The 2016 melting season

[werther]

Quantum’s contour does get close to the mean nighttime temp for May though:

[werther]

A mean temp that is quite high (+1-+2 dC anomaly) for SW Greenland and Baffin Bay, NW Territories/Nunavut and Alaska.
Only Boothia, Somerset and Devon Island had some anomalous freezing.

[seaicesailor]

Beaufort open water has been expanding for the last couple of days somehow. The wind forecast suggests the extent drop will continue.

[Lord M Vader]

Latest temperature analysis from both DMI and Earth Nullschool suggests temps that locally in a narrow zone are barely above freezing point in the CAB as far north as 82N.

I don't think we'll see any substantial drops in SIE for the next 14 days as the "easy" ice is more or less gone now e.g no century break.

//LMV

[Andreas T]

Kimmirut on Baffin island which magnamentis has been posting about is interesting to watch not because its location is particularly significant but because it gives us a groundlevel view of landfast sea ice.
After it had extensive water covering the ice as shown by the reflection of hills these reflections disappeared a day later either by draining of the water or refreezing last night it had a thin covering of snow which has melted on land but has taken longer to do so on the ice.
 Dark patches are starting to reappear. On worldview 62°50′48″N 069°52′07″W the narrow fjord hardly shows but larger areas of landfast ice were showing a blue hue on the 14th. unfortunately clouds were present on most days when terra was overhead

[cesium62]

Presumably all those are lower order of magnitude importance in compare to all the heat transported by water itself.

Note that the Bering Strait current is about 1 Sv, which is about the same as the flow from *all* the rivers in the world combined.  link

Does it bring as much heat as average river melt water does, per m3? And most importantly, does it not exist without river(s) "triggering" it to happen? No doubt rivers change mixing and ocean currents a _little_, but i doubt it can be as much as Bering Strait current happening only when rivers "allow" it to be. Which is why i think your point is irrelevant to the above discussion.

A quick Google search turns up a post by ... Neven.

There might be a nice summary of the effects of rivers on ice melting.

The abstract quantifies the relative importance of rivers vs the Bering Strait:

This riverine heat flux is equivalent to 44% of the estimated ocean heat flux associated with the Bering Strait throughflow, but during the spring freshet can be ∼10 times as large, suggesting that heat flux associated with Arctic rivers is an important component of the Arctic heat budget on seasonal time scales.

And no doubt you previously provided references to these details that I managed to overlook, making this post both redundant and irrelevant.

[Nick_Naylor]

I wonder how the river discharge compares to Bering Strait flows in terms of how they behave upon entering the open waters in the Artic, given the relative salinity?

Do they stay at the top where their heat would have the greatest likelihood of melting ice, or head for deeper waters?

[plinius]

There is one point I do not fully understand, though: The river inflow also should create quite a thick fresh(er) water layer between the salty ocean and the sea ice. I.e. it insulates the ice somewhat against warmer water beneath in the salty layers. Would that not be more important than the lateral heat flux in the ocean?

Edit: I see that this is somewhat similar to Nick's question. At least I am not alone with that ;-).

[Greenbelt]

Looks like good model consensus for a big persistent sunny pretty warm-ish high pressure over the Beaufort and points toward the pole this week. The gyre's going to be gyrating again I think.

[seaicesailor]

Latest temperature analysis from both DMI and Earth Nullschool suggests temps that locally in a narrow zone are barely above freezing point in the CAB as far north as 82N.

I don't think we'll see any substantial drops in SIE for the next 14 days as the "easy" ice is more or less gone now e.g no century break.

//LMV

Beginning of May I was convinced extent would be converging with previous years as usual because of 'easy ice' gone, but this year I am afraid fronts are opening within the Arctic much sooner and weather has to be really favorable to stop extent drop.
Consider past couple of days in Beaufort, not that warm or windy, a bit gloomy, but that gap is getting bigger.

[Tor Bejnar]

Jim Pettit"s SIE graph of Arctic Sea Ice Extent Projections Through October Based on 2003-2015 Gains & Losses After Current Date shows both 2012-like and 2007-like losses from this date forward would cause a new minimum extent record.  Remember:  a projection is not a prediction     (But I wouldn't be surprised.)

[sedziobs]

The Beaufort polynya should continue to expand with the forecast high pressure building over the central Arctic.  Could we see a significant phytoplankton bloom there at some point?

