: 10
2008: 7
2009: 4
2010: 7
2011: 8
2012: 9
2013: 2
2014: 4
2015: 6

As things can always get worse, I'd go for:

2007: 9
2008: 5
2009: 4
2010: 6
2011: 7
2012: 8
2013: 2
2014: 4
2015: 6
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Laurent

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #649 on: April 28, 2016, 04:13:37 PM »
Banks island will see the ice gone on the north side start of may. Last year we had to wait mid June to see it...
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/beaufortictn_nowcast_anim30d.gif
« Last Edit: April 28, 2016, 08:05:57 PM by Laurent »