[Tor Bejnar]

Same for his Arctic Sea Ice Area Projections Through October Based on 1979-2015 Gains & Losses After Current Date graph.

[cesium62]

I wonder how the river discharge compares to Bering Strait flows in terms of how they behave upon entering the open waters in the Artic, given the relative salinity?

Do they stay at the top where their heat would have the greatest likelihood of melting ice, or head for deeper waters?

My understanding from one of the previous links I gave was that river water rapidly loses heat upon reaching the ocean.

Wikipedia may be relevant here.  At least they have interesting diagrams.

In large parts of the Arctic Ocean, the top layer (about 50 m (160 ft)) is of lower salinity and lower temperature than the rest. It remains relatively stable, because the salinity effect on density is bigger than the temperature effect. It is fed by the freshwater input of the big Siberian and Canadian streams (Ob, Yenisei, Lena, Mackenzie), the water of which quasi floats on the saltier, denser, deeper ocean water. Between this lower salinity layer and the bulk of the ocean lies the so-called halocline, in which both salinity and temperature are rising with increasing depth.
...
During the winter, cold Alaskan winds blow over the Chukchi Sea, freezing the surface water and pushing this newly formed ice out to the Pacific. The speed of the ice drift is roughly 1–4 cm/s.[16] This process leaves dense, salty waters in the sea that sink over the continental shelf into the western Arctic Ocean and create a halocline.[18]

And this all seems to agree with what Plinius said.

[Ice Shieldz]

Beaufort open water has been expanding for the last couple of days somehow. The wind forecast suggests the extent drop will continue.

I was wondering about Beaufort because its rotation seemed to be gaining ground on Alaska side but losing some on Canadian side.  Also it looks like space is opening up between the floes. 

From what I've gathered, as blue ocean in Beaufort grows, it enables ocean heating, weather and waves to build and then attack other areas, such as the CAB.  The CAB seems critical because of its sheer area, and because it's the main stronghold for ice toward the latter part of the melt season.  Does this sound about right?  Anything else related to this?

[cesium62]

Beaufort open water has been expanding for the last couple of days somehow. The wind forecast suggests the extent drop will continue.

I was wondering about Beaufort because its rotation seemed to be gaining ground on Alaska side but losing some on Canadian side.  Also it looks like space is opening up between the floes. 

From what I've gathered, as blue ocean in Beaufort grows, it enables ocean heating, weather and waves to build and then attack other areas, such as the CAB.  The CAB seems critical because of its sheer area, and because it's the main stronghold for ice toward the latter part of the melt season.  Does this sound about right?  Anything else related to this?

Assuming you're suggesting a correlation between the drop in the Beaufort area and the drop in the CAB area...
There's still a lot of ice on the side of the CAB next to the Beaufort.  But north of Svalbard it looks like the CAB is under attack.

[misanthroptimist]

Wouldn't the UniBremen map be a more reliable indicator of what's going on at this point, given NSIDC's ongoing satellite situation?

If so, here it is:

[oren]

Jim Pettit"s SIE graph of Arctic Sea Ice Extent Projections Through October Based on 2003-2015 Gains & Losses After Current Date shows both 2012-like and 2007-like losses from this date forward would cause a new minimum extent record.  Remember:  a projection is not a prediction     (But I wouldn't be surprised.)

I wonder what this chart would look like when broken down on a regional basis. Sometimes grouping things together for statistical purposes can create distortions in the data.
Seasonal ice-free areas can't produce the same losses from now on till minimum if they are currently lower than usual, as zero is where it stops. I think such an analysis could shed some light on what is required from the most interesting areas (Beaufort, ESS, CAB) to get to a new minimum.
I will download Wipneus's data and try come up with something.

[werther]

Today's ECMWF gives me the impression that MODIS will show some considerable extent loss in the Kara Sea. Temps get above +10dC in the Southwestern part. Coupled with strong winds from the SW.
The Chukchi Sea shows some further losses. Nothing 'big' yet. But IJIS gives -63K for yesterday, so there's steady loss.
On a side note; the Lena river is near breaking loose.

[Lord M Vader]

Check out Earth Nullschools SST-pic!! I just found a small area southeast of Svalbard with SSTs at 10-12^oC(!!!!!) Should just be bogus but what if it heads northto the ice pack..............

Any ideas about this?!

https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp/orthographic=-232.90,84.17,1024/loc=30.301,75.767

In any cases, NEVEN, why not use Earth Nullschools SSTA-pics when you do your biweekly updates?

Best, LMV

[Neven]

Hi, everyone. I'm back again and somehow managed to read through almost everything. Of course, it would've been easier if there was no off-topic stuff, but all in all it wasn't that bad.

Still, I'd like to say something about it again. There's a complex array of factors influencing the melting season, so basically anything goes, but the trick is to keep it short. If someone mentions a butterfly don't go off on a tangent and explain that Lorenz stuff. If someone mentions nuclear warheads, don't go into it. Or if you absolutely have to, keep it short and invite someone to go elsewhere. And don't, please, don't jump decades ahead and talk about what today's events mean for the Arctic or AGW long-term. It's boring, though not as bad as US politics.

I created this Forum to divert all the chatter from the ASIB. I don't want this thread to become Chatter Central either, so I will be more strict for the remainder of this melting season. It's a big forum, there's a thread for almost anything, and if not, open one or go to the category DungeonMaster opened.

I'm going to be more strict from now on. So again, keep it short, and use images, lots of images.

[Neven]

In any cases, NEVEN, why not use Earth Nullschools SSTA-pics when you do your biweekly updates?

Yes, I may have to resort to something of the kind. But whatever it is I'm using, I can't compare it to the DMI SST images I have been using these past few years. 

I've been asking DMI again about putting the maps back up (and then go tinker again after the melting season), but apparently they only spring into action when climate risk deniers conjure a shitstorm and Danish politicians start to ask questions. And here I was thinking they'd be open to my suggestions, as I have linked to their websites hundreds of times on a blog that receives thousands of page views every day. 

Oh well...

[Andreas T]

Check out Earth Nullschools SST-pic!! I just found a small area southeast of Svalbard with SSTs at 10-12^oC(!!!!!) Should just be bogus but what if it heads northto the ice pack..............

Any ideas about this?!

https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp/orthographic=-232.90,84.17,1024/loc=30.301,75.767

In any cases, NEVEN, why not use Earth Nullschools SSTA-pics when you do your biweekly updates?

Best, LMV

This norwegian weather service sitehttp://www.yr.no/kart/#lat=75.31291&lon=35.21264&zoom=4&laga=nedb%C3%B8rskyer&baseid=PunktNorgePolar%3A23%2F159&proj=3575 lets you click on this map for air and water (vann I think) temperatures. I can't find temperatures higher than 5 deg C in that vicinity.
The warm patch in nullschool could be what is marked as Sentralbanken. The model may predict upwelling of deeper water there?

[Neven]

Looks like good model consensus for a big persistent sunny pretty warm-ish high pressure over the Beaufort and points toward the pole this week. The gyre's going to be gyrating again I think.

I don't know about the gyrating because there isn't that much of a pressure gradient with adjacent cyclones (and 1025 hPa isn't extremely high), but you're definitely right about the persistent sunny part. So, first lots of movement and clear skies, followed by warm temps, and now some more clear skies. To me it looks like quite a bit of melting momentum is being built up on the Pacific side of the Arctic.

Below the ECMWF forecast for the coming 6 days:

[Frivolousz21]

That kind of has a stagnant dirty high foggy look.

[F.Tnioli]

Latest temperature analysis from both DMI and Earth Nullschool suggests temps that locally in a narrow zone are barely above freezing point in the CAB as far north as 82N.

I don't think we'll see any substantial drops in SIE for the next 14 days as the "easy" ice is more or less gone now e.g no century break.

//LMV

Looks like it, but may be make it ~10 instead of 14?

[F.Tnioli]

A quick Google search turns up a post by ... Neven.

There might be a nice summary of the effects of rivers on ice melting.

The abstract quantifies the relative importance of rivers vs the Bering Strait:

<edit Neven: Too long, too off-topic, either send cesium62 a PM, or find the ocean heat flux thread. I saved the text of your comment, PM me if you want me to send it to you.>

Gee, _me_ off-topic? Merely replied to _initially_ off-topic message cesium made, (IMHO) misunderstaing the point Gray Wolf made about influence of bigger river run-off to current melt season, and misunderstanding one specific line of my reply to it.

I don't mind you cutting whatever you see as unfitting, but if you do, how about cutting off-topic at its source, rather than cutting an attempt to bring the discussion back _on_ topic?

Respectfully.

P.S. I'll send this as a PM too, but i must post here as well due to my sense of justice. Do whatever, if you will. o7

[S.Pansa]

Latest temperature analysis from both DMI and Earth Nullschool suggests temps that locally in a narrow zone are barely above freezing point in the CAB as far north as 82N.

I don't think we'll see any substantial drops in SIE for the next 14 days as the "easy" ice is more or less gone now e.g no century break.

//LMV

Looks like it, but may be make it ~10 instead of 14?

Looking at the forecasts for the Kara and Chukchi  Sea - and the Hudson an Baffin Bay, I'd make it ~0 instead of 10 or 14 days. Of course, a small daily drop is always possible but I have a hard time to believe that the average daily extent losses won't be substantial (i.e. less than 50k average over the next two weeks and without any centuries).
We'll see but I am sure I'll be wrong

[iceman]

A quick Google search turns up a post by ... Neven.

There might be a nice summary of the effects of rivers on ice melting.

The abstract quantifies the relative importance of rivers vs the Bering Strait:

This riverine heat flux is equivalent to 44% of the estimated ocean heat flux associated with the Bering Strait throughflow, but during the spring freshet can be ∼10 times as large, suggesting that heat flux associated with Arctic rivers is an important component of the Arctic heat budget on seasonal time scales.

Good find.  It's remarkable how much greater the peak effect is.
      With the Mackenzie outflow high and early this year, it looks like Beaufort is due for an extended plateau, starting in a week or so and possibly lasting throughout June.
      Attention shifts to the Atlantic side, where Kara will be among the next big contributors to overall area/extent loss.  The excess heat in Barents is advecting into Kara and CAB, unlike in some years e.g. 2014 when weather patterns kept it largely isolated from the ice.

[iwantatr8]

Nasa's Earth Observatory posts on the beaufort breakup here:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=88065&src=eorss-iotd

with an interesting first link in the further reading...

[Neven]

One other thing: When quoting someone else, try to cut away all the text that isn't pertinent to your answer. When people keep quoting each other, you get these huge, off-putting comments, substantially shortening the life span of scroll wheels.

You can do that on other threads if you like, but not here.

[NeilT]

This riverine heat flux is equivalent to 44% of the estimated ocean heat flux associated with the Bering Strait throughflow, but during the spring freshet can be ∼10 times as large, suggesting that heat flux associated with Arctic rivers is an important component of the Arctic heat budget on seasonal time scales.

Which leads me to wonder how much warmer that water is due to the early snow cover lost from land.  Not just in spring but, potentially, as an explanation as to why the Mackenzie delta area has been so extremely warm over the last half decade during the melting season.

[sedziobs]

Snowfall and bug invasion in Kimmirut.

[A-Team]

Here is the Mackenzie acting up. Evidently still frozen on top but flowing underneath. On the 4th image, the encircled region extends 129 km out to sea and encloses 16 800 km².

The escaping turbidity would have a similar effect to an algal bloom (trapping sunlight heat in the upper water) but here the bathymetry is very modest for quite a ways offshore to begin with.

In terms of providing nutrients for a later bloom, the question there would be what is limiting (phosphorus, nitrogen, iron...) and how much of that is actually in a form available to the algae in the sediment plume.

The release actually started on the 13th (or even before) but has been obscured by clouds.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=83271
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013GL058956/full free full off and on

Mackenzie River discharge and bathymetry effects on sea ice in the Beaufort Sea are examined in 2012 when Arctic sea ice extent hit a record low. Satellite-derived sea surface temperature revealed warmer waters closer to river mouths. By 5 July 2012, Mackenzie warm waters occupied most of an open water area about 316,000 km2. Surface temperature in a common open water area increased by 6.5°C between 14 June and 5 July 2012, before and after the river waters broke through a recurrent landfast ice barrier formed over the shallow seafloor offshore the Mackenzie Delta. In 2012, melting by warm river waters was especially effective when the strong Beaufort Gyre fragmented sea ice into unconsolidated floes. The Mackenzie and other large rivers can transport an enormous amount of heat across immense continental watersheds into the Arctic Ocean, constituting a stark contrast to the Antarctic that has no such rivers to affect sea ice.

[F.Tnioli]

... There's a complex array of factors influencing the melting season, so basically anything goes, but the trick is to keep it short. ...

Ah!

AAAAH!

Gotcha. Gentlemen, can this be mega-stickied somehow? KEEP IT SHORT! Solves TLDR problem, oh yes it does! 

(this was a joke; and, "where's my Captain Obvious tin foil hat"? - too )

Ugh, Neven, i'll be happy to comply (no sarcasm, i'll try my best from now on), but... hm... isn't Arctic melt season (and many of its specific features, too) juuuust a bit more complex things than any thing which can be described in SHORT terms? To me, it (and they) obviously is (and are). You demand the impossible. We either bring all nesessary detail, or the discussion will degrade to "too non-specific". You can't cut Einstein relativity in half (or in quarter) and still expect it to work. Same thing, basically, is with Arctic melt seasons. But it is pretty much your forum, and you said to keep it short. So this is the last time here i type something which requires more than extremely few lines of text per post. If you change your mind on this subject, please let us know, but until then, i promise to "keep. it. short", and it's sure OK to follow this principle, if you want us to - no hard feelings!

P.S. And please, PLEASE note that for different people, same detail may and _will_ appear as either nesessary, or critically important, or minor importance, or even off-topic! Who's the person with "proper" judgement about this? I think, noone can be. Because of pluralism, if nothing else. Cheers...

[be cause]

Dear F. Tinoli .. I doubt if Neven has any complaints about your contributions .. I would ask you not to 'keep it short ' . Let me be the 'judge' . Smiley face ...

[Andreas T]

this aqua band31 IR image from last night gives an indication of water surface temperature at th Mackenzie delta. Colour scale squashed to 250 - 280K
The warmest temperatures are seen in the area which clearly shows high sediment content.
The warm river water upstream can be seen in this nighttime image when landsurfaces have cooled from their daytime peak.
I wonder to what extent the more opaque waters warm more intensely near the surface due to absorption taking place over a shorter pathlength, i.e. a smaller volume is warmed by the incoming radiation.This should mean more turbid waters have higher surface temperature. Albedo is actually reduced since we see more light reflected back to the satellite.

[BornFromTheVoid]

The 5 day NSIDC extent now the lowest ever recorded for May, at 11.787 million km2. This beats the value set on May 31st, last year, of 11.816 million km2

[RoxTheGeologist]

The 5 day NSIDC extent now the lowest ever recorded for May, at 11.787 million km2. This beats the value set on May 31st, last year, of 11.816 million km2

And the record is set 12 days earlier; it gives a good indication of just how much farther ahead the melting is this year, even compared to 2015.

[Neven]

Ugh, Neven, i'll be happy to comply (no sarcasm, i'll try my best from now on), but... hm... isn't Arctic melt season (and many of its specific features, too) juuuust a bit more complex things than any thing which can be described in SHORT terms? To me, it (and they) obviously is (and are). You demand the impossible. We either bring all nesessary detail, or the discussion will degrade to "too non-specific".

I was referring to this particular thread, where we watch what happens to the ice and to everything that influences that now and short-term. There's a forum with over 1250 topics at your disposal, where you can talk and expand as much as you like about any subject there's a topic on (or open one yourself).

Here we talk about current and forecast weather conditions, break-up in different regions, comparisons to previous years, etc, etc. This isn't a central topic for everything related to the Arctic. There is a whole category for that. Use the forum. That's what it's for. This topic is NOT the entire forum.

And don't expect any objective or even fair judgment. I'm the of this forum, and the rules apply to everyone except me (and DungeonMaster). As simple as that. Take it or leave it.

[Shared Humanity]

... There's a complex array of factors influencing the melting season, so basically anything goes, but the trick is to keep it short. ...

Ah!

AAAAH!

Gotcha. Gentlemen, can this be mega-stickied somehow? KEEP IT SHORT! Solves TLDR problem, oh yes it does! 

(this was a joke; and, "where's my Captain Obvious tin foil hat"? - too )

Ugh, Neven, i'll be happy to comply (no sarcasm, i'll try my best from now on), but... hm... isn't Arctic melt season (and many of its specific features, too) juuuust a bit more complex things than any thing which can be described in SHORT terms? To me, it (and they) obviously is (and are). You demand the impossible. We either bring all nesessary detail, or the discussion will degrade to "too non-specific". You can't cut Einstein relativity in half (or in quarter) and still expect it to work. Same thing, basically, is with Arctic melt seasons. But it is pretty much your forum, and you said to keep it short. So this is the last time here i type something which requires more than extremely few lines of text per post. If you change your mind on this subject, please let us know, but until then, i promise to "keep. it. short", and it's sure OK to follow this principle, if you want us to - no hard feelings!

P.S. And please, PLEASE note that for different people, same detail may and _will_ appear as either nesessary, or critically important, or minor importance, or even off-topic! Who's the person with "proper" judgement about this? I think, noone can be. Because of pluralism, if nothing else. Cheers...

He asks you to keep it on topic and short and this is what we get??

[musickna]

Here we talk about current and forecast weather conditions, break-up in different regions, comparisons to previous years, etc, etc. This isn't a central topic for everything related to the Arctic. There is a whole category for that. Use the forum. That's what it's for. This topic is NOT the entire forum.

As an (extremely) long time lurker, I come to this forum for precisely the information Neven describes. Lately, it's been rather muddied here.

[philiponfire]

I don't think we'll see any substantial drops in SIE for the next 14 days as the "easy" ice is more or less gone now e.g no century break.

//LMV

so how then do you explain the 182,000 sq km drop on MASIE between day 139 and 140?

[Ice Shieldz]

so how then do you explain the 182,000 sq km drop on MASIE between day 139 and 140?

Of the 182,000 km drop, the largest is Baffin Bay's 46,560 km (25.56% of total). Followed by the Beaufort's 33,438 km (18.36%), then ESS 17,064 km (9.37%) and Greenland Sea 16,637 km (9.13%).

[Rob Dekker]

Regarding the heat flow out of rivers, I'd like to propose some physical perspective :

Assuming the flow out of the McKenzie is some 35,000 m^3 / sec at somebody posted above, and assuming the water temperature is 6 deg C, then the amount of heat carried with that flow can quite easily be calculated :

35,000 (m^3/sec) * 1000 kg/m^3 * 6 (deg above freezing) * 4180 (J/kg) = 877 GW.

That's quite a bit of heating power, but compare that to the amount of heat absorbed in late May (about 200 W/m^2) of open (dark) ocean of 60x60 km :

200 W * 10^6 (m^2/km^2) * 60 * 60 = 720 GW.

which is comparable.
Can somebody make an estimate of how large that open water area is in the Beaufort right now ?
It sure looks a lot bigger than 60x60 km...

Now, compare that to the amount of heat flowing into the Arctic via Bering Strait : 10 - 20 TW.
http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2012/06/ocean-heat-flux.html

That 10 - 20 TW is still a factor 10 - 20 larger than the heat input from the McKenzie river.

[jdallen]

Regarding the heat flow out of rivers, I'd like to propose some physical perspective :
<snippage>
That 10 - 20 TW is still a factor 10 - 20 larger than the heat input from the McKenzie river.

Point taken, Rob.

I think under the current regime the effect of river outflow may be deprecated by way of significantly increased open water near shore in the Beaufort.

This may not apply in the Siberian side, where there's still fast ice and not anything like as much open water.  There, that 877GW (or whatever the equivalent is being dumped in by the Ob, etc...) becomes more significant as it attacks ice which otherwise would remain undisturbed until mid June.

So anyway, yes, I think the contribution the Mackensie has made previously is going to be pretty completely swallowed up by the huge amount of additional heat captured by open water now present in the Beaufort and Amundsen Gulf.  If our current "Arctic Gyre" starts sweeping ice into the soon to be warmed water, I think we will see things similar to what happens to ice after it gets swept into the Greenland Sea out of the Fram - an ice killing zone.

The end of May and early June will be telling.

[werther]

Well, extent slipped under 11Mkm2 yesterday. I had a good look at yesterday's MODIS tiles and ECMWF. When the clouds have disappeared above the Southern Kara Sea, I think we'll be able to see the ravage a Low is inflicting upon the ice.
The next stage is being prepared in this early melt season. Mean temps are still above average, see the DMI +80dgN graph.
The Chukchi, Labrador and Kara seas will continue considerable extent losses for the coming week.

[werther]

The impact from Low over the Kara Sea is visible this morning:



Winds have formed a swath of open water about 40K km2. Temps well above freezing on Thurs- and Friday have forced surface melt over 130K km2.
Extent will not decrease immediately, but preparation for early opening up is well under way. Quite early, in my opinion.

[werther]

Meirion posted this image on the IJIS-thread:



It fits with wetteronline forecasts, FI in Cherskij:



Full omega blocking over Chukotka next week.

I wonder what Friv would say about this.

[Neven]

I've compared this year's SAT (temperature) and SLP (pressure) from May 1-15 with previous years. As can be seen below 2010 was crazy when it comes to both temps and pressure, but this year isn't that far behind, and in front of 2012 (remember, 2010 and 2012 were the big volume losers for May